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Challenge Convention : Find New Solutions
We Think Differently
Precision Manufacture From Aerospace Materials
Fits all Alfa Romeo Spiders Since 1966
No Clamps, No Bolts, No Paint Damage
Fitted to your Alfa's boot lid in less than 30 seconds
Made in the heart of the UK's motorsport valley
Alfa Romeo Spider luggage rack :
Revo-Rack Black £229.95 / $319 / €275
Revo-Rack PA £269.95 / $385 / €309
Revo-Rack is a completely new type of Alfa Romeo Spider luggage rack which eliminates the risk of paint damage, caused by steel clamps or straps on the boot/trunk lid edge. This rack fits the classic Alfa Romeo Spider made from 1966-93, the 916 (1993-04) and the Brera Spider made from 2006-10. We manufacture the rack in two finishes using the same T5 aluminium and magnesium tubing, its then either powder coated black or hand polished and anodised.
With the Revo-Rack car boot rack no metal touches your Alfa only soft rubber vacuum cups these use the pressure of the atmosphere to secure the rack to your cars boot or trunk.
Why a Revo-Rack Alfa Romeo Spider Luggage Rack ?
- No clamps
- No bolts
- No drilling
- No paint damage.
- Tested to ISO/PAS 11154:2006 Road vehicles - Roof load carriers & European Directive for the General Safety 2002/95/CE.
- Perfect for modern Alfa Romeo's with small panel gaps that make fixing a traditional clamp based rack almost impossible : no room for the clamp feet
- Revo-Racks load carrying capacity has been tested and certified by TUV Italy at 20kg/45lbs
- Fitted and removed in under a minute ( see video below )
- Not immediately obvious how to release the rack from the boot/trunk lid - Impossible to pull off, therefore theft is difficult.
- If you do stop for a prolonged period and are concerned about your luggage we suggest you remove the rack and luggage and place it inside your car, a 30 second task.
- The Revo-Rack is supplied with a cotton storage bag and two luggage straps
- Optional anti theft strap available
The Rack Frame :
This Alfa Romeo Spider luggage rack is manufactured from 25mm/ 1" 6063-T5 tubing this is an aluminium and magnesium alloy ( it will never rust ) As a result the rack frame weighs only 1.672kg / 3.6lb perfect for todays aluminium and composite boot/trunk lids. The cross bars are machine welded in place to ensure consistency, the rack is powder coated black. The rack measures 900x420mm / 36"x17"
The Supports :
The rack is secured to your Alfa's boot/trunk lid using three 120mm vacuum cups, rated by the manufacturer as capable of holding an 18kg/40lb load each.
Vacuum cups employ the force of atmospheric pressure to grip a surface: When a vacuum exists between the cup and the surface on which it is attached, the weight of Earth's atmosphere holds the cup in place with incredible force. Unlike suction cups that produce a vacuum as they pull away from the surface, Revo-Racks vacuum cups use a hand-actuated pump to efficiently remove air from between the rubber pad and the attaching surface thus creating a much more reliable hold. Because the full face of the pad is brought into contact with the boot/trunk lid, distortion is reduced, allowing the cup to be used with very little risk of damage.
The Revo-Racks vacuum cup's pump feature a plunger with a red line, which serves as a vacuum indicator. This safety device is still acknowledged as one of the most reliable warning systems available. A few strokes of the plunger evacuate the vacuum pad, causing it to seal securely to the attaching surface. When the cup is attached completely, the plunger stops moving and the red line is hidden within the pump. A visible red line indicates if air has leaked back into the pad, making vacuum insufficient to use the cup. However, if the red line becomes visible while the cup is in use, a check valve allows the user to re pump the cup without losing the remaining vacuum.


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The 2010-11 Penn State Altoona Distinguished Speaker Series kicks off with conservationist, author, and television host, Jeff Corwin. He will present "Tales from the Field with Jeff Corwin" at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 30 in the campus' Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts. Free tickets are available at the Penn State Altoona Bookstore, the box office in the Misciagna Family Center, or at the door on the evening of the program while they last.
Corwin, an Emmy winner, has been working for the conservation of endangered species and ecosystems around the world since he was a teenager. Animal Planet audiences best know him as host of The Jeff Corwin Experience, one of the most popular shows on cable television. Corwin has bachelor of science degrees in biology and anthropology from Bridgewater State College, as well as a master of science degree in wildlife and fisheries conservation from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. When not in the field, Corwin lectures on wildlife, ecology and conservation to audiences across the United States. He firmly believes that through education and awareness, the natural resources, wildlife and ecosystems that make up our planet will be conserved for future generations.
The Penn State Altoona Distinguished Speaker Series is made possible by funding from the Division of Student Affairs, the Paul R. and Margery Wolf Kuhn Fund, the John and Ann Wolf Family Speakers Series Fund, the Sarah Simonton Endowment for Excellence, and the Student Activity Fee. This program is presented by the Division of Student Affairs in conjunction with the academic divisions of Business and Engineering; Education, Health and Human Development, and Social Sciences; Mathematics and Natural Sciences; and Arts and Humanities as a service to the students, faculty and administration of Penn State Altoona and the local community.

subset: commoncrawl


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Name: Fantasy
Duration: 81 min
Year: 1979
Language: English
Director: Gerard Damiano
Country: United States
Actors: Paul Thomas,Jon Martin,Aaron Stuart,Michael Morrison,David Morris
Categories: Vintage 70s porn, 1979, United States, English, Gerard Damiano, Dorothy LeMay, Sharon Kane, Lysa Thatcher, Georgina Spelvin, Brooke West, Kitty Shane, Jane Lindsay, Barbara Klouds, Kyoto Sun, Liza Dwyer, Paul Thomas, Jon Martin, Aaron Stuart, Michael Morrison, David Morris, Facial, Anal, Double Penetration, Fisting, Lesbian, Asian
Actress: Dorothy LeMay,Sharon Kane,Lysa Thatcher,Georgina Spelvin,Brooke West,Kitty Shane,Jane Lindsay,Barbara Klouds,Kyoto Sun,Liza Dwyer
Hustler's Highest Rating!Set in an elegant cafe at an island resort- Director Gerard Damiano takes us inside the minds of the characters to examine their fantasies about each other! Each vignette is increasingly erotic- with heat generated by the thoughtful examination of interpersonal relationships! This is one of the few films that draws applause at it's conclusion! A Masterpiece!Vintage 70s porn in "Fantasy"
Monday, October 17, 2016
Keywords:Vintage 70s porn1979United StatesEnglishGerard DamianoDorothy LeMaySharon KaneLysa ThatcherGeorgina SpelvinBrooke WestKitty ShaneJane LindsayBarbara KloudsKyoto SunLiza DwyerPaul ThomasJon MartinAaron StuartMichael MorrisonDavid MorrisFacialAnalDouble PenetrationFistingLesbianAsian
© 2019 CLASSICPORNOMOVIES.MOBI - Vintage porn, Retro porn videos! GOLD collection of Classic porn. Daily-updated Retro Porn videos.


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Why Sponsor at Homeland Security Week?
The 13th Annual Homeland Security Week (HSW) will gather homeland security stakeholders and industry providers alike to take a deep dive into current challenges and future requirements necessary for numerous government agencies, all directly or indirectly responsible for U.S. homeland security, to facilitate a complex, joint, multi-layered plan that will combat the evolving challenges our country faces - all while ensuring the support of the communities they serve. HSW will offer industry providers the unprecedented opportunity to showcase their capabilities and network with the most influential collection of stakeholders under one roof, at one time!
For more information or to learn about available exhibition and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Max Miller at 212-885-2753 or via e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.com
Sponsorship Opportunities
Take a look at the 2018 Sponsorship & Exhibition Prospectus so you can get an idea of all the different individuals you will gain access to by becoming a event partner!
Who Will Be There
Take a peek at who will be onsite at Homeland Security Week 2018 with our Current Attendee Snapshot. Contact us today and find out more on exclusive sponsorship opportunities available to network with our high-level audience at this year's event!.
The Budget
The President's 2019 Budget requests $47.5 billion in net discretionary budget authority for The Department of Homeland Security, a $3.4 billion increase from 2018 annualized CR level. The infographic report summarizes budget breakdown and next year's key highlights project of the top agencies in the DHS.


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Amer Shamakh writes: an American "scenario" for toppling the regime
A friend sent me a report that he said had been leaked from Congress – and responsibility for this [claim] lies with him of course – containing details about an American plot to remove President Mohamed Morsy from power and do away with various aspects of Islam. We are publishing this in order to reaffirm that God has full control over His affairs and that the proud Egyptian Muslim people's will is above the American's will and above that of their protector – that is if the report was issued by the American administration. If it wasn't, then we present – without any embarrassment – the opinion of the person who slyly released this report, which I believe contains many expectations sounded these days.
In its introduction the report affirms that the opposition, led by the National Salvation Front, has completely failed to market itself as a suitable alternative to the elected president, despite possessing tools (Mubarak's media and businessmen, a large security apparatus, intelligence services, united Copts, huge numbers of thugs and a corrupt, bloated administration that is sympathetic to the former president).
The report describes this failure as: their lack of success in selling the idea of election forgery, their failure to corner the president through widespread protests, the rapid failure of the idea of civil disobedience and, finally, the failure to sell the idea of complete chaos coinciding with big events (the Rafah funeral, the events at the Presidential Palace…etc)
The report relies on Mubarak's judiciary, who might be the hero of the next stage, and succeed in doing what the opposition failed to do in the past period.
The report outlines a basic plan that relies on:
1. A deluge of judicial verdicts affecting all decisions by the president and his supporters.
2. Interference by the judicial branch in the executive branch and prevention of the executive branch interfering in the judicial branch.
3. Acquittal of anyone who took part in building corruption or killing revolutionaries. This is aimed at making a space within Egyptian minds for the question: who killed them then?
4. Prevention of any funds returning [to Egypt] so that state coffers are not refreshed. "Financial siege".
Probable occurrences in this scenario (which is expected to last three months):
– Continuing adherence to the Pakistani model. "The judicial weapon".
– Sending a message to unimportant killers that they will not be held to account while at the same time sending another message to funders and the important killers that the end is near and the money spent will be reimbursed after Morsy's toppling. "The Adnan Menderes model".
– Finishing off the president through a judicial verdict or several verdicts during the three months or overturning his legitimacy at the end of June 2013.
– Issuing one or more judicial verdicts ruling that the elections were forged in Morsy's interest.
– A Supreme Constitutional Court verdict immediately following this dismissing the president.
– These verdicts will convince both the west and the people that the president has lost legitimacy and must be deprived of his position and indeed his life together with his Islamist supporters who caused all these disturbances.
– Creation of complete chaos beginning with the assassination of several famous media and judicial personalities and accusing Islamists of being behind them.
– After the Pakistani model has ended the Turkish one begins – "the execution of Adnan Menderes" – accompanied by a powerful media wave.
– The Algerian model then begins for ten years during which Islamists are totally annihilated.
– A call for national reconciliation (which is refused by Islamists under siege in caves) and an end to the existence of Islamic manifestations and the wiping out of its features.
The report also contains the following two remarks:
– The creation of complete chaos by the opposition now will break it, and its members will appear as rebels to the people and the west. In contrast, chaos after the verdict dismissing the president will make both the people and the west feel that it is Islamists who planned this chaos.
– These verdicts will destroy Islamist morale and make them feel that the president misled them by failing to deliver a pre-emptive strike in order to avoid their slaughter.
The report ends here. We are waiting to see what the coming days bring, and whether they will prove the report's veracity. In any case everyone must be on their guard, because we do not doubt that there are conspiracies against this ancient country carried out – alas – by a group of its disrespectful sons…We ask God for protection.
This was originally published in Arabic on the Freedom and Justice Party portal.


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Sewage worker killed in tragic construction accident
This Monday, a worker with the Metropolitan Sewerage District of Buncombe County was killed in a tragic construction accident.
According to Ashville police, the accident occurred as a crew of workers was installing a manhole at 257 McDowell Street. A backhoe bucket at the site was suspended in the air by a hydraulic line. The line snapped and the crew's supervisor was struck in the back of the head by the falling bucket.
Paramedics pronounced the 46-year old supervisor dead at the scene of the accident.
Police and investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are looking into the cause of the fatal construction accident.
Our utmost sympathies go out to the victim's family and friends.


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Crash Bandicoot has always been one of those games my sisters and I would play over and over again; it was forever a big hit in our house! I can remember when I would get stuck on a level and my sister would take over for a bit until I was past the hardest section (yeah, I know that's cheating). Crash has also always been one of my favourite game characters, and I like him just as much as I like Spyro, I always thought he was a fox until one day I found out there are animals called Bandicoots – Mind. Blown. I found him so appealing, I wished he was real (my imagination as a child was weird). Another character in the Crash Bandicoot games I loved was the mask, an old witch doctor that enabled invincibility for Crash if the player broke the crates with his face on.
The Crash Bandicoot games weren't all limited to being a platform game; Sony released 'Crash Team Racing' and 'Crash Warped'. I hate to admit it, but I was awful at them. Racing games and I don't mix, but that's not to say I didn't have hours of fun playing them!
It was announced at E3 that the original Crash Bandicoot games would be remastered on PS4 and be called 'Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy', a collection of the first three games from the original Crash Bandicoot series: 'Crash Bandicoot', 'Cortex Strikes Back' and 'Warped'. The stories will stay the same but the graphics have obviously changed and been scrubbed up. Not only will it be in high definition 4K, but the audio has also been remastered (although the original composer – Josh Mancell – hasn't been invited back). In the original Crash games there was no such thing as 'autosave' which was frustrating, but luckily they've now added this feature. Not much else has been given away, so I'm excited to see what other features have been added or changed.
What I'm most excited for is that the younger generation will be able to experience how fun Crash Bandicoot is, although some already know from playing 'Skylanders' (in which he is a real life Sensai), they will now get to experience Crash from the 90's. Looking back on how far video games have come and how people still choose to play the older ones makes me happy; the graphics may not be amazing but you don't need to have great graphics to enjoy a game.
There are so many arguments about which console or PC has the best graphics but, for me, it comes down to how much I enjoy playing a game with a certain character. Crash is, and always will be, one of my favourite video game characters and I hope he will become as popular as he used to be when I was younger.
It's not clear when the game will be officially announced, but it has been rumoured that the release date is February 28th 2017 – not that far off!


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Commentary by Nathanael Blake
Meeting the parents has become a ritual trial of postmodern romance. Still, one of the key questions my father means to pose to my girlfriend when he meets her is rather unusual: If she and I marry, will she help care for my youngest brother when my parents die?
Zachary, you see, has Down syndrome. The current abilities of medicine make it quite possible, even likely, that he'll outlive my parents or at least their ability to watch over him, so someone else will eventually have to look after his needs. My other brothers and I have been helping him for nearly 12 years now, so it seems natural that this will continue. We've always cared for him and those marrying in will have to accept this responsibility. (Note to the curious: My lovely Julie agreed to this when I forewarned her of my father's planned query.)
But Zachary's dependence hardly means he is helpless. He can, for example, read and write, albeit at a low level. He'll never be a writer or an engineer, but in time he'll be able to hold down a simple job. Perhaps he'll even be able to live on his own as other people with Down syndrome do.
I doubt that will happen for Zachary, though. I don't think he will desire solitary living; he loves others and is loved too much. He's cheerful and outgoing, greeting everyone with hugs. Like the rest of the family, he loves to play soccer. He is fond of drawing, Legos and matchbox cars. His life is happy and he is a joy to those fortunate enough to know him.
This happy life is increasingly normal for those with his condition. But even as the quality of life and ease of care for them improves, the eugenics campaign against people with Down syndrome is becoming more ruthless and effective.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently issued new guidelines instructing that every pregnancy be screened to see if the preborn child has Down syndrome.
Goodbye Ob/Gyn, hello Ob/Gene. The authors of these new guidelines surely know that when detected, 80 percent of American babies suspected of having Down syndrome are aborted. These doctors are no doubt also aware of a 2005 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology which found that doctors frequently pressure women to have such abortions-even presenting medical disinformation in order to influence the parents to "terminate" the child. And because so many babies with Down syndrome are aborted, fewer people know anyone with the condition and the resulting ignorance means more lies and more abortions. Furthermore, sometimes the tests are wrong.
As doctors pressure parents, parents pressure doctors. Approximately half the states in America allow for "wrongful birth" medical malpractice lawsuits. Allowing the birth of someone who doesn't meet a parent's criteria for a normal or ideal human specimen can land a doctor in the dock.
The undeclared but obvious goal of these practices is the elimination of Down syndrome. It's a quiet, measured and thoroughly respectable eugenics program in place around the world. Simon Barnes of the London Times wrote of his son that, "At the hospital, when they discovered on the scan that Down's syndrome was a possibility, they very kindly offered to kill him for us."
Welcome to the world where every child is "wanted." In practice, the idea that it is right for every child to be wanted means that parents have a right to the child they want. The child's dignity and value is only that assigned by the parents. Instead of blathering about children being wanted, we should see that they are welcomed.
The problem with wants is that they are generally selfish. Of course, it is well and good for a couple to want children. That desire may make it easier to welcome them. But to make the worth and even the life of a child dependent on the parents' wishes makes children chattel. In contrast, a welcoming attitude sees children as glorious gifts, and as such, there may sometimes be surprises which can lead to greater joy.
Disabilities make clear this distinction. No one wants to give birth to a baby with Down syndrome. Parents who are primarily concerned with wanting a baby will be dismayed that the child doesn't fit their plan-their desire didn't include disability. And so they will kill their baby if they can, since it wasn't what they ordered.
Alternately, there are parents who are willing to unconditionally welcome whatever child they have. They recognize that life cannot be completely controlled and refuse to attempt such by having their baby killed. They're happy despite the difficulties of raising a disabled son or daughter. They delight in the wonder of each child.
It's a matter of love. When Zachary was born, my family didn't know of the joys he would bring, only the challenges. But we accepted him, and have found that he provides us with mirth and pleasure in ways a more normal person couldn't. He loves with an unabashed enthusiasm that brings joy to all who know him. So the question is, "What kind of people would deprive the world of such a special person?"
Release issued: 7 Feb 07


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Documentation Needed for Citizenship Applications
In addition to your application, you need to supply the USCIS with a number of additional documents, which may take you a while to gather. Start early! You will need:
Three forms of Identification
- Permanent Residency Card ("green card"). Make copies of both sides. If your Permanent Residency Card is missing, please let the Immigration Officer know at the time of your interview. If it has expired, you can still apply for citizenship, but you cannot leave the country until you have been sworn in and received your naturalization certificate.
- Driver's license or state-issued identification card (I.D.)
- Social Security Card
If you fail to include copies of your state I.D. or Social Security Card in the application packet, you can still present them at the interview.
These forms of identification may be obtained from the Consulate of your home country. Mexican nationals should visit:
Consul General of Mexico
4507 San Jacinto Street
Houston, Texas 77004-4949
Download a list of all Houston consulates
Evidence of Trips outside the United States since becoming a Legal Permanent Resident
- Any passports and visas that may verify your trips
- Any airline tickets that may provide dates of departure and return
- Current Spouse – Include a copy of the marriage certificate.
- Former Spouse – Include copies of all marriage, divorce and death certificates.
- Spouse's Former Marriages – Include copies of all marriage, divorce and death certificates.
Criminal Record
- If you have been arrested, cited or detained and you had to pay a fine of more than $500, you must provide:
- A certified copy of the arrest report
- Court dispositions
- Sentencing and any other relevant documents.
- If a traffic incident was related to alcohol or drugs, you need to submit documentation for traffic fines.
- If you were convicted of a crime such as driving while intoxicated (DWI) or domestic violence, you must first speak with an immigration attorney before submitting your application.
Selective Service
- If you registered but have lost your information, you can obtain it by calling (824) 688-6888 or visiting www.sss.gov.
- If you have not registered and are between the ages of 18 to 26, you should register immediately.
- If you lived in the United States between the ages of 18 to 26 and were born after 1960, you must have registered with the Selective Service even if you were undocumented. If you did not register, you must include a written explanation with your application.
- Include a money order or check for $680.00, payable to: Department of Homeland Security
- Include your Alien Registration Number (A#) on the money order or check.
- If you are 75 or older, you only pay the $595.00 application fee. (You do not have to have your fingerprints taken or pay the $80 fingerprinting fee.) Be sure to include a letter stating that you qualify for the lower fee because of your age.
If you are providing any documentation in a foreign language such as Spanish, you must include a certified full English language translation. The translator must certify that the translation is complete and accurate, and that he or she is competent to translate from the foreign language into English.
Information provided by the NALEO Education Fund


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De Blasio Would Make A Great POTUS
This Time Trump Was Telling The Truth
Love him or hate him, this is a really good piece.
Have to save the article for later tonight but right now I just want to say I definitely agree with the quote.
I want to refine my comment, he's waaay more talented than Trump at doing the mass market emotion provocation hyberpole thing.
"Our troops didn't die in Yorktown, didn't take Normandy beach, didn't rebuild Europe and secure the postwar peace that you are now destroying, Mr. President, for you to live as a Manchurian candidate in our White House," Avenatti said during the speech, the text of which he posted on Twitter.
Must really be something working with a jury.
50-60 years ago this snippet would have been unremarkable. Now it's like Shakespeare on stilts. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. (no disparagement to Avenatti, who's showing some amazing energy and seems to have found his nut or groove - to put it plainly).


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Why break out of your marketing routine to delve into social media? The main reason to get social is this marketing medium's incredibly low cost.
But just how low can social media go? The major social media platforms — from Twitter and Facebook to LinkedIn and YouTube — have no cost associated with their setup and general use for businesses or consumers. They also have excellent reach. Marketing doesn't get much more cost-effective (or have a better ROI) than this.
Bigger Reach, Lower Cost
The one cost associated with posting to social media, however, is anything you may pay an employee to post information and photos to your social channels, and reply to comments. Time is, of course, money.
But if, for example, you pay an employee $15 an hour and they work five hours a week on your social media program, that cost will equate to $75 a week. That's $300 a month and $3,600 a year.
Compared with traditional print newspaper advertising, which can cost anywhere from $500 to $800 for a ¼ page ad run one time only, social media delivers real bang for your buck.
Wondering if five hours per week is enough? A full five hours of work per week on your social media marketing will likely be enough for any business launching into this medium. Here are four tips for making the most of your employee's social time.
Social Specifics: 4 Get-Started Tips
1. Get Set Up: Have your employee spend their first week's five hours setting up the social media channels of your choice. If you choose just one (which is a great start), your best bet will be Facebook. It has excellent reach and local targeting abilities. Your employee will need the time to create a Facebook page and upload relevant photos to create your page's look and profile.
2. Make A Plan: During week #2, ask your employee to make a proposed posting schedule for your review. A great start is to aim to post three times a week on your Facebook page. For consistency, you could choose to post under certain categories on the same day each week, such as Style Tips, Eye Health Information, and New Products.
3. Reach Out: Ask your social media employee to also contact your frame, lens, and contact lens buyers to get information on (and pictures of) your newest, most exciting products. Providing information on enticing new products will help drive patients in your door and assist your staff with talking points.
4. Make Friends: Having "Likes" (aka Friends) to your Facebook page will ensure its success. After your social media point employee sets up your business page, ask them to invite people to "Like" the page. Facebook makes this easy by tapping into your email address list, filtering it down to those addresses that also have a Facebook page, and enabling you to send them an invitation to like your page.
Would you like to learn more — and join the conversation on this important topic? Start a conversation below.


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Need a good resource on fast food? Our Fast Food Nutrition DVD scored great with reviewers. Check out what School Library Journal had to say:
"Two smiling, upbeat teens offer facts about good nutrition and tips for eating healthy in our fast food world. The typical tribulations of fast food meals, such as calories, saturated fats, trans fats, sodium, and sugar, are explained. The pair suggest..."
"finding healthier meals at different restaurants or selecting healthier food at the same fast food restaurant, such as salads and fruit. The merits of grilled vs. fried, water vs. soda, and fruit vs. fries are discussed. Portion control (regular vs. super-sized) is emphasized. While nothing new is presented here, the teen presenters may make the information more palatable to viewers. Preteens and teens in health classes may be receptive to the information and think twice before eating fast foods."


text: Bowler Bowler Brilliant Ale - OG: 13,0%, ABV: 5,0%, IBU:29 It is said that the British have ale instead of blood because they brew and drink it since VII century. Bowler Brilliant Ale is pale ale with the traditional British taste. It was so named after the headdress "pot hat" which is the visiting card of the English style and a sign of a good taste. When you see the Bowler, the first thing that pleases is a deep amber colour and then the expressed malty taste with flower and citrus aroma. This ale is brewed from the Pale Ale malt and aromatic hop. You don't have to be an expert in beer Talmud to duly appreciate the taste of Bowler. Drop after drop you will feel the soft hop aftertaste with a note of bitterness nursing a spirit of British pubs. The old England is a connoisseur of ales and takes off its pot hat in honour of classical beer. The old England is a connoisseur of ales and takes off its pot hat in honour of classical beer. Milk of Amnesia v. Tropic Ausweis NewsPepper Bloody Buddy Apres Ski Pils Bowler Rouge de Fleur Pumpkin Ale а 2018 (Альфа) Eclipse Black Weizen IPA Nut Butter Gooseberry Salt Apres Ski Pils MANGO IPA JUNIPER IPA MANGO IPA KWARTEL BLOND Gletcher Saison Russian Imperial stout Русский Имперский стаут Iron Woods Bowler IPA Friday Avenue Blanche de Fleur Rouge de Fleur Bowler IPA Iron Woods Friday Avenue Blanche de Fleur Contact us Send Minimize


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Curious Brew, NRB
Brewed in England using East Anglian malt, Saaz and Cascade hops to create a uniquely satisfying, dry, clean and fresh lager. It's refermented using Champagne yeast, then a doseage of the rare Nelson Sauvin hop is added before cold filtering into the bottle.
- Type: Speciality Packaged Lager
- Country: England
- Region: England
- Brand name: Curious Brews
- Pack size: 330 ml x 12
- Code: 27285
- Abv: 4.7%


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Music: Songs of "The Little Mermaid" Become 'Part of Your World' In New Attraction at Magic Kingdom Park
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. ─ Guests experiencing Under The Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid at Magic Kingdom park will relive the romance and excitement of the classic "Little Mermaid" story through scenic design, Audio-Animatronics characters, special effects and, of course, the award-winning songs written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken for the Disney animated motion picture.
The musical aspects of the experience begin in the Little Mermaid queue area, where guests waiting to board will hear an extended medley of songs from the original film, like the overture to a Broadway show.
Then, as they travel through the attraction, guests will see the familiar characters performing beloved musical numbers in exquisitely designed animated scenes, including "Part of Your World," a rousing, spectacular "Under the Sea," "Kiss the Girl," and Ursula the Sea Witch's darkly persuasive "Poor Unfortunate Souls." Some original voice artists from "The Little Mermaid," including Jodi Benson (Ariel) and Pat Carroll (Ursula), are featured on the attraction's soundtrack.
The score for Under The Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid was recorded by a 65-piece orchestra under the direction of Arranger and Orchestrator, Danny Troob, who has collaborated on many theatrical scores with Alan Menken, composer of the film score for "The Little Mermaid." Troob's arrangements were specially created for the Little Mermaid attraction.
"In film, the music withdraws and is supposed to be in the background," Troob explains. "In a theme park (attraction), the music is supposed to be consistently entertaining, so your approach has to be a lot more proactive and even aggressive."
Of the several musical highlights in Under The Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid, the largest scene is a full-scale musical "extravaganza" featuring 129 different characters performing "Under the Sea." The sequence takes up approximately one-third of the area inside the attraction and has a scope similar to that of the final scene in "it's a small world."
As in the motion picture, songs like "Part of Your World" and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" illuminate key "Little Mermaid" characters and drive the emotional content of the show. "The attraction is really built around those classic songs from the film and we chose the 'greatest hits' to help guide our guests through the story—so as you dive under the sea, Ariel's singing 'Part of Your World' and we get to swim with her in her grotto. The music really creates the energy for the entire attraction and is your guide on this wonderful journey." – Chris Beatty, Creative Director, New Fantasyland
About Walt Disney World Resort
Walt Disney World Resort is a contiguous, nearly 40-square-mile, world-class entertainment and recreation center featuring four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney's Animal Kingdom); two water adventure parks (Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon); 35 resort hotels (25 owned and operated by Walt Disney World, includes seven Disney Vacation Club resort properties); 81 holes of golf on five courses; two full-service spas; Disney's Wedding Pavilion; ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex; and Downtown Disney, an entertainment-shopping-dining complex. Walt Disney World Resort is also included in vacation packages of Disney Cruise Line. Located at Lake Buena Vista, Fla., 20 miles southwest of Orlando, Walt Disney World Resort opened Oct. 1, 1971. Open daily, year-round.


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SHARON ZUKIN had come to Greenwich Village and the Shrine of St. Jane not as a pilgrim but to wax sardonic.
Ms. Zukin, a Brooklyn College sociology professor, stared at the modest red-brick town house on Hudson Street that once was home to Jane Jacobs, whose 1961 book, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," celebrated the joyous hodgepodge of New York's neighborhoods: the working-class tailor and the artist, the Italian grocer and the writer, living cheek by jowl.
Ms. Jacobs, who died in 2006, waged heroic war against planners who dreamed of paving the Village's cobblestone streets, demolishing its tenements and creating sterile superblocks. Her victory in that fight was complete, if freighted with unanticipated consequences. The cobblestone remains, but the high bourgeoisie has taken over; not many tailors can afford to live there anymore. Ms. Jacobs's old home recently sold for more than $3 million, and the ground floor harbors a boutique glass store.
Ms. Zukin — whose own book, "Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places," was published in December — peered through the window at rows of glass candleholders. "Tchotchkes!" she said. "Oh, the sheer ignominy."
Ms. Jacobs's continuing influence on the city is clear. As Amanda M. Burden, chairwoman of the City Planning Commission, wrote a few years back, "Projects may fail to live up to Jane Jacobs's standards, but they are still judged by her rules."Continue reading the main story
But if Ms. Jacobs is much hailed as an urban prophet, Ms. Zukin is a heretic on her canonization. She views Ms. Jacobs as a passionate and prescient writer, but also one who failed to reckon with steroidal gentrification and the pervasive hunger of the upper middle class for ever more homogenous neighborhoods.
The pattern in places like Williamsburg, Ms. Zukin said, is dreary and inexorable: Middle-class "pioneers" buy brownstones and row houses. City officials rezone to allow luxury towers, which swell the value of the brownstones. And banks and real estate companies unleash a river of capital, flushing out the people who gave the neighborhoods character.
Ms. Jacobs viewed cities as self-regulating organisms, and placed her faith in local residents. But Ms. Zukin argues that without more aggressive government regulation of rents and zoning, neighborhoods will keep getting more stratified.
"Jacobs's values — the small blocks, the cobblestone streets, the sense of local identity in old neighborhoods — became the gentrifiers' ideal," Ms. Zukin said. "But Jacobs's social goals, the preservation of classes, have been lost."
Gentrification and its discontents have bewitched New York City more or less since the Dutch burghers disembarked in Manhattan. ("New Amsterdam fort fixer-upper — bring your architect!") And Ms. Zukin is a recognizable New York sort, a controversialist who loves a good argument. But her passions burn hot: She worries for New York. "Much of what made these neighborhoods unique lives on only in the buildings, not the people," she said.
Of course Ms. Zukin has her own critics, who say she perhaps overestimates the city's power to slow gentrification — and the influence of a half-century-old book. "Jacobs's work was revelatory for a particular time and place," said Samuel Zipp, an urban historian at Brown University who will be one of the panelists for a discussion of Ms. Zukin's book scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday at the CUNY Graduate Center. "Many people learned to love cities through her example."
Ms. Zukin recently acted as tour guide on a stroll through Ms. Jacobs's urban village, where Irish and Italian grandmothers once watched from windows as children played on the streets, and milkmen delivered bottles as chain-smoking playwrights typed in grotty flats. It began just north of Christopher and Bleecker Streets in the West Village, once a working-class haven, then the black-leather heart of Queerdom, and now something like the back lot in a Paramount Studios version of New York.
There's the Magnolia Bakery, where perpetual lines snake out the door not so much because of its excellent cupcakes as because of its appearance on "Sex and the City." There's Marc Jacobs, where the lines are no less endless. A Ralph Lauren, a Madden, and a children's store with the most adorable petite $250 pants. Ms. Zukin sighed.
"It's another Madison Avenue, or the Short Hills mall," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "Really, did we need that?"
One might shrug off her lament as a song soaked in nostalgia. But Ms. Zukin draws on new scholarship suggesting that this is not the old gentrification, the house-by-house accretion familiar to Ms. Jacobs. What happens now, she said, is powerful and breathtakingly fast — a product of upper-middle-class aesthetics, and newspapers, magazines and blogs that compete to find new "destination neighborhoods."
She stepped into the Biography Bookshop. Beautiful and cramped, the store has graced a corner on 11th Street for a quarter-century. But its lease expired late last year, and the store is moving to a less expensive stretch of the Village. "We didn't talk renewal," the manager explained. "We both knew the rent would be impossible."
Ms. Zukin cut west, past ivy-covered row houses prized by law partners and HBO actors for the authenticity of the working-class style. "The Julian Schnabel palazzo," she said, jabbing a thumb northward.
On to the Hudson River's luxury condo row and the Bongo restaurant, which boasts of its "highly curated décor" and Time Out praised for the sheer bravery of its decision to move "into relatively uncharted territory." Ms. Zukin clapped. "Perfect! Uncharted millionaire's territory."
Her observations can be cringe-inducing for anyone even modestly self-aware. She limns your love of a particular coffee, and observes the secret joy in the middle-class heart when a 99-cent store closes and a hummus specialty market opens.
Ms. Zukin, who grew up in Philadelphia, lives in a Central Village loft, so it is fair to say that she makes herself cringe, too. "My husband was a furniture maker; now he's an interior designer," she said. "Look, there is an element of irony in a middle-class professor writing about displacement of Dunkin' Donuts by latte bars."
Next stop, Williamsburg, once the most industrial neighborhood in the nation's most industrial county. As late as the mid-1990s, the area would have qualified as a Jacobsian ideal, mixing Poles, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Hasidic Jews and the usual lot of artists, writers and vaguely hip corporate lawyers.
The City Planning Commission rezoned a few years ago even as it tried to apply a gentle brake, letting gleaming condominiums rise on the river while protecting old warehouses and factories.
Still, a running bet hangs over the neighborhood: How many years before it becomes SoHo? Another factory district turned artists' haven turned hedge funders' habitat, SoHo has twice as many chain stores as boutiques now, and three times as many boutiques as art galleries, according to Ms. Zukin's research.
"Williamsburg already is the East Village East," she said. "And it's speeding up."
Down on the East River gold coast — "Every coast is a 'gold coast,' " Ms. Zukin noted — she pointed out a former dockworker bar with a neon Brooklyn Beer sign in the window (Brooklyn is now branded hip) and a low-slung old granary with a MacBook-speckled coffee bar. She started to laugh.
"It's just inexorable, this authenticity in the visual language of sameness," she said. "We've gone from Jacobs's vision to the McDonald's of the educated classes."
And with that, heigh-ho! Down the steps to the L train and off to another authentic 'hood.
An article last Sunday about Sharon Zukin, a Brooklyn College sociology professor and critic of gentrification who argues for stronger government regulation of rents and zoning, referred incorrectly to the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, which Ms. Zukin cited as an example of inexorable gentrification. It is a project, not a place, and city officials did not in fact rezone the property to allow the development.


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LEONA, TEXAS. Leona is at the intersection of Farm Road 977, State Highway 75, and Interstate Highway 45, six miles south of Centerville in Leon County. In the mid-1800s the Texas legislature directed the people of Leon County to choose a site for the county seat and call it Leona. Court was held at the home of Moses Campbell until a courthouse could be built. A post office opened in 1846 with James C. Boggs as postmaster. In October 1850, after hearings had reached the Supreme Court of Texas, Leona lost its status as county seat to the more centrally located Centerville. In 1907–08 Leona had one school for white students and two schools for black students. Population statistics given for the town range from 150 in 1844 to fifty in 1896. In 1933 the town had a population of 200 and fourteen businesses. The population declined to 91 in 1980 but then rose to 165 in 1982. In 1990 Leona had one business and a population of 178. The population was 181 in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:A Journal of Leon County History, Spring 1981. Leon County Historical Book Survey Committee, History of Leon County (Dallas: Curtis Media, 1986). Zoraster Robert Robinson, Proposed Plan for the Reorganization of the Schools of Leon County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1941).
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Handbook of Texas Online, Dylan Wood, "LEONA, TX," accessed May 19, 2019, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HLL38.
Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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Beauty Buys - July/August
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About halfway through Beth Aylmer's pregnancy with her first daughter, Shannon, she talked to her doctor about having an amniocentesis.
The procedure entails inserting a hollow needle into a pregnant woman's abdomen, penetrating the wall of the uterus and then into the amniotic sac to extract a sample of amniotic fluid — the nourishing, protective liquid surrounding the fetus.
By examining the fetal cells within the amniotic fluid, doctors can detect certain genetic abnormalities, like cystic fibrosis and, most notably, Down syndrome. It's typically offered to women with potentially risky pregnancies: those who had an abnormal ultrasound or a family history of birth defects.
Beth and her husband, Brian, had none of these problems. They were young and healthy. Their OB-GYN saw nothing troubling in their medical history. The doctor asked the Aylmers whether they'd change their mind about having the baby if a defect was detected. They said no.
"It wouldn't change anything if we knew that our child was going to have Down syndrome, or any of the other things the amniocentesis might tell us," Beth says. "You know what, if our child has Down's, we're going to love them exactly the same. We're going to get them as far as they can get and allow them to be the best child that they can be. But that wouldn't change us as parents."
Shannon was born and she was perfect and they loved her.
Two years later, she was diagnosed with autism.
The lowest-hanging fruit
Of all the unanswered questions, the most frustrating for Beth is the "why."
Why does Shannon have autism? Why does their middle child, 4-year-old Cailey, have it? And why does it look like their youngest, 2-year-old Kelsey, might have it?
"When we found out Shannon was on the spectrum we were like, 'What caused this? Is it something that we did? Is it where we live? Is it just a fluke?'" Beth says. "We both talked to our parents, and grandparents, and asked them if there was anyone (in our family) they could think of that had any kind of indicators of mental illness or special needs. (There was) no one in our extended family, out generations and generations."
She says the girls were genetically tested to search for anomalies, anything unusual in their genetic makeup that might account for their diagnosis. But no. Everything seems normal.
Clearly genetics is a factor in the Aylmers' case, but which genes and where to find them is a question the doctors can't answer yet.
Dr. Robert Schultz, director of the Center for Autism Research (CAR) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), says "at a population level" genetics is "unequivocally" the most important cause of autism. Researchers can infer this based on studies of identical twins: About 80 percent of the time, when one twin has it, so does the other.
But since it's not 100 percent of the time, there has to be something else going on, some other cause.
"That means, for any given kid, we probably often don't know why," says Schultz. "We don't know what we're looking for. We don't know what the genes are by and large. We've identified about 10-15 percent of the genetic cause ... So we've discovered the lowest-hanging fruit. But the most complicated and the vast majority we haven't discovered yet."
What makes autism so confounding is it's a heterogeneous disorder, meaning on a case-by-case basis there can be multiple causes, unlike Down syndrome, which is caused by a single genetic anomaly — the presence of an extra chromosome.
With autism, it could be the genes, the environment, or genes and environment conspiring together.
But the medical community is as unclear on what those environmental circumstances may be — neurotoxicants that damage the nervous system or materials that impinge directly upon DNA — as they are on the genes.
The medical community's focus currently tilts more heavily toward gene study than environmental factors, in part because identifying the genes that cause autism is thought to be easier. There are roughly 50,000 known neurotoxicants — lead, for example — versus about 25,000 genes in the human body, Schultz says.
"So we've got twice as many influences. And those exposures could happen once. You could be exposed to something terrible when you're 7 months old and you could have it around in your body for a week or a month," he says. "Now you're 17 and you're seeing me. How am I going to know about that? So everyone says, 'Let's study the genes.' There's fewer of them. They're always with you."
If science can discover the genes causing autism, they can then study how the environment affects those genes. Epigenetics is a field of study that examines how genes express themselves and the outside elements that cause those expressions to be altered. Research in this area could help shed light on how environmental influences may contribute to autism.
Schultz explains: "Basically genes turn on and off across development. Some genes are always on. But a lot of developmental genes that affect the development of the brain are on for a while, and then they're off, because they're needed during a certain development period. There's a lot of things that regulate when they're on and when they're off. And the environment can regulate turning genes on and off."
'Autism's like a snowflake'
Autism as it's known today was first defined in 1943. Understanding of the disorder has come a long way since then — from the days when it was alternately referred to as "infantile schizophrenia" or blamed on psychological damage inflicted by frigid mothers.
One of the disorder's most significant evolutions is in the way the medical community researches and treats it. It's no longer viewed "biologically speaking, as a single entity," says Dr. Mark Mintz, president of the Center for Neurological and Neurodevelopmental Health in Gibbsboro. Science is recognizing there's not a single autism, but rather autisms, with different causes and, consequently, different treatments.
Mintz provided an analogy: Cancer, like autism, is heterogeneous. Universally, it manifests as the uncontrolled growth of a group of cells. But there are multiple types of cancer — leukemia, lung cancer, brain cancer — just as there are multiple types of autism.
It's how Shannon and Cailey can both be on the spectrum of autistic disorders, yet be so different. Shannon is social, affectionate and calm, while Cailey is more aloof, withdrawn and erratic with her behavior.
It's why children diagnosed with autism exhibit a broad range of quirks and behaviors beyond the core manifestations: Half have sleep disturbances, Schultz says. Half have anxiety disorders. A third suffer from epilepsy. Others have issues with food intolerance and sensory sensitivities.
And yet there is concurrence between cases: The problems with communication, the social deficiencies, the repetitive behaviors, the exaggerated bodily movements.
"It doesn't make sense that the causes would be unrelated, because you still can group these kids together as having an autism spectrum disorder," says Schultz. "There are similarities. But there's enough differences. It's almost silly saying, 'If you've seen one child with autism, you've seen one child with autism.' Autism's like a snowflake."
So because of its heterogeneity, in order to study autism effectively researchers need large samples of kids: Not just 20 or 50, but hundreds and thousands. Schultz says the medical community needs families to contribute to the solution by including their children in these studies, which they're doing in greater and greater numbers.
The Aylmers have Kelsey in a nationwide study of kids with autistic siblings. Beth has taken her halfway across the country for MRIs at Washington University in St. Louis when she was 6 months old, 12 months and 24 months. CAR has several studies, including one involving genetic testing of large groups of children and another that takes brain images from children and adults who have "outgrown" their autism, comparing them to images from those still on the spectrum.
The increase in cases of autism over the last two decades — from one child out of thousands to about one in 100 today — is another "why" the scientific community still struggles to answer.
Conventional wisdom says they've simply gotten better at noticing and diagnosing it. Awareness of autism is at an all-time high thanks to parents and groups like Autism Speaks. There are commercials about autism and books about autism and TV characters who have autism, not to mention the hundreds of studies underway every day to figure out autism.
Other theories for the rise in cases abound: The broadening of the spectrum for autistic disorders to include more mild manifestations, such as Asperger syndrome; the gradual erosion of the stigma of autism; better services available to the diagnosed; that it's a fad diagnosis.
"If I had to put my money down, I would bet 80 percent of the increase we've observed is due to awareness, better diagnosis," said David Mandell, another CAR researcher. "Some portion of the increase those things don't explain. I don't know what it is."
"We know so much! But no …'"
A paper published in 1998 linked autism to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. The article was later retracted, declared fraudulent and its author, British former surgeon Andrew Wakefield, stripped of his license to practice after an investigation revealed numerous inconsistencies.
But the damage was done. Many parents, against the advice of the wider medical community, latched onto Wakefield's theory and ceased giving their children vaccines.
"The vaccine theory has been totally dismissed," says Mandell. "There's no way in good conscience you can say there's a connection between vaccines and autism."
The Aylmers have also soundly rejected the vaccine theory. All their girls have been vaccinated, Beth says.
But many other parents, desperate for answers, are driven to embrace wild theories, unorthodox treatments or bogus therapies, says Mintz.
"Everything has to be more rational," he says. "The issue is there's so much out there and people are … looking for the magic cure. People shouldn't be so concerned about finding the magic cure so much as effective treatments that are going to take time and a more labor-intensive approach, rather than a single pill that's going to change your life."
There are glimmers of hope, of serious progress. Schultz mentions one animal study where researchers have developed a medication that fixes a problem in the biological pathway.
Simply identifying the genes isn't enough. Genes are really just guides that tell researchers how cells might be affected, he says. Understanding the biological pathways — the chain reaction of cells interacting with one another and how the proteins within those cells interact — is the key to developing effective treatments, says Schultz. If they can translate this animal study to humans, we could be a year or two away from a significant breakthrough.
"Do I really believe that? No, it's probably not going to work that well. But you never know," he says. "And we could be 100 years from now sitting here saying, 'We know so much! But no, we don't have good treatments.'"
Schultz floats different theories about autism — what causes it, why it expresses itself the way it does — and comes back to the notion of genes turning on and off during development. He sees hope there, or he wants to see hope there. It's a way in.
"I would love for that to be the case. Truthfully. For the sake of the kids. Because if you identify the risk factors, these biomarkers, then there's this window of opportunity of normal development. I can do something to preserve that. I can intervene," he says. "But if it's this thing that's subtle and underlying and abnormal, but I can't really see it, then the abnormal process has already begun. I don't want that to be the truth."


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Being a mom seems so easy, so natural, so effortless for some women. When it comes to feeding, clothing, roofing, and educating my children, I certainly meet the world's minimum daily recommended allowance. Beyond that, I struggle, I obsess, I cringe. Tucson is a hard place to live for the mother of a kid with a dust allergy. I'm sure this is hard on my son too, but this is my blog. If Parrish wants to post about the cough that keeps him up all night when I don't manage a thorough dusting, he has his own blog.
Today I learned that along with being slow to care about the PLUs on produce and not playing Baby Einstein to the zygotes I gestated, my dust bunny ranch is ruining my kids. I don't know why I bothered to breast feed when I was just forcing fire retardants down those innocent, vulnerable baby throats.
Apparently, those dark dwelling dust bunnies have their own culture, whole lives built up around a sedentary lifestyle and, oddly enough, disco. I should have known by the way they swirl around my broom. Some people think of dust bunnies as pets, but dust bunnies have a darker side. They don't merely reproduce. They mutate – first as hibernating bears and then as devils. I believe it. Dust bunnies are evil!
American Standard, who would like to sell you air quality products, conducted a 20 city census. Check out their Dust Bunny Barometer to see how concerned you should be about your domestic neglect and its possible poisoning of your babies.
If I were a better mom, I would eradicate dust bunnies in the home. Dust bunny removal requires a specialist, I've decided. A Hoover engineer well versed in the use of one of those dust sucky things. This ain't no DIY project. I should probably be able to round up the bunnies and combine them with dryer lint to knit reusable grocery sacks, but I'm not that mom. I'm the mom that waits for snotty noses and lethargy before moving aside heavy furniture.
(Art stolen from MYRANT. That's my new vision of a dust bunny full of crap that could irritate your kids' respiratory system at the least and give them cancer at the worst.)


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"I try not to think too much about General Convention - I don't want to give myself an ulcer. Every time I stop and really think about what could happen - the damage they are in a position to do and the likelihood that there are enough fools there to do it - it just makes my stomach churn." - From the daughter of a prominent ECUSA Bishop
DAY ONE: General Convention, 2006, in Columbus, Ohio
June 13, 2006
By David W. Virtue
w/ Auburn Traycik and Hans Zeiger
[b]NOTE:[/b] The entire text of our first digest of news and commentary from GC 2006 can be found here:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Day 1. The House of Deputies, meeting for the first time today, opened with prayer. The House of Bishops did not. Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold got down to business with the calling of the roll, and, (drum roll please), the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church USA got underway here in Columbus, Ohio.
At the first press conference we were told this was a "pro forma" day with no big news, but the promise of fireworks in the days to come seems certain.
Bob Williams, of the Episcopal News Service indicated that a name change was in the works and that ECUSA will now be known as The Episcopal Church. Since there are 16 countries that make up the Episcopal Church, he said, it would be better to refer to The Episcopal Church, or TEC, rather than ECUSA which is in just one country. In the House of Deputies, outgoing president George Werner repeated the same news. "There are 16 other nations. The Episcopal Church is global." This seems to be a part of their strategy to emphasize their global involvement and concern with the wider Anglican world. It also sends a subtle message that, should the Anglican Communion decide to expel ECUSA, it would not just be throwing out the U.S. Church, but poorer places like Haiti and Ecuador.
ONE SURPRISE attendee is the second most powerful person in the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev. John Sentamu.
Now there is some confusion as to why he is here and who he represents. Lambeth Palace has made it very clear that he does NOT represent the Archbishop of Canterbury, but Nan Cobbey, writing for Episcopal Life, quotes Frank Griswold as saying that Sentamu "will represent the Archbishop of Canterbury." So he is here at the invitation of Frank Griswold as a "guest" representing nobody and nothing. A Church of England source here at General Convention confirmed that Sentamu does not represent Dr. Rowan Williams and is here on his own at the invitation of Griswold. VOL is told that, surprisingly enough, Sentamu is a member of the Primates' Meeting, and is being positioned as the Church of England's Archbishop in the Anglican Communion.
The question is, will Sentamu have anything to say if the language of repentance, as called for by the Windsor Report, is not adhered too; will we hear his voice raised in anger and frustration at ECUSA's intransigence? He spoke briefly to the House of Deputies where he joked, gave an overview of his life, and read a statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury. (See today's digest).
ECUSA's orthodox wing wants a clear call for repentance, not just regret for hurting the rest of the Communion by consecrating Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. Not only are they concerned about its effects, they - along with the Windsor Report - seek a moratorium on all future consecrations.
However, ECUSA's gay and pro-gay lobbyists are just as determined to ensure that there is no backtracking on the homosexual agenda, even if it means that the American Episcopal Church will have to leave or be forced out of the global Anglican Communion.
At the first convention press briefing of the American Anglican Council, Tennessee Bishop Bertram Herlong said, "I wasted an hour in the HOB today," which brought laughter from the 150 or so orthodox clergy, laity and bishops present.
In other news, it was disclosed that only about half of the Anglican Communion Network bishops were present at the roll call at the opening session of the HOB. It was not clear whether this was deliberate and a portent of things to come, or just the way things worked out. Present in the first session were Jim Adams (Western Kansas), John C. Howe (Central Florida), Donald Parsons (Quincy ret.), William Wantland (Eau Claire ret.) John Lipscomb, (Southwest Florida), Keith Ackerman (Quincy, IL) and Jeffrey Steenson (Rio Grande). Present but not sitting with the bishops was Peter H. Beckwith, Bishop of Springfield (IL). Absent among the Network bishops were Bob Duncan (Pittsburgh), Steve Jecko (Assistant Bishop of Dallas), Jim Stanton (Dallas), Jack Iker (Ft. Worth), John-David Schofield (San Joaquin), and Terry Kelshaw (Rio Grande ret.) A spokesman assured us that there was nothing untoward about their absence.
On a more serious note, Canon David Anderson, president of the conservative AAC group, asked the question, "Have the bishops embarked on the consent for the consecration of bishops, when one of [the bishops-elect] has signed a non-disclosure legal document not to reveal what went on when he was a priest in the Diocese of Pennsylvania?" Anderson was referring to a story written by this writer on Alabama Suffragan Bishop Mark Andrus, who was elected as the next Bishop of California. "Why is that not germane to the confidentiality process," asked Anderson. "How could they approve [of him] without them being privy to such an important non self-disclosure statement?" The Diocese of Pennsylvania Standing Committee refused to give consent to Andrus the first time when around when he was chosen as Suffragan Bishop of Alabama because they knew what really happened.
Anderson wondered aloud if the committee wasn't playing fast and loose with some of the wording. "We must deal first with the Windsor Report, what the Episcopal Church believes, before we begin the process of consents. By doing that the bishops have already made a decision about the Windsor Report," he said. "The Windsor Report took a year to produce.
Anderson then ripped the Anglican Consultative Council and the Episcopal Church over the funding of the ACC by ECUSA. "If the proposed escrowing of ACC funds from ECUSA is withdrawn or is taken back off the table would that mean the ACC or Anglican Communion Office then have decided that ECUSA had somehow met the Windsor Report requirements? Is there a monetary quid pro quo that will take place? Has a deal been cut? In the Diocese of Newark Dr. Louie Crew had gotten a resolution passed at their diocesan convention that none of the money in escrow be released for payment to the ACC "until we are assured that all bishops with jurisdiction in the Episcopal Church will be invited to attend as full and equal participants at the Lambeth Conference and that the ACC members from The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are reinstated as full members with seat, voice and vote.
The Rev. Richard Crocker, Truro Church in Virginia, noted that there was an attempt, yet again, to take the vote away from retired bishops. The task force proposing an ambitious revision of disciplinary canons known as Title IV (resolution A153: "Proposed Title IV Revisions") faced tough questioning from the Canons Committee. The present adversarial system would be replaced by a multi-layered approach that stresses mediation and reconciliation. Much of the concern from the committee deals with the fact that laity could also be disciplined under the new system. Crocker noted that the Title IV issue on Disciplinary canons was a hot button issue, but he said most were against it. "Only the two who proposed the resolution seem to support it," said Crocker.
Another AAC spokesperson noted that gay and lesbian rites now being proposed were getting closer to marriage. "In 2003 no one was talking about it, now it looks like we are."
The Church Pension Fund is discussing a medical plan for the whole church across the nation, it was also noted.
On a brighter note, the new Bishop-elect of Albany looks like a shoo-in for consecration. The solidly orthodox Very Rev. Bill Love, rector of St. Mary's in Lake Luzerne quickly got the endorsement of the Committee on the Consecration of Bishops. He's a humble and gracious man, but he will have his work cut out for him in dealing with the Via Media crowd. Other bishops to be considered for confirmations include the Rev. David Reed as suffragan bishop of the Diocese of West Texas; the Ven. Dena Harrison as suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Texas, and the Rev. Todd Ousley to be bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of Eastern Michigan.
A claim in a USA TODAY story that Episcopal priest, the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, a professor of religious studies at Piedmont College, Georgia had renounced her orders was totally untrue, said the communications spokesperson for the Diocese of Atlanta, Nan Ross. The report incorrectly said she had resigned. The link can be found here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-06-12-god-gays-cover_x.htm
NOEL - The National Organization of Episcopalians for Life is highlighting life as its theme at its NOEL's exhibit booth at General Convention (GC) . This is emphasized by the distribution of highlighters carrying NOEL's logo and website. NOEL head Georgette Forney says that offering the highlighters to people opens the door for conversation with them about NOEL's mission. Those who are pro-NOEL and pro-life take the time to say hello and chat or thank us being here, she said. For the most part, she added, the others are ignoring us with the exception of three people who challenged her on abortion, stem cell research, and abstinence issues. Stay tuned tomorrow for our legislative news....
To see ourselves as others see us is always an interesting, if sometimes painful, exercise, though in this case National Review magazine does not seem to be saying anything that others within the "official" Anglican fold have not.
In its June 19 edition, National Review writes:
"The Anglican Church marches steadily forward from its origins as an elegantly anglicized variant of the great Catholic tradition. The most recent advance has been a declaration by the Rt. Rev. Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford, that a careful reading of the Bible reveals Scriptural support for homosexual unions. Concerning those unions, His Grace remarked in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph that: 'They are congruous with the deepest Biblical truths about faithfulness and stability.'
"All this is in the context of a different [Church of England] bishop's making waves on a pastoral visit to Kenya, when the African medical noted this membership in the group Changing Attitude, whose website declares it to be 'Working for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender affirmation with within the Anglican Communion.'
"Third World Anglicanism now seems set fair to split from Canterbury over the issue of homosexuality. Here in the First World, while some conservative congregations keep up a valiant rearguard fight for traditional morality, the battle is all but lost. Solzhenitsyn's famous observation that 'nations are the wealth of mankind, they are its generalized personalities' applies to churches, too, and you don't need to be an Anglican to regret the degrading of an old and beautiful Christian tradition."
ON A HUMOROUS note, a vote for the cucumber sandwich, without crust, as the official food of the Episcopal Church lost by a vote of 335 for and 464 against. One wag suggested that the sandwich be accompanied with a bourbon chaser, while another suggested a Bloody Mary. A press representative of the Peanut Butter and Jelly function, the PPJ&F, proclaimed that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich as the official food of the press room of the 75th General Convention
All Blessings,
David W. Virtue DD
Bishop Swing removes John Bennison from priesthood after consultation with Bishop Bruno of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California June 12, 2006: The Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, announced today that action has been taken to resolve a clergy misconduct claim that was recently brought to his attention, but which occurred some thirty years ago. Within the last few weeks Bishop Bruno was made aware of the misconduct and call for the resignation and removal of the Reverend John Bennison of Clayton, CA. There was an appeal made to the Episcopal Church's national offices, as well as to the Bishop of the Diocese of California where Bennison is canonically resident.
Because the admitted misconduct by Bennison occurred in a parish in the Diocese of Los Angeles, Bishop Bruno had the authority under church canons to bring charges against Bennison and hold an ecclesiastical trial. Bennison was functioning under the auspices and authority of the Rt. Rev. William Swing, Bishop of the Diocese of California.
Bishop Bruno and his staff reviewed church records and consulted with the Presiding Bishop's office and Bishop Swing, who has canonical authority over Bennison. Following a conversation with Bishop Bruno, the Reverend John Bennison agreed to resign, voluntarily submit to discipline by Bishop Swing and to be deposed. Bishop Swing advised Bishop Bruno that Bennison's deposition was effective at 8:00 AM Monday.
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Cultural Issues in the Courts: January 2018 Update
Part of the Cultural Issues in the Courts: 2018 Series
Series About:
January 9, 2018
Latest developments in the Oregon baker case, plus abortion-related speech and state laws are all subjects of this issue of the Executive Briefing Judicial Update.
Freedom of Religion and Speech – Oregon
In a case very similar to the pending U.S. Supreme Court case (Masterpiece Cakeshop) involving Denver baker Jack Phillips, Oregon bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein are disappointed by the Oregon Court of Appeals' ruling that their religious freedom and free speech rights were not infringed when the state fined them $135,000 for declining, on religious grounds, to create a custom wedding cake for two lesbians in 2013. The couple eventually closed their bakery due to financial problems caused by the controversy. An appeal is expected, and the outcome of the Kleins' case could well hinge on the anticipated Supreme Court decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop due in the next few months.
Freedom of Speech, Abortion – California
A California state judge declares a recently passed pro-abortion state law there unconstitutional under the California constitution. The Reproductive FACT Act, signed into law in 2014, forces pro-life pregnancy resource centers (whose mission is to provide pregnant women with alternatives to abortion) to advertise and promote the availability of nearby abortion facilities. The judge stated: "The statute compels the clinic to speak words with which it profoundly disagrees when the state has numerous alternative methods of publishing its message." HOWEVER, in a different California case involving the same law but argued in the federal courts under the federal Constitution, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the FACT Act, a decision that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court and will be argued this spring.
Freedom of Speech, Abortion – Maryland
A federal appeals court unanimously strikes down a Baltimore ordinance requiring pro-life pregnancy resource centers there to post messages specifying that they do not provide abortions or refer patients to it. The Court noted: "the ordinance forces the center to utter, in its own waiting room, words at odds with its foundational beliefs and with the principles of those who have given their working lives to it."
Freedom of Speech, Abortion – New Jersey
A federal district court strikes down a city's attempt to limit sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics through the use of an ordinance restricting speech at all "healthcare facilities," declaring it overbroad and unconstitutional. Based on the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous 2014 opinion in McCullen v. Coakley, the judge held that the local ordinance was not "narrowly tailored" to deal with the issues of public safety at abortion facilities, and prohibited far too much protected speech.
Freedom of Speech, Abortion – Pennsylvania
In a decision contrary to the one reached in the New Jersey case, a Pittsburgh, Penn., "buffer zone" law is upheld by a federal district judge there. Since both New Jersey and Pennsylvania are located within the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it is very likely that the Court of Appeals will have to decide which lower court got it right.
Abortion Regulation – Texas
Texas' attempt to ban dismemberment abortions hits a roadblock in the form of a federal district court judge who strikes it down as unconstitutional, saying it put an undue burden on a woman's "right" to an abortion. Texas has already appealed the decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Compiled by Bruce Hausknecht, J.D. A lawyer and former pastor, Bruce joined Focus in 2004 as an analyst and spokesman for the ministry on public policy matters.


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I've seen a number of sites recently use variants of image replacement techniques to make graphical headings etc. accessible. There are a number of methods that appear to have different successes with screen readers etc. They all appear to suffer however if CSS is on and images are off (which may be pretty rare), or and this is not that rare for people with visual impairments, they use the IE accessibility settings - specifically: tools - Internet options - accessibility - ignore colours specified on web pages. I have recently user tested with 2 visually impaired people who use different screen magnification software combined with the microsoft IE accessibility settings - they missed out on all sorts of information - headings, menus etc. I can think of a way round this - but its a bit of a hack: put a link that only appears when colours are ignored and the link affects (or disables) the stylesheet to return the lost menus. I generally resist tailoring content for specific browsers or technologies (standards and all that) but this is a real practical issue that will affect a host of people. Any other suggestions or experiences with this? Cheers Jon --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.545 / Virus Database: 339 - Release Date: 27/11/2003Received on Thursday, 4 December 2003 11:57:48 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.1 : Tuesday, 13 October 2015 16:21:26 UTC


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Archive for August, 2002
Private Security
For many years, successive governments have tried to reform the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in Pakistan. For the past decade they have also been trying to regulate private security companies which first came into operation in Pakistan in 1984 but really started proliferating since 1986. While this government must take credit for enacting Ordinances to purpose, no individual deserves more credit than the present Federal Minister for Interior, Lt Gen (Retd) Moinuddin Haider, who broke the bureaucratic logjam and kick-started the process five years ago when he was Governor Sindh under the PML (N) regime. Credit must also go to Mr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, present Sindh Finance Minister, who in the space of one short meeting erased most of the difficulties the draft Ordinance posed for a couple of years. Private security has made a solid contribution to nation-building as a significant support to the LEAs in maintaining law and order and reducing their workload. Moreover employment has been provided to khaki collar workers who would otherwise find it difficult to get jobs once they were over their service with the Armed Forces.
In a historical sense, private security has come a full circle. In a feudal society the concept of private security has not changed in thousands of years, in today's modern world the same principles apply. Tribal chiefs, clan chiefs, etc paid private bodyguards out of their own pockets, it is the same today. Private security as an organized commercial entity came to Pakistan in the early 80s with a Joint Venture (JV) between a Pakistani and a US company, known primarily for its Cash-in-Transit (CIT) services. Between 1984 and 1986, there was a virtual monopoly of all private security in Pakistan by this one entity. As per the law of nature, the absolute domination of one single person over private security in Pakistan faded and despite his desperate underhand efforts through use of bureaucratic influence, by 1987 other companies had started to come on-stream. Today that foreign company is history in Pakistan. The number of letters this despicable individual wrote to government agencies against his competitors was not only crass commercial malfeasance but must be a world record in character assassination.
Making the Constitution Workable
Within hours of the unanimous approval of the 1973 Constitution by the elected representatives of all the Federating units of Pakistan, "fundamental rights", the very soul of any Constitution, was held in abeyance. If then PM Bhutto had a legitimate reason for the immediate suspension, then the Constitution was unworkable and in need of suitable amendments to make it fit for governance of the country on an equitable basis. If on the other hand, the suspension was simply to gag the opposition to Bhutto and his PPP government, then it amounted to a civilian coup de d'etat which was violative of the Constitution. Civilian or military, it does not matter, suspending fundamental rights goes against the tenets of any Constitution. Always the wily politician, Bhutto got away with something that may have been legally correct but was morally wrong. For 15 years these rights remained suspended till restored by late PM Mohammad Ali Khan Junejo, in the meantime many amendments substantially changed the character of the original document, there always being "the doctrine of necessity". The 1973 Constitution in its purest form certainly cemented the Federation in the aftermath of 1971 but was not geared for smooth governance, suitable amendments were required. Without going into the history of the amendments made and reasons thereof, some were done in good faith in keeping with the genius of democratic environment prevailing in the country, in many cases the speed and the manner of their passing through Parliament symbolized the bad faith manifest in them.
Contrary to public opinion, the 1973 Constitution has not been overhauled and defaced as some have suggested, it has simply been made more workable. Having involved a set of proposed amendments duly crafted by the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB), the military regime assessed the depth of the opposition and the motivation of the protest, and to their credit, the government has withdrawn almost two-thirds of the proposals. Therefore, what Gen Pervez Musharraf unveiled last Wednesday was that the National Security Council (NSC) was the bare necessity required to ensure that military interaction would cease in future in direct form and that a mechanism to gauge the issues and debate it in higher council (where the Armed Forces would have some say but not VETO powers) would be put in place. All the other amendments were under the Legal Framework Order (LFO) 2002 and were necessary to ensure that democracy would have some future on its return to Pakistan and would not be subject to intrigue and conspiracy as in the past, or repeated military intervention thereof.
The Quaid Goes Electronic
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the man responsible for the awakening of the muslims of British India and for carving out a nation out of an exploited and subjugated minority so that they could live in a country of their own and have their own cultural, religious and national identity. Never has one single man had such an impact on the course of events in history, he gave the muslims of India the reason, coherence, expression and then the direction for the creation of a separate muslim nationhood and a separate muslim state out of nothing but hopes and aspirations. Indeed the Quaid was a man of a great stature, blessed with a vision and a dynamism that saw the ultimate realization of the dreams of millions of muslims. Initially he was an advocate of unity between hindus and muslims but ultimately the machinations of the hindu leaders (and the British) and the sorry plight of the muslims convinced him that such a unity was not possible as they were two distinct nations having their own religion, ideology and culture.
It is indeed strange and sad that in this era of computer technology there is very little content available on the Internet on the Quaid and whatever little there is, it certainly is not enough. No official site exists. It is imperative that all aspects of the Quaid's life and his never-ending struggle for the creation of Pakistan be made available in such a manner that easy access can be possible and maximum benefit can be derived. With this in view the Jinnah Society launched the first ever CD Rom and Website on the Quaid in an impressive function at the Governor House, Karachi on 12th August 2002. The CD Rom has been designed and developed by Enabling Technologies, Karachi who have also developed CD Roms on Faiz Ahmed Faiz and the 50 Years of Art in Pakistan. The Sindh Governor, Mohammadmian Soomro was the Chief Guest and Mr. Sharifuddin Pirzada was the Guest Speaker. The CD Rom has been based upon the Jinnah Anthology which was also compiled and edited by Mr. Liaquat Merchant who is the Quaid's grand nephew and President of the Jinnah Society. The CD Rom, although based on the Jinnah Anthology has more content to offer as it also contains additional material such as articles and speeches of the Quaid and impressions and personal recollections of the Quaid's contemporaries and a superb photo gallery which give it a more special flair. Begum Shaista Ikramullah, Yousuf Haroon, Justice J.A. Channa, Princess Abida Sultaan of Bhopal, Sahabzada Yaqub Ali Khan, Ata Rabbani and Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada dwell on their personal memories of the Quaid while impressions are given by Beverly Nichols, Lady Wavell, Aga Khan III and a host of others. Stanley Wolpert has presented a new tribute to the Quaid, Akbar S. Ahmad writes about what he calls Jinnah's "Gettysburg Address", Liaquat Merchant presents a study while S.M. Burke presents a historian's perspective on Jinnah but there is much more. Some of the material contained in the CD Rom has never been published before and whatever was published was not easily accessible to the readers.
There is no doubt that this CD will be a source of great utility specially for students and for the younger generation who do not have access to such information at the present time other than books or whatever little information that exists on the Internet. Mr. Liaquat Merchant rightly said that it is imperative that the younger generation be made aware of the struggle that went into the creation of Pakistan and about the Quaid. In order for the CD to be available to everyone 10000 CDs are to be produced initially for sale in Pakistan and abroad. This is a most welcome step and will certainly be beneficial to many.
Crunch Time
That this military regime has been able to manage good governance as much as a basically corrupt system will allow without the formal declaration of martial law is no mean achievement. Yet in not being able to bring the Bhutto-Zardari combine and the Sharifs to justice as promised at the beginning of their tenure, the Musharraf government have managed to resurrect the fortunes of those who should have been politically dead and gone. The eloquent official waxing about our present rosy situation notwithstanding, what we have today is a political morass without great future for the country. Economically, we are far better off than on Oct 12, 1999, sound reforms and Sep 11 combining with really good monetary policies of the State Bank of Pakistan to provide a good base for economic resurgence.
Living in a glass house, the Choudhry Shujaats of this world do need the discretion of a front man, relatively clean (but nevertheless a nonentity outside of Lahore) Azhar is custom-built to take the heat, and if the electoral manipulation being blatantly done by the civil administration succeeds, odds – on favorite to be our next PM. Is this what Pakistan deserves? All the print and electronic media (barring PTV) have confirmed that the Choudhrys of Gujrat have Tariq Aziz as a friend, obviously he carries greater clout than Lt Gen Hamid Javed, the other Principal Staff Officer (PSO) to the Chief Executive. It is no secret that Tariq Aziz kept National Accountability Bureau (NAB) cynosure away from the Choudhrys. If Tariq Aziz was a corrupt, inefficient person, this would have been logical, but he is essentially a good man with misplaced loyalty to his friends superceding what should be responsibility and commitment to the people of Pakistan. That unfortunately happens to be Pakistan's major problem in every level and strata of society, whether one is in politics, judiciary, the Armed Forces, civil administration, business, etc. nepotism and favouritism is always far more important than what one owes to the nation.
Benazir Blinks!
The Bhutto family functions on the premise that most Pakistanis have very short memories, unfortunately they are quite right. Ms Benazir was the first major politician to welcome the military regime's dispatching of Mian Nawaz Sharif on Oct 12, 1999, the "honeymoon" went on for sometime. The PPP Chairperson finally realized that the one-sided "love affair" was going nowhere, the military regime being in no mood to drop corruption charges against her or her husband, Asif Zardari. Frustrated in the hope that on the basis of "an enemy of an enemy is a friend", the military regime's animosity towards Mian Nawaz Sharif would force political compromise with her. Ms Benazir did a smart U-turn, transforming her politics into virulent opposition. A consummate political animal, she gave the appearance of keeping back channels open to the COAS, mainly to shore up the morale of her increasingly demoralized supporters who were expecting some relief in Nawaz's ouster. When the military regime denied any such contact, she declared "war" on the Pakistan Army.
For the past eight months Ms Benazir has been assailing the defenders of this country, synchronizing her attacks on our men in uniform in line with India's contention, i.e. Pakistan Army is to blame for cross-border terrorism across the LOC, the attack on Indian Parliament, harbouring and sponsoring terrorism of all kind, etc. To retain the loyalty of her party workers while in self-imposed exile, she has kept a barrage of misleading propaganda going, the latest being that she would return to Pakistan by special aircraft on August 14 and fight the elections despite the election laws. This brinkmanship may be brilliant politically, the fact remains that other than being forced to knuckle down to the existing reality of the military regime's ground rules for politics in Pakistan, she has succumbed to internal pressure within PPP forcing her to nominate Makhdoom Amin Fahim as the head of a newly created Parliamentary entity of the PPP. Her choice as rubber-stamp was Aftab Shahban Mirani. Winking at the military regime for sometime, she then tried international pressure to stare them out, Ms Benazir has now blinked.
Two Countries, One Nation
For over 30 years now we have been carrying the burden of the horrific experience of the break-up of the country, in one symbolic measure the President set the ghosts of 1971 to rest. A simple apology meant a lot to the Bangladeshi psyche, the President being a uniformed person the effect was force-multiplied many times. The official Bangladeshi reaction was swift and concise, 1971 is now behind us, it was time to move ahead and strengthen relations to the benefit of both countries. Both for Pakistan and Bangladesh it was important to get over 1971.


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Instructor of the Month
Introducing Wendy Jardine
This September marks my eighth year as a Pilates Instructor. I started practising Pilates thirteen years ago. I should confess that the first Pilates class I ever did I thought was the most boring thing I'd ever done. I didn't say this to my teacher, but I did say I preferred ballet. My Pilates teacher, Domini Winter, was also my ballet teacher and she suggested I persevere. Well, all I can say is within about six sessions I was hooked! I loved it, loved the flow of the class, the feel good factor of the stretches and enjoyed the muscle tone and control of my body. Domini one day suggested I became a teacher and cover her classes. She suggested I trained with Michael King of the Pilates Institute as she had done some years before. Eventually, after some persuasion, I took the plunge and have never looked back. Joanne Cobbe assessed me on the practical exam for Matwork 1. She was the nicest assessor in the world and I was delighted as she became more and more central at the Institute. The rest of course is history. Suffice to say, I always go to Jo at JPilates for training and CPD and I have recommended her to my students who have wanted to become Pilates Instructors.
Perhaps I should add that thirteen years ago I was told that I would be in a wheel chair within two years due to osteoporosis. I do not take medication or HRT. That year I started Pilates with Domini. Thirteen years on, I am glad to report that I am not in a wheelchair and not on medication for osteoporosis and following recent checks, my consultant doesn't want to see me for another three years! I put this down and so does my consultant, to regular Pilates, eating fish, salad and olive oil!
Q&A Session:
How would you describe your style of teaching?
I like to think of Pilates as a way of life and so try to teach in a way that hopefully empowers students to practice. By practice, I mean having the knowledge to put it into everyday life, to stand and sit tall, to walk well and to keep their body strong and pain free. So, though the class flows through move after move, I also want the students to engage with their technique and feel their Pilates, from the inside out, of course! I hope to tell them why they're doing a move and what purpose it serves in the real world so that through this muscle awareness, their posture, strength and daily activities will be enhanced.
My aim for each class is a sense of flow, fun and challenges, with time always for deep breaths, stretches and core stability work.
I teach over 150 students a week. My youngest student is nine and the oldest is eighty-five. I do ten group sessions a week and several 121s. My client base is local people of all ages from students to OAPs and I teach dancers and dance students at the Royal Academy of Dance. In truth, I teach anyone who wants to do Pilates.
What are you planning for the next 12 months?
I've recently completed the GP Referral Course, which also included a qualification as a Nutrition Advisor and so over the next 12 months, I plan to do something in the line of nutrition advisor for my students. I also plan to bring in a Pilates mini loop class from time to time, having been inspired by the loop session at Jo's Pilates Convention. I've also bought new, thicker mats! I think this splash of newness and comfort will feel good for everyone. And, more than likely before the year's up, I will have signed up for a Level 4 course with Jo!
What do you find most challenging about your work and how do you overcome this?
The most challenging thing about my work is having a holiday and finding cover for my classes! I feel very dedicated to my students and making sure they can always have Pilates in their lives. So I'd be happy to hear from anyone who is interested in covering when I'm away!
What is the most rewarding aspect of being a Pilates instructor?
For me, it is definitely seeing someone go from pain and sometimes bewilderment about their body, to strength, know-how and confidence.
If you could give one piece of advice to a new instructor what would it be?
Believe in Pilates and keep learning. I think a big part of successful Pilates teaching is in the cueing of the moves. So I would say, keep playing with cueing through your own practice and find what works for your students.
For more information on Wendy's classes visit www.pilates-instructor.net and you can contact Wendy at firstname.lastname@example.com.