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They were the best of times in Africa, and the worst. They were the years when South Africa was swept away by the belief that it was a nation blessed, a moral beacon to the world, symbolised by a single moment as Nelson Mandela stood outside a small KwaZulu school in April 1994, dropped his vote into the ballot box with a cross next to his own name, and undid what an entire system had been constructed to prevent.
The world swooned as the great man was sworn in as president a few days later and the white generals, who had built a fearsome military and battled across the hinterland of southern Africa to avoid this day, turned to salute him. True, the ideal of the "rainbow nation" was more a vision than an expectation, some might say a self delusion, given South Africa's knotty mix of race and history. Yet the belief and hope of those years was contagious and the infection spread across Africa.
But running in parallel were the worst of times. Weeks after watching Mandela vote, I was standing at a church among thousands of corpses rising from the ground. It was about 3am and I had just listened to a small group of nuns in the Rwandan town of Kibuye describe the massacre of thousands of Tutsis in the Roman Catholic church. Eleven thousand died there in a single day. Another 10,000 were murdered in the football stadium the next.
The bodies were swiftly buried around the church but rains washed the soil away, and everywhere the remains of people frozen in futile defence against bullets and machetes were emerging from the soil. Women, children, old men - no one was spared, not even the priest. Bullet holes speckled the church's corrugated iron roof. In the backrooms, bloody handprints adorned the walls.
I had met the man responsible for all this a few hours earlier. Clément Kayishema was a doctor and, at one time, head of the local hospital, but by the time of the genocide he was a political force as the governor of Kibuye province. When I turned up in his town, he directed that I be held in a hotel-turned-barracks. One day he would have cause to regret that.
I had arrived in Africa four years earlier, not really knowing what to expect. As I was growing up in the 70s, news from Africa was dominated by Idi Amin and Ian Smith, whose stand for white rule in Rhodesia was amply justified in my parents' eyes by Uganda's bloody tyrant. Anti-apartheid boycotts were beginning to take hold, even if there was still widespread sympathy in Britain for the white regime in Pretoria. The mood hardened with the beginning of the Soweto uprising and the state's brutal response a few years later. The long war in Angola was brought to our living room principally through the trial of British mercenaries, as Washington and Moscow fought out their cold war at the cost of African lives. It was only about a decade after independence for most countries, but already the continent was being written off as a basket case run by buffoons and thieves.
That was then. I was landing in 1990 in what promised to be a very different Africa. Alongside the fall of apartheid, the talk was of a "new breed" of African leaders rejecting corrupt, authoritarian one-party regimes preying on their own people. Britain was flinging money at Uganda's new ruler, Yoweri Museveni - a paragon of leadership compared with Amin - who promised not only clean, accountable government but adherence to the prevailing western orthodoxy of privatisation and free markets. Other great hopes would follow: Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi and Rwanda's Paul Kagame.
The expectation infecting South Africa was creeping north, sometimes forcing out the old but always bringing some kind of change. People turned out in their tens of millions to vote, waiting in lines for hours in Zambia, Angola, Malawi, Nigeria, Zimbabwe with enthusiasm and humour for the chance, at last, to have a say in who governed them. They spoke of a new era, an end to war, corruption and the oppressive "presidents for life" who claimed the right to rule perpetually because they had liberated their countries from colonial subjugation. Promise was all around.
But then the new breed often turned out to be like the old breed, and the old breed clung on for dear life where it could. Angola was flung back into war.
Nigeria's army didn't like the election result and imposed its most brutal dictatorship to date. The new rulers of Zambia and Malawi proved to be as corrupt as their predecessors. In Zimbabwe, the first election that posed a threat to president Robert Mugabe's power marked the beginning of a decade of decline and bloodshed that is still frustrating the will of its people.
Calamitous failures of leadership left millions dead and perpetuated the struggle for existence of millions more. Even South Africa, where the courage of FW de Klerk and Mandela had seen a nation reborn, watched its new democracy eroded by the authoritarian and sometimes paranoid leadership of president Thabo Mbeki.
Books have been filled with the shortcomings of African leaders since independence, from the corrupt "big men" and military rulers propped up by the west because of their anti-communist credentials to the former Marxist leaders who wallow in the money they made selling off the state assets they once seized in the name of the people. Yet, after two decades of watching failed leadership, the Africans that have made the greatest impression on me are the extraordinary individuals who stood against that tide.
In South Africa there is Zackie Achmat, an HIV-positive gay Muslim man of Indian extraction and ANC member, who led the campaign against Mbeki's perverted denial of life-saving anti-Aids drugs to poor black people. In doing so, Achmat did much to keep democratic accountability alive under governments that have badly subverted the institutions of the country's new democracy, particularly the judiciary, while corruption flourishes.
Other names are less well known, such as those of the women in eastern Congo who venture into the most dangerous areas to rescue other women from years of systematic mass rape by the gangs of armed militias that amount to the only form of authority over vast territories. Or the Nigerian journalists who risked assassination or long sentences in hellish prisons to expose the truth about the military dictators plundering their country. Not a few were murdered or slung in jail by military courts.
And there are those who names cannot, for now, be revealed. They include the Zimbabwean doctors who have for years lived with the risk of arrest, torture and even death to run an underground railroad to help the victims of Mugabe's sustained and bloody terror against his people. Thousands of the beaten and near-dead have been rescued and spirited to private clinics, secretly operated on and kept beyond the clutches of the intelligence organisations.
Sometimes whole groups of people proved heroic in their own way. White South Africans, particularly the all-too-often vilified Afrikaners, set aside fear and years of indoctrination to support the transition to black rule in a referendum. It was a huge leap of faith - albeit one made in part out of desperation at the realisation that their country was otherwise headed for the abyss.
But of all the silent heroes, perhaps none was more unusual than Sosthene Niyitegeka. The Hutu shopkeeper and pastor risked everything - his own life and that of his wife and children - to save every Tutsi in his village at the height of the Rwandan genocide, with a plan that mixed appeals to human decency with blackmail and infiltration of the militia leading the killing. Niyitegaka's story is extraordinary because Rwanda stands apart. There have been plenty of other mass graves across those two decades and before. But Rwanda left a different mark. It offered the darkest insight into the fragility of society, and it is the legacy of that tiny country's genocide and its tragic failures of leadership that a good part of Africa continues to live with today.
My encounter with Clément Kayishema in Kibuye was brief. He happened to be in the main square when I arrived and he asked what I was doing there. I tried to fob him off with something about assessing the refugee situation, but he ordered some soldiers to hold me in a crumbling lakeside hotel taken over by the army. The soldiers drank through the evening and passed out.
I slipped away in the night to talk to the nuns, who recounted in detail the events at the church. They told of the mobs armed with machetes, grenades and guns, and how Kayishema had told the priest to walk away or die. Then he led the massacre, wielding a sword. Those who survived the initial onslaught of explosives and bullets were hacked to death or lined up and clubbed one by one. Some of the women were gang raped and had their eyes gouged out. Many of the killers were from the town. The nuns recognised them: teachers, civil servants, policemen, peasant farmers.
After three hours of listening to the nuns, I made my way to the church to see first-hand the evidence and then get out of town before dawn. My four-hour drive to the Zaire border was dotted with roadblocks manned by Hutu militiamen with clubs, machetes and guns; but by then most of the Tutsis were dead, so they were usually more drunk than menacing.
I was back in Kibuye a couple of weeks later. It was a Sunday and the people were shuffling into the church, neat in their best clothes. Someone had tried to scrub the place clean, but the smell of the torrent of blood that seemed to have worked its way under the very skin of the church was still unbearable, and worshippers prayed with cloths held to their faces.
The church had a new Hutu priest. He was available because he had overseen the bulldozing of his former church in another part of Rwanda, with its Tutsi congregation still inside. The priest made no mention of the dead. Some of the worshippers denied there had been a massacre; a woman who said it was all a lie refused to look at a foot sticking out of the ground beside her.
Rwanda was about as catastrophic a failure of leadership as Africa has seen. The genocide has been explained away as the unleashing of ancient ethnic hatreds and the legacy of the European colonial obsession with the spurious science of racial hierarchy, which in this case regarded Tutsis as genetically superior to Hutus. All of that played a role, but the unleashing of what was intended to be the final solution to the "Tutsi problem" was a raw power-play by an educated elite that feared losing control to democracy and power-sharing with Tutsi rebels. An entire government, military and a large part of the population was organised to hunt down and murder hundreds of thousands of people, which they did with remarkable success by killing close to a million in 100 days.
In the following weeks, as the government of murderers retreated in the face of a rebel onslaught, the prime minister, Jean Kambanda, told me how the Tutsis had brought it on themselves. The chief of staff in the defence ministry, Théoneste Bagosora, the architect of the slaughter, attempted to portray the mass murder as a spontaneous bloodletting born of fear and anger that no one could stop.
I met Bagosora a few times, but it was only a few weeks after the genocide that I sat down to talk to him properly. He was in Zaire along with about a million other Hutus who had fled defeat. Perched on his chair, a satellite phone at his side and flashing gold jewellery, Bagosora was unapologetic, belligerent and conflicted. On the one hand he was clearly pleased with his handiwork in organising the slaughter of about 800,000 people. On the other, he needed to maintain the fiction that the killings were a spontaneous outburst of anger against Tutsis. So he settled for questioning that it had happened at all.
"People say Bagosora did this or that, that I have the blood of the Tutsis on my hands. But where are all these people who were killed? If they died it is because they are rebels or because the people were angry with them. They didn't need Bagosora to tell them who to kill," he said. "But it's true that the Tutsis are trouble. Now they have taken over the country, a Hutu country. We will fight them again until all the Tutsis are gone."
Bagosora was a cold, frightening figure. The head of the UN mission to Rwanda described meeting him as like shaking the hand of the devil. Yet, like others who have wielded so much power of life and death, he might in different circumstances have been mistaken for a lowly civil servant.
Out of all this also came Sosthene Niyitegeka. The Hutu, Seventh-day Adventist preacher had a small shop, a wife and nine children to protect. But he saw what was about to occur with moral clarity as the Hutu militia, headed by the village primary school teacher, handed out crate-loads of grenades "like sweets", as Niyitegeka put it.
When a Tutsi woman, a nurse with her children in tow, knocked on his door he let her in. A day or two later there was another woman on his doorstep. She had been stripped naked, carved up by machete and had nearly lost her arms.
Niyitegeka's reputation drew others - businessmen, civil servants, peasants - to his house. "They were the kind of people that, if you hid them, you could get yourself killed for. Some were really desperate. Running by night, hiding by day," he said.
After 10 days he was sheltering 104 people in his house and the maize field out the back. But members of the the Hutu extremist militia, known as the Interahamwe, were watching, and Niyitegeka knew he had to find better hiding places. He appealed to those neighbours he trusted to do the decent thing.
Others weren't so co-operative, but the preacher knew a thing or two about who was sleeping with who - the kind of thing that makes people co-operative. In a daring move, he sent people he trusted to drink in the bar where the militiamen tanked themselves up on beer before beginning their hunt for human victims.
The spies sent back word and, over the following weeks, a sinister form of hide-and-seek unfolded as Niyitegeka moved Tutsis between about 30 houses, always keeping one step ahead of the Interahamwe. Sometimes dozens at a time were hurried into the maize fields or the hills as the militia hunted their quarry.
At one point, Niyitegeka persuaded the local council that the militia members were always drunk and thieving from people's houses, and should not be entrusted with the search for Tutsis. So the council appointed the pastor to lead it, and he appointed a group of friends who were hiding Tutsis to help him. When the rebels arrived and the Interahamwe fled, every Tutsi hidden by Niyitegeka was still alive.
Most Hutus did not take a direct role in the genocide. Many passively opposed the murder of their Tutsi friends and neighbours. But only a few actively resisted it. I asked Niyitegeka why he did it.
"Any person could see this was wrong. How could killing children be right? How could it be right to kill the neighbours you have lived with all your life? But Rwanda is a strange country. People do things because the government tells them to. They do not think for themselves. When these leaders say: 'Kill your neighbours while we get rich,' they do not think that is wrong.'"
I had much the same discussion with another Hutu. Theoneste Nzigiyimana was a bank cashier. A badly battered woman who had been raped and beaten, Madalena Mukariemeria, stepped up to the counter. Behind her was a Hutu militiaman, and Nzigiyimana quickly realised the woman's life depended on her being able to give the armed man money. The cashier looked at Mukariemeria's account and it was virtually empty. So Nzigiyimana withdrew 20,000 francs - just £30 but a large amount in Rwanda at the time - from his own account and handed it to the woman.
In the coming weeks, Nzigiyimana handed over a lot more cash, then took out loans when his own money ran out to help save 10 Tutsis and their families. This at a time where mobs of armed militia were terrorising the population and butchering anyone who helped Tutsis.
"I was seeing the leadership was doing things that weren't good, so in my heart I knew it was wrong," he told me. "These are people we used to share things with, living together, marrying each other, working together."
Rwanda left its mark on everyone, Hutus and Tutsis, peacekeepers and aid workers. Reporters too. I agreed to testify against Kayishema, the governor who organised the massacres in Kibuye, at the international tribunal for Rwanda. The prosecution wanted me for one small thing: to establish that he continued to wield authority at a time when he claimed to have been stripped of power.
There is a debate among reporters over whether we should take the stand at international courts, but it seemed difficult to me, after writing of the blood on the hands of western leaders for abandoning the Tutsis, to then refuse to make a small contribution to what little justice there was for the dead and survivors. Kayishema is serving life in a prison in Mali.
The international tribunal has done a good job of capturing and trying those responsible. Bagosora, the mastermind of the genocide, was convicted and jailed for life along with many of the military and political leaders who oversaw the slaughter. But the trials were protracted and seemed distant to the survivors and those rebuilding their lives.
The Rwandan government came at it differently. A few months after testifying at the international tribunal, I watched three men and a woman tied to wooden posts and shot in public in a Kigali stadium for their role in the genocide. Another 18 people were executed on hilltops across the country before crowds of taunting and cheering survivors. The executions were widely condemned. Some recoiled at the medieval practice of killing people in front of a baying crowd. Amnesty International said they would do nothing for reconciliation in Rwanda. That wasn't the point. Almost no one had apologised for the genocide. The only regret among those who organised it was that they had failed to carry through the extermination of the Tutsis. In the absence of remorse, the survivors wanted a price to be exacted for the destruction of their families. It was hard not to agree with them.
I watched one of those hauled before the firing squad with particular interest.
Froduald Karamira was the leader of a Hutu extremist faction whose call to murder pounded across the airways at the height of the genocide. That he was a Tutsi who reinvented himself as a Hutu and became a fanatic to prove his loyalty only added to the horror. When he wasn't on the radio, Karamira was on the streets killing by example.
I met Karamira a few times and sat through his trial on a wooden bench behind him at a packed and dilapidated old court in Kigali. For three days, he again fascinated and appalled Rwandans with a performance that swung from defiant denial of reality to a taunting of the court, all of it broadcast on the radio. He knew he would be shot, and told the judges he would be happy to die if it made the Tutsis happy.
But the bravado fell away as the witnesses spoke. One listed all the members of his family murdered at Karamira's behest. They included his wife, five children, mother, four sisters and two nephews. I spoke to Karamira some time later in prison. He didn't regret a thing.
He was shot in the stadium in which he had led many rallies denouncing Tutsis, and from which he made some of his radio broadcasts. His execution left me cold. As I thought back on the immense suffering caused by Karamira and his cohorts - the slow tortured deaths by machete, the pain of the Tutsi orphans who could barely comprehend what had happened, the women murdered slowly after they were gang-raped and infected with HIV - my long-held view that the death penalty was wrong, no matter what, fell away. Before Rwanda, I could not have imagined saying this, but I would not have saved Karamira even if it had been in my power. I looked at him and believed he deserved to die.
The genocide, though, proved to be just a beginning. Two million Hutus fled Rwanda as the Tutsi rebels seized power. Tens of thousands died of cholera on a hellish landscape of volcanic rock in Goma, as the sky darkened with ash. It smacked of divine retribution, except that so many of the dead were children.
Africa is still living with the legacy 15 years later. What began as civil strife in a tiny country reverberated across central Africa, bringing down one of the continent's longest standing dictators, Mobutu Sese Seko, and drawing a host of countries into the subsequent wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Millions died in the perpetual conflict that followed.
Rwanda had other consequences, too. Guilt over the west's failure to act prompted the British intervention in Sierra Leone that put an end to its rebel war and horrific crimes against civilians. Rwanda went on to become a regional power of note, drawing parallels with Israel as a country driven to fight by the need to survive. But the killing and dying in eastern Congo continues on a terrible scale, throwing up difficult questions about one of the most complex and interesting African leaders of these times, Rwanda's president Paul Kagame - for some in the west, the great new hope for Africa.
The former Tutsi rebel leader who ended the genocide has been heralded as the Abraham Lincoln of Africa, a visionary dragging Rwanda away from ethnic politics and dependency on foreign aid. But Kagame has also been condemned as bloodthirsty tyrant, whose army has exploited western guilt to suppress political opposition at home and allow his army to murder and plunder its way through Congo.
The Rwandan leader is intelligent, articulate and hardened by a streak of ruthlessness. He has a better grasp of reality than many of Africa's power brokers. At home, Kagame has embarked on the ambitious project to change the way a nation thinks about itself. As one official put it to me, Rwandans are like steel; they were bent to think one way about Hutus and Tutsis for 40 years and now they have to be bent back. But if it's done too hard or too fast, they will break.
Kagame also seems determined to shift his country away from its historic dependence on foreign aid, with imaginative schemes to turn it into the IT hub of central Africa. There has, quietly, been plenty of vengeance for the genocide over the years - but the state has also sought to rehabilitate and reconcile as it grapples with the reality that it does not have the resources to try and imprison all of the guilty. And yet it sometimes seems that the survivors are marginalised and looked down upon by this new English-speaking Tutsi elite, which grew up in exile in neighbouring Uganda and came back to take over a country.
Across Rwanda's border with Congo, it is another matter. Kagame's army has as much blood on its hands as any of the myriad of armed groups that have killed and plundered their way through that desperate, vast country. For years the Rwandans got away with it, but the perpetual suffering of the Congolese has begun to erode the moral authority bestowed on Rwanda's leadership by the genocide. Still, Kagame is viewed by many, including his friend Tony Blair, as the hope for the future. He may be. Or he may just be another desperate attempt by the west to latch on to a leader with promise.
Where almost no one looks for moral example any more is South Africa.
Mandela's legacy was squandered over the years, sometimes through the realpolitik of international relations but, more disturbingly, by the authoritarian tendencies of his successor, Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki took over the presidency in 1999, offering the vision of an African renaissance that would not only change how Africa was governed, and the relationship between the people and their rulers, but how the rest of the world saw the continent. South Africa by then had the most progressive constitution in the world, even though Mandela was initially none too happy about the entrenching of gay rights.
A decade later, Mbeki's failed leadership is principally remembered for sacrificing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people while he fiddled around in league with a group of maverick scientists who questioned the causes of Aids and the established methods of keeping HIV-positive people alive. Mbeki's blocking of the life-saving drugs to millions of people was his greatest crime, but his stature was further eroded abroad by his malign manipulation of Zimbabwe's political crisis to help keep Mugabe in power. When he wasn't squandering South Africa's moral authority over Zimbabwe, Mandela's successor was wasting it at the UN security council protecting Burma's military regime.
South Africans have other concerns too, principally Mbeki's legacy of a self-enriching, authoritarian and sometimes corrupt ruling elite, and his undermining of the institutions of South Africa's new democracy to pursue his political enemies and protect friends such as the country's police chief, who was consorting with, and probably taking money from, the mafia and trying to cover up a murder.
Through it all, there has been a steady rise in corruption amid a shameless pursuit of money by political leaders who equate wealth with liberation. As Mbeki's former spokesman, Smuts Ngonyama, famously put it, he himself "didn't join the struggle to stay poor".
It's an uphill task to persuade South Africans that the ANC isn't soft on corruption when the party is putting so much energy into keeping its leader and candidate in April's presidential election, Jacob Zuma, from going on trial for bribery and racketeering. The ANC is shameless in its tolerance of corrupt officials. When Tony Yengeni, the party's former parliamentary chief whip, was convicted of fraud as part of an arms deal, he was carried to the prison gates on the shoulders of ANC officials as if he were a hero.
Among those on hand to cheer him was Baleka Mbete, now South Africa's deputy president. The authorities saw to it that Yengeni served just three months of his three-year sentence, and he is again serving in the highest echelons of the party.
The ANC's answer to an array of revelations of corruption in its ranks has been to abolish the independent investigations unit that brought the prosecutions against Zuma, Yengeni and others. Yet in the midst of these spreading abuses, courageous voices stand out again. A lot more lives would have been lost, and democracy corroded even further, if it hadn't been for a courageous collection of South Africans who struggled against apartheid, but who were prepared to break a taboo and criticise the liberation movement.
Zackie Achmat and his Treatment Action Campaign spoke up for those doomed by Mbeki's Aids policies: poor and working-class black people. Their vigorous agitation, on the streets, through the unions and in the courts, held Mbeki and the ANC up to the light of public scrutiny and accountability in a way that had not happened before. Mbeki's ludicrous pronouncements were ridiculed, his lies challenged, his misrepresentation of statistics exposed. Achmat won the day in the courts, and forced the government to supply the life-saving drugs. But they achieved more than that. They opened the door to other legitimate criticisms of the ANC government, particularly on economic policy and the abuse of power; criticisms that a few years earlier might have been regarded as a betrayal of the liberation struggle. This in turn may have gone a long way to rescuing South African democracy, and it's a trend being seen in other parts of Africa, too. The "big men" failed. The new breed was a letdown.
There is, however, plenty of reason for continued caution. The African Union instinctively leapt to the defence of Sudan's president after he was indicted as a war criminal, and it has just elected the repressive and murderous Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, as its chairman.
It says a lot about the state of the continent's leadership that the world's biggest cash prize, millions of dollars offered by a Sudanese-born British telecommunications entrepreneur, is given to African leaders for giving up office without plundering the national coffers. It is, essentially, a reward for following their constitutional duty.
But perhaps now, bad leaders will matter less than in the past. The growth of civil society, a broader and more critical media, access to the wider world through satellite television, the web and mobile phones, and even, in some cases, privatisation of the economy, are laying the ground for what has so often been lacking in the past. A younger generation is more willing to challenge and demand that governments do what they are elected to do. There are a rising number of voices willing to say no to what is wrong.
But I fear it will take another 20 years to realise the fruits of all that.
• Chris McGreal starts work as the Guardian's new Washington correspondent next week. The Guardian's new Africa correspondent is to be David Smith, at present a senior reporter on the Observer


text: from human-made towers in asia to earth-made peaks in california, half-dome presents a unique form of skyscraper. there is no elevator that will wisk you up to the top of this rock. in its place there is a make-shift ladder consisting of precarious two by four's and stringy steel cables anchored to the rock. the flimsy cables defy you to brave up to the climb. breathtaking panoramic views open up in every direction, as if you needed any more breath taken out of you. if you look closely, you will notice this "ladder" and a few brave souls in the climb. after hours of hiking up to the base of this mammoth rock, a pile of gloves from past curteous climbers greets you at the start of the climb. stacked flat rock sculptures and elated people welcome you at the top, not to mention one of the greatest feelings of exhaustion and satisfaction.

subset: commoncrawl


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Check out our responses to frequently asked questions about Jewish people and the Christmas season.
Most people confuse joy with feelings of satisfaction and personal well-being based on favorable circumstances or fun occasions. But circumstances can change and occasions can disappoint. Joy is different.
Find out why without Hanukkah, there would be no Christmas.
The gospel of John was written for the purpose of evangelizing the reader. The author clearly states, …these [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name" (John 20:31). Not...
Christians can use this special season to share the good news of Messiah in a sensitive manner. Here are some answers to the most frequent questions concerning the Christmas season and the Jewish people.
Some have raised the question: "If, as the New Testament declares, Yeshua was born of Mary while she was still a virgin, how could he inherit the Davidic line from Joseph, who was not his physical father?"


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There has been no breakthrough in the field that has had a greater impact than Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection, ICSI.
When first proposed by Dr. Van Steirteghem* in Belgium, the concept of directly injecting an entire sperm into an oocyte was thought to violate all that we thought we knew about the fertilization process. Even if successful, the procedure was felt to bypass the laws of natural selection and there was concern that a rash of abnormal babies would be the result. We know now that these were unwarranted concerns. ICSI has become a routine procedure in most fertility clinic laboratories.
Initially used exclusively for severe male factor infertility, ICSI has now acquired additional indications. Poor oocyte quality, thickened zona pellucidae, advanced age, limited number of oocytes due to poor response and moderate male factor infertility are some of these new indications for ICSI. Very recently, cyropreserved oocytes have been fertilized by ICSI and the resultant embryos have given rise to live birth IVF success rates. This procedure will undoubtedly be applied in more settings in the future and may even become the method of choice for fertilizing all oocytes so that there are no unexpected fertilization failures and to avoid polyspermic fertilization.


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Jeff Byers: Real Healing Can Begin With Time
Now, the healing can begin.
I have heard this phrase more often than I can count over the course of the past nine months. The healing began long ago but people keep puncturing the stab wounds and the bleeding never seems to stop. The Jerry Sandusky scandal was shocking in so many ways on so many levels. The psychological scabs will forever remain with the true victims of the crimes and with our community as a whole.
Hopefully, the survivors of abuse can find true peace and justice and lead productive, healthy lives. Hopefully, this community can truly heal – never forgetting the need to truly stand guard for children and always remain alert against predators and potential predators. I don't think this community needs to turn its back on football to prove that it understands the gravity of the situation.
I still believe it is possible to be a football fanatic – to support your coach and your team – and also take a strong position against child rape. I don't buy that the "football culture" at Penn State led to a cover-up of sexual crimes against children. I think a misplaced sense of loyalty and an inability to comprehend the true nature of what was being alleged is what led to magnitude of the scandal at Penn State.
The healing, we were told, began when Joe Paterno was fired and the teams gathered at the middle of the field before the Penn State/Nebraska game last season. The healing really began once Bill O'Brien was hired. Then the healing began again when Sandusky was convicted. Then, once the statue came down, the healing could truly begin.
Alas, it wasn't until Penn State so readily accepted the sanctions of the NCAA that the real healing began. There have been several other moments over the past nine months that have seemed to mark for some the initiating of the healing process.
There is no single healing process applicable to all. Some will heal through time and reflection. Some will heal with the help of others and with newfound knowledge. Some will heal with humor and other coping mechanisms.
For the healing to truly continue – for it has in fact begun, although to what degree is a matter of perspective – we, the alumni of Penn State, need several things to happen. We need as many facts to be put on the table as possible. We need the trials of Gary Schultz and Tim Curley to be resolved. We need a thorough investigation of The Second Mile and what transpired with the leadership of that organization.
We need a thorough investigation of Tom Corbett and his role with the investigation and his ties to The Second Mile. We need as much information as we can gather to either confirm or rebuke the long litany of rumors and suppositions that are out there regarding the entire scandal. We need true reform by, and of, the Board of Trustees and by the Penn State administration (note: true reform is not saying you are now accountable and you are transparent, it is actually being accountable and making records accessible).
We need a national search for the best possible president and the best possible athletic director. It is true that Rodney Erickson and Dave Joyner stepped into their roles during a difficult time and have done the best they can. It is possible that Penn State won't get top-notch applicants to those positions given the circumstances.
But we owe it to the students, the student-athletes and the University to provide the best leadership possible. Few would argue that under extremely challenging circumstances, Penn State did get a great leader in Bill O'Brien. It is certainly possible that the University could find similar right fits for the President and Athletic Director jobs as well.
We also need perspective that perhaps only time will give us. It is doubtful that we will ever know, factually, what was going through the minds Joe Paterno, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz and Graham Spanier after the 2001 reporting by Mike McQueary.
What they actually thought may or may not have happened and the motives behind not going to authorities will forever be debated and regardless of what comes of the pending trials, some will forever believe all were good men who were completely fooled and others will believe they were evil men who hid their true nature from the public.
My best guess, and it is just that, is that they were good men who should have been able to see that there was a very real threat but willingly chose to stay loyal to a coach they could not comprehend was capable of such crimes against children.
I'm not sure what really comprises the healing process in a case like this, but I am certain it has begun and am hopeful that someday it will be completed for all involved.
Recent Columns:
- Jeff Byers: Few Winners Emerge in Wake of Sandusky Verdict - June 26, 2012
Jeff Byers has been the wrestling team's traveling announcer since 1990.
More articles by Jeff Byers →


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Web-based social networking is a key advertising channel for organizations of all sizes. The regular inquiry a couple of years back, "for what reason should our business utilize online networking?", is currently being supplanted with, "by what means can our business develop with web-based social networking showcasing?".
As a web-based social networking advertiser, this makes me exceptionally energized. What doesn't make me energized is what number of organizations are as yet attempting to showcase via web-based networking media without an archived methodology. In this post, you will take in the seven stages your business must take to make a successful online networking advertising technique.
- Set Up Social Listening Mechanisms Early on to Stay on Top of Mentions and Responses The smartest social media business presence is one that acknowledges its audience and converses with them. To know what your audience is thinking and saying about your brand, it is important to have a powerful social listening tool. Social mention, for instance, lets you watch and measure keywords that you pick (which could be your company's name). It covers blogs, notes, and even comments so the entirety of social's landscape. Monitor your mentions and respond to each of them as you would in conversation with a person.
- Introduce Analytics Into the Mix for Valuable Marketing Insights
If your aim is to grow and consistently keep that going, you'll have to bring in an analytics step at some point, because you can get better only when you know what's working and what's not.
The internet has a plethora of analytics tools that can help with this part of your social media strategy, but you need one that is easy to use and provides sufficient insights at an affordable price.
Read More : Inspiration Marketing And Social Media
- Encourage Social Connections So as to Create More User-Generated Content
Again, a clever way to avoid the need to create your own content. As E-commerce platforms, you are particularly in a good position to use user-generated content, both on your social platforms and on your websites.
Hold selfie contents. Create catchy Twitter hashtags and do quick campaigns around them. You could schedule a week's worth of Tweets using that hashtag in 30 minutes. Discern a way to make your social connections use the product in a social media share. Plenty of ways to do this.
Encouraging social shares involve some interaction with your social community. Spend 10 minutes a day just saying nice things to people or doing something easy but meaningful to them, and it will come back to you when you least expect it. This phenomenon of investing in relationships on social media is referred to as "social capital" and is mighty valuable.


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Waterbury woman in court in neighbor's fatal stabbing
WATERBURY -- A Waterbury woman is scheduled to be arraigned on a murder charge, accused of stabbing her neighbor to death.
Police said Darlene Morey, 56, stabbed Daniel Edmond, 54, Friday at the home of third neighbor whom they had gone to visit.
Witnesses told police that Morey and Edmond got into an argument at home on Scott Road, before she grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the chest.
He died at Saint Mary's Hospital.
She is being held on a $1 million bond and was scheduled to be in court on Monday morning.


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A specialist addiction treatment and rehabilitation centre in Woking, Surrey
Located near Chobham in Surrey, Priory Hospital Woking is one of the country's most respected addiction rehab hospitals. Our beautiful country house setting, complete with extensive grounds, delivers clinically excellent addiction treatment and rehabilitation in a tranquil and relaxing environment. The exceptional addiction treatment that we offer at Woking is developed and led by our diverse, multidisciplinary team of addiction psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, nurses and other highly trained addiction specialists. All treatment is tailored according to your individual requirements, and empowers you to address your addictive behaviours, develop lifelong coping strategies and achieve lasting recovery.
We have the expertise at Woking to deliver high quality addiction treatment and therapy for substance addictions such as alcohol and drug addictions, as well as a range of behavioural addictions including gambling, love and sex, shopping, and internet addictions. We are also able to offer a comprehensive, medically assisted withdrawal detoxification process for drug and alcohol addictions, as required, delivered in a safe and controlled environment. Our medically assisted detox programme is the safest and most effective way to detox.
We provide an evidence-based programme that is tailored to individual needs, all structured within NICE guidelines. The Addiction Rehab Programme at Priory Hospital Woking is an intensive, 28-day residential programme. As part of this, we will introduce assignments according to individual needs and specific issues. You will also have the opportunity to alleviate any physical symptoms that you may be experiencing as a result of your addiction, through our detox process, as well as participating in a rigorous therapeutic programme in order to address the underlying triggers and causes for your addictive behaviours and patterns, and help you to develop healthier ways of managing life as you go forward from treatment.
- 99% of patients from the Woking Addiction Treatment Programme stated that they would recommend us to a friend
- 98% of patients from the Woking Addiction Treatment Programme stated that they were treated with respect and dignity during their stay
- 93% of patients from the Woking Addiction Treatment Programme stated that they felt involved in decisions made about their care and treatment
- 96% of patients from the Woking Addiction Treatment Programme reported overall satisfaction with the quality of the care that they received
Addiction treatment at Woking takes an integrative approach. Integrative therapy, or integrative counselling, is a combined approach to psychotherapy that brings together different elements of specific therapies. Integrative therapists take the view that there is no single approach that can treat each patient in all situations. Each patient needs to be considered as a whole, and counselling techniques must be tailored to their individual needs and personal circumstances. We also draw from the well-known 12-Step addiction treatment approach, which provides a set of guiding principles outlining a pathway to recovery and supporting the ethos of change.
It goes without saying that substance and behavioural addictions can have a hugely detrimental impact on your quality of life, and can cause a whole host of long-term problems. However, it's important to know that these complex conditions are treatable, and the most crucial step in order to commence with effective, professional addiction treatment is to seek help. At Woking, our expert addiction treatment team work in collaboration with our patients to develop person-centred care plans. You will be involved in all decisions made about your care and benefit from a truly bespoke treatment experience, in order to produce the most positive and long-lasting outcomes for you as an individual.
Free, no-obligation addictions assessment at Priory Hospital Woking
At Woking, we understand that seeking help for your addiction can be one of the most difficult decisions that you ever have to make. That's why, prior to admission, we offer a free, no obligation addiction assessment with one of our qualified addiction therapists, which usually lasts for 90 minutes. This allows us to explore your unique addiction and recommend the best treatment options for you. It also provides you with the opportunity to:
- Meet face to face with a member of our expert addiction treatment team
- Gain an understanding of the background and potential causes of your addiction
- Discuss your unique needs, challenges and options
- Explore the impact that your addiction is having not only on your life, but on the lives of those who are closest to you
- Discuss your proposed addiction treatment plan, which will be bespoke to you
- Ask any questions that you may have on Woking's Addiction Treatment Programme
- Take a look around our welcoming centre and meet our specialist addiction treatment team
This initial assessment will be conducted in complete confidence and can be scheduled at a time that suits you. Our aim is to put your mind at ease and help you to understand the journey that you will be taking towards a healthier, happier, and addiction-free life.
Free aftercare for 12 months
At Priory Hospital Woking, we know that recovery, much like addiction, is a process and not a single event. As such, in order to support you in the first year of recovery, we offer 12 months of free aftercare once you have completed your 28-day programme. This involves weekly therapist-led support groups, talks, advice and useful contacts, which contribute to the ongoing development of our patients, as well as providing them with a strong support network. We will also call you every three months, with your permission, to check in on how you are getting on and may also recommend that you attend some short-term one-to-one sessions to offer you support as you adjust to your work and home environment. We also offer a weekly family support group, free for 12 months following treatment, to help to support your loved ones.
In addition, you will finish the Addiction Treatment Programme with a personalised Continuing Care Plan and we are dedicated to supporting you in your ongoing transition from hospital back to your day-to-day life.
Crisis care at Priory
Priory's customer service team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to ensure that those in crisis can be signposted to the best possible support, as quickly as possible. The specialist teams at our residential facilities can help to stabilise those in need of immediate assistance, including providing access to medically assisted withdrawal detoxification for drug and alcohol addictions, where required. Call us today on: 0800 840 3219.
For more information on the exceptional addictions and mental health services offered at Priory Hospital Woking, and how we can help you or a loved one, call us today on: 0800 840 3219 or submit an online enquiry. You can also arrange your free, no obligation addiction assessment online.
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Book a FREE Confidential Assessment at your Nearest Priory Hospital Today.
- Mental Health Treatment
- Addiction Treatment
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- Alcohol Rehabilitation
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- Anger Management
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- Cannabis Addiction
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- Ecstasy / MDMA Addiction
- Exercise Addiction
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- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Personality Disorders
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- Prescription Drug Addiction Treatment
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When we lived in Philadelphia many years ago, we used to go to La Colombe's first location in Center City, not only for the coffee but most importantly for the delicious pastries. For health reasons, we don't drink coffee that often but for the old times sake, we went to one of the La Colombe locations in D.C. to see if we still like the coffee. Their cappuccino and latte were fine but the hot chocolate and mocha were not that chocolaty at all.
My husband liked the cappuccino.
It was light on chocolate and heavy on coffee.
Kouign Amann
It tasted a little stale.
My brother liked the latte better than my hot chocolate. That does not say much!
Hot Chocolate
Very bad and not chocolaty at all. It was too watered down!!


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Melco Syncrets Inc. was newly established on April, 2016 as a subsidiary of Melco Holdings Inc. – holding the most well-known and largest computer peripherals manufacturer "Buffalo Inc." in Japan. On Feb, 2014, Buffalo Inc. launched Audiophile NAS Project to present the world`s first audiophile grade source component to access, store and deliver Hi-Res Digital Music without any of the compromises of computers and their peripherals, then debuted MELCO N1 Series at UK on Nov, 2014. To enter into the audio equiment business, Melco Syncrets Inc. became an independent company inherited Melco Audiophile NAS Project from Buffalo Inc. in 2016.
Melco Audio
About Melco Audio
The 1st Generation N1Z and N1A Series have achieved great success, changing NAS to a real "Music Library" therefore MELCO N1 Series are both music store and UPnP server, and are also a source for a USB-DAC. MELCO N1 Series are highly appreciated by Hi-Fi magazine Journalists internationally. For example, MELCO won the Server of the year Hi-Fi Awards for 2016, HI-FI ChoIce RECOMMDNED in Hifi Choice Issue 397 2015, HIFICRITIC RECOMMENED in HIFICRITIC 2015, AVforums RECOMMENDED AWARD in avforums 2015, Hi-Fi News EDITOR`S CHOICE in HI-FI NEWS both 2015 and 2016 , also MELCO N1A received The Absolute Sound Editor's Choice Award for 2016 in US.
Other Melco Audio products available. Please ask.


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Sometimes doing work for school causes stress. Studying for tests and preparing for large projects can take a toll of you mentally and emotionally. You want to do your best but know much is required to create what is necessary to meet academic standards. Many students get stress from homework and that's common for any academic level. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to ensure you do your best without pushing yourself too hard leading to stress. Here are some suggestions to consider before your next assignment.
Focus on Easy Parts First
Some homework stress statistics say it helps to look for ways to make doing the work easier. The easiest parts of an assignment standout like a sore thumb. You begin to get answers and ideas in your head about how to complete those parts. You can start there and then review what you have left that takes longer to complete. Others may start with challenging elements first and save the easier parts for last to make wrapping up the assignment much easier. Consider how much of your work would be done if you focused on the easier parts first. Is your paper 30, 40, or 50 percent done at this point?
Use Time Wisely
Time management may decrease homework stress on students. Time management is a skill to develop over time. Sometimes you can schedule things in advance and get thrown off at the last minute when things change unexpectedly. Consider having time set aside for your work and stick to that time. Upon reviewing your assignment consider homework assistance options available in case you need them.
Pair Up on Tough Assignments
Why work by yourself? If you have the chance to pair up with a peer take it. Working with someone may reduce homework stress since the work is shared among others and not just one person. Some get a tutor to guide them or check their work if they choose to do the work themselves. Others may hire a professional writer to assist throughout the process.
Eat a Light Healthy Snack before Starting
Sometimes a snack can be helpful to encourage concentration. It helps to get a snack before tackling your work or proceeding with homework help. If you plan to work on your paper for a while have a light healthy snack such as trail mix, nuts, or yogurt. Others may use a sweet treat as a reward and something to look forward to upon completing the work.
Doing homework writing is a common assignment that leads to stress. Choosing to have a healthy snack, a small nap, working with a buddy, time management, and changing your focus to easier or smaller areas of the work can make a difference to keep stress levels low. Find what works best for you and consider trying new ways to keep your stress down. It will get easier before you know it to get schoolwork done.


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Assign a project to a class
You can assign any individual Codio project to a class.
From the Classes area, click on your class to open it.
Click on the Units tab, centre left of your screen.
Click on the blue plus sign, top left of the page, and choose Add Project.
Select the project you want to assign.
You will show the following screen. In most cases, you would select Use project's stack. However, if you have installed any components other that those in the project's stack or made changes outside the code workspace then select the Create new stack option.


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It has been a busy couple of weeks for me. It was my husband's 30th birthday on the 12th and I had a big surprise birthday party planned out. I'm happy to say my plans were a huge success! Turning 30 can be such a depressing age. You are no longer in your twenties, it just feels like, geez 30 years of my life has now gone by. You reflect on what you have and haven't accomplished. Some a sad by the fact that you are not going to get your youth back. My husband has a lot to be proud of and I am glad we were able to celebrate with lots of family and friends.
As for me, I have switched out of my Pocket Malden into my Personal Holborn. I needed to get a monthly insert and after failing miserably to print out Ray & Steve's inserts, I needed something else, and quick. So, I went to my local Staples. Almost no luck, they didn't have anymore 2012 refills. Luckily they had some 2012/2013 planners on sale. So, I found this Weekly/Monthly Day Runner.
I wanted only the monthly pages. Of course I had to do a little tweaking. I ripped them out of the the binding.
I cut the frayed edges and taped it with washi tape. Next, I trimmed tape side a bit so it matches the size of filofax pages. Then, with my handy dandy Rapesco Punch, I punch out the holes. And WALA!!!!
It works out pretty well for now. I like how the months are tabbed already, it helps not having to add extra bulk to the filofax.
Here is how my week went. A bit stressed out lately with my two kids. They really test my patience. Sometimes my stress just gets the best of me, and suddenly all my problems just come out at the same time. So, I found this quote that made me feel better:
"Be strong now because things will get better. It might be stormy now, but it can't rain forever."
Also, I decided to give this a try. I took some of my stickers and punched them to put in my filofax. Just having the stickers there and seeing it makes me smile. =)


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Most of the world is aware that Apple released OS X Lion exclusively on the Mac App Store. While this model of digital distribution guaranteed enough copies for everyone who wanted one, and cut down on the possibility of heat effected lines. However, what this didn't provide was a physical backup of the install files.
Lion natively creates a recovery partition on any Mac it is installed on. While that will be fine for most cases of simply reinstalling the OS, it has its negatives. If you hard drive becomes corrupted, or physically breaks, you will need to start over from Snow Leopard. That sounds very annoying, but developers have been working hard to make it a non-issue.
While it is possible to create a Lion install disk manually, it can be a little complicated. Thankfully, a French developer has made it a little easier with a free tool called Lion DiskMaker. In order to make use of it, you will need a copy of the Lion install file.
While that isn't a problem if you have not yet installed Lion, it requires a little trickery to get said file on a machine already running Lion. In order to do so, open the Mac App Store and click the "Purchased" tab while holding the "Option" key. You will then be able to re-download the install file, and thus create an installation disk.
Once you have the Lion installer, you need to download and unzip Lion DiskMaker. Once that is done, you need to put your destination disk into your machine. You can use a DVD or a flash drive of size 4GB or greater. Once you are set up, run Lion DiskMaker. You will notice that the app is written in French, but its still very easy to use.
Step 1. – When you first open the app, you will see this window. If you are using a DVD, click the button that says "DVD." If you are using a USB thumb drive, click the one that says "USB."
Step 2 – The next window that pops up will be this one. Click the button on the right, and you will be taken to the selection window shown below. For this example, I used a USB key, so I picked that drive eon my system and hit "Choose."
Step 3 – Once you choose a disk, the program will begin to run. It will unpack the needed files from the Lion installer, and then proceed to burn them to your disk of choice. This can take up to a half an hour, so be patient.
Step 4 – After the burning is complete, you will see this window. You can click the button on the right to exit the application, or the one on the left to create another disk. Once you are done, be sure to unmount/eject your drives correctly, and place the finished media in a safe place.
As you can see, its easy to create your own Lion install disk. While I hope an English version of this app is available soon, the French version does the job and is very easy to use. if you have any questions or comments, let us know in the comments section.
Update: A version of Lion DiskMaker is available in English. You can grab it here. Thanks to Guillaume Gete for the email and the link to the US version.


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Dogs are tactile creatures, and we love to touch them. That pairing ought to create a great mutual benefit society. You'd think this would be a no brainer. But ironically, I've seen countless problems arise in this realm. How we touch, where we touch, where dogs have conditioned their owners not to touch, all can be significant factors in the overall behavioral balance of a dog.
Dogs who come into training here are touched A LOT. All day long they are taught to stand quietly in front of me, body nestled into my legs, and tolerate being touched from front to back, top to bottom. I want all the dogs who go through training here to relish the hands of their owners. No guardiness, no mouthing, no nipping, no wheeling the head around to threaten, no growling – just soft, responsiveness.
There's a lovely, old fashioned expression in the dog world. We talk about having a dog who "comes soft to the hand." It's that dog who comes confidently but not obnoxiously into our body space, gently soliciting touch and standing quietly to receive it. It's an essential piece of the training here. Owners often remark on how much more intimate , friendly, and confident their dogs are after training which always pleases me immensely. Training is all about enhancing our relationship with our dogs not diminishing it. Touch plays a significant role.
Because our hands can have such a dramatic impact on the animals in our care, and their physical and mental well being, I have spent a lifetime developing techniques to be used by dog owners and handlers. These have been assembled into a system of physical therapy for dogs called Canine Kinaesthetics tm. Individuals who are interested in learning more about Kinaesthetics tm can go to our companion website, www.dogbodycare.com for full details on the Canine Protocol.


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Ha, I found this post in my drafts folder! I wrote it back in November.
It definitely isn't the worst story I have about this question. Remember that time the guy at church refused to believe I wasn't pregnant, even though I had only been married for a few months and was still years away from getting knocked up? Well, this is nowhere near as bad.
But still, pretty darn irritating.
Wow, I don't know how to feel about this question right now. I am,
but I'm only 7 weeks- it isn't the baby making me look like that! A big
burrito and a large soda would have had the same effect.
Last time I was about 17 weeks when my tummy had this shape. So, I get why you asked. But it's still frustrating.
make a pact, you guys. Stop asking this. Unless you see the baby
kicking, or the mother is standing in one of those classic pregnancy
poses, or you can see the baby crowning.
Especially that last one.
Next time I'm going to say "Oh, no, I'm just bloated and really gassy."
And then we can all feel awkward together.
What are your experiences with this question? Have you ever been the one who asked, and then regretted it? Because, honestly, I have too.
Or do you have a question you dread more?


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Creed Royal Water was created as a tribute to Britain's young royals, the next generation of the House of Windsor heirs. A perfect balance of effervescent citrus and a brisk coolness brings us this invigorating scent. A vibrant, clean and understated classic. Made in France.
Editor's Notes: Royal Water is a beautifully peculiar creation, infusing an otherwise typical combination of citruses and herbs with something solidly floral and chypre-like in nature. This elegantly recalls the vintage giants of classic perfumery: the warming balsamic core of Mitsouko and Pour Monsieur through musk and amber, the floral emphasis of Eau Sauvage and Diorella with a virile drop of cumin, and the biting piquancy of old world eaux de colognes enlivened with juniper berry. A fragrance strictly for the connoisseurs.
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Fragrance Family: Fougere
Main Note: Citrus Accord
Concentration: Eau de Parfum
Occasion: A beautiful citrus, with enough heft to be worn in the cooler months. Appropriate at all times!
Made in France.
Bergamot, Lemon, Mandarin, Vebena, Clementine, Peppermint, Cumin, Basil, Pepper, Pink Berry, Ambergris, Tonkin Musk.
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Water Filled Barriers
What are water filled barriers?
Water filled barriers are sturdy plastic barriers providing security and crowd or traffic control. They are often used on construction sites and at public events for safety and separation and around road works to guide traffic, provide temporary road blocks and protect pedestrians.
Why choose SafeSite for your water filled barriers?
✓ We offer a choice of water filled barriers, which are suitable for a wide range of applications and your specific requirements.
Manufactured from UV stabilised polythene, our water filled barriers create sturdy visible safety barriers quickly and easily.
✓ Lightweight when empty, they can easily be stacked when not in use and transported around the UK in large quantities to be installed and filled on site when required.
✓ Our water filled barriers are designed with a unique interlocking mechanism allowing the creation of a solid wall in a straight line, or to include left and right hand curves as required.
✓ Available in an assortment of colours, the most popular water filled plastic barriers we supply are in red and white providing maximum visibility.
✓ We can deliver multiple metres of water filled barriers at once and they can be installed quickly by just a two man team, saving you both time and money.
✓ Once filled, our water filled barriers provide a strong, substantial barrier that meets all safety requirements for both construction sites and road works.
✓ Our water filled barriers are also fitted with anti-tamper plugs to reduce the risk of vandalism and theft to ensure that once they are in place and filled, they'll stay put.
✓ As well as offering complete safety and protection, our water filled barriers are all completely reusable and extremely durable.
Available to buy or hire, when you are looking for water filled barriers for any short or long term project, one call to SafeSite Facilities is all you need. We can advise on the best water filled barrier system to fit your needs, supply and install the barriers in no time at all and remove and collect when they are no longer required, all at very competitive prices. Call us today for a free quote.


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Latest Teaching Recruitment Notification
Here through this article, candidates can check the Latest Govt Teacher Job. You will also find out the Latest Vacancies for B.Ed Teachers, Teaching Jobs in Govt Schools on Contract Basis. Well, you can also find out the Teacher Job Vacancy for Freshers. We update all the Latest Teaching Jobs Notification on daily basis. Through this article, you will find the Regular Teaching Jobs in India.
Teaching Jobs 2020
Every year lakhs of candidates are showing interest in Teaching Jobs 2020. Job seekers who are looking for the Teaching Jobs on the internet can stop searching. This page is created to provide the latest and upcoming Teaching Job Openings 2020 across India. Contenders who want to career bright in the teaching filed can go through this page thoroughly. In a year various schools, colleges, universities are releasing the employment notifications for the Teacher vacancies. Both the freshers and experienced candidates can check the latest Teacher Vacancies from this article and apply for it. To get the Teacher job the candidates have to give the test first. The main test to secure the Teaching Job is CTET and TET.
If you are seriously trying to get the job in the Government Schools the candidates have to clear the Teacher Eligibility Test first. The candidates who clear the Teacher Eligibility Test can do as the teacher for the primary classes and secondary classes. Both the Central Governments and State Governments in India will conduct the TET Test. Mostly every state will conduct their own Teacher Eligibility Test to hire the skilled and talented aspirants for the teacher positions. The Central Body of Secondary Education (CBSE) will conduct the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET). To clear this test the candidates have to acquire a minimum of 60% marks in the test. Those who got minimum marks can apply for the vacancies in the Central Government Teaching Jobs. Some of the organizations such as KVS, NVS, AEWS are under the Central government jobs.
Upcoming Teacher Vacancies 2020
There are several routes in the Teaching. The candidates can choose their own depending upon their interest. The candidates who are applying for the Pre-Primary Teacher Jobs have to possess Diploma ((ECCE)/NTT) or equivalent. For the Elementary Teaching Jobs, the eligibility is Diploma in ETE/ D.Ed/ BTC. Contender of BA/ B.Com/ B.Sc has to do B.Ed to get the teacher job as the Secondary Teacher Jobs. To apply for Senior Secondary Teacher Jobs aspirants have to do B.Ed after MA/M.Com./MSc./equivalents. To apply for the higher education jobs the candidates have to possess Ph.D., NET, SLET from any college/ University/ Institute. Candidates can also check the Government Jobs In India from our website.
The Educational Qualification for the Teacher for Technical Level/ Professional is given here. Many of the candidates who complete B.E/BTech/ M.E./MTech./Ph.D, B.Lib.Sc/M.Lib.Sc./ M.Lib.Sc and UGC NET can apply for Central Government Teaching Jobs 2020 through our website. Most of the candidates are not able to find out the exact link to apply for various Teaching Jobs 2020. In order to help them, we are providing the direct links on our website. Candidates can click on the link and check the details carefully. Later on, can be procced for the application process. The authorities of the organization conduct the selection process as per their norms.
Government Teaching Jobs 2020
As per the latest information, most of the job fighters are seeking for the jobs in Teaching Sector on the various websites. To reduce the search burden on the aspirants and to save the time our team had collected the latest and upcoming Teaching Jobs 2020 from various sources and equipped here. Most of the aspirants are failed to get the genuine info regarding the teaching jobs. This page gives you the entire details like eligibility criteria, selection process, age limit, salary details etc. Coming to the age criteria the candidates should have 18 years as the minimum age limit. The Upper age limit may vary from position to position.
There are a numerous number of educational institutes such as colleges, schools, universities educating the students across India. Almost in all the major cities, such as Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Indore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Kolkata, Bangalore and some other are releasing the employment notifications for the Teaching Jobs 2020. So all the candidates who are applying are advised to check the eligibility criteria before applying. Every Government Organization will conduct the Teacher Eligibility Test first. This exam consists of two papers. Paper I consists of topics related to Classes I to V. And the Paper II comprises of topics from Class VI to VIII. To perform well in this test we are providing the Syllabus and Previous Year Questions Papers on our website.
Teacher Job Openings 2020
Candidates think that the teacher job is easy, but their thinking is wrong. All the candidates have to put maximum concentration and full knowledge on the particular subject. At the time of recruiting the officials will check these skills in the candidate. So be confident and clear all the rounds carefully. For more updates regarding the Teaching Jobs 2020 stay in connecting with our website Freshers Now on regular basis.


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Computer Becomes Super Slow?
Your PC becomes really slow recently? It really takes a long time for you to complete a business document? It really takes a long time to edit a taken photo or recorded video? It really takes a long time to open a commonly-used program, game or related tool, needlessly to say, it often freezes or crashes when you try to use them as before? Really want to know why your computer becomes so slow and also speed it up with proper solutions? All right! Read this article and learn how to fix this slow computer issue with ease.
The speed of computer can decrease gradually due to many reasons. Here are some main ones that cane be helpful for you:
1). Virus
When your computer is virus-infected, your computer will not only become unbearably slow, it will also pop out some strange Windows, hide your important computer files and even seriously damage your computer system files to cause worse computer issues.
2). Too many junk files
When your computer has too many junk files, including some useless files, photos, videos, browser histories, tempt files, Recycle Bin folder files and more, the computer performance also can be negatively affected.
3). Set too many start-up programs or tasks
The computer speed also is able to be reduced when you have set too many start-up tasks. The start-up programs or tasks are some tools that will be automatically started every time when you boot your computer. No matter whether they are used or not, they will be opened and occupy your computer resources. That's also why they will also affect the computer speed.
4). Computer drive is too full
When computer drive is nearly full, your computer speed will also be affected. That's also why people are always suggested to keep computer drive with enough free space.
5). Open too many websites or browsers at the same time
Open many programs, files, sites or browsers at the same time? That absolutely could be why your computer becomes super slow. Just close the useless ones timely.
6). Install Too many antivirus tool
How many antivirus tools have you installed on your PC? It is always better to install one or two antivirus programs on the same computer in case of some unwanted software conflicts.
Really can not bear the too dull performance of your computer any longer? OK! Here are several measures for you to speed up your computer again:
1). Clean computer trash files and remove unnecessary programs.
In order to speed up your slow computer, the first thing you are supposed to do is to clean all useless computer trash files and remove unnecessary programs. Here are some several tips you can follow:
Firstly, open all installed web browsers and clean all browser histories.
Secondly, clean all useless temp files like this: click "Start" to open "Run" tool and type in "temp", and at last, delete all unwanted tempt files there.
Thirdly, empty the computer Recycle Bin to remove all deleted stuffs.
Fourthly, uninstall all unnecessary programs and also delete all related files and folders.
Fifthly, apply computer "Cleanup tool" to help you like this: Start=> Programs => Accessories => System Tools => Disk Cleanup.
Overall, always timely remove useless files, folders and programs to release the free space of your computer.
2). Keep computer internal/external hard drive clean
After cleaning your computer, you'd better also clean the connected internal/external hard drive, flash drive or other storage devices. Just manually delete all useless files, videos, photos, songs or the related drive stuffs. Of course, in order to keep the storage device with enough free space, you also can defragment this drive like this: right click the selected storage device to open "Properties" and tap "Tools" to press "Defregment Now".
Please Note: Remember to make drive data backups well elsewhere in advance.
3). Reduce the start-up programs and tasks
Check the start-up lists and remove all unnecessary programs and tasks like this: right click "Start" to highlight "Properties", click "Start Menu" tab to press "Customize" button and then, remove the unwanted programs off from the start-up menu.
4). Remove extra antivirus program off from your computer.
In case that your slow computer issue is aroused by too many antivirus tools, immediately remove unnecessary one and leave the most effective one for your future use. Of course, if it is caused by virus infection, also remember to thoroughly scan your computer and remove all possible dangerous viruses there.
5). Add computer memory
If you also can not speed up your computer successfully after you do have tried all the mentioned methods above, you can try to add memory for your computer to fix that supper slow performance issue.
1). Save copies of everything well on different drives before deleting or cleaning everything.
Before you start to speed up your computer, in case of losing or deleting anything crucial, you are always suggested to move all important computer data to another drives or storage devices well.
2). Double check the selected files and folders before any delete, format or drive cleaning-up.
If you do have forgotten to prepare computer data backups on other drives or devices, always double check the selected files and folders before any delete, format or drive cleaning-up. Of course, if you really cannot afford to lose some crucial stuff, it is always never too late to make computer data backups well.
3).The deleted or erased computer drive data can be restored with drive data recovery software.
Also have mistakenly deleted or erased some important compute programs, files and more when trying to speed up your computer? OK! Go check the computer Recycle Bin immediately. If you still cannot take all lost data back from Recycle Bin, no worry! Stop what you are doing right now and download deleted file recovery software to scan this computer thoroughly. And then, take your original computer drive data back as much as possible.
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As I was reading Dave's top 5 political influences, I couldn't help but notice that we shared two of them. I do want to mention that I don't name these people necessarily because I agree with everything they did (all people are flawed), but because of their influence on my way of thinking (or not thinking, as the case may be). I'm also going to cheat, and list a couple together. In no particular order, I'll list my 5:
John Adams/Thomas Jefferson & Abraham Lincoln: Being a student in part of the American Revolution, you can't help but be awed at the profound role that Adams & Jefferson played in the formation of the young Republic. For one of the first times in history, a small group of people, professional revolutionaries in a very primitive sense, who had written voluminously about how a free republican should be structured, had the opportunity to build what they wanted. Both are tragically flawed figures: Adams for his Alien & Sedition Act, and Jefferson for being a hypocrite in some of his most important things that he wrote.
I tend to lean towards Adams as the more sympathetic of the two of them, as he was at least consistent in doing what he said, and saying what he did, while Jefferson's actions ran against his principles on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, they both played an extremely important role in the conscious formation of the young Republic, and the famous Adams-Jefferson correspondence, which fills a volume or two, is an incredible archive of the informal musings and debates of two of the greatest American intellectuals of their generation.
I add Lincoln to the mix, because his role in dealing with one of the first great crises that could rend the Republic in two. Again, while history has certainly painted him very well, Lincoln stands as a model, often repeated, of how American politicians would deal with the issue of race. Lincoln didn't believe in racial equality, and many of his actions were cautiously timed and carefully thought through so as not to anger his more conservative constituents, as well as frustrating those who (in my humble opinion) were both more principled and radical in their quest for racial equality. This pattern would be repeated during the Civil Rights movement, with almost the same verbatim arguments.
Also Read : QCA to be broken up
I add, like Dave, Eugene Victor Debs. Again, the man wasn't perfect, but there is something so sublime, and so pregnant with meaning to boldly declare, "I am for socialism because I am for humanity." Being one of the first clear and articulate voices of American socialism would be enough to put him high on any progressive's list, but add to that his fight for the freedom of expression, culminating in his defeat in Debs v United States, and his relentless pursuit of electoral success even running from jail, winning nearly a million votes in 1920. Like his many socialist brethren across the world, Debs joined the tiny minority in America who opposed World War 1, which is what ultimately led to his jailing.
Also, like Dave, I add Trotsky and Lenin. Like Adams and Jefferson, they were men who made it their lives' work to understand the nature of revolution, the means to create revolution and what to do afterwards, and a progressive would be remiss in not studying their example, as much for its positives and its negatives. The fate of the Russian Revolution seems over with the fall of the Soviet Union, but their analyses of revolution, capitalism, and imperialism remain relevant to this day.
I add William Brennan (in office '56-'90) and Thurgood Marshall ('67-'91), who may be a bit unknown to the British crowd. Both were United States Supreme Court Justices, and the most clear and articulate voices of their generation and (sadly, for my generation) to the present of a progressive view of the law. Brennan's writings, although sometimes criticized as pompous and arrogant, demonstrate the empowering possibilities of our laws. I'll give just a little quote: "Our amended Constitution is the lodestar of our aspirations. Like every text worth reading, it is not crystalline. The phrasing is broad and the limitations of its provisions are not clearly marked. Its majestic generalities and ennobling pronouncements are both luminous and obscure. This ambiguity of course calls forth interpretation, the interaction of reader and text." What's so important about Brennan's philosophy is that it rested on a modern interactions between interpreter and text, not the historic searching and speculation that is so marked in conservative originalism.
Thurgood Marshall was one of the greatest lawyers to ever appear before the Supreme Court. As a lawyer with the NAACP, he worked to desegregate the armed forces with President Truman, overturn restricted covenants, and in his greatest triumph, overturn Plessy v Ferguson with Brown v Board of Education in 1955, ending school segregation and eventually all segregation, at least at a legal, if sadly, not at a practical level.
As a judge on the Supreme Court, besides being a fervent proponent of civil rights, offering his fellow Justices his first-hand experiences with the degradations of discrimination, he was also a zealous opponent of the death penalty with Justice Brennan, both of them opposing it out of principle, supporting every single subsequent defendant (of hundreds, if not thousands) who petitioned the Court to oveturn their death sentence. Marshall's greatest strength, I think, lay in his recognition of the practical applications of decisions, and their actual effect on human life, as shown in his concurrence/dissent in Hogson v Minnesota (1990) where he vehemently opposes a law that would require minor, unemancipated women wishing an abortion to notify both parents or seek a judicial bypass (justify their decision to a judge):
"This scheme forces a young woman in an already dire situation to choose between two fundamentally unacceptable alternatives: notifying a possibly dictatorial or even abusive parent and justifying her profoundly personal decision in an intimidating judicial proceeding to a black-robed stranger. For such a woman, this dilemma is more likely to result in trauma and pain than in an informed and voluntary decision."
Lastly, I add my family. From disparate roots, they all embodied a profound sense of social justice. My mother's father was a labor leader in the City of New York before working as a social worker. My father's parents met in a "Walking Club" (I guess you walk together in these clubs) of the YCL (America's Komsomol) and remained Party members for much of their lives, imparting to my father his activism, making him a very active member of New York's anti-war movement and progressive movements in his youth. Both my parents passed on their values to me.


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You're not here by accident. God loves you. He wants you to have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus, His Son. There is just one thing that separates you from God. That one thing is sin.
The Bible describes sin in many ways. Most simply, sin is our failure to measure up to God's holiness and His righteous standards. We sin by things we do, choices we make, attitudes we show, and thoughts we entertain. We also sin when we fail to do right things. The Bible affirms our own experience – "there is no one who does good, not even one" (Psalm 14:3). No matter how good we try to be, none of us does right things all the time.
People tend to divide themselves into groups - good people and bad people. But God says that every person who has ever lived is a sinner, and that any sin separates us from God. No matter how we might classify ourselves, this includes you and me. We are all sinners.
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
Many people are confused about the way to God. Some think they will be punished or rewarded according to how good they are. Some think they should make things right in their lives before they try to come to God. Others find it hard to understand how Jesus could love them when other people don't seem to. But the good news of Christ is that God DOES love you! More than you can ever imagine! And there's nothing you can do to make Him stop! Yes, our sins demand punishment - the punishment of death and separation from God. But, because of His great love, God sent His only Son Jesus to die for our sins.
"But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!" (Romans 5:8)
For you to come to God you have to get rid of your sin problem. But, in our own strength, not one of us can do this! You can't make yourself right with God by being a better person. Only God can rescue us from our sins. He is willing to do this not because of anything you can offer Him, but just because HE LOVES YOU!
"He saved us - not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy." (Titus 3:5)
It's God's grace that allows you to come to Him - not your efforts to clean up your life or to work your way to Heaven. You can't earn it. It's a free gift.
"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is God's gift - not from works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
For you to come to God, the penalty for your sin must be paid. God's gift to you is His son, Jesus, who paid the debt for you when He died on the Cross.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
Jesus paid the price for your sin by giving His life on a cross at a place called Calvary, just outside of the city walls of Jerusalem in ancient Israel. God brought Jesus back from the dead. He provided the way for you to have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus. When we realize how deeply our sin grieves the heart of God and how desperately we need a Savior, we are ready to receive God's offer of salvation. To admit we are sinners means turning away from our sin and selfishness and turning to follow Jesus. The Bible word for this is "repentance" - to change our thinking about how grievous sin is, so our thinking is in line with God's.
All that's left for you to do is to accept the gift that Jesus is holding out for you right now.
"If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, reswulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation." (Romans 10:9-10)
God says that if you believe in His son, Jesus, you can live forever with Him in glory.
"For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
Are you ready to accept the gift of eternal life that Jesus is offering you right now? Let's review what this commitment involves:
- I acknowledge I am a sinner in need of a Savior - this is to repent or turn away from sin
- I believe in my heart that God raised Jesus from the dead - this is to trust that Jesus paid the full penalty for my sins
- I confess Jesus as my Lord and my God - this is to surrender control of my life to Jesus
- I receive Jesus as my Savior forever - this is to accept that God has done for me and in me what He promised
If it is your sincere desire to receive Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior, then talk to God from your heart.
Here's a Suggested Prayer:
"Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and I do not deserve eternal life. But, I believe You died and rose from the grave to make me a new creation and to prepare me to dwell in your presence forever. Jesus, come into my life, take control of my life, forgive my sins and save me. I am now placing my trust in You alone for my salvation and I accept your free gift of eternal life."
If you have trusted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, please let us know. We want to rejoice in what God has done in your life and help you to grow spiritually. If you do not have a Bible please call the church office (937.878.8629) and we will give you one! Part of the Christian life is growing together with a body of believers. We would love to have you as a part of our fellowship!
If you have questions or concerns you would like help with, please call or write and let us know. We're here to help you understand the love that Jesus is offering you for free, no matter who or where you are.


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Here is a podcast that needs to be listened to by non-speaking individuals, speech therapists, any therapists that work with non-speakers and families with non-speakers. I am featured in this podcast and I hope that you will find it helpful.
Where I Have Been
"I just finished my first year at Widener University after transferring so I could take classes on campus for the first time. It went better than expected! I am happy to say that I have a 4.0 GPA after two semesters. I made the change because I wanted a more typical college experience where I could sit in a classroom and work with peers in person. It felt like my last school didn't think I could accomplish this and I wanted to prove myself. I knew this meant a lot of work, pressure, and stress but it was worth it.
Everyone I have worked with has been very flexible and welcoming, which really let me show what I am capable of. I put a lot of effort into not disrupting the classroom while others were listening, which was not easy being so quiet and still. I expected to be judged or misunderstood for my behaviors but everyone was accepting or too busy to care. My professors were very helpful, and one even has a son who types to communicate.
I still do not feel very independent there, I had a lot of support to help me which makes me feel awkward but is also needed. I expected more socializing but everyone was very focused on school, so my communication style was not a problem. It is hard to quickly type during class discussion but professors made sure I had a chance to share my thoughts. When I worked in a group with others we used email to communicate and it felt good to work equally without accommodation."
The Times are Changing
Times change and things change. Change is hard. After being denied the opportunity to take classes in person (rather than just online) at my current college, I have decided to take in-person classes at another local university. This is hard. Change is hard.
Listening to Music in a Different Way
I would like to spend some time talking about music. Almost everyone I know has a type of music they like. Music, for me, is either a cacophony of tones that make no sense or it is precise and exact in tones that meld in my head to calm or excite.
Sometimes this can be just a single portion of a song, perhaps 5 seconds, but it is a sound or combination of sounds that is balanced and is wonderful to listen to. It is something that at times I crave desperately, and I will listen to portions of a song over and over many times to keep hearing those tones that I crave.
To others this can look strange but it is an example of how differently we can experience the world. It is very common that people ask me to listen to music the way they do. This ignores that we might have different wants or needs when we are listening to music. For example, to certain individuals the lyrics or entire song can be meaningful. To me, sounds are meaningful. The way a vocalist's voice melds with an instrument, a tone an instrument makes in just a few seconds of the song are sometimes more meaningful to me in many different ways than the entire song.
I have to wonder if there are others that feel the same? Music is wonderful, but it is wonderful in a different sort of way for me than a typical individual.
I wonder how others might feel about this? Are there particular parts of songs you want to listen to over and over again just because you like the way that one particular part sounds? Do you listen to the whole song and then re-listen to it over and over again? How do our sensory needs differ I wonder?
Saying and Hearing… Words are Interesting
I often repeat words to myself out loud. These words are variable like "monopoly," "swim," and "airport." I was recently asked about this at a meeting. Basically, while I do enjoy going to the airport and other things because of the sounds, I also like hearing the sounds of specific words when I say them out loud.
I have been asked the reason behind this and I will try to explain. However, it is hard to do so in many ways. I hear myself speak differently at different times. I can hear tones in different words that sometimes are very interesting to me. However, if I hear another person say the same word, there is no interest.
Some tones are melodic and others have much dissonance to them. I may keep saying a sound or listening to a particular part of a song because it has a tone in it that I like to hear. I do wonder if it is my body telling me I need to hear this sound to help adjust some sensory issue my body is working out or if it just because I like it at that particular moment. I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that sometimes when I say words I get more excited and at other moments I get more relaxed.
So, take a minute and think about it? Do some words just sound more interesting to you? Do some sounds seem to "roll of the tongue" as the saying goes? Think of how this might be magnified in someone with sensory differences. I personally love the way some of the words sound and enjoy saying them. It hurts no one and it calms me.
Back Into a Routine
"Getting back into a routine" This is something I have heard a great deal lately. Is there a greater shift in our lives than in the autumn when returning to school and work after the summer break? I have a great deal of difficulty with change and for a person like me each little difference is massive. By now, most people are adjusted to the change, but for me it is still going on and it is still at its extreme.
Returning to school is exciting or anxiety producing for most people but for me it is a sensory barrage. Environments all change and each has new smells, lights, people and temperatures. Trees are louder in the wind. The heater smells very different from air conditioning. People wear different fabrics. The smallest change can be distracting or overwhelming.
I know that I will eventually settle in, but paper clips, staples, and everything else like that are all major players in the game for me at this time. They take a predominant role because I would rather focus on those than on the anxiety of change. I think that this is what happens every year – dealing with the anxiety of change. Right now I have, just like many of my readers probably have, many changes going on. I am starting new classes, new goals in therapy, changes in my routine and even changes in my living situation to a certain extent. All of this can seem overwhelming to me at times and then, as I said before, I need to get used to new sounds, new smells and new ways of dealing with those things.
The summer was great, but busy. Now it is time to get back into focus.
Keeping Busy
It has been a busy couple of months and I have neglected my blog a bit more than I intended to.
From February to July this year I was lucky enough to participate in a tech development contest organized by AT&T and NYU. The goal was to invite people to create new tech solutions for people with disabilities.
i was asked to provide feedback on each idea along with a diverse panel of people with and without disabilities. With me were three amazing advocates for accessability Xian Horn, Gus Chalkias, and Jason DaSilva. All of us have a different background and different challenges. we all brought our unique perspectives to the process.
Our role was to represent the end user and ask questions that might not occur to people without disabilities. hopefully this will lead to products that can help people become or remain independent. It was a wonderful experience that I was privileged enough with which to be involved.
Having said that, I am hoping that my readers check out the contest page and the wonderful videos about the exemplars so they can see what I have been up to. I hope to get back on a regular schedule now of posting regular blog entries and have some great ideas, so check back soon.