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Divided Christians in Australia Are Engaged in a Culture War of Their Own
by David J. Palmer
Judging by Australia's success at the recent Olympic Games, especially when measured by medals per million head of population—there are 20 million of us—it might appear that we have an overwhelming obsession with sport. Unfortunately for many Australians, this is true, but not surprising given the inordinate amount of state funding for Olympic sports bodies as well as the abundance of open space and sunshine.
However, our athletic success cannot disguise the significant differences within Australian society. This year, Australian Christians found themselves divided from other Australians over two matters.
The First Division
The first is a recent court case brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria against a Christian group under the state's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001. The second is an attempt by a male homosexual couple, waving a marriage license obtained overseas earlier this year, to have their "marriage" recognized in the Family Court of Australia as a marriage under Australian law.
The basic thrust of the Act is that no one may "engage in conduct that incites hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of" someone on the basis of his race or religion. It excepts anyone who can demonstrate that he spoke "reasonably and in good faith" for a religious purpose.
A person claiming the exemption, however, must demonstrate the reasonableness and good faith of his actions, and the Act also declares that "the person's motive in engaging in any conduct is irrelevant." In other words, a person charged with hate speech has his work cut out for him to escape penalty, in effect being held guilty until he proves himself otherwise. The Act distinguishes between "unlawful vilification" for which it gives no set penalties, though such penalties are likely to involve apology and/or compensation, and "serious vilification" for which the penalty can be a fine or even imprisonment.
It didn't take long for Muslims to issue a complaint against a group of Christians. Just two months after the Act was passed, a Pentecostal group, Catch the Fire Ministries (CTFM), ran a seminar to explain Islam and to help Christians reach out in love to minister among the growing Muslim community in Melbourne. The Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) asked three Muslim converts of Anglo-Australian ancestry to attend. With the backing of the ICV, they lodged a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Commission against two pastors and the CTFM.
Both conciliation and mediation failed, and a hearing at Victorian Civil and Religious Tribunal began in mid-October of last year. Some 36 days of hearings, conducted at great expense to all parties, were concluded at the end of March. As I write in mid-October 2004, we still await the ruling. Whatever it is, the aggrieved party is almost certain to appeal, possibly all the way to the High Court of Australia.
A fascinating aspect of the hearings was the unwillingness of the Muslim group's counsel to cross-examine CTFM's expert witness's rebuttal of their submission, a rebuttal based on a detailed review of the teaching of the Koran and Hadith. This precluded consideration of the material, but also demonstrated the Islamic leadership's extreme unease with the Koran and Hadith being exposed to such public scrutiny.
Religious Disharmony
The legislation puts religious freedom in the State of Victoria at serious risk. What it actually promotes is not religious harmony but freedom from religion. Implicit in it is the hope that Christians and Muslims will slug it out and through the application of the law silence one another.
Muslims had strongly supported the legislation, but some are rethinking the matter. Amir Butler, executive director of the Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee, wrote in The Age newspaper of Christians with notebooks and pencils attending meetings at which he spoke and said he has reversed his support for the legislation.
"I can say with some confidence that these laws have served only to undermine the very religious freedoms they intended to protect," he wrote. He ended his letter with the rhetorical question, "Who after all, would give credence to a religion that appears so fragile it can only exist if protected by a bodyguard of lawyers?"
In other words, rather than promoting social harmony, the legislation promotes disharmony. As the Anglican bishop Robert Forsyth of Sydney said in his 2001 Acton lectures, multiculturalists have a static and therefore inadequate view of culture in that they believe that religion is contiguous with culture, thus making religious identity hereditary. Islam and Christianity will never be confined in such cultural boxes, and so trying to achieve social cohesion by silencing missionary religions will never work.
If push comes to shove and the state starts imprisoning Christians and Muslims for their religious beliefs, Christians and Muslims will push back. Many of us pastors have agreed that if any of our fellow pastors becomes the object of a complaint over a sermon, we will all preach the same sermon and confirm that fact in a signed letter to the press.
The Second Division
The second division is one we share with Christians in almost every other English-speaking and European country, that over homosexuality. There seems to be a consensus among Christians in the West that the homosexualists have already won acceptance of their lifestyle. This may be a premature assessment, at least in Australia. Though we have reason for concern, we have just as much reason for hope.
The courts are our biggest reason for concern. Earlier this year, two young Australian men, having "married" in a civil ceremony under new laws in Canada, returned to Australia and applied to the Australian Family Court to have their "marriage" recognized under the provision of the Marriage Act 1961 for marriages contracted overseas. This caused immediate alarm in Christian circles.
The Australian Family Court had already innovated in two earlier judgments. In October 2001 a judge ruled that two women, one of whom had decided to become a man, could marry. The word man, said the judge, could mean a variety of things and was not determined by biology. In December 2003, another judge ruled that it was in a child's best interest to be raised by two male homosexuals.
Legislation is our biggest reason for hope. Christians have been concerned that the Marriage Act 1961 contains no definition of marriage in its interpretation clause. The Australian Family Association, in origin a conservative Catholic lay organization, proposed legislation to remedy this deficiency and presented it to the coalition government.
The amendment would make two changes: it would add the words, "marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life" into the interpretation clause; and it would add a further clause stating that "a union solemnised in a foreign country between: (a) a man and another man; or (b) a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia."
The proposal stalled in the Senate when the Labour Party combined with the minor parties to send the matter off to a committee, with the public invited to comment on the proposed legislation. It was at this point that the homosexual lobby lost the battle.
At last count, over 16,000 submissions have been received by the committee, a record number, with reportedly only 100 arguing against the legislation and in favor of same-sex marriage. The Australian Family Association sponsored a spectacularly successful rally in the Great Hall of Parliament, attended by the Prime Minister and other politicians, at which the Labour shadow Attorney General promised to support the proposed legislation without waiting for the enquiry to be completed.
On August 12 the Marriage Amendment Act 2004 was passed in the Senate with only the minor parties voting against it.
This has been a fabulous victory. It is noteworthy that it was fought entirely by the Christian community. It is also noteworthy that once the legislation passed through the Senate, the homosexual protests found no responsive chord in the Australian public, save some half-hearted editorials in the press.
The Churches Today
What of Christianity in Australia? In terms of numbers and general decay, the church in Australia more closely approximates that in Britain than that in the United States, though on the whole it is more conservative and Evangelical. And it operates in a much more secular society than America's.
Australian Protestant church life became dominated by theological liberalism in the 1950s and 1960s. Particularly afflicted were the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists, while the Anglicans, Lutherans, and Baptists were less affected. It then proceeded to collapse dramatically under the impact of the sexual and theological revolution of the 1960s. Virtually none of those who were youth in the liberal churches of the 1960s and 1970s remain in the church today. The flag-bearer for liberalism in Australia, the Uniting Church, a 1977 merger of the Methodist Church and most of the Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches, declined in weekly attendance by 22 percent in the 1990s, a decline that has likely accelerated since.
Other factors affected the churches, of course. The introduction of Sunday-morning sports in the 1960s was a particular disaster for the churches.
According to a National Church Life Survey conducted in 2001, about 750,000 Catholics and 900,000 Protestants attend services each week, together making up about 9 percent of the Australian population, down from roughly 10 percent five years earlier. The big losers were the Catholics (down 13 percent), Uniting Church (11 percent), Anglicans outside the diocese of Sydney (10 percent), and the Lutherans and Salvation Army (both down 7 percent).
In overall numbers, however, Protestantism actually grew slightly, but only because of large gains by Pentecostals (over 20 percent), the Anglican diocese of Sydney (11 percent), and Baptists (up 8 percent). The Catholic Church is the largest single body, with the Anglicans and Pentecostals of various stripes roughly equal and second in size, followed by the Uniting Church, the Baptists, Church of Christ, Presbyterian/Reformed, and Lutherans.
Australian churchgoers are overwhelmingly conservative, certainly socially, if not also theologically. Apart from the Uniting Church and pockets of the Anglican and Catholic Churches, the liberals and nominals left years ago. The church is also no great prize for homosexuals. Even in the Uniting Church, a decision last year to allow the ordination of practicing homosexuals led to such a revolt in the pews that the church put the issue on hold while it takes further soundings in its presbyteries and congregations.
There are some interesting features in Australian church life worth pointing out.
Sydney & the Pentecostals
The importance of the Anglican diocese of Sydney cannot be overstated. It survived the traumas of the 1960s and 1970s and kept its young people. Most of its churches today are full of people of all age groups, many operating with teams of three, four, or even more ministers.
The area covered by the diocese contains a quarter of Australia's population and half of its church-going Anglicans. They are evangelistically minded, broadly Calvinistic in theology, and, under their outstanding archbishop, Dr. Peter Jensen, have committed their resources to the goal of having 10 percent of the population of the diocese as committed members of an Anglican church by 2010. They are a great encouragement to fellow Evangelicals in other denominations.
Should a split come in the Anglican Communion, do not be surprised if the diocese aligns with the Anglicans of the Global South and extends its operations in Australia beyond its diocesan boundaries. Alternatively, Archbishop Jensen could be elected the Australian Anglican Primate in 2005 when the liberal Peter Carnley retires.
To American Episcopalians, even those of an orthodox stripe, Sydney Anglicanism might come as a shock. It is overwhelmingly low-church, to the extent of making Presbyterians look high-church. Thus, apart from a traditional 8 a.m. Holy Communion service, ministers (don't ever call them priests) have dispensed with clerical collars and robes, the prayer book is gone, and the worship is informal in a non-charismatic sort of way. Faithful, expository preaching of the Bible occupies central place in the worship service. And people are converted, even in the rock-hard soil of modern secular Australia, and the new converts are enthusiastic.
In terms of growth, age range, and ability to draw in people outside the churches, Pentecostals are the most dynamic group in Australia. In the 1960s, they were but a blip on the radar. The early impetus for growth came from the break-up of individual Protestant congregations as a result of the Charismatic renewal movement of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the defection of surprisingly large numbers of Catholics.
They are still growing, principally as a result of their own evangelism, though there is evidence that their growth is slowing. They have many large churches, with one in Sydney reportedly drawing 14,000 people every Sunday. It will be interesting to see the ways in which Pentecostalism develops. They have embraced Christian schooling, and being closer to the raw edge of Australian society, have various programs to assist young people, especially those in trouble.
Pentecostals have moved away from premillennial eschatology to a realized eschatology, from a fixation with the details of Christ's return to a belief that "you can have it all now!" The movement lies wide open to the latest "health and prosperity" fad, though some want to delve deeper into the Scriptures. A fascinating development in my own denomination is that a third of the candidates for the ministry are former Pentecostals who have become enamored of Reformed theology and worldview.
Catholics & Presbyterians
This writer trembles to offer anything other than the most tentative of impressions of the state of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic clergy are mostly above 60 years old and totally overloaded with the care of their parishes. Vocations have collapsed. Stories of clergy sexual abuse, almost wholly involving long-past homosexual behavior, keep cropping up in the courts and the press to dampen spirits, while also in the public eye, at least for Catholics and interested onlookers, is the public bickering that seems to revolve around whether you are for or against the pope and George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney.
Cardinal Pell is everything Evangelical Protestants honor and respect in a Catholic leader: firm, resolute, defending orthodoxy, and kicking sand at all the revisionists inside and outside his church. The Anglican Jensen and the Catholic Pell are good friends, recognizing in one another fidelity to their respective church's confessional stance and a common devotion to our Lord Jesus.
Overall, the Catholic Church is going through a very low patch, something we Protestants went through 30 years ago. Catholics will tell you what's wrong with their church but not what is good. There are still more nominal Catholics yet to be lost, such is their alienation, and at the same time there has been no move of Evangelicals in Australia into Catholicism, or Orthodoxy for that matter, as in the United States.
There are many Orthodox churches closely connected to the recent arrival of groups from Orthodox homelands. They keep very much to themselves, even the Greeks, who have been here longest.
Perhaps I may be permitted a few reflections on my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church, a small body made up of those Presbyterians who did not join the Uniting Church in 1977. Our opponents said that we would not survive ten years, but 27 years on, it is the Uniting Church that is in decline.
After 1977, the remaining liberals went for all the administrative and titular jobs, while the Evangelicals went for the theological colleges. Now there is scarcely a liberal minister left in the denomination. Some congregations have died and others are dying, such was the legacy of liberalism and the continuing decline of country areas, but new congregations are being planted and former liberal ones slowly turned round.
A very significant factor for our denomination has been the arrival of people previously evangelized by Presbyterians, people from the Indian sub-continent, Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, and Korea especially, and more recently from Sudan. A third of my own congregation are beautiful black Sudanese brothers and sisters in Christ, and oh, so many children.
Most encouraging have been the number of young men offering themselves for the ordained ministry in a church that is unashamedly confessional and Calvinistic to boot, the establishment of patrols into the vast inland regions of our land, and the upsurge in numbers of missionaries going overseas as Bible translators, teachers, medical specialists, and pastor-teachers.
Women & Children
Mention should be made of two other matters: the innovation of women's ordination and the success of Christian schooling.
All denominations now have women fully functioning as ministers, apart from the Catholic, Orthodox, Presbyterian and Reformed Churches, and Anglicans from Sydney and one or two other dioceses. For some years now, women have comprised more than 50 percent of the Uniting Church's candidates for the ministry, and the same is true in a number of Anglican dioceses. The women presenting themselves for ordination are generally in their forties and fifties.
The experiment has not been a success. Congregations, including those in the Uniting Church, prefer male ministers. Healthy parishes can call their own pastors, but less healthy ones depend upon their denominational authorities to appoint pastors, and this has become the usual route for women into parish ministry. In other words, women tend to end up in struggling churches. Evidence is emerging that putting women in charge of parishes leads not to the hoped-for gain but to a loss of parishioners, and the loss is disproportionately a loss of men.
It is an interesting commentary on the matter to observe how the call for women's ordination among Presbyterians and Sydney Anglicans has subsided rather than increased ten years after these bodies' initial denial of women's ordination (my church actually reversed its position). That said, the challenge remains in my own denomination to encourage the gifts of our women. We haven't yet got that right, having swung so hard against women's ordination.
The development of Christian schools and the recovery of some of the elite schools (principally Anglican and Presbyterian) of their Christian heritage is most encouraging for the future of the church in Australia. These schools generally make a determined effort to employ Christian teachers and to inculcate in their students Christian disciplines and a Christian understanding of life and the world.
Today, no fewer than one-third of all Australian children are educated outside the state school system. All the growth in school enrollments in recent years has been in the non-government sector. By and large, Christian parents able to do so place their children in private schools, whether the local Catholic parochial school, an elite school, a denominational school (sponsored by Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Orthodox), or in one of various independent systems, such as the parent-controlled Christian schools started by post-World War II Dutch immigrants.
Hard Going
We Australian Christians live in a very secular country. It is hard going for the gospel. But Jesus is our King and he has said, "I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!" Even so, come Lord Jesus!
David J. Palmer is minister of Pioneers Presbyterian Church in Cheltenham, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Before going to seminary, he worked in Australia and the United Kingdom in the senior management of a chemical company.
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subset: commoncrawl


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ST. PETERSBURG — It didn't matter which true freshman was taking snaps for Rutgers on Saturday night.
Whether it was quarterback Tom Savage or receiver Mohamed Sanu lining up in the wildcat formation, the Scarlet Knights got four touchdowns from their dynamic duo, pulling away from Central Florida to win the St. Petersburg Bowl 45-24 before a sellout crowd at Tropicana Field.
Sanu rushed for two scores on direct snaps and caught a third touchdown from Savage, who threw for 294 yards. Together, they helped Rutgers win its fourth bowl game in as many years, while keeping UCF winless in its short bowl history at 0-3.
"We did this for the seniors," Sanu said. "We wanted to send them out with a victory."
When Savage and Sanu weren't dominating, Rutgers' run defense was, holding the Knights to negative rushing yards late into the third quarter. Largo's Brynn Harvey, who had rushed for 1,077 yards and 14 touchdowns in the regular season, was held to 30 yards on 13 carries. Down 21 points in the third quarter, UCF went for it on fourth and 1, and Rutgers stuffed running back Jonathan Davis for no gain.
Davis scored on a 1-yard run late in the fourth to bring UCF back within 38-24 but Damaso Munoz of Rutgers returned the ensuing onside kick 35 yards for a touchdown.
In a high-scoring first half, momentum shifted to Rutgers just before halftime when UCF got the ball on its 13 with 1:46 to play. Knights quarterback Brett Hodges was picked off by walk-on cornerback Billy Anderson, who took it into the end zone for a 28-17 lead.
The Scarlet Knights started pulling away on the first drive of the second half, as Savage found Sanu deep for a 61-yard gain, then connected with the true freshman again for an 11-yard touchdown and a 35-17 lead.
UCF, which had a strong advantage in the stands with much of the sellout crowd announced at 29,763, got a 64-yard return from Quincy McDuffie on the opening kickoff. But Rutgers, which leads the nation in turnover margin, intercepted Hodges two plays later.
Rutgers showcased Sanu in the wildcat formation early, and he scored the first of two touchdowns on a direct snap from the 5-yard line for a 7-0 lead.
Sanu helped UCF, too, as he muffed a punt deep in his territory to set the Knights up on the Rutgers 9-yard line. Hodges tied the score with a touchdown to Kamar Aiken on third down.
Rutgers answered two plays later, with Savage hitting receiver Tim Brown for a 65-yard touchdown and a 14-7 lead. After a UCF field goal, Savage converted three third downs to set up another short Sanu touchdown and a 21-10 lead.
UCF answered again, with Hodges hitting Aiken in stride for a 34-yard touchdown, cutting Rutgers' lead to 21-17.
Harvey was held in check. He managed just 14 yards on six carries in the first half, and UCF rushed for just 8 yards as a team before halftime.
The game's sellout crowd was a solid improvement on the 25,025 that was announced last season for USF's win against Memphis in the bowl's debut.
UCF came in seeking its first bowl win in just its third appearance, having lost the Hawaii and Liberty bowls in the past four years. Rutgers has won bowls in four straight seasons — this after not winning any bowl games in its first 136 seasons.
"It's unbelievable," Savage said. "I'm just happy to end the season with a 'W'. I'm excited for the future, it's a good jump start for 2010."
Times writer Greg Auman can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com and at (813) 226-3346.


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Thread: Dessa?
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December 6th, 2012 12:29 PM #1
I looked up the name Dessa as it is a combo of my MIL's and my mothers name. I thought it might be a good way to honour both ( as a MN only). All I could find is that is was in the top 1000 in like 1900.
Anyone know what it means or it's actual origin??
Do you like it or does it seem "made up" ???
Thanks!on the search for the perfect girls name!


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Detail Information
- Mammalian cells express three distinct dynein heavy chains that are localized to different cytoplasmic organellesE A Vaisberg
Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309 0347, USA
J Cell Biol 133:831-42. 1996..Apparently, specific cytoplasmic dyneins, like individual members of the kinesin superfamily, play unique roles in the traffic of cytomembranes...
- Cytoplasmic dynein plays a role in mammalian mitotic spindle formationE A Vaisberg
Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder 80309 0347
J Cell Biol 123:849-58. 1993..Possible mechanisms of dynein's involvement in mitosis are discussed...


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MAYBE it was all in our heads. Maybe there was nothing wrong with Swindon Town after all. Maybe, just maybe, the events of the past three months have led us all to become hypochondriacs.
When Hans Christian Andersen, the celebrated author, travelled Europe in the 19th century he was so convinced he was going to be taken ill that on his person at all times he carried a piece of paper on which he scribbled 'I only seem dead'.
Swindon, it seems, had been handed a similar note by their fans and local media during the summer of 2014. Perhaps understandably, the County Ground became a place of pessimism and borderline nihilism while the sun shone brightly; and the phrase 'no news is good news' was by universal consensus dismissed as total garbage.
No one can blame the club's hardcore support for feeling that way. It's hard to be inspired ahead of a new season when there are more headlines relating to off-field squabbles than enterprising new signings. Yet, amongst all our collective doom and gloom and anxious glances at the garish Sky Sports News transfer window countdown clock, we managed to forget that there already existed a group of hugely talented players with a season's experience in League One stuffed neatly into their back pockets. On Saturday, they showed how valuable that and they can be.
And so an opening day that began with nervous smiles ended with rapturous applause. This was far from the perfect performance from Mark Cooper's men but it was everything the manager had promised – entertainment, hard work and pride – and more.
Sure, there are still plenty of areas of concern. The defence lacked shape against the counter-attack, over-committing through youthful exuberance, and for 20 second-half minutes the Town back three ought to have been slapped with a baggage tag – 'fragile, handle with care'.
However, thanks to some woeful Scunthorpe finishing and the now traditional stoic display from Wes Foderingham, they survived with just one goal conceded. That needed an element of luck. Going forward, Swindon's supremacy had nothing to do with good fortune.
In Yaser Kasim, Massimo Luongo and Louis Thompson, the Robins have perhaps the most naturally gifted midfield in the division. On Saturday they strutted their stuff with all the arrogance and poise of unbeaten stallions in the paddock.
Kasim, in particular, was sublime. One pirouette on the touchline in front of the dug-outs brought gasps from the home crowd. He ran the engine room with grace on the ball and dogged determination off it.
Then there was Nathan Byrne. Finally allowed back over to the right, the wing-back delivered balance to a team so lop-sided for much of pre-season. Marcus Williams, the Scunthorpe defender, couldn't keep up. Quite literally.
Byrne's nimble feet and darting runs had his marker chasing dust. No wonder, then, that Williams lost the plot with 10 minutes to go, delivering a double-handed thump to Nathan Thompson's face and getting himself sent off for his troubles.
Byrne set up the opener with a tidy cross, tucked home by Luongo for his first goal in a little over nine months – a gestation period that has seen the Australian grow into quite possibly the finest all-round footballer Swindon has had the pleasure of watching this millennium. After the game he talked of hitting the 10-goal mark this season. If this performance is replicated 45 more times, he'll surpass it with ease.
Then it was Michael Smith's turn. Detracted by the stubborn element amongst Town's fanbase since his arrival, the former Charlton man has a knack of being in the right place at the right time. He was there to latch onto Louis Thompson's cross to make it 2-0 after 12 minutes and then again when Ben Gladwin's cannonball strike rebounded off a post into his path on the stroke of half-time – though how much he knew about it is grounds for a good debate.
In between Smith's first and second goals, Paddy Madden stole in to bring Scunthorpe back into the game, ghosting ominously through the middle to beat Foderingham, and, but for the Town keeper, the half-time fanfare that greeted the Swindon players might have been a little more downbeat.
He saved marvellously from Jennison Myrie-Williams's back-post header and, in the second half, kept out an almost identical chance for Madden.
And so after our cries for help this summer, on Saturday the County Ground was enthralled not by a new signing but by familiar faces.
Kasim, Luongo, Byrne and Foderingham – names we all know, players who were on the roster before this summer of our discontent; the old guard in a brave new world.
Cooper said before the match that first-day results are undecipherable, they can't be relied upon to predict the direction of a campaign.
Still, it seems our hypochondria can be cured after all.


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My family likes apricots but I'm the only one who loves them. Besides being delicious, apricots are low calorie and loaded with vitamin A, which is good for your skin and hair. Plus they're a good source of fiber and are full of potassium. I don't mean to sound like a spokeswoman for the apricot industry but I happen to love them and wish my family shared in my enthusiasm. Everyone does eat at least one piece of pie when it's fresh out of the oven - a la mode of course. But I was raised to love apricots.
My mother grew up on a fruit ranch in San Jose, where my grandfather raised apricots, cherries and plums. My Uncle Frank took over the ranch. When I was a little girl I spent many summer days at the ranch with my mother and older sister there they "cut cots" to be laid on the drying tables. I would play with my cousin Shirley, who is two years younger. Shirley and I would meander through the orchards until we reached the train tracks. We'd step up onto the track and walk carefully, one foot in front of the other, pretending to be tightrope walkers. When we heard the train coming we'd jump aside and as the train whizzed by we'd wave at the conductor and he'd wave back. I don't remember anyone ever once telling us, "Don't get hit by the train." It would have made me nervous to let my kids wander through an orchard by themselves and play on train tracks but parents had more faith in their kids back then.
Although we lived in a neighborhood we always had apricot and peach trees in our back yard, and my mother made apricot jam and pies each summer. Maybe that's why I love the pies so. When we first moved to our house off Livorna Road 28 years ago, my Uncle Frank planted an apricot tree in our back yard, down the hill that is otherwise mown weeds and a flagstone path. Then he stopped by every year and pruned it until we moved away for awhile. He died a couple of years ago at the age of 98.
Since Uncle Frank stopped ministering to it, the apricot tree hasn't done so well but we don't worry about it too much because we don't need a bigger crop just for me. I enjoy seeing the apricots appear each spring then grow increasingly colorful in the sunlight. I walk down the path to watch as my crop ripens. As the apricots turn golden, the birds begin to peck away at those at the top of the tree, and the deer eat all the low ones. I'm told the squirrels help themselves too, although I've never seen it. I try to pick the ones in the middle, and they sure taste good.
Some people have more fruits and vegetables growing in their yards than they can eat or give away. Anna Chan from Clayton, aka the Lemon Lady, has stepped in to help. Anna is somewhat famous for taking the extra produce from private gardens and delivering it to places like the Monument Crisis Center and the Food Bank. She has personally harvested or collected more than 6,000 pounds of local fruits and veggies throughout the county.
Anna now has local help, an Alamo woman named Mira Goetsch, who offered to collect surplus produce from her neighbors and deliver it. The two foodies ran into each other at Whole Foods Market in Walnut Creek and Anna began to tell Mira about growing gardens for the hungry.
"Half an hour later, Mira, with a generous spirit and glowing kindness, was inspired to also help those less fortunate," reported Anna at thelemonlady.blogspot.com. "A few miles between us, she living in Alamo, and I in Clayton, didn't hinder our ability to share ideas and coordinate to help the greater hunger cause. Rather, it is wonderful that Mira lives a few towns away! She is willing to pick up produce from her neighbors and outreach in Southern Walnut Creek, Alamo, Danville, San Ramon."
Mira has also delivered dozens of seedlings for donation to the Children's Community Garden of Concord, and others. If you want to make a fresh produce donation to Mira to be delivered to food pantries, call her at 216-1145 or e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com. Maybe next year I'll have surplus apricots.
-Dolores Fox Ciardelli can be e-mailed at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Annie-Summer Hardy is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter for the American rock act Giant Drag.
Previously signed to Interscope Records, she was voted one of NME's "50 Coolest People," and has received major news coverage in NME, Spin, MTV News and Rolling Stone, among others. She started her own record label October 2012 launching Full Psycho Records, TV & Crafts in a soft launch.
She is known for her quick-witted stage persona and retorts to insults, and for the explicit titles of some of her songs, such as "You Fuck Like My Dad" and "My Dick Sux".


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Stamford, CT (PRWEB) December 28, 2012
Stamford Center for the Arts continues its stellar season with R&B legends The Temptations and The Four Tops on Wednesday, February 6, 2013 at 8:00 PM at the Palace Theatre in Stamford. Tickets are on sale now at http://www.SCAlive.org. An integral part of the Motown machine in the 60s, The Temptations and The Four Tops brought that smooth R&B sound into pop music and created some of the most recognizable songs in music history, including The Way You Do the Things You Do, My Girl, Baby I Need Your Lovin, I Cant Help Myself and many more. The 2012-2013 season is made possible through the generosity of SCAs Season Sponsors Seaboard Properties, Inc. and The Whittingham Family.
An essential component of the original Motown machine, that amazing engine invented by Berry Gordy, The Temps began their musical life in Detroit in the early sixties. It wasnt until 1964 however, that the Smokey Robinson written-and-produced The Way You Do the things You Do turned the guys into stars. An avalanche of hits followed My Girl, Its Growing, Since I Lost My Baby, Get Ready, Aint Too Proud to Beg, Beauty Is Only Skin Deep, and I Wish It Would Rain.
The classic lineup was Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin. Beyond the fabulous singing, The Temps became known for smooth stepping and flawless presentations. The Temptations Walk became a staple of American style. Millions of fans saw The Temptations as cultural heroes.
During the sixties and seventies, The Temps changed their sound to reflect the political turmoil of the era. Producer Norman Whitfield led the way. His Temptations hits, many featuring Dennis Edwards who had replaced David Ruffin, burned with intensity, such as Runaway Child, Cloud Nine, I Cant Get Next to You, Papa Was a Rolling Stone, and Psychedelic Shack.
The current lineup consists of Otis Williams, Ron Tyson, Terry Weeks, Joe Herndon and Bruce Williamson. The more we change, says veteran Ron Tyson, the more we stay true to ourselves. Were about singing straight-up soul. Its a style that will live on forever.
The Four Tops first Motown hit Baby I Need Your Loving in 1964 made them stars. Their songs, soulful and bittersweet, were across-the-board successes: I Cant Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch), a no. 1 R&B and Pop smash in 1965, is one of Motowns longest-running chart toppers; it was quickly followed by a longtime favorite, Its The Same Old Song. Their commercial peak was highlighted by a romantic trilogy: Reach Out Ill Be There, Standing In The Shadows Of Love and Bernadette.
The Four Tops kept up a string of hits with ABC-Dunhill in the 70s: Aint No Woman (Like the One Ive Got), Keeper of the Castle, Are You Man Enough (from the movie Shaft In Africa), Sweet Understanding Love, One Chain Dont Make No Prison (later covered by Santana), Midnight Flower and the disco perennial Catfish.
The Tops were at #1 again in 1980 with When She Was My Girl, making them one of the few groups to have hits in three consecutive decades. They also scored R&B Top 40s with the ballads Tonight Im Gonna Love You All Over and I Believe In You and Me, the original version of the 1996 Whitney Houston smash hit.
In 1990, with 24 Top 40 pop hits to their credit, the Four Tops were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Though they would no longer have hits on record, the group continued to be a hit in concert, touring incessantly, a towering testament to the enduring legacy of the Motown sound they helped shape and define.
For Rolling Stones 2004 article The Immortals The Greatest Artists of All Time, Smokey Robinson remembered: They were the best in my neighborhood in Detroit when I was growing up (and) The Four Tops will always be one of the biggest and the best groups ever. Their music is forever."
Tickets for The Temptations and The Four Tops on Wednesday, February 6, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. are $75, $65, & $50 (plus SCA handling charges) and are on sale now at http://www.SCAlive.org, charge by phone with major credit cards by calling the SCA Box Office at 203-325-4466 or in person at the Palace Theatre Box Office in downtown Stamford, CT. The box office is open Monday-Friday from 10am to 6pm.
For additional information visit the SCA website at http://www.SCAlive.org or call 203-325-4466.
About the Stamford Center for the Arts
The vision of the Stamford Center for the Arts is to be the regional arts center for exciting entertainment that enhances and enriches the cultural, educational, economic, and social life of the community. The SCA strives to achieve this vision by demonstrating integrity in all work and relationships, providing service and quality in all activities, fostering and promoting diversity of thought, ideas and culture, providing stewardship for the Stamford Arts community, emphasizing outreach in our community, and offering creativity in all endeavors. Major funding is provided by the Department of Economic & Community Development.
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/SCA/Temptations_FourTops/prweb10276061.htm.
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Keywords:plastic art,entertainment award,entertainment (general),arts (general),arts, culture and entertainment,music industry,music theatre,plastic art,rock and roll music,popular music,jazz music,folk music,country music,classical music,music,entertainment award,entertainment (general),arts (general),arts, culture and entertainment
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A Pharmacodynamic and Pharmacokinetic Study of RO4917838 in Healthy Volunteers
This study has been completed.
Hoffmann-La Roche
Information provided by (Responsible Party):
Hoffmann-La Roche
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
First received: February 28, 2012
Last updated: May 9, 2017
Last verified: May 2017
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
This single-center, randomized, double-blind, four-period crossover study will investigate the effect of alcohol on the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of RO4917838 in healthy volunteers. Healthy volunteers will receive 4 treatments in a randomized order: single dose of RO4917838 and alcohol, RO4917838 and non-alcoholic drink, placebo to RO4917838 and alcohol, and placebo to RO4917838 and non-alcoholic drink.
|Healthy Volunteer
|Drug: RO4917838 Drug: Placebo to RO4917838 Other: Alcohol
|Phase 1
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Crossover Assignment
Masking: Double (Participant, Investigator)
Primary Purpose: Other
|Official Title:
|A Single Center, Randomized, Double-blind, Single-dose, Four Period, Crossover Study to Investigate Pharmacodynamics and Pharmacokinetics of RO4917838 Alone or With Concomitant Administration of Alcohol in Healthy Volunteers
Further study details as provided by Hoffmann-La Roche:
Primary Outcome Measures:
- Effect of alcohol on pharmacodynamics (Cognitive test battery) of RO4917838 [ Time Frame: Day 1 of each treatment period ]
Secondary Outcome Measures:
- Effect of alcohol on pharmacokinetics (Area under the concentration time curve) of RO4917838 [ Time Frame: Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 of each treatment period ]
- Safety: Incidence of adverse events [ Time Frame: Approximately 4 months ]
|Actual Study Start Date:
|February 28, 2012
|Study Completion Date:
|June 4, 2012
|Primary Completion Date:
|June 4, 2012 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
|Assigned Interventions
|Active Comparator: RO4917838 + non-alcoholic drink
Drug: RO4917838
Single dose of RO4917838
|Experimental: RO4917838 + alcohol
Drug: RO4917838
Single dose of RO4917838Other: Alcohol
Standard alcoholic drink
|Placebo Comparator: RO4917838 placebo + alcohol
Drug: Placebo to RO4917838
Single dose of placebo to RO4917838Other: Alcohol
Standard alcoholic drink
|Placebo Comparator: RO4917838 placebo + non-alcoholic drink
Drug: Placebo to RO4917838
Single dose of placebo to RO4917838
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years to 45 Years (Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Adult healthy volunteers, 18 to 45 years, inclusive
- Body Mass Index (BMI) 18 to 30 kg/m2, inclusive
- Non-smoker or smoker of fewer than 10 cigarettes per day
- Females, who are not menopausal must agree to use two adequate methods of contraception
Exclusion Criteria:
- Any current medical condition or disease that would render the volunteer unsuitable for the study, or would place the volunteer at undue risk
- History of alcoholism
- History of drug abuse and/or addiction within one year of study start
- History of any significant disease (e.g., cardiovascular, hepatic, renal) or cancer
Contacts and Locations
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below. For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01543529
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01543529
|Rennes, France, 35042
Sponsors and Collaborators
Hoffmann-La Roche
|Study Director:
|Clinical Trials
|Hoffmann-La Roche
More Information
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 20, 2017
|Responsible Party:
|Hoffmann-La Roche
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT01543529 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|February 28, 2012
|Last Updated:
|May 9, 2017
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Anti-Infective Agents, Local
Anti-Infective Agents
Central Nervous System Depressants
Physiological Effects of Drugs
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 20, 2017


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It only takes a minute to get started. Fill out our uncomplicated sign up form and login to the website.
This step is voluntary but will dramatically raise your chances of your profile being viewed by others. Tell people about yourself, your pasttimes and upload a nice photograph of yourself.
Utilise our website's sophisticated search to discover over 60s members who meet your criteria. Or just flip through listings and discover daters that appeal to you.
Located someone who appeals to you? Send a letter to them or just a wink and wait for their response. With a little luck you'll be on your way to a lifetime of happiness.
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Pupils from ten West Norfolk schools came together to perform in the 17th annual Schools Make Music concert at Lynn's Corn Exchange.
The event, which is sponsored by the town's three rotary clubs, featured 320 singers and musicians from eight primary schools and two secondary schools, as well as members of the Lavender Hill Mob theatre company.
Jim Milne, of Rotary Club of King's Lynn Trinity, said the event was well-supported with an audience of 470.
He said: "The benefits of performing and rehearsing music together are well-known. It helps with team work and helps with concentration.
"The children get to perform in a professional theatre in front of a big audience which helps a lot with confidence."
Pupils from St Michael's Primary School, South Lynn, are pictured. Photo: PAUL TIBBS MLNF14PT03043


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21 Aug 2012
The upcoming operating system from Redmond-based Microsoft takes system protection one step further with the introduction of a technology to detect illegal changes to the HOSTS file.
The HOSTS file is a plain-text file with no extension that serves only to assist the human user in pinpointing domain names to specific IPs. Whenever a domain name is associated to an IP address, the operating system skips the DNS check and relies on the URL and IP address it finds in the HOSTS file.
This behavior has been severely abused by malware in the past 10 years to change popular destinations such as banks, social networks or e-mail services to servers hosting phishing pages. The same technique has been used to block access to security solutions by routing their URLs to localhost (127.0.0.1).
Microsoft's take on HOSTS file poisoning in Windows 8 was the implementation of a specialized routine in Windows Defender that analyzes the contents of the HOSTS file and deletes entries thought to be malicious. Some antivirus solutions also monitor changes in the HOSTS file, since it is regarded as a critical file of the operating system.
Windows 8 is expected to hit the shelves on Oct. 26. Apart from declaring war on URL hijacking, the upcoming operating system features the Early Launch Anti-Malware (ELAM) mechanism that allows the antivirus to initiate before any third-party application, minimizing the window of opportunity for rootkit-based malware.


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After a decade of innumerable
volunteer commitments, Agyei
Ekundayo fueled her earnest drive
for community wellness education
in 2007 while working as an Infant
Mortality Case Manager at the
Portsmouth Health Department in
Portsmouth, VA. In that role, Agyei
independently managed a pilot
infant mortality reduction program
whose target populations were lowwealth, high risk maternal groups.
There, she counseled mostly young girls about self-care, nutrition, pregnancy complications, premature birth, and repeat pregnancy prevention. Agyei's primary role centered on networking with community agencies to develop partnerships that would provide a continuum of resources to meet the gamut of basic human needs.
Certified in Midwifery Assistance and Lamaze training, Agyei has served the medical community via service hours at a Christian Guatemalan orphanage. She studied Biology and Clark Atlanta University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Promotion from Weber State University. Past experiences feature a plethora of inclusion companion work for the Town of Chapel Hill, assistant grant writing intern for the South Central Perinatal Council in Lynchburg, VA and as a three time guest speaker for the Durham County Crisis Intervention Team training consumer panel. She also facilitated discussions for the North Carolina Mental Health Consume r s Organization's 2014 annual conference.
She has most recently been at Carrboro's North Park Church and lectured at North Carolina Central University to a graduate psychology class. Agyei, or "AJ" as she likes to be called, is gifted at assessing audience approach, and thus uses a lively mixture of informative interaction, humor, and visual display to connect with the crowd.
AJ added Mental Health Awareness to her growing list of health disparity concerns when she "plunged full throttle" into the maze of America's mental health care crisis, upon receiving an initial mental health diagnosis in late 2007. Since then and after 13 or so medications (she says she lost count), 10 different specialists (she says she wishes she could lose count), and 5 diagnoses (the docs cheated at Rock, Paper, Scissors); AJ bet herself good money that she could break the silence of African Americans hiding with mental illness and crusade for more effective legislation. AJ is an impassioned proponent of utilizing creative arts to cope with mental health illness. She recently published a memoir about her experiences growing up with cyclical mental illnesses.
Acute pharmaceutical Toxicity killed Brittany Murphy - Could it be killing millions more?
Our hope is that by bringing attention to this issue that consumers will have open dialog with their psychiatrists and ask questions about drug interactions.
The entire pharmaceutical industry is based on the idea that for whatever's wrong with you, there's a patented chemical pill that can make it better. Feeling some anxiety? There's a pill for that. Have high blood pressure? There's a pill for that, too. Suffering from sleepless nights? There's yet another pill for that, too.
One family member stated it this way, "This is akin to believing that if it's safe to drive 65mph in your truck, and it's also safe to drive 65mph on your motorcycle, then if you load your motorcycle onto your truck, it's now safe to drive 130mph."
The fatal flaw in the theory behind pharmaceuticals
As you already guessed, there's a fatal flaw in this pharmaceutical approach to sick care: Pharmaceuticals have never been tested in combination with other drugs. So all the so-called "gold standard science" is absolutely worthless at knowing what might happen when half a dozen pharmaceutical drugs are combined in a patient's body. Brittany Murphy may have been on as many as TEN drugs!
The list of drugs taken by Brittany Murphy boggles the mind
According to information leaked to the press, Brittany Murphy was found near prescription medications of all the following drugs:
How many other patients are dying from Acute Pharmaceutical Toxicity? (APT)
Brittany Murphy isn't the only mental health consumer who has been killed by acute pharmaceutical toxicity. There have been many more. No one actually knows the numbers of death involved because the data is not collected in a way organized enough to be useful. One might say, "no one keeps track!"
A Call for Caution on Antipsychotic Drugs as in the New York Times
By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D.
Published: September 24, 2012
You will never guess what the fifth and sixth best-selling prescription drugs are in the United States, so I'll just tell you: Abilify and Seroquel, two powerful antipsychotics. In 2011 alone, they and other antipsychotic drugs were prescribed to 3.1 million Americans at a cost of $18.2 billion, a 13 percent increase over the previous year, according to the market research firm IMS Health.
Tim Robinson
Those drugs are used to treat such serious psychiatric disorders as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe major depression. But the rates of these disorders have been stable in the adult population for years. So how did these and other antipsychotics get to be so popular?
Antipsychotic drugs have been around for a long time, but until recently they were not widely used. Thorazine, the first real antipsychotic, was synthesized in the 1950s; not just sedating, it also targeted the core symptoms of schizophrenia, like hallucinations and delusions. Later, it was discovered that antipsychotic drugs also had powerful mood-stabilizing effects, so they were used to treat bipolar disorder, too.
Then, starting in 1993, came the so-called atypical antipsychotic drugs like Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Geodon and Abilify. Today there are 10 of these drugs on the market, and they have generally fewer neurological side effects than the first-generation drugs.
Originally experts believed the new drugs were more effective than the older antipsychotics against such symptoms of schizophrenia as apathy, social withdrawal and cognitive deficits. But several recent large randomized studies, like the landmark Catie trial, failed to show that the new antipsychotics were any more effective or better tolerated than the older drugs.
This news was surprising to many psychiatrists — and obviously very disappointing to the drug companies.
It was also soon discovered that the second-generation antipsychotic drugs had serious side effects of their own, namely a risk of increased blood sugar, elevated lipids and cholesterol, and weight gain. They can also cause a potentially irreversible movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia, though the risk is thought to be significantly lower than with the older antipsychotic drugs.
Nonetheless, there has been a vast expansion in the use of these second-generation antipsychotic drugs in patients of all ages, particularly young people. Until recently, these drugs were used to treat a few serious psychiatric disorders. But now, unbelievably, these powerful medications are prescribed for conditions as varied as very mild mood disorders, everyday anxiety, insomnia and even mild emotional discomfort.
The number of annual prescriptions for atypical antipsychotics rose to 54 million in 2011 from 28 million in 2001, an 93 percent increase, according to IMS Health. One study found that the use of these drugs for indications without federal approval more than doubled from 1995 to 2008.
The original target population for these drugs, patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, is actually quite small: The lifetime prevalence of schizophrenia is 1 percent, and that of bipolar disorder is around 1.5 percent. Drug companies have had a powerful economic incentive to explore other psychiatric uses and target populations for the newer antipsychotic drugs.
The companies initiated dozens of clinical trials to test these drugs against depression and, more recently, anxiety disorders. Starting in 2003, the makers of several second-generation antipsychotics (also known as atypical neuroleptics) have received F.D.A. approval for the use of these drugs in combination with antidepressants to treat severe depression, which they trumpeted in aggressive direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns.
The combined spending on print and digital media advertising for these new antipsychotic drugs increased to $2.4 billion in 2010, up from $1.3 billion in 2007, according to Kantar Media. Between 2007 and 2011, more than 98 percent of all advertising on atypical antipsychotics was spent on just two drugs: Abilify and Seroquel, the current best sellers.
There is little in these alluring advertisements to indicate that these are not simple antidepressants but powerful antipsychotics. A depressed female cartoon character says that before she starting taking Abilify, she was taking an antidepressant but still feeling down. Then, she says, her doctor suggested adding Abilify to her antidepressant, and, voilà, the gloom lifted.
The ad omits critical facts about depression that consumers would surely want to know. If a patient has not gotten better on an antidepressant, for instance, just taking it for a longer time or taking a higher dose could be very effective. There is also very strong evidence that adding a second antidepressant from a different chemical class is an effective and cheaper strategy — without having to resort to antipsychotic medication.
A more recent and worrisome trend is the use of atypical antipsychotic drugs — many of which are acutely sedating and calming — to treat various forms of anxiety, like generalized anxiety disorder and even situational anxiety. A study last year found that 21.3 percent of visits to a psychiatrist for treatment of an anxiety disorder in 2007 resulted in a prescription for an antipsychotic, up from 10.6 percent in 1996. This is a disturbing finding in light of the fact that the data for the safety and efficacy of antipsychotic drugs in treating anxiety disorders is weak, to say nothing of the mountain of evidence that generalized anxiety disorder can be effectively treated with safer — and cheaper — drugs like S.S.R.I. antidepressants.
There are a small number of controlled clinical trials of antipsychotic drugs in generalized anxiety or social anxiety that have shown either no effect or inconsistent results. As a consequence, there is no F.D.A.-approved use of an atypical antipsychotic for any anxiety disorder.
Yet I and many of my colleagues have seen dozens of patients with nothing more than everyday anxiety or insomnia who were given prescriptions for antipsychotic medications. Few of these patients were aware of the potential long-term risks of these drugs.
The increasing use of atypical antipsychotics by physicians to treat anxiety suggests that doctors view these medications as safer alternatives to the potentially habit-forming anti-anxiety benzodiazepines like Valium and Klonopin. And since antipsychotics have rapid effects, clinicians may prefer them to first-line treatments like S.S.R.I. antidepressants, which can take several weeks to work.
Of course, physicians frequently use medications off label, and there is sometimes solid empirical evidence to support this practice. But presently there is little evidence that atypical antipsychotic drugs are effective outside of a small number of serious psychiatric disorders, namely schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and treatment-resistant depression.
Let's be clear: The new atypical antipsychotic drugs are effective and safe. But even if these drugs prove effective for a variety of new psychiatric illnesses, there is still good reason for caution. Because they have potentially serious adverse effects, atypical antipsychotic drugs should be used when currently available treatments — with typically fewer side effects and lower costs — have failed.
Atypical antipsychotics can be lifesaving for people who have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or severe depression. But patients should think twice — and then some — before using these drugs to deal with the low-grade unhappiness, anxiety and insomnia that comes with modern life.
Dr. Richard A. Friedman is a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan.
We are all in this together; we are successful if one of us is successful. I urge you to buy a copy of Ben's Book - Marc Jacques Minority of Mind
Ben Boone is the author of Minority of Mind. In this book he shares how was diagnosed with schizophrenia the day after he graduated with a degree in writing and publishing from Emerson College in Boston.
It details a young man's descent into darkness, and his daily struggles to perform as a person, rather than a manifestation of his illness. It addresses how society treats those with serious psychiatric disorders and challenges our definition of "madness."
Follow the link to buy Ben's Book
Hot News
Subpages (1): NAMI PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS


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Woodland Hills, Calif. (PRWEB) June 24, 2014
Account Control Technology, Inc. (ACT), a national leader in delivering debt management and recovery solutions, is pleased to announce the growth of its strategic accounts sales team with the addition of executive account managers Janet M. McDaniel and JP Hanson. The two sales professionals are assisting the company's expansion into the auto, financial, commercial and utility verticals.
"Both Janet and JP have a dedication to client service that is critical to ACT's success," said Michael Magarrell, ACT's Vice President of Strategic Accounts. "Adding them to our team has enhanced our outreach to companies that can greatly benefit from ACT's consultative collections approach."
Janet McDaniel has a strong background in debt recovery as well as credit, receivables, reporting and account management processes, particularly within the utilities sector. The former president of a marketing company, Janet holds a bachelor's degree in marketing and has more than 16 years of sales experience in software and information management.
JP Hanson has more than 20 years of experience in the debt recovery and accounts receivable management industry. In addition to having served as a director of sales and marketing, JP was the Director of Satellite Operations for a national debt recovery firm, where he oversaw large consumer collection and recovery operations. With both operational and sales expertise, JP is able to assess client needs and implement customized strategies to deliver outstanding results.
About ACT
Account Control Technology, Inc. is a leader in providing consultative debt management, collection, call center and business office solutions for education, government, commercial and consumer entities. Established in 1990, ACT has been recognized as an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private company for the past seven years running. The company serves clients nationwide from five office locations: Bakersfield, California; Woodland Hills, California; Mason, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; and San Angelo, Texas. For more information, call 800-394-4228, email info(at)accountcontrol(dot)com or visit http://www.accountcontrol.com.


text:
What is the best XML editor?
In your opinion, what is the best XML editor? I'm currently using notepad. Can you recommend something better?
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Personally, I use Emacs for most of my XML editing. It has an excellent SGML/XML editing mode (PSGML) and is an all round excellent text editor for markup geeks like me.
For those preferring a more GUI experience, a lot depends on the type of XML you are dealing with. For data-oriented XML, Merlot, XMLSpy, XMLMate are good. For document-centric XML things are more complex and often more costly. The complexity comes from having to set up styling environments in order to be able to view the XML is something approaching WYSIWYG fashion. A recent version of XMLSpy includes this facility but I have not used it myself. Softquad's XMetal is probably the most popular. For high end editing tools such as FrameMaker+SGML and Adept Epic are both good.
If you are looking for freely available tools, I recommend Lars Marius Garshols software list at http://www.garshol.priv.no/download/xmltools/.
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text:
Xavi: Barca motivated to beat Atletico
Xavi Hernandez says that scoring first is the key for Barcelona in Wednesday's Champions League quarterfinal second leg at Atletico Madrid.
•Ledwith: More invention needed from Barcelona
• Corrigan: Atletico march on
The tie is neatly balanced after last week's first leg in Barcelona, in which Atletico went ahead via a long-range opener from Diego Ribas, before Neymar equalised late on for Barca.
That was the fourth draw from four meetings between the teams this season, and Atletico's away goal means a third goalless draw of the campaign would see Barcelona eliminated.
The Catalan playmaker told a news conference on Monday -- covered by Mundo Deportivo -- that his team would look to attack and get ahead at the Calderon, forcing Atletico to then finally have to come out and play some football.
"We would like to have got a more favourable result," Xavi said. "A 1-1 draw is not so good, but we will go there full of motivation and spirit to go and win the game. We are a team made to attack and score goals, and are up against a team which is just the opposite. We must try and get ahead on the scoreboard. We have not done that in any of the four games. We would see then how they react. That could be key to the game."
Xavi admitted Barca were now facing into what was a vital week for the season, with a La Liga game at relegation-threatened Granada on Saturday, and then the Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid the next Wednesday.
"This game is vital because we could find ourselves out of the Champions League," he said. "Then we have the game against Granada, who also have a lot to play for. Then the Copa final is just around the corner. These are six or seven decisive days for the season."
Barca's cause has again not been helped by off-field controversy in recent days, with news breaking that FIFA had imposed a transfer ban on the club due to youth-transfer rules being broken.
Xavi followed the line set by Blaugrana president Josep Maria Bartomeu and said it was unfair for anyone to criticise the treatment of young players at Barca's La Masia academy.
"From the dressing-room we believe that the FIFA ban is disproportionate," he said. "We could do little else. The club is taking all legal measures, and we hope this ends in nothing. La Masia does absolutely correct work in all senses, and we will try and do everything to defend it. We have cases like Leo [Messi] or Andres [Iniesta] who have come from outside. Here the kids are looked after well."
At Atletico the concerns are all about top scorer Diego Costa, who limped out of the first leg with a thigh strain, and is now a big doubt for the return game. Arda Turan also missed Atletico's 1-0 La Liga win over Villarreal on Saturday with a groin problem, but is considered more likely to be back for Wednesday.
Rarely used Colchonero forward Adrian Lopez claimed in AS, after making only a second appearance in two months as a substitute against Villarreal, that his side had the squad to cover any absences.
"If we are lacking important players then the team must all fight together to win and go through in the tie," Adrian said. "If they are not there, then other teammates go out onto the pitch to help. The most important thing is the team is at its best to win the game."
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Daniel and Matthew Speck Discuss the Niagara Seasons
The Weather Network televised the topic discussed below this past weekend. If you'd like to watch a video in relation to this article, please follow the original featured link below.
Weather and Wine: Impacts of the Changing Seasons
June 1, 2012 — Every season in Niagara is different, but the weather conditions through each transition are crucial for producing quality wine.
A lot of work goes into producing a bottle of wine that is then opened and shared among wine-lovers alike. But what exactly goes into producing that favourite bottle and how does weather play an important role?
Daniel and Matthew Speck, owners of Henry of Pelham Estates, break down the impact of weather through each season in Niagara.
The spring is very cool, which is a good thing because the vines stay dormant protecting against those killing frosts that can happen.
When the weather turns it goes from a cool spring to a very warm summer. The growing season can become quite intense and sometimes feels warmer than Napa in terms of heat accumulation.
By the time the grapes are fully ripe, it's fall. Cool evenings throughout the season can help to develop the flavours more in the grapes.
By the time the harvest is finished, it gets cold quite quickly again and it's ice wine time.
Quality wine is based on the right weather conditions "Four great seasons for our great wines," says Daniel.
Matthew adds that these changing conditions in Niagara are not only perfect for making wine, but are quite unusual as well.
"We're a continental climate, because we're inland, but we have these lakes and there's no other lakes like the Great Lakes in the world. Our lakes are like mini oceans and without those lakes forget growing any tender fruit, because it would be far too cold."
The escarpment feature in Niagara can also help to intensify the lake effect.
"It magnifies the lake effect, it creates micro climates within the peninsula. The whole peninsula isn't suitable to growing tender fruit, it's really from the escarpment to the lake," Matthew explains.


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Age 30, former anorexic, 32D bra. Are my breasts tubular--what options do I have to achieve more normal looking breasts? (photo)
Doctor Answers 13
Do I Have Tubular Breasts
There are a number of features that define a tuberous (tubular) breast:
•Wide and puffy areolae
•widely spaced breasts
•high breast fold
•constricted lower pole (deficient tissue in lower half of the breast
•minimal breast tissue
•high breast fold
•narrow base of the breast
A number of these seem to be present. Since you have an adequate amount of breast tissue, the treatment is far simpler than for others with that diagnosis. A breast lift alone should give a nice improvement in the shape of your breasts.
Best wishes.
Do I Have Tubular Breasts?
Your breasts have elements of constriction one greater than the other. If you do not want more size, a full breast lift can give you a nice result. Find a plastic surgeon with ELITE credentials who performs hundreds of breast lifts each year. Then look at the plastic surgeon's website before and after photo galleries to get a sense of who can deliver the results. Kenneth Hughes, MD Los Angeles, CA
Learn more: http://www.hughesplasticsurgery.com/breast-lift-photo-galleries.php
Tubular Breasts
There are varying degrees of tubular breasts - high folds, constricted lower pole, prominent nipple-areola with breast tissue protruding through the NAC. You have some of these characteristics but I certainly would not consider you a severe tubular breast but rather a forme fruste (attenuated) tubule breast. It is very common - much more common than a severe tubular variety. I would proceed with a modest augmentation and simultaneous mastopexy.
You might also like...
Tubular breasts
a) Looking at the photos that you have downloaded you have breast ptosis with asymmetry and fortunately not tubular breasts. This makes corrective surgery much easier.
b) No this would not have been caused by anorexia.
c) The options available to you are:
- Mastopexy (if you want to remain the same size) or
- Augmentation mastopexy, if you wish to be larger or if you have a deflated upper pole and need an implant to augment this section of your breast.
Hope this helps, and good luck with your decision.
Ptotic breast
Tuberous breast have a high infra-mammary fold as well as large nipple areola complex with breast tissue herniating through them. You have breast ptosis or sagging that require breast lifting and if wanted a small implant to obtain upper pole fullness. Anorexia should have not caused this.
Good luck
Learn more: http://www.talroudnerplasticsurgery.com/breast/breast-lift-mastopexy-miami-fl/
Do I Have Tubular Breasts? (photo)
You have breast ptosis (sagging) and asymmetry
You would benefit from a breast lift with some resection of breast tissue from your left breast to achieve symmetry
Learn more: http://www.beckermd.com/breast/lift-boca-raton-fl/
No Tubular Breast Deformity
You do not have tubular breast deformity. To improve your breast shape I would suggest an augmentation and a lift. I do not believe that your anorexia contributed significantly to your breast shape.
Dr. ES
Tuberous breast question
You do not have tuberous breasts. You will benefit from a breast lift first and then if you decide 3-6 months later that you want larger breasts implants can be placed. This plan is the most predictable way to give you a lasting result. Good Luck!
Tuberous Breasts
a) You do not have tuberous breasts.
b) Tuberous breasts began with a small problem in about the the middle of the first trimester of development.
c) You have asymmetrical ptotic breasts that need to be lifted and augmented. Without the implants your left breast will need to be reduced to match your right one. Either way you can have a very nice result. Good luck.
These answers are for educational purposes and should not be relied upon as a substitute for medical advice you may receive from your physician. If you have a medical emergency, please call 911. These answers do not constitute or initiate a patient/doctor relationship.


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In an unlikely ménage of capitalism, environmentalism, and rock 'n' roll, on CNBC's Squawk Box this morning, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera and Steve Liesman of CNBC were jamming with Chuck Leavell, keyboardist for the Rolling Stones, environmentalist, tree farmer.
Paper Guru
There are opportunities in digital print for packaging, but also challenges. Among the challenges are selling the value proposition to end users, format, and workflow. One solution at PRINT 13 was the Xanté Excelagraphix 4200P, which Xanté COO Mark Swanzy says is unique in terms of high-speed, small footprint, and high-quality printing.
The biggest paper news during the PRINT 13 show in Chicago this past week, was the announcement by International Paper of the permanent closure of its Courtland, AL, mill. As to the show itself, digital remains front and center, and within digital, papers treated for continuous-feed aqueous inkjet, continue to be the buzz.
This week International Paper announced that it is in talks with Unisource regarding a proposed merger of xpedx, International Paper's distribution business, and Unisource. So what will this mean?
Will the current round of coated paper price increases hold? If the mills reduce supply because of cost pressures, then the increases will hold. History suggests that if the increases do hold, they may well evaporate over the next few months.
There are a lot of areas that are open to negotiation—credit terms, delivery schedules and minimums, lead time, inventory programs, order sizes, etc. You might have the highest price, but offer advantages in all of the other areas.


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A WINCHESTER estate agent has launched a children's drawing competition in aid of a cancer charity.
Savills have launched the Draw Your Perfect Home competition in a bid to raise funds and awareness of the Haven Breast Cancer Support Centre.
The charity launched a £2.5m fundraising appeal in April 2013 to open a new centre in Titchfield. So far over £1m has been raised but Savills hopes the competition will give them an extra boost.
Steven Moore, head of residential sales at Savills, said: "The Haven is our chosen charity this year and we wanted to do something that would be both fun for children, and that might encourage donations to the Haven, who are raising funds to open their first support centre in our region.
"Drawing your perfect home is a theme that was an obvious choice for us, and it will be interesting to see what children in Winchester and the surrounding area come up with. The Haven has recently secured a location in Titchfield, and it's now all about raising funds for fixtures and fittings, staff costs and so on - so every penny counts."
The competition is free to enter, aimed at children aged four to 11, and the winner will receive two adult and two child tickets to Legoland. Drawings will be judged at the show on September 6 by Adam Architecture's George Saumarez Smith at this year's Alresford Show.
Hannah Daws, fundraising and communications director, from The Haven added: "We are thrilled that Savills has nominated us as their charity of the year. The children's competition is a fantastic way to start the partnership and we look forward to seeing how these young people view the perfect home. Creating beautiful and calming environments is a key aspect of our service delivery, offering a safe 'haven', away from clinical settings, for anyone affected by breast cancer."
Entry forms can be collected from the office at Jewry Street or they can be downloaded by visiting savills.co.uk/Winchester.


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Yet even as IT budgets start to rise, small and midsize businesses are torn over whether to invest in collaboration projects, InformationWeek Analytics research shows. One-third of SMBs are increasing their IT spending in support of collaboration compared with last year, just over half are spending the same amount, and 15% are cutting that spending, according to our Outlook 2011 Survey of 260 business tech pros at companies with 1,000 or fewer employees.
The key for small business IT leaders is to recognize early when their collaboration or information-sharing processes are breaking down and impeding the business. A slew of emerging collaboration systems can help SMBs, but this decision's much more nuanced than building a storage or data communication network. Sure, every business has unique infrastructure needs, but for the most part, the plumbing that works for small business A will probably work for small business B, with some tweaks here and there. But when it comes to building a successful collaboration and information-sharing strategy, what works for business A may never work for business B.
There are pitfalls to implementing any new collaboration tools, just like with any tech-driven strategy. Some will resist, particularly those who fear losing control of the information flow. On the opposite end of the spectrum will be those who treat collaboration as a goal unto itself rather than focus on the business problems these new collaboration tools should solve.
The good news is that many SMBs will have more IT resources than last year as they consider whether collaboration is a priority. A bit more than half (56%) expect their IT budgets to rise compared with a year ago, and only 20% expect a cut (see chart, right). Should improving collaboration be among the priorities SMBs attack with those IT dollars? Both employee expectations and the tools for collaboration are changing fast, so IT leaders who haven't assessed this landscape lately need to pay attention.


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Jungle Travel and Survival
How to survive jungle expeditions
The tropical medical advice here can be found elsewhere, but I've found no other source to deal with the psychological and logistical preparations needed to run a small expedition into the jungle (with a bias toward the Amazon).02/9/04
Anecdotally, there is a lot of support for the notion that the tropics somehow engender sexual activity. The experience of those of us who spend essentially all our wilderness time in the hot ones, as opposed to those whose preferences are for high altitude and freezing environments, leads inescapably to the conclusion that group tensions brought on by sex or the pursuit of sex are much more an issue in the tropics than in colder climates.
All sorts of problems, especially injuries, seem to increase logarithmically when you get beyond 7 to 10 members in a wilderness group.
Water may be collected from a banana or plantain plant by cutting the plant approximately 6 to 12 inches above the ground and scooping out the center of the stump into a bowl shape. The hollow thus formed fills immediately with water. The first two fillings have a bitter taste and must be discarded. The third and subsequent fillings are drinkable. A banana plant can furnish water in this fashion for several days
Indigenous peoples move along the trail at a rapid, sustained pace, somewhere at the upper end of fast walking and just before breaking into a run. They seldom slow down for any reason, but they will speed up when fleeing enemies, pursuing game, or hurrying home to sleep in their own hammock or bed at night. Not only do they move along at this clip on level ground and downhill, but they also keep the same pace going uphill! Chances are, you do not maintain your regular pace when ascending an incline, and initially you will find this trait among natives perplexing and tiring. Tribesmen know what they are doing here...their idea is to maintain a constant rate as they move from point A to point B, and it doesn't occur to them that going up a hill is any more reason to go at a lower pace than when walking on level ground. Remember, they are supremely fit, so going uphill really isn't all that much more taxing than walking on level ground. By the same token, they do not go faster when going downhill. It's just a steady and, for them, comfortable gait. Back home, as you are getting in shape (physically and mentally) for jungle trekking, you should hike at a fast pace and practice maintaining your speed regardless of the terrain.
It's mostly good news for women travelers in the tropical rainforest. I have yet to see a woman become incapacitated by heat illness on jungle expeditions.
Scented lotions, moisturizers, and perfumes attract insects; jungle travelers must avoid looking and smelling like a flower.
Jungle Travel & Survival John Walden 2001, 197 pages $18, The Lyons Press


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Servings: 2
1 cup strawberries
4 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup Herradura tequila
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
Dollop of whipped cream (optional)
Several peppermint leaves (optional)
Place sugar and butter in a pan on low heat for about a minute.
Slice strawberries and place them in the pan carefully so they retain their shape. Immediately add tequila and flambé the berries. Add orange juice and simmer until half of the juice has evaporated, then remove from heat.
Get out two wine glasses and place a scoop of ice cream into each. Pour strawberries and orange juice mixture overtop of the ice cream. If you wish, add an artistic dollop of whipped cream and garnish with peppermint leaves.


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To chase down the conspiracy, Russell Crowe's veteran reporter teams up with a callow blogger (the ever-perky Rachel McAdams of "Wedding Crashers"). Much banter about the rivalry between print and online journalism ensues. Yet the movie misses the key personality difference between traditional media and the more Aspergery culture of the Web: newspaper reporters converse constantly, while Web people prefer Google to human contact. Young Matthew Yglesias, for instance, recently declared on his blog, "Definitely the whole time I was employed at The Atlantic I never once returned a voicemail. … In general, I'm not a fan of talking on the phone ..."
The movie portrays Crowe's aging reporter as a solitary man, trudging alone to confront the powerful in their lairs. In reality, as Evelyn Waugh's Scoop made clear, traditional reporters are most comfortable in packs, where they can gauge what's "appropriate" to ask and to write from the consensus of their colleagues.
Just when the strident soundtrack (synthesizers and militaristic drums relentlessly barking "Tense up!") and now-mandatory Shaky-Cam cinematography have almost ruined a decent if predictable story, an amusingly florid Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) shows up as a hedonistic public relations consultant, seemingly to contrast the greed of the flack with the nobility of the crusading journalist. The film's countless screenwriters, though, are aware that reporters, such as the New York Times' Judith Miller, who pipelined so much pro-Iraq war propaganda, are often just more respectable PR agents, publicizing messages in return for access to newsmakers.
From there, the movie keeps departing from its earlier Vast Corporate Conspiracy rut, ending with a plot twist that, while contrived, is surprisingly realistic.
April 25, 2009
"State of Play"
9 comments:
Another jarring note would be the fact that the blogger is a girl. Im sure the sex-ratio aspect of blogging has been done on iSteve before.
"In reality, as Evelyn Waugh's Scoop made clear, traditional reporters are most comfortable in packs, where they can gauge what's "appropriate" to ask and to write from the consensus of their colleagues."
And yet the Internet HASN'T ushered a new age of honest, independent journalism. I love places like iSteve, but they're a fringe. From what I understand, before the advent of the Web such opinions were disseminated by newsletters. Has their audience grown? Probably by a little bit. Has that had any real-world impact? None whatsoever. Life is getting more PC, not less PC with every year. The left has advanced, not retreated since the Web broke through in 1995. It's depressing, but true - the Web has been a political dud.
There are probably more succesful female bloggers than there are successful female journalists, and from all ends of the political spectrum - Wonkette, Althouse, Malkin, Marcotte, Hullabaloo, Hilzoy, Atlas etc, etc.
probably more succesful female bloggers than there are successful female journalists, and from all ends of the political spectrum - Wonkette, Althouse, Malkin, Marcotte, Hullabaloo, Hilzoy, Atlas.
But not more than successful male bloggers.
re the Internet being a political dud.
I can think of at least one major political issue that was stopped by an Internet campaign:the campaign to stop Congress legalizing millions of illegals.
I also think that Internet will soon produce online only newspapers with the authority and news gathering capabilities of the MSM.
Pure economics will bring this about and I expect some MSM outlets to do it as well but the MSM's PC politics will not make the transition.
Richard London
Blogging is by definition easier to do part-time than professional journalism. So it's got great potential to let busy women have a voice - especially the kind of women who wouldn't have time otherwise because they're taking care of kids. These are the kind of naturally conservative women we need in politics - a welcome alternative to the screechy, barren feminists.
Richard, I agree that the Internet is changing politics. I do think it's had a big role in the immigration debate. As recently as 4 years ago, it was anathema to post a (polite) anti-immigrant message on a mainstream forum. Now those types of messages are the norm. Just letting people see that they (and their lying eyes) aren't alone has a hugely powerful effect on perception of this issue.
- James Kabala said...
Speaking of both The American Conservative and the imminent demise of print media, is the magazine on the brink of collapse or not? After seeing the brief "the next issue may be our last" item that appeared this week, I expected that you, Larison, etc. would have similar "please help" items on your blogs, but no such posts have been made. Has the crisis passed, or is collapse so inevitable that you're resigned to your fate?
The internet was most useful in exposing PC Liberal frauds:
Dan RaTHerGate, i.e. the phony Texas Air National Guard documents.
Fauxtography during the Israeli-Hezbollah War.
Politically, the Tea Parties and the actions against Amnesty were all internet driven.
Liberals and SWPL yuppies already have orthodoxy through the newspapers, TV, NPR, etc. The internet allows an end-run around it, and so it's no surprise that screenwriters/directors, being SWPL central, would look down on the internet or fail to grasp the essential truth:
Nearly all corporations are extremely SWPL-yuppie Liberal.
How to make a movie:
Get a large number of writers. Pick a standard trite plot. Reverse the realities: the wrestler should be a woman and the day care employee should be a man. (Best to make things 180 degrees out of phase from reality, if possible.) Then shake the camera unmercifully, as if the cameraman (oops, cameraperson!) is on drugs. Slather on a pounding, ugly, deeply unpleasant score.
Be sure to get bright idealistic people to create special computer effects. They will pour massive ingenuity, creativity, and love into the depiction of an alien dildo or the like. Or into making a schmuck like Adam Sandler look good.
Run a long list of end credits thanking the hundreds of relatives and relatives of relatives you stabbed in the back - um, worked with.
Voila! You made a movie.
Now rinse and repeat until the drugs or the tax people catch up with you.


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Doritos announced semi-finalists in its annual "Crash The Super Bowl" contest that pits consumer-made ads against each other for a shot at a commercial slot at the Super Bowl. This year the contest went global and allowed entries from any country. Three Canadians are among the finalists.
Along with the prestigious ad slot, $1 million is up for grabs, as is the chance to work on set for Marvel's upcoming The Avengers: Age of Ultron film. From the list of semi-finalists, five finalists will be chosen and flown to the game New Jersey Prior to that, consumers will get to vote on the winner.
Here's a look at the three Canadians who made the cut.
"Mermaid" was created by Nelson Talbot, a cinematographer from Langley, B.C. Talbot is one half of the Talbot Twins, a production duo comprised of Nelson and his twin brother Graham. The two have made a slew of short films and music videos and several ads (check out this Sony spec ad here to get a feel for their work). In the ad, two buddies are out on a lake fishing. When they drop Doritos into the lake, a beautiful mermaid appears. It has 8,000 views so far.
"The Most Generous Man"
"The Most Generous Man" was made by Quebec's Sylvain Lebeau, owner of the Montreal-based visual effects and post production company Shed. Lebeau's company has worked on several big brand spots, including this recent Sid Lee Burger King spot and this Pizzaghetti Sloche ad by DentsuBos. The spot follows two characters in a waiting room as they compete to be more generous with their bags of Doritos. The ad has 11,000 views to date.
"Chips Before Chicks"
"Chips Before Chicks" comes via Vancouver's Bradley Friensen, who was also the first entrepreneur to ink a deal with all five of the "dragons" on CBC's Dragons Den for his company Last Call, a hangover cure (watch his appearance on the show here). The spot features a protagonist dropping down from a helicopter onto a boat full of bikini-clad women, who he then pushes away to get at a bag of Doritos. It currently has more than 111,000 views.