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12 Unconventional Church Planting Principles From … North Korea?
An American pastor has set forth 12 unconventional – even seemingly counterproductive – church planting principles that he learned from a highly unlikely source – North Korea, where the Christian community is completely underground.
Pastor Eric Foley, who has worked for ten years with North Korean underground Christians, says the way church is done in America would get a believer in North Korea immediately killed or imprisoned. Yet despite having to hide their faith, North Korean Christians have a lot to teach American Christians when it comes to church life.
"The major difference that we note between the development of discipleship practices in the free world, in the West or countries like South Korea, is that discipleship practices really do rely on a freedom of religion that takes the form of being able to develop people in a specially purposed building, with a specifically full-time trained pastor, and an abundance of resources," said Foley, who is pastor of .W Evangelical Church of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Seoul, South Korea, to The Christian Post.
"Those things are absent in the persecuted church mostly, but certainly specifically in North Korea."
In North Korea, citizens discovered to be Christians are thrown indefinitely into hard labor camps without trial, and some have been even publicly executed for their faith.
Last May, North Korea reportedly executed three leaders of the underground church and jailed 20 other Christians, according to AsiaNews. North Korean police raided a house in Kuwal-dong in Pyungsung county, Pyongan province, and arrested all 23 believers who were gathered there for religious activity.
The 20 believers were sent to the infamous prison labor camp No. 15 in Yodok.
And in 2009, The Associated Press reported that a 33-year-old Christian woman, Ri Hyon-ok, accused of distributing Bibles and "spying" for foreign countries was publicly executed in North Korea.
The communist North Korean government forces its citizens to adhere to a personality cult revolving around worshipping current dictator Kim Jong-il and his deceased father, Kim Il-sung.
Open Doors, a ministry that works with persecuted churches worldwide, has ranked North Korea as the No. 1 persecutor of Christians for nine straight years.
In spite of the fearful punishment for being a Christian, there are about 100,000 followers of Jesus Christ in North Korea.
The way these North Korean Christians live out their faith has been eye-opening to Foley. These persecuted Christians have no church building, no paid pastors, no Bibles in the pew or available at the local Christian store – "literally no nothing that we in the West consider so essential to discipleship," the pastor writes in the pamphlet, "Church is for Amateurs: A Guide for 'Fourth Order' Christians Like You on How to Plant and Lead a Lay Church."
Foley contends that the Bible supports amateurs to Christian ministry, or the laity, in leading the church. He points to Jesus and Peter who were not trained as rabbis but led the Church.
The term "fourth order" is borrowed from the Anglican Church, which calls lay people "the fourth order of ministers in the Church," with the other orders made up of bishops, priests, and deacons.
But Foley is not adverse to the idea of the American megachurch. He says the goal of the church should be to grow members to fullness in Christ and churches should be open to all possible method while holding firmly to orthodox theology.
He observed that megachurches organically develop small core groups to disciple their members.
What Does a Church of the Fourth Order Look Like?
Like the persecuted church, a church made up of fourth order Christian does not meet in a church building. They do, however, have Bibles, but do not rely on them as much in the sense that most American Christians do. Instead, they train people to become "living Bibles," having members memorize Bible verses and live out the Word.
All the members of such a church take turn preaching for Sunday service, with the preacher that service teaching from verses memorized by heart.
Also, such a church structure emphasizes that Sunday is not the main service. Each family is considered a church and each household holds daily worship, where leadership moves from person to person (including kids) and the family sings songs and shares messages from memorization.
Foley in the pamphlet told the story of a young North Korean Christian woman who was sold as a sex slave in China and was rescued by a Christian missionary. The missionary enrolled her in an underground seminary for North Koreans in China.
After just 4 ½ months, the 22-year-old woman returned to North Korea with the purpose of sharing the Gospel with friends and family. She was arrested after 1 ½ years when she was discovered to be distributing Bibles and hymnals in North Korea.
She was cruelly punished as if "a terrorist," and was required in one instance to sit in one position for 24 hours without moving.
Then one day a prisoner was sent to her same prison. The new prisoner was a spy for North Korea in China, trapping North Korean defectors. The former undercover spy had tried to defect from China to South Korea, but was caught.
The new prisoner, EJ, asked the 22-year-old Christian if God existed and if He could forgive her because she regretted what she did to others. The Christian, who had only been trained for 4 ½ months in China, led EJ to Christ and wrote down ten Bible verses on toilet paper with a stolen pencil for EJ.
"The average American Christian has nine Bibles. One North Korean – who had been a Christian for four and a half months – constructs a 10-verse toilet paper Bible from memory," writes Foley.
"Who is the more effective student of the Scriptures?
In a lay church prescribed by Foley, members learn by heart one Scripture verse and one song each week. The church is kept small, with 24 people or less. If it gets larger, then the church divides into smaller groups.
But perhaps the most surprising principle of the lay church is the concept of not making it easy to get in.
"In the free world, the goal is to set the barrier to entry as low as possible so that anyone who shows some level of interest is quickly ushered into the church, and the idea is discipleship happens after that point," Foley explained to CP. "Well that strategy is fatal in the persecuted Church, due to estimates that between 70 and 90 percent of people that claim to be underground Christians are affiliated with the government.
"So the idea of a low barrier of entry is something that is impractical to them," the Colorado pastor said. "That is in stark contrast to how people are ushered into fellowship of believing Christians today, which is typically heads-bowed, eyes closed, nobody looking around, raise your hand if you believe the lowest common denominator of what I'm about to share."
.W Evangelical Church of Colorado Springs, Colo., was officially started in January 2011. Foley said the number of members in his lay church network – which includes churches in the United States, China, and South Korea – is in the hundreds.
"I think the distinguishing characteristic of the model we created from the North Korean persecuted church setting is it is rooted in the family," said Foley. "In North Korea, it is rare that believers have the opportunity to gather outside of their family for worship. So the father or mother play the roles of the priest so to speak.
"So for us, the main service isn't at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, the main service of worship is every night in a family's home. We've found that to be the greatest unheralded way to grow leaders that is overlooked by the Western church, which is that fathers and mothers can learn to do all the things a pastor would do in a traditional church and children can learn to do that too."
12 Lay Church Principles:
1. Don't make it easy to get in
2. Establish that Sunday is not the main service
3. Train members to be generalists, not specialists
4. Receive, remember, pass on (hymns, Scripture)
5. Meet in places that you already use
6. Train people to become living Bibles
7. Commit to the inseparability of hearing and doing the word
8. Measure the growth of each member weekly
9. Leave the kids in the room with you when you're doing church
10. Use volunteer lay pastors to lead local churches
11. Tithe … but not to the lay church
12. Do missions often, receive your provision on the road.
On the web: www.ericfoley.com


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Traffic in New Delhi is bad at the best of times. During a run on fuel, it devolves into an unholy mess. On Wednesday evening, the wide arteries of India's capital became a gnarled tangle of SUVs, Ambassadors, motorcycles and shuddering auto-rickshaws, as people from all corners of the city were stuck together in a 38°C gridlock, honking their horns in desperate futility.
The problem? The steepest fuel hike in a decade would take effect at midnight on Thursday, sending thousands of cars scrambling to gas stations to fill their tanks for one last cheap guzzle. Police were called in as station owners claimed that their tanks were empty — until 1 a.m. or so. The state-run oil companies' price increase of $0.14 to $1.31 per liter of gas in Delhi (it varied slightly from state to state) came one day after the governing United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition celebrated its anniversary, generating snarky comments about the UPA's "gifts to the common man" as it marked its third year in office this term and eighth year in power.
(MORE: How High Will Global Oil Prices Rise?)
The rise in gas prices — kerosene, diesel and cooking gas are unaffected, for now — also came the day after Parliament adjourned, leading many, including UPA allies, to accuse the government of sneaking an unpopular decision through without consulting anyone. The government responded by saying that gasoline, which was officially decontrolled in June 2010, is a deregulated commodity and this was a market-driven move. Opposition members, however, demanded the hike's immediate reversal, with Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Prakash Javadekar warning of "a strong democratic agitation."
A partial rollback of the price hike would only further chip away at faith in a government that critics already accuse of being in a state of paralysis and that has withdrawn policies after announcing them before. On the other hand, as is, the measure is bound to be wildly unpopular with middle-class voters, who are disgruntled over rising inflation and corruption. In a poll released earlier this week, 66% of respondents across eight cities said they were dissatisfied with the work of the ruling coalition.
State oil companies have been clamoring for the green light to raise gas prices for months now, as they've been incurring losses due to rising global oil prices and the depreciating rupee, which fell for the sixth straight day to an all-time low against the dollar on Wednesday. By going ahead with the hike now, the government may be banking that any popular upset will die down before the next state polls, which are still several months away. Or its leaders may be hoping that the broader impact of the hike will ultimately do more good than harm, by offsetting concerns over India's yawing fiscal deficit and increasing confidence in the economy to arrest the currency's slide.
While the political and economic implications play out, a few things are certain: consumers across India are going to have to reach a little deeper into their pockets to fill up their tanks now. And if the price of gas goes up again this summer, it is highly advisable to stay home. If you must hit the road, make sure your vehicle has air-conditioning — and a loud horn.

subset: commoncrawl


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HIE Bright Spots: How ADT Messages Support Care Coordination – Part II
Erica Galvez | March 26, 2013
Last week we introduced Larry, the patient with diabetes and a history of non-compliance who is discharged from his local emergency department, but his primary care doctor is never notified about his visit. Larry landed back in the emergency department less than a month later due to complications of his diabetes.
ADT Messages as a Cornerstone of Exchange
Health information exchange (HIE) isn't easy. Across the country, folks in every state—from CIOs of hospitals, to state agencies, ONC grantees, providers in rural clinics, mobile app developers, EHR vendors, and consumers—are trying to figure out how to make information flow in order to improve patient care (and lower health care costs while we're at it).
To meet this challenge, everyone must think creatively and use every tool that we have in our toolboxes to enable secure and meaningful exchange. One of those (perhaps surprisingly basic) tools is Health Level Seven (HL7) Admission, Discharge, and Transfer (ADT) messages.
ADT messages are reemerging as the go-to data source for care coordination efforts across states. Ubiquitous in hospital information systems, hospitals exchange thousands of ADT messages (both internally and externally) every single day. These messages communicate that
- a patient's "state" (admitted, discharged, or transferred) has changed, or
- his or her personal or demographic information (such as the patient's name, insurance, next of kin, attending doctor, etc) has been updated.
These seemingly simple and ever-present messages contain a wealth of information, and are invaluable tools to help health care providers better coordinate a patient's care.
How is the Chesapeake Regional Information System for Our Patients (CRISP) Using ADT Messages?
With electronic connections to all 46 hospitals in the state, Maryland's state-designated entity for health information exchange (HIE), the Chesapeake Regional Information System for Our Patients (CRISP), is harnessing this basic data from ADT messages to help providers better coordinate patient care. We recently caught up with Scott Afzal, CRISP's Director of Statewide Health Information Exchange, to learn more about what they are calling the Enterprise Notification and Reporting Services.
"CRISP understands the financial and clinical value of information that is as simple as hospital utilization data and that it can have a major impact on the coordination of patient care. Based on our relationship with the hospitals in the state and the type of information and infrastructure we have in place, we realized that we could provide a real-time service that would allow primary care providers and care coordinators to better track their patients, resulting in healthier people and a reduced rate of costly hospital readmissions."
– Scott Afzal, Program Director of Statewide Health Information Exchange, CRISP
Real-time Electronic Notification Services
Launched last August, CRISP's Encounter Notification System (ENS) provides real-time electronic notifications when patients are admitted to, discharged from, or transferred within a hospital. For a patient like Larry, the ENS uses ADT messages to help make sure that his primary care providers and care coordinators are notified about his health care encounters like hospitalizations or emergency department visits, which they might not otherwise be aware of.
This tool enables family doctors/internists/geriatricians and their counterparts in the hospital to:
- coordinate his care and help him follow his discharge instructions,
- understand his care plans, and
- receive follow-up care with his primary care provider.
CRISP works closely with providers to set up these encounter notifications:
- Physicians and care coordinators hand select the patients they have a treatment relationship with and about whom they want to receive alerts.
- Physicians and care coordinators submit that list of patients (or "patient panel") to CRISP.
- CRISP loads the patient panels into their ENS, generating a subscription list for each physician or care coordinator.
Once this process is complete, any time CRISP receives ADT messages for patients on a patient panel, physicians and care coordinators automatically receive an electronic notification. Recipients can receive notifications as PDFs in electronic inboxes (like secure email), or merged directly into their EHRs as HL7 messages. CRISP uses the Direct Project protocol to securely transport the notifications. The ENS currently has approximately 500,000 unique patients in its notification panels, and sends roughly 600 alerts a day to over 500 physicians and care coordinators.
ADT Messages Also Provide Data for Geospatial Mapping
CRISP is also putting the same ADT messages to work to help Maryland get a more complete picture of hospital system utilization across the state, which will help state policy makers and researchers better understand pressure points in the health care system and target interventions to address them.
CRISP recently began using a new tool to display how patients are using the state's health care system through geospatial analysis and specific information in the ADT messages (such as facility address). The state is using analyses from a proprietary geospatial tool—called the Geographic Information System (GIS)—to get a state-level perspective of hospital utilization and, more importantly, a view of systemic patterns down to specific city blocks. This allows teams to identify disproportionately high levels of utilization and associated factors that might be at play in a given area. To accomplish this, copies of real-time ADT messages are sent to CRISP's custom-built database, called the Encounter Reporting Service (ERS), where data from ADT messages can be extracted for various time periods and processed through scripting logic to produce consolidated reports that contain information about:
- inpatient encounters,
- 72-hour emergency department "bounce backs," or
- 30-day hospital readmissions.
In conjunction with the appropriate policy development, CRISP plans to expand the use of this important tool to enable near real-time visualization of hospital utilization.
Reducing Health Disparities Through Analysis of ADT Messages
Some of the State's first users of the GIS are Maryland's Health Enterprise Zones (HEZs), created by the State's Health Improvement and Disparities Reduction Act to reduce health disparities across Maryland's racial and ethnic groups and within specific geographic areas. The HEZs are using the tool to improve access to health care while simultaneously reducing health care costs. The ongoing analysis will be an important tool as they work to gain insight into the current health status and health care patterns within communities. With this new tool, they can better track the care of patients like Larry, and the care his neighbors might or might not be receiving across the health care system.
Big Impact with the Basics
CRISP's notification and reporting services grew out of a basic, common message type. The simplicity of ADT messages can sometimes mask their importance to coordination of care efforts. CRISP has demonstrated how this basic building block of health information exchange holds the potential to provide big value for providers and patients.
One of those patients, of course, is Larry. If Larry lives in a Baltimore neighborhood with disproportionately high hospital utilization rates—patients often referred to as "frequent fliers" or "bounce backs"—the information gained through the ERS GIS analysis will help his community design and implement targeted interventions to get him the care he needs, keep him healthy and out of the hospital.
If You Would Like to Learn More
If you are implementing health information exchange services and would like to learn more about how Maryland's use of ADT messages can inform your own care coordination efforts, visit the State HIE Bright Spots synthesis on care coordination at http://statehieresources.org/bright-spots/ or the CRISP website at http://crisphealth.org/.
If you have any questions or comments about how simple tools like ADT messages can improve coordination of patient care, please leave them in the comments section below.


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Award-winning commercial director Fredrik Bond is attached to direct "Year 12," a sci-fi action movie that will be produced by Joe Roth, an individual familiar with the project has told TheWrap.
"Year 12" was previously set up at Paramount, which recently put the project in turnaround, although it is expected to find a new home shortly.
Edward Ricourt wrote the spec script, which takes place 12 years after aliens have invaded Earth. Set in Manhattan, the story follows an underwater uranium miner who is recruited by the human resistance to smuggle uranium in his blood so they can use it to blow up the alien mothership.
Bond, an alum of NYU film school, started his career as a photographer. He has previously been attached to direct "Hack/Slash" for Rogue and the English-language remake of "The Host" for Universal.
Bond is represented by CAA and Management 360.


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Isekadoya began in April 1997, primarily brewing English-style ales. These beers gave them a fair amount of attention in their first 10 years of operation. In recent years, however, they have been brewing more unique styles of beers with bold flavors, highlighted by richer malt combinations and more aggressive hopping.
At the Tokyo Real Ale Festival in February of this year, they drew wide acclaim for their two stunning entries, a Brown Ale and an Imperial India Pale Ale. In a break with their past, the Brown Ale was distinctly American-style, with a 5% alcohol level and a stronger flavor profile that was almost "spicy" with interesting layers of roasted malt flavors and a generous addition of hops during the boil.
Even more appealing was the Imperial India Pale Ale, a much stronger version of a standard IPA. With 10 popular types of hops, you could say the Imperial contains the "hit parade" of hops used in craft brews these days. The result was an intensely flavored beer with 9.5% alcohol and a near-perfect balance of malt sweetness and hop bitterness, along with a smooth texture that bordered on the creamy.
While the Imperial IPA is a limited edition brew, and will no longer be available by the time you read this, it may reappear in future offerings. Fortunately, the Brown Ale is available year-round. Even better, Isekadoya regularly releases limited edition beers of distinct character. The best way to enjoy them is to order directly through their Japanese-language Website.
For a more complete experience, pay a visit to the brewery's Biyagura restaurant and enjoy the full range of Isekadoya beers. They are located in Ise City, south of Nagoya, and are open for lunch and dinner every day except Wednesday. Call the restaurant for reservations and to confirm hours. Tel: (0596) 23-2880.
Isekadoya Beer 6-428 Jinkyu, Ise City, Mie
Tel: (0596) 21-3108
Web: www.biyagura.jp (Japanese), www.isekadoya.com (English)


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Thanks to its amazing products, Apple already runs your social life, your work life and your downtime. But what if the Cupertino company designed products for the rest of your world? Over the years, there's been much speculation about the company branching out – especially the Jetsons-like iWatch that will sync all our data and make sure the burrito is at the perfect temp when we get home.
Here are a few items we wish Sir Jony Ive would turn his hand to — because we'd like to take a dip, drop trou, drink and drive with that sweet Apple logo. Maybe just not in that order.
What would you like to see Apple's design team dream up? Let us know in the comments below.


text: by A + A - Reset This series was first published during June 2018. –ed. Christianity is not a passive or purely academic religion. God's Word calls us to action and investigation concerning all truth claims: "Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:21–22). Last time we considered what it means to "examine everything" and discriminate between truth and error, right and wrong, good and bad. Once that division has been made we need to respond by either embracing what is good or rejecting what is evil. "Hold fast to that which is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21) is an echo of Romans 12:9: "Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good." The expressions "hold fast" or "cling to" speak of jealously safeguarding the truth. Paul is calling for the same careful watchfulness he demanded of Timothy every time he wrote him: "O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you" (1 Timothy 6:20); "Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me. . . . Through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you" (2 Timothy 1:13-14). In other words, the truth is given into our custody, and we are charged with guarding it against every possible threat. This describes a militant, defensive, protective stance against anything that undermines the truth or does violence to it in any way. We must hold the truth securely, defend it zealously, preserve it from all threats. To placate the enemies of truth or lower our guard is to violate this command. "Hold fast" also carries the idea of embracing something. It goes beyond bare assent to "that which is good" and speaks of loving the truth wholeheartedly. Those who are truly discerning are passionately committed to sound doctrine, to truth, and to all that is inspired by God. Every true Christian has this quality to some degree. Paul even defined salvation as "lov[ing] the truth" (2 Thessalonians 2:10), and he told the Corinthians they proved their salvation by holding fast to the gospel he had delivered (1 Corinthians 15:2). Those who utterly fail to hold fast to the saving message are those who have "believed in vain"; that is, their faith was empty to begin with. The apostle John said something similar: "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us" (1 John 2:19). All true believers hold fast to the gospel. Paul was urging the Thessalonians to nurture and cultivate their love for truth, to let it rule their thinking. He wanted them to foster a conscious commitment to all truth, a faithfulness to sound doctrine, a pattern of holding fast to all that is good. The attitude this calls for is incompatible with the suggestion that we should lay doctrine aside for the sake of unity. It cannot be reconciled with the opinion that hard truths should be downplayed to make God's Word more palatable for unbelievers. It is contrary to the notion that personal experience takes precedence over objective truth. God has given us His truth objectively in His Word. It is a treasure that we should protect at all costs. This is the opposite of undiscerning faith. Paul makes no place for a blind, irrational faith that refuses to consider the authenticity of its object and just accepts at face value everything that claims to be true. He rules out the kind of "faith" that is driven by feelings, emotion, and the human imagination. Instead, we are to identify "what is good" by examining everything carefully, objectively, rationally—using Scripture as our standard. No human teacher, no personal experience, no strong feeling is exempt from this objective test. Jay Adams writes, "If inspired prophecies in the apostolic age had to be subjected to testing . . . then surely the teachings of men today should also be put to the test." [1] Jay Adams, A Call to Discernment (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1987), 46. Indeed, if the words of prophets in apostolic times needed to be examined and evaluated, then surely we ought to subject the words of self-proclaimed "prophets" and preachers today to even more intense scrutiny in the bright light of the completed New Testament. The same is true of every subjective experience and every emotion. Experience and feelings—no matter how powerful—do not determine what is true. Rather, those things themselves must be subjected to the test. "That which is good" is truth that accords with God's Word. The word "good" is kalos, meaning something that is inherently good. It isn't just something that is fair to look at, lovely or beautiful in appearance. This speaks of something good in itself—genuine, true, noble, right, and good. In other words, "that which is good" does not refer to that which is entertaining. It does not refer to that which garners accolades from the world. It does not refer to that which is satisfying to the flesh. It refers to that which is good, true, accurate, authentic, dependable—that which is in agreement with the infallible Word of God. When you find such truth, embrace it and guard it like a treasure. (Adapted from Fool's Gold)


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The Wolf, also known as the Grey Wolf, Gray Wolf, Gey Wolf, Gay Wolf, Wolfenstein, or occasionally Virginia Woolf is a pack animal known for its beauty, general disdain of adult humans, and big nasty teefies. It loves human children and loves to raise and care for them but it seems to have an irrational hatred of adults(their primary antagonist,) and there have been "reports" of them turning into werewolves and eating them. The wolf is also well known for creating Phil Collins and writing the song 'Against All Odds' which Phil proceeded to steal and claim his own before creating the rest of the world. ROFL
Mating habits[edit | edit source]
A wolf on the prowl can be identified by the distinctive wolf whistle, a sound made each time a cute fox walks by. This distinctive mating call is most often heard outside fast food emporiums, where the creatures pause after wolfing down massive quantities of rubbish in order to convince passing vixens what big eyes and teeth they have.
Usually only the alpha male wolf mates with foxes. However, since wolves do travel in large packs, sometimes after having a bit too much fermented deer meat the pack will grab a video camera and make a "pack bang" film. More commonly though, the non-alpha male wolves are forced to engage in Rough Gay Wolf Sex.
The female of the wolf species, Virginia Woolf, is particularly deadly. While the uninitiated may ask "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" in the same tone as one asks "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?", she does have a way with words that has allowed her to outfox many a sly fox. Even among the werewolves of London,[1] she is treated with the utmost respect. Proceed with caution.
A typical wolf's den[edit | edit source]
The wolf's den is much like any other den; pictures of cute foxes adorn the walls, Fox News or WOLF-TV blares constantly from the telly, empty cans of Black Wolf Beer are strewn about and a stack of Wolverhampton or Rivière du Loup tourist maps are piled onto the coffee table amidst the newspapers and TV listings.
The alpha male in a wolf den can be readily identified as the one wearing nothing but underwear and clutching the remote control for the TV and hitting the others with a stick. He will normally avoid venturing from the den out into the kitchen, except to fetch fresh prey or to grab another beer.
Needless to say, wolves are very territorial. They will stop at nothing to defend their habitat from destruction by evil woodsmen who would level their dens in order to build a grandmother's house (or a house made of straw/sticks/bricks). It may not look like much, but it's home.
They love to spend a great deal of the time spent in their dens gazing into the refrigerator. During commercial breaks they will look through their food and wish for the food fairy to come and pay them a visit. As soon as the show is back on however, they return to their seats and wait for the next commercial break to see if the food fairy visited. Unfortunately, there has been no known reported sighting of the food fairy.
Night Wolves[edit | edit source]
A night wolf hunts through the night. It hunts for human body parts if it cant find anything else. They cici for help if you fight back causing other members of the pack to attack. The cici'ng can be either fast or slow. If its slow, they want sympathy. If its fast they want food. They will begin to eat your fingers. If you tell the wolf not to bite it will continue. Wolves do not obey their prey, instead they bite harder until the flesh is penetrated and the finger is off. If another person tries to take it off them, they will cici for help. This is really a dinner bell. The other wolves will bite your other fingers too.
A song about night wolves:
- Little wolf.
- The night is long.
- The day is long.
- Wolves hunt all night.
- You will hunt all day.
- Into the wolf land.
Interaction with man[edit | edit source]
Wolf conservationists will tell you that wolves are really misunderstood and only attack humans out of self defense, which they claim is a very rare act. Unfortunately, this act is actually very frequent.
In actual fact, wolves show a general fear towards mankind and attempt to eat people whenever possible. As wolves are related to dogs (they share an uncle, named Harry), they are also known to express an interest in killing you savagely and then stealing your face (much like what the US Military and/or the Grateful Dead does).
Despite this intense fear of mankind, wolves are often known to have a fetish for adopting human babies and raising them as their own. The most famous of these children were Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Known as the "Wolf-Den Duo," they were raised by a she-wolf. Things sometimes go horribly wrong, and the children end up having little behavioral traits in common with humans, and mostly like to do murderous activities such as kitten huffing, killing deer, killing rabbits, creating big stadiums for the killing of things, and pretty much killing things in general.
Wolf conservationists have tried to explain this phenomenon as proof that wolves don't actually hate humans. However - who ever talks to wolf conservationists? Some crazy people suggest that it is part of a wolf plot to slowly reduce the human population over time, or to brainwash the children for an eventual return to human society, in order to secretly implant the wolf agenda into man's politics.
Children raised by wolves are numerous and easy to spot, based on their distinctive table manners. The boy who called WOLF, infamous for the "Call +1-900-123-WOLF Only $50/minute!" spam of the 1990's, was only one of many children raised by wolves, something to which he sheepishly confessed only after it was much too late.
For more information on wolves and their interaction with humans, coat yourself in gravy and go walk about in Yellowstone National Park. Or coat yourself in cheese souffle and wander about Wolfe Island.
Interaction with women[edit | edit source]
The history of the wolf's interaction with the human female has been an unpleasant one, largely due to the efforts of groups like Surviving Grandmas Against Big Bad Wolves (also known as Surviving Grandparents for Safer Forests). While the motives of this group of raging grannies have been widely disputed, wolf conservationists know that their agenda involves sentencing wolves to the same fate that has met the mink and the fox - namely being forced to spend life as a fur coat for a mean, old rich lady.
Wolf-controlled broadcast outlets such as Oswego, New York's WOLF-FM and Hazelton, Pennsylvania's WOLF-TV have denounced the humans and their evil plans, so far without success. Despite intensive lobbying, law-enforcement organizations such as the Three Little Pigs continue to turn a blind eye to the wolves' plight.
The notorious Grandma Dynamite of cartoon fame has found her way into many a bedtime story and into many nightmares of cute wolf cubs everywhere, alongside the tale of the wolf that cried « boy! ».
"Ya hear him howlin' around your kitchen door, ya better not let him in.
Little old lady got mutilated late last night, werewolves of London again."
Wolves on Modern Technology[edit | edit source]
Wolf researchers have used GPS collars to track wolf movement. The new tracking collars use GSM cell phone network for free.
Safety measures[edit | edit source]
While the danger they pose to humans is a controversial topic, wolves are natural hunters, physically powerful, and cunning. A further concern is that -- according to "evidence" compiled over the centuries by Surviving Grandparents for Safer Forests -- wolves have formidable powers of subterfuge and mimicry. "Survivors" argue, moreover, that the chorus of media howls against their movement is further evidence of the truth of what they say. Wolves are often seen raiding costume stores for sheep outfits, apparently.
The non-profit and non-denominational organization advocates the following safety measures, not only for grandparents and their grandchildren, but also for the general public.
- Don't wear bright colors in an area where wolves are found; especially not red head-gear.
- Don't stop and talk to a stranger with a hairy face.
- Always be on the lookout for wolves in sheep's clothing; especially when using the internet.
- NEVER vote for someone like George Dubya Bush.
- don't stop to play poker with a Tom Hanks
Allies[edit | edit source]
Enemies[edit | edit source]
- Sarah Palin
- Link (Hey, who doesn't despise Link?)
- Vikings
- Runescape
- Jarome Iginla
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- The Arctic Timber Wolf is the only wolf to routinely carry a chainsaw and fell trees; this activity places it in competition with the Canadian beaver, Castor canadensis.
- Near godforsaken places like Ketchikan, Alaska, local wolves are pansies who catch fish instead of chasing real prey.
- The best form of wolves come in threes in front of a full moon.
- The wolf's principal competitor is the coyote, Canis latrans. While physically smaller than the wolf, the coyote is a formidable rival, as he is not only wily, but armed with TNT and various destructive devices purchased from ACME and Microsoft.
- A wolf, by the designation Bad, appeared in a recent series of Doctor Who. The wolf was not actually as much bad as it was simply a moral relativist. The wolf was played by Billie Piper, who is actually a Fox.
- During World War I and World War II German U-boats hunted Allied shipping in groups known as "Wolfpacks". This is in reference to the common wolf behavior of hunting in packs, using U-boats.
- In the early 60's, Hanna-Barbera went to Quebec and asked Loopy de Loop to become an ambassador for the Quebecians...or whatever they're called, but since he was a wolf, he was shunned.
- After the events of The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess Link decided to stay as a Wolf, Start a pack of his own, did it with epona and eventaully got shot by Malo
- Wolf's Final Smash is a Landmaster. It's all black and red, and completely badass.
- Wolves do not have hands or mouths.
- Scientists have made attempts to cross-breed a wolf with a platypus, but have been unsuccessful. Afterwards different scientists attempted to cross-breed a wolf with a small weird midget, but unfortunately the midget had its genitals destroyed and was later euthanized.
Famous wolves[edit | edit source]
- Beowulf, Old English poem and legendary hero
- The Big Bad Wolf, founder of the city of Wolverhampton
- The Mod Wolves, a pack of wolves living in the zooniverse, riding scooters and looking dapper in Drainpipe suits
- Wolf Blitzer of CNN
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, musician and actor in Dancing with Wolves
- The Wolf Man
- Wolf O'Donnell, fighter pilot who can't let you do that
- Thomas Wolf (1900-1938), American novelist
- The WOLF-TV wolf, currently operating as a Fox TV affiliate.
- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), Japanese Sex Symbol
- Wolfmother, Australian band (formerly Led Zeppelin)
- The wolf from Aesop's fable. He is currently the president of Eat Sheep, inc.
- Wolfenstein, a monster wolf created from the parts of dead wolves.
- Wollf A Blogger of no Reknown whatsoever
- Scar One of the most badass wolves to live.
- Paul Wolfowitz, neo-conservative politician.
- Loopy de Loop Okay, he's an obscure wolf, but he'd rather shake your hand rather than eat it.
- Ethymae, the cicing night wolf.
- Pricey, CT rapper known as the wolfmaster


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Biotechnology Market (Biopharmacy, Bioservices, Bioagri, Bioindustrial) Is Expected to Reach USD 414.5 Billion Globally in 2017: Transparency Market Research
NEW YORK, April 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --
According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research (http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com), "Biotechnology Market by Application (Biopharmacy, Bioservices, Bioagri, Bioindustrial), by Technology (Fermentation, Tissue Regeneration, PCR, Nanobiotechnology, DNA Sequencing & Others) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2010 - 2017," the global market for biotechnology was valued at USD 216.5 billion in 2011 and is expected to reach USD 414.5 billion in 2017, growing at a CAGR of 11.6% from 2012 to 2017.
Browse the full report at http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/biotechnology-market.html
The biotechnology market is expected to show substantial growth over the forecast period owing to the government support offered to various companies operating in the biotechnology field. In addition, the increased demand for food in developing countries has spurred growth of the bioagriculture market. Bioseeds are expected to show exponential growth as compared to conventional seeds over the forecast period.
Biopharmaceuticals dominated the global market, accounting for over 60% of the overall revenue in 2011. Bioservice applications are expected to register the fastest growth due to the operating cost benefits associated with emerging economies, particularly in terms of raw materials, labor and regulatory support. Outsourcing of clinical trials, contract manufacturing and drug discovery has emerged as a key trend in developed countries, leading to the growth of the bioservices industry in the developing economies of India, Thailand, Malaysia and China. The developing countries provide superior research and trial facility at lower cost. The market for bioagriculture applications, including bioseeds, is expected to reach USD 27.46 billion in 2018.
Related & Recently Published Reports by Transparency Market Research
North America dominated the global market, accounting for over 42% of the overall biotechnology revenue in 2011. With increasing focus on renewable chemicals, Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing regional market, at an estimated CAGR of 14.1% from 2012 to 2017.
Key players in the biotechnology market include Roche, Amgen, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Pfizer and Novartis. The detailed profile of these companies along with a global company market share analysis has been included in the report.
The biotechnology market has been analyzed in detail and revenues generated by every application in regions such as Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and RoW have been included.
Related & Recently Published Reports by Transparency Market Research
Biotechnology Market, by Technology:
- Fermentation
- Tissue regeneration
- PCR technology
- Nanobiotechnology
- Chromatography
- DNA sequencing
- Cell based assay
- Others
Biotechnology Market, by Application:
- Biopharmacy
- Bioservices
- Bioagriculture
- Bioindustrial
The report also covers the revenue for every application in the following regions:
- North America
- Europe
- Asia Pacific
- Rest of the World (RoW)
Browse all Pharmaceutical Market Research Reports @ http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pharmaceutical-market-reports-1.html
Upcoming Reports in Pharmaceutical Market
Pharmaceutical Contract Manufacturing Market
Drug Discovery Technologies Market
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SOURCE Transparency Market Research


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Nothing But 9-1-1
FRAN SPIELMAN, City Hall Reporterm Chicago Sun-Times
With aldermen bracing for the political fallout, Chicago is implementing a dramatic change in 911 dispatch to free the equivalent of 44 police officers a day to respond to the most serious crimes.
As of Sunday, police officers are no longer responding in person to reports of a vehicle theft, garage burglary, or crime where the victim is "safe, secure and not in need of medical attention" and the offender is "not on the scene and not expected to return immediately."
Instead, those 911 calls are being transferred to the Chicago Police Department's Alternate Response Section, staffed by officers on light duty. Police reports will be taken over the phone. If necessary, evidence technicians will be assigned later.
Last year, the Alternate Response Unit processed 74,000 reports. Crime victims had the option of filing reports on the phone or they could insist on an in-person response and wait until a squad car was free.
Now, they won't have that option. That's expected to more than double the number of case reports taken over the phone-to 151,000 a year – and free the equivalent of 44 officers a day for patrol and to respond to more serious crimes.
City Hall says dispatchers have been told to transfer calls if: the offender is gone, not expected to "return immediately" and an officer is not needed for a prompt investigation; an officer on the scene would "not result in an immediate arrest" and the victim is safe, secure and not in need of medical attention.
All "non-criminal" reports will be taken over the phone, including lost property and damage caused when a window is broken or a tree falls on property. Police will also no longer respond in person to a variety of criminal reports, including: vehicle or other theft; garage burglaries; bogus checks; lewd, obscene or threatening phone calls without "imminent danger"; simple assault and animal bites.
Deputy chief-of-patrol Steve Georgas said law enforcement agencies across the nation are searching for ways to use their resources more efficiently.
"This is just a little piece that we think is gonna help us in keeping cops up and free for patrol work. I don't think we're looking for huge gains. It's probably only gonna equate to 40 to 45 officers-a-watch," he said.
Georgas played down the potential for political backlash.
"It's a traumatic thing being the victim of a crime. This will be a little more convenient for them as well," he said.
"They're still getting police service from a sworn police officer. But, it's over the phone and it's only in certain situations. Those officers are trained in what to ask. If certain things come up, they'll be able to transfer that back over to dispatch and we'll immediately send an officer out."
Despite those assurances, Chicago aldermen are battening down the hatches for political fallout.
"I can understand if it's [to report] somebody spray-painted my trash can. But, people want to see an officer when it gets up to a certain level of crime. They're setting the bar pretty high for police not to respond," said Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd).
"When you're talking about someone's garage being broken into and you've had three or four neighbors with the same thing, people have an expectation of having an officer on location to assess the situation. If no officer shows up, they're gonna assume it's gonna keep happening. They'll feel this is scaling back even more. There'll be a lot of people angry."
Waguespack said some of his constituents are already being asked to file reports over the phone when there are "10 calls stacked up" and there is no police car available to respond.
If the policy becomes mandatory and citywide, he said, "I suppose, in time, people will get used to it. But, aldermen will have to learn to respond" to the political fallout.
Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) said he's willing to "take the heat" if it means freeing police officers to respond to more serious crimes.
"I'd rather them be upset than not responding to a domestic battery or burglary or some other crime going on in real time," Sawyer said.
"We respond to a lot more calls than other cities do. Is there gonna be some push-back? Initially, there will be. But, this seems to be a reasonable response to the volume of calls we get to free officers who sometimes go on calls that turn out to be frivolous."
Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) added, "I'm sure there will be some push-back. But, it's necessary to put more cops on the street. We want our police officers pursuing crime – not just writing reports."
Last week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy responded to the murder of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton by announcing plans to shift 200 officers from desk jobs to street duty to double the size of "area saturation" teams already focusing on gang violence.
The mayor acknowledged that Chicago needs more police officers on the street, but he won't ask taxpayers to foot the bill until he's certain existing officers are being used effectively.
Like Emanuel's earlier plan to write tickets for possession of small amounts of marijuana, the long-awaited change in 911 dispatch is yet another step toward that end.
Last summer, McCarthy warned aldermen that he would soon decide "which jobs we're not gonna respond to" anymore and that he expected "some wrankling" about the change.
But he said, "We don't need to respond to calls for service because, 'My children are fighting over the remote control.' We don't need to respond to calls for service because, 'My son won't eat his dinner.' Unfortunately, believe it or not, those are calls we actually respond to today."
One alderman, who asked to remain anonymous, said he's concerned about 911 dispatchers making the wrong decision.
"What if there's an emergency and they decide it's not? The city could be open to more lawsuits," the alderman said.
"It makes sense not to dispatch police for nonsense calls. I just hope we get it right."
Last summer, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said that police officers would soon be choosing which 911 calls merited a response in person. Those changes take effect Sunday. | Brian Jackson~Sun-Times
Copyright © 2013 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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In reality, the Young-Girl is only the model citizen such as commodity society has defined it since WWI, as an explicit response to the revolutionary threats against it -- Tiqqun, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of The Young-Girl
A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself -- John Berger, Ways of Seeing
About a week and a half ago, CBC Radio's show The Current aired what could politely be called a "discussion" — and impolitely, a travesty — on the role of the selfie in contemporary digital culture. Featuring Andrew Keen, author of Cult of the Amateur and reliable old-man grump on the subject of Web 2.0, Toronto novelist Hal Niedviecki, and ex-pat Canadian writer and actual young woman Sarah Nicole Prickett, the conversation started started badly and ended at cringe-worthy. About halfway through, two adult men laughed out loud at the idea that young women's bodily experiences under sexism might play a role in the evaluation of the selfie's moral status, and at that point Prickett (and I, as the listener) check out of the conversation. Keen, who dominates the latter half of the discussion, bloviates that selfies are about "extreme narcissism" and that, as a cultural phenomenon, they are simultaneously absurd, embarassing, narcissistic, and — apparently — a pressing moral issue.
The accusation of narcissism leveled at self-photographers and, if opaquely, at teenage girls in particular is evidence of an extraordinary lack of insight into the workings of femininity under late capitalism. Keen's moral condemnation of the selfie as an act of narcissism is plainly unencumbered by any consideration that narcissism, as a personality trait, may not only be what capital expects but also demands from young girls, in order that they be legible as girls at all.
Which is not to re-categorize the selfie as a radical act of political empowerment (although this view has been taken up, more or less successfully, on hundreds of Tumblrs across the Internet). When it comes to the selfie, my preference is to strike the word empowerment from our vocabularies entirely. I'd also like to leave out narcissism as an individual moral failing, and the phrase male gaze because, really? Male gaze? Really. Selfies, like orgasms, Girls, make-up, and high heels are most often — and most tediously — discussed in the frame of will-she won't-she individualist choice feminism, which inevitably ends up in one of two places. First, that everything women do is feminist because they're women and they're doing it. Second, that nothing women do that relates to making bodies interesting or beautiful is feminist because, like, dudes run the advertising agencies or something. Both of these positions are boring at best, and politically useless at worst.
As an alternative, I suggest we get down to the brass, materialist tacks of the matter: under capitalism, what does the selfie actually do?
When we talk about selfies, what we are really talking about is teenage girls. "Teenage girls" here is more of a concept than a biological necessity; the age is primarily arbitrary and the girl-ness is semiotic at best. But the disgust at the moral failures of kids today, with their iPhones and their Instagrams is a gendered disgust — it is disgust for bodies whose worth is determined not by those who inhabit them, but by those who look at them. It is disgust for bodies that run in emulation, whose primary labour is dedicated to looking a particular way rather than making a particular thing.
Tiqqun, in Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, takes the body of the Young-Girl (who, they make clear in the introduction, is not necessarily an actual young girl) as the central unit of late capitalism. As a caveat, many readers of Tiqqun put Theory of the Young-Girl down because it comes off as gross and sexist. If you read the new translation for Semiotext(e) by the excellent Ariana Reines, she says as much in her introduction (excerpts here at Triple Canopy). What Theory of the Young-Girl requires, in order to be useful, is an understanding that the body or idea of the teenage girl is sometimes separate from the actuality of teenage girl-dom. This conceptual separation is not just tangential to the work — it is in fact what allows it to hold together at all.
The Young-Girl, according to Tiqqun, is "the model citizen of commodity society", an identity colonized by capital. The Young-Girl is the citizen as consumer, not just of material products, but of ideology iteself. This identity is not ahistorical — not all young girls throughout time have been Young-Girls — nor is it a biological necessity. Rather, it is an historical invention, one that works to make the bodies of young girls useful to capital. If Young-Girlism is about capital's attempt to colonize the sphere outside of industrial production, who has beem less outside that sphere than the teenage girl? The flapper, the flaneuse, the hysteric — prior to the advent of consumer capitalism, the bodies of young women can be read as the bodies most useless to capitalism.
The identity of the Young-Girl is about taking these previously useless bodies and making them useful. If they are not useful for making things, then they will be made useful for buying things, and this consumer identity is performed on and through her body. What characterizes the Young-Girl is that her body is a commodity, one which belongs to her and is her responsibility to maintain the value of. The concept of the teenage girl — a concept that actual teenage girls can inhabit more or less successfully — is a collaboration between industry and girls themselves. It exists in the liminal space where consumption and emancipation begin to overlap: if I represent my individuality through the consumption of particular items (lipstick, science-fiction novels, cupcakes, leather jackets with studs) is this emancipation because I made a choice? Capital says yes, that emancipation comes from participation in consumption, rather than it's rejection. Tiqqun says no -- that we must think not of liberating the Young-Girl, but liberation relative to the Young-Girl. I tend to fall in with the latter; that consumption is offered as an alternative to liberation, rather than its realization.
If we treat the Young-Girl as a historical concept, it's hard to get away from the fact that in some ways teen girls are often what Tiqqun says they are. The way Tiqqun describes the Young-Girl is insulting, at best. It is also, on my reading, fairly accurate. But the disgust that comes with it, I think, hinges on the question of whether we (as former/continued young girls and Young-Girls) carry the burden of responsibility for engaging in this particular mode of citizenship. The practice of the selfie provides a roadmap for an answer.
Back to the original question: what does the selfie actually do? It is clearly the product of work, both on the body and on the representation of the body. I will be the first to admit that I have spent inordinate amounts of time figuring out how best to hold my face and body in order to take the most flattering mirror-photograph. It is the culmination of research — most girls tilt their heads down, look up and shoot from above, so maybe I should too — and skills. It is also an engagement with an external discourse, one in which what Dorothy Smith calls "the doctrines of femininity" are widely available on the newsstand, on television, on the internet, and on the street. Smith writes that women create themselves as instances of the textual image — that women's bodies, and those of young girls in particular, run in emulation.
Emulation in computing is a strategy of preservation, a tactic in an ongoing battle with obsolescence. Unlike make-up and fashion, which are often determined (usually by men) to be techniques of falsification — how many times have we heard girls with "too much" makeup describe as "fake" — emulation in computing is about authenticity. If the the body of the Young-Girl is her primary commodity, her ticket of entry into the world of consumer capitalism (outside of which she is not only useless but also illegible), then her ability to authentically maintain the femininity of her body maintains its value. Participating in femininity, and documenting and representing that participation, is not only a relation of the young girl to herself, as the narcissism explanation would have it. It is also the relation of the young girl to herself as the Young-Girl, as an object to work on, and whose realization can be more or less effective. The selfie is both a representation of and, in the case of social media sites like Instagram and Facebook, an opportunity for the public recognition of that labour. The image may assert sexual subordination, but it still asserts.
So if selfies are labour of a sort, why is the discourse around them so fraught? There is palpable disgust evident in Tiqqun's description of the Young-Girl, and in Andrew Keen's analysis of digitally-driven narcissism. Keen frames his disgust as a reaction against the moral failures of a generation. I think there is more to it than that. Disgust is not just about reproach or disapproval. Disgust is about contempt. It polices the boundaries between observer and observed. For Kant, disgust is about imagination:
The object itself is represented as it were obtruding itself for our enjoyment while we strive against it with all our might. And the artistic representation of the object is no longer distinguished from the nature of the object itself, and thus it is impossible that it can be regarded as beautiful.
The object that intrudes is the body of the teenage girl — simultaneously the site of desire and pity. The representation of the the object is the selfie. That young women express feelings of shame and disgrace upon realizing the pressing requirement of femininity is built into the Young-Girls' place in the hegemonic structure of capitalism. The Young-Girl is the model citizen of contemporary society not because we worship her, but because by expending her energy on the cultivation of her body, her potential as a revolutionary subject is neutralized. If young girls are the hated bodies of capital (along with immigrant bodies, racialized bodies, LGBT bodies, etc) then they must also be predictable bodies; that is why we spend inordinate amount of money on emphasizing the important of beauty, the importance of fashion, the importance of youthfulness and desirability and individuality. If the best way of making your womanhood legible is to adorn your body in a particular way — whether femme or punk rock or teeny bopper or whatever — then there is an injunction to perform that work. Women who do not do that work, particularly teenage girls who 'opt out' as it were, face social repercussions far more meaningful than some 40-year-old dude calling them narcissists. We elevate the work women do on their bodies to the utmost importance, and then punish the outcome of that labour. That is how hegemony works.
In this light, the selfie isn't about empowerment. But it also isn't not about empowerment. Empowerment, or lack thereof, is not part of the picture. Neither is narcissism, as either a personal or a cultural moral failure. And the selfie isn't about the male gaze. The selfie, in the end is about the gendered labour of young girls under capitalism. Do we honestly think that by ceasing to take and post selfies, the bodies of young women would cease to be spectacles? Teenage girls are Young-Girls, are spectacles, are narcissists, are consumers because those are the very criterion which must be met to be a young woman and also a part of society. That their bodies are commodities enters them into economies of attention, and that is where the disgust with selfies comes from. In an economy of attention, it is a disaster for men that girls take up physical space and document it, and that this documentation takes up page hits and retweets that could go to 'more important' things. And so the Young-Girl must be punished, with a disgust reserved for the purely trivial. To paraphrase that beloved of Young-Girl films, Ever After — itself paraphrasing Thomas More's Utopia — what are we to make of the selfie but that we first create teenage girls and then punish them?


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In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. Paul Farmer stood alone in a corner of Hotel Karibe conference room, watching the spectacle.
Reporters buzzed around Bill Clinton, jostling with one another and yelling out questions. The former president was the newly-minted United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti.
It was September 2009, just a few months before the earthquake.
Farmer had been appointed as the Deputy Envoy. But it seemed perverse that the reporters would ignore him.
"Dokte Paul," as his patients here call him, has been a true friend to Haiti.
A Harvard-educated doctor and public health expert, Farmer co-founded Partners In Health. As a tiny clinic in rural Haiti has grown into a medical complex and now a hospital, he's innovated and delivered top-class healthcare to the poorest Haitians for three decades.
His accomplishments are profiled in Tracy Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is taught in classrooms across the country. I was reading it at the time.
As a recent college graduate and a newcomer to Haiti, I wasn't going to miss this chance to interview a personal hero of mine. So I ran over.
We talked about Haiti's challenges. He folded his arms and leaned in, peering through round wire-rimmed glasses. His answers were thoughtful. Farmer had always been a sharp critic of the international community's treatment of Haiti.
Eventually I asked him a blunt question: "Do you think the administration here was under pressure from international forces to fight the increase in the minimum wage?"
I'd seen graffiti calling for bump in wages in Port-au-Prince earlier that day. In the preceding months, as the government stalled on enacting the wage hike from $3 to a mere $5 per day, protests had engulfed the downtown area.
Farmer stammered a little bit, said he didn't know, and subtly changed the subject.
One reader left an ominous comment on the interview. "No disrespect to Dr. Farmer, as I believe he is sincere," he wrote, "but he is now a part of the 'machine' that essentially drives Haiti."
Two years later, WikiLeaks provided me and two colleagues with a window into that machine: 1,918 secret diplomatic cables from the US Embassy in Haiti.
The cables proved beyond any doubt what had seemed obvious. Behind the scenes, American officials had mounted a full-scale assault on the minimum wage increase, financing studies against it and pressuring the president to oppose it.
If Farmer had "engaged in the hard process of discernment" – an idea he promotes in his book Haiti After the Earthquake – the answer to my question would have been "Yes, of course."
It was strange. In the past, Farmer wrote disapprovingly of plans to give Haitians low-paying jobs in textile factories – what many consider to be sweatshops. Either he had changed his mind or was holding his tongue.
In 2004, Farmer hadn't shrunk from castigating the United States and the Haitian elite for the coup d'etat they carried out against Haiti's then-president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
To this day, he remains a board member of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), which is a strong defender of Aristide and his political party, Fanmi Lavalas.
But when Fanmi Lavalas was banned from entering candidates in the first post-earthquake election, Farmer's response was tepid.
I ran into Farmer at a meeting of the now-defunct reconstruction commission (co-chaired by Clinton) just before the runoff round, in March of 2011.
I asked if he was worried about the Lavalas party's exclusion from the ballot. "Of course I'm worried," he said, "because if you have scant participation or exclude anyone from engagement. . .that's a formula for instability."
At the time, IJDH and most progressive advocates took the position that the election was unfair, fraudulent, and should be annulled. I followed up by email asking if he agreed with IJDH. Farmer wrote back:
"Good to see you. Sorry to have missed your deadline. But am on the board of ijdh so you are really asking questions for other reasons?"
I responded seeking to clarify what that meant, but received no reply.
The next time I saw Farmer, he warmly greeted me in the hall of a huge mansion.
I managed to evade the minimum $250 donation for a fundraiser being held in Austin, Texas, where I was visiting family. I wore some of my best clothes but still looked underdressed. The opulence on display seemed shameless.
Turns out the mansion belonged to Roy Spence, chief executive of a big marketing agency. He was Hilary Clinton's "messaging guru" during her 2008 campaign.
Farmer humored the crowd with an engaging speech calling for accompaniment with, rather than mere charity to, the poor.
Cheryl Mills, Clinton's chief of staff at the State Department, stood next to him, beaming. Mills had just taken a shellacking in a Rolling Stone investigation of Haiti's faltering reconstruction effort.
But this wasn't a fundraiser for Partners In Health, Farmer's highly-respected health organization. It was for an obscure group called Students of the World, which is run by Roy Spence's daughter, Courtney.
A documentary filmmaker friend of mine went to the second fundraiser in East Austin – the one for the non-rich – the following night. Unprompted by me, he complained a few days later about how bad it was. He said it seems like they "parachute in" and produce "bad promo videos" about charities in Haiti and other poor countries.
And yet that night, there was Farmer wrapping up his speech. He urged the assembled guests – influential Texas politicians and businessmen among them – to donate to Students of the World.
Before I left, Farmer autographed a copy of his book for me. He said he'd flown all the way from Rwanda for the event.
In the book, Farmer argues that humanitarian funding should be directed to Haiti's public sector – the government – instead of to foreign charities. Groups like Students for the World are lambasted as haphazard and unaccountable to Haitians.
"Oh, he adores Clinton," a senior member of Partner in Health, told me as our plane approached the Haitian coastline. "I don't get it."
It was March 2012. By chance, our seats on the flight to Port-au-Prince happened to be next to each other. We'd struck up a conversation.
She said Paul had changed over the years and that now she represents the "left-wing of PIH." But the organization had taken a decidedly non-political turn.
I told her how disappointing it was when PIH had refused to sign on to a petition to protect Haiti's displaced from forced evictions not long after the quake. She wasn't surprised.
The petition was addressed to Bill Clinton, the UN Envoy to Haiti, among other authorities. And Clinton is "close to Paul," the petitioners were told by Donna Barry, PIH's Advocacy and Policy Director.
A week later, I found myself facing Clinton at a press conference at PIH's new hospital in Mirebalais. I asked a pointed question about the UN's responsibility for Haiti's cholera outbreak.
His frank response, in which he stated that cholera had arrived in Haiti via the fecal waste of a UN peacekeeping soldier, was a welcome surprise.
Farmer got up after him and delivered a boilerplate call for improved water and sanitation in Haiti. Clinton put his arm around Farmer's back when he sat back down.
"I think he knows what he's doing, and I trust his judgment and his integrity," political analyst Noam Chomsky told an interviewer who asked about Farmer's involvement with Clinton and the UN.
"Paul Farmer, that is. I'm not talking about Clinton," he added, with a derisive laugh.
As Chomsky explained, by any objective measure, Clinton has severely damaged Haiti.
After the quake, he admitted to destroying the livelihoods of Haitian farmers during his presidency when he pressured Aristide to lower tariffs on imported rice. It was a "devil's bargain," he said, that was beneficial for "some of my farmers in Arkansas."
In October, both Clintons inaugurated a sprawling, scandal-ridden industrial park in Haiti's north, where thousands of Haitians will sew garments for Wal-Mart and other US retail giants for meager wages.
Farmer, meanwhile, has been awfully quiet when it comes to public advocacy on Haiti's behalf. His name last popped up in the news when the UN, in a slick PR move, appointed him a special advisor for a brand new $2.2 billion cholera initiative.
In fact, the initiative is anything but new. It's been around for years, unfunded, and the UN itself has only contributed 1% of the overall funding goal.
The epidemic continues apace. Cholera killed 27 Haitians in the first week of January.
Farmer is still on the board of IJDH, which is suing the UN to accept responsibility for the outbreak and pay reparations to the victims. He's made no public comment about the lawsuit. Neither has the UN, except to say it's studying the claims.
"He's been bought off by people who acknowledge that his critiques had merit and gave him a position, meaning Clinton and the UN," one longtime Haiti aid worker told me.
A Washington insider who works on Haiti policy called him "their useful idiot."
"We see the same problems," he said. "Haiti needs a voice of reason to stand up to these powerful players. He could be that voice."
"It's sad, really."
Sadder still are the dusty, bleak encampments where thousands of Haitians displaced by the quake eke out an existence each day.
At a huge camp called Carradeux, withered tents flap listlessly in the wind on a crowded hillside. Aid agencies have long since left most camps, leaving clogged and overflowing latrines in their wake.
"Haiti's reconstruction? It began in [Clinton's] mouth, but it never materialized on the terrain. I don't see it," Bemès Bellevue, a 31-year-old taxi driver whose worn features make him look much older, told me on Thursday.
It was the 1090th day Bellevue has lived under a tent with his wife and two girls, aged 5 and 7. Human beings are not supposed to live like this, let alone for three years.
I've never met a camp resident who knows about Farmer. They haven't heard his talk of "building back better."
I asked Samuel Maxime, editor of Defend Haiti, an online news magazine popular with the Haitian diaspora, what he thinks of Farmer today.
He said it's hard to criticize anyone working on health in Haiti because lives are at stake.
Indeed, this makes it difficult to subject Farmer or any humanitarian to critique. But meaningful accountability is precisely what's been missing from the aid sector. Farmer himself made the point in our first interview.
"Nonetheless, I think Farmer is a large part of the machine that enables corruption in Haiti," Maxime continued. "In the grand scheme of things I believe someone like Farmer, who knows right from wrong, integrity from corruption, and looks the other way as he does – he enables it, in fact, like MLK Jr. would say – they are complicit in it."
Maxime said he's especially disappointed Farmer hasn't stepped up and stated clearly that all the evidence shows the UN brought cholera to Haiti.
"I don't think that's becoming of a Harvard man."
After several unanswered emails, Dr. Farmer responded just before this went to publication. He called me on the way to the airport, where he was to catch a flight to China for a meeting on tuberculosis.
We spoke cordially for two hours. Farmer said he hoped his words with give me pause. But they haven't.
I found him to be defensive, wishy-washy and self-contradictory.
"I chuckled at that because I think it's good to be useful," he said, taking particular umbrage at the phrase "useful idiot."
He asked repeatedly whether I agreed with that. I said he was being silenced and used.
Farmer eventually disclaimed any leadership role, saying, "I'm really not a UN official. I don't have any obligations."
"On the second year anniversary [of the quake] I wrote what I had to say and I don't really have any more to say."
When I said he had lost the razor-sharp critical voice from Uses of Haiti, he said, "I hope you're wrong about that."
I asked several times whether the UN brought cholera to Haiti. He talked around the question, never answering it directly. Isn't it important to identify the source of the outbreak?
"I don't think that's true. I don't think it was true with the [past] HIV or cholera outbreaks…If I were to rank the top 5 interventions, to slow cholera…I would not put legal action before building a water system or treating Haitians."
Do you believe in IJDH's advocacy work? "Yeah, I do! I would never disassociate myself from IJDH."
But later, "I've never worked in any social justice organization where there aren't serious disagreements inside."
On the failed reconstruction commission, the CIRH, he said, "I didn't have a dog in that fight other than wishing it well…I hope there will be many other iterations of trying to coordinate aid. I didn't assert that it would work."
He agreed that Rwanda, which he has often held up as a model, would not have accepted the CIRH.
I asked if he has been successful in encouraging aid to flow directly to the Haitian government. Farmer admitted, "The answer is no, not much success."
"I definitely care most about Haiti of all the places I've worked, but I don't claim omniscience," he said.
Ansel Herz is a freelance journalist who lived through the 2010 earthquake and has reported from Haiti for over two years. His work has been published by ABC News, the Nation Magazine, the New York Daily News, and Al Jazeera English, among other outlets.


text:
Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 31: Matthew, Mark and Luke, Part I, tr. by John King, [1847-50], at sacred-texts.com
21. And the people were waiting for Zacharias, and wondered that he tarried in the temple. 22. And when he came out, he could not speak to them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he made them to understand by signs, 21 and remained speechless. 23. And it happened, when the days of his office were fulfilled, he departed to his own house. 24. Now after these days Elisabeth his wife conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, 25. Thus hath the Lord done to me in the days when he looked, that he might take away my reproach among men.
21. And the people were waiting Luke now relates that the people were witnesses of this vision. Zacharias had tarried in the temple longer than usual. This leads to the supposition that something uncommon has happened to him. When he comes out, he makes known, by looks and gestures, that he has been struck dumb. There is reason to believe, also, that there were traces of alarm in his countenance. Hence they conclude that God has appeared to him. True, there were few or no visions in that age, but the people remembered that formerly, in the time of their fathers, they were of frequent occurrence. It is not without reason, therefore, that they draw this conclusion from obvious symptoms: for it was not an ordinary occurrence, [it was not a common accident, but rather an astonishing work of God, 22 ] that he became suddenly dumb without disease, and after a more than ordinary delay came out of the temple in a state of amazement. The word temple, as we have already mentioned, is put for the sanctuary, where the altar of incense stood, (Ex 30:1.) From this place the priests, after performing their sacred functions, were wont to go out into their own court, for the purpose of blessing the people.
23. When the days were fulfilled Λειτουργία is employed by Luke to denote a charge or office, which passed, as we have said, to each of them in regular order, (1Ch 24:3.) We are told that, when the time of his office had expired, Zacharias returned home. Hence we conclude that, so long as the priests were attending in their turns, they did not enter their own houses, that they might be entirely devoted and attached to the worship of God. For this purpose galleries were constructed around the walls of the temple, in which they had "chambers," (1Ki 6:5.) The law did not, indeed, forbid a priest to enter his house, but, as it did not permit those who ate the show-bread to come near their wives, (1Sa 21:4,) and as many persons were disposed to treat sacred things in an irreverent manner, this was probably discovered to be a remedy, that, being removed from all temptations, they might preserve themselves pure and clear from every defilement. And they were not only discharged from intercourse with their wives, but from the use of wine and every kind of intoxicating drink, (Le 10:9.) While they were commanded to change their mode of living, it was advantageous for them not to depart from the temple, that the very sight of the place might remind them to cultivate such purity as the Lord had enjoined. It was proper also to withdraw every means of gratification, that they might devote themselves more unreservedly to their office.
The Papists of the present day employ this as a pretense for defending the tyrannical law of celibacy. They argue thus. The priests were formerly enjoined to withdraw from their wives, while they were engaged in religious services. Most properly is perpetual continence now demanded from the priests, who not in their turn, but every day, offer sacrifices; more especially since the importance of religious services is far higher than it was under the law. But I should like to know why they do not also abstain from wine and strong drink. For we are not at liberty to separate commandments which God has joined, so as to keep the one half and disregard the other. Intercourse with wives is not so expressly forbidden as the drinking of wine, (Eze 44:21.) If, under the pretense of the law, the Pope enjoins celibacy on his priests, why does he allow them wine? Nay, on this principle, all priests ought to be thrown into some retired apartments of the churches, to pass their whole life immured in prisons, and excluded from the society of women and of the people.
It is now abundantly clear that they wickedly shelter themselves under the law of God, to which they do not adhere. But the full solution of the difficulty depends on the distinction between the law and the gospel. A priest stood in the presence of God, to expiate the sins of the people, to be, as it were, a mediator between God and men. He who sustained that character ought to have had something peculiar about him, that he might be distinguished from the common rank of men, and recognised as a figure of the true Mediator. Such, too, was the design of the holy garments and the anointing. In our day the public ministers and pastors of the church have nothing of this description. I speak of the ministers whom Christ has appointed to feed his flock, not of those whom the Pope commissions, as executioners rather than priests, to murder Christ. Let us therefore rest in the decision of the Spirit, which pronounces that "marriage is honorable in all," (Heb 13:4.)
24. And hid herself This appears very strange, as if she had been ashamed of the blessing of God. Some think that she did not, venture to appear in public, so long as the matter was uncertain, for fear of exposing herself to ridicule, if her expectation were disappointed. In my opinion, she was so fully convinced of the promise made to her, that she had no doubt of its accomplishment. When she saw a severe punishment inflicted on her husband for "speaking unadvisedly with his lips," (Ps 106:33,) did she, for five successive months, cherish in her mind a similar doubt? But her words show clearly that her expectation was not doubtful or uncertain. By saying, thus hath the Lord done to me, she expressly and boldly affirms that his favor was ascertained. There might be two reasons for the delay. Until this extraordinary work of God was manifest, she might hesitate to expose it to the diversified opinions of men, for the world frequently indulges in light, rash, and irreverent talking about the works of God. Another reason might be that, when she was all at once discovered to be pregnant, men might be more powerfully excited to praise God. [For, when the works of God show themselves gradually, in process of time we make less account of them than if the thing had been accomplished all at once, without our having ever heard of it—Fr.] It was not, therefore, on her own account, but rather with a view to others, that Elisabeth hid herself
25. Thus hath the Lord done to me She extols in private the goodness of God, until the time is fully come for making it generally known. There is reason to believe that her husband had informed her by writing of the promised offspring, in consequence of which she affirms with greater certainty and freedom that God was the author of this favor. This is confirmed by the following words, when he looked, that he might take away my reproach; for she assigns it as the cause of her barrenness that the favor of God had been at that time withdrawn from her. Among earthly blessings, Scripture speaks in the highest terms of the gift of offspring. And justly: for, if the productiveness of the inferior animals is his blessing, the increase and fruitfulness of the human race ought to be reckoned a much higher favor. It is no small or mean honor, that God, who alone is entitled to be regarded as a Father, admits the children of the dust to share with him this title. Let us, therefore, hold this doctrine, that
"children are an heritage of the Lord,
and the fruit of the womb is his reward,"
(Ps 127:3.)
But Elisabeth looked farther; for, though barren and old, she had conceived by a remarkable miracle, and contrary to the ordinary course of nature.
That he might take away my reproach Not without reason has barrenness been always accounted a reproach: for the blessing of the womb is enumerated among the signal instances of the divine kindness. Some think that this was peculiar to the ancient people: because Christ was to come from the seed of Abraham. But this had no reference, except to the tribe of Judah. Others think more correctly that the multiplication of the holy people was happy and blessed, as was said to Abraham, "I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth," (Ge 13:16;) and again,
"Tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: so shall thy seed be,"
(Ge 15:5.)
But we ought to connect the universal blessing, which extends to the whole human race, with the promise made to Abraham, which is peculiar to the church of God, (Ge 13:15.) Let parents learn to be thankful to God for the children which he has given them, and let those who have no offspring acknowledge that God has humbled them in this matter. Elisabeth speaks of it exclusively as a reproach among men: for it is a temporal chastisement, from which we will suffer no loss in the kingdom of heaven.
Il leur donnoit a entendre par signes — Fr
Ce n'estoit point un accident commun, mais plustost une ceuvre ad-mirable de Dieu — Fr.


text:
The U.S. has been the world's biggest national economy since 1871, but more than half of Americans have slapped an expiration date on its global reign according to a poll reported on in the Wall Street Journal.
The poll, conducted by financial website The Street, found that only 43% of Americans believed the U.S. would be the world's "dominant economic power" five to seven years out and nearly a third have already ceded the title to China.
Their opinions may fly in the face of economic reality — the U.S. has nearly twice the GDP of China — but the poll does show how years of sluggish economic growth can alter perceptions.


text:
OW Bunker Begins US West Coast Operations
First deliveries and new employee appointments signal a strong start to OW Bunker's fuel distribution services in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach
OW Bunker has confirmed that its newly established physical distribution operation in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, is now fully operational.
The company's first physical delivery was made to the containership CMA CGM Norma from the double-hulled barge Lily Blair earlier this month. Since then, OW Bunker has completed more deliveries as part of its service that covers the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and offers a full range of quality products, including RMG380 (HSFO and LSFO), RMK500, RMK700 and MGO.
To support the US West Coast operations, OW Bunker has hired Martijn Kelderman as Manager - Physical Operations – Los Angeles, while Cindy Bauer-Gomez and Raymond Bacani have joined the team as Operations Manager and Sales and Marketing Manager, respectively. Between them they bring considerable, wide-ranging international and local bunkering experience.
Adrian Tolson, Regional Manager, OW Bunker North America, said, "We are pleased to strengthen our newly-launched physical operations in Los Angeles and Long Beach with the appointment of a strong, dedicated core team who have the ability to work intuitively with customers, especially as the 2015 ECA regulation implementation date draws closer."
Tolson continues, "In addition to the successful completion of our first deliveries in Los Angeles and Long Beach, we have been encouraged by the considerable interest our customers have shown in this new service. This reinforces our conviction that ship operators are seeking more integrated bunkering services that are consistent in both price and quality from port to port. With a highly qualified and experienced team, strong relationships with local partners and a developed infrastructure across North America, we are well positioned to meet this demand."
OW Bunker announced its expansion into Los Angeles and Long Beach in March this year, nearly 18 months after launching a physical offering offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The company also signed a deal in February 2014 with UNIPEC America to provide products at the BOSTCO fuel oil terminal in Houston.


text:
Thanks to my mom and dad, I have more vintage decanters than I could ever possibly use. During our recent basement overhaul, I found a way to store them all, so I don't feel so guilty about keeping them.
As you can see, I own decanters in a variety of shapes and sizes. Even if I don't end up putting any alcohol in them, I will admire them now and again.
A vintage Luminarc decanter.
I like the starburst pattern on this short decanter.
Finally, a vintage Haig & Haig Pinch Scotch Whiskey bottle.
What do you like to collect?


text:
A special way to bring in the new year
In the pages of this blog, we've talked about many delightful pairings that can be made with cigars; from chocolates and liquors, to beer, wine and even soft drinks...
In the pages of this blog, we've talked about many delightful pairings that can be made with cigars; from chocolates and liquors, to beer, wine and even soft drinks. We've also touched on how cigars are traditionally symbols of success, lit and smoked to celebrate prosperity, good fortune or simply an expression of a life well lived.
So as the ultimate pairing, one that combines both complementary tastes, and symbols of celebration, may we recommend cigars and champagne.
You see, while a good scotch whisky or brandy go wonderfully with a fine cigar, the depths of rich, heavy flavors can leave the palate a little dehydrated. With its clean, crisp biscuity taste, and effervescence, the light tingle of bursting bubbles of champagne not only adds vibrancy to lingering tobacco flavors, it also cuts through, refreshing the smoker, and cleansing the palate. Special vintages should be reserved for heavier cigars, to create complimentary flavor complexity, while lighter cigars will work best with simpler bubbles that have a focus on finesse.
It's an effect not limited to champagne. A prosecco or spumante, Italian classics, will also complement a celebratory cigar in fine fashion. And when the New Year rolls around, they're a pairing enjoyed by discerning smokers throughout Tuscany, and beyond.
More stories
- Hot off the press – how cigars made the news
- Cigars and food, the lowdown on matchmaking
- The influence of a cigar super-fan
- How Europe fell in love with tobacco
- The 'do it yourself' humidor
- Discovering Tobacco – early milestones at a glance
- Barrel-aging tobacco
- Cigars in song
- A fine cigar and a glass of…beer?
Discover more about Toscano cigar on www.toscanocigars.com
or www.miamicigar.com


text:
Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell is a Reality TV show thats chronicals the angst of American youth. It is also one of the best fucking shows ever, second only to Family Matters. The first season centered around a group of young middle school kids in Indiana but quickly producers realized Indiana sucks and transplanted the entire school to California also firing popular teacher Mrs. Bliss in the process. The school was then renamed Bayside and has since been named a blue ribbon school for 10 years running. Bayside is known for having the nation's only half court basketball team as well as 1 cheerleader at a time. Bayside plays in division -1A and their only rival is Valley Highschool. Many believe that the show died when Slater's pet lizard, Artie, bit the dust, as Artie was truly the glue that held the whole she-bang (William Hung) together.
It is also famous as having launched the career of several Hardcore Pornography actors.
"A very special episode...."[edit]
Known as "Jessie's Taco", this episode included all the normal thrills and chills of a Saved by the Bell episode, and one unexpected twist. Jessie, being an angst filled teen of the early nineties, felt the need to eat at Burger King instead of Taco Bell. They say the first flame-broiled Whopper is always the best. She was constantly searching for that first Whopper she experienced that night at the Pearl Jam concert. Her mom had told her not to go, "Pearl Jam is the devil" she said. But Jessie went anyway, only to be passed a Big Mac.
Thinking it was a Whopper she took it. Oh how she was mistaken. It in fact was the dredded MacDonald's Big Mac. When Jessie came to, she was in Ronald MacDonald's tour bus, wearing her bra as a hat.
Jessie died in 2003, she went out like a star, drowning in her own hamburger ridden vomit.
Mario Lopez[edit]
Mario Lopez once slugged Mischa Barton after she called him "Washed up". She awoke in a bathtub filled with ice-cubes, her kidney had been removed. Mario Lopez then changed his name to Erik Estrada and began a prolific T.V. career.
Christian leaders have criticized the show for promoting Mexican Food heresy. For instance, Jerry [[|song|Fallout]] complained that "Salvation comes only through traditional Mexican Restaurants. To air a show that says that you can eat Mexican Food in any other way--such as at a restaurant called 'Taco Bell'--I'm sorry, I just can't condone the eaters of that taco."
The End of A Legacy[edit]
February 31st, 2003. The show comes to an abrupt halt as Zack becomes so numb, he can't feel you there.
Zachary Morris brought a Grilled Stuft Burrito to school and fed 27 friends and teachers after the ghost of his "pal" Screech stole his long time girl-friend Kelly Kapowski. Ghost Screech somehow managed to survive the meal, but not before having his spiritual testicles eaten off.
The victims included Jessie and Slater. In fear of Zacks angry rampage they attempted to hide in a closet. After several awkward minutes, Slater made a very sexy comment and Jessie got some Fire Sauce. They ate tacos together, they ate as one.
Slater fed Jessie into submission and helped her finish off her Baja Blast Mountain Dew. On his way out of the closet he was fed another taco by Zack who asked AC if he believed in God. When AC responded "What the hell, preppy?" Zack ate a Bean Burrito which destroyed everything within the tri-state area.
The show then picks twenty years after the incident IN THE FUTURE!!!, where the exposure to radiation from the blast has caused the school's principal, Mr. Skinner, to lose all of his luscious packets of Fire Sauce. He recalls the bean burrito somberly and turns his gaze heavenward before delivering an impromptus sililoquy which explains the very workings of the Cheesy Gordita Crunch.
A satisfying ending to an amazing meal.
Saved By The Bell and Pornography[edit]
Jessie (Elizabeth Berkley)[edit]
Jessie starred in the 1995 film Showgirls, directed by Dutch kitten-huffer Paul Verhoeven. This film has been widely praised by critics as being the most intelligent, insightful film of modern American cinema. Jessie in particular was praised for her "acting skills."
Kelly Kapowski (Tiffany Thiessen)[edit]
There is a a secretive society consisting of all those who have french-kissed Kelly Kapowski. It is very exclusive: it only consists of approximately 5.6 billion members.
Although she undoubtedly has starred in some of the filthiest examples of the genre, Kelly has successfully deleted all references to her porn career from the internet. I know, I have searched Google hard enough.
Screech (Justin Timberlake)[edit]
Screech took time out from his acting career to change his name to Justin Timberlake and form an excellent pop-band. He then left that and went on to join N*Sync instead.
After the failure of his pop career, he returned to acting in a straight-to-video release called "Screeched". According to the cover artwork, Screech had also landed a part in the British Jackass tribute, Dirty Sanchez.
When Britney Spears was asked about her relationship with Screech from Saved by the Bell, she said: "Yes, he was Just In."