text:
In Arab-Israel conflict Trump recognises Jerusalem as capital of Israel
President defies warnings from allies to overturn decades of US foreign policy
51 minutes ago
Sam Fleming and Courtney Weaver in Washington, Erika Solomon in Beirut, Simeon Kerr in Dubai and Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem
Yesterday Donald Trump has defied warnings from allies across the world and overturned decades of US foreign policy by announcing he will recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and trigger plans to move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. The US president said he would take the step on Wednesday afternoon, describing it as a long overdue move that would advance the peace process. He declared the US would support a two-state solution for the Palestinians and Israelis should they embrace such an outcome. "This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality," Mr Trump said in an address. "It is also the right thing to do." The decision allows Mr Trump to demonstrate resolve on a hugely symbolic issue and redeem a pledge to supporters and key donors that he first made during the presidential campaign. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, broke his silence on the issue following the president's speech, calling it a "historic day" and thanking Mr Trump for his "courageous and just" decision. "The president's decision is an important step towards peace, for there is no peace that doesn't include Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel," Mr Netanyahu said. Palestinians burn Israeli and US flags and posters of Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip © EPA Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said Mr Trump had "destroyed any possibility of a two-state [solution]" and was in "total contradiction of agreements signed between Palestinians and Israelis". "This step is prejudging, dictating, closing doors for negotiations, and I think President Trump tonight disqualified the United States of America to play any role in any peace process," Mr Erekat told reporters. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, said: "Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine. It's too great for anyone to change its status." Mr Trump's advisers portrayed his decision as an inevitable recognition of reality, and dismissed warnings from the Palestinians and allies including Jordan that it could derail peace talks. The US was not pre-empting discussions over how Jerusalem could ultimately be divided up, and nor was it questioning ultra-sensitive areas including the area known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Haram al-Sharif to Muslims, they insisted. Moving the embassy could take years to achieve and Mr Trump will once again sign another six-month waiver under a congressional law requiring it to be relocated. Leaders around the world, among them King Abdullah of Jordan and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, warned the move would have dangerous consequences. The Saudi state news agency quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as saying the recognition will have "serious implications and will be provocative to all Muslims". This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do Donald Trump Theresa May, the UK prime minister, said the move was "unhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region". She called on the Trump administration to "bring forward detailed proposals for an Israel-Palestinian settlement". The EU expressed "serious concern" and called on all parties to show calm and restraint. The status of the divided city is hugely delicate and its fate is one of the thorniest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Israel regards Jerusalem as its undivided capital and claims sovereignty over the whole city. But the international community views East Jerusalem as occupied land and the Palestinians consider it their future capital. No nation has an embassy in Jerusalem. The international community's position has long been that Jerusalem's status should be determined by peace talks. In the first comment of dissent from an Israeli official, Meir Porush, the ultra-Orthodox deputy education minister, told Army Radio that Mr Trump's declaration "will cost us dearly and the peace plan he will present will harm us. Better to build in parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem than have a declaration that has no substance." While the decision was commended by pro-Israel lobby groups including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee some analysts predicted it would put parties including Mr Abbas on the defensive and embolden extremist groups. Hassan Abu Hanieh, a Jordanian security analyst, predicted a recruitment bonanza for jihadist groups that would portray the move as aggression against Muslims. "This is dangerous not just for Israel but the Arab region, because Arab leadership will be seen as complicit in this happening. There is a growing conviction among populations that their governments are colluding with Israel." Mr Trump has promised to broker what he has described as the "ultimate" deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Advisers led by Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, have been hoping to announce plans for a new peace process as soon as early 2018. A Lebanese official who asked not to be identified argued the developments were the result of US failure to pressure Mr Abbas to make sufficient concessions for a new peace process. "This is being used as the threat in a massive pressure campaign on Abu Mazen [Abbas]. They were pressuring him to accept a new kind of settlement which he could not accept — they were demanding too much of him." Recommended Israel at 70: my return to a divided country FT View: Trump's dangerous decision on Jerusalem Palestinian accord reflects the dynamics of the Middle East A person with ties to Saudi officials said Mr Kushner had in recent months met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi in an effort to formulate a new peace settlement. They discussed pushing the Palestinians into making deeper concessions, he said, but this had not been connected with the Jerusalem issue. "That's not part of the script — that has more to do with the people who gave money to Trump wanting to see results," he suggested. Several Republican campaign donors, such as Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, have hardline views on Israel and support settlements in the West Bank that are considered illegal by the international community. The president dismayed some backers in June when he continued the practice of signing a six-month waiver to a congressional requirement demanding that the US embassy be moved. Dennis Ross, a former Middle East adviser at the White House, said: "It is clear he doesn't like exercising these waivers and he doesn't like to look like other presidents. He is showing he does it his way." It was critical that Mr Trump framed the decision carefully and made clear the decision was not about determining Jerusalem's final status, said Mr Ross, now at the Washington Institute think-tank For key US allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the priority is countering the regional influence of Iran, which they accuse of meddling in Arab states. They have also grown weary of a succession of failed efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and believe peace has little chance with Mr Netanyahu's rightwing government in power. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political analyst in Dubai, said: "There is a sense of resignation in the Gulf. There is nothing much that can be done, and the Gulf needs Trump now more than ever, and of all the problems today Jerusalem is low down the priority list." Jerusalem, sacred city at the heart of conflict Few other cities have fuelled such passion and conflict as Jerusalem, writes Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem. It has been revered for centuries by Christians, Jews and Muslims and its status has been one of the most sensitive issues of failed efforts to resolve Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel regards Jerusalem as its undivided capital, citing the city's centrality to the Jewish people for 3,000 years. But the Palestinians consider East Jerusalem their future capital. Under the 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine, the city was to remain an international zone. But after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Jerusalem's western half fell under Israeli control and its eastern half was controlled by Jordan. Israel's parliament relocated to Jerusalem a year later, but most foreign governments have avoided recognising Israeli sovereignty over any part of the city. Foreign embassies are all in Tel Aviv. Israel seized control of East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six Day war, and annexed it — a move never recognised by the international community. The Old City is home to the holiest Jewish site, referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount, where two ancient Jewish temples once stood. Muslims refer to that same walled compound as the Noble Sanctuary, the third holiest site in Islam. Today it is home to al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The golden dome has become an icon of Palestinian nationalism and a symbol of the city's Arab and Muslim character. Perceived Israeli infringements on Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem precipitated waves of Palestinian violence in 1996, 2000, and 2015. For Christians, Jerusalem is the site of Jesus's crucifixion. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre marks the spot where Christians believe it took place.
Betty MacDonald, a very special politician and a year ago
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel sings 'Try to remember' especially for Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund at Vita Magica September
you can join
Betty MacDonald fan club
Betty MacDonald Society
Vita Magica
Eurovision Song Contest Fan Club
on Facebook
Vita Magica Betty MacDonald event with Wolfgang Hampel, Thomas Bödigheimer and Friedrich von Hoheneichen
Vita Magica
Betty MacDonald
Betty MacDonald fan club
Betty MacDonald fan club on Facebook
Betty MacDonald forum
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( Polski)
Wolfgang Hampel - LinkFang ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Academic ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - cyclopaedia.net ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - DBpedia ( English / German )
Wolfgang Hampel - people check ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Memim ( English )
Vashon Island - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )
Wolfgang Hampel - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Wikipedia ( English)
Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel
Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
Betty MacDonald fan club items
Betty MacDonald fan club items - comments
Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I
Betty MacDonald fan club groups
Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund


text: Security Barriers are designed to form an effective physical obstacle. The barriers are made of coil clipped entanglements. It is possible to build different kinds of obstacle structures, depending on the desired degree of aggressiveness, using special steel clips. The barriers are three-dimensional and very difficult to pass, due to a unique system of connecting elements – clips, which firmly fasten entanglements and coils with each other. The most important feature of this barrier system is the ability to maintain its structure even if the system is cut in one or more points. The size of barriers is multiple of the sizes used for building coil clipped entanglements. Dimensions are adjusted to customers' needs, the only limitation being logistic and transportation capabilities. The barriers can be used with alarm systems or electric deterrent systems. The barriers can be assembled with hand tools or special pneumatic devices.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
KDrama: W Two Worlds
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Suspense
Episodes: 16
Cast: Lee Jong-suk, Han Hyo-joo
Original Network: MBC
Original Release: July 20 – September 14, 2016
Website: imbc
W Two Worlds also known as Deobeuryu is a 2016 South Korean drama / tv series made in South Korea, starring Lee Jong-suk and Han Hyo-joo. It aired on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 22:00 (KST) on MBC from July 20 to September 14, 2016.
There are Best korean dramas of 2016 which are popular for being the highest rated receiving high viewership ratings because of being the best and the greatest. These dramas became the most memorable, most unforgettable, and most recognizable. Whatever the genre is, there's always something for you in the wide world of Korean dramas or KDramas.
Cardiothoracic surgeon Oh Yeon-joo's (Han Hyo-joo) father mysteriously went missing while writing the last chapter of his webtoon "W". Yeon-joo goes to his office and is shocked to see a scene of the dying Kang Cheol (Lee Jong-suk), the main character of W, on her father's computer.
While reading a note left behind by her father, a hand from the monitor pulled her in and she finds herself on the rooftop of a building next to a bleeding man. She manages to save him and realizes that the person she saved was Kang Cheol. Yeon-joo later discovers that she can only leave the webtoon based on Kang Cheol's change in feelings. When that happens, the words 'to be continued' will appear and she will teleport back to the real world.


text:
The Middle Voice (Typological Studies in Language 23)By: Suzanne Kemmer (author)Paperback
Up to 2 WeeksUsually despatched within 2 weeks
DescriptionThis book approaches the middle voice from the perspective of typology and language universals research. The principal aim is to provide a typologically valid characterization of the category of middle voice in terms of which it can be incorporated in a cognitively-based theory of human language. The term "middle voice" has had a wide range of applications in the linguistic literature of this century. The main thesis in this volume is that there is a coherent, though complex, semantic category of middle voice in human language, which receives grammatical instantiation in many languages. The author claims there is a semantic property crucial to the nature of the middle, which she terms "relative elaboration of events", that serves as a parameter along which the reflexive and the middle can be situated as semantic categories intermediate in transitivity between one-participant and two-participant events, and which differentiates reflexive and middle from one another. In this area, most analyses deal with one language and/or are limited to Indo-European languages. This work deals with a subset of middle-marking languages that was chosen so as to observe the highest possible number of different middle systems showing significant independent diachronic development.
Contents1. Preface; 2. Introduction; 3. Middle Voice Systems; 4. Reflexive and Associated Middle Situation Types; 5. Related Semantic Domains; 6. Diachronic Developments; 7. Hypotheses and Predictions; 8. Notes; 9. Appendix A: A checklist for Middle Semantics; 10. Data Sources; 11. Bibliography; 12. Index of Subjects; 13. Index of Names; 14. Index of Languages
Product Details
- publication date: 05/10/1993
- Format: Paperback
- Number Of Pages: 311
- weight: 560
Delivery Information
- Saver Delivery: Yes
- 1st Class Delivery: Yes
- Courier Delivery: Yes
- Store Delivery: Yes


text:
Day 29 | Clean as a Rose After Rain | Those Smells from Pizzeria Regina Are Killing Me
I lost my mind.
I overheard myself talking in an interview to a silly and vibrant girl who reminded me of SJP in L.A. Story. At Liberty Mutual in Back Bay. I sounded bright. Like, I knew what I was talking about. Silly Girl was talking about this enormous, kludgy system, "the project," and when she stopped to take a breath, she said, "what do you think?" As in, what is my opinion on how to tackle the problem.
I wasn't nervous. I was confident.
One word comes to mind, I told her.
As in architecture. Creating a map or set hierarchy in which to roll out the project.
I hadn't lost my mind here, you see.
I gained it back.
Whaddya mean?
I wasn't overwhelmed or worried about saying the wrong thing, tripping over my words.
My head was clear.
Not bloated from eating a bag of Green Mountain Tortilla Chips with Chex Mix mixed in; no lasting effects from drinking the amount of alcohol the night before that could anesthetize a wild boar.
I am a clearheaded, educated individual.
An hour later, Silly Girl led me and the dog to the bustling reception area and took my hand in hers.
"Nice to have met you," she smiled.
"See ya, sister," I said.


text:
Aims to strengthen ties with the local industry and government to make Hyderabad an ESDM and Aerospace and Defense hub
IESA, India Electronics and Semiconductor Association the premier trade body representing the Indian Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) industry, today announced the launch of their Hyderabad Chapter. The key objectives of setting up an office in Hyderabad is to widen the eco-system, acquire new members and strengthen the supply chain in the region. This move will boost the electronics, hardware and semiconductor startups and firms in the state with the required support and information. There will also be a large thrust on the Aerospace & Defense manufacturing too.
Telangana contributes to 6% of the electronics production in the country and aims to reach a revenue of more than $10Bn and provide employment to 1.75L citizens. The Telangana Government is planning to make Hyderabad as the hub of ESDM and is pursuing to attract investments into the two ESDM clusters at e-City Manufacturing Cluster and Maheshwaram Science Park. With a view to facilitating investments in the electronics manufacturing industry, IESA has gearing up to strengthen operations in Telengana this year.
Excited with this announcement, K. Krishna Moorthy, Chairman, IESA said, "This is a proud moment for us as we have now expanded our presence across the major technology hubs of the nation. With this launch, we now have an even more strengthened support to bring India into the global radar for manufacturing innovation. Several policy initiatives have been approved in last few months which include providing very attractive financial investment in electronics manufacturing and providing preference to domestically manufactured electronic goods in all Government procurement as well as all those electronic goods whose use has security implications for the country. This expansion has put us in the right path for the fulfilment of our objectives and aiding the government of India to digitally empower the nation. We are certain that, with the right mix of trained professionals and regional expertise we will make our vision of making India the global hub for innovation a successful reality very soon."
Spearheading and strengthening ties with the local industry, MosChip Semiconductor has joined hands with IESA. Speaking at the launch of the IESA Hyderabad chapter, Ram Reddy, CEO & Chairman, Moschip Semiconductor, said "We are delighted to be a member company of IESA Hyderabad. We strongly believe that this collaboration will be an impetus to start-ups and engineering/ research students to promote the country's top design engineers and buyers with the best degree of technical knowhow and help bring the Government and ecosystem together on the same platform."
Commenting on this move, Mr. M.N. Vidyashankar, President, IESA added, "We are delighted to announce the launch of the new IESA Chapter in Hyderabad. We need to improve the supply chain. We could achieve innovation-led design in the semiconductor space. But, what we lack is design-led-manufacturing. With the recently announced Chennai chapter and this launch, we have further expanded our reach to enrich the supply chain and make significant inroads in making the country the next manufacturing hub. We strongly believe that this expansion will fast-forward our operations and enable us to achieve the common goal of giving a boost to design-led-manufacturing."
Forthcoming events from IESA:
This year, Hyderabad will be the host city for DEFTRONICS 2017, the fourth edition of the annual Aerospace, Defence & Internal security focused event. This will be an additional fillip to the Aerospace & Defence sectors. The Indian Aerospace and Defence industry is one of the most lucrative industries with a booming market and an ocean of opportunities for engineering design and manufacturing companies. India's current requirements on defence are largely catered to by imports. The Global OEM and Indian companies alike are keen to leverage the opportunity of defence contracts, which reflects the success of initiatives like 'Make in India'
The 12th edition its annual flagship event, IESA Vision Summit 2017. Powered with global and Indian audiences to discover, innovate and bring together a stellar line-up of thought leaders & robust speakers. Scheduled on February 21 and 22 at The Leela, Bangalore, it aims to steer India closer to its goal of


text:
Job Description
Job Number: R0016851
Booz Allen Hamilton has been at the forefront of strategy and technology for more than 100 years. Today, the firm provides management and technology consulting and engineering services to leading Fortune 500 corporations, governments, and not-for-profits across the globe. Booz Allen partners with public and private sector clients to solve their most difficult challenges through a combination of consulting, analytics, mission operations, technology, systems delivery, cybersecurity, engineering and innovation expertise.
Software and Systems Design Engineer, Junior
Key Role:
Perform complicated and difficult software and systems design engineering assignments requiring a high degree of technical competence reflecting current state-of-the-art applications. Maintain full technical responsibility for planning, organizing, and conducting technical projects for the design and development of computer systems hardware and software. Conceive and plan projects involving the assessment of basic architecture and current hardware limitations, definition and selection of new concepts and approaches, design, development, and implementation of non-routine major software engineering applications, the analysis and investigation of major software engineering project tasks, the definition of complex design specifications and parameters, development and application of major routines and utility programs, resolution of difficult hardware and software compatibility and interface design considerations, and analysis of system architecture requirements and structures. Conduct technical investigations into software and systems design. Coordinate and consolidate design efforts on major projects. Prepare and design specifications, analysis, and recommendations for presentation and approval.
Basic Qualifications:
-1+ years of experience with system architecture and engineering, IT systems design, testing, IT COTS software, or hardware integration
-Experience with enterprise IT computing environments, including technologies, processes, and security
-Experience with designing and implementing development, test, and production environments
-Knowledge of current technology trends potentially for the application of current and emerging technology solutions to meet client requirements
-Top Secret clearance
-BA or BS degree
Additional Qualifications:
-Experience with Agile development methodologies
-Experience with the project management framework
-Experience with providing technical guidance to IT development teams
-Knowledge of agency or IC and IT infrastructures
-Possession of excellent team leadership, development, and client relationship skills
-Possession of excellent interpersonal skills to successfully interact with clients, engineers, and managers
-Possession of excellent oral and written communication skills
-TS/SCI clearance preferred
Applicants selected will be subject to a securityinvestigation and may need to meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information; Top Secret clearance is required.
Integrating a full range of consulting capabilities, Booz Allen is the one firm that helps clients solve their toughest problems by their side to help them achieve their missions. Booz Allen is committed to delivering results that endure.
We are proud of our diverse environment, EOE, M/F/Disability/Vet.


text:
Words: c. 5200
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama, gen, angst, character study
Characters: Original character and Aragorn
Summary: In a city of old ruins, an assassin lies in wait for the man he has been paid a fortune to kill.
What was the price of a man's life?
Raenor was kneeling in the shadowed corner, holding his longbow in one hand. With the other hand, he gripped the rich jewel that hung around his neck, his thumb running up and down its ornate chain. There were other jewels in the pouch at his belt, and a casket of gold lay safely hidden, far away. More treasures, far more, would be his by the end of the day if his arrow flew true.
He could smell flowers and green leaves, their scent incongruous in this place of dead stone. People had hung the old ruins with garlands and decorated the fallen statues with lilies and river rushes. Raenor glanced out, his cheek pressing against the coarse window frame. People were lining the streets, patiently waiting in the sunshine, but although the smell of flowers was strong, the smell of dust was stronger. His fingers smelled of oil and metal and blood, the smell of death.
His hand returned to the chain around his neck. He thought of gold. He filled his mind with the image of it, with the gleam of it, with the feel of it. He remembered how his brother's widow had smiled when he had given her the first of the dark man's coins. He imagined his mother, safe and secure for the first time since the Pelennor. He longed for his payment. He hungered for it.
All he had to do was kill one man.
In war, they wanted you to kill people. They praised you for it. They rewarded you for it. They called you a hero if you killed many. They called you a coward if you turned your back and refused to fight. If your lord, on a whim, decreed that a man was your enemy, you were expected to kill him. If you killed a man on your own account, cutting his throat in the back streets of Minas Tirith, then your life was forfeit and you were reviled.
Just one arrow. Just one life. Raenor had sent his arrows through half a hundred hearts when he had served as a Ranger in Ithilien. He had killed. He had been praised for it, admired for it, until...
He shook his head briskly, driving that memory away. His hand gripped the jewel, its smooth facets warm and moist against his palm. Outside, the crowds were gathering, and snatches of their conversation rose up to his vantage point far above. Brightness sparkled on their hair. The sun was behind him, and he could see so many details: their smiles; their simple jewellery, proudly worn; the pale lilies in their hands.
It was almost time. He strung his bow, and waited.
What was the price of a man's life?
What was the price of a king's?
It had started with a deer.
After another night with too little sleep and too many dark and fractured dreams, Raenor had been out at dawn, his longbow in his hand. Wood pigeons had been calling to each other from the trees, and the grass had been heavy with dew. A fine mist had drifted up from the river overnight, and the whole world, with its fields and orchards and distant mountains, had looked like layers of faded smoke.
The deer had been nearly invisible, grazing with its head down, just a dark grey smudge against the pale line of mist-shrouded trees. Raenor had watched it, strung his bow, and taken aim. Releasing an arrow was the smallest, simplest of things: just a quick uncurling of the fingers, with no other movement, not even a breath. The arrow flew true, but the deer startled at the last moment, darting away into the fog.
And then the stranger was there, rising from the mist like a ghost. Raenor watched him approach, while something inside him screamed danger. Without consciously deciding to do so, he nocked another arrow to the string, and stood ready. It took a very long time for the man to close the gap between them. He stopped a sword's length away from Raenor, but even that close, there was little colour about him, with his dark cloak and dark boots and hanks of dark hair escaping from his hood.
"That was a good shot," the dark-clad stranger said. He had a slight accent, something Raenor could not place.
Raenor's bow was pointed half downwards, the arrow tip aimed just next to the man's feet. "I would have hit the deer," Raenor said, "if you hadn't startled it."
"I know." The man nodded in acknowledgement. He held Raenor's arrow out to him, its shaft bright with dew. "A good shot, did I say? Nay, it was a masterful shot, at such a distance, and in such poor light."
Raenor relaxed the bow string, easing it inwards. Not so many years ago, he had heard comments like this on a daily basis. His comrades had clapped him on the back. His captain had praised him. With the longbow, he had been the acknowledged master, and his friends had proudly declared that nobody in Gondor was his equal.
"I have seldom seen your like," the dark man said.
And that was the beginning, the start of it all.
Time was passing. Raenor shifted uncomfortably in the dust, and watched the slow movement of shadows. He needed the sun behind him. When he took aim, his target would be singled out by sunlight, but anyone looking up at his hiding place would be dazzled by the sun and unable to see him against its brightness.
Was that the sound of distant trumpets? Raenor strung his bow. His hands were shaking. Why were his hands shaking? It was a bad thing, really bad. He scraped one palm and then the other across the front of his jerkin, wiping away the sweat, trying to gouge away the nervousness.
This was nothing, he told himself. It was just one life. It was the life of a king, yes, but what was a king but a man? Just an ordinary man, no better than anyone else. A man not from Gondor, but from the north. A man who had spent most of his life dressed in rags and sleeping in ditches, or so the stories said. A man whose claim to the throne came from an accident of birth and a distant ancestor, long since dead.
He gripped the jewel, and tried to fill his mind with visions of riches. Far below, on the ruined streets of Osgiliath, a child turned to look up at his window. Raenor's heart was racing. He drew back into the shadows. His lips tasted dust.
Not long now, he told himself. Not long now.
The offer had not come immediately, of course.
The dark man had walked home with him, and stayed for hours, offering friendship and good conversation. In return, Raenor had told the man about his past: about his two years with the Rangers, and even, a little, about the way it had all ended, in betrayal and shame. His brother's widow had watched it all anxiously, chewing her cracked lips and tugging at a loose lock of her hair. That was when the dark man had made his first gift, slipping coins into Raenor's pocket, and patting them conspiratorially. Raenor should give her the coins the next day, he suggested, and tell her he'd earned them honestly.
"Earned them how?" Raenor had asked.
"Selling rabbits?" the dark man suggested. His shrug was casual, but within the shadows of his hood, his eyes were glinting. "Many rewards are available for a master bowman in times such as these."
Raenor was not a stupid man. He realised in that moment that he was being courted for some task, but it pleased him to allow it to happen, in case the prize was worth it. Any doubts were dispelled by his sister-in-law's delight at the coins. She had not smiled since the king's armies had returned from the Black Gate, and her husband had not returned with them.
Even so, it was weeks before the offer was spoken out loud. Raenor let himself be plied with drinks. He spoke openly and honestly about the bitter struggle that was his life. He needed money. He had been bitterly wronged by his country, and owed them nothing. He had killed: orcs, Haradrim, Easterlings, it was true, but they were all the same when you killed them: creatures that lived and breathed, until you brought all that to an end.
The offer, when it came, was quiet, on a bitter night without a moon. Raenor had half expected it, or so he had told himself. Even so, when it came, he stood in silence for a very long time, while an owl screeched somewhere out in the black.
The king, he thought, but he did not say it out loud. To kill the king. He had never been so aware of the beating of his own heart.
The dark man was just a shape in the darkness, and a pale smear of skin beneath his hood. His head was tilted in mild challenge. Raenor had no doubt that his hand lay on the hilt of his sword, beneath that dark cloak that he always wore. "You have questions?" His voice was soft.
Raenor swallowed hard. His questions, when he asked them, were not about the why of it, but about the how. He did not ask why the king had to die, or why he had been chosen to do the killing. He did not ask about the rights and wrongs of it. He asked just two questions: what would he be paid, and how he would live to enjoy his reward, after the deed was done.
The rope was in place behind him, offering a swift exit and a happy ending. Raenor had chosen his vantage point well. It was a tall tower beside the river, the tallest that still remained in Osgiliath. Half of this upper floor was gone, and much of the stairway had crumbled, but Raenor had always been fearless. He had scrambled to the top, then attached a rope to the rear window. Once the deed was done, he would slide down the rope, and take to the sheltering ruins of the old quays. He had planted a boat half a mile downstream. He would reach it quickly and be away while the guards were still closing their useless trap around the empty tower.
Nothing could go wrong, he told himself. The treasure was safely hidden, in a place that only he knew, although he hidden a letter that would tell his brother's widow where to find it if the unthinkable happened, and he failed to return. When the deed was done, a far greater treasure would be given into his hands.
It would change everything. It would erase all those years of bitterness, of betrayal, of unrelenting, grinding struggle to survive.
He would change his world.
"Soon," he whispered, dry lips moving in the still air. "So very soon."
He drew an arrow from his quiver, and set it to the bowstring.
Long ago, long before any of this, Raenor's skill with a bow had been spotted and nurtured. His grandfather had taken him hunting, out in the meadows of Lossarnach. In Minas Tirith, later, he had joined the militia, and then had been chosen as a Ranger. He had killed, and he had killed often: orcs and enemies, and food for the pot. People told him that he served his country well, although that was not why he did it. They told him he served his captain, and that was closer to the truth. He liked the praise. Shooting was the only thing he truly excelled at, and he dreamed of honours and reward.
But precious few honours were to be won in Gondor in those latter years.
And then… And then…
And then it had all come crashing down, and the door had slammed firmly shut on honour and praise, never to open again, not even the tiniest chink. Since then, he had lived on the fringes, scraping a living from the ravaged land.
Betrayal made a man desperate. There was nothing left but the lure of gold. Nothing, nothing mattered but that.
Trumpets sounded, but still the king did not come. Raenor's arm, normally so tireless, was aching from holding the bow. His palms were damp again, and he wiped them, but that only seemed to make them worse. On his right hand, he wore his archer's glove, supple leather covering his first two fingers. His left palm was grooved with the shape of the jewel and its golden chain.
He was looking for an arrogant stranger with a crown. He was looking for the man who had led his brother to his death at the Black Gate. He was looking for…
A man. A target. Nobody, really, just a shell of flesh and blood, that was his pathway to riches and a life without care.
And still he did not come.
Normally, before shooting, his mind was clear, all his thoughts focused on his target. Today, as he waited in his crumbling tower, his thoughts were as crowded as the streets below, and as fractured as the ruins of the city itself. He tried to cling to thoughts of the treasure. Instead he remembered how dangerous the dark man had seemed as he had walked out of the mist. He saw the smiling faces of the crowd, and flowers hanging from ruins that had once been bedecked with the blood-stained banners of the orcs.
He was slow to notice that he was no longer alone.
His first thought was that this was the dark man, come to keep watch over him; come, perhaps, even to kill him, once the deed was done. "Are you…?" he began, and he swung his bow around, the arrow aiming at the man's feet, as he had done that first morning. Then he saw that this man was even taller than the dark man was. His hood cast the same shadow over his face, but his cloak was a lighter shade of grey. "You aren't…"
"No." The stranger shook his head.
Raenor had spent too long staring out at the sunlit city. It was hard to see much within the relative darkness of the tower, but he thought that the stranger had the same pale skin and dark hair that he had glimpsed beneath the dark man's hood. "But you're… you're one of the same? You know him?"
The stranger tilted his head in a way that could have been a yes.
The dark man had never given his name, and Raenor had never asked it. Raenor had never asked him where he came from, or why he wanted the king dead. The question was just too big, so he told himself that it did not matter. When it came circling in the night like a crow on a battlefield, he drove it away with stubborn dreams of treasure.
"I haven't done it yet." Raenor's mouth was dry. He moistened his lips; moistened them again. "He's late. I will. I will."
His hands were trembling. The nock of the arrow slipped from the bowstring. Raenor caught it with his two smallest fingers. "Why?" asked the stranger.
"Didn't he tell you?" The wind turned, bringing with it the sudden, intense odour of lilies.
"I do know," said the stranger. "I know that you were a Ranger once, serving under Prince Faramir, until he dismissed you in disgrace."
"Disgrace!" The arrow clattered to the floor. "I lost everything. I was supposed to kill; that's what we were there for. But then he said… he said I'd acted dishonourably. But what honour is there in war? What honour is there in anything any of them did – the whole sorry lot of them? All I did, all I did was kill an enemy after he'd surrendered, after the precious Captain Faramir had given his word that he would not be harmed. The captain said I enjoyed killing too much, that I could not be trusted to hold back. I hate him. I hate him."
"And yet, if you kill the king," said the stranger quietly, "Faramir will rule in his place as Steward of Gondor."
"Then maybe I'll kill him, too." Raenor scraped a hand across his face, his spread fingers raking through his damp hair. "But I… But I…" He had endured too many nights without sleep, desperately wiping out all thought by clinging to the vision of gold. I won't, something cried inside him. Of course I won't. When the king was dead, Faramir would rule. He deserved no less. The king was a stranger, but Faramir was a great man, and had bled for Gondor for many years.
The stranger just stood there, watching him, his keen eyes just visible beneath the hood. Raenor wanted to sink to his knees, suddenly sure that the stranger knew everything he was thinking. Why do you want to heap this honour on Faramir, said that watchful stance, when he wronged you so badly?
Because… Raenor thought. Because…
"It changed everything," Raenor spat out. "Nobody would look twice at a Ranger who'd been dismissed in dishonour. I could have lived with that, but it hurt my family, too." His mother had been so ashamed. His father had been broken, long before his well-tended little field on the Pelennor had been shattered by war and his livelihood gone. "When the women were evacuated from Minas Tirith, my mother was left behind. She saw such horrors in the siege. She's never been the same since. Because she was left behind. Because she was nobody. She was nothing. What do the people in power care for the likes of us? We're only the people who bleed for them. Who die for them."
Outside, the crowds were cheering. Raenor pressed his hand against the wall, and ran it down the stonework, using pain to calm his thoughts. He drew another arrow, and set it to the string.
"Perhaps she chose to stay behind," the stranger said.
"Chose…" His hands were shaking. His eyes were stinging from the dust. His mother had always been stubborn, ridiculously so. She would have stood her ground, refusing to move for anyone. And with the added shame of a son who had disgraced his country, she would have been too proud to ask for help, in case help was refused.
"But it matters not," said the stranger, maddeningly calm, "because you do it all for money."
"For money!" Raenor whirled round, suddenly furious. "Of course I don't! I do it because it doesn't matter. It won't make a difference. We've never had a king before, so why do we need one now? Faramir will do a better job, and… and my brother, I loved him, but he went with the levies to Minas Tirith, and he saw the king, and I don't know what he was thinking, but he volunteered to go with the armies to the Black Gate, although he didn't have to, because the Lord of Lossarnach was dead and my brother was only sworn to him, and not to Gondor, and he didn't come back, he didn't come back."
"Every death was a bitter loss to Gondor," the stranger said.
"Yes." Raenor was almost weeping now. "Yes, it was. And I wasn't there. I stayed away, because I'd tried to serve Gondor, and Gondor had rejected me and cast me aside, so I didn't care, I don't care what happens to it, because I don't owe it anything, I don't owe it anything at all."
Outside, the crowds were singing. There was no longer a shadow looming in the east. Deer grazed in the early morning mist, where just a year before, parties of orcs had raided across the river. The eastern half of Osgiliath had been firmly held by the enemy, and now it was strewn with flowers. It was still ruined, but the rebuilding was beginning. Today the king was coming to open the first completed building, which was not a mighty palace or a private tower, but a garden and a place of healing. Soon crops would grow on the Pelennor again, and even his mother was mending.
The stranger was motionless. Raenor was teetering on the brink, he knew, and regardless of what they were, the stranger's next words would push him over. But the stranger said nothing. It was the best thing he could have done.
It was the worst.
"I… do," Raenor whispered. "I do care." Faramir had been right to dismiss him; deep down, Raenor had always known that, even as he had spent four years trying to hide from the truth. "I thought it might be something else, but, really, it was all about the money."
"Was?" said the stranger.
Raenor unstrung his bow, and knelt down, placing it on the ground in front of him. His head slumped forward. Tears pricked his eyes, and he could have wept for the vanishing dreams of gold and a life of ease. "But there would have been no ease about it, not really," he murmured, because he would have been a traitor, and a traitor deserved no ease.
His hand rose to his throat, clutching the jewel. He remembered his sister-in-law's smile. He remembered his dreams of his mother living in luxury, finally proud of her youngest son. It called to him. Oh, but he was forever damned, for it still called to him.
Pulling out his knife, he cut the bowstring, severing it in two. There! he thought. There! And then he really did weep.
At length, a soft movement reminded him that the stranger was still there. "Are you going to kill me now?" Raenor asked.
"Should I?" said the stranger.
"Probably," Raenor said. "If you're with the dark man, you should kill me because I'm not going to do the job, and if you're not with him, you should kill me because I was tempted – oh how I was tempted!"
"The dark man was from Umbar," the stranger said, "a corsair lord, of Dark Númenorean descent. He escaped when the ships were taken at Pelargir. This was his revenge."
"You knew everything, then." Raenor felt deeply weary. He no longer cared what was happening outside the window. Perhaps the king had come, and perhaps he had not, but all was over for him.
"Not everything," said the stranger. "Not what choice you would make, when the time for choosing came."
Raenor looked at his broken bowstring. Too late now. The choice was out of his hands. If temptation still lay on the other side of the door, the door was firmly locked. "Who are you?" he asked.
In answer, the stranger pushed back his hood. In the half-light, his face reminded Raenor of Denethor, perhaps even of Faramir. The look of the dark man had been similar, as far as Raenor had been able to tell. Perhaps, he thought now, it was why he had agreed so quickly to the dark man's offer. He had always respected Faramir, and deep down had continued to respect him, even when he believed that he hated him.
But it was no answer at all. The face was still the face of a stranger. "I don't understand," Raenor said.
The stranger's hands went lower, to the fastening of his cloak. He pushed it aside, and there, beneath it, Raenor saw that he wore the rich robes of a nobleman, with a great green jewel gleaming on his breast. "You set out to kill a man," said the king, "without looking first upon his face, without knowing him?"
Raenor knew that he was about to die. All tears left him, and he was cold, calm, and strangely at peace. "I couldn't," he said, "because if I looked at the face of the person I was going to kill, I was afraid I might change my mind."
Just a man, he had told himself. Just an ordinary man. Just one more death in a war that had already killed thousands. Just a name on a piece of paper. Nothing that mattered. Nothing real. The jewel around his neck was real, and the treasure, and his sister-in-law's smile.
"And now?" said the king, who stood unveiled, with his hood back, and was quite obviously not an ordinary man at all, and only a fool would consider him so.
"I changed my mind before I knew who you were." He almost added "sire," he did not. It would seem like hypocrisy of the first order, as if he was doing it only to beg for his life.
"I know that." The king's face was stern and his eyes were keen, but his voice was not ungentle. "But I know why you cut your bowstring. The choice was not irrevocable, and you wished to make it so, for you feared that you would change your mind."
Raenor still had his knife. He sent it skittering across the floor, to crash against the far wall. "Are you going to kill me?" He could see the king's great sword now, and he had heard tales of his prowess in battle.
"Should I?" The king's gaze skewered him like a butterfly on a board.
Raenor swallowed. "I think you should, sire." He added the honorific now, for he had given up all hope of pleading.
"A king should be merciful," the king said, "but justice must be served. I do not wish to be forever looking over my shoulder, watching for the arrow at my back."
I know I was wrong, Raenor wanted to say, but deep down, he had always known that he was wrong, but he had still agreed to do the deed. His only questions had been about money and his chance of escape. Perhaps, he thought, this was because he had known all along that these were the only questions that could have proper answers. If he had asked the other questions, he would have ended up saying no.
"We will go down now," said the king. It was as soft as a request, but was unmistakeably a command.
The king made Raenor go first, and followed closely. It was a difficult climb, with great expanses of the staircase missing, as well as one whole floor. As he clung to a sheer expanse of broken wall, Raenor was tempted to let go and hope that the fall killed him. It was not fear that stopped him, he thought, but pride. For four years, stubborn pride had kept him from admitting that he had been in the wrong, and that he had deserved to be dismissed from the Rangers. Now, at the end, he would embrace a better kind of pride. At long last, he would face the consequences of his own weakness.
The bottom of the tower was ringed with guards; of course it was. Their eyes were cold, hard stones of hatred. By habit, Raenor's hand rose to the jewel at his throat, but instead of gripping it, he grabbed it and lifted the chain over his head, and cast it away. Nobody watched where it fell. All eyes were on him and the king.
They walked a dozen steps, and a dozen more. The crowds were still waiting, oblivious to what was unfolding behind them, near the river's edge. Another dozen steps, and then Raenor saw it: a dark hood, a strand of dark hair, a gleaming dagger, poised to be thrown.
Raenor acted without a thought. He threw himself in front of the king, expecting to die, but knowing only that this was right, that this was right. The king shouted something, a snap of command. Raenor hit the ground hard. There was very little pain. He rolled onto his belly. His left hand was on the ground next to his face, and the imprint of the jewel was still visible on his palm.
"We knew," he heard the king say quietly. Raenor struggled to his knees. He was not wounded after all, he thought, merely jarred by the impact with the ground. The king's glorious sword was unsheathed, held in both hands. Where Raenor had glimpsed the dark man, Faramir was now standing, with a crumpled body at his feet. He looked over at the king, and he gave a brief nod, almost a bow. He did not look at Raenor.
"There could be no mercy for one such as him," the king said. "But you acted without thinking, and your act was to try to save my life. It will not be forgotten."
He would not plead. He would not beg. He stayed on his knees. In a different world, the crowds were waiting for their king, in a ruined city that was alive with hope and flowers. Within years, it would flourish at the heart of a new and glorious world. For the first time in weeks, Raenor's thoughts were suffused not with the lure of gold, but with visions of beautiful buildings in a kingdom that was at peace. He wanted to be part of it. He wanted a second chance, but what second chance could there be for one who had fallen as far as he had fallen?
The king raised him up. At the top of the tower, Raenor had felt himself skewered by this man's gaze, but now he felt himself laid entirely bare. The king saw everything. The king knew all his secrets, and Raenor wanted to fall to his knees and beg to be allowed to serve him.
At length the king released him. "You cannot stay in Gondor," he said. "My mercy cannot stretch that far. A king must be merciful, but he cannot be a fool." Raenor blinked, but kept his expression still, accepting it. "But there are many wild places still to be tamed," the king went on. "There are lands, once rich, that are now desolate and need to be brought to the plough. There are places that groan with injustice, and still need the rule of law. There is a place for people like you."
"People like me, sire?" Raenor could not help but say it. "An assassin. A failure. Someone who would have ruined the future of his country because of the hope of gold."
The king smiled. "Someone who made a mistake, and let it rule his life for a while, but then grew past it. Someone who knows his own weaknesses, and knows how to overcome them."
The tears were back, almost blinding him. "But I don't…"
"You do," said the king. "I have hope, Raenor. I have hope in you."
And Raenor bowed down low, and bent to head to his king, because in that moment, he had hope, too.


text:
Designed by Wolfram data science experts, this workshop will provide an introduction to machine learning techniques illustrated with live dynamic examples using the Wolfram Language. The workshop will walk you step-by-step through the basics of machine learning methodologies and techniques and how to apply them using the Wolfram Language. Upon completion, you will come away with enough practical knowledge to immediately use the Wolfram Language for your own machine learning tasks on text, data or images, including supervised classification and prediction, unsupervised feature identification, sequence prediction and computer vision.
Who Should Attend?
- Data scientists, data analysts, technologists
- Software developers, engineers
- Anyone with an interest in machine learning
To find out more about the event visit https://www.wolfram.com/events/ai-in-90-minutes-barcelona/


text:
Conventional wisdom has it that the Second World War, despite the name, was really all about Europe. The peace settlement at Versailles that ended the 20th century's first great European civil war had in fact settled nothing; and the subsequent rise of the Italian and German dictatorships destroyed European harmony. The ruthlessness with which they embarked on expansion required correction - peaceful if possible, but by force if need be. Progressively during the 1930s Europe stumbled towards war, and at the end of the decade Germany's imperialism in Europe and Italy's drive for dominance in the Mediterranean led to armed conflict with France and Britain. But within a few months France was defeated. The US, which had with some reluctance come to the rescue of Europe in the earlier struggle, remained neutral; the Soviet Union had temporarily formed a pact with Germany. Britain stood alone against the enemy. It was a dark hour indeed.
In this huge book, The British Empire and the Second World War , Ashley Jackson unsettles the accepted view. Jackson argues that so far as the British were concerned, the whole conflict fought between 1939 and 1945 was "a war fought in imperial theatres by imperial forces, all of which were dependent upon sea power and Britain's capacity to move food, goods, munitions and troops from one side of the world to another". In July 1940, the cartoonist Fougasse drew two soldiers looking out to sea. "So our poor Empire is alone in the world," remarks the first soldier. "Aye, we are", replies the second, "the whole 500 million of us." From the beginning, therefore, this was indeed a "world war", with Britain not only drawing on the manpower and resources of her empire but exposing that worldwide entity to attack.
Jackson sets out in compelling detail the British Empire's involvement in the war and what a remarkable achievement it was to mobilise support for the war effort from such a diversity of peoples and places, held together but loosely within the constitutional framework of the Empire-Commonwealth.
It might have been expected that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, even South Africa - the more-or-less independent dominions - would have contributed troops and supplies to "the mother country" in her time of need. But the Indian Army grew in strength from about 200,000 at the outbreak of the war to more than 2.5 million at its end; the African colonies contributed more than half a million men to the war effort. Volunteer forces were raised in Jordan, Fiji, Ceylon and innumerable other places; the inhabitants of Tonga put themselves out to be part of the great imperial war effort. Many a dominion, colony and dependency were changed as they responded to the demands of war. Across Asia and the Middle East, through north, west and east Africa, into Australasia, New Zealand and the islands of the Pacific, the effects of war were felt: this, Jackson stresses, was a truly global operation extending far beyond the European theatre, and it represented an enormous managerial triumph on the part of the British in bringing it off.
As he puts it: "Hundreds of years of British imperial history and tradition, and the networks, infrastructure, contacts and institutions that it had forged, were called to life by a decision taken at the imperial centre in London. This sent a current running throughout the overseas power centres of Empire from Cairo to Colombo to Canberra, and they sprang into life alongside Britain and mobilised their respective regions for war. It was a breathtaking spectacle, and remains so to this day."
Besides showing just how important the Empire was to Britain's role in the war, Jackson seeks a further correction to existing historiography. Again, it is usual to accept that Britain ended the war bankrupt; that the effort of fighting in Europe, and of defending an imperial system on which the sun never set, was too much to bear. Economic and political considerations at home, coupled with the changing configuration of international arrangements abroad, set the pattern for the dismantling of the imperial system that had achieved so much during the six years of conflict. An anti-imperial rhetoric took hold - not least among the most important of the Allies.
Consequently, India would be independent within a couple of years, and then during the 1950s and 1960s Britain's moment in the Middle East would have passed and her other colonies would take their independent places in the General Assembly of the UN. Britain would be shown for what she was: no longer an empire but merely a European power, which in Dean Acheson's unkind characterisation had lost an empire and had yet to find a role.
Jackson warns against an easy acceptance of the view that the Second World War precipitated decolonisation. After all, it was in 1945, and not before, that the Empire-Commonwealth reached its greatest territorial extent. And the rise of empire, so visible during the war, seemed set fair to continue as the British re-entered their lost colonies in the East, in the words of Jack Gallagher, "like a bridegroom coming into his chamber", while the Attlee Government sought to develop Africa even as it reached a new accommodation with India.
The great merit of this well-researched book is that it provides page after page of documented detail supporting the main proposition. Jackson handles the subject, on the whole geographically, each chapter taking a particular slice of territory, locating it within the imperial system, then describing that region's contribution to the war effort and in some cases elaborating the implications for the future of the mobilisation of its resources. The book will appeal massively to readers who enjoy the simple possession of facts; and any study that encourages scepticism of too Eurocentric a view of history, especially of British history, is greatly to be welcomed. But, with all this wealth of information, the reader is entitled to a little more guidance - some hint of what the plot might be, of why all this fact matters and is of interest and importance.
In the Ford Lectures delivered at Oxford University in 1974, published in 1982 as The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire , Gallagher, last century's most perceptive historian of imperialism, set out some broad arguments about the British and their wider role in the world. In his account, British expansion was propelled by a dynamism that combined economic growth with a capacity to deploy power in pursuit of international dominance. The imperial system thus constructed was pragmatic in form: from rule to "mere influence". Britain was adept at deploying trade, finance, politics and culture to establish connections and networks that strengthened its global position. While never reluctant to use force when circumstances warranted it, the British system depended crucially on co-operation and being able to pay for itself. The Empire-Commonwealth was no monolithic, centralised, economic and political entity, and it changed over time.
Come the 20th century, some of the certainties that had hitherto underpinned it began to dissolve. Economic connections between some of the parts weakened; imperatives of British domestic politics and those of the colonies required readjustment of relationships; changing balances of power across the world - not just within Europe - altered some of the calculations. Nothing is easy to track because the effect of one change here could have unforeseen consequences elsewhere. It was hard to comprehend and manage the complexity. British politicians had to be realistic about the resources at their disposal and the pressures they came under to deploy them. In fact, they presided over a fragile imperial system, and their policy options were limited. They were constrained by economics, by the demands of the British electorate, by the need to make concessions in the colonies and by shifts in international relations.
Throughout the 1920s this meant a retreat from formal rule: a loosening of bonds and a resort to influence to maintain Britain's interests.
By the 1930s, British analysts were fearful of the future. The British were always wary of the US. In East Asia, Japan's expansion unsettled the position of formal colonies and of Britain's hitherto extensive spheres of influence. A revitalised Italy threatened Britain's positions in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East - and, of course, the routes to Asia. Germany's rise on the Continent pointed to another deadly European war. For this, Britain was not prepared, and did not have the resources to remodel her military to make it fit for 20th-century warfare on the Continent.
The politics of appeasement were, therefore about keeping the more pressing European problems at bay by diplomacy, while effort was made to reinvigorate the imperial connections. From 1937, the British government determined that its priorities were to protect the country from attack; to safeguard the imperial connections; to defend imperial possessions; and, finally, to support any allies in war, but only after all other objectives had been met. In other words, the world was to be brought in to rebalance Europe. Thus began investment by Britain in the modernisation of the Indian Army and the call on the dominions and colonies to mobilise their resources for the coming conflict. The success in doing this was remarkable, but it encouraged the trend to make this conflict a global one. This raised the stakes and not only exposed Britain's imperial possessions to attack but drove forward social and economic changes within them. In the longer term, it ushered in a much more radical re-arrangement of global affairs than any could have foreseen, even as they celebrated victory in 1945. What had been a declining empire had experienced the most remarkable revival; and that, in turn, set in motion changes that led to its further transformation and fall.
It has to be said that to re-read the 80 pages of Gallagher's elegant and witty text comes as a much-needed tonic after reading the 600 pages of The British Empire and the Second World War .
Gordon Johnson is president of Wolfson College, Cambridge and the editor of Modern Asian Studies .
The British Empire and the Second World War
Author - Ashley Jackson
Publisher - Hambledon Continuum
Pages - 604
Price - £25.00


text:
Trinity II - St. Luke 14.16-24 - June 14, 2015
Order of Service - Pg. 15
Hymn # 267 Come Unto Me Ye Weary
Hymn #372 Through Jesus' Blood and Merit
Hymn #297 The Gospel Shows the Father's Grace
Isaiah 25:6-9
1 John 3:13-18
St. Luke 14:16-24
Hymn # 267 Come Unto Me Ye Weary
Hymn #372 Through Jesus' Blood and Merit
Hymn #297 The Gospel Shows the Father's Grace
Isaiah 25:6-9
1 John 3:13-18
St. Luke 14:16-24
O Lord, Who never failest to help and govern those whom Thou dost bring up in Thy steadfast fear and love, make us to have a perpetual fear and love of Thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.
Sermon on the Holy Gospel
1) A certain man gave a great supper and invited many. The certain man is God the Father and the supper He prepares is the Holy Gospel. It is a feast of forgiveness for your sins. It is a Supper of salvation. In this feast God the Father places before us His Only-Begotten Son. This Son of God assumes our human flesh in the incarnation so that He may be like us in every way, except without sin. He assumes our human flesh so that He can intimately know our weaknesses. The incarnate Son of God lives perfectly under the Law so that He can earn a perfect righteousness that you and I cannot obtain by doing even our best to live under the Law. Christ dies on a cross with God the Father imputing our sins to Him. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. (2 Corinthians 5:21) All your sin is put on Jesus on the cross. Every one. Every thought Every Word. Every deed. All your sins are counted on Jesus' slate. Not only does God impute your sin to Jesus, by faith in Christ's atonement God the Father now imputes Christ's righteousness to us. Sin is taken away, righteousness is counted to us so that our hearts are cleansed by faith. (Acts 15:9) Christ rises from the dead, swallowing up death by His resurrection and closing the fierce jaws of the grave for all who believe, promising them resurrection on the Last Day and life everlasting. This is the feast which God prepares for His people, the Jews, and for all nations whom He will call. This feast is Christ Himself with all His blessings. It is a feast to be eaten by faith.
2) But the Jews will not come. They want nothing to do with this feast of Christ. They don't want to believe the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. They'd much rather make their own way and provide their own supper through their own works, some divinely ordained, some man-made. But they cannot simply reject God their Father. They must not appear to be unbelieving so they erect excuses and paint them with piety so as not to be seen for what they truly are. The first said to him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused. In the parable, Land represents the possessions and wealth of this world. Consider Ahab, wicked king of Israel during the time of Elijah. Ahab coveted the property next to his own, a vineyard which belonged to Naboth. Ahab was so consumed with covetousness and self-pity that it led him to plot against Naboth, have him murdered. Once Naboth was dead, Ahab stole his vineyard. Such is the lust of the human heart for the things for mammon, wealth, and worldly possessions. Ahab nurtured this lust in his heart so that the things of this world were of far greater importance to him than the Words of God spoken. Last week we heard of the Rich Man who forsook Lazarus at his gate because He placed His trust in his riches and lost his soul to his false god. Many in our age do the same. They hear the summons to the great feast of Christ yet they would rather add to their ledger and sack away money, thinking only for things temporal while giving no heed to the eternal.
3) And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused. The oxen in the parable represent the labor of this world. Many choose to labor rather than enter into the feast at the Lord's summons. Finding fulfillment and joy in the work God had placed into their hands they then neglect the Lord who has given them their work. These are the people who want to always be doing and never receiving, never resting, never hearing. In 1 Kings 18 the prophet Elijah goes to Elijah, son of Shaphat, to call him not only to the feast of the Gospel but also to labor as a servant in that feast as a prophet. Elisha is working, doing the work the Lord had given him to do in his vocation. He was in the field, plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. (1 Kings 19:19) Elijah throws his mantle upon Elisha and Elisha does what many in our age refuse to do. He took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh, using the oxen's equipment, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah, and became his servant. (1 Kings 19:21) Elisha heeds the call to the Supper and to be a servant for the mast of the house. He not only sets aside his work but offers it up as a sacrifice to His gracious Lord. Elisha is a positive example for us because he carried out his vocation faithfully, but when the Lord called Him to the feast, He would not let that vocation come between himself and the great gifts of God in the Gospel. We are not called to forsake our earthly vocations, as Elisha was, nor are we to put our earthly vocations completely aside in order to serve the Lord as was Elijah. But we are to set them aside daily for time to hear God's Word, to ponder in, to repent of our sins and enjoy the benefits and blessings of the Gospel that our Lord has prepared for us in Christ Jesus.
4) Still another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. This represents the lusts of the flesh and desire to please others rather than our Lord God. Marriage is honorable and to be kept in honor by all. In the parable, the Lord would not want this man to forsake his bride since God had joined them together. But this man used his bride as an excuse to forsake the Lord. His desire to be with his Bride was greater than his imagined need for the supper his Lord had prepared for him. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:33 that he who is married cares about the things of the world -- how he may please his wife. So this man in the parable cares more for the things of this world, his desires and the allurement of peace at home more than he cares for the feast prepared by the Lord. We have plenty of examples of this in the Scripture and we see this often in our own lives. Wicked Ahab took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. (1 Kings 16:31) Ahab's lust for Jezebel and his desire to make her happy drove him to forsake the Lord entirely and worship her false god instead. The allurement of peace with others, the desire to please others, or the carnal lusts keep us from answering the summons of the Gospel which invites us to repent of our sins, believe the Gospel, and forsake those selfish desires in order to mortify our flesh and truly love our neighbor as ourselves. Such were the excuses of the Jews for not answering the invitation to the Lord's gracious feast prepared for their salvation.
5) Christ tells us this parable again today so that we take to heart His Father's invitation to this gracious feast. He gives us this warning lest we, like the Jews, reject the Gospel for the things of this world. St. John writes to us in his first epistle, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world -- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life -- is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17) The Lord wants us to be vigilant about how we hear the Word of the Lord and how we treat the feast He offers us in the Gospel. The things of this world so easily entangle us and distract us from the blessings Christ offers us. Land, oxen, and wife may seem like foolish reasons to disregard the kingdom of God. After all, who buys land without first inspecting it, or oxen without testing them? But the absurdity of these excuses is meant to show us how absurd and illogical our excuses truly are. The things of this world are transitory. They are passing away. But the blessings the Lord offers us in His feast are eternal blessings. The gifts He gives in His preaching and sacraments are everlasting gifts because they will bring us into everlasting joys of paradise. We must be careful that we do not, like the Jews, take the invitation and feast for granted so that we loosen our grasp of it and lose it entirely.
6) When you are convicted of your excuses from hearing, reading, and meditating upon God's Holy Law and His Gospel, repent. Repent of your flimsy excuses, your entrenched sin, and your stubborn refusal whenever the Lord convicts you of them. Repent because He longs to forgive. Turn from your excuses for He desires to absolve you. Repent because He if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9) the feast is ready. All has been prepared. The lamb of God has been sacrificed for the sins of the world, for you sins, for ALL your sins. The feast is ready, everything has been prepared for you by God your heavenly Father so that you have nothing to offer, nothing to bring, and nothing to give in exchange for the forgiveness of all your sins. The Supper is ready, the table set with all the precious promises of Christ to you. There at the table are His merits, His righteousness, His passion, death, and resurrection for you. Although we sin and turn away daily He is here again in mercy to beckon us to His feast of forgiveness, to His supper of salvation that we may not die in our sins but live and enjoy all these great benefits by faith in Christ. Amen.


text:
Writer-director Li Ying should be commended for the complexity he's given a subject as controversial as the Yasukuni shrine, which commemorates Japan's two-million-plus WWII soldiers. One year after its initial release in Japan, his controversial documentary Yasukuni has already been scrutinized to the nth degree by countless detractors on the far left and right, testifying to Li's need to capture as many of the incompatible points of view surrounding the Shinto war memorial. Judging by the bitterness that the shrine has inspired, Li undoubtedly had a wealth of material to sift through and a considerable amount of pressure on him to choose only the least inflammatory bits. The fact that he didn't cave under such extraordinary pressure but instead created a piece every bit as raw as the emotions swirling around Yasukuni marks him as budding major talent with a shrewd eye for detail.
Much of the events of Yasukuni center around Prime Minister Koizumi's repeated visits to the shrine, a personal choice that has been continually met with heavy criticism. Though its intention to commemorate fallen veterans may seem innocent enough, Yasukuni also honors class-A war criminals, most infamously the two generals that held a contest to see who could behead 100 POWs in the least amount of time. Though Koizumi has insisted that his visits to the shrine are personal matters that should not be misinterpreted as representative actions of his administration, the nationalistic fervor that surrounds Yasukuni is too loud to ignore; Li diligently includes sobering footage of a protester as he's beaten by an incensed worshipper accusing him wildly of being Chinese and then dragged away into a police car.
Li's focus on the current manifestations of both protesters and supporters alike gives the film its necessary brutal frankness. His use of archival footage, though infrequent, feels redundant, especially in the film's final 10 minutes where an unchallenging montage sequence is arranged from footage of ceremonies revolving around worship and militant violence. Though Li insists that Yasukuni was not meant to rile its viewers, the film is a deft provocation. When photos of soldiers overlap footage of Kariya Naoji, the last forger of swords to commemorate the war dead and Li's favorite subject, it's a challenge to viewers, begging them to consider the significance of remembering men as soldiers.
The film shines strongest in the scenes where you can see Li's authorial fingerprints most clearly, scenes where his guerilla-style handheld photography bobs and weaves through rain and crowds to capture the volatile nature of the people that cycle through Yasukuni. Fleeting water-spattered images of a mysterious and pugnacious young man in a traditional WWII uniform or symmetrical reflections of visitors viewed from a display at the Yushukan War Memorial, which includes a tour that refuses to acknowledge Japan's role in war crimes, are both haunting and sophisticated. Li allows the viewer to decide what they're seeing, tirelessly pivoting around his talking heads in search of new angles to add to his haunting mosaic of conflict.


text:
Welcome to the Sports section of our Shopping directory! From billiards and backgammon to football and cricket, there's a lot to learn about the most popular sports in the world. The rules of the game are just the beginning—in order to get geared up and start playing on a team or contending one-on-one, you need to know exactly what to buy and where to get it. When tallying up all the items you'll need to get a game going, the list can get quite long. Sports equipment for the players tops the list immediately, but depending on the facility you'll be playing in, you could also need field implements, boards or tables and of course, balls, mallets, clubs, bats and other equipment.
When it comes to choosing sports equipment, there are three overriding priorities: price, performance and safety. Full contact sports like hockey and rugby can quickly lead to bodily injury, and gearing up with helmets, pads and gloves that are up to standards is an absolute necessity. Beyond that, you'll have to balance your budget against the need for high end equipment. While it's the player's skill and teamwork that factor most heavily into performance on the field, having top of the line equipment can certainly give you a leg up.
We hope that you'll find everything you're looking for here in our Sports directory. And if you think that you're site belongs here in the Sports category of our Shopping web directory, go ahead and click Submit Site to contribute your own excellent Sports website.


text:
Do you like Halloween mazes? I do. I don't even like horror very much, but gimme a great immersive environment, and I don't care what the theme is: I will go thru it, and I will go first.
But why aren't there any non-horror mazes? I was lucky enough to attend both Midsummer Scream and ScareLA this year, which together form the launch platform of all So Cal's big Halloween attractions. They're the only places to get previews of this year's Halloween mazes, which is great. BUT… they're all horror. And for me, eventually, evil gets boring. My secret dream is that at some point, our maze-making will expand to include non-Halloweenish themes.
Well, let's just throw our minds into the future a little, and imagine a time when my secret dream is a reality – wibblywobblyblipblipwiiibbly –
Ok – wow – we're in the future.
YES! Look there, across the street, the big banner – "Coming Soon: Faulkner's As I Lay Dying Walkthru Maze!" Oh man, I'm so happy right now; this is great. Here in the future, themed, walkthru mazes are a very common thing. On any given weekend, you can physically walk through a variety of different worlds. Oh, and no big surprise here, but it turns out that many of the best themes come straight outta books. I will see them all…
[time passes]
Ok, here's my report:
The Wrinkle in Time maze more or less follows the book. At the beginning, you're in the garden with Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which. From there, you visit the various planets, landing at Camazotz, where you face off with IT – the brain. There's a cool bit where you walk down a long "sidewalk" flanked by perfectly symmetrical homes, with kids bouncing a ball in perfect unison. Cool effect. The secret on this one is the sound design: bass so low you can't hear it, but – good lord – you can feel it. It kicks in when you "tesser", and gets cranked up when you confront IT. People barf all the time. They also do some cool things with fans, so tessering feels like you're in a wind tunnel. Not good with the barfing, but it sure as heck makes you feel like you're part of the story.
Ah – Oliver Twist's London is a good one. Nice work with the queue here, which actually looks like the workhouse mess hall, where the famous "Please, sir, I want some more" scene happens. You really get the feeling of waiting in this endless line, just like a little orphan waiting for his dollop of gruel. After that, it's mainly filthy street scenes of Victorian London. The claustrophobic alleyways, crowded streets, wretched hovels of the poor are pretty damn well done, all the way down to the stench, which is wretched. You're meant to move thru it all very quickly, as if you're running away from either police or Fagin's gang – hard to tell. At the end, when you're kinda beat to hell from crawling, climbing, etc and covered in soot and grime, you spill into this fancy parlour – which really makes you feel the sting of being lower class.
This is my favorite: 2001: A Space Odyssey: The Maze. This follows the basic development of the book & movie, and its main feature is the contrast between the several parts. Starting out near "caves" which overlook an African plain, you crawl around rocks and can spot a few hominids peaking at you around corners and such. You walk into the famous black monolith, and find yourself in the antiseptic hallways of a commercial space station. It's so perfect and detailed and Kubrikian. You exit the station out onto a lunar surface with the second black monolith, which emits its weird shriek. You run thru a nearby hatch, and you're on the ship, which has all the control panels and such – god I love that. HAL natters creepily and sings "Daisy" as you move thru the service hatches and past the sabotaged cryo-chambers. To escape HAL, you jump into a pod. They use some kinda video projection on the windows – like on Star Tours – and the pod sorta falls into a wormhole or whatever the hell it is – I mean, the pod actually jumps around a bit – and when you get out – you're on an alien planet and – anyway, it's just amazing. If you like real sci-fi, this is your jam. This is like major theme park level here. I don't know what it means or anything, but it's got such great design – wow.
Kids love the Watership Down Rabbit Run. This is life from Fiver or Hazel's POV, complete with long warren-like tunnels to wendy little paths thru tall grass. There are a few sections where you have to run past Owsla rabbits or cats – and, obviously, a lot of jumping is involved in those exciting bits – but the real selling point is just seeing things from that other point of view. If your kid actually has a pet rabbit at home, you'll need to have a talk with them or they'll be releasing the bunnies into your backyard. It's a damn near irresistible impulse.
Okay, it's hard to believe this book survived into the future, but the Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code Mystery of the Ages Experience is pretty fun. This is part maze, part escape room. It's a little more pricey, since each group can take a while to move thru it, but I'd say it's worth it. You start at the beginning with a couple of clues to some bullshit conspiracy theory, and as you sort thru them, you move deeper into a richly ornamented, maze-like environment, which looks like a mix between the Vatican and the Lost Boys clubhouse. I can't actually tell you more of the story without spoiling it. There are puzzles of various types and trap doors, hidden bookcases – it's well-made. The more random, unconnected bits of history and culture you know, the better. Also, the more you've had to drink, the better. A fun time for smart people who don't mind twisting common sense into weird shapes.
The Maze Runner Maze is a no-brainer. The walls are really high, and there are vines to climb in a few points – which adds a 3 dimensional quality. The walls don't move, but there are distant sounds of wall movement. The difference with this one is that most of these attractions are not legit mazes, in that you can't actually get lost in them. You can absolutely get lost in the Maze Runner Maze. If only they had some giant animatronic grievers, it would be perfect. You'll have to settle for weird growling and scuffling sounds and some glowing eyeballs.
The Lost World has an interesting story. A small company wanted to do a Jurassic Park maze, but there's this little thing called "intellectual property". Universal and the Michael Crichton estate "sent a letter". Not a problem, jerk-faces: no one owns dinosaurs and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is public domain, so… The Lost World was born. It's just basically running through a jungle dodging dinosaurs and ape men. Pretty fun, and the dinos are well-done, considering that this is a non-profit/charity maze for the Wenceworth Children's Hospital. They had to take out the Jeff Goldblum animatronic, but he brought his jazz combo to the opening night party. What a cool dude.
There's a really fun Christmas walkthru I saw last year – wait, not last year, it was year before, 2034 (remember, we're in the future): A Child's Christmas Maze in Wales (stupid title). In this one, you are actually the young Dylan Thomas character, and you walk thru most of the scenes in his story, from the smoking kitchen to snowball fights (fun!) to whistle fights (the worst thing ever). It's mostly about the comedy here. There's a section with snoring, belching, farting uncles in chairs around the fireplace – disgusting, but totally like your own family, right? There's even a participatory bit: when you get to the creepy house, if you sing a carol loud enough (actually, you can just yell – it's sound activated), someone will sing back. The temperature alternates from scene to scene – whether you're inside or outside, which must cost a fortune. This one is just… it gets me weepy every time. Oh – and they serve wassail in the lounge at the end.
BONUS: This one is actually a Fantasyland-type dark ride, over at the new mall in Glendale (Americana Nova). It's called Mr. Samsa's Wild Ride!, based on Kafka's Metamorphosis. Your ride vehicle is shaped like a cockroach, and you skitter around thru an apartment: avoiding your dad's broom-attacks, hiding under the couch and even running up the walls. (That's done with a sort of visual trick, I'm sure… but I haven't figured out how they do it! It's crazy!) This one puts you in a deep funk.
Come on, theme park/Halloween/escape room/dark ride fanatics; let's make this future happen!!


text:
Alford in Lincolnshire
A market town at the foot of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Alford lies on the east side of the lincolnshire wolds.
Alford obtained a market charter in 1283 and for many years local farmers sold their livestock and produce here. Sadly, the livestock market and the Tuesday auction of produce no longer functions. However, on a Tuesday and a Friday in the Summer sees the Craft Market in the Corn Exchange. In recent years Alford had become famous for its Craft Market. The climax is over the August Bank Holiday when there is live entertainment, folk dancing, demonstrations of crafts as well as the Market in the Manor House Grounds.
Another major landmark is the five sailed windmill built in 1813 which is still in full working order. This was built by Sam Oxley who also built the Burgh le Marsh windmill.
The thatched Manor House contains a fine folk museum. Near the town centre is St. Wilfred's Church dating from the 14th century.
Find out more at www.alford.info


text:
Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic kept up their relentless march towards a semi-final meeting at the Australian Open Saturday as Maria Sharapova suffered a crushing defeat by Angelique Kerber. The two greats of the game — who have won 11 Australian Opens between them — could meet in the last four if they maintain their winning ways.
Defending champion Federer was never troubled by France's Richard Gasquet, who has failed to take a set off him since 2011, as he steamed into the last 16 with a 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 win. "The second set was tight, the match was close and I had to focus to the very end," said the Swiss 19-time Grand Slam winner, who next plays little-known Hungarian Marton Fucsovics for a place in the quarter-finals.
He added: "So far, so good."
Djokovic was equally convincing in his 6-2, 6-3, 6-3 rout of Spanish 21st seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas, although there was concern when he sought a medical timeout for treatment to his lower back.
"It was straight sets but I had to earn my points," insisted the Serb, who is on his way back after six months out with right elbow trouble.
"Obviously for me it's taking it one match at a time but I have to be more humble with my expectations as I haven't played in the last six months."
He next plays South Korea's Chung Hyeon, who shocked fourth seed Alexander Zverev.
With the temperatures a manageable 26 Celsius (79 Farenheit) at Melbourne Park after two days of oven-like conditions, Zverev was beaten in five sets.
He has been hailed as the leader of the tennis new guard but has now failed to go beyond the fourth round in 11 Grand Slams, admitting he has "some figuring out to do".
In a glamour evening tie, Sharapova was no match for Kerber, flopping 6-1, 6-3.
They pair are both 30, former world number ones and were the only two Australian Open winners left in the women's draw, but there was only one player in it.
"This court is special for me and I was trying to enjoy every point," Kerber said of Rod Laver Arena, where she beat Serena Williams in the 2016 final.
Kerber is in scintillating form, having won the lead-up Sydney International, and will face Taiwan's Hsieh Su-wei for a place in the quarter-finals.
For Sharapova, who is looking to rediscover her best on her way back from a 15-month drugs ban, it is back to the drawing board.
"I think there are a lot of things that I need to get better at and improve on," she admitted.
First published on NDTV.com


text: I have 7 of the yellow box W-W Super NEW brass and 5 of the white box W-W Super NEW brass, 20 in each box. This is the good old stuff you can't find today, best brass winchester ever made! Boxes are in great condition. $160 shipped in USA****SOLD PENDING FUND**** I have another 197 NEW. I found 5 of the 20 count yellow boxes but counld not find the other 5. W-W Super brass for $125 shipped in USA. Also have 97 NEW factory primed W-W Super brass for $65 shippped in USA. I have 500 New Winchester (all same lot) brass packaged 50 to a bag(10 bags) I will take $275 shipped in USA.****reduced to $250 shipped.**** Last I have 220 cleaned once fired 264 win brass for $65 shipped in USA.*****SOLD PENDING FUNDS****


text:
36 Hertz Sample Pack Vol 6 – Ultimate Old Skool
Old Skool lovers are in for a treat with this installment of our sample packs. Containing over 300 samples this pack will bring fond memories for some of you and should inspire you to try and capture some of the vibe that is often lacking in today's tunes.
Compiled here is the ultimate collection of never released before old skool samples.
We have scoured the studios synths and raided the classic vinyl and sourced a huge collection of all those classic sounds from the early 90's
This is the ultimate old skool sample pack for the producer who is looking for the perfect collection of old skool sounds
36 Hertz Sample Pack Vol 6 – Ultimate Old Skool


text:
Do you ever feel like a part of your life relates to a scene in a movie? When I think about everything that's going on right now I can't help but think of that final scene in Fight Club when Tyler and Marla are standing in front of the window watching all the buildings blow up. The Pixies "Where is my Mind" plays in my head a lot these days, and when I picture that scene it's not Tyler and Marla standing in front of a city landscape, it's my business partner and I standing in the middle of our store while it empties out in a sort of time-lapse motion. I'm really OK, everything is going to be fine. You met me at a very strange time in my life.
I've been wanting to write about this for a while now but things are changing so quickly it's been hard to figure out where to start. I feel like my life hasn't been this turbulent since we opened the store. When we first started the store I was 25 years old. I'm not even going to get into how young that seems to me now, that's another story. The stress that comes with creating and opening a business when you have no idea what you are doing was entwined with the smack in the face of my parents separating after having been together for 30+ years. Every single day seemed to have new challenges. No matter how much I wanted to stop and catch a breath, the world around me kept moving and all I could do was hold on. Underneath all the stress, tears and anxiety, there was an exciting energy. We were somehow breathing life into our business, that is now, Downtown Cowgirl. What a beautiful life it turned out to be.
Fast forward almost 13 years later and I find myself in the surreal situation of pulling the plug on this chapter of my life. I'm closing the door on a dream I worked so hard to make a reality. But thirteen years ago I was a different person, weren't you? I have changed over the years and I have recognized that it is indeed time to move on. It doesn't mean that it's easy. It's actually hard AF and extremely uncomfortable. Our business was once a huge, scary roll of the dice. Somewhere along the line it turned into a security blanket, to which I am very thankful for. But now, not only am I ripping the blanket off, I'm throwing it in the fire. As I watch it burn I can't help but feeling like I should reach in and save it. I'm burning what has been my identity for the last decade. I'm sitting here breathing the smoke in, wondering who am I now? There is a scary freedom involved in stripping yourself down to nothing.
I remember the last time I felt I had control over what was happening in my life. It was the end of April. I had a new dream and it was intoxicating. I could daydream about this new adventure all day. It was kind of like being in love for the first time all over again. Marcus and I worked on a plan to turn this dream into real life. First step, figure out how to phase myself out of my business while it continues forward. I visualized myself tossing glitter and pixie dust as I slowly and softly stepped out of the picture and Downtown Cowgirl growing to be the old lady of the Avenue. Doesn't that sound lovely? The Universe is laughing at me.
A few days ago I randomly heard the song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" three times in one day. By the third time I actually started listening. This little sign from the Universe was what inspired me to write this. It was a symbolic snapping of the fingers in my face telling me to wake the fuck up. In the wise words of Mick Jagger, I'm getting what I need. It's not the pretty little package I wanted it to be wrapped in, but when it's all said and done I will have the freedom I asked for.
Watching the store wither away is heartbreaking. We have created something that people are sad to see go. I never expected customers to come in and hug me and thank me for what we have created. It is an equally amazing and devastating feeling. Nothing lasts forever. Not even this horrible, uncomfortable, mourning that I'm currently experiencing. When the store has emptied and we lock the door for the last time, I'll be turning around to face my next adventure. I will warm myself in the fire built out of this security blanket knowing it has given me courage, grit and fuel. This is the beginning of anything I want….


text:
There are around 4,000 children across the UK waiting for a new family every year from a huge range of racial, cultural and religious backgrounds. Many of these children are of school age, and over half of them are in groups of brothers and sisters who need to be placed together.
The West London Adoption and Permanence Consortium is made up of eight local authorities and three voluntary adoption agencies, and together we provide information to anyone interested in adoption.
We host a number of events to speed up the process of matching adopters to children, including exchange days, profiling events and activity days. By working together, it means that there is a larger pool of adopters and children to choose from.
We are looking for families who can provide love, stability and security to those children to meet their emotional, identity, health and developmental needs.


text:
Method to synthesize metal chalcogenide monolayer nanomaterials
United States Patent
|December 13, 2016
|View the Complete Patent at the US Patent & Trademark Office
|Sandia National Laboratories - Visit the Intellectual Property Management and Licensing Website
|Metal chalcogenide monolayer nanomaterials can be synthesized from metal alkoxide precursors by solution precipitation or solvothermal processing. The synthesis routes are more scalable, less complex and easier to implement than other synthesis routes.
|Hernandez-Sanchez; Bernadette A. (Albuquerque, NM), Boyle; Timothy J. (Albuquerque, NM)
|Sandia Corporation (Albuquerque, NM)
|14/ 660,702
|March 17, 2015
|STATEMENT OF GOVERNMENT INTEREST This invention was made with Government support under contract no. DE-AC04-94AL85000 awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy to Sandia Corporation. The Government has certain rights in the invention.


text:
Amarin (NASDAQ:AMRN) is now more than $121 million richer, following a public stock offering. The company announced it has closed a 21.7-million share-strong issue of American Depositary Shares, netting a total of around $121.1 million. Additionally, the company's underwriters have been granted a 30-day purchase option for up to an additional 3.255 million American Depositary Shares.
Amarin said it plans to use the proceeds of the issue largely to fund the commercial launch of Vascepa, a treatment that lowers triglycerides.
Citigroup's Global Markets unit, and Leucadia's Jefferies, were the joint-book running managers of the offering.
Prior to the issue, Amarin had around 150.7 million shares outstanding. Its stock's most recent closing price was $5.27 per share.
Fool contributor Eric Volkman has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Citigroup. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.