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Presentation at UMJC Conference, Baltimore: July 17, 2015
I was very happy to accept this invitation to come and share about TJCII (Toward Jerusalem Council II) at this UMJC conference. First, because there were strong UMJC connections in the birth of TJCII. Marty Waldman was president at that time, and one of his first supporters was Dan Juster. But a second reason was my appreciation for the work of Mark Kinzer with which you will be familiar. One reason for this appreciation is my perception that Mark is in a key way the theologian of TJCII – a role so far not yet understood by all involved in the initiative! It is Mark who has articulated most clearly a bipartite ecclesiology, the vision of the Church made up of Jews and non-Jews, retaining their distinctiveness, but made one through the blood of the cross. But this bipartite ecclesiology is in effect the theological foundation of Toward Jerusalem Council II. For the TJCII vision is one of the restoration of this one Church of both Jew and Gentile, with a second Jerusalem council being a coming together in unity of both expressions of the Church in full mutual recognition and rightful honoring. The rightful honoring is a work of restitution. The past injustice of scorn and contempt was the exact opposite of honoring.
Another reason why Mark Kinzer is a key theologian for TJCII is his recognition of the necessary role of the Catholic Church, with his knowledge of the Catholic tradition gained especially during his years working with Steve Clark at Ann Arbor. I was the only Catholic among the original members of the TJCII committee (a second, Johannes Fichtenbauer from Vienna, Austria, was added two years later). I have been aware from the beginning that the involvement of Catholics in this initiative is a stumbling block for many – both Evangelical Christians with no love for Rome and Messianic Jews who are very conscious of the sufferings of the Jewish people at the hands of Catholics and of the Catholic Church. The Jewish memories of Catholic oppression through the centuries are often for Messianic Jews fortified by Evangelical antipathies to Catholicism. The Messianic opposition to Catholic participation in TJCII has increased again with the recent official Vatican recognition of "the state of Palestine."
The first reason why it is essential for Catholics to be involved in TJCII is for the full confession before the LORD of the sins of 2,000 years against the Jewish people, and particularly against any Jewish expression of faith in Yeshua. Since the Catholic Church bears a major responsibility for this history, the Catholic confession of this sin is essential for full healing, and restoration to take place. That is why prayer journeys of confession of these sins have played an important part in the story of TJCII. This process began in the first years of TJCII with the TJCII leadership accompanied by intercessors praying in Spain, in Rome, at Nicaea, and in Israel (Yavneh and Jerusalem).
This confession of the Christian sin has concentrated on the replacement teaching and the evil fruits that resulted. As an ordained priest I have often had to lead the way in the Catholic confession of sin. In Nicaea, we confessed three things: 1. The marginalization of the Jewish believers that resulted in their having no representation, no voice, at the Council of Nicaea in the year 325. 2. The decision of Constantine, accepted by the bishops, to impose a Gentile calendar on the whole Church, that prevented Jewish believers from keeping the feasts of Israel within the communion of the Church. This was the beginning of the ban on all Jewish practices by the baptized. 3. The third sin confessed was the excommunication in the year 787 at the Second Council of Nicaea of those Christians who attended the synagogue. Already in Spain, we had confessed the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, for the worst part of the whole history was that of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. Through the Inquisition, much violence was inflicted upon the Jewish people, leading to forced baptisms and then punishment for practising Judaism in secret. A deeper Catholic humbling took place during two visits to Latin America, where in Argentina (2005) and in Brazil (2013) Johannes Fichtenbauer and I confessed the sins of the Catholic Church against the Jewish people and the conversos or Marranos.
These developments show the essentially spiritual – prophetic character of TJCII. There is a paradox here in TJCII. The initiative arose in a charismatic way, a form of vision received by Marty Waldman, and most major decisions of the leadership followed words or pictures from the Lord, for example the initial prayer journeys to Spain, Rome, Nicaea, and Jerusalem followed a vision of four historic gates received by Rick Ridings. A paradox arises here in that TJCII that has had a clearly charismatic character seeks to convinced church leaders of all kinds and patterns of spirituality of the One New Man vision. This poses a dilemma. How to present the vision to those not moving in the charismatic realm, while knowing that as a prophetic – charismatic initiative that is something unprecedented and totally pioneering it has to be dependent at all points on the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Another important development in TJCII that followed a word from the Lord occurred in 2005-06. In 2005, the leadership was preparing a major international conference in Jerusalem for the fall of 2006, to reflect on the first ten years of TJCII and to prepare for the next ten. During our fall meeting in 2005, we received a prophetic word that we had to go to Antioch before we went to Jerusalem. So we changed our plans moving a spring meeting in 2006 from Nairobi to Antioch (present-day Antakya in Turkey). In Antioch, we were some 30 people, with some other leaders and intercessors besides the TJCII committee. I was expecting another session of confessing the replacement theology of the Church of the first centuries. But that was not what happened. The first morning began with a reading aloud of all the passages in the New Testament that mention Antioch. The Messianic leaders present then pointed out that three conflicts were all connected with Antioch and all three involved Jewish believers: the disturbance caused when believers from Jerusalem demanded the circumcision of the Gentile converts, the dispute that led to the council of the apostles and elders in Jerusalem described in Acts 15; the dispute between Paul and Peter described in Galatians 2; and the conflict between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark that led to the breakup of their missionary partnership. The Messianic leaders were led to a repentance for divisions and quarrels in the Messianic community and prayer for unity in the movement. There was a sense of the terrible example given to the Gentile believers.
In Antioch it was made clear to us that the vision for a bilateral ecclesiology came from Antioch, not from Jerusalem. Paul was only able to formulate his teaching on the church in the first half of Ephesians because of his experience in Antioch, where for the first time there was a church of Jew and Gentile together. It was in Antioch that "For a whole year they [Barnabas and Paul] met with the church, and taught a large company of people" (Acts 11:26). The restoration for which TJCII prays and works requires the restoration of the right relationship between Antioch and Jerusalem. For TJCII, this experience reinforced our sense that this vision concerns every expression of the Church of the nations, including therefore all the Churches of the East, both Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox. It is an illustration of something that has happened several times in TJCII, how the prophetic prayerful initiative causes something to be opened up which then requires theological analysis and reflection. In Antioch we had present a Greek Catholic sister who had founded a monastery in Syria for the unification of the church of Antioch, and a brother from the Syrian Orthodox Church. [Today there are 5 Patriarchs of Antioch, two Orthodox (Greek and Syrian, not in communion with each other) and three Catholic (Maronite, Melkite, and Syrian).]
The Antioch experience brought TJCII face to face with the ancient churches of the Middle East, several of which are Arabic-speaking and which are deeply entrenched in replacement teaching and largely hostile to Israel. When we left Antioch, one group went eastwards in Turkey to Mardin, an historic center of the Syrian Orthodox Church, and another group went to Egypt where their message was well received at a Coptic Orthodox monastery. It is the Vatican's concern for the Catholic churches in the Middle East that is a driving element in Vatican diplomacy and has played a role in the recent recognition of a Palestinian "state."
For Messianic Jews, it is hard to understand how the Catholic Church can teach the unrevoked covenant with Israel in Nostra Aetate and the Catechism and then conclude this agreement with the Palestinians. How is this possible? It is not duplicity. It shows the depth of the penetration of replacement thinking on the whole theology of the Church over so many centuries. Some years ago a Methodist scholar, R. Kendall Soulen, described three forms of replacement theology or as he termed it supersessionism. The first two are fairly obvious. First, punitive supersessionism holds that God rejected the Jewish people because of their sin and unbelief, especially for not accepting Jesus. Second, economic supersessionism is the view that the covenant with Israel ended when it was fulfilled by and through Jesus. What was most original and important in Soulen's analysis was his third category, that he calls structural supersessionism. Structural supersessionism is the form of theology that leaves Israel, its election and history, out of its presentation of Christian faith. Christian theology has been massively affected by structural supersessionism: when its presentation of salvation jumps from Genesis 3 to Matthew 1; when it hardly mentions that Jesus is a Jew, or that the Twelve were Jews; when there is no difference between evangelizing Jews and evangelizing pagans; when Jerusalem is treated just as any other city or as a holy city of the three main monotheistic religions (the latter view characterizes the diplomatic policy of the Vatican). This form of replacement thinking, the absence of Israel and the Jewish people, is harder to combat. It is not obviously anti-Semitic; it is not saying bad things about the Jewish people. It is simply ignoring them. This is the bad fruit of 1,700 or 1,800 years of distancing from one another of the Jewish and Christian traditions, a distancing accompanied by growing ignorance, disrespect, and caricaturing, especially on the Christian side.
Here it is important to mention the Catholic – Messianic Jewish dialogue, in which Mark Kinzer and I have been participants since its beginning in the year 2000. I see the dialogue as totally complementary to TJCII. The two initiatives are both necessary and essential, but they are different and complementary. TJCII is primarily a prophetic initiative, seeking to be led at each stage by the Holy Spirit, whereas the dialogue is fundamentally a theological enterprise. From one angle, TJCII is the more important. Following the centuries of separation, the work of reconnection, of new encounter, requires both the prophetic – spiritual and the theological. The prophetic – spiritual helps to clear the polluted air, it provides an inspiring vision capable of producing passionate commitment among the ordinary people. But without the scholarly work of exegetes, theologians, and historians, there is nothing to replace the distorted teaching of the past, nothing that will lead to changes in church teaching and policy. This rethinking of the teaching of the Church, this purification of the understanding of the Church, is a theological task, for which TJCII is not equipped.
From this angle of changing church thinking, the dialogue is more important. An important element in the dialogue is its quasi-official character: being started by the theologian to the papal household, Fr Georges (later Cardinal) Cottier, op, virtually certainly with the approval or at the suggestion of Pope John Paul II. For this reason it has always had a bishop participants and since 2003, a Cardinal participant (currently Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, op, archbishop of Vienna, Austria). So far, the dialogue has had minimum effect on Catholic theologians. One reason has been the confidentiality we were asked to observe at the beginning – because of the Catholic concern that the dialogue with the mainline Jewish community would be endangered if the existence of this dialogue were revealed. In 2006, this secrecy was lifted, but with discretion. Now there is a freedom to make known its existence and its discussions. Mark's new book Searching Her Own Mystery, is in fact the publication with some modifications and additions of the papers he had prepared for the dialogue.
In my view it was providential that TJCII began first, as the ground has to be cleared and prepared by spiritual means, by prayer and repentance, constant features in TJCII. From its nature, TJCII had to be open to all Christians and all Christian churches. The dialogue is only between Messianic Jews and Catholics, though in the last three years the Catholic team now has two Jewish Catholic members, both of them involved with Mark in the Helsinki Consultations. TJCII has been helping here to sow the seed for other theological encounters, for example a Messianic Jewish – Anglican dialogue.
The serious interaction between Messianic Jews and Catholics embodied in the dialogue is important because of the preponderant role played by the Catholic tradition in the formulation of Christian theology through the ages. This task can also only be fulfilled by those for whom their continuous tradition is foundational. In fact, it is due to the Catholics and an Anglican in TJCII that Marty Waldman's original vision changed from being a Jerusalem Council made up of Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Messianic Jews to be held at Pentecost 1997 to becoming a long-term initiative Toward Jerusalem Council Two working for a gathering of the leaders of all Jewish believers in Yeshua and all Christian confessions, possible only after much work by the Holy Spirit on all sides.
This necessary interaction of the whole Jewish heritage with the whole Christian heritage cannot take place simply between Messianic Jews and Evangelical Christians. It has to be a healing of the wounds resulting from eighteen hundred years of hostility. The Jewish and the Christian traditions became separate and in conflict with each other in the early Christian centuries, and decisively from the fourth century. The rejection of the Jewish believers from what became the Church of the Gentiles was perhaps foreseen by Paul when he warned against the arrogance of the Gentile believers toward their Jewish brothers: "If you do boast, remember that it is not you that supports the root, but the root that supports you." (Rom. 11: 18). The result of this separation of the Church from its roots in Israel has been: on the Jewish side, a Jewish tradition distorted by the rejection of Yeshua; and on the Christian side, a Christian heritage distorted by the exclusion of Israel. The correction of these distortions is needed for the coming of Messiah Jesus in glory. It is only as this serious encounter takes place that the structural supersessionism can be removed that blinds the Church from even considering the lasting promises concerning the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem.
Both TJCII and the Catholic – Messianic dialogue are addressing the consequences of this history. TJCII addresses the issues most fully by insisting that every Christian tradition has a role to play, including the Catholic and the Orthodox. A statement in the year 2000 from the Gentile members of the TJCII committee stated: "We recognize that for such a Council to take place, all the Gentile Churches and traditions must be led by the Holy Spirit into a process of prayer and purification" I should mention that early on in TJCII we realized that a presence was needed from the Orthodox Church. So we reserved a place on the leadership team for an Orthodox when we found the right person. Fr Vasile Mihoc of the Romanian Orthodox Church joined the committee in 2005.
I want to move now to what I think is the deepest reason why the participation of the Catholic Church (and of the Orthodox Churches) in TJCII is absolutely necessary. The ancient Churches require the deepest work of purification, and at the same time are bearers of the deepest treasures in Christ. The ancient Churches need the deepest purification, because in them the replacement or supersessionist virus has been at work the longest, and became "quasi-canonical" in the writings of the Church fathers. This tradition is an even bigger obstacle for the Orthodox Churches than it is for the Catholics with the great Orthodox reverence for the Church fathers and for whom there is not as yet any equivalent to Vatican Two. At the same time, the ancient Churches in their origins received their faith from the Jewish root, which is the source of their hidden riches. These riches are to be found above all in the liturgies of the ancient churches, whose roots are older than the supersessionist virus.
For the early Christian church was a worshipping community long before it began to formulate creeds. So the eschatological orientation of the first Church is preserved more strongly in the liturgies than in the theology. So a key area for study is the process of transition in worship from the all-Jewish community of the first generation to the virtually all-Gentile church of the fourth century.
This encounter of the Jewish and the Christian heritages is a massive task, much greater than we usually assume at the outset. The Jewish participants have to scrutinize the Jewish history and heritage to sift out what results from the Jewish rejection of Yeshua. The Christians have to sift every aspect of their specific traditions to sift out whatever comes from a replacement-supersessionist hermeneutic. We then have to be fully open to the Holy Spirit's cleansing work on both sides. In fact, the challenges posed by the other are a key element in the purification.
My impression is that many people committed to the mutual belonging of Jew and Gentile in Messiah have not yet understood the depth of this challenge to both sides. The Catholic presence is a constant reminder. Human beings, even believers in Jesus Christ, often do not like big challenges. So there is constantly the temptation of the short-cut, that may seem to promise big things, but in fact achieves very little. Permit me to indicate some of the short-cuts that can be quite popular:
First, that the Gentile believers simply need to abandon their Gentile ways, abandon the special honoring of Sunday, abandon the Christian feasts and simply keep the feasts of Israel. This is in effect another variation on the position of the Jewish visitors from Jerusalem to Antioch, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." (Acts 15:1). It fails to see that there is something of God in the historical Christian pattern, in particular that Sunday is privileged because it is the day of the resurrection of Yeshua. It is hardly compatible with the decision of the first Jerusalem council in Acts 15.
Second, the argument of some Messianic Jews who want nothing to do with historic Judaism arguing that theirs is a biblical Judaism so they do not need to pay any attention to rabbinic Judaism. This can often be accompanied by a mentality that assumes Hebrew good, Greek bad. Both these positions are naïve!
Third, the position of those Gentile Christians who want to have the Messianic Jews accepted as part of the body of Christ, and affirm their right to existence, but don't want any of their own beliefs and practices to be challenged. It is vision for acceptance of an unreconciled diversity.
Fourth, the argument of some Hebrew Catholics that all that is needed is for the Catholic Church to provide a Jewish option within the communion of the Catholic Church, i.e. a Hebrew liturgy for Jewish Catholics. This option totally ignores the first place of the Jew. It is in fact a form of assimilation, friendly and not coercive, but nonetheless received within an overall church framework totally shaped by the Gentile world.
The vision of TJCII when fully understood rejects these short cuts. For the vision includes at its heart a restitution – of the proper place of the Jewish ekklesia as the elder brother. I want to move toward a conclusion by highlighting what I see as the major areas for this Jewish – Christian discussion.
First, the Jewish avoidance of dogmatic definition, being at ease with contradictions, contrasts strongly with the Christian love of definition, harmonization, and systematization. The Jewish tradition instinctively leaves open, where Christians seek closure. This is most obvious in the huge difference between rabbinic discourse and Christian theological methods. Walter Brueggemann sees in the Christian theological reading of the Old Testament a deep manifestation of supersessionism. "It is not only a pre-emption of the substantive claims of the text, but also a preemption of the style and mode of the text that invite a distorted reading." This point is closely related to the relationship between the Hebrew and the Greek.
Second, eschatology. There is a strong contrast between the Jewish messianic hope oriented to a fulfilment within this creation as a climax of history and the Christian placing of final fulfilment outside and over history in heaven. When I encountered Messianic Jews, I saw immediately how the hope for the Messiah's return to take up his throne in Jerusalem is central to their identity. This awareness showed me how small a place eschatology plays in Catholic identity, even though we profess in the Nicene Creed that He will come again to judge the living and the dead. So I attempted to raise this issue in the dialogue through presenting a paper on Emmanuel Lacunza. But the initial attempts to raise this issue in the dialogue were a failure, as the senior Catholics on the team dismissed Lacunza as a marginal figure with bizarre ideas. But at a TJCII consultation hosted by the Messianic congregation in Kiev, Ukraine, in May 2014, I gave a teaching on this theme arguing that at present it is impossible to come up with a fully satisfactory eschatology because the Jewish and the Christian traditions each carry something essential that has to be discerned through study and the Holy Spirit and then integrated also through the Holy Spirit. When I read Mark's new book, I saw I had been operating according to his recommended hermeneutic.
Third, the anchoredness of the Jewish heritage in the physically embodied, which contrasts with the strong Christian tendency to overspiritualize, which was necessitated by the impossibility of understanding the fulfilment of the Messianic promises within a replacement framework. This issue shows up in the difficulty many Christians have in receiving the promise of the land as having any validity after the first coming of the Messiah. In principle, this issue of the physical and the spiritual should be easier for Catholics and Messianic Jews to discuss, because of the Catholic understanding of the sacramental, in which the physical is the vehicle of the spiritual.
Restitution for the Past Injustices
I conclude by asking the question that Messianic Jews sometimes put to me: when is the Catholic Church going to make restitution for this history of injustice? One person who has put this challenge very forcefully is Joseph Shulam, who has his eye on a big Catholic property in Jerusalem that was built by Hebrew Catholics and today is under-used and not being used for its original purpose. His vision is for this building to become a retirement home for Messianic believers.
The idea of the Catholic Church making restitution for past wrongs is not unthinkable for Catholics. The Catholic Church has already made some acts of restitution in regard to the Orthodox Churches. At present some form of restitution to the Jewish community in general is more likely than a restitution to Messianic Jews. First, there has to be a Catholic recognition of some kind of the Messianic movement. This is one question – recognition – on which the dialogue has focused. Then there needs to be a grasp at the level of Pope and bishops of the evil effects of replacement teaching, and particularly of structural supersessionism that just took Israel out of the story after the cross and the resurrection of Yeshua. The Catholic authorities will only act differently towards the Jewish people as the Israel-honoring and Israel-affirming teaching of Nostra Aetate from Vatican Two and the Catechism takes root and becomes instinctive thinking throughout the Catholic world. This is why Mark Kinzer's contribution to the dialogue, and his new book are so important. May the book be translated into many languages. English language books are not enough to shift Catholic thinking, as it is not the dominant language in the Catholic world.


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By Steve Ahern On an afternoon in June, folk singer and songwriter Geoff Hansplant stands in the hallway of the Soundstage Music School he co-owns in Oreland. He is sturdily built with graying …
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By Steve Ahern
On an afternoon in June, folk singer and songwriter Geoff Hansplant stands in the hallway of the Soundstage Music School he co-owns in Oreland. He is sturdily built with graying sideburns and blond hair that brushes his shoulders. Crows feet curve like scythes from the corners of his clear, blue eyes. At 52, wrinkles have not begun to conquer his luminous round face. Nor has midlife sapped his youthful vitality.
He appears prepared, if beckoned, to spring from his current role of administrator of the music school into a set of blues or folk or straight-up Americana and to keep on going until you tell him to stop. But it is not the limelight that lures him. For Hansplant, when he writes and performs songs he is simply following his bliss.
"Everything else is a step away from that which I do best and that which I believe I should be doing," Hansplant said.
Hansplant's calling announced itself in the notes he coaxed from a guitar while recovering from a football injury that nearly killed him when he was 16. Until then, he was an athlete and, like many his age, an ardent fan of the '60s and '70s rock and progressive rock groups of his generation. But through the rooms of the happy home he was raised in on an unworked 40-acre farm (in then-rural Warrington, Bucks County) sifted the sounds of classical music.
Discussions of philosophy, art and religion dominated the dinner table. Hansplant's father, a classically trained musician and philosophy and anthropology professor, gave Hansplant texts to read. From his reading, a worldview emerged rooted largely in the existentialists (and Joseph Campbell) that kept potent Hansplant's pursuit of his own bliss over the last 35 years.
Hansplant's pursuit of his calling began when he chose to teach himself to play the guitar. Over a period of four years, Hansplant's head and back were hunched in practice for eight hours a day, his fingers often blistered and bleeding. "I didn't just teach myself to play the guitar," Hansplant said. "I taught myself how to have my own unique (and spiritual) relationship with the guitar. It is not an understanding based on someone else's relationship to the guitar. My guitar makes the sound of my soul."
In college, Hansplant thought of becoming a filmmaker in the style of Bergmann and Antonioni, graduating from Temple University in 1984 as a film major, but he found his focus reverting full-throttle to music. Through his 20s he played and wrote progressive rock songs but gradually transitioned to blues and folk. He began to study the Piedmont-blues style of guitar playing, which developed from the Ragtime tradition, in part because he felt the fullness of that sound would not require additional band members. He gradually discovered the power folk music has of forging a connection between the performer and the audience.
"We can have that conversation through music from a stage to an audience that a lot of other music doesn't have," Hansplant said.
Between writing songs and evolving as a musician, Hansplant has cobbled together a living as a salesman, a job he loathed, as a fashion and wildlife photographer, his second passion after music, as a high-school teacher after earning his Master's in English Education in his early 30s (in 1992) from Trenton State College and as a general contractor, running his own business from his late 30s through most of his 40s.
"I could always rationalize doing other things (besides music), but every time I rationalized it, it was a step in the wrong direction, away from what I feel I do best. The journey is always about coming back off these detours."
Co-owning and teaching at a music school the last seven years is the closest he has come vocationally to advancing his journey, at least until 2009 when, two years after his father died, Hansplant sold the antique gun collection his father left him and used the money to record his first album, "Pilgrim's Progress," with 13 songs. It was named "Album of the Month" on Radio Warrington's Blues show in the U.K. and was in wide release in the U.S. and Europe. He has since recorded a second album, "Swimming to the Sun," at the Mermaid Inn last January.
In the evening of that same June day, Hansplant leaned on a desk in the music school blissfully absorbed in the sounds of the songs he has written for his forthcoming album, "Kick off Your Muddy Boots."
"Everything comes alive," Geoff said, "in a new way which, as you might imagine, is very exciting because I've been playing these songs hundreds if not thousands of times while I'm working them out. It gets a little tired, but now I hear a new infusion of life in there, and the songs sound like they're brand new again."
Geoff has taught writing and literature at Montgomery County Community College, and he was scheduled to teach a six-week course in songwriting in the spring at Musehouse: A Center for the Literary Arts in Chestnut Hill, but it was cancelled.
Geoff will be performing with his band at the Mermaid Inn on Thursday, Aug. 2, 9 p.m. For more information, email firstname.lastname@example.com

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Set in modern day, War on Terror allows players to travel to locales such as Afghanistan, Utah, Paris, and Miami, as they follow a criminal trail that leads all the way to the Al-Kaeda madman Osama Bin Laden. Features include an extensive behind-the-scenes library of videos, a third-person hand-to-hand mini-game, and 11 different terrorist leaders to hunt down including Bin Laden himself.
Released in the US as Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror.
Also known as: Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror, America's 10 Most Wanted : War on Terror
Release Region: United Kingdom
Release Date: August 16, 2004
Publisher: Play It
Also available on: PlayStation 2, Xbox
America's 10 Most Want... at IGN
America's 10 Most Want... at GameSpy
America's 10 Most Want... at GameStats


text:
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic National Committee chairwoman, was in an elevator with her staff Tuesday morning, leaving the National Press Club, where she had just held a televised news conference.
"Life is good!" she said brightly. "I didn't disembowel myself."
Talk about a low bar.
A year earlier, to the day, the Republican National Committee had held an event at the same location to receive the "autopsy" report detailing the party's failures in 2012 and its plan for rebirth. Wasserman Schultz held her event for the purpose of "doing an autopsy on their autopsy" but, as her private expression of relief indicates, Democrats are the ones talking about the cold morgue table at the moment.
As Republican medical examiners reflect on improvements since the 2012 debacle and Democratic coroners ponder the possible loss of the Senate in November, it feels like an episode of "CSI: Washington."
An hour before Wasserman Schultz's appearance, her Republican counterpart, Reince Priebus, met with reporters at the St. Regis Hotel and used the autopsy anniversary to celebrate his party's return from the dead.
"We're in for a tsunami-type election in 2014," he boasted at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. "The Democrats are in the dumps," he added. "It looks like it's going to be a disaster for Democrats."
Informed by Yahoo News' Chris Moody of Priebus' remarks, Wasserman Schultz said that the Republicans' "prediction accuracy isn't exactly on the mark of late." Historically low public opinion of the Republican Party, she said, means "their attempt at rebranding has failed."
Both Priebus and Wasserman Schultz are correct. They're just talking about different time frames.
Signs point to a dismal midterm election for Democrats, as voters blame President Obama's party for their frustrations with the nation's direction. But the Republicans' short-term advantage masks their failure to improve their standing among the key demographic groups – particularly Latinos, women and young voters – they will need if they are to win the presidency in 2016 or beyond.
Wasserman Schultz, in unveiling a nine-page document titled "Same Old Party," declared that the Republican Party is nothing but "another year older. What changes we have seen from the Republican Party are superficial and tactical but do little to address their core problem." Republican outreach to women and minorities "gives new meaning to the term 'awkward,' " she added in a stage whisper. She listed Mike Huckabee's comments about women's libido, Paul Ryan's quote about the deficient culture of the inner city and Steve King's remarks about immigrants with cantaloupe-shaped calves.
But reporters turned Wasserman Schultz's focus to her own party's troubles. Will Democrats lose the Senate? "I am confident we're going to hold the Senate," she said, as she must. Why did Democrats lose a special election in Florida last week? "Republicans won in a Republican district."
At Priebus' breakfast, the dynamic was the reverse: He spoke of Republicans' cyclical advantages and tiptoed around the party's long-term disadvantages. He spoke of Obamacare as "a poisonous issue for Democrats" and of Republicans "riding high" with superior fundraising. "Regardless of what might be happening or not happening in Congress, the RNC is enjoying a lot of success," he said.
But what's happening or not happening in Congress – particularly the failure to pass immigration legislation – has put Republicans at odds with the changing electorate and left the Republican Party with a difficult route to the presidency.
When Slate's John Dickerson pressed him on immigration reform and other policy recommendations in the Republican Party autopsy, Priebus replied, "You're asking the wrong person." The chairman said that 90 percent of his job is improving the party's field operations, data capabilities and revamping the presidential primaries.
Priebus has done that, but the autopsy also said the party needed to be more "inclusive and welcoming" on social issues, while advancing immigration reform.
Still, the chairman accepted the obvious truth that "our party has had a pretty good record in midterm elections and we've had a poor record in presidential elections."
You don't have to be a licensed coroner to recognize that this condition is ultimately terminal.
Dana Milbank is a columnist for The Washington Post. He can be contacted at: firstname.lastname@example.com
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text:
28 February 2014 21:00 | to | 1 March 2014 02:00 |
The Baroque Grand Ball
Friday the 28th of February 2014
Gala Dinner & Entertainment.
The Ball will be located on the pianonobile in an authentic 14th century Palace: Pesaro Papafava,
With its precious gothic facade and its elegant quadriform gothic windows overlooking the canal of the Misericordia. The palace will be illuminated entirely with candlelights to create a memorable atmosphere.
The Baroque is a period of artistic style with an exaggerated motion in exuberance and grandeur The Baroque period had a big influence on a different style of dance and music. The Baroque movement aims to surprise and amaze the audience. Our spectacle of Baroque will introduced the nicest elegant of music and dance of that period. Dance masters will show the dance steps inviting all the guests to relive the Baroque Venice.
21.15: Elegant cocktail with live music.
21.45: Seated illuminated candle lights Gala Dinner, wines included.
23.00: Performance of Baroque period.
Midnight: Live music and dances.
Dress Code: costume and mask.
Cost: 295 €
Buy your tickets with credit card
Do not hesitate to consult us for the rent of costumes
Our Atelier will be under your disposal for any assistance such as costumes, masks and accessories.
The Palace is reachable by 5 minutes walk from Ca D'Oro vaporetto stop: Calle Racchetta, Cannaregio 3764. Reachable also by its water door (in front of the Church of the Misericordia).
For further informations, contact our office:
Tel: +39 041 5201855, Tel: +39 041 7794559 Fax: +39 178 2263842 E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com,


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When we set out to revamp our Turbo line, we knew that we needed to design a bike that best meets your needs. With our lives getting more hectic with each passing day, finding the tiny pockets of time savings can have a huge impact, and the 6.0 truly embodies this concept. It utilizes our most advanced pedal-assist technologies, a high-quality component spec, and a suspension fork to take the edge out of those pesky potholes. No matter where you're going, you'll get there faster and in style with the Women's Turbo Vado 6.0.
Beginning with the integrated Specialized 1.3 motor, the Vado proves itself as the ultimate city bike. It features a silently operating design with our Custom Rx Street tune that takes the output and makes it the most usable for the urban environment. Think of it this way: The more power you put out, the more power the motor puts out, and this makes accelerations from a standstill both quick and efficient. The belt driven motor is also smooth, silent, and free of annoying vibrations. Perfect.
For the Vado 6.0, we developed a custom 604Wh battery, the Specialized U1-604, that seamlessly integrates into the frame, is lockable, and is easily removable for simplified charging. With this battery, the 6.0 will deliver a pedal-assisted boost up to 50 miles in Economy mode, 35 miles in Sport mode, and 25 miles in Turbo mode. These estimates, of course, have some assumptions—the total rider and bike weight is 220 pounds, the terrain is flat with some inclines, and there is either no wind or a light breeze. In other words, with a top speed of 28mph, there's plenty of juice to take you to and from work, make a trip to the grocery store, or to even head over to that new café on the other side of town.
We also developed a custom 2.2-inch smart computer that lets you view your battery level and toggle various ride metrics such as speed, distance, and time. You can also peruse these screens via the custom handlebar remote without ever removing your hands from the bars.
And to top off all of the innovative features, we chose a high-end spec. Featuring Shimano XT/SLX 11-speed components, four-piston hydraulic disc brakes, an SR Suntour fork with 50mm of travel, racks, and fenders, it's ready to take on the town in effortless style.
- The Women's Vado frame features a lightweight alloy step-through frame that's easy to get on and off of.
- The Vado's Specialized 1.3 motor with Rx Street Tune is fully integrated with the frame, and it's also been custom-tuned for city riding. It intuitively reacts to the force of your pedaling, so the harder you pedal, the more power it delivers. And with an internal belt drive design, it does this without added vibration for the smoothest and most silent ride possible.
- We made the custom 604 Wh battery to be fully integrated with the frame, removable for easy charging, and lockable for added security. It communicates with the display and has multiple modes to maximize the overall efficiency and range.
Drive System | Specialized 1.3, Custom Rx Street Tuned Motor, 250W Nominal |
Display | Custom 2.2" LCD display, USB plug, stem mount w/ custom handlebar remote |
Battery Type/Weight | Specialized U1-604, On/Off button, state of charge display, 604Wh |
Charger Type | Custom charger, 42V4A w/ Rosenberger plug |
Frame | Turbo Aluminum, bottom bracket motor mount, Fitness/Transportation Geometry, fully integrated & lockable down tube battery, internal cable routing, fender/rack mounts, Smooth Welds |
Fork | SR Suntour NCX E25, alloy steerer, 15mm thru-axle, 44mm offset, 50mm of travel |
Axles |
Front: 15x100mm Rear: 12x148mm |
Rims/Wheels | 700C disc, double-wall alloy, sleeved |
Hubs |
Front: Specialized front hub disc, sealed bearings, 28h Rear: Specialized, sealed cartridge bearings, 28h |
Spokes | DT Swiss Industry |
Tires | Electrak 2.0 Armadillo, 700x51mm |
Crankset | Custom alloy forged crankarms |
Chainrings | 48T w/ chainguard, 104 BCD |
Chain | Shimano HG601, 11-speed |
Rear Derailleur | Shimano XT, Shadow Plus, GS cage, 11-speed |
Cassette/Rear Cogs | Shimano SLX, 11-speed, 11-42t |
Shifters | Shimano SLX, 11-speed |
Handlebars | Specialized, alloy, 9-degree backsweep, 4-degree upsweep, 680mm width, 31.8mm |
Tape/Grips | Body Geometry Women's XC Contour |
Stem | Specialized Flowset, alloy, 20-degree w/ display/light mount, 31.8mm |
Brakes | Shimano Deore XT T8000, hydraulic disc, 180mm |
Pedals | Specialized Commuter w/ grip tape & reflectors |
Saddle | Specialized Aldia, hollow Cr-Mo rails, 155mm |
Seatpost | Specialized, alloy, single-bolt, 21mm offset, 30.9mm |
Accessories & Extras | Turbo Rack, Closed Platform, direct fender mount, Racktime-compatible, Supernova V521s, upside-down mount to stem, 205lm, Specialized kickstand, 40mm mount, Specialized DRYTECH fenders, 52mm width, stainless steel fenderstays, Simple bell, Supernova E3, alloy housing, 3-LED, 250-degree visibility, fender mount |
* Subject to change without notice.
Part Numbers
Option | UPC | MPN | Store SKU |
Satin Flo Red / Blue Ghost Pearl / Small | 888818424825 | 95019-2302 | VAD2513654S |
Satin Flo Red / Blue Ghost Pearl / Medium | 888818424627 | 95019-2303 | |
Satin Flo Red / Blue Ghost Pearl / Large | 888818424757 | 95019-2304 | |
Satin Flo Red / Blue Ghost Pearl / X-Large | 888818424801 | 95019-2305 |


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It's Friday again and basically the weekend! But before you head off to find the next Mr. or Ms. Right (unless you've already found them), take a few moments and listen to this brand new episode of The Flickcast! Or maybe you'll end up listening with a new (or current) person in your life? Try it. Could be fun.
Listening alone, with a friend (or two), here's what you can expect from this week's episode: Supergirl! Captain America: Civil War! Star Wars! The Walking Dead! Legends of Tomorrow! More! More! More!
Picks this week include Chris' pick of the classic horror film Poltergeist and Joe's pick of Greg Rucka's Black Magic, with art by Nicola Scott.
As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship, or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook, Google+ or via email.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | TuneIn | RSS


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This is part of a series of slideshows in Meniscus Magazine featuring local and international artists at the POW! WOW! Hawaii 2020 festival in Honolulu. Artists took over the city – mostly concentrating on the neighborhood of Kaka'ako – from Feb. 10-15, creating colorful murals indicative of their signature styles. Each slideshow features a progression of in-progress artwork up to its completion.
POW! WOW! Hawaii 2020: YOHEYY
Posted in: Arts, Featured, Visual Arts
– April 5, 2020


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Description: Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away. But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos—the first and only love of her life—the careful bubble she's constructed begins to dissolve. Once upon a time, Elliot was Macy's entire world—growing from her gangly bookish friend into the man who coaxed her heart open again after the loss of her mother...only to break it on the very night he declared his love for her.
Told in alternating timelines between Then and Now, teenage Elliot and Macy grow from friends to much more—spending weekends and lazy summers together in a house outside of San Francisco devouring books, sharing favorite words, and talking through their growing pains and triumphs. As adults, they have become strangers to one another until their chance reunion. Although their memories are obscured by the agony of what happened that night so many years ago, Elliot will come to understand the truth behind Macy's decade-long silence, and will have to overcome the past and himself to revive her faith in the possibility of an all-consuming love.
Review: Love and Other Words is a touching best friends to lovers romance story. The story is divided between the past and present, where Macy Sorenson and Elliot Petropoulos fall in love, lose each other, and have the possibility of a second chance. In the past we see how Macy and Elliott meet and fall in love with each other in the closet of her dad's vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a pediatrics doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn't spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Can they ever go back to how close they once were? Does Macy even want to rebuild her relationship with Elliott which is separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance?
While I enjoyed both story lines, I loved the past as we watched Macy and Elliott come together. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father's care for guidance. She doesn't want to be pitied or known as the sad girl who lost her mom. With each other they both can just be Macy and Elliot.
Whenever I read a book that features best friend romances, we are often cheated out of how the two characters became friends before moving on to lovers. It is just told that the two characters are close and I always felt cheated in that aspect of the story. This is definitely not the chance in Love and Other Words. We see how Macy and Elliot become everything to each other and their absolute honesty with one another is terrifying and at the same time admirable. For teen Macy, Elliot and her dad become her world and her home until one moment and bad decision changed everything.
In the present day, Macy takes comfort in complacency in a relationship where she doesn't have to be emotionally invested and ready made. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future. I read this book fairly quickly as I got so wrapped up into the characters and story. While I understand why the book is written in two time periods, I am a greedy reader who wanted to know what happened to Macy and Elliot when they separated. Love and Other Words is an emotional rollercoaster, but it worth all of the bumps along the way.
Rating: 4 stars
Words of Caution: There is strong language, crude sexual humor, and a few sex scenes. Recommended for older teens and adults only.
If you like this book try: Family Tree by Susan Wiggs, The Summer I Turned Pretty series by Jenny Han
2018 Reading Challenge,
4 stars,
Realistic Fiction,


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A Texas dog lover and mother of four lost her legs and almost all of her fingers after she suffered a rare infection from a dog bite on Christmas.
48-year-old Robin Sullins was left fighting for her life after doctors say she experienced a rare reaction to bacteria in dog saliva, My FoxAustin.com reports.
Sullins' family says on a web page set up to raise donations for her care that she was bitten on the finger and scratched on the leg while trying to break up a squabble between family dogs on Christmas.
Two days later she was taken to the emergency room with a fever, chills, and vomiting.
"By late Saturday night, early Sunday morning, she was pretty much on life support. We're talking respirator, dialysis, feeding tube, being kept alive," her mother Carole Wilson told MyFoxAustin.com.
Her family says doctors were at first baffled by her symptoms, as Sullins grew worse. Sullins' organs began failing and her hands and feet grew black and blue.
"They knew there was this unusual bacteria in her bloodstream. The lab had trouble identifying it. They sent it to the state. The state had identified it as capnocytophaga species," Dr. Kristin Mondy, an infectious disease specialist, told MyFoxAustin.com.
Capnocytophaga is a bacteria that is present in the saliva of about a third of cats and dogs, but doctors say it rarely sickens humans.
Doctors were forced to amputate both of Sullins' legs below the knee and nearly all of her fingers.
Her family says Sullins was out of work when she was bitten, and are asking for help to cover the medical bills for a woman "who loves dogs as much as she loves breathing."
"Mom, who reached her hand down to break up a fight because she understands dogs, their nature, loves them with tails wagging or teeth snarling," the website says. "Mom, who is always so independent, always wanting to take care of herself and see her children succeed, now needs all their energy and support just to live."


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I have posted several questions ultimately involving various aspects of robustness, that have arisen in the context of other questions in risk of clouding the main point of the question in each case. I thought it would be appropriate to have a centralised discussion here about what needs to be taken into account to achieve robustness and what sort of things one can do early on to minimise the pain of upgrading one's own code later on.
There was a recent discussion about backward compatibility here where some mixed emotions were being expressed about whether or not a certain author was doing the right thing by his users when abandoning backward compatibility, so it's clearly an important topic. It would be good to discuss this topic without opinions of any one author's application of what is considered best practice and limiting ourselves to discussion of the principles themselves.
I'm in the middle of writing a package myself as a fledgling package writer and various issues have arisen basically concerning robustness of code. Does it access globals appropriately, can it be used in any context, or what are reasonable expectations on where it can be used, without breaking?
None of the other suggested questions, that came up when I typed this one in, are focussed on this particular question. I keep coming up with little questions that I want to ask relating to this topic that would get buried as comment questions and would spread the discussion all over the place as separate questions. Hopefully this is considered a worthy meta discussion.
Answers could either be about general principles or particular examples of use, such as: \pgfmathsetlength
can set a variable prefixed with \global
, whereas \pgfmathaddtolength
can not. Is it best practice in the former case, as you must in the latter case, making the value global with
just in case this changes in future? I suppose whatever the argument, that consistent practice has to be an important guide.


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Update: CERT/CC Takes AMD To Task On Driver Security, AMD Responds
by Ryan Smith on June 8, 2012 10:00 AM ESTIn a bit of an odd move, the Carnegie Mellon's Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT/CC) has posted a vulnerability report and a blog post taking AMD to task over their drivers and the impact on system security. As the major partner in the United States' internet security agency US-CERT and de-facto coordinator for the international CERTs, CERT/CC is both a front-line organization for developing responses to cybersecurity threats and on a more typical day is responsible for organizing and publishing reports and notices about computer system vulnerabilities. So while it's common for CERT/CC to publish information regarding specific vulnerabilities, it's less common for them to get involved with general security weaknesses in this manner.
So what has drawn CERT/CC's attention? It turns out that AMD's drivers don't properly behave with/support a vulnerability mitigation feature called Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). ASLR serves to make it harder for software vulnerabilities to be exploited by randomizing certain program structures in memory, so that the addresses of these structures cannot reliably be predicted and attacked. Although not undefeatable, ASLR can reduce a number of different types of attacks from a system-owning exploit into a program crash that keeps the system secure. In other words ASLR can't fix the underlying vulnerabilities in programs, but it can help mitigate the problem so that a proper fix can be instituted.
Because of the chaotic nature of ASLR not every program (particularly legacy programs) can work with it, and for that reason since its introduction in Windows Vista in 2006 ASLR has been a per-program feature that is only enabled with applications that are flagged as being compatible. However because most applications can handle it just fine, systems requiring higher security can use the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) to enable ASLR across the system, which forcibly activates ASLR for all programs.
It's this last bit that has caught CERT/CC's attention. As it stands AMD's video drivers are not ASLR compatible. Turning on ASLR will cause AMD's drivers to crash, making always-on ASLR unusable on systems using AMD's drivers.
From a practical perspective this isn't an issue that affects more than a handful of users. Unlike DEP it's not something that can be turned on from within Windows, so even technical users like ourselves almost never have ASLR in always-on mode. However for governments and other high value institutions this means they're forced to choose between AMD hardware and ASLR, which is not something they want to be worrying about. Furthermore it's been the long-standing goal of computer security organizations to get OSes and programs to a state where ASLR can be enabled globally for every user, a very messy transition that is held back by programs and drivers that are still not ASLR compatible.
Drivers in turn are of particular concern here because of how they interact with the Windows kernel, with video drivers in particular having high access levels for performance purposes, a position that will only become more entrenched as GPUs continue to become more CPU-like and more important to even fundamental computing. All of this is compounded by the fact that AMD in has already been in the spotlight for security vulnerabilities as their drivers were found to have a security exploit in 2007.
Ultimately CERT/CC is looking to apply pressure to AMD to get them to finally make their drivers ASLR compatible, even going so far as to specifically testing and naming Intel and NVIDIA as having ASLR compatible drivers in the vulnerability note. Because of their relationship with US-CERT this is akin to having an arm of the US Government breathing down your neck, which does tend to get results, doubleplus so since the US Government is also a massive IT buyer. In the meantime typical computer users have nothing to be concerned about – and this is the important part for most of us – but it's unfortunate that AMD has let themselves end up in this situation in the first place.
Source: Slashdot
Update: CERT/CC contacted us this afternoon to clarify who originated the vulnerability report in question. It is technically CERT/CC who published it (in spite of it appearing on US-CERT), so we've corrected the article accordingly.
Update 2: AMD has issued a formal statement in response to CERT/CC's report. In it they assert that the specific condition CERT/CC specifies (modifying a registry key) was not reported in advance, and go on to reiterate that regular users (even those using EMET) are not impacted by this. Furthermore AMD states that they are working on a driver that corrects the issue CERT/CC has discovered. We have republished the full response below
CERT recently approached AMD with information pertaining to what they believed to be a possible video driver vulnerability exposed by non-default settings of the Microsoft Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET). EMET is a security test tool that allows system administrators to create test conditions to validate correct behavior of system components or indicate potential weak points. The presence of an issue does not necessarily mean that this issue can be exploited in regular operation of a system. The default safety settings of the EMET do not cause the issue in question to occur.
The non-default settings used to produce the system crash at start-up as reported by CERT require changing a System Registry key for the tool (named "EnableUnsafeSettings"), which was not documented until the CERT report was published, and is not accessible through the EMET tool itself.
Given that the conditions created by CERT are a departure from the default safety settings of the Microsoft EMET, users of AMD graphics products will face the problem outlined by the CERT report if their EMET settings are modified, and will otherwise not experience the issue in question. Shortly, AMD will release a driver designed to ensure that a crash does not take place under the conditions outlined by CERT.
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Makaveli - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
in before the first idiot to post NV drivers are better.
I'm surely going to sleep better when we have this. -
Spunjji - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
As will I.
There was me thinking this was a security issue, not a potential headache for government I.T. administrators. It's still pretty lame that AMD don't support ASLR this late in the game, mind you. -
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, June 9, 2012 - link
That's a given that nVidia drivers are better, we all know this, and have for years.
It's just that some of us like to pretend that doesn't matter and that no one should care.
It looks like that is the case this time as well. It doesn't matter, and no one should care.
Perfect for amd fans. PhysX doesn't matter either. Neither does adaptive v-sync, nor does target framerate, nor does dirver updates back to series 6 while HD4000 is dropped, etc etc.
Nothing matters but praising amd for being superior, no matter what faults and omissions they constantly have. -
silverblue - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link
No mention of drivers that run your card way too hot there, it seems.
Oh... too soon? -
JPForums - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link
<quote>That's a given that nVidia drivers are better, we all know this, and have for years.</quote>
I've gone through a rather large number of both nVidia and ATi/AMD cards over the years and I can say with great certainty that inferior drivers are the hallmark of Intel graphics. I've run into driver issues with both nVidia and ATi with little to distinguish one as superior to the other. SLI does tend to be less problematic than Crossfire for games recently released. However, ATi seems to have (slightly) fewer issues in HTPC applications (not that either company has been critically misbehaved in a good while). Hence, your blanket statement ("We all know this") can be proven false by counterexample.
<quote>It looks like that is the case this time as well. It doesn't matter, and no one should care.</quote>
If you use Microsoft EMET, modify it from default settings, and happened to modify a registry key that was, at the time, undocumented, then you should care ... until ATi releases a fix. It is not as if ATi's drivers can't be used with ASLR. Even if it were, it is not as if that is a security vulnerability. ASLR is a way to make existing vulnerabilities (both know and undisclosed) harder (not impossible) to exploit. If a breach has occurred, then it happened in an other program due a bug that may or may not have been exploitable with system wide ASLR.
<quote>PhysX doesn't matter either.</quote>
It give me more eye candy, but I have yet to play a game where it changes gameplay. A welcome addition, yes, but I would like it better if they opened it up to competitors (licensed?) and it became more prevalent and integral. Until then, it does little to sway my purchasing decision.
<quote>... neither does adaptive v-sync</quote>
I love this one. The benefits are obvious and it can be applied retroactively without the need for developers to lift a finger.
<quote>... nor does target framerate</quote>
Theoretically provides benefits to people with power usage restriction and/or inadequate cooling. Since a few fps won't make a notable difference in power usage and I use cooling solutions capable of keeping my cards well below any thermal design thresholds, it doesn't really concern me. Perhaps it is good for systems where the fan has to get obnoxiously loud to keep it cool under full load. Though, I would consider that a flaw of the cooling system as even my laptop (ASUS G73SW) doesn't have to work that hard to keep cool. Desktops have far more space to work with.
<quote>... nor does dirver updates back to series 6 while HD4000 is dropped</quote>
It should be mentioned, though, that the HD4000 series isn't dropped. It has simply been moved to a less frequent update schedule. I don't like that the HD4000 series has taken a back seat, but I have don't really know where it make since to transition. I like that nVidia supports back to the 6 series, but truth be told, it has been a long time since my 6800 Ultra (or my 8800GT for that matter) saw any benefit from a driver update. I always liked nVidia's as needed release schedule better than ATi's once a month schedule. Perhaps this will allow them to address crossfire issues for new releases more quickly. Still, I think they should fully support at least three major generations back. -
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - link
Yeah whatever, we all know nVidia drivers are superior period and have been for a very long time.
If you actually work on hundreds of systems you find this out and NO counterexample can prove it wrong. -
Shadowmaster625 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
This government bureaucratic absurd nonsense moment has surely been brought to you by Intel. -
prophet001 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
"This government bureaucratic absurd nonsense.."
Yes -
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, June 9, 2012 - link
And soon will be brought to you by the Dear Leader of China as they finally won through cracking every last bit of US Government and DOD information, exploited thanks to AMD's lame driver "team fail". -
silverblue - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link
LOL @ you if you think China needs AMD's help to get into "secure" US systems when even individuals on their own can do the same.


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By Lisa Thornton
The Charlotte Observer.
When Alenoosh Kohl travels to her mother's home, she doesn't have to get into her car and take the interstate. She's just one door down the hall.
Living in a home designed specifically for multigenerational families, Kohl, 44, and her mother Anna, 67, each have private residences under one roof: separate living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and even laundry rooms.
"We have the convenience of her being with us, because she wants to be part of our lives, and it makes me feel at ease that if she ever needs help we're here to help her," said Kohl, who lives on her side with sons Colin, 13, and Yuriy, 11.
Called granny flats throughout much of Europe, where multigenerational living is already part of a large trend, the home-within-a-home concept is starting to become a popular housing design in the United States as well.
For homebuilders, it's a small niche market that's growing bigger each year. A Pew Research Center study estimated that today 51 million Americans live in homes with more than one other adult generation.
The reasons are multiple, but often lead back to finances. Older grandparents may move in to ease the cost of child care. A son or daughter may take in a parent as a more feasible alternative to paying for the cost of assisted living or a nursing home.
The saggy economy of recent years has also left a portion of boomerangs, adults ages 25-35 who are unable to find work after graduating from college, back on mom and dad's doorstep.
Other families have found multigenerational living suites a good way to foster independence in adult children with disabilities such as autism or Down syndrome.
Kohl chose a house design that would allow her mother the privacy of her own space.
"We thought it was the perfect fit," said Kohl, who moved into a Next Gen home by Lennar in the Lawson community in Waxhaw, N.C., last August. "It makes her feel like she has her own home."
The designs have a first-floor private suite that includes a living room, bathroom, bedroom, laundry room and a kitchenette with a convection microwave, dishwasher, sink and a refrigerator as an option.
Each suite has a separate HVAC zone and its own programmable thermostat, a tandem garage and a private entrance with its own doorbell.
Lennar offers four designs ranging from 3,101 to 4,058 square feet and prices from $253,780 to $386,640.
Sometimes circumstances change and a home within a home is either no longer needed or could be better used for a different purpose. Classica Homes has come up with a blueprint for spaces that can be adjusted.
Classica's Flex-Gen design, modeled after the setups in luxury yachts, has a layout that makes it easier to convert an in-home suite for other uses.
"You can remodel it literally in a weekend by taking out a wall and bingo, you've got a formal dining room again," said Bill Saint, President and CEO of Classica Homes.
Flex-Gen designs also have separate HVAC zones as well as soundproof walls between the two residences. There are two floor plans, ranging from 4,300 to 4,600 square feet, with suites around 500 square feet. They're priced from $530,000 to $540,000.
For those whose parents may not be able to live independently, medically enhanced cottages may be an option. MEDCottages by N2Care, designed at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, can be placed in a caregiver's backyard, with electricity and water hooked up to the main home. The homes have a kitchenette, bedroom and bathroom, as well as floors that absorb 38 percent of a fall, cameras that monitor 18 inches from the floor to ensure privacy and a lift system to assist a caregiver in moving a person.
"We were trying to give people options that didn't currently exist in our culture, apart from nursing homes and institutional living," said Dr. Ken Dupin, founder and CEO of N2Care. "A MEDCottage costs $60,000, which is about one year in a nursing home."
Two floor plans are available: a 300-square-foot cottage for one person, and a 600-square-foot design for two. Check with your local zoning board to learn about restrictions that might apply when adding a residence.
-States with highest percentage of multigenerational households are Hawaii (11 percent), California (8 percent) and Mississippi (7 percent).
-States with lowest percentage of multigenerational households are North Dakota (2 percent), and Iowa and Vermont (nearly 3 percent each).
Source: U.S. Census Bureau


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As Sania's World Turns: There's no better soap opera on tennis tour right now than Sania Mirza. She was married on Monday to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik in an affair that has been showered in controversy.
One Story, One Match: The One Story series, which publishes out of Brooklyn, has its latest publication singing game, set and match. The story is set in the Federer-Sampras battle of Wimbledon circa 2001, with a fictional twist involving three ball kids. After reading it, I give Cheston Knapp two thumbs up for his crafting of the epic changing-of-the-guard match and the story he entwines within Centre Court.
Second to Sania and Shoaib, there's Todd and Novak: For some reason, the player-coach break-up between Todd Martin and Novak Djokovic seems to be the tennis story of the century. While the break-up doesn't have quite the political ramifications that Sania and Shoaib carry into their marriage, this story has gotten an absorbent of attention. For Novak, something had to change if he wants to be considered for another Slam. For Todd, well… for Todd, any press is good press.
In Tom's World, Tiger Plays Golf: In the Toronto Globe and Mail, esteemed sports columnist Tom Tebbutt crafted a great piece on Tiger Woods's comeback to professional sport. Tebbutt did so by imagining Woods's comeback if he was a tennis player at Wimbledon, not a golfer at The Masters. The result is golden.
Suddenly Serena… is playing again?! Serena has received a wild card from the Italian Open, to be held in May. It would be her first tournament since winning the Australian Open in January.
Sheriff Querrey: Sam rescues the ATP (and its players) in the on-going, almost-as-dramatic-as-Sania-Shoaib-Todd-and-Novak episode of Wayne Odesnik. Listen to the most-recent TSF podcast to hear our take on the saga.
(photo via chinadaily.com)


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Celebrity Summer Jobs – From Grave-Digging to Dairy Queen
Before they made their millions, many celebrities settled for minimum wage. Though it's hard to imagine it now, what with their expensive houses, cars and vacations, people like Amy Adams, Gwen Stefani and Brad Pitt actually worked at restaurants, salons and, in the case of 'Law & Order: SVU' star Christopher Meloni, the morgue.
Here's how 10 of the now rich and famous made ends meet during the summer months.
Amy Adams
Before she was cooking her way through 'Julie & Julia,' three-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams briefly worked at Hooters to save up for a car.
Beyonce Knowles
Though she's now a spokeswoman for L'Oréal, not to mention a 16-time Grammy winner, Beyonce got her start sweeping up hair at her mother's hair salon.
Christopher Meloni
Before investigating homicides on TV, soon-to-be-former 'Law & Order: SVU' star Christopher Meloni worked as a surgical orderly where he helped transport corpses to the morgue.
Gwen Stefani
Pop star and fashion icon Gwen Stefani scrubbed the floors at Dairy Queen before joining No Doubt.
Brad Pitt
Before starring in 'The Mexican,' Brad Pitt wore a giant chicken suit to promote the Mexican chicken restaurant El Pollo Loco.
Warren Beatty
Instead of trying to break into show business, Warren Beatty worked the door. Before becoming a Hollywood icon, Beatty was the stage doorman and official rat catcher at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Orlando Bloom
Before flexing his archery skills in 'The Lord of The Rings,' Orlando Bloom worked as a clay trapper at a shooting range.
Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart worked as a gravedigger while waiting for his dreams of super-stardom to come to life.
Matthew McConaughey
Before Matthew McConaughey became a megastar, he spent a year in Australia washing dishes shoveling chicken manure.
Eva Mendes
Before she decided to stick with acting, Eva Mendes worked at Hot Dog On A Stick


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Crossville tree house to God still a work in progress
What: 10-story wooden tree house
Where: 346 Beehive Lane, Crossville; off Interstate 40
Hours: Daylight to dusk (summer 7 a.m.-7 p.m.)
Admission: Free, donations accepted; visitors climb tree house at own risk
CROSSVILLE ? Horace Burgess didn't need blueprints to build a 10-story, 14,000+-square-foot tree house that towers over surrounding oaks and that thousands of people flock to each year. God was his architect.
The Lord supplied the design to the builder and the wood from old barns, weathered buildings or scrap construction bits. Burgess supplied the nails, the sweat and the faith.
The collaboration is a massive structure rising up to 100 feet into the Tennessee sky. Formally called "The Treehouse The Way," the 19-year, still unfinished project includes winding stairs, a bell tower and a rambling maze of rooms and corners. Its center is a light-filled sanctuary that's both chapel and basketball court.
Thousands from as far as Australia have visited the structure at the end of graveled Beehive Lane on the edge of Crossville. They come at their own risk; this isn't an amusement and offers no safety precautions. They see what could be, as Burgess says, "the world's largest tree house." That designation could become official: blueprints are being drawn of the tree house to submit to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Visitors often arrive after hearing about the curiosity from friends or seeing a mention on the Internet. "People can come to a place where there's no alcohol, no drugs and no violence," says Marijo Templeton. A lifelong friend of Burgess, she's The Treehouse's business manager.
The property is open year-round from daylight to dusk. "I never did have to ask people to come to it. I guess that's just God blessing it," says Burgess, a 61-year-old landscape architect.
What visitors first see is the tree house's 97-foot-tall tower, which resembles something from a rustic amusement park. What tourists can mistake for a crow's nest atop the turret is a giant wooden crown of thorns.
The tower's a people magnet; young and old climb its 98 steps. At its top the bastion sways with wind gusts. From this perch visitors overlook a garden where flowers and grass spell "JESUS."
Where else, says Burgess, can a person climb to the sky and see Jesus in the garden? "One night, it was real dark and there was no moon ? I tilled that out with just one light on my tractor."
From the tower, more agile, fearless visitors scale a short ladder into its belfry. Their reward is to ring bells Burgess made by cutting the bottom from heavy oxygen acetylene bottles.
All visitors tour for free. Those who wish can drop money in a covered donation bin. This year Burgess began selling souvenir T-shirts and baseball caps. He estimates he spent $14,000 building the structure but says he quit counting after a while.
Through the years tourists have used pocket knives or felt-tipped pens to carve or write names, doodle drawings or pen tributes to loved ones in the tree house planks. In some spots the graffiti is so thick it nearly forms a layer of black paint over the raw planks. Burgess decided not to mind if people mark his work; he's even contemplating selling felt-tipped pens. "I have to pinch myself and say, 'It's a tree house. That's what you did when you were a kid ? carved your name on the wall.'" He polices the messages, cleaning off offensive words.
More serious are past thefts and vandalism. Thieves stole electrical wiring; vandals smashed windows and broke doors. Now the property gate is locked after hours; volunteers stay the night to secure the tree house.
Though he and wife Julia live "in a normal house in town," Burgess spends many hours each week at his creation. The couple has been married 22 years. For their 11th anniversary he built her a penthouse in the tree house. Sometimes, he says, Julia "feels like Noah's wife" with the time he devotes the tree house. "But I feel like with everyone I talk to, I'm doing God's work."
Burgess has shared how he came to build a tree house for God to visitors from Germany and Florida, to news crews from Paris to Australia. This wasn't his first tree house, and it didn't begin belonging to God.
Years earlier he was a partying Vietnam vet who built a tree house on a different spot of land. He lived in that 2,200-square-foot "party house" but later burned it down. "I was trying to change my life over to what God wanted me to do. He'd called me to be a preacher. But I didn't like preachers so I wasn't going to be one. I thought I could outrun God. But he runs fast."
God's voice, he says, told him to burn that structure. "He wanted it gone." Burgess says he withdrew from society, living as a "hermit" for 18 months. Then he met Julia. "If I hadn't met her I'd never have made it."
He built a second tree house is the subdivision where the couple then lived. When some neighbors complained, he demolished the structure and hauled the lumber to 139 acres he'd bought near Crossville. "I was mad and decided I was going to build the world's last tree house."
Then 43, he had salvaged enough wood to wind stairs three stories up an 80-foot-tall, 12-foot-diameter white oak. That was all he built for a year and half. In that time, he says, "I quit running completely from God."
One day he climbed his "staircase to nowhere," sat on a long tree limb and prayed. "I was praying for everything but a tree house. But the spirit of God said, 'If you build me a tree house, I'll never let you run out of material.' I agreed. It's been a work in progress for almost 20 years."
Two weeks later, after more prayer, Burgess got a vision of what God's tree house should be. The revelation included a water cistern and filtering system, electricity, a heating system and an elevator. None of that's yet built. "It's still all in my head. So my head's still cluttered."
He began building for God. His materials consisted of reclaimed wood, doors and windows. "People would say, 'You come over here and clean this mess up, you can have it.' " It took 11 years before he recycled metal onto the roof. That's why some floors tilt slightly like a carnival fun house. "I had to angle them a little so the water could run off and it wouldn't rot before I could dry it in."
Many people helped but Burgess built the design out of his head. "I was the only one that knew how I wanted it to look. So I had to put it all in place and nail it myself." He shot 258,000 nails with a nail gun and hand-hammered another 530 pounds of nails.
From its start around the large, still-growing oak, the structure spread over six more oaks that help support it. Burgess sunk a few telephone poles into the ground to support some floors. "It actually doesn't have a foundation. It just comes down and touches the ground everywhere," he says.
Nearly every winding wooden path leads to the building's up-in-the-air chapel. With a skylight of reclaimed Plexiglas, this large room amid smaller ones was part of the vision years ago. Pews circle the walls and march up another level. A basketball hoop is secured high on a central, tall wall. A nearly flat basketball nestles in a pew.
"It's a prayer and praise chapel and a basketball court all the same time. I feel like you have to be a well-rounded person to be a good Christian, physically fit and mentally stable and spiritually equipped," Burgess says.
Burgess, now a minister, holds 1 p.m. Sunday services in the chapel. "We deal with the now and nasty. There's a lot of Jesus and the Holy Ghost. I hardly open my Bible because I got it all written on my heart,' he says, striking his chest
While some floors are uneven, some steps narrow and some parts sway in the wind, Burgess says no one's been injured here. "God watches over it; it's His."
The builder's still planning. Salvaged lumber is stacked on a bottom floor; a couple of bathtubs await future bathrooms. The newest project is a street with a "What You Give Me City" gift shop." Instead of set prices, Templeton says, "We'll ask, 'What will you give me?'"
Burgess dreams of completing his vision. He lists the needs ? running water, electricity, heat. He's built a shaft for a wooden elevator to be worked by pulleys. So he tells visitors, "You'll just have to come back. I tell everyone to pray for me that God will finish the work He started."


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WASHINGTON -- GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to plead guilty and pay $3 billion in civil and criminal penalties in a deal with federal prosecutors over its marketing of paroxetine HCl (Paxil), bupropion (Wellbutrin), and other drugs, and for failing to report safety problems with rosiglitazone (Avandia), the government announced Monday.
The initial terms of the agreement were first announced in 2011. The government said this was the largest health fraud settlement in U.S. history.
"Today's historic settlement is a major milestone in our efforts to stamp out health care fraud," Bill Corr, deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said in a press release. "For a long time, our healthcare system had been a target for cheaters who thought they could make an easy profit at the expense of public safety, taxpayers, and the millions of Americans who depend on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. But thanks to strong enforcement actions like those we have announced today, that equation is rapidly changing."
GSK acknowledged that its labeling for paroxetine was false and misleading because the company allegedly promoted Paxil for treating depression in patients under 18, even though the FDA never approved it for use in children and adolescents.
GSK allegedly participated in the publishing of medical journal articles that stated paroxetine was effective in patients under 18, when, in fact, the data showed that the opposite was true. At the same time, the company withheld study data in from two other studies in which Paxil also failed to demonstrate efficacy in treating depression in patients under 18, according to a press release from the Justice Department.
The company also "sponsored dinner programs, lunch programs, spa programs, and similar activities to promote the use of Paxil in children and adolescents," the Justice Department said.
Paroxetine and other antidepressants have carried black box warnings since 2004, stating that antidepressants may increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in patients under age 18.
The government also alleged that from 1999 to 2003, GSK promoted bupropion -- a drug approved only for major depressive disorder -- for a slew of conditions, including weight loss, the treatment of sexual dysfunction, substance addictions, and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder.
GSK paid millions to doctors to promote the drug off-label during meetings sometimes held at swanky resorts, the government said. The company relied on pharmaceutical sales reps, "sham advisory boards," and continuing medical education programs that appeared independent but were not.
GSK has agreed to pay $243 million for its unlawful conduct concerning the diabetes drug rosiglitazone, in part for failing to give the FDA required post-marketing safety data on the drug. According to the government, the company kept secret data on raised cardiovascular effects.
Since 2007, rosiglitazone has carried a black box warning alerting patients and physicians to the drug's potential increased risk for congestive heart failure and heart attack.
To settle all the criminal charges involving the three drugs -- Paxil, Wellbutrin, and Avandia -- GSK agreed to pay $1 billion.
Civil Settlement
In the civil settlement portion of the resolution announced Monday, GSK agreed to pay $2 billion to settle civil claims that the company promoted Paxil, Wellbutrin, asthma drug combination fluticasone/salmeterol (Advair), anti-epileptic medication lamotrigine (Lamictal), and anti-nausea medicine ondansetron (Zofran) for off-label uses, and that it paid kickbacks to doctors to prescribe those drugs along with migraine drug sumatriptan (Imitrex), irritable bowel syndrome medication alosetron (Lotronex), asthma drug fluticasone (Flovent), and herpes medication valacyclovir (Valtrex).
The civil settlement also levies millions in fines against GSK to settle false claims allegations related to use of Avandia.
In addition, the settlement also requires GSK to pay $300 million to resolve allegations that the company reported false drug prices under Medicaid, making it appear that its drugs were cheaper than what they actually were. As a result, GSK underpaid rebates due to Medicaid and overcharged the government, according to the Justice Department.
Corporate Integrity Agreement
In addition to the criminal and civil resolutions, GSK will participate in a 5-year Corporate Integrity Agreement with the HHS Office of Inspector General that will require the company to make "major changes to the way it does business, including changing the way its sales force is compensated to remove compensation based on sales goals for territories, one of the driving forces behind much of the conduct at issue in this matter," according to the press release.
"For example, company executives may have to forfeit annual bonuses if they or their subordinates engage in significant misconduct, and sales agents are now being paid based on quality of service rather than sales targets," HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson said in a statement.
GSK CEO Andrew Witty said while charges originated in a "different era for the company," that they "cannot and will not be ignored."
"On behalf of GSK, I want to express our regret and reiterate that we have learnt from the mistakes that were made," he said in a statement.
He said the company has "fundamentally changed" its marketing and selling procedures, including firing employees and changing how sales representatives are paid.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
The second annual Winterfest kicked off the holiday season with a parade, live music, an official tree lighting and winter fireworks display. Learn more.
This Halloween event was free to all Taylor residents, it offered over 60 Trick-or-Treat stops, a visit to the Taylor Petting Farm, the Taylor Conservatory and a movie under the Sheridan Open Air Pavilion.


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Corn Biscuit w/ Cheddar Cheese
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3/4 cup (packed) chopped green onions
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 1/2 cups (packed) coarsely grated yellow extra-sharp cheddar cheese
1 large egg
3/4 cup (about) buttermilk
1 tablespoon finely minced canned chipotle chiles in adobo*
Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 425°F. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add green onions and sauté 2 minutes to soften slightly. Remove from heat.
Blend flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in processor. Add 1/2 cup chilled butter; cut in using on/off turns until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add cheese; cut in using on/off turns. Transfer flour mixture to large bowl. Whisk 1 egg in glass measuring cup. Add enough buttermilk to egg to measure 1 cup; stir in green-onion mixture and chipotles. Make well in center of dry ingredients. Pour buttermilk mixture into well; mix just until evenly moistened.
Turn dough out onto generously floured surface. Knead gently just until dough holds together, about 10 turns. Pat out on generously floured surface to 3/4-inch-thick round. Using 3-inch round cutter, cut out biscuits. Transfer to ungreased baking sheet, spacing 1 inch apart. Gather dough scraps; pat out to 3/4-inch thickness and cut out additional biscuits. Brush biscuits with egg glaze.
Bake biscuits until golden, tester inserted into center comes out clean, and biscuits feel firm, about 18 minutes. Cool on rack 5 minutes. Serve warm.
*Available at some supermarkets, specialty foods stores, and Latin markets.


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I suppose this question can be interpreted in two ways. It is often the case that two or more equivalent (but not necessarily semantically equivalent) definitions of the same idea/object are used in practice. Are there examples of equivalent definitions where one is more natural or intuitive? (I'm meaning so greatly more intuitive so as to not be subjective.)
Alternatively, what common examples are there in standard lecture courses where a particular symbolic definition obscures the concept being conveyed.


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Eighties' UK synthpop — beloved for bathing personal sadness in the synthetic light of the available technology — was often disparaged by critics as content-free musical frosting. In fact, it embodied the tumult of its times. On their debut, UK ingénues La Roux tip their hat to the Vince Clarks and Neil Tennants of those times, but with a less polished and more desperate air, updating synthpop's appeal for the present day. The duo's demo-level beat-and-preset lack of sheen creates the effect of being smothered on a dance floor by clunky robots with a toe-stepping lack of subtlety. But close listening is what this record's all about. With her trademark "Tilda Swinton as Cate Blanchett in that Dylan fake bio-pic if it had been about Bowie or Annie Lennox instead of Dylan" redhead swoosh, singer-songwriter Elly Jackson elevates heartbreak to epic levels; the result is as baleful and forlorn as most dance pop is swishy and effervescent. Jackson's po'-faced delivery sets shimmering towers of heartache like "In for the Kill" and "Quicksand" amid unearthly vistas. "I can see you burning with desire/For a kiss," she sings in the chorus of "Tigerlily." You're so swept up in the sound that her repeated "fire"/"desire" couplings make you think you're hearing these hoary sentiments for the very first time.
See all articles by: DANIEL BROCKMAN
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It looks like the always imaginative folks at Roam4Free/Cubic Telecom are making moves, inking a partnership with CelTrek.
The goal here is to lower the cost of global roaming, and that means they are aiming at the customers of WorldCell first and foremost here in the USA. While their pricing isn't lower than buying local SIM cards, they do save you money if you are going from country to country, and you avoid a lot of unused minutes. They also give you the benefit of one number so friends and family can find you, making it a great gift for the student you know whose going to take a trip overseas.


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Day 11–For us to mourn with those who mourn
Rom. 12:15b– . . . and weep with those who weep
Father, God, I pray that You complete Your perfect work in us as writers and as Your children, fulfilling the hopes and dreams You've instilled in us.
But there are times when life does not go as we hoped and in those times we mourn our losses. So when we meet those who are mourning, help us to be sensitive to their sorrow that we may, with sincere compassion, weep with those who weep. The mourning process can be physically, as well as, emotionally exhausting, but we've been created to lean on You, because this is where we will find our real peace and fulfillment.
In surrendering our disappointments, confusions, rejections and grief to You, we always grow stronger than we were before. May we all come through our periods of mourning better people and better writers so we may glorify You in all we do.
In Jesus Precious name we ask,