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Thursday, February 2. 2006
The Culture of Fear
Signed comments are welcome. Anonymous comments will not be posted. Brief comments are best. Thank you all for your courage in speaking out.
Posted by Mark at 20:36 | Comments (15)
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Dear Editor,
As a cleric of the OCA, I am asking you to withhold my name and personal information.
You ask how the culture of fear and intimidation can be ended and overcome. I will offer an observation that I cannot substantiate, but that I believe to be true.
In Orthodox theology and praxis, there has always been development, evolution, and local variants. The Church of Finland serves as one example, celebrating Pascha according to the Western computation for the sake of conveying Christ in His fullness for the understanding of the people in their culture.
If we were to read the comments of Frs. Schmemann and Meyendorff in the 1970's and early 80's, we would be reminded of the tremendous gift the OCA was afforded in receiving autocephaly. In essence, the gift from the Holy Spirit of bringing Christ to the people of this land in a manner with which they can best comprehend and receive him. In other words, without bearing the attachments of the old world that spoke to the old world culture.
Unfortunately - and I say this as a son of immigrants from eastern Europe - this gift has been, and continues to be, buried under the ground. The ecclesiological model presented to us by our Church authorities has effectively placed some bishops outside of the Church, and has revived concepts of power and authority foreign to Orthodoxy, and belonging to cultures that passed away in peace long ago.
Who is the sinless one? The Council of Chalcedon, whcih we affirm, teaches us that Christ is like us in every way - except for sin. The rest of us are prone to sin. And in this case, even if the charges were not substantiated, an episcopal ministry interpreted through the lenses of love and truth, as opposed to a desire to exercise temporal power and authority, would see to it that the truth be borne out.
But for some reason, and I think it concerns legitimizing the OCA's status before the rest of world Orthodoxy, an ecclesiological variant that emphasizes episcopal power and authority - not love, or ministry, which the episcopacy presumably exists for - has been promoted at the expense of real ecclesiology, and Christ, along with his Gospel, which is the final criterion and authority in any ecclesiology - has been effectively removed from the picture.
Under this guise, a mafia-like mentality has emerged within the OCA, all too well-known by its clergy. I have heard the most offensive and vile stories of clergy, many of whom have family considerations, being unjustifiably and belligerently berated and threatened for daring to take a stance when discussing potential parish assignments. This is a ministry of love? No, this is mafia, NKVD-KGB (you name it) styled authoritarian power. And it has to end, because it is destroying not only the Church, but also the lives of many who continue to adhere to it.
Am I calling for the eradication of the episcopate? Certainly not! What we have before us is a special situation, in which only a handful of bishops are stepping up to the plate and seeking answers to very basic questions, such as, "what happened?" How is this bad? If the unity and integrity of the Church is to be maintained and restored, the truth must come out, whatever the truth of this matter is.
But to a perhaps more significant and frightening question: how to obliterate the fear? As of now, I can think of only two ways, one rather straightforward, and the other more complex.
The first, simple way, is financially. There are no medieval princes present and able to fund the administration's needs. Once they are unable to pay their bills and their staff, then their tone will become more irenic.
The second way is more complicated, and this concerns a return to real ecclesiology, in which no one in the Church is marginalized, if we truly take Galatiansd 3:27 to heart. Again, this does not mean an eradication of the episcopate, but it means understanding that gifts of the Holy Spirit are received by human beings living in a world of temptation, and that authority is not magic - someone endowed with the gift of authortity can easily abuse it through sin, and tolerating this is equivalent to apostasy. We must find new ways for clergy and laity to understand and respect one another's ministries without resorting to authoritarian models that are not ideal, and emerged in very specific cultural settings. This means putting a stop to both extreme variants of clericalsim and anti-clericalism. This task will be extremely difficult in a culture which despises authority and takes pride in villifying it. Authority is necessary, but is impotent when it is not carried out in a spirit of love, and when this occurs, those who regularly abuse it must be called to task.
Let us continue to pray for an authentic resolution to this evil crisis, for the salvation of all of our souls.
#1 Name Withheld By Request on 2006-02-03 06:57
Shame on you for requesting your name be withheld. You make such vile comments and point your finger with comments like "NKVD-KGB" and "maffia-like" under the cover of a "cleric of the OCA." Be a real human being and show yourself. You, like those who started this mess, have taken the easy way out. What none of you understand is, this "crisis" is going to be far bigger than any of you ever expected.
#1.1 Michael Livosky on 2006-02-27 14:32
Thank you Mark for taking the time to methodically expose the latest obfuscations.
One fact is clear: the Synod and Syosset administration have successfully avoided a proper (and customary) audit of OCA donations for more than a decade. Let us call a spade a spade, these latest attempts to customize the audit rules for special circumstances are either wholly incompetent or, at this stage, likely worse. In either case, this circumstance alone (a decade+ delay) should dictate the replacement of the leadership responsible for this negligence and those who supported them.
The lack of fiscal accountability is a gross breach of trust. Hiding behind paternalistic definitions of hierarchy may have worked in days gone by, but no more. If the Synod lacks the courage to act, or worse, is itself compromised in whole or in part, then what are the alternatives? I would value hearing from the theological, legal and accounting experts on possible courses of action open to the membership of a Church that faces incompetence, gross negligence and possible malfeasance. It would be helpful to have supporting citations. Thank you.
#2 Name Witheld by Request on 2006-02-03 20:14
I suggest that Metropolitan Herman conduct at least one (if not more) Lenten Retreat(s) of 2006 for its Synod of Bishops and/or Metropolitan Council. This Lenten Retreat would not be conducted to gossip or justify current (poor financial) decisions.
This Serious Lenten Retreat would be to pray, listen, reflect, pray again, and listen again, all together, in one sitting, to a series of talks from at least two sources (if not more):
One souce of a talk would be from a wise, spirit filled, and pastoral Orthodox Retreat Master, (not necesarily from the OCA) who can lead and guide the Synod and MC into holy wisdom to seriously reflect upon rectifying the financial damage it has done and apparently continues to do.
The second source of talks would be to hear from at least one (if not more) experienced and wise financial accountants on the holy wisdom of sound, prudent, Best Practices for finances.
In the spirit of Great Lent, the Metropolitan can make this Lenten Retreat happen and to be a great source of holy empowerment and encouragement of doing the best and right things for the OCA finances and its people.
The Lenten Retreat would not be called to do damage control, rumor control, to justify themselves, or to further cover up a growing scandal.
The Lenten Retreat would be called for the noble purposes of praying, discoursing, and reflecting upon what is right and feeling more empowered to do what is right through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Of couse, if there was a miracle, and the Holy Synod saw the error in its ways so early on right at the Retreat, this could be a saving grace so that by the Spring Session, the OCA would experience a joyous Pascha on many levels.
A continual silencing of people and what seems to be a continual down spiraling of the OCA into a financial hole (a 2 million dollar loan sounds like a very unwise financial occurance) does not seem to be where we should want to be at all.
This Lenten Retreat would set the stage for a stonger, more holier and enlightened Holy Synod Session that starts after Pascha, May 23rd, 2006.
In the spirit of the Gospel, this Lenten Retreat and its participants CAN change the course of a continuing dark chapter for its future. For Jesus said, "With men this is impossible but with God all things are possible." (Matt. 19:26)
Patty Schellbach
#3 Patty Schellbach on 2006-02-03 23:39
I am speechless... Now mind you, I was speechless the first time I
read the documents on www.ocanews.org and thought that was bad
With the mountain of accumulating documents, testimony, and
information coming in over the last 3 weeks to support the serious
allegations and "mistakes" by Syosset, I am simply more and more horrified, stunned, and dissapointed. Something must be done to bring back ethics, honesty, and accountability in the OCA.
The Gospel of St. Matthew offers us some important lessons and warnings to keep in mind:
Jesus said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. (Matthew 21:32)
Matthew 23 (Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees):
1 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, 2
saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. 3
Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do,
but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.
4 For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's
shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their
fingers. 5 But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make
their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.
6 They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the
synagogues, 7 greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by
men, `Rabbi, Rabbi.' 8 But you, do not be called `Rabbi'; for One is
your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. 9 Do not call
anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in
heaven. 10 And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher,
the Christ. 11 But he who is greatest among you shall be your
servant. 12 And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who
humbles himself will be exalted.
13 "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut
up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in
yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 14 Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows'
houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will
receive greater condemnation.
15 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel
land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him
twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
16 "Woe to you, blind guides, who say, `Whoever swears by the
temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple,
he is obliged to perform it.' 17 Fools and blind! For which is
greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 18
And, `Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears
by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.' 19 Fools
and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that
sanctifies the gift? 20 Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears
by it and by all things on it. 21 He who swears by the temple,
swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. 22 And he who swears by
heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it.
23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe
of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier
matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to
have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who
strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
25 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse
the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of
extortion and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse
the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be
clean also.
27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like
whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but
inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so
you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full
of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
29 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build
the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous,
30 and say, `If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would
not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.'
31 "Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons
of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of
your fathers' guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you
escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you
prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and
crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and
persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the
righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel
to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered
between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all
these things will come upon this generation.
Dear Editor,
I really find it sad that we have a church leadership that seems to have a greater love for money than a love for Christ. I find it sadder that this leadership is more intent on stonewalling, disseminating FUD, and using unchristian strong arming instead of addressing the issues rationally and above board.
I also remember not too many years ago an instance of another senior hierarch who displayed a greater love for money than his Lord. After stonewalling and assertions of authority, his fellow hierarchs, Patriarchs, found that they needed to resort to our ancient tradition of convening a meeting and in council investigating the issues after which they found it necessary to depose the Patriarch of Jerusalem so that a new leadership could be elected.
Our American situation seems so similar, and I wonder if many of these same fellow hierarchs may find it necessary to, in council, investigate the present situation. I would hope not, as it may not be only a leadership change that could be the solution, but also possibly a finding that the leadership potential within the American church is too immature to support autocephaly.
The path that the our Synod of Bishops seems to be following may be laid with serious consequences.
#5 William Kosar on 2006-02-04 07:36
So, let me get this straight. Only the Metropolitan Council can incur indebtedness. So when did the Metropolitan Council authorize the $500,000 loan from a bank? When did the Metropolitan Council authorize the personal loan(s) from Fr Kondratick, much for a house already owned by the OCA? When did these loans originate? How long has this indebtedness been incurred? Is there no paper on this? Is this the same Metropolitan Council which will be authorizing a new loan by a conference call? Sweet!
#6 Jack Miller on 2006-02-04 08:41
Please withhold my information, as my husband is a seminarian - I have absolutely no doubt that the consequences for him would be severe if I were known to be the author of these comments.
There are many in the seminary who are demoralized by these events. This is not speculation on my part, as I have heard for myself the sadness, anger and the feelings of helplessness of people here with whom I and my husband have held private conversations. Not public, mind you - that would be impossible for anyone here who awaits ordination.
I am reminded, often, of stories I have heard about communist countries, where you live in fear of someone informing on you. How is it possible that here, where we dreamt that we would experience a kind of Orthodox utopia, we instead come up against situations where you cannot speak out for fear that someone will report you?
I look around at church and have to hold back tears some days. Every single man, woman and child here has made sacrifices to attend seminary. Most of us are on welfare of some sort. Many of us are living on less than $1000 a month, even those families with multiple children. I have spoken to more mothers that I can remember and been told that she could not pay a utility bill because she had to buy groceries or gas so that her husband could go to class. To then be told that monies intended for the seminary are going into the pockets of men who by their actions have shown that they care nothing for the welfare of the Church is so upsetting that I can barely keep my anger and tears at bay when I hear about it. As it is, my husband and I (and others to whom we have spoken with) have seriously considered leaving the OCA altogether.
Please pray for me and all the men and women attending our seminaries, that we see through our anger and sorrow enough to pray for those who are hurting our Church.
#7 Name withheld by request on 2006-02-04 15:39
Dear seminarian wife, do not let gossips, misrepresentations and personal agendas destroy your commitment to serve God's Holy Church. I went to the seminary, studied full time for 7 years, had five children and worked to support my family. No one helped me, not one dollar and that was at the golden years of Frs. Schmemman, Meyendorf, Hopko, Profs. Verhovskoy etc. They all had a very clear image of what the Church is and what it should not be allowed to become.
The Church is the assembly of believers in Christ, which He Himself calls
every one to join. In her 'all things heavenly and earthly' should be united in
Christ, for He is the Head of 'the Church, which is His Body, the fullness
of Him that filleth all in all' (Eph. 1:22-23). In the Church the creation is
deified and God's original design for the world and man is fulfilled by the
power of the Holy Spirit.
The Church is a result of both the redemptive feat performed by the Son Who
was sent by the Father and the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit Who
descended on the great day of Pentecost. According to St. Irenaeus of Lyons,
Christ put Himself at the head of humanity, becoming the Head of renewed humanity
as His body in which access is found to the source of the Holy Spirit. The
Church is the unity of 'the new humanity in Christ', 'the unity of God's grace
dwelling in the multitude of rational creatures who submit to grace' (A.S.
Khomyakov). 'Men, women, children, deeply divided as to race, nation,
language, way of life, work, education, status, wealth: - all are restored by the
Church in the Spirit: All receive from her one nature which is beyond corruption
- the nature that is not affected by the numerous and profound differences
by which people differ from one another: In her, no one is at all separated
from the common, as everyone is as if dissolved in one another by the simple
and indivisible power of faith' (St. Maxim the Confessor).
As secularism developed, the lofty principles of inalienable human rights
turned into a notion of the rights of the individual outside his relations with
God. In this process, the freedom of the personality transformed into the
protection of self-will (as long as it is not detrimental to individuals) and
into the demand that the state should guarantee a certain material living
standard for the individual and family. In the contemporary systematic
understanding of civil human rights, man is treated not as the image of God, but as a
self-sufficient and self-sufficing subject. Outside God, however, there is
only the fallen man, who is rather far from being the ideal of perfection
aspired to by Christians and revealed in Christ ('Ecce homo!'). For the Christian
sense of justice, the idea of human freedom and rights is bound up with the
idea of service. The Christian needs rights so that in exercising them he may
first of all fulfill in the best possible way his lofty calling to be 'the
likeness of God', as well as his duty before God and the Church.
Out of secularism developed the other model of the church for which we hear
calls today from secularized orthodox Christians. It is based on a democratic
notion of the church. The word democracy is derived from two Greek
words. Greek word demos, meaning people and the word kratos, meaning
power. The Church established and operated and existing of, by, and for the
people power. Totally Anthroposophic and Demoncratic, filled with
individual, personal rights, equality of all; good, better, Best Practices of corporate
accounting, transparency, accountability, etc., where one hears from every
member in good standing continual statements directed at Hierarchy of the
Church (Christ, Apostles, Bishops, Priests): I disagree with your decision; I
m right and you are wrong. I bind my own will in heaven as on earth. Jesus
has promised me personally that whatever is decided by me, along with a couple
of like-minded friends, will be backed by God. Who elected you? This is a
democracy! I decide Im right and you are wrong. God will support me and you
are now judged and found wanting. Because this is democratic, modern, relevant,
open, and politically correct it is American!
To this I compare the true and patristic understanding of the Church:
It is on this condition that we are made to exist: that we pay the debt of
service justly owed to the God who makes us to exist, and that we recognize
and follow only Him. We are fastened and bound to God by this bond of piety
The world was made for this reason, that we might be born. We, in turn, are
born, that we might know God, the maker of the world and us. We know, in
turn, that we may worship. And again, we worship so that we may receive
immortality as the reward of our labors for the worship of God entails great labors
indeed. And, in turn, we are recompensed with the reward of immortality, so
that, having been made like angels, we may serve the most high Father and Lord
forever, and may be in an everlasting kingdom of God. This is the secret of
God; this, the mystery of the world. (Lactantius, On the Divine
Institutions A.D. 304)
The above have no place for personal agendas - We do not save the Church,
the Church saves us. Each should make a choice, which church one wants to be the
humble, obedient, and grateful servant and the son of.
Please do not take my comments as offense, just a reflection.
Alexey Karlgut
#7.1 Fr. Alexey Karlgut on 2006-02-05 22:55
I say leave the OCA and go to a real Orthodox Church seminary! My family left the OCA last year due to the disgraceful behavior of our parish priest combined with our growing displeasure with the OCA. This isn't about money - it's about the abuse of power and position, it is about self indulgence and it's about the belief on the part of the church officials that they are above the rules. This is a disgrace for the entire Orthodox church and the entire Christian community.
#7.2 Desiree Melnychenko on 2006-02-28 20:03
I have said that there has got to be some way for us out of this "deep muddy" that is thoroughly Orthodox and respects the hierarchical nature of the Church. I have some sympathy for the suggestion that U.S.-style rights talk is in some way incompatible with the Church, arising as it does from the secular, rationalist Enlightenment of western Europe. (This difficulty, the question of "rights" in the ecclesial context, has been something I've been struggling with.)
Could the reason that it is proper for people in the Church to make known their concerns be the nature of speech itself? I would suggest that the gift of speech comes from the One who is Truth in order to express truth. I think what follows is that the expression of truth cannot be legitimately punished (except for such reasons as revealing matters arising in the context of confession) simply due to its content.
There are probably a number of good arguments against this; but with enough imagination, it is possible that good counter-arguments can then be made.
#8 Ed Unneland on 2006-02-05 20:36
Having read The Culture of Fear by Mark Stokoe, I want to offer few
reflections of my own.
Fear or Phobia is an intense, abnormal, or illogical fear of a specified
thing, in our case, of the Governing bodies (or Authority) of the Orthodox
Church in America, namely: Primate, Holy Synod, Administrative Committee,
Metropolitan Council, Central church administration, chancellor, treasurer, and
anyone perceived to be in a position of authority, or on the payroll of the OCA,
above the parochial level. All of whom somehow are involved in lies,
deception, thievery, destruction of trust and love, and in instilling fear,
intimidation, falsehoods, and are spiritually dead.
I want to share an important article by one of the women who belongs to the
OCA. It might be a bit long, but please read it!
Obedi-phobia: Obedience, and other forbidden words.
By Jennifer Roback Morse
Feb 6, 2006
Talk radio keeps my brain engaged while Im doing the all-important Mom work
of driving kids around. So, while driving between a childs therapist
appointment, dropping him off at school, and then taking the mini-van in for
repairs, I caught Dennis Pragers radio program on wisdom. He observed that wisdom
isnt valued much in todays world. If offered a choice between being famous
and being wise, most college kids would look at you like youd lost your
mind. No contest. Fame trumps wisdom, every time.
I submit there is a reason we lack wisdom. We are afraid of legitimate
authority. In fact, many in our culture question whether any authority really is
legitimate. Therefore, we have no concept that obedience can be a virtue. As a
matter of fact, obeying your parents can be the simplest and most
straightforward way of gaining wisdom.
Yes, you heard it here, on a conservative, semi-libertarian website:
obedience can be a virtue. Obedi-phobia is a cultural and personal disaster. Dont
bother looking it up: I just invented it. Obedi-phobia means a pathological
fear of obedience to legitimate authority.
What is legitimate authority? Everyone who knows more than I can be a
legitimate authority on that subject. Parents are legitimate authority figures over
their children. The Law, in our Anglo-American tradition, exercises
authority over us all, because the law is made through the participation of large
numbers of people, in a reasonably transparent process. Americans obey the law,
not because some Dear Leader says so, but because the Law says so. In the
Judeo-Christian tradition, people obey God, not because God is a cosmic bully
who will punish us if we dont. We obey God because we believe He loves us and
has our interests in mind.
Here is how obedi-phobia hampers our quest for wisdom.
The ancient Greeks called prudence practical wisdom. Prudence did not
mean, doing whatever you can get away with, as it now means in political
parlance. The Greeks considered prudence the virtue of doing the right thing at the
right time in the right amount, even when this cant be deduced from general
principles. Prudence shows us the difference between courage, a good thing,
and rashness, a foolish thing. Seen in this light, the Greeks regarded
prudence as the queen of the virtues, that held all the others together.
Prudence requires experience with actual people in actual situations.
Experience shows us how to recognize the difference between a sincere
complement and groveling flattery. Experience teaches us how to distinguish between
joyful spontaneity and idiotic self-indulgence.
But children have no experience. By definition, at the beginning of life, it
is impossible to have accumulated the store of experiences that would allow
a person to be genuinely prudent.
So, how can the young acquire prudence or practical wisdom? As Dennis put it
on his show, the relatively pain-free method is to listen to what other
people have to say, or to observe other peoples mistakes. The painful method is
to jump off the cliff to see for yourself whether gravity really works for
you, or whether gravity is just a cynical plot by old people to suppress the
exuberance of youth. In the first two cases, the young person acquires wisdom
by learning from the experience of other people.
There is an even simpler alternative: The child could obey his parents.
Many parents are afraid to insist on obedience from their children. We have
the bizarre situation in which children learn to negotiate with their parents
without ever learning to obey them. Ive seen families in which the three-
year-old essentially runs the household, and Ill bet you have too. The child
decides whats for dinner, whens bedtime, and where she has to sleep. There
is something slightly pathetic about two grown adults negotiating with a
small child over the merits of chocolate pudding as a main course for dinner.
Many adults have come to believe that good parenting requires empowering
children at all times. But it is not in a preschoolers interest to give her
responsibility for decisions she cannot handle.
Besides, she has more urgent developmental tasks. Potty training. Holding a
crayon. Dressing herself. Learning to share toys. And, incidently, learning
that she is not really the center of the universe. Learning to peddle a
tricycle is a lot easier and safer for a child who will accept moms limitations on
where to ride, rather than endlessly arguing with mom. Trust mom. Shes
really not trying to hurt you when she limits your freedom by insisting that you
stay on the sidewalk.
Trust really is the heart of the issue. Life completely devoid of trust is
truly grim, whether viewed personally or politically. I wrote about this in my
first book, Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesnt Work
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1890626295/ref=nosim/townhallcom) .
A child who truly doesnt trust anyone cant learn very much. If you try to
play catch with him, he thinks youre trying to hit him with the ball. Forget
about washing his hair: he is certain youre going to drown him. When we ask
a child to obey, we are asking him to trust us. Trust that we have your
interests at heart, and that we know what we are talking about.
Lack of trust is at the heart of our cultural obedi-phobia. Our scary images
of goose-stepping Nazis, blindly following orders, actually shows the
connection between obedience and trust. We distrust people in power, as well we
might after living through the twentieth century drenched in blood by people who
abused their power over others. But it doesnt follow that every request for
obedience is suspect, and that every act of defiance is noble. It takes
prudence, practical wisdom, to discern the difference between legitimate
authority and usurpation of power.
We need to wise up, and trust.
Lets reflect on this vis-à-vis current gossips, half truths, and
intimidation that is directed at our church via all-powerful internet. I, for one, will
trust in God, His Church and its governance, rather then websites, forums,
chat rooms, at all. Church will heal itself and if need be, cleanse itself,
from inside by God and Holy Spirit, not by 'people power' (democracy) or
internet. You want to help do it from within, because anything from without is an
Attack, not an assistance!
Love to all,
Fr. Alexey
#8.1 Fr. Alexey Karlgut on 2006-02-07 00:25
I heard Mr. Prager several years ago (2001) lament that actions used to speak louder than words. In today's age, he said, it is more important to espouse the correct belief than to do the right thing.
It is time, frankly, for us to re-evaluate the central administrative aspect of the OCA. Why is Syosset necessary? Is not the Metropolitan simply the first among equals of the Holy Synod? The OCA has fully functional dioceses. What is to be gained by a central administration other than the Synod itself?
National organizations can be maintained, seminaries funded, relief appeals made, etc. without the central administration of the OCA. It can be done at the diocesean level. In my mind, that is the appropriate level anyway. What can a Metropolitan do that a Bishop cannot? Have we established a papacy in Syosset without realizing it?
The fundamental unit of the Church is the Bishop, not the Metropolitan. The Holy Synod exists to ensure the conciliarity of the faith of each Bishop, not to administer the decisions of the Metropolitan. The primate's position is in honor, not in authority.
#8.1.1 Martin D. Watt on 2006-02-09 16:17
Fr Alexey:
Are the allegations true or are they false?
#8.1.2 Jack Miller on 2006-02-10 10:50
No matter which particular issues are exposed and explained in this sorry scandal, the ENTIRE Orthodox church is shamed in the public forum, not only the OCA. Look at what the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic church has dredged up to be thrown in the faces of all Roman Catholics! Now, the Orthodox must bear the humiliation of financial misconduct. It doesn't matter to the general public that the OCA is being investigated. Orthodox is all that they hear and all that they scorn. Lo, how the mighty have fallen.
#8.1.3 Joyce Visnick on 2006-02-26 22:28
The author does not allow comments to this entry


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The crowd was rocking hours before in Assembly Hall, with the fans leading the energized Hoosiers team when they faced UNC on Tuesday night.
This was the marquee matchup of the night, as it let two historic programs battle it out on the floor, which surprisingly seems to be rare in the series of North Carolina and Indiana.
However, as highly as this game was anticipated, Indiana (7-0) completely dominated North Carolina (5-2) as they were able to cruise to an 83-59 victory Tuesday night, allowing the Big Ten to take control the first night in the ACC/ Big Ten Challenge.
Indiana started out strong, scoring quick buckets in transition and being able to get in the middle of the floor, especially with Cody Zeller running the floor and looking like a replica of his older brother, Tyler Zeller.
Indiana led 18-17 in the first 10 minutes of play, but seemed to struggle from the 3 point line early, allowing UNC taking its first lead 19-18 with Brice Johnson getting in the books early with six quick points (10 for the game).
Marcus Paige and Yogi Ferrell matched up early in the game, as they both played pretty well and seemed to be able to handle their first true test on national television. Marcus was able to score early in the game with five points and hitting the first 3 point basket of the game for the Heels.
As one Indiana fan pointed out early in the game, "UNC has so many guards," which seemingly helped UNC in the first half when they attacked the basket.
But Indiana was able to counter that with transition points and easy points in the paint, as the Heels struggled on defense in the paint. But what helped was not the down low pounding between the front courts, but the back court being able to get penetration that forced UNC's forwards away from their men, giving Indiana easy lay ups.
What seemed to ignite the Hoosier's on offense and the crowd, was late in the first half, Indiana was able to get easy dunks against a struggling UNC defense and take a 46-37 lead into halftime.
Coming out in the second half, Indiana continued how they finished in the first, playing intense basketball on both ends of the floor. The Tar Heels were not able to score for approximately five minutes to start the second half, which allowed Indiana to increase their lead to double digits, growing as big as 19 points at the first timeout of the second half on the strength of a fast and decisive 10-0 run.
Indiana just looked like the team they should be, with crisp offense, troubling defense, driving ability, and their 3 pt. shooting on point. The Heels, to put it gently, struggled tremendously the first part of the second half, allowing Indiana to pour it on and making it look easy.
At one point in the second half, the Tar Heels went 1-17 from the field, which allowed the Hoosier's to increase their lead to 26 points (66-40) and for Indiana to never look back.
"The biggest thing was the energy. We just had to keep up the energy, keep pushing it in transition and keep getting after them on defense and we were hoping eventually they'd start missing shots so we just had to keep doing what we were doing and keep the energy up" said Zeller about IU's strong play in the second half.
In the end, Roy Williams really thought they could come back from its halftime deficit, but it wasn't even close.
"I thought we would make a comeback the second half but it just didn't get going for us. I think it is more of a case of our kids trying to do too much because I think they really care" Williams said about his team.
The lead grew to its biggest at 32, with the score being 83-51 at the 4:22 mark in the second, but that was far after the game was in hand for the Hoosiers.
Indiana looked like the number one team Tuesday night.
They were able to effectively move the ball around, with multiple guys contributing on both ends. Four players scored double digits for the Hoosiers, with Zeller's 20 points leading the way.
Defense was a huge flaw for UNC, as they were beat mostly at their own game; transition points, stiffening defense, and being able to score points on a large amount of attempts.
All are factors that Indiana was able to capitalize on Tuesday night as one can see from the stat lines. Indiana shot 44.6 percent from the field (40 percent from 3pt), out-rebounded UNC 49-42, and they created 12 turnovers along with having 21 assists, six blocks, six steals, but only 10 turnovers in the game.
Even though the headlines will read what Zeller did against James Michael McAdoo, the guy that had the best overall game was the six-foot senior guard Jordan Hulls. He was able to compile 13 points, eight assists, and seven rebounds in the game while draining some critical threes in the game.
UNC's youth showed in the game, as Coach Williams mentioned it in the press conference after the game.
"Every kid is a good player and when we're down, they think they can score a basket that's going to give us 25 points in one shot. The more mature you get, the better and stronger you get as a team and good things can happen for you."
As mentioned above, the bench play was be a key component to the game.
Will Sheehey scored as many points for IU as the whole UNC bench, as he contributed 19 points on 8-12 shooting (3-4 behind the arc) in just 26 minutes of action.
P.J. Hairston would have provided another scoring threat off the bench and probably been able to stretch more of the defense, but that likely wouldn't have provided enough against this tough Hoosier team.
Say what you want, but the Heels have a lot to learn from experiences such as this one. Indiana is number one for a reason, but there are no excuses in sports.
The Heels will need to take this experience and learn from their mistakes. That is two games now early in the season that UNC has shot poorly and their defense was poor at best.
For this team to grow there will have to be more determination to get better on the defensive side of the ball because shots might not always fall, such as in games like Tuesday night.
With little doubt, Williams will try to get through to this team with some hard practices coming up.
Roy really seemed to admire what Tom Crean and Indiana has done, agreeing that they looked like a number one team.
"I think they are," was Williams' reply when asked if Indiana deserves to be the number one team in the nation.
"The thing I like about them is that they really are a team. They don't have one guy that beats you up; they beat you up so many different ways," he said.
It's hard to deny it after a solid victory like that against UNC.
North Carolina will get a chance later this week to take what they have learned and apply it, as they will be coming back to Chapel Hill for a game against UAB on Saturday, December 1 at 6:00pm.
This will be the beginning of a stretch of five out of six home games for the Tar Heels, with the lone exception being a road game at Texas in Austin on Wednesday, December 19.
For five consecutive Saturdays the Tar Heels will be playing in front of the home crowd at the Smith Center.
This surely will give them a chance to get away from the Indiana and Butler losses, get through exams, and hopefully build on their season, because it isn't how you play in the beginning of the year, it's always about where you are at the end.

subset: commoncrawl


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Senior Researcher Jiffy Lansing and Project Associate Erin Rapoport have released a qualitative study on the Becoming a Man Program. The study explores how youth development occurs in the context of BAM programming and how this is likely related to positive outcomes for these youth. The report documents BAM's key program components from the perspectives of participating youth and BAM counselors. »
University of Chicago and Chapin Hall Announce 2016-2017 Joint Research Fund Awards
The University of Chicago and Chapin Hall Center for Children have announced $200,000 in awards from the UChicago-Chapin Hall Joint Research Fund to three interdisciplinary project teams. These awards aim to foster long-term policy-relevant collaborations between the University and Chapin Hall, while supporting outstanding research that leads to new directions in policy and practice aligned with Chapin Hall's mission to promote the well-being of vulnerable children, youth and families. Eight research teams previously received Fund awards. »
Research Fellow Amy Dworsky Coauthors NCCP Policy Brief
Chapin Hall Research Fellow Amy Dworsky coauthored a recently released policy brief, "Fostering Health: The Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and Youth Transitioning from Foster Care." The brief was published by the National Center for Children in Poverty. It describes the health care needs of former foster youth and the barriers they face to accessing health care. It also makes policy and practice recommendations to eliminate those barriers such as informing youth about their healthcare eligibility and streamlining the application process. »
Bryan Samuels Reappointed as Executive Director of Chapin Hall
Affirming the success of the last three years, the Board of Directors of Chapin Hall announced that Bryan Samuels has accepted reappointment as Executive Director, effectively positioning Chapin Hall for robust growth and sustained organizational health. Samuels' agreement with the board runs for five years, with a renewal option in 2021. »


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NEW YORK — The Rays had already decided they weren't going to pick up second baseman Akinori Iwamura's $4.85 million option, so anything they could get for him was going to be a bonus.
Tuesday, that turned out to be reliever Jesse Chavez, 26, a right-hander who made a major-league rookie-high 73 appearances for the Pirates last season, going 1-4 with a 4.01 ERA. He has a live arm, Rays executive vice president Andrew Friedman said, and a high upside.
"He's got some swing-and-miss stuff," Friedman said. "And now it's about trying to harness it and have it play that way at the major-league level."
The Rays wouldn't have gotten anything, and would have had to pay a $550,000 buyout, if they declined the option by the one-day-after-the-World-Series deadline, and Iwamura would have become a free agent.
But the Pirates, who have been scouting him since September, wanted him badly enough to offer Chavez, who has minor-league options left and is under the Rays control through 2014.
"It's tough to give up a guy like Jesse Chavez," Pirates GM Neal Huntington told Pittsburgh media. "But as we've talked about before, the bullpen is the most difficult to predict future performances."
Iwamura, 30, was a key player for the Rays for three seasons and made the most memorable play in club history, touching second for the final out in Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS. With Ben Zobrist, Sean Rodriguez and Reid Brignac available to play second and Evan Longoria entrenched at third, they no longer had use for him.
"It's tough to put into words what Aki's meant to this organization," Friedman said.
Iwamura said on a conference call he was "very excited for the new challenge" and "very appreciative."


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Are you considering purchasing a property, or have you taken on a new property to manage? Then you will want to inspect for deferred maintenance items. Deferred maintenance is building care that was not performed when it should have been.
Not replacing or repairing a cracked window or failing to inspect and lubricate pumps on schedule are examples of deferred maintenance. These items can quickly overwhelm your budget for ongoing repair and maintenance because there is no telling when they will suddenly reach the point where repair is critical.
If you are thinking about buying a building, it is a good idea to bundle the expense of any deferred maintenance into your acquisition costs. A distressed building might seem like a good deal until you add up all the items needing attention.
Keep in mind that simply discounting the cost of repairs from the purchase price can create financing problems, because it's not uncommon for lenders to refuse properties with deferred maintenance. You may need to arrange for repairs to be done in advance of the purchase.
Whether you are just taking on a deferred maintenance project or you have deferred your own maintenance in the past and are looking to bring your property up to date, here is a plan to help you through the process.
1. Make a list. The first step is to take inventory of your maintenance needs. Go through the entire building from foundation to roof and detail everything that needs repair. Don't forget to include the landscape and other exterior areas of the property.
2. Calculate the consequences. What will happen if the issues are not addressed? How will it impact other parts of the building? For example, a broken window located near a plumbing stack could lead to frozen and burst pipes and, thus, to extensive water damage. Safety should also be a high priority. Poorly lit stairs or heaving sidewalks might not compromise a building's integrity, but they can easily lead to injury and litigation.
3. Understand the context. Next, identify why the maintenance has not been addressed. There are many legitimate reasons for maintenance to be deferred. Was it a lack of expertise? Unwillingness to interfere with a function of the building? Inadequate cash flow? Availability of parts? Especially if you are considering investing in a property, being aware of the reasons for neglect can help you decide whether and how to go ahead with the project.
4. Prioritize. If you have a backlog of maintenance projects, you probably will need to address them in stages. Place each deferred maintenance item into one of the following categories:
• Critical—These are maintenance items or conditions that are immediately affecting safety, health and/or profitability. Take care of safety- and health-related problems first. Then address profit-impacting problems, for instance, repairing damage that prevents a unit from being rent-ready or conditions that threaten to cause further damage.
• Pending critical—These are items that will become critical within a year or so. A good example is an old boiler that you will want to replace before it fails.
• Important—These are items that might not be critical right now, but if left too long, they could become so. This category also includes non-critical improvements that could significantly increase long-term profitability if implemented—for example, energy-efficiency measures.
5. Create a budget. Once you know your critical, pending critical and important issues, find out what it will cost in time and labor to correct them. Create a budget and implement a plan to address these issues. You might want to create both a short-term budget to address issues of immediate concern and a long-term plan to bring the property to its peak profitability over three, five or 10 years.
6. Look for funding. The next step is to figure out where the money will come from to fund the repairs. Are there grants or other programs that can assist with costs? For example, there are state and federal energy efficiency incentives available that can help fund the replacement of items such as boilers, furnaces, chillers and lighting. Your city manager or other local official might be able to suggest other funding sources as well.
7. Adjust your maintenance budget and policy. Using the knowledge you have gained through documenting and budgeting for your deferred maintenance items, create a realistic plan to avoid recurring problems with deferred maintenance.
Be sure to join the Lowe's ProServices LinkedIn Group to read additional content and interact with other Construction/Trade and MRO professionals.


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North Carolina Man Arrested for Stealing Miley Cyrus Blow Up Doll [VIDEO]
A 22-year old in North Carolina was recently arrested after being caught trying to shoplift a Miley Cyrus blow up doll. What a dumbass! He could've bought a dimebag and had the real thing for free.
Benjamin Greene headed to a Spartanburg, South Carolina Spencer's Gifts location, where he was spotted by an employee removing a 'Finally Mylie!' blow up doll from its box. He allegedly stuff his little latex Hannah Montana into his coat and headed for the door. His plan was foiled when an employee confronted him and the package fell out of Greene's coat. Greene is now facing shoplifting charges and a 5 to 10 year sentence of internet embarrassment.
The 'Finally Mylie!' doll was released a few years back after the former Disney star turned 18, as commemorated by such classy catch phrases like "Daddy's Little Stoner is Ready for You to Bone Her," and "3 Achy Love Holes" on the packaging. The doll only retails for $19.99, so why would anyone go to the trouble to steal it? The same reason you would steal her album, because — even if you want it — you'd rather keep that info to yourself.
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International Journal of Antennas and Propagation
Volume 2015 (2015), Article ID 903902, 12 pages
Multitarget Direct Localization Using Block Sparse Bayesian Learning in Distributed MIMO Radar
School of Electronic Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan 410073, China
Received 16 April 2014; Revised 14 August 2014; Accepted 22 August 2014
Academic Editor: Michelangelo Villano
Copyright © 2015 Bin Sun et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The target localization in distributed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar is a problem of great interest. This problem becomes more complicated for the case of multitarget where the measurement should be associated with the correct target. Sparse representation has been demonstrated to be a powerful framework for direct position determination (DPD) algorithms which avoid the association process. In this paper, we explore a novel sparsity-based DPD method to locate multiple targets using distributed MIMO radar. Since the sparse representation coefficients exhibit block sparsity, we use a block sparse Bayesian learning (BSBL) method to estimate the locations of multitarget, which has many advantages over existing block sparse model based algorithms. Experimental results illustrate that DPD using BSBL can achieve better localization accuracy and higher robustness against block coherence and compressed sensing (CS) than popular algorithms in most cases especially for dense targets case.
1. Introduction
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar study has received considerable attention over the past few years [1–7]. MIMO radar is typically used in two antenna configurations, namely, colocated [1, 2] and distributed [3, 4]. Colocated MIMO radar with closely spaced antennas exploits the waveform diversity and increased degrees of freedom (DOF) to obtain better angular resolution due to the virtual aperture [1]. The proximity of the antenna arrays allows considering the same target response for each transmitter-receiver pair [8]. Unlike colocated MIMO radar, distributed MIMO radar exploits angular diversity by capturing information from different aspect angles of target with widely spaced antennas [3] and supports accurate target location and velocity estimation [9]. In distributed MIMO radar, targets display different radar cross-sections (RCS) in different transmit-receive channels, and thus better detection performance is ensured by averaging the target scintillations from different angles [3]. In this paper, we are concerned with solving multiple stationary targets localization problem using distributed MIMO radar.
Location estimation technique is one important problem for MIMO radar systems due to its great potential to enable different kinds of localization applications. The traditional approach to solve the localization problem consists of a two-step procedure. The signal parameters such as direction of arrival (DOA), time of arrival (TOA), and time difference of arrival (TDOA) are estimated firstly at several receivers independently and then the coordinates of targets are calculated by exploiting the explicit geometric relationship. The authors in [10, 11] studied target localization with MIMO radar systems by utilizing bistatic TOA for multilateration and the Cramêr-Rao bound (CRB) for the target localization accuracy was derived. It has been shown that localization by coherent MIMO radar provides significantly better performance than noncoherent processing where the phase information is ignored. Coherent processing, however, entails the challenge of ensuring multisite systems phase synchronization [12] and the impact of static phase errors at the transmitters and receivers over the CRB has been well analyzed [13, 14]. Literature [15] has demonstrated that even the noncoherent MIMO radar provides significant performance improvement over a monostatic phased array radar with high range and azimuth resolutions. Although most publications on localization algorithms concentrate on the two-step method, it is suboptimal in general [16]. The problem becomes more complicated and challenging for multiple dense targets scenario using the method given in [11], where parameters as TOAs should be assigned to the correct targets, which is called "Data Association" [17] and it is an important problem especially for multiple target applications. A multiple-hypothesis- (MH-) based algorithm for multitarget localization was proposed to estimate the number and states of targets [18].
On the contrary, the direct position determination (DPD) method suggested by Weiss in [16] and Bar-Shalom and Weiss in [19] does not need intermediate parameters as DOAs or TOAs. The position estimates of interest are obtained directly by minimizing a cost function using the grid-search method, which can improve the estimation accuracy with respect to the two-step method. A maximum likelihood (ML) based DPD method dealing with one moving target is developed [20]. Moreover, the DPD method can provide superior localization capability in the context of multitarget scenarios since the data association step is avoided. Despite these advantages, the DPD method did not receive enough attention due to its intensive computation load. Recently, sparsity-based representation DPD framework is exploited for target/source localization problem. In fact, since the number of unknown targets is small in the radar scene, it can be modeled as an ideal sparse vector in the localization problem. Therefore, sparse modeling for distributed MIMO radar is firstly presented in [21] and the location estimates can be obtained by searching for the block sparse solution of underdetermined model using block matching pursuit (BMP) method. In [22], the multisource localization problem using TDOA measurements is formulated to be a sparse recovery problem and the problem of the data association and multisource localization is solved in a joint fashion. The method of block sparse Bayesian learning (BSBL) method in [23] motivates us to consider its application to multitarget localization problem in distributed MIMO radar. By exploiting the intrablock correlation, BSBL can achieve a superior performance over other algorithms for off-grid DOA estimation [24]. Simulation results showed that the BSBL method significantly outperforms competitive algorithms in different experiments.
In this paper, motivated by [21], we propose to apply the BSBL algorithm [23] for solving multitarget direct localization problem by employing block sparse modeling and we demonstrate the superiority of BSBL for multitarget localization problem through sufficient numerical experiments from many aspects. Specifically, we demonstrate the robustness of BSBL against compressed sampling and capability of dealing with dense targets localization. The effect of parameter estimation based on the off-grid model is also shown.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. We introduce the signal model for a distributed MIMO radar and formulate the block sparse representation of signal in Section 2. In Section 3, we review existing sparse recovery algorithms for this problem. Then, the sparsity-aware multitarget localization using BSBL is presented in Section 4. The comparison of performance based on Monte Carlo simulations is shown in Section 5. Finally, concluding remarks and future work are addressed in Section 6.
Notations used in this paper are as follows. Boldface letters are reserved for vectors and matrices. and denote the norm and norm, respectively. , are the determinant and trace of a matrix , respectively. denotes a block matrix with principal diagonal blocks being the in turn. means each elements in the vector is nonnegative. denotes vector of all ones and denotes identity matrix.
2. Signal Model
Consider a distributed MIMO radar network consisting of transmitters, located at , receivers, located at , and targets, located at in a two-dimensional (2D) plane. Without loss of generality, we can extend the analysis in this paper to the three-dimensional (3D) case. A set of orthogonal narrowband waveforms are transmitted from different transmitters where denotes the fast time. Suppose that the th transmitter generates a linearly frequency-modulated (LFM) signal where denotes the window function, , is the chirp rate, represents the bandwidth, denotes the pulse duration, and is the carrier frequency of the th transmitter. Further, we assume that the cross correlations between these waveforms are close to zeros for different delays; namely, where denotes the conjugate operator. Let denote the complex RCS value corresponding to the th target between the th transmitter and the th receiver and each target is modeled as a collection of various reflection coefficients. In this work, we are interested in Rician target model [25], which describes one dominant scatterer together with a number of small scatterers, and target returns are assumed to be deterministic and unknown.
For coherent processing, we obtain the bandpass signal arriving at the th receiver taking account of the phase errors as where is the time delay corresponding to the th target in the th transmit-receive pair and is the speed of the propagation of the wave in the medium. and in (4) denote the phase error induced by the th transmitter or th receiver, respectively. The noise is assumed to be complex Gaussian with power spectral density (PSD) and is assumed to be independent for different .
The received signals at each receiver can be decomposed by a bank of matched filters. Then we take samples within a range bin centered at in the th transmit-receive pair as where and denote the sample index and sampling interval, respectively, , is selected as the center of targets, is the sampling start time of corresponding range gate, and is the noise component at the output of the matched filter. Note that unknown phase errors are absorbed in the unknown reflection coefficient as . Plus, the waveform term is no longer present in this equation as it is integrated out of the matched filter being a sinc function. This model is more practical than that in [21] by taking account of the effect of sampling deviation from the location of peaks.
We discretize the planar area into a grid of uniform cells where each of the targets is located at one of the cells. If there are targets in the area and is given a fine grid of cells such that the cell's occupancy is exclusive, the distribution of the targets in the plane is sparse; that is, out of cells only contain the targets. This implies the spatial sparsity model as depicted in Figure 1. Denoting the signal attributed to the target located at cell at sample index as and concatenating the signals corresponding to each cells, the signal vector coming from all the 2D plane can be formed as , where and stands for the transpose operator. Further, is defined as
There are reflection coefficients corresponding to the one particular cell where the target is located and there are only targets. We characterize sparsity with such structure as block sparsity. Figure 1 illustrates the particular block sparsity model exhibited in representation of signals coming from all over the grid as described above.
For the coherent processing, the dictionary elements at the th grid at sample index in the th pair is given as
The dictionary is partitioned accordingly into where
Further, we arrange and in (6) into dimensional column vectors and , respectively. Therefore, we can express the received vector at as where is a block sparse vector with only nonzero blocks and each block containing entries. We have expressed our observed data at using sparse representation. It is further assumed that the target reflection coefficients remain constant across the range bin. In order to make the model more concise, we stack , , and into , , and to obtain sparse representation as where , , and .
Note that, in the above expression for the measurement vector, is known and only depends on the actual targets present in the illuminated area. The nonzero entries of represent the target RCS values and the corresponding indices determine the positions. We assume that the number of targets is unknown. The problem of target localization is therefore turned into sparse vector recovery problem. Recovery methods for block sparse signals will be addressed in the next section.
3. Existing Sparse Support Recovery
In the previous section, we have expressed that the signal received across receive antennas over snapshots using sparse representation. In order to find the locations of the targets, we need to recover the sparse vector from the measurements . Since the sampling number is much smaller than the grid number , the inversion of (12) is an ill-posed problem. In addition, has block/group structure. The exact sparsity of the signal denoted by , that is, the norm of , is equal to the number of nonzero elements in and is employed to get the inversion of (12). Then, the signal vector can be obtained by solving the following optimization problem: where is the regularization factor proportional to the noise level. The optimization problem requires combinatorial search and is widely known as NP-hard. In order to simplify the optimization problem, some convex relaxation is often made. The most extensively used one is the -norm relaxation as follows:
Since (13) is nonconvex, matching pursuit (MP) and orthogonal MP are preferred. The aforementioned two methods use a greedy strategy that iteratively selects the basis vector. After -norm relaxation, many methods, such as basis pursuit (BP) denoising, least absolute shrinkage, and selection operator (LASSO), and gradient projection for sparse reconstruction can be used to find the solution. These algorithms recover sparse vectors but do not exploit the knowledge of the block sparsity. It is known that exploiting such block partition property can further improve recovery performance. Recently, block-MP (BMP) algorithm has been proposed [26] which exploits the knowledge of block sparsity.
Nevertheless, the BMP algorithm is effective on noiseless scenarios. In practice, measurements are inevitably contaminated with noise and underlying uncertainties. Besides, the performance of the sparsity based estimation approaches is determined by the correlations between columns of the dictionary matrix and the distance between the adjacent grids. High dictionary coherence can potentially disrupt BMP or Group-Lasso algorithms [27]. More importantly, one should note that when one target belongs to the th grid, not only the target reflection coefficient block is a nonzero block, but also its elements are correlated in amplitude. The correlation arises because the coefficients of the th grid are belonging to the same target, and thus the elements in are mutually dependent. It is shown that exploiting the correlation within blocks can further improve the estimation quality of [23].
Therefore, in this paper we propose to use BSBL [23] to estimate by exploiting the block structure and the correlation within blocks. In the next section we briefly introduce BSBL and its algorithm.
4. Block SBL Based Target Localization
This section briefly describes the BSBL framework and corresponding algorithm.
4.1. BSBL Framework
BSBL is an extension of the basic SBL framework, which exploits a block structure and intrablock correlation in the coefficient vector . It is based on the assumption that can be partitioned into nonoverlapping blocks as
For sparse model in this paper, . Then, each block is assumed to satisfy a parameterized multivariate Gaussian distribution with the unknown parameters and . Here is a nonnegative parameter controlling the block sparsity of . When , the th block becomes zero. During the learning procedure most tend to be zero, due to the mechanism of automatic relevance determination. Thus sparsity at the block level is encouraged. is a positive definite and symmetrical matrix, capturing the intrablock correlation of the th block. Under the assumption that blocks are mutually uncorrelated, the prior of is , where . Assume the noise vector satisfies , where is a positive scalar to be estimated. Therefore the posterior of is given by with
Therefore, the estimate of can be directly obtained by using the the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation, providing all the parameters , . The parameters , can be estimated by a Type II maximum likelihood procedure [28]. This is equivalent to minimizing the following cost function: where denotes all the parameters. This framework is called the BSBL framework. The algorithm derived from this framework includes three learning rules, that is, the learning rules for , , and . The correlation matrix is modeled as a Toeplitz matrix. There are several optimization methods to minimize the cost function, such as the expectation-maximum (EM) method, the bound-optimization (BO) method, and the duality method.
4.2. Advantages of BSBL
Compared to Lasso-type algorithms (such as Group-Lasso based on -minimization) and greedy algorithms (such as Group-MP based on -minimization), BSBL has the following advantages.(1)BSBL provides large flexibility to model and exploit intrablock correlation structure in signals. By exploiting the correlation structures, recovery performance is significantly improved [29].(2)BSBL has the unique ability to find less-sparse and nonsparse true solutions with very small errors [30]. This is attractive for practical use, since in practice the true solutions may not be very sparse and existing sparse signal recovery algorithms generally fail in this case.(3)Its recovery performance is robust to the characteristics of the dictionary , while other algorithms are not. This advantage is very attractive to sparse representation and other applications, since in some applications there is a trade-off between the resolution (grid size) and the block coherence measure [21]. When the grid points come closer, the resolution is improved but blocks within are highly coherent.
Therefore, BSBL is promising for multitarget localization. In the following we choose the BSBL- algorithm [23], which transforms the BSBL cost function from the space to the space by treating and as regularizers. Since it only takes few iterations and each iteration is a standard Group-Lasso type problem, it is much faster and is more suitable for large-scale datasets than BSBL-EM and BSBL-BO algorithms [23].
5. Experiments
To demonstrate the superior performance of BSBL, this section tests the performance of sparse recovery based multitarget localization algorithms by conducting a wide range of numerical experiments. Three algorithms are used, which are the Group-Lasso method for solving (14), the Group/block-MP for solving (13) [21], and the BSBL- method.
We use the same radar configuration as in [21]. Consider a MIMO radar system in a common Cartesian coordinate system. The transmitters are located at m and m, respectively. The receivers are located at m and m, respectively. The three targets are located at m, m, and m. The carrier frequency of these two transmitters are GHz and GHz. The pulse duration is μs and signal bandwidth is MHz. The phase errors and are assumed to be . We choose the range gate is and snapshots number is for the simulation results. Therefore, has entries. We divide the planar area into grid points. Therefore, the total number of possible target states is . Hence, the dimensional sparse vector has only nonzero entries corresponding to the targets. The th target reflection coefficients follow a Rician distribution with pdf , where the fixed-amplitude part of three targets in all transmit-receive paths are , , and , and the power of Rayleigh part is for all three targets. Our definition of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is and the noise is generated independently from Gaussian distribution. We combine energies of reconstructed signal corresponding to different transmit-receive paths for each grid point in the target state space and define a new vector as
In the following, each experiment was repeated for trials. In [21] a metric is given below to analyze the performance: where contains the values that carries at the correct indices and takes at the correct indices and takes the same values as at every other index. And the authors in [21] claimed that can guarantee exact estimation of the position. Since can only represent the mean value of accuracy in the trials, so we define the success rate as a new localization accuracy performance index, defined as the percentage of successful trials in the trials (a successful trial was defined as the one when ).
5.1. Comparison with Different Sparse Recovery Algorithms
We start by comparing the BSBL- method with two classical methods, including Group-MP, Group-Lasso methods. Also we examine the benefit of exploiting intrablock correlation using BSBL- algorithm. The normalized mean square error (NMSE) is used as a performance index, defined by .
Figure 2 depicts the NMSE results using different recovery algorithms. As a benchmark result, the "pentagram" result is calculated, which is the least-square estimate of given its true support. The BSBL algorithm exhibits significant performance gains over non-BSBL algorithms. Figure 3 shows the reconstructed reflection coefficients of three targets for an SNR of 10 dB using different algorithms. From Figure 3 we can see that three algorithms are capable of estimating the positions of targets but the performance of Group-Lasso and Group-MP are intuitively poorer than BSBL- method. In order to quantitatively analyze the performance of the three algorithms, we plot the metrics and success rate versus SNR in Figure 4. BSBL- is applied with and without correlation exploitation. In the first case, it adaptively learned and exploited the intrablock correlation. In the second case, it ignored the correlation, that is, fixing . As can be seen, the BSBL- algorithm exhibits significant performance gains over non-BSBL algorithms. In Figure 4(a), the value of remains above for lower SNR for BSBL- algorithm when compared with Group-MP and Group Lasso methods. In Figure 4(b), it is worth noting that when dB, BSBL- exactly recovers block sparse signals with a high success rate (). Also we see that exploiting the intrablock correlation greatly improves the performance of the BSBL- in terms of both metrics.
5.2. Ability for Dense Targets Scenario
In this subsection, we investigate the robust ability to find less-sparse solutions with small errors in the case of dense targets. Three targets are relocated at m, m, and m and the RCS values remain unchanged.
Figure 5 demonstrates that BSBL- is capable of exactly recovering less-sparse signals even for dense targets localization with respect to other algorithms. Figure 6 compares the location estimation performance in terms of the two metrics for different algorithms when the targets are located densely. As shown, its advantage over other conventional recovering algorithms is manifested in terms of larger and higher success rate. The BSBL- is accordingly suitable for dense targets localization problem.
5.3. Robustness against Block Coherence Measure
The following experiments are devoted to the performance evaluation for the case of robustness of BSBL to the block coherence measure [26], and it increases as the grid distance reduces [21].
Figure 7(b) shows the reconstructed reflection coefficients with smaller grid distance than that in Figure 7(a). Accordingly, Figure 7(d) illustrates that the resolution is improved compared with Figure 7(c). We plot the performance versus SNR with reduced grid distance in Figure 8. As expected, we note from Figure 8 that when the blocks of are highly coherent, BSBL exploiting intrablock correlation still maintains good performance compared with Figure 4, while other algorithms have seriously degraded performance in these two metrics.
Table 1 gives the computational time comparison of two algorithms on a computer with dual-core GHz CPU, GiB RAM, and Windows 7 OS, and dB. It shows BSBL- needs extra time to obtain better estimate performance compared with Group-MP algorithm. Also, we note that as the grid distance decreases, the computational time of two algorithms increases due to the larger dimensional dictionary matrix, and the NMSE of BSBL shows little change, while NMSE of Group-MP degraded significantly, which is caused by the highly coherent dictionary.
5.4. Robustness against Compressed Sensing
In this experiment, we consider the case for compressed sensing (CS) technique. The percentage of samples used is given as , where is the CS sample number. For reconstruction of , we use Group-MP and BSBL- methods.
As is clear from Figure 9, on one hand, the performance degrades as the percentage of samples reduces for both algorithms; on the other hand, the performance for Group-MP method dropped much more significantly than that for BSBL-. In other words, the reconstructed estimates of the position using BSBL- match the true values better while using only of the samples.
5.5. Impact of Off-Grid Mismatch Errors
Finally, we consider the impact of off-grid mismatch errors. In the above experiments, we assume that all the targets are exactly located on the selected grid. The grid size is m. Here, three targets are relocated at m, m, and m and the RCS values remain unchanged, where and are beyond the fixed grid.
Compared with Figure 3(c), note that in Figure 10 when the true locations are beyond the fixed grid, we cannot obtain the exact location estimates due to errors caused by off-grid mismatches, though three location estimates can be obtained according to three peaks projection. To deal with this problem, we could employ smaller grid size to make the targets located on the grid or approximate the error using linearization method [24].
6. Conclusions
Multitarget direct localization using distributed MIMO radar systems was discussed in this paper. Previous works generally focused on the use of two-step procedures with exact data association. In this paper, we introduced the block sparse Bayesian learning algorithm for multitarget direct localization by employing a new sparse modeling within a range bin. The success rate was defined to analyze the performance of the radar system. We experimentally demonstrated that BSBL algorithm significantly outperforms some algorithms by exploiting intrablock correlation in signals, especially when the targets were located densely and the blocks of dictionary were highly coherent. Finally, the CS technique was applied to the block sparse recovery. Results showed the BSBL was more robust than other algorithms when few samples were used.
In future work, we will consider dealing with off-grid target localization problem, where the targets are no longer constrained in the sampling grid set. Further, we will consider the problem of target localization for distributed MIMO radar in the presence of phase synchronization mismatch.
Conflict of Interests
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.
This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 61302142 and 61271442) and the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (no. 61025006). The authors thank Dr. Z. L. Zhang at University of California, San Diego and Dr. W.G.Su at National University of Defense Technology for their helpful discussions and insights and sharing the source code of BSBL- algorithm online.
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A grandad is considering moving from his home in Burnham after aeroplanes above his road have made living there unbearable.
The 78-year-old Pippins Road resident, who asked not to be named, voiced his annoyance of noise and lack of privacy at Thursday's Burnham Town Council meeting.
He claimed planes from Southend airport go over his house constantly every day, often much lower than the required height.
He said: "All the planes seem to congregate over my house, they often go by every 10 minutes.
"It does affect my quality of life.
"We have been here 28 years or so and never wanted to move but now I feel like it might have to happen.
"My wife gets woken up in the morning and the planes sometimes come so low it affects our privacy.
"People can look out the window right into our garden."
See this week's MBS for the full story.


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As mentioned in a previous post, we are constantly expanding our selection of training courses on Channel9.
Today (Nov 9th) we launch a few new courses. One of them is the the Windows Server 2008 R2 training.
Windows Server 2008 R2, "Not your average R2!"
Explore this significant Windows Server release via a self-paced training course (URL works as soon as the course is live on Nov 9th, 2009) of videos and hands-on-labs with a focus on performance, web, management, and other server solution scenarios. Learn about developing applications for "many-core" scale, enable efficient "trigger-started" services, explore new Windows PowerShell features, create integrated solutions with the File Classification Infrastructure, build Web Platform extensions, and automate your dev-test environment with VHD and Hyper-V API's.


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Problematic ingredients found in Monascus products
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A Monascus (紅麴) product manufactured by the Haoyikou International Marketing Corp., Ltd.(好易購國際行銷股份有限公司) was tested to contain an excess of Citrinin (橘黴素), which will lead to negative effects on human livers and kidneys after long-term consumption, local media reported yesterday.
The Consumers' Foundation of Chinese Taipei collected 16 samples comprised of Monascus products from supermarkets, grocery stores and drug stores in Taipei City and Taipei County last November and found one sample including more than 2 parts per million (ppm) of Citrinin, violating the existing regulation that demands Citrinin capacity to be lower than 2 ppm. The disqualified product, Natural Monascus (天然紅麴), is a bottle of capsules produced by the Haoyikou International Marketing Corp., Ltd.
Moreover, another popular Monascus product, Anka Biscuit (紅麴養生薄餅), made by the Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corporation, was discovered to have more than 0.4 ppm contents of Monascus. Despite a capacity lower than the legal regulation, it indicates the raw ingredients of the items have been contaminated, the foundation added.
However, the manufacturer of the cookies insisted that their products are safe.
Monascus purpureus(紅麴菌), a sort of Mycotoxin (真菌毒素), easily generates Citrinin when fermenting under less than ideal sanitary conditions or when mixed with different funguses, the foundation explained.
The foundation also provided some suggestions for the public: Monascus products should have daily recommended consumption labels to avoid overconsumption Citrinin; pregnant women are advised not to take in Monascus products as it may cause massive bleeding; high blood lipid patients should seek doctors' approval before eating any Monascus product; Monascus-contained sauces should be stored in the fridge once opened.
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Having breast reduction was the best thing I have ever done in my life. I am so happy that I was finally able to do it since I have been looking forward to this since I started noticing how much bigger my boobs were compared to other girls.
I was not scared of having the surgery until I was about to get the IV and when I got out I remember thinking, "what did I do?" I had a great recovery with zero pain. All I had was discomfort from the stitches and not being able to do much. I started wearing a normal bra (wireless) at the 3rd week and with wire about a month after.
The thing that did hurt was getting the stitches removed which was only one at the bottom of the breast keeping everything together. I was up and walking the first day and I was able to drive and go back to work after a week. It has been about a month and a half since my surgery and I am absolutely happy with the results.
My breasts are still a bit swollen and I have to wait for them to arrive at their size. I just love how much smaller and perky they now are. I can now see the comfort on "free-boobing" for the first time in my life and standing up straight is so much attainable.


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Batman: Arkham City
Review by YoYoLeFtToRiTe
"The Dark Knight's epic return to gaming."
Batman has always been one of my favorite, if not my favorite super hero of all time. Traversing from roof top to roof top among the highest buidings in Gotham City, the Dark Knight has glided, strategized, and maneuvered his way into our hearts while spreading fear, and doubt into the hearts of all who oppose him. He's been amazing in T.V shows, movies, comics, and best of all, games. Batman has done it all. Now, the sequel to one of my favorite PS3 games has finally arrived. All set to tackle his opponents once more, Gotham's dark vigilante is back with all new accessories, and tricks up his own sleeve to help stop some of the meanest, most ruthless villains I have ever known. But, he's not the only one... intrigued, are you? Before I brake down this review, I want to make something clear to you all. I will not review this game solemnly on the fact that you are indeed playing as the Dark Knight. Only to the untrained eye would someone only notice just that. Without further ado, here we go.
Presentation: Some of the best storytelling I have ever witnessed is present here. Without spoiling anything, this game has one epic introduction. The very same can be said about the ending as well. On a more personal note, you can easily get lost from reality in Arkham City. It is full of life, and just begging to be explored. One complaint would be though, that some of the villains could have seen a little more time in the spotlight other then those annoying (but fun) Riddler challenges stealing the show. 9.5/10
Graphics: Crisp. There are some texture pop in's here that are hardly noticeable. Believe me, when you're fighting so many baddies at a time, along with souring Arkham's skies, it's obvious that you will not even notice. A very minor complaint to an otherwise beautiful, yet sinister looking game. Characters look detailed. But, why are Batman's biceps still so large?! 9.5/10
Sound: Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are still perfect. Surprise, surprise huh? The music ties in and suits the game perfectly. Sound effects are great. From using Batman's many accessories, to the villains getting pounded into the ground by Batman himself. 10/10
Gameplay: What matters the most. The combat is as smooth as ever. By the way, Catwoman makes her debut in the series here. What a surprise to say the very least. She plays just as remarkably. There is a lot of fun to be had when doing her side missions. Also, buy this game new. If you do, it will come with a code to download all of her content for a limited time for free. To me, it's the only way to play the game. If you want the full experience, you will find this content vital as well. Also, after every battle, or unlocking secrets, experience is gained. This allows you to obtain upgrades, and power ups to your already admirable accessories. The boss fights as well, are epic. After you've bested the main quest, there are Riddler trophies to be found, sidequests to be done, etc. The game really should be played more then once. As you can see, there is much more to this game then just playing as Batman. 10/10
Replay value: I only wish the main quest was longer. Sure, finding all the Riddler trophies is fun, albeit 400 of them being a little unnecessary. But believe me, after playing this game for 15 hours, you'll ask yourself "How did I finish this game so fast?" and you'll want more. That's how addicting this game is. I played it for 5 hours straight without even realizing it until after I was done. As I stated earlier, it's easy to get lost into this game's rich goodness. This game will still be on my "Currently Playing" list for weeks to come. 9.5/10
Conclusion: Get the game now. Play it more then once. Unlock everything. Enjoy.
Reviewer's Rating: 5.0 - Flawless
Originally Posted: 10/25/11
Game Release: Batman: Arkham City (US, 10/18/11)
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My thoughts on how Thursday night's game between Stanford and Oregon will unfold:
Marcus Mariota's better (better decisions, better command) and so is Oregon's downfield passing game. In short: there's more balance to the Ducks' attack.
Stanford is also more equipped to strike downfield, having exchanged the short/middle-distance passing game to its tight ends for a middle/downfield game to its receivers.
Oregon's aggressiveness with its front seven and its sound back line.
Stanford's ability to read/react and tackle in the open field — the two most important elements in slowing the Oregon offense.
Both Stanford and Oregon struggled for most/all of three quarters against the Bruins, then rolled to victory in the fourth.
Oregon zoomed to a 28-point win because that's the way it plays; Stanford methodically powered to a 14-point win because that's the way it plays.
Both benefited from interceptions by Brett Hundley.
But if the past two years have taught us anything, it's that presumptions are risky:
Stanford was a slight favorite two years ago and got hammered; Oregon was a heavy favorite last year and got upset.
I can't help but think Stanford's off-the-charts moxie has been overlooked in the pregame media dialogue, overshadowed by the issues on the defensive line and the hype (largely justified) that follows Mariota.
The Cardinal has played one close game after another the past two years (the post-Luck era); it's as tough mentally as it is physically; it invariably rises to the occasion; and time and again, it finds ways to win.
I picked Stanford in my preseason game-by-game projections and can't change now. Nor have I seen enough evidence to necessitate a reversal.
My general feeling is that Stanford will score between 17 and 27 points (it usually does). The question is whether the Ducks score 14 … or 40.
Expecting their total to be on the low end: Stanford 23, Oregon 21.


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I've been pretty satisfied with the Facebook app for Android, but I recently learned about an app called FriendCaster that is an alternate. In addition to being available for Android, both the smartphone and Honeycomb tablet versions, it is also available for the iPad, although for my brief review I have only tried the app on Android.
One noticeable difference between FriendCaster and the official Facebook app is the inclusion of ads at the bottom of the app. You can buy the Pro version of FriendCaster for $4.99 that eliminates the ads, and if I were to chose to continue using the app I would strongly consider purchasing the Pro version as the ads seem to be larger are more intrusive than with other Android apps.
If you frequently access Facebook fan pages and would like to do so from your phone, FriendCaster may be the best solution for you. A limitation of the official Facebook app is that it doesn't provide access to Pages, but they are an option in FriendCaster. I like how FriendCaster separates pages you like from pages that you manage, which makes it easy to quickly access any pages that you might manage in Facebook.
Another feature that FriendCaster does a better job of supporting than the Facebook app for Android is Groups. Facebook is in the process of changing the format for groups and the official Android app only shows Groups in the new format. FriendCaster continues to show groups in the old format.
While FriendCaster supports all of Facebook's features, Chat requires an additional app be installed on your phone called FriendCaster Chat. If it is not installed and you tap the Chat icon the Android Market loads so that you can install the app. The official Facebook app has built-in support for Chat.
FriendCaster seems to be a little sluggish at updating the news feed on my Nexus S. I suspect that it is using up a fair amount of memory and the performance is likely better on newer phones that have faster processors and more memory. I like how you can swipe left and right to switch between the different news feed filters in FriendCaster, and I wish this was something the official Facebook app provided.
Overall, I think FriendCaster is a pretty solid alternative to the app that Facebook provides. The biggest draw backs for me are the ads, which can be removed, and the lack of built-in support for Chat. If you find yourself disliking the app that Facebook provides for Android, you might want to try FriendCaster.