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Paul Elie's The Life You Save May Be Your Own is a deft and ambitious four-part biography interweaving the lives of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor, the most significant American Catholic writers of the last century. The selection of these four might feel to some arbitrary or forced–would all the Catholic writers go to this side of the room, please?–but that would be a misimpression.
As individuals, they were admiring of each other, they corresponded and in some cases met, but they were not close friends or from the same backgrounds or milieus. Day was a social activist, a journalist and occasional fiction writer, little read now but still influential as a political and religious presence. O'Connor, author of two novels and two unforgettable story collections before she died at age 39 of lupus, had no social or political influence at all, but her fiction and her letters seem to grow in stature continually as time goes on. Merton was a poet, philosopher and monk, whose autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, was responsible in part for a burgeoning of conversion and monasticism in midcentury America, and whose later writings stirred the ecumenism that suffused the Vatican II period and that helped introduce Eastern thought into modern Christian theology. Percy started as a philosopher and became an influential novelist, particularly of the realistic novel featuring the existential suburban male.
These were very different careers, but binding the group and providing it with historical weight are two crucial facts: three of the four were converts to Catholicism, and none of them were writers who merely happened to be Catholic, or who merely were influenced by their Catholicism; all of them wrote specifically because they were Catholics. Take away their Catholicism, and as writers they would cease to exist, at least in any form recognizable to those who have known their work and been influenced by it.
Catholicism bound them in part because they discovered in each other's faith and each other's ultimate fame a set of partners in what had been for each a rather lonesome vocation: writing, which is always something of a lonesome vocation, and trying to explain to a growing public the radically different way of seeing the world, its events and our lives in it that faith suggests and finally requires. In none of their work will readers ever see the suggestion that they ought to be more pious, ought to pray, ought to go to church or light candles to the saints; each writer instead presents us with a dramatic challenge to find the permanent and never immediate meanings behind the mundane incidents of everyday life and behind the massive forces of societies and nations as well. Though their views differed, they shared one social and political conviction. For Day, for O'Connor, for Percy and for Merton, the momentary cruelty or defensiveness that prevents us from helping a person in need, and the sustained cruelty or defensiveness that leads us to make war, come from the same weakness inside us: our failure sufficiently to love, our fear of love's pain and love's obligations. It is an intensely difficult vision to make compelling to the modern, narcissistic consciousness, and it is difficult as well to make it unsentimental, thereby fulfilling the obligations of art and truth. Like four craftsmen they shared this project with each other.
For his part, Paul Elie, an editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux and an essayist, has taken on and smoothly delivered a massive project for his first book: These are, after all, four biographies in one. The subtitle of The Life You Save May Be Your Own (the title is Flannery O'Connor's, from one of her very best stories) is "An American Pilgrimage," but these were four separate pilgrimages, definitely American, yes, but historically distinct and intellectually hyperactive: When Percy reads Kierkegaard and a host of other modern philosophers, Elie does too; when O'Connor is deep into the letters of Baron Friedrich von Hügel or the philosophy of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Elie has to go along. Merton's knowledge of Buddhism must be approximated to be written about; so too Day's immersion in the local and international politics of the 1930s and later. Unlike them, Elie had to familiarize himself with their interests and their contexts in a limited time, and unlike all but Day, he had an actual job to attend to. Yet he is always reliable, often insightful and occasionally inspired. Here he is on Hazel Motes, the Oedipally self-blinded hero of O'Connor's first novel, Wise Blood:
Hazel Motes is not a prophet or a saint or a wise man or even a religious believer–not yet. He is a person walking in darkness, a blind man stabbing the ground with his cane. Walking in darkness is his religious experience, not merely the context for it…. Faith (in the catechetical formulation of the period) is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, and Motes's blindness, at best, is a recognition that the proof of Jesus' divinity that he yearns for cannot be seen with the eyes only, and that nothing he might see, no miracle or act of blasphemy, can tell him whether or not to believe.
There is something Edmund Wilson-like about what Elie has accomplished: No one these days can really match Wilson's magnificent prose or his focused intellectual firepower, but Elie comes close, writes with superb and easygoing clarity, and brings to the book a sense of that extraordinary breadth and intellectual openness that made Wilson an invaluable figure in American letters.
Clearly, too, Elie is sympathetic to the religious beliefs of his four subjects; the question remains, by the time you get to the end of his book, whether he has accomplished what Day, Merton, Percy and O'Connor so remarkably accomplished, which is to make their faith somehow appealing and important to modern nonbelievers. The times are not as propitious as they were a half-century ago. As a culture, we have moved from an open despair at the spiritual emptiness of modern life to a Bruegel-like celebration of it. Tangible yearnings have become intangible, and so it is not clear that if you are not already captured and interested by these writers, this book will speak to you in the deep ways it speaks to those of us who are. Ultimately this is not Elie's problem to solve: He neither apologizes for nor pauses to justify the religious faith of his subjects. He examines it, with deep sympathy, and assumes the reader will be open to doing the same.
Dorothy Day was born in 1897, Merton in 1915, Percy a year later, and O'Connor, finally, in 1925. O'Connor was the only hereditary Catholic in the group; the others were, by distinct pathways, swept along in the movement that made midcentury Catholicism so attractive to intellectuals, first in Europe and later, perhaps even more forcefully, in the United States. Converts in Europe included T.S. Eliot (not technically to the Roman Church but very close to it, in an Anglican-Roman movement called Anglo-Catholicism), Auden, Waugh and Graham Greene, among many others. In the United States, in addition to Day, Merton and Percy, there were the poets Allen Tate and Robert Lowell (for whom revelation became a form of madness), and their wives, the writers Caroline Gordon and Jean Stafford.
To everyone who looks upon formal Christianity with cultural suspicion, the Catholic form of orthodoxy appears particularly pedestrian, rule-bound, proletarian in the least attractive senses of that word, hostile to free inquiry, locked in a tradition it forever declares immutable (which traditions never are, in fact), and, most offensive to the modern consciousness, sexually hysterical and misogynistic. These recognitions and deep cultural assumptions about Christianity, for the intellectually active and sensitive Catholic, are troubling and difficult to argue with. Yet for the believer, beyond these worldly failures stands God: author of beauty.
To the artists and intellectuals of the early and middle twentieth century, the Church offered a specific framework for that beauty, a framework for seeing existence that is magnificent in its completeness; gorgeous in its visual, musical and written expressions; historical in its culture and identity; and tangibly human in its vision of politics ("repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God")–perhaps the only intellectually respectable philosophical escape then available from the spiritually vacant and personally grueling dynamics of state capitalism and state socialism. The problems of modernity are the psychological stresses arising from a new knowledge of history, an unwilling acceptance of industrialization and a forced recognition of meaninglessness. Faith, of the orthodox, Roman variety, "solves" all three.
Religious belief, separate from the specifically Catholic, also proves to be personally invigorating. In a culture in which the measure of life's purpose is the acquisition of property and consumer goods (defined as desirable by mass taste), the artist is particularly vulnerable by force of his commercial uselessness. We see all around us today the cultural effects of artists having psychologically and aesthetically internalized that sense of uselessness, most uniformly expressed in a feebleness of ambition or endlessly disguised commercialism. At best, artists in this country at this time can make a childlike appeal to be allowed (c'mon, just once?) to sit with the grown-ups, having forgotten that not so long ago artists were the grown-ups. Religious belief at least allows the comfort of understanding one's exclusion to be somewhat monastic in character, rather than possibly futile and definitely hard on the pocketbook and the rest of the family. These are a few practical reasons for faith of a specifically Roman Catholic kind: They are ground softeners, as it were. However, Elie's book makes clear that for Day, Merton, Percy and O'Connor, faith was not utilitarian in these obvious ways; it was born, carried, nurtured and endured like an internal flame.
The least read but the most mythologically potent of the four is Day. She became a myth in her own time, long before her death, emerging into public life after being an unwed mother and bohemian aesthete (with a scandalous novel of abortion under her belt) who converted to Catholicism, gave up her wordly goods and opened a soup kitchen and flophouse for the poor on the Lower East Side of New York City. The flophouse grew into a significant movement–The Catholic Workers–with other kitchens and other flophouses in other places, communal farms and a newspaper (the Catholic Worker) where Day had a regular column that would become, despite her several books, her major and most influential writing, on issues of poverty, war and peace, nonviolence, the civil rights movement and much more. Day is the sole figure here who is being investigated for possible beatification, the first formal step toward canonization as a saint. She is the only one of them who ought to be so examined, for her work, serving the poor and preaching the gospel as she saw it, has about it the physical reality and presence in the world of facts that sainthood actually requires.
Merton, born in Europe, raised in France and New York (Douglaston, Queens, to be exact) and educated at Cambridge and Columbia, converted to Catholicism in his early 20s, was ultimately ordained a priest and entered the Trappist monastery at Gethsemani in Kentucky. His autobiography of his wild and youthful wanderings, his ultimate conversion and his journey into monasticism, The Seven Storey Mountain, was published in 1948 and became an international bestseller. He was only 33 years old; he would spend the next thirty years in monastic life, writing journals, poems, prayers, contemplations and studies of various religious themes. His writing and his political beliefs (antiwar when the Church hierarchy was adamantly and bizarrely not) drew him into greater and greater realms of controversy before he died during a trip to Asia in 1968. (He slipped getting out of the bath, apparently grabbed onto a fan and was electrocuted. Elie gives no credence to the rumors of this being a suicide, and rightly, I think, for there is no evidence whatsoever in his journals or correspondence at the time of his being in any significant despair, other than at the state of the world.)
Percy was born to Southern gentility and after his parents died, he was raised by an uncle, Will Percy, a wealthy man and also a writer of essays and memoirs. Percy went north in the late 1940s to study medicine at Columbia, got TB from the clinical work he did and converted during his recuperation. He wrote several failed novels and a number of philosophical essays through the 1950s before he published The Moviegoer (1961), a novel of a lost suburban man, as so many of his later novels would be, which won the National Book Award and established him in his mid-40s as a major American novelist.
O'Connor, for my taste, is the great artist of the group, with a purity and intensity of ambition that is utterly idiosyncratic and unaccountable. She was from a landed but not very lofty Georgia Catholic family, educated at a local "women's college," as they were then drearily called, recognized by the early director of the Iowa Writer's Workshop as a talent, admitted there and, despite cultural inferiority and a rudimentary sense of aesthetics, grew ever more tenacious in pursuit of her own vision. She taught herself not only to write but how to be a great writer, step by painful step, as she would have to teach herself how to get about on crutches in her 30s, after the treatments for her lupus softened her bones. Her Catholicism was fierce and consuming, and it was the sole motivation for her work, for its look and sound and thematic expression, and she has been enormously influential on Catholic writers who have followed. It's an influence that has not diminished the appeal she still holds for other, less religiously inclined readers, who recognize in her a startling drama and a Gothic, compelling vision.
Elie brings these writers together in history, as it were: places them in their locales as if on a map, and with almost invisible effort shows us the massive cultural and historical forces at work around them, the events and forces that affected them and that were affected by them. He is comfortable in ways many modern writers would not be with the specific language of their piety (he eloquently captures the appeal of the monastery, for instance, as "a place of retreat, where the world was left behind so that God might be glimpsed") and, but for one case, comfortable too with the paradoxical evidence of their holiness and their human foibles.
The exception is a brief passage where he takes O'Connor to task for the evident racism of her everyday speech and some of her correspondence. It is an odd slip in the book, a slightly sanctimonious disapproval that asks her to put aside an essential part of her sensibility, her withering irony and comic vision (from which she never for a moment protected herself or anyone else in her purview, regardless of color), in order to protect a special class of people, African-Americans, based on a historical conception of their status that she didn't live to see. (Not that, had she lived to see it, she would have changed her ways all that much–as tragic as her early death was, it is not at all clear how she would have managed to grow as an artist and even less clear that she would have been a tolerable elder stateswoman.) Elie admits that her racism is not present in her work. Hilton Als made that case even more convincingly in a brilliant essay about O'Connor's putative racism published in The New Yorker two years ago. Her fiction demonstrated an understanding that was nuanced and realistic to late 1950s, early 1960s conditions in the South, and at the same time was suffused with a profound moral understanding of suffering, oppression and the elaborately ironic manners that Southern blacks developed as strategies for their social and sometimes even physical survival.
For the rest–Day's early moral struggles, later bursts of temper and frequent and sometimes ill-placed fervor, for Percy's disengagement and frequent depression, for Merton's early sex life and later, odd affair with a young woman when he was a 51-year-old Trappist monk–Elie shows an informed sympathy and understanding, and the necessary, large sense that life is complicated and everyone makes mistakes. He is, blessedly, not subject to the biographer's disease, a creeping hatred of and contempt for his subjects.
What has been for many readers, including me, so potent about these writers, has been the force, driven into a masterful language, of their conviction that our recognition of the truth of the universe, of its unimaginable creation and invisible purposes, really is a matter of the greatest possible importance, of life and death: an eternal concern tied to the notion of salvation. Two of them, Day and to a lesser degree Merton, were able to balance that spiritual view with ongoing interest and considerable involvement in worldly affairs, in movements and actions for justice and for peace. Percy and O'Connor shaped an art from their belief and, socially speaking, let it stand for itself. Elie, in his borrowed title and in his descriptions of various critical moments in these four lives, indicates his concurrence with that large and life-changing view, though he has not shown an arrogance akin to theirs and tried to make the case himself. Thus for the Catholic intellectual, he is a gentle, perhaps too-polite guide, but an essential one, back to the sources of an irreplaceable inspiration.


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The mountain had three different names in its history. At first it was called simply "Pieniny", then, thanks to the hermits from Czerwony Klasztor – "Korona" (the Crown). 150 years ago as a result of an error it was renamed "Trzy Korony" (Three Crowns). Its strange structure deluded excursionists. At the beginning there was a name "Pieniny" and nobody knows exactly where it came from. Perhaps it is a trace of Celtic settlement from nearly 2500 years ago. The similarity between this name and the Apennines testifies to this hypothesis - in one the Celtic vernaculars the root "pen" means "mountain". A little glade below the peak of Trzy Korony was called Pieniny by local people since a long time ago. Naturally the name was extended to a mountain massif and then to the whole mountain range.
But with the arrival of Camaldolese monks at Czerwony Klasztor in the early 18th century the mountain was given an alternative name. As the monks came from an Italian congregation from Perugia, they used to name all the new centers "Eremus Conventus Montis Coronae" (Pustelnia Góry Koronnej i.e. The Crown Mountain Hermitage). The monks settled in the former Carthusian monastery at the top of the mountain which resembled the shape of a crown and they started popularising the new name of the peak. In the 19th century this name was extended to the whole Crown Mountains (Góry Koronne) i.e. Pieniny.
The name "Korona" (the Crown) was widely used on the maps, in descriptions and in local people's speech. And then suddenly, nearly 150 years ago, a competitive name appeared: "Trzy Korony" (Three Crowns). Nobody knows exactly who hit on the idea of renaming this well-known mountain and when it happened. The new name was disseminated thanks to an important publication - the first Tatra Baedeker. This popular guidebook published in 1860 (Przewodnik w wycieczkach na Babią Górę, do Tatr i Pienin), written by a pioneering excursionist Fr Eugeniusz Janota, already included new version of the name. Whether it was an error of the author himself or a variation on the already existing name - nobody knows. Thanks to authority of Janota the name began to catch on, supplanting the old one. The most interesting, however, was the fact that many acclaimed geographers, describing the Trzy Korony massif, kept making other mistakes. Local highlanders and travelers were justifying the new name, giving a special symbolic meaning to the number "three". Although, if you take a close look, you'll see that there are no less than... 9 spires on the top of the Crown!

subset: commoncrawl


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The Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT) strain is well known worldwide because of its high performance. A first phase of the project ended in 1997 after five generations of selection. In 2002, the GIFT population in the WorldFish Center Malaysia was established based on the sixth generation of GIFT from Philippines. In Malaysia, the breeding program continued the selection for live weight at harvest time (LW) to improve the growth rate. The GIFT population has already undergone seven generations of selection since it was introduced in Malaysia. A review of its progress and performance is timely in order to decide the program's future direction. In this paper we report phenotypic and genetic parameters for live weight based on the data collected over eight generations, as well as the selection response achieved during that period.
Genetic analysis of the GIFT strain (Nile Tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus) in Malaysia
Khaw, H.L., Ponzoni, R.W., Hamzah, A., Nguyen, N.H., Abu-Bakar, K.R., Yee, H.Y. (2010)
Proceedings of the 9th World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, Leipzig, Germany. [open access]


text: JEA has suspended its privatization negotiations until the Florida Ethics Commission determines whether financial benefits in the contracts of the utility's senior officials are a conflict-of-interest that prohibits them from participating in the negotiations.The city's ethics director Carla Miller recommended the state provide an opinion after she reviewed the contracts of JEA's senior leadership team. Miller said on Friday that the issue under review is a provision that entitles the 13 members of the senior leadership team, including CEO Aaron Zahn, to post-employment consulting jobs."You don't want people negotiating the contact if they have a personal interest. If any of the aspects of what they're negotiating benefits them personally, that's what you would look at," she said.


text: Sir Rols 1899 Report post Posted May 23, 2012 This would almost be as significant as the short list announcement if it happens this week! IOC official says agreement close on revenue-sharing deal with U.S. Olympic Committee QUEBEC CITY, QUE. International and U.S. Olympic leaders are close to finalizing a deal to settle the long-running financial dispute that has soured relations and undermined recent American bids for the games, a senior official said Tuesday. The International Olympic Committee and U.S. Olympic Committee are nearing agreement on a new revenue-sharing deal that would clear the way for U.S. cities to bid again for future games, IOC executive board member Denis Oswald told The Associated Press. The proposed deal, covering the distribution of billions of dollars in television and marketing revenues, could be announced this week during IOC executive board meetings in Quebec, Oswald said. Oswald, who heads the association of summer Olympic sports, is not directly involved in the negotiations but said he was briefed on the progress by IOC president Jacques Rogge. "I have been told by the IOC president that they were close to an agreement but that they still had to discuss the wording," the Swiss official said. "Last time they were also close to an agreement but they had difficulty to put it on paper. "That's why he wasn't sure whether they would be able to finalize it, but he looked quite hopeful." Negotiations have been dragging on for two years to secure a new deal that replaces a long-standing contract giving the USOC a 20 per cent share of global sponsorship revenue and a 12.75 per cent cut of U.S. broadcast rights deals. The IOC believes the U.S. share is excessive. A new agreement, which would need to be ratified by the governing boards of both organizations, would take effect in 2020. Recent talks have centred on a 20-year deal through 2040 that would also include U.S. contribution toward the administrative costs of staging the games. "It's good if we have an agreement because this has created difficulties in the relations with USOC," Oswald said. "If we could put that aside, it would help the relations. It's a very important national Olympic committee with the best athletes. It would be very good if this question be resolved." USOC CEO Scott Blackmun has been leading the American side in the talks with the IOC. "We're endeavouring in good faith to bridge the gap," he said last week. "I remain very hopeful that, within the not-too-distant future, we can put this behind us." Blackmun and USOC chairman Larry Probst are travelling to Quebec this week. Lingering international resentment over the U.S. revenue share was a significant factor in New York's defeat in the bidding for the 2012 Olympics and Chicago's humiliating first-round elimination in the vote for the 2016 Games. The USOC has said repeatedly it will not bid again until the revenue issue is resolved. The U.S. is sitting out the bidding for the 2020 Summer Games. The next chance would be for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Among the U.S. cities that have expressed early interest in bidding for those games are 2002 host Salt Lake City; Denver; Reno-Lake Tahoe, Nev.; and Bozeman, Mont. The Associated Press Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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Lord of the Flies - Summery/Response
Lord of the Flies
January 14, 2009
Chapters 1-3
Throughout the first three chapters of Lord of the Flies, the boys gather together, and start to get organized. Ralph and Piggy are the first boys to meet up and by finding a conch shell they are able to use it as a symbol to gather the rest of the boys together. After electing Ralph as the leader, him, Simon, and Jack set off in an attempt to scope out the island and what it has to offer. Jack and his choirboys are elected as the hunters and designated to keep the watch fire on top of the mountain blazing as a symbol. Jack lets a pig escape so he sets off in an attempt to find more food, while Ralph and Simon work on shelters for the group to sleep in. After weeks of living together and competing with each others every move, Jack and Ralph accept that they mutually dislike each other, and although they try to rectify the hostility realize it is only continuing to grow. A "littun" from the first meeting that had spoke of a monster inhabiting the island disappears leaving the whole group a little hesitant and uneasy.
The first three chapters of Lord of the Flies are filled with confusion and the essence of how slow starting a community is. The reader is led through Ralph's frustration regarding the boy's unwillingness to listen to him or the other older members, and will not or do the responsible work that would satisfy the group's needs. Contrasting this wearisome and painfully not cohesive group, the hunters start to form a bond and the "littuns" are carefree splashing in the ocean and playing games within the forest. Emotions run heavy throughout these opening chapters, allowing the reader to experience the fear, excitement, suspense, loneliness, hopelessness, and playfulness felt through the different characters. These chapters were successful in helping the...
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Good to know
Value for money
Distance to city centre
|2.4 km
Location rating
Nearest airport
|London Luton
Distance to airport
|46.4 km
Deluxe rooms
₹ 1,933+
Double rooms
₹ 2,105+
Standard rooms
₹ 4,872+
|"very clean staff very friendly."
|(in 194 reviews)
|"great atmosphere,friendly staff,beautiful relax room."
|(in 100 reviews)
|"Really clean an nice place."
|(in 47 reviews)
|"Showers and toilets were sloppy."
|(in 8 reviews)
|"no wifi in the room"
|(in 173 reviews)
|"No wifi in rooms."
|(in 45 reviews)
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OkayApr 20206.0
Location was nice for our exploring plans.
We were charged the english breakfast cost while this was not served. No note that the elevator was out of service.
GoodMar 20208.0
Stayed here before! It's convenient and very comfortable TV room! Always a nice mix of guests too!
OkayMar 20206.0
Building had some nice character to it, friendly reception staff, great access to local amenities on the doorstep, easy access to and from building, close to shops and food places, secure property. Even had a plug socket in the room
The bed mattress wasn't comfy, it felt like a hard slate as you'd expect in a standard hostel. Bedding wasn't closed up properly. In room 110, the shower head in the shower was nowhere to be seen so I had to use one hand for the shower to direct it and the other hand to wash my body. Also, the pipe in the shower room was very wonky to the anxiety of thought it would break off. Reported this to reception and management are in review of it.
GoodMar 20207.0
Super basic but you know what to expect. Friendly staff - have free breakfasts on this visit which was nice. Location convenient for my needs. Local shops and places to eat near by.
It's always noisy so remember your earplugs. I only had a private shower so was using the communal toilets - they do not flow well and back up quickly so you can't put toilet paper in the toilet. So it's quite unhygienic for number twos and when women are on their period. Also, when someone else flushes the toilet the dirty water rises in your toilet!!
MediocreMar 20204.0
the staff is nice
room is small, no wifi except in the dinning hall. no lift and need to bring lugguage upstair.
The Rest Up London Hostel is known as one of the best and gauging from its outward appearance that would be easy to believe. The charming, brick front building with its terrace garden and wonderful location on the New Kent Road makes it an appealing spot. Just a short walk to Elephant & Castle tube station and 15 miles to Heathrow Airport, it is also just a mile from sites like the Tower of London, Parliament and Big Ben, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. It is within the same area as the Imperial War Museum and London South Bank University, as well.
A pre-WWI baroque building, it is a historic property and has been a hostel for more than 100 years. It features such amenities as a shared TV room, a beautiful terrace with covered tables and fun bean bag chairs. It has an onsite coffee shop and snack bar, there is free Wi-Fi in the public areas, a ticketing and tour desk, baggage storage option, laundry services (for a fee) and even some business services. Visitors can enjoy traditional breakfast each morning, pizza at night and healthier fare in the restaurant. They also offer group menus.
The rooms include shared dorm rooms with options for four to a room or twenty beds in a dorm-style setting. The rooms are mixed gender, but there is a single four-bed female dorm. There are also twin and double rooms, and some even offer private baths at no cost.
If an affordable and high-quality accommodation is the goal, but also one in one of the best spots in London, it will be hard to beat what the Rest Up London Hostel makes available to travelers of all kinds.
6.9 Good
based on 2,777 reviews
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Most popular landmarks
- Tate Modern 1.6 km
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- London Eye 2.1 km
- Westminster Bridge 2.2 km


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Bergstrom Marketing Directory
Bergstrom offers an online resource center of marketing literature available for immediate use. The literature has been categorized by products. There are two ways to utilize this directory:
- Each piece of literature can be downloaded and utilized immediately for all communications and promotions.
- You can fill out specific quantity requests for printed marketing literature to the Bergstrom marketing team.
For all printed material requests simply add the quantity that you want printed in the quantity box for each literature. At the bottom of the page, fill out the mailing information section then submit your request. All printed marketing requests will be processed within 72 hours. An email notification to the regional sales manager will be sent for all marketing requests fulfilled.


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Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN) has asked our Director of Health to pass on the following information to residents:
WCHN is committed to serving its residents by delivering a broad array of programs and services intended to improve the health and well-being of all people throughout the Network's service area. To this end, it is conducting a Community Health Needs Assessment designed to better understand community needs and is engaging community members, community leaders, health care providers and importantly residents in a conversation about how to improve health and well-being.
Please follow the link to complete the survey:


text: Working with Richard has been great. Richard's best trait is communication. He always responds to any questions I have within a few hours, but usually he responds immediately. There a few times where we wanted to meet up with very short notice, and he was able to drop what he was doing to help us right away. He is also very knowledgeable about the real estate process, and was able to answer any question we threw his way. He also has great negotiation skills and his suggestions likely helped me get a lower price on the house than if I was negotiating on my own. If you want a Realtor that is easy to work with, pays attention to detail, and is willing to represent your best interests, then I would highly recommend Richard.


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1. This award is for any co-blogging friend who has helped you develop your blog in any and all ways.
2. This award is for any co-blogging friend who has cheered you along in your blog building, craft advancing career.
3. This award is for any co-blogging friend who always stops by and is kind to you. You can count on them to always be one of the great comments at the end of your post.
4. This award is to be given to 3 to 5 Blends whom you feel meet the listed requirements.
5. Create a post with the terms of use and publish your Blends of choice.
6. Blend of choice may copy the award from your blog and proudly post it on theirs.
7. Blend of choice may continue the kindness by issuing this award to keep the circle forever growing.
The first person I want to give this award to is Alesha at Full Time Mama. She's the first person I started linking up with, and she always has great things to say about my posts! She always takes time to stop by and comment, and it has been a great encouragement to keep blogging!
Second, I want to give this award to my fellow New Orleanian, Tricia, at Nola Mommy. She is another person who I started linking up with who has really made it fun for me to continue blogging!
Finally, I'd like to give this award to the girls at Six Sister's Stuff for always making linking up fun! I originally started seeing their stuff on pinterest, and it's been great sharing on their linky every week.
These blogs have helped me move my blog a lot further, and I have gotten most of my followers as a result of linking with them. And, I think them for the support and kind words the give on my posts!
Thanks Mom for honoring me again, and congratulations to my three awardees!


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Fully Licensed & Bonded
Property Location With a stay at Compostela Suites Apartments in Madrid (Barajas), you'll be close to Plenilunio Shopping Area and Madrid Congress Centre. This family-friendly aparthotel is within close proximity of El Capricho Park and Estadio de la Comunidad.Rooms Make yourself at home in one of the 428 air-conditioned rooms featuring kitchens with refrigerators and stovetops. Flat-screen televisions with cable programming provide entertainment, while complimentary wireless Internet access keeps you connected. Conveniences include laptop-compatible safes and desks, and housekeeping is provided daily.Rec, Spa, Premium Amenities Enjoy recreation amenities such as a seasonal outdoor pool or take in the view from a garden. Additional amenities include complimentary wireless Internet access, concierge services, and a television in the lobby.Dining Enjoy a meal at a restaurant, or stay in and take advantage of the aparthotel's room service (during limited hours). Quench your thirst with your favorite drink at a bar/lounge.Business, Other Amenities Featured amenities include express check-in, express check-out, and complimentary newspapers in the lobby. Planning an event in Madrid? This aparthotel has facilities measuring 431 square feet (40 square meters), including a meeting room. A roundtrip airport shuttle is complimentary during limited hours.
Looking for something a bit different? Check out our selection of cultural & adventure holidays or if you're looking to go it alone then see our selection of solo holidays.


text: This is a rare opportunity to own a high demanding wholesale petroleum production company that is located in southwestern Kansas. This business also supports a full service convenience store and repair shop that includes the sale of propane, gas and oil. With an extensive base of existing customers and an excellent reputation this enterprise offers the new owner a solid foundation upon which to grow the business. The owner is motivated and ready to help transition the next entrepreneur in this attractive business opportunity. Everything is in place for this impeccable company and is now ready for an aggressive buyer to take this business to the next level. Inquire today to learn more about this exceptional opportunity! Assets are to include $250,000 in Average Inventory, $1,100,000 in Buildings & Property, $2,200,000 in Equipment & Vehicles and $200,000 in Fixtures & Furnishings. Call today and ask for this "For Sale By Owner" portfolio #0074.


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Fairy stones are one of Mother Natures sweet unique gifts that bring a bit of fairy magic into your life. Clay stone glacial concretions are known by many names around the world. They are called "Fairy Stones" in Scotland, Ireland and Quebec, "Imatra Stones" in Finland,and "Mud-babies" or "Clay Dogs" in Connecticut.
They are also known as Abitibi by the American Indians. The Abitibi stone or "Fairy Stone" shown in the above photo was picked on the shores of the Harricana River, Abitibi, Quebec, Canada. It was formed thousands of years ago and is a calcite-based concretion made of fine sand and clay, that was solidified by nature. The morphology (shape) of the concretion varies by locality. You will note that the the one in the photo is very smooth, other locations can form rough surfaces. This unique form of these Abitibi stones are a phenomenon unique to Northern Quebec. They tend to be spherical in shape and a light to deep colored gray. The superior face of the concretion is usually smooth and regular and the interior face is often rough with puffed up spheres. The irregular lines on the stones are caused by traces left by miniature worms or organic remains which were fossilized thousands of years ago. Many are found on the bottom of the big Lakes with a glacier origin. This form is one of my favorites.
When the Algonquin's first came up the Harricana River in their canoes towards Abitibi and stopped on the beaches they saw these pebbles which looked like biscuits. Hence they named the river, Harricana, meaning "River of Biscuits". "The Algonquin Indians, pronounced, Al-GONkin called them "Fairy Stones" and often carried them as lucky charms or talismans when they
went on fishing or hunting expeditions. According to legend, these stones assured protection against bad spirits and protected homes and their occupants. They were also believed to bring good health and prosperity to those who carried them or had them in their home. Lovers offered the most beautiful "Fairy Stones" to their loved one. The largest specimens occupied a
place of honor in the home.
Fairy Stones are as you would imagine associated with nature and fairy folk, as well as the root chakra and the Earth element. I find them to be a peaceful energy and make for a nice meditation companion.
There is another form of Fairy stones that are twinned staurolite crystals that form into a cross.
This particular one is found in a State Park in Patrick County called "Fairy Stone State Park" in which a 50 acre field sits atop of Bull Mountain. To this day, many people go and pick the Fairy Stones that seem to pop out of the soil in that region. These twinned staurolite crystals often form into a cross shape that simulate the Roman, Maltese, and St. Andrew's crosses and are usually brown in color. They can be as large as an inch in length. As the earth's crust heated, cooled and folded during the formation of the Appalachian Mountain range, iron aluminum silicate crystallized into six-sided shapes. These staurolite crystals, like quartz and diamonds, are harder than surrounding materials, so the crystals erode at a slower rate than the softer surrounding material. As the softer materials wash away the crystals literally come to the earth's surface. Fairy stones formed in this area of the country are primarily made up of staurolite, which is a combination of silica, iron, and aluminum. Staurolite crystallizes at 60 or 9- degree angles, hence the sometimes cross-like structure.
These specimens are found in the soft deposits of the Quaternary where they were found in the ponds having occupied the depression of the retreat of the glacial front and then were carried by the water and deposited on the shores of the lakes. The legend of this region is that hundreds of years ago before the reign of Chief Powhatan, fairies were dancing around a spring of water when an elfin messenger arrived from a faraway city to tell them about the death of Christ. When the creatures of the forest heard the story of the crucifixion, they wept. As their tears fell upon the earth, they crystallized to form beautiful crosses. The Fairy Stones that formed in this region in Virginia were formed during the rise of the Appalachian Mountains.
Many people believed that if they wore or carried these fairy stones it would protect them from harm or illness. Once found, the stones are cleaned and dried.
Often people apply a light coat of sealant to bring sheen and prevent scratching. The coating also prevents the natural oils in your fingers from discoloring the specimen. If you have one that has a sealant on it and you want to return it to its natural state you can do so by soaking it in 1 cup of warm water with 2 tablespoons of vinegar for 15 minutes. Brush the stone gently with a toothbrush, rinse well several times and let air dry.
Wishing you a fun journey in your rock hound travels.
With love,


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Narayana Kocherlakota is brushing off recent reports of accelerating inflation.
"[Y]ou can see that PCE inflation has risen relatively rapidly over the past three months and is now 1.8 percent—very close to the FOMC's target," he said in a speech today. "But ... many large fluctuations in PCE inflation end up being purely transitory. To formulate an accurate forecast for inflation, we need to look through these transitory fluctuations, no matter how large they might be—and that's not always easy."
Kocherlakota, a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, is considered one of the more dovish monetary policymakers.
His speech is clearly more dovish than the speech of Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker who is confident that the inflation rate has "bottomed out."
Read Kocherlakota's full speech at MinneapolisFed.org.


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Watching The Best Adult Videos.
People have distinctive ways to engage themselves in the midst of their extra time and for a lot of adults, watching adult videos has become a popular pass time, especially for bachelors. The web has in like manner changed the adult video industry since individuals can now be able to access a huge assortment of adult videos on the web without having to buy them physically. There has been a great deal of research that has been led to determine the pervasiveness of adult videos on the planet and the findings demonstrated that adult video websites are among the most visited sites on the web.
Various investors have along these lines placed assets into the adult video industry because of the large portion of eager clients available. There are a ton of adult video sites on the web that you join to enjoy those videos and other services and since they are quite a lot, it will in general be to some degree difficult to pick which one to join. To ascerrtain you approve of the adult video site you have picked, there are different basic factors that you ought to think about first. In a great deal of countries, it is unlawful for a minor to watch these adult videos thusly before you join any of the adult video websites, you should ensure you are over eighteen years.
You need to additionally ensure that the laws of your country have not illegalized such websites to avoid getting into trouble with the law which may result into various consequences.
When you are picking an adult video site, one of the essential things that you ought to factor in is security. Your confidentiality when you are watching the adult videos ought to be guaranteed and thusly in a perfect world pick an adult video site that offers security to their clients' personal information. Another basic element that you ought to think about when you are picking such a site is the cost for their membership.
You should ideally pick an adult video site that charges a sensible proportion of money for their membership which licenses you access to all their content in those websites. The adult video site you have picked should in like manner be registered by all the significant authorities henceforth before joining such a site, it is vital to ensure that it has abided to the law. It is additionally critical to consider the notoriety of the adult video site you will pick since it will enable you to quantify the nature of administrations you will get. The overviews of such websites will moreover empower you to know whether they maintain customer privacy or not.
Why Videos Aren't As Bad As You Think


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BEST At-Home Workout Routine for Busy Moms!
Are you a Busy Mom? Or just looking for a way to workout from home? Today's video features the BEST At-Home Workout Routine for Busy Moms! It's called the Deck of Cards Workout Routine and it's inspired by Carrie Underwood! You won't have to pay ââââ CLICK SHOW MORE ââââ for a gym membership, you won't need expensive exercise equipment and you can completely adjust your workout from beginner to advanced. To top it off, even women post partum can work out with this routine.
ðADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS AND RULES:
â¥Hearts: Pick one Cardiovascular Move. Examples would be Jumping Jacks, Boxing 10 Seconds Per Number on Card, Jumping Rope…
â Spades: Pick one LowerBody Move. Examples would be Lunges, Squats, Calf Raises…
â£Clubs: Pick one UpperBody Move. Examples would be Pushups, Chair Dips, Bicep Curls….
â¦Diamonds: Pick one Core Move. Examples would be Crunches, Planks, Modified Knee to Elbow Planks….
ðJokers: This is your trump card! So do Burpees as fast as you can for 1 minute. Or run on a treadmill for 1 mile. Something that is hard for you but you can get through it!
Pick up each card and the number on it will tell you how many reps to do. The suit will tell you which exercise to do. Jacks, Queens & Kings are all worth 10 reps. Aces are worth 11.
Like I said in the video, this workout routine can seriously kick your trash. So if you are new to working out, or haven't worked out in awhile, you will want to split the deck in half or even in 4ths. Put one Joker in each pile so you always have a trump card.
And if you want to get your hands on the HydroFlask I was talking about in this video, you can find them over here: http://freebies2deals.com/HydroFlask OR http://freebies2deals.com/HydroFlask2
Are you ready to give this a try?? Comment below ð¬ and tell me how your workout went! GOOD LUCK! ð
ð°Want to "Live the Ultimate Life for Less"?? Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to my channel by clicking here â â http://Freebies2Deals.com/YouTubeSubscribe That way, YouTube will let you know when my next video goes up live! (Don't worry, it's free!)
For more deals & money-saving tips and tricks, visit my full site at http://www.Freebies2Deals.com. No matter WHEN you visit, you will find crazy deals and freebies available for THAT day. It's the easiest way to always save money.
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ðPeriscope â for LIVE Videos: @Freebies2Deals
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ðTune-In Every Tuesday and Friday at 10am MST (9am PST, 11am CST, 12pm EST) to watch a new video!
XO, ðMelea


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If you enjoy the technical aspects of yoga -- the precision and alignment of each pose -- and don't mind a few props, it may be time to try Iyengar yoga.
This popular form of yoga started with a frail, sickly teenage boy from India who began practicing yoga in hopes that it could improve his health and help him recover from tuberculosis, among other ailments. In a few years, that boy began to spread the teachings of yoga throughout his country. And today, more than 80 years later, that boy -- known to most as B.K.S. Iyengar -- is one of the most renowned yoga teachers in the world.
Iyengar trained as a student of classical Ashtanga yoga, which focuses on asanas (poses), pranayama (breath) and meditation, along with a healthy lifestyle off the mat, as well. When Iyengar began teaching, however, he developed his own version of Ashtanga yoga -- a version that today bears his name and is taught by thousands of instructors around the world.
Like many Hatha-based disciplines, Iyengar Yoga classes flow through sequences of traditional postures, and end with quiet poses for relaxation and reflection. But what sets Iyengar Yoga apart from other methods is its focus on alignment, says Sophie Herbert, a yoga instructor based in Brooklyn, New York.
"It uses a lot of props, like ropes and bolsters, to help you maximize the postures and find the ideal shape of the body," she says. "It's very patient and slower than some other forms of yoga." Instructors are encouraged to get creative during class, and to use whatever is necessary -- chairs, walls, blocks -- so that every student, no matter what their fitness or flexibility level, can achieve some modification of each pose. [Source: Jones]
Iyengar Yoga is often considered a therapeutic tool that can help prevent injuries or alleviate health complaints. A 2009 study by University of West Virginia researchers found that six months of a regular Iyengar practice helped reduce disability, pain and depression in people with chronic back pain, for example. [Source: Williams]
In his book "Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom," B.K.S. Iyengar writes that discovering yoga literally saved his life. Decades later, it's safe to say that it also helped him have a long and prosperous one, as well.
Related Articles:
- Teens and Yoga
- A Surprising Hangover Remedy
- How to be Comfortable during Yoga
- BKS Iyengar Yoga Studio of Dallas. "Iyengar Yoga." (March 28, 2013) http://dallasiyengaryoga.com/?page_id=133
- B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga. "FAQs" (March 28, 2013) http://www.bksiyengar.com/modules/FAQ/faq.htm
- B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga. "Iyengar Yoga." (March 28, 2013) http://www.bksiyengar.com/modules/Iyoga/iyoga.htm
- Iyengar, B.K.S. "Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom." Rodale, 2006.
- Iyengar, B.K.S. "Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health" Penguin, 2007.
- Iyengar Yoga Association of Greater New York. "History: Who Is B.K.S. Iyengar?" 2012. (March 28, 2013) http://iyengarnyc.org/association/lineage/
- Iyengar Yoga Association of Greater New York. "New to Iyengar Yoga?" 2012. (March 28, 2013) http://iyengarnyc.org/are-you-new-to-iyengar-yoga/
- Jones, Todd. "The Right Triangle." Yoga Journal. (March 28, 2013) http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/213
- Williams, K., et al. "Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Efficacy of Iyengar Yoga Therapy on Chronic Low Back Pain." Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 2009 Sep 1;34(19):2066-76. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19701112


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Join artist and tree lover Lizzy Schule on PHA's campus for a series of nature drawing classes. Each class will cover a different theme in landscape drawing and nature journaling. These classes will be accessible to every student, whether enrolled in an individual class or the entire series. Classes will address various concerns and techniques of the landscape artist, such as perspective, simplifying complexity, shading, and how to render light. Students will use a combination of graphite, charcoal, inks, colored pencils, and other drawing materials.
Friday, August 16, 2019 at 9:30am to 12:30pm
Polly Hill Arboretum
809 State Road, West Tisbury, MA 02575
$55: General; $40: PHA Member
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His wife Brenda and son Andrew were joined by fellow victim George Westcott, and around a dozen other supporters including Councillor Peter Evans and Lancashire NFU chairman Tom Rigby, for the ceremony which took place on land owned by Tom. If the tree grows to be half as good a man as Harold, then it will be a bloody big un.
Advice on sheep dip at


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Post By Admin| On 07.20.2017
U.S. Chamber of Commerce – Announcement on NAFTA Negotiations; U.S. Chamber of Commerce – International Affairs Division – Americas
Good afternoon,
Today, the U.S. Trade Representative released a summary of its objectives for the upcoming negotiations to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The negotiating objectives can be found on USTR's website, here.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President and Head of International Affairs Myron Brilliant issued the following statement on these objectives:
"The Chamber and its members are ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work modernizing the NAFTA. We commend the administration's recognition that we must do no harm to the American jobs, businesses, and industries that depend on trade with Canada and Mexico and adhere to the process laid out in the TPA law. Working with industry, agriculture, and our partners in Canada and Mexico, we can keep the current benefits of the NAFTA, enhance them with modern, new provisions, and proceed in a way that avoids disrupting the flow of trade and the millions of jobs it supports."
Please reach out to Reuben Smith-Vaughan ([email protected]) with any questions, or to learn more about the Chamber's NAFTA priorities and programming.
023194_INTL_US Mexico Economic Council_logo_300res


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Haircare is such a controversial topic. Society constantly pushes us to look the way that "they" define beauty. If your hair is not the "typical" hair type– long, straight and fine– you are looked down upon. As African American women, we are constantly discriminated against especially for our hair. This proves true for any woman, really, whose hair is a little thicker, a little bigger, than what is perceived as pretty.
Ms. Rose, a new Parkdale English teacher has natural hair and embraces it proudly. "I've always been natural but I didn't really start embracing my natural hair until my freshman year in college," she said.
The term natural hair is used to describe hair that does not use chemicals or products to alter, such as perms and relaxers, to alter its original state. Historically, women of color have used perms to make their hair straighter in order to be more accepted in society. According to a study by the Huffington Post, relaxers make up 21 percent of the black hair market.
While some women have never put chemicals in their hair, many resorted to a flat iron or hot comb to make their natural curls straight. Senior Lauren Knights was one of them.
"I didn't really begin my natural hair journey until three and a half years ago," said Knights. "Although, I've been natural my whole life."
There are hundreds of natural hair brands, but the quality of the products differ. You need to figure out which ones work specifically for you hair. Without the correct products, your hair could become damaged and unhealthy.
Some brands, like Cantu, Carol's Daughter, Shea Moisture, Miss Jessie's, Deva Curl, and Cream of Nature, are available for varying hair types and textures.
Personally, I believe it is important to embrace your own hair since that is what you were born with. Until recent years, wearing your hair naturally in the workplace was considered unprofessional. The problem with that is, what does how a person wears their hair have to do with their performance as a worker?
"While I was in college and interviewing for jobs, I straightened my hair because I was worried that like some people wouldn't hire me because of that," Ms. Rose said. "It really bothered me that I had to even think like that. The school I was at previously, I kept my hair natural and curly, but the other teachers were told to get rid of their braids."
In September 2016, a federal appeals court ruled that banning an employee from wearing their hair in locs is not racial discrimination. This means that it is legal for a place of employment to require its employee to cut off their dreadlocs.
Although this law just applies to the workforce, there have been incidents in the school system as well.
In 2013, a Florida private school threatened a 12 year old girl with expulsion when she refused to cut her natural hair. The school administrators said that her hair went against the school's dress code, which had clauses about hair care and appearance.
Many students teased her for wearing her natural hair, so her mother attempted to inform the school but was told her daughter's hair violated the dress code because it was a "distraction."
Despite setbacks, many women still wear their natural hair, and I am one of them. The importance of knowing products to wear all depends on your hair type. Personally I have 3B-3C curls but the curl types range from 1A-4C. Type 1 hair is usually straight, type 2 hair is wavy, type 3 hair is curly, and type 4 hair is kinky.
For my 3B-3C sisters and me, I believe the Carol's Daughter Pracaxi Nectar line works well. While it is really moisturizing, the downfall is that it can easily produce flakes.
Identifying curl patterns isn't as easy as just looking at the chart, though. Ms. Rose doesn't specifically categorize her hair by the numbers because she has more than one type of curl pattern, but she has tight corkscrew curls in the front and zig zag near back. Her new product staple is Mop Top.
While Knights does identify by numbers, she says her hair is a mix of 4A and 4B but primarily the latter. She finds Cantu and Miss Jessie's to be the best for her curls.
She advises, though, to not get stuck on one product or thought of what hair should look like, even in its natural state.
"Don't be afraid to experiment," said Knights. "Stick to a regimen, and cut/trim when you need to. Health over length."
While many find importance in length and bounce when it comes to healthy curls, everyone's hair is different. What works for one girl may not work for the other.
"It takes time to embrace that new look because it is so different from what media or society tell us we should embrace," said Ms. Rose. "Embrace the personality and hair journey. It's not going to be easy, but it is rewarding. Stick with it, ask friends and take pictures on your good days and bad days that way you can go and look back and recognize what your routine needs to be."
The journey may be long, but it's worth it. Go for it!


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mystical (adj. \ mys·ti·cal \ ˈmis-ti-kəl) – the experience of having a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence that leads to union or direct communion with the divine.[1]
Luke 2:1-7; Philippians 2:6-11
A Life Lesson in Humility
When I was in college, I had the opportunity to read a wide variety of literature and found that despite certain preferences, I liked a lot of it. The secret lies in telling a solid story, regardless of genre and there have been and continue to be certain storytellers whose works I am willing to read on nothing more than name recognition. One of the many I encountered in college was the Nobel Prize-winning German author, Herman Hesse.
The story that introduced me to Hesse's writing was Siddhartha, a sweeping tale of a life where a man "achieved what was searched for." The story of Siddhartha is one of a young man who from simple beginnings, seeks to find enlightenment as one of the Shramanas, or wandering beggars of the Buddhist faith. Siddhartha follows this path, eventually even meeting with the Buddha himself. However, his searching begins to lead him away from the Shramanas and ultimately, he rejects the teachings of the Buddha in favor of a more personal experience of meaning that cannot be found by sitting under the influence of a teacher.
Siddhartha eventually finds his way across a river where a ferryman tells him that since Siddhartha cannot pay the toll he will eventually return to the river to make compensation for the crossing. Beyond the river, Siddhartha meets Kamala, a courtesan, for whom he must become a wealthy man to win her affections. He learns business from a man named Kamaswami and eventually becomes wealthy enough to win Kamala, although the accumulation of wealth was never a goal for Siddhartha. In time, he tires of the excesses of wealth and returns to the river to contemplate a better existence.
Here at the river, Siddhartha reunites with the ferryman Vasuveda and in time becomes the ferryman at Vasuveda's death. Siddhartha learns and embraces a life of humility and simplicity along the banks of the river. Though challenges arise (the return of Kamala traveling to seek out the Buddha and the arrival of their son that Siddhartha never knew), Siddhartha lives out his existence in humility and peace, offering the wisdom the river has taught him to any who are willing to listen. The story points to the idea that humility is at the core of an enlightened state of being, stressing the importance of the concept for daily life. This humility came from a life devoted to seeking the divine from the Buddhist perspective.
The story of Siddhartha was written as a story about finding enlightenment by the sum total of life experience. It is the idea that to be enlightened one must completely experience all things, good and bad, as part of a greater process toward wholeness.
When we look at the Christmas story one of the things that jumps out, I believe, is the idea of humility, a word that literally means "ground, earth, soil."[3] This word is similar to the word adam in Hebrew, the word used to describe the first man, one who was created from the soil of the earth. There are several ideas that I think give meaning to the use of these words and that is what I would like to explore as we continue our sermon series, A Mystical Christmas with Why a Manger?
What is a manger?
I think an effective way to understand this is with a bit of parallel imagery. Imagine the first scene, if you will, having a couple show up at your house. Their transportation has failed them, and they are stranded. The woman is pregnant and obviously about to go into labor. You live a considerable distance from town, say between Four Corners and Sundance.[4] The closest hospital is – not to be found. Did I mention that their transportation is a horse that died down the trail? Did I mention that you were supposed to imagine that this is the year 1894? Did I also mention that the man and woman are obviously foreign, certainly not from around here? There is no room in your simple one-room cabin for a woman giving birth so naturally, you send the couple to the little barn out back. You muck it out (of course, because we are not barbaric animals after all) but it is still a barn and she is still about to give birth.
Sound far-fetched?
The second scene is a familiar one, sanitized according to our pseudo-Victorian values, traditions, and sensibilities. Our version has been seen in plays and pageants from what seems like time immemorial. The children parade in wearing the costumes of various characters and animals, saying all the crucial lines, and allowing us to dote on their performance like good parents and grandparents. The scene seems so familiar that we never question it; it simply is what it is, and nothing can or should change that. I hope, however, to offer a bit of illumination to the oft-told tale by defining a few things and asking a few questions.
The truth is closer to the first scene than the second. To begin with, a few definitions and remarks about the translations of things. First, the inn is not an inn. In this case, it is probably a guestroom, set aside for traveling family, friends, or visitors and is being contrasted with a place where the animals are kept.[5] A manger, practically speaking, is little more than a feeding trough, a place to throw hay for cattle or sheep to eat. The manger was kept in a stable, perhaps under the house itself or maybe in a cave close to the home. It would have been out of the way, private, but nonetheless far from a sterile environment.[6] One commentator wrote, "A feeding trough served as a crib. How simple and bare it all seems."[7]
Meaning in manger
So, what we have here is far from the Ritz-Carleton or the Four Seasons. It is a simple, dirt floor, animal sanctuary, a haven for the humble creatures that serve as sources for food and clothing. Yet, this is where the story of redemption begins, where the first steps are taken toward a life and death that will change the course of human history. When we look at the manger, we are looking at the place where history stopped and started again, where time itself was recalibrated into the time before the manger and the time after. And it isn't just the fact that Jesus was born but how he was born, into what circumstances that birth would bring about for his childhood and adulthood before his ministry. Jesus comes into the world in humility, grows up a humble tekton (carpenter, stone mason, craftsman; literally, 'a maker of stuff'[8]), and lives in humility and poverty as an itinerant preacher. Fred Craddock writes,
"Luke has kept the story clean of any decoration that would remove it from the lowly, the poor, and the marginal of the earth. In the history of the church there have been many so poor and abandoned as to be able to identify with this scene."[9]
As I said, this attitude is a lifelong expression of the example that Jesus set in his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. It is reminiscent of the hymn that is included in Philippians chapter two,
"Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus: Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly honored him and gave him a name above all names, so that at the name of Jesus everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."[10]
For many people this is a text that points to the divinity of Jesus, that Jesus was God in the flesh. You can read it that way if you choose, but I think there is a bigger point to be made here, especially with regard to the idea of humility. The point being that,
"Jesus took on the position of a slave, inconsequential and disposable by the world's criteria. In the role of "slave," Jesus was obedient to the point of death on a cross, the nadir of rejection, shame, and humiliation. This is hardly the behavior the Philippians recognized in other "lords," such as Claudius or Nero, who used their status to grab for more. In contrast, Jesus "emptied himself," not of divine attributes but of status; he "made himself of no reputation""[11]
In other words, Jesus's birth, like his life, was a symbolic expression of humility before God and man. It was an example, as Paul calls it, for how we can empty ourselves of "actions that are produced by selfish motives including sexual immorality, moral corruption, doing whatever feels good, idolatry, drug use and casting spells, hate, fighting, obsession, losing your temper, competitive opposition, conflict, selfishness, group rivalry, jealousy, drunkenness, partying, and other things like that"[12] so that in following after the Way of Jesus, we might embrace "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."[13]
Humility as Lifestyle
As we consider the manger, there are a few things I hope you remember. First, that throughout the course of his life Jesus displayed a humility that we ourselves can live into by following the Way of Jesus. Second, that throughout the course of his life Jesus displayed a humility that we ourselves can live into by following the Way of Jesus. And finally, you guessed it, that throughout the course of his life Jesus displayed a humility that we ourselves can live into by following the Way of Jesus. I think the day and age we live in makes this idea of humility such a demanding thing to swallow. Brian Peterson writes,
"The world in which we live is no more welcoming of this story, no more open to this "mind," than was Roman Philippi. We are inundated with narratives that promise life found in superior force, in acquiring the best looks, the best bank accounts, the best weapons, the best "stuff." We are told that life is secured by our winning—socially, economically, politically, religiously—and everyone else losing. There is little room for the claim that the obedient death and resurrection of Jesus is the story of God's ultimate loving victory, the defining reality for all the world." [14]
And yet, I am encouraged to see so many more people, younger people especially, trying to find meaning in the idea of kenosis, emptying oneself, as Jesus did according to the Philippian hymn. It is my hope that we who follow Jesus, will truly follow Jesus, being manger babies, who grow into tektoi, those who shape and create the world around them, by living into being humble followers of the One who taught us how to humbly follow after God. This is where the mystical aspects of the manger come into play, that place where we find union and communion with God. In humility before God and neighbor, we are able to find communion with God and unity as followers of the Way. In our emptiness, we are filled.
Borg, Marcus, and John Dominic Crossan. The First Christmas. New York: HarperOne Publishing, 2007.
Craddock, Fred. Luke: Interpretation – A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990.
Crossan, John Dominic, and Jonathan L. Reed. Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco Publishing, 2001.
Laymon, Charles M., ed. The Interpreter's One Volume Commentary. Nashville/New York: Abingdon Press, 1971.
O'Loughlin, Thomas. "Losing Mystery in History: The Challenge of Recalling the Nativity." In New Perspectives on the nativity, edited by Jeremy Corley, 180-199. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009.
Peterson, Brian K. "Philippians 2:5-11." Interpretation 58, no. 2 (April 2004): 178-180.
Roberts, Kyle. A Complicated Pregnancy: Whether Mary was a Virgin and Why it Matters. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017.
Schelkle, Karl Hermann. Theology of the New Testament: Salvation History-Revelation. Translated by William A. Jurgens. Vol. 2. 4 vols. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1976.
Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology. Vol. 2. 3 vols. Chicago, Il: University of Chicage Press, 1964.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mystical; also https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mystic
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel) – The word Siddhartha is made up of two words in Sanskrit language, siddha (achieved) + artha (what was searched for), which together means "he who has found meaning (of existence)" or "he who has attained his goals."
[3] http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=humus&la=la#Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=humus-contents
[4] For those who do not live in Wyoming, that would place you in an open prairie area about fifty miles from the nearest reasonably sized town.
[5] (Laymon 1971, p. 676)
[6] (Craddock 1990, p. 35)
[7] ibid
[8] http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=tekton&la=greek#lexicon
[9] (Craddock 1990, p. 35)
[10] Philippians 2:5-11
[11] (Peterson 2004, p. 179)
[12] Galatians 5:19-21
[13] Galatians 5:22-23
[14] (Peterson 2004, p. 180)


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Jackson Maine is an alcoholic and drug addict. It's a fact that is made abundantly clear in the opening seconds of A Star is Born, Bradley Cooper's directorial debut. The film opens with a shaky, prolonged close-up shot that follows a clearly intoxicated Jackson—a middle-aged country singer with an untrimmed beard, Matthew McConaughey-esque long flowing hair, and a cow-boyish charisma. Jackson, who is portrayed by the versatile Cooper, stumbles across the stage only to down another shot spiked with some suspicious looking pills. He is a mess. But, he is also gifted. As he approaches the microphone, the bustle seems to settle, and what takes its place are thunderous cheers. Jackson's drawl is rough around the edges but has a soothing quality to it that hypnotizes the crowd. As Jackson sets his audience adrift with a voice that displays both untamed passion and a subtle sorrow, a Prussian blue hue takes over and fades into the silhouette of Jackson, alone in the backseat of his sedan after the show. As the car slowly pulls away from crazed fans, he cracks open another bottle of whiskey.
A modern adaptation of the 1937 classic by the same name, A Star is Born chronicles the discovery and rise of promising singer Ally—played by the brilliant Lady Gaga—whose sudden rise to stardom is entangled with her muse-turned-husband Jackson Maine. The two struggle with their artistic and personal identities, all while they attempt to reconcile their love for one another. The impossible demands of Ally's burgeoning career and Jackson's chronic alcoholism collide, a conflict that eventually leads to the profound tragedy that accentuates the emotional and intellectual depth of the film.
Cooper, a keen observer and student of the art of filmmaking, utilizes a rather unconventional yet well informed method in approaching the multifaceted themes discussed in the film. Although situated within a contemporary context, A Star is Born examines some of the fundamental questions that have come to define the human experience. Specifically, the era of internet and impossibly easy media access provides the perfect backdrop that adds more nuances to the millennia-old inquiries: What is love? What is the ultimate sacrifice? What matters most in life?
To address these questions, Cooper adopts a multitude of stylistic and technical instruments that not only allowed him to exploit the potential of the cinematic platform but also form a distinct directorial language. By the end of the first act of the film, which details the Jackson and Ally's close encounters and evolving relationship, three narrative devices that would come to dominate much of the rest of the film have already surfaced.
As the opening scene showcased, Cooper tends to show an affinity to closeups—intense, personal shots that diminish the distance between the viewers and the characters without breaking the boundary established by the invisible fourth wall. Almost every single shot in the film features Jackson or Ally; the camera follows their movements, speech, and interactions in close proximity, rarely allowing the characters to slip out of anything wider than a medium closeup. Such intense intimacy in the camera language constrains the attention of the audience on the protagonists; the proximity of the camera to the characters makes it a considerably more personal narrative that invites viewers to experience the story in such a way that is incredibly intimate.
In fact, the audience is kept at such close distance to the characters that they almost share the same air; every breath the characters take breathes into the sensibilities of the viewers. Such sensations are crucial to the deeply personal themes explored by each character's narrative arc: Ally struggles with deep-seated insecurity and constantly seeks approval in a patriarchal society, while Jackson struggles with his troubled youth and his turbulent relationship with his abusive father that ultimately resulted in his alcoholism. The barrier between the real and cinematic world is minimized by the simple visual mechanism of proximity; the characters' struggles and suffering are truly, viscerally felt by the audience, which allows them to develop a genuine emotional response that also encourages contemplation.
Additionally, Cooper makes extensive use of carefully designed color schemes, which contributes greatly to establishing the inherent qualities of the characters, reflecting Ally and Jackson's evolving relationship and personal metamorphosis. As the audience is first introduced to Jackson, his color palette is dominated by a prevailing dark blue—a color that suggests experience and also a pronounced sense of detachment. The blue palette is one that is most prominent during his concert scenes, an indicator that his artistic desires are the dominant aspects of his personal identity. Ally's color palette, on the other hand, is distinctly red and warm. When Jackson first meets Ally in the bar, he is engulfed in the unfamiliar yet disarming warm hues that accompany Ally; as his blue hues are left outside of the bar scene, an influx of overwhelming warmth in color implies that Ally would be of great importance to and exert great influence on Jackson.
As the two perform together for the first time, the two distinct colors are depicted as complementary to each other on screen for the first time. Initially, they inhabit separate regions on the screen; yet, as the two gradually learn to cooperate and their performance of the song "Shallow"(Cooper's singing is a pleasant surprise) reaches the pinnacle of harmony, the colors merge and eventually dissipate into a more neutral tone. A soft yellow hue comes to accompany the development of their flourishing artistic companionship and romantic relationship. Later on in the narrative, when their relationship stabilizes and they settle down in the cottage, the color scheme shifts to a much softer, pastel palette that seems to suggest domestic happiness. However, this is sporadically disrupted by Ally's flourishing career. In particular, as she preps for commercial stints against the backdrop of a restless LA, her career engages a much brighter and more flamboyant set of colors. Ally's transformation into a pop singer, as reflected by the color scheme, seems to cause much of the discord, as both her and Jackson begin to question if she has lost her authenticity to the demands of a shallow public.
An observant student of the cinematic masters, Cooper shows an appreciation for a grounded narrative approach, specifically in his utilization of a combination of showing and telling. The first half of the film relies heavily on telling as it is composed almost entirely of dialogue—intimate, playful conversations between Jackson, Ally, and other characters that reveal much about their personality and past. In one of the tone-defining early scenes, they share their passion for music in the bar through conversation. Later, in the convenience store parking lot, Jackson's past and Ally's future are intertwined. Jackson speaks of his upbringing, a theme frequently revisited and believed to be the source of his self-destructive behaviors, while Ally speaks of her inhibitions mainly caused by insecurities about her physical appearance and talent. Cooper chooses not to use complex transitions or fancy angles. Instead, he primarily relies on the traditional shot and reverse-shot method that draws most of the attention towards the content of the conversation and avoids any potential distractions by stylistic elements.
The second half of the film sees a shift to showing as the primary storytelling device. As the relationship becomes strained due to conflicts in work schedules and personal problems, Jackson and Ally gradually communicate less frequently. At this point, Cooper employs more pronounced symbolism in his cinematography; the giant poster of Ally in LA mirrors the belittling effects Ally's success has on Jackson, while Jackson's verbal harassment on an exposed Ally in the shower reveals Jackson's deep-rooted alcoholism that takes the form of animosity towards Ally. Cooper also understands the power yielded by silence. In perhaps one of the best and most nuanced scenes in the film, Cooper shows Bobby, Jackson's significantly older brother and de facto guardian, pulling away in silence after Jackson's teary confession of love. Bobby does not utter a single word, and the camera lingers on his face in a moment that captures the ferocity of brotherly love and pain.
As the film approaches its tragic conclusion, conversations gradually become extinct—emotionally charged songs begin to take their place. Cooper understands that music better conveys the emotional gravity of an ending relationship and life. Cooper doesn't try to deliberately rationalize the most intricate human emotion of love and loss in a blatant expository manner; rather, he lets music—the instrument whose power to inspire has played a central role throughout—to reconcile overwhelming grief with the potential for an ultimate catharsis. Such an emotional release is accessible to both Ally and viewers, who have been faithfully following this pilgrimage of immortal love doomed for despair in a flawed, apathetic world.


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Saturday, 19 January 2013
indoor snowball fight
Yesterday JR's preschool closed early due to the snow, when his friends mom brought him home he asked if he could go outside and play in it. I'd have loved him to go and play in it but as we live in a flat with no garden i told him if he waited for mr me and my tiny 3 he could go outside without his brother & sister getting too cold, (TP is totally unimpressed with the snow and flatly refused to even consider going outside) daddy could take him to the fields or just outside on the carpark.
At this point what I was expecting at the very least was a mild tantrum but what I got was completely different, and a very nice surprise. "Mommy go and hide so I can throw a snowball at you" my response immediately was no you know you don't throw things in the flat. JR's response too this obviously silly statement was "silly mommy I'm not really going to throw a snowball at you it's just pretend" so the next hour was spent with me, JR and TP having an imaginary snowball fight! Hiding behind tables, cushions, soft toys you name it we used it has a shield against our opponents imaginary snowballs! We haven't laughed as much in a long time and to me it was much more preferable snowball fight to a real one cause I stayed nice warm and dry!
I feel at this point it's important to add that JR and his Daddy did indeed go and have lots of fun in the snow watched by me TP and LA, making snow angels and using a small tea tray as a sledge!
Sledging on a tray
Made it to the bottom!!!
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About Cynthia
Cynthia Olivera is the Educational Director for Wisdom of the Earth Essential Oils. She is a Master Medicinal Aromatherapist and Spiritual Counselor who uses medicinal essences to help shift old paradigms and patterns. Cynthia travels internationally to teach plant and tree consciousness. She is masterful on leading her students on how to open to the messages they offer to those who are ready to hear from them. She co-authored "Voices of Light, Voices of Love" with Barry Kapp and Audre Gutierrez. For Cynthia, staying present in her body and anchored to the Earth has been her greatest challenge, which is why her work in the world for over 30 years has been teaching movement and dance.
Cynthia is also the founder and facilitator for Inner Landscape Work Training, a deep movement/meditation method that unlocks past lives, releases pain of the heart, and re-patterns the body to facilitate the ability to love more deeply. Her workshops in rediscovering the juiciness of life through sacred sensuality, movement, meditation, and heart dreaming are experiential learning environments that allow a shift in personal reality to joyously occur.
This, with the aide of the essences, have helped ground her to Gaia. She collaborated with Kat Augustdottir-Shuford in the Sacred Sexuality Workshops, and CC Treadway in The Holy Chalice weekends held at WOTE, which gave her an opportunity to teach women about the juiciness of their beings. Being able to help women love themselves is the hallmark of her work. Yoga, Pilates, Dance, Music, Essences, Art and Laughter have been her passions. This Inner Landscape Work is a download from Spirit and the culmination of her many years as a creative being, movement educator and counselor.
Cynthia's mission on Earth is to anchor the Light and help awaken the human consciousness to its true magnificence. Having had her first awakening when she was 13 (on her stoop in Queens, NY), she sought teachers who would bring her to new levels of understanding and has never stopped this quest for authenticity. She has been a truth seeker and metaphysician for over 50 years.
As a life-long meditator, she has had contact with many Angelic and Extraterrestrial Beings. She works with these Ascended Beings to bring more awareness and love to Gaia as she moves through her Ascension process. Working with the plants and trees brings us to a place of true authenticity and helps the Mother Earth to heal. For years Cynthia has worked with the energies of the Magdalene, Sophia, Mother Mary, Isis, Quan Yin, Gaia, Sekmet, many of the Ascended Masters, and the Plant and Tree Kingdom, to bring balance to the Divine Feminine and Masculine within.
Our Earth is moving into a higher cosmic template of love. All that is not love must be brought to the surface to be released and healed. It is her privilege and joy to know and serve so many beautiful souls who are here on Earth at this magnificent time of transformation.


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TV's threatening to look a lot like my comic book shelf these days.
One of the things I love about a comic book series that ends is that it represents a complete story, so when I start reading "Transmetropolitan" or "Preacher" or "100 Bullets," I'm starting something that I know has a finite amount of story to tell, and that's building to something. I just worked my way through David Lapham's entire 41-issue arc of "Stray Bullets."
Meanwhile, my comic-book-crazy older son fell in love with Brian K. Vaughan's "Runaways," burning through the first eighteen issues in about a week. He was rabid for something to follow up with and decided he wanted to read "Y The Last Man." That's a heavy series in many ways, but one of the things that shaped who I am was that my parents put far less restrictions on what I could read than what I could watch, and it's a policy I try to follow with him. My attitude is, "If you really want to read this, then I'm happy you want to read." Besides, we're at a place in our relationship where he seems unafraid to ask me questions if he doesn't understand something, and "Y The Last Man" has led to some pretty heavy conversations overall. He loves it, though, and I love that he gets excited about a story.
I want to make sure he finishes reading it before FX gets serious about turning it into a TV show. Frankly, this makes sense in a way that the oft-discussed film versions of the comic never did. In an age where Zack Snyder is rumored to be talking about bringing "Watchmen" to TV, which should finally give roughly a zillion angry nerds some degree of peace, it feels like there's a shift happening. Sure, DC and Marvel are both battling for big-screen supremacy still, and that's going to continue for quite a while, but there are a number of comic book properties that seem like they're more suited for the small screen and actually headed there.
The success of "The Walking Dead" must be at least somewhat responsible for this, as well as the success of "The Flash," but those are both shows designed to be open-ended and run as long as fans keep tuning in. The Marvel Netflix shows like the excellent "Daredevil" or the upcoming "Jessica Jones" are shorter orders, but they're not built with firm permanent endings, either, since Marvel would eventually like to bring them all together as "The Defenders," and there's a good chance that if that works, we may see those characters make the jump into the movie universe as well on occasion.
Instead, we're looking now at properties where there is a complete story. "Y The Last Man" is a perfect fit for FX, but it doesn't sound like they have a writer in place yet or a director. Brian K. Vaughan will be heavily involved, which is good, but I'm curious who they're going to find to help creatively spearhead the adaptation. "Preacher," which is already underway with both Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg producing. They are huge fans of the material, and it's another property that people tried to develop as a movie several different times unsuccessfully. It feels like some of these bigger stories simply fit better as ongoing but finite adaptations that can take their time and let the stories and the characters breathe.
Word also broke this week that another Garth Ennis series, "The Boys," is currently being shopped as a TV series by Seth Rogen and "Supernatural" veteran Eric Kripke. That's a really exciting combination, and I would love to see them somehow talk Simon Pegg into playing the part that was so clearly written for him in the original comic. These days, there's no stigma with television, so it call comes down to schedules, and if you're smart about how you build a TV schedule, it's not impossible to imagine getting someone as in-demand as Pegg for the right role.
It's an exciting time for fans of these properties, and I love the idea of a TV schedule that includes "Y The Last Man," "The Boys," "Preacher," "Watchmen," and more. Let's make it happen, folks, and let's see these stories done right.


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The primary issue of her election campaign to lead the Cherokee Nation, says Stacy Leeds, candidate for Principal Chief, is economic mismanagement. Of the $300 million dollars netted by Cherokee Nation Industries last year, according to Leeds, only 30 percent of the $78 million profit (less than $24 million) goes to support programs of the nation. That is less than 10% of what the CNI calls "after pay-out gross," the only figure publicly released. This begs the question, How much is payed out to contractors and others before you arrive at the $300 million figure? No one knows, because the tribal administration will not release those figures.
Mismanagement of CNI, says Leeds, could be "an Enron in the making" for the Cherokee people.
I met Stacy Leeds Tuesday evening at the Beaver Creek Cooperative Telephone Company offices in rural Oregon City, along with a half-dozen other members of the local Cherokee community. Stacy is a very warm, unassuming woman, who doesn't seem to have an ounce of political slickness, and yet she gives the impression of being a very capable leader. For me, this was her biggest attraction, as I've been very wary of the corporate patina I see reflected on the Smith-Grayson crowd.
Leeds is a former justice of the Cherokee Supreme Court, the only woman to ever hold that post. She is a tenured professor of law and has held many positions dealing with tribal law, making her an expert in the complex legal issues between the Cherokee Nation and the U.S. government.
Leeds called the recent vote to expel the Freedmen from the tribe, "the elephant in the room no one is talking about." The federal government, through the B.I.A., has threatened to cut off federal funds to the tribe. If they do that, she says, the tribe will become insolvent in a matter of weeks, unable to pay tribal employees. When the Seminole Tribe similarly voted to remove their Freedmen from the roles, the Feds cut the tribe off immediately, and it took three years of legal wrangling and kowtowing to get federal funds reinstated. With the Cherokee Nation there are additional threats from a seriously angry Congressional Black Caucus, and from the U.S. courts over the ongoing legality issues of the Cherokee constitution.
I asked Stacy if there wasn't also a moral issue with the Freedmen: since they are the descendants of the slaves of wealthy Cherokees, doesn't the tribe have an obligation to recognize them? She agreed, saying that she had voted against the expulsion, and she felt that the Cherokee people had been misled on the issue.
Would the tribe have voted so overwhelmingly to expel the Freedmen if they had understood the moral issues and the economic consequences of doing so? I think probably not.
In addition to her mismanagement charge against the Chad Smith administration, she pointed out that Smith has constantly vetoed such legislation as increasing the minimum wage, health-care benefits for poor Cherokees, and modest bonuses for tribal employees. Six years ago the Tribal Housing Authority was winning awards for its programs, and now, she says, there is no housing program for Cherokee families at all.
She and Deputy Chief candidate Raymond Vann would concentrate their energies on helping out Cherokees in need, putting competent management in charge of Cherokee enterprises, and diversifying the economy of the tribe, which is too dependent on Casino revenue.
It was a pleasure to find a candidate with many admirable qualities. I found in Stacy Leeds a very intelligent leader with the interest of the Cherokee people at her core. A true progressive who I believe will stand up to the corporatization of the Cherokee Nation.
I am very glad I attended this meeting for another reason. I have been feeling isolated as a Cherokee far away from tribal life. To my surprise, I learned that there are several dozen registered tribal voters in the Portland metro area, and many more enrolled citizens as yet not registered to vote. It is very encouraging to me to know that I am not alone.
You can check out more about Stacy Leeds and Raymond Vann at the campaign website: www.stacyleeds.com.
Some other resources:
Putting to a Vote the Question 'Who Is Cherokee?'


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Are you sick of seeing inefficiencies all over your company? And you never seem to see improvements? In today's video, we're going to talk about some simple systems that can make your service model significantly better. You'll have happier customers, you'll have happier employees and you'll improve your cash. And here's the icing on the cake - it's not even that hard. Transcript Today we're gonna talk about one of the most important … [Read more...]
7 Books You Need To Read
Every year I read between 50 and 75 books. At the beginning of January, I like to focus on the books that I think brought the most value to me. I'll be breaking this post into two pieces. The first will be my favorite business books of the year and the second will be my favorite non-business and fiction of the year. This year I've decided I'm going to read fewer business books and more non-business ones. After all, I've already read well … [Read more...]