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[Growing Through Life] Episode 21-25 Scribbles
As I am really busy during this period and do not have enough time to spend on this blog, I'll be jotting down my thoughts on the TVB series as quick scribbles. This will ensure you'll get more regular updates from me Apologies for the draft-ness of my upcoming posts. Hope you guys enjoy what I have to share! [Contains spoilers]
- I absolutely loved these episodes!! I think the story is really exciting and reaching its peak!! These had some of the best emotional scenes (including episode 20 of course) and I definitely hope the ratings have increased because the performances delivered by Damien, Cecilia and Raymond were simply brilliant! During these episodes I felt all the emotional pain from all three of them-it felt so real and I was completely drawn into the series. Hopefully the final episodes won't disappoint 🙂
- Cecilia was going to give up on taking revenge and the anger after Raymond's mother passed away. Unfortunately Bosco started manipulating her into thinking Damien loves Raymond's mother the most and even though she died, she won't be able to "take her place" and is planning to give everything to Raymond..while at the same time, misleading her to thinking Raymond is plotting to take down the entire company which will leave her daughter nothing.
- Determined that Damian was the cause of his mother's death, Raymond negotiates with the other shareholders and undertakes business dealings with the "support" from Bosco in order to go against Damian to strip his director/CEO position! At the same time, Bosco tricks Raymond into signing a contract where he was forced to forfeit all his shares in 'Wing Ho". At the end, Cecilia stepped out and took over the director/CEO position kicking out both Damian and Raymond!
- Cecilia then revealed the "secret" to both Damian and Raymond…
- Bosco continues to manipulate and pull strings, making Cecilia think everyone is against her, especially Damian and that he (Bosco) is the only one she can trust. She even tried to give up her position to Bosco, but luckily Damian was able to convince the other shareholders not to due to the negative impact it would have on the company.
- Raymond realised that Bosco had betrayed him, however they still haven't really spoken to each other since. Raymond was losing his ways after learning the truth, and Bosco continued to be "busy" at work. I wonder when/whether Raymond would confront him…?
- I continue to enjoy watching Lai Ging~ She does so much for Raymond- when she found out Raymond and Damian's relationship- she tried to stop him from going to the board meeting and kicking Damian out (unfortunately that failed..) It was also because of him, Lai Ging loses her job and has continuously been there for him. Her brain conditions continue to worsen but she refuses to take the operation because she wanted to be there for Raymond, fearing that she may die… I hope she doesn't end up dying 🙁
- TVB uploaded a clip on the filming of the scene above! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81lH7_hnHPE 🙂
- I liked the scenes where Raymond cared for her, took to the hospital and when they went back to her place, Raymond made her candle-light "dinner"" (noodles XD)
- I felt so awkward and sad for Lai Ging when Raymond started yelling at her again, saying things like "Who are you to me anyway!?" and Lai Ging said something on the lines of " let's break up then". Raymond: "Since when did we go out?" Poor Lai Ging has mistaken his feelings for her again…"I know that you only gave me this necklace because your ex-fiance didn't want it, but I didn't know that I'm not even good enough to wear a second hand necklace" 🙁 Lai Ging then leaves, saying she will never bother him again.
- Damian finds out that Bosco was the one who sent the blood test result to Cecilia!! During the confrontation scene, Bosco ends up kicking Damian down the mountains!!
- Episode 25 was a very peaceful, moving episode. After Damian's accident, he wakes up forgetting one years memories- ie. from the beginning of the series. Because he was "saved from the dead", Damien realised all the things he had done wrong in the past and changed into a much nicer person. He learns to treasure everyone around him and this brings the family back together. Even without realising Raymond is his son, he learns to treat him as a family too
- I'm really happy that Cecilia realised how much Damien had loved her and how much she meant to him. With his memory loss, Damian also confessed the truth that he used to date Raymond's mother..everything he said was so genuine, I loved how honest he was to her and made Cecilia realise she had mistaken him all along : )
- The main sad thing is that he forgot that Raymond was his son..I think its more heartbreaking for Raymond..
16 Responses to "[Growing Through Life] Episode 21-25 Scribbles"
The part where Hanson and Lai King were sharing the noodles is just sooo cute! 😀 It's kinda sad to see Raymond hurt her all the time (well, not purposely but you get what i mean..)
I guess Linus and Hanson's buddy love is officially over! It was such a pain to watch the part where Hanson was in the hospital and saying how Linus betrayed him…i also wonder when they will meet face to face and confront each other. ):
OMG i just LOVE that ep. !! XD
i agree , the part where Hanson & Lai King were sharing noodles was soo cute !< but luckly he woke up !!
i dont have this channel at home… anyone know where i can watch it online ? ;O
i love this show <3 raymond lam <3333 forever k3
it was so funny when lai king said "lets break up" XDD
i think its sad how hanson keeps yelling at her ><
the look on bosco's face when he kicked damien down the hill is so sick lol! bosco's not ALL-OUT evil since he did went thru the "wat did i just done?!" phase.
fung better realizes his feelings soon ^^ im so anticipating to see them being lovey-dovey lol
Hah finally someone sense what I'm thinking. I know it's like Linus is not an "all out evil guy" since he went all anxious after the push instead of giving evil laughs here and there.
i like the song 'i hear angels'
who is the singer?
its actually toby leung! 😉
I like the part where Albert suddenly sat up in the hospital! Bosco's reaction was simply hilarious! HAHA!
He wanted to kill him but saved him instead! HAHA


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F. Sanchez has season-ending back surgery
F. Sanchez has season-ending back surgery
WASHINGTON -- Freddy Sanchez's 2012 season has ended before it started. His career with the Giants, and perhaps as an active Major Leaguer, also could be over.Sanchez, San Francisco's oft-injured second baseman, underwent surgery Thursday to have part of a disk removed from his back. The one-year, $6 million contract extension he received last year expires after this season. That, combined with the 34-year-old's health issues, makes it unlikely that the Giants will retain him."We still remain optimistic that we can have him," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "But this is a definite, now, that he won't be back this year."Sanchez's latest and perhaps final round of health-related woes began on June 10, 2011, when he dislocated his right shoulder while diving for a batted ball in a game against Cincinnati at AT&T Park. Sanchez underwent surgery to repair his labrum and rotator cuff on Aug. 1 and expressed optimism about being ready for the start of this season. But he never played an inning in the field during Spring Training. Ultimately, his back trouble became as much of a problem as his shoulder.Sanchez also required left shoulder surgery on Dec. 7, 2010, and arthroscopic left knee surgery on Sept. 30, 2009, to repair a torn meniscus. Thursday's procedure, performed by Dr. Robert Watkins, is known as a microdiskectomy.Many Giants fans will remember Sanchez not for his ailments, but for his feats down the stretch of the 2010 National League West race and in the postseason. After batting .371 in his final 31 regular-season games, Sanchez went only 2-for-16 in the Division Series against Atlanta, but one of those hits was crucial. His two-strike, two-out single in Game 3 prolonged the ninth inning and helped the Giants claim a 3-2 victory, giving them a 2-1 lead in the series.Chris Haft is a reporter for MLB.com.
"He certainly played a critical role with that base hit," Bochy said. "It would have been a lot tougher had we lost that game. That obviously was one of the bigger hits in that postseason."Sanchez also became the first player in history to double in each of his first three World Series plate appearances as the Giants triumphed, 11-7, in Game 1 against the Texas Rangers.The NL batting champion with a .344 average in 2006 for Pittsburgh, Sanchez joined the Giants as a Trade Deadline acquisition on July 29, 2009, in exchange for right-handed pitching prospect Tim Alderson. Sanchez's injuries limited him to 25 games with the Giants the rest of that season. He followed that with 111 games in 2010 and 60 games last year.Sanchez owns a career .297 batting average, including .290 in 196 games with the Giants.
Read More: San Francisco Giants, Freddy Sanchez

subset: commoncrawl


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Each year the Madison Gay Hockey Association invites its members to write about the role that the MGHA plays in building their identity. 2007 scholarship winner Mark Sadowski shares his essay.
Interest group: Patrick Farabaugh
Madison Gay Hockey Association Founder and Our Lives Publisher Patrick Farabaugh shares his personal story and experience behind the birth of the MGHA
Brenda Farabaugh opens up about how she first reacted when her son Patrick came out to her, and where she is at with it now.
Madison Gay Hockey player Chue Xiong talks about life in a refugee camp, running away from home, coming out, and finding support in a most unlikely place.
Our Lives Publisher Patrick Farabaugh shares how he learned the meaning of "home is where the heart is."
When a wedding invitation arrives in his mailbox, Patrick Farabaugh is left pondering about homecomings and bridesmaids
J. James Tye III shares the opening sequence of the Out Professional and Executive Network.
When a wedding invitation arrives in his mailbox, Patrick Farabaugh is left pondering about homecomings and bridesmaids
Publisher Patrick Farabaugh shares the personal journey he's been on to create a magazine that's truly representative of our diverse community.
Our Lives Publisher Patrick Farabaugh speaks with Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin about their plans in Wisconsin over the next couple of years.


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Rcpp 0.6.4
Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.
A new maintenance version of Rcpp (now at 0.6.4)
was just pushed to CRAN and has been
uploaded to Debian. Rcpp is a set of
utility classes that provide interfaces for transferring the major R data
types to C++ and back which makes it easier to extend R with dynamically
loadable code written in C or C++.
This version changes how use the
std namespace: all usage is now
properly prefixed. Likewise, we now define
R_NO_REMAP to not
let R define utility functions as
length() or
error() which occassionally creates trouble with other include
files — so now use the more explicit forms
Rf_error() etc. Also, starting from this release, C++ class
documentation created by Doxygen is included; it can also be seen from my box
as both browsable
html and a pdf file.
Lastly, this version also adds a minor correction to the Windows build
(spotted by Uwe and Simon).
R-bloggers.com offers daily e-mail updates about R news and tutorials about learning R and many other topics. Click here if you're looking to post or find an R/data-science job.
Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.


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The one thing about being a working mother is—no matter how hard you try to leave the house without some bit of something on your clothing, you can't. It must be some weird physics thing—there's like a vortex or something from the moment you put on new clean clothes. Oh, you can think you've left Read More
Tag: working mom
What's that Spot? Business Attire for the Working Mom
As a working mom, I often leave the house with crumbs, stains, hand prints and even bodily fluids on my clothing. It's taken a while to get used to the ick…but sometimes my co-workers have trouble with it. I'm at Sammiches and Psych Meds today discussing how to handle "work wear" when you're a working Read More
Germ Warfare: Daycare is Contagious and There Is No Vaccine
From the outside daycare looks like a smiling happy group of children who spend the day playing and learning, holding hands and singing songs. Those of us who have spent time in the trenches know the real, seedy truth: daycare is a germ-infested environment that would horrify even hazmat-suit-wearing CDC staff.
I'm excited to have my first piece featured at ScaryMommy today!


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Watch Ted Cruz Absolutely Terrify A Little Girl
Sen. Ted Cruz visited New Hampshire over the weekend, most likely as part of his probable 2016 presidential run, and it seems the popular Texan politician is already off to a fiery start. Well, more like it's raining fire and brimstone. While speaking at a small event at Turbocam headquarters in Barrington, Cruz scared a little girl named Julie when he told her the world she knows and loves is on fire.
The Concord Monitor reports that Cruz made a lengthy, hyperbolic speech while addressing about 100 New Hampshire locals at the Turbocam event. The outspoken Republican senator criticized President Obama by painting a world in which we're all insured by the Affordable Care Act and enjoying the lowest unemployment rate in recent years.
"The Obama economy is a disaster, Obamacare is a trainwreck, and the Obama-Clinton foreign policy of leading from behind – the whole world is on fire," Cruz told the audience members. They all appreciated his rhetoric, except for little three-year-old Julie Trant of Londonderry, New Hampshire.
"The world is on fire?" Julie asked Cruz. Everyone in the audience laughed, except, again, for three-year-old Julie, who really though Obama was purposely burning all her Legos and Barbie dolls.
Actually, maybe Cruz thought Obama was staging a war on children's toys. The senator reportedly told Julie:
The world is on fire. Yes! Your world is on fire. But you know what? Your mommy's here and everyone's here to make sure the world you grow up in is better.
Here's a video clip of the incident, via Politico. Beware: It is a bit terrifying.
To put out the flames of the Obama world, Cruz said he would "repeal every word of Obamacare," impose a "simple" flat tax and abolish the IRS. And hey, guess where he would put all those unemployed IRS agents! "There are 110,000 agents at the IRS. We need to put a padlock on that building and take every one of those 110,000 agents and put them on our southern border," Cruz said at the Turbocam event.
Little Julie had no further comment about the defunct IRS, lack of (not technically universal but government-mandated) health care, or Common Core, which Cruz would also repeal and replace with home-schooling and the like.
Cruz wasn't the only potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate making appeals to young voters over the weekend. Sen. Rand Paul was reportedly on the prowl at Austin's South By Southwest Music Festival, where he talked about using Snapchat as a campaign platform:
You look at Snapchat's audience, it's like an 18- to 24-year-old audience. These are new voters. I'm worried about the next generation having jobs, having a robust economy, having privacy, having a bill of rights. I think a lot of kids are interested in that, but if you don't go to a platform where they are, you won't find them.
A lot of kids on Snapchat are definitely interested in having privacy, Paul.
Image: Getty Images


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It's nearing the end of the year and looking back it seems that we young black brits have finally paved a way for to us showcase our talent, success and most importantly a space to truly be ourselves.
Away from the oppression and micro-aggressions that follows us daily, into a place to reconnect with each other and be authentic.
Especially, important spaces like the UK's first ever Black Girl Festival created by two friends and Londoners, Paula Akpan and Nicole Krystal. It was launched this year to celebrate black British women past, present & future with arts, workshops, panels, a marketplace for all ages. The festival was a huge hit and completely sold out, showing the high demand for black brits to come together as a community and support each other in new un-charted waters.
Or how about Black in The Day, a submission based archive, launched in 2016 to document the experiences of black British people over the decades. Having starred at the Tate Gallery's 'Late At Tate' exhibition, and part of Dazed's 2017 Black History Month Feature, the archive has received over 200 submissions and is moving from strength to strength.
Not to mention, the spaces created for queer black brits, who have notoriously been left of the conversation all together. Co-founders by Nadine Davis and Tia Simon-Campbell are dedicated to changing this, through the creation of BBZ, a platform exhibiting the artistic works of queer women of colour via a range of diverse events. This is similar to the Black Creatives Dinner Party, founded by Tobi Kyeremateng, is a DIY, informal and fun dinner party to celebrate excellence, toast to the next one and meet fellow Black creatives across all the industries.
Tobi said: "The arts is segregated depending on the industry you are in and there aren't many clear forums to come together or meet new people that is open to all sectors. I wanted to create the kind of space I would've loved – and still would love! – to have access to when starting out and seeking a support network. Physical spaces are necessary, and the 'coming together' over food has always been a great way for me to bond, so why not?"
So, the past couple of years have breathed life into spaces that are unique to black Brits, particularly creatives. With each space growing and collaborating across the board to feature as many of us as possible, I can't help but think on how important it is to protect these spaces. We have historically been locked out of areas where we can fully express ourselves and struggled to get necessary projects off the ground. Our skin colour often acts as a barrier to organisations who may harbour racial prejudices and discriminate against our ideas for those of our white counterparts. Or these ideas are stolen under the protection of white privilege and an unjust society.
Now, things are different with social media and crowdfunding platforms which allows us to do this without the backing of any company. And as these spaces gain more momentum we can't afford to let them go to the wayside. They are unique and crucial to the black British experience, entitling us to share our stories in areas like hair, work place and identity struggle.
Banding together means that we can protect these spaces for future generations to come, ensuring our special narrative is never forgotten. And while our beginnings may be humble, their impact is most certainly felt and will only get bigger.
Website: sosasharon.com
Twitter: @sosasharon
Instagram: @sosasharon_
Feature Image Source: https://www.tumblr.com/search/rooting+for+everybody+black


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+44 (0)1757 630469
Order Today!
vLocPro2 10 Watt Config C243 Kit
33k, 65k & 83k Induction vLocPro2 Receiver, 10 Watt Transmitter with alkaline batteries, Connection Leads, Ground Stake, 5 inch Signal Clamp, Receiver Bag, Transmitter Bag and Manuals.
We will endeavour to deliver your order right away. We will normally send your order to you the next working day for stock items. We dispatch orders Monday to Friday (excluding UK public holidays). Standard delivery days are Monday through to Friday, but we can also deliver on Saturdays at an additional cost.
UK Mainland Standard Charges:
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We ship world wide. All orders are fulfilled at our distribution centre in York England within 3 business days


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Asus recently launched the Fonepad tablet in India. It comes with 3G Connectivity and voice calling features of a smartphone on a 7 inch tablet. Asus Fonepad packs a 1.2 GHz Intel Atom Z2420 processor and it runs on the Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS. According to the manufacturer, this device offers up to nine hours of battery life. The Asus Fonepad comes with SuperNote lite app for drawing as well as for creating handwritten notes and Office Online app for Microsoft Office-compatible document editing.
Mr. Peter Chang, Regional Director – South Asia & Country Manager, Asus India, said,
"Users now want a better screen with entertainment, social media and other online activities and this is playing an increasingly important part in our mobile lifestyles. By incorporating 3G mobile data connectivity with full telephony support, we have made the Asus Fonepad the perfect combination of a tablet and phone in one single device at an affordable price."
Asus Fonepad features a 7 inch WXGA LED Backlight IPS display with 10 finger multi-touch, 1280 x 800 pixels resolution, 1.2 GHz Intel Atom Z2420 processor, Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) Operating System, 3 megapixel rear-facing camera with HD (720p) video recording and playback, 1.2 megapixel front facing camera for video chats and much more.
Other features include a 3.5 mm headset jack, Micro SIM, voice and video calling capabilities, Wi-Fi 801.11 b/g/n, 3G Connectivity, Bluetooth 3.0, Micro USB 2.0, Google Play Store, A-GPS, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory, MicroSD card slot, 32 GB expandable memory, up to 9 hours of usage time and a 4270 mAh non-removable Li-Ion battery.
Asus Fonepad comes with a price-tag of Rs.15,999 in India. This device will be available at Croma stores and select Asus authorized retail outlets from April 30, 2013. Asus Fonepad will compete with Nexus 7, Galaxy Tab 2 and other mid-range Android tablets in India.


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Check out our new listing - a three bedroom home with spectacular water views located within Waterview Farms community in Oak Bluffs...
52 Waterview Road, Oak Bluffs
Savor the spectacular water views complemented by the rolling meadow and conservation land of Waterview Farms, adjacent to Farm Neck Golf Club. Experience the serenity of this special property while enjoying Waterview Farms Association dock and deeded access to the beach. This convenient location that offers 3 bedrooms with master and guest bedroom on the first floor and a fully finished lower level with bedroom, second kitchen and bathroom to allow your guests or extended family full privacy with a separate entrance. A large living room on the main floor with fireplace and open kitchen are also ideal for entertaining, making this the perfect Vineyard house to use as your own or with its great rental history, a superb investment property. The large and private yard is surrounded by mature landscaping and acres of conservation land. Walk to Association beach, enjoy the sunsets from the dock, paddle your kayak or sail your sunfish through the water or simply start and finish your days on the expansive rear deck overlooking the peaceful views of Nantucket Sound, making this property a must see!
Exclusively offered at $899,000
Click here for more information


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Veteran filmmakerBrian De Palma's latest pulpy thriller, "Passion," pits Rachel McAdams against Noomi Rapace as ad agency colleagues out for blood after McAdams takes credit for Rapace's idea for an ad. There's a lot craziness going on in the film, including more than a little intimacy between its female leads — and none of that was the "Carrie" and "Scarface" director's idea, he insists.
There is a lot of, shall we say, fluid female sexuality in this film.
I just let the girls go with the scene and just sat back to see what would happen. The way that Dani [played by Karoline Herfurth] offered herself to Isabelle [played by Rapace] — "Kiss me!" — and then starts to undress her! [Laughs] All the girls, all their intimate stuff, was all improvised. They just play it. They make it as real as possible. If something's not working, we try something else, but they were all fantastic, and it was just fascinating to watch them.
Rachel McAdams' character feels a lot like a grown-up version of her character from "Mean Girls." Had you seen that film?
Of course. Oh, I knew Rachel could play it. I'd seen her play it before. Playing a dark, manipulative lady is a hell of a lot of fun, and she had a lot of fun doing it.
You use a split-screen during pivotal scene in the film. How have the reactions been to that?
It seems to work. Everybody seems to talk about it a lot. It's not like I just have a paint box of things I want to stick in my movies. I look at the scene, and I think, "What's the best way to shoot this?" Also, I've never done a murder where you have a split-screen and you have these two fantastically beautiful women on each side, and then suddenly a knife slashes somebody's throat and you see somebody with a mask splattered with blood. I'd never done it before.
You recreate an actual viral video as part of the plot for the film. Have you heard anything from its makers?
I haven't heard anything. But yes, I saw it on the Internet and I basically copied it for the movie. It went viral, everybody thought it was real, but in reality it was two advertising executives [in Australia].
You didn't have to reach out to them about using the idea?
No. I think advertising copies everything, basically. I don't think they get worried about being copied themselves.


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Artport Tel Aviv
Hand Poke Tattoos, done with a thread and needle, have been for a while a prison-cell staple. In the last few years they've become super popular and have been getting art world and academic attention. We'll discuss the current DIY obsession, make our own tools and practice tattooing on bananas.


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The addition of the receipt is normally done directly in the store during your purchase. If you have not been able to add it, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service at the following address: email@example.com. Please send us a picture of your receipt. The following information must be clearly visible:
- Sales receipt number (visible below the barcode)
- Ticket amount
Please note that it is only possible to add a receipt up to 30 days after your purchase.


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As a family and as a business, supporting our community and showing good stewardship towards our environment has always been important. Over the last few years we have worked diligently towards creating less waste and having less negative impact on our environment.
We have made steps to make our business and our lives more eco-friendly. We love living on the gorgeous island of Maui and want to ensure that it maintains its glorious beauty for generations to come.
- We have installed a photo voltaic solar array. These solar panels will provide 90-100% of our electric needs. Our new 33.1kw system will generate an average of 4,700 kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity per month eliminating the release of almost 150,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. To see real-time stats of our array, please click here.
- Although Maui has limited recycling capabilities, we recycle all that we are able. Including all accepted plastic, glass, metal and paper. We encourage guest participation by having a recycle bin in every guest room.
- We offer the eco-friendly Zero% line of amenities from Gilchrist & Soames. These products contain no sulfates, parabens, phthalates, petro-derived ingredients, mineral oil, urea, DEA, TEA, DMDM hydantoin or propylene glycol. They do feature food-grade, naturally derived USP glycerin, natural conditioning agents from honey and the Brassica plant; and soybean and cottonseed oil, instead of petrochemicals.
- We have partnered with Clean the World to recycle the unused portion of our amenties following guest departure. Clean the World recycles our amenities and distributes recycled soap products (and appropriate educational materials) to impoverished areas around the world. The goal in promoting hand washing is to lessen the number of needless deaths to acute respiratory infection and diarrheal disease due to lack of soap.
We compost our bio-degradables making a nutrient rich natural fertilizer for our orchard trees. Our orchard is pesticide-free and produces delicious fruits which, when available, we use in the daily breakfast.
For pest control we use a product called Best Yet. This is a non-toxic, organic treatment that works without leaving any poisonous residue in our environment.
Where possible we use natural cleaners including eco-friendly laundry and dish detergent, vinegar solution glass/window cleaner, and natural wood cleaner.
Click here to see real time stats of our solar array!


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Measuring the Mars
Submitted by admin on Sat, 07/14/2012 - 21:29
Hundreds of measurements of the hull and its structure as well as many cannons have been carried out during the past two weeks. This information will be valuable to the archeologists in their work trying to understand how the Mars really looked like. More then 100 dives have been done the past 2 weeks with a perfect safety record.
Here Bjørn Opperud is measuring one of the many cannons. This cannon was 420cm long. Photo Ingemar Lundgren/Ocean Discovery
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The real test of success for the People's Climate March (New York City on September 21) will be on the concrete follow-up for change. Our first opportunity was the Global Frackdown Day. At our meeting this summer, the Congregation of Notre Dame Social Justice Network made the decision to endorse the International Frackdown Day which took place on October 11, 2014. We have been invited to take action by praying or doing advocacy.
On Saturday and Sunday of the last September weekend, the annual Vocation Fair of the Kingston Archdiocese was held at Holy Rosary Church in Belleville, Ontario. All the religious communities of men and women in the archdiocese took part in what was an exceptional and creative display of their life and ministry in Canada and around the world. The Congregation of Notre Dame was beautifully and interestingly represented thanks to the hard work of Sisters Rosemary Shannon, Rosemary Brosseau, Denise Bérubé, and Sheila Sullivan. Besides the Religious Communities, the Diocesan Priesthood, Permanent Diaconate and various pastorally oriented organizations such as the Catholic Women's League, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Birthright, and several other organizations invited people to share their gifts in service of God and their neighbour. The visitors to the exhibits were interested and eager to hear from the organizers about the community they were presenting. So we continue to pray to "the Lord of the harvest..."
As a result of sessions initiated by The Martha Spirituality Center and Fr. John Lacey, some of the lay people who participated became committed to continue this process in the diocese. A series of sessions began on Monday September 22 in St. Francis of Assisi Parish in which a total of 20 lay people were present including the coordinating committee, of which I am a member. It was so hopeful to see this initiated by members of St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Cornwall; five of whom are, of course, on the coordinating team. I was very happy to be invited to be part of the team. We all agreed we were off to a good start. People shared openly regarding how the scandal had affected them and members of their families and their desire to be part of the process of healing.


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02/11/2019 update: Construction work will continue on I-494 between Mendota Heights and South St. Paul and may impact your drive later this summer.
The work includes bridge deck resurfacing and joint replacement on the I-494 bridge decks over I-35E, repairing pavement between 3rd Avenue and the east side of the Minnesota River bridge, improving drainage, constructing ponds, as well as adding a turn a lane and replacing signals at I-494 and Pilot Knob Road.
You should expect to see single lane or directional closures of I-494 over approximately twelve weekends as crews complete the pavement resurfacing and drainage work.
The bridge work will occur in multiple stages over two years and will include lane closures.
Note: this work is in addition to the current project on I-494 at Concord St/Hwy 156 .
For more information about the projects on I-494 in Dakota County or to sign up for email updates visit the project website at mndot.gov/metro/projects/i494invergroveheights


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Annabanana123456 Reviewed on May 23, 2018, 3:39 AM
My experience was different from what I'm used to but overall it was a good experience. It would have been good if they had a clerk show me where the car is located or the lot number. I was only told which elevator floor to get off. If not because of the Avis employee driving around, I would have wasted more time searching for the car.
JessicaB Reviewed on Apr 25, 2018, 4:33 PM
It was a quick pickup, but i wanted an economy vehicle in order to save on gas, and without even asking I was given an upgrade and it cost me almost double what I usually pay to fill up at the end of the trip.


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In the spring of 2000, Owen Flanagan participated in the Eighth Mind and Life Conference, sponsored by the Dalai Lama. The Mind and Life Conferences are a series of dialogs among "scientists, philosophers, and contemplatives" to develop a greater understanding of psychology and the philosophy of psychology, to advance the understanding of the nature of reality, and to promote the well-being of people around the world. Flanagan had a passing familiarity with Buddhism prior to attending the conference, but between his experiences at the conference and the media attention he received following it, Flanagan's passing interest developed into something more serious. The result is The Bodhisattva's Brain. It is an attempt to naturalize Buddhism -- to pare away the magic, superstition, and untestable theses that is common within popular Buddhism.
Flanagan is what some might call a "hard headed" analytic philosopher, who has no patience for the "woolly minded" thinking that generally characterizes popular religions. So it is noteworthy that he would take the time to see what he might find valuable in Buddhism. Unsurprisingly -- though Flanagan himself seems surprised -- he finds much that is valuable. His surprised reaction indicates a prior lack of appreciation for the pragmatic nature of Buddhism and his final conclusions about what is valuable in Buddhism betray an immovable commitment to what Buddhist's would call mere "conventional" knowledge. Despite this, he shows a good understanding of many of the most important Buddhist concepts. The Bodhisattva's Brain is a landmark examination of Buddhism from a Western analytic perspective.
There are, however, a few concepts that seem overlooked or underdeveloped in the work. Flanagan appears to construe karma as a mysterious causal relationship in which what goes around eventually, magically comes around to an actor's benefit or detriment. Moreover, to escape what seem to be counter-examples, Flanagan claims that Buddhism employs the doctrine of reincarnation. This may be an accurate popular conception of karma, but Flanagan overlooks a more plausible account. Buddhism maintains that all things have a dependent existence, i.e., nothing exists separately from all other things. An aspect of this is causation. Simply put, all things have a cause and cannot exist apart from their cause. This is uncontroversial enough for physical events, but controversial when extended into the moral realm. It even seem unlikely that one's fortune or misfortune always is caused by something one did previously or in a past life.
The problem, however, evaporates when one abandons -- as Budhism does -- the idea of a distinct, persisting self. Without a self to which beneficial or harmful consequences are expected to return, the law of karma merely asserts that compassionate or harmful acts propagate in kind through the world. My greedy act will cause harm to others who will become afflicted by jealousy and subsequently will become disposed to act in harmful way themselves. Conversely, my compassionate act will erase affliction and dispose others to do the same. I suspect that Flanagan might object that this interpretation of karma departs too much from the popular conception, but it is grounded firmly enough in the doctrine of the non-existence of individual selves to claim a respectability within broader, more charitable interpretations of karma.
Flanagan is impressed with the Buddhist doctrine of anatman -- the idea that our individual selves are fictions. It is, essentially, a denial of the existence of an individual soul or at very least an immortal, individual soul. No doubt, stressing this doctrine places Flanagan's understanding of Buddhism on very firm ground. He does, however, overlook in important critique of this doctrine that lies within the Buddhist tradition itself. Around the second century A.D., Buddhists began articulating critiques of metaphysical claims of this sort. The movement became known as Madhyamaka Buddhism. Its most important exponent was Nagarjuna, and its most important metaphysical claim was that all things are sunyata or "empty." Flanagan appears to understand emptiness to involve either (or both) the dependent arising (dependent origination or dependent existence) of all things or else the infinite divisibility of all things. In either case, the existence (or at least independent existence) of objects is refuted. Flanagan does not seem to appreciate, however, the dialectic nature of Madhyamaka Buddhism. Emptiness is not merely an assertion of the doctrine of anatman and the non-existence of objects, it is the conclusion drawn from the refutation of all metaphysical doctrines, including the doctrine of anatman. Perhaps the closest that Western philosophy comes to this observation is Kant's antinomies. For an excellent treatment of this and Madhymika Buddhism generally, see T.R.V. Murti's The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, reviewed in this blog.
Flanagan further betrays a disposition toward an early form of Buddhism by his lack of attention to the six perfections of a bodhisattva: generosity, morality, vigor, forbearance, concentration, and wisdom. These perfections are outlined in detail in the monumental work, the Prajnaparamita, also reviewed in this blog. The Prajnaparamita is perhaps the most important sutra in the Mahayana tradition. Flanagan makes no mention of it. He does discuss aptly the four divine virtues: compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, and these virtues are clearly connected to the perfections of the bodhisattva, but they are limited largely to the moral aspects of the bodhisattva. To succeed in following the path of the boddhisattva, according to the Prajnaparamita, one needs to cultivate certain non-moral traits or dispositions. That Flanagan misses this link leads to his skepticism that embracing the doctrine of emptiness will naturally lead one to acquire the four divine virtues. Of course, it is not certain that if he (or anyone) were to focus attention on and accept the arguments in the Prajnaparamita that he (or anyone) would be led from the non-moral claims in the Madhyamaka tradition to the moral dispositions, but Flanagan's lack of appreciation for the importance of wisdom as laid out in the Prajnaparmita might well explain the extent of his skepticism on this score.
Flanagan would do well to explore more deeply two other concepts in the Prajnaparamita: (1) the distinction between conventional and ultimate truth and (2) "skill in means." He certainly recognizes distinction between conventional and ultimate truth, but consistent with his desire to keep Buddhism bounded within a naturalistic world view, he seeks to make sense of Buddhism only within the conventional realm. Here again, the Prajnaparamita's critical approach to all metaphysical claims helps one understand the futility of a full understanding of the world in strictly naturalistic terms. Naturalism assumes a metaphysics which cannot withstand the Madhyamaka critique. By letting go of all "absolutes," including naturalism, one achieves the wisdom (prajna) which is essential to enlightenment.
Finally, Flanagan would do well to appreciate the importance of the concept of "skill in means." The bodhisattva becomes a bodhisattva by perfecting the perfections. For example, by continuously practicing generosity, the bodhisattva hones his or her habits to the point that he or she is unaware that there is a giver, gift, or gift recipient. The bodhisattva does not think, "so-and-so is in need of this gift, so I will give it." Instead, giving becomes so natural that the "gift" is "given" without thinking of it as a gift. In such a case, the bodhisattva has achieved skill in means with regard to giving. The same skill in means is to be developed for the other perfections.
Enlightenment cannot be achieved without perfecting the perfections, but as only a Buddha has reached this level of spiritual development, it is impossible for us to assess the effectiveness of the path of the bodhisattva. This leaves the Buddhist open to the possibly reasonable criticism that his or her claim is untestable, but in fact, it only shows the limits of testability as a characteristic of truth. To see this, one might compare the claim that perfecting the perfections leads to enlightenment to an extremely adept mathematician's proof of an extremely difficult theorem. No one but the adept is able to understand the proof. Consequently, some faith is required of lesser mathematicians, if they are to accept the theorem; but this does not make the proof dogma. Similarly, the validity of the path to enlightenment may only be understood by those who have achieved "skill in means" and those of us with less skill must take it on faith, but that does not make it dogma.
There are a number of other complaints one might raise against Flanagan. For example, his criticism of most Western Buddhists as being self-absorbed and uninformed often seems uncharitable and condescending. He also too forcefully dismisses the importance of meditation to Buddhism. This is perhaps a function of his lack of appreciation for, again, the Prajnaparamita and for the dedicated pursuit of enlightenment by non-lay Buddhists. Some degree of meditation is crucial, if one is to go beyond the study of Buddhism as a scholarly discipline.
The foregoing criticism of Flanagan's treatment of Buddhism should not lead the reader to think that his work is fatally flawed. On the contrary, it is a brilliant work of comparative philosophy. Flanagan shows a remarkably deep understanding of Buddhism for someone who has only given it serious study for a decade or so. A classic story about the Buddha describes the Buddha as tailoring his teachings to the abilities and understanding of his students, and so his teachings about the path to enlightenment were different and at times contradictory. What is important is to find ways to advance the student along the path. Flanagan's work, whether he intends this or not, is an excellent expression of the insights of Buddhism geared for the skeptical, naturalistic, Western mind. All that might be needed to achieve a deeper understanding of Buddhist philosophy is a commitment to the path -- a commitment to reach beyond Flanagan's naturalistic Buddhism.
Monday, April 29, 2013
The Bodhisattva's Brain: Buddhism Naturalized / Owen Flanagan -- Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2011
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Labels: Buddhism, Philosophy
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Beauty and Well Being
Look Good Feel Better is dedicated to improving the self esteem and quality of life for people undergoing cancer treatment. There are quick guides to beauty and wearing wigs as online resources.
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Breast Cancer
Breast Cancer Care – UK charity provides patient support. Includes information, online discussion forums, donation procedures and contact details.
Breast Cancer Now – The UKs largest breast cancer research charity
Younger Breast Cancer Network (YBCN) – Wonderful support group for younger women with breast cancer across UK and Ireland
Bowel Cancer
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Bowel Cancer UK – Bowel Cancer UK is determined to save lives and improve the quality of life for all those affected by bowel cancer.
Cervical Cancer
Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust is the only UK charity dedicated to women and their families affected by cervical cancer and cervical abnormalities. Providing information and support both online and face to face.
Family Treats and Days Out
Ellie's Friends – Frequent freebies for adults living with cancer. In celebration of Ellie Jeffery, who wanted to Make the Big C Smaller.
Osborne Trust – We are proud to be providing children of parents with cancer the opportunity to access time out recreational activities whilst their parents undergo operations and treatments.
Willow Foundation – Arrange special days out for seriously ill young adults
Family Support Organisations
Homestart UK – Home-Start helps families with young children deal with whatever life throws at them. We support parents as they learn to cope, improve their confidence and build better lives for their children.
Molar Pregnancy (GTD)
Molar Pregnancy Support – This website is the first Molar Pregnancy Support site of its kind in the UK
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals – Information leaflet on Molar Pregnancy (Gestational Trophoblastic Disease)
Milk (Donor) Banks
UKAMB – UK Association of Milk Banks website full of information about donor breast milk, the service and the various milk banks around the UK
Human Milk Bank (Ireland) – The Western Trust Milk Bank, based in Irvinestown, opened in August 2000. Since then it has helped hundreds of neonatal babies all over Ireland.
Young Adults and Teenage Cancer Support
Clic Sargent – The charity specialises in supporting children and young people with cancer, and their families. It provides clinical, practical, financial and emotional support to help children cope with cancer and get the most out of life.
Teenage Cancer Trust – Young people need expert treatment and support from the moment they hear the word "cancer". We're the only charity dedicated to making this!
Youth Cancer Trust – Provides free holidays for young people diagnosed with cancer or any life threatening disease. [UK]


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Nishkian Dean Provides Support to Launch the World's Largest RocketSep 03 2013 · 0 comments · NISHKIAN DEAN ·0
Nishkian Dean is proud to have provided Hensel Phelps and the United Launch Alliance with their engineering consultation services in support of the NROL-65 launch mission on August 28th. Congratulations to all of the team members who helped make the launch of Delta IV Heavy a success!
For the full article and a video of the launch, visit CNN.


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IP Blocking in Cloud Website Hosting
Our cloud website hosting offer an IP blocking tool, so if you'd like to restrict the access to your sites, it shall be able to do this with simply a few mouse clicks. The tool is provided with the Hepsia hosting Control Panel, which comes with all accounts and that is super easy to use. As soon as you log in and check out the IP blocking section, you'll just have to pick a domain or a subdomain hosted within the account and enter the IP address which should be blocked. Our system will allow you to block entire networks as well, so if you type 123.123.123., for example, this'll block all IP addresses between 126.96.36.199 and 18.104.22.168 from accessing your sites. In case you want to whitelist an IP at some point, you'll be able to unblock it with just a click from the same section.
IP Blocking in Semi-dedicated Servers
You shall be able to block IP addresses easily and stop the undesirable traffic to any site hosted in a semi-dedicated server account with our company, as we offer a very easy-to-use tool to do that, that's included with our Hepsia hosting Control Panel. Even if you have never dealt with this sort of matters in the past, you won't have any difficulties, as our tool provides a very user-friendly interface. As you check out the IP blocking section of the Control Panel, you shall find a comprehensive list of all the domains and subdomains that you've added within the Hosted Domains section. What you need to do to block an IP address is choose the needed domain or subdomain from a drop-down menu and then type in the IP inside the box below. The change shall take effect right away, so you will not get any traffic from this address in the future. Removing an IP from the blocked list is equally quick.


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Model wears size 8 and is 5'3
This vibrant blue coat is the perfect piece to add a stylish splash of colour to your look. This coats classic cut and minimal detailing give it timeless style and added sophistication. Layer over dark wash denim and an elegant high neck jumper in muted hues, pairing with chic white heels for a ceveryday style.
- Coat
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- Dry Clean Only.


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The Sights of Samburu
Your African Adventure Begins!
10:00 Wilson Airport, Nairobi
11.00 Ewaso Nyiro River Camp, Samburu
11.30 Camp information & Tent allocation
12.30 In Camp
15.00 Afternoon drive to see game at dusk
17.00 Return to Camp, showers
18.00 Welcome drinks around the fire
19.30 Dinner in Camp
The camp is on the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro River, a welcoming sight. We aim to arrive with enough time to go out for a game drive although more often than not, many prefer just to sit by the river and enjoy the camp. In the evening, sitting around the fire on the river bank is just magical. The Samburu safari is designed for those of you wanting to spend time with the elephants and leopards, as well as with the dry country animals found in the region.
The daily routine is very similar to that at the Mara. We are out at first light, making the most of the cool morning. The park consists of a beautiful, but scorched landscape. Here conditions are ideal for Grevy's zebra, oryx, gerenuk and many more dry country mammals as well as a huge variety of birds such as the vulturine guinea fowl.
The river is the lifeline here and, depending on the time of year, it can be a raging torrent or as dry as a bone, but you will never be disappointed. Samburu is the place to see huge numbers of elephant and we see many! We will spend a couple of hours under a tree on the river bank watching 'elephant action', the crossings, drinking, playing, fighting and chasing and even being charged by the 'totos' – baby bull elephants!
The glades produce great leopards. We have seen a leopard here on every safari for the last four years. Samburu is usually very hot, dry and dusty so take good precautions for yourself and your equipment! During lunch at the camp you will enjoy watching the elephants in the river from your tent.
All good things must come to an end!
Departure: 11.30 Ewaso Nyiro River Camp
Arrive: 12.30 Nairobi
We leave camp early for a final game drive on the way and arrive at the strip in ample time to have a cup of tea and pack the rest of the kit away. You arrive in Nairobi and I suggest that you have lunch at a great African restaurant Carnivore, then visit the Nairobi Museum, which is fascinating. After a quick Nairobi tour ending at Jomo Kenyatta Airport where you will continue your onward journey with great new experiences and terrific Kenyan memories
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Children's Ministry
Children's Ministry
We have 3 great opportunities for Children here at Harman Memorial Baptist Church:
We use The Gospel project curriculum which encourages strong Biblical foundations, including scripture memorization, worship, and fun!
The Bible is not a collection of stories. It is one story, the story of God's plan to rescue His people from sin and death. It is the story of redemption, the gospel message of Jesus Christ. And it's our story, too.
The Gospel Project is a Bible study resource that invites Students, and Kids of all ages to dive deeply into God's story of redemption through Jesus Christ. In every lesson, participants are immersed in the gospel and learn how when the gospel works on them, they become a part of the story, too, the very hands and feet in God's gospel project.
Our Kid's Groups!!!
Nursery and Pre-K is our beginning ministry where we do more than just babysit. If able we do small simple lessons for these toddlers and begin the foundations of a life with Christ.
Link to the app with games and daily lessons: Click Here!!
Clay Station is our age Kindergarten to 3rd grade ministry. This group and does a great job not only keeping the children's attention and having fun, but getting firm Biblical teaching into their young lives. They will have opportunities to do crafts, play games, make homemade cards for the sick, color, and have a lesson each time they meet.
Meeting Times:
Sunday Mornings: During the 11:00 Service. Check in before church..
Sunday Nights : 6:00 in the Children's Wing
Potter's House is our pre-teen ministry for grades 4-6. This group begins to journey further from the base of clay to allowing God to begin forming them into His servants. They go a little deeper into the Word of God and also begin applying it into everyday life. This group is very mission minded from making and delivering cards and cakes to holding monthly lock-ins as outreach events.
Meeting Times: Sunday Nights at 6:00 in the Children's Wing


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One of the motivators for Remembered Sky is that the writing about USS Midway and her airwing/squadrons is piecemeal. Some histories and stories barely mention Midway and some have completely left her out, particularly related to Linebacker II. This despite the fact that Midway/Airwing Five set the record for most number of days "on the line" in the Vietnam war and were one of only four carriers in the whole war to be awarded the unit equivallent of a Navy Cross – the Presidential Unit Citation.
Kelly Note: Interestingly, history hasn't recorded MIDWAY's participation in the Linebacker II. Some official Navy web sites don't include MIDWAY as a participant in the December '72 bombing. I for one can verify that 'we were there', we lead-off the attacks, and most of the crews in VA-115 flew two or three missions during the first two nights of the campaign.
Chapter 41: Linebacker II (The gloves finally come off.)
Throughout '72 the US Air Force and Navy conducted restricted aerial bombing and mining operations in North Vietnam. I say restricted because many of the targets appeared to be of marginal value. Only occasionally were these targets within the two major cities, Haiphong and Hanoi.
Throughout the summer and most of the fall we primarily focused on restricting the transportation of supplies into South Vietnam or neutralizing anti-aircraft defenses. I think the other thing we accomplished was to make the people of the North realize there was still a war going on, and we had given the POWs some hope.
In VA-115 we were all exhausted by the tempo of operations, the periodic loss or at least damage to CAG5 aircraft, and the lack of their being a foreseeable end to the war effort. You felt like you were at the Craps Table and just had to keep rolling Field numbers. And you knew each time you went in at night, there was some likelihood that the NVA gunners could 'get lucky'.
In the November timeframe the air campaign was further restricted to the portion of North Vietnam below the 20th parallel (20 degrees North Latitude), RP I through IV. The peace talks inParishad broken down, and the war continued to drag on taking its daily toll of US and Vietnamese lives. We were marking time.
In early December the results of a decision made by President Nixon to resume the bombing of urban targets reached the 'pointy end of the spear' aboard MIDWAY. This would later prove to be the first true, 'take the gloves off' effort of the war in my opinion.
For the next two weeks the Air Force dropped leaflets telling the Vietnamese that we would be returning to bomb the urban areas. During this period our photo recce birds returned with photos showing long lines of civilian traffic moving out of the cities and military vehicles loaded with anti-aircraft defense munitions streaming into both Haiphong and Hanoi.
Finally, after eight years of disjoint and unfocused efforts which had torn our own country apart and resulted in the downing of hundreds of Air Force and Navy aircraft, the war was going to be brought home to the strongholds of North Vietnam. With the U.S. as an uncommitted enemy and without a representative form of government, it had been too easy for the North Vietnamese generals and charismatic figures like Ho Chi Minh to ignore the destruction in the southern part of their country and in the country side. Only when the war was on their door steps, loud and clear, was any progress going to be made to bring this madness to a halt.
The crews in VA-115 certainly welcomed this decision. I'm sure it was the same for the A-6 squadrons on the other two ships that supported the Line Backer II. There was no 'pulling punches', this was the mission we had trained for, and it was a mission we could do well. The only way to perform this mission on the first nights of the campaign and have any chance of surviving was 'in the weeds', and I think the A-6 flight crews to a man were ready to place their bets.
On December 17th MIDWAY had been scheduled to leave the line and head for Singapore for a planned R&R. Our wives were already in route to meet us there for the Christmas Holiday. Rather than sailing south we got the word that at 20:00 six A-rab A-6s would launch from MIDWAY and lay a new set of mines in the Port of Haiphong.
The strikes were assigned by seniority, and the best Shylock and I could do was the 'hot spare,' the seventh aircraft. We sat on the deck with a full load of mines, engines turning, and the plans for all six of the mining missions on our kneeboards just waiting for a chance to launch. If any plane had gone down for maintenance, we would fly its mission. We didn't get the chance
Mission #1: Haiphong Thermal Power Plant:
On the following day, December 18th, at 20:00 the Christmas bombing campaign of 1972, was officially kicked off, and MIDWAY was the 'lead-off' hitter. Six A-6s from MIDWAY were launched toward targets in and around Haiphong. This was repeated at 20:20 and 20:40 by six A-6 aircraft from squadrons on the ENTERPRISE (VA-196) and the RANGER (VA-145), the other two carriers operating from the North Yankee Station. This same pattern of 18 aircraft was repeated at 12:00 midnight and at 4:00 AM.
Simultaneously, at 20:00 on the 18th Air Force B-52s entered the country from the West heading toward targets in Hanoi. In descriptions of the Air Force bombing in Linebacker II I read after the war, their strikes were conducted similar to the bomber missions of WWII. These were high altitude (20,000 feet) formations of several aircraft flying into the city on a predefined route. With no element of surprise the BUFFs relied on their onboard ECM to foil the enemy's firing solutions.
The Navy didn't operate that way. The flight crews were given an unprecedented opportunity to plan and fly these missions as we saw fit. The flight crews were committed to the prosecution of high-valued industrial and air defense targets, and we expected stiff opposition from a very well supplied enemy. This was unlike all our previous missions, where both the targets and the ordnance load were assigned by CAG5's Strike Ops. For these sorties the A-6 flight crews were given the targets and asked to do their own weaponeering. Rather than being restricted to a predefined weapons load, we were asked, "What do you wanted to carry, and how many would you like?"
Six targets we were assigned to the six aircraft from each ship for each launch. They included two major industrial sites in downtown Haiphong, two major industrial sites outside the city, and two SAM sites. This same pattern was repeated for the next two launches in the evening's cycle.
For the first night and first strike of Linebacker II Shylock and I were assigned to hit the Thermal Power Plant in downtown Haiphong. We requested Mk-82 snakeyes. We knew we wanted to be doing this from a low altitude lay-down delivery, and the snakeye fins would give us sufficient separation from the fragments of our bombs. Snakeyes were the best weapon for this target, and the old A-6 was capable of carrying 20 of these on its wing stations.
The Navy had always allowed us to determine the ingress and egress for our missions, and there was no exception for Linebacker II. Since all six planes were going to be operating in and around the city over a 20 minute period, the strikes had to be carefully choreographed to take maximum advantage of the element of surprise, minimize the possibility of mid-airs, and avoid flying through someone else's detonations or the air defense retaliation. These sets of six strikes every 20 minutes were planned and carried out in a meticulous and professional manner by the A-6 crews on each of the three ships.
The Haiphong Thermal Power Plant was just west of the 'donkey dick'[1] in the center of the city. Skipper Barrish was also assigned that target, and he had decided to run it south to north. His plan was to break hard to port at release for 180 degrees and head out the same way he had headed in but several miles to the west. Shylock and I decided to run it from the east to west. This allowed us to come in very low over the rice paddies and bay to the east and slightly north of the city. We would then only need to turn 90 degrees to get headed south and out of harm's way.
Two of the other four planes in our strike were going after SAM sites around the city, and the other two were assigned to industrial sites or infrastructure sites outside of the city. The two missions downtown were the focus of MIDWAY's first launch, and the other crews gave our planning priority for routing.
The anxiety level was rather high at the Air Intelligence Briefing. Everyone knew there was going to be a lot of shit in the air. We had a pair of fighters that would be covering us off shore, some A-7 Ironhand birds ready to throw Shrike missiles at any SAM sites trying to come up, and the Whale (A-3) was set up to give us radar jamming from his racetrack pattern over water south and east of the city.
The launch was normal and we went to the predefined holding positions off the coast. All our watches were synchronized. The city was shrouded under a broken sky (greater than 6/10s clouds) at about 1500 feet, but above that it was clear as a bell.
After launch and climb-out Shylock and I went into a holding pattern at 20,000 feet and 20 miles off the coast. The radio was alive with the Air Force transmitting on Guard and the Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) aircraft, call-sign 'Teaball', making his monotonous transmissions about "SAMs in the vicinity of Crab" (Hanoi).
We could see a lot of AAA activity in the area north and west of us, and we expected we were seeing the B-52s going to work in Hanoi. Then I saw a huge fireball followed by flaming pieces raining down. I realized, we had just seen a BUFF with its crew of eight, hit and blown to pieces. This was the first of three B-52s to be lost on the first night of the Christmas campaign.
The only electronic activity we were picking up was occasional search radar sweeps and some height finder. They knew we were there, and they probably had a good idea of what we were going to do. My anxiety level was nearly at a maximum, but I was ready to go. At the pre-defined time the Skipper made his transmission, and we began the dance.
As A-rab 2 we started our descent on an outbound leg flying east and away from the city. This was our 'clever' plan to make the defense sites think we were going after a different target area and to establish a few minutes of separation between the Skipper's run and our run. When we were below 500 feet, we hit our turn point about 20 miles east of the city. After the turn I settled the plane down below 200 feet as we charged inbound to the target in the dark and under the clouds. We were still only getting occasional skin paints, but at that low of an altitude over water, we didn't expect they had any idea of exactly where we were.
At about 10-12 miles from our release Shylock stepped us into Attack Mode. Suddenly the sky in front of us lit up with explosions and AAA. We could see tracers all over the city making the clouds light up as if they were on fire. We figured it was the Skipper and his BN LTJG Karcewski making the first run downtown.
The near overcast at 1500 feet amplified the explosions of their bombs and combined with all the AAA, it made the sky above the city glow. This didn't look like a very pleasant place to fly, but at this point we were fully committed and trying to squeeze every last bit of speed out of the Intruder during our dash toward the city.
At 4 miles and less than 30 seconds to go, we started to get AAA tones on the APR-25. I tried to get a little lower, but we were only at 200 feet. There wasn't anywhere to hide at this point. The city was once again dark. Shylock had his head in the scope, and he was busy finding his aimpoints and locating the target.
At about a mile to go he gave me the word to climb to the release altitude of 1500 feet which gave us the time-of-fall we needed to fuse the bombs for this semi-soft target. Through a break in the clouds I had enough starlight to see the rough shape of the city. It was completely still. No one was firing and our headsets were quiet. It was eerie.
That only lasted for a few seconds, and then the world around us erupted. There were tracers of every color going in every direction. There were explosions going off and lighting up the cloud deck slightly above us, and the APR-25 was on fire with strobes and blasting our ears with tones. There was too much to take in, and there was no way of processing the information anyway. Shylock let the system release the weapons, but at the release point he yelled at me to pickle, so we were sure the bombs would leave the plane.
I rolled the plane hard to port and pulled the nose toward the ground, and put on a lot of Gs. After 90 degrees of turn on instruments I rolled wings level, continued to descend, and proceeded south west for a few seconds and then wrapped it up again to port in order to get the nose pointed toward the water. All we had to do now was get the hell out of Dodge as quickly as possible.
We hit feet wet, but stayed low and fast for another 10 miles. At that point we made a transmission that "A-rab 2 is feet wet", and I started slowly climbing to altitude. Similar calls were being made by A-rab 3, 4, 5, and 6.
The rest of the mission was per usual. We marshaled and shot a normal penetration to landing. By this time the Moon had risen, and it was bright and clear over the water in the Gulf. After landing we went to Strike Ops to debrief.
We walked into Strike Ops and all the 'heavies' (senior officers of CAG5) were present. The Skipper was in his debrief, but a couple of the fighter jocks, who had been our BARCAP were standing on the side of the room. One of them reached over and touched my shoulder. I turned to see what he was doing, and he whispered, "I can't believe you flew through that. Above the clouds it looked like the whole city was firing."
We finally got to our turn to debrief. I had calmed myself down, so I could really play the steely-eyed killer with ice water in his veins role. As nonchalantly as I could possibly muster I said something like, "Twenty 82s on the Thermal Power Plant, downtown."
Now in the carriers of that era, messages were sent to various parts of the ship via a vacuum system similar to the type of thing they had in department stores in the '50s and '60s. A canister was opened, a message was rolled up and placed into it, the canister was inserted into the vacuum tube, and whisked-off to another office on the ship.
Well I had no sooner finished my very terse and 'steely-eyed' comment about our mission, when one of those damn vacuum tubes landed about two feet to my right with a loud thump. I leaped out of my skin. I don't know if it was apparent to the rest of the aviators in the room, but as far as I was concerned I had 'blinked', and everyone knew I had been absolutely terrified on our trip 'downtown'.
That, however, wasn't the end of that day of flying for Shylock and me. We had been on the 20:00 go, but we were also scheduled for the 04:00 launch, the third one of the evening. I think we both headed to our racks to see if we could get a little rest before our next round of fun.
Mission #2: Uong Bi Power Plant:
Shylock and I met in the AI spaces about 2:00 to plan our attack and weapon load for our second Linebacker II strike. The target was another thermal power plant, which supplied power outside the city. This one was north of the city nestled in the hills.
The ridge line North of Haiphong went up to 3000 feet in places. The power plant was near the foot of these mountains in canyon with the hills rise sharply on three sides. The only way to approach this target was to run-in from the south within about a 30 degree cone. With the high hills behind it and to the east and the west, from a low-flying aircraft the target would only be visible on radar if you ran it from the south. And based on what our air crews had seen on earlier missions, we expected the entrance to the canyon would be well guarded.
The weapon load we chose for the power plant was again 20 x Mk 82 retards. The only issue with the snakeyes was that our release point would have to be closer to the plant and hence closer to those mountains. But since we were going to have to climb up and over the mountains anyway, I planned on releasing these weapons from a little higher altitude than the ones downtown.
Of course we couldn't plan our target in a vacuum. There were five other aircraft in our launch going to various other parts of the city and the surrounding areas (the same pattern of two, two, and two as the first launch). Shylock and I decide to take ourselves out of the traffic pattern over the city.
Our plan was to coast-in well south of the city and ingress south and west of Haiphong. This route put us over land a little longer than we wanted, but it kept us out of the traffic jam and crossing tracks of the boys working the city. Our plan was to come in from the south and west and turn north into the canyon entrance to the facility, come to a reasonable release altitude, and then pull up and over the mountains to safety.
We briefed in the AI spaces with the other five A-6 crews. The support aircraft, the Whale Jammer, the Ironhand A-7s, and the BARCAP F-4s were all the same as our first mission. All these players were more than willing to support these missions. We manned-up, launched, and proceeded outbound to set up our holding pattern prior to the attack.
The Guard Channel was still going strong with the B-52 raids which were once again hammering Hanoi. The weather might have gotten a little worse in the 6 hours we had been recuperating, and I don't recall we could see any of the festivities around the capital.
On the Flight Leader's cue Shylock and I pushed over and steeled ourselves for the long run-in and the attack. The area to the west and northwest of Haiphong is covered with a lot of low karst ridges which stick-up nearly vertically from the surrounding rice patties. Some of these go up several hundred feet, so you couldn't just arbitrarily fly around at 500 feet above sea level on your pressure altimeter and assume you wouldn't hit something.
I set up the inbound heading and listened for Shylock to call out the radar significant features he had planned to see during ingress. The nice thing about the canyon leading to the power plant was that it was a radar significant break in the mountain range. Shylock locked on to the plant prior to the point at which I had to make our pull-up.
The ECM gear was a lot more active on this run-in than it had been on the first attack. While I think the NVA had expected some sort of attack from the three carriers that were milling around off their coast, they probably didn't have any idea of how intense it was going to be. They probably also didn't realize the major cities were both going to be under heavy bombardment all night. This time the AAA and SAM radars were active on our APR-25 display from the get-go. But since we were west of the city all the strobes were at our 3 o'clock position.
We heard the other A-rabs calling their predefined marks, so they could keep track of each other's progress. We were far enough to the west to not be part of their action unless they really got screwed up. There were, however, some low warbles on the APR-27, so at least one of the Fansong radars site must have been putting out some L-band. We were pretty sure that we were inside their minimum operating range.
At about three miles from the target I started a climb to the release altitude which was something on the order of 2000'. Of course this made us visible all the air defense sites, so the ECM gear went up a few octaves.
Shylock had a solid solution on the target, but between the cloud deck at 1500 feet and the fact that I was heading directly into a hillside at 3000', there wasn't much for me to see out my side of the cockpit. At the release point Shylock once again gave me a verbal pickle, but before I squeezed I felt the bombs being ejected from the plane.
At that point I was cleared to 'escape and evade' and to climb over the ridgeline, which I knew was right in front of us. I rammed the throttles forward and got the nose up immediately. I just wanted to makes sure we cleared the mountains.
Once I knew we had reached a safe altitude, I leveled off and bent it around to starboard. When we had passed the ridgeline there was high country for about 10 miles, here I could settle down a little and put the ridgeline between us and the city.
We headed east like a scalded ape, but when we reached the bay at Hon Gay I pulled the plane around to the south and set up a gradual descent to feet wet and safety well east of Haiphong Harbor.
The only interesting thing on the recovery was having a plane, evidently from another carrier, cross from port to starboard in front of us during our approach. It was a bright moonlit night over the Gulf with very little wind. Each of the carriers was recovering planes, and with no wind the carriers were charging around at 30 knots trying to get enough wind across the deck to land their planes.
I was doing a CCA following the controllers on MIDWAY, and they announced I would have traffic left to right at about a mile and a half at the same altitude. There I saw another A-6 in landing configuration heading inbound to another carrier which was steaming about 90 degrees from our heading. All I could do was to hope the carrier patterns had been choreographed as well as our attacks.
When we finally debriefed with Strike Ops and returned to the Ready Five, it was morning. I think I was pretty cranked up and couldn't imagine going to sleep. There were a whole group of guys in the Ready Room discussing some of the events of the night. I also learned that Mondo and LTJG "Arlo" Clark, his BN, had been taken by helo over to the ENTERPRISE (flagship) to 'talk to' the Admiral.
Mondo had been on the second launch, the mid-night go. He and Arlo had also gone downtown, but their target was Shipyard Number 4. As it turned out there was a Polish freighter (a so-called 'neutral' ship) tied up somewhere near Shipyard Number 4. And . . . somehow a bomb had hit the Polish freighter. Too bad!
I think at the time I really took this as. 'Oh well', but evidently the Admiral was being 'leaned on' to determine who had done this dastardly deed. Since each of the three ships had sent two crews downtown on that launch, it looked like there were six crews who would be getting the third degree.
By the time Mondo got back from the debrief on the ENTERPRISE, the results of my adrenaline rush had hit me, and I was catatonic. We never really discussed the Polish freighter incident in any detail. Mondo claimed that he had not actively targeted the ship, but he also never denied the fact that it was his bombs that hit the SOB. I think the Admiral was able to cover his track by talking to all six crews, so at least on Yankee Station this became 'old news'.
At our level this change of plan to accommodate Linebacker II how long we would be involved in bombing in the campaign. Mondo and I were concerned for our wives, who were in route to Singapore. When we hit our racks on the morning of the 19th, the ship wasn't preparing to head south.
Most of us came tottering back to Ready 5 in the late afternoon to see what sort of fun we were going to have the evening of the 19th and the morning of the 20th. The same pattern of 3 ships, 3 launches, and 6 planes per launch was the plan, and the target area was the same, so much for the element of surprise. This, however, was going to be our last day on the line, so following the close of flight ops; MIDWAY was finally going to be heading to Singapore.
We also learned that despite the heavy defense of the first night none of our aircraft had been hit. That wasn't, however, the case on the other carriers. One A-6 had been bagged and at least one had been hit. Unfortunately, no one was sure exactly where the aircraft that had been hit actually crashed.
One of the bad things about flying in the weeds is that no one, not even the friendlies knew where you were. The Squadron knew the planned track of the aircraft, but other than that the only other facts were the names of the crew. I believe the pilot on the downed aircraft was CDR Nakagowa, the Executive Officer of VA-196 on ENTERPRISE.
None of us had a lot of time to ponder the significance of the history we were making. I think there was a general sense that this effort, if sustained, would end the war, but all we could do was plan our next mission and figure out how we could stay alive through another one of these episodes.
Mission #3:Haiphong Thermal Power Plant (redux):
Shylock and I had been assigned to the midnight go, 12:00 AM target time. Our target was a SAM site somewhere north and west of the city. While a real SAM site would be a worthwhile target, the mobile sites were difficult to target. By redeploying the SAMs on a regular basis the NVA preserved their longevity and made it much harder for us to plan our attacks to neutralize this threat.
For this target Shylock suggested that we use 20 Mk 20 Rockeyes. A portable SAM site was a soft, area target consisting of a radar van, several missile launchers, spare missiles, and most likely a generator. The NVA camouflaged and spread these components out so there wasn't a distinctive pattern on the ground (something which could be easily spotted in a recce photo).
We had never carried that many Rockeyes, but we figured we might be able to do some serious SAM-hunting with this load. The Rockeyes were white rather than olive drab like the Mk-82s,and they had a blunt nose making the bomb look a lot like a cigar tube with four stubby fins on the rear end. The bomblets were deployed from the canister by a cutting charge that fired and spit the case of the weapon after separation from the aircraft. The result was the release of a cloud of bomblets from each weapon. (The deployment of the weapon would become very critical later in the evening.)
There were several fusing options with the weapon, but the shortest option assured the largest footprint. Since we were going to deliver these from a low altitude, level attack (a lay down) Shylock decided to use the short fuse option. With the uncertainty of the SAM's location, this would allow the Rocks to cover as much of the target area as possible.
The AI Briefing was more 'business as usual' now. The Skipper was once again the senior officer on the flight. By this time all the crews in the squadron had made at least one run during the Linebacker II Campaign, so we knew what to expect. There was no reason to look at all the pins that represented the air defenses in the area, because Haiphong was just one massive pincushion at this point.
The critical factor was getting the choreography laid out and setting up a few voice calls so everyone could follow the progress of each of the other aircraft in the flight. Shylock and I left the briefing with the confidence that our target wasn't going to be nearly as difficult as our first two strikes. Of course we still had to get to the target, and that entailed overflying a lot of AAA sites. And while they might not be able to track you on radar, they could certainly shoot straight in the air and hope you would fly through their barrage.
Just as we were completing the pre-flight check of the plane Stan Karcewski came to our aircraft to inform us that he and the Skipper's plane had gone down for maintenance, and they wouldn't be launching. This didn't really affect us much, because the Skipper was going downtown to the Haiphong Thermal Power Plant, the target we had hit on the first strike of the campaign. Our target was a good ten miles west of downtown.
At this point I saw Shylock's 'wheels turning'. He had been grousing about the SAM site target being a waste of a mission. Shylock looked at me with a big 'grin' and suggested that we 'take our Rocks downtown'. We knew everyone's flight path and the timing, so it looked like we could just fly the Skipper's plan and make the required voice calls at the predefined times.
After we got airborne we made some cryptic radio calls to the other A-rabs letting them know our change of plan. The Skipper had planned his mission in similar manner as his 1st run of the night before, a south to north approach. The run-in from the south was shorter, and it would allow us to turn hard to starboard at release and egress over the flat tidal flats to the east and south of the city. This area was devoid of any of those pesky karst ridges that could ruin your day. This would allow us to use the tactic that worked best for the A-6, i.e. getting into the weeds and hiding!
The new mission moved us up in the batting order, so we were scheduled to make one of the first attacks of the 12:00 AM go. Unlike the night before, when there had been at least a semblance of surprise, the NVA was very familiar with the drill at this point. They had already weathered the 18 planes of the first launch of that evening, and they knew exactly what to expect for the midnight attack.
We made our transmission on the radio, departed our holding pattern off the coast, and descended on a heading that looked like we would be going west and south of the city. A dog-leg run was about the only thing we could do to try and confuse them regarding our intentions. I pushed up the throttles to get to attack speed during the descent. The ECM equipment was all working, and it looked like everyone in the vicinity of Haiphong was already tracking us.
The cacophony on the APR-25 quickly turned to white noise and was just making it harder to hear the Shylock's comments. With its small 2" display one bright luminous bloom, it ceased to be of any use. Furthermore, at 500+ knots and under 500 feet, there aren't a lot of additional maneuvers we could make anyway.
When we leveled-off at around 500 feet in the descent, I executed my 'attack maneuver', the dog-leg turn 30 degrees to the starboard. Shylock got his head into the scope trying to pick-up the distinctive radar signatures of the river patterns in downtown Haiphong. Unlike the endless attacks on marginal targets in the countryside, going against these radar significant targets was what the A-6 did best.
The weather on the second night was about the same as the first. The clouds over the city were a little less dense, and it was clear underneath. At about three miles out Shylock cleared me to climb to release altitude. We needed about 1200 feet to get the Rocks off the plane and deployed. Shylock had configured the release to be as close to a salvo (all released at one time) as we could get. This would give us the maximum number of bomblets on the target.
Unlike the night before, when it took the defenses a few moments to figure out what was happening, the AAA sites had already started firing all over the city well before our arrival. I don't think they knew when and from where we were coming, but they knew one way or the other aircraft were going to be overflying the city. And since this strategy had worked at least once the night before, when they had downed an A-6, everyone had probably been ordered to shoot straight in the air.
When I reached the top of the pop-up, I could see tracers in all directions. You don't have a lot of time to dwell on what and from where they are firing, but there were definitely a lot of different colors indicating a wide array of AAA. The firing, however, was all over the place. I don't think they had any idea where we actually were at this point.
Shylock gave me the manual pickle call as the system started releasing the weapons. The release was short, but I had to maintain level flight as the weapons came off to insure the best pattern on the ground.
Along the river off our starboard side I had noticed some tracer 'hoses'. Unlike the 37 and 57mm rounds where there was some finite distance between successive shells, I knew this firing was from the deadly ZSU-23mm. The sites firing on us were probably aboard patrol boats which had been brought into the city to augment the air defenses. These guys appeared to be turning their fire in our direction. With each vessel spitting out 4" long projectiles at such a high rate chances are you wouldn't be hit by just one bullet.
I then realized what had happened. When we had popped, the sites had no idea where we were. Then the Rockeyes started coming off the plane and firing their cutting charges for bomblet deployment. The cutting charges produced a flash, and with twenty of these things going off, we had created a track through the sky that every damn site in the city could see. This had pinpointed where we were and given the bad guys some idea of where we were going.
This whole thought process and my evasive strategy took no more than a blink of the eye. We were at about 1000 feet, so there weren't a lot of options. I needed to get us back into the weeds, and I needed to change heading to avoid the converging fire. I rolled the A-6 to about 120 degrees and put on a lot of Gs. At this point we were light-loaded, so the aircraft responded well. Out of the right side of the canopy I could see that we were overflying several gunboats along the river who were firing in different directions trying to find us with their guns.
Once the nose was coming down I relaxed the Gs and started rolling the aircraft level. It was murky and black ahead, so I got on the instruments. We were still in a gradual descent, so I let the plane continue to settle on the outbound heading. The primary instrument in my scan at this point was the radar altimeter. I leveled off with it pegging at 100'.
We had entered some low hanging ground fog, so there was nothing but black out the front of the cockpit. The airspeed indicator showed us going 585, which is probably the fastest I had ever been in level flight in an A-6. At this point the warning displays had started to relax, and I was head-in-the-cockpit on the gauges.
The pressure altimeter was reading somewhere around '99,990' feet, a negative altitude? We were flying in the regime where the pitot-static instruments ceased to function properly. At very high speeds the airflow around the aircraft distorts the altimeter reading. The radar altimeter was rock-solid at 100 feet, and we weren't hitting anything, so I just continued on the outbound leg.
In less than 2 minutes we were feet wet, and switched to MIDWAY approach. Marshalling and the recovery were uneventful. We got enough time in the holding pattern to let our hearts settle down prior to the night landing. It was clear and moonlit over the gulf, the same as it had been the night before. Although it was a night landing, we could almost see better than during some of the day landings, we had made in rainstorms.
I don't recall that we spent a lot of time debriefing the mission. We just reported to Strike Ops that we had taken our Rockeyes downtown, and no one made any comments about that decision. I think Shylock and I were both still in shock from our little affair with the Rockeye cutting charges, so we just hit the rack.
The 4:00 launch and recovery went as planned. We didn't lose any aircraft, and we had also learned that finally MIDWAY was being relieved and would be heading to Singapore as planned.
Post Script for the first two nights of Linebacker II – Finally Singapore:
We had missed the first two days of our R&R period, but we had been given the chance to finally take the gloves off. I think we all knew this is what should have been done years before.
In Singapore the ship anchored out, and Mondo and I took one of the earliest shore boats to the dock. There we met the girls. Dianne and Wendy had learned when the MIDWAY would be arriving, so they were prepared.
When they had left Hawaii, Captain McCormick, Mondo's father, had learned that the MIDWAY was not going to be in Singapore as planned. When the girls got to Hong Kong, Wendy had telephoned the Captain, and he told them to 'keep going'. Captain McCormick had checked with friends on the staff at CINPACFLT[1], and he had learned the plan for the MIDWAY. Fortunately, Dianne and Wendy were two strong women, and although Dianne was pregnant, they were committed to this visit.
Although it was cut short by a few days, the R&R in Singapore was bliss. We did Singapore in style, mostly spent time with each other, and I could forget about the war. At the back of my mind the thought never left, that I was going to have to leaver her and go back to putting my life on the line. The Squadron had set up an admin (A hospitality suite in one of the major hotels. From here we could get information on any change of plans for the ship or the Squadron) so there really wasn't any reason for us to return to the ship during the period. It was here that I also learned that I had been scheduled to stand the Squadron Duty Officer Watch aboard MIDWAY during our final day in port. This really pissed me off; not only had the in-port period and our R&R been cut short, but then I was going to miss the last day ashore.
It was at this point that I elected disobey a direct order (the Squadron's Plan of the Day) for the first and last time in my Navy career. I decided to ignore the fact that I had learned I had the watch and say to hell with them. Somehow VA-115 and the MIDWAY could get along for at least one day without Snake. I figured I would just take the consequences, whatever they were. And what could the Navy really do? Send me back to Vietnam to get shot at? Oh, but that was what they were going to do, anyway!


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France's Marine Le Pen refuses to wear head scarf, cancels meet with Lebanon's Grand mufti
Beirut, Feb 21: Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen cancelled a meeting with Lebanon's Grand Mufti on Tuesday after refusing to wear a headscarf.
"You can pass on my respects to the Grand Mufti, but I will not cover myself up," Le Pen told reporters.
"I have met before with Grand Imam Sheikh al-Azhar in Egypt without wearing a veil," the 48-year-old leader of the National Front party.
Le Pen was told by Lebanese officials that she would have to wear a veil for her audience with Grand Sunni Muslim Mufti, Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian, the Independent reported.
Video footage showed Le Pen at the entrance to his office shaking her head.
Le Pen said she had met in the past with the grand mufti of Egypt's Al-Azhar, one of the world's top Sunni clerics, without wearing a veil.
"He did not have this demand," said Le Pen. "But it's not a problem, you can pass on to the Grand Mufti my considerations, but I am not putting the veil on."
Once told that customs were different in Lebanon, Le Pen walked out of the building and left in her car, according to the report.
Her aides had reportedly been informed before her visit that she would be required to wear a headscarf.
Praising the "political gesture", Florian Philippot, one Le Pen's closest aides, said it was "a beautiful message of emancipation and freedom sent to the women of France and the world", reported the Daily Mail.
The anti-immigration politician made a three-day visit to Lebanon this week to meet officials in an effort to bolster her presidential credentials two months before the first round of voting in the French presidential election.
Polls suggest that Le Pen is expected to win the first round of voting in presidential elections in April.
The latest poll on Monday, according to reports, showed support for the far-right candidate had risen by one per cent to 27 per cent.


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Popularized by the hit television show, the phrase "breaking bad" is defined in urban slang as someone who challenges convention, defies authority, or rejects moral and social norms. Running from 2008 to 2013 on AMC, Breaking Bad featured one of the most unforgettable characters in television history: Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher, husband, and father, who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. For five seasons, fans watched as Walter White tried to secure financial security for his family by using his chemistry skills to manufacture drugs. Throughout the series' run, Walter White was the epitome of the phrase "breaking bad", as he broke the law and continually rejected the social mores that he had dutifully followed until his cancer diagnosis.Taking its cue from Walter White, this volume explores the various ways in which artists, patrons, and art historians throughout history have broken bad by defying authority, challenging convention, or rejecting the norm. For example, artists also sometimes break away from tradition by using unconventional iconography, as is the case in Chapter Two, which investigates how Etruscan tomb reliefs show mourning rather than celebration. The book also includes a chapter in which an art historian breaks bad by challenging the conventional interpretation and date of an object, thus eschewing tradition and defying authority. In this case, Chapter Three disputes the largely accepted Hellenistic date and interpretation of the Tazza Farnese, and instead asserts that the cameo must be Roman.Spanning the art of ancient Etruria to the twentieth century, the eight chapters here explore the theme of breaking bad from a variety of time periods and artistic media, from Etruscan mirrors and Roman cameos to Baroque portraits and Italian Pop Art. Scholars approach the topic of breaking bad from a number of perspectives, including examining the artist, patronage, reception, propaganda, iconography, methodology, and use.
Julia C. Fischer is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Lamar University, USA. She received a BA Classics in Art History from Loyola University Chicago, an MA in Classical Archaeology from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a PhD in art history from the Ohio State University, USA. Dr Fischer's research focuses on the iconography, reception, and propaganda of Roman Imperial cameos. She is currently working on Private Propaganda: The Large Imperial Cameos of the Early Roman Empire.