text:
March 08, 2009
New Russian TV Ad
English translation:
If you waited for the moment, if you were looking for an opportunity to change your life...
The time has come.
Time for change.
Your time.
The greatest country on earth.
The richest country on earth.
The best country on earth.
Your country, which soon will disappear.
You do nothing, you only use.
Education - your profession is not needed in this country.
Working for some stranger.
You drink.
You smoke.
You blow (hash).
You will die 55-60 yo.
Children - you don't want.
Family - you don't want.
Army - you don't want.
Everything just for yourself.
Look around.
Wake up.
You just live your life, thinking that you are spending it on something useful.
All that will be left after you die - a plate with 16 figures.
Stop lying.
You did not create anything.
You do not build or produce anything.
Do not invent and do not intend to.
You think that you have no relation to Russia.
That someone somewhere will solve everything.
But, in fact, there is no one except you.
You are your country's present, future, past.
The first and last hope.
And this is scary, because you do not want anything.
You're a consumer.
A small battery in a huge foreign system.
What do you consider valuable?
Money, phone, cool clothes, cars, hangouts?
All this is worthless.
But your life is worth something, and your time, your dreams, which do not have.
Look around you, your country is dying.
In the world system we are lumberjacks and miners.
We are noncompetitive.
We will be thorn in pieces at the first opportunity.
No great discoveries or great victories, no great culture.
Here's to you your freedom.
Freedom to be a bandit or a prostitute.
Freedom of self-destruction?
Freedom of self-abasement?
Freedom to be nobody.
Those from whom you are two steps away -- fought, built, raised, and went further to ensure that you will live. And they built a great country.
And you?
Thankless swine, or the one who can change the world?
Noneone or a hero?
The last or first?
Decide for yourself, but know that there is no one except you.
No one will live your life.
Our country has two options: to revive or die.
March 07, 2009
Albania: The land that time forgot
Any sentence with Albania in it is likely to get a laugh. Albania is funny. It's a punchline, a Gilbert and Sullivan country, a Ruritania of brigands and vendettas and pantomime royalty.
It is a tragic place. But just at the point in the story where you should be sobbing, you can barely restrain the sniggers. After all, Albania's favourite comedian is Norman Wisdom, and that's the place all over. It's funny because it's not funny. The capital, Tirana, is a rare place, blessed with both fascist and communist architecture. The competing totalitarian buildings strut cheek by cheek down the potholed roads, like an authoritarian tango in marble and concrete.
The Italians, who had the most sympathetic fascist architecture, built the futuristically classical university art school and government buildings, while the communists made the thudding celebrations of workers' triumph and the grim warrens of piss-stained grey boxes for housing the triumphant workers in.
Parts of Tirana look like small southern Italian industrial towns, tree-dappled, lots of cafes, while other bits look like Gaza, ripped up and smashed stretches of urban exhaustion and collapse.
But none of that is what you notice first. The thing that catches your eye and holds it in a sticky grasp, like a child with a humbug, is the colour. The grim apartments and public housing projects have been painted with broad swathes of livid decoration. They look like a giant installation of West Indian scatter cushions.
The multicoloured building was the very, very bright idea of Tirana's mayor. A man who the locals seem to think is suicidal and inspired in equal measure. When Albania's peculiar version of hermetic communism finally collapsed, in 1992, the new man said that, though there was no money to change anything, seeing as they'd been living in monotone grindstone misery for 50 years, they might brighten the place up with a lick of paint. Apparently, they got a job lot of all the colours Homebase couldn't sell in Cheshire and sploshed away. The result is both inspired and ridiculous, and very Albanian. Like a clown's make-up, it draws attention to the crumbling, gritty face underneath.
In the span of one long lifetime, Albania has been dealt a full house of political, social and economic experiments. It started the 20th century as a subservient state of the Ottoman empire, then it became a playground for every Balkan and Adriatic neighbour. At one time or another, Albania had seven competing armies trying to grab lumps of it. Briefly it was an imposed German monarchy, then an ineffective Austrian protectorate. In 1913 the Treaty of London drew its borders to suit the conflicting demands of Serbia, Greece, Italy, Austria and Russia, which left over half of all Albanians living outside their own country, principally in Kosovo.
At the Treaty of Versailles, the Albanian throne was absurdly offered to C B Fry, an English cricketer who was supposed to be such a paragon of masculinity that he was photographed naked and flexing at Oxford, and ended up running a naval prep school of exemplary cruelty with a dykey, sadistic wife. And then they got King Zog.
You really couldn't make up Albania's history. Zog was Europe's last self-made monarch, and a man who made Charlie Chaplin look serious. He favoured light operetta, white hussars' uniforms and waxed moustaches, and cut a mean tango; he encouraged the Italians to come and build things like roads and cafes. The bad news was, the Italians were Mussolini, so Zog had to make a dash for it and ruled in the Palm Court at the Ritz.
Then the Italians lost the war and the partisans took over; which might have been a good thing, except they turned out to be run by Enver Hoxha, the weirdest of all cold-war communist dictators, a man of stern cruelty and fathomless paranoia, who decided that the only two allies he could trust should be at the opposite ends of the world. Albania's only mates were China and Cuba, and it became proudly the only Maoist state in Europe.
Finally, long after everyone else had got a credit card and a mobile phone, Hoxha got cancer and died, and his unique chronic communism died with him. So Albania was welcomed out of the cold into the warm embrace of the free market. That should have been the good news, but of course it wasn't.
There's a park in the centre of Tirana that was built by the workers for themselves. They dug a great lake, built an amphitheatre, made a little zoo with a mad bear. You get in by walking through a homeless incontinent's toilet, past the busts of madly furrowed Albanian heroes and the small, neat British war cemetery.
In shady meadows, men cut grass for hay and young men sit on tree stumps staring at nothing. Around the lake, men fish without anticipation; behind them, other men squat and watch. Fishermen-stalking is a feature of former communist countries. As a displacement activity, it's about as complete a waste of a day as you can come up with. Old men sit in the sun and play dominoes. Their peanut-butter-tanned bodies are wrinkled and polished like old brogues. They sit on cardboard boxes in those distressingly skimpy second scrotums that the communist world still clings to as attractive swimwear; they grin through bomb-damaged teeth.
These are the flotsam and detritus of the train wreck of a command economy, their jobs and pensions just another cracking Albanian joke. A man who was once a history professor looks out across the water at the speculative illegal palaces being built in the people's park and tells me how the good news of capitalism came to Albania. "We didn't know anything about markets or money. Suddenly it was all new, all opportunity, all confusion. And then there comes pyramid scheme. You've heard of this 'pyramid'? We put money in. They give you back many times more. You put that money back and much more comes. It was brilliant, this capitalism. Magic. Everyone did it. Maybe 70-80% of the country. People gave up their work to live on marvellous pyramid money. This was best two years of Albania's life. Drink and food and laughing; everyone is happy. Everyone has cash and hope." He stops and looks at the fishermen. "But it's fraud. Everyone loses everything, not just their savings but their homes and farms, and they borrow and there's no state to help. We have less than nothing; I lose my savings and my job. I don't understand.
"You laugh. We were fools, yes, but what do we know of capitalism? It was a fairy story. And when it's gone, people kill themselves, go mad, fight, scream and cry and want revenge. You understand Albanians have very, very… " (he searches for the words) "… strong emotion."
Albania was a nation of dupes waiting to be taken and they didn't take it well. Everything you understand or think you know about Albania and Albanians needs to be seen in relation to how they got the way they are. After the pyramid scam, Albania sold the only thing it had left: its people. They handed out passports and waited. There are 4m Albanian citizens in the world – fewer than there are Scots. Three million of them live at home, the fourth quarter work abroad, and what they do is mostly illegal. Albania is the hub of the European sex trade, smuggling and pimping girls from Moldova and the Ukraine into the West.
It's said they also run most of the illegal arms trade, the cheapest Kalashnikovs you can buy. They're the Asda of mayhem. After years of being bullied, invaded, ripped off and lied to, the Albanians have grown very good at being frightening. They're not subtle, they don't deal in proportionate responses, controlled aggression or veiled threats. Albanians, I'm told, have taken over the crime in Milan – exporting organised crime to Italy beats selling fridges to Eskimos or sand to Arabs.
In the centre of Tirana there's an area known as the Block. Under Hoxha this was the closed, salubrious preserve of party members, patrolled by soldiers, forbidden to all ordinary Albanians. Now it's grown into the all-night trendy reserve of the young: cafes, bars and clubs have sprouted back to back along the crowded streets.
In parts it looks like sunny-holiday Europe, but then you turn a corner into grim, hunkered, crumbling commie squalor, with kids kicking balls and toothless ancients sitting like lonely loonies on benches, staring at the angry graffiti.
The number and proportion of young people in Tirana is a shock, compared with northern Europe. This is a young person's country; they have large families here who all continue to live at home, so they need to get out.
The cafes on the Block are thick with teenagers, collectively called "students", though this is a title rather than a vocation – there's precious little work for them to study for. The streets are a slow crawl of large cars: BMWs, Porsche Cayennes, blacked-out Range Rovers, Humvees and the ubiquitous tribe of Benzes – all stolen, of course, from Germany and Italy.
The young lounge and practise their impenetrably tough looks; the boys play-fight. The difference between these kids and their neighbours in Italy and Greece is how they look. With effortless élan, Albanian students are without peer the worst-dressed kids in the western world. They are obsessed with labels and designers, but all they can afford are the chronically laughable rip-offs and fakes in the markets. Shops here are full of absurdly repellent, tatty clobber with oversized logos stencilled on, and the kids wear this stuff with a flashy insouciance, all looking like characters in search of a comic-sketch show.
Albanians are naturally quite modest people. You still see old women in peasant headdresses and men wearing traditional white fezzes, but the youth are desperate to be European, and that means sexy. There are girls with bad peroxide jobs, and minute skirts, and tits-out-for-the-boys tops. They play at being gangster bitches, but it all looks much more like a drama-school production of Guys and Dolls.
The men have a strange – and, it must be said, deeply unattractive – habit of rolling up their T-shirts so that they look like bikini tops. The Albanians are short and ferret-faced, with the unisex stumpy, slightly bowed legs of shetland ponies. My favourite fashion moment was a middle-aged man with a Village People moustache and a Hobbit's swagger in a T-shirt that declared in huge letters: Big Balls.
Albanian is one of those languages that have no known relative, just an extra half a dozen letters. They say it's impossible to learn after the age of two. They say it with very thick accents. The fact that nobody else can speak it makes it a ready-made code for criminals, but in a typically unintentional way it's also pathetically, phonetically funny. The word for "for sale", for instance, is shitet; carp, the national fish, is krap.
I went to a tiny basement bar that specialised in death-metal music. This, finally, is a look that even Albanians can get right. I found a seat next to the drummer's mother, a beamingly proud peasant woman watching her son epileptically thrash our eardrums with his group Clockwork Psycho Sodomy Gore.
Groovy Tirana troops into a nightclub with a self-conscious bravado and sips cocktails politely, while the naffest barman in the free world goes through his Tom Cruise bottle-juggling routine, shaking passé drinks and presenting the bill stuffed into the top of his stonewashed hipsters to groups of giggling top-heavy girls.
All this imitation, this desperate wannabe youth culture, is being paid for by cash sent home from abroad. Albania's economy runs courtesy of Western Union and wads of red-light cash stuffed under the seats of hot-wired Audis. Much of it is criminal, but there is also a lot that is the bitter fruit of lonely, uncertain, menial jobs in rich Europe done by invisibly despised immigrants on the black economy. However it's gleaned, this is the hardest-earned money in Europe.
I was constantly told to be careful of pickpockets and muggers in rough areas. Over the years, I've developed a bat-eared coward's sixth sense for the merest whisper of trouble, but Tirana felt like a very safe place playing tough. There is very little drunkenness on the street, though they drink copiously. The only drugs seem to be a bit of home-grown grass and, given that this is the vice-export capital of the West, there were no lap-dancing clubs or pornography shops. You can't even find a prostitute on the street in Tirana. It's like trying to find lobsters in Scotland: they've all gone for export.
Albania has by far and away the worst traffic record of any western country, and no Albanian would conceivably wear a seatbelt, considering it the first symptom of passive homosexuality. Driving north out of Tirana along the pitted roads, you see an insatiable orgy of construction with barely a nod to need, purpose or planning permission. The outskirts are being covered in country bars and restaurants without customers, and capacious country houses without sewerage, water, electricity or inhabitants. The biggest single industry in Albania is money-laundering, and construction is the easiest and quickest way to turn vice into virtue. There are thousands of buildings without roofs or windows flying an ironic Albanian flag, which, appropriately, is the double-headed eagle looking both ways at once.
The mountains are a landscape of terraces and forests sparsely populated by peasants who still cut hay with scythes, where men turn rotated strips with wooden ploughs behind bony mares as their wives sow seeds from baskets, looking like the posters for a Bertolt Brecht revival.
Tiny villages lurk in high valleys; extended families live on the first floor of stone-and-mud-plaster houses. On the ground floor live the cattle and plough horses. Vines climb the walls; chickens and infants scratch in the dirt; dogs are chained in wicker kennels; hens nest under the sweet hayricks; women bake bread in wood ovens. We're given a lunch of grilled lamb, fizzing sheep's cheese, tomatoes and cherries fresh from the tree. The fields all around are choked with wild flowers; songbirds and turtledoves clamour for attention; tortoises shuffle in the stubble; donkeys moan operatically to each other.
It is as close as any of us will get to seeing what life across Europe was like in the 16th century, but living a 16th-century life in the 21st century is not a smart option. Even 16th-century people know that. So the country is emptying, and the peasants trudge to the city to try and lay their hands on a little second-hand vice money.
All across Albania there are decrepit concrete bunkers, thick beehive constructions that smell of mould and foxes. They run in little redoubts up hills, along coverts and through gardens. There are millions of them. Hoxha started building bunkers at the end of the war, and they became a lifelong paranoid obsession that cost a hubristic amount of Albania's wealth. The bunkers follow no coherent battle plan. There would never have been enough soldiers to man them; they are simply the solid pustules of mistrust and fear. Albania has always been surrounded by enemies, but it has also been divided against itself.
There is no trust in this landscape: it is the place of vendetta and vengeance. There are still families here where the fearful men never leave their windowless homes, where male babies are born to die. The rules of being "in blood" were laid down in the 15th century in the Canon of Lekë, an ancient murderer's handbook. That is one of the reasons Albanians are so good at organised crime. The distinctions of religion are nothing compared with the ancient honour of families; everything is secondary to family honour and to making money. Everything is excusable to sustain those.
There is also a divide between north and south Albania. The north is called Gheg, the south Tosk. Gheg is tough, uncouth, aggressive; the south, educated, civilised, Italianate. It's a bit like England.
On the Adriatic coast, in Durres, which was once a seaside capital, the beach is a muddy grey, a coarse sand of cigarette ends, bottle tops and those blue plastic bags that are the world's tumbleweed. The smelly, tideless Adriatic limply washes nameless slurry onto the shore, and children build sand villas while their parents roast. Albanians have surprisingly fair skins and they cook to a lovely livid puce. A man calls me over. He's angry. "American?" No, English. "Tell them, tell Europe, we don't have tails. You see, we are not apes. We're not another species. Durres is going to be the new Croatia." There's a thought.
"Norman Wisdom – what do you think of him?" I asked. "He's very '90s. Now top best comic is definitely Mr Bean."
Sitting in Tirana's main square, where the moneychangers stand in the shade with their wads, and men sell dodgy mobile phones and repair petrol lighters, I watch the Albanians come and go, and there's something odd. It takes me an hour to work out what it is – hardly anyone wears a watch. Well, why would they? They haven't got anywhere to be.
AA Gill - July 23, 2006 @ timesonline.co.uk
March 06, 2009
America is not a Christian country
President Bush's remark the other day that the theory of 'intelligent design' should be taught alongside the theory of evolution brought howls of derision from his detractors in Europe and the United States. It was, they said, one more piece of evidence that America is populated by fundamentalist zombies who are potentially as dangerous as bin Laden's boys. Intelligent design, it goes without saying, is a boneheaded piece of pseudo-science, almost as simplistic as the naive materialism that Darwinists teach. But neither side of the argument cares about logic, much less truth. The important thing is to declare which side you are on: religious fanaticism or cosmopolitan anti-religious fanaticism.
Both sides agree on one thing: that America really is the promised Land of true-believing Christians. In 'Old Europe', the United States is seen as a land of extreme piety and fanatical Puritanism. In the United States, at least among those who support the Bush administration, Europe — France, in particular — is regarded as impious, socialist and immoral, but then France has always been America's favourite whipping boy.
'Man,' declared Mark Twain, 'is a creature who stands somewhere between the angels and the French,' and French husbands, according to American legend, are flagrantly disloyal, while American men are the very models of marital fidelity. But there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the French are more likely to cheat on their wives than the Americans; and in most areas of traditional morality, the French are better behaved than the Americans. According to a worldwide survey of abortion rates in the 1990s, for example, a statistically average American woman could be expected to have .69 abortions, while her French counterpart would have .39 (and a German woman only .23). In America, furthermore, the divorce rate is more than twice as high as it is in France, and the rate of teenage pregnancies more than five times as high. In so far as these things can be measured scientifically, Americans are more sexually permissive — though also more puritanical — than Europeans.
So is there anything to American piety, or is it one of those useful myths that make it easier for BBC presenters to pretend to understand complex issues?
America has always been a strange place, even to Americans. While most countries are content merely to exist, America is supposed to have a project, a destiny, a divine mission. New England Puritans suffered from the delusion that their little settlement was a 'city on a hill', and Cotton Mather, who played a key role in the Salem witch trials, thought New England was plagued by witches because, before the arrival of white European Calvinists, the continent had been a playground for devil-worshipping Indians and idolatrous Catholics. President Lincoln went so far as to describe the United States as 'dedicated' to a proposition, and secular Americans speak glibly of America as 'an experiment' — a grisly idea, if ever there was one. Even today patriotic conservatives believe that 'God' has blessed our nation as a reward for our virtue and our piety. As H.L. Mencken observed in a more candid age, 'No one ever went broke underestimating ...the American people.'
Small wonder that so many Europeans are afraid of the United States and its messianic approach to foreign policy. The good news is that all our exceptional virtue and piety is so much buncombe, as Mencken would have said. Despite the many myths of American 'exceptionalism', most Americans have always been just as content to muddle through as if they had been born among the unredeemed heathens of London and Paris.
In fact, America's lack of genuine piety has aroused the ire of some excitable Catholic intellectuals who regard the United States as a masonic conspiracy. After pointing out the masonic symbols on the dollar bill (to say nothing of the masonic design of the national capital), they will go on to cite the fact that the constitution (drafted by leading freemasons) never mentions Christianity. This omission is aggravated by the doctrine of 'the separation of church and state' — a notion unacceptable to some traditional Catholics. This historical interpretation (apart from the bit about the masonic conspiracy) is utter nonsense. Christianity is not mentioned in the constitution because it is a treaty of union, not an ideological declaration. In a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional union, the best way to avoid religious conflict was for the national and state governments to be neutral towards competing Christian sects.
Conservative evangelicals, on the other hand, insist that the founders of the republic were all pious Christians. In fact, few of the men who led the revolution or drafted the constitution could be described as pious or even orthodox. Washington was an ordinary Anglican, which even in the 18th century meant very little, while John Adams was a Unitarian, Jefferson a mildly anti-Christian deist, and Ben Franklin a sceptical freemason as well as a rake. America —alas, it is all too true — has been swept periodically by revivals and cult crazes. Many of the cultists went west and ended up in California, the last stop of the rootless and disaffected before falling into the Pacific.
I have lived 60 years in the United States, the first 25 of them as an atheist, the last 35 as an increasingly reactionary Christian. I have never witnessed the great piety and deep spirituality which I have heard described in 4 July addresses and in semi-scholarly tomes on American religion. We are a practical people, above all else, and, as I have heard repeatedly from business and political leaders, religion makes good sense: the man who goes to church also goes to work, takes care of his family, pays his taxes. This is religiosity, not Christianity.
For American Christians, what they say they believe does not always translate into concrete actions or even into support for Christian moral positions. They complain, occasionally, about the prohibition of prayer in school and resent media attacks on religion, but they seem unaffected by the pervasive blasphemy of television commercials and by the barbaric post-Christian morality of everyday life in these United States. This is a country, remember, where Britney Spears was a spokesbimbo for the Episcopal Church. Many evangelical and Catholic Christians actively supported the philandering, lying Bill Clinton, and many traditional Catholics, in defiance of both the Vatican and the Church's teachings on just war, support George Bush's war in Iraq. In March 2003 Pope John Paul II, who described his opposition to the war as 'unequivocal', sent Cardinal Pio Laghi to dissuade President Bush from attacking Iraq. The President told Cardinal Laghi, 'We'll be quick and do well in Iraq.' As Cardinal Laghi, who calls the invasion 'tragic and unacceptable', points out, 'Bush was wrong.'
But warmongering Catholics are no match for the Revd Pat Robertson. Mr Robertson has gone beyond deflecting hurricanes and denouncing Ariel Sharon for turning Jewish settlers out of land that God gave them. Now he has called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the troublesome president of Venezuela. In defiance of both logic and Christian ethics, Robertson recently said: 'If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.'
When foreigners speak of American piety, they usually have in mind some form of evangelical Protestantism. But that is a very broad category, which includes austere and disciplined Calvinists in the South as well as clownish TV preachers and the megachurches fitted out with rock bands and wall-sized video screens. Imagine a luxurious sports complex with Elvis, in his sequinned powder-blue Vegas jumpsuit, crooning 'How Great Thou Art' to a mob of hysterical middle-aged women writhing in the aisles. This is not 'that old-time religion', unless the 'old time' in question is the heyday of the Münster anabaptists. Perhaps I am biased: as a pure-minded young atheist I was arrested for mocking a travelling evangelist who healed the sick and raised the dead with wirework that anticipated Hong Kong martial arts movies.
The United States was never a 'Christian country' in a confessional sense, though it was once a nation of mostly Christians. Today, it is a nation with a weak-kneed Christian majority that elects, year after year, an actively anti-Christian political class that encourages divorce, protects abortion and pornography, and banishes prayer and Christian symbols from public places. Republican leaders, it is true, pander to their Christian constituents, but they have never and will never lift a finger to advance the cause of Christian morality, much less Christian faith.
Most Americans say they 'believe in God', and Americans do attend religious services more frequently than Europeans, or at least they tell pollsters they do, though when the numbers of an ABC poll are broken down, weekly churchgoers tend to be women, Southern, Republican, and old. In western Europe, far fewer people go to church or profess any religious faith, but, from what I have seen, observant Catholics in Italy and France are a good deal more serious than their counterparts here in the land of 'In God We Trust'.
To compare apples with apples, the most prominent conservative Catholics in the United States are the so-called neoconservatives. They are indifferent or hostile to the traditional liturgy, defend the discovery of democratic capitalism as an event of 'incarnational significance' (Michael Novak), and have routinely defended US foreign policy against explicit statements of John Paul II. Catholic neoconservatives represent the triumph of 'Americanism' in the Church. They are more Republican than Catholic, more loyal to George Bush than to any Pope. In secular, anti-Catholic France, a Catholic has to be resolute, even courageous; in America, he just goes with the flow.
European leftists can breathe a sigh of relief. A typical American may go to church too often to be respectable, but when he walks out on the street he is either a little liberal or else a little conservative. If there really were a 'Christian America', Hollywood would be broke, and the ashes of both political parties would be reposing quietly in the dustbin of history.
Avoidance of Deceptive Self-Sufficiency
Being busied with many things, impatience, anxiety, irritability.... These things are certainly unpleasant. Pleasing, however, is that you sense how much they damage your soul and that you wish to be cured. You need only find out from whence they arise, what their source is. If you eradicate the source, then they will disappear on their own. Examine yourself to see if perhaps excessive self-confidence, self-esteem, and feelings of self-worth exist within you. These things create an egotistical and deceptive sense of self-sufficiency in a person: He believes that he can unerringly arrange and accomplish everything on his own, without the contribution or advice of his fellow man and, above all, without God's help. If, then, some obstacle occurs and his plans are upset, and if things do not turn out the way he desired and planned, then he grumbles against God and becomes angry with people. Perhaps you also rely more than you should on your own abilities?
Perhaps you have "pushed" God to the edge of your life? Do you begin your every work with prayer, do you continue it in prayer, and do you finish it in prayer? Do you believe that you are completely worthless and that you owe all of your achievements to the Lord? Do you humbly place yourself below all of creation?
If not, then you must evaluate your position before your Creator and His creations. In your relations with God and other people, be profoundly conscious of your own insignificance. Pray unceasingly.
And unshakably believe that the Lord is the ruler of the world and of your life. Without Him, nothing good can take root in us.Let us, then, place ourselves with trust in His hands. This does not mean that we will abandon or reduce our struggles, efforts, and labors for our spiritual cultivation. Let us not, however, rely on these labors, because if God does not bless them, they will not bear spiritual fruit.
(*) Source: Ἃγιος Kυπριανός, No. 330 ( January-February 2006), p. 272.
St. Teophan the Recluse, Handbook to the Spiritual Life (extracts from his letters), (Oropos, Attika: Ekdoseis Hieras Mones Parakletou, 2003), pp. 145-146.
March 05, 2009
Gay couple left free to abuse boys
Ian Wathey, 40, and Craig Faunch, 32 were convicted in May 2006, of molesting and filming eight-year-old twins and two 14 year-old boys placed in their care by the Wakefield Council. Since they were approved as foster parents in 2003, Wathey and Faunch took in a total of 19 boys.
Despite growing reservations by staff and complaints from the mother of two of the boys, the two men were treated by the authorities as "trophy carers" who, because of their status as homosexuals were regarded as beyond scrutiny. An independent investigative panel has found that officials of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, controlled by the Labour Party, allowed "the fear of being discriminatory" to lead them to "fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive."
The Daily Telegraph reports that the review panel found authorities ignored or inadequately investigated complaints against the two men and that an annual review was never conducted.
The Telegraph quotes one social worker who told the inquiry team, "you didn't want to be seen discriminating against a same-sex couple."
At the time of his conviction for sexual abuse, Judge Sally Cahill told Faunch, "Once you realised social services were going to take no action in respect of the photos that had been found, and believed your ridiculous story about why you had taken it, you went on to abuse others in your care believing yourself to be safe from the authorities."
The men were convicted of multiple counts of sexual activity with the two 14 year-old boys, and Faunch was convicted of using a camcorder to film two eight year-old boys while they showered. Wathey was also found guilty of encouraging a 14 year-old child, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome and has the mental age of a seven year-old, to watch homosexual pornography.
Referring to one boy's "very troubled background" the judge said, "You are presented as a couple but this is not a case about homosexuality, it is about a breach of trust".
The panel leader, Brian Parrott stated, "These anxieties about discrimination have deep roots, we argue - in social work training, professional identity and organisational cultures, and the remedies for these go beyond the remit of any single council or inquiry report."
Five weeks before their conviction, Wathey and Faunch took part in a civil partnership ceremony and are thought to have been the first homosexual partners in Yorkshire to be allowed to act as foster parents. That Faunch was jailed for six years and Wathey for five years, outraged some children's charities who said that for such a "breach of trust" the sentence ought to have been ten years.
Albanian Mafia 'Baby Factories'
Run by the Albanian mafia, one such 'baby factory' is reportedly operating in Athens, according to the Mail. Young women, primarily Bulgarians and Romanian gypsies, are selected by racketeers on the basis of beauty and health for impregnation.
Once pregnant, the women are fed, housed and clothed for nine months to ensure a healthy pregnancy. The babies are born in a private location to avoid hospital questions, with a paid midwife on hand. The mothers will typically care for the baby for the next 40 days, when the child will be ready for delivery to the buyer. Such transactions can cost up to £20,000.
Greek officials said black-market baby-selling rings are increasing, with nine known instances of the sale of Bulgarian babies in the first half of 2006--police arrested 33 suspected racketeers, including 24 Bulgarians, seven Greeks (including doctors and lawyers) and two Albanians.
In an additional case, five Albanians were arrested near the Greek-Albanian border under suspicion of selling eight Romanian babies.
"This is an escalating problem, the scale of which is impossible to grasp," Lieutenant Colonel Antonia Andreakou, director of the Greek police's public security division handling cross-border crime, told the Mail.
"This is just a fraction of the number of cases. We need to prove that money has exchanged hands, as this is what makes the transaction illegal, but that is very difficult to do."
Police said those responsible recruit poor women who are young, pretty and healthy with promises of false passports and papers to get them into Greece. After they arrive in the country, the girls are handed heavy bills they can't afford to pay, and told the debt will be written off if they get pregnant and give up their baby.
"The girls have no option but to comply," a police source told the Mail. "You would not want to upset these people."
For the women who are convinced to participate, the deal can ultimately cost them their life.
"Once the woman has served her purpose, she is as good as dead," a senior police source said. "The gang will force her into prostitution and drive her into the ground."
In a related story, the Mail reported earlier this month on a British woman accused of stealing a baby from a teenage Romanian gypsy, who admitted that she traveled to Greece early in December to sell her six-month-old daughter for nearly £10,000.
Sophia Percula, who according to reports was just 15 years old and had been transported to Greece by her step-father, told police that she had arranged to meet Marie Golby, 41, in an Athens grocery store, but that Golby had stolen the child without paying the money.
While police have said they do not think the incident was gang-related, it is an indication of the growing frequency of baby-trafficking in the country.
Mafia-Run 'Baby Factories'
Ethnic Albanian rebels benefit from sex slavery
TIRANA, Albania - Organized crime syndicates in the Balkans, spawned when communism collapsed a decade ago, are thriving on illegal trade in drugs and sex slaves. The final destination for much of the goods and services is Western Europe. The trade, which yields billions of dollars each year, doesn't just pay for the mansions and yachts of wealthy traffickers. It also has a political purpose — supporting the purchase of arms for Albanian rebels.
Nearly two years after NATO troops drove Serb forces from this region, rebels are believed to still be skimming profits from drug and sex slave trafficking to fund illegal arms purchases for ethnic Albanian rebel movements.This trafficking has allowed both the Kosovo Liberation Army in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo and the National Liberation Army in Macedonia to be outfitted with the latest in rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, mortars, sniper rifles and night-vision goggles.
The rise of organized crime syndicates flourished following the collapse of the communist system and frontier controls throughout most of the Balkan peninsula, resulting in lawlessness and civil conflict. The traffickers are from every ethnic group in the region, and despite the bloody rivalries that have torn apart Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, they work closely together.
In many areas they work with the complicity of police and customs officials. The U.S. State Department report on human rights for 2001 notes that "instances of corruption and involvement of police in trafficking in persons occurred on the local level. At least two law enforcement officials have been dismissed for accepting bribes from traffickers."
Often these activities enjoy the protection of high-ranking politicians, who are generously bribed, according to regional law enforcement officials.
Corrupt judges and prosecutors also frequently help arrested criminals.
On April 18, the Albanian state security service acknowledged the problem, saying in a statement that a "dangerous aspect of the growing power of the criminal groups is their ability to establish links with individuals in the top state administration offices and with politicians."
Read the full article
Albania's ties to sex slavery
Sitting in a brothel bedroom in Velesta, a town synonymous with forced prostitution that police and experts consider one of the most dangerous places in Europe, Olga said that her "owner" would kill her for telling a reporter about her state of captivity. But the cruel conditions under which she is held, and her deteriorating mental and physical health, compelled her to speak out.
Her head hung in shame, Olga's dark brown eyes welled with tears. She brushed back her long black hair, revealing a fair complexion flushed with anger at her fate. "There is only one word for this," she said. "Slavery."Forced to have sex with as many as 10 men every day, Olga and other women clandestinely interviewed by MSNBC.com as part of a four-month investigation into the sex trade in Europe, insisted that their real identities not be revealed.
Their fears are not unfounded. Those brave enough to seek help have been savagely beaten — and sometimes killed — for trying to escape.
Flourishing Sex Trade
In Europe alone, officials estimate that more than 200,000 women and girls — one-quarter of all women trafficked globally — are smuggled out of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics each year, the bulk of whom end up working as enslaved prostitutes. Almost half are transported to Western Europe. Roughly a quarter end up in the United States. Human rights activists say the numbers do not tell the full story, because most women remain silent rather than turn to frequently corrupt authorities for help.
The rapid rise of this sex slave trade can be traced to the fall of the Soviet Union, where borders once heavily guarded by the Red Army suddenly became porous and Soviet republics and Eastern European satellites once in the Kremlin's grasp saw their industries and subsidies collapse overnight. Millions of young women like Olga came of age amid this economic misery. Their childhood fantasies of a better life in the West soon became a human trafficker's golden opportunity.
Billions in Profits
Ten years of wars in the Balkans have turned the region into a trafficking highway paved with lawlessness and corruption that has prompted former enemies — Bosnian Muslims and ethnic Albanians — to set aside ethnic rivalries in the name of vast profits. "You're talking about big international organizations," said Rudolf Perina, a former U.S. ambassador to Moldova who was involved in Washington-funded anti-trafficking efforts.
Ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo, Macedonia and south Serbia — long the masters of drug running in the Balkans — are deeply involved in the human smuggling business, using the flesh trade to fund their separatist movements.
In the Heart of Europe
Farther along the trafficking pipeline, hundreds of women and girls are smuggled into Europe every day and forced onto the streets of cities like Hamburg, Paris, London and Amsterdam.
Amsterdam, a city synonymous with hedonism, is perhaps best known for its legalized sex industry, in which prostitutes pay taxes and undergo regular health exams. The city's Red Light District is a virtual Disneyland of sex — with only European Union passport holders allowed to ply the trade.
But only a few miles' drive from the city center, traditional Dutch tolerance is helping fuel the trafficking problem. In Theemsweg, a fenced-in, football field-sized parking lot built by the government for unregulated sex workers, girls sit in bus shelters — also courtesy of the government — waiting for clients. There are no EU citizens here — and the prostitutes' countries of origin are strikingly familiar: Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic. On weekends, men looking for cheap sex wait in cars that back up for a mile. Sexual encounters, which take place right in the cars, cost $20.
Read the full article
Material support of synagogues by Atheistic Jews and secular Israel is justified
'The synagogue has been not only a house of worship, but also a community center for the Jews. So it is obvious why even atheistic Jews, or at least some of them including me, believe that some material support of synagogues is possible and justifiable now,' Ginzburg said in his article 'A Few Notes on Atheism, Religion, and Jewish Feeling of Ethnic Identity,' published in 2004 by Yevreiskaya Starina online almanac.
According to him, the Russian Jewish Congress as a secular body shares his view. 'State support of synagogues in Israel is unquestionably natural in certain limits too,' he added.
However even in Israel 'Judaism's role and influence exceeds the limits acceptable for a secular and democratic state.'
'Why public transport stops or is restricted in Israel on Sabbaths? If the believers do not want to use it, it's their problem, but why the atheists' freedom is restricted?' he said hoping that Israel 'will move towards full separation of religious organizations and all religious life from the state.'
According to Ginzburg, Judaism 'has been essential' for non-assimilation of the Jews after they left Palestine. However, 'unavoidable and ultimate' advent of atheism will not result in 'total assimilation of the Jews.'
'There is a more universal and deep feeling than religion, which also counters assimilation in diaspora. I mean the feeling of ethnic identity,' he said.
In case with the Jews, 'being sympathetic to Israel and desiring for it to flourish is an explicit manifestation of such a feeling,' he added.
In 1995 Ginzburg won the Israel-based International Wolf Prize in Physics. During the award ceremony he said to the jury: 'I am an atheist but my parents were Jewish and I am glad that there is Israel where any Jew may find his or her home.'
Jews comment on Theophilus III and Christianity
Russian "Greek" Orthodox history is tainted with Jewish blood
The Russian government controls the Greek Orthodox church not Greece. the history of Christian control over the state of Israel is well documented & the battle between Ar'bs & Christians over mosque & church is based on the tombs and homes of Biblical Jews. Starting with the Romans, foreigners paid shekels for a spot & later Ottoman Saladin collected revenue in taxes. Not one of these transactions was legitimate. All were a Den of Thieves according to Ju-zeus. All bare false witness!! Members of this church were Ar'b converts to Christianity.
The Greek Orthodox Church is largely not Christian. Just because they use Christian-sounding words does NOT make them Christian. A Christian is a follower of Christ, not some pompous windbag who hates Jews. Were the Jews involved with having Jesus killed? Yes. Are Christians to hate and revile Jews as a result? No. Real Christians do not hate Jews, do not love the enemies of the Jews (in the sense of supporting those who hate Jews), do not believe that the Christian Church has somehow mystically appropriated the uni-lateral covenant promises made to the Jews through Abraham, and do NOT worship idols (as do most Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and Catholic adherents). God still has a plan for Israel and His chosen people (the Jews) that will kick back into top gear once the real Church of believers is removed from this planet in the near future. Once that event happens (millions of people disappearing in an instant), you Jews will know without a doubt that any people remaining claiming to be "Christian" (which will be most of the "big churches" previously mentioned) will in fact not be. Any person who favours the children of Ishmael over the children of Jacob is in direct opposition to the God of Abraham's plan and wishes. The Bible says that Ishmael and his descendants would be "wild donkeys" with "his hand turned against everyone, and everyone's hand turned against him" - what clearer picture of the Arab usurpers could you want? All of Israel, from Lebanon to the Wadi of Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates belongs to the Jews. Woe to the person who would steal land given by God to another!
The problem other Christian groups have is the Christian Orthodox practice of relic worship which includes the actual dehydrated head of John the Baptist, the actual dehydrated hand of John the Baptist and the list goes on of dehydrated corpses, feet and so on. The Multi -Christian groups who share the Holy Sepulchre Church, St Helene's Chapel (crypt of tombs) Church of the Nativity etc. all of which have relics of Jews. The question is why do they collect dead relics of Jews when they have live religious Jews to learn spirituality from? Clearly the G-d of Israel does not approve of this method of Christian Orthodox worship. After viewing several photographs of these relics used we all need to pray for the redemption Orthodox Christian groups whose pratices are unacceptable to G-d.
denying that these people are Christians is like we Jews denying Meyer Lansky was a Jew. Cover it up but deep down all Christians hate us because we reject Jesus. You & other Christians all believe we are damned & must be "saved" so please cut the crap as we are not fooled nor are we interested in your dead voodoo man-god
EVERY INCH IS OUR LAND!!!! ALL arabs & (if you are not pro-Israel or want prostulatize and convert) ALL GOYIIM out!!!!!! THIS IS JEWISH LAND ALWAYS AND FOREVER!!! MOSHIACH!!!! KOCH baby!!! KOCH!!!


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5 Meal Makeovers for Diabetes
Eating healthy with diabetes doesn't mean saying goodbye to all of your favorite dishes. Simple substitutions can boost nutrition and still taste good.
You can eat healthy with diabetes while still enjoying the types of foods you know and love, says Laura Cipullo, RD, CDE, of Laura Cipullo Whole Nutrition Services in New York and creator of MomDishesItOut.com. Follow these four key steps to planning healthy diabetes-friendly meals:
- Balance your diabetes meals with a mix of high-fiber carbs, lean proteins, and healthy fats.
- Spread your intake of carbohydrates throughout the day rather than saving for a big splurge at dinner or over the weekend.
- If you want dessert immediately after your meal, eat non-starchy veggies with your protein choice and save the rest of your carbs for the sweet dessert. Think salmon with steamed asparagus and roasted Brussels sprouts, followed by a slice of flourless chocolate cake (a small piece, of course, of 45 grams of carbs or less).
- To keep meals flavorful and interesting, make friends with healthy fats like olive oil, canola oil, nuts, seeds, and avocados. Used in small amounts, these can add taste, texture, and color.
By experimenting in the kitchen, you can give all of your favorite dishes a healthy-meal makeover. Here are five ideas to get you started.
Meal Makeover: Put Your Favorite Salty Dish on a Low-Sodium Diet
According to the American Diabetes Association, for better diabetes nutrition, your daily sodium intake should be 2,300 mg or less. Too much sodium can lead to high blood pressure, which can contribute to a host of other health concerns. Make over high-salt recipes for better diabetes meals by relying on spices and herbs rather than salt, using low- or no-sodium broths or sauces in place of traditional choices, and adding mushrooms — they're high in glutamic acid, known for salty flavor, but is sodium-free.
Here's Cipullo's low-salt, low-fat beef broccoli stir-fry recipe:
1/2 cup reduced-sodium teriyaki sauce
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound boneless beef sirloin, trimmed if needed and sliced
3 cups broccoli florets
1 medium red bell pepper, sliced
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1 shallot, chopped
2 cups cooked brown rice
- In a small bowl, mix teriyaki sauce and flour. Set aside.
- Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a wok or large non-stick skillet and add garlic and shallots; sauté until golden. Add beef strips and stir-fry, tossing until brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a plate and rinse the skillet.
- In the skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of oil on medium heat. Add broccoli and peppers, cover and cook, tossing occasionally until crisp tender, about 5 minutes. Add teriyaki mixture and return beef to skillet. Cook until sauce thickens, about 2 more minutes. Serve warm over brown rice. Makes 4 servings.
Meal Makeover: Lose the Fat, Not the Flavor
Saturated fat raises blood cholesterol levels, a risk factor for heart disease. On its own, diabetes increases your heart disease risk too, so limiting saturated fat in your meals is a must. The easiest way to cut fat from a dish is to start with lean cuts of red meat rather than fatty marbled cuts, skinless chicken, or fish, and bake or grill foods instead of frying. Cipullo also suggests cooking with broth instead of adding butter or other fats. Here's her version of crispy chicken strips, which are diabetes-friendly because they're baked not fried:
1 pound skinless chicken cutlets, cut into 1-inch strips
¾ cup Italian breadcrumbs
1 egg white
1 cup skim milk, more as needed
Canola oil spray
- Heat oven to 375°F. Line a large sheet pan with foil and spray with canola oil.
- Place the breadcrumbs in a medium bowl.
- In a separate medium bowl, whisk the egg white and milk.
- With a fork, dip each strip of chicken in the mixture of milk and egg white. Immediately transfer to the bowl with breadcrumbs and coat each side of the strips thoroughly. Place the breaded chicken strips on the sheet pan.
- Spray a light mist of oil on the top of each chicken strip for a crispier coating.
- Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, turning once.
- Serve with tomato sauce or applesauce instead of ketchup. Makes 4 servings.
Meal Makeover: Go Vegetarian One Night a Week
A study published in the journal Diabetic Medicine found that people with type 2 diabetes who ate a vegetarian diet experienced a greater improvement in quality of life and mood than participants with diabetes who ate a conventional diet. For at least one meal each week, take a favorite dish and replace the meat with tofu, tempeh, or beans — hearty and thick alternatives in soups, chili, casseroles, and stir-fry, Cipullo says. Try her delicious recipe for heart-healthy vegetarian burritos to boost your diabetes nutrition:
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons garlic, chopped
8 whole wheat tortillas
1 15-ounce can low salt black beans
1 15-ounce can low salt kidney beans
1 cup corn, frozen or fresh, steamed
2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon cilantro
4 cups cooked brown rice
2 cups reduced fat and grated cheese
1 avocado, sliced
- In a large bowl, combine the beans, corn, tomatoes, lime juice, and cilantro.
- Drizzle oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add the red onion and garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes.
- When garlic becomes fragrant, add the bean mixture and reduce to low heat.
- Warm tortillas in the microwave for 20 seconds. Remove from heat and spread each tortilla with ½ cup rice down the center, followed by the bean mixture. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup shredded cheese and few slices of avocado, if desired.
- Wrap your burrito and enjoy. Makes 4 servings.
Meal Makeover: Go With Whole Grains
Foods that contain carbohydrates raise blood sugar. Yes, carbs are necessary for maintaining energy levels, but it's important to monitor your daily intake so you aren't consuming more than you need while still getting the best diabetes nutrition from your choices. Try oatmeal instead of cold cereal in the morning, and replace white rice with brown rice or quinoa, a whole grain with a nutty taste. To enjoy the great flavors in a spaghetti and meatballs diabetes meal, Cipullo replaces traditional white pasta with whole-wheat spaghetti, which is rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber. To avoid exceeding your carb allotment, she tosses out the typical garlic bread and suggests spreading oven-roasted garlic cloves over steamed broccoli.
Meal Makeover: Boost Diabetes Nutrition in Dessert
You can still enjoy dessert after a diabetes-friendly meal. Cipullo suggests a few quick fixes to make favorite recipes deliver better diabetes nutrition. For starters, opt for nutrient-rich, whole-wheat flour and whole oats rather than overly processed white flour, she advises. Use lighter whole-wheat pastry flour for delicate recipes. Cut the amount of sugar in half or try a sweetener like agave nectar, which you can use in smaller amounts to get the same flavor.
Try Cipullo's delicious oatmeal-raisin cookies to satisfy your sweet tooth:
¾ cup canola oil
1 cup honey or agave nectar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
½ cup raisins
½ cup toasted chopped walnuts
1½ cups wheat germ
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
¾ cup whole-wheat pastry flour
½ cup powdered fat-free milk
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Line two large baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, stir together the canola oil, honey, eggs, vanilla extract, raisins, chopped walnuts, wheat germ, and rolled oats.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and powdered milk.
- Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until well-combined.
- Scoop spoonfuls of the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheets. The cookies won't spread much, so you don't need to leave a lot of room between them.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until dry around the edges.
- Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

subset: commoncrawl


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Coincidentally this is also my 50th upload on Ao3 (I've written more than 50 fics - I just don't post the really bad old ones there, but it's still worth celebrating). So woo!
Title: Spyglass In Reverse
Author: Harmony (Silver Harmony)
Characters/Pairing: Miyuki x Sawamura
Rating: M
Word Count: Approximately 4,259.
Disclaimer: Not mine, otherwise this pairing would be canon.
Feedback: Very much appreciated, as I need it to improve. Thank you!
Summary: In which Kuramochi Youichi repeatedly walks in on things he doesn't want to see, and doesn't know what he'd ever done to deserve it.
( Follow the fake cut over to my Ao3 )
( Or here to my FF.Net. )


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It's back! After the absolutely terrible follow-up series, Ashes To Ashes, the most popular British drama since the last one, Life On Mars, is returning for a special two-hour spectacular on Christmas Day.
DI Sam Tyler and DCI Gene Hunt team-up once more as the former is transported back through time again after a knock on the head from his wife with a turkey drumstick on Xmas Day in 2008.
This time Tyler finds himself back in 1960s Manchester, in a hippy-infested, seedy underworld, ravaged by young girls with flowers in their hair, and short skirts barely covering their arse cheeks.
Sam's eyes are magnetised by what he sees, but Hunt gives the youth-types short shrift, calling them "tarts" and "slags", and their hippy boyfriends "fags".
DCI Hunt's talismanic Ford Granada car - not actually in production until 1972 - becomes a Time Machine, and the pair travel through time visiting the 1920s, the 1930s and 1940s, putting wrongs right, and slagging-off the miscreants of the period.
A new character is added: Gene's brother PC Mike Hunt, who unably 'assists the cops as they hurtle around Manchester trying to stem the flow of unabated crime.
As well as John Simm and Philip Glenister, the show also stars Graham Norton as a fag, Catherine Tate in a cameo as a hippy slapper, and disgraced ex-Grandstand host, Frank Bough, as a cross-dressing sports presenter.
Life On Mars 3 will be broadcast on BBC1 after the Queen's Speech at 3.15pm.


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What are the Effects of Taking Ibuprofen in Pregnancy?
Ibuprofen is a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug that is used as a painkiller to help with arthritis, fever, headache and many other conditions. Although common types of over-the-counter ibuprofen products are used by millions of people every year, there are serious questions about whether is it safe take ibuprofen in pregnancy. Whether pregnant or not, there are many side effects that can arise while taking ibuprofen, but most people find that these side effects are minimal and it does not require them to stop using the product.
While doctors debate about the safety of taking ibuprofen while pregnant, almost all of them agree that ibuprofen should not be taken at all during the last trimester of pregnancy, or after thirty-two weeks. The reason for the concern is the increased risk of heart and lung damage that has been associated with the use of ibuprofen as an over-the-counter pain medicine. There has also been a potential link to lower amniotic fluid levels at the time of birth, as well as the chance that it may prolong the length of labor. Before using ibuprofen during the last trimester of pregnancy, permission from a doctor should be received.
Potential risks when taking ibuprofen in pregnancy during the first eight weeks have been reported. These first eight weeks of pregnancy are crucial for the fetus because many of its organs are being formed during this time period. Some doctors believe that many studies show a link between taking ibuprofen in pregnancy during this time period with the development of birth defects. Women who are planning to get pregnant should consider stopping the use of ibuprofen to ensure they will have a safe pregnancy. It is recommended that women stop taking ibuprofen at least one month prior to becoming pregnant.
Whether it is safe to be taking ibuprofen in pregnancy from the eighth week to the thirty-second week is still a subject that is up for debate among doctors. Some prohibit their patients from taking any ibuprofen at all, while others encourage them to only use it sporadically. Women who are pregnant should always seek the advice of a doctor prior to using any medicine, including ibuprofen. Women choosing to use ibuprofen during pregnancy should contact their doctor if they experience any of the following symptoms; constipation, heartburn, pain in the stomach, dizziness, or diarrhea. Women who decide not to use ibuprofen during pregnancy can contact a doctor for a possible alternative pain medications.
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Discussion Comments
I had a cracked wisdom tooth in my first trimester, and while I was waiting for my appt to have it extracted, my midwife ok'd me to take small doses of ibuprofen. I am currently 23 weeks pregnant, and just found out that the baby has an omphalocele. This is a birth defect that occurs/is formed around 6-10 weeks gestation.
I am repeatedly told to not blame myself for this defect, and that there was nothing that I did to cause this.
But considering the timing of the formation of the defect, and the same timing of my ibuprofen consumption, I have a feeling there may be a correlation here. I am just putting this information out there for anyone who may be weighing the risks and benefits. Looking back, I would have certainly endured the terrible pain, if I knew I could have certainly avoided this outcome.
@Mae82 - Unfortunately Advil and pregnancy aren't the best mix, and doctors recommend avoiding it due to side effects. By far the safest thing you can take for headaches during pregnancy is acetaminophen which is generally marketed under the brand name Tylenol.
Acetaminophen is shown to have no risks relating to miscarriage or birth defects. If you are still worried though you should definitely talk to your doctor before taking anything. It is good to be cautious about what you put into your body during pregnancy and a quick fix for your headache definitely isn't worth any harm to your baby.
Does anyone know if something like children's Advil during pregnancy would cause harm?
I get the worst headaches and am pretty much willing to try anything to get rid of a bit of the pain. I haven't had a chance to see my doctor about this yet but it feels like my headaches are getting worse with my pregnancy. It might just be the stress though of trying to get everything sorted in my life as this wasn't a planned thing.
I have read that pregnancy and ibuprofen don't mix well, but I am hoping that something like Advil would be OK. I really need to take the edge of my headache.
I asked my doctor if is it safe to take ibuprofen during pregnancy and he told me to totally avoid it to just be safe. He basically said that the fewer over-the-counter medications you use during pregnancy the better as most of it has unknown side effects on the fetus.
What I had to do for my back pain when I was pregnant was sit comfortably on a hot water bottle and try for some nice baths. I was originally all about trying herbal teas until I read that they aren't regulated by the FDA and can cause more problems then they are worth. I think if you don't need a specific prescription to get by you should try to keep your diet and surroundings as natural as possible during pregnancy.
@ysmina-- If I remember correctly, my sister did use the ibuprofen gel during her pregnancy and it was fine. She had horrible back pains all throughout her pregnancy due to the weight of the baby and the doctor told her to use ibuprofen gel.
Ibuprofen gel goes on the skin so it probably doesn't enter the bloodstream like ibuprofen tablets do. I doubt that the medication in the gel would enter the baby's blood stream like the tablets do but don't take my word for it. I do agree with you that your doctor would not recommend it if it was unsafe.
But if you're still worried about ibuprofen side effects, don't use it. There might be a natural and safer alternative you could use.
This is bad news to me. I take ibuprofen regularly for migraines and even though I'm not planning on having a baby anytime soon, this article makes me wonder what would happen if I got pregnant by accident.
I heard that women who use ibuprofen soon before getting pregnant and also in the first trimester have a much higher chance of having a miscarriage. If I were planning to conceive than I could also plan to take medications accordingly.
But what if it happened by mistake? Wouldn't it be okay to quit ibuprofen right away and go for regular checkups with the doctor to make sure nothing is wrong? Or does this mean that the damage is already done? I need to learn more about ibuprofen and pregnancy.
I'm currently in my second trimester and have arthritis in my joints, especially my knees and back. I asked my doctor if there is anything I can use because the pain gets really bad sometimes and makes it hard to even move around. She prescribed topical ibuprofen gel and I have gotten it from the pharmacy but I'm not sure if I should use it.
If taking taking ibuprofen is not safe during pregnancy, I think ibuprofen gel would be dangerous too, wouldn't it? I have no idea why the doctor would prescribe it if that was the case though.
Has anyone else been prescribed ibuprofen gel during pregnancy? Is it safe for me to use? If so, how often?


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Yawn! Anyone else out there having to get used to an alarm again this week? Between the week I had the flu and the holidays, I haven't had to wake up to an alarm in two weeks. This morning's 4:45 am wake-up hit pretty hard. It came with good reason…to have some time to get a new workout to you! AND to share a couple bits of news with you, too. Let's hit those first.
- Registration for Winter 2014 Best Body Bootcamp begins TODAY! The eight week Winter 2014 session workouts will start on January 20th, but you can register beginning today. And as a little holiday week gift to you, use code HOLIDAYBBB for $5 OFF – through Friday January 3rd. If you need additional BBB details, then check out the Best Body Bootcamp page for all the info.
- The Holiday Workout Plan is only available through tomorrow! If you want to have a stockpile of 20 time-effective, practical workouts then get your copy TODAY. The Back To Basics nutrition e-book is also only available through tomorrow.
If you're not sure about the workouts, then you know I got you covered. For today's Move It Monday post I'll give you a little sneak peek look into one of the workouts from the holiday workout plan – my own take on a 100 countdown workout. Start with 100 reps of one exercise, 90 reps of the next exercise, 80 reps of the next, and so on. It all adds up to quite the muscular endurance workout with a nice cardiovascular boost that can be done in under 20 minutes. Bonus? You will need ZERO equipment!
And because I feel like being extra generous with the recently holiday cheer, I'll even include access to the demo video of this workout for you. Heads up – you get these demos with EVERY workout in any Best Body Bootcamp plan. I like to take the guesswork out so you only need to focus on your workout.
This workout takes approximately 20 minutes, including the 10 minute cardio to finish. If you have time, feel free to go through the workout a second time through (with or without the final 10 minutes of cardio). If you don't have a full twenty minutes, then go through just the strength exercises and finish off with 10 burpees (or other cardio exercise) instead! Have fun!
Ever done a countdown workout? Have any favorite high-rep exercises you would include?


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By Sara Kraft
"Catholic Challenge Sports is a great, not-just another sports league," explained real estate developer Ferd Niemann IV.
Catholic Challenge Sports (CCS), a ministry under the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph City on A Hill young adult ministry, celebrated ten years of existence this fall. Catholic Challenge Sports is a non-profit, sports-based ministry whose mission is to draw young adults in their 20's and 30's into a deeper relationship with Christ and foster community through athletic competition in the KC metropolitan area.
"There's more to it than if a team just won or lost," explained Catholic Challenge Sports President Andy Flattery. "What's cool about this league is a common ground that everyone at the core is a serious Catholic. It just doesn't end at sports. There's more to it. It's meant to be a gateway to young adult community."
The league was founded in 2007 when Matt Maes noted a need in the young adult community. Matt, an Atlanta native, had noted the success of the Atlanta Catholic Sports league in the Atlanta young adult community and sought the same experience. City on A Hill Young Adult ministry was in its infancy and had nothing in its lineup to meet people on the periphery. A sports league would be more welcoming to those new to the young adult community.
Catholic Challenge Sports is a springboard to inviting people to be involved in the other aspects of the community. "Kansas City has a community of young adults thrown out in the world but without the responsibilities of a family. Where do you connect with other young adults?" questioned Matt. "We wanted to create a new experience to welcome new individuals into the Catholic young adult community, especially those who might be afraid to join something new," explained Matt. In Matt's experience it worked because "competition fosters comradery. Comradery, in the right environment, leads to a deeper relationship with Christ."
The league's first sport was dodgeball because it is goofy, doesn't have to be overly competitive, and is open to various ability levels. Within the first year, Catholic Challenge Sports had three sports and over a hundred participants. Now, Catholic Challenge Sports is run by a board of eleven members. In a calendar year, the ministry now boasts several hundred participants with sports leagues in dodgeball, kickball, softball, volleyball, and flag football. Additionally, one-time events, such as a 3 on 3 basketball tournament, ultimate Frisbee tournament and a Superbowl party are held to help get Catholic Challenge Sports' name out in the community.
The sports league wasn't meant to be a faith teaching experience; it was meant to be a faith-living experience. "Catholic Challenge Sports is our most successful 'open-door' apostolate," explained City On A Hill Director Father Andrew Mattingly. "It draws people in that have little to no interest in the Catholic faith. Seven to eight weeks playing on a team helps to invite people deeper who have little to no connection to the faith."
The main ministry of Catholic Challenge Sports is focused on bringing people into community. "A year and a half ago, we had a young man on our dodgeball team. After dodgeball, he got involved in all the other sports and started spiritual direction. He is now in seminary. Catholic Challenge Sports helps people get to the next level," stated Andy.
Ferd first started playing Catholic Challenge Sports in 2008 and began to get involved in City On A Hill in 2009. "Catholic Challenge Sports was very helpful in my life," stated Ferd. "At first, it was an avenue to play sports with other young and successful individuals. It was the first time I met cool and normal people who also had a relationship with Jesus." He stayed heavily involved until getting married in 2015. "Our friend group is still people we met from City On A Hill. Six of us guys have peeled off and have done a men's group for the last several years," Ferd explained.
Catholic Challenge Sports celebrated ten years with a special Mass, a picnic, and root beer floats. There were fun events, like a blow-up obstacle course and bubble soccer. The event was full of alumni, now married, many with children running around at the event. "It was neat to see the families that have come out of Catholic Challenge Sports," stated Andy.
For more information about Catholic Challenge Sports, visit https://www.catholicchallengesports.com/.


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Decals to suit the SDS Models range of MSL RACE containers. these have the appearance of a weathered finish which can be directly applied to the model. Decal sheet comes as two sets to complete to models. Comes with instructions.
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(Click to see bigger)
You can view full-sized versions of these on Tumblr. Here's the links to the last year's and the year before's shoots if you feel like looking at them again.
Best wishes to you and yours! I hope that no matter what you guys are doing, this time of year for you is warm and bright and filled with love.


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About The Yoga Tree
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The Yoga Tree of Seattle offers expert instruction in the full experience of yoga. Our teachers are dedicated to ongoing study, and bring a wealth of knowledge and practiced skill. Each class melds classical tradition, modern insight and compassionate guidance. Our teachers create a safe space for exploration, and are able to adapt the practices to suit any individual at any skill level in a small class size atmosphere. Most importantly, our instructors understand how to work with the subtler aspects of the body, mind, voice, energy and emotion. They can teach you how to use yoga not only to stretch your hamstrings, but to balance your mood, cope with grief or anger, find your center, and move with more ease and grace through your daily life.
The Yoga Tree encompasses a wide range of approaches and practices, including physical postures, breathing exercises, chanting and meditation, among others. All of these lead to compassionate self-awareness, working through physical experience to access, awaken and refine ever subtler depths of ourselves. Whether you seek enlightenment or just a chance to stretch and strengthen, yoga can bring you back to yourself and back to your senses. Classes are small in size and are presented with awareness of and respect for the many different reasons people come to yoga, and the different challenges they may bring with them. However far and in whatever direction you wish to explore within the practices of yoga, you will find support, encouragement and expert guidance here.
Join us in the studio, or online via Zoom! Preregistration is required. We are not a hot yoga studio. Dress in layers as we are trying maximize fresh air flow as much as possible to keep you and our instructors safe.
Join us in the studio, or online via Zoom! Preregistration is required. We are not a hot yoga studio. Dress in layers as we are trying maximize fresh air flow as much as possible to keep you and our instructors safe.
The Yoga Tree is located at 4250 Fremont Avenue North in Seattle.
The Yoga Tree
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Association for the Study of Nationalities
Int. Federation for Theatre Research
Central European History Society
European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association
UK Cognitive Linguistics Association
Association for the Study of Modern Italy
Society for Business Ethics
History of Education Society
Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Society for the Study of Early China
The Society for Political Methodology
N. American Conference of British Studies
Canadian Linguistic Association


text: Leslie C. Newman has been an oil painter for 15 years. She has served as the Oil & Acrylic Workshop Chairperson and an Officer for ANA. Leslie is a member of Oil Painters of America, Plein Air Painters of the Ozarks, and Heart of America Artists Association. Leslie has lived in Rogers, Arkansas since 2003 with her husband Mark. They have two grown, married children, and six grandchildren.


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If a participant has registered and completed their personal fundraising page for a Peer-to-Peer event but did not join a team at registration time, Campaign Managers can assign them to a team. If registrants inadvertently registered for the wrong team, Campaign Managers can update this as well.
- Access the event from the Activities section, and go to the Management section of your Peer to Peer event.
- On the Fundraisers tab at the bottom of the page, search for your Fundraiser.
- Once you find the fundraiser, click on the name.
- In the team section, there is an Edit button, which will set the fundraiser to add them to a certain team or edit the record to change the team on which they're participating.


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A conversation that I wasn't entirely enamored with occurred on Twitter recently regarding Donald Trump and mental health. This was between writers, journalists, and people with mental health needs (or people who fell into more than one of those categories) who agreed that Trump "doesn't have the temperament to be President." They disagreed about "whether [they] needed to frame temperament-issues in terms of mental health." David Perry wrote about this – whether it was advisable to frame Trump's behavior through a mental health framework. He presented varying arguments from multiple sides of the discussion. Some of the arguments included, several in response to each other:
- argument 1: not talking about Trump's mental health would increase stigma via silence on mental health
- argument 2: "if he were dxed would… agree with you," and that it was the armchair diagnosis speculation and use of "insane" as insulting that bothered them.
- argument 3: temperament isn't the result of mental illness
- argument 4: mental illness is not a reason to be unfit for public office
- argument 5: Trump isn't right in the head and not even politicians are that self-centered
- and it went on with other points, some that could be categorized under others.
I am quite inclined to agree with Finn of Expectedly that "Wrong does not mean crazy." Finn wrote:
Trump's disgusting plans are not the result of a mental illness; they're the result of deep-set, unbridled bigotry that he's exploiting to worm his way into the White House… The Republican Party as a whole deserves to be blasted… But this isn't about mental illness; it's about entrenched white supremacy, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, Christian supremacy and other prejudices.
People need to stop claiming that politicians – and their supporters – whose political views differ from theirs as a sign of a mental illness, as though people can't hold different political beliefs without considering them rationally. This stereotype also comes with the insinuation that mental illness necessarily means the lack of agency required to arrive at a reasoned political decision, which is grossly untrue.
Discussing Trump's mental health status is kind of getting into the territory where people will use it to say that people with mental health needs can't be effective candidates for public office if they choose to run. People are also so eager to blame bigotry on mental health needs. It helps people, in my opinion, distance themselves from the thought that they could ever be bigoted about anything (when I don't know one person who hasn't screwed up in that regard at least once).
So, sure, being erratic and lying a lot could be a sign of mental health needs, but that doesn't mean it's the reason for things like Trump being a bigot. I'd like to make the point that people with mental health needs are people with many varying viewpoints on the world – so if a person with mental health needs is a bigot, I would argue that the mental health needs are most often a coincidence. I know people with mental health needs who have done less than pleasant things – even, perhaps, said hurtful things about groups of people – in the middle of any sort of episode. I have had episodes where I've said less than stellar things, though I don't think I've ever said bigoted things because of an episode – but I think it's too easy to write Trump off as being a delusional, pathologically lying narcissist.
Finally, I really, really don't think that talking about it in this context will lead to less stigma. In certain contexts? Remaining silent about mental health needs absolutely can increase stigma, can result in mental health needs being the bogeyman in the closet, a family's dark secret, you get the drift – and I also advocate for the consent of the person in question. Even though Trump is a political figure and thus invites judgment, I feel like discussing it in this context invites severe judgment on people with mental health needs. It links bigotry to mental health needs because Trump is such a bigot that if people think Trump + mental health needs, they are going to start associating mental health needs with Trump-type bigotry.
* * *
Everyone, particularly other people with mental health needs – and especially those with particularly stigmatized diagnoses like bipolar I/II/NOS, schizophrenia, or any mental health need involving psychosis, for instance – is welcome to weigh in on this. Read the comment policy before submitting a comment; I moderate comments.


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How do you find the time??
A number of people have recently asked me incredulously: "But how do you find the time to paint??"
It's actually not an unreasonable question - my youngest (of three children) is only two years old and I have limited childcare and, therefore, limited time to do what I want or need to do without the distraction of the "terrible twos"! I'm forever rushing around from one school run to the next, and making choices how to use my precious "free" time: do I cook a nutritious meal (that no doubt they'll refuse to eat!), do I sort out the never ending chaos in the kitchen, do I get my hair cut, pay the bills and do admin, or... do I paint?
Little and Often...
Quite often, I choose to paint. But I have to snatch brief opportunities for studio time and make the most of every moment. My studio is at one end of the house, near the kitchen, so after 20-30 minutes of playing with paint, I might quickly run and empty the dishwasher! Then, I will flit back and paint some more, before sorting some laundry and then jumping in the car to pick the other kids up from school. I might pop in to the studio again to check on things whilst the dinner is in the oven and maybe, if I'm not too exhausted, I'll have an evening painting session too. It really is a back and forth affair with not a lot of time for leisurely creative contemplation
Working in a Series...
I'm preparing for a large art fair in the autumn and currently have 16 paintings of various sizes on the go. The little and often approach to a series means that I don't need to watch paint dry. I work in layers and I can switch between paintings quickly and easily, making my studio practise much more effective.
The Golden 30 minutes...
The first 30 minutes of each session working on a painting is where the gold is. There is a burst of creativity which, when unleashed onto a painting can sometimes really take it to another level. For me, spending many concentrated hours on one activity can lead to creative fatigue and an overworked, fiddly painting. Working in short bursts keeps the freshness and energy in an artwork.
I know what I want to achieve and why - I am working hard to restart a career doing what I love; something completely aligned with who I am. That gives me the motivation to juggle my time in this seemingly chaotic way.
Of course, I can't get as much done as I want to and my kitchen is far from an Instagram-worthy state. But I'm doing something, I'm moving forward and I'm making art 😊.
15/6/2018 05:49:23 pm
I am the same - I don't have kids but I have a business to run and a dog and a husband who can't cook, so I totally empathize. I get 2 hours a day if I'm lucky - sometimes only 30 minutes. But it's amazing what we get done in that time!
Kasia Clarke
15/6/2018 08:25:33 pm
Yes! It is astounding what can be achieved with adequate focus and motivation! 😃
15/6/2018 09:39:44 pm
Very inspiring. Now I feel like I wasted so much time as I didn't paint at all for a lot of my teaching career and then only once a week at a class. (I'm retired now so no excuses!) So my next question "Where do you find the energy?"
Kasia Clarke
15/6/2018 11:24:19 pm
Ha! Laura, I feel perpetually exhausted by the pace of life but the option right now is to either do it this way or not at all. The latter was making me miserable so.... I just have to find the time and energy somehow and something has to give. Ask the kids how many times they were served up fish fingers whilst I did CVP!! 😂
Leave a Reply.
December 2019


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The article comments on the significance of the animated television series "The Simpsons." It offers information on the record set by "The Simpsons" as a sitcom and cartoon in the U.S. It describes the political satire being offered by episodes of the show. It details how the program treat the...
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Presents a cartoon strip depicting Environ-Man's confrontation with Chema-Cal, a mad-scientist type who wants to use chemicals to kill pests in his garden. Lists some guidelines for good gardening practices that prevent recurring pest problems.Also explains how to safely use garden chemicals.
- Cartoon. Browne, James // Hopscotch;Aug/Sep2009, Vol. 21 Issue 2, p13
A cartoon about being born in France is presented.
- Humpty at home. // Humpty Dumpty's Magazine;Jun94, Vol. 42 Issue 4, p10
Presents a humorous cartoon about Humpty hanging posters in his room.


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Lot 283: Roy Lichtenstein
Lot 283: Roy Lichtenstein
Group of 7 signed art catalogues
& one book by David Hockney
Roy Lichtenstein at Cal Arts (signed), 1977; Roy Lichtenstein Sculpture (signed), Castelli Gallery catalouge 1977; Roy Lichtenstein (signed), Guggenheim Museum exhibition catalogue; Roy Lichtenstein: Graphics, Reliefs & Sculpture 1969-70 (signed), 1970, UCLA exhibition catalogue; Roy Lichtenstein Entablature Series (signed), 1976, Tyler Graphics; Roy Lichtenstein: The Modern Work 1965-1970 (signed), 1978, Institute of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue; David Hockney: Selected Prints and Drawings 1962-1977 (signed and dedicated), 1977, Pittsburgh Press
Estimate: $800 - $1,200
Price Realized: $3,125
Inventory Id: 1239
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Reviews and Recordings of PulpFest 2019
PulpFest 2019 is over a month past now, but you can partly re-live it through the reports and recordings posted online.
We're sorry if you couldn't make PulpFest this year. You missed a pulp-packed weekend of programming, readings, signings, dealers, and more. Hopefully these links will encourage you to make the trip next August 6-9 to PulpFest 2020.
Read all about it
- Lewis Forro posting as "The Supreme Leader" once again has a bit of fun with his photographic report from PulpFest 2019 on his blog, The Leader's Chronicles.
- Mike Glyer has posted about this year's Munsey Award winner, George Vanderburgh, at his File 770 blog.
- J.L. Gribble posted her report of PulpFest on her blog.
- Ed Hulse, publisher at Murania Press, offers his report of traveling to PulpFest 2019 on his EDitorial Comments blog.
- Walker Martin's annual report on PulpFest has moved to Sai Shankar's Pulp Flakes blog this year.
- Raw Dog Screaming Press, which celebrated its 16th anniversary at PulpFest 2019, has posted photos from author readings it held at the convention.
- Speaking of Sai Shankar, his PulpFest report is a photographic one, with shots of some of the interesting and rare pulps he came across in the well-stocked dealers' room.
- Bill Lampkin of ThePulp.Net posted photos from PulpFest 2019 to Instagram throughout PulpFest 2019, but you can now view them on his blog, Yellowed Perils.
For your listening (or viewing) pleasure
- Bold Venture Press, which has reprinted the Zorro stories, has posted a video of editor Rich Harvey's presentation, "A Century of Zorro," from PulpFest 2019.
- Raw Dog Screaming Press also posted a reading by author John Edward Lawson on its Facebook page.
- ThePulp.Net has posted audio recordings and photos of 11 PulpFest 2019 panels (almost seven-and-a-half hours) on its website, as well as through its Pulp Event Podcast. The podcast is available for free through the iTunes App Store or Google Play store
- And ThePulp.Net did a Facebook Live video walk-through of the PulpFest 2019 dealers' room.
This year's PulpFest may be over, but there's plenty of time to start planning to attend 2020's gathering. The convention returns to the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry, just north of Pittsburgh, from Thursday, August 6, through Sunday, August 9. See you then!
(The dealers' room at PulpFest 2020 was a popular gathering spot during the day, as pulp fans and collectors searched for items and visited with friends.)