text:
What can I tell you?
I have fallen. Hard.
In an awkward conversation about jealousy (I won't bore you with the details), a friend recently said to me, "I think you should keep writing songs." How frustrating. How simple. How frustratingly simple.
How comforting!
I'm not sure what changed in my spirit when I read those words, but I felt as if a pile of dynamite was ignited in my soul. Suddenly, everything is alive.
And it is finding its place in my life again, the daily desire to simply pick up my guitar, to sing something–anything, to work on a new picking method, to clean my guitar, to write a song. All of these things are drawing me, day after day.
There is so much unfinished business. I have a binder of unfinished business on my bookshelf. It is disheveled and not worth much, I'm sure–but I find myself determined to go back and piece them together. There are songs there, on the random papers of my past.
And there are songs in the present. There are songs about new friends, old friends, changes in life, hugs…there are songs written, and songs to be written. I can't get enough of it.
It's a songwriting feast. I haven't written like this in years. I thought…I thought it was gone. I thought I had lost "it." I thought after my enormous life (and faith) blunders that God had taken my love, my passion, my calling (if that's what you want to call it) and given it to someone more worthy.
The truth is, none of us are worthy. God doesn't bless us because we are good, or because we deserve it. He blesses us because it is in His nature to do so–because He cherishes us, and He knows how to delight us. His delight is in us, and when we are delighted, I believe it delights Him. Just like a lover, who brings a daisy to his beloved, simply because he knows it will make her smile and exclaim at its beauty. Music is the daisy God gives me.
God is not slow with us. Sometimes we think that we've forfeited His blessings, His gifts. I'm not sure if that's even possible, folks. I don't know. Perhaps all this time, God has been bringing me daisies, and I've been simply too preoccupied to notice (or care). Or maybe He allows me a time without daisies so that I will remember the delight of them, and not simply fall into a routine of saying, "Oh, how lovely."
What I do know is that He gives us our passions and talents for a reason. And He brings them to life if we will stop avoiding them.
How about you? What are you avoiding?


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text: "The U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced today that it will begin taking steps to enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology for light vehicles. This technology would improve safety by allowing vehicles to "talk" to each other and ultimately avoid many crashes altogether by exchanging basic safety data, such as speed and position, ten times per second. "Vehicle-to-vehicle technology represents the next generation of auto safety improvements, building on the life-saving achievements we've already seen with safety belts and air bags," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. "By helping drivers avoid crashes, this technology will play a key role in improving the way people get where they need to go while ensuring that the U.S. remains the leader in the global automotive industry." DOT research indicates that safety applications using V2V technology can address a large majority of crashes involving two or more motor vehicles. With safety data such as speed and location flowing from nearby vehicles, vehicles can identify risks and provide drivers with warnings to avoid other vehicles in common crash types such as rear-end, lane change, and intersection crashes. These safety applications have been demonstrated with everyday drivers under both real-world and controlled test conditions. The safety applications currently being developed provide warnings to drivers so that they can prevent imminent collisions, but do not automatically operate any vehicle systems, such as braking or steering. NHTSA is also considering future actions on active safety technologies that rely on on-board sensors. Those technologies are eventually expected to blend with the V2V technology. NHTSA issued an Interim Statement of Policy in 2013 explaining its approach to these various streams of innovation. In addition to enhancing safety, these future applications and technologies could help drivers to conserve fuel and save time."


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The Hood River Yacht Club is preparing not only for the current season, but for next year and beyond, says HRYC Commodore Doug Archbald.
The club is hoping to bring the Junior Sailing program, run by Andy and Jamie Mack, into the club as a 501(c)(3). "There are still many questions to be answered relative to making this change, but it is a change we are all very excited about," says Archbald.
"My feeling personally is that bringing junior sailing into the club represents an amazing opportunity to grow the club through family participation, and to support and promote the sport we love for the youth of the Gorge."
Another new program in the works is establishing reciprocal privileges with other yacht clubs. Archbald says the club has an agreement with the port on how the program will work and are now starting to put together letters of invitation to various yacht clubs.
"We have drafted a reciprocity policy and letter with which to establish contact with other clubs," says Archbald. "The program will provide a dedicated amount of annual funds to pay for reciprocal moorage on the marina guest docks."
But for this year, the club will hold community sailing, junior and adult learn-to-sail classes, all of which are run through Community Ed. Some of the adult lessons will be on smaller boats, and some will be run with volunteer skippers on bigger boats.
And HRYC plans to implement a new crew circle at the marina during its Wednesday night races, says Archbald. The idea is to give interested persons a chance to actively participate in sailing, to "get wet and go fast and have a job to do," he says. "This isn't pleasure sailing; Wednesday night sailing is for people who want to experience what racing is like."
Two events HRYC members are really looking forward to are Opening Day on April 28, where the public is invited to decorate a watercraft of any kind — from boat to stand-up paddle board — in a luau theme and join in on the opening parade and following luau and pig roast.
The other is the Double Damned race from Cascade Locks to The Dalles on Aug. 11. This is the race's fifth year, and it has gained regional notoriety, says Archbald. This year, OPB's Oregon Field Guide will be filming a piece about the race, complete with high-definition video and narration.
Other events scheduled for 2012 are:
April 18-June 7 — Spring Sunset Race Series, eight consecutive Wednesdays
April 28 — Opening Day, luau/pig roast
June 13-Aug. 1 — Summer Sunset Race Series, eight consecutive Wednesdays
July 4 — Wednesday Night Special Race TBD
July 8-9 — Red D! Race to Cascade Locks Saturday, overnight, race back to Hood River Sunday
Aug. 8-Sept. 26 — Fall Sunset Race Series, eight consecutive Wednesdays
Aug. 11 — Double Damned, Cascade Locks to The Dalles
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text:
The Chicago Fire Soccer Club announced today that the club has waived rookie midfielder Davis Paul.
"We want to thank Davis for his contributions to the Chicago Fire and wish him the best of luck in his next venture," said Fire Technical Director and Interim Head Coach Frank Klopas.
Paul was the 15th selection in third round (51st overall) of the 2011 MLS SuperDraft. The Upland, California product appeared in one match during his tenure with the Men in Red, playing 45 minutes against the LA Galaxy April 17.
Player: Davis Paul
Position: Forward
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 145 lbs.
Born: October 12, 1988
Place of Birth: San Diego, CA
Hometown: Upland, CA
Citizenship: United States
College: University of California
How departed: Waived by the Fire on June 29,2011


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His show and the Magic School Bus were my two favorite shows for a long time when I was a kid!! They were both educational and awesome!!
So he's saying:
Evolution is the main idea of biology, and biology is a science.
If you don't believe in evolution, you don't believe in science.
If you don't believe in science, you're holding everybody back.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that going from an extremely broad, general thing to a very specific thing? I mean, evolution is a part of biology, but to say disbelief in evolution means you don't believe in all science is a pretty bold statement isn't it? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "If you don't believe in evolution, you don't believe in a science"? In which case, how are you actually holding anyone back? I see the ellipsis so I'm assuming there's more that is said, but as it stands this argument goes from specific to general very fast, without much behind it.
Granted my limited understanding of science doesn't make me an authority on it by any means, it just doesn't seem that not believing in evolution could really cause that significant an obstacle.
In order to keep from being made fun of, please read
Stephanie, I make my judgements on him based on watching him on Larry King twice during debates on UFOs and other subjects. I will post youtube videos and post them.
And TSmith: Rejecting evolution is rejecting science. Evolution is a fact and is not only demonstrated through fossil finds but by the DNA markers of A-T-G-C related throughout the animal kingdom. It is amazing how closely the DNA markets for chimpanzees and bonobos are to modern humans. The DNA markers in itself has provided indisputable evidence of evolution.
I have found one of the Larry King shows I saw him on which made me think he is quite irrational....but I have to still find the video in which he was defending religion. Be patient with me!!
His religious beliefs were from other videos I have seen from him. I haven't had time to find them yet. I just wanted to post those because I found them very quickly and I remembered I had watched him on that Larry King show. Even when it comes to the videos I did post, I posted them simply for the reason I found him to be a very naive character in that he was speaking for things he had no clue about. Not for his viewpoint as I myself can't say for certainty or even probability that UFO's have visited earth or not. My only point in posting those videos is that Bill Nye is not an A-class scientist. I don't consider him to be a top scientist. I will find the other videos I mentioned (his religious beliefs) and post them when I find them. Saying this, maybe Bill Nye has changed and matured from before since watching his new videos, he seems to have truly changed by his demeanor and tone of talk.


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Reviewed by Xavier V. (age 11)
I thought it was a great mystery book. It was a god book because it was scary and it had a shocking ending. My favorite part was when they snuck into his house and spray painted all over his wall. There was a character who changed his name was Spencer. He went from shy and fat to skinny and brave. My favorite character was Lenny because he was brave and everyone feared him because he was intimidating.
This book reminds me of Hit and Run another book by R.L. Stine. It is like it because they both have shocking endings. I recommend this book to readers who can focus well because it jumps from time to time. Fourth through seventh graders would probably be the most interested in this book.


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Ron Johnson, the new Chairman and CEO of J.C. Penney had an epiphany when he worked for Steve Jobs at Apple. He was planning the first Apple store, according to Walter Isaacson's chronicle of Steve Jobs (2011, Simon & Schuster 630pp), when he suddenly woke up to the fact that he did not want to sell Apple products arranged by classifications, but rather by lifestyle.
That is a clue to what is happening now in J.C. Penney stores. They will, in the next few years, transform into lifestyle stores. And they will appeal to a younger customer who lives in a different world than the traditional J.C. Penney customer. That's quite a transformation that is being planned for the stores. They look different already, since on February 1st the promotional needle was suddenly yanked from the stores, and they now look cleaner, neater and very orderly. Departments have been realigned and clearly identified with colored columns and good displays. Customers are sparse, since there are few incentives to shop in the stores.
The fair and square pricing, that the company has embarked on is based on three concepts. Everyday prices are attached to the products that will be sold at "great prices" every day. Month long values can be found on products for a single month – and they are often marked with regular price tags on a special promotional rack and best prices, which are put on sale every 1st and 3rd Friday at sharp markdowns – usually merchandise from prior selling periods.
All of this is revolutionary. The industry is watching to see whether it works, and so far, the customer is confused and the traffic is minimal in the stores, suggesting that at the current rate it will take a herculean effort to convince the customer that the products are at sharp prices, are timed right and are wanted.
It is revolutionary since it would set a new tone to retailing. Retail managers of various stores have assured me that their promotional activity has not increased in recent years. This is the first genuine decrease of promotions and it would be great if the customer would respond to it. Macy's, J.C. Penney's arch competitor in addition to Kohl's, 4 weeks after the new fair and square pricing went into effect came out with a mailer they called "everyday value", great prices you can count on every day, only at Macy's. However, the week after that promotion, Macy's was back with one of their hard hitting "one day sales (which runs for two days).
The shopping malls need customer traffic that is generated by anchor stores. Sears has let the malls down, since their momentum has decelerated for several years due to their misguided emphasis on hardlines and their selling their key brands through other outlets such as Home Depot or Costco. The sudden deceleration of customer visits in J.C. Penney stores is costly to the stores in the vicinity of J.C. Penney. The customer is shifting their shopping pattern.
Earlier we said that Ron Johnson is a revolutionary. He has a vision that his stores will have 100 boutiques and a town center that will attract a new, young, affluent customer. He has invited vendors to participate, and he will create special boutiques for them in the next year. He has streamlined the organization in order to reduce the cost of operation. By streamlining the buying organization and appointing a single general merchandise manager and reducing the number of associates who constantly remark merchandise, he hopes to reduce the operating costs of the company. I wish him all the success in the world, since the industry needs new leadership and new vision. It will take a lot of creativity, time and investors' patience.
The company announced it will issue an earnings release for the first fiscal quarter of 2012 on May 15, 2012 at 4.00 pm.
JCP Closed on Wednesday April 25, 2012 at $35.66 52 week high $43.18; 52 week low $23.44
See Also:
Best Buy: Dunn Is Done. Is The Retailer Doomer, Too?


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|EVGA GeForce GTX560Ti FTW 448-Core
|Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards
|Written by Hank Tolman
|Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Page 1 of 12
EVGA GeForce GTX560Ti FTW 448-Cores ReviewManufacturer: EVGA
Product Name: EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores FTW
Model Number: 012-P3-2066
Price As Tested: $289.99 (Newegg)
Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by EVGA.
This holiday season is gearing up to be a big one for computer gamers. A lot of big titles have been or will soon be released. Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Modern Warfare 3, and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim are a few. Diablo 3 is expected early in 2012 as well. While this is great news for gamers, we don't have any expected releases of new GPU platforms. That's not terribly disheartening, as the current top-of-the-line GPUs will play even the most demanding of these titles. The problem is, those top end GPUs also cost an arm and a leg. NVIDIA is setting out to combat this problem for the holiday season 2011 by releasing a new and improved version of the GTX 560 Ti, the GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores. In this article, Benchmark Reviews is bringing you details on the EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores FTW.
When the GTX 560 Ti Video Card was released in January 2011, it improved upon the existing architecture of the GF104 GPU. The GTX 460 was the first video card that sported the GF104, but it only used 7 Streaming Multiprocessors and sported only 336 CUDA Cores. Still, in its day, the GTX 460 was quite formidable. When the GTX 560 Ti came out, it used the GF114 GPU, identical to the GF104 but with the full 8 streaming processors enabled and an upped CUDA Core count of 384. The GTX 560 Ti boosted graphics performance significantly, beating out the AMD HD 6870 and coming extremely close to the performance of the Radeon HD 5870, even edging it out in some benchmarks. With no new architecture arriving for the 2011 Holiday Season, NVIDIA is revamping the GTX 560 Ti by boosting the number of CUDA Cores.
In the current NVIDIA GPU structure, the GTX 560 Ti takes the place of the GTX 470 and fits nicely between the GTX 460 and GTX 570. That being said, there is still quite a gap between the GTX 560 Ti and the GTX 570. Bumping up the CUDA Cores to 448 as opposed to 384 should improve performance to the point where the GTX 560 Ti 448 sits in that gap. In fact, a lot of the specifications of the GTX 560 Ti start to look a little more like the GTX 570. The Streaming Multiprocessor count, of course, remains the same at 8 since the GTX 560 Ti 448 is still built off the GF114 GPU. As I mentioned before, the CUDA Core count is increased on the GTX 560 Ti 448 from 384 to, obviously, 448. This number matches the number of CUDA Cores found on the GTX 470. The GTX 470, however, has 14 Streaming Multiprocessors from which the Cores come, for 32 Cores per SM.
With only 8 Streaming Multiprocessors, the GTX 560 Ti 448 touts 56 Cores per SM. Video RAM size is increased on the GTX 560 Ti 448 as well, up to 1280MB from 1024MB. With the increase in memory and CUDA Core amounts, however, comes a decrease in clock speed that now matches the GTX 570. The Graphics clock speed on the GTX 560 Ti 448 is 732MHz and the Processor clock speed is double that at 1464MHz. This is down a little from the 822/1644MHz speeds on the original GTX 560 Ti. The Memory clock on the GTX 560 Ti 448 is knocked down to a 950MHz clock rate and 3800MHz data rate from the 1001/4008MHz speeds on the original GTX 560 Ti.
With the current specifications of the GTX 560 Ti 448 sitting right between the GTX 560 Ti and the GTX 570, it only makes sense that the price would as well. The GTX 560 Ti 448 is set to be released with an MSRP of $289. GTX 560 Ti Video Cards are averaging around $249 right now and GTX 570 cards are around $329. This puts the GTX 560 Ti 448 right in the middle. The real question is, will its performance occupy that same slot? Let's move along and take a closer look at the GTX 560 Ti 448.
It may be better to just swallow the $30 or so dollars and pay up for a 570. On the plus side, this will probably force retailers to offer people a reason to buy a 570, so it may actually bring the 570 and AMD's 6950 down in price a bit.
The reason why I asked was because a friend of mine is looking for a replacement GPU for his old HD 4870. I'm at a bit of a conflict on what advice to give him. A 580 or 6970 is probably out of his budget, barring a major Christmas discount.
I myself own the 560TI Hawk, and if I were to get a card today, it'd be another one.
The other variable is that the new generation of cards is around the corner, which makes things a bit more debatable. I told him to see if he could get a good Christmas deal - else, wait it out if he could.
Link for bit-tech review:
Image of nVidia roadmap:
This card freakin ROCKS!! i put it in a kinda old system that was getting a best score of 7706 from 3DMark06 to a 10110 score with only one of these cards compared to my old SLi set up!
mine currently OCs to a very stable 950 core 1900 shader and 2010 memory speed and stayed below 55 deg Cel with fans @ 60% durring 3DMark06 benchmark.
Cant wait to see my score once i get a 2nd card in SLi and my new Asus MoBo and i5 2500k CPU in a couple weeks! i will post on here and give an update once i do.


text:
History shows that the team that is able to hoist the Barclays Premier League trophy at the end of each season is the team that has a potent goalscorer.
Robin van Persie for Manchester United last season, Sergio Aguero the year before for Manchester City, Didier Drogba during Chelsea's successful period, and of course Thierry
Henry for the Arsenal 'Invincibles'.
Even a much maligned Dimitar Berbatov took home the Premier League Golden Boot when Manchester United took the title in the 2010/11 season.
Unfortunately for Chelsea, since the departure of Drogba, they have been unable to find a consistent striker that they are able to rely on.
"Every time I've seen them it's like they are a man down before they've started the game," Jamie Carragher is quoted by FourFourTwo, after commenting about their striking problems.
"No matter how many players you've got, if you haven't got a centre forward a lot of it [your play] falls down."
They tried by splashing £50million pounds on Fernando Torres, but the boy from sunny Spain has been unable to repay the faith that Chelsea had in him, netting just 36 goals in 139 appearances thus far.
Perhaps more alarmingly is the fact that only 15 of those goals were scored in Premier League fixtures, having made 87 appearances.
Compare that to his Liverpool days where he netted 65 goals from 102 Premier League matches.
Then they tried former Newcastle striker Demba Ba, who was a prolific scorer during his time at St James Park. However, just like Torres, Ba has only netted two goals for the Blues in 14 League appearances.
With both on lucrative contracts, Mourinho added Samuel Eto'o to his team, however the former Barcelona and Inter Milan forward has struggled to receive any substantial game time, similar to young German forward, Andre Schurrle, who has failed to bulge the old onion bag since his summer arrival at Stamford Bridge.
Schurrle was able to score a hat-trick for his country against Sweden during the international break, so Chelsea fans will be hoping that perhaps he can become a reliable scorer in the future.
Either way, if Chelsea want to live up to their own high expectations and reclaim the Premier League title in 2014, they must find a reliable striker.
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Its Joe night, and all I can say is Im glad Joe Schmo is over; otherwise it would just be too hard to keep track of whats what. Anyway, after a two episode Joe Millionaire mini-marathon, its time for the second installment of Average Joe, the reality dating show that seeks to answer the question of whether beauty queen Melana Scantlin can find the man of her dreams within the nightmare of flesh and bone that awaits her. Im here to give you a male point of view on the Average Joe concept, and as an Average Joe myself, Im more than qualified to reflect on this subject.
First, I want you to understand my take on this show. I dont buy the basic premise, which seems to be that Melana cant have it all, she must choose between strikingly handsome and good personality because men with both qualities dont exist. You only have to look as far back as NBCs For Love or Money 2 to find evidence to the contrary. How would either Wade or Vic compare to any of these men? From what I saw last week, Melana would be smart to leave this desert wasteland, find either one of these two men, and stalk them until she has a ring on her finger.
My theory is that people judge potential mates on a sliding scale that Ive narrowed down to five categories looks, personality, wealth or prospects for wealth, intelligence, and intangibles. Most people match up with someone whos in their looks category. Sometimes, there is a 2-3 point swing, but other qualities must make up the difference.
As the episode begins, last weeks bootees say goodbye. John is broken up because its like his best friends (of two days) are leaving. Unlike most manly men, John has no problem showing his sensitive side, as we are going to see more than once this episode.
Tony alerts them that Melana is coming over, and recommends they tidy up the house, which has turned into quite a pigsty. Apparently our Average Joes are below average housekeepers. Next, they head to the lawn. Melana bounces onto the lawn ready for football, complete with her crop-top style KC Chiefs jersey. Im pretty sure the guys are all thinking how theyd love to play a game of touch (football, of course). The guys show off their blocking skills and their touchdown dances, then have a friendly scrimmage. All I see is a pile of bodies, with the ball holder at the bottom. Is that Craig or Joe diving on to the top of the pile? Ouch! When I was a kid, they used to call this game Smear the Queer. I wonder what they call it now? The football game is over and its time for Tony to leave. Melana gives him a goodbye hug. Is it my imagination, or does Melana whisper that Tony should call her later for some full-contact activity?
John is talking about his high school football days, which is an invitation for Zach to pick on him. They exchange words and John asks Zach to leave the show like Zach kept threatening to do before the first elimination ceremony. Zach isnt intimidated. Dennis pulls John away and they go into the kitchen to discuss things. John is quite distraught and is crying for the second time this episode, and were only 10 minutes in! The scene cuts to a Zack confessional where Zach says its a myth to me why John is still here. Okay, that sounded really intelligent. Did you mean its a mystery, or were you lisping? As John and Dennis are talking in the kitchen, I notice a few things. First, the slogan on Johns T-shirt is Question Reality. Wow, hes on a reality show wearing a T-shirt that commands viewers to question reality. After looking at the which ones are actors thread on this forum, I begin to wonder if there is a hidden meaning in Johns textile message. Second, several product logos are blurred out so they cant be identified. A few clicks of my TiVO remote and Ive figured out that these are a six-pack of C*rona beer, and 12-paks of C*ca-C*la and M*untain Dew. Since M*untain Dew and C*ke are competing brand names, it looks to me like they couldnt get a beverage sponsor at all. However, I also notice that the Dixie cups are NOT blurred out. Should Dixie be insulted, or did the Dixie company fork over some product placement cash?
The men gather by the pool, and the lovely, funny Kathy Griffin makes her first appearance this episode, explaining that Melana will take the guys on three group dates. At the end of each, shell pick one guy from the group to share dinner with that evening. She wishes the men good luck and makes her exit while all the men applaud except for Tareq he IS a PhD, and clapping is beneath him!


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Here's a yummy camping treat that I whipped up for our most recent trip to Stone Mountain. If you haven't guessed it yet, I love to marinate fish and cook it up the night we get there after setting up camp. All the legwork is in the marinades and that can be done at home before you even get to the site. So by the time you're ready for dinner; tired from driving and setting up camp, all you need to do is pull out your marinated dinner and grill it up. Easy peasy.
To top it off, this meal is tasty, healthy, and quick to clean up. If you're looking for something a bit different from typical camp food, read on. Here's what you'll need:
For the Fish Tacos:
1/4 Cup of Olive Oil
1 Tbsp of Honey
2 tsp of Cilantro, Chopped
2 tsps of Garlic (2 Cloves), Minced
1/2 Lime, Juiced
A Few Good Shakes of Salt and Pepper
(Approx. 1/8 tsp of Pepper and 1/4 tsp of Salt)
1 Pound of White Fish (I used Mahi Mahi) still frozen
1 Pound of White Fish (I used Mahi Mahi) still frozen
The morning of your trip, mix all of your ingredients into a zip lock bag and add in your frozen fish. Make sure you coat the fish completely and then throw it in your cooler. When you take it out later in the evening it will be thawed cold and marinated, ready for the grill.
Once you're ready to cook up dinner, grab your fish and throw it on the grill. I placed a piece of foil on my camp grill because I wanted to lessen clean up, so that's what you're seeing in the pictures. Here's the fish halfway through:
And here it is all cooked up and ready to be "tacoed". Check out those grill marks! I feel like Bobby Flay's long lost cousin.
Now let's whip up the marinated slaw that goes with this beautiful fish:
6 Oz. of Shredded Cabbage
1 Carrot, Julienned
1/4 Cup of Rice Vinegar
1 tsp of Lime Juice
2 Tbsp of Olive Oil
4 tsp of Cilantro (1 Small Bunch Chopped)
Salt and Pepper to Taste
Salt and Pepper to Taste
The morning before leaving, mix together the vinegar, lime juice, olive oil and cilantro. Place it in an airtight container and throw it in your cooler. Pack the slaw and marinade separate, and then add in the veggies just before serving the night of. Here's mine mixed together in my dutch oven. And in case you're wondering where my carrot went, it went no where. I completely forgot to pack it in the cooler. Boo. It was still good without it, but let this be a lesson, Don't Forget the Carrot!!
Time to assemble! We added a little Trader Joes salsa to the mix as well, just to kick it up a notch. We also served a little Trader Joes seven layer dip with tortilla chips (yes I am a TJ addict with no intention of stopping any time soon).
These were so tasty, I didn't even think about taking a picture of the finished burrito until I had taken a taste test (or three). Here's the inside of the burrito for your viewing pleasure. What are some of your favorite "go to" camping meals? Share them below!
Grab a Copy of the Recipe HERE.


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The members of the Order of Malta, or at least its American branches, concluded their annual one-week pilgrimage to Lourdes in May. As in the past few years, I participated as a guest of (and chaplain for) the "Federal Association" of the order, which makes its home in Washington, D.C., but draws its membership from farther afield. Accordingly I shared Masses, Marian processions and meals with a diverse and accomplished group of men and women from Maryland and Virginia, to be sure, but also from Texas, Georgia and Florida.
This year is a jubilee year in Lourdes, the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette Soubirous, a young girl living in squalor in the small town in southern France. Signs of the jubilee were everywhere, the most obvious being the gargantuan number of people. Yet despite the massive crowds, life in Lourdes was, as always, cheerful, calm and well organized. (Compare that to my first sight of Pennsylvania Station in New York on my return, where, despite their far lower number, the crowds seemed much grumpier, and my appreciation for what happens in Lourdes deepened considerably.)
Lourdes is a marvelous mix of pomp and simplicity. For the pomp, few places outside Rome can match the pageantry of the pontifical Masses celebrated in the vast underground concrete church, the Basilica of St. Pius X. That worship space, the site of the largest Masses in town, is saved from looking like a 1960s-era parking lot only by the immense banners with pictures of saints from around the world. (I seem regularly to find myself seated under the picture of St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei.) Besides the 25,000 pilgrims and the hundreds of priests and deacons, the assembled dignitaries included Cardinals Pio Laghi and Roger Mahony, not to mention Archbishops George Nied-erauer of San Francisco and Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee, and Bishops William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., William Murphy of Rockville Center, N.Y., and Michael Cote of Norwich, Conn.
Other prelates, despite the long list of names of episcopal personages on the program, remained somewhat mysterious to me. I walked up to one bishop and complimented him on his lovely homily, only to find out later that he hadn't spoken at the Mass at all! (Fortunately, he spoke little English and gleefully accepted my words of praise.) At Sunday's Mass, Fra Matthew Festing, the order's new grand master, offered the prayer of the Order of Malta in Latin, and though the good-natured Englishman confessed that his command of the language was no better than that of an "idle schoolboy," it sounded fine to me.
My First Latin Mass
Speaking of language proficiency, while my schoolboy French miraculously returns each year in Lourdes, my Latin does not, for the simple reason that I don't know any. Nonetheless I celebrated (or rather, concelebrated) my very first Latin Mass in Lourdes, which is a fine place to ring in the old. Another Jesuit and I were pulling a cart carrying one of the malades (the French word used in all languages for those seeking healing at Lourdes) into the underground basilica when we got stuck in the crowd and ended up at the tail end of the procession. There were a few extra seats in the first row, and I was politely pulled up to the very first seat. The priest behind me laughed and muttered, "I hope you know your Latin, because you'll probably be brought up onto the altar."
I was. Fortunately, all the official liturgies in Lourdes are astonishingly well organized. The French M.C. silently handed me a little Mass booklet, so that when Pio Laghi peered at me over the stone altar, I could look like I knew what I was doing.
As with the rest of the Catholic Church, in Lourdes the personal makes its home alongside the public, and the powerful rubs up against the powerless (though who is which is always a good question). At the center are those whom Bishop William Curlin, retired bishop of Charlotte, N.C., always calls "our beloved malades." On our pilgrimage this year I met dozens of malades, their families and friends, as well as the knights and dames of Malta, who were there to help accompany the malades to the baths, push their carts so that they could get a good spot in the grotto during Mass, fetch them a drink of water, make sure that they got their coffee and croissants in the morning, and, most of all, pray with them.
To mark this jubilee year, Pope Benedict XVI granted a plenary indulgence to those who, while in Lourdes, visited four sites: first, the Grotto at Massabielle; second, Bernadette's home at the time of the apparitions (called the "Cachot," after the French word for "jail," which is what the place had been before the Soubirous family took up residence); third, the church of her baptism; and fourth, the "hospice" where she made her first Communion. This two-hour-long pilgrimage (along with confession) seemed, while arduous, not too high a price for the full remission of temporal punishment for my sins.
It was the object of some humor that the sole street that the town seems to have chosen to repair this year is the one leading to the Cachot. This meant not only that the helpful white line painted along the streets to enable pilgrims to find their way simply stopped, but also that wheelchairs and carts would find it hard to make their way to one of the central spots of worship in the town. "Gee," said a friend, "why didn't they repave the grotto while they were at it?"
My own plenary pilgrimage was completed on a sultry day, and I felt happy when I finally received the last of four stickers to affix to the little blue paper disk that I had been given by an official in the sanctuary. (I imagined presenting my little disk to God when I get to heaven, saying, "Do you accept these here?") The next day at Mass, though, we all received an indulgence, courtesy of the Bishop of Tarbes, Jacques Perrier. It made many of us wonder what we would do with two plenary indulgences. The answer from a Jesuit friend: offer one for a deceased person. This I did, for my father.
A Miracle?
What was the best part of the trip? That's easy: being with the generous knights and dames, the tireless volunteers and companions, and especially the hopeful malades. Each of the malades comes to Lourdes for different reasons. As a group, they are at different places with their illnesses. (This year I heard anger for the first time, which struck me as bracingly honest and real.) But all were hoping for some sort of healing—physical, emotional or spiritual. With all the good humor and faith of the malades, it's sometimes easy for me to forget the deep emotions that lay just underneath the surface, but conversations can quickly turn serious over breakfast, lunch or dinner, or while you're waiting in line for a bath. Tears come quickly at Lourdes and flow as fast as the Gave River, which runs silently past the grotto.
Spiritual healings come quickly, too; but after I return people always ask me about the physical ones. Were there any miracles? Yes, though maybe not as dramatic as the 66 authenticated ones. For example: One man in our group had suffered from injuries during the first Persian Gulf war and, as a guest of the Order of Malta, had come to Lourdes seeking healing. His eyesight, never good, had deteriorated since being injured. He told me, while we were waiting in line for the baths, that as soon as he landed in Lourdes his eyesight somehow seemed to get even worse. Someone suggested he take off his eyeglasses to let his eyes rest. A few minutes later, he told me, he could see perfectly well. "Look," he said, "I can read your nametag from here." And he did, from a few feet away. "I haven't been able to see that well for 25 years!"
What do you make of that? Well, as one character says in the film "The Song of Bernadette," for those without faith no explanation is possible; for those with faith no explanation is necessary.


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- 96721
- 24
- https://www.triodos.com:443/en/about-triodos-bank/know-where-your-money-goes/results/
ACLEDA Bank
Microfinance (Social)
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Triodos Sustainable Finance Foundation, Triodos Fair Share Fund and Triodos Microfinance Fund are shareholders in ACLEDA Bank. A senior officer from Triodos Bank represents the Triodos funds on the Board of Directors.
KEY INDICATORS as of 31 December 2016:
- number of loan clients: 366,361
- percentage female clients: 51%
- percentage rural clients: 86%
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MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — In a story Sept. 14 about a vigilante group mobbing a policeman The Associated Press erroneously reported that the attacked policeman was dead, based on a statement from the police commissioner. The police commissioner now says the beaten policeman did not die, but is in critical condition in a hospital. This story also corrects the spelling of the name of the police commissioner Lawan Tanko.
A corrected version of the story is below:
Officials: Nigeria youths retaliate, beat police
Vigilantes beat policeman in retaliation for member shot dead in north Nigeria, officials say
By HARUNA UMAR
Associated Press
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Angry youths in a vigilante group mobbed and beat a policeman and threatened others Saturday in retaliation for the killing of one of their members in northeast Nigeria, officials said, causing further friction in an area tense with violence from Islamic militants.
The Civilian Joint Task Force was formed by residents to help capture Boko Haram suspects in and around Maiduguri, where the Islamic insurgency started years ago.
The spokesman of the 7th division of the Nigeria army, Lt Col. Sagir Musa, said he took the attacked policeman, who was drenched in blood, to the police headquarters.
Police Commissioner Lawan Tanko says the policeman is in critical condition in a hospital.
It was not immediately clear if the attacked policeman was the same officer who had shot dead the vigilante.
The angry vigilantes also blocked the major Kano-Maiduguri road with burning tires and threatened all police, calling them accomplices of Boko Haram.
Civilian-JTF member Muhammed Adamu said that members of his group were stopped by policemen for driving in the wrong lane. He said they had caught a Boko Haram member.
"We told him we could not (take the other lane) because we had a Boko Haram suspect. He threatened to shoot if we didn't," Adamu said. "One of our members said he dare not. And the policeman opened fire, killing one of our members."
The Civilian-JTF says it has helped lead to the arrests of thousands of Boko Haram members since it formed in June. It also claims responsibility for many killings and has the backing of the military.
Borno state governor Kashim Shettima pleaded for calm after the attack Saturday. He said the government would try to pacify and compensate the family of the dead Civilian-JTF member.
"This is a sad development as it really threatens the emerging peace we are enjoying," Shettima said.
"I want to appeal to the angry youths to calm down. This is our state and the youths have assisted us tremendously in restoring peace. Let them not destabilize the emerging peace we are enjoying now," he said.
Lt. Col. Musa said the military has been deployed to the area. The 7th division, once fully formed, will replace the vigilantes in the fight against Boko Haram.
Many residents have welcomed the vigilantes and credited them for some initial relative peace. Others find their existence troubling and worry that they may carry out human rights abuses.


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Death penalty experts say, last week's execution in Georgia could set a legal precedent.
Thursday's lethal injection to Andrew DeYoung is believed to be the first execution videotaped in this country since 1992.
DeYoung was put to death for the 1992 killings of his parents and sister.
Fordham Law School professor Deborah Denno says, since there are ongoing challenges to the death penalty's constitutionality, she believes, courts are likely to grant more requests for videotaped executions.
"I think that this is something that other lawyers are going to be requesting in cases," Denno says. "And there's a likelihood that those requests may be granted."
Georgia's Attorney General's office warned, the videotaping could lead to "sensationalism and abuse."
"States follow other states and lawyers follow other lawyers," Denno says. "So, it wouldn't be a surprise if other states and other lawyers started to request that the executions be videotaped."
Denno says, she's less concerned about the videos leaking to the public as she is about the impression the tapes may foster that lethal injection is a painless procedure.


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Jennifer Davis
I really enjoyed your article Relly, particularly the Power Rangers analogy which rung so true.
I think the awkward content-conversation is the hardest part. Twitter appears to have embraced the idea that content should be considered at the design/development stage, but in the office environment, there's still an overwhelming lack of consideration for content in the initial planning stages.
In my mind, the challenge comes when you're trying to convince the person/people in charge that content should inform how the site is built. It's particularly difficult when 3,000,000* other stakeholders are trying to convince those same people that their idea or asset is the most important thing in the world, ever.
Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try! Wish me luck.
*not actually 3,000,000.


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You can be a part of making this happen
First off, if you have a few moments, please post about the project to your favourite social media channels by clicking on the links at the top of the page - this alone will help spread the word!
Several of the facilitating team took unpaid time away from their other work and went to sizeable personal expense to witness the incredible research that is being widely ignored by the world. We were so inspired by the tireless efforts of the amazing minds working on the New Fire, that we felt there must be something we could do to make it happen.
Since then, we have been working hard at our own expense to galvanise support to ensure that this technology is recognised by the wider world and we need your help to accelerate that endeavour. See our growing costs
Please consider helping us, we will be running a social funding exercise in the near future in order to raise the bulk of the funds for the replication effort, in the meantime, we want to build great support materials to ensure that the MFMP is a success. If you want this as much as we do, please consider being a primary donor.
Thanks in advance
The Facilitators


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The Durco brand has a long heritage in providing valve solutions for the Chemical Process industry. Durco was founded in 1912 and is now part of Flowserve.
Durco is recognized as an innovative flow control brand with a comprehensive portfolio of valve products consisting of plug, butterfly and ball valves designed to handle the most difficult and demanding applications.
Founded under the name Duriron in 1912, the company originated as a foundry, and developed a high silicon cast iron alloy. Given the same name, Duriron, this material rapidly gained a reputation for handling extremely corrosive substances.
Durco has continued that tradition and made a number of significant product developments for the chemical industry, including the first use of PTFE (Teflon) as a sealing material in a patented, special alloy, non-lubricated plug valve.
Today, by offering both metallic and fully-lined versions of each product type, Durco valves can be tailored to handle the most aggressive chemical compounds without compromising performance. These include strong acids, caustics, chlorine, chlor-alkali, HF alkylation, and many others. All Durco valves can be actuated for on/off or modulating control.
For plant operators, Durco quality ensures both peace of mind and extends the operating life of the valve, reducing total cost of ownership.
Plug Valves
Durco valves offer the process industries the widest range of non-lubricated plug valve models, materials, and configurations. This provides customers the flexibility to specify Sleeveline valves to meet virtually all of their applications needs.


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Google's Instant Preview feature, which allows one to click on a little magnifying-glass icon in search results in order to see how webpages appear, doesn't support Google Maps, YouTube, nor Flash interfaces.
For instance, here's the Map page from Elvis Presley's Graceland website:
Yet, in Google Instant Preview, the main graphic element of the map is missing entirely:
Google rolled out Instant Previews with some fanfare a few months ago. According to their statements at the time, people making use of the previews were "more satisfied" with search results they ultimately clicked-upon, thus providing an excuse for its addition on the search results page (this is no minor thing — Google's search engine result page or "SERP" is prime real estate, and they're very conservative about anything introduced upon it).
The Instant Previews are a sort of generated screengrab image of webpages. Their systems likely leverage HTML interpretation software to compose how a webpage will look, perhaps based upon the Document Object Model, sized to the maximum width of the image size, along with some pagebreaks they've built in to abbreviate lengths of pages and highlight text from certain sections of it.
This isn't actually anything new — search engines, directories, and internet yellow pages have incorporated preview images of webpages in their results for quite a number of years at this point going back to perhaps around the year 2000, but it was earlier done at a slightly smaller size. One of the best-known services to produce these preview thumbnail images is Girafa. Even more relevant to Google, perhaps, the underlying technology likely dates back to work by Jakob Nielsen and others at Sun Microsystems in 1999 (see "Method, apparatus and program product for updating visual bookmarks"). As you may recall, Nielsen is the usability expert whose philosophies were apparently very influential in the earlier days of Google when he was on their Technical Advisory Board. This may explain why Google has trotted out a fairly common feature that's been around for at least a decade, and presented it as though it's some completely new innovation.
Google engineers were quoted mentioning how Instant Previews was also intended to help speed up the internet, and Google's been making strides in pushing their philosophy that the internet should speed up. (Recall that they formally introduced Page Speed as a ranking factor last year.) This unfortunately reminds me of how AOL used to cache webpages across the internet and compress everyone's images so that their users would have faster browsing speeds — and, AOL also inflicted bad user experiences onto webmasters' creations, since their image compression algorithm had a bug which caused certain types of JPEGs to have chunks of image screwed-up!
The main innovations involved with the Instant Previews seem to be the slightly larger size than what was often used in the past, the "call-outs" of text snippets which highlight portions of text matching the user's search, and the jagged pagebreaks to visually abbreviate the length of pages.
So, considering that this is really something of a rehashed idea from nearly ten years ago, it's surprising that Google appears to've rolled it out prematurely. Read on for some observations and solutions… (more…)


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Easiest Beef and Cheese Manicotti
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup onion, chopped
1 pound extra-lean ground beef
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 container (15 ounces) part-skim ricotta
2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella, divided
1 cup shredded parmesan, divided
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jar (32 ounces) marinara sauce of choice
14 manicotti shells, from an 8-ounce package)
Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Heat a heavy, medium-size skillet over medium. Add olive oil, onion and ground beef. Season with salt and pepper. Saute until the meat browns and the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, combine the ricotta, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, ½ cup parmesan and parsley. Add the garlic, salt and pepper to taste and mix. Stir the cooled meat into the cheese mixture.
Spoon 1 cup of the marinara sauce over the bottom of an oblong baking dish. Completely fill the uncooked manicotti with the cheese-meat mixture, using a narrow spoon or your fingers. Arrange the stuffed pasta in a single layer in the prepared dish and spoon the remaining sauce over.
Sprinkle the remaining mozzarella and then the remaining parmesan over the stuffed pasta. Cover tightly with foil and bake the manicotti 45-50 minutes. Uncover and cook 10 more minutes, or until cheese is golden brown and sauce bubbles along the edge. Let the manicotti stand 5 minutes and serve.
Serves seven.
Nutrition values per serving: 456 calories, 22 g fat (10 g saturated), 24 g carbohydrates, 2 g fiber, 37 g protein, 123 mg cholesterol, 986 mg sodium.


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What's in a name Plenty. Especially if you're trying to become a sultry little pop star and you just happen to be the niece of public enemy number one
On a hot August afternoon, aspiring pop star Wafah Dufour walks into the media lunch hub Michael's, in Midtown Manhattan. Accompanied by her publicist, Richard Valvo, the slender, exotic young woman with long dark hair in a high ponytail à la I Dream of Jeannie is dressed in a white tank top, green love beads, lacy miniskirt, and backless pumps. Conversations continue as heads look up to check her out.
Ms. Dufour passes by Anna Wintour, the editorinchief of Vogue, who is lunching with designer Isaac Mizrahi, then stops at the next table to meet former Sony Music chairman Tommy Mottola and NBC head Jeff Zucker.
"You know Wafah bin Ladin" Valvo asks the men loudly.
"Wafah Dufour," she snaps, shooting him a look that's more pleading than hostile.
The niece of the man who orchestrated the destruction of the World Trade Center seventyeight blocks to the south has a point. After September 11, the name bin Laden (which is how it's spelled when referring to Osama) turned radioactive, borderline satanicbyassociation. It made her feel cursed, presumed guilty—made her wonder if it might keep her from ever getting a record deal. So she took her mother's maiden name, Dufour, which makes for a better first impression, even though the bin Laden taint is always there.
Ms. Dufour, who's vague about her age but almost certainly younger than 30, sits down at a good corner table and thanks me for helping her tell her story. "It's really important for me," she says with a French accent. "I was born in the States, and I want people to know I'm American, and I want people here to understand that I'm like anyone in New York. For me, it's home.
"It's really tough that I have to always explain myself," she continues in a soft, husky voice. "It's like every time I meet someone, I have to move a huge mountain that's in front of me, and sometimes I get tired."
The face is alluring (big dark eyes, long lashes, plump lips, caramel skin), but she looks wounded. And there's something else. At first I can't quite figure it out, but then it hits me: She looks a little like her uncle, albeit a waify ninetyeightpound tinyfooted version. Sexy Osama! I hold that thought while I listen to her explain that she's his half niece and one of hundreds of bin Ladens, most of whom are in Saudi Arabia, where she hasn't been since she was 10. She has no contact with most of her relatives, including her father, doesn't speak Arabic, has an American passport… The list goes on. "At the end of the day, I believe that the American people understand things and they have compassion and they see what's fair," she says. "They're very fair, and that's why I love America, and that's why my mom loves America."
Her mother, Carmen bin Ladin, is the author of Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia, a memoir about her fifteen years with Yeslam bin Ladin, Osama's older half brother. It is a devastating insider's look at Saudi society. The 2004 best-seller reads like a thriller, with Carmen gradually realizing that she is trapped in a culture where women are brainwashed into accepting their role as pets. She endured nine years of virtual confinement inside the bin Laden family compound, broken occasionally by a family vacation. In 1985, at the end of one such summer abroad, the apparently hypochondriacal Yeslam complained of a weak heart and lungs and of stomach pains, delaying the family's return to Jeddah. Carmen seized the opportunity to enroll her daughters in a school outside Geneva. They never went back to Saudi Arabia.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Ms. Dufour was with her mother in Geneva, where she had spent the summer after getting her master's degree in law from Columbia University. They were in a car when a friend called Carmen's cell phone and told her of the first plane hitting the tower. Once home, they turned on CNN and saw the rest. Then bin Laden's name started popping up. Wafah had planned to return to her SoHo apartment on the fifteenth but instead stayed in seclusion at her mother's for the next six months before moving to London, where she was hounded by the press. In the fall of 2004, she returned to New York to pursue a career in music.
Ms. Dufour thought she was lying sufficiently low—not going out much, just focusing on songwriting and guitar lessons. But she eventually wound up in the New York Post, in a story that claimed she was living it up on the social scene. It refers to her as a "pushy spoiled brat," a "wannabe" who "wants to be a pop star but no record company will have her," according to "a pal."
The experience shook Ms. Dufour so much she hired veteran publicist Richard Valvo, who told her she couldn't hide anymore. "I was telling Richard it's not about the name, it's about the music," she says. "For me that's the only thing that's important. And he said, 'You have no choice. Everybody knows who you are, and now you have to explain yourself.' I didn't know how to explain. To explain what? I never met…him."
Valvo, 52, is slick, with a close-cropped hairdo and an Armani suit. His dream is to play a gay Mafia hit man on The Sopranos who gets to whack Tony. "At ïfirst Wafah was very afraid of the press," he says in a Brooklyn accent. "Otherwise, I would have done a lot more from the beginning. We were slow to get her story out."
Valvo becomes di tracted. "That's Grace Hightower, Robert De Niro's wife, that's who it is," he says, over my shoulder. "With Francine LeFrak. Francine's father was one of the biggest landlords in New York City. Ton of money."
Eventually, his attention drifts back to his client. "She's not out shopping. It's all about music and work, and she goes home early in the evening—it's what she does. She's not in the Hamptons every weekend."
Ms. Dufour nods. "I try sometimes—"
"And I'm not being the publicist who's covering up; I'm telling you the truth! She goes out visiting—she has two friends that she sees—and she comes over to my place a lot."
"I come and eat all your peanut butter!" Ms. Dufour says.
Keith Kelly, a New York Post media reporter, stops by.
"You know Wafah bin Ladin?" Valvo says.
"Wafah Dufour," Ms. Dufour says.
Kelly: "Everything good?"
Ms. Dufour: "Everything is well. And yourself?"
Valvo: "I take good care of her."
Ms. Dufour: "Yes, you always do, Richard."
[Exit Kelly.]
"I've adopted her," Valvo continues. "I'm in the publicist mode, but I went out of the publicist mode with her from the very beginning because she was so scared. I became—I don't know, her brother, I guess, right? Her older brother? I have so much fun with Wafah. We've become friends. She knows all my personal business."
I ask Valvo if he was hesitant to take her on as a client.
"No, but have I gotten static for it? Yes," he says, recalling a woman who asked him, "What the fuck are you working for these people for and taking their money? What is wrong with you?"
Another media guy strolls over and says hello to Valvo. Ms. Dufour shows me her iPod, which is filled with nearly 5,000 songs. I scroll through: AC/DC. Allman Brothers. Beach Boys. Butthole Surfers. Coldplay. The Cure. Lou Reed. Mozart.
Ms. Dufour tells me about her demo and how she hopes to inspire women in Middle Eastern countries who have no voice, but Valvo interrupts: "Wasn't it weird the way he said hello and, like, walked away?"
"Oh, Richard, you're obsessing."
Valvo tells me he's considering endorsements for Ms. Dufour.
"People have asked me about modeling, but I don't want to do it," she says. Then the two debate what kind of photographs might be appropriate for GQ. "What do you think, more fashion-sexy pictures?" she asks, smiling. "Not too, you know…"
"Not risqué," Valvo agrees. "But a high-fashion shot with phenomenal makeup and wild hair. It's the music business!"
There's mischief and delight in Ms. Dufour's expression now. Valvo notes his client's sense of humor of late. "I see in working with her she's loosened up. You're getting the best of her. Wafah knows what she wants, and she doesn't deviate at all. She's very headstrong."
"I have cojones."
"It's so good to see you smile so much. You used to sit there so sad when we were with a reporter, like you were about to be ecuted."
Two days later, I catch the tail end of Wafah's weekly four-hour music lessons at an apartment on the Upper West Side. There are five other students, and now it's Wafah's turn for a solo. She's only been in the class for three months, and though it's clear she can sing, she hasn't yet mastered sightsinging, a difficult ercise in which she's expected to perform music she has never seen before. "One-three-five-four-three-two-onnnnnne," she sings, or rather peeps, hile looking down at the notes. "Eight-seven-six-five-eight-seven-eight. One-three-fiiiiiive. Threee-twoooo-onnnnnnne."
"You jumped the one!" the female instructor cries out.
She tries again, louder, much better. "One-three-fiiiive. Eiiiight-nine-eight. Eight-five-four-three-two-onnnnnne."
"That was very good, Wafah. How does that feel? Good? Okay."
"Wafah wants a meaningful career," the instructor tells me after class. "She could make it just on her looks, but she doesn't want to. It's hard, because she keeps getting distracted. She keeps getting pulled over to these events and into the studio."
We make to leave. "Okay, I'll see you next week," the instructor says.
"Bye-bye, Wafah!" her classmates holler.
We decide to walk across Central Park. "I'm very melancholic, but I hide it very well. That's my nature. People who know me really well know that side of me."
I mention that I've noticed she can switch from gloomy to fun-loving in a heartbeat, and she laughs. "That's very Gemini," she says—her sign.
We stop at a French bistro near the Upper East Side apartment that an investment-banker pal is letting Ms. Dufour stay in temporarily. She calls herself a gypsy: "I'm living out of suitcases, I don't have a place to live, I don't have a job. I'm running after a dream."
I learn that she likes boys, Friends, Wedding Crashers, and the first Matrix. She'd seen the Rolling Stones that summer and loves "the devil song." Madonna and Britney are both "amazing performers." She once told her mother she'd rather be blind than deaf. "Not a lot of people would say that, but for me, music changes my mood, and it makes me really happy."
She's afraid of cockroaches and crocodiles but doesn't mind snakes, spiders, or mice. Her favorite color? Purple. She drinks Corona "from the bottle," loves pizza, but avoids seafood. Fish are "disgusting" and should stay in the sea. But she can eat tuna sushi. Not a California roll, though—crabs remind her of cockroaches.
She also hates milk and dishonesty. She won't say whether she hates George Bush. As for Dick Cheney, she never listens to what he has to say but thinks he's the secretary of state. Brad Pitt is a "sexy hunk," while George Clooney is a "sexy hunk even more" and the best-looking guy alive. She daydreams, isn't germ-obsessed, teaches a little French on the side. Friends tell her she's a "talking machine." Owns a pair of open-toe shoes with very high red stiletto heels. Calls them her "whore shoes." "That is so anti-Muslim!" she squeals.
She's a struggling artist. "Honestly, do I look like a spoiled brat?"
I tell her no, she has a good attitude.
"I can't be otherwise," she says. "I would be, like, crazy if I had to take everything personally all the time. I want to be accepted here, but I feel that everybody's judging me and rejecting me," she laments—persona non grata in both the East and the West. "Come on, where's the American spirit? Accept me. I want to be embraced, because my values are like yours. And I'm here. I'm not hiding.
"I'm not allowed to have fun," she continues. If she does—for instance, if the tabs spot her out, carefree and clubbing—much moralistic editorializing can be expected. "Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him. There are 400 other people related to him, but they're all in Saudi Arabia, so nobody's going to get tarred with it. I'm the only one here."
And yet she tries to resist judgment. "My mom is always telling me tha if I say something too drastic, I might get killed by a fundamentalist," she says. "My mom is freaking out every day that some crazy fundamentalist is going to say, 'How dare she say that?' "
She bums a cigarette for me from a group of chic international types a few tables away. Outside she sees a suave Swiss dude she knows and says hello. She greets him in French ("ça va," "super," etc.) and gives him a peck on both cheeks. The dude pats his heart and tells me she's very sweet. Back inside, she orders profiteroles.
"Let's do sexy pictures," she says.
Gulp. Say what?
"Let's do sexy pictures. But not too sexy."
Then I realize she means for the magazine. She laughs and pulls out her iPod. I scroll through again. A-Ha, Beastie Boys, Cat Stevens—did she know he now goes by Yusuf Islam?
"You're kidding! I didn't know. I had the greatest hits.…He changed his name from Cat Stevens to what? I'm shocked."
Moby, Beethoven, Pink Floyd. "I love them. Seal, I love Seal. I love 50 Cent. I love 'Candy Shop.' You want to hear it? No, this is terrible, I shouldn't be playing you this!" she says, fiddling with the iPod, then handing it to me.
But it won't play. Nothing.
"Can you hear? Wait…what's going on? I hope it's not broken. Oh no. It's broken. Fuck. I can't believe it's broken. This is such a drag.…Now I'm really sad."
So she tells me about the song instead.
"It's about the candy shop," she says. "No, I'm really shy, I'm not gonna tell you the lyrics. Okay, so the singer, 50 Cent, says he's going to take the girl to the candy shop.…It's about candy shops and lollipops.…'
I stare at her.
"So the guy's going to take the girl to the candy shop and make her de-de-de-dah the lollipop."
The girl's making 50 Cent eat candy?
"No, the guy is taking her to the candy store and making her eat the candy. Please get it, please get it!"
He's going to have her lick his lollipop? Oh. Why write a song about that?
"The way he says it. I'm gonna take you to the candy shop! Make you lick it like a lollipop."
I think about baseball or something, then change the subject: What's it like for her when Osama releases another video?
"I don't even watch it."
The longest relationship Ms. Dufour ever had was two and a half years. She's a cheap date and not that picky, she says. She won't date fundamentalist Muslims, though.
Wafah means "loyalty" in Arabic, but she can't imagine being faithful to someone for, say, ten years. "I think that even women can't be faithful. I read in a study, and I think it's true, that after three years you're not in love anymore—it's more about friendship."
She's currently seeing someone but doesn't know where it's going. Doesn't want kids yet. If she had some, she'd send them to her mother. "She would do a better job than me. I would never send them to my dad, though. He would fuck my kids up. I'm so lucky to have my mom."
Carmen Dufour, who had a Westernized childhood outside Geneva, wasn't keen on marrying a Middle Easterner. But she quickly fell for Yeslam bin Ladin in the summer of 1973, when he and his family rented a floor in her mother's house. At 24, he was handsome, rich, smart, and seemingly easygoing. When she crashed his Porsche, he just smiled.
Yeslam's ambition in life was to breed Dobermans, until Carmen convinced him he could do more. He said he would, if she'd marry him. So they got hitched in Jeddah, his hometown; a few years later, Wafah was born in Santa Monica while her parents were studying at the University of Southern California. When her father found out his new baby was a girl, he left the hospital.
Back in Saudi Arabia, Carmen was stunned to learn that she couldn't go for a walk by herself around the bin Laden compound without a veil, but even when she could get out, there were no stores, restaurants, or parks to go to, no theaters or concerts. Books were scarce, and anything concerning love and romance, politics, Israel, or anything written by Jewish authors was banned. TV was heavily censored, too—not much on besides Koran chanting, news about the king, cartoons, and Columbo.
So she tried to create a Westernized household. Returning from the occasional trip to Geneva, she'd smuggle in books and stocked her house with Western records and videos. She invited over foreigners who were there on business, and started having regular Thursday-night tennis parties that evolved into a kind of salon for the international crowd. Birthday parties for kids were forbidden, but she broke with that tradition and invited boys over to play with Wafah, who grew up stubborn, headstrong, and playful. Disapproving Saudi women began to whisper.
One day at her all-girls school, Wafah was smacked in the face by her teacher. When Carmen showed up to find out what had happened, the teacher denied it, and the other students claimed that Wafah had made it all up. Once, when she heard music at school, Wafah began to dance, but her classmates scolded her because it was haram, which means "taboo." After Wafah came home with I hate Jews. I love Palestine written in her notebook and her sister Najia told her mother that if she didn't pray she'd go to hell, it dawned on Carmen that after a few more years of this education, she might lose her daughters to fundamentalism. And if they went to the other extreme and rebelled, she could lose them for real. In Saudi Arabia, women who bring shame on the family can be put to death.
"She got scared for us," Ms. Dufour says. "She thought, 'My daughters are going to have to marry someone who's twenty years older. They won't be able to drive. They won't even be able to think. They won't be able to get out of the country.' "
Says Carmen, during a lengthy, emotional phone conversation, "I realized that if they were brought up with the Saudi mentality, they could be brainwashed and lose their personality."
Carmen met Osama one afternoon when the tall, pious budding terrorist rang the doorbell looking for Yeslam. Catching sight of her unveiled face, he turned away, mumbled something, and made shoo!-ing hand gestures. Soon after, he went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.
In 1977, Carmen gave birth to a second daughter, Najia. In the early '80s, Yeslam—who'd been toiling on the bin Laden company ladder (his father had built a construction empire from scratch)—started a brokerage firm in Jeddah. He soon amassed a personal fortune of around $300 million but had begun to grow distant, cranky, and obsessive about his health. According to Inside the Kingdom, the third time Carmen got pregnant, he asked her to get an abortion; reluctantly, she agreed.
On family holiday in Geneva, Yeslam began to feel increasingly uncomfortable spending time in the West. He hung out with Saudi men, then started having affairs, Carmen writes. She got pregnant again and this time refused to have an abortion. Soon after, she spotted Yeslam w th another woman, and the couple separated. Wafah saw her father once in a while. He'd tell her to change her jeans because they were too tight or to remove her lipstick. They stopped talking after he denied being the father of her youngest sister, Noor. "That really hurt me," Ms. Dufour recalls. "How can he do that to his daughter?"
Wafah was a skinny, bespectacled, melancholy teenager. "I wasn't that happy in my teens, but nobody really is, I guess. I didn't look good at all. Pimples everywhere. Teachers liked me because I was a good, nerdy student"—never a party girl. "It's sad. I look, like, so boring. I've never taken any drugs except pot. For me, pot is not really a drug. It's not like I take it all the time, maybe three times a year. I wasn't allowed to go out until I was 18 because my mom wanted me to focus on good stuff."
After her parents' separation, her mother met a Dutch-Brazilian man and dated him for twelve years.
"He's like my dad," Ms. Dufour says. "He basically raised me. But he never married my mom because my dad—listen to this sick story—my dad doesn't want to give my mom a divorce because he wants to keep control of her." Fruitless legal proceedings have been going on for years. "And eventually her relationship with this other man broke up, because he wanted to have a wife and children. They're still very good friends. I consider him a gazillion times more my father than my real father. And the day I get married, my stepdad is going to be the one walking me down the aisle."
After she got a law degree from Geneva University at 20, she enrolled at Columbia for her master's. Her father refused to pay for her education, but her stepfather came through. "My dad hasn't given me a penny since I'm like 18, not one penny," she says, adding that he owns three private jets, houses all over the world, and dates girls her age. "So he doesn't care what I do. He doesn't give a damn. That's a big problem in my head, I guess. When you have problems with your dad, and you don't understandâ Thank God I have my stepdad. Otherwise, I think I would have been completely insane."
I ask her what she thinks her father would say if he saw her now, in a tiny cutoff-jean skirt, drinking an Amstel Light.
"I think he would die," Ms. Dufour says. And if he saw sexy pictures of her in a magazine? "I think he would have a heart attack." She says she spoke to him once since September 11—one of only two times they've had contact in the past ten years. "How cuckoo is that?" she says.
I ask her what they talked about.
She hesitates. "I don't speak to him, and that's it. I don't know him as a person, I don't know how he thinks, and of course it's not about him—it's about every day anybody who doesn't have a father figure is left with a hole in their lives, you know?" Tears come. "It's like you're asking me about a stranger," she says.
I ask Ms. Dufour what it was like learning that the World Trade Center had been hit. "I was freaking out, crying hysterically, watching this in horror," she recalls. "I was like, 'Somebody's bombing my city, and I wanna go home!' I was on the phone, but I couldn't reach anyone. And later they said they are thinking that one of the bomb suspects is Osama, and I realized that I was related, of course. My mom was saying, 'What happens now? 'What is going to happen to you?' And she was freaking out for us. I'm like, What is going on? I said, 'Thank God I'm going back.' "
Then a newspaper raised the question of whether Ms. Dufour had been tipped off about the attacks. After the rumor was repeated in other publications, a friend who was staying at her SoHo apartment began getting death threats meant for her.
"I wanted to disappear," she recalls. "There were a lot of articles saying things about me, and I just couldn't cope with it. Saying that I fied before, that I knew about the attack and I was living the high life, that I was partying like a mad animal. Yeah, I was partying a bit, after my exams."
Reporters kept calling Carmen's house while friends distanced themselves from the family. Hotels and restaurants didn't want them, either. Ms. Dufour fell into a serious depression, and after a while her mother sent her to a therapist.
"I was crying all day," she tells me. "I was saying, 'How can I be me?' For me it was an identity crisis, because I didn't want to be related to something so awful. I'm like the victim, but I'm also part of what hits the target. And in my head, I know exactly where I stand, but…So it's so tiring that I always have to explain myself, that I have nothing to do with anything."
Carmen did what she could. She released a statement and went on TV, insisting that she and her daughters had no connection to Osama bin Laden. Until that time, Ms. Dufour said, she'd never even thought about him. "I was struggling with the fact that my dad didn't want to be our dad. So do you think I was thinking about the other ones? It was the least of my concerns, what they were doing in Saudi Arabia. I mean, I couldn't care less."
On a Saturday night, I meet Ms. Dufour on Bleecker Street. We end up at a lounge called Dusk. She tells me that music is her "savior," the thing that's kept her sane when everything went wrong. She writes or cowrites all her songs and wants to express what she's been through with them and get respect from musicians. It's not about fame.
Sid, the bartender, happily agrees to turn off the jukebox and put on some of Ms. Dufour's songs. The place fills up with a deep, dreamy, floaty voice that's wistful but somehow upbeat. Sid and I are impressed. He says she sounds like Desiree. I say Sade and Madonna. Ms. Dufour says Toni Braxton. I feel sooo free, I feel soooo high, I feel so free, I feel like a butterfly dancing in the sky, goes one chorus.
"That's like a pot song," she says. It's the first one she ever wrote.
After our fifth or sixth drink, I need a smoke. Outside, I repeat a statement I read by American Idol's Simon Cowell, that for an aspiring singer, there's only one name worse than bin Laden: Hitler. Ms. Dufour makes a frowny face. "Why does he judge? I mean, okay, he's a judge, but he's never heard me sing."
Would she like to perform in the Middle East sometime?
"My mom wouldn't let me; she'd be scared that someone would want to kill me," she says. "Listen, I would love to raise consciousness. Maybe women could hear the songs and realize that I'm doing my dream and hopefully they can, too."
I point out that Gandhi was willing to die for his cause. She ponders that.
"You know, Gandhi was much older than I am, and I think that wisdom comes when you're older," she says. "I think I'm too young to die today."
I confess that sometimes when I think of her uncle, there's a perverse sense of awe somewhere in the twisted recesses of my brain. Osama may be a monster, I reason, but he's nevertheless a warrior with balls and an unwavering resolve. On some level the man is a badass, no?
"Ridiculous," she says. "When you were a kid, were you watching cartoons and saying, 'The bad guy's a warrior'?"
"I know he's the bad guy, but he's a very formidable bad guy."
"Do you like Darth Vader?"
"No. So how should I think of Osama?"
"Okay, how do you call someone who kills people?"
"A murderer?"
"There. You have your answer."
When I ask if Osama is more like an Ewok, she laughs. Then: "I don't want to say stuff and then have my life on the line by some fundamentalist who's going to come and chop my head off."
Ms. Dufour tells me that besides her mother, her heroes are Nelson Mandela and Madonna.
"Madonna stuck to her guns; she's very smart, and she doesn't take no for an answer," she explains. "She has cojones."
If Madonna and Osama were put in a room together, who would win the conversation? I ask.
"Madonna would win. Against everybody! She would shag him rotten! And then shag him rotten again! And then there would be no more Osama! He wouldn't be able to walk!"
Ms. Dufour's expression grows a little forlorn.
"I'm just like any other person," she says finally. "And I want to live my life like any other American, which I am.…I believe in America, and I hope they'll understand. Because I really just want to be normal."


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NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partners. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Digestive Disorders
Surgery or Continued Drugs?
I have been taking Prilosec for a number of years due to having a hiatal hernia. While the pills work fine I am concerned about the long term effects. I do take a calcium supplement due to lower calcium absoprption from the pills. Would surgery be a long-term viable solution? Thanks!
There is a reported small risk of any PPI* (Prilosec, Nexium, etc) causing bone thinning (osteoporosis) over many years. Usually actively taking calcium and vitamin D can help minimize this. Surgery is an option but only under certain conditions for example, weak muscles at lower esophagus etc. If you wish to consider surgery, you should talk to your doctor or seek a gastroenterologist who can explain the tests and help decide whether surgery is a good option.
*PPI - proton pump inhibitor
D Roy Ferguson, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
School of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University


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WiFi Ranger Announces Public Wi-Fi Router
November 12, 2010 by RVBusiness · 1 Comment
WiFiRanger.com is now making available its new consumer router, the WiFiRanger which allows traditional connections to the Internet via WAN, as well as 3/4G USB modems, but with the added ability to connect to public or private Wi-Fi as well for the Internet backhaul connection.
The device has practical applications for RVers.
"As WiFi becomes more pervasive in apartments, communities, resorts and destination recreation venues, people still need traditional router functionality while using it such as LAN ports, a WPA encrypted wireless network for their own use, and backup capability such as 3/4G. The WiFiRanger puts all that functionality into a simple-to-use consumer product, and isolates the owner from being directly connected to the public Wi-Fi system," stated Kelly Hogan, CEO and founder of WiFiRanger.com.
The WiFiRanger automatically scans for public WiFi, profiles open connections for signal quality, Internet speed and even determines if a signal is "filtered," implying that a login screen is presented to the user. This information is then presented to the WiFiRanger owner within their browser, and allows them to select the preferred connection. Once done, all devices on their private WPA network, or LAN ports then passes through the WiFiRanger and its connection to the public WiFi, as if they were on a DSL/Cable connection at home.
"We've taken the complexity and security issues out of using public Wi-Fi for real, day-to-day use. After six years supporting the largest public Wi-Fi network in North America, we understand what is needed to insure effective and secure use of the public WiFi systems. Our WiFiRanger delivers the needed features at an affordable price," Hogan continued.
The WiFiRanger sells for $147.50 and is available now at www.wifiranger.com.
WiFiRanger.com is a subsidiary of LinOra Corp., a privately held company offering wireless equipment and services to WISPS, Telco and national wireless provisioners. All operations are handled out of Caldwell, Idaho.


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All info/inquiries for the future stars of fantasy baseball!
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Dear visitors
When the Kunsthaus extension by David Chipperfield opens, one of its new residents will be the Merzbacher Collection. As you may recall, we staged a memorable presentation of this world-famous ensemble some years ago. With around sixty dazzling masterpieces of Classical Modernism by artists including Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Derain, Miró, Kirchner, Jawlensky, Nolde, Münter, Modigliani and many others – all acquired by Werner and Gabriele Merzbacher over the decades in their quest to assemble a 'feast of colour' – it promises to be yet another highlight in the new building. The Merzbacher Collection is also a perfect fit for the Kunsthaus's own holdings and, with its many works of French modernism, complements the Impressionists from the Bührle Collection that will likewise be moving to Heimplatz. The long-term agreement between the Kunsthaus and the Merzbacher family is a major gain for Zurich and a demonstration of great trust in our institution. Werner Merzbacher arrived in Switzerland with his brother in 1939 as a Jewish refugee and, after an extended period in the United States, came back and made his home here.
We are indeed fortunate that, after much deliberation, Werner and Gabriele Merzbacher have decided to keep their collection in Zurich and open it up to the public, not least as a mark of their gratitude to Switzerland. The new honorary members of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft both celebrate their 90th birthdays this year, and on behalf of the Kunsthaus we would like to thank them for their friendship and their extremely generous gesture. We congratulate them on reaching this milestone and offer our sincere thanks to two wonderful people for their decision to present us all with a feast of colour!
And there's more cause for celebration: the Kunsthaus is to receive a group of paintings by Johan Christian Dahl (Bergen 1788–Dresden 1857), the most important Romantic landscape painter after Caspar David Friedrich. This magnificent gift comes courtesy of the Norwegian entrepreneur and patron Christen Sveaas, and from 7 September you'll be able to admire the pictures in a specially installed gallery. Meanwhile, come and join us on a journey to Paris, the City of Light and Lights, and into the world of Robert Delaunay…
Christoph Becker


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The San Siro outfit eventually ran out clear winners after coming from behind in Turin, and he believes his individual efforts show that he is now beginning to recapture some of his best form.
"My performances are becoming more consistent and I feel physically stronger," he told reporters after the game.
"Nothing has changed, I have always done my job, but you know how football is. Sometimes even if you are trying hard you do not manage to score.
"My main aim has been to become more consistent with my performances and then sooner or later the goals would arrive, and that has happened today. I am very happy because it was not easy at all here in Turin."
The victory leaves the Rossoneri in seventh spot in the table, but Nocerino was quick to acknowledge the quality of Sunday's hosts and praised his side's second-half display.
"We did not play that well in the first-half," he continued.
"However, we increased the rhythm of play in the second-half and managed to score three goals, closing the game with an excellent victory.
"We played against an excellent team. They are very well organised and made things difficult for us. It was not easy to come here and win, so we are glad that we have come here and it was a positive result for us."


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And FWIW, these are our Fathers too, you know.
If you believe that Holy Orthodoxy is the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, then you should not commune outside Her.
Well, first consider if doing so would even sit well with your own conscience.Do you still believe that the LCMS altars have the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?Do you believe that you are still one in faith with them? Do you think it's appropriate to Commune with those with whom you are not one in faith?
Quote from: deusveritasest on April 30, 2011, 04:42:55 PMWell, first consider if doing so would even sit well with your own conscience.Do you still believe that the LCMS altars have the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?Do you believe that you are still one in faith with them? Do you think it's appropriate to Commune with those with whom you are not one in faith?This is how I view the matter, too. It was particularly painful for me since my own father is a LCMS pastor. But you either believe what the Orthodox Church teaches, or you don't. If you do, then you are living a lie when you commune with the LCMS, and are violating the Church's canons to a point that sets you outside the Church. Granted, you are not yet in the Church, but it appears that God has already put this burden on your conscience. You would not murder just because you are not yet Orthodox thinking that it would be OK. You would not commit fornication thinking that you needed to get one last one in before you became Orthodox. So, why would you continue to do something else that now, being somewhat enlightened, bothers your conscience. Those who are not enlightened will be judged according to what they have received. I am not put on this earth to judge the Lutherans, since in my view, I have found the LCMS and WELS more "orthodox" than many "World Orthodox" Churches I have attended. However, when I joined the Orthodox Church (actually, when I have made my mind up to join it as a Catechumen) I renounced all my former heresies. I cannot renounce the heresy of the Lutheran belief of what constitutes the Church, and what is actually communion if I am still communing with that church, regardless of what I may believe in my heart concerning the people of that church.
I'm very interested in the Orthodox Church however, my parents are quite bothered by my interest. I am not a catechumen yet. Mostly, because I do not have a car so while I am home I have no way to attend the Orthodox church. And, well I'm in college so for 3/4 of the year I live one place then during breaks I live another place with an hour and a half between them. My family is Lutheran. For those who know about the synods they are Missiouri synod since that may somewhat play into the situation. But, I am concerned about at what point should I stop taking communion at my families church? It's an issue I've been considering for some time. But, I know it will cause great fights in my family if I do not commune yet at the same time...I disagree with Lutheran theology concerning the sacraments.
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by Damian Ewens, Codery and Kerri Lemoie
Badge Bingo is an interactive, festival-long, game where MozFest attendees use digital badges they earn to connect 5 in a row! Digital badges recognize and connect skills and achievements that happen anytime and anywhere.
Participants will be able to issue and receive badges across various issuing platforms and earn badges for learning new web skills or for providing feedback on the process. We want badges and associated delivery systems to be intuitive to users and we want to learn with the badging community about badge value across stakeholders (issuers, recipients, and community), platforms, and varying contexts.
If you want your workshop badges included let us know at email@example.com. Registration starts Nov 7th at http://badgebingo.com/
9th–11th November 2012


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Cliburn: 50 Years of Gold, The
Cliburn: 50 Years of Gold, The Previous Broadcasts
KQED Life: Sun, Apr 21, 2013 -- 8:00 PM
Every four years a group of the finest young pianists take the stage at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. In the midst of the drama, the beauty, the nerves, and the excitement, they know one thing is true -- what happens there can change their lives. They strive to feel the joy of victory, the chance to achieve their utmost goal: to become a performer on the world stage. As seen through the eyes and memories of the 15 gold medalists, "The Cliburn: 50 Years of Gold" follows the half-century long history of one of the world's most prestigious music competitions, set against the backdrop of the world's most beautiful music.
Repeat Broadcasts:
- KQED Life: Mon, Apr 22, 2013 -- 2:00 AM


text: My LC is an IBCLC. Dh looked online for IBCLCs and she's the only one listed for our area acc. to the link he went to...and she is two counties away! Yes, she is at the hospital and she is a nurse. And as soon as I agreed he may need some formula, she hasn't asked to schedule any follow up. Did I just find the worst IBCLC there is? She didn't even know about the LLL group that meets in that same town (the nearest LLL to me, again, it's 2 counties away--1hr 40min from home).