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January 10, 2009 Length: 36:40
As Dn. Michael begins exploring the Council of Ephesus, he observes some commonality between Evangelicals and Orthodox in the "cult of the Saints."
In series The Ecumenical Councils
Deacon Michael Hyatt: I got this book this week from St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, part of their popular patristics series called "The Cult of the Saints" by St. John Chrysostom. Is anyone familiar with this book? It's really fascinating because it talks about the cult of the saints and the role of the saints in the church. And this was written in a really pivotal time in the history of the church, and it was written by one of the most venerable fathers of the ancient Church and it's really his sermons with a really interesting introduction. But this morning I got up, and I've been following all weekend with a heavy heart this whole situation with Ted Haggard, the pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs. And I say with a heavy heart because I suppose it would be easy to say, well, that's an evangelical problem and they've got all kinds of problems, but really it kind of besmirches the name of Christ every place and hurts all of us as Christians. And frankly, as Orthodox, we've had our own issues. We've had bishops fall from time to time and priests. So it's not like we're exempt from the effects of the fall. We're not. We have our own issues. But I did think—I was watching this news story this morning, NBC, and they were talking about the story.
So I'm kind of getting dressed in the midst of all this, and I walk by this book "Cult of the Saints" which I just read the introduction to. I'm not very far into it. But I got to thinking, the truth is, Evangelicals have a cult of the saints also, as well as Orthodox. This is an inescapable concept. And like I said before, iconography is inescapable, liturgy is inescapable, tradition is inescapable. You know, you may call it by something else, but all of us have these things whether you're Orthodox or Catholic or evangelical or even the most anti-liturgical of all, maybe like the Quakers or other Anabaptist groups have their own kind of liturgy that they observe. But here's where the cult of the saints among Orthodox and Evangelicals are similar, I think.
First, both elevate Christians as examples. So, there's nothing different there. Both believe that the saints, these exemplars of the faith, have some special favor with God. Both elevate their images, project their images. I don't know when the last time you were in an evangelical church was, but I've been in some mega churches where it's not just an iconostasis. It's jumbotrons, and there's usually several of them with images projected on them. And both Orthodox and Evangelicals ask for the prayers of those that they elevate as examples to the flock.
Those are the similarities—now, here's where the differences are. (This is just a sidebar. It doesn't have anything to do with the Third Ecumenical Council per se.) The Evangelicals often de facto canonize these examples before their life on earth is finished. Therein lies the problem. In the Orthodox Church, we wait until their life on earth is finished. And then we look at the whole context of their life and frankly how they finished was more important than how they started, and so they are elevated based on that. I will never forget when… Some of you know I'm in the Christian publishing business, and one year I was taking one of my friends through the Christian booksellers convention. As we walked through we saw all these autograph booths of these well-known Christian leaders and their images prominently displayed on these booths and everything. One of my friends was kind of scandalized by it all—he's a Protestant, but he said, "Wow, I'll give you Orthodox this. At least you wait until they're dead before you canonize them." (Laughter)
The other thing that I think is healthy about Orthodoxy and historic Christianity is that we really point to a great cloud of witnesses. When you walk into this temple this morning, don't miss the instruction, theological instruction, that's presented by the iconostasis and the icons and the sense of proportions because the thing that you'll notice overwhelmingly is that Jesus is the focal point. He's the focal point both as you look towards the iconostasis in the front, back in the altar. He's the focal point in the ceiling, in the Pantocrator icon and then it's not just that we have one saint, one example, human example that is displayed on jumbotrons, but we have a cloud of witnesses, a multitude of saints that are present: St. Raphael and St. Catherine and all these saints that are there on the iconostasis and around the church. I think too often—and this can happen in an Orthodox church and it has happened in the history of the Church—that the focal point of the faith becomes one man.
Part of what I like about being in a liturgical tradition is that it's really not about one man. I mean, I love Father Stephen. I love his homilies, but frankly that's about 20% of the service. If he doesn't give a homily or if he doesn't show up, everything still goes on. And again, I'm not diminishing the importance of the preaching of the Word of God. I think that's a critically important aspect of liturgical life, but I'm saying that it's more than that. There's a bigger context. And for us as Orthodox, the Eucharist is sort of the apex of the service. Another thing I thought of I was comparing and contrasting, and thinking about the cult of the saints, is the people that have been used by God in the history of the Church.
Let's start with Jesus. Whenever he did something that would bring him fame, he usually did two things. He told the person, for example whom he healed, don't tell anybody. Don't hire a PR agency. Don't write a book. Don't broadcast this. Kind of keep it to yourself. And that usually didn't work, but then he would depart to a lonely place. He did not seek fame, and I think it is also true that, in the history of the Church, whenever you look at the great saints of God they hid from fame. They realized that fame was not a good thing. When the saints would become famous was usually after they had run the race, and after they had reposed, and after they had gone on to be with the Lord. And I think part of that is that our frames are not built for fame. I've known lots and lots of Christian leaders through my career in Christian publishing, and lots of Christian artists for that matter. And I don't ever see fame as a good thing. And yet fame is one of the things that our culture extols as one of the most important virtues.
So we've got all kinds of shows about famous people and all kinds of tabloids and all kinds of things… There's this voyeurism. We want to see these famous people. And part of the problem is that we also—and I don't know if this is a cultural thing or not, I hadn't really thought about this—but we tend to like to elevate people and then watch them fall. It's like the giant morality play that the rest of us vicariously participate in. I think it's good as Orthodox Christians [to realize that our Orthodoxy] doesn't make us immune from the effects of the Fall. It shouldn't give us any cause to gloat or be proud. We ought to be saddened and grieving as a result of what's happened in Colorado Springs like anybody else, but I'm just grateful that fame for us is still not something to be sought. The Orthodox virtues, the biblical virtues of humility and others-centeredness and focus on God's glory and his work is a good thing.
So, any comments you want to make? Like I said before, this is all kind of a sidebar before the lesson today. Yes, Joanne?
Joanne: When we were up in Indiana at a very Evangelical church, it just hit me so hard. There were no Christian images in that whole church except for the jumbotrons… the band up in front that was elevated on a platform, the female drummer that sat behind a clear plastic screen. She was front and center. There was no cross either on the building or in the building. There was no picture of Jesus anywhere, not even in the Sunday School rooms. I didn't even see a Noah's Ark.
Dn. Michael: Wait a second. No Noah's Ark?
Joanne: No. I was just like, they've done it! They've bleached it all out! It could've been a very nice elementary school or community center. I just came away from there like, "Ugh, these poor people."
Dn. Michael: I think it points to kind of the point I was making earlier. Iconoclasm is impossible. You can smash these icons and replace them with other icons, but iconography is inescapable. Look at what happened in Soviet Russia. You know, the Communists ripped down all the images of Christ and the saints, destroyed them, burned many of them. And what did they erect? Pictures of Stalin, Lenin, you know all these other icons. Same thing happened in China. Same thing in Korea, if you've been following the story in North Korea. The image of Kim Il-Sung is everywhere. And don't they refer to him as "dear father"? So it's inescapable. As people made in the image of God, still having freedom, we can choose which icons we'll venerate, but we have eyes because we're visual.
Q: So, the church that Joanne was in? Describe the iconography there.
Dn. Michael: Well, in the absence of intentional, deliberate iconography of things that we ought to elevate—you know, Christ, the angels, a reminder to us that it's not about now, and it's not about us, and there's something greater than what we see—there's this unintentional, not well thought out iconography that replaces it, and it's almost… you couldn't make it up if it weren't true. You know these giant images of the pastor as the focal point and the band and the things that we think are more culturally… some people think are more culturally relevant. Does that make sense? Jeff?
Jeff: I just want to say that the screen is a really big part of it, as a guy that's just come out of the Protestant world. I mean, it's amazing. There is actually an openness to imagery, the Gospel Music Association and these groups are talking a lot about "let's bring images back" which I say is a real open door for Orthodoxy, and I've had a lot of good conversations with artsy people in the Christian scene because they like images now. But as you said, I think there's a lot of discussion about "what do we put on our screens?" That's the new stained glass of the Protestant world, really—the screen. You can do beautiful things and art and trying to go to nature or to candles or icons that they don't realize what they are, but obviously that's what they would say is their art, that's their iconography primarily in a lot of cases. But we can speak to that now and be open to the possibility of well, what do you put on your screens? I don't know. It's a good way to talk.
Dn. Michael: It is. And I think it does create a bridge for us to be able to say that. And by the way, when I contrast—Gayle was kind of getting on my case this morning about this, but when I contrast Orthodoxy with Protestantism, I'm not doing it for the sake of denigrating Protestants. I want to be respectful. I used to be Protestant myself. I work with mostly Protestants. So, it's not about that. I just think that there are some things that are a part of the history of the Church that ought to be a part and would be a wonderful corrective to what's going on today, and we have a lot of those treasures in the history of the Church. Not because you found them, Jeff, or because I found them, but because they were given to us as a gift, and now we have a stewardship of those things that we can share with other people that I think can help them find a path in the midst of the increasing nonsense that's become American Christianity. Mark?
Mark: One of the things you see or don't see in a lot of Protestant churches is when they do have a cross, there will be no representation of the body of Christ on it. And when I've spoken with some people about this, they say that's intentional because it's supposed to show Christ isn't there, he's risen. But I think there's a real loss not only of our own sort of understanding of the suffering and what went on in the crucifixion but a loss of the body of Christ being with us which could even be expressed in Eucharistic terms. I think there was a bit of a reaction against that if you will when Mel Gibson's "Passion" came out, and I read some interviews with Protestant leaders where they said that they recognized that there was a problem with a missing body, so to speak. But I have yet to see suddenly a lot of Protestant churches looking like Catholic churches with representation of the corpus and things such as that.
Dn. Michael: Yeah, that is an interesting issue, and I think in many ways it's a reaction to Roman Catholicism and sort of that medieval piety that got focused—and Mel Gibson's a good example of that, really was focused on Christ's work on the Cross and to the exclusion of—I don't know about you but when I watched "The Passion of the Christ", it was an incredible movie. It really moved me emotionally. I wept, but at the end of it, [where is] the resurrection? As an Orthodox Christian, I guess it's like, "What? That's it?"
I have only seen the movie one time. I didn't seen the final cut. I was invited to a screening of it where Mel Gibson was actually present. He was sitting right in front of me. There were about forty of us watching this. And then he stood up and asked for input, and so I just told him: I said, you know, "Great movie, loved it. It's phenomenal what you've done. But the resurrection is so important. This has got to be longer. This is something that's more significant in the weight of this." And he listened, but evidently didn't do anything about it. But that's not part of his piety. Part of our piety is, yes, we do focus on the suffering of Christ, particularly during Lent and during Holy Week especially, but we really focus—and you'll see during this season of Pascha following Holy Week that the corpus is not on the Cross. It's taken down. It's a reminder to us all that he's not here but that he's risen. So I think there's both/and, but it's almost an abstract symbol in many churches. It doesn't really relate to the historicity of Christ coming being incarnate, dwelling among us and suffering and so forth.
Alright. Just a quick review and then I want to get to that ever-popular topic of Pelagianism. I know it's a thorny issue for many of you. Just kidding. I'll tell you what it is in a minute. The Third Ecumenical Council was probably the most controversial of all the councils, depends on who you talk to, but it was controversial in its own time and it was controversial in subsequent centuries. It was called by the Emperor Theodosius II who was the grandson of Theodosius the Great who had called the Second Ecumenical Council. By the way, I had said last week that Theodosius the Great was known for making Christianity the official state religion of the empire. Constantine merely made Christianity legal, one option among many, but Theodosius the Great actually made it the official religion, and so there was an active campaign to suppress and wipe out the non-Christian pagan religion of the Roman Empire.
The Third Ecumenical Council was held in Ephesus in Asia Minor in 431. It was basically called to settle a debate between Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria and Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople. And they had been having a war of words in letters that had really kind of ripped the empire theologically. About 200 bishops were present. Cyril was a very aggressive advocate of the Orthodox position, and he was so eager that he started the council really before all the bishops got present, and there were sort of were some off sides here initially that had to get fixed later. The atmosphere was very heated.
But there were two issues. One was Nestorianism. Actually three issues, Pelagianism is the third. We'll get into that in a minute, but Nestorianism emphasized the human nature of Christ at the expense of the divine. And so you're going to see this back and forth for a few centuries. You know, there are those who are not quite sure what to do with the divinity of Christ and there are those that are not quite sure what to do with the humanity of Christ. And where this will get great clarity is in the fourth council, the council of Chalcedon where the fathers really dial it in with some specificity. But Nestorianism taught that Virgin Mary had only given birth to a man, Jesus, not God the Word. And so what Nestorius—and this is where he lost politically as opposed to theologically. He was preaching that it was wrong to refer to the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary, as the "Theotokos" which by this time had already been practiced in the Church for at least two centuries. We have ancient Greek prayers that go back to the second century referring to Mary as the Theotokos. Common practice. He said that wrong and that we should only refer to her as Christotokos, the birth-giver of Christ as opposed to the birth-giver of God. He did not mean by that, as I pointed out last week, he did not mean by that that somehow the Virgin Mary was the fourth person of the Trinity or in eternity past had given birth to Christ the second person of the Trinity, no. This is all about God's economy in time and space. And so, it was really about: who was that person in her womb. Could we say that that person, certainly Jesus of Nazareth, yes, but was that person very God of very God? That's what the whole debate was about.
The way Nestorius taught it was that the Word only dwelt in Jesus as in a temple. It had the effect of teaching, though he would not say this, but it was confusing at best, that two persons dwelt in Jesus Christ. It was kind of a sort of ontological or theological schizophrenia. You know, you have two people dwelling in the same body. We have drugs for that today. But it is not clear whether or not Nestorius himself was Nestorian in this sense. I tried to point that out last week, but certainly his followers and they were legion and they continue to this day, many of them believed what the council condemned and that was this idea of two persons dwelling in this person Jesus Christ and de-emphasizing the divinity of Christ. I said that last week during the Reformation, the charge of Nestorianism was also leveled against the Protestants by the Roman Catholics and I said the body of Christ, when we use that phrase, to what do we refer? Because certainly there's the physical body of Christ, the Incarnation, his flesh and blood, but there's also the elements of the Eucharist which we also refer to as the body of Christ, and then there's the Church. There's the sense in which we're the body of Christ, joined together with Jesus Christ we become kind of mystically his body as well. And there's an obvious relationship between these three.
And I said, with regards to the Eucharist, consistent Nestorianism would imply that the elements are only bread and wine, they remain bread and wine, and at best, Christ is present spiritually, or he may be present with the elements, but the elements themselves are not the body and blood of Christ. And as Orthodox Christians, we believe that that bread and wine is the very body and blood of Christ. We don't try to explain how it becomes such, we don't know. I grew up in the West under the scholastic theologians and the whole doctrine of transubstantiation, but we don't go that far. You can, by the way, find some Orthodox theologians writing in response to Rome that we use the language of transubstantiation. But I think that's a foreign concept imported into Orthodox theology as it was engaging the West but it is really not part of our tradition, part of our history. And by the way, the Orthodox view is that in the mystery, they are both. We can refer to the bread and the wine or the body and the blood. It's both. Then with regard to the Church, consistent Nestorianism would imply that the Church is only a human institution. Christ is present, as in a temple, but the Orthodox view is that in the mystery, the Church of Jesus Christ is united to Christ and is his actual body. OK?
Then we talked about this whole doctrine of Christotokos last week and what it meant and I think for me, and maybe for some of you, I think that was difficult coming into the Orthodox Church when you saw that reference to Theotokos and what did that really mean? And when someone explained to me that it means the birth-giver of God, then I kind of got it, but it made me uncomfortable. And then I read in the Third Ecumenical Council that they had used this terms and it was even more ancient than that, so it gave me a little comfort. I understood what was at stake, why the term was used, that the Third Ecumenical Council was affirming what had been the ancient and venerable tradition in terms of their view of the mother of God.
Let's talk about Pelagianism. This is almost a footnote to the work of the council, but the council did condemn Pelagius—who was, by the way, a British Christian theologian who lived in Rome in the fourth and the fifth century. And what he taught was this: that original sin did not taint human nature. He taught that the human will is still capable of choosing between good or evil without divine aid. Thus while Adam set a bad example, there's no sense in which his sin passed to his children. Hang with me here for a minute because this really messes with the doctrine of the Incarnation because he also taught in a similar way Jesus set a good example for us to follow. He was kind of like the supreme moral teacher. But we have the full moral responsibility for our own salvation. Whether you are ultimately saved according to Pelagius and what the council condemned, is dependent on what you do. I don't know about you, but if that's true, I'm in deep weeds, and the council recognized that.
Now, Augustine in North Africa, Hippo to be precise, waged a war against Pelagius and wrote a number of treatises and preached against Pelagius and really kind of defended what the Church had believed about our role in salvation. Now, as Orthodox Christians, we kind of believe he over argued the position a little bit. And here's how so. As Orthodox Christians, with Augustine, we believe that the effects of original sin passed on to Adam's children. So, nobody's born into the world without the effect of that sin. However, the Orthodox distinguish between original guilt and original pollution. In the West, the discussion was framed and almost exclusively juridical language, the language of the court, you know, lawyerly language that we committed a sin or a trespass. There, therefore, is a penalty to be extracted, and Christ paid that penalty and all that kind of language. But there is also a second part to original sin that the Orthodox didn't buy into the original guilt. We're liable for our own sins. I'm not liable for Adam's sin. But I am affected by the moral corruption that's passed from Adam to his children and onto us so that there's a corruption that we inherit.
With Augustine and against the Pelagians, Orthodox Christians also believe that we can't be saved apart from the grace of God. You cannot save yourself. Impossible. Here's where the difference is. Orthodox believe that our salvation is synergistic, and by that I mean this: God initiates, and we respond. It's like a dance. And while these two things can be differentiated, they can't be separated. So that faith and works are two sides of the same coin. Grace and works are two sides of the same coin. Faith without works is dead. If you have your Bible, I had somebody actually quote this to me this week and was extolling the fact that we're saved by grace and that not of ourselves in Ephesians 2. "But by grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is a gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast." And we revel in that as Orthodox. We believe that as Orthodox that we're only standing by the grace of God, but if it weren't for the grace of God, none of us would've found the Church or would participate in the means of grace or participate in the sacraments of the Church. None of that would be possible apart from the grace of God. But what so often happens when people read those two verses, they shut their Bible.
But verse 10, the verse that immediately follows this 2 that I just quoted says this: For we are for—you know, it's connected here—"for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works" (Eph. 2:10). So we weren't saved by our good works. You know, the grace of God appears to us in Christ Jesus in the sacraments and all the things that the Church gives us as means, but the works are part of it. And we're created for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is normal Christian living: that we would manifest good works. If we've been truly transformed by the grace of God, we have to work out what God has worked in. Another passage of Scripture too is Philippians 2, and I think outlines this kind of divine/human synergy and what we believe as Orthodox. Philippians 2. This is the verse that's not underlined by modern Christians, but it says, verse 12, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12)
There is a responsibility. To the extent that Pelagius emphasized personal responsibility is right. He just took it too far. And like most heresies, they tend to want to be rational and exclude two things that you have difficulty on a rational basis holding together. It's paradoxical in a sense. You know for us to say that God is both three and one or that Jesus is both human and divine. You know those two things are rationally difficult to hold together, and so as human beings with a limited perspective they tend to overemphasize one to the exclusion of the other. And that's what Pelagius did. Wanting to emphasize the legitimate place of human responsibility and our role in working out salvation with fear and trembling, he excluded God's role in the divine economy and the manifestation of grace and the priority even of grace in our lives.
We love him because he first loved us. He pursued us, and we respond to that. But then verse 13, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Verse 13 is the other part of it: for it is God who works in you, you know, the reason you're able to do this. For it is God who is at work in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure. God gives us both the motivation and the ability to do his will that's at work within us. But we have to respond to that. Again, it's a dance. Christ comes, to use a metaphor, and he woos us, and he invites us onto the dance floor. But we can sit there like a bump on a log and not respond, or we can stand up and enter into the divine dance and be transformed. And that's really, from an Orthodox perspective, what salvation is all about. We're being transformed from glory to glory. Robert?
Robert: What was Pelagius' view of God's role?
Dn. Michael: God's role? Jesus came to be an example. You should look at his example and be inspired. Look at his commitment. He died on the cross. He was willing to be a martyr. Kind of like it is in Islam today. He was willing to be a martyr, and we can respond to his example and that ought to inspire us to live a godly life. But at the end of the day, you save yourself. And by the way, I find some Christians, that while they would deny that theologically, live like it's true. They think it's their responsibility to save themselves, their responsibility to save their families. It's not. It's just not. You have a responsibility, to be sure, but if God was not on our side, if God wasn't helping us… I tell you, some of you in particular you have small children, and you think that it's up to you. You can just raise them in a protected environment and everything will be fine. No way. You're going to find that out sooner or later.
You're going to do your best as parents. It doesn't absolve you of your responsibility, but they're going to confront stuff in our culture and they're going to make their own choices. And they're going to choose to either walk in what you've given to them or not walk into it. You can give the grace, you can extend the grace. It's both/and. You need grace as parents. We need grace as Christians. And all that stuff we do as Orthodox Christians to fast and to take the sacraments faithfully and all that, who of us would come to the end of our lives and boast and say we've done it all, therefore we deserve heaven. No! At best, we've poorly followed what the Church has given us. At best, we're sinners saved by grace.
Q: With the "work out your salvation with fear and trembling", I think that's a message I really got being raised in a Protestant, born again religion. Because after I committed my life to Christ at 10, it was kind of like OK, there you are.
Dn. Michael: Now it's up to you?
Q: Yes, but I had a good Christian family around me who would take me to church, but it wasn't until later with the Anglo-Catholic faith and looking at the saints and looking at Christ as inviting me to be with him, and then the Orthodox have this whole way of life out of the prayer and the fasting and the drawing nearer to God that yes, it's me who can do these things, but it's God who set it forth and wants me to.
Dn. Michael: Yes, and it equips you to do it. I don't know if you all could hear the comment, but she said she felt as a Protestant as she came to faith at 10 that—I'm going to put words in your mouth, but you get your fire insurance, you get your certificate. Now it's up to you. Right? And that's why it's so key to understand that from our perspective as Orthodox, salvation is not primarily an event. It is primarily a process. And our baptism, our chrismation is the day we launch. It's the day we begin, but that's only the beginning. We enter into a relationship with Christ and over the course of our life we're being transfigured by his grace and changed into his image. That's why we fast. That's why we come to church. That's why we partake of the sacraments: because we want to grow in grace. We want to be healed. We want to be restored back into that place where Adam was and even above that as we share in the life of Christ. Thank you.


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Artwork Grids, 5 (More) Ways
A while ago, we wrote about using grids as a way to increase the impact of small art. We showed a few ideas from Apartment Therapy homes, which we're augmenting today with some more inspirational photos from catalogs and designers...
- 1) In a city apartment by Phoebe Howard, a simple grid of line drawings looks very modern in square, natural wood frames.
- 2) The Game Room at the Sagamore Hotel uses a wraparound grid of black and white photos to add a graphic sensibility to the walls.
- 3) The Picturewall Company sells sets of frames that fit together like puzzle pieces, hanging on the wall in a tidy group. This combination sells for $280.
- 4) An old photo features record album frames from the CB2 catalogue. We love the way the stylist cut up one large photo into smaller framed sets.
- 5) This bedroom artwork arrangmenet from the Hülsta catalog shows a similar look, with a panoramic image that spans four canvases hung in a row.
• Artwork Grids, Five Ways

subset: commoncrawl


text: Whenever I load a website containing significant graphics (on line newspaper for example), the screen periodically gets glaucoma---films over for a while. This occurs for quite some time, is irratating, and undoubtedly is ruining whatever of my eyesight is left! Does anyone else have this problem? Can I do anything about it? Thanks.


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Friday, July 28, 2006
The Tommy Sheridan Trial
Tommy "the tan" Sheridan, member of the Scottish Parliament, unofficial champion of the successful Scottish anti-poll tax campaign in the early 1990s, and former leader of the Scottish Socialist party has, for the last few weeks, been involved in "the [Scottish] trial of the decade." He has sued the tabloid newspaper, The News of the World, for £200,000 damages over various allegations it made about him.
Predictably, the tabloids have focused gleefully on the juicy details – the alleged three-in-a-bath sex romps with a prostitute and another man, alleged affairs with a News of the World journalist and an ex-prostitute/party member (described at the trial as a "bammer with severe mental health problems"), alleged sado-masochism, and alleged attendances at swingers' clubs.
More seriously, Sheridan's entire reputation is on the line. He has always presented himself as a "man of the people", a left-wing icon with impeccable credentials – a sober, married man who has worked tirelessly and selflessly for justice for the worst-off in our society. The News of the World has portrayed him as a hypocritical, champagne-guzzling sex addict who used his position to fulfil his personal lust for power, drugs, and sex.
In addition, his trustworthiness is on the line. When allegations first surfaced, Sheridan claims he told a meeting of his Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) that the allegations were nonsense. But now several members of the SSP claim that Sheridan admitted going to swingers' clubs, and have produced a minute of the meeting that bears that out. Sheridan claims the minute has been fabricated and some other members of the SSP agree with him.
A leading member of the SSP then told the court that he backed Sheridan's version of events, but bizarrely went on to say that he would have backed Sheridan even if Sheridan's version of events had been untrue.
A week or so into the trial came another sensation. Sheridan, "incandescent with rage" (his own words), sacked his legal team, branded them incompetent, and resolved to represent himself in court from then on. The result has been fireworks, no surprise given Sheridan's fierce oratory reputation, although at one point he also broke down in tears due to the pressures the allegations had put on him.
He has branded the allegations made against him as "a pack of lies". He's claimed there were factions within the SSP who wanted to unseat him, and that the right-wing News of the World had run the story because of his own left-wing credentials. He claimed that his political commitments "hardly left time for a secret life of sex Olympics". At the beginning of his defence, Sheridan added, "You will hear evidence of my addiction to Scrabble and sunbeds, not champagne, cocaine and swingers clubs."
In the last few days, a witness has claimed that another senior SSP official, Duncan Rowan, who had an affair with Fiona McGuire ("the bammer" Tommy Sheridan is also accused of having a 4-year affair with), had to move to England due to "death threats" he had received – threats he suspected were made by someone connected to the woman. Rowan had told the News of the World that there was no connection between Sheridan and McGuire, although McGuire then sold her story of an affair with Sheridan for a reported £20,000.
If Sheridan is guilty, he is a prize hypocrite. The case has nothing to do with any moral view on sado-masochistic sex with prostitutes or on fidelity within marriage. It has everything to do with Sheridan's reputation, a public perception of him as a volatile, passionate stirrer, but nonetheless an honest, what-you-see-is-what-you-get stirrer - a public image that Sheridan himself has taken great care to cultivate over the years.
But if the allegations are false, and he wins the case, I think he deserves far more than £200,000 from the News of the World. Tabloid newspapers get away with far too much mud-raking, but £200,000 will hardly make a dent in Rupert Murdoch's vast fortune. The tabloids can destroy people's reputations and effectively get away with it. Mud tends to stick even if allegations are untrue.
Of course, one way to stop the mud-raking is to stop buying the mud. Whether it's true mud or not.
The trial continues.
3 comments:
- Paula said...
Must be really a case because I read something in Italian newspapers. I could not remember the name. Hope the mud is fabricated.
- 2:27 pm
- Sorlil said...
Having had close connections with the SSP in the past I hate to see the party destroy itself like this - not for Tommy's sake, maybe not all the mud is true but I've no doubt a good half of it is - but for all the hardworking people that put their lives into promoting the cause and getting the party to where it is just to see it all go down the drain.
- 8:32 pm
- Rob Mackenzie said...
It will be interesting to see what happens when the verdict is announced. I'm not really much of a Tommy Sheridan fan, but I dislike the News of the World a lot more.
It is a sad, but unfortunately familiar, sight to see leftist factions tearing themslves apart. It is even sadder for those who are less interested in forming factions and who actually want to benefit society.
- 10:12 am


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Post Edited By Moderator (els) : 6/20/2006 6:15:19 PM (GMT-6)
Hello Elisha,
Thank you for your warm welcome, and kind reply. I greatly appreciated it. You're right about everything you said. I do live in guilt and shame. I don't really know how people really perceive me, so making up stuff about myself makes it a bit easier for me to be around them. To me that's easier than not knowing what they think- which I know is all in my mind anyway. And whatever they think shouldn't matter. I know what I am and what I should be, and I'm the only one who's keeping myself from developing.
No I don't have access to any counselors, though I'm currently corresponding to a psychologist here online, not sure If that's the same but she seem to be helping so far. I'm not sure about taking meds for my panic attacks (that sounds about right, they probably are panic attacks), I never took meds, even when I was little my mom used natural remedies to comfort me until I was better. I just don't believe in meds, forgive me for saying that ...I'm not a scientologist or anything. Just never took meds.
I'll try to continue to post. I took the risk to purge myself and share my life story so I might as well go all the way. Thanks again.
Your very welcome...
It is perfectly fine for you not to believe in taking medications. Lots of people dont and do just fine with natural remedies. For panic/ anxiety attacks you can also learn some relaxation and deep breathing that will help greatly for these. I also use meditation music quite a bit for mine and walking. I would think that if your talking to a counselor on-line in a social manner that probably isnt going to be of much help to you. If your doing it in a professional way, hmm..I would still have my reservations regarding it. One, is that you said you have a problem with how you present yourself..so you would have to lay out everything honestly. Two, is that doing this on-line they wouldnt be able to see your facial reactions or body language which is a big part of counseling, being able to tie in the whole person not just the words. It is always up to you and what you feel comfortable with. But if you dont have access to therapy then maybe you could look into a self help book or something that focuses on self esteem and the kind of issues that your dealing with. Just some suggests for you...


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In the mid-1970's, while still closeted personally, Mollenkott began to advocate at church conferences in behalf of lesbian and gay Christians. In l978, with Letha Dawson Scanzoni, she published Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, which became the spearhead volume of Harper San Francisco's collection of LGBT texts. The book, which won an Integrity award for "extraordinary support of the gay Christian movement," was revised and vastly expanded in 1994.
Mollenkott served as Stylistic Consultant for the New International Version of the Bible, and as a member of the National Council of Churches' Inclusive Language Lectionary Committee, coming out to the NCC convention in support of the Metropolitan Community Church's application for membership. She has guest lectured at hundreds of universities, church conferences and seminaries, and testified on behalf of the New Jersey anti-discrimination law, receiving a l992 Achievement Award from the NJ Lesbian and Gay Coalition. In 1999, SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment) presented her with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her work of combating heterosexism in religion.
Mollenkott has served as Board Member for various GLBT-friendly organizations, including Evangelicals Concerned, The Center for Sexuality and Religion, and Kirkridge Retreat Center, where for many years has led several GLBT events annually. She is a founding member of the GLBT-inclusive Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus.
Among her twelve books, the most explicitly lesbian is Sensuous Spirituality: Out From Fundamentalism, although lesbians have also enjoyed The Divine Feminine: Biblical Imagery of God as Female. Her most recent and most radical work, Omnigender: A TransReligious Approach, won the 2002 Lambda Literary Award in the bisexual/transgender category.
(This biographical statement provided by Virginia Mollenkott.)
Web Site:
Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey Papers
Oral History:
Virginia Mollenkott
Biography: August, 2002


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Sweet Tart Apple Berry Apricot Pie: A Contest Winner!
If you had to pick your favorite pie, what would it be? I know, it's a hard question! I happen to love lemon meringue pies, apple pies, french silk pies…I really can't limit myself to just one. That's why when Recipe4Living had its Best Pie Recipe Contest, it was hard to choose a winner. But one entry made our jobs a little easier. This Sweet Tart Apple Berry Apricot Pie let us know that we didn't really have to limit ourselves. We could have all of these great flavors in one pie! Not to mention, look how beautiful it is!
Recipe after the jump.
Sweet Tart Apple Berry Apricot Pie
Berries, apricots and apples all combine in this wonderful pie creation. Since these are our favorite flavors, combining them was a given! The texture and flavor are incredible and I know you will think so, too!
1 15 oz. pkg. refrigerated pie crust
6 tart apples, peeled, seeded and sliced
1 C. fresh red raspberries
1 C. fresh apricots, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 C. light brown sugar, packed
1/4 C. sugar
5 Tbs. lemon juice, divided
1/4 C. cranberry juice
1/3 C. flour
5 Tbs. butter, softened
1 egg white
3/4 C. confectioners' sugar
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Unroll 1 pie crust and place in 9-inch pie dish. Press in bottom and up sides of pan.
In large bowl, combine apples, raspberries, apricots, brown sugar, sugar, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, cranberry juice, flour and 3 tablespoons butter, tossing with hands to combine. Pour into prepared crust. Dot with remaining 2 tablespoons butter.
Unroll 2nd pie crust and with a sharp knife, cut into 16 1/2-inch strips. Starting on one end, weave strips, one by one, to create a lattice effect. Turn overlapping bottom crust over lattice pieces and flute to seal pie. Brush top with egg white. Place in preheated oven for 45-55 minutes or until apples are tender and crust is golden. Remove and cool on rack. When cool, combine confectioners sugar and remaining 3 tablespoons lemon juice, stirring until smooth. Drizzle over pie.
More Like This:
Razzle Dazzle Raspberry Pie
Raspberry Crisp Pie
Berry Apple Fantasy Pie
To check out all of Recipe4Living's current contests, click here!
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Tags: apple berry pie, apple pie, apricot pie, fruit pies, pie contest, pie recipes, Recipe4Living contest


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We are happy to present the brilliant Simple E-Port Replicator.
With so many available recently, it is good to have a make you can recognise. The Simple E-Port Replicator is certainly that and will be a great purchase.
For this price, the Simple E-Port Replicator is widely recommended and is a popular choice amongst most people. Dell Computers have added some excellent touches and this results in good value for money.


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Griffen and Madeline have had another fight. This time I think it was over a dead bird in the yard but since we weren't home we can only go off what MIL said happened.
I think Griffens going to have to go to the vet tomorrow, one of his canines has broken and I want to get it checked. He looks a bit raw on his chest and under one leg. He's also got a small wound on his neck but it doesn't look bad.
Madeline is very sore. She's got some wounds on her neck and over her eye (the eyeball looks fine)
We've had them together for the last half hour but have seperated them to sleep. Griffen kept trying to lick Madeline and she just wanted him to leave her alone.
I just dont know what to do tomorrow. I'm so worried about leaving them alone together.


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Comics, Covered | The best covers of the week
I'm running a little late on a Thanksgiving weekend populated by visiting relatives, but I bring my selections for the five best covers to grace comic-book store shelves on Wednesday.
If that weren't enough, I've rounded up links to interesting discussion and analysis of cover design, and to Amazon.com's Best Covers of the Year (which includes some comics and comics folk).
This week's list is populated by one title each from Dark Horse, Vertigo and Marvel proper, plus two from Marvel's Icon imprint.
To find out what made the cut, read on.
Among the strengths of Beasts of Burden — both the current miniseries and the earlier short stories — has been artist Jill Thompson's ability to make talking, supernatural mystery-solving dogs and cats seem believable. Her gorgeous watercolors and realistic renderings provide a firm foundation on which to rest Evan Dorkin's engaging and sometimes darkly humorous (and often deeply touching) Hammer Films-style stories of witch cults, witch cats, freakish frog storms and more.
The cover of Issue 3 showcases how those disparate elements merge as a very real-looking stray (Orphan) is beset by countless rats, shown only in ominous, distorted shadows straight out of a classic horror film. That aspect is underscored, and even wryly tweaked, by the story title and font: "Something Whiskered This Way Comes."
It's difficult to know where to begin when discussing Sean Phillips' cover for the second issue of Criminal: The Sinners: The unusual choice of colors for a cemetery scene? The way the branches of the tree frame the armless, blood-red statue of an angel? The way the reader's eyes glide past the foreground figure — Tracy Lawless, if I recall — to the characters at the graveside. All I know for sure is that I really like this cover.
Hey, it's Sean Phillips again! This time he's created a clever cover for the collected edition of Incognito, his superhero-crime miniseries with frequent collaborator Ed Brubaker. I love that the enormous white bar hides the man's identity (incognito, indeed), and that everything is rendered in white and gray, save for the blood splatters. There's also the matter of the man's smile: Is he cheerfully oblivious, or does he simply enjoy his work?
I wrote about this cover last month after writer Matt Fraction unveiled the trade dress for the "Stark: Disassembled" arc, so I'm repeating myself by praising the collaboration between series artist Salvador Larroca and designer Rian Hughes. That's okay, though. It's reminiscent of the cover to a 1950s science-fiction novel, yet sleek and modern at the same time. Retro-future, even.
Massimo Carnevale always produces beautiful work, but his tenure on Northlanders has been particularly noteworthy. The image above, while perhaps not the "best" cover of the series, stands out for its subtlety: the mix of sorrow and fatigue in the woman's expression, the way Carnevale establishes a battlefield setting with only a few abstract shapes, the way the smeared blood implies movement of the pale hand.
As we're discussing a Northlanders cover, it's a good time to highlight Brian Wood's design for "The Plague Widow" logo, and his repositioning of the comic's title, which, until this arc, had been stripped horizontally across the top. I'm not generally a fan of vertical type, but I appreciate the thinking behind the cover treatment, as related earlier this month by Editor Mark Doyle: "He really wanted readers to know, 'yes, it's okay to start here!' We knocked around a few different ideas, but ultimately what did he do? He took the Northlanders logo, kicked it to the side, designed a new logo for 'The Plague Widow' and put that front and center. Slipped a '1 of eight' in there and suddenly you're thinking, 'Hey, what's this comic? I've never seen this before, maybe I'll give it a shot…'"
Some cover-design links worth noting:
• Asterios Polyp and the ninth volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service are in the running for Amazon.com's Best Book Covers of the Year. Tomer Hanuka's cover for the novel The Gigolo Murder and the cover for Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett's Boilerplate also are nominated.
• Brandon at Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader? analyzes Marian Churchland's cover for King City #3.
• Irene Gallo, art director for Tor Books, examines two good cover concepts that didn't work out in the end.
• Michael J. Windsor, who designed the wonderful cover for the enjoyable Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, discusses working on The Lost Symbol.
• Designer Peter Mendelsund talks at length about his career and approach to book-cover design.
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text: DigitalCandy Crowley: The FishbowlDC InterviewBy Patrick|April 9, 2008ShareBy Patrick|April 9, 2008ShareSay hello to CNN political correspondent Candy Crowley.What word do you routinely misspell? Guliani? gulliani? giuliani?What's the name of your cell phone ring? "Loud Beeps"What time did you get up this morning? 4:30am.When did you last cry and why? This morning. See above. .How many emails do you receive a day, roughly? 300? 350? of which roughly 25 actually relate to my day.What's your favorite letter? Like "X" ? Or like the one my father wrote to my sons to be read when they grew up?What single person played the biggest role / had the biggest influence on your journalism career? This is too hard because there wasn't a single person in a big role, but so many people in big roles including my children who once convinced me to stay in journalism at a time I thought I wanted out.Read the rest when you click below…(and see previous FishbowlDC interviews: Julie Mason, David Shuster, Joe Curl, Alex Pareene, Peter Beinart, Jonah Goldberg, Megyn Kendall, Ana Marie Cox, Jim Brady, Howard Mortman, Amy Argetsinger, Jose Antonio Vargas, Chuck Todd, Tom Gottlieb, Kelly Ann Collins, David von Drehle, David Lat, Mark Leibovich, Zain Verjee, David Plotz, Paul Kane, Karen Travers, Mark Halperin, Hugo Gurdon, Greg Kelly,Ken Rudin, John Dickerson, Anne Schroeder, Spencer Ackerman, Bret Baier, Bob Sellers, Greta van Susteren, Danielle Jones, Jonathan Salant, John McCalla, Pam Hess, Ryan Grim, Marc Ambinder, Marty Kady, Jack Shafer, Annie Lou Bayly, Jerry Zremski, Charlie Cook, Dave Hughes, Howard Fineman, Katie Tarbox, Mark Segraves, Chris Cillizza, Tom Sietsema, Bill Triplett, Robin Givhan, David Brody, Norah O'Donnell, Carl Cannon, Jordan Lieberman, David Folkenflik, Molly Henneberg, Ernesto Londono, Brody Mullins, Aaron Blake, Martha Raddatz, Andrew Sullivan, Christina Bellantoni, Shane Harris, Nora McAlvanah, Adam Nagourney, Erin McPike, Mike Memoli, Ju-Don Marshall Roberts, Arthur Delaney, Chris Mincher, Rachel Sklar, Laura Sullivan, Jeff Kosseff, Matthew Cooper, Scott McCrary, Dan Reilly, Jennifer Griffin, Ari Shapiro, Jonathan Kaplan, Rick Klein, Mike Allen, Olivier Knox, Erik Wemple, Nathan Burchfiel, Andrea Mitchell, Mike DeBonis, Anne Kornblut, April Ryan, Amy Morris, Keith Koffler, <strongMark Silva, Ann Compton, Mark Knoller, Betsy Fischer, Katherine O'Hearn, Pamela Brown, Beverly Kirk, Wendell Goler, Glenn Kessler, Susan Page, Michael Crowley, Claudia Milne, Kelly Dinardo, Bruce Becker, Michael Rogers, Paul Schur, Diana West, Eric Nuzum, Bill Adair, Jonathan Ward, Jennifer Sergent, Jeffrey Goldberg, Ken Silverstein, Dana Milbank, Mark Murray, Katherine Lewis, Joe Mathieu, Chrystia Freeland, Sam Youngman, Christopher Dorobek, Greg Mitchell)Also, drop us a line to let us know who else you'd like FishbowlDC to interview. They must work in the Washington area and you must include their email address. When's the last time you volunteered? Where? Last year. Cleaning up a bike path in MarylandWho is your favorite active journalist? Washington Post's Peter Baker always has something I didn't know and writes beautifully. NBC's Lisa Meyers is dogged and always coming up with things beyond the headlines and things nobody else has.What did you have for breakfast? Luna Bar and waterWhat one toiletry item could you not live without? Toothpaste?If you could have one superpower, which one would it be? Oh please. The ability to read minds. The day would be so much shorter if you knew the truth in the first phone call.Red or white wine? Sorry to be boring. don't drinkPG-13 or R? RLincoln, Jefferson or Washington Memorial? LincolnLeg or breast (chicken, of course) Ok, really boring. I'm a vegetarianFriday night or Saturday night? Saturday. time to get ready and time to sleep in Sunday"Wedding Crashers" or "Old School" Really, really boring. I had to be told these were movies. So, "Last Days" ?The Palm or Cafe Milano? um Giant?Yankees or Red Sox? CardinalsJenna or Barbara? Never choose between twins. It damages their psyche.McSteamy or McDreamy? McDreamyLeno or Letterman? LettermanStewart or Colbert? StewartBoxers or briefs? I mean, if presidential candidates have stopped answering this question, then I won't answer either. Boxers Sharehttp://adweek.it/2lIwLoC copy Adweek Adweek


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Adobe today announced that a major update to Adobe Creative Cloud, the company's flagship offering for creatives, is now available.
Unveiled at Adobe MAX, The Creativity Conference, in early May and packed with new features, this Creative Cloud release reimagines the creative process through a stunning set of "CC" desktop applications and sophisticated cross-device collaboration and publishing capabilities. Creative files can be stored and shared, via Creative Cloud, on Mac OS, Windows, iOS and Android; and Behance, the world's leading online creative community, is now integrated with Creative Cloud, so customers can showcase work, get feedback on projects and gain global exposure.
Adobe Creative Cloud Powers Frictionless Creative Workflows
This milestone update to Creative Cloud simplifies the entire creative process. Core features include:
● Creative Cloud Experience on the Desktop. With the new Creative Cloud desktop app, your entire creative world is synced and organized across your desktop, website, and mobile device. You can stay connected to work on Behance; track feedback; and install and manage apps and updates. More features will be added soon to manage your files and desktop fonts within this same experience.
● Integration With The World's Leading Creative Community. With Behance now integrated with Creative Cloud, members are able to publish their own portfolios, follow other creatives, publish work-in-progress from within a growing number of CC apps and solicit feedback from the worldwide creative community. Over 1.4 million creatives globally are part of the Behance network.
● Store, Share and Collaborate. All files and assets can be shared between the desktop, cloud and mobile devices. A designer can take a photo on their iPad, use Photoshop Touch to refine the photo while on the go, then access that file, via the cloud, and use Photoshop CC on their Mac or Windows PC to further enhance the image. Designers can send files to view, download or comment. Individual members receive 20GB of storage.
● Seamless Publishing. Creative Cloud members have access to the services necessary to publish highly personalized portfolio websites using Behance ProSite, high-impact digital publications for iPad using Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) Single Edition, and PhoneGap™ Build to create and publish mobile apps for any device. Adobe Typekit features an unmatched library of old-classic to new-favorite fonts for use on websites and, coming soon in an update to Creative Cloud, creatives will also be able to quickly find the perfect fonts in the growing Adobe Typekit library, sync them to their computer, and have them immediately available for use in any desktop application. Full Creative Cloud members will soon have access to over 700 fonts, installed with a single click.
New Family of CC Desktop Applications Available Exclusively to Creative Cloud Members
This update to Creative Cloud includes the next generation of 15 Adobe desktop applications -- including Adobe Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, Dreamweaver CC, Premiere Pro CC and more. Adobe Creative Cloud includes more than 30 tools and services that enable professional-grade content creation and delivery across print, web, mobile apps, video and photography.
● Photoshop CC ships with new sharpening technologies and designer workflow enhancements. Camera Shake Reduction deblurs images that would have otherwise been lost due tocamera movement. All-newSmart Sharpen makes texture and detail pop, and Adobe Camera Raw 8 adds even more powerful photographic controls to straighten and perfect images. Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC are the first Adobe desktop applications to include theability to post files directly to Behance, showcasing work immediately andintegrating peer feedback into the creative process.
● For designers, the Touch Type tool in Illustrator CC offers a new level of creativity with type. Move, scale, and rotate text characters knowing that it remains editable. This feature works with a mouse, stylus or multi-touch device. Illustrator also enables painting with a brush made from a photo. Art, Pattern, and Scatter brushes can contain raster images, so designers can create complex organic designs quickly, with simple brush strokes. And IllustratorCC features integration with Behance, so work can be shared directly to Behance to get feedback and showcase projects. A new, modern architecture for InDesign CC turbocharges performance, and in-browser editing in Adobe Muse™ CC -- a tool for designers to create and publish HTML websites without writing code -- allows clients to make edits to a published website, which can then be reviewed, approved, and updated by the designer.
● For video customers Adobe Premiere Pro CCincludes dramatic new editing features, customizations and improvements to help editors workefficiently. Premiere Pro CC integrates powerful color workflows, with the addition of the Lumetri™ Deep Color Engine to easily apply rich color grading looks.A high-impact version of Adobe After Effects CC brings motion graphics and visual effects artists more creative possibilities and allows them to work more easily in 3D with the new Live 3D Pipeline with Maxon Cinema4D integration. There are also all-new versions of Adobe SpeedGrade CC, Audition CC, Prelude™ CC and Adobe Story CC Plus
● Web designers and developers can look forward to significant advances in Adobe's family of Edge tools and services. The latest Edge Animate CC lets web designers create animated and interactive content with amazing ease and precision, using native HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Dreamweaver users can look forward to the most up-to-date CSS and properties via the intuitive visual editing tool, CSS Designer. And Adobe Flash Pro CC features a modern, modular 64-bit architecture rebuilt from the ground up to be fast and reliable.
Adobe Create Now
To mark this introduction, Adobe has also launched Create Now: a Celebration of Creativity. Over the course of the program's first month Adobe will host a variety of collaborative art projects, commemorate the birthday of a design icon and provide a forum for creatives to use Adobe tools to express themselves in fun, engaging and unexpected ways. More information is available at: http://adobe.ly/createnow.
Membership Plans and Availability
This major update to Creative Cloud is available now. Current Creative Cloud members receive all of this innovation as part of their existing membership, at no extra cost. Special promotional pricing is available to existing customers who own CS3 or later. Individual, education, team, government and enterprise membership plans are available.
Read More
Adobe Releases New Family of 'CC' Desktop Applications [Video]
Adobe today announced that a major update to Adobe Creative Cloud, the company's flagship offering for creatives, is now available.


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Skip Hop makes mealtime fun with their signature zoo characters that little ones love. The bright and whimsical Zootensils flatware set delights with a blue and red owl design on chunky, light blue handles. Perfect for toddlers, this fork and spoon boast easy-to-hold, soft side grips and stainless steel heads. Dishwasher safe.
- 1.25"W x 4.75"H
- BPA, phthalate and PVC-free


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I am incredibly happy and proud to announce that the Ponycon comic is now available in print! You'll be able to grab a copy at Ponycon and see the conclusion to New Beginnings~!
Working on New Beginnings was difficult but satisfying experience, teaching me a lot about making comics, telling stories, and what's needed to be a professional comic artist. I'm honored that the folks at Ponycon gave me the opportunity to tell the story of their mascots- I love Mirage, Bowtie, and Tiebreaker so much and I hope I'll be able to tell more of their stories in the future.
And of course, the comic wouldn't have been possible without the work and effort of JadedJynx, who designed Tiebreaker and Mirage, and Crowne Prince, who came up with the initial script and draft of the story!
This weekend, I'll be at Ponycon, so come and see me there!
And if you're someone who's commissioned me- after Ponycon, I will have no more obligations keeping me from working on what I owe you. Thank you all again so much for your immense amounts of patience as I worked on the comic. You can be sure that the skills I've improved working the comic will feed back into the work I make for you.
See you at Ponycon 2017!


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There is a rumors if HTC will be launch their first dual-core smartphone that called HTC Pyramid Smartphone. HTC Pyramid will be release for T-Mobile HSPA+ network that offers up to 14 Mbps downloads and 5.6 Mbps uploads, Works on GSM 850/900/1800/1900/ with HSDPA 900/1700/2100 Mhz networks and powered by dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor.
HTC Pyramid Smartphone will be boasts 4.3-inch touchscreen display with qHD resolution of 960 x 540 pixels, 1024 MB RAM, 3D Graphics hardware accelerator (Adreno 220 GPU), supports external memory via Micro SD card, 16-megapixel camera provides record 1080p video and also playback up to 30 frames per second, supports Mobile TV and runs on run Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS.
HTC Pyramid Android Smartphone also equipped with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, Micro USB 2.0, GPRS, HTML browser, Built-in 8th Gen, GPS with standard GPS & assisted GPS modes, Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Digital compass also supports multiple video formats i.e, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, H.264, H.263, VC-1, DivX, WMV-9, Sorenson Spark, VP and multiple audio formats such as AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, FR, EFR, HR, WB-AMR, G.729a, G.711, AAC stereo encode. HTC Pyramid Smartphone will be release at MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2011, but there is no information about priced at this moment.


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If you long for the colder seasons, these sled-inspired outdoor benches will remind you all year long of one of the most famous winter pastimes: sledding. Made from high-quality birch wood, these outdoor benches feature a creative curved 'C'-shaped design that offers users an artistic place to sit.
The Sleigh Bench is constructed from six long slabs of birch wood that have been expertly curved upwards. Unlike conventional park benches, the Sleigh Bench doesn't have a back support and can only fit one or two people. The bench seat also includes an adorable knitted blue cushion with a winter wonderland snowflake pattern inspired by the colder months in Nordic countries. Another neat feature of the minimalist Sleigh Bench is the wood portion underneath the seat would be a great place to store drinks, books and other nick-knacks.
Sled-Shaped Benches
More Stats +/-
Comfy Cracked Benches
Book-Filled Benches
Elegant Upcycled Pianos
Sketched Grafitti Furnishings
Faux Cushioned Benches
These Sleigh Outdoor Benches are Scandinavian-Inspired
- By: Misel SabanJun 13, 2013
References: sixpointun
References: sixpointun


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|Alberto Mielgo
|Primetime Emmy Award (2013): Outstanding Individual in Animation; Annie Award (2013): Production Design in an Animated Television or Other Broadcast Venue Production
Alberto Mielgo, also known as Alberto Mielgo Nieto, is a Spanish artist. He has been a painter, animation director, art director, designer, and animator. He was the art director for TRON: Uprising.
Mielgo's art is highly detailed, blending photorealism and abstraction.
Born in Madrid, Mielgo has lived in London, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo, and is currently based in Los Angeles. A self-taught painter, and concept artist, he started out at an animation studio at the age of 18. He is also known for his work on Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003), Dragon Hill (2002), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and his own project exploring animation through fine arts and original methods, Pinkman.tv.
TRON: UprisingEdit
Mielgo is credited as Background Designer for Beck's Beginning and Art Director for that episode and five others. For one episode, The Stranger, along with his overall work on the show, Mielgo won an Annie Award and an Emmy Award in 2013. Samples of his color-key concept art for Uprising can be viewed on his website.
His work on Uprising started before Legacy was released; he has described the look of the movie "incredible" and "one of the freshest designs" he had seen lately. While he counts Moebius and Syd Mead as strong influences on the final look of Uprising, he tried not to watch the original movie for as long as possible in order to cultivate his own vision for the series before beginning to work on it.
- Primetime Emmy Award (2013): Outstanding Individual in Animation (for The Stranger)
- Annie Award (2013): Production Design in an Animated Television or Other Broadcast Venue Production (for The Stranger)
External linksEdit
- Website
- Blogspot
- Q&A about Pinkman.tv
- GamerLiveTV video interview about TRON: Uprising at San Diego Comic Con


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Spielberg: A name that doesn't just stand for top-class motor sports but also for high-level enjoyment and recreation.
With their individual qualities and equipment, Projekt Spielberg's nine culinary establishments leave no wish unfulfilled. No matter which one you choose, they all have one thing in common – excellent cuisine and tastefully decorated rooms. You can choose between the luxurious Hotel Steirerschlössl in Zeltweg, the renowned and tradition-steeped Hofwirt in Seckau, the stately Hotel Schloss Gabelhofen, the G'Schlössl Murtal executed in upscale country-house style with its large spa area and the Landhotel Schönberghof which offers breathtaking views of the Red Bull Ring.
Located not far from the Landhotel Schönberghof, Guesthouse Enzinger also offers a great view of the racing track from its 14 rooms, each with a balcony. The large terrace is the ideal place to relax at the end of an action-packed day. A function room with capacity for up to 30 people is the perfect venue for celebrations. Guests use the catering facilities of the Landhotel Schönberghof.
Opening times
11 am - 10 pm (Monday - Saturday)
11 am - 8 pm (Sunday)
31. Dezember 2018 till incl. 13. January 2019
Gästehaus Enzinger
Red Bull Ring Straße 18
8724 Spielberg
+43 3577 22630
and calming down at the same time.


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More Inglourious
A bunch of new pictures from the set of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS have hit the web and you can check them out over HERE. Also, Tarantino.info have a video of some filming, where Frederick Zoller's character is sniping American GIs. You can check that out HERE.
How are you guys feeling about this flick? I personally feel like the more Brad Pitt and the Basterds, the better the film will be. Although that Tarantino can be so batshit insane and still make a major motion picture is an incredible achievement in itself. If he delivers this thing on time and on budget he should get a freaking medal.
|Extra Tidbit:
|Oh man, for a moment there I actually forgot Mike Myers was in this. What a bummer.


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Deals on products Marcos Limas likes
My Lists
My Likes
Beats by Dr Dre urBeats In-Ear Headphones - Gloss White
Replacing busted ear buds gets old fast. urBeats in-ear Headphones were made to be an Upgrade from the headphones that come with your Music player: more durability, better sound, and a chance to do real justice to your music. If you have an HTC device and demand excellent quality from an in-ear headphone, urBeats are designed for you. Precision-machined single-billet metal housing prevents vibrations and unwelcome sound from tainting your listening experience. Whether you keep urBeats pristine or throw them in and out of your bag, you don't have to worry about them breaking or fraying anytime soon. Also you can Switch easily between songs and incoming calls. No need to take off your headphones or talk into the phone like a walkie-talkie.-Exclusive Driver design pumps out the deepest bass, soaring highs, and ultra-clear midrange, letting you hear exactly what the artist was feeling in the studio.-urBeats lightweight design that makes them ideal for listening during exercise, travel, or for everyday wear. Hard chrome earphone finishes for rugged durability and everlasting shine-urBeats built-in MIC lets you talk hands-free on your HTC phone, then use the three-way button to switch back to your music-Sealed in-ear construction and multiple eartip designs Block out external noise so you hear more details in your music, less outside noise-Includes: urBeats in-ear headphones, HTC compatible in-line remote Microphone cable, Storage pouch, four pairs of ear tip fittings
J&R Computer/Music World
Monster Beats By Dr. Dre Pro Headphones White
"Beats by Dr. Dre Pro are reference headphones designed by audio professionals for audio professionals. Particularly, those who prefer a clean, yet forceful sound across the spectrum. Built from strong yet lightweight aluminum for rugged use on-the-go, Beats by Dr. Dre Pro headphones resist vibrations, so you never hear unwanted artifacts, just pure, clear sound. Dual input/output cable ports enable you to share mixes by daisy-chaining headphones. If you've ever wanted to share a mix without removing your headphones, now you can. Beats by Dr. Dre Pro headphones have flip-up earcups that let you monitor the room without taking them off your head. They're so plush and comfortable you'll be able to wear them for hours and forget you have them on. They deliver advanced passive sound isolation, keeping the music in and ambient sounds just audible enough. Best of all, they're washable so you don't have to sweat sweating in them.Proprietary driver technology and materials deliver the even frequency response of studio monitors for ultra-accurate, pro-caliber recording, mixing, and playback Beats Pro uses no amplification or noise cancellation circuitry that adds other frequencies and colors the sound, so you get deep bass response and clean sound across the spectrum, uncompromised Increased earcup foam density and precise fitting shut out external noise for extraordinary accuracy, extreme clarity, and hard driving bass Stands up to heavy use and rough treatment for long life Metal construction won't resonate and introduce artifacts that interfere with the sound Dual Input/Output cable ports let you plug your headphone cable into one earcup and the other port automatically switches to output mode, so others can hear your mix in their cans The unique, backward-rotating earcups make it easy to monitor the room, studio, or club, or hear others with them on your head at all times Wired by Monster, the coiled cable is extra durable and flexible for extra length when you need it Yields superior sound isolation with maximum comfort and minimal ear fatigue Removable and washable because you want the beats funky, not your headphones Threaded 1/4"" adaptor with tether Heavy-duty, gold-plated threaded 1/4"" adaptor ensures you're ready for any setup An attached tether prevents it from being left behind at your last gig 1-year warranty What's In The Box? Beats Pro High-Performance professional headphone Monster Cable headphone cable (1.8m with a coil that extends it to 2.1m or 4.3ft.) 1/8 to 1/4"" adapter Touring case Monster Clean Cloth with advanced Aegis Microbe Shield technology 1-year warranty"
Pioneer Djm-700 4-Channel Digital Dj Mixer With Effects Black
The DJM-700 4-channel digital mixer from Pioneer will reignite jaded turntablists' enthusiasm and make it easier to entertain the crowd while producing the purest sounding mixes. The solid construction chassis and dual shield structure of the DJM-700 helps eliminate worry over vibration and digital noise creeping in. Output-wise, it has a 96khz/24-bit digital sampling system with a 32-bit/96kHz DSP with ideal filtering that doesn't deteriorate any of the sound quality. Speaking of filters, the DJM-700 DJ mixer has a unique effect frequency filter that limits the frequency bands subjected to effects to help showcase your particular mixing style.As far as effects, some of the more notable additions to this Pioneer mixer include Beat Effect, which automatically detects the BPM of the tune to perfectly align any of the various effects such as flanger, phaser, or crush, with the beat; Roll Sampler, which provides 4 realtime sampling patternsroll, reverse roll, pitch up roll, and pitch down roll; and Beat Select Buttons2 buttons that help maintain synchronization between beat effects and audio by letting the user quickly select the effect timing. The Pioneer DJM-700 has fully assignable MIDI functions for those who like to add DJ effectors and MIDI software applications to their nightly routine, with up to 49 assignable keys. Adding to the variety of performance options, the I/O terminals allow for traditional or digital turntables or both.When quality and performance is key, trust Pioneer.4-channel10 input/12 outputHigh rigidity chassis minimizes noise from vibrationDual shield structure eliminates digital noise entryWorld's first frequency effects filterManual filterSound Link/EFX Link function controls other Pioneer equipment via a link cableBPM synchronize function, to synchronize the BPMs of all attached equipmentFully assignable MIDI functions96kHz/24-bit sampling rate32-bit/96kHz digital sound processorMIDI effects like Beat Effect, Roll Sampler, and Beat Select Buttons can be synced with tempoEach channel of the mixer can be assigned to the crossfaderBuilt-in 3-band EQ on each channel enables level control within a 26dB to +6dB range for high, mid, and low bands, respectively.Users can change the crossfader/channel fader curveMixer automatically lowers track volume when it senses a vocal input on the microphonePeak level meter located on the top right of the mixer shows input levels from each channelBy simply sliding the crossfader or channel fader, player is automatically started
Pioneer Cdj-900 - Tabletop Multi-Player
The Pioneer CDJ-900 Tabletop Multi-Player is prepared for any performance Adapting to today's variety of media formats, the Pioneer CDJ-900 enables playback of MP3, AAC, WAV, and AIFF audio files from CDs and USB memory devices. A USB port located on top of the turntable enables users to quickly connect an external storage device such as a Tonium Pacemaker or a hard drive packed with music files, minimizing the need to bring a laptop computer to performances. The Pioneer CDJ-900 turntable includes rekordbox, Pioneer's proprietary music management software that organizes and catalogs a DJ's entire music library. When music files are imported to rekordbox, the software analyzes each file and prepares them for use specifically with the CDJ turntable. Key elements of Pioneer's rekordbox software include: Analyze Beats Per Minute (BPM) Data: BPM/Tempo information for each song is identified and processed into rekordbox for use by the DJ in preparing and performing a set. Waveform data: The waveform of each song is identified and then displayed on the bottom screen for quick data visualization. Customize Tag info and artwork: edit and customize the file information to your performance needs. Hot cues, cue points, and loops: prepare and customize cues and loops as well as create and manage hot cue banks. Playlists: create, edit, and manage customized playlists for various performances. Beatgrid: using the quantizing feature, cue points and loops can be set perfectly on the beat. The quantize feature ensures cue points are set accurately and automatically, correcting and synching beats during manual looping or a real-time cueing, preventing off-beat mistakes. The Pioneer CDJ-900 turntable lets you transfer analyzed music files to their preferred storage media and play them directly from the CDJ-900 turntable. The software offers song information that can be viewed easily during performances on the CDJ's large display to quickly search and access content by genre, title, BPM, etc. Also, as analyzed tracks are played through the CDJ product, the turntable automatically creates and saves a play history, enabling users to review past performances on their PCs. Pro DJ Link The turntables feature Pioneer's Pro DJ Link that enables up to four CDJ-2000 or 900s to be connected by the link port to share a single music source, whether it is a hard drive, USB, and/or SD memory card. Once linked, users have the ability to quickly find, display, and choose the music file from a connected source through the Pioneer CDJ's built-in display and control knobs. A quick turn of the knob lets users scroll through created files and folders and a push of the knob confirms the song choice. Advanced Connectivity The turntable features a 24-bit/48 kHz sound card and HID (Human Interface Device) and MIDI control compatibility through the USB port. Up to 35 controls on the surface of each player can be used to trigger other devices, such as DJ effecters and software by way of


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Football class and other weekend activities
Get the kids into action with some of the best footy classes and activities near you.
Our Local Editors have grouped together some of the best football classes and other weekend activities in your area.
Just click on your nearest site to to see where to go.
If you know of a brilliant local activity for children, please feel free to add it to your Local site - visit your Local site now.
Last updated: about 3 years ago


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Gear : Hiking and Camping : Cookware : Pots and Pans - Aluminum : Bugaboo Hiker
Bugaboo Hiker
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|GSI Outdoor
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If youve had some noodle-straining incidents on past camping trips dinner la ground, youll be stoked on the built-in lid strainer lid in the GSI Outdoors Pinnacle Hiker. GSI Outdoors made the strainer lid with BPA-free resin for simple, warp-free strainage. The aluminum pots double-layer nonstick coating makes for easy cleanup, and the lightweight bows, insulated mugs, and sip-it tops help keep weight down. Attach the folding pot gripper to the outside brackets for secure, no-scratch handling.


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Sony wants to be #3 in worldwide Android sales
With a recent resurgence in mobile, Sony has re-emerged as a true contender for your smartphone dollars. While they don't plan on threatening Samsung for dominance any time soon — if ever — they do want a larger slice of the pie.
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Sony Mobile's Sales and Marketing chief Dennis van Schie noted that Sony wanted to be number three in regard to worldwide Android sales. "If we are going for the No. 3, it is 20% of the smartphone market by value." said van Schie, and noted their current presence hovers around 7%.
In splitting from Sony-Ericsson, van Schie noted that a world of opportunity opened up. He pointed to their presence in India, which was very minimal until the split:
Where we leverage—and this is a big change from the past—the sales and marketing infrastructure of Sony. For example, in India. I was responsible for product development on the technological side at Sony Ericsson. We had a team of 25, 30 people, and to get to the mom-and-pop stores out there in a massive, complex and vast country like India is very risky.
Sony Electronics have 650 people on the ground. Over 10 years they have built this network for selling TVs, PlayStation, cameras. Now, when we merged … we suddenly see a massive growth in India.
There was also the issue of technology and access to R&D their parent company was involved in. In a nutshell, Sony-Ericsson was treated the same as any other manufacturer, not having access to Sony's camera or screen technology until the competition. Now that Sony Mobile is safely tucked into the parent company Sony, both technology and distribution channels have opened up.
As for where Sony Mobile intends to sell, it's at their familiar premium designation. According to von Schie, they'll focus on the $400-and-up price point, nearly dashing hopes of a Sony Nexus device. The marketing lead went on to say that "That is where the value is, that is where the money is", and pointed to that sector as where Sony was most comfortable.


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The government plans to become the first in the world to make all of its computers carbon neutral.
In a speech at the Science Museum today, Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson is to announce 18 measures that will change the habits of civil servants throughout Whitehall.
The proposals, including desktop computers that switch themselves off if they are inactive for too long, are aimed at making energy consumption from all of Whitehall's information and communication technology carbon neutral by 2012.
Watson hopes that by 2020 government technology will be carbon neutral throughout its lifetime, including manufacture and disposal. "We won't just do this by offsetting but by making serious changes to the way we do business," Watson will say.
The government is the largest buyer of information and communications technology in the UK and its IT equipment is responsible for up to a fifth of the government's carbon emissions - 460,000 tonnes a year. Watson will say: "Worldwide, computers are responsible for the same quantity of carbon emissions as the airline industry."
His proposals follow claims that the government has been falling short of its declarations that it will lead by example by reducing its carbon emissions.
This month a cross-party group of MPs said the government was "lagging far behind" in this area. In March the annual report of the government's independent watchdog, the Sustainable Development Commission, said more than half of Whitehall departments were failing to reduce their carbon emissions by enough to meet their targets.
"Turning off every desktop PC in central government for the 16 hours that fall outside the standard working day could save up to 117,500 tonnes of CO2 per year," a Cabinet Office briefing document says.
A government source told the Guardian that a centralised system would switch off computers detected as inactive.
Watson will also ask departments to remove active screensavers, which use the same amount of energy as a screen in full use. Civil servants will also be urged to ensure re-use of PCs which are discarded but are still serviceable.
John Higgins, director general of technology sector organisation Intellect, welcomed Watson's initiative. He said: "These 'quick wins' - rationalising servers and data centres - are a credible series of first steps."
The Sustainable Development Commission's report said that apart from the Ministry of Defence, which significantly reduced its emissions in 2005-06, government departments emit 22% more CO2 than they did in 1999.


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Clever Business Stationery Ideas | The Photographer's Guide To Printed Business Stationery!
Clever Business Stationery Ideas | Has print really been replaced by emails, websites, and social media? If you can reach your potential client with just a few keystrokes, or a couple of taps on your smartphone, why on earth would you even consider investing in custom business stationery? While it's true that you can engage your potential and existing clients and business partners without using printed business stationery, you'll want to keep in mind that an email will deliver your message, but it won't do all the things a custom printed letterhead will do for your business.
Clever Business Stationery Ideas | Website Design – www.medianovak.com
You see, printed stationery will help you leave an impression of an established, reliable business, reinforce your brand, deliver your message, but also say plenty about your business and the services you're providing without using any words. The benefits of well-designed stationery are practically endless, but only when done right. A poorly designed business stationery will deliver a wrong message and can do a lot more damage than you think! Curious how to design a business stationery packet that will work for your photography business as hard as you are? Read on to find out everything you need to know!
You Don't Need To Get Everything! | Clever Business Stationery Ideas
Business stationery is a term that covers a plethora of items, and one of the main issues with generic templates (in addition to being generic!) is that these packages usually include countless items you'll never use. Instead, they'll end up lying around your office collecting dust. So, before you approach a designer or order one of the packages available online (Which you really should reconsider – more on that later!), think about the items that will be most useful. But what are the most common items most business owners will need? First, there's the small business trifecta: business cards, letterheads, and matching envelopes – three items you can't go wrong with.
RELATED: Photography Business Stationery Hacks | Four Sizzling Tips To Build The Baddest Photography Brand Using Business Stationery
You can also considering throwing in a compliments slip if you deliver your photos through mail. This is much like a letterhead, with a pre-printed salutation "with compliments" or "with our/my compliments", and it will create a more intimate link between you and your clients, even if you're not in the same room. If you choose not to get custom envelopes, you can get stickers instead and use them to seal the generic envelopes to add a bit of your branding, which leads us to our next point!
Branding Is Everything | Clever Business Stationery Ideas
All of your materials can and should convey the essence of your brand, from your website and the colors, fonts and images you use to set it up, to your logo and the tone of voice you use on social media. You want your potential clients to recognize your brand whether they stumble upon your Twitter profile, your website, or find your business card in their old wallet, and the only way to do it is through creativity and consistency. There's nothing really wrong with sending out a generic blank envelope – but branded stationery will turn your brand into a memorable visual experience. What can you do to ensure consistency?
First, take a look at your logo and make sure you're using the latest version on each item – this might sound like an obvious one, but you'd be amazed how many photographers use different versions of their logos on their stationery items simply because they don't want to update their stationery. This will only confuse your potential and existing clients into not being sure whether the logos represent two different businesses. Once you make sure you're using the latest version of your logo, take a look at its elements and see which one you can use to brand your stationery items and tie them together, whether it's the color scheme, font family, or style of graphics.
Simplicity Reigns Supreme | Clever Business Stationery Ideas
Your goal here is a unique business stationery packet that stands out – remember, we're all handed dozens of business cards each week, which means your business card is more than likely to end up in a desk drawer on a pile of other business cards, and it's only natural you want yours to instantly stand out from the pile and grab the attention of your potential clients. However, keep in mind the primary purpose of business stationery – to deliver a message or provide people with certain information. It's your job to come up with a unique design that doesn't overshadow the information. After all, the content is the reason why you're sending out the stationery in the first place.
RELATED: Simple Business Stationery Design | 5 Bite-Sized Tips To Design Your Own Business Stationery (And 3 Examples To Inspire You!)
To help you achieve this balance between creating a unique design without overwhelming the viewer, you'll want to do some serious restricting. For example, when it comes to colors – it's best to limit your selection to 2-3 colors. Use a neutral color for the background, either white or champagne, add a pinch of your brand's main color, and throw in a contrasting color that stands out from the background for emphasis. However, use this color only for the most important pieces of information – the more you use a color, the easier it is for the eye to get used to it and completely ignore it.
Clever Business Stationery Ideas | Website Design – www.medianovak.com
Readability Is Absolutely Vital | Clever Business Stationery Ideas
Another thing you'll want to limit is the number of fonts you use throughout your materials. Just as with the colors, it's best to stick to 2-3 simple fonts, as the human eye finds it difficult to scan multiple fonts at once. While choosing fonts, it's also important you pay attention to readability. We all have fancy script fonts we love, but if it's difficult to read, it definitely doesn't belong on your stationery items, so stick with simple, easy to read fonts.


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After sweeping through Downs' Gulf Shores townhouse a second time to gather evidence, searching the county-owned pickup truck that witnesses spotted Nodine driving from the scene and receiving the preliminary results from an autopsy, authorities divulged little new information.
"We're talking to friends and family and trying to piece together the grand scheme," said Lt. Dennis King with the Gulf Shores Police Department.
Among the details authorities did publicize: Nodine and Downs had been spotted at Pensacola Beach earlier in the day, and the two had corresponded in the days leading up to Downs' death via e-mail and text message.
Baldwin County District Attorney Judy Newcomb also said Gulf Shores police had dug up an incident report from the night of Oct. 31, 2006, in which officers noted that they had responded to a previous address of Downs' and found her unresponsive.
Stephen Nodine: A timeline
September 2001
Until his campaign, Nodine is relatively unknown in downtown political circles, although he has attended many city and county events.
Nodine, accompanied by his lawyer, turned himself in at the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office later that night and gave a statement. Police have not charged him with any crime.
-- Robert McClendon
Downs' family members disputed that characterization, though.
"That was not intentional," said the woman's ex-husband Chris Downs. Accompanied by Angel Downs' sister and brother in-law, Susan and Keith Bloodworth, Chris Downs said the 2006 incident should not color Sunday's events.
"We don't accept that this was a suicide," he said of his ex-wife's death. "There's no question in our mind."
Nodine, 46, has not been charged with any crime. Witnesses told police that he frequently visited Downs' home and that his red pickup truck was at their condominium complex for most of Sunday.
"After the shot was fired, (witnesses) saw him leaving, which has made him a person of interest," King said.
Nodine's cellular phone was turned off Tuesday, and his voice mail would not accept messages.
"We have no comment at this time," Nodine lawyer Matt Green said via e-mail Tuesday.
The county commissioner surrendered himself to investigators a few hours after the shooting and was released early Monday. Newcomb declined to disclose what Nodine told detectives, and she said investigators have not spoken with him since then.
Downs died in the presence of her neighbors at the end of her driveway before police arrived, a handgun by her side, those neighbors said. Ownership of that weapon, a 9 mm Kel-Tec, is being traced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, King said.
"She did own a gun," he said. "But we don't know that that was hers without a shadow of doubt."
The woman's family members said Tuesday that Downs' history tells them that she would not have turned a gun on herself.
Diagnosed with heart disease as a toddler, the Georgia native awaited heart and lung transplants through her 20s before drug therapy tamed her condition in her 30s, family members said.
"She wanted to live life to the fullest, especially after the heart," said her ex-husband, who remained close to her after their 2005 divorce. "She thought she had a new lease on life."
Said Susan Bloodworth: "She would always be talking about her future, her plans. I spoke to her about that as recently as Sunday."
Born and raised in Warner Robbins, Ga., the second oldest of four, Angel Downs and her husband moved to Baldwin County in 2001. Family members described her as a bit of a beach bum, an animal lover, and a charismatic and beloved woman who turned heads when she walked into a room.
Family members declined to discuss her relationship with Nodine, whom she was often seen with publicly in recent years. "We didn't approve of the relationship she was in," Susan Bloodworth said.
As such, family members said they didn't know many details.
But they said they were certain that she was not suicidal and were confident the death investigation would prove as much.
"We're 100 percent positive justice will be served," Chris Downs said. "We want the truth, and we think with the overwhelming evidence, the truth will eventually come out."


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October 28, 2009 09:02 ET
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Oct. 28, 2009) - James Hoggan, co-founder of DeSmogBlog.com and the author of "CLIMATE COVER- UP: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming" will be unveiling his book in Atlanta and available for interviews in advance of the event.
CLIMATE COVER-UP is about the perversion of science by public relations. It is a seething reportage of public manipulation, staggering deceit and manufactured controversy.
James Hoggan is a public relations expert who can clearly explain how the old energy industry has executed a two-decade long PR campaign to confuse the public about climate change, in the process undermining clean energy, green jobs and America's best chance at achieving energy independence. Mustering insights from his own 30-year career, Hoggan can describe strategies and highlight tactics, including the staging of phony protests; the manufacturing of stories with false experts; the forging of petitions; and, on too many occasions, outright lying.
As the U.S. prepares to join the Copenhagen climate summit in December, the question remains, will Americans join the global fight against global warming, or will we fall victim to a campaign of climate confusion that serves only the interests of fossil fuel firms and sunset industries eager to hide from change?
WHAT: An informative dialogue and book reading at PARKGROUNDS
142 Flat Shoals Ave SE
WHO: James Hoggan - Author of Climate Cover-Up
Co-founder of DeSmogBlog.com and president of the award-winning public relations firm James Hoggan & Associates, Hoggan is also chair of the David Suzuki Foundation and a trustee of the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education.
WHEN: Thursday, October 29, 2009 Atlanta 7 – 9 PM
"I never doubted that we humans are up to the technical challenge of beating climate change. But I worry that we will not be able to rise to the political and economic challenges in time. This book explains how the propaganda generated by self interest groups has purposely created confusion about climate change. It's an imperative read for a successful future."
-Leonardo DiCaprio
To schedule an interview with James Hoggan please contact Claire McKinney@ 862-252-1880 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
SallyAnne McCartin & Associates
Claire McKinney
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Lisa's Cosmetics
Beauty and Wellness / Cosmetics
Call 905 762 9991Directions
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Lisa's Cosmetics/Fragrances Inc. is a cosmetics store in Markham, Ontario. Enjoy savings of up to 80% off on a huge collections of cosmetics and fragrances from brands such as Elizabeth Arden, H2O Plus, Stila, Marcelle, Britney Spears, Armani, Vera Wang, Anna Sui, China Glaze, Versace, Burberry, CK, Gucci, Guess, and Givenchy just to name a few!