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Frequent Links
Open Access Articles- Top Results for Dialect
Journal of Phonetics & AudiologyStudy into the Health and Wellness of Appalachian English Dialect: A Portrait of an Endangered Dialect
International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human ResilienceThe Use of Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Post-Disaster Psychotherapy
Journal of Forensic ResearchA Case Study on Comparison of Male and Female Vowel Formants by Native Speakers of Gujarati
Journal of Psychology & PsychotherapyPsychometric Evaluation of the Life Problems Inventory, a Measure of Borderline Personality Features in Adolescents
Journal of Psychology & PsychotherapyThe Effects of a DBT Informed Partial Hospital Program on: Depression,Anxiety, Hopelessness, and Degree of Suffering
The term dialect (from the ancient Greek word διάλεκτος diálektos, "discourse", from διά diá, "through" and λέγω legō, "I speak") is used in two distinct ways. One usage—the more common among linguists—refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers.[1] The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class.[2] A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect, a dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed as ethnolect, and a regional dialect may be termed a regiolect or topolect.[citation needed] According to this definition, any variety of a language constitutes "a dialect", including any standard varieties.
The other usage refers to a language that is socially subordinated to a regional or national standard language, often historically cognate to the standard, but not derived from it.[3] In this sense, the standard language is not itself considered a dialect.
A dialect is distinguished by its vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation (phonology, including prosody). Where a distinction can be made only in terms of pronunciation (including prosody, or just prosody itself), the term accent may be preferred over dialect. Other types of speech varieties include jargons, which are characterized by differences in lexicon (vocabulary); slang; patois; pidgins; and argots.
The particular speech patterns used by an individual are termed an idiolect.
- 1 Standard and non-standard dialect
- 2 Dialect or language
- 3 Historical linguistics
- 4 Selected list of articles on dialects
- 5 See also
- 6 References
- 7 External links
Standard and non-standard dialect
A standard dialect (also known as a standardized dialect or "standard language") is a dialect that is supported by institutions. Such institutional support may include government recognition or designation; presentation as being the "correct" form of a language in schools; published grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks that set forth a correct spoken and written form; and an extensive formal literature that employs that dialect (prose, poetry, non-fiction, etc.). There may be multiple standard dialects associated with a single language. For example, Standard American English, Standard British English, Standard Canadian English, Standard Indian English, Standard Australian English, and Standard Philippine English may all be said to be standard dialects of the English language.
A nonstandard dialect, like a standard dialect, has a complete vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, but is usually not the beneficiary of institutional support. Examples of a nonstandard English dialect are Southern American English, Western Australian English, Scouse and Tyke. The Dialect Test was designed by Joseph Wright to compare different English dialects with each other.
Dialect or language
There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing a language from a dialect. A number of rough measures exist, sometimes leading to contradictory results. The distinction is therefore subjective and depends on the user's frame of reference.
The most common, and most purely linguistic, criterion is that of mutual intelligibility: two varieties are said to be dialects of the same language if being a speaker of one variety confers sufficient knowledge to understand and be understood by a speaker of the other; otherwise, they are said to be different languages. However, this definition becomes problematic in the case of dialect continua, in which it may be the case that dialect B is mutually intelligible with both dialect A and dialect C but dialects A and C are not mutually intelligible with each other. In this case the criterion of mutual intelligibility makes it impossible to decide whether A and C are dialects of the same language or not. Cases may also arise in which a speaker of dialect X can understand a speaker of dialect Y, but not vice versa; the mutual intelligibility criterion flounders here as well.
Another occasionally used criterion for discriminating dialects from languages is that of linguistic authority, a more sociolinguistic notion. According to this definition, two varieties are considered dialects of the same language if (under at least some circumstances) they would defer to the same authority regarding some questions about their language. For instance, to learn the name of a new invention, or an obscure foreign species of plant, speakers of Bavarian German and East Franconian German might each consult a German dictionary or ask a German-speaking expert in the subject. By way of contrast, although Yiddish is classified by linguists as a language in the "Middle High German" group of languages, a Yiddish speaker would not consult a German dictionary to determine the word to use in such case.
By the definition most commonly used by linguists, any linguistic variety can be considered a "dialect" of some language—"everybody speaks a dialect". According to that interpretation, the criteria above merely serve to distinguish whether two varieties are dialects of the same language or dialects of different languages.
A framework was developed in 1967 by Heinz Kloss, abstand and ausbau languages, to describe speech communities, that while unified politically and/or culturally, include multiple dialects which though closely related genetically may be divergent to the point of inter-dialect unintelligibility.
The terms "language" and "dialect" are not necessarily mutually exclusive: There is nothing contradictory in the statement "the language of the Pennsylvania Dutch is a dialect of German".
There are various terms that linguists may use to avoid taking a position on whether the speech of a community is an independent language in its own right or a dialect of another language. Perhaps the most common is "variety";[4] "lect" is another. A more general term is "languoid", which does not distinguish between dialects, languages, and groups of languages, whether genealogically related or not.[5]
Political factors
In many societies, however, a particular dialect, often the sociolect of the elite class, comes to be identified as the "standard" or "proper" version of a language by those seeking to make a social distinction, and is contrasted with other varieties. As a result of this, in some contexts the term "dialect" refers specifically to varieties with low social status. In this secondary sense of "dialect", language varieties are often called dialects rather than languages:
- if they have no standard or codified form,
- if they are rarely or never used in writing (outside reported speech),
- if the speakers of the given language do not have a state of their own,
- if they lack prestige with respect to some other, often standardised, variety.
The status of "language" is not solely determined by linguistic criteria, but it is also the result of a historical and political development. Romansh came to be a written language, and therefore it is recognized as a language, even though it is very close to the Lombardic alpine dialects. An opposite example is the case of Chinese, whose variations such as Mandarin and Cantonese are often called dialects and not languages, despite their mutual unintelligibility.
Modern Nationalism, as developed especially since the French Revolution, has made the distinction between "language" and "dialect" an issue of great political importance. A group speaking a separate "language" is often seen as having a greater claim to being a separate "people", and thus to be more deserving of its own independent state, while a group speaking a "dialect" tends to be seen not as "a people" in its own right, but as a sub-group, part of a bigger people, which must content itself with regional autonomy.[citation needed] The distinction between language and dialect is thus inevitably made at least as much on a political basis as on a linguistic one, and can lead to great political controversy, or even armed conflict.
The Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich published the expression, A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot ("אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמײ און פֿלאָט" "A language is a dialect with an army and navy") in YIVO Bleter 25.1, 1945, p. 13. The significance of the political factors in any attempt at answering the question "what is a language?" is great enough to cast doubt on whether any strictly linguistic definition, without a socio-cultural approach, is possible. This is illustrated by the frequency with which the army-navy aphorism is cited.
See also Mesoamerican languages.
In 18th- and 19th-century Germany, local languages of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum were reclassified as dialects of modern New High German although the vast majority of them were (and still are) mutually incomprehensible, despite the fact that they all existed long before New High German,[6] which had at least in part been shaped as a compromise or mediative language between these local languages.
To support the intended process of nation building even further, a vague myth of some common Germanic original language developed, and German dialectology began to name dialect groups after presumed and real groups of historic tribes having existed from BC to about 600 AD, from which they were assumed to have descended.[citation needed] Linguistic, historic and archeological evidence for such connections is scarce, meanwhile several such ideas were proven false, yet they led to several pertaining misnomers in German dialectology. Today, all diverse West Germanic local languages under the Standard German umbrella are collectively referred to as "German dialects", (including Frisian and Low Saxon ones, that are closer to Dutch)[citation needed] the vast majority of German speakers still believe, they were variations of "original" or even Standard German[citation needed].
The Balkans
The classification of speech varieties as dialects or languages and their relationship to other varieties of speech can thus be controversial and the verdicts inconsistent. English and Serbo-Croatian illustrate the point. English and Serbo-Croatian each have two major variants (British and American English, and Serbian and Croatian, respectively), along with numerous other varieties. For political reasons, analyzing these varieties as "languages" or "dialects" yields inconsistent results: British and American English, spoken by close political and military allies, are almost universally regarded as dialects of a single language, whereas the standard languages of Serbia and Croatia, which differ from each other to a similar extent as the dialects of English, are being treated by some linguists from the region as distinct languages, largely because the two countries oscillate from being brotherly to being bitter enemies. (The Serbo-Croatian language article deals with this topic much more fully.)
Similar examples abound. Macedonian, although mutually intelligible with Bulgarian, certain dialects of Serbian and to a lesser extent the rest of the South Slavic dialect continuum, is considered by Bulgarian linguists to be a Bulgarian dialect, in contrast with the contemporary international view and the view in the Republic of Macedonia, which regards it as a language in its own right. Nevertheless, before the establishment of a literary standard of Macedonian in 1944, in most sources in and out of Bulgaria before the Second World War, the southern Slavonic dialect continuum covering the area of today's Republic of Macedonia were referred to as Bulgarian dialects.
In Lebanon, a part of the Christian population considers "Lebanese" to be in some sense a distinct language from Arabic and not merely a dialect. During the civil war Christians often used Lebanese Arabic officially, and sporadically used the Latin script to write Lebanese, thus further distinguishing it from Arabic. All Lebanese laws are written in the standard literary form of Arabic, though parliamentary debate may be conducted in Lebanese Arabic.
North Africa
In Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, the spoken North African languages are sometimes considered more different from other Arabic dialects. Officially, North African and West Asian countries prefer to give preference to the Literary Arabic and conduct much of their political, cultural and religious life in it (adherence to Islam), and refrain from declaring each country's specific variety to be a separate language, because Literary Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam and the language of the Islamic sacred book, the Qur'an.
In the 19th century, the Tsarist Government of Russia claimed that Ukrainian was merely a dialect of Russian and not a language on its own. The differences were few and caused by the conquest of western Ukraine by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Thus the dialects in Ukraine eventually differed substantially from the dialects in Russia.
The German Empire conquered Ukraine during World War I and was planning on either annexing it or installing a puppet king, but was defeated by the Entente, with major involvement by the Ukrainian Bolsheviks. After conquering the rest of Ukraine from the Whites, Ukraine joined the USSR and was enlarged (gaining Crimea and then Eastern Galicia), whence a process of Ukrainization was begun, with encouragement from Moscow.
After World War II, due to Ukrainian collaborationism with the Axis powers in an attempt to gain independence, Moscow changed its policy towards repression of the Ukrainian language.
Today the boundaries of the Ukrainian language to the Russian language are still not drawn clearly, with an intermediate dialect between them, called Surzhyk, developing in Ukraine. The Regions of Crimea, Odessa, Donetsk and Luhansk however declare themselves Russian.
There have been cases of a variety of speech being deliberately reclassified to serve political purposes. One example is Moldovan. In 1996, the Moldovan parliament, citing fears of "Romanian expansionism," rejected a proposal from President Mircea Snegur to change the name of the language to Romanian, and in 2003 a Moldovan–Romanian dictionary was published, purporting to show that the two countries speak different languages. Linguists of the Romanian Academy reacted by declaring that all the Moldovan words were also Romanian words; while in Moldova, the head of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Ion Bărbuţă, described the dictionary as a politically motivated "absurdity".
Greater China
Unlike most languages that use alphabets to indicate the pronunciation, Chinese characters are developed from ideograms which do not always give hints to its pronunciation. While the written characters remained relatively consistent for the last two thousand years, the pronunciation and grammar in different regions has developed to an extent that the varieties of spoken language can be mutually incomprehensible. Linguists usually regard Chinese language as a family of languages rather than one language. As a series of migration to the south throughout the history, the regional languages of the south, including Xiang, Wu, Gan, Min, Yue(Cantonese), and Hakka often show traces of old Chinese or middle Chinese. From the Ming dynasty, Beijing has become the capital of China, and the Beijing spoken language has become more accepted as the common language. During the Republic of China, Mandarin Chinese was standardised as the official language, based on the spoken language of Beijing. Since then, other spoken varieties are often regarded as fangyan (dialects), although many linguists argue that they are different languages or topolects.[7] Cantonese is still the most commonly used language in Hong Kong, Macau and among some overseas Chinese communities, while Min-nan has been accepted in Taiwan as an important local language along with Mandarin.
Historical linguistics
Many historical linguists view any speech form as a dialect of the older medium of communication from which it developed.[citation needed] This point of view sees the modern Romance languages as dialects of Latin, modern Greek as a dialect of Ancient Greek, Tok Pisin as a dialect of English, and North Germanic as dialects of Old Norse. This paradigm is not entirely problem-free. It sees genetic relationships as paramount: the "dialects" of a "language" (which itself may be a "dialect" of a yet older language) may or may not be mutually intelligible. Moreover, a parent language may spawn several "dialects" which themselves subdivide any number of times, with some "branches" of the tree changing more rapidly than others.
This can give rise to the situation in which two dialects (defined according to this paradigm) with a somewhat distant genetic relationship are mutually more readily comprehensible than more closely related dialects. In one opinion, this pattern is clearly present among the modern Romance languages, with Italian and Spanish having a high degree of mutual comprehensibility, which neither language shares with French, despite some claiming that both languages are genetically closer to French than to each other:[citation needed] In fact, French-Italian and French-Spanish relative mutual incomprehensibility is due to French having undergone more rapid and more pervasive phonological change than have Spanish and Italian, not to real or imagined distance in genetic relationship. In fact, Italian and French share many more root words in common that do not even appear in Spanish.
For example, the Italian and French words for various foods, some family relationships, and body parts are very similar to each other, yet most of those words are completely different in Spanish. Italian "avere" and "essere" as auxiliaries for forming compound tenses are used similarly to French "avoir" and "être", Spanish only retains "haber" and has done away with "ser" in forming compound tenses, which are no longer used in either Spanish or Portuguese. However, when it comes to phonological structures, Italian and Spanish have undergone less change than French, with the result that some native speakers of Italian and Spanish may attain a degree of mutual comprehension that permits extensive communication.[citation needed]
One language, Interlingua, was developed so that the languages of Western civilization would act as its dialects.[8] Drawing from such concepts as the international scientific vocabulary and Standard Average European, linguists[who?] developed a theory that the modern Western languages were actually dialects of a hidden or latent language.[citation needed] Researchers at the International Auxiliary Language Association extracted words and affixes that they considered to be part of Interlingua's vocabulary.[9] In theory, speakers of the Western languages would understand written or spoken Interlingua immediately, without prior study, since their own languages were its dialects.[8] This has often turned out to be true, especially, but not solely, for speakers of the Romance languages and educated speakers of English. Interlingua has also been found to assist in the learning of other languages. In one study, Swedish high school students learning Interlingua were able to translate passages from Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian that students of those languages found too difficult to understand.[10] It should be noted, however, that the vocabulary of Interlingua extends beyond the Western language families.[9]
Selected list of articles on dialects
See also
- Accent
- Accents (psychology)
- Chronolect
- Creole language
- Dialect levelling
- Dialectometry
- Ethnolect
- Eye dialect
- Idiolect
- Isogloss
- Koiné language
- Register
- Literary language
- Nation language
- Regional language
- Sprachbund
- ^ Oxford English dictionary.
- ^ Merriam-Webster Online dictionary.
- ^ Maiden, Martin & Mair Parry. 1997. The Dialects of Italy. London: Routledge, p. 2.
- ^ Finegan, Edward (2007). Language: Its Structure and Use (5th ed.). Boston, MA, USA: Thomson Wadsworth. p. 348. ISBN 978-1-4130-3055-6.
- ^ "Languoid" at Glottopedia.com
- ^ see also: Abstand and ausbau languages § Change of roles during history
- ^ http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/spoken.htm
- ^ a b Morris, Alice Vanderbilt, General report. New York: International Auxiliary Language Association, 1945.
- ^ a b Gode, Alexander, Interlingua-English Dictionary. New York: Storm Publishers, 1951.
- ^ Gopsill, F. P., International languages: A matter for Interlingua. Sheffield: British Interlingua Society, 1990.
External links
- Sounds Familiar? — Listen to regional accents and dialects of the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
- International Dialects of English Archive Since 1997
- whoohoo.co.uk British Dialect Translator
- thedialectdictionary.com — Compilation of Dialects from around the globe
- A site for announcements and downloading the SEAL System
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The bigger, civic implications of Twitter breaking up with Tumblr
Join Tumblr on Monday (as I did) and you'd mosey through a little process. You'd pick a username, type in a password. Look at blogs the service recommends following. Then you'd get to a page which, a few days ago, would let you search Facebook, Twitter and your email contacts to find Tumblr blogs written by your friends.
Join Tumblr today? You'd only see Facebook and email. Twitter, as reported by Matthew Panzarino of the Next Web, told Tumblr it couldn't look through Twitter to find friends anymore.
The move's been roundly rebuked. But I guess I'm interested in why this specifically deprives the web of a forum. And to understand why, you have to go back to July 2011, when Google lumbered into social networking.
It was in that month that Edd Dumbill, writing at O'Reily and responding to Google Plus, articulated, in a clean list, exactly what a social network did. His little enumeration is still one of the best abstract statements about what social networking provides, and about what buried, social protocols it makes real:
Identity -- authenticating you as a user, and storing information about you
Sharing -- access rights over content
Notification -- informing users of changes to content or contacts' content
Annotation -- commenting on content
Communication -- direct interaction among members of the system
It's that first one which has gotten the most attention in the past year. Identity. It's the basis of Starbucks's new cashless system, the subject of a good amount of academic study since the 1960s, and the reason, on a stage last year, Google's then-CEO, Eric Schmidt, gave for why Google was making Google Plus:
Fundamentally, what Facebook has done is built a way to figure out who people are. That system is missing in the internet as a whole. Google should have worked on this earlier.
This is why Google Plus exists. As Tim Carmody wrote last year, social networks serve way more roles on the web than as just another inbox:
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter aren't just providing you with the digital equivalent of your mailing address, but also your driver's license, passport, car keys and credit cards.
According to a Pew study earlier this year, only about 15 percent of American Internet users tweet. But Twitter, for a good chunk of those 15 percent, has always been a much more extendable, much safer web validation tool than Facebook. Facebook's notion of private and public is mushy; I'm not even sure what I have lurking in the depths of my Timeline that I don't want others to see.
Twitter, though! What I've put on Twitter has always been public. The service is the web's street and bazaar. It's the online identity I'm most comfortable giving out -- which only makes me more likely to use the service to authenticate myself (and find my friends from it) around the web.
Marco Arment, writing at his blog, can't think of a reason Twitter would break up with Tumblr other than "the obvious one":
Twitter will now only permit large services to add value to Twitter, not get any value from it.
Twitter has only referred reporters back to its statement on Instagram:
We understand that there's great value associated with Twitter's follow graph data, and we can confirm that it is no longer available within Instagram.
Except replace Tumblr for Instagram. The whole thing is written in such a ham-fisted way -- like a bully fluent in corporatese -- that it just feels weird. But Twitter, despite its assertion that it "understands value," is acting like it has no idea what its doing: slowly choking off the ways that the bustling street and humming forum it controls -- where people are comfortable being who they are online, in public, with no worry about creepiness -- can get to the rest of the web. Do that in a city, and you'd wind up destroying the neighborhood.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to email@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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LONDON (MarketWatch) — Mohamed El-Erian is a giant in the world of investing, having built a hefty reputation at bond-fund company Pimco. But what most people don't know is that the investment influencer is also a committed fan of soccer — and that may well give him an edge when assessing Brazil's chances of getting a "bounce" from the World Cup.
With only days to go until the opening game kicks off, the clock's almost run out on taking a position in host Brazil's equities. But there still could be wider opportunities, if the immensely popular soccer tournament helps return the country to economic growth, El-Erian told MarketWatch.
Hopes were that Brazil would get a lift from the World Cup, but that promise has faded as the country struggles to be ready on time, despite spending an estimated $11.5 billion on preparations. The underlying issues holding back that preparation are the same ones dragging on the South American nation's economy, El-Erian said in a recent email interview.
In suggesting that, El-Erian has 14 years at the International Monetary Fund to lend his words weight. The 55-year-old is now chief economic adviser at Allianz and chairman of the President's Global Development Council. Until April he was chief executive and co-chief investment officer at Pimco, but he resigned over differences with the bond-fund giant's co-founder, Bill Gross.
MarketWatch: What kind of soccer fan are you, and how did you get that way?
El-Erian: I fell deeply in love with the game when I was very young, especially watching Egyptian league games and playing at school. This was reinforced later, particularly when I lived in Europe and got to watch regularly Dutch, English, French [and] Swiss league games on TV.
I also continued to play a lot, captaining the college teams at Queens' College [of Cambridge University]. I then played at Oxford, until I injured my knee in a very muddy and rather competitive game. Thereafter, it's been helping to coach my daughter's teams, watching games live and on TV, and the occasional kick-about.
MarketWatch: Which position did you play?
El-Erian: When I was young, I was a particularly poor player. As such, I tended to be picked last and put in goal, as no one else wanted to play that position! Sometimes I was even asked to play behind the goal, in order to retrieve the balls kicked out of bounds! Either I got better with age, or standards fell. By college, I was playing in the middle of the defense as a sweeper, with the occasional sprint to offense.
MarketWatch: How can investors trade on the World Cup? Is it too late to invest in Brazilian companies or assets — has most of the event been priced in?
El-Erian: Mostly the latter! Many of the sectoral themes have played out market-wise, and you would need some major unanticipated events to create a new configuration of opportunities and risks.
A more interesting question is whether the World Cup, as such, can end up influencing broader themes [in Brazil] that impact a broad range of assets, be they equities, local bonds, foreign bonds or the currency. In particular, the connection to the upcoming elections, the prospects for additional structural reforms, and the restoration of growth and lower inflation.
MarketWatch: Why won't the Brazilian economy get a boost from the games? If it doesn't, what are its next drivers for growth?
El-Erian: The boost will be quite a concentrated one, time- and duration-wise. As such, it is unlikely to alter in any meaningful way Brazil's longer-term growth trajectory, and the secular and structural issues that underpin it.
Like other systemically important emerging economies — including China, India and Mexico, among others — Brazil needs to evolve its growth model. When it comes to specific drivers, for example, it can no longer rely so heavily on supplying raw materials to China. Instead, it needs to develop more of its internal demand drivers, and do so efficiently and without falling back to old habits that have repeatedly proven insufficiently effective over time.
In terms of specifics, Brazil would need to consolidate the progress it has made in fiscal and monetary reforms by moving a lot more aggressively in a number of areas, and do so simultaneously in both design and implementation. These include addressing the bottlenecks that undermine competitiveness, improving public spending, making the tax system more pro-growth, enhancing productivity in the non-tradeable sector, educational reforms, etc.
As an aside here, the current example of Mexico's reforms is a good one for Brazil to study carefully.
MarketWatch: There's 11 pounds of gold in the FIFA World Cup trophy. Do you expect it to be worth more or less when the 2018 World Cup comes along?
El-Erian: More.
MarketWatch: That 2018 World Cup will be held in Russia. Will it be in a strong enough economic situation to host it, given its weakness now?
El-Erian: Yes, though the Russian economy is far from robust.
MarketWatch: Is there an impact on a country's chances of World Cup success from the number of overseas players in its domestic leagues? If so, is there an investing or economic lesson to be learned?
El-Erian: This has become quite a controversial issue, and for good reasons on both sides. Some leagues have been considering a return to the old days of more strict quantitative limits on foreign players. And the argument is that this would also help the exporting leagues that have seen their quality plummet as a result of the departure of their good players, who have gone to play abroad.
While I understand the arguments, I'm not sure I agree, as I think the quality of the game as a whole benefits from relative openness and movement of players. Moreover, the focus is increasingly shifting from domestic leagues to also regional ones.
MarketWatch: So who will win the 2014 World Cup? And which country is the "dark horse"?
El-Erian: This is a really tough question. Brazil is the favorite and rightly so. They are playing at home and have quite a talented team. Germany is also impressive and could well shine as the European team that wins the Cup in Latin America.
In terms of "black horses," I would keep an eye on Uruguay, Ghana and, yes, the U.S.
More must-reads from MarketWatch:
Hulbert: A stock-market prediction that's 'kind of scary'
Eastern Europe won't catch up with the rest of the EU
World Cup trade says Nike shares may be poised to fall: Canaccord


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This is the third installment in the our highly-acclaimed Master Post series "How Not to do Internet Privacy," brought to you by Blizzard/Activision. Today we're going to go with FAQ format!
Huh, what? What's going on?
Two days ago, Blizzard EU Community Manager Nethaera posted in the US General Forums about upcoming changes to the official WoW forums. While the majority of the changes range from "who cares" to "that's awesome!", one new feature in particular stands out - your REAL NAME, i.e., the name on your account, will now be displayed on all posts you make on the forums.
Wait, WHAT? Will this be retroactive? Do I need to track down and delete all the posts I've ever made to protect my privacy?
NO. US CM Bashiok posted a clarification of the new forum structure which states an entirely new set of official WoW forums will be launched with Cataclysm that follows these new rules. The current forums will "remain as-is" and will not be capable of displaying your RealID (as they likely won't have the capability of retrieving RealID information). It's unknown how long the current fora will be maintained. If you have RP posts or anything you wish to preserve up there, back them up now.
I heard that Blizzard employees will be exempt from this. Is that true?
No. Blizzard CMs Nethaera (US) and Wryxian (EU) have both posted reaffirming that Blizzard employees will participate in the RealID program as well.
I am really upset about this. How can I tell Blizz how I feel?
Snail mail address:
Blizzard Entertainment
P.O. Box 18979
Irvine, CA 92612
Information from their ESRB policy:
If you have any questions or wish to file a complaint, please feel free to e-mail us at firstname.lastname@example.com, call us at (949) 955-1382, or send a letter addressed to Blizzard Entertainment Privacy Policy, Attention: Privacy Policy Administrator, at 16215 Alton Pkwy. Irvine CA 92618-3616.
Blizzard, through its parent company, is a licensee of the ESRB's Privacy Online Program. If you believe that we have not responded to your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactory addressed, please contact ESRB directly at http://www.esrb.org/privacy/contact.jsp or:
ESRB Privacy Online
Attn: Director, Privacy Online
317 Madison Avenue, 22 Floor
New York, NY 10017
Another important way you can let Blizzard know of your displeasure is through your wallet & by canceling your account. what9000 makes a compelling argument for cancellation here. Please note that I make this suggestion with a heavy heart, and not from any lack of love for the game. Blizzard is a great company who makes a great game played by a great community, whose parent company and/or executives made a dangerous decision compromising the personal security of their users, most specifically those who already suffer some degree of oppression. My most fervent wish is that the mass cancelation will cause Blizzard to post a retraction and an apology in the next few days allowing everyone to resubscribe, and those who make the choice not to cancel should in no way feel unwelcome or unsupportive for their decision to continue playing the game we all love.
Finally, ilaniel has made a post asking for responses from the community to pass along to Blizzard employees. I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to comment on her post and make your feelings to Blizzard heard on this post.
But...why are they doing this? This makes no sense!
The stated reason is to "clean up the forums." On the battle.net forum where this information debuted, US CM Nethaera posted:
The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players -- however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven't been connected before.
As multiple posters here, in the so-called "megathread" where this info debuted on the WoW forums, and on other blogs/forums elsewhere have pointed out, this is an odd choice to go with when alternate solutions - such as heavier penalties for abusive language etc, hiring more moderators, using a Global ID to eliminate level 1 forum trolls - seem as though they'd be better suited to fixing the problem & without the privacy concerns inherent to sharing the legal names of the posters. What seems more likely is that Blizzard is tailoring their forum policies to South Korean and Chinese law which dictate that forums above a certain size must identify their users by full name. Further context - that the Starcraft II forums will debut this policy; that the Starcraft II launch is worldwide; and that Starcraft is ravingly popular in South Korea, hints that Blizz/Activision may be hanging their Western markets out to dry in order to conform to Korean/Chinese law. Further context: this source is old, but back when WoW hit the 10 million subscriber benchmark, the Asian market was larger than the US + European markets combined.
Hey look at this link, this guy posted his real name on the forums and people found all his personal info-
NO. wow_ladies has taken the official stance that the RealID changes are dangerous and unnecessarily dismissive of personal privacy, safety, and security. Please do not post, repost, or otherwise distribute links that contain the real-life information of other players, especially with the intent to harass. The admin team will screen/delete these links or comments as we see them.
List O' Links (Stats, Official Posts, Uncategorizable of this Category)
- Nethaera's original post on battle.net - contains full info on changes
- Nethaera's original post on the WoW US General Forums - currently 1907 pages long and counting
- Vaneras' original post on the WoW EU General Forums - currently 527 pages and counting
- Master Post on this topic #1, posted by fledglingoflove (1432 comments)
- Master Post on this topic #2, posted by noabsolutes (952 comments)
- Article positing that S. Korean law may be driving Blizzard RealID policy
- Information about a new Chinese law similar to S. Korea's
- Stalking in America: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey
- A Timeline of Blizzard & Activision
- Blizzard and Facebook's friendly social networking deal launches with 'StarCraft II'
- WoW.com - Customizing and opting out of RealID [ingame] PLEASE NOTE that due to SECURITY FLAW with RealID, ALL ACCOUNTS have opted-in by default. Read this post for step-by-step instructions on turning it off.
List O' Links (Blogs)
- Center for Democracy & Technology - Blizzard Looks To Chill Forum Speech with Real ID
- Electronic Frontier Foundation - New Blizzard Forum Policy Will Require Posters to Use Real Names
- Elitist Jerks - RealID soon to apply to all forum posts, other upcoming official forum improvements
- Empowered Fire - RealID and Forums
- Hellmode.com - Why RealID is a Really Bad Idea
- iscari0t - RealID Changes; The Very Real Ease of Stalking In The Internet Age. READ THIS IF YOU ARE AT ALL UNSURE ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT REALID
- MetaFilter - But my name really is Deathblood Backaxe
- pewter / mentalshaman.com - Real ID Saga Part One: Silencing Voices
- popehippo @ ontd_political - World of Warcraft maker to end anonymous forum logins (text of BBC.com's article)
- Righteous Orbs - Seriously Not Okay
- Shakesville - WoW Fail (article posts trigger warnings)
- tankspot.com - RealID Unethical and Dangerous
- Scienceblogs.com - The interesting experiment is already getting interesting
- Wow.com - Security flaw allows addons to expose full real life names without user permission
- clanofkeli - Another RealID post...
- Shades of Grey - An Open Letter to Blizzard
- mythrai over @ Bibliotech - slap the good girl's hand and elevate the asshole to new heights
- CTRL+ALT+DEL - Keep it secret, keep it safe
- popehippo @ ontd_political - World of Warcraft maker to end anonymous forum logins (text of BBC.com's article)
List O' Links (News)
- ABC News - Bye-Bye Trolls? Blizzard Forums to Use Real Names
- About.com - WoW Real ID: A Really Bad Idea
- About.com - Blizzard: Real Names, Real Risks
- Ars Technica - Blizzard: post about StarCraft 2? Use your real name
- AusGamers - Blizzard Switching Forums to Real ID System
- Australian Gamer - Blizzard decide to give out subscribers' real names
- BBC News - World of Warcraft maker to end anonymous forum logins
- CVG - Fans rage over Blizzard forum plans
- EuroGamer - Blizzard forums to require real names
- Examiner National - World of Warcraft Players WoWed by Blizzard's REALID announcement
- GameFocus - Blizzard To Kill Anonymity On Forums
- Gamespy - Blizzard to Require Real Names on Official Forums
- HuskyStarcraft - Blizzard Forums: First and Last Names [VIDEO]
- Inc Gamers - Blizzard Going Too Far With Real ID?
- ITWorld - Blizzard to share your name with angry video game nerds
- Joystiq - Your real name to appear on Blizzard's official forums
- Kotaku - Blizzard Forums Will Soon Display Your Real Name
- Kotaku - Blizzard's Real Name Forum Policy Has Fans In An Uproar
- MSNBC - 'WOW' players angry over plan to use real names
- MTV Multiplayer - Blizzard Cracks Down On Anonymity In Official Forums
- PCGamer (UK) - Why Blizzard's new forum plan is an epic fail
- Product Reviews News - WoW Real ID System: Security Flaw Found
- The Register - Blizzard exposes real names on WoW forums
- Strategy Informer - Battle.net removes "veil of anonymity" on forums, real names used
- TechEYE.net - Blizzard forces users to show real names: Internet security they have heard of it
- USA Today - 'WoW' studio Blizzard to require real names on forums
- Voodoo Extreme - Is Blizzard's Real ID Safe, Or A Playground For Sexual Deviants?
- Voodoo Extreme - Blizzard Forums To Require Use Of Real Name, Rage Ensues
- The Wall Street Journal - Real Names Rile Online Warlocks and Wizards (warning: this article may raise your blood pressure to unsafe heights)
- The Washington Post - World of Warcraft users blast Blizzard's 'Real ID' rule
- Yahoo! - Bye-bye trolls? Blizzard forums to use real names
- Zeroday - Is Korean Law Driving Policy at Blizzard?
List O' Links (THINGS YOU CAN DO)
- BBC.Com's Havy Your Say - Should You Be Anonymous Online?
- There are petitions here and here
- Twitter hashtags #WoWFail, #Blizzardfail, and #realid have been used
- Consider canceling your account (if only temporarily)
- Comment on the "Direct Line to Blizzard" Post I CANNOT STRESS THIS ONE ENOUGH
- Write Blizzard and/or the ESRB a letter or email.
- Post in the US General Forums megathread or the EU General Forums megathread
Psssst - If you have more links, give more links :]


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Search Constraints
You searched for: Author Godt, Jonathan W. Remove constraint Author: Godt, Jonathan W. Publisher National Atlas of the United States Remove constraint Publisher: National Atlas of the United States Institution Stanford Remove constraint Institution: Stanford Place Massachusetts Remove constraint Place: Massachusetts Place United States Remove constraint Place: United States Place Alabama Remove constraint Place: Alabama Place Georgia Remove constraint Place: Georgia Data type Polygon Remove constraint Data type: Polygon Format Shapefile Remove constraint Format: Shapefile
Search Results
1. Costly Regional Landslide Events in the United States
2001. Godt, Jonathan W. This polygon shapefile contains information on costly regional landslide events in the 50 United States and Puerto Rico. The extents of the regiona... National Atlas of the United States.
2. Landslide Incidence and Susceptibility in the Conterminous United States
2001. Geological Survey (U.S.) and Godt, Jonathan W. These polygon shapefile is a digital version of U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1183, Landslide Overview Map of the Conterminous United S... National Atlas of the United States.


text:
- Product Features
Sold by the 5 meter reel, foot and sample kit.
This innovative white-adjustable strip has a 2400 Kelvin Very Warm White diode and 6500 Kelvin Daylight White diode on the same node, which gives the impression that the diode itself is changing color as you tune it. This design provides superb color-mixing.
- High density: with 120 LEDs per meter, the light is more even, and if you use our track with diffusers, you can get rid of the dots completely, which is a desired feature in direct lighting applications.
- White Adjustable (from very warm white to daylight white) strips. We've seen especially strong demand for the white adjustable and very warm white strip. Part of the reason is that historically, the very warm white LEDs have been harder to make well. Recent technology advances in phosphor chemistry and application technique allow us to present these improved products.
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- White Adjustable. (2,400-6,500Kelvin.)
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Ambient Temperature -20°C to 40°C Average Lifetime 50,000 hours Beam Angle 120° Brightness 635/753 lumens/meter Efficacy 82.6 lumens/watt Brightness 2 2464/2893 mW/meter Efficacy 2 318.9 mWatt/watt CCT Tunable White CRI 90+ Height (English) 0.08 in Height (Metric) 2 mm IP Rating IP20 Input Current 208 mA Input Voltage 24 DC LED Density 120 LEDs/meter LED Node Size 3528 LED Spacing (English) 0.33 in LED Spacing (Metric) 8.3 mm Length (English) 11.81 in Length (Metric) 300 mm Manufacturer EnvironmentalLights Min. Cutting Increment (English) 1.97 in Min. Cutting Increment (Metric) 50 mm Power (Watts) 5 Power (Watts/ft) 5.00 Power (Watts/m) 16.80 Rating UL, RoHS Strip Width 10 mm Warranty 5 years limited Width (English) 0.39 in Width (Metric) 10 mm
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- Photos & Videos
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Write Your Own Review
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LED Strip Light Connector-3 Conductor 10 mm Ribbon to Cable
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LED Strip Light Connector-3 Conductor 10 mm Ribbon to Ribbon
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Price Per Unit :


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Tanaka a bright spot as Giants fall to Mets
Bullpen allows five runs in decisive eighth, including grand slam
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants searched far and wide for any and every remedy Tuesday. They called up 32-year-old Japanese rookie Kensuke Tanaka and immediately plugged him into left field and the second slot in the lineup. They signed struggling outfielder Jeff Francoeur and expect him to be promoted in a few days. There was even a smell of incense that inundated the Giants' clubhouse before the game.
Although the Giants didn't actually perform any rituals to help turn the tide on a quickly sinking season, that might be the only trick left after San Francisco lost for the seventh time in eight games, 10-6, to the Mets.
Tanaka's presence represented one of the few energizing forces for the club in the loss. Although his appearance in left field was just his 10th since 2006 -- manager Bruce Bochy said he will strictly roam left field for the Giants -- he made a dazzling catch against the wall to rob Andrew Brown of an extra-base hit in the second inning.
"It's exciting to see someone make a strong debut, especially someone as established as him," Barry Zito said. "He's been around, and he just has that excitement when he plays and that's what we need."
Tanaka recorded his first Major League hit in the fifth inning with a bloop single to center field. Two innings later, he led off with a walk and scored to tie the game on a Pablo Sandoval sacrifice fly.
"I came here to bring something new to the team," said Tanaka, with the lineup card and baseball from his first hit lying on the chair beside him.
Even his smile was infectious, and that can't be a bad thing for a team that's dropped 18 of its last 23. When he came down with the ball in his glove after the second-inning catch, he pumped his fist and let out an I-can't-believe-I-just-caught-that grin.
"I was just glad to catch the ball," Tanaka said through an interpreter.
But in the end the Giants' smiles subsided and the stark reality of a team desperate for answers sunk in. Zito could not continue his success at AT&T Park -- he allowed five runs at home for the first time in 17 regular-season outings -- and a fatigued bullpen allowed the go-ahead run in the eighth inning.
Daniel Murphy lifted a fly ball just deep enough to left-center to allow Omar Quintanilla to score from third. After walking David Wright, Marlon Byrd gave the Mets bullpen four more insurance runs on a grand slam on the first offering from Jake Dunning.
"[The pitch] just didn't break," Bochy said. "He didn't get it where he wanted it. Jake's done such a nice job for us. He made a mistake and he hasn't thrown many."
It was another puzzling outing for left-handed reliever Jeremy Affeldt, who is typically a key cog in the bullpen but has struggled in recent weeks. After inheriting Jose Mijares' runner, Affeldt yielded a single to Juan Lagares, a walk to Eric Young Jr. and the go-ahead run on Murphy's sacrifice fly before walking Wright to load the bases and hand the ball to Dunning.
"It seems like everything we try to do ends up not being a positive outcome for us," Affeldt said. "Right now, I might be the biggest issue in that.
"We're giving up more runs than we're scoring and I'm a big part of that. It stinks, to be honest. I really stink."
For the second straight night, the Giants grabbed an early 2-0 lead and squandered it. Zito's errant command in the fourth inning ignited the Mets' offense for three runs, highlighted by Brown's two-run single. Twice the Giants fought their way back to tie the game, but twice the Mets had an answer.
"It was my job to hold them down and I wasn't able to do that," said Zito, who added that walks were his biggest issue Tuesday.
With the game tied at 3 and Zito's pitch count nearing 100 in the sixth, he walked Mets first baseman Josh Satin and surrendered a home run to catcher Anthony Recker, an earlier strikeout victim.
"Recker got me on the same pitch I got him on earlier," Zito said. "Sometimes that stuff happens."
With former Giants first-round Draft pick Zack Wheeler on the mound for the Mets on Wednesday as New York attempts to sweep in San Francisco for the first time since 1994, Bochy dismissed the idea that his club feels overly discouraged.
"No, I'll never feel like that," Bochy said. "We're being tested like we've never been tested before."


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Sandy D'Angelo has not received any gifts yet
I am in Delray Beach and am looking for someone who wants to play tennis at my club or elsewhere. If you are interested, please text me 310-487-0660.
Hey Sandy, you asked a question about changing grips on the chat room. It shouldn't be too hard, just pick your favorite grip and try to imitate the old one when you apply it. Just make sure it overlaps by about 1/8 of an inch. Personally, I like smooth untextured grips followed by an overgrip on top. It's easier (and cheaper) to replace an overgrip rather than the whole grip. Also, when you take off the old one, try to remove as much of it as you can. If you're still unsure, you can ask a tennis shop how to do it. Hope this helps.
© 2020 Created by Mark / The Mayor. Powered by


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Back edge of snowstorm moving through
Much colder air settling in
The back edge of a winter storm, expected to bring 1 to 3 inches of snow to the metro, is moving through this hour.
KMBC's Joel Nichols and Lisa Teachman said snowfall amounts could be higher north of the metro toward places like Maryville and Trenton, where 3 to 5 inches of snow was expected.
Click here to check closings/delays
Areas to the west of Kansas City were also expected to see more snow. Four inches of snow were already on the ground in Manhattan at 4 a.m.
The morning commute could be a slow one due to the snow. Drivers are urged to slow down. Kansas and Missouri Department of Transportation crews have been out during the night to pre-treat the roads.
The snow was expected to stop falling by around noon. Some sunshine could return by late this afternoon.
Very cold temperatures are then expected to set in, with lows near 16 degrees overnight.


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Rule #1 - Be Patient - Rule #2 - Don't ask when, if you don't contribute - Rule #3 - You have coding skills - LinuxMCE's small brother is available: http://www.agocontrol.com
I'm looking for suggestions on a good wireless keyboard/trackball(or touchpad) all in one type thing. There are a million of them out there and I don't see any specific models listed on hardware wiki.Anybody using one or know of one that works well with LMCE? I only want it for browsing the web, I have a Fiire remote for all other functions.


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The spiritual path will burn away all illusions, including the sexual kind. The good news is that something better is reborn in the ashes.
Mel was tall and lanky with short dark hair, good tattoos, and a black motorcycle. I wanted her bad. Lucky for me I was in an open relationship with my partner and he was all for it. It had been a long time since I had gone for a bad girl like Mel. I figured since it was just going to be a fling, it didn't matter that a truck full of red flags were dropped on the first date, the biggest of which was the dopamine rush coming on hard and fast like a fat line of cocaine after a long time sober. I knew I was in trouble the first time I smelled her salty skin and felt her nicotine stained fingertips on my throat.
I wasn't practicing polyamory, per se, and my partner was my top priority. I've always been fluid when it comes to monogamy, depending on the relationship I'm in and how I'm currently feeling. I'm sure my poly friends probably cringe and call me a swinger. I prefer to think of myself as a free spirit. Since I wasn't looking for another serious relationship, I needed to keep my feelings in check for the sexy butch I was drooling over. This meant getting mindful about lust.
You know the way it goes. Constantly checking your phone, even on the freeway, thinking you see the object of your desire everywhere you go, dreaming about them, the extreme highs and lows that come with seeing or not seeing them. The throes of a new relationship make most of us temporary drug addicts looking for the next fix. I didn't want to get carried away with this culturally acceptable insanity. Lucky for me, as a meditation practitioner, I had all the tools to observe this crazy ride without climbing on it.
So I let the affair run its course (trust me, it burnt out quick—I'm not a kid anymore), while I deconstructed and carefully explored the activity of my body and mind. At first I fell into the lust trap and caused some trouble with my partner. But soon I was able to ride the wave of new relationship energy like a pro. It was absolutely comical how the chemicals would flood my system and my mind would start to swirl when I got a text from her. Pretty soon the experience became something I could just watch without getting involved in. Those sensations and thoughts were just impermanent activity and they were certainly not me. How could they be if I was witnessing them?
This wasn't the first time I'd had the insight that I am not my mind or my emotions. Each time that insight deepens, I experience a period of disillusionment. It had happened with my career, with habits, and so on. Basically I see the emptiness in the experience and I "lose" it. That's to say I lose my attachment to it and my ability to get a fix from it. When I saw through the self who viewed herself as an actor, my acting career crumbled. Once I knew that my enjoyment of a film or a big piece of chocolate cake was simply a collection of thoughts and emotions, I lost my taste for them as well.
This can be a painful and scary part of spiritual development. It can feel like nothing is enjoyable or meaningful. I often have meditation students report that they feel depressed and apathetic during this stage. My first meditation teacher sat me down after few classes and told me, "Meditation is going to ruin your life." He wasn't joking. The cost of waking up is everything. With each awakening I've "lost' a little more, but I wouldn't want to give any of it back.
So here I was getting mindful about the off-the-hook sexual attraction I had for Mel. I didn't really consider that I was in the process of screwing up my sex life, just like I had once screwed up my career, and my love of cake. The road to hell is paved with good intentions I suppose. By the time my bad girl fling had run out of steam, my sex drive was plummeting overall. Sex just didn't seem that important anymore. Thanks to good old mindfulness, sexual disillusionment had kicked in.
Now, let me be clear, up until this point my sex drive couldn't get any higher. I had never had a partner male or female who wanted as much sex as I did. I was insatiable. One might say that I used sex to get "high," to ease stress, to encourage creativity, and to feel more connected to myself and others. I had been told that one day I'd have to let my attachment to sex go too, just like everything else. But let me tell you I was hanging on tight to this last frontier. Little did I know the romp with Mel was my last hurrah.
My partner and I had always had a phenomenal sex life. It was never less than great, even after three years together. But my merciless dissection of my obsession with Mel launched us into an awkward period. I just didn't care about sex anymore. Plus we were going through some relationship growing pains (due mostly to my actions in the early days of Mel), and not being able to use sex as a way to connect created a huge sense of separation.
It was incredibly strange for me to feel sexually removed. My sexuality was something I felt so identified with. I was Jessica, the girl who loves to fuck. Meditation has the side effect of tearing your identities from you piece by piece, and this one was no exception. That part of me had vanished. I could no longer use sex as a salve for whatever ailed me. It didn't work anymore.
As you can imagine, my partner was none too fond of this development and honestly neither was I. I trusted it would shift, but who knew how long that would take? My desire and drive to be an actor took years to come back. But I knew that when my sex drive returned sex would be better than ever. That's what happened with my creative work. When I lost my attachment to being an actor I became a better actor and started to have a lot more fun doing it. I just hoped my new and improved sex life would materialize before my partner walked out the door.
We had sex every once in awhile, but it wasn't great or even always good. We didn't open up the "sex cabinet" next to our bed even once. It started to get a little dark at the homestead so my partner and I decided to keep the focus on having fun and enjoying each other's company. It was kind of like a lovingkindness meditation for our relationship. I practiced something I call the "Just Be Nice Campaign." It's just what it sounds like. I was just nice. When I got annoyed, scared, frustrated, felt not heard, got triggered—I was just nice. Sometimes that meant leaving the room for a moment, but no matter what, I was just nice. I focused on being the best partner I could be and took any focus off of what I thought he was doing wrong. I kept my side of the street clean. I still spoke to someone and/or wrote about my feelings, but I didn't take problems or negativity to my partner. I also got more clarity on what was actually a problem versus me simply being reactive.
I kept using my mindfulness practice to work with the thoughts and emotions that came up about my lack of interest in sex. People can get stuck in the meaningless trap that can arise along the spiritual path. In reality the self that thinks everything is meaningless is just another self that can be deconstructed. So, I just continued to peel back the layers, keeping my eyes and heart open as I woke up to new truths. Spiritual development is neverending. There is no graduation date. As I learned to be without my nympho identity I found new ways to ease tension and connect with others. I also found I didn't need sex to be creative.
Not having sex to fall back on also gave my partner and I the opportunity to work through some issues that had been hiding under the surface up until then. A new kind of love and trust bloomed between us, and we started laughing a lot more. We spoke openly about the lack of sex and the challenges that it brought. We don't lose hope. We figured it could only go on that way for so long. And then one day a few months later, as quickly as it had vanished, my sex drive reappeared. And the angels of carnal joy sang Hallelujah!
When I say it came back I don't mean that it was recognizable. My relationship to sex had been transformed. It felt fresh, clean, and fluid. It no longer gave me a fix. Without the attachment sex became more fun, more connected, and way more pleasurable. I had been grasping at the pleasure, and now I just let it run through me, unimpeded by my mind. My partner and I dove into a whole new kind of connection during sex. I felt a deeper freedom to let loose. I was no longer limited to a fixed sense of self when it came to my sexuality. I let my sexual self die in the fire of awakening and it had remerged shining and alive.
So yes, mindfulness essentially screwed up my sex life. But then it was reconstructed into something I never imagined possible. The self that needed to have sex all the time hasn't returned. Previously I would pass up a good night's sleep or a social engagement for sex. Now my priorities are a little different. Life feels fuller now, less uneven. My sexuality will continue to evolve as I evolve, and I'm willing to lose it again if need be. I'm also fully willing to embrace a period of non-stop sex. Whatever it takes. Anything to keep waking up.
Jessica Graham is a meditation teacher, writer and actress who lives in LA. She is a contributing editor of the popular meditation blog Deconstructing Yourself and author of the upcoming book Good Sex: Getting Off Without Checking Out.


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Rebecca Smith
Looking to maintain third place in the Big South standings, the Liberty women's soccer team squared off with Winthrop at Eagle Field, Wednesday night. Unfortunately for the Lady Flames, Krystyna Freda proved why she is one of the top goal scorers in the country, netting a pair of markers en route to a Winthrop 3-1 victory. With the defeat, Liberty falls to 11-5-1 on the year and 6-2-1 in conference play. Winthrop improves to 11-3-2 overall, moving ahead of the Lady Flames in the Big South standings with a 7-2-0 record. Rebecca Smith posted the lone goal for Liberty, courtesy of an assist from Brittany Aanderud. Along with Freda's pair of markers, Taylor Walton also scored for the Eagles. Freda struck first for the Lady Eagles, posting her 16th goal of the season in the 18th minute. After receiving a Devin Puckett through ball pass, Walton fired a shot that was saved by Van Noord. However, Freda scooped up the loose ball and chipped it into the net, giving the home team the early 1-0 edge.
Liberty found the equalizer in the 37th minute. Aanderud sent a pass down to Smith on the right sideline. The junior then bent a crossing shot into the back of the Winthrop net for her second goal of the season. Smith's marker knotted the contest at 1-1 heading into halftime. Freda put the Lady Eagles back on top early in the second period with her 19th career game-winning goal. Okina Crawley dished a through ball to Freda, who made a cut back and fired a shot from 10 yards out, putting Winthrop ahead, 2-1, in the 53rd minute. Winthrop capped off its scoring in the 76th minute. After the Lady Flames were unable to finish on a scramble in front of the Winthrop goal, the hosts immediately took the ball back down field. Lauren Watts found an open Walton, who broke away from the Liberty defense. Van Noord came out to challenge on the play, but Walton launched an 18-yard shot past the keeper, into the left corner, cementing the 3-1 final. Despite the loss, Liberty outshot Winthrop, 11-10 and held a 5-0 advantage on corner kicks. Amelia Henderson played the entire contest in between the posts for Winthrop, finishing with five saves. Van Noord also played the full 90 minutes in the net, making two saves for the Lady Flames. Liberty plays its final regular-season home game of the year at Osborne Stadium, Saturday, hosting Coastal Carolina. Prior to the contest, Liberty will honor seniors Dawn Elmers, Casey Norris and Megan Warner. Game time is slated for 2 p.m.


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Yosemite National Park T-Shirt
This is the Yosemite National Park tee you've been looking for, and it's bound to become a favorite in your wardrobe. It's light, soft, has a classic fit and comes in a range of sizes. With an original design by photographer and graphic artist Robert B. Decker, you'll stand out from the crowd wherever you go! This tee is the perfect way to show your support for Yosemite National Park.
Size guide
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|Length, in
|Sleeve length, in
About Yosemite National Park
Established in 1890, Yosemite National Park is best known for its magnificent valley. But successful early efforts to include the surrounding mountains and forests also helped pave the way for the United States national park system. Within its nearly 1,200 square miles, you will also see waterfalls, grand meadows, ancient giant sequoias, vast wilderness, and North America's tallest exposed granite monoliths. Yosemite National Park is located in northern California.
About the Artist
Photographer and graphic artist Rob Decker studied photography with Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park during the summer of 1979. The experience solidified his love of photography and our National Parks. Now he is on a journey to photograph and create iconic WPA-style travel posters of all of our national parks as we celebrate the next 100 years of the National Park Service.
Click here to learn more about the artist, Robert B. Decker.
"I'm trying to make a difference by giving back to the amazing organizations that support our National Parks. I donate 10% of annual profits, so when you buy one of these originals, you're helping these trusts, conservancies and associations, too. I feel that it's important to protect America's special places, and to connect people with nature. Perhaps more importantly, we need to inspire the next generation of park stewards."
Click here to learn more about how I give back to our National Parks.
Click here to see Rob's Exclusive Graphic Art Collection of America's National Parks at https://national-park-posters.com
Robert B. Decker retains the sole copyright of the original Yosemite National Park poster image. Any unauthorized reproduction violates international copyright law.
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Almost two months ago I got an email from meh's hubby. He was anticipating her birthday and wanted to send her to my house for a visit. It was about three weeks before her finally told her the news!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Weekend Success!
Posted by Unknown at 10:26 AM 6 comments Links to this post
Labels: friends
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Red Door
Posted by Unknown at 6:43 AM 19 comments Links to this post
Labels: gratitude
Thursday, September 25, 2008
A Letter to The Boy
Posted by Unknown at 5:00 AM 4 comments Links to this post
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Trip in Pictures
I am in a need of a trip to the craft store.
This is the entrance to Dollywood. We actually have a really nice picture of the family, but He Who Does Not Wish to Be Seen On The Blog For Security Reasons (a.k.a., The Mister) is in it, so I can't post it. Which is a shame for y'all, cuz he is handsome, with his salt and pepper hair.
This is The Boy and Girl, happy to be free of the mini-van. The Girl is looking for a roller-coaster. The Boy is looking for good food.
The Girl and The Mister found a roller coaster called The Tornado. The Boy and I stayed behind. He doesn't much like roller coasters, and I? Well, let's just say that at 35, I have lost my roller coaster edge. Which was dull at best anyway.
Posted by Unknown at 10:40 AM 13 comments Links to this post
Labels: az to nc
Monday, September 22, 2008
Fall is in the Air
Just checking in.
Posted by Unknown at 5:16 AM 10 comments Links to this post
Labels: stuff
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
From There to Here
Just kidding! This was a replica of a pioneer cabin at Dollywood. But honestly, when the view from this cabins porch is the Smoky Mountain Tops, who cares what the house looks like!
This is that same truck (and driver) pulling up the road with all our stuff on Friday morning. Well, except a bookcase that someone else must own now. This rig was HUGE and our stuff was one of three households our driver packed in there. Oh well, you win some, and you lose some.
Posted by Unknown at 4:00 PM 10 comments Links to this post
Monday, September 15, 2008
Greetings from North Carolina!
Hello! Hello!
Posted by Unknown at 6:00 AM 17 comments Links to this post
Labels: North Carolina, The Move
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Greetings From Nashville TN
Good Morning!
It's a fine morning here in Nashville. The sky is overcast and the air is cool, but nothing could dampen our spirits today!
Our long drives are over, and since we found out that our stuff won't be delivered until Friday (instead of tomorrow) we are going to take a little detour through the Smoky Mountains and take the kids to Dollywood!
I have been wanting to go there for a long time, so this little side trip is as much for me as it is for them.
Today we will drive 3 hours to Pigeon Forge and then on Thursday we will drive the short 4 (ish) hours to NC
On a different note, can I tell you how fun it has been to see all your encouraging comments at the end of each day?! Y'all are so fun and it's like you're traveling with me!
While we have enjoyed the beautiful scenery, we have also had a dose of reality. There is nothing more sobering than seeing a caravan of eight or more ambulance and utility trucks, headed to Louisiana and the Gulf states; to prepare for the next round of hurricane. It reminded us to pray for those who are in harms way.
Last thing, when we pulled into Nashville last night the sunset was incredible! It was to our back so when I looked in the rear view mirror it was spectacular! I wish I could have taken a picture!
Oh! And no matter how many times we cross the Mississippi River, it is always incredible. Especially with the city of Memphis on the other side!
OK, it's getting to be time to load up and get going. I pray that y'all are doing well!
La Vida Dulce!
Posted by Unknown at 9:39 AM 9 comments Links to this post
Labels: The Move
Monday, September 08, 2008
Hello From Ft Smith, Arkansas
Just a quick hello as we check out of our hotel in AR.
Yesterday was our longest day in the car at 9 hours, 30 minutes. But it's worth it to be half way finished.
Good news: The DVD works at 45 minute increments, so we are making do.
Bad news: We have all developed colds. The Girl had a fever the night before we left AZ. She has obediently done what we have taught her her whole life: Share.
Not only has she given it to us, but to my parents as well.
But it's all good and we are looking forward to our drive today, the last of the long drives. THe last two days we are breaking up into 4 hour increments. We should arrive just east of Nashville, just in time for rush hour traffic! Yippee!
Oh, and the homeschooling that was going to get done in the car?
Yeah, right.
OK, The Mister and The Boy are out getting breakfast and I am supposed to be in the shower!!
Gotta Go!
La Vida Dulce!
Posted by Unknown at 9:51 AM 9 comments Links to this post
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Hello From New Mexico!`
We are here at our hotel just about an hour east of Albuquerque (try spelling that without spell check!)
The day went fairly quickly and was pretty uneventful. Tomorrow will be our longest day of driving as we try to get to Arkansas (Mer, I'll wave hello to your home state!)
The only excitement was when I took Kona the Wonder Dog out for a quick walk. We walked all over the perimeter of a rest stop in NM. When we had been out there for about 5 minutes I came back and passed by a large sign that said, "Danger: Rattlesnakes and poisonous insects. Walk at own risk."
Um, I think I would've liked to have read that sign before I walked The Mutt.
Also, my kids convinced me that we HAD to have a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for the trip, (to eat dry) for a snack. I am very sorry that I tried it this afternoon during a period in which I should have stopped for a Diet Coke. I was sleepy and I needed something to pep me up. For those of you who don't know, Cinnamon Toast Crunch is d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s. Why didn't any on tell me this before? I am pretty sure I ate more than a serving today. But who cares, I'm driving 2300 miles in a car with two kids, a dog and no TV.
Which brings me to my final, and most pressing problem of the day. The DVD was not working properly. It has been acting temperamental for a couple months now, but I was hoping it would make it through one last trip.
I am seeing an expensive trip to Target in my future...luckily they have one in almost every city.
I miss reading the blogs. I will have much to catch up on in the next few weeks! But I wanted to check in and say hello!
Time for bed!
La Vida Dulce
Posted by Unknown at 10:14 PM 8 comments Links to this post
Headed East
By the time this posts, we should be headed toward New Mexico.
I had so much in my head as to what I would write about this last day as a resident of this warm, desert town. I held in the floodgates that I won't be opened until I have the luxury of time on my own. Most likely that time will come on that first five minutes on the road, when the morning is still dark and the stars can be my cover.
I don't often like to cry in front of others when the grief is my own.
And yet, I know this isn't a goodbye forever. This truly is a "see you soon", since plans for a summer trip are already in the works.
I also look forward with great anticipation to our North Carolina home. It's smells, it's seasons, it's beautiful, soothing accent. I look forward to the greenery, and of course, above all things, seeing the friends we haven't seen face to face in 18 months.
We have much to look forward to. Much to be happy about!
I may be taking a blogging break while we are on the road. But then again, maybe not. We'll see...
I did want to tell you this funny story...
Upon packing our traveling bags I gave the kids list of what to pack, with strict instructions to pack one pair of tennis shoes and one pair of flip-flops. They weren't to pack anything extra, just what was on the list.
Last night as I was rechecking bags (we were at my mom's house for the night) and getting things ready to load in the car, I noticed that The Girl not only managed to pack flip-flops and tennis shoes, but stuffed in the bottom of the bag, were also a pair of brown sandals, sparkly pink slip on sandals and a sparkly handbag. She just couldn't be limited to two pairs of shoes, and she "always uses the sparkly handbag when she uses the sparkly shoes".
You know, that girl is a lot like her mother. I couldn't stick to my own list either...
All right, time to sign off on my last blog post west of the Mississippi...
To my Arizonian peeps: I miss you already!
"Say good things about me, Cuz I've gone to Carolina..."-James Taylor
La Vida Dulce
Posted by Unknown at 8:00 AM 9 comments Links to this post
Labels: The Desert Life, The Move
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Guitar Playing Packing Man
Posted by Unknown at 8:05 AM 11 comments Links to this post
Labels: guitar, The Desert Life, The Move
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Burning Rubber
Actually, I am not burning rubber, but the packers who are packing up all nearly finished, and it's just now past 10am. By far, the quickest pack job we've had by far.
Of course when we moved here we got rid of half of what we owned because our house was 500 sq ft. smaller. Why we did that, I'm not sure, especially since we ended up with two completely empty rooms.
I must have been having one of my "cleaning fits".
Anyway, I am not actually at my house right now, but am waiting for the fine people at Discount Tires to replace my two front tires.
Uh, hello? 316 dollars didn't feel so discount, but what's a girl to do? And they aren't burning rubber. And I hate the smell of tires. But I'll stop complaining now.
I am hoping that they will hurry because I have to get home to say goodbye to Willie, our head packer. I hope to blog about him tomorrow because he is a neat guy in his fifties, with amazing talent.
So, that's today's news at the La Vida Household!
I hope you are having a fine Wednesday!
(Can you believe it's September? I went to the Starbucks this morning and they had their Pumpkin Latte posters all over the place! Let the fall begin!)
Posted by Unknown at 12:58 PM 8 comments Links to this post
Labels: stuff, The Desert Life, The Move
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
A very random "packing" post.
So, it's been a bit of a slow day until this very moment.
Posted by Unknown at 6:30 PM 8 comments Links to this post
Labels: The Move
Monday, September 01, 2008
The Fruits of My Labor!
Thanks so much for leaving me comments in the last post! It's fun to hear how y'all work the last minute grocery runs!
There is this soft bed, and comfy sheets and candles and soft music. It's truly an hour of time where you can relax and enjoy an hour of time to yourself.
Posted by Unknown at 10:30 AM 11 comments Links to this post
Labels: haircuts and two eyebrows, on being a girl, The Move


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Leading diagnostic tester Quest Diagnostics (DGX) is keeping at par with its Merger and Acquisition (M&A) strategy which the company expects to remain as its key driver of growth. Recently, as part of this strategy, the company teamed up with Central New England's largest health care system UMass Memorial Health Care to purchase its clinical outreach laboratory.
Although financial terms of this definitive purchase agreement were not disclosed, Quest Diagnostics expects the transaction to be completed in the next 3 months, subject to certain customary regulatory clearance. The diagnostic testing stalwart expects the incorporation of the clinical outreach laboratory to add 1% to the company's consolidated revenues in the next fiscal with no bottom-line impact. However, the company expects this transaction to be accretive to its earnings per share (EPS) in fiscal 2014.
Quest Diagnostics expects this acquisition to establish a long-term relationship between the two organizations. The plan states that Quest Diagnostics' full-service laboratory in Cambridge and its Athena Diagnostics specialty neurology testing subsidiary in Worcester will be moved to a centrally located new facility in Massachusetts.
The company expects this facility, after being fully operational in next 18–24 months, to perform the testing currently performed at UMass Memorial's Worcester-based outreach laboratories as well as Quest Diagnostics' Cambridge and Athena.
Per the plan, UMass Memorial will be taking a financial stake in the new entity that would develop and operate a leading-edge laboratory in Massachusetts in the future. Both the organizations expect this advanced laboratory service to include a number of benefits like higher quality service, expanded information connectivity options, and reduced laboratory testing costs.
Quest Diagnostic believes that the impending acquisition is in sync with its goal to create the company's planned 'lab of the future' which will help it increase long-term growth opportunities and increase shareholders' value.
Our View
We believe that the M&A decisions perfectly match the company's current growth strategy. We expect capital deployment to continue into the faster-growth esoteric markets. We assume this recent endeavor could very well turn around the company's fortune going ahead. However, more light on this matter is still awaited.
Concerns linger about the soft industry trends due to a decline in physician office visits, the ongoing margin trends and the company's lower-than-expected fiscal 2012 guidance. However, we hold a favorable view regarding the company's recently announced (on October 11, 2012) major organizational restructuring in order to increase operational efficiency and restore growth.
According to the company, these structural changes will eliminate 3 management layers representing 400-600 management positions by the end of 2013, thereby making an annualized savings of $65 million.
We anticipate that this organizational structure developed by the company's new CEO, Steve Rusckowski will run successfully adding further synergies to the company's ongoing $500 million restructuring initiative associated with its Invigorate program. We strongly expect these to improve margins in the upcoming quarters. So, it may be a good bet for investors seeking growth over the longer term.
We are impressed with Mr. Rusckowski's leadership style along with his key areas of development including operation and execution. In this regard, we are of the opinion that Mr. Rusckowski should utilize his experience in operational excellence over a long time.
However, the current price is not a good entry point for short-term investors as the ongoing issues like weak volume growth, flat pricing, low organic revenue and challenging underlying market conditions may compel it to lose some market capitalization in the near term. Moreover, the competitive landscape remains tough with the presence of peers like Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LH). We currently have a 'Neutral' recommendation on Quest Diagnostics.
(Note: We are revising this article to correct an error. The original article, published yesterday, Oct. 22, 2012, is not to be relied upon.)
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LABORATORY CP (LH): Free Stock Analysis Report
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