text:
Health Care, Disease Control, Crime and Safety in Vietnam
Health risks in the country include Hepatitis A and E, typhoid, dengue, cholera, bird flu, rabies, bilharzias, diarrhea, Japanese encephalitis, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. In 2004 there has been an outbreak of bird flu that causes so many lives in the country. Visitors are notified to practice caution when eating poultry dishes especially raw or uncooked poultry products. Avoiding contacts with live poultry is necessary too. Water is drinkable but visitors prefer to drink bottled water. There are health care with English-speaking doctors in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Pharmacies are enough in the country but make sure to check the expiry date. It is better to have a health insurance before going on Vietnam.
Violent crime in Vietnam is uncommon. Pick-pocketing is dominant in the streets of the cities especially in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and Nha Trang. Drive-by thieves on motorbikes are also common in there. So if you want to wander around the cities, it is suggested that you should remove anything that can catch some extra attentions like jewelries and nice bags. Watch also for those taxi-girls that hug and ask men for some good time and then they will disappear along with your wallet or wrist watch. Be aware also on those motorbike-rentals because they have a duplicate key on your rented bike. A third person may follow you and steal the bike after you locked it some place. After reporting to the owner that the bike was stolen you would pay for a new bike or forfeit any documents that you left in them like passport, visa, or deposit. Don't think of touching some old relics of war because they still are dangerous.


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There's only one thing worse than public speaking right – not really feeling like you have much to say.
Today I get to speak to a room full of digital native university students who are 20 (ahem perhaps 25) years younger than me AND who are studying social media.
I'm talking to them about blogging, a subject about which I'm clearly no expert (thankfully I can draw on the experts at Problogger and their great tips – hopefully that will salvage it).
I'm not touching social media with a barge pole (although of course blogging pretty much always involves social media, so that's going to be a bit hard).
I only got asked to speak late last week (suspect I was a last-minute substitute) and then had a blissful weekend with friends from Canada staying with us – a few (too many) wines Saturday night, Sunday beach, brunch and Blues of Broadbeach, fishing and paddling on the lake, BBQ and a couple more wines. The sort of weekend when you are reminded that:
But I digress.
Basically I'm not that prepared as a result of said blissful weekend and, well, really not having that much to say.
I'm going to start with this. At least I was quite good at public speaking back when my audience today were likely still in (or barely out of) nappies!
If the old news-reading shots don't get a laugh, then I'm stuffed.
I may even play them this video to prove that I could speak back then.
Then I'll proceed to give them a brief rundown of how my career pretty much went downhill from there (well along a bumpy, up and down road anyway) and how I'm now blogging as a hobby and not making a brass razoo out of it (although they won't know what a brass razoo is, will they? What is it BTW?)
But change is good – at least that's what I write on my blog.
I'll talk about blogging for love, and finding your voice and give a couple of examples of peers who I reckon are rockin' it – Have a laugh on me and Always Josefa, along with a couple of examples from the big end of blogging town – Ytravel Blog and The Organised Housewife, and then some blog stars from the US.
My claim to fame is that I've had 6 posts published on Tiny Buddha (a huge US multi-contributor site) and that when you Google 'Kid's Meditation video', one of my little videos may actually pop up in first place.
I'll bang on about blogging because you love it – because that has to be the starting point right, and how great it is to be part of a blogging community (because it is) and how important it is to serve your readers.
I'll give them a couple of little tips from Problogger like updating your FB cover page and profile pic often (whoops haven't been doing that) and making sure you register for Google authorship (which is a great tip).
And I'll give them some of the big lessons I learned from people who do know a bit about blogging and are making more than a brass razoo out of it – because money is rather nice after all.
I'll also give them a couple of examples of business content marketing (because I'm working on content marketing in my current day-job).
And then I'll shut up.
Wish me luck!
When was the last time you had to speak in public? How prepared were you?
How do you manage your fears?
Linking up with the lovely Jess for IBOT.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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text:
Raju Tomer
Principal Investigator
Department of Biological Sciences
Member, NeuroTechnology Center
Affiliation, Data Science Institute
Columbia University
Tel: 212-854-0194
M Angeles Rabadan
Senior Postdoctoral Researcher
Postdoc, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
PhD, Genetics and Molecular Biology, Universidad de Barcelona
MS, Developmental Biology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
BS, Biology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Malika Datta
Ph.D. Student
Neurobiology and Behavior Doctoral program
BS in Biomedical Engg. and Applied Mathematics, Purdue University
UCSD Amgen Scholar 2014
Iden Sapse
Ph.D. Student
B.A. in Chemistry, Bard College, NY.
Yannan Chen
Ph.D. Student (Biomedical Engineering)
Masters in Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, NY.
Estanislao Daniel De La Cruz (Dan)
Lab Manager
Shradha Chauhan
Staff Engineer
B. Tech, Electronics & Communications, UPTU, Delhi
Bianca Migliori
Ph.D. Student, 2016-2019
Currently Postdoc at NYU


text:
I'm going to try to begin to respond to Thomas re: Flarf. I'll do this in a few posts. This one will set the background, the next will look at the specific examples Thomas has chosen and Thomas' own response to them.
Post One
For background reading, I'd suggest skimming my Airy Poetics posts for a general idea of where I'm coming from (or just when I prompt you in the this post).
I recommend Stephen Burt's Close Calls With Nonsense as a generally accepted thumbnail of contemporary poetry's roots, and dealing with difficulty. However, hold off on the part where he talks about new poets, because I'd like to use some of his examples sans authors in this post.
Steve Kowit's The Mystique of the Difficult Poem deals with the fetishizing of "difficulty" in contemporary poems.
And Brendan Galvin's The Mumbling of Young Werther: Angst by Blueprint in Contemporary Poetry provides a lucid and expandable critique of 1970s "soft" or quasi-surrealism.
You might also want to look at Dan Hoy's critique of Flarf: The Virtual Dependency of the Post-Avant and the Problematics of Flarf: What Happens when Poets Spend Too Much Time Fucking Around on the Internet, although I pull a few threads from this essay I take a different tack. (Shoot – he also uses the word "zeitgeist.")
There's also Mary Karr's "Against Decoration" (which I can't find on-line – help?), and I think Hoagland might have a recent essay in Poetry that has bearing on this as well, but I haven't read it.
My work here is done.
Actually I suppose I should connect some ideas. Many of these ideas pose a chicken-egg problem, so don't read them as being ordered below in any kind of causative way. I also deliberately pruned some very interesting branches of thought in the interests of time.
But some basic themes: there's a disconnect between how many poets are taught (at least via the university and university-orbit publications) to view their poetics' genealogies and the actual patterns/waves/cross-currents of influence, primary, secondary, and tertiary. I'll argue there's a disconnect (similar mechanism) between what poets see their projects accomplishing in light of this problematic genealogy and what the "actual effects" of those projects are. Short form of the argument – "Saying X does Y does not make it so." Further, there's a clear divergence in how the "common" reader, as opposed to the poets, might view both the substance and the import of the poets and their poems. By "common reader," in this case, I mean someone who lies outside the accepted paradigms university-orbit poetry world, but has nonetheless managed to read some poetry.
Schools and Genealogies: The implications of a false thumbnail.
First off, if you skim through the Burt essay, you'll notice he takes a school based approach and uses anthologies as high water marks. It's essentially a genealogy of poetics, focusing on which groups of authors influenced which groups of authors. It's not entirely inaccurate, and he's certainly right that this is the sort of common "history" that most academics assume/teach; post-80s, it's what most of the young poets learn at universities.
That vision of history ignores a few things – first, poets arise from the people, as it were. Changes in the zeitgeist are going to be reflected in poetry and the arts in general; therefore, you're really looking at a cross-pollination and importation of ideas from multiple sources and parties, not a linear chain. Certainly post-modernism can be viewed as retaining the structural fetishes of Modernism insofar as many poems simply import structures from other disciplines. The pattern of this importation (or translation if you will) occurs within the limitations of actual poems. Let's take surrealism as an example.
Surrealism is/was a cross artistic movement that went through several discrete permutations – but it's important to note that the surrealism is both normative and hierarchical; some mental states are better than others, not all things are equal. One of the phases of surrealism (or subsequent movements, or heirs of) is taken to task by Brendan Galvin in the above essay. But we should note we're not dealing with a linear chain (which is easiest for "academic analysis"), but an ebb and flow of influences. Bly may have read a lot of Breton, which influences some of his work. CD Wright might read both Bly and Breton – who knows how that influences her? What about a graduate student who reads all three? Or only Celan's "Todesfuge" (Death-Fuge)?
Further, because surrealism was conceived as a normative project (i.e., one could produce bad/inauthentic/false surrealism) it does not follow that any one surrealist, say Breton, would approve of any of the poetry or poetic effects produced in any of the poems that Galvin criticizes. So it's not quite as simple as saying that Surrealism influenced a subset of the 1970s generation of American poets who consciously read surrealism and who overtly identified themselves as "surrealists" – not so simple if we mean to imply an essentialist view of "surrealism."
Essentialism in this context is problematic – it projects certain ends onto effects which might be found in multiple poetics/poems, and thus I think it's an important part of the problem.
I often think poets entirely forget this. Or at least some types of poets, which brings me to an important caveat.
Caveats - Again, Always With the Caveats
When I refer to poets indulging in a kind of false consciousness of their projects, I refer in some sense to all poets, for you cannot learn the history and strategies and permutations of a craft without letting them influence your compositional processes, but I particularly wish to refer to poets whose compositional processes take them fairly far afield from the "common reader". I'd certainly include most AG writing, Flarf, Language Poetry, and in another way Neo-Formalism, in this category. Granted, there is no "common reader," yada, yada, yada. However, assuming arguendo that there is a class of moderately well-read adults in America who read poetry who do not participate in the meta-poetic dialogues, my rough line for demarcation is that poems which require a goodly amount of special training to understand have gone beyond the "common reader," or that the common reader by definition does not posess the poetical capital generated by those dialgoues.
This is one of those chicken-egg moments, for I'll be talking about this later on. But the basic idea is that if I took a college educated, knows some classical poetry, person and showed them, say, one of the flarf poems I saw earlier, they'd have no idea how to read it or what the intended goals of the poem were. Another way of saying this is that the poem's import and goals are not to be found within the poem itself – that they rely on an extra-poetical dialogue which is fairly esoteric.
"Saying X does Y does not make it so." Or "Sez you."
In some sense the above section is about several types of false consciousness: gaps between how poets perceive what they're doing and how readers perceive what they're doing (to put it very simply). Also, the projection of a theory onto what is a (perhaps unknowable) "real world" insofar as it involves poets envisioning their projects as doing/being certain things or having certain effects.
But, regardless of the intention of the poets, we do have to step back and look at the poems on the page, and ask, are they really doing what they were intended to do? From a meta-perspective, although both schools have their excuses, neither Language Poetry or Neo-Formalism has paid off – both schools gnash their teeth at the continued popularity of writers like Collins and Kooser and have no end of belittling things to say about them and their efforts. Of course, these things usually crop up via unfavorable explication, and a goodly number of the Flarfists are involved in such things.
While I will return to the above, I'd first like to propose a method for looking at poetry from another standpoint, which while it might not be neutral or objective, could lend some perspective to us.
The Naked Poem: what does it look like? Who is looking?
From the perspective of randomly pulling books and journals off shelves in the poetry section, the common reader, unless taught to do so by a university, is probably not going to catalogue poets by "influence," who taught where, which anthology was published first and by whom, or in what journals the poems first appeared, but rather by *the discrete effects of the poetry* (the articulated poetics of the poems), or, for the real plebes among us, accessibility and subject matter. The common reader has little or no recourse to the meta-dialogues on poetry which influence how the poets perceive what they're doing.
So, I think one could usefully characterize poems by their effects. In the Airy Poetics posts (link to stand alone post), I fooled about with an analytical toy for this end, suggesting that we could begin to look at poems through the following lenses:
True Consciousness v Assertive False Consciousness or Passive False Consciousness
Easy Parse v Difficult Chosen Subject Parse or Difficult/Impossible Structural Subject Parsed
Easy Aesthetics v. Formally Esoteric or Formally Flacid
Politically Left v Politically Right
Open Readership v. Elitist Readership
In that post, I loaded these with caveats, including the fact that many of them overlap, but we could also add many other lenses that are far more specific, like density of language, length of sentences, preponderance of word choice, tone, line-length, lineation strategy (as suggested by poem), etc. Use of more lenses might eventually produce a splitting of poets (as a proxy for discrete movements within their individual oeuvres) into schools which roughly correlate with the genealogical model. However, the interesting thing happens when you use fewer lenses and you start to produce unusual groupings – such as:
Difficult Parse, False Consciousness, Easy Aesthetics – Eliot, Spencer, some Maya Angelou, Muldoon, Surrealism, Ashbery, Stevens
Easy Parse, False Consciousness, Easy Aesthetics – Merrill, P. Larkin, some Maya Angelou, Bukowski, W Matthews, Some Identity Writing, Bly, Sexton, O'Hara, Kooser, Olds, Kippling
See the toy post for more details.
To step back and look at the forest for the moment, common readers are going to assess poetry based on those big lenses, although they might not articulate them as such, and I think it's a useful perspective to explore, especially if one is at all interested in broadening the audience for poetry. I very much doubt that the "common reader" will engage in a sophisticated poetic analysis from the perspective of post-modern literary theories. I hasten to point out that I think the common reader *is* very sophisticated in terms of being able to parse meaning (think of the tremendous sophistication film analysis that most people in our culture evidence, regardless of terminology used) and recognize aesthetics – but what they don't do is assign *extra* significance to those meanings and aesthetics, then locate them within the history of poetics and examine how they might a) extend/modify a genealogical thread (which I've argued is a limited metaphor anyway) or b) contain a meta-poetical (or even meta-societal) statement, insofar as that statement depends on specialized poetical knowledge. Actually, that's what the critic's role has evolved into – the location of the poem at hand within the accepted genealogy of poetry, the explication of the poem and, more importantly to them, the poem's meta-poetical resonances.
In terms of the above lenses, I'll argue that the academic critic will naturally prefer (for reasons of job/identity security) poems that have difficult subject/structural parses, esoteric aesthetics, and, of course, elitist readership. We could also add another lens – "written to address issues currently of interest to academics v. not on the MLA radar." Makes you wonder what aesthetic lines would get crossed for critics to capture that first group while avoiding the second.
The cynical way of looking at the interaction between explication and poetic production was articulated in my first post on Flarf. But it's one I can stand by. The great Australian poet, A.D. Hope said as much:
The poet trained in a school of creative writing by academic critics and taking a job in the same atmosphere is more and more tempted. . .to produce work which, more or less unconsciously, is written in illustration of current critical theories; and thus reversing the proper order of nature in which the critical theories arise to deal with the independent raw material of the creative imagination. . .What is really disturbing is when the young lover has the professor in bed with him and knows his performance is being graded as a first or second class honours, pass or fail. Writing is, or should be, a single-minded process.
("Literature versus the Universities" in The Cave and the Spring: Essays on Poetry, University of Chicago Press)
I suppose a better way of expressing my "sez you" formula would be:
From the perspective of Poet(X)/in-paradigm critic:
X produces Poem(Y) thinking it does G which has implications for E
(Where G stands for any particular in-paradigm effect (little conception of R (below), or R as seen as a subset of G)
Where as from the perspective of Common Reader:
X produces Y which does R
Where R is seen as being entirely unconnected with E (and there's little or no concept of G within the Reader's perspective at all, since they don't enjoy the in-paradigm privilege of the poet)
Mystique and Difficulty
At this point I'd like to consider Kowit's essay. In it he critiques "difficulty" as a desirable trait in poetry and provides a series of very amusing quotes from Graham and Bloom regarding difficulty. Obviously, there's a divergence in valuation of difficulty between Kowit (and myself) and the view espoused by Graham and Bloom. Basically, difficulty is often seen to equate with intelligence. If the poem is "too difficult" then you're obviously "too stupid" to really "get it." Elitism in a nutshell. But sometimes difficulty can be simple obscurity – the poem avails itself of a structure unknown to the reader be it shared by other poets or be it a private code. Those who have the key to the code can appear to be intelligent. This obviously ties into and reinforces the "academic paradigm" idea. Or perhaps it should be a complex – the poem-critic-university complex. I don't think that G in my above formula is always going to be include the element of "difficulty," but "difficulty" or obscurism does describe one way of looking at the need for critical intervention between the poem and the reader.
((Aside - Part of me thinks it's good Graham has seen the light, part of me thinks that before she opens her mouth, she ought to get down on her knees and publicly kiss the asses of the poets who have been taking her "new" approach all along.))
I think much of the culture wars in poetry turn on these kind of things: Difficulty v. Transparency (which I label Easy v. Difficult Parse in the above lenses); the conception of Readership.
So, part of my problem with Flarf (and with much AG poetry in general) is that it's painfully elitist and obscure, insofar that the explications required to take some kind of deep pleasure/understanding from the poem presuppose a specialized training not available to the casual reader. (For if we were just dealing with pleasure of apprehension, non-AG elements, e.g., the presence of a coherent narrative or "message," won't matter one way or the other.)
The other argument, not often publicly advanced, is that AG poetry is *easy* to produce. As Kowit writes, As a fledgling poet I had written enough high-flown gibberish myself to know its seductions. Though I would continue to be read occasional poems and passages in poems that were thrilling, however inexplicable, the business of writing incoherent poetry seemed tiresome, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I'd follow that up, but it's pretty clear, and sure to draw some howls anyway.
Galvin distinguishes between poems which say they "risk" with poems that actually do: The true risk is still in presenting felt expressions of the way things are, statements that move the inner life of the hearer because they offer him a truth deeper than one he previously knew. This formulation would cut deeply against obscurity and by implication relegate the critic to the corner.
Too abstract? Let's look at some poems.
How Difficult It Is: Job Security for Critics, or "Sez You Redux"
If we look at the Burt essay he's got a number of ideas on how to read "new poetry" (which is essentially elliptical/AG/obscurist poetry – flarf also falls loosely in this orbit):
"look for a persona and a world, not for an argument or a plot. Enjoy double meanings: don't feel you must choose between them. Ask what the disparate elements have in common—do they stand for one another, or for the same thing? Are they opposites, irreconcilable alternatives? Or do they fit together to represent a world? Look for self-descriptive or for frame-breaking moments, when the poem stops to tell you what it describes. . .Use your own frustration, or the poem's apparent obliquity, as a tool: many of these poems include attacks on assumptions or pretenses that make ordinary conversational language, and newspaper prose, so smooth. . . Look for the patterns you might seek in visual art. Especially if the poem avoids grammatical sense—if it looks like a canvas strewn with phrases—try treating it as just that. Why place the phrases in this, and no other, array? What sort of person would juxtapose them, and why? Do they imply a hierarchy of importance, or a temporal order ("I noticed first this, then that")?"
To which I think – "Yeah, right." I mean really, who wants to do this, and to what end? Granted, there are some gains to be had in exploring puzzles and training the self to critically apprehend the world, but I'm not sure why this must occur via poetry. It would seem that if you wanted to embark on a critique of culture or a project to improve the person, there are more direct and effective ways to do so.
In short, the above strategies for reading "new poetry" strike me as an awful lot of work for relatively little gain. Not that strategies themselves are bad, but let's look at the "difficult" poems they're applied to. Stripped of their authors (for I don't wish to consider anything but the lines), here are excerpts that Burt explicates for the unenlightened reader:
Site of their desire: against a long high wall under vapor light
Most likely to succeed: the perpetual starting over
Inside his mouth: night after night after night
Directive: by any means necessary
the fields flooded with milk
the herbs shining on the mountain
the strong salt soil my dear
you stoop to pinch off eatings
while behind you a vast
task is rising
a skein of use
Did we surprise our teachers who had niggling doubts about the picayune brains of small black children who reminded them of clean pickaninnies on a box of laundry soap? How muddy is the Mississippi compared to the third longest river of the darkest continent? In the land of the Ibo, the Hausa and the Yoruba, what is the price per barrel of nigrescence?
I'm just another pizza delivery girl
Without a pizza, a raconteur with nothing
To recount. I heavy-breathe by the rabbit
Iconography, refusing to multiply. Mina Loy
Is my favorite video game.
I love blowing up those enemy nouns.
Sometimes you can dismiss poems as being more or less mandalas for critical conversation, rather than carrying specific deep meaning themselves. Although it's an easy game to play, I'd like to explore that here for a second – the relatively high level of interchangeability of critique. Burt's made the following critique of one of the above poetry fragments. In context, it seems rather impressive, intellectual, plausible, subtle, so forth. He's offering an explication of a "difficult" poem, to us, the poor stupid readers. But can you (the poor stupid reader) link this passage to any of the excerpts above? For Burt is only referring to one of the passages when he writes:
That artifice can carry meaning in itself: often it tries to demonstrate that selves, personalities, egos, are themselves artificial, effects of a social matrix. Nonetheless, contemporary poems like these hold together if we can imagine a personality behind them. The poem carries, as people do, a social or regional or ethnic context; it leaps, as a person's thoughts do, from topic to topic, and it lacks—as real people usually lack—a single all-explaining storyline or motive. Being like a person, such a poem can also ask what exactly makes us persons, how we know a person when we see one, or how we tell one another apart.
Or can the passage apply equally to any of the excerpts? All the fragments contain an artifice of one kind or another, from which Burt's conclusion flows. We can imagine a personality behind each one which might "hold the poem together" (although I'd say this requires a lot of work/projection on the reader's part *and* that personality isn't going to be an exclusive one). The poem fragments all carry, as people do, various contents. They all leap from topic to topic. They all lack a single all-explaining storyline, thus, by the logic of the explication, they all can "ask" (bit of a personification fudge here) what exactly makes us persons. Which is a high-falutin' ideer, yep.
Although I'd submit that no common readers will walk away from those fragments with the question "how do we know a person when we see one?" in any level of their consciousness as prompted by the fragments themselves. Did you?
My purpose is not to bash Burt – he's actually quite a good reader, sensitive to nuance and able to marshall a considerable store of knowledge. My critique is a bit broader than that, and a bit simpler. I pointed out in that initial flarf critique (not that the fragments above are all flarf) that flarf is just the latest gloss on a kind of academic interchangeable poem that privileges an extra-poetic discourse over the poems themselves.
In Galvin's under-regarded essay, he attacks nonsensically flaccid neo-surrealism in a manner wholly appropriate to critiquing AG/Flarf/Burt's "New Poems":
The effect of such stanzas — and they can be found in nearly every contemporary anthology and in many poetry collections and magazines — is like overhearing a drunken stranger talking to himself in a bar mirror late at night, and about someone we have never met. We aren't admitted to these poems. . .No particulars of their experience are given in a coherent way that might make us assent, "Yes, it is tragic that this has happened to a human being, and we are caught up in this tragedy because we are human, and this could happen to us."
In other words, is there a feeling of inevitability about the poems, or are they merely arranged to resemble necessary statements about experience? A new form of Academicism is at work here. Written by academically-trained writers who teach in writing programs where presumably they seek tenure and promotion as other professors do, these are as much "publications" as they are poems. One sure way to publish is to imitate what is already trendy, rather than taking the time, with attendant risks, to strike off in search of one's own voice.
You'll notice that these equally apply to the above.
Flarf (Finally)
Dan Hoy's critique of Flarf rightly points out that "google-sculpting" pretty much surrenders the technique of collage to a set of corporate algorithms (that control the rankings of the google search engine). In this way the google-sculpting poet or flarfist isn't drawing from a random spread of ideas, or sampling the true breadth of the population, but rather they are using a limited set of material (internet) which is ordered for them by a corporation. The implication is that there's an ordering force at work here, one that is not critiqued but accepted and passed off as random acquisition.
However, I'm more interested in the threads that Hoy leaves unfollowed, particularly in this passage:
In any case, flarf's Un-P.C. aesthetic aim. . .is a reactionary sentiment left over from the 90s. . .A juvenile strategy like this may be revolutionary in relation to the Mary Olivers of the world, but if one follows Duchamp by dropping the medium as a defining limit so as to engage with poetics as a behavior and way of thinking, it's not a matter of creating poetry in relation to other poems: 'poetry' is simply a byproduct, and what leads to these recursive acts of 'revolution' is a defining/ confining of it to the rubric of letters and lettres, text and txt.
Which I think dovetails nicely with what I've been saying about poetry as a mandala, or springboard. A bit later he makes a particularly cogent observation about reactionary aesthetics:
As long as poets limit their poetic output to text (which is fine in itself) while also limiting their conception of 'poetry' to it, we're going to keep getting these episodic moonings and middle fingers made against some stuffy fuddy-duddy or otherwise projected entity (in this case 'acceptable' poems and poets) under the guise of a critical leveling of the larger culturopolitical establishment. As if any boundaries are transgressed when you hold a protest within the space (material or cognitive) apportioned off for you by the institution you're protesting against.
I think this is quite resonant. One traditional justification for the AG is a "rebellion" against traditionally stuffy verse and/or the various 'mind-forged manacles' which Blake railed against. Recently that's been any number of justifications which are perhaps most cogently articulated by one of the early Language Poetry poetics: poetry as consciously subverting the expected narrative expectations in poetry by foregrounding the language itself in an effort to create a mode of expression which by its very nature would critique the conventions of bourgeois society, rather than using the traditional poetic modes to mobilize various substantive arguments against elements of that society. More broadly, such writings were seen as challenging and undermining the traditional western conception of communication as a speaker communicating an (often written) message to a listener through a neutral and apolitical medium (language); the language poets would argue that in actuality a large number of assumptions and social conventions entered into the process to shape our understanding. By consciously undermining these assumptions, Langpo was thought subvert the hierarchy of the (meaning controlling) writer and the passive (influenced) reader, not through a metaphysical act of "making the poem/communicating a message/destroying meaning", but by challenging/frustrating the reader's assumptions about how language and narrative works, how meaning is generated.)
However the concepts in the previous paragraph are extra-poetical, they're part of that academic/elitist dialogue that is required for the poems to work as such. Intended effect based on a genelogical and informed meta-poetics perspective v. the actual real-world effects on readers, complicated by the non-exclusionary nature of the intended effect (any old thing could be argued to produce the effect), and the basic boogey-man nature of the force being reacted to.
OK – that's it for now. I'll turn to Flarf/Flarf explication itself when I have a moment. For a prefiguring of that argument, and to show how different perspectives can validly be attached to the poems, you might want to look at a previous challenge by Thomas which I took up, where I critiqued K. Mohamed's reading of two poems. Basically I felt that the readings showed a lot of political bias and were *far* from the polar opposites that K. proposed they were.
My Flarf argument's going to model that, and be predicated by the above. It might have some interesting quirks (it's in an even rougher draft stage than this piece is) but you can basically guess the shape of it.


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After 18 months of struggle and sacrifice, workers at the Alcoa-Rio Tinto-owned Aluminerie de Bécancour (ABI) aluminum smelter in Bécancour, Quebec, accepted a concessions-laden contract last month. The rollbacks include pension cuts, increased use of subcontracting , and the elimination of 10 percent of the workforce (see: "Quebec ABI workers' struggle betrayed by United Steelworkers Union").
During the 18-month lockout, the more than 1,000 ABI production, skilled trades, and office workers demonstrated great determination and courage. But their struggle was systematically isolated by the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Quebec Federation of Labour (QFL), who feared the mobilization of workers in Quebec, across North America and internationally in support of the ABI workers' anti-concessions struggle would disrupt their cozy, corporatist relations with the employers and big business political establishment.
If the ABI workers are to reverse management's vicious attacks and defend their jobs, they must draw the political lessons of their bitter experience with the treachery of the USW and QFL. Moreover, the fate of the ABI workers contains crucial lessons for all workers as they confront the joint assault of big business and its political hirelings on their jobs, wages, and social rights.
An international strategy is needed
Workers face an international offensive by big business to make them pay for the crisis of the capitalist profit system through the destruction of their jobs, wages and pensions, and the gutting of public services.
In the case of ABI, aluminum industry analysts made no secret of the fact that one of the main objectives of the lockout was to impose changes in work organization to increase the exploitation of workers in the face of increased competition on the world market. While Alcoa and Rio Tinto locked out their Bécancour employees, they demanded concessions from their employees in Australia and the United States and announced plant closures and job losses in Spain.
To this international assault, workers must counterpose a unified and coordinated response on a global scale. This requires a break with the nationalist, pro-capitalist policy of the trade unions. The unions accept the inviolability of employer property rights—that is big business' "right" to deploy and dispose of the factories and smelters built through the collective labour of generations of workers at their will—and, in the name of ensuring the competitiveness of our "own" industries, they are imposing the dictates of the bosses.
Throughout the ABI conflict, the Steelworkers expressed their willingness to accept cuts in jobs and pensions, provided they were "negotiated." The union bureaucrats were also deeply involved in the elaboration and implementation of the Canadian ruling elite's protectionist policies. They joined with Justin Trudeau's Liberal government in urging the Trump administration to remove tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum products and adopt a common North American trade-war policy against China. In pursuing this course, which pits workers against each other in a fratricidal struggle for jobs, the Steelworkers made clear their support for imperialist militarism, with their repeated boasts as to the importance of Canadian-made steel for the production of US warplanes and tanks.
Workers must be mobilized as an independent political force
The ABI workers were not merely engaged in a trade union dispute over a collective agreement, but in a political struggle against the entire class war program of the ruling elite.
This was highlighted by the extraordinary intervention Quebec Premier François Legault, head of the province's new right-wing populist Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government, made in support of ABI and its concessions drive. Legault repeatedly made statements and tweets condemning the ABI workers' supposedly "excessive" demands. He also denounced wages across Quebec's entire manufacturing sector as "too high"—highlighting that his government and the ruling class are engaged in a frontal assault on the working class as a whole.
The ABI workers' fight against concessions was part of the popular opposition to capitalist austerity that has repeatedly erupted in major struggles in Canada in recent years, such as the student strike that shook Quebec in 2012, the 2017 Quebec construction strike, and last fall's Canada-wide postal strike. These struggles are part of a growing international working class upsurge, which includes the "Yellow Vest" movement in France, the wildcat strike of maquiladora workers in Matamoras, Mexico, mass anti-government demonstrations in Algeria, and teachers' strikes in the United States, to name but a few examples.
Had ABI workers forcefully appealed to the anti-capitalist sentiment that animates large sections of workers in Canada, the United States and overseas, their struggle could have become the spearhead of a working-class counter-offensive in defense of jobs, pensions, and public services.
But this is the last thing the pro-capitalist trade unions wanted. They did everything they could to isolate the ABI workers. On the basis of their nationalist and pro-capitalist policies, the United Steelworkers and QFL channeled the energy of the rank-and-file ABI workers into futile appeals to the company's shareholders and various representatives of the political establishment—mayors, the region's MPs and MNAs, and even the right-wing CAQ government, thus paving the way for the latter's predictable pro-company intervention.
This strategy led workers straight into a dead end.
To hide the bankruptcy of their policies, the Steelworkers turned to Québec Solidaire (QS), a nationalist party of the upper middle-class that specializes in "left-wing" posturing, while suppressing the class struggle and dividing Quebec workers from their class brothers and sisters in English Canada, the US and beyond. Throughout the 18-month struggle, QS provided political cover for the Steelworkers' efforts to isolate the locked-out workers. This included mouthing not a word of criticism of the USW's promotion of protectionism, support for Justin Trudeau's big-business government, or its reactionary appeals to Legault to intervene on the workers' behalf. QS Member of the National Assembly (MNA) Alexandre Leduc, himself a former union official, even gave his blessing to the concessions-filled agreement the ABI workers' reluctantly accepted because they had concluded that under the misleadership of the Steelworkers' bureaucrats nothing better could be won. Leduc hailed it as a partial victory, because it contained "fewer givebacks than the (contract) previously proposed by the employer."
Build rank-and-file committees to mobilize the social power of the working class
In opposition to the rightwing USW and QFL apparatuses and their nationalist strategy, the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party (Canada) urged ABI workers to take their struggle into their own hands by forming a rank-and-file committee and appealing to workers across Canada and internationally for support. From the first days of the lockout, and in some two dozen subsequent articles and statements, we warned that if the struggle remained under the organizational and political control of the USW and the union bureaucracy, it would inevitably be betrayed.
"The Steelworkers continue to isolate the locked-out ABI workers, and, as their March counteroffer shows, they are prepared to impose sweeping concessions," we wrote last April, before going on to warn: "In opposition to the United Steelworkers and the QFL, which are plotting with management and government against them, ABI workers must establish a rank-and-file committee, democratically controlled by the workers themselves, to take the leadership of their struggle in their own hands.
"Only such a rank-and-file committee can break the isolation in which the USW and QFL have straitjacketed the ABI workers' struggle and spearhead a campaign to reach other sections of the working class—not only in Quebec but in the rest of Canada and internationally" (see: "Quebec Premier backs ABI in extorting massive concessions from locked-out workers").
With the USW's betrayal, the urgency of the fight for this perspective has been fully confirmed. ABI workers must draw the necessary political conclusions from the bitter outcome of their struggle, recognize that in the union bureaucracy they confront a privileged social stratum hostile to their interests and those of the working class as a whole, and take up the fight to build action committees controlled by trusted and militant members of the rank-and-file.
In irreconcilable opposition to the pro-corporate and nationalist policies of the USW and QFL, these committees must fight to rally support for all workers engaged in struggle against concessions and austerity, and fight for the development of an international working-class counter-offensive.
Throughout the lockout, the WSWS insisted that the mobilization of the militant energy of working people must be based on a socialist perspective, that is, the struggle to establish working-class political power, so that socio-economic life can be reorganized to make the satisfaction of human needs, not the further enrichment of the tiny clique of capitalist investors, its animating principle.
Despite the bitter defeat suffered by ABI workers, this perspective acquires renewed urgency under conditions of a resurgence of class struggle on an international scale. In Canada, this has included rising working-class opposition to Doug Ford's far-right government in Ontario—which is increasingly taking the form of a rebellion against the pro-capitalist union apparatus. It is to this powerful social force that ABI workers and their class brothers and sisters across all economic sectors must turn in the coming struggles against concessions, capitalist austerity, and war.


text: Kodak City, Rochester – Leutenegger. 07/06/2019 By Derwombat Publisher Kehrer Verlag has just released Kodak City by Swiss photographer Catherine Leutenegger with texts by A. D. Coleman, Catherine Leutenegger, Joerg Bader, and Urs Stahel. The project not only examines "a city once central to photography but now marginalized and adrift", but also considers the economic ramifications affecting the city of Rochester. Eastman Kodak, the company which pioneered so much in photography from the 1880s through the 1960s, could have owned digital imaging; the very first electronic camera was born in one of Kodak's labs. Instead, they missed that boat, going into a tailspin that resulted in their eventual bankruptcy. Tied to that economic engine, the fortunes of Rochester, New York. Catherine Leutenegger's attentive, deadpan studies of present- day Rochester describe the face of a city once central to photography but now marginalized and adrift, as it might appear to Eastman should his specter bicycle through the streets as he once did in the flesh. Will Rochester go the way of Detroit and other rust-belt cities in the post-industrial age? Can it reinvent and reconfigure itself? What happens to Rochester now depends not on Kodak but on Rochester itself — its citizens, its elected officials, its small businesspeople and corporate heads. Rochester's revitalization will require inventiveness and inspiration, for both of which the city can look to this native son and the world-changing enterprise he built and nurtured there. –from the essay Rochester, New York: After the Kodak Century by A. D. Coleman READ ON via Book Week: Catherine Leutenegger: Kodak City | LENSCRATCH. Share this:Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)MoreClick to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Like this:Like Loading... Related About Derwombat My name is Rod Parham, Hot Metal Compositor. I was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1947. Single with two children and a grandson. I Love History, Movies and Words.


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Thursday, June 7, 2012
James Lynwood Palmer
James Lynwood Palmer (1868-1941) Born at Market Rasen Lincolnshire, England, the third son of a parson who became Canon of Rochester Cathedral, Palmer ran away to Canada at a young age. There he was in charge of the horses in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Palmer then became a self-trained artist and earned a living as such in New York until he returned to England in 1899. There he secured commissions to paint horses of famous patrons, including the Duke of Portland, Edward VII and George V. Later Palmer became adviser to the Earl of Derby's stud. It is said that he trained a Grand National winner. Portrait of Marie Frances Lisette
Posted by Julie at 10:52 PM
Labels: Artist in Review
1 comment:
- Camping Dordogne said...
Its a really amazing blog! I am going to share this site with my friend :)
- June 10, 2012 at 1:16 AM
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Outreach Information Points
If you are a carer and are unable to get to the centre in Hindley, you can meet a worker from Wigan and Leigh Carers Centre at one of our Outreach Information Points in the community. We can provide information and guidance, a listening ear and tell you about the support that's available to support you in your caring role.
Wigan Life Centre North
2nd Monday of the month, 9.15am-11.30am
Leigh Walk-in Centre
4th Wednesday of the month, 9.15am-11.30am
Thomas Linacre Out Patients
1st Monday of the month, 1.30pm – 4.15pm
Atherleigh Park, Hospital, Leigh
1st Thursday of the month, 9.30am – 11.30am
Alexandra Court (Pemberton)
1st & 3rd Wednesday of the month, 2.00pm – 4.15pm
Ormerod House, Atherton
3rd Thursday of the month, 9.30am-12.00pm
For more details contact Wigan and Leigh Carers Centre on 01942 705959. Please note that the above are subject to change, therefore, it is always advisable to ring the Carers Centre before setting out.


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I hope that everyone had fun exploring the sites I mentioned last week! These sites are a way to share photos and stories, but are not a way to preserve your family photos.
If you want to preserve your photos try these tips.
- Scan at 600 dpi as color images. I prefer the TIF format because it's uncompressed. Don't forget to scan the back, if there is information there such as a caption or photographer's name and address. Scan at 100 percent scale at a minimum.
- I don't like to use the digital auto-correct feature on my scanner. I prefer to "fix" any photo issues with a photo editing program. One of my favorites is Picnik.com. It's similar than Photoshop and free. Unfortunately, you can't upload TIF files, only JPGs, so you'll have to create a jpeg copy of your scanned image.
- Back up your digital files on a portable hard drive and/or print significant photos.
- Preserve your family stories by recording them or writing them down.
Thank you to Sally Jacobs, the Practical Archivist for pointing out this survey on what online sites do with your digital files.
I had a great time in Washington, D.C. and found several additional images for my Last Muster project. The highlight of the trip was visiting the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. I was the only researcher in the department and boy did I take advantage of that to ask questions <smile>. You can view the majority of the collection online.
Solve your family photo mysteries with these books by Maureen A. Taylor:


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Toronto. Many camera collectors specialize: some with German 35mm; some with Japanese cameras; some with milestone versions; and so on.
There are even a few who collect toy cameras of all things! My good friend John Linsky picked up this book called Camera Crazy, written by Chris Salyers and Buzz Poole. As you can see by the cover shot, the book covers the strange world of toy cameras.
To many people toy cameras are a recent phenomenon, but they date back over a century to Kodak's Brownie camera line. The very name Brownie was chosen to cover the little cartoonish dolls so enchanting to children of that era. Brownies were created by Palmer Cox of… GRANBY, QUEBEC, CANADA. The book continues on to the most recent digital toy cameras. There are lavish pictures of both the cameras and the photographs they can produce.


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The fire surrounding the national anthem war is infecting schools which could result in unintended institutional racism. Politicians and business leaders have sided with standing during the National Anthem while National Football Players and other sports figures are on both sides of the lane. Stuck in the middle are administrators and children. Children are seeking alternatives to express their political views while many school administrators seek to maintain a productive educational school climate which has resulted in disciplinary consequences for many Black students. Schools are on cusp of becoming instruments of institutional racism unless alternative solutions are implemented.
Several private school institutions have admittedly expressed their opposition to students who desire to exercise their political rights of freedom of speech by not standing during the playing of the National Anthem. Their response has overwhelmingly resulted in institutional racism against Black students.
For example, the two Black Victory & Praise Christian Academy football players below were kicked off the team for protesting during the National Anthem at a game. Cedric Ingram-Lewis raised his fist while cousin Larry McCullough knelt during the anthem ahead of the team's game against Providence Classical. After the anthem ended, head coach Ronnie Mitchem instructed them to take off their uniforms and kicked them off the team. Mitchem is a former Marine and pastor who started the church-based football program in Crosby six years ago. This school has become an instrument of institutionalized racism.
Institutional racism is a form of racism expressed in the practice of social and political institutions. Institutional racism is also racism by individuals or informal social groups, governed by behavioral norms that support racist thinking and foment active racism. It is reflected in disparities regarding wealth, income, criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power and education, among other things. Whether implicitly or explicitly expressed, institutional racism occurs when a certain group is targeted and discriminated against based upon race.
The demonstrations against the National Anthem are associated with the belief that Blacks are victimized by other institutions. According to former NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color." This is the perspective of many Black students who decide to protests the national anthem. The number of Black student protestors far outweigh any other ethnic groups.
It is safe to say that schools that decide to punish students for not honoring the National Anthem will participate in the business of institutional racism because the majority of the students that are going to get disciplined will be Black.
Rather than become instruments of institutional racism, schools need to continue to focus on the business of education. No matter how an individual educator may feel personally, they must continue to protect the rights of students.
Students do not lose their freedom of rights to express their political views when they enter school. According to the Burnside v. Byars case a group of public school students at an all-black school in Philadelphia, Mississippi wore "freedom buttons" to school to protest racial segregation in the state. The school principal ordered the students to remove the buttons. The principal believed that the buttons would "cause commotion" and "disturb the school program." When several students continued to wear the buttons, the principal suspended them for a week. The Fifth Circuit panel held by a 3-0 vote that school officials could not prohibit the wearing of the "freedom buttons" because there was no evidence that the buttons would have caused a substantial disruption.
In the case of Jeremiah Blackwell, Jr., et al., Appellants, v. Issaquena County Board of Education, on Friday, January 29, 1965, approximately 30 pupils at the all-Negro Henry Weathers High School wore "freedom buttons" to class. The following Monday approximately 150 pupils came to school wearing the buttons. The next day close to 200 students appeared wearing buttons. On April 1, 1965, a mandatory preliminary injunction was sought to compel school officials to re-admit the suspended pupils and to allow them to wear freedom buttons so long as no disturbance resulted.
It was held in Burnside that a school regulation forbidding the wearing of freedom buttons was unreasonable in that the presence of such buttons on school grounds did not cause a disturbance of classroom activities nor was such a rule necessary for the maintenance of order and discipline within the school under the facts and in the circumstances of that case.
Public schools only have one alternative. As long as the demonstration is peaceful and does not disrupt the classroom it has to be allowed otherwise they are going to lose money through civil litigation. Even though private schools are held to a different standard, they can only become instruments of institutionalized racism for punishing Black students for kneeling during the National Anthem.
Related Articles
High Schools Threaten to Punish Students Who Kneel During Anthem
Texas high school football players kicked off their team for protesting during national anthem
Can N.J. schools punish students for NFL-style 'take a knee' protests?
Dr. Derrick L. Campbell, Ed.D.
PO Box 4707 Cherry Hill, NJ 08034
Author of:
- Promoting Positive Racial Teacher Student Classroom Relationships
- Promoting Positive Racial Teacher Student Classroom Relationships: Methodology
- The Raccelerate Formula App
- Treasures of Hidden Racism in Education
- The Ultimate Guide to Classroom Racism Management
"Dr. Campbell did his part and now all we have to do is run with it."
~ Tom Coleman ~ Woodstown-Pilesgrove Public Schools Superintendent of Schools
"The model that you use to analyze teacher-student relationships is a good one for most school districts".
~ Joe Vas ~ Perth Amboy Mayor
"Dr. Campbell's Cultural Relationship Training Program is comprehensive, informative, and should be required training for all schools"
~ Darrell Pope ~ Hutchinson Kansas NAACP President


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Who said flying an extended airliner test flight is boring?
On December 13, 2017 an Airbus A380 testpilot did some pretty cool stuff in the sky by 'drawing' a giant Christmas Tree on a flightpath over Germany and Denmark during a testflight of the Airbus A380, soon to be flown by Emirates, the carrier from Dubai.
Video produced by Jerry Taha Productions showing the outline of the flightpath, shared by Flightradar24.
Creating the Christmas tree in the sky
The A380 took off from Hamburg Airport in Germany at 11:45 am local time to do the 5 hour test flight and arrived back into the same airport at 5:07 pm. The outline of the flightpath at 41,000 ft was shared by Flightradar24, a real time air traffic tracking site. The tree was rendered in several colors, reflecting the A380's varying altitudes.The tree, complete with decorations, stretched for hundreds of miles from Hamburg to Stuttgart in the south, where the trunk of the tree was formed. After the tree was finished, the A380 headed towards northern Denmark to create the Christmas tree top, before returning to Hamburg Airport in Germany. It was almost perfect, except for that one odd round branch on the left side of the tree.
Airbus' test flights
An Airbus spokesperson explained it was a normal internal test flight, before the delivery of a new aircraft, adding: "There are hundreds of these flights every year. They take off and land at the Airbus Airport in Hamburg", but the routing of these flights are flexible. Thanks to the co-operation of the air traffic controllers of Eurocontrol and DFS, it was possible to fly that Christmas tree flight path. "It was the idea of test pilots and engineers; an Airbus greeting to all aviation fans during this Christmas season.
More Family Friendly Than The U.S. Navy drawing over Washington State
The crew of this A380 test flight flew a more family-friendly piece of aircraft art than the recent 'unauthorized' art by a U.S. Navy E/A-18 Growler. The Growler crew created a giant phalic symbol in the sky over Okanogan County in Washington in November, using the condensed air trail from its exhaust. Pictures of the giant image in the sky immediately went viral on social media.
Vice Admiral Mike Shoemaker, the commander of naval air forces, said in a statement: "Sophomoric and immature antics of a sexual nature have no place in naval aviation today."


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Do you have a little girl?
No? What about a grand daughter, niece, cousin, neighbour or friend?
Chances are, that if you have one of these little people in your life, you will be aware that she ABSOLUTELY adores pretty things for her hair.
Amelia loves her hair. She loves clips, headbands, ribbons, hair ties… you name it, she loves it. The more sparkly and extravagant, the better.
She received a parcel from Lady Jayne the other day. Inside was a selection of pretty hair accessories.
You would think it was Christmas, by the excitement level.
A parcel.
Just for her.
Filled with pretty things – which she loves.
Lady Jayne was introduced to the Australian market in 1928 and rapidly grew to its present position as market leader in hair accessories.
Not only does Lady Jayne have products for little girls, there is also bling for for the bigger girls.
I adore these decorated clips. Like mother, like daughter, right?
With thanks to Lady Jayne, I have a gorgeous hamper of hair prettiness, valued at $50, to giveaway.
To enter, visit the Lady Jayne website then go to the drop down menu of the Product Guide and have a look at all of the pretty things available.
Come back and leave me a comment telling me which hair accessories you love most – as many as you like. There are so many pretty ones, it is really hard to decide.
*** If you do not have a blogger account, you can enter the giveaway by sending your answer to email@example.com with "Lady Jayne" in the subject line. ***
Terms and Conditions
1. Open to Australian residents only.
2. Giveaway will close at Midday on Monday 4 June 2012.
3. The winner will be chosen randomly.
4. Samelia's Mum will take no responsibility for any delay, loss or damage to prizes sent to winners.
5. Winner/s will be contacted by email.


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If you've been thinking of swapping out your old DSLR for a more nimble mirrorless camera, but you just don't want to go through the hassle of selling your old kit and raising the necessary funds, Samsung has one hell of a deal for you.
On June 4th between the hours of 12pm and 6pm in Times Square, Samsung will GIVE you an NX30 for free if you're willing to hand over your DSLR (any DSLR) in exchange.
Anyone else think that this is yet another harebrained scheme by Samsung? I mean, I'd do this in a heartbeat – but I wouldn't give them my D600. I'd go to a pawn shop or second hand store, buy an ancient DSLR for $100 and then swap it for their $1000 mirrorless!


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ALPO® Wet Dog Food
Time to wake up, meat lovers. Your dream wet dog food meal is here!
Nearly half of all domestic abuse victims delay leaving because they don't want
to leave their pet behind, yet as few as 10% of domestic violence shelters accept pets.
The Purple Leash Project is working to change that.
Every ALPO dog food recipe is made with high-quality ingredients and offers 100% complete and balanced adult dog nutrition. So you can be sure your dog is getting all the nutrition he needs along with all that meaty flavor he loves.


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"My work struggles to define the intersection that is present in daily urban life. I am intrigued by the interplay between the fluid and the static elements present in today's urban tapestry. My work investigates untangling the chaos, the brilliance of technology, human development, nature's vibrancy and ultimate demise."
A Houston resident for 29 years, Italian American artist Nicola Parentecurrently works out of his studio at Winter Street Studios. Working in a variety of media (painting, photography, installations, and textile design), he engages the viewer in dialogues of human encounters within the urban environment. Most recent projects and exhibitions include "Genesis" a museum exhibit at the Museo de Guadalupe in Mexico. Earlier this year Parente partnered with Writers in the Schools (WITS) to transform trees into "Poet-Trees" in Houston during National Poetry Month. Parente dressed trees at Buffalo Bayou Park. Visitors were encouraged to write a poem, sentiment, or thought and hang it on the trees. This interactive installation had more than 7,000 visitors over the course of 4 weeks. In 2016-17, Parente's paintings were part of a touring exhibition between Esbjerg Denmark and Houston TX. In 2014, Parente was featured as one of Houston's 100 creatives by HoustonPress and was the featured artist in the Bayou Review, a literary and visual arts journal published by the University of Houston. Parente's works can be seen in public and private collections in the United States, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Ethiopia. He obtained a BS from King's College (PA) and a Master's degree from the University of St. Thomas (TX).
We are most likely to accept offers of 10% or less off the list price.


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Change is tough. Especially in organizations. But it can be done—very successfully sometimes. In the old days, initiatives were thought to work only if they came from the top down. There's no doubt that having high-level sponsorship certainly helps a change effort.
But current research shows the dynamism of how an organization truly transforms. The experience is far more interesting, organic, and unpredictable than any of us realized. The heart of change lives within the people who must enact it. This calls for radical levels of inclusion, courage, and openness. The fun starts here!
Powers' Elements of Organization Transformation:
- BELIEFS: Addressing negative assumptions & creating possibility
- RISK: Fostering creativity and learning from mistakes
- INCLUSION: Engaging the people who must enact the change in the design and implementation of it.
- CONFLICT: Participating in important conversations skillfully
- COMMUNICATION: Communication, communication.
- POWER/STATUS: Encouraging decision-making throughout the hierarchy
I have twenty years of (sometimes painful!) experience about what really works about changing organizations. If your company has more that just you in it, having some friendly support in negotiating change might be just the ticket.


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We, at St Paul's, are always ready to welcome anyone who wishes to come and worship with us.
We have our Sunday morning Sung Eucharist followed by refreshments. ALL are welcome.
Please see the Services tab for further details about our services.
We do offer Anointing after the Sunday morning Eucharist on occasions and at other times upon request.
We have a devoted Vicar, Fr Kevin Barnard, who is willing to take Confession by Appointment. Please do not hesitate to contact him on the details provided on the website.
We also offer the Sacrament by home visit should anyone wish it. Please also contact Fr Kevin on the details provided.


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Grain of salt on the Obama section...remember that Obama is a trojan…Continue
Posted on July 1, 2013 at 10:59pm
About 45 people showed up Wednesday near the entrance to the Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio, marking the first protest against the summer encampment of the wealthy and powerful Bohemians.
Posted on July 14, 2011 at 5:00pm
Posted on April 27, 2011 at 10:08pm
Please send your prayers of love and gratitude to water at the nuclear plants in Fukushima, Japan!…Continue
Posted on March 31, 2011 at 9:08am — 1 Comment
I've listened to Tara and Rama on and off and have been in contact over the past several years, within the past month I launched a brand new social network ,
the Celestial Souls Network, and was hoping to partner with this site to promote their work as it is something I beleive in. send me a private message on the site with skype or whatever info you want to get in contact with me through.


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A handful of articles appeared today, on CNET, TWICE, and Bloomberg.com.
CNET is reporting that Toshiba has lowered their sales target for HD DVD players, not projecting a total of 1 million Toshiba HD DVD decks in North America by the end of calendar 2007. That's a 44% reduction from their previous projection of 1.8 million units.
That makes for an interesting contrast with the TWICE article, which is based on information released by the North American HD DVD Promotional Group. No surprise, they've put a positive spin on things. They tout the fact that HD DVD holds a lead with 60% of all dedicated high-definition set-top players sold. Of course, HD DVD STBs were on the market for several months before BD STBs shipped, and have always had a price advantage – yet BD has been reducing HD DVD's lead steadily. They also downplay the PS3, which is the single most common next-gen disc player in homes today, as each PS3 is also a Blu-ray player. They claim that PS3 players have not purchased BD titles as much as Sony expected – which may be true, but there was a major increase in BD movie purchases following the release of the PS3, which has continued to lift BD sales. They report that 150,000 dedicated HD DVD players have been purchased to date.
Now, contrast that with the Bloomberg.com article. Sony is projecting that US Blu-ray player sales my increase six-fold in 2007, compared to 2006 – as many as 600,000 BD players, compared to 100,000 in 2006. BD has the overwhelming support of the movie studios. Of the eight majors, seven support Blu-ray – five of those exclusively. Universal is the sole HD DVD exclusive studio, Warner and Paramount support both. Consumers are far more likely to find the titles they want on BD than on HD DVD, and Sony expects that to continue to drive sales.
I've been watching this format war since before it started, when there were a myriad of competing 'next generation' disc proposals. Personally, I think Blu-ray is clearly superior and the few advantages that HD DVD had are being eroded over time. The main advantage to HD DVD was lower manufacturing costs, but as BD production matures, and volumes increase, that advantage is being whittled away. In every other regard, BD is equivalent or superior to HD DVD. I'm a little upset with Toshiba, and their primary partners – NEC and Sanyo – for triggering this war. When the overwhelming majority of the consumer electronics and content industries aligned behind BD, they had a chance to combine the formats and avoid a war – as was done with DVD – but they decided to fight it out in the market instead. No one wins in a format war, it slows adoption of the new technology and creates confusion. I expect BD will be the dominant format in the long run, but the worst-case would be for HD DVD to linger on indefinitely, keeping the rift in the market open. To more people who buy BD and the fewer who buy HD DVD, the faster it will be over.


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Meeting your love for a happy hour, or for a Movie (well tough fight between Kaabil and Raees :p). I don't always prefer wearing a dress with stilettos. No doubt they look sexy but donning a comfortable look for a day is a wise decision. For me, a pair of stylish flats is a great pick for a day out. They keep me going for an entire day. Keep reading and know my love for the new addition in my footwear section.
Casuals have a hidden charm and can make you look effortlessly cool. I have togged myself in a black cold shoulder top. The stretchable material makes it fit like second skin, so easy fit and hits at the hip. Paired this one with narrow distressed denim. I gave multiple folds at the bottom to give a cool look. Also, not to forget I wanted to show off my beautiful gladiators from Reliance Footprint 😉
I adore cold shoulder pattern and this one from Naomi Code is exceptional. The material used is of high standards and makes me fall in love with it. Their size chart is something I was amazed to see, and they rightly say with "Naomi Code, it is made to fit". They believe that fashion should look good not just on a mannequin, it needs to look good on YOU!
To outstand the look added a hint of gold and black. I choose to wear this beautiful pair of black gladiator sandals from Reliance Footprint. The cut-out design has a Grecian flair with golden studs all over. The elastic band at the back secures the gladiators around the ankle beautifully. We already saw them last year and they are still ranking in the trend chart. They are versatile enough to pair with anything and are oh-so-easy-to-wear.
Flats give you the flexibility to walk around for hours and shop your favorite brands without getting tired. This one is my go-to pair for an outing with friends/ shopping and what not! Do check them out for more footwear patterns and walk in style.Can't go without a bag, so opted for a black with golden detailing sling to carry all my necessities. And last but not the least, my all-time favorite, full round rim black shades, they happily go with everything just like water..!!!
Can't go without a bag, so opted for a black with golden detailing sling to carry all my necessities. And last but not the least, my all-time favorite, full round rim black shades, they happily go with everything just like water..!!!
Outfit: Naomi Code
Footwear: Reliance Footprint
Location Courtesy: Courtyard Marriott, Gurgaon
Do like and comment if you like this part of my casual lookbook. See you next time ❤


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Ferzana Chaze is an editor of the book Putting a human face on child welfare: Voices from the Prairies.
Document Type
The chapters in this book represent a selection of the many very fine presentations made at the Prairie Child Welfare Consortium's (PCWC) 3rd bi-annual Symposium, held in Edmonton, Alberta, November 23–25, 2005. The theme of that Symposium was Putting a Human Face on Child Welfare.
Sharon McKay's article "Development of the Prairie Child Welfare Consortium" at the beginning of this book provides a brief history of the beginnings of the PCWC, illustrating not only its practical, but more importantly the philosophical development. Readers will find that this philosophy informs a great deal of the writing in the 11 chapters of this book.
The chapters of Putting a Human Face on Child Welfare: Voices from the Prairies are presented in no particular order, and one is not more important than another. Each presents its unique perspective and represents somewhat different constituents. Collectively, the chapters of this book form a product that is one way of raising the voices of the Prairies, especially as it relates to the important challenges we face at the present time in child welfare.
Publication Date
child welfare, social work, Prairie Child Welfare Consortium, PCWC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Northwest Territories
Social Work
1 September 2016: At the time of publication, Sheridan College author Ferzana Chaze was associated with the Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher
Faculty of Applied Health & Community Studies
School of Applied Health
Terms of Use
Terms of Use for Works posted in SOURCE.
Copyright © 2007 Ivan Brown, Ferzana Chaze, Don Fuchs, Jean Lafrance, Sharon McKay, and Shelley Thomas Prokop All rights reserved
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
SOURCE Citation
Brown, Ivan; Chaze, Ferzana; Fuchs, Don; Lafrance, Jean; McKay, Sharon; and Thomas Prokop, Shelley, "Putting a Human Face on Child Welfare: Voices from the Prairies" (2007). Faculty Books. 1.
Original Citation
Brown, I., Chaze. F., Fuchs, D., Lafrance, J., McKay, S., & Thomas Prokop, S. (2007). Putting a human face on child welfare: Voices from the Prairies. Prairie Child Welfare Consortium/Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare.


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|search engine by freefind
I am a diabetic adult gymnast and endurance athlete. One day I decided to give adult gymnastics camp a go. For me, adult gymnastics camp was life changing …literally.
The gymnastics part was amazing; fun, energizing, and healing. After a rough career end, I always felt things ended before my time was up. Camp gave me the chance to find love and joy in the sport I was devoted to after crashing and burning. As great and wonderful as this is, the life changing part is the improvement in my type 1 diabetes management. The last 15 years I have treated my disease with an insulin pump. Diagnosed at age, 7, 40 today, it has been over 33 years and almost half of that time I spent hooked to my pump. For the three day camp, I was forced to remove my pump and get injections with long acting insulin.
I noticed over the three camp days, my blood sugars were very stable. Something I could not achieve anymore with my pump while struggling daily to achieve balanced control and failing. As every gymnast knows ... we don't handle failure well, it's not something we do. It was crushing me physically and mentally riding my roller coaster of blood sugars. I want to fly up and down with my body...not with my glucose levels.
If you want to check out this same camp that Jules had her epiphany, go here.
So camp was over, and I was slowing one legging myself down the stairs, I decided to do an experiment. Take off the pump and do injections for three months-old school style. Well day 1 blood sugar wise was close to a perfect 10 (even though now it is like a 16 or something). I had a scheduled doctor's appt. (such perfect timing! Like a properly blocked backhandspring to double back) and we agreed this treatment agreed with my body.
It is now day 5 pump less. My average blood sugar over 30 days was 171. This was with me struggling, adjusting, going high, going low, and failing in my mind. Average blood sugar last 4 days…131. A non diabetic would have a blood sugar between 80-130 so this is nailing it (or sticking it!)
People discouraged me from going to camp as a diabetic adult gymnast saying I was too old, was going to hurt myself, and they said these things because they cared about my health. Yet following my passion, doing what my gut said was right led to an outcome we all desired…full body wellness. My health is improved and mean majorly improved. Never never in a million years would I have taken off my pump to injections if not for camp. Long term I'll see how things turn out, but so far this plan is winning. Not in the crazy Charlie Sheen way but in the Simone Biles way.
I have been walking with a lighter step (after the soreness passed) with radiating happiness I have not felt in years. Gymnastics camp rocked my world in more ways than one. So follow your passion, listen to what your gut is telling you. The expected outcome may occur but other amazing secondary benefits arise as well. Think positively and surround yourself with love (not necessarily love from others but love in an action, activity, etc ie: gymnastics) happiness follows.
Julieanne Estes
Type 1 diabetic adult gymnast, Mother of 2, wife, Ex-Level 10 national gymnast, regular gymnast forever, Tough Mudder & business owner.
Go here for info. on our next camp.


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How the young attempt and are broken
Differs from age to age
We were brown free girls
Love singing beneath their skin
Sun in their hair in their eyes
Sun their fortune
The taste of their young boys' manhood
Swelling like birds in their mouths.
In a careless season of power
We wept out our terrible promise
Now these are the children we try
For temptations that wear our face
And who came back from the latched cities of falsehood
Warning—the road to Nowhere is slippery with our blood
Warning—You need not drink the river to get home
For we purchased bridges with our mothers' bloody gold
We are more than kin who come to share
Not blood, but the bloodiness of failure.
How the young are tempted and betrayed
To slaughter or conformity
Is a turn of the mirror
Time's question only


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Barack Obama was able to forge a powerful community in 2008 because of his message. Technology conveyed that message to millions, nurtured it and help harvest their votes. But he didn't win because he won the Facebook wars; he won the Facebook wars because he was winning.
For Republicans, this can't be an either/or choice. We need to be omnivorous in our development and consumption of new technology tools and relentless in our dedication to speak for the majority of Americans. One without the other will fail.
In the Democratic dark days after the 2004 election, few realized that the Democratic Party was only one candidate and one presidential election away from a revival that now is touted as dominance. So it can be with Republicans.
For 2016, the Democrats seem headed toward a fight between Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Both launched their careers in the 1970s; what will their slogan be, "Another Century of Service"?


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Polarr's brand new image editor for iOS mixes abundant tools into an elegant interface
Polarr, known for its browser-based photo editing app, today debuted an image editor for iOS that competes with some of the best image pro-level editors on the iOS platform — while maintaining its ease of use.
Polarr is a no-nonsense product without gimmicks — you use it to make your pictures look stunning. So if you're looking to draw little doodles on your photos or apply cute stickers or cool type treatments, there are plenty of fine apps that facilitate your playful side. But you won't find it here.
The app offers a large assortment of pro-level features and controls, and yet is accessible to photographers on almost all levels, just like its Web app.
Because it is a full service app, there's a lot going on with the Polarr interface, but it is intelligently segmented by discrete functions on the left, right and bottom of the canvas — an adaptation of a context sensitive layout you'd find on a desktop app. You can adjust the workspace to fit what you are doing.
If, for example, you want to apply filters to an image, located on the left, you can tap a button to hide the image editing tools on the right. You can tap another button to hide the bin of photos that you imported into the app from your Camera Roll or shot with the app. Hiding what you're not using frees up a lot of space and declutters the screen.
The left side of the screen is devoted to filters in five categories: Most Used, Modern. Film, Art and Custom. However, unless you pay $4.99 for an in-app purchase, you will have to be content with the app's built-in filters. There's a good, but not overwhelmingly huge assortment of filters, however they can been tweaked endlessly with the editing tools on the right side of the canvas.
There, you will find the classic tools like exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows, temperature, distortions and vignette with labels like Color, Light, Detail, Optical, HSL, Curves, and Toning. Each of those functions open up to additional controls that you can apply from inside a box-type layout. The box acts like a slider, but without an actual slider, though sometimes it's a bit hard to control.
Tools like HSL channels and Tone Curves help perfect the colors in your image, plus you can split-tone with any colors you choose. You can choose to view or hide a dynamic histogram and a classic Curve graph shows up with that control.
You can also make adjustments by tilting your device: Just choose the control and tilt the device. It's all topped off by infinite Undo/Redo and History controls that return to any point in your editing sequence.
Polarr is a universal app optimized for the iPhone 5 and up and later versions of the iPad. Editing with Polarr on the iPad Air 2 is ideal, though generally editing photos on the iPad is more rewarding than trying to work in the cramped confines of an phone.
That said, Polarr's phone interface is identical to the tablet, and the fact that you can hide controls contextually makes the app a lot easier to use on the handset. I tested on an iPhone 5, and I'm sure that it's even easier to maneuver on the new larger screens.
There are some missing functions that certain photographers will complain about. Unlike some mobile editing tools, Polarr does not have a layers capability (think Photoshop Touch or Pixelmator) and once editing is done, the photo will export full resolution up to 16MB. And while you can export to various social media, the only way to get a photo into Polarr is via the Camera Roll or shooting from the app.
Polarr is packed with excellent tools and wrapped in an easy-to-learn interface. If you're currently using Snapseed or Pixelmator, you'll definitely want to have a look.
The app is available free on the App Store for the iPhone and iPad and requires iOS 8 or later. An Android version is in the works and will be out in four to six weeks for Lollipop only.
Read next: KwiltKeys photo keyboard for iOS will help you find and share your images
Read next: Facebook's latest diversity report shows it's still as male and white as last year


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Collection of Islamic Prayers for Peace
Muslim Prayers for Peace
Courtesy of Muslim Peace Fellowship
Engagement Activity: Dinner with a missing guest
Hand out a paper plate to each congregant with a prayer on them and ask congregants to place the plate at the dinner table on December 14th, the anniversary of the tragic shootings in Newtown, to represent one of the many who are no longer with us. (Get the one-pager w/ sample prayer courtesy of Eileen McCarron.)
Sermon & Education
Deliver a Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath sermon, invite reporters to attend, and provide gun violence prevention information/activities to congregants.
Shoes we can never fill
Provide the visual of empty shoes or clothes on a clothesline outside place of worship and invite media to vigil. See examples of the powerful imagery of shoes here.
Points of Light
Light thousands of tealight candles depicting the number of people who have been lost to gun violence since Newtown or light candles representing the number of local gun violence victims.
Vigil & Vocals
Hold a vigil or worship service with choir outside member of Congress's office. While choir is singing, have names of gun violence victims read. Intersperse lines of psalms with names of gun violence victims.
Fasting for Action
A communal fast – have a continuous 2,000 hour fast (12 weeks) where people commit to fasting for one day outside elected officials' office for gun violence victims.
Acts of Kindness
Perform a specific number of acts of kindness to honor the number lost to gun violence in your community since Newtown.


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If the women's tennis NCAA Championship match were a movie, it would have been award-winning.
After her opponent's forehand sailed long on court two, No. 17 Lauren Embree threw her Wilson tennis racket in the air and was immediately mobbed by her screaming teammates.
Florida did what it couldn't do a year before, knocking off top-seeded Stanford to win the national title, the fifth in school history. With the win, the Gators defeated the top ranked team in the country at their home site in Palo Alto, Calif., where the Cardinal had not lost since 1999.
After the Gators quickly clinched the doubles point, Tuesday afternoon eerily resembled the heartbreaking 4-3 loss Florida suffered a year ago against Stanford.
Lauren Embree crushed Stanford's dreams of a second-straight title over Florida in an epic 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (6) match against No. 22 Mallory Burdette. After losing a 5-1 lead in the first set, Embree recovered and outlasted Burdette in the third set.
The name of the game was conditioning for the two players, and Embree ultimately was the victor. Down 0-4 in the third, she took advantage of a tiring opponent and forced her into long rallies.
At the point of exhaustion, Burdette tried to shorten rallies and create more winners. The unforced errors piled up for the player her teammates call "the clincher." Burdette sealed the championship for the Cardinal on court three last year against the Gators, so revenge was sweet for Florida.
The defense of Embree prevented any sort of déjà vu for the Cardinal. Sliding on the hard court like a classic clay-courter, the Florida native used her agility to her advantage.
After the match, she explained her success and expressed raw emotion.
"Honestly, I tried to keep fighting," Embree said. "This is amazing, I cannot believe this is happening right now."
The sophomore, who earned the most outstanding player award by improving to 24-0 in singles play this year, prophetically stated before the match that this team had the courage and the fight to do well. Her teammates proved her correct.
Stanford immediately asserted their will in singles after a flat performance in doubles play. Not only did Embree squander a lead in the first set, the Gators were behind on five of the six courts at the onset of set two.
A down performance by No. 6 Allie Will, the highest ranked player on the team, did not make the situation any better. Will looked hampered by a wrist injury and lost to crafty lefty No. 3 Hilary Barte 2-6, 4-6. She recognized the importance, though, her fellow Gators played in the matchup against the Cardinal.
"I am so proud of my team right now," Will said. "They got my back every single day and they worked their butts off today. It couldn't have happened to a better team."
The Cardinal took on the persona of the fiery Barte and consistently forced the Gators into defensive positions on the court.
When Florida had their chances to put away Stanford, they failed. Nothing was going right in singles.
Their problems compounded after the Gators fell behind 1-2 as Sofie Oyen lost 4-6, 5-7 on court two.
A controversial point in junior Joanna Mather's match versus Stacey Tan appeared to be the tipping point for the Gators. While her opponent utilized the corners, Mather worked the middle of the court allowing Tan to put shots away easily.
At four all in the third set, Mather called a shot out that Tan adamantly protested. The chair umpire overruled Mather in favor of Stanford giving Tan a game point. From that point on, the elder stateswoman of the Gators was out of sync.
This never was more evident than on match point, when Mather failed to move her feet to get in position for a forehand. She appeared distracted by the eruption from the pro-Stanford crowd in her 6-3, 2-6, 4-6 defeat.
Both teams seemed to have trouble with the chair umpires on every court. At one point, Stanford's Burdette could be heard saying, "I am so confused," following the court two chair umpire's inability to communicate line calls.
Down 1-3, the Gators would have to depend on a freshman to get them back in the match. Olivia Janowicz turned in a poised three set victory on court six 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-1. The freshman was in good position being so far away from the classic battle on court two, and she closed out her match just before the thrilling end to Embree's.
"Lucky for me, I couldn't see the scoreboard," Janowicz said. "Usually if I take the focus off my match it doesn't go as well."
Perhaps the Gators benefited from a freshman unaware of the echoing crowd noise and the growing audience from both teams watching the match on court two.
This is the Florida's first title since 2003 and head coach Roland Thornqvist's second championship in nine years at UF. He said his team worked hard to complete a season in which the Gators dropped only one match.
"Last year it came down to the exact same scenario," he said. "It took all our might to get it done. I can't describe the feeling. This is a team really deserving this championship."
Photo Gallery from the Gators' National Championship match (click here to view gallery)
Match notes
-Coming into the final, UF was 29-0 when winning the doubles point. Stanford was 24-0.
-The Cardinal were without No. 15 and usual court four player Kristie Ahn who was nursing an ankle sprain in the semi-finals against Baylor.
-With her singles victory, Lauren Embree caps a perfect season at 24-0.
-The UF women's tennis team leads all athletic teams at Florida with five national championships.
-Before singles play, Thronqvist said he was coaching courts 4, 5 and 6
-Barring any jumps to the pro level, the Gators return every player on the roster.
2011 NCAA Women's All-Tournament Team
No. 1 Singles: Hilary Barte, Stanford
No. 2 Singles: Lauren Embree, Florida
No. 3 Singles: Nicole Gibbs, Stanford
No. 4 Singles: Jelena Staivuk, Baylor
No. 5 Singles: Alex Cercone, Florida
No. 6 Singles: Carolyn McVeigh, Stanford
No. 1 Doubles: Hilary Barte/Mallory Burdette, Stanford
No. 2 Doubles: Lauren Embree/Sofie Oyen, Florida
No. 3 Doubles: Diana Nakic/Sona Novakova, Baylor
Most Outstanding Player: Lauren Embree, Florida
1. (2) Alex Cercone/Allie Will, UF led (3) Hilary Barte/Mallory Burdette, SU, 6-3 DNF
2. (45) Lauren Embree/Sofie Oyen, UF d. Nicole Gibbs/Veronica Li, SU, 8-3
3. (37) Caroline Hitimana/Joanna Mather, UF d. (74) Carolyn McVeigh/Stacey Tan, SU, 8-3*
Order of Finish: 2, 3*
1. (3) Hilary Barte, SU d. (7) Allie Will, UF, 6-2, 6-4
2. (17) Lauren Embree, UF d. (22) Mallory Burdette, SU, 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (6)*
3. (18) Nicole Gibbs, SU d. (91) Sofie Oyen, UF, 6-4, 7-5
4. (43) Stacey Tan, SU d. (42) Joanna Mather, UF, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4
5. (54) Alex Cercone, UF d. Veroncia Li, SU, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4
6. (53) Olivia Janowicz, UF d. Carolyn McVeigh, SU, 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-1
Order of Finish: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2*
The quotes were compiled through an ESPNU telecast of the championship match.
Gator Country reporter Adam Pincus can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at adamDpincus.


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Operation Officers at Verite Microfinance Bank Limited
Verite Microfinance Bank Ltd is duly registered in the Federal Republic of Nigeria by the Corporate Affairs Commission and licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria as a deposit-taking financial institution.
We are recruiting to fill the position below:
Job Title: Operation Officer
Location: Lagos
Job Description
- To effectively manage the Central Cash department and ensure controls of the Bank's local and foreign cash and draft instruments are consistently adhered to
- Manage and maintain cash limits both at Central Cash and Branches and ensure prompt expatriation of excesses
- Plan and coordinate delivery and collection of cash to and from the Central Bank
- Ensure that foreign cash held is within the set limit
- Verify that vault/reserve cash movement differences are resolved daily
- Supply cash both local and foreign with minimum delay to Branches as per SLA
- Hold in joint custody keys to vault cash compartments
- Ensure accurate and timely processing and reconciliation of General Ledger accounts
- Engage with Partner Banks in cash swaps
- Evaluates daily cash levels and ensures they meet short-term operating needs and long-term project financing requirements
- Transfer funds for customers as per customers instructions in a safe and secure manner by observing due diligence at all times.
- To ensure that customer' funds transfer instructions are efficiently and promptly executed without delays with a positive impact on customer delight.
- Be very articulate and pay attention to detail while bearing in mind the turnaround time (TAT) for all transfers and processing of customer instructions
- Responsible for all clearing related activities and funds transfer processing
- Ensure customers' transactions (MCs, Cash Fast) are processed within approved service TAT.
- Ensure maintenance and effective utilization of physical assets and resources (adding machines, workstations, Stamps till boxes etc)
- Ensure customers' instructions are properly reviewed before processing.
- Ensure all remittances for customers and regulatory agencies are handled within the agreed time-frame
- Account and financial statement preparation.
- Contributes to the safeguarding of corporate assets and the interest of members by ensuring that appropriate internal controls are in place and operating effectively.
- Conduct investigations of suspected internal fraud.
- Providing general assistance to the audit and business service team.
- Management account preparation.
- Developing strong working relationships with colleagues, clients and relevant authorities.
Qualifications Required
- Minimum of HND/B.SC in Business, Finance, Accounting and related disciplines.
- He/She must be experienced in funds transfer, internal control and audit, tellership etc.
- Membership of professional bodies such as ICAN, CIBN is an added advantage
- He/she must have worked in financial institution for minimum of 3 years
Skills and Attributes Required:
- Unquestioned personal integrity with strong ethics and values.
- Capable of working independently and with minimum supervision.
- Good interpersonal skills with a proven ability to communicate effectively [Both written and verbal] with all level within the organisation.
- Strong analytical capability
- Candidate must have excellent customer service orientation; must be able to pay attention to details;
Application Closing Date
29th March, 2017.
How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send a word document version of their CV's to: firstname.lastname@example.com


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I'm really surprised by the quick turnaround on their refer-a-friend promotion. This used to be a twice a year thing, but it's only been a few months since the last time.
Also... the deal is different this time around. Previously the refer-a-friend code would get you a $50 discount off of the MSRP on an Ooma Telo. This time:
Get an awarding-winning Ooma Telo, FREE Ooma Bluetooth Adapter (a $30 value) and FREE shipping for $189.99
I may be off base here, but it looks to me like the base price off the Telo may have come down. I think this very well may be a better deal.
Also different... I have five codes to give out. Again, first come... first served: