text: Energy | 08. March 2010 | posted by Jan Oliver Löfken Energy question of the week: What makes a power grid intelligent? A closely-interconnected grid of power lines and wires 1.7 million kilometres in length and running from power stations to wall sockets delivers a reliable power supply throughout Germany. It has evolved and been maintained over decades, extended in leaps and bounds, and virtually no-one gives any real thought to the interplay between generator and consumer, power frequency and high voltages, sub-stations and transformers. Now, in response to the rising proportion of electricity generated from renewable sources, the term Smart Grid (the 'intelligent' power grid) is now coming into common parlance. Was, and is, our existing power grid really so 'dumb'? The way out of the dead end Despite all the control centres operated by the four major and a few smaller power-generating companies in our country, the performance capability of our power grid is limited. This is due to the fact that, in the early days, the grid was designed exclusively to distribute power from central power stations to individual consumers. It is essentially a 'one-way street', and one that is increasingly being tested to its limits. On a decentralised or 'remote' basis, smaller power-generating companies are contributing to the national grid. They may employ a generator powered by biogas, or a small hydroelectric power station. Wind farms, with their occasional sharp fluctuations in yield, are also being added to the mix. As a consequence, existing technology is finding it increasingly difficult to manage the power grid. If, as planned, the proportion of power generated from renewable sources is to continue rising, it is essential to expand and modify our national power grid. "The intelligent power grid is prerequisite for reliable power supply in the future." Credit: dpa. This trend affects all industrialised nations to a similar degree; it is not a problem that Germany faces alone. Forecasts suggest that investments amounting to several hundred billion euro are being planned for the next two decades – a gigantic market in which German companies want to secure themselves a large share. Many technologies – first and foremost the linking of the power grid to a data network – will be called upon to accomplish this objective, because this paradigm shift will have an impact at all levels – from high-voltage power lines carrying 400 kilovolts right through to the domestic 230 volt power socket in the home. Many ideas for a single goal In the home, intelligent electricity meters will monitor the amount of power delivered and used for domestic purposes. As weather data become more reliable, the power yield from wind and solar power will become easier to forecast with some degree of accuracy. At a local level, different smaller power-generating companies will be able to combine forces efficiently in what are known as 'virtual power stations', thereby making the entire grid easier to manage and control. Last but not least, the need for intermediate storage of electricity is rising – irrespective of whether it is done by fleets of electric cars, with their lithium-ion batteries, or using giant subterranean compressed air reservoirs. This is because the power grid is only able to transmit electricity, not store it. In addition, DC power transmission lines carrying up to 800 kilovolts will be used to link all the sub-networks within Europe, to deliver a reliable transport system for power generating companies located far from where their output is actually used. "The intelligent power grid is absolutely essential for any safe and reliable power supply in the future. At present, DLR is working on appropriate solutions for the integration of renewable sources. A balanced mix of energy sources and a high-performance distribution network help to ensure that the electrical load demand is covered at all times and that the requirement for storage capacity is kept to a minimum," states Franz Trieb, from the DLR Institute of Technical Thermodynamics in Stuttgart. In later posts of the 'Energy Question of the Week', this blog will present exciting details of these ideas and proposed solutions. The DLR Energy question of the week in 'The future of energy' Year of Science The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has given the Year of Science 2010 the motto 'The future of energy'. For this reason the science journalist Jan Oliver Löfken will this year answer a question on the subject of energy in his blog each week. Do you have a question about how our energy supply might look in the future? Or do you want to know, for example, how a wave power plant works and how it can efficiently generate electricity? Then send us your question by email. Science journalist Jan Oliver Löfken will investigate the answers and publish them each week in this blog.


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Acclaimed for her distinctive technique and creative flair, Dutch-born fashion photographer and Canon Ambassador Evely Duis is renowned for capturing alluring shots that exude glamour and style.
Growing up in a small village in the Netherlands, her passion for photography was sparked at a young age. "I started attending weekly art classes when I was about six years old," Evely explains. "I began to develop my creativity. I even made a camera from a shoebox in my lessons! Photography just caught my eye and I felt as though this was the thing I wanted to do."

subset: commoncrawl


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Christendom has several meanings. In a contemporary sense it may refer to the worldwide community of Christians, adherents of Christianity; or the collectivity of Christian majority countries, or countries in which Christianity dominates, or nations in which Christianity is the established religion.
- Paradise lost christendom
- Terminology and usage
- Early Christendom
- Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
- Later Middle Ages and Renaissance
- Reformation and Early Modern era
- Writings and poetry
- Supplemental arts
- Illumination
- Iconography
- Architecture
- Philosophy
- Medieval conditions
- Renaissance innovations
- Geographic spread
- Number of adherents
- Notable Christian organizations
- Church and state framing
- Democratic ideology
- Womens roles
- Major Christian denominations
- Sizes of denomination
- Christendom and other beliefs
- Judaism
- Islam
- Buddhism
- Hinduism
- Secularism
- References
In its historical sense, the term usually refers to the medieval and early modern period, during which the Christian world represented a geopolitical power juxtaposed with both the pagan and especially the Muslim world. In the traditional Roman Catholic sense of the word, it refers to the sum total of nations in which the Catholic Church is the established religion of the state, or which have ecclesiastical concordats with the Holy See.
Paradise lost christendom
Terminology and usage
The term cristendom existed in Old English, but it had the sense now taken by Christianity (as is still the case with the cognate Dutch christendom , where it denotes mostly the religion itself, just like the German Christentum). The current sense of the word of "lands where Christianity is the dominant religion" emerges in Late Middle English (by c. 1400). This semantic development happened independently in the languages of late medieval Europe, which leads to the confusing semantics of English Christendom equalling German Christenheit, French chrétienté vs. English Christianity equalling German Christentum, French christianisme. The reason is the increasing fragmentation of Western Christianity at that time both in theological and in political respect. "Christendom" as a geopolitical term is thus meaningful in the context of the Middle Ages, and arguably during the European wars of religion and the Ottoman wars in Europe.
The Christian world is also known collectively as the Corpus Christianum, a translated as the Christian body, meaning the community of all Christians. The Christian polity, embodying a less secular meaning, can be compatible with the idea of both a religious and a temporal body: Corpus Christianum. The Corpus Christianum can be seen as a Christian equivalent of the Muslim Ummah.
The word "Christendom" is also used with its other meaning to frame-true Christianity. A more secular meaning can denote that the term Christendom refers to Christians considered as a group, the "Political Christian World", as an informal cultural hegemony that Christianity has traditionally enjoyed in the West. In its most broad term, it refers to the world's Christian majority countries, which, share little in common aside from the predominance of the faith. Unlike the Muslim world, which has a geo-political and cultural definition that provides a primary identifier for a large swath of the world, Christendom is more complex. It may be a cultural notion, but has very little weight in international discourse; very few political observers really discuss Christendom, while the Muslim World tends to comprise a civilization in itself. For example, the Americas and Europe are considered part of Christendom, but this region is further subdivided into the West (representing the North Atlantic) and Latin America. It is also less geographically cohesive than the Muslim world, which stretches almost continuously from North Africa to South Asia.
There is a common and nonliteral sense of the word that is much like the terms Western world, known world or Free World. When Thomas F. Connolly said, "There isn't enough power in all Christendom to make that airplane what we want!", he was simply using a figure of speech, although it is true that during the Cold War, just as the totalitarianism of the Communist Bloc presented a contrast with the liberty of the Free World, the state atheism of the Communist Bloc contrasted with religious freedom and powerful religious institutions in North America and Western Europe. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.
Early Christendom
In the beginning of Christendom, early Christianity was a religion spread in the Greek/Roman world and beyond as a 1st-century Jewish sect, which historians refer to as Jewish Christianity. It may be divided into two distinct phases: the apostolic period, when the first apostles were alive and organizing the Church, and the post-apostolic period, when an early episcopal structure developed, whereby bishoprics were governed by bishops (overseers).
The post-apostolic period concerns the time roughly after the death of the apostles when bishops emerged as overseers of urban Christian populations. The earliest recorded use of the terms Christianity (Greek Χριστιανισμός) and Catholic (Greek καθολικός), dates to this period, the 2nd century, attributed to Ignatius of Antioch c. 107. Early Christendom would close at the end of imperial persecution of Christians after the ascension of Constantine the Great and the Edict of Milan in AD 313 and the First Council of Nicaea in 325.
Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
"Christendom" has referred to the medieval and renaissance notion of the Christian world as a sociopolitical polity. In essence, the earliest vision of Christendom was a vision of a Christian theocracy, a government founded upon and upholding Christian values, whose institutions are spread through and over with Christian doctrine. In this period, members of the Christian clergy wield political authority. The specific relationship between the political leaders and the clergy varied but, in theory, the national and political divisions were at times subsumed under the leadership of the church as an institution. This model of church-state relations was accepted by various Church leaders and political leaders in European history.
The Church gradually became a defining institution of the Empire. Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 proclaiming toleration for the Christian religion, and convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 whose Nicene Creed included belief in "one holy catholic and apostolic Church". Emperor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica of 380.
As the Western Roman Empire disintegrated into feudal kingdoms and principalities, the concept of Christendom changed as the western church became one of five patriarchal of the Pentarchy and the Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire developed. The Byzantine Empire was the last bastion of Christendom. Christendom would take a turn with the rise of the Franks, a Germanic tribe who converted to the Christian faith and entered into communion with Rome.
On Christmas Day 800 AD, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne resulting in the creation of another Christian king beside the Christian emperor in the Byzantine state. The Carolingian Empire created a definition of Christendom in juxtaposition with the Byzantine Empire, that of a distributed versus centralized culture respectively.
The classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and the Latin West. In the Greek philosopher Plato's ideal state there are three major classes, which was representative of the idea of the "tripartite soul", which is expressive of three functions or capacities of the human soul: "reason", "the spirited element", and "appetites" (or "passions"). Will Durant made a convincing case that certain prominent features of Plato's ideal community where discernible in the organization, dogma and effectiveness of "the" Medieval Church in Europe:
... For a thousand years Europe was ruled by an order of guardians considerably like that which was visioned by our philosopher. During the Middle Ages it was customary to classify the population of Christendom into laboratores (workers), bellatores (soldiers), and oratores (clergy). The last group, though small in number, monopolized the instruments and opportunities of culture, and ruled with almost unlimited sway half of the most powerful continent on the globe. The clergy, like Plato's guardians, were placed in authority... by their talent as shown in ecclesiastical studies and administration, by their disposition to a life of meditation and simplicity, and ... by the influence of their relatives with the powers of state and church. In the latter half of the period in which they ruled [800 AD onwards], the clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire [for such guardians]... [Clerical] Celibacy was part of the psychological structure of the power of the clergy; for on the one hand they were unimpeded by the narrowing egoism of the family, and on the other their apparent superiority to the call of the flesh added to the awe in which lay sinners held them.... In the latter half of the period in which they ruled, the clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire.
Later Middle Ages and Renaissance
After the collapse of Charlemagne's empire, the southern remnants of the Holy Roman Empire became a collection of states loosely connected to the Holy See of Rome. Tensions between Pope Innocent III and secular rulers ran high, as the pontiff exerted control over their temporal counterparts in the west and vice versa. The pontificate of Innocent III is considered the height of temporal power of the papacy. The Corpus Christianum described the then current notion of the community of all Christians united under the Roman Catholic Church. The community was to be guided by Christian values in its politics, economics and social life. Its legal basis was the corpus iuris canonica (body of canon law).
In the East, Christendom became more defined as the Byzantine Empire's gradual loss of territory to an expanding Islam and the muslim conquest of Persia. This caused Christianity to become important to the Byzantine identity. Before the East–West Schism which divided the Church religiously, there had been the notion of a universal Christendom that included the East and the West. After the East–West Schism, hopes of regaining religious unity with the West were ended by the Fourth Crusade, when Crusaders conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and hastened the decline of the Byzantine Empire on the path to its destruction. With the breakup of the Byzantine Empire into individual nations with nationalist Orthodox Churches, the term Christendom described Western Europe, Catholicism, Orthodox Byzantines, and other Eastern rites of the Church.
The Catholic Church's peak of authority over all European Christians and their common endeavours of the Christian community — for example, the Crusades, the fight against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula and against the Ottomans in the Balkans — helped to develop a sense of communal identity against the obstacle of Europe's deep political divisions. But this authority was also sometimes abused, and fostered the Inquisition and anti-Jewish pogroms, to root out divergent elements and create a religiously uniform community. Ultimately, the Inquisition was done away with by order of Pope Innocent III.
Christendom ultimately was led into specific crisis in the late Middle Ages, when the kings of France managed to establish a French national church during the 14th century and the papacy became ever more aligned with the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Known as the Western Schism, western Christendom was a split between three men, who were driven by politics rather than any real theological disagreement for simultaneously claiming to be the true pope. The Avignon Papacy developed a reputation of corruption that estranged major parts of Western Christendom. The Avignon schism was ended by the Council of Constance.
Before the modern period, Christendom was in a general crisis at the time of the Renaissance Popes because of the moral laxity of these pontiffs and their willingness to seek and rely on temporal power as secular rulers did. Many in the Catholic Church's hierarchy in the Renaissance became increasingly entangled with insatiable greed for material wealth and temporal power, which led to many reform movements, some merely wanting a moral reformation of the Church's clergy, while others repudiated the Church and separated from it in order to form new sects. The Italian Renaissance produced ideas or institutions by which men living in society could be held together in harmony. In the early 16th century, Baldassare Castiglione (The Book of the Courtier) laid out his vision of the ideal gentleman and lady, while Machiavelli cast a jaundiced eye on "la verità effetuale delle cose" — the actual truth of things — in The Prince, composed, humanist style, chiefly of parallel ancient and modern examples of Virtù. Some Protestant movements grew up along lines of mysticism or renaissance humanism (cf. Erasmus). The Catholic Church fell partly into general neglect under the Renaissance Popes, whose inability to govern the Church by showing personal example of high moral standards set the climate for what would ultimately become the Protestant Reformation. During the Renaissance the papacy was mainly run by the wealthy families and also had strong secular interests. To safeguard Rome and the connected Papal States the popes became necessarily involved in temporal matters, even leading armies, as the great patron of arts Pope Julius II did. It during these intermediate times popes strove to make Rome the capital of Christendom while projecting it, through art, architecture, and literature, as the center of a Golden Age of unity, order, and peace.
Professor Frederick J. McGinness described Rome as essential in understanding the legacy the Church and its representatives encapsulated best by The Eternal City:
No other city in Europe matches Rome in its traditions, history, legacies, and influence in the Western world. Rome in the Renaissance under the papacy not only acted as guardian and transmitter of these elements stemming from the Roman Empire but also assumed the role as artificer and interpreter of its myths and meanings for the peoples of Europe from the Middle Ages to modern times... Under the patronage of the popes, whose wealth and income were exceeded only by their ambitions, the city became a cultural center for master architects, sculptors, musicians, painters, and artisans of every kind...In its myth and message, Rome had become the sacred city of the popes, the prime symbol of a triumphant Catholicism, the center of orthodox Christianity, a new Jerusalem.
It is clearly noticeable that the popes of the Italian Renaissance have been subjected by many writers with an overly harsh tone. Pope Julius II for example was not only an effective secular leader in military affairs, a deviously effective politician but foremost one of the greatest patron of the Renaissance period and person who also encouraged open criticism from noted humanists.
The blossoming of renaissance humanism was made very much possible due to the universality of the institutions of Catholic Church and represented by personalities such as Pope Pius II, Nicolaus Copernicus, Leon Battista Alberti, Desiderius Erasmus, sir Thomas More, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Leonardo da Vinci and Teresa of Ávila. George Santayana in his work The Life of Reason postulated the tenets of the all encompassing order the Church had brought and as the repository of the legacy of classical antiquity:
The enterprise of individuals or of small aristocratic bodies has meantime sown the world which we call civilised with some seeds and nuclei of order. There are scattered about a variety of churches, industries, academies, and governments. But the universal order once dreamt of and nominally almost established, the empire of universal peace, all-permeating rational art, and philosophical worship, is mentioned no more. An unformulated conception, the prerational ethics of private privilege and national unity, fills the background of men's minds. It represents feudal traditions rather than the tendency really involved in contemporary industry, science, or philanthropy. Those dark ages, from which our political practice is derived, had a political theory which we should do well to study; for their theory about a universal empire and a catholic church was in turn the echo of a former age of reason, when a few men conscious of ruling the world had for a moment sought to survey it as a whole and to rule it justly.
Reformation and Early Modern era
Developments in western philosophy and European events brought change to the notion of the Corpus Christianum. The Hundred Years' War accelerated the process of transforming France from a feudal monarchy to a centralized state. The rise of strong, centralized monarchies denoted the European transition from feudalism to capitalism. By the end of the Hundred Years' War, both France and England were able to raise enough money through taxation to create independent standing armies. In the Wars of the Roses, Henry Tudor took the crown of England. His heir, the absolute king Henry VIII establishing the English church.
In modern history, the Reformation and rise of modernity in the early 16th century entailed a change in the Corpus Christianum. In the Holy Roman Empire, the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 officially ended the idea among secular leaders that all Christians must be united under one church. The principle of cuius regio, eius religio ("whose the region is, his religion") established the religious, political and geographic divisions of Christianity, and this was established with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which legally ended the concept of a single Christian hegemony in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire, despite the Catholic Church's doctrine that it alone is the one true Church founded by Christ. Subsequently, each government determined the religion of their own state. Christians living in states where their denomination was not the established one were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in public during allotted hours and in private at their will.
The European wars of religion are usually taken to have ended with the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), or arguably, including the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession in this period, with the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. In the 18th century, the focus shifts away from religious conflicts, either between Christian factions or against the external threat of Islam. The European Miracle, the Age of Enlightenment and the formation of the great Colonial empire together with the beginning decline of the Ottoman Empire mark the end of the geopolitical "history of Christendom". Instead the focus of western history shifts to the development of the nation-state, accompanied by increasing atheism and secularism, culminating with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the 19th century.
Writings and poetry
Christian literature is writing that deals with Christian themes and incorporates the Christian world view. This constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing. Christian poetry is any poetry that contains Christian teachings, themes, or references. The influence of Christianity on poetry has been great in any area that Christianity has taken hold. Christian poems often directly reference the Bible, while others provide allegory.
Supplemental arts
Christian art is art produced in an attempt to illustrate, supplement and portray in tangible form the principles of Christianity. Virtually all Christian groupings use or have used art to some extent. The prominence of art and the media, style, and representations change; however, the unifying theme is ultimately the representation of the life and times of Jesus and in some cases the Old Testament. Depictions of saints are also common, especially in Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy.
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration. The earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period AD 400 to 600, primarily produced in Ireland, Constantinople and Italy. The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many illuminated manuscripts survive from the 15th century Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity.
Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls; some isolated single sheets survive. A very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment (most commonly of calf, sheep, or goat skin), but most manuscripts important enough to illuminate were written on the best quality of parchment, called vellum, traditionally made of unsplit calfskin, though high quality parchment from other skins was also called parchment.
Christian art began, about two centuries after Christ, by borrowing motifs from Roman Imperial imagery, classical Greek and Roman religion and popular art. Religious images are used to some extent by the Abrahamic Christian faith, and often contain highly complex iconography, which reflects centuries of accumulated tradition. In the Late Antique period iconography began to be standardised, and to relate more closely to Biblical texts, although many gaps in the canonical Gospel narratives were plugged with matter from the apocryphal gospels. Eventually the Church would succeed in weeding most of these out, but some remain, like the ox and ass in the Nativity of Christ.
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity. Christianity has used symbolism from its very beginnings. In both East and West, numerous iconic types of Christ, Mary and saints and other subjects were developed; the number of named types of icons of Mary, with or without the infant Christ, was especially large in the East, whereas Christ Pantocrator was much the commonest image of Christ.
Christian symbolism invests objects or actions with an inner meaning expressing Christian ideas. Christianity has borrowed from the common stock of significant symbols known to most periods and to all regions of the world. Religious symbolism is effective when it appeals to both the intellect and the emotions. Especially important depictions of Mary include the Hodegetria and Panagia types. Traditional models evolved for narrative paintings, including large cycles covering the events of the Life of Christ, the Life of the Virgin, parts of the Old Testament, and, increasingly, the lives of popular saints. Especially in the West, a system of attributes developed for identifying individual figures of saints by a standard appearance and symbolic objects held by them; in the East they were more likely to identified by text labels.
Each saint has a story and a reason why he or she led an exemplary life. Symbols have been used to tell these stories throughout the history of the Church. A number of Christian saints are traditionally represented by a symbol or iconic motif associated with their life, termed an attribute or emblem, in order to identify them. The study of these forms part of iconography in Art history. They were particularly
Christian architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Christianity to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Christian culture.
Buildings were at first adapted from those originally intended for other purposes but, with the rise of distinctively ecclesiastical architecture, church buildings came to influence secular ones which have often imitated religious architecture. In the 20th century, the use of new materials, such as concrete, as well as simpler styles has had its effect upon the design of churches and arguably the flow of influence has been reversed. From the birth of Christianity to the present, the most significant period of transformation for Christian architecture in the west was the Gothic cathedral. In the east, Byzantine architecture was a continuation of Roman architecture.
Christian philosophy is a term to describe the fusion of various fields of philosophy with the theological doctrines of Christianity. Scholasticism, which means "that [which] belongs to the school", and was a method of learning taught by the academics (or school people) of medieval universities c. 1100–1500. Scholasticism originally started to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers with medieval Christian theology. Scholasticism is not a philosophy or theology in itself but a tool and method for learning which places emphasis on dialectical reasoning.
Medieval conditions
The Byzantine Empire, which was the most sophisticated culture during antiquity, suffered under Muslim conquests limiting its scientific prowess during the Medieval period. Christian Western Europe had suffered a catastrophic loss of knowledge following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. But thanks to the Church scholars such as Aquinas and Buridan, the West carried on at least the spirit of scientific inquiry which would later lead to Europe's taking the lead in science during the Scientific Revolution using translations of medieval works.
Medieval technology refers to the technology used in medieval Europe under Christian rule. After the Renaissance of the 12th century, medieval Europe saw a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. The period saw major technological advances, including the adoption of gunpowder and the astrolabe, the invention of spectacles, and greatly improved water mills, building techniques, agriculture in general, clocks, and ships. The latter advances made possible the dawn of the Age of Exploration. The development of water mills was impressive, and extended from agriculture to sawmills both for timber and stone, probably derived from Roman technology. By the time of the Domesday Book, most large villages in Britain had mills. They also were widely used in mining, as described by Georg Agricola in De Re Metallica for raising ore from shafts, crushing ore, and even powering bellows.
Significant in this respect were advances within the fields of navigation. The compass and astrolabe along with advances in shipbuilding, enabled the navigation of the World Oceans and thus domination of the worlds economic trade. Gutenberg's printing press made possible a dissemination of knowledge to a wider population, that would not only lead to a gradually more egalitarian society, but one more able to dominate other cultures, drawing from a vast reserve of knowledge and experience.
Renaissance innovations
During the Renaissance, great advances occurred in geography, astronomy, chemistry, physics, math, manufacturing, and engineering. The rediscovery of ancient scientific texts was accelerated after the Fall of Constantinople, and the invention of printing which would democratize learning and allow a faster propagation of new ideas. Renaissance technology is the set of artifacts and customs, spanning roughly the 14th through the 16th century. The era is marked by such profound technical advancements like the printing press, linear perspectivity, patent law, double shell domes or Bastion fortresses. Draw-books of the Renaissance artist-engineers such as Taccola and Leonardo da Vinci give a deep insight into the mechanical technology then known and applied.
Renaissance science spawned the Scientific Revolution; science and technology began a cycle of mutual advancement. The Scientific Renaissance was the early phase of the Scientific Revolution. In the two-phase model of early modern science: a Scientific Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries, focused on the restoration of the natural knowledge of the ancients; and a Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, when scientists shifted from recovery to innovation.
Geographic spread
Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe, Russia, the Americas, Oceania, the Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Southern Africa, Central Africa and East Africa. There are also large Christian communities in other parts of the world, such as China, India and Central Asia, where Christianity is the second-largest religion after Islam. The United States is the largest Christian country in the world by population, followed by Brazil and Mexico.
Many Christians not only live under, but also have an official status in, a state religion of the following nations: Armenia (Armenian Apostolic Church), Costa Rica (Roman Catholic Church), Denmark (Church of Denmark), El Salvador (Roman Catholic Church), England (Church of England), Georgia (Georgian Orthodox church), Greece (Church of Greece), Iceland (Church of Iceland), Liechtenstein (Roman Catholic Church), Malta (Roman Catholic Church), Monaco (Roman Catholic Church), Romania (Romanian Orthodox Church), Norway (Church of Norway), Vatican City (Roman Catholic Church), Switzerland (Roman Catholic Church, Swiss Reformed Church and Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland).
Number of adherents
The estimated number of Christians in the world ranges from 2.2 billion to 2.4 billion people. The faith represents approximately one-third of the world's population and is the largest religion in the world, with the three largest groups of Christians being the Catholic Church, Protestantism, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The largest Christian denomination is the Catholic Church, with an estimated 1.2 billion adherents.
Notable Christian organizations
A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practice. In contrast, the term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to a group of individuals who are set apart for a special role or ministry. Historically, the word "order" designated an established civil body or corporation with a hierarchy, and ordinatio meant legal incorporation into an ordo. The word "holy" refers to the Church. In context, therefore, a holy order is set apart for ministry in the Church. Religious orders are composed of initiates (laity) and, in some traditions, ordained clergies.
Various organizations include:
Church and state framing
Within the framework of Christianity, there are at least three possible definitions for Church law. One is the Torah/Mosaic Law (from what Christians consider to be the Old Testament) also called Divine Law or Biblical law. Another is the instructions of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel (sometimes referred to as the Law of Christ or the New Commandment or the New Covenant). A third is canon law which is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of churches. The way that such church law is legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely among these three bodies of churches. In all three traditions, a canon was initially a rule adopted by a council (From Greek kanon / κανών, Hebrew kaneh / קנה, for rule, standard, or measure); these canons formed the foundation of canon law.
Christian ethics in general has tended to stress the need for grace, mercy, and forgiveness because of human weakness and developed while Early Christians were subjects of the Roman Empire. From the time Nero blamed Christians for setting Rome ablaze (64 AD) until Galarius (311 AD), persecutions against Christians erupted periodically. Consequently, Early Christian ethics included discussions of how believers should relate to Roman authority and to the empire.
Under the Emperor Constantine I (312-337), Christianity became a legal religion. While some scholars debate whether Constantine's conversion to Christianity was authentic or simply matter of political expediency, Constantine's decree made the empire safe for Christian practice and belief. Consequently, issues of Christian doctrine, ethics and church practice were debated openly, see for example the First Council of Nicaea and the First seven Ecumenical Councils. By the time of Theodosius I (379-395), Christianity had become the state religion of the empire. With Christianity in power, ethical concerns broaden and included discussions of the proper role of the state.
Render unto Caesar… is the beginning of a phrase attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels which reads in full, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's". This phrase has become a widely quoted summary of the relationship between Christianity and secular authority. The gospels say that when Jesus gave his response, his interrogators "marvelled, and left him, and went their way." Time has not resolved an ambiguity in this phrase, and people continue to interpret this passage to support various positions that are poles apart. The traditional division, carefully determined, in Christian thought is the state and church have separate spheres of influence.
Thomas Aquinas thoroughly discussed that human law is positive law which means that it is natural law applied by governments to societies. All human laws were to be judged by their conformity to the natural law. An unjust law was in a sense no law at all. At this point, the natural law was not only used to pass judgment on the moral worth of various laws, but also to determine what the law said in the first place. This could result in some tension. Late ecclesiastical writers followed in his footsteps.
Democratic ideology
Christian democracy is a political ideology that seeks to apply Christian principles to public policy. It emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social teaching. In a number of countries, the democracy's Christian ethos has been diluted by secularisation. In practice, Christian democracy is often considered conservative on cultural, social and moral issues and progressive on fiscal and economic issues. In places, where their opponents have traditionally been secularist socialists and social democrats, Christian democratic parties are moderately conservative, whereas in other cultural and political environments they can lean to the left.
Women's roles
Attitudes and beliefs about the roles and responsibilities of women in Christianity vary considerably today as they have throughout the last two millennia — evolving along with or counter to the societies in which Christians have lived. The Bible and Christianity historically have been interpreted as excluding women from church leadership and placing them in submissive roles in marriage. Male leadership has been assumed in the church and within marriage, society and government.
Some contemporary writers describe the role of women in the life of the church as having been downplayed, overlooked, or denied throughout much of Christian history. Paradigm shifts in gender roles in society and also many churches has inspired reevaluation by many Christians of some long-held attitudes to the contrary. Christian egalitarians have increasingly argued for equal roles for men and women in marriage, as well as for the ordination of women to the clergy. Contemporary conservatives meanwhile have reasserted what has been termed a "complementarian" position, promoting the traditional belief that the Bible ordains different roles and responsibilities for women and men in the Church and family.
Major Christian denominations
A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. Worldwide, Christians are divided, often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and another are defined by church doctrine and church authority. Centering on language of professed Christianity and true Christianity, issues that separate one group of followers of Jesus from another include:
Christianity is composed of, but not limited to, five major branches of Churches: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and Protestantism. Some listings include Anglicans among Protestants while others list the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox together as one group, thus the number of distinct major branches can vary between three and five depending on the listing. The Assyrian Church of the East (Nestorians) and the Old Catholic churches are also distinct Christian bodies of historic importance, but much smaller in adherents and geographic scope. Each of the branches has important subdivisions. Because the Protestant subdivisions do not maintain a common theology or earthly leadership, they are far more distinct than the subdivisions of the other four groupings. Denomination typically refers to one of the many Christian groupings including each of the multitude of Protestant subdivisions.
Sizes of denomination
Catholicism is the largest denomination, comprising just over half of Christians worldwide.
In Christendom, the largest denominations are:
- Roman Catholicism – 1.3 billion
- Protestantism – 540 million
- Eastern Orthodoxy – 300 million
- Anglicanism – 115 million
- Oriental Orthodoxy – 75 million
- Nontrinitarianism – 26 million
- Nestorianism – 1 million
- Old Catholicism - 0.4 million
Christendom and other beliefs
In the interaction between Christendom and other belief systems, men and women when not at war with their neighbors have always made an effort to understand the Other (not least because understanding is a strategy for defense, but also because for as long as there is dialogue wars are delayed). Such interactions have led to various interfaith dialogue events. History records many examples of interfaith initiatives and dialogue throughout the ages. In the field of comparative religion, the interactions connects fundamental ideas in Christianity with similar ones in other religions. Christianity and other religions appear to share some elements. Regarding Christianity's relationship with other world beliefs, Christianity and other beliefs have differences and similarities in connection with each other.
Although Christianity and Judaism share historical roots, these two religions diverge in fundamental ways. Though Judeo-Christian tradition emphasizes continuities and convergences between the two religions, there are many other areas in which the faiths diverge.
Christianity and Islam share their origins in the Abrahamic tradition, as well as Judaism. Islam accepts Jesus and his miracles and other aspects of Christianity as part of its faith - with some differences in interpretation, and rejects other aspects.
There has been much speculation regarding a possible connection between both the Buddha and the Christ, and between Buddhism and Christianity. Buddhism originated in India about 500 years before the Apostolic Age and the origins of Christianity.
The declaration Nostra aetate officially established inter-religious dialogue between Catholics and Hindus. It has promoted common values between religions. There are over 17.3 million Catholics in India, which represents less than 2% of the total population and is the largest Christian Church within India.
Irreligion is an absence, indifference or hostility to religion. Secularism, in one sense, may assert the right to be free to choose religious beliefs and non-beliefs. In its most prominent form, secularism is critical of religious orthodoxy and asserts that reason and the scientific method are better ways to understand reality than religious beliefs. Humanism refers to a philosophy centered on humankind. Much of Humanism's life stance upholds human reason, ethics, and justice, and rejects supernaturalism (Christian mythology).


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Affordable Comfort in Farmville
Close to Hampden-Sydney College and Longwood University
Spend some time in the country sunshine at our Days Inn Farmville hotel. Conveniently located on Route 15, our hotel offers easy access to Richmond, Charlottesville, and Lynchburg. Our hotel is minutes from two of the leading colleges in the area.


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Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere!
What are M.U.S.C.L.E.s? M.U.S.C.L.E.s, also called MUSCLE men or MUSCLE things, are small PVC figures with an "intergalactic wrestling" theme (M.U.S.C.L.E. is an acronym for Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere). Produced by Mattel, MUSCLE toys were available in the mid-80's, from 1985 to 1986. M.U.S.C.L.E. Figures/Assortments MUSCLEs were available in the familiar 4-packs , 10-packs and 28-packs , and had a M.U.S.C.L.E. Wrestling Ring accessory , among others. Our MUSCLE toys originate from Japan, where they were based on characters from the cartoon, Kinnikuman. Where do I go from here to fulfill my M.U.S.C.L.E. obsession? For more information, check out the MUSCLE Collecting FAQs and the MUSCLE Collecting Page . Also, feel free to browse around the MUSCLE Figure Archive (with handy-dandy navigation to your left).


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Culinary students find a home on North Fork
Today's college graduates are famously hard pressed to find a job during this historically sluggish economy.
Not so for Suffolk County Community College's culinary school students and alumni.
Nearly 100 percent of the college's culinary arts program graduates find work in the field, with many ending up in upscale commercial kitchens throughout the North Fork, said program director Richard Freilich.
"We don't do placement, per se, but we do have connections with a lot of the local businesses looking to fill different types of positions," Mr. Freilich said. "We try to find students that are best suited for those positions."
He said the program's job-placement successes are thanks in part to the internship program.
Students pursuing culinary degrees at SCCC are required to fulfill 200 internship hours with a restaurant, hotel or other business in the hospitality industry. These internships often turn into full-time positions, he said.
The Culinary Arts and Hospitality Center on Main Street in downtown Riverhead opened in 2008 with 135 students enrolled. The number has only grown since then, with 369 students in the fall class of 2012, said Mary Feder, director of college relations.
"There's a great demand for our students, so we get calls all the time looking for experienced help," said Mr. Freilich, noting that as part of internship work, baking students work at the college's retail operation, The Baker's Workshop, in the main culinary school.
"The input we get back from students is excellent," Mr. Freilich said of the school's hands-on approach to education. "They say had they not come here, they wouldn't have gotten their job."
Nobody knows that better than current student Courtney Rowehl. She got her job at the Plaza Café in Southampton by asking chef and owner Doug Gulij, who is one of her teachers, if she could do part of her internship at the well-known seafood restaurant.
"I've been there three years now," Ms. Rowehl said, adding that being successful takes hard work and sacrifice, but the support of her teacher was important. "At Suffolk, there's a core of teachers that know all the students by name, post jobs and will always push you to do harder internships. I wanted to do the fine dining thing, so I just went for it."
And that's exactly what culinary student Ethan Crook of Southold has been doing at North Fork Table & Inn since his internship began in July. He has since turned the apprentice role into a full-time position at the Southold four-star restaurant.
"Working here has definitely helped me progress as a cook in the sense of working more independently and confidently," Mr. Crook said. "I try to do that as much as I can — to just go for it. I like Julia Childs' quote, 'In cooking you have to have a what-the-hell attitude.' I feel like if you don't just go for it, then you're not going to learn how to do it. Sometimes Stephan will tell me that failure is when you learn."
He's talking about the restaurant's rising young chef Stephan Bogardus, 24, of Southold, a former classmate of Mr. Crook's at Mattituck High School.
Mr. Bogardus said he has enjoyed having students from different culinary schools intern at the restaurant in the past year, noting that Mr. Crook was the restaurant's first intern.
"Having students from different schools, educations and abilities has helped me display what [executive chef] Gerry Hayden and [acclaimed pastry chef and co-owner] Claudia Fleming … have taught me, which is really what took me to the level I'm now able to achieve," said Mr. Bogardus, who first joined the North Fork Table & Inn team after graduating in 2009 from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
Though Mr. Crook, former cook at the Village Cheese Shop in Mattituck, wasn't an entirely blank slate when he began his internship at North Fork Table & Inn, he said there was a steep learning curve associated with doing his first gig at a high-end restaurant.
"This is the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life," said Mr. Crook, now a line-cook at the restaurant. "This is more than just a restaurant. It's first and foremost a very passionate cooking kitchen. It's very serious, but enjoyable; I really get a kick out it. I definitely see more types of food, greens and proteins than I think I would in a lot of places."


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BUY NATIVE: A Campaign to Buy Native American-Made Gifts this Holiday Season
(Gyasi's Note: I love Dr. Jessica. She does her work simply because she loves Native people; as a result of her love of Native people, she tries to help Native people. I begged her to write an article for The Thing About Skins to talk about her proactive approach to helping Native businesses. I'm thankful that she did, and I hope that all of us will take her up on her challenge to help the Native economy by buying some Holiday gifts from other Native people. As a further challenge, I ask all of you to please purchase something during this upcoming weekend—the biggest weekend for shopping all year—from one of the vendors on Dr. Jessica's list, below.)
I want to take this opportunity to talk with you about the upcoming six weeks, and how important we can make them when it comes to economic development in Indian Country.
During the holidays we spend billions of dollars on gifts and decor. A lot of that money goes to huge companies (Walmart and Apple come to mind). A lot of these huge companies outsource their jobs, and little of that money actually trickles down to the workers who produce the items. Several companies also use sweatshops (such as Nike, click here for a partial listing of companies down with sweatshoppin').
We have buying power. We have the power, with the money we spend, to see change here in our local economies, and to see change worldwide. It just depends on where we decide to put our money.
That's why I'm reaching out to you guys to help me in a campaign to BUY NATIVE this holiday season.
I'm going to be writing on my blog, Beyond Buckskin, about my personal goal to buy only Native-made gifts, or items bought from Native-owned companies, etc, with the goal of maximizing the amount of money going to Native businesses.
The first post, which launched on Monday, offered an initial list of our favorite Native-run places to shop (artists' sites, physical stores, and online sites). You can find that list by clicking here (http://beyondbuckskin.blogspot.com/p/buy-native.html), where it will remain forever, so you can shop Native-made items anytime of the year even when the holidays are gone. We will be adding to this list in the weeks to come, looking to promote everyone as much as possible. Upcoming posts will be filled with Holiday Gift Guides for tiny tots to grandpas and everyone in between. There are a lot of options out there when it comes to buying Native, and, ultimately, supporting Native communities.
To help with this initiative, DGTL/NVJO Victor Pascual created a BUY NATIVE logo that is being used to link a network of Native-run businesses. We want to make it as easy as possible to BUY NATIVE (and we want to make it fun!). We'll be creating this network of Native artists, and Native-owned and operated businesses so that you can put your money where your heart is (in Indian country, of course!). If you want to share the BUY NATIVE logo, please give credit to Victor Pascual and link it back to this master list (http://beyondbuckskin.blogspot.com/p/buy-native.html), because the point of this logo is to create a network, not just to promote ourselves.
We hope to create a sense of community this holiday season, and to bring meaning and story back into the gifts we buy for one another.
Again, the ultimate idea is to get the maximum amount of the money you're going to spend anyways on gifts and decor, and put that money back into Indian country and back into boosting the American economic situation.
Please share this post and join me and countless others in this pledge to BUY NATIVE and to buy at least one Native American-made gift in the weeks to come.
Cheers to a very Native holiday season!
Dr. Jessica R. Metcalfe (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) earned her Ph.D. in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona. She is the main author of the website, Beyond Buckskin, which focuses on all topics related to Native fashion, and is the owner of the Beyond Buckskin Boutique, which promotes and sells Native American-made couture, streetwear, jewelry, and accessories. She has taught college courses, lectured at museums, and curated exhibitions. Her current work focuses on Native American art, clothing, and design from all time periods, with an emphasis on contemporary artists.


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I've been wandering. [For quiet a while it seems]
In and out of laneways.
In and out of peoples houses, some I know, some unknown; me, a mere guest within their walls, enjoying the breathless beauty of rolling hills, hidden beaches, and rough seas.
In and out of conversations - so many conversations about wonderful things, about careers and my continued place in a profession I still hold dear and close, about intense personal things, some good, some bad, not always about me, but a chance to offer an ear and a shoulder when needed by others.
In and out of meals, shared with beautiful, loving, generous greek women on sunny afternoons full of laughter, shared with friends around open fires and a bottle of good red wine, catching up with friends I haven't seen for a long time and the joy of 'filling in the blanks'.
In and out of projects, from simple house plans being drawn and presented, to small pieces of fabric cut and hand sewn as a very personal and beautiful project comes to life, to a larger adult version of Rubble now on the needles slowly, slowly being knitted, to finally some pieces for ShibuiKnits soon to be released.
In and out of musical interludes, new music keeping me company on runs and long car trips: we dont eat [] blank maps [] run boy run
Along the way, I sometimes took my camera, and my phone, and occasionally I stopped to record the moment.
I'll try not to wander so far this time.


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This premium product is manufactured using only the highest quality raw materials to offer you exceptional value.
Note: Do not take glucosamine if you are allergic to shellfish or any of the ingredients. Pregnant or breast feeding women and people with diabetes should consult their doctor before taking this product.
Formulation: Size 00 gelatine capsule containing glucosamine sulphate and chondroitin.


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NEW DELHI, April 2, 2013 PTI
Describing the functioning of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G as "scandalous", BJP leader Yashwant Sinha on Tuesday demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram appear before it for the truth to come out.
Mr. Sinha, who is also a member of the JPC, has raised serious objections over not convening of the panel meeting for two months now and demanded that then Telecom Minister A. Raja, who has been wanting to appear before the JPC, be allowed to do so as he is a key witness in the scam.
The BJP member had on Monday written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to appear before the committee to "clear" his name following allegations levelled against him by Mr. Raja. He said any hesitation on the Prime Minister's part to appear before JPC will prove that he has "something to hide."
"The way in which the JPC proceedings are being conducted by its chairman is scandalous to the extreme. For over two months the meeting of the JPC has not been called and various members including me have been demanding convening of JPC meeting," Mr. Sinha said.
The NDA's former Finance Minister feared, "We will not be able to arrive at the truth and the whole effort will be wasted in concealing the truth."
Mr. Sinha said Mr. Raja has cast serious aspersions on the conduct of the Prime Minister, Mr. Chidambaram and on the evidence presented before the JPC by Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati.
The BJP member said, "If Raja presents his side of the story then the Prime Minister and Finance Minister will be in serious trouble and to save them from this situation the JPC Chairman is not calling Raja. I have written to the Prime Minister that he should appear before the JPC so that the truth comes out."
Reacting on Mr. Sinha's remarks, Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari said it would be more appropriate if Mr. Sinha, being a JPC member, speaks within the confines of the Committee.
Mr. Tewari said Mr. Sinha's demand which was raised in the JPC and rejected by the Committee sounds "completely preposterous".
Mr. Sinha has also written to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, saying "the dignity, honour and effectiveness of the Parliamentary institutions are at stake in this and in a way the standing of the whole Parliament of India".
The BJP leader also took a dig at Prime Minister's earlier offer to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
"He is doing it because he knew under the rules, the PAC cannot call political persons. The PAC rules prohibits PAC from calling political persons. So he knew PAC had no authority to call him. The JPC, on the other hand, has the authority to call political persons and therefore he is not making that offer," he said.
"I think it is in your own personal interest to appear before the JPC and clear your name. You may also suggest to the Finance Minister to make a similar offer," Mr. Sinha wrote to PM.
Justifying his demand for calling the Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Mr. Raja before the panel, Mr. Sinha said the JPC is not meant to prosecute people or convict them but to fix political responsibility which would not be achieved if political persons were not called before it.
"The JPC is not meant to prosecute people, not to convict them and not to hand out sentences. The JPC's main purpose is to fix political responsibility and comment on the officials' conduct. If we don't call political persons, then how do we fix responsibility on them. The Executive is accountable to Parliament and it is under that rule that a Joint Parliamentary Committee has been constituted," he said.
Mr. Sinha also cited instances of previous JPCs like the one into the stock markets scam in 1992 and 2001 when the Finance Ministers and other Ministers had been called before them.
News From: http://www.7StarNews.com
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
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Of course, I'm glad to be home... but I am a little blue that I'm not waking to this view every morning.
...That I won't be eating this fresh proscuitto and melons...and that I won't be listening to the church bells in my favorite corner cafe.I have lot's and lot's of photos to organize. We'll be looking at pictures of Italy for a while!
Don't forget to check in at Smiling Sally for more blues.
y'all enjoy~


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It's another round of BOTB, this time I'm bringing you a few of my favorite finds from around blog land, plus a bunch spotted by another contributor. Say hello to Abi from Gadding Gal! She's a DIY and travel loving gal after my own heart, and I'm so happy to bring Abi on board as a scout for bringing you the best of what's going on in the blogosphere this past week. Together, we compiled this list for you. Let's get started!
Easter is around the corner, how sweet are these fortune Easter eggs by Poppytalk?
Jessica of How About Orange crafted this creative compliment bunting. It can't help but lift the spirits!
Adrianne and Jeremy at Dream Book Design patiently transformed this card catalog cabinet into something truly special. You must read the story!
This card display by Jessica at Living the Life Swell has us chirping a happy tune, and also on the hunt for bird and botanical postcards.
This pairing of Hollywood starlets with gorgeous interiors from Lonny Magazine by Victoria at sfgirlbybay is so fun. I'm especially loving the interiors matched up to Goldie, Bette, Julie, and the late Liz.
This fretwork inspired mirror project at Hello Newman's has us wanting to trim some wood with a miter saw to upgrade a standard mirror. Fabulous!
Liz at It's Great to Be Home transformed these IKEA chairs for the better, wow!
Here are five ideas for keeping kids entertained at a restaurant from Alison at How Does She. I'm quite sure we will be playing this very game of tic-tac-toe to distract the kiddos while we wait for dinner!
These jam jar charms by Karen of The Art of Doing Stuff are nothing short of charming, plus her blog is a must read.
Kami crafts these festive balls out of colorful yarn.
We'd be smiling too Wendy if our cubicle space looked as cheerful and fresh as yours.
We're loving this bathroom makeover by Sweet Chaos Home. You won't believe it when you see the 'Before' !
Here's another master bathroom makeover by Batchelor's Way that has us swooning, and all done on a budget, including a marble countertop snagged for $10 bucks.
Together with Jen from Tatertots & Jello, Shelley from House of Smiths turned a plain IKEA rug into this gorgeous chevron accent rug.
Great roundup right? So much creativity and inspiration !
Thanks so much Abi for helping me round up the best of the blogosphere! You can visit Abi at her blog Gadding Gal, and travel vicariously with her on her recent visit to Madrid which has me wanting to book a trip to Spain right away. *sigh*
Want your project considered for the weekend BOTB post? Send it our way to [email protected].


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"The UFC was my ultimate goal from the beginning, so it's a fresh start for me." - Derek Brunson
If not for a certain something that took place last week, Derek Brunson would have assessed 2012 as "the worst year of my life."
But when that certain something is a call from the UFC to make your debut on this Saturday's UFC 155 main card against one of the organization's standout names in Chris Leben, it tends to improve your outlook a bit.
"Now it's the greatest opportunity of my life, and that's how I look at it right now," said Brunson, a former Strikeforce standout who got the late notice call after Karlos Vemola was forced from the Leben bout due to injury. When that happened, Brunson's manager didn't get a 'hey, would Derek like to fight Chris Leben?' call a week ago. It was more to the point than that. It was 'is Derek in shape?'
When the answer came back in the affirmative, he was offered Leben. Brunson didn't hesitate to say yes.
"He (Leben) is definitely a name guy, I like the stylistic matchup, and I thought it was a good opportunity for me," said the 28-year-old North Carolina native, who got a rousing response on social media outlets when he announced his signing.
"It's been good," he said. "Everybody's been sending positive vibes and are real happy about the situation, and they're glad I got my opportunity, as well as I am."
All good things. So what's the downside of getting one week to prepare for a fight?
"Exactly what you said – I've got a fight in a week," laughs Brunson. "But if you can't get up for the UFC, you can't get up for nothing when it comes to the fight world. So I definitely look to that as my ultimate motivation and that's gonna get me through the fight more so than anything. Obviously I didn't have the longest training camp, but it's a great opportunity and a lot of people would love to be in my spot. I'm definitely not looking to go out there and lay down. I'm going out there to win and do work."
And if you've seen Brunson in action, you know that he can handle life in the UFC. A three-time Division II All-American wrestler for the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, he has long been one of Strikeforce's rising stars, winning three of his four bouts in the promotion, but after a 9-0 start to his career, that pesky 2012 rolled around.
First, a scheduled March bout with former Strikeforce middleweight champion Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza was scrapped when Brunson wasn't licensed due to his failure of an eye exam. Quickly undergoing PRK laser eye surgery, Brunson was back in the gym within six days, but as he waited for his next call from Strikeforce, he took a bout with UFC vet Kendall Grove on four days' notice in June. What followed was his first pro loss, albeit one via highly controversial split decision.
Two months later, he got the Souza fight in Strikeforce, but he may have wished he didn't, as he was knocked out in 41 seconds by the Brazilian standout. Now 9-2, things got even nuttier for Brunson when a spot on The Ultimate Fighter's 17th season cast was yanked away due to a contractual issue. It kind of makes all that "worst year of my life" stuff all make sense.
"This past year was so rough, it was ridiculous," he said. "It seemed like everything that I set up was just broken down and things didn't go my way. But the UFC was my ultimate goal from the beginning, so it's a fresh start for me."
Sometimes, that's all a fighter needs, even though it might be weird for someone who has been moving up the ranks the last couple years being put in the position of being the "new guy" simply because casual UFC fans may not have seen him before.
"It's not weird," Brunson counters. "Honestly, when I set my goals when I started doing MMA, this is definitely where I expected to be at. I actually had a chance early in my career to be in the UFC, I just needed a couple more fights, but Strikeforce came and offered me more fights at that time. This has definitely been my plan since Day One, and where I wanted to be, so I feel like it's just the next step and I need to put on a good performance and get the job done this weekend."
In a lot of ways, coming into a big fight like this on short notice is the best case scenario for Brunson, a fighter who wants to fight and stay active, and who doesn't have two months to overanalyze his opponent and the idea of his Octagon debut.
"That's definitely a positive," he said. "I wasn't too worried about the UFC jitters - I have an extensive college wrestling background, and I also fought in Strikeforce, which is a big stage, so I definitely wasn't worried about the jitters thing so much. But two months to analyze and think about your opponent, 'man, he's really good here,' or 'he can really do this.' Now it's just kinda like okay, I know what he does, let's go out there and do it and stop what he's doing."
And hey, debuting on the main card of one of the biggest shows of the year is a lot better than spending a season in the Ultimate Fighter house, right?
"Oh yeah, for sure," laughs Brunson. "That would have been a grind. To be stuck in that house for close to seven weeks would have just been miserable."
Who said things don't happen for a reason?
UFC Performance Institute
Dana White On The Opening Of UFC PI Mexico


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Kelly set to lead Eagles into future
Torn between loyalty to his players and accepting a new challenge, Chip Kelly ultimately chose the NFL and the Philadelphia Eagles.
He just needed more time to make the decision.
''The hardest thing for me to do was to leave Oregon,'' Kelly said Thursday at a news conference introducing him as the 21st coach in team history. ''I knew it was a great fit, but it was whether I could leave what I have. I love those guys, and it had to be a special place for me to leave.''
The Eagles hired Kelly on Wednesday, giving him a five-year contract and ending an exhaustive search to replace Andy Reid. The offensive innovator was lured away from Oregon, where he went 46-7 in four seasons and turned the program into a national powerhouse.
From the start, Kelly appeared to be Philadelphia's top choice. But two days after a nine-hour meeting in Arizona with owner Jeffrey Lurie, general manager Howie Roseman and president Don Smolenski, Kelly chose to stay at Oregon.
The Eagles continued interviewing other candidates, and were close to offering the job to Seahawks defensive coordinator Gus Bradley on Tuesday night — FOXSports.com's Jay Glazer reported Bradley was hired by the Jacksonville Jaguars on Thursday. But Kelly changed his mind after thinking harder about making the move and talking to several people, including Reid who quickly moved on to become Kansas City's coach.
''I knew this was the best spot, but there's so much more to it,'' Kelly said. ''What happens when I leave? Who becomes the next head coach? What happens to those players? You're not making reservations for dinner. You are changing not only your life, but a lot of other people's lives.''
Kelly said he became emotional when he told players in a meeting that he was leaving, and added that he cried more than they did.
He went from a warm and fuzzy environment in Eugene, Ore. to a hero's welcome in the city of Brotherly Love.
Fans greeted him at the airport when his plane arrived in Philadelphia on Wednesday night and a sign reading ''Our Chip's Come In'' was hung on two trees outside the team's practice facility on Thursday morning. A few fans drove down Pattison Avenue honking their horns to salute the hiring.
''It's a really exciting time for me. It was a difficult decision. There's not many opportunities to coach in the National Football League, and every one of them is special,'' Kelly said. ''But this is an iconic franchise with an outstanding owner. I knew what this place was all about, and this is where I wanted to be. It was just a matter of figuring out how to do it the right way.''
The Eagles interviewed 11 candidates in slightly more than two weeks. While fans became anxious waiting for a new coach, the team emphasized a patient approach.
Perhaps they were waiting for Kelly to reconsider.
''The key was to find the right leader, not make the fastest decision,'' Lurie said. ''We never took `No' as a full `No.' We knew he was torn. And we knew there was no competition for Chip. It was just, did he want to stay or did he want to come to us?''
Though Kelly has no previous NFL experience, the Eagles are banking on him to turn around a franchise that has just 12 wins in the last two years and zero playoff victories since 2008.
''Chip is a trendsetter,'' Roseman said. ''People are following him. He's not a disciple of anyone. When you are trying to find greatness, you have to find the people on top.''
Kelly built quite a reputation for being one of the sharpest football minds in college while leading Oregon to four consecutive BCS bowl games — including a bid for the national championship against Auburn two seasons ago — and three conference championships.
Some aspects of his hurry-up, spread offense are used by New England and Washington. Patriots coach Bill Belichick even brought Kelly in to get advice on his offensive philosophy.
But Kelly has a challenge in Philadelphia. His flash-and-dash offense needs a leader under center. Nick Foles, a third-round pick last year who replaced Michael Vick, is a dropback quarterback who said himself that he doesn't fit Kelly's zone-read style
Vick, who will be 33 when the season starts, isn't coming back for the $16 million he's scheduled to make next year. The Eagles have to make a decision on giving him a roster bonus of $3 million within three days after the Super Bowl.
''I haven't watched even film to make any decision on anybody,'' Kelly said, adding that he's a ''huge fan'' of Foles.
Kelly also talked about adapting his system to fit the players on the team, a quality that impressed Roseman in their first interview.
''When you meet with Chip, you realize very quickly that Chip is not about whether his offense is going to translate to the NFL,'' Roseman said. ''It's about his vision for a program, it's about how he sees the entire aspect of a football organization and Jeffrey outlined in that first press conference: I want a leader, I want a presence, and so if you had any doubt about Chip Kelly's offense, you left and said this isn't about Chip Kelly and the spread, this is about how Chip Kelly approaches football, and that was incredibly, incredibly impressive.''
The Eagles were 3-1 this season after a 19-17 win over the New York Giants on Sept. 30. They then lost 11 of their last 12 games to finish in last place in the NFC East. Reid was fired the day after the season ended, ending a 14-year tenure in which he won more games than any coach in franchise history and went to the playoffs nine times, including five conference championship games.
But the Eagles are still seeking their first Vince Lombardi Trophy and first NFL title since 1960.
''We have one goal, and that's to get to the Super Bowl,'' Kelly said. ''It's not an `I' deal, it's a `we' deal. Our players will understand that.''


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Advanced Search
New media | Viewpoint
A Q & A with media industry pioneer David Tochterman
Today, colleges and universities have many options for offering undergraduate students exposure to their potential future careers, through technology-mediated experiences, fieldwork, or the opportunity to learn from professional faculty or guest lecturers. A unique LA Semester program located at Syracuse University's West Coast-Los Angeles campus gives entertainment media students a real-world, onsite exposure to the entertainment industry capital while using new media to model professional communications and industry trends. CT asked SULA emerging technology professor and media industry pioneer David Tochterman how he provides his students with genuine professional experience using the tools they'll need in the rapidly changing entertainment media field.
Mary Grush: What is the most exciting opportunity for Syracuse University students who take part in the LA Semester program?
David Tochterman: The most exciting part of it is the opportunity to learn in real time, from the industry, while things are actively happening. I know that is a very big part of the appeal for the university (which is very forward-thinking to create something like this), and it's quite frankly an appeal for me too. I know students are not otherwise going to get this kind of exposure in college, where there is no one working on the front lines of the industry, or who could bring in the kinds of guests who are working on the front lines of the industry.
And the students are also exposed to the same events in real time that I am as an industry professional. For example, if I am attending a media conference, I show them how to follow that media conference, whether it's through live streaming or social networking--they are learning how to follow the flow of information in real time, just as I do. We are going through this together.
Grush: Do they emerge with a real-world view, then, and a clearer picture of their potential profession?
Tochterman: There's no question about it. It's de-mystified and made more tactile for them. They can understand the choices they are going to make about their careers. They realize what they're going to need to be prepared for when they get out of college; that the industry has changed so much in terms of becoming a multi-platform universe. And whether you call it digital media or emerging media, this is where the industry is now, and this is the job marketplace they are going to enter. They are going to be so much further ahead [of their peers] because they are being exposed to this. If you are in a professional program and you are not exposed to the real world, you are going to have to guess what that is when you get out of college. [Through real-world examples] they are getting knowledge that is invaluable to them when they hit the marketplace.
Grush: It sounds like students are getting not just a quick taste of the culture and tools of the industry, but an opportunity gain some facility in actually using the tools. Is that right?
Tochterman: The emphasis is not just on theory, but practical knowledge about the world beyond the classroom. It's one thing for them to understand it, but another thing for them to understand what they can do with that understanding. How do you translate academics to real-world solutions? I think in the area of media and technology, where all the rules are still being written, the best and brightest minds in the industry are solving these questions every day. And the rate of change is accelerating at a pretty amazing pace right now. So the opportunity to have a hands-on learning environment like this is very unique.
Grush: What would be an example of a major trend students might explore?
Tochterman: The big trend, of course, is that all the old rules are being rewritten. Where media has traditionally found their audiences has changed tremendously. There are two things at the root of what you would consider new media [in this industry]. One is technology, and the other is consumer control. The combination of those two phenomena has had quite a disruptive affect on any old or traditional media models. For example, advertisers have traditionally controlled the message. There were a limited number of places where consumers could be entertained, and the advertisers had control. Now, it's almost exactly the opposite. Consumers are everywhere and the advertisers have to find them. The messaging is no longer one-way. You now have to have more of a conversation, an engagement, an interactive relationship with your consumers, and build loyalty… It's a very different model than the traditional one where the big media companies controlled all the avenues of distribution. It's gone from the economics of scarcity to the economics of abundance. These are big changes for the media ecosystem. And the technology of the emerging media ecosystem is what's put more control in the hands of the consumers.
Grush: Do you take a look at social software and some of the common technologies students use, for examples of emerging media and its implications?
Tochterman: The personal aspect of this class is one of the best aspects, for students. One of the ways I give them examples is through their own habits. I show them how their own habits are being affected by these changes: how they consume music, they way they communicate with their friends, how they use their iPads… I put it to them in a real-world context. I found that it's valuable to them to understand the pace of information and how it is affecting them in their own lives.
Grush: And what's an example of following a current event in the industry?
Tochterman: At the beginning of the semester I always tell students that there is going to be a huge game changer, one that will take place over the course of the semester. And each semester, that's true. For example, one semester, there was the launch of Google TV. And much of the coursework and reading and learning were based around understanding the implications of this. I do tell them that they are going to see an enormous amount of conflicting information--just as many articles about how Google TV is going to be a huge failure as how it is going to change the world. And that's just another an indication of the fact that so many of the rules are still being written. The students are going to get to learn about it as it happens in real time, and they can draw their own conclusions.
Grush: And that's how they learn to navigate their profession…
Tochterman: Exactly.
About the Author
Mary Grush is Editor and Conference Program Director, Campus Technology.
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- The Fender Custom Shop's Mike Eldred and Master Builder Dale Wilson interviewed
- The ethos and history of the Custom Shop examined
- The story of the Custom Shop's wildest creation: Scott Buehl's 'Splato-caster'
- What's the difference between a Master Built and Team Built instrument?
- What does it take to be a Master Builder?
MusicRadar was recently lucky enough to attend a very special Fender Custom Shop event in Bath, hosted by Guitarist magazine and Coda Music.
As well as featuring fascinating insights from Custom Shop mainman Mike Eldred and Master Builder Dale Wilson, the collection of beautiful Fender Custom Shop instruments on display was truly astonishing. Check out the clip above to see our in-depth interviews with Mike and Dale.


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What is Bedtime Math?
Bedtime Math's mission is simple: to make nightly math as common and beloved as the bedtime story. In March 2014 they launch their nationwide free after-school math club, Crazy 8's, and founder Laura Overdeck's second book, Bedtime Math 2: This Time It's Personal. To learn more, visit bedtimemath.org.
The Big Idea
You're building a stuffed-animal zip line by holding a cord against the wall, hooking a cute stuffed animal onto it, then letting the animal slide down as you time it.
15-foot-long blue cords (nylon, cotton, or plastic): 1 for every 4 kids
Protractors: 1 for every 4 kids
Stopwatches or a smartphone timer: 1 for every 4 kids
Daredevil Scorecard: 1 printed for every 4 kids
Paper clips: 1 per kid
Rubber bands: 1 per kid
Masking tape
Measuring tapes: 1 for every 4 kids
Pencils: 1 for every 4 kids
Room Set-up & Other Key Prep
- You'll need open floor space to stretch multiple zip lines roughly 12 feet out from the wall.
- You'll also need to tape a cord high on the wall and on the top of a doorframe, so make sure there's a chair or stepstool to stand on.
- Before the day of the activity, invite the kids to bring in their own small stuffed animals to ride the zip line!
What's the Math?
These activities explore the following math concepts:
- Counting
- Measuring distance
- Measuring time
- Measuring angles
- Basic relationships between variables
- Investigating and finding slope (bonus)
- Division (bonus)
Kickoff Discussion
Ask the kids:
- "Does anyone know what gravity is? (Discuss.) It's the force that pulls two objects towards each other. In our case, gravity pulls everything down toward the center of the earth. So objects fall till they land on something else. Gravity helps us run fun rides like swings, seesaws, and roller coasters."
See gravity in action in the SciFri Video: "Plunge Into the Science of BASE Jumping"
- "Does anyone know what a zip line is? (Discuss.) It's a strong rope stretched from one tree or pole to another, and you hook yourself to the rope and slide down till you reach the ground. It's an exciting way to fly through the air–has anyone ridden one? If you did, how fast did you go? (Discuss.) Today we're going to build zip lines for our animal friends!"
Activity 1: Practice measuring distance
- To make stuffed animals into zip line animals, wrap a rubber band around as shown, so the two looped ends are above its back. Hook a paper clip through both loops. Now you're ready to thread the cord through and go!
- Form groups of 4 and spread them out along the walls. Give each group 1 cord, 1 protractor and 1 stopwatch.
- Each group measures out 10 feet of cord with the measuring tape, and wraps a piece of masking tape around it.
- Have each group measure a spot on the wall 3 feet high and mark it with masking tape.
- One team member holds one end of the cord at the 3-foot height, while another holds the 10-foot cord mark to the ground stretched as far as possible.
- Now a third member of each group measures the distance across the floor from the wall to the finish line.
Activity 2: Measure angles and use the zip line
Ask the kids:
- "Does anyone know how a protractor works?" (Discuss.)
- Show how a protractor measures angles, or the slant of one line against another.
- While the cord is held in place, have another group member measure the angle between the ground and the zip line.
- Show how to thread the end of the cord through the paper clip on each animal. Now the animals can ride!
- In each group, while two people hold the zip line, one lets their animal slide—with no starting push!—while a fourth group member times it with a stopwatch.
- Have the kids write down the starting height, the floor distance, the angle of the line, and the time on the Daredevil Scorecard.
Activity 3: How does height affect ride time?
Ask the kids:
- "What do you think will happen to the ride time if you raise or lower the starting height?"
- Let the kids measure other heights on the wall below or above the 3-foot mark.
- Again, one person holds the start end while another holds the 10-foot cord mark taut to the ground. To reach higher points, the kids (or you!) can stand on a chair and tape the cord to the wall, with the animal already looped in.
- Again, the kids measure the floor distance and the angle of the zip line. Then they time the animal's ride, and on the Daredevil Scorecard they record all the data.
Ask the kids:
- "When your cow or sheep starts higher, what happens to the distance on the floor? What happens to the angle
(Answer: It got bigger! The zip line gets steeper.) - "When your pig or horse starts higher, what happens to the ride time, and why?"
(Answer: The animal rides the same 10-foot length of ride but faster, since it's at a steeper angle.)
Bonus (optional): Explain that the ratio of the vertical height (up-down) to horizontal distance (left-right) is the "slope" of a line. It's the height divided by the floor distance (not the diagonal zip line length). We can tilt the same zip line to make different slopes for steeper, more exciting rides!
Activity 4: How does zip line length affect ride time?
To the kids:
- "Now let's give our animal friends even longer rides!"
- "Will the rides from the same heights take more or less time? Why?" (Discuss.)
- Have each group mark 13 feet on their cords using masking tape.
- Repeat the whole exercise holding the starting end of the rope at the same heights as before, recording results on the Daredevil Scorecard.
Ask the kids:
- "What happened to your angle measurements?"
(Answer: For the same start height they were smaller.) - "What happened to the slope for the same starting height?"
(Answer: It's shallower since it's stretched farther on the floor.) - "Do these rides go faster or slower? Why? Were we right?"
(Answer: Each ride should take longer than the 10-foot cord from that same height, since the animals travel farther and slide more slowly due to the shallower slope). - "What would be the fastest way for an animal to get down from 4 feet?"
(Answer: Freefall, straight down–and there are amusement park rides that do that to you!)
For even more Bedtime Math, check out this Ducky Math Problem.
Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Math
Meet the Writer
About Bedtime Math
The nonprofit Bedtime Math aims to make math as beloved for kids as playtime or dessert. To learn more visit www.bedtimemath.org


text: Hi folks Dealing with an MPI problem that has me scratching my head. Quite beowulfish, as thats where this code runs. Short version: The code starts and runs. Reads in its data. Starts its iterations. And then somewhere after this, it hangs. But not always at the same place. It doesn't write state data back out to the disk, just logs. Rerunning it gets it to a different point, sometimes hanging sooner, sometimes later. Seems to be the case on multiple different machines, with different OSes. Working on comparing MPI distributions, and it hangs with IB as well as with shared memory and tcp sockets. Right now we are using OpenMPI 1.2.6, and this code does use allreduce. When it hangs, an strace of the master process shows lots of polling: c1-1:~ # strace -p 8548 Process 8548 attached - interrupt to quit rt_sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, [CHLD], NULL, 8) = 0 rt_sigaction(SIGCHLD, {0x2b061f65c9b2, [CHLD], SA_RESTORER|SA_RESTART, 0x2b062049b130}, NULL, 8) = 0 rt_sigprocmask(SIG_UNBLOCK, [CHLD], NULL, 8) = 0 poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}, {fd=6, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=9, events=POLLIN}, {fd=10, events=POLLIN}], 6, 0) = 0 rt_sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, [CHLD], NULL, 8) = 0 rt_sigaction(SIGCHLD, {0x2b061f65c9b2, [CHLD], SA_RESTORER|SA_RESTART, 0x2b062049b130}, NULL, 8) = 0 [spin forever] ... So it looks like the process is waiting for the appropriate posting on the internal scoreboard, and just hanging in a tight loop until this actually happens. But these hangs usually happen at the same place each time for a logic error. This is what I have seen in the past from other MPI codes where you have enough sends and receives, but everyone posts their send before their receive ... ordering is important of course. But the odd thing about this code is that it worked fine 12 - 18 months ago, and we haven't touched it since (nor has it changed). What has changed is that we are now using OpenMPI 1.2.6. So the code hasn't changed, and the OS on which it runs hasn't changed, but the MPI stack has. Yeah, thats a clue. Turning off openib and tcp doesn't make a great deal of impact. This is also a clue. I am looking now to trying mvapich2 and seeing how that goes. Using Intel and gfortran compilers (Fortran/C mixed code). Anyone see strange things like this with their MPI stacks? OpenMPI? Mvapich2? I should try the Intel MPI as well (rebuilt mvapich2 as I remember). I'll try all the usual things (reduce the optimization level, etc). Sage words of advice (and clue sticks) welcome. Joe -- Joseph Landman, Ph.D Founder and CEO Scalable Informatics LLC, email: landman at scalableinformatics.com web : http://www.scalableinformatics.com http://jackrabbit.scalableinformatics.com phone: +1 734 786 8423 fax : +1 866 888 3112 cell : +1 734 612 4615


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Three Sisters and a Quilt
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by | Ted Ellis | ||||
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this Print Image Size: 22" x 28" Ted T. Ellis is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. Growing up in the city of New Orleans, one known for its style and artistic exuberance, has inspired him to capture the essence of his subjects in all the glory of its rich cultural heritage. With an extreme dedication to his craft, his style stems in part from a childhood that exerted an enormous influence on all his paintings. "I prefer to paint subjects that are representative of many facets of American life. Among my many favorites to paint are portraits, landscapes, and seascapes." As a self taught artist, Ted style is a blend of realism and impressionism. His artwork is nostalgic and uplifting. From an outdoor baptism, an afternoon tea with friends, or a lawyer arguing his case before a jury, his art celebrates the traditional values of his culture. Because of his increasing popularity, Ted has been commissioned by many private collectors and major corporations. Avon Products, Inc. had Ted to paint four paintings for their African-American Boutique Catalog. Integrity Music Company, a leading gospel recording studio, commissioned him to create "Worship in the House", which was used for their album and CD cover. Just recently, Ted completed a painting for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. The portrait was one of their founders, Mrs. Vashti Turley-Murphy, her daughters and grand-daughters. The portrait has been placed in their national headquarters in Washington, D.C. The New Orleans Black Tourism Network used several of Ted's images for their national directory as well as the Black Pages Directory of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Numerous articles have been written in newspapers and magazines documenting his progress as an artist. In 1994, his painting, "The Ivory Coast II" was shown on the popular children's television program, "The Barney Show", during a Sunday primetime special program, "Imagination Island". Ted has been featured for local and regional television programs. During this time, Ted's work was chosen for a national traveling art exhibition, featuring works representing the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s to the present. Ted unveiled his series of paintings, themed African-Americans in Law that was shown in the lobby of New Orleans City Hall. The show, themed "A Study of Edward Bannister from the 1870's to 1899", was on display at Southern University, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Since receiving his B.S. in Chemistry from Dillard University in 1986, Ted has always dreamt of pursuing his lifelong passion to draw and paint. Now after working as a chemist for ten years, Ted recently resigned to fulfill his dream. Dedicating all his creative energy and time into what he loves to do, and that is to paint. Ted's philosophy is that everyone should have the opportunity to appreciate and afford beautiful art, it can be print or original. Several prominent individuals, such as Dr. McKinna, former Superintendent of the New Orleans School Board, Joyce Roche, President of Carson Products in Savannah, Georgia, Mrs. Yvonne Jackson, Senior Executive with Burger King Corp. and many others collect Ted's art. His works hang at Morehouse College, Howard University, Louisiana State University, and Southern University. We can rest assured that Ted will continue to find success as an artist. A true talent whose star continues to shine brighter and brighter. "To be excellent, to dare to be great at what I love to do, and to make a substantial contribution to the lives of people who are touched by my art is my dream. I take pride and pleasure in capturing the essence of a particular subject and manifesting it on canvas, knowing that it will last as an eternal memory." |