text:
Let Us Give Your Kitchen And Bathroom A Gorgeous New Look
From renovations to roofing, price consults and style help, Kitchens And Bathroom Renovations Melbourne is here for you. Let us help you give your house a brand new look!
24/7 Accessibility, Morning or Night
Free Price Quotes and Consultations
Project and Construction Style Assistance
Request An
Many Years of Experience in Bathroom & Kitchen Business
Here at Kitchen Renovations Melbourne, we can offer you our years of experience along with a huge range of home renovation and construction projects. You don't want just anybody servicing your home; you can easily count on our team to care for you and your loved ones's construction and bathroom & kitchen remodeling requirements.
Our staff is trained in all locations of Kitchen renovation and have successfully passed thorough testing training courses so you can be confident you are hiring the absolute best.
24/7 Availability
We are readily available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for our clients. Morning or night, give us a call and let us tackle any problem you might have.
Fair Prices
If you have avoided ideas of remodelling or bathroom & kitchen building and construction due to cost worries, worry not. We are able to accommodate any kind of budget plan, and our costs are fair and sensible.
Kitchens And Bathroom Renovations Melbourne provides a wide range of house renovation and construction of services. Locating the perfect general contractor might be difficult, that's the reason why you needn't look any further than here. Take a look below at all the services our company provides.
Roofing Services
Does your Roof need some repair work? Or maybe you need a whole new Roof. Contact the professional reno crew here at Kitchens And Bathroom Renovations Melbourne
Laminate Flooring
Laminate floor covering is very easy to install, simple to take care of and looks just like genuine hardwood, natural stone or tile. Let our gifted contractors put in stunning laminate floors for you, and make your neighbors green with envy!
Kitchen Renovation
Have you been thinking about renovating your whole house? Or perhaps merely a room or two. We can absolutely help! From kitchen and bathroom renovations to altering the complete look of your home, we are the provider to see, to make it come to pass.
Pick up the phone now and call us!
We can help you construct your dream house!
03 8592 4749
Take a look at what a few of our pleased clients have to say about us!
WHOA, our house is beautiful!
I just can't believe what a remarkable job business did. We had our cooking area and entrance renovated, and it is gorgeous now. Your team was compassionate and extremely professional all throughout the work. I will be strongly recommending you all to everybody! Many thanks!
So delighted with our new roof!
We contact business to seek advice from them on a brand-new roof. They showed up quite promptly, clarified what we really needed, and we couldn't believe how affordable it was! Our roof looks amazing, and we really did not break the bank doing it. Thanks once again, you are now our go-to contractors!
Why Choose Us
The most significant decision you can make during bathroom remodeling is choosing the right contractor for your project.
Leadership in the business. Always updated on the newest developments.
Trusted knowledge. Years of prior experience and happy clients.
Craftmanship and Quality. A long, proven background of impressive work.
Genuine and Dependable. Our word is our guarantee.
Accessible 24/7. Morning or evening we are always right here for you.
Work Process
On-site Estimate
Our crew of contractors will come out to your home to talk with you about your plan, evaluate the project location and give you a cost-free estimate to get the ball moving.
Remodelling and Demolition
When the project has kicked off our staff will manage all of the demolition and renovation work. We understand that you still have to stay in your home during the course of the work, so we will make it as easy as possible for you.
Cleanup and Removal
Immediately after we finalize your project, we will make sure to tidy up the mess. We will take away all the demolition and building mess that is left, and if the venture is in the house, we will make sure to clean up the spaces we have renovated.
More Information About Lysterfield
We can also serve the following suburbs
Trying To Find A Complete Kitchen Renovation In Lysterfield?
The kitchen is the heart of the house and a kitchen renovation in Lysterfield can make a fantastic difference to the look and feel of your home. It can open up an out-of-date kitchen into a contemporary living space and provide the bench space, cupboards and storage room that we all get out of today's kitchens. A good kitchen renovation can boost your living requirements and make staying in enjoyable.
Our Kitchen Design & Restoration Process:
We visit our client, measure their kitchen area and discuss their design ideas
We prepare a draft design utilizing our cutting-edge CAD software application
We invite you to visit us at our display room and make adjustments to the initial design
As soon as the functional layout is locked down, you can choose the colours, cabinets and benchtops
At this stage we can tell you just how much your brand-new kitchen is going to cost
As soon as you have actually decided to go ahead with your renovation we place your order through our CAD software application with our local kitchen producer
We schedule in a time to deliver and install your brand-new kitchen.
Choose Your Kitchen style In Lysterfield
Similar to clothes and furniture, kitchens come in several designs and styles. Bearing in mind that a new kitchen area costs more and lasts longest, choosing a design that matches you and your lifestyle needs serious consideration. Making the design and style choice first will help direct your options in everything else from wall colour to cupboard doors. Typical styles to pick from consist of:
- French Provincial kitchens
- Country kitchens
- Modern white kitchens
- Contemporary kitchens
- Provincial kitchens
Choose Your Kitchen Layout In Lysterfield
When considering your kitchen restoration, choose the style which will best match your house, family and way of life. Take into account the size of your family, the number of cooks who may remain in the kitchen area at once, whether it's a separate kitchen or opens into a family room and if you want to consist of a casual eating area. There are 5 fundamental kitchen arrangements to choose from:
- L-shaped kitchen
- U-shaped kitchen
- Galley kitchen
- Island kitchen
- Single line Kitchen
Kitchen Remodellings Factors To Consider
Once you have a clear idea of your style of kitchen, your next action is to give some thought to the following points, and the first point might figure out how you view the others:
Budget – different budgets call for different solutions.
The size of your kitchen area; how wide, long and high do you want it to be?
What kitchen area home appliances would you like set up? Do you prefer electric or gas? Do you like stainless steel?
What types of kitchen benchtop materials do you prefer? For instance, laminate, engineered stone or granite benchtops.
What kitchen fittings, taps, sink etc, are you going to utilize?
What kind of splashbacks do you prefer? For example – tiles, glass, stone. (Required some ideas?
Consider kitchen colours and natural light.
Remember the traditional kitchen area triangle – Sink-Stove-Fridge.
Lighting – feature lighting over benches not just looks terrific however can be practical.
Think about the size of the existing home appliances which will need to be worked around such as your refrigerator or dishwashing machine.
As you can see, there can be a variety of various mixes to choose from, making the costing of kitchen restorations vary widely. With comprehensive requirements, the costs of your kitchen restoration can be determined to make sure there are no surprises.
Kitchen Area Renovations FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Here are some of the most common responses to the general questions we receive about kitchen remodellings. We address more kitchen area restoration faqs here.
Just How Much Should A Kitchen Area Remodelling Cost?
Kitchen area remodellings can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $75,000 depending on the size and quality of the kitchen area. According to ImproveNet (2016) the average kitchen costs $17,226.
Do Kitchen Area Remodellings Pay Off?
If you understand any real estate representatives inquire this question. We believe that a kitchen remodelling is the best investment you can make in your house or investment property.
Just How Much Should I Spend On A Kitchen Area Renovation?
Are you trying to offer your apartment or home? Or are you upgrading the kitchen in your house? The answer to these questions will determine the style, performance and expense of your kitchen area.
Bathroom Installation In Lysterfield That Raises Your House's Worth Without Increasing Your Expenses
Whether you are searching for timeless stylings or contemporary, new bathroom designs, we can help you realise your dreams. We will work directly with you to produce a space that matches your lifestyle completely. Our installers are totally certified and make certain to just utilize the highest quality products available.
Our bathroom designers understand that our clients reward quality of workmanship, so we make sure to partner with just the best bathroom builders and renovators in Lysterfield.
Bathroom renos are also a terrific way to increase the value of your house ahead of a sale. Possibly gain thousands more on auction day with a little lit of help from our skilled renovators and installers. A new bathroom could be a cost-effective and attractive way to drive interest in your property and increase your opportunities of a successful sale.
Bathroom Renovators Who Deliver On Time And Under-Budget In Lysterfield
We have a selection of packages readily available to fit any design requirement or budget, or requirement, or you can deal with the very best bathroom contractors in Lysterfield on a bespoke service, the option is yours. Whatever the size of the area and the extent of your spending plan, your renovation ideas will be brought clearly and expertly to life by our designs team.
Call us today 03 9068 5915 or complete our online form for a quote and let us create your dream kitchen or bathroom.


text:
Being "body positive" is something that I've struggled with for pretty much my entire life. I mean, I'm positive I have a body, but that's about the extent of my relationship with it. It's never looked how I want it to and, in recent years, hasn't functioned as I want it to either.
Even before the dawn of social media, children have been growing up, persistently bombarded with a particular standard of beauty. Magazine covers, films, pop stars. Slim and attractive people were what we aimed to be. The women in my life talked relentlessy about the latest diet and the crazy ways in which they were going to shed half a stone in a week. Counting points, eating obscene amounts of cabbage soup, drinking only slimming milkshakes. And, let's be honest, life is really no different now. Balancing macros, drinking juices, tallying up syns. Just like me, my children are going to grow up in a world obsessed with weight loss. Only now, we also have the flip side of the scale. The plus size movement. Something that purports to be about body confidence, but is really no healthier (or happier) than the unrealistic standards showcased by the often malnourished girls strutting the cat walk.
We all come in different shapes and sizes, I get that now. I accept it. The only thing I strive for these days, is healthiness. I don't want my children to grow up, concerning themsleves with weight loss. Or boob jobs. Or bum implants. I want them to grow up with a healthy attitude to food, to excercise and to their bodies, so that altering them isn't something they'll ever feel the need to do.
In my late teens, I embarked upon my own diet. It's called Bulimia. For several years I struggled with my inabilty to starve myself. My lack of discipline. Nicole Richie was my idol. All I wanted and craved was the waif like figure that she had. Her weight loss was constantly splashed across the pages of Heat Mag and, to me, she looked amazing. Protuding bones and gaunt faces were appealing. I wanted vertebrae that were visible to the outside world. I didn't want my thighs to touch. The thought of having a muffin top, sickened me. Literally. Puberty had given me curves and I resented them. I weighed myself obsessively. Anything over 8 stone was disgustingly fat. and yet, I didn't have the discipline not to eat. I could go all day long, but once the hunger got too much, I couldn't take it anymore. I'd binge. I'd eat everything I could find and then, afterwards, I'd thrust the pointed end of my toothbrush deep into my throat and I'd purge. I'd force myself to vomit and I'd keep doing it until all that remained was bile and blood. And I was inventive at hiding my illness too. Carrier bags filled with sick, hidden in the boot of my car until I found somewhere far from home to dispose of them. Using the sink at friend's houses, because the splash from the toilet was too noisy. In the shower. Into bins. Anywhere really. Anywhere it could be hidden and my secret remain unknown. The guilt of keeping the food inside of me was far too much to bear. For four years this went on. It became the norm for me. I knew which foods would regurgitate more easily and which to avoid for fear I wouldn't be able to bring them back up again. I'm not even sure how I got better, in the end. How I recovered. There must have come a time that I stuck that toothbrush down my throat and then never did it again. Of course, the temptation remained. The guilt. It took years more for that to go completely. But it did, in the end.
That's not something I want for my children. I want them to enjoy food. I want them to eat without shame. I want them to make healthy choices, but allow themsleves to enjoy treats without all the guilt. I don't want them to diet. To an extent, my concern lies more with Daisy than with the boys, but I know full well a crisis of body confidence is not just an affliction for the girls. I saw first hand, the Spouse, who took up cycling. Who began to lose weight. Who delighted in the comments from others, "you look well", "have you lost weight?". And for whom it became an obsession. Who weighed himself every morning. Who became addicted to watching the numbers plummet. No, it's not just girls who worry about their weight.
So what about now. Where are my body and I at now? Sure, I've dabbled with diets. I've been desperate to lose weight. I've gained for too many stones of it and watched my arse grow at the same rate as my belly during pregnancy. But here I am at 30. My body is what it is. I'm never going to be a 6ft super model (not least because I'm only 5ft 3 on a good day). I'm never going to have boobs that don't migrate into my armpits every time I lie down. I'm never going to have a perfectly flat stomach and I'm never going to have a belly button that doesnt look like a sad face. But you know what, I'm ok with that. I'm not body confident. I'm body content. And I try to look after it, but I also try to indulge it too. I'm active. I don't pummel the treadmill 7 times a week, but I do work out with friends on Wednesays and Fridays (roughly 60% exercise, 40% vocal gymnastics) and I try to walk as much as i can (70,000 steps a week is the aim). And, most importantly, I try to involve the children. They walk home from school every night, come rain or shine. It's their "daily mile" and its a normal part of their routine that ensures we're all (including the dog) getting exercise, even if they do then spend the rest of the evening in front of the tv. It's not painful. It's not the sort of exercise regime that leaves me feeling half dead or chundering into a bush, but it's enough. It's enough to keep me feeling healthy. It's enough to make me feel stronger. Fitter. It's enough to let me allow myself to eat the foods that I enjoy and feel like I deserve them. We don't talk about diets here, anymore. We talk about balance. We talk about "everything in moderation" and it couldn't be more true. That's how I want my children to live. I want them to enjoy exercise and to enjoy eating. I want them to be healthy and happy. That's it really. That's my "fitness regime". It's not intense, it's not hardcore, it's not restrictive and it's not complicated. It's just mostly healthy and mostly happy.
P.S. Here's a gratuitous picture of my "guns" because honestly I've been working really hard on it and I'm feeling super hench (only on the one side, mind).

subset: commoncrawl


text:
AMSTERDAM — Speaking exclusively to MLSsoccer.com, incoming AS Roma club president Thomas DiBenedetto has confirmed the club's summer intention to acquire a top American player in the transfer market.
The Boston native's takeover won't formally be approved until the end of the month, but he's already hatched a plan to add a US star to the roster with both performance and marketing attributes.
"We are obviously scouting players everywhere and we are obviously interested in the American products, both in MLS and abroad," DiBenedetto told MLSsoccer.com from Rome. "I obviously can't tell you any names, but we want only the best for our team."
The businessman, who is chairman of the takeover group and will become Roma president on June 10, is set to head the first American-owned club in Italy's honor division. Understanding the Eternal City's pressure to succeed, he wants to do the job right.
"We know that this is something unique in Italy, a first time," said DiBenedetto. "For this reason, we chose the best managers available, starting by the new sporting director, Mr. Walter Sabatini, a former SS Lazio and US Palermo director and an AS Roma player in the '70s."
Though he's unable to deal in the transfer market until the takeover is officially completed, MLSsoccer.com has learned that Sabatini started early homework for his new job by browsing American players.
Though things may change before any offer could be made, Roma's lead crushes are currently Borussia Mönchengladbach midfielder Michael Bradley (now on loan to Aston Villa) and LA Galaxy star Landon Donovan. Sabatini has also sized up the likes of New York Red Bulls forward Juan Agudelo, FC Nürnberg right-sider Timothy Chandler, Aston Villa 'keeper Brad Guzan and Anderlecht midfielder Sacha Kljestan.
Aside from this particular interest in shopping American talent, DiBenedetto also has an admiration for the league that helped produce most of the above products.
"We observe with a lot of interest the MLS business model," stated DiBenedetto, a friend of New England Revolution owner Robert Kraft. "Especially with regard to marketing in the local communities, the new soccer-specific stadiums and the league structure with a commissioner with real powers. And anyway, in MLS, there are some of the best businessmen in the world of sport."


text:
What do you get when you put on a dress, a lipstick, and cycle to the afterwork party hosted by Amazon? You get an exclusive interview with the Chief Technology Officer of them all – Amazon's Werner Vogels.
Amazon Web Services was hosting a Pop-Up loft party in the new establishment WeWork just off London's City area this Tuesday night.
Fashion Bloc team visited the mid-week party to explore the tech start-up scene and most importantly meet the Vogels himself! The Dutch CTO of Amazon was giving a speech on how Amazon Web Services (FYI – they're the leading B2B Cloud service provider) can be beneficial to the start-ups.
Interesting and all! But Fashion Bloc has to talk fashion, thus we had a chat with Mr. Vogels about Vogue September issue, Jimmy Choos and online changing rooms.
Fashion Bloc: Do you follow fashion?
Werner Vogels: I have a twenty-nine-year-old daughter so I have no prerogative not to follow fashion.
FB: Do you shop online or offline?
WV: Online. It's a typical guy thing – if your jeans are nice you go back to the same page and click 'Order' again.
FB: Where do you see Amazon Fashion going?
WV: I think fashion online still has a very long way to go. And it's cool.
One of the things that is hard in online fashion is sizing. For example, shoes are really hard because size 9 in Valentinos can be 8.5 in Jimmy Choos. The solution would be – building better recommendation engines. And there's so many more things to do to improve the experience.
FB: Amazon is getting there – just seen an add in Vogue magazine.
WV: Yes, Vogue is a particular. But have you seen current Vogue? It's 850 pages! And the adds in Vogue are such a quality. But we wouldn't buy Vogue if it wasn't for their great content, though.
Going back to your question, I think that web based environment gives us an opportunity to build relatively different experiences around different categories whether it's fashion, leather goods, sports equipment, everyone in this world can build different interfaces to help us shop.
FB: Evidently, you know a lot more about fashion than you first gave off.
WV: Well, I know more about selling, not buying. Yes, there are a lot of great challenges. But also some things are much easier online – searching by look, by price – these in physical stores are much harder. It should be good to make in-store selling a bit like selling online. Let's say, you would have an interface in the changing room where you can choose a different size or colour. And I've seen it already. More online experience in store would be good. It's coming.
FB: Thank you so much for teaching us about Jimmy Choo and Valentino shoe sizing!


text:
Audio Player failed to load.
Try to Download directly (8.04 MB)
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
Busting the myths about American religion
By Andrew West on The Religion and Ethics Report
If you follow—or just listen in occasionally to—some of the reporting on the United States, you'd be tempted to believe that hyper-religious conservatives have captured American culture, especially in this election year. But the Harvard professor Robert Putnam and his colleague David Campbell have conducted some of the biggest studies of religion ever undertaken in America. Bob Putnam is most famous for his ground-breaking book Bowling Alone. Released in 2000–2001, it traced the decline, and revival, of community life in America. More recently, he and David Campbell have written American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. In American Grace, which is now out in a paperback edition, they make some surprising findings. In this, the first part of a two-part interview, Bob Putnam dispels some of the biggest myths about religion in America.
Professor Robert Putnam
Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; member, National Academy of Sciences; fellow, British Academy; past president, American Political Science Association; author, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000); co-author (with David E. Campell), American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (2010), re-released 2012
Andrew West: Now The Christian Science Monitor recently published a very interesting piece on the extent to which sharia law might apply in Egypt's future. The piece suggested there was a way for a very liberal interpretation of sharia to co-exist with democracy; one that explicitly rejects the Saudi and Iranian models of sharia and one that embraces the original, more liberal model that applied very briefly in Iran, between the toppling of the Shah in 1979 and the ousting of President Banisadr in early 1981. One of the authors of that piece is Dr Mahmood Delkhasteh and we spoke to him via Skype.
Mahmood Delkhasteh: It was a struggle with a clergy who were seeking power at any cost and Banisadr tried to oppose them and as a result he lost. But the principles he introduced can be revitalised as the guiding principles for the new form of sharia.
Andrew West: Now we've put that interview on our homepage at the Radio National website. And while the sound and the language barrier is something of a challenge I'm sure you'll find his comments very interesting. Go to the Religion and Ethics website for that. And you're listening to the Religion and Ethics Report here on RN and I'm Andrew West.
Now if you follow or even just listen in to a lot of the reporting on the United States these days, you'd be tempted to believe that hyper-religious conservatives have captured American culture, especially in this election year. But the Harvard professor Robert Putnam and his colleague David Campbell have conducted one of the biggest studies of religion ever undertaken in the United States and come up with some surprising results. Bob Putnam is most famous for his groundbreaking book Bowling Alone. Released in 2000, it traced the decline of community life in America. More recently, he and David Campbell have written American Grace: How religion divides and unites us and in American Grace, which is now out in a paperback edition, they uncover some surprising facts. In this, the first of a two-part interview, Bob Putnam begins by dispelling one of the biggest stereotypes about religion in the United States.
Robert Putnam: The most startling point is that actually if you talk to individual Americans about people who have different faiths than they do or even no faith at all, in our private lives Americans are remarkably tolerant of people across religious lines. It's true that in public we've been fighting for the last 20 or 30 years about religiously derived issues, above all abortion and homosexuality, but actually in our private lives during those very same periods we've become more and more tolerant across religious lines. Most non-religious Americans believe that religion is basically a force for good in America, and most religious Americans believe that you can be a perfectly good American and not have a religious state. Both in our media and in your media I think the degree to which this polarisation has divided our society is exaggerated or at least misstated.
Andrew West: For many of us the biggest myth was shattered and that was that white males in the United States are less religious of all the demographic groups.
Robert Putnam: That's certainly true. They're less religious than women and they're a lot less religious than men or women of colour.
Andrew West: You pose upfront in the book this question: How can religious pluralism coexist with religious polarisation? How do they achieve that? How does America achieve that?
Robert Putnam: First of all you need to set the stage by saying that Americans, by comparison to any other advanced country in the world are very religious. The average American is slightly more religiously observant than the average Iranian, for example, so we're very religious, and we're also, at least in our public life, divided along religious lines and most places in the world that are deeply devout and deeply divided in religious terms are also characterised by mayhem. Think Northern Ireland or Baghdad or Bombay or Beirut, and yet Americans turn out to be remarkably tolerant, and that's the puzzle; how could we be so tolerant if we take religion seriously and are also divided, and the answer we think comes from the fact that in the very same years in which we've become more divided religiously and at least in terms of our politics, in our private lives we've been busy building all sorts of personal ties that cross religious lines. So for example, most marriages in America today, unlike 50 years ago, cross religious lines, what we call interfaith marriages in which a Catholic marries a Protestant or a Jew marries a Protestant or a Mormon marries a Catholic or somebody who doesn't have any religion at all marries someone who's devoutly Buddhist or devoutly Catholic or whatever. Those sorts of interfaith marriages are now typical, and what that means is that all of us are likely to have some encounter with people who are of a different religious orientation than we are. About 40 per cent of all Americans have changed their own religious affiliation from that of their parents or from that of their children, and that means, in our own families we're divided in religious terms, and moreover, most of us have many close friendships in other religious communities. It's very hard to demonise a group if you love someone who's in that group as most Americans do. We say in the book...
Andrew West: Yes, you have a story about Aunt Susan, don't you?
Robert Putnam: Absolutely, Aunt Susan is a wonderful human being, she's the salt of the earth, she's the person who remembers birthdays and brings chicken soup if you get sick and always is out volunteering, but unfortunately Aunt Susan is some different faith than you are, you're Catholic and she's Protestant or you're Protestant and she's Mormon, or you're Mormon and she's Jewish or whatever, and you know that your faith says, the theology says, poor Aunt Susan, nice lady, not going to make it to heaven. But I mean, you know Aunt Susan…Aunt Susan is a wonderful person. I don't know that I'm going to heaven, but Aunt Susan for sure is, and you can see all Americans making this kind of syllogism and well, Aunt Susan is going to make it to heaven, therefore maybe other people are too. The astonishing thing is that the overwhelming majority of Americans, 80 or 90 per cent of Americans, say that a good person not of their faith can nevertheless go to heaven.
Andrew West: That's correct, and that figure includes evangelical Christians.
Robert Putnam: Most evangelical Christians in America say that even non-Christians are going to go to heaven. Now, from their point of view that's the wrong answer. I mean, Jesus was very clear about this, he said, 'I am the way the truth and the light, except through me there's no access to the father.' I mean, that's pretty clear, and yet most evangelicals when we ask them say, 'Yes, even non-Christians, if they're good, are going to be able to make it to heaven', and that we think is explicable, by Aunt Susan or by my pal Al. Al and I...Al's a beekeeper, I'm a beekeeper, we go out doing whatever beekeepers do, one day after beekeeping I learn to my shock that Al is a Mormon. Well, I don't know any other Mormons, and I'm always a little prejudiced against Mormons, but I mean, Al's a great guy. So you can see Americans in effect saying, 'Well, if Al's a Mormon, maybe Mormons are okay.' So these personal networks have bound Americans together and in a way integrated American society, even across these lines that otherwise appear pretty deep.
Andrew West: And in fact, if there is a split, I think I recall reading where you say that it's between the faithful and their religious leaders, because the religious leaders believe that if their followers have this rather capacious inclusive view of who goes to heaven maybe we haven't done our jobs correctly.
Robert Putnam: That's right, I had a remarkable experience in which I spoke to the annual meeting of the theologians in the most conservative Christian denomination in America, the Missouri Synod Lutherans they're called, and when I reported these facts that even Missouri Synod Lutherans in the pews believe that non-Christians can be saved there was deep gloom in the audience, because they said, 'How could the...our faithful...we've been telling them that every day, this is not a complicated question, how did they get it wrong?' And the answer of course is Aunt Susan.
Andrew West: Professor Putnam, tell us about the shock and aftershock in America that shook up the religious world. What was that shock?
Robert Putnam: In the 1950s Americans were all kind of moderately in the middle, they were not terribly religious, but fairly religious, and then came the first of several shocks, like an earthquake, came the 1960s, and the 1960s divided American society in many ways as it did other countries in the world, of course. Politically it was the Vietnam war, and in gender terms it was the feminist revolution, and in racial terms it was the civil rights revolution, and there were also major changes in sexual mores, people became much, much more relaxed about, for example, premarital sex and many at the same time as those so-called liberating waves were sweeping across America…it was a shock that sent a bunch of younger people off to the more secular end of the spectrum. So you have to imagine an earthquake and then one side of this split is this growing number of fairly secular Americans, not really atheists, but they've sort of left the sphere of religious influence, but then there were another group of Americans, and this was the first aftershock, who in the 1970s and 1980s were appalled by what they saw not as liberation but as the collapse of fundamental features of western morality that had been held to be true for 2000 years, and they moved off to the more religious end of the spectrum looking for the part of the religious spectrum that would be most articulate in defending what came to be called family values, and that was the origin of the religious right. So the first shock sent one group of Americans off in a secular direction, the second...the first aftershock sent another group of Americans off to the more religious end of the spectrum, what came to be called the religious right.
Andrew West: Let's speak now about this second aftershock, which we're still feeling. This began, I think, in the early 1990s. This was the kind of counter-reaction to the counter-reaction.
Robert Putnam: Well, as the evangelicals and religious conservatives began to become more powerful and more assertive publicly in their involvement in politics and as political conservatism, especially about issues of abortion and homosexuality became in a way the calling card of religion in America, a new generation of Americans coming of age in the 1990s and then into the 21st century began to say to themselves, 'Well, if religion is just about being conservative and being Republican, being a member of the Republican Party and you know, hostile to homosexuals and so on, that's not me, I'm out of here', and there has been an extremely rapid growth in a category that sociologists in American call 'the nones', not Catholic sisters, but the people who say when you ask them what religion they have, they say they have none, they have no religious affiliation, and that number which historically was about five to seven per cent of Americans just in the course of the last two decades has risen. Among younger Americans that's risen to about 33, 35 per cent, so it's an incredibly rapid change, it's important to understand a couple of things about the growth of this, what is sometimes called the young nones.
One, most of them are not atheists, these are not people who've been convinced by the new atheism, so-called, of Dawkins and others. Most of them say they believe in God, most of them were raised in religious homes, many of them still pray, some of them say that religion is an important part of their lives, but they are very alienated from organised religion, that's the crucial thing.
Secondly, although this looks a little superficially like the century-long process of secularisation in western Europe and perhaps also in Australia, the structure of this change in America is quite different; it's not been going on as it has in England, say for, you know, a percentage point or two every decade for more than 100 years. In America it's all happened in the last 20 years, there's one factor that distinguishes the young nones from the people who have stayed in church, and that is, they are really upset about mixing politics and religion. So just as the evangelicals were reacting against the '60s, so this young secular group is reacting against the '70s and '80s and reacting against the religious right, and that reaction is continuing to grow. We, just last summer, did another national survey in America and we could see many of the same people that we had talked to ourselves four or five years earlier and who then said they were Methodist or Catholic or Baptist or whatever, now calling themselves none out of alienation from the political activities of organised religion.
Andrew West: Yes, you say that for many young people and indeed for many religious people they sat out those culture wars of the 1990s of the Clinton era.
Robert Putnam: Yes, and the people that we're talking about now, these young people who've become more secular are exactly the people who would otherwise have been in church. These are not people who've been hostile to religion per se, but they in effect said, 'If all we're going to do in religion is just get angry over these political issues, that's not me, I'm...if that's what it means to be religious then I must not be religious.' Even to evangelical leaders, I've spoken to a lot of evangelical leaders, it's clear now that evangelicalism and indeed religion in America is paying a huge price for having gotten...in an organisational way, too close to politics. It's important to understand, the rise of evangelicalism, which began in 1970s ended by 1990. I know that's not the way it's seen in the public press, but the data are perfectly clear; the rise of evangelicalism occurred between 1970 and 1990 and then ended.
Andrew West: Yes, you say quite explicitly, 'It is a feature of the past, not of the present.'
Robert Putnam: That's correct.
Andrew West: And that seems to be reflected in the attitudes of people like Rick Warren a mega-church pastor who has books that sell in the tens of millions and yet he does not want to be, it seems, the kind of religious leader that Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson was in the 1980s.
Robert Putnam: That's exactly right, and he is the poster boy, I would say, for this younger generation of evangelical leaders who recognise with horror that they made, and you'll excuse the expression, a bargain with the devil when they got too close to politics, and they want to get out of that bargain. Many of these evangelical leaders like Rick Warren, they are in the business of saving souls, they're not in the business of politics, and in our most recent surveys we see this through the eyes of the people sitting in the pews, that the number of religious sermons in America over the last five years has been cut in half. Why are most religious leaders talking less about politics or social issues in church? Because they're kind of like businessmen or entrepreneurs; they want to have people in the pews, and if the constant harping on right wing politics is driving people away, as it is, well, it's more important to them to get back to the basics of religion, and that I think is what we're probably in the midst of seeing that. It's not yet shown up in public opinion polls, but that's exactly what I expect to be happening.
In short, I think this period that began with the '60s and that is now, I think, in its twilight will in historical terms be seen as a kind of parenthesis in American history. Americans have always been unusually religious, from the very beginning, and our views, our views about social issues, have often been linked to our religion, mostly I have to say on the left, not on the right. Most of the major progressive or left wing social movements in American history have come out of churches. The abolition movement, which ended slavery in the 19th century, was a direct consequence of an evangelical revival in the 1830s and 1840s. The civil rights revolution came directly out of churches, black and white. This period that we're just ending in which God seemed to be only a Republican is a very unusual period and the price is now being paid both by religious leaders, who are seeing their flocks greying as young people don't show up, and I have to say, I think it's very likely that the Republican Party too will pay a price for continuing to harp on these older so-called social or family values issues.
Andrew West: That's the Harvard professor Robert Putnam, co-author of American Grace: How religion divides and unites us. Join us next week for the second part of that interview in which Bob Putnam explains new research on why young Americans are becoming simultaneously more conservative on abortion but more liberal on sexuality. That's the program next week. Now, before we go as you know we've been keeping an eye on moves in the Vatican. Well, this week John Allen writes in the National Catholic Reporter that the Vatican has warned the Leadership Conference of Women Religious which is basically 80 per cent of American nuns, that if it doesn't accept reforms to curb its liberal tendencies the Vatican might decertify the conference in favour of a more religiously orthodox organisation. We'll keep an eye on that, but that is the program for this week, thanks to our producer Noel Debien. Go to our home page at the Radio National website for the full version of the program or for individual segments, and very soon I'll crank up my old Twitter account, which is andrewwestabc.
Wednesday 13 June 2012
17mins 33secs Busting the myths about American religion


text:
Friday, June 18, 2010
Dave Barnes: God Gave Me You
4 comments:
I love this awesome song!! Thanks for posting! :)ReplyDelete
I've absolutely loved this song ever since the first time I heard it. When they stopped playing it as frequently on Air1, I was sad. I really like the message and it's one of the best pro-marriage songs I've ever heard and it speaks pretty boldly against divorce ("...what Love has tethered, may we never undo.")ReplyDelete
Thanks for posting the video. : ) (Even if my stupid computer won't let me watch any video [I use my mom's if it's something I really want to see])
One more question for you Jay! :DReplyDelete
How old are you? Are you homeschooled?
Renee: You're welcome! :) Glad you've enjoyed.ReplyDelete
Christian: Yeah, I agree. With marriage being under fire in America, it's nice to hear people sing about it like that. And it's nice to know that Dave loves his wife. :)
Marvin D.: Well, I don't usually give this one away. But here's a clue for you: I'm one (almost two) years older than when I started this blog. :) I try to keep it confidential, but who knows? Maybe I'll give it out one of these days... Thanks for coming around! :)


text:
We host a wide range of Thermomix ® cooking classes available nationwide.
Attend a Thermomix ® cooking class and receive tips and tricks to take your Thermomix ® cooking to the next level. Our classes allow you to see and taste recipes to inspire your Thermomix ® creations.
Plus, we hold seminar style events with special guests who share a love of cooking with Thermomix ®.
Our seminars give you a chance to rub shoulders with some of our notable cookbook authors including Louise Fulton Keats, Dani Valent and Jo Whitton.
These seminars are a great opportunity to learn from experts in their field, ask questions and get your cookbooks signed.


text:
Pennsylvania Inclusive Higher Education Consortium (PIHEC) is funded by the U.S. Department of Education through the acquisition of a Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID) grant. The administration of the grant is being achieved through Millersville University under the direction of Thomas Neuville, Ph.D., principal investigator, with Ann Marie Licata, Ph.D., serving as the director of the PIHEC.
The purpose of the Consortium is to further develop the Millersville University Integrated Studies model of postsecondary education for students with intellectual disabilities (ID) and to encourage program development among other Pennsylvania institutions of higher education (IHEs).
The overarching vision is to design and support postsecondary campus settings in which education, authentic social experiences, independent living and integrated and competitive employment can be accessed by young adults with intellectual disabilities within inclusive and supportive environments.
Seven Strategic Objectives for the Pennsylvania Inclusive Higher Education Consortium:
- Raise awareness and increase expectations for people with Intellectual Disabilities (ID).
- Identify "CHAMPIONS".
- Develop a foundation and structure for the Consortium.
- Build a diverse group of influential members.
- Seek and build community partners.
- Safeguard the fidelity to the integrity of the Culturally Valued Analogue (CVA).
- Exercise reflective practice with change.
The Consortium's three goals are to:
- Further develop an inclusive state of the art, research-based, inclusive postsecondary program of study at Millersville University, Integrated Studies. This program serves as a model of evidenced-based best practices in inclusive higher education and residential campus life, complemented with the development of strong social and employment networks for young adults with intellectual disabilities.
- Build upon the efforts of recent collaborations with the Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.
- Serve as providers of technical assistance and support to existing and developing inclusive postsecondary programs across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.


text: Advice regarding empty nesting is something I wanted to share with you. Yes, it finally happened to me. Our youngest graduated college this week and is moving out-of-state. My kids are seven years apart, so it always felt like I had two, only-children, except at different times. After my son [Read More >>>]


text:
Regular price
Lightweight windpants in midnight blue. The pants are in a wind proof rip stop material. The fit is casual with cropped legs. In seam side pockets with zip and matte coated zippers at the ankle. White logo code on leg.
Fit advice:Take your regular size
Composition:88 % polyester12 % elastane
Free shipping on orders above 500 DKKShipping & returns


text: This multi-level pool deck design does a great job of providing easy access to the pool while creating multiple areas for seating and dining. A built-in bar next to the pool creates an excellent space for swimmers to keep drinks while also providing a space for those not wishing to get wet to socialize with those in the pool. Custom designed and built by Aurora, IL pool deck builder, Archadeck of Chicagoland.


text:
Big Old Life Update
Hi! (taps mic) Is this thing on? It's so funny to be connected to the Internet almost as extension of myself and yet this space languishes, collecting virtual spiderwebs that I occasionally pop in to sweep up. So much of my life has changed this year that I know I'll be sad if I don't take the time to document things – and also write. I miss writing.
My brother-in-law (one of them) made a quick stop in America via Thailand and so for those 10 or so days he was here we crammed in all the family time. ALL. THE. FAMILY. TIME. It was like a holiday, but in the middle of summer. Still, a welcome visit.
This also means that I saw a lot more of my nieces because said brother-in-law stays with the father of our nieces. You guys already know my nieces are everything in this world to me and when I walk through they door? It's the closest I'm probably ever going to feel to being a rockstar.
I've been encouraging them to read by buying them books and making them give me oral book reports. My oldest niece is a voracious reader, and the middle mimics her every move so hopefully the tiny one continues on that path. It's such a small thing but so, so important. Which reminds me, I should plan to take them to a public library and get them library cards this summer.
I'm shooting a wedding in (less than!) two weeks and I'm really, really excited about it. Photography continues to challenge me in ways innumerable but I love it. LOVE. I just need to be more proactive about getting people to pay me for it ;)
What else? My goddaughter and one of my bff's swung by to hang out with me for an afternoon. My goddaughter is 16 and there are moments wherein I see the teenager in here but often she is insightful, serious and contemplative and I really love that about her. While she was here we talked about her life plans. I'll talk more about what she shared in another post because it was a lot for me to unpack.
So. Right now, I guess that's it. My summer so far is family, food and photos. Not a bad life. This is where I tell you I'm going to make a concerted effort to write more but you know how that goes so I'll see you when I see you.


text:
Metfone C-League champions Phnom Penh Crown set off to Kaohsiung in Taiwan tomorrow ahead of next week's Group B clashes of the 2011 AFC President's Cup Finals. Crown will face familiar Kyrgyzstan foes Neftchi Kochkor-Ata on Monday before taking on Cup holders Yadanarbon of Myanmar on Wednesday.
Winner of the three-team Group B will face the topper of Group A, which features Turkmenistan's FC Balkan, FC Istiklol of Tajikistan and the host nation's No 1 side Taiwan Power Company, in the grand final on September 25.
Crown travel high on confidence having clinched the domestic league title on August 28 and then rolling out two victories in friendlies against the Cambodian U23 national team. The champions edged the SEA Games bound squad 3-2 last Friday at Olympic Stadium before completing a 3-1 win against the same side on Wednesday at the RSN Stadium in Tuol Kork.
Crown coach David Booth of England noted the need to alter their tactics slightly from their league games to cope with the demands of international play.
"It's important we raise our game as the standard of football will be higher. I know we are capable of improving our game," he said.
Booth was also aware of the danger of conceding early, and thus forcing them to chase a result.
"From a positive point of view, we always create chances and we need to take advantage of those chances when they come along, and to whoever they come to," he added.
Crown received a welcome boost with the return on homegrown hero Khim Borey, who completed a season on loan to Thai Premier League team Sisaket FC, a move which coach Booth had instigated.
However, the team's preparations have been disrupted by uncertainty over their foreign contingency. With each club allowed just two non-nationals in their line-ups for the competition, Crown's Nigerian duo of Kingsley Njoku and Odion Obadin were hit with difficulties in obtaining visas.
At time of print, it was still unconfirmed whether this issue had been resolved, although club officials said yesterday it seemed likely they would be allowed to travel.
Neftchi, meanwhile, must be fancying their chances after triumphing in all three of their group games played at Olympic Stadium in May. The Kyrgyzstans, who currently share the lead of their domestic league with two-time President's Cup winners Dordoi-Dynamo, beat Crown 1-0 on their home turf, although both sides fielded under-strength sides with qualification assured. Crown were then under the leadership of Croatian-born coach Bojan Hodak.
Striker Pavel Pavlov and full-back-come-forward Marat Adzhiniiazov are set to star once again.
Defending champions Yadanarbon, however, do not have form on their side. A less than comprehensive advance into the finals from group ties played in Yangon in May has been followed up with a barren run in the Myanmar National League, which has seen them fail to win a game since August 1.
Hitman Yan Paing, however, is always dangerous and is held in high regard by Crown's Booth, who coached the 28-year-old during his time at the helm of the U23 Myanmar national team.
After flying out tomorrow afternoon, Crown will have a training session on Sunday on the pitch of the Kaohsiung National Stadium pitch, a 40,000 seat stadium built in 2009 for The World Games in Taiwan's second largest city.
"It's important that our players go into these two games without any fear or trepidation," said Booth. "Everyone tells me that Cambodian teams don't travel too well outside of their country, but I say that we have a great chance to set an example to everyone else with these games in Taiwan."


text:
Jolene Rickard
A selection of publications include: "Arts of Dispossession," in From Tierra del Fuego to the Artic: Landscape Painting in the Americas, Art Gallery of Ontario and Yale University Press, 2015, pg. 114-120; The Emergence of Global Indigenous Art, an essay in Sakahan, editors, Greg Hill and Candice Hopkins, National Gallery of Canada, 2013, pg. 53-60; Visualizing Sovereignty in the Time of Biometric Sensors, an essay in The South Atlantic Quarterly: Sovereignty, Indigeneity, and the Law, 110:2, edited by Eric Cheyfitz, N. Bruce Duthu and Sheri M. Huhndorf, Spring 2011, pg. 465-486 and Haudenosaunee Art: "In the Shadow of the Eagle," essay in Three Centuries of Woodlands Indian Art: A Collection of Essays (ERNAS Monographs 3), edited by J. C. H. King and Christian F. Feest, ZKF Publishers: Altenstadt, 2007, pg. 196-200.
Current research and curatorial collaborations include: interview by Candice Hopkins, Fair Trade Heads: A Conversation on Repatriation and Indigenous Peoples with Maria Thereza Alves, Candice Hopkins and Jolene Rickard, for documenta 14 journal South as a State of Mind, 2016; Columbia University working group on United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights; GRASAC-Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Culture; MIA-Minneapolis Institute of Art; Seneca-Iroquois Museum and Aboriginal Curatorial Collective, Toronto, ON., an exhibition and publication, 25th Anniversary of the "1990 Oka 'Crisis,' Kanehsatà:ke Rotiwennakéhte" (Mohawk Language and Cultural Center at Oka).
She is from the Tuscarora Nation (Haudenosaunee), director of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program and Associate Professor in the History of Art and Art Departments at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. and has a forthcoming book on sovereignty.
Comments are closed.


text:
VIEW THE MOBILE VERSION of www.ancienthistory.ca
Ancient States
Most Viewed
Jewish History From The Babylonian Captivity To The Birth Of Christ
The Antediluvian World
The Hebrew Race From Abraham To The Sale Of Joseph
The Civil Wars Between Caesar And Pompey
Grecian Civilization Before The Persian Wars
The Conquest Of Canaan To The Establishment Of The Kingdom Of David
Rome In Its Infancy Under Kings
Least Viewed
Jewish History From The Babylonian Captivity To The Birth Of Christ
The Antediluvian World
The Hebrew Race From Abraham To The Sale Of Joseph
The Civil Wars Between Caesar And Pompey
Grecian Civilization Before The Persian Wars
The Conquest Of Canaan To The Establishment Of The Kingdom Of David
Rome In Its Infancy Under Kings
The Climax Of The Roman Empire
On the extinction of the Julian line, a new class of emperors succeeded,
by whom the prosperity of the empire was greatly advanced. We have now to
fall back on Niebuhr, Gibbon, and the Roman historians, and also make more
use of Smith's digest of these authors. But so much ground still remains
to go over, that we can only allude to salient points, and our notice of
succeeding emperors must be brief.
The empire was now to be the prize of successful soldiers, and
Galba, at the age of seventy-three, was saluted imperator by the legions
before the death of Nero, A.D. 68, and acknowledged by the Senate soon
after. There is nothing memorable in his short reign of a few months, and
he was succeeded by Otho, who only reigned three months, and he was
succeeded by Vitellius, who was removed by violent death, like Galba and
Otho. These three emperors left no mark, and were gluttons and
sensualists, who excited nothing but contempt; soldiers of fortune--only
respectable in inferior rank.
On the first of July, A.D. 69, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, of
humble family, arose, as general, to the highest honors of the State, and
was first proclaimed emperor at Alexandria, at the close of the Jewish
war, which he conducted to a successful issue. A brief contest with
Vitellius secured his recognition by the Senate, and the first of the
Flavian line began to reign--a man of great talents and virtues. On the
fall of Jerusalem, his son Titus returned to Rome, and celebrated a joint
triumph with his father, and the gates of the temple of Janus were
shut,--the first time since Augustus,--and universal peace was proclaimed.
One of the first acts of the new emperor was to purify the Senate,
reduced to two hundred members, soon followed by the restoration of the
finances. He rebuilt the capitol, erected the temple of Peace, the new
forum, the baths of Titus, and the Coliseum. He extended a generous
patronage to letters, and under his reign Quintilian, the great
rhetorician, and Pliny, the naturalist, flourished. It was in the ninth
year of his reign that an eruption of Vesuvius occurred, when Herculaneum
and Pompeii were destroyed, to witness which Pliny lost his life.
Vespasian had associated with himself his son Titus in the government, and
died, after a reign of ten years, exhausted by the cares of empire; and
Titus quietly succeeded him, but reigned only for two years and a quarter,
and was succeeded by his brother, Domitian, a man of some ability, but
cruel, like Nero. He was ten years younger than Titus, and was thirty
years of age when proclaimed emperor by the praetorians, and accepted by
the Senate, A.D. 81. At first he was a reformer, but soon was stained by
the most odious vices. He continued the vast architectural works of his
father and brother, and patronized learning.
It was during the reign of Domitian that Britain was finally
conquered by Agricola, who was recalled by the jealousy of the emperor,
after a series of successes which gave him immortality. The reduction of
this island did not seriously commence until the reign of Claudius. By
Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was sent to Britain, and under him Agricola took
his first lessons of soldiership. Under Vespasian he commanded the
twentieth legion in Britain, and was the twelfth Roman general sent to the
island. On his return to Rome he was made consul, and Britain was assigned
to him as his province, where he remained seven years, until he had
extended his conquests to the Grampian Hills. He taught the Britons the
arts and luxuries of civilized life, to settle in towns, and to build
houses and temples. Among the foes he encountered, the most celebrated was
Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, on the eastern coast, who led the incredible
number of two hundred and forty thousand against the Roman legions, but
was defeated, with the loss of eighty thousand,--some atonement for the
seventy thousand Romans, and their allies, who had been slain at
Londinium, when Suetonius Paulinus commanded.
The year of Agricola's recall, A.D. 84, forms the epoch of the
undisguised tyranny which Domitian subsequently exercised. The reign of
informers and proscriptions recommenced, and many illustrious men were
executed for insufficient reasons. The Christians were persecuted, and the
philosophers were banished, and yet he received the most fulsome flattery
from the poet Martial. The tyrant lived in seclusion, in his Alban villa,
and was finally assassinated, after a reign of fifteen years, A.D. 96.
On his death a new era of prosperity and glory was inaugurated, by
the election of Nerva, and for five successive reigns the Roman world was
governed with virtue and ability. It is the golden era of Roman history,
praised by Gibbon and admired by all historians, during which the eyes of
contemporaries saw nothing but to panegyrize.
Marcus Cocceius Nerva was the great-grandson of a minister of
Octavius, and was born in Umbria. He was consul with Vespasian, A.D. 71,
and with Domitian, in A.D. 90, and was far advanced in life when chosen by
the Senate. The public events of his short but beneficent reign are
unimportant. He relieved poverty, diminished the expenses of the State,
and set, in his own life, an example of republican simplicity. But he did
not reign long enough to have his character tested. He died in sixteen
months after his elevation to the purple. His chief work was to create a
title for his successor, for he assumed the right of adoption, and made
choice of Trajan, without regard to his own kin, then at the head of the
armies of Germany.
The new emperor, one of the most illustrious that ever reigned at
Rome, was born in Spain, A.D. 52, and had spent his life in the camp. He
had a tall and commanding form, was social and genial in his habits, and
inspired universal respect. No better choice could have been made. He
entered his capital without pomp, unattended by guards, distinguished only
for the dignity of his bearing, allowing free access to his person, and
paying vows to the gods of his country. His wife, Plotina, bore herself as
the spouse of a simple senator, and his sister, Marciana, exhibited a
demeanor equally commendable.
The great external event of his reign was the war against the
Dacians, and their country was the last which the Romans subdued in
Europe. They belonged to the Thracian group of nations, and were identical
with the Getae. They inhabited the country which was bordered on the south
by the Danube and Moesia. They were engaged in frequent wars with the
Romans, and obtained a decided advantage, in the reign of Domitian, under
their king Decebalus. The honor of the empire was so far tarnished as to
pay a tribute to Dacia, but Trajan resolved to wipe away the disgrace, and
headed himself an expedition into this distant country, A.D. 101, with
eighty thousand veterans, subdued Decebalus, and added Dacia to the
provinces of the empire. He built a bridge over the Danube, on solid stone
piers, about two hundred and twenty miles below the modern Belgrade, which
was a remarkable architectural work, four thousand five hundred and
seventy feet in length. Enough treasures were secured by the conquest of
Dacia to defray the expenses of the war, and of the celebrated triumph
which commemorated his victories. At the games instituted in honor of this
conquest, eleven thousand beasts were slain, and ten thousand gladiators
fought in the Flavian Amphitheatre. The column on which his victories were
represented still remains to perpetuate his magnificence, with its two
thousand five hundred figures in bas-relief, winding in a spiral band
around it from the base to the summit--one of the most interesting relics
of antiquity. Near this column were erected the Forum Trajanum, and the
Basilica Ulpia, the former one thousand one hundred feet long, and the
basilica connected with it, surrounded with colonnades, and filled with
colossal statues. This enormous structure covered more ground than the
Flavian Amphitheatre, and was built by the celebrated Apollodorus, of
Damascus. It filled the whole space between the Capitoline and the
Quirinal. The double colonnade which surrounded it was one of the most
beautiful works of art in the world.
On the conquest of Dacia, Trajan devoted himself to the internal
administration of his vast empire. He maintained the dignity of the
Senate, and allowed the laws to take their course. He was untiring in his
efforts to provide for the material wants of his subjects, and in
developing the resources of the empire, nor did he rule by oppressive
After seven years of wise administration, he again was called into
the field to extend the eastern frontier of the empire. His efforts were
directed against Armenia and Parthia. He reduced the former to a Roman
province, and advanced into those Caucasian regions where no Roman
imperator had preceded him, except Pompey, receiving the submission of
Iberians and Albanians. To overthrow Parthia was now his object, and he
advanced across the Tigris to Ctesiphon. In the Parthian capital he was
saluted as imperator; but, oppressed with gloom and enfeebled by sickness,
he did not presume to reach, as he had aspired, the limits of the
Macedonian conquest. He was too old for such work. He returned to Antioch,
sickened, and died in Cilicia, August, A.D. 117, after a prosperous and
even glorious reign of nineteen and a half years. But he had the
satisfaction of having raised the empire to a state of unparalleled
prosperity, and of having extended its limits on the east and on the west
to the farthest point it ever reached.
Publius AElius Hadrian succeeded this great emperor, and was born
in Rome A.D. 76, and was a son of the first cousin of Trajan. He made
extraordinary attainments as a youth, and served honorably in the armies
of his country, especially during the Dacian wars. At twenty-five he was
quaestor, at thirty-one he was praetor, and in the following year was made
consul, for the forms of the old republic were maintained under the
emperors. He was adopted by Trajan, and left at the head of the army at
Antioch at the age of forty-two, when Trajan died on his way to Rome. He
was at once proclaimed emperor by the army, and its choice was confirmed
by the Senate.
He entered upon his reign with matured knowledge and experience,
and sought the development of the empire rather than its extension beyond
the Euphrates. He therefore withdrew his armies from Armenia, Mesopotamia,
and Parthia, and returned to Rome to celebrate, in Trajan's name, a
magnificent triumph, and by employing the spoils of war in largesses and
remission of taxes. Averse to the extension of the empire, he still aimed
to secure its limits from hostile inroads, and was thus led to repel
invasions in Dacia and Britain. He marched at the head of his legions,
bareheaded and on foot, as far as Moesia, and in another campaign through
Gaul to the Rhine, and then crossed over to Britain, and secured the
northern frontier, by a wall sixty-eight and a half miles in length,
against the Caledonians. He then returned to Gaul, passed through Spain,
crossed the straits to Mauritania, threatened by the Moors, restored
tranquillity, and then advanced to the frontiers of Parthia. He then
returned through Asia Minor, and across the AEgean to Athens, and commenced
the splendid works with which he adorned the intellectual capital of the
empire. Before returning to Rome, he visited Carthage and Sicily.
Five years later, he made a second progress through the empire,
which lasted ten years, with some intervals, spent in his capital,
residing chiefly at Athens, constructing great architectural works, and
holding converse with philosophers and scholars. During this period he
visited Alexandria, whose schools were rivaled only by those of Athens,
studying the fantastic philosophy of the Gnostics, and probably examining
the Christian system. He ascended the Nile as far as Thebes, and then
repaired to Antioch, and returned to Rome through Asia Minor. In his
progress, he not merely informed himself of the condition of the empire,
but corrected abuses, and made the Roman rule tolerable.
His remaining years were spent at Rome, diligently administrating
the affairs of his vast government, founding libraries and schools, and
decorating his capital with magnificent structures. His temple of Venus at
Rome was the largest ever erected in the city, and his mausoleum, stripped
of its ornaments, now forms the Castle of St. Angelo. Next to the
Coliseum, it was the grandest architectural monument in Rome. He also
built a villa at Tivoli, whose remains are among the most interesting
which seventeen centuries have preserved.
This good emperor made a noble choice for his successor, Titus Aurelius
Antonius, and soon after died childless, A.D. 138, after a peaceful reign
of twenty-one years, in which, says Merivale, "he reconciled, with eminent
success, things hitherto found irreconcilable: a contented army and a
peaceful frontier; an abundant treasury with lavish expenditure; a free
Senate and stable monarchy; and all this without the lustre of a great
military reputation, the foil of an odious predecessor, or disgust at
recent civil commotions. He recognized, in theory, both conquerors and
conquered as one people, and greeted in person every race among his
subjects." He had personal defects of character, but his reign is one of
the best of the imperial series, and marked the crowning age of Roman
Antonius Pius, his successor, had less ability, but a still more
faultless character. He sprung from the ranks of the nobility; was consul
in the third year of Hadrian, and was prefect of Asia until his adoption,
when he took up his residence in Rome, and never left its neighborhood
during the remainder of his life. His peaceful reign is barren of external
events, but fruitful in the peace and security of his subjects, and the
only drawback in his happiness was the licentious character of his wife,
who bore him two sons and two daughters. The sons died before his
elevation, but one of his daughters married M. Annius Verus, whom he
adopted as his successor, and associated with him in the government of the
empire. He died after a reign of twenty-three years, and was buried in the
mausoleum of Hadrian, which he completed. His character is thus drawn by
his son-in-law and successor, Marcus Aurelius: "In my father, I noticed
mildness of manner with firmness of resolution, contempt of vainglory,
industry in business, and accessibility of person. He knew how to relax,
as well as when to labor. From him I learned to acquiesce in every
fortune, to exercise foresight in public affairs, to rise superior to
vulgar praises, to worship the gods without superstition, to serve mankind
without ambition, to be sober and steadfast, to be content with little, to
be no sophist or dreaming bookworm, to be practical and active, to be neat
and cheerful, to be temperate, modest in dress, and indifferent to the
beauty of slaves and furniture, not to be led away by novelties, yet to
render honor to true philosophers." What a picture of a heathen emperor,
drawn by a pagan philosopher!--the single purpose of ruling for the
happiness of their subjects, and realizing the idea of a paternal
government, and this in one of the most corrupt periods of Roman society.
Marcus Aurelius, like Trajan and Hadrian, derived his origin from
Spain, but was born in Italy. His features are the most conspicuously
preserved in the repositories of ancient art, as his name is the most
honorably enshrined on the pages of history--the noblest and most august
type of the ancient rulers of the world, far transcending any Jewish king
in the severity of his virtues, and the elevation of his soul. His life
was modeled on the strictest discipline of the stoical philosophy, of
which he was the brightest ornament. He was nearly forty years of age on
the death of his father-in-law, although for twenty-three years he had sat
side by side with him on the tribunals of the State. His reign, therefore,
was virtually a long one, and he was devoted to all the duties which his
station imposed. He was great as ruler, as he was profound as a
It was under his illustrious reign that the barbarians formed a
general union for the invasion of the Roman world, and struck the first of
those fatal blows under which the empire finally succumbed. We have but
little information of the long contest with Germans, Sarmatians,
Marcomanni, Quadi, and Alani, on the banks of the Danube, who were pressed
forward by the Scythian tribes. They were repelled, indeed, but they soon
after advanced, with renovated forces, when the empire was weakened by the
miserable emperors who succeeded Aurelius. And although this great prince
commemorated his victory over the barbarians by a column similar to that
of Trajan, still they were far from being subdued, and a disgraceful
peace, which followed his death, shows that they were exceedingly
formidable. He died at Sirmium, or Vindobona (Vienna), exhausted by
incessant wars and the cares of State, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year
of his age, and twentieth of his reign. The concurrent testimony of
historians represents this emperor as the loftiest character that ever
wielded a sceptre among the nations of antiquity, although we can not
forget that he was a persecutor of the Christians.
His son, Commodus, succeeded him, and the thirteen years of his
inglorious reign are summed up in conflicts with the Moors, Dacians, and
Germans. Skillful generals, by their successes, warded off the attacks of
barbarians, but the character and rule of the emperor resembled that of
Nero and Domitian. He was weak, cruel, pleasure-seeking, and dissolute.
His time was divided between private vices and disgraceful public
exhibitions. He fought as a gladiator more than seven hundred times, and
against antagonists whose only weapons were tin and lead. He also laid
claim to divinity, and was addicted to debasing superstitions. He
destroyed the old ministers of his father, and decimated the Senate. All
who excited his jealousy, or his covetousness, were put out of the way. He
was poisoned by his favorite mistress, Marcia, and the Senate set the
brand of infamy on his name. Thus perished the last of the line of the
Antonines, even as the Julian line was ended by the assassination of Nero,
and the Flavian by that of Domitian, and the empire became once again the
prize of the soldier, A. D. 192.
The Decline Of The Empire
The Six Caesars Of The Julian Line
Viewed 8242


text:
Star Wars – The Last Jedi
Written by admin on April 14, 2017
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
The biggest movie of the year, of the century, is upon us so there is no need for a lengthy introduction, here is the breakdown of The Last Jedi Panel at Star Wars Celebration Orlando!
Host Josh Gad is introduced and proceeds to introduce Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson. Johnson started off by revealing The Last Jedi was deep in post-production.
Gad asked Kennedy what Rian Johnson brings to the Star Wars Universe:
"Rian is on his way to standing alongside many of the great filmmakers I've had the opportunity to work with. He has an amazing uniqueness to what he does and writes as beautifully as he directs. He writes amazingly fierce and independent women."
Rian Johnson talked about his experience making the film:
"It was a joyful experience. We were shooting in Pinewood Studios, which was like Camelot growing up so to actually work there every day added to this magical experience. We were up and down the west coast of Ireland, and everywhere we went, we had a great time there and shot some beautiful landscapes."


text:
If you want a real hunting challenge, there are many different places around the world that you can visit. A lot of people who get tired of the local deer hunting end up traveling abroad because of all the wonderful opportunities there are for hunting exotic animals. This list will give you details on some of the better places to go for hunting exotic animals, and you'll want to learn everything you can about them before deciding where to go for your next hunting trip.
Pakistan has some of the best exotic animal hunting in the world. Here, you will be able to hunt lots of different animals, including blue sheep, markhor, and Himalayan ibex. These animals are very elusive and incredibly hard to actually shoot because of how fast and stealthy they are. If you want a real challenge for your next hunting trip, you will find that this location truly has it all.
The frozen expansive land of Mongolia also has much to offer in the way of exotic animals that you will love hunting. The Marco Polo sheep are a particularly popular exotic animal that hunters come from all over the world to shoot, but few of them are actually successful. When you are looking for an animal that will put your skills as a hunter to the test, you will find that this is one of the best options you have. These sheep are very quick and smart, which is why they are so difficult to hunt.
Wrangel Island, Alaska
Wrangel Island is where you go when you want to hunt musk ox. These massive animals are very dangerous, which is why so many hunters go after them each year. It is believed that this area was the last place on earth that woolly mammoths existed before they disappeared from the planet completely. If you are interested in hunting these animals, it is important that you bring the right gear. It is important that you read the best rifle scope review so you can hunt one of these animals effectively.
- Top 4 Things to Consider Before Having Rhinoplasty
- How to use Photoshop for making a sticker?
- Agitation in Darjeeling to hit tourism : Tour operators
- All online businesses must register and pay tax
- Top 4 Things to Consider Before Having Rhinoplasty
Cameroon is an ideal place to go hunting for bongo, which is a fairly large and very fast African animal that will definitely give you the challenge of a lifetime. Not many people who come to this area to hunt these animals are successful, which is why it is such a popular exotic animal hunting destination.
Siberian Peninsula
If you want to hunt the legendary brown bear, the Siberian Peninsula is where you will want to go. There are lots of guided hunts that you can go on, and you might just bag one of the fiercest land predators on earth.
Anyone who wants to really challenge themselves for their next hunting trip will need to learn about some of the different locations in the world that can offer a truly memorable experience. When you take the time to research your options, you will be able to choose the right one.


text:
An XP Practice, Whole Team refers to the idea that the team involved in building an application or delivering a project is the whole team. If the project needs UI design, or testing, or data modeling, the individuals with those skills are on the team. Having a whole team (also known as a multi-disciplinary team) on a project ensures it has the resources it needs to be completed. It may be impossible within some organizations for every team to be comprised of a whole team in this fashion, but for projects that are critical to the organization, this approach will improve the odds of project success.
Comments are closed.


text:
Today's post is from Engage Celebrants' Elizabeth Trevan. Civil ceremonies are no longer just for the non-religious. They enable you to bring your culture, traditions and (if you like) religious beliefs to create a ceremony that reflects who you are as individuals and as a couple. Elizabeth shares stories of how several couples have married with unique ceremonies that bring their rich heritages together and create new traditions for their families.
There seems to be a huge cultural shift in the way we view marriage in Australia today, in particular over the past 10 years. Couples are getting married later in life, one third are unmarried at the time of the birth of their first child and there has been a large increase in the volume of ceremonies conducted by civil marriage celebrants. As celebrants we see this change unfold in a small scale, regularly and before our very eyes. In 2010, almost 70% of marriage ceremonies were conducted by civil celebrants, up from 42% in 1990.
Carmel and Tony celebrate their marriage their way at Hat Head
As a young celebrant I am asked by people from all walks of life to help them publicly declare their love. This wedding season has seen a great deal of marriages where the bride and groom come from diverse and differing cultural and religious backgrounds. Now this is not unusual, obviously. We live in Australia after all – a wonderful melting-pot of humanity and so cross-cultural weddings are the norm.
What has been more notable however is that for many this civil wedding is the first in the family to be conducted outside of the church, synagogue or place of worship. For most of the guests this will be their first ever experience of a civil wedding as well. It's extremely exciting to be able to showcase such a personal rite of passage which is very focused on the bride and groom and the reactions so far have been amazing.
Tobhiyah and Daniel married under a Chuppah at the Vaucluse Yacht Club, Watson's Bay – Photo by Alex Vaughan
In using the couple's language, rituals and symbolism and by including family we have been able to honour the beliefs and doctrines of each bride and groom. At the same time we've created a ceremony that is theirs alone. It celebrates their relationship and what binds them together, acknowledges their individual selves and where they have come from but also pays tribute to a new partnership that is more than the sum of its parts.
Here are just a few examples:
Tobhiyah and Daniel were able to marry under a Chuppah (a Jewish tradition). They shared wine with their parents in a Ukranian ritual and had one of their good friends Bella read a rollicking poem she had written for their wedding day; all in acknowledgement of this unique couple.
Elissa and Daniel (a different Daniel) had a Greek Crowning Ceremony, assisted by Elissa's auntie or Koumbara (God Mother), to honour the bride's heritage. They also entered via an aisle of huge maritime ropes "borrowed" from Sydney Ferries in recognition of their love of sailing.
Sabina and David were also married under a Chuppah, had religious readings in Italian and English and finished with a traditional Jewish breaking of the glass. In this way they were honouring the differing religious upbringings of both the bride and groom, Catholic and Jewish, whilst setting a new path for themselves.
Sharing bread and wine with their parents – a traditional Ukranian ritualPhotos by Alex Vaughan
In the past perhaps either the bride or groom may have conceded some ground and the wedding would have been conducted at the place of worship of one or the other. Now it seems there is a sense that through a civil ceremony the cultural and religious heritages of both bride and groom and their families can be acknowledged and honoured. Most importantly this can be done without taking away from the fact that this union is ultimately the decision of the bride and groom to share their future together regardless of their origins or beliefs.
Part of the reason for this may be that because couples are marrying slightly older they have spent more years out from under the family roof, more time in education and building a career and often have a stronger sense of self. So within their ceremony they have a clearer set of values that they speak from. Their choices of wording and sentiment for the ceremony are very much indicative of who they are as individuals as well as a couple.
Photos by Alex Vaughan
Whatever the reason we love it when couples work with their celebrant to create unique meaningful ceremonies that are a true reflection of their relationship. How fortunate we are to be able to celebrate the richness that makes up the diversity of Australia and witness it in such a beautiful way at a wedding.
Source(s): ABS 2010 Marriages and Divorces, Australia (cat. no. 3310.0); ABS 2008 Australian Historical Population Statistics (cat. no. 3105.0.65.001); ABS Australian Demographic Statistics Quarterly (cat. no. 3101.0)
Ms Gingham says: I love that about Australia… the willingness that people have to embrace new traditions and make them their own only makes us richer. Great article!
"Engage Celebrants is a network of young, professional and above all fun celebrants. We aim to get the word out to couples about just how great a civil ceremony can be and the importance of choosing the perfect celebrant to bring your dreams to life. "


text:
Electrical surges are a common part of RV life. Here's how to keep the electrical components safe
Traveling the country by tow vehicle and trailer is often a game of unknowns. We usually don't know what we'll see, who'll we'll meet along the way, and may not even know where we're going. We're OK with that — in fact, a little mystery is what makes the RVing lifestyle fun. But pulling into an unfamiliar RV park and plugging into a power source of unknown condition isn't something anyone looks forward to, particularly those of us who have seen the dark side of electrical power.
Most of the time, whether at home or on the road, we plug into an outlet and never give it a second thought. As long as everything works, we're happy. But electrical power is far from perfect; in addition to fluctuation and outages, surges are a common occurrence. In fact, low-level power surges can happen dozens or even hundreds of times a day, and while they won't necessarily melt parts or blow fuses in electronic components, they can gradually degrade internal circuitry until it eventually fails. Anything with a microprocessor is particularly susceptible, and this includes TVs, computers, microwaves and even some dishwashers and refrigerators.
Power surges occur when the flow of electricity is interrupted, then started again, or when prevailing conditions send electricity flowing back into the system. Surges can range from just a few volts when you turn on an appliance like a hair dryer (an internal surge) to several thousand volts if lighting strikes a transformer or a tree falls on a power line (external surge). Surges can also occur when power comes back on after an outage.
If you own a permanent residence, you likely take care of your home and make sure there are no wiring or grounding issues. But in an RV park, you're not necessarily in control. Not only can the wiring in the campsite pedestal be questionable (something we've all experienced), the whole park could have problems. Add bad weather and/or an unreliable power grid to the equation, and there's a good chance you'll fall victim to bad power at some point in your travels.
That's why it's important to use a surge protector (not to be confused with an outlet surge suppressor, which is commonly used for plugging in computers and TVs at home). A surge protector prevents bad power from entering the RV when it is hooked up to shorepower, preventing costly damage to electrical appliances. They can even protect you from your own mistakes, such as accidentally plugging the 30-amp power cord into a 220-volt AC outlet (more common than you might think).
Surge protectors are available in portable versions, which are easy to connect and relatively inexpensive, and hard-wired units that become a permanent part of the RV. Like most aftermarket products, surge protectors range in their features and price, so we've compiled this handy guide to help you find the right one for your RV. After all, a little protection now can save you a lot of trouble and expense later.
Hughes Autoformers
Not really surge protectors in the strictest sense, although they do incorporate surge protection, Hughes Autoformers are designed to increase voltage to the RV and help eliminate low-voltage appliance damage. The Autoformer's "sense circuit" adjusts the output based on the load demand, so you can run additional appliances on a 30-amp circuit. With the increase in the voltage to the RV (when plugged in through the Autoformer), the amperage demand will be lower, and the overall performance will be greater, according to the company. An operating range of approximately 94 to 115 volts AC input will boost RV voltage to safe and efficient levels. Two models are offered, with install kits available separately.
Voltage-Boosting Transformers
RV2130 (30-amp, 3,600-watt)
• Fully automatic 10 percent boost when needed
• Park-power diagnostic light
• Boost indicator light
• Spike and surge protection
• Size: 5½ inches wide by 5½ inches long by 12 inches high
• Weight: 21 pounds
• Two-year limited warranty
• Made in the USA
(50-amp, double-phase 12,000-watt)
• Fully automatic 10 percent boost when needed (95 to 115 volts AC)
• Park-power diagnostic light
• Boost indicator lights for each line (two)
• Spike and surge protection
• U.L. listed
• Size: 5½ inches wide by 8½ inches long by 12 inches high
• Weight: 35 pounds
• Two-year limited warranty
• Made in the USA
Hughes Autoformers | 888-540-1504 | www.hughesautoformers.com
Progressive Industries
Founded by a full-time RVer, Progressive Industries offers a product line that includes everything from basic portable surge protection to portable or hardwired complete RV power protection for 30- and 50-amp service.
Portable Surge Protectors
The Smart Surge SSP-30X (30-amp, 120-volt AC) provides three-mode protection, 825 joules and a 22,500-amp surge-current rating. The SSP-50X (50-amp, 240-volt AC) provides five-mode protection, 1,650 joules and a 45,000-amp surge-current rating. The built-in surge-status indicator tells whether or not the surge protector is functioning properly, and the integrated polarity tester checks the status of the power source prior to use. Progressive recently released its new SSP-30XL ($116.65) and 50XL ($151.85), which offer similar features, plus the added benefits of higher-rated wire, an all-weather receptacle shield, a cable splash-up guard and a rugged pull handle.
SSP-30X (30-amp)
• 5 inches wide by 13½ inches long by
3 inches high
• Portable design
• Bright three-color LED indicators
• Open ground indication
• Lost/open neutral indication
• Surge fault indication
• Thermally protected
• Weather-resistant
• Lifetime warranty
SSP-50X (50-amp)
• 5 inches wide by 13½ inches long by
3 inches high
• Portable design
• Dual-line polarity tester
• Bright three-color LED indicators
• Open ground indication
• Lost/open neutral indication
• Surge fault indication
• Thermally protected
• Weather-resistant
• Lifetime warranty
Progressive's portable Emergency Management System (EMS) devices provide surge and voltage protection in a compact unit. The digital display continuously scrolls all of the AC power information, including voltage, current, frequency, error codes and previous errors. Driven by a state-of-the-art microprocessor, the units are weather-resistant and feature a built-in lock bracket that allows them to be secured to the power source.
EMS-PT30C (30-amp)
EMS-PT50C (50-amp)
• Three-mode/five-mode surge protection
• Surge fault indication
• High/low voltage protection
• Time delay for A/C compressor
• Reverse-polarity protection
• Open neutral protection
• Open ground protection
• AC frequency protection
• Accidental 240-volt AC protection
• Previous error code
• 5 inches wide by 16½ inches long by 3 inches high (30-amp)
• 5 inches wide by 16½ inches long by 43/8 inches high (50-amp)
• Lifetime warranty
MSRP: $310 (30-amp), $431 (50-amp)
Hardwired Surge Protectors
Progressive's hardwired EMS devices offer similar protection to the portable units but are permanently wired into the RV. The modular design makes repairs user-friendly, according to the company, and an enclosed jumper wire allows users to bypass the computer circuit in the EMS in the event of a failure, thereby allowing power back to the RV. If mounting in an area where the readout is not readily visible, Progressive offers the EMS-HW30C ($299) and EMS-HW50C ($410), which have the additional benefit of a remote display.
EMS-LCHW30 (30-amp)
EMS-LCHW50 (50-amp)
• 5 inches wide by 9 inches long by 3 inches high (30-amp)
• 5 inches wide by 9 inches long by 4 inches high (50-amp)
• Lifetime warranty
MSRP: $258 (30-amp), $349 (50-amp)
Progressive Industries | 919-267-6948 | www.progressiveindustries.net
Technology Research Corporation/Surge Guard
TRC offers a wide range of surge protectors under its Surge Guard line, including portable and hardwired units. Here are a few of the company's most popular models.
Portable Surge Protectors
44260 (30-amp)
44270 (50-amp)
Billed as entry-level portable surge protectors, these models identify faulty-RV-park protection, analyze circuits to verify pedestal power and test for open ground, open neutral and correct polarity. The 30-amp model offers 2100 joules of surge protection, and the 50-amp model provides 4,200 joules.
MSRP: $107 (30-amp), $131 (50-amp)
34830 (30-amp)
34850 (50-amp)
The new 30- and 50-amp Surge Guard portables with LCD displays offer more features than previous models. These units continuously monitor for surge failure, voltage, amp draw and reverse polarity (such as a miswired pedestal or elevated ground voltage). Compact and easy to use, the 34830 and 34850 models are suitable for use on any trailer with 30-amp or 50-amp service, respectively.
MSRP: $344 (30-amp), $487 (50-amp)
• Protection from faulty park power
• Built-in intelligence
• Automatic reset on power restoration
• Automatic power shut-off when open ground, open neutral, low-/high-voltage conditions exist
• Thermal protection against plug/receptacle overheating
• Multi-mode surge suppression
• 128-second reset delay protects air-conditioner compressor
• 2,450 joules (30-amp) or 3,850 joules (50-amp) of power-surge protection
• Convenient easy-pull handle
• Weather-resistant
Hardwired Surge Protectors
35530 (30-amp)
35550 (50-amp)
Offering the same features as the portable models, these hardwired units have the additional benefit of being permanently installed within the utility compartment of a trailer, which deters the possibility of theft or damage from the elements. The optional LCD display plugs into a remote port and features 16 detailed fault screens plus a joystick for easy screen navigation. The LCD display is also compatible with previous models with a telecom jack.
MSRP: $260 and $366
Universal Lock Hasp
Portable surge protectors aren't cheap, and, unfortunately, there are some unscrupulous individuals out there who will steal them if given the opportunity. To help protect all portable Surge Guard products, TRC offers a Universal Lock Hasp (model 34590) that easily attaches to standard 30- and 50-amp plugs. Attach a padlock to the durable, weather-resistant, high-quality plastic lockbox, and the Universal Lock Hasp does the rest.
Technology Research | 800-780-4324 | www.trci.net/products/surge-guard-rv


text:
Bernstein Liebhared is currently representing Stryker hip lawsuit clients who have allegedly suffered serious complications associated with the Stryker hip recall for Rejuvenate and ABG II Modular-Neck Hip Stems.
A panel of federal judges will soon consider whether or not federally-filed Stryker hip replacement lawsuit claims should be consolidated before a single federal judge for pretrial proceedings. According to a notice posted on the website for the U.S. Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation (JPML), Oral Arguments will be heard on the matter on May 30th in Louisville, Kentucky. (In re: Stryker Rejuvenate and ABG II Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2441 (JPML))
"Based on the number of inquiries our Firm continues to receive from individuals affected by the Stryker hip recall, we expect a large number of filings. A consolidated proceeding would be an efficient process for handling these claims," says Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationwide law firm representing the victims of defective drugs and medical devices. The Firm is representing clients in Stryker hip replacement lawsuits, and continues to offer free legal evaluations to individuals who have allegedly suffered serious complications associated with the Stryker hip recall for Rejuvenate and ABG II Modular-Neck Hip Stems.
Stryker Hip Recall
Stryker recalled its Rejuvenate and ABG II hip stems in July 2012, after the metal components were found to be prone to fretting and corrosion at the modular neck junction. According to the Stryker hip recall notice, this occurrence could cause recipients to suffer pain and adverse local tissue reactions, as well as the need to have the hip replaced. Stryker has advised affected patients to undergo blood tests for elevated metal ion levels and cross sectional imaging to ensure their hips are functioning properly, even if they have not experienced symptoms described in the recall notice.*
Court documents show that dozens of Stryker hip replacement lawsuits are currently pending in various federal courts. Some plaintiffs have requested that the proposed multidistrict litigation be established in U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, where the most claims are pending. Other plaintiffs have requested the lawsuits be transferred to the Northern District of Illinois.
According to court records from New Jersey, at least 145 Stryker hip recall claims have also been filed in a consolidated litigation underway in Bergen County Superior Court. A case management conference has been scheduled in that litigation for June 18th. (In re Stryker Rejuvenate Hip Stem and the ABG II Modular Hip Stem Litigation, No. 296)
Individuals allegedly affected by the Stryker hip recall for Rejuvenate and ABG II hip stems may be entitled to compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. Additional information for individuals interested in filing a Stryker hip replacement lawsuit is available at Bernstein Liebhard LLP's website. To learn more, please call 800-511-5092.
About Bernstein Liebhard LLP
Bernstein Liebhard LLP is a New York-based law firm exclusively representing injured persons in complex individual and class action lawsuits nationwide since 1993, including those who have been harmed by dangerous drugs, defective medical devices and consumer products. The firm has been named by The National Law Journal to the "Plaintiffs' Hot List," recognizing the top plaintiffs' firms in the country, for the past 10 consecutive years.
Bernstein Liebhard LLP


text:
We know your social calendar at this time of the year is full with party invites! But what's the best pick ?
StyleCracker gives you a list of places you can head to for great parties on Christmas Eve.
The Daily :
Complete with cocktail buckets and special Christmas menu, The Daily and it's friendly atmosphere can be a great place to celebrate with friends! Don't forget their eggnog and Christmas tree shaped pizzas!
Address : The Daily, ground floor, behind Shoppers Stop, S.V Road, Bandra (W), 9pm onwards, Call 26418409
Head to Bonobo for a night of great music with their in-house Dj spinning some funk and hip-hop! Enjoy unlimited alcohol and starters at Rs,1000 per head, after 10pm.
Address : Bonobo, 2nd Floor, Kenilworth Mall, Phase 2, Off Linking Road, Bandra West, call 2605 5050
The new 'it' place in town, Exo promises you a night of much-required clubbing! Call and make a reservation to enjoy a Christmas party at the hottest new spot in town!
Address : Exo, Level 37 at the Palladium Hotel. Call and make a reservation at 88795 88550
The White Owl:
For a Christmas eve complete with club and progressive music, go to The White Owl, Parel. We assure you it's going to be one mad Christmas Party!
Address : One Indiabulls Center, Tower 2 Lobby, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel (W), Call:2421 0231
How does Santa-tini and candy cane shots sound to you? We love the idea! Trilogy, Juhu is the place to be! Enjoy this and more at just Rs.2000 per couple entry.
Address: Trilogy, Sea Princes, Juhu Tara road, call 2646 9689.
Big Bang Bar & Cafe:
For cocktails and drinks that will make your mood festive, make a beeline for Big Bang Bar and Café. With a cover charge of just Rs.500! Call and reserve a table for a super buy one get one free offer all day!
Address: 3rd Floor, Kenilworth Building, Above KFC, Linking Road, Bandra (W)
SC tip:
Dress up in a classic LBW and bling the look up with 2 statement pieces, wear sequence flats or booties, carry a pull over to beat the winter chill and between these options you are ready to head into any of these places.
The perfect party experience is all about the company. Team StyleCracker hopes you, your family and friends have a great Christmas in Style!
Want to know more about the best Christmas party themes and what to wear? Sign up and ask our stylist NOW!