text: Stir all the ingredients together well and allow the curry to come to a boil. Then reduce the heat to a simmer and allow everything to cook for about 15 minutes, or until the carrots are softened.
  Serve the curry warm with rice and/or fresh bread and garnished everything with cilantro and more lemon wedges.
  I made thus tonight for dinner and it is absolutely delicious. Thank you so much. I am freezing half of it. I added 4 sliced celery stalks, various spices, turmeric, for the brain, mustard powder, etc. So wonderful. Take care…
  So glad you enjoyed it Laura! You can leave a star rating by clicking on the stars at the top of the recipe card by the title. That’d be a huge help! Enjoy the curry and thanks so much for commenting!
  Wow! I just made this today replacing the chickpeas with chicken. I’m a meat eater. Oh, it is soooo good!!!!
  I made this yesterday and it was amazing!! I’m new to cooking and I’m trying to gather some recipes so that I can get a few dishes on rotation and get some practice in the kitchen, and this is definitely a keeper!
  
  Many religions see natural disasters as divine punishment. But, a scholar argues, it's not that simple.
  There remain many mysteries that are beyond science. Does that mean that a God truly exists? A scholar gives reasons for this possibility.
  Americans are increasingly choosing not to identify with any religious tradition. But this group of irreligious people is a complex one – with different relationships to religion.
  Jesus wasn't the only son of a god in ancient times. And, as you'd expect, divine offspring tended to be high achievers.
  50 years after Time magazine's famous 'Is God Dead?' cover, Church attendance numbers are tumbling. But that doesn't mean Christianity is on the way out.
  The prosperity gospel – a uniquely American strand of Christian theology – creates a dilemma for its adherents.
  For human groups to grow from small, intimate communities to the huge interconnected societies we know now, people needed to be willing to cooperate with strangers. Religion might have played a big role.
  If the commands of reason really do require a god, then that god exists beyond reasonable doubt. Agree? Disagree? Read on ...
  Getting on for 14 billion years ago the universe suddenly sprang into life. I can’t actually do the math, as they say, but I’m happy to accept the word of those who can that the physics is unambiguously…
  In Cecil B. Demille’s The Ten Commandments, Charlton Heston’s Moses is presented straightforwardly as a man certain of his mission. Wikimedia Commons
  The term “reboot” means something particular in the movies. The metaphor is drawn from computers: a “reboot” restarts a machine whose software has malfunctioned. But in cinematic terms a reboot refers…
  Disputes about the existence of God — like most disputes about religion, politics, and sex — almost always generate heat but not light. The question of the existence of God seems intractable. As with other…
  Notions of gods arise in all human societies, from all powerful and all-knowing deities to simple forest spirits. A recent method of examining religious thought and behaviour links their ubiquity and the…
  
  I am excited to share my RED summer project with you! I am a preschool teacher and in a couple of weeks, we are going to be having a Hawaiian Luau! I thought it would be fun for the kids to make their own paper Leis. I loved the idea of using bright RED paper flowers. Here are some tricks to how we made these-so you can get ready for a LUAU party this summer!
  These floss threaders are a must if you are having kids make these leis. Tie the yarn or string around the hole of the floss threader and your child will have a much easier time placing the straws and flowers on the yarn. I use these in my preschool for lacing and other neclace making activities as well.
  -Let your little one add a straw then a flower, creating a pattern. You could use multiple colors of flowers and make an even brighter pattern.
  -When finished adding straws and flowers, tie the end strings together! Now you have a very cute Paper Lei! You are ready to HULA!
  Thank you Jamie for being my guest. This is such a great summer project. And thank you for being flexible with all the changes and idiosyncracies of this series. You guys are great.
  We made these in scouts one year. Then I put on a pool birthday party and made them again but used fun foam for the flowers. The kids made their own leis to match their swimsuits. The fun foam was more durable than the paper around all the water and summer activities. Enjoy
  Great idea to make your own! My daughter’s class is having “Paradise Week” this week – these would be perfect!
  Thank you so much for this idea! I’m going to use it tomorrow for a luau theme for my daughter’s homeschool girls club. A tip for others–the straws we were going to use went right through the holes in the flowers so I opted to use rigatoni noodles since they were bigger. The floss threaders are going to work so well. Thank you!
  Love this idea! I’m going to make these for favors for my daughter’s birthday party next month. Here are the first few I tried:
  What a BRILLIANT idea! Made these and blogged about them. This not only saved me £15 sterling, but gave me a chance to get back into MAKING THINGS which is a joy I had almost forgotten about – thanks! – Jenny – http://www.silverscreensuppers.com/?p=2567
  I’m the Editor of Fun Family Crafts and wanted to let you know that we have featured your lei! You can see it here:
  It really depends on the size of the kids, but I would say anywhere from 14-20 would be a good number.
  The very first things is, I love the name of your website – the crafting chicks, I mean how cute it is. Second thanks for sharing this great idea with us and third, the girl in the image crafting is cute, I wish her all the very best!
  Its cute, the combination of red and white color is looking awesome. I am definitely going to try it.
  […] plan based on the state of Hawaii, or getting ready to have a summertime luau! Head on over to The Crafting Chicks for the tutorial. You may also […]
  […] for the craft, we made these. I did A LOT of prep work before hand. I can’t tell you how many flowers I stamped […]
  […] If you look carefully below, you’ll see flower garland I made using a tutorial I found on the Crafting Chicks. { In the tutorial the chicks make […]
  […] red stripes for the girls’ leis and straws with blue stripes for the boys’. Thanks to Jamie for the inspiration for these… God I love the internet. Not only did I save about £15 but […]
  […] out the Crafting Chicks blog for an adorable lei project that can be done with straws and paper with kids. The […]
  […] the magic of the island to your home and make it a tropical day with this summer craft from Crafting Chicks. All you need to do is die-cut punch different colors of scrap paper with a flower shape (You can […]
  […] You don’t have to travel to Hawaii to get the feeling of the island. Get your kids to make these adorable paper leis and hold a luau in your backyard. Full instructions are at The Crafty Chicks. […]
  […] that’s easy enough even for preschoolers. Check out this great paper lei tutorial from The Crafting Chicks. Our Hula Girls can make an exciting addition to your event as well. From leading the limbo to a […]
  […] had two crafts set up: 1) make a paper flower lei (thanks Pinterest!) and 2) create a totem pole mask. Next time, I might make something a little […]
  […] Summer is such a fun time to throw a Luau party. I have one in the works soon and I thought this would be the cutest idea for guests as they arrive…a little kit to make their own Paper Hawaiian Lei. […]
  […] Homemade Hawaiian LeisThese homemade leis are perfect for a Hawaiian luau this summer. Inexpensive and simple to make, your whole family will love these tropical leis. […]
  […] for a Luau. Make some home-made leis with just a few materials you may already have at home. Your girls can then play dress-up and other […]
  […] additional directions on making these Hawaiian leis, be sure to visit the Crafting Chicks webpage! Let us know what crafts you’ve made this summer, because we love to hear from our readers. […]
  […] Just a few basic supplies are all that you need to make this awesome Hawaiian Flower Lei Necklace! […]
  […] Homemade Hawaiian Leis Kid Craft from The Crafting Chicks – Not only does this make a cute lei craft, but it will also give your kids a chance to work on their fine motor skills. […]
  
  Surely a frightened little blind cat might have difficulty adjusting to being taken from her home by a Humane Officer and taken to strangers in a building full of other animals and unfamiliar noises and smells. A shelter might not be the best place to take a kitty with such special needs, who might not be considered adoptable, who might not even be given a chance at finding a forever home better than the one she’d been taken from.
  Open door shelters take in any animal who is presented to them, whether they think they may be adoptable or not—it’s their mission to shelter any animal who needs it. Many open door shelters have undeserved reputations as death traps for any animals, especially those with needs the shelter isn’t prepared to fulfill, and some don’t offer anything for cats at all. But many more work very hard and go to great lengths to meet the needs of all the animals who come into their care, including cats like little Lydia, who is frightened and confused and trying to adjust.
  The Beaver County Humane Society (BCHS) is one of those shelters that uses every option to give each animal what it needs to find its forever home. BCHS is a small shelter in rather rural Beaver County just west of Pittsburgh, and doesn’t have the financial resources larger shelters do, yet it takes in animals with the same needs. Its staff is compassionate and creative in handling each animal, whether it came to the shelter with a dozen others taken from a hoarding situation, or it was surrendered as a stray or a family pet. The shelter works with foster homes and rescues, offsite adoptions like pet stores, attending events where pets for adoption are welcome, finding grants and programs to participate in that help the shelter care for their animals and promote them. They also work work with each individual person who comes in to surrender or adopt an animal, advising them on the best options for care so that pets are sure to stay in their home and not end up back in the shelter.
  Lydia, as mentioned, was brought in by a Humane Officer, so her story is private right now and there is no information on her prior conditions or how she became blind. However, seeing her emotional condition it was clear that she needed another option aside from a cubicle in the shelter. BCHS is one of the shelters that works with the Homeless Cat Management Team/Pittsburgh C.A.T. as an option for cats and kittens who have physical, emotional or medical needs that can’t be fulfilled by the shelter and are better served in one of our foster homes. In return, BCHS will also take cats we’ve rescued and put them up for adoption through the shelter when they have space to do so.
  Lydia will be surrendered from BCHS to our rescue once we find the right place for her to either be fostered and then adopted, or under a “foster to adopt” agreement. “We don’t usually offer this, but in this kitty’s case, we would like to decrease the number of times that she is moved from home to home. So, if the opportunity exists for her to potentially only have one move, that would be amazing.”
  Response to Lydia from people who have lived with blind cats has been heartening, and Pittsburgh C.A.T. is still taking applications. Lydia is one to two years old, spayed, negative for FIV/FeLV, and up to date on shots. She is said to be scared, but friendly as soon as you pick her up.
  The Beaver County Humane Society was founded in 1950 has been committed to helping animals in the Beaver County area. Sixty-five years later, more than 4,000 animals receive comfort and care each year. In the past several years they’ve built a brand new shelter to replace the 1950s era cinder block cages and reached out to the community for adoptions and support, instituted a TNR program and training, and work with rescues like Pittsburgh C.A.T. to ensure each of their animals as the est chance at finding a forever home.
  Unfortunately, the $50,000 annual grant they received from the county was cut to $13,000 in 2016, and is completely eliminated for 2017. It’s clear they may have some difficulty meeting the needs of their animals this year. Their only way to make up for this shortfall now, when it’s desperately needed, is through donations. It would be a shame if this shelter that works so hard in so many innovative ways had to cut back on all it does to save and adopt the animals in its care. If you can help BCHS, please donate even just $10.00 You know it will go directly to the animals’ care.
  Also read A Small Shelter Doing Big Things, originally published in Pittsburgh PetConnections, June 2014 issue
  Lydia is such a beautiful girl! I hope that she is able to be moved to a foster home soon. It would be so hard being a blind kitty in the ever-changing environment of a shelter. She will probably make a great pet for someone once they can discover her. Blind kitties aren’t really any more difficult to care for than seeing cats.
  Robin, she seems to be calm and affectionate in a quieter environment, and she went to her foster home yesterday. They may also adopt her so we’re glad we could help her on her way.
  
  1 Pound is equal to 3.816786 Tunisian Dinars. Use this GBP to TND converter (£ to د.ت) to get today's exchange rate, in real time from British currency to Tunisian currency or to any other world's currency, even offline.
  
  It's time for Obama to stop worrying about offending people, and start calling our enemy by its name.
  This week, President Obamadelivered a statement about Wednesday's attack in San Bernardino that left 14 people dead, and another 21 wounded; a statement that was conspicuously incomplete. In particular, Obama said of the attack that was carried out by Muslim-American Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, that "we do not know why this terrible event occurred."
  Really, Mr. President? Is it that we "don't know," or that you're afraid to say it, for fear of offending people? This latest attack is just another in an endless slaughter of innocents that is being enabled by a president who's more concerned about his image with these people than in protecting the American people. How can a leader, be it President Obama or Hillary Clinton or any of the candidates vying for the job, possibly defeat our enemies and stop the slaughter if he won't even call them by their name?
  Obama's defenders will inevitably say that he's trying to avoid painting an overwhelmingly peaceful people with the broad brush of extremism, potentially alienating people whom we need as allies in this fight, but that's just complete garbage. If you're one of the good ones, you're going to know that we're not talking about you, that we're only talking about the extremists who twist your peaceful way of life to murderous ends. If you're really one of the good ones, you'll speak out louder than we do to put a stop to the evil and death.
  While its true that the vast majority of these people aren't murderers, they have done little to speak out against the murderers in their midst, and have contributed even less to the actual fight. That's understandable, since despite frequent burnishing of his accomplishments, President Obama's efforts have mostly been for show. Rather than getting mired in this fight, President Obama would rather sail off into the sunset of his legacy.
  Here's the problem, though, Mr. President: no matter how gently you coddle these people, no matter how fastidiously you avoid calling them out by name, they are never going to join you, not even the so-called "good ones," because they have only their own interests at heart. Ask them and they'll tell you, even if they don't believe in violent extremism, their aim is still to spread their way of life to every corner of this country.
  The President's critics deride him for not having a strategy, but you can have all the plans in the world and it won't do you any good if you don't understand the enemy. Mr. President, we do know why this happened, and it's time you said it out loud.
  
  Originating from a conversation with his seven-year-old daughter, Suman Ghosh’s new film is an ode to the city of Kolkata, writes Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri
  A Google search for the word shows up 1,20,00,00,000 results. Goodreads has 15,086 quotes on it. Every writer, philosopher, artist, poet, painter, wellness expert and researcher worth the name has tried to fathom what it entails. Talking about researcher/author Sonja Lyubomirsky’s description of happiness in her 2007 book The How of Happiness as ‘the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile,’ greatergood.berkeley.edu says that ‘the definition resonates with us… it captures the fleeting positive emotions that come with happiness, along with a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in life - and suggests how these emotions and sense of meaning reinforce one another’.
  Suman Ghosh’s Searching for ‘Happiness’ renders most of these discussions and definitions academic and facile. What does happiness mean to a four-year-old child? A balloon decorated with a smiley by her mother that she lets go of from the terrace. Like all Ghosh’s films, this too begins with a pithy quote, this time Maxim Gorky’s: ‘Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands… but let go of it and you learn how big and precious it is.’ In a way, it is apposite… as long as the child has it in her hands, happiness is just a ‘small’ balloon. The moment she lets go, it makes its way over the city skyline, it becomes something bigger. As the child says while releasing it, ‘It will make everyone happy.’ But of course that’s a child’s utopia and Suman Ghosh is too perceptive a film-maker for that as the child’s final comment in the film makes heartbreakingly clear.
  The idea for the film originated with Suman’s seven-year-old daughter, Maya. One Sunday, Maya got a balloon and drew a smiley on it. She and her sister Leela went to the balcony of their eighteenth-floor apartment in Miami. Back inside, they started looking out of the windows. When Suman asked them what they were looking for, Maya said that she was searching for ‘happiness’. It turned out that she had named the balloon ‘happiness’ and because she wanted to spread happiness around the world, she had let it go. This provides the ‘fictional’ framework of the narrative starring real-life mother-daughter Sudiptaa Chakraborty and Shahida Neera, as the latter steps out of her home, without telling her mother, to look for the balloon she has just released to the world.
  What unfolds is a series of fascinating ‘journeys’ – the child’s in pursuit of ‘happiness’, the mother’s as she goes looking for her child, and of the people Shahida encounters in the course of her day out on the streets of Kolkata; all of whom are searching for their own versions of happiness. A garbage collector/sweeper who, after his morning stint with the municipality, goes looking for work under the ‘100-day-work scheme’. A rickshawallah whose day starts picking up load for a party decorator before his second shift plying the rickshaw – all for ‘Rs 150-200 a day’. A beautician who travels all the way from Bandel every day to her beauty parlour in the city. A dwarf at a circus, lamenting the death of the circus as an entertainment and art form. The common refrain across these lives - they have little else to look forward to but the everyday toil for basic survival; happiness is a chimera.
  And framing these real-life stories is Shahida, going about her own way, and her mother frantic about her missing four-year-old. I have always believed that Sudiptaa Chakraborty is probably the finest actress in Bengal today, and even with the limited scope she has here she shows why. Shahida is a natural and provides some of the film’s delightful moments. Look at her standing in front of a jalebi vendor – and then walking away with a plateful. Cajoling a lollipop out of a shopkeeper. Or asking a flower seller for a rose, which he does not have in his wares (happiness would probably be a rose, but she gets a marigold).
  The film’s biggest strength however lies in its captivating kaleidoscope of life on the streets of Kolkata – and a shoutout here to the camerawork by the brilliant Soumik Halder, more so given the unscripted, surreptitious nature of the shoot with much of the film emerging even as it was being shot. I cannot recall another Bengali film in recent times, which provides this up-close and intimate look at the streets, markets and localities of this great metropolis, and the people who inhabit these. You can almost smell the footpaths reflecting the dappled winter sun, the markets overflowing with Christmas decorations, the shanties, the congested alleyways, the rundown walls layered with political graffiti and lungis, gamchhas, garments and whatnot hanging out to dry. Adding to the narrative is Anirban Sengupta’s sound design, the background score comprising almost entirely of ambient city sounds interspersed with snatches of evocative music particularly in the wonderful closing montage.
  It’s heartening to see a filmmaker attempt something like this. But then Suman Ghosh has carved an interesting trajectory. A mainstream venture like Kadambari (2015) is followed by the way-out black comedy Peace Haven (2016). A film like Nobel Chor (2012), starring none other than Mithun Chakraborty, coexists with the absolutely brilliant Shyamal Uncle Turns off the Lights (2013), based on a true story about an eighty-year-old man obsessed with switching off streetlights, which are left on even during the day. It isn’t surprising then that after Basu Poribar (2018), a multi-starrer, he opts for this intensely ‘personal’ project.
  Cahiers du Cinema called Shyamal Uncle ‘extraordinary magic’, adding that ‘the impeccable rhythm and the art with which the director deals with new twists invite the audience to understand that a true epic is told in the small adventure’. That bit about ‘true epic told in the small adventure’ holds true as much for Searching for ‘Happiness’, in particular the closing four-minute montage of a city going about its business - the characters we have encountered in the narrative returning home, a teeming city square, a fish market, vendors scurrying about with baskets on their head, people boarding buses, making rotis, children having a bath by a street tubewell, an elderly man getting a shave, another stubbing out a bidi, the cacophony of a metro station, a child practising archery with a clothes hanger, a game of football. And floating above all this, just out of reach, the elusive balloon of happiness.
  
  Civil Eats looks at how school districts around the nation are making sure students have access to meals. Read the full story
  
  You may recognize this quote as something said by Ram Dass, an American spiritual leader of the 1960-70s. To me, it is a profoundly simple way to describe the role of caregiving.
  It doesn’t matter whether the person we are caring for is experiencing cancer, the flu, dementia, or grief. Offering care means being a companion, not a superior. If you are a doctor or surgeon, you offer treatment, so your expertise and knowledge do come from a superior position. But when our role is to provide care, we are there as equals.
  Ah, you might think, but when it’s dementia we are superior. We’re smarter than our charges; their brains are failing. If you find yourself thinking this, please read Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow. We have two very different sets of thinking processes, both of which are at our disposal until we begin to experience dementia. My friends and clients who are experiencing memory and rational thought losses show incredible ingenuity as they attempt to navigate the 21st Century world without rational thought—not to mention courage, endurance, and grace. Those of us who still have memory and both types of thought should be in awe. We may be luckier, but we are not superior.
  We’re all just walking the dementia path together. It doesn’t matter whether we use the words caregiver and care receiver, care partners, or even carer and caree. What matters is that we operate from this one truth: that the person who is experiencing dementia is just another companion on the dimly lit sidewalk of life. They are the same as us; they are our equals. Our understanding of this should be apparent whenever we are with them.
  I’m not a doctor and I don’t have an education in the sciences. I’m not a social worker either. I’m a lawyer—one with an education in art, music, literature and language as well as law. During the past eight years I’ve spent more time with people experiencing dementia than with people who have fully functional brains. What I learned was that dementia takes away some of our cognitive skills but not all of them, and that dementia takes away our remembering selves but not our experiential selves. I’ve been taught by experts how to enjoy living intuitively, in the present, fully enjoying everything our senses and feelings bring to us.
  I’ve seen a number of my clients—my friends—all the way home. Each has seen me a long way toward my own home.
  So as the care partners of people experiencing dementia, let’s be sure that we understand our role: we are teammates, partners. We are walking with people who are just like us, our equals. We have different skills, but we walk together. They have as much to give us as we have to give them, as we walk each other home.
  
  Tennessee law requires us to inform you that this website is an advertisement. The information contained in this website is not intended as legal advice. We always recommend that you seek legal advice from a licensed attorney.
  DeWitt Law, PC maintains offices in Tennessee and has lawyers licensed to practice in Tennessee, as well as other jurisdictions. DeWitt Law, PC neither practices nor intends to practice law in any jurisdiction it is not so licensed or otherwise permitted by law to practice.
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  To the extent a jurisdiction’s state bar rules require us to designate a principal office and/or a single attorney responsible for this Website, DeWitt Law, PC designates its office in Memphis, Tennessee, USA as its principal office and designates Tyler H. DeWitt as the attorney responsible for this Website.
  The information and material in this website are believed to be accurate. However, this material and information is not intended to be legal advice, and should not be considered as such. Every situation is unique and you should not act on information contained in this website without seeking advice from a legal professional specific to your particular situation. Visiting this website is not intended to and does not create an attorney-client or any other relationship between you and DeWitt Law, PC.
  
  A worksheet to go with chapters five and six of Adam of the Road. Students define vocabulary and answer questions about the text.
  
  We examine the benefits of both corporate and institutional ownership and membership of Green Explorers Society.
  The Green Explorer fleet of fully crewed, zero-emission, luxury vessels, provides instant, safe and environmentally responsible access to the world’s most unusual and beautiful remote sailing areas. These vessels – and their sailing areas – will attract substantial charter interest and will probably command higher than usual charter rates.
  We conservatively expect that high season, high latitude, midnight sun weeks will charter for minimum of US$55K per week – and an average weekly charter rate of US$45K should be a realistic expectation.
  The owners decide whether they want to charter out any of their annual usage weeks. As an extreme example, 10% (Exclusive 4) owners, who initially charter out all of their four annual usage weeks, could expect to recuperate their full purchase investment within 3 years. If a 10% owner decides to use two of his four usage weeks every year and to charter out the remaining two weeks, he could expect to recuperate his initial investment within 6 years. The useful lifespan of the GE vessels is expected to be 15 years.
  For other ownership options and the related potential charter income, please see: Ownership Options – Costs & Income
  After the owners have used their exclusive 40 weeks a year, 12 weeks remain. On average, 3 of these weeks will be required for class inspections, possible repairs, crew vacations and relocation. This leaves the society’s fleet of Green Explorers vessels free for charter for approximately 9 weeks per year plus a week or two relocation charters (see Relocation Routes). This charter income, which will be pooled between all the vessels in the fleet, could cover almost all running costs for the Green Explorer vessels. With today’s explosively growing interest in high latitude destinations and unusual tropical exploration, this would be a reasonable expectation. Please see: Ownership Options – Costs & Income
  The fractional owners will benefit from membership of Green Explorers Society, which clearly demonstrates both their quest for adventure and their desire to lead the way as environmentally responsible individuals and super yacht owners.
  In addition to the above benefits, corporations can take advantage of the Green Explorer vessels being the perfect green platform for executive and partnership incentives as well a as unique and interesting corporate incentive venue.
  Governmental and private research institutions will find fractional ownership of Green Explorer vessels the near-perfect platform for non-intrusive, pollution-free research in even the most environmentally sensitive and remote areas.
  “Invest in Green Adventure” is an attractive solution for charter brokers or high ROI conscious individuals. Unusual zero-emission charter expeditions at the “ends of the world”, are probably the global travel and tourism industry’s fastest growing sector. Full return on investment can take place in under 3 years. This would correspond to more than 33% p.a. ROI.
  Would you like to use a Green Explorer vessel for longer time or in additional locations each year? Or would you like to maximise your ROI?
  
  All that will come out of these most extra ordinary times remains yet to be seen but it is already evident that there will be some changes in the way that we do business, in the way that we treat people, and in the way that we set our priorities. I, for one, hope that we reevaluate what I think for many of us has become our top priority – profits, and instead begin to prioritize more and more “the greater good” as our main goal.
  There is of course the possibility that fear and uncertainties will continued to be used by the puppet-masters to promote nationalism and isolationism – “us” against “them” -ism, but it does not have to be so. We are many, and I hope soon all of us, staying apart to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus but there will at some point, hopefully in the not too distant future, be an all-clear sounded so we can get back to work and come together again. When we do, I hope it is with a greater appreciation of our differences and similarities and a renewed hope to make not just our neighborhood, our city, our state, our county, our province, our country, but our whole world, great again and not just for a few but for everyone in it.
  There are so many heroic stories coming out of this pandemic but still some of greed, manipulation, hoarding, and jockeying for profit, power, and preeminence, not our most glowing human traits and desires, but some of ego’s favorites. We are bigger and better than that and all the new rules, the new norms should and could reflect that more. Justice, liberty, equality, and equity could become more real and less just slogans we like to tout.
  It is my most heart-felt intention during these extra ordinary times that I and all of us allow ourselves to live, love, and believe more extra ordinarily than we ever have and that we, each of us, turn “United We Stand” into not just a local slogan but a universal cry as the greater good is meant for us all not just a privileged, chosen few.
  
  This week we’re basically in limbo. Christmas is over and we can no longer fit into our clothes (thanks for the 5 plates of food mum!), and luckily we don’t really need to leave the house either. In short, we have no idea what day of the week it is…it could be Tuesday or it could be Friday. Who knows!
  So while we’re binging on Netflix and cheese, we are of course wearing our ever faithful Harry Potter PJs (yes, we do both own Harry Potter PJ’s) and wearing our comfiest slippers.
  See, because even in the week of limbo, we still like to show our tootsies some love with a new pair of shoes – and these are possibly the cutest ones we’ve ever seen.
  
  In cases where Rick Wong’s executive and management experience is relevant to the client’s needs, he offers advisory services that are specifically focused on addressing problems associated with revenue generation. As clients begin implementing The Five Abilities® there are often broader leadership decisions that must be made. Do you have the right organizational structure to win more business and more lifelong customers? Is the value of our offerings easily communicated in 30 seconds or less? Do we have the right people in the right place?
  Are all customer-facing employees practicing a culture of winning lifelong customers? Are all customer-facing employees empowered to practice a culture of winning lifelong customers? Rick’s experience has benefitted many client executives with these and many other important questions facing business leaders.
  Some clients decide to do weekly “Office Hours” with Rick to help them more quickly make habit of The Five Abilities® sales framework. These calls, conducted with the sales manager, a salesperson or team, focus on applying The Five Abilities to real sales opportunities. The main goal is to engrain The Five Abilities as a habit as we identify immediate best next actions for the sales team to act on now.
  
  I have already reviewed the Auchentoshan 12 year old and found it to be an average easy drinking single malt. This American Oak is their entry level non age statement bottle and you can pick this up quite cheaply (approx. £20 on offer) at most supermarkets across the UK. Auchentoshan is known for it’s triple distillation process which means that their spirit is condensed 3 times in stead of the 2 or 2.5 as traditionally done across most distilleries in Scotland. In terms of flavour this means that you will get a lighter and crisper spirit with a floral character. However, this process also causes some flavours to be lost because other chemicals are lost during the process. I have found that whiskies with the light floral characteristic often get overlooked by fans of whisky because this profile can seem a bit too simple or dare I say bland. I have heard good things about older whiskies in the Auchenstoshan range making me think that their spirit is an ideal base for cask experimentation.
  Summary: This is not a demanding malt but I can appreciate how it can be good gateway into single malts when bearing the price in mind too. This was dominated by vanilla and the other flavours were lingering in the background. There was some bitterness to this which was tempered by a tiny drop of water. I rated the 12 year old with a score of 2 and this a 2.25. That is because I expected more from the 12 year old for the price it was being sold at. This score slightly higher because of the price point and I believe there is always space for a light and delicate single malt on everyone’s shelf.
  
  The delicious crunch of the crumble topping paired with the sweet apples makes for a downright heavenly dessert. And let’s be honest… butter makes everything better, especially cast iron Apple Cobbler! Serve with scoops of Vanilla Ice Cream, and you’ve got the ultimate cast iron treat!
  Go pull out that gorgeous Cast Iron Skillet... it's time for a crazy delicious and oh-so EASY Skillet Apple Crisp Recipe!
  In large mixing bowl, mix together powdered Cake Mix with remaining 1 stick Melted Butter until mixture is crumbly. {break up any large chunks with a spoon or your fingers}.
  Making your peach cobbler in cast iron is such a brilliantly easy way to infuse even more flavor to this irresistible skillet peach crumble.
  This Cherry Cheesecake Crisp is pure perfection when topped with some vanilla ice cream… perfect for holidays, weekends, or any day those dessert cravings hit.
  This Peach Pecan Dump Cake is made with Fresh Peaches and Pecans. It’s like a summer dream come true!!
  
  The most awaited Disenchantment Season 4 release date, read about Season 4 story and plot updates here at TheglobalCoverage
  The American fantasy drama series of the comedy genre, created by Matt Groening, has given some bang on previous seasons. Well, the story is set in the medieval era and Matt Groening is known for his ‘future predicting’ and heart-warming shows like the Simpsons.
  Well, the story revolves around princess Bean who is a 3rd-degree alcoholic and quite a rebel without a cause. She moves all along with her small elf friend, Elfo. Well, she is quite sad about having to marry Prince Guysbert, son of the powerful king and queen of Bentwood. Later Bean meets Luci, sent by two mages in a hope to unleash a dark side of Bean.
  The first season was divided into two parts, where the premier one was released on August 17, 2018, and the second half was released on September 20, 2019.
  Abbi Jacobson voices our protagonist Bean, who is actually named iabeanie Mariabeanie de la Rochambeau Grunkwit. The favourite part of her day is when she drinks, practically all day. Eric Andre voices demon Luci, a personal demon to Bean and quite an optimist in himself. Elfo is voiced on by Nat Faxon, and he loves Candy. Other characters include John Willian Dimaggio, who voices Bean’s dad and the King of Dreamland. Queen Oana, King Zøg’s second and former wife and Bean’s stepmother holds the voice of Tress MacNeille.
  Now we know the making of disenchantment was put on hold, but hey on 2018 it got all set to be renewed for a Disenchantment Season 4. The first half of the upcoming second season is therefore set to be released on January 15, 2021.
  Disenchantment part 3 (also known as the first half of season 2), will premiere on OTT Netflix he streaming platform this week, but at what time shall we grab popcorn?
  The scheduled part is expected to release on Netflix at midnight PST on January 15th, upcoming Friday.
  
  A dropper suitable for moving small, unmeasured volumes of liquid. The rubber bulb may vary in colour from shown, depending on production batch.
  
  If you’re a recent college graduate, you are likely in search of cheap essays. There are some services that will write your essays for you personally, but in order to get this done free of charge, you’ll need to be able to write.
  Writing your own essay is not an simple endeavor. You can become a total novice to the process if you don’t have some writing experience or a comprehensive grounding in grammar and composition. Having a company write your essays for you does not make it easier.
  And writing for a public crowd can be even more difficult than composing for an individual. The very first step in writing for a public audience is having some sort of composing background. So if you are entirely new to composing, here are a few ideas which can help you get started.
  The absolute most important thing that you should do when you’re a newcomer to writing is studying the fundamentals of punctuation and grammar. Here is something that everyone should learn sooner or later. The more you know about such things, the better your writing will be.
  In regards to composing a good first draft, the most important part of writing a newspaper is deciding how to start. If you haven’t written anything down, you will have to use your memory card to choose a beginning stage. Either start out with a personal anecdote which it is possible to relate to or select a subject that you have studied or you enjoy talking about.
  As soon as you have decided on the subject or anecdote, then you will need to have into the writing. Write down a rough draft of your article. Don’t worry about grammar and grammar at this point, simply get a sense for exactly what your essay will appear like and https://evolutionwriter.com/ try to get a feel for what’s best about the subject.
  Now you can begin developing your own style. This involves thinking up various approaches to structure your essay. When you get familiar with the simple arrangement, you can begin adding your own ideas and observations to the narrative.
  By now you ought to be well on your way to writing a truly great essay. Learning the basics of writing will help you save money on economical essays and permit you to earn an enduring impression on the readers. Keep practicing and great things will eventually happen.
  
  Never before have I written an article about current events. The Health Sessions is a resource with timeless advice on how to live a good life with chronic illness and get one step closer to your own definition of recovery.
  But now that the global pandemic of the coronavirus affects hundreds of millions of lives – including those with pre-existing health problems – I want to contribute with what I do best: sharing tips to help you get through this crisis.
  When you’re chronically ill, you’re probably already used to some degree of social isolation. You know what it’s like to be concerned over your health, to have sleepless nights, to be at home most of the time.
  But chances are, you’re also more susceptible to getting sick on top of being sick. And if you struggle to get through the day under normal circumstances, not having your usual support systems to turn to as as result of social distancing may have severe consequences.
  When you can’t fix your problems or escape them, there’s only one solution: finding effective ways to deal with the situation. Let’s have a look at healthy coping strategies for anxiety, uncontrollable stress and negative thinking patterns:
  Taking your mind off your problems can be a helpful coping strategy. Your brain can only process a limited amount of information at the same time, so negative thoughts, worries and fear are quite literally ‘pushed away’ when you distract yourself.
  Let’s be honest – it’s hard fighting an invisible invader. Besides following all the guidelines about hygiene and staying at home whenever possible, there isn’t much you can do to prevent getting sick (on top of your usual sickness).
  But you can try to boost your overall wellbeing and stock up on helpful items to better manage symptoms. Here’s how:
  Expert Round-Up: How to Stay Fit and Healthy During the Covid-19 Outbreak (from Health Web Magazine) — Check out my tips in the article!
  10 Healthy Daily Habits to Keep While Social Distancing, According to Psychologists (from Well + Good)
  Although temporarily working or studying from home – with or without kids in the house – is not the same as not being able to work outside your home due to chronic illness, there are useful tips you could try to make the most of the situation.
  Take a look at these practical tricks to work, study, educate and entertain your kids all between four walls:
  A List of Learning Ideas, Resources, YouTube Channels and iPad Apps for Homeschooling (from Mamas Facing Forward)
  Do you want the tools and tips for living a good life with chronic illness? Sign up for your weekly health sessions and get ‘The Bored and Sick Guide’ for free.
  
  Wiping salty tears from their eyes, Parents chortled, snorted and sniffed, At – what was a glorious gift; Their little ones dressed in disguise. Mary, Joseph, three men so wise, […]
  
  The Health and Human Services Department announced new funding opportunities Thursday for community-based healthcare programs, as well as a new framework for focusing on prevention.
  HHS announced that $4 million is available to “community-based organizations.” Recipients will help support activities funded by a larger grant opportunity that is oriented toward smoking cessation, healthy diets and preventive healthcare services.
  Earlier in the day, HHS released its National Prevention Strategy, a framework that culls various prevention efforts from across HHS agencies and other federal departments. No funding is attached to the strategy, though it could help influence how HHS uses the $15 billion prevention fund included in healthcare reform.
  The strategy mostly comprises vague, general items such as improving public awareness of healthy choices.
  Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate health committee and a longtime prevention advocate, said at an event Thursday that every dollar spent on prevention yields $6 in healthcare savings.
  
  If we followed the crowd, we would tell you, our readers: “This is our most crucial year, a turning point in our journal’s history. Without your immediate support…”
  But we at The Imaginative Conservative think more highly of you, dear readers, than to subject you to such hyperbolic support requests. We know that you are thoughtful, reflective, and discerning, and that you are cognizant of the fact that Western culture, having met a myriad of challenges for millennia, will endure the buffeting of the present times, and indeed continue to flourish.
  We know that you recognize what is ephemeral, superficial, and fleeting, and what constitutes the Permanent Things. We know that you have no desire to partake in the hysteria of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, to re-read the same, repetitive analysis of current political developments. We know that, instead, you come to us to read our reasoned, reflective essays (now more than 7,800 in total) on issues of politics, economics, culture, and liberal learning, written by some of the greatest minds of both the present and the past (our roster of authors, living and dead, now numbers more than 1,400).
  We know that you do not seek here on our pages an echo chamber, a facile validating of pre-conceived conclusions. We know that, instead, you read The Imaginative Conservative to challenge yourself to think deeply, to consider different perspectives, yet ones that are indebted to the wisdom of the ages. You come here to make use of that wonderful gift of imagination with which our Creator endowed you.
  The Imaginative Conservative strives to preserve the best of what Western Civilization has produced in terms of man’s political, philosophical, and economic thought and artistic achievement. Though our journal is free to our readers, and advertisement-free, it is not free to produce. Your contribution will help The Imaginative Conservative remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly vast, yet evermore barren, wasteland of modern discourse.
  Please make a contribution today. As our Lord Himself says in the Book of Isaiah, “Come, let us reason together.”
  The featured image is “Different Opinions” by Louis Charles Moeller (1855-1930), and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has been brightened for clarity.
  I am very interested in receiving your communications, however I’m reluctant to release my credit card to the internet. If I may have a mailing address to which I could send my subscription fee, I will be happy to do so.
  You may mail a check to: The Imaginative Conservative, 9600 Long Point Rd., Suite 300, Houston, TX 77055. Thank you for your readership and support of our journal.
  
  This picture of students of Fairfield Methodist Scondary clinging to a fence to avoid rising flood waters around their school during heavy rain is truly an image of contrast to the Singapore that we used to live in during the “Roaring Fifties and Sixties”.
  It was the time when we were still an underdeveloped town, a part of Malaya and also the British Empire.
  Roads were rickety, with a lot of cracks and potholes, to say the least. And flooding was a nightmare. But it could be a heaven, too, depending on how you interpeted it.
  Believe it or not, whenever it rained cats and dogs, we would be ecstatically jumping for joy, rubbing our hands with glee. More so if we were outdoors, playing football or rounders. Or even if heading home after school.
  By golly, it would be the best excuse for getting soaking wet – never mind the chills, or the coughs and colds. That came later. We would actually be relishing the rain!
  And if it was me and my schoolmates out there, being caught in the downpour – instead of those Fairfield Methodist group – I bet you we wouldn’t have been clinging to the fence. No sirree!
  We would have been swimming…. or splashing and frolicking like crazy out there in the rain or floodwater.
  Of course, not if there was lightning. Or when we saw a ditch full of rushing water. For we knew or had seen enough horrors to know our limits.
  
  A constant sum scale is a type of question used in a market research survey in which respondents are required to divide a specific number of points or percent’s as part of a total sum. The allocation of points are divided to detail the variance and weight of each category.
  Constant sum scales are a less frequently used question in surveys when compared to basic likert scales, single radio responses, or checklists (i.e. multiple response options). They are an excellent way to create variance among a data set and truly understand which factors are key and which are not for customers or respondents.
  They are especially helpful if you need to ask a question to a customer or respondent where you believe several factors are critical or of high importance. You are more likely to create differentiation in the data with a constant sum when compared to other question types.
  Finally, let’s give an example of the constant sum scale question. This is asked in the following manner in your survey. It forces the respondent to slow down a bit and think about how important each factor is as they allot points.
  Q: Using 100 points, please apply a number of points to each factor based on how important each are to you when buying a home. You must total 100 points divided among the factors.
  The respondent is given 100 points. They may choose to apply 80 to price, 15 to location, and spread out the remaining 5 points among other factors. When you analyze this data set, the differentiation between factors becomes evident. Most survey software will automatically tally and sum the point values to ensure they add to a constant sum of 100.
  
  “Gravity” is the collaboration between rap sensation Tyler, the Creator and R&B phenomenon Brent Faiyaz that the world didn’t know it needed. Faiyaz delivers a catchy and melodic chorus over a heavy percussive beat and lo-fi guitar to make this contemplative R&B anthem.
  “Baila Conmigo” is Selena Gomez’s second single off of her upcoming album “Revelación,” scheduled to drop on March 12. It will be Gomez’s first full-length Spanish album. As the title of the track suggests, it features a danceable beat that drives the song, despite its more laid-back tempo.
  “Hope” begins with a beautiful, bluesy piano line before Parks’ delicate yet grounded vocals are introduced. As the song progresses, Parks’ vocals are layered to create a full and comforting sound over a slick guitar. The relaxed drumbeat embodies the sound of a rainy Sunday morning at a coffee house.
  FKA twigs’ frail and wispy vocals make for a beautiful and dainty sound on this subtle hip-hop track. They are interspersed throughout the song to highlight Headie One’s rap sections over ambient instrumentals.
  
  This is not the sort of story I like to share. Since 1996, seven male jaguars (Panthera onca) have been confirmed in the United States. This provided some hope that…
  I have exciting news to share! The Center for Biological Diversity just released a new video of a wild jaguar (Panthera onca) in the United States. Many people are not…
  There is a lot happening in the wild felid (cat) world right now! Uttarakhand’s high court just passed a landmark ruling, a new ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) den was recently found…
  
  I was driving back from the West Barn when I saw rain coming. Out here you can literally see the rain coming. Can you see that shiny patch approaching up the road?
  That is a line of rain. If you look to the left you will see it stretched right across the bean fields. That is the edge of a rain storm as it hurried towards me. About 5 seconds after this – quite slowly really – the rain hit the car. All at once. Pelting me with rain.
  Which reminds me of my poor friends in Houston – who are no longer there after having been evacuated. Refugees from a storm. I am so sorry. It is shocking to think this is haappening in the same country while –
  Water always finds a way my Dad used to say. I have never experienced a flood – it must be terrifying.
  Manu is the only pig over on the West side until Christmas when Poppy comes to stay with him. My sows are taking turns so I have one litter a season from now on.
  My hay rack/wagon has been fixed again and is sitting tight waiting for the rain to finish. Still hoping we can begin the haymaking process this Friday. Touch wood.
  The coolness prevails. Next week we begin to dip into the sixties in the day time. It bodes ill for the winter – but I am not thinking of the winter yet. As far as I know it is still SUMMER.
  Today we begin to prepare the back field for the six remaining little pigs from Poppy’s brood. As soon as they are out of the barn, we clean up the farrowing area and Molly can go into the barn and settle in there in preparation for her next farrowing which I am thinking will be in about three weeks.
  Tuesday 08/29 40% / 0.03 in Partly cloudy skies during the morning hours will give way to occasional showers in the afternoon. Thunder possible. High 77F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.
  Category: Farm Animals, Farming, Life, PhotographyTags: boar, cows, cows in long grass, haymaking, touchwood	
  We have had the strangest summer here in Dordogne. A few isolated weeks of 35+ and a few weeks of grey, cool, drizzle. I too hope that it will last at least another month😃
  We are cool in the Virginia mountains also, your rain found us in the wee hours of this day and has set in for the day. Our culvert is still plugged, the state sent the work order to the local office 10 days ago but nothing has been done, I fear for our newly repaired driveway if we get more than gentle showers. Farm on til the weather sends us out of our fields and gardens. Walk in peace, Cell.
  How lovely and green your world is right now. Here, at the end of the Dry, all the grass is brown, the landscape looks bleached, trees are tired and limp. One good rain and all that will change, but for now, the clouds we see approaching are dust, not rain…
  Thank you – yes – a number of people are having trouble – I am not sure why some people can use it and not others – samantha is on vacation now for a week so here is the link for you – https://www.zazzle.com/thefarmstore. I hope you find something you like – let me know if you have any suggestions – I try to add something new most days.
  Manu is such a handsome fella! Thank you for posting his picture. The cast is rather large and I forget sometimes about them.
  Had a dream last night that I was raising Dexter cattle over at the home place….. Wondering if that is a wishful heart or a plan that is brewing up in the cranium somewhere… There is 5 good grazing acres with a pond that never dries or freezes…. hummmm…..
  Whoa! Temperature in the 60s next week in the daytime?!?!? That is too crazy! Let’s just choose not to believe that weather report!!! We are getting temps in the low 80s, which is super pleasant summer weather! And the lake is still wonderfully warm enough for swimming! For at least a couple more weeks anyway! 🙂
  Wa is doing well – we are till strugglng with the open wounds – but slowly slowly the good skin in closing in and healing. The flies are pretty bad still.. poor old chap..
  Weather and climatic conditons are quite rightly always up for consideration… we have smoke clouds here. Many, too many, 50+, winter burnoff fires are burning across NSW. Some are barely under control, the dry conditions are dicey. Fire permits have been brought in early, from Friday, but we’ll be on bushfire alert until we get rain… which I’m sure the Texans would be happy to move on.
  Great to have an up-date on dear old Wai…. congrautlations to you both on his progress… we are slowly sinking under rain and clouds here in our podocarp rain forest.. but at least the kowhai are out and the cherry blossom filled with tuis, so we know spring is almost here…
  The tops of the mountain are shrouded in mist, and I said ( joke) we had better rope ourselves together when we go out, or we may never see each other again !!!
  The road in the rain and the evening barn pictures make the place feel lonely. But peaceful is probably what you felt then, except for the concern about haymaking. I doubt that it is likely one feels lonely among those animals. What with their unique names and legible expressions — including movements and sounds– they would bring even an introvert outside to play. Which reminds me to ask, was the bobby, whose eyes are popping with curiosity, being respectful enough there in the barn window. Aunty Del is giving that sideways so-what-else-is-new look.
  Oh yes you can see the rain coming .. Don’t think about winter just yet Celi. Although trust me, I’m thinking about spring
  
  On the second track of Mindchatter’s sprawling debut album, Imaginary Audience, the human being behind the often cartoon moniker, Bryce Connolly, hits his listeners with a timely ultimatum:
  In the scenes, soundscapes, and ideas that follow, these words become less of a concrete request to the song’s subject and more of a breathing amalgamation of the space Mindchatter functions in. His stellar new project is hectic, cerebral, and versatile; exactly how he so meticulously crafted it to be. Bryce Connolly can’t seem to choose a side, genre, mood, or tone, and that’s undeniably his greatest strength.
  Watching Mindchatter’s ambitious musical ideas unfold so elegantly is quite the experience. He toes the line between anxiety and tranquility, tension and release, electronic and human. It’s a joy to take a step back and soak in all of the intricate layers in their complex glory, but it’s especially rewarding to lean in and appreciate each little tick, hum, and whir. Every sound has its special place and purpose.
  Genre is especially hard to pin down, as the blanket term “electronic” fails to capture the fusions of hip-hop, R&B, and indie influences throughout. A hard listen to Imaginary Audience makes it clear that there’s quite a bit musically and conceptually to unpack with Mindchatter, which is why we decided to speak to the mastermind himself and take a closer look at the enigmatic world he’s created for himself.
  “First, my mom got me taking drum lessons with one of the percussionists on Broadway that she worked with. Then one day I stumbled upon Logic and torrented it… [I] became obsessed. From there I was just making beats all throughout high school. At 22, I decided to go to music production school in LA and I started Mind Chatter from there.”
  “My process changes pretty much every time. Lately it’s been starting with the piano. I didn’t even write lyrics until a few years ago. It used to start out with making instrumentals until I thought they were good enough to add vocals, but recently I’ve been starting with piano chords.”
  “Well you definitely named a few right there. I’m a huge Radiohead fan and I love James Blake so I’m happy that bleeds through a little bit. I listen to a lot of older stuff. I grew up listening to Zeppelin because I played the drums. Jamie xx influenced me quite a bit and I listened to him a lot when I first started to produce”
  “[The album was created] over the course of a couple years really. That’s why there’s such a wide range which is what I really enjoy and strive for. I’m not a huge album person. My problem with albums is that there’s usually not enough variety and I have hardcore musical ADD. When I listen to music just for myself I just shuffle my stuff. I’ll have on Nina Simone and go straight into hardcore techno. That variety works for me. So I wanted to make an album that really covered a wide range. It helped that I slowly pieced this album together over a few years.”
  It’s all coming from me to begin with so I’m not worried about cohesiveness as a lot of people are. If it’s coming from my head, it will be cohesive. With that being said, I want it to cover different moods and styles. Variety is something I always strive for and I want the next album to me the same if not more.
  My worst fear is that people are listening on their iphone speakers because I put a ton of work into the mix. I guess I would say anywhere with really good speakers or out in nature would be really cool. There’s sort of an isolation aspect to it so I think of it more of a headphones album than something you would play out. So I would say with good headphones on walking through some beautiful nature.”
  Influence? “Totally. I grew up here so I started listening to all kinds of music at a young age. It’s so diverse. I think that’s part of why my music is such a mish mosh of different genres. Because that’s what New York City is.”
  The plan is to play some live shows as soon as possible. I have some more music pretty much ready to go, it just depends on what makes sense for releasing more stuff. It’s really up in the air. Who knows. Hopefully I’ll be able to play some festivals soon.
  Previous: Hojean, the New Don of Bedroom Pop, Said “Pick Up The Phone” So We Answered (Artist Interview)
  
  The Verizon network is undergoing a big change as they transition to LTE-only technology. We've seen some minor issues with customers activating new lines / new SIM cards on our phones, but have worked out solutions for those issues. Usually, all that's necessary to get a new SIM card working on the Verizon network is to temporarily insert your Verizon SIM card into a non-kosher Verizon-branded smartphone for a period of two minutes and then re-insert the SIM card into your SafeTelecom phone. If you plan on using an already active Verizon SIM card and swapping it in from a different phone, we do not anticipate any of the above issues.
  If you experience any problems with activation or would like more information about our solutions, please reach out to our support team at [email protected] where they can direct you to the best solution for your specific needs.
  
  The first night of the Ireland Music Week 2019 live music showcases took over Dublin city last night with a packed array of Irish acts performing including Thumper, MELTS, Kynsy, New Pagans, Beauty Sleep, Kyoto Love Hotel & Meghan Murray. The Last Mixed Tape was there to cover the event.
  All photos by Stephen White. Click and scroll through the gallery below. For more information on Ireland Music Week 2019 visit irelandmusicweek.com.
  
  January 24, 2021 April 1, 2019 Jill T FreyRugby UnionLeave a Comment on Newest Information, Outcomes, Fixtures
  
  We saw the latter on Sunday in New York when the Jets were flagged for what has to be the softest roughing the passer call we’ve ever seen.
  Officials threw a flag on Jets defensive tackle Folorunso Fatukasi for bumping Baker Mayfield after he had thrown the ball.
  Fatukasi seemingly did nothing more than chest bump Baker Mayfield, with his arms extended and clearly pulling back from hitting him harder than he could have. Despite this, the flag was thrown and the Jets were hit with a 15-yard personal foul penalty
  Browns fans likely won’t have a problem with this call, especially in a game where Cleveland found itself in a slugfest with the Jets.
  A handful of weeks ago, we all collectively lost our mind when the 49ers were flagged for what seemed like a clean hit on Drew Brees that unfortunately broke his entire upper body.
  In the eyes of the NFL, that hit on Brees and what Fatukasi did to Mayfield are the same thing. To anyone who has the gift of sight, they are clearly not the same thing.
  The league’s inconsistencies with penalty calls are nothing new, and in the grand scheme of things, these are not seismically bad decisions. The Saints still won their game against the 49ers (but lost Brees, which would have happened regardless of the call) and the Jets are playing for nothing more than draft positioning.
  
  Beard oil is the perfect blend of essential oils and can easily bring an unbelievably good look to your beard. Bearded men may consider it to be one of their most valuable possessions, as they don’t really have to worry about their look before going out. As the bearded look becomes more popular in the […]
  If you sport a beard, the most common question on your mind is whether to use beard oil or beard balm. Most people are of the opinion that they are more or less the same, but this is definitely not true. While a beard balm is made from sealants and moisturizers, beard oil contains a […]
  Growing a beard has become more popular in the past few years and almost everyone wants a longer healthy looking strong beard. For many, growing a beard has become an identity because beards blend well with masculinity. For some, growing a beard is not easy while to others it grows so fast such that it […]
  Beard oil is a vital part of the facial hair care because it helps to reduce itching while softening and conditioning your beard. It also makes your beard smell and look nicer among other benefits. Using beard oil is easy and with time you will find that it will become a part of you once […]
  
  Exodus of foreign investors continues to take a risk-off approach in expectation of US higher interest rates
  Stronger energy prices and an improved capital account surplus will help the ringgit stave off some of the pressure brought on by higher US bond yields and fund outflows from the region.
  Renewed concern over the regional financial markets comes as equity markets in Indonesia and the Philippines had another rough day yesterday falling some 2% as an exodus of foreign investors continued to take a risk-off approach in expectation of monetary tightening with higher interest rates in the US on the horizon.
  Bursa Malaysia managed to buck the sell-off with the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (FBM KLCI) closing marginally lower at 1,851.80 points ahead of 14th General Election (GE14) next week.
  The calm came after jittery investors’ selling on Wednesday saw the KLCI fall 18 points to close at 1,852.
  “The one main difference that keeps the ringgit somewhat isolated when compared to the Philippine peso and Indonesian rupiah are oil prices and a capital account surplus,” Oanda Corp head of trading for Asia Pacific Stephen Innes told The Malaysian Reserve (TMR).
  “The peso will struggle due to a large trade and budget deficit in the country, while some 40% of Indonesian bonds are foreign-owned, so the country will see large outflow when US Treasury yields move higher,” he added.
  Innes expects to see the ringgit to weaken as well, but to a lesser extent due to macro internal and external conditions, coupled with rising oil prices.
  Institutional investors have started reducing their exposure in the emerging markets as the rising US dollar makes riskier investments less attractive, analysts said.
  According to MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd’s weekly fund flow report on Monday, investors classified as “foreign” offloaded US$3.33 billion (RM13.12 billion) net worth of investments last week from the seven Asian exchanges the company covers, the second-highest so far in 2018.
  Foreign funds were, however, net long by RM24 million in the Bursa Malaysia-listed stocks (excluding off-market deals) last week, the second-lowest weekly inflow so far this year, MIDF Research noted.
  The outflows from the regional markets look set to continue this week as Jakarta’s equity benchmark fell 137 points, or 2.2%, yesterday to 5,858 points, while the Manila composite was down 200 points, or 2.9%, at 7,535 points
  The Indonesian and Philippine equity markets have been on a downtrend since late January with analysts warning the outflows will drain foreign reserves and put pressure on local currencies in the region.
  The Indonesian rupiah tumbled to a 27-month low against the dollar on Wednesday despite the central bank intervening the market since early February to ease heightened volatility.
  The Indonesian currency, the Philippine peso and Indian rupee are the underperformers among developing economies globally this year.
  In the near term, Innes said a stronger greenback narrative and local political uncertainty due to the GE14 will continue to exert pressure on the ringgit.
  “While the chances of the Opposition pulling off a surprise result remain low, a large-scale knee-jerk negative repricing of Malaysian assets suggests foreign bond buyers will stay on the sidelines.”
  In this context of heightened domestic political risk, he said the ringgit will continue to trade defensively.
  Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd chief economist Dr Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid believes the US Federal Reserve’s decision on its rates is what really matters as of now.
  “Perhaps the old mantra ‘sell in May and go away’ has become prevalent in the immediate terms,” Mohd Afzanizam told TMR recently.
  “Sell in May and go away” is a well-known trading adage that warns investors to sell their stocks in May to avoid a seasonal decline in equity markets.
  The idea behind this rule is based on stock market history over the past 90 years, two of the three worst months come in May and September, while three of the four best months for the market come in December, January and April.
  In addition, October is a month that’s notorious for stock market declines, including the crashes in 1929 and 1987, and the worst of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008.
  Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd in a note on Wednesday said domestic factors, including higher supply of bonds, the upcoming GE14 and moderating growth indicators leave behind little comfort for this year’s money supply growth.
  “Hence, while we foresee heightened risks of capital outflow, we expect Bank Negara Malaysia to hold from further rate hike and retain the Overnight Policy Rate at 3.25% for 2018 in favour of growth and price stability,” it added.
  
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  From its first capital letter to the final period, an aphorism is not a string of words but rather a manifesto, a treatise, a monograph, a jeremiad, a sermon, a disputation, a symposium. An aphorism is not a sentence, but rather a microcosm unto itself; an entrance through which a reader may walk into a room the dimensions of which even the author may not know. Our most economic and poetic of prose forms, the aphorism does not feign argumentative completism like the philosophical tome, nor does it compel certainty as does the commandment—the form is cagey, playful, and mysterious. To either find an aphorism in the wild, or to peruse examples in a collection that mounts them like butterflies nimbly held in place with push-pin on Styrofoam, is to have a literary-naturalist’s eye for the remarkable, for the marvelous, for the wondrous. And yet there has been, at least until recently, a strange critical lacuna as concerns aphoristic significance. Scholar Gary Morson writes in The Long and Short of It: From Aphorism to Novel that though they “constitute the shortest [of] literary genres, they rarely attract serious study. Universities give courses on the novel, epic, and lyric…But I know of no course on…proverbs, wise sayings, witticisms and maxims.”
  An example of literary malpractice, for to consider an aphorism is to imbibe the purest distillation of a mind contemplating itself. In an aphorism every letter and word counts; every comma and semicolon is an invitation for the reader to discover the sacred contours of her own thought. Perhaps answering Morson’s observation, critic Andrew Hui writes in his new study A Theory of the Aphorism: From Confucius to Twitter that the form is “Opposed to the babble of the foolish, the redundancy of bureaucrats, the silence of mystics, in the aphorism nothing is superfluous, every word bear weight.” An aphorism isn’t a sentence—it’s an earthquake captured in a bottle. It isn’t merely a proverb, a quotation, an epigraph, or an epitaph; it’s fire and lightning circumscribed by the rules of syntax and grammar, where rhetoric itself becomes the very stuff of thought. “An aphorism,” Friedrich Nietzsche aphoristically wrote, “is an audacity.”
  If brevity and surprising disjunction are the elements of the aphorism, then in some ways we’re living in a veritable renaissance of the form, as all of the detritus of our fragmented digital existence from texting to Twitter compels us toward the ambiguous and laconic (even while obviously much of what’s produced is sheer detritus). Hui notes the strangely under-theorized nature of the aphorism, observing that at a “time when a presidency can be won and social revolutions ignited by 140-character posts…an analysis of the short saying seems to be crucial as ever” (not that we’d put “covfefe” in the same category as Blaise Pascal).
  Despite the subtitle to Hui’s book, A Theory of the Aphorism thankfully offers neither plodding history nor compendium of famed maxims. Rather Hui presents a critical schema to understand what exactly the form does, with its author positing that the genre is defined by “a dialectical play between fragments and systems.” Such a perspective on aphorism sees it not as the abandoned step-child of literature, but rather the very thing itself, a discursive and transgressive form of critique that calls into question all received knowledge. Aphorism is thus both the substance of philosophy and the joker that calls the very idea of literature and metaphysics into question. The adage, the maxim, and the aphorism mock completism. Jesus’s sayings denounce theology; Parmenides and Heraclitus deconstruct philosophy. Aphoristic thought is balm and succor against the rigors of systemization, the tyranny of logic. Hui writes that “aphorisms are before, against, and after philosophy.” Before, against, and after scripture too, I’ll add. And maybe everything else as well. An aphorism may feign certainty, but the very brevity of the form ensures it’s an introduction, even if its rhetoric wears the costume of conclusion.
  Such is why the genre is so associated with gnomic philosophy, for any accounting of aphoristic origins must waylay itself in both the fragments of the pre-Socratic metaphysicians, the wisdom literature of the ancient Near East, and the Confucian and Taoist scholars of China. All of this disparate phenomenon can loosely be placed during what the German philosopher Karl Jaspers called the “Axial Age,” a half-millennium before the Common Era when human thought began to move towards the universal and abstract. From that era (as very broadly constituted) we have Heraclitus’s “Nature loves to hide,” Lao-Tzu’s “The spoken Tao is not the real Tao,” and Jesus Christ’s “The kingdom of God is within you.” Perhaps the aphorism was an engine for that intellectual transformation, the sublimities of paradox breaking women and men out of the parochialism that marked earlier ages. Regardless of why the aphorism’s birth coincides with that pivotal moment in history, that era was the incubator for some of our earliest (and greatest) examples.
  From the Greek philosophers who pre-date Socrates, and more importantly his systematic advocate Plato, metaphysics was best done in the form of cryptic utterance. It shouldn’t be discounted that the gnomic quality of thinkers like Parmenides, Heraclitus, Democritus, and Zeno might be due to the disappearance of their full corpus over the past 2,500 years. Perhaps erosion of stone and fraying of papyrus has generated such aphorisms. Entropy is, after all, our final and most important teacher. Nevertheless, aphorism is rife in the pre-Socratic philosophy that remains, from Heraclitus’s celebrated observation that “You can’t step into the same river twice” to Parmenides’s exactly opposite contention that “It is indifferent to me where I am to begin, for there shall I return again.” Thus is identified one of the most difficult qualities of the form—that it’s possible to say conflicting things and that by virtue of how you say them you’ll still sound wise. A dangerous form, the aphorism, for it can confuse rhetoric for knowledge. Yet perhaps that’s too limiting a perspective, and maybe its better to think of the chain of aphorisms as a great and confusing conversation; a game in which both truth and its opposite can still be true.
  A similar phenomenon is found in wisdom literature, a mainstay of Jewish and Christian writing from the turn of the Common Era, as embodied in both canonical scripture such as Job, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Song of Songs, as well as in more exotic apocryphal books known for their sayings like The Gospel of Thomas. Wisdom literature was often manifested in the form of a listing of sayings or maxims, and since the 19th century, biblical scholars who advocated the so-called “two-source hypothesis,” have argued that the earliest form of the synoptic New Testament gospels was a (as yet undiscovered) document known simply as “Q,” which consisted of nothing but aphorisms spoken by Christ. This conjectured collection of aphorisms theoretically became the basis for Matthew and Luke whom (borrowing from Mark) constructed a narrative around the bare-bones sentences. Similarly, the eccentric, hermetic, and surreal Gospel of Thomas, which the book of John was possibly written in repost towards, is an example of wisdom literature at its purest, an assemblage of aphorisms somehow both opaque and enlightening. “Split a piece of wood; I am there,” cryptically says Christ in the hidden gospel only rediscovered at Nag Hamadi, Egypt, in 1945, “Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”
  From its Axial-Age origins, the aphorism has a venerable history. Examples were transcribed in the self-compiled Commonplace Books of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in which students were encouraged to record their favorite fortifying maxims for later consultation. The logic behind such exercises was, as anthologizer John Gross writes in The Oxford Book of Aphorisms, that the form does “tease and prod the lazy assumptions lodged in the reader’s mind; they wars us how insidiously our vices can pass themselves off as virtues; they harp shamelessly on the imperfections and contradictions which we would rather ignore.” Though past generations were instructed on proverbs and maxims, today “Aphorisms are often derided as trivial,” as Aaron Haspel writes in the introduction to Everything: A Book of Aphorisms, despite the fact that “most people rule their lives with four or five of them.”
  The last five centuries have seen no shortage of aphorists who are the originators of those four or five sayings that you might live your life by, gnomic authors who speak in the prophetic utterance of the form like Desiderius Erasmus, François de La Rochefoucauld, Pascal, Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, William Blake, Nietzsche, Ambrose Bierce, Oscar Wilde, Gustave Flaubert, Franz Kafka, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Dorothy Parker, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. Hui explains that “Aphorisms are transhistorical and transcultural, a resistant strain of thinking that has evolved and adapted to its environment for millennia. Across deep time, they are vessels that travel everywhere, laden with fraught yet buoyant.” In many ways, modernity has proven an even more prodigious environment for the digressive and incomplete form, standing both in opposition to the systemization of knowledge that has defined the last half-millennia, while also embodying the aesthetic of fragmented bricolage that sometimes seems as if it was our birthright. Contemporary master of the form Yahia Lababidi writes in Where Epics Fail: Meditations to Live By that “An aphorist is not one who writes in aphorisms but one who thinks in aphorisms.” In our fractured, fragmented, disjointed time, where we take wisdom where we find it, we’re perhaps all aphorists, because we can’t think in any other way.
  Anthologizer James Lough writes in his introduction to Short Flights: Thirty-Two Modern Writers Share Aphorisms of Insight, Inspiration, and Wit that “Our time is imperiled by tidal waves of trivia, hectored by a hundred emails a day, colored by this ad slogan or that list of things to do, each one sidetracking our steady, focused awareness.” What might seem to be one of the most worrying detriments of living in post-modernity—our digitally slackening attention spans and inattention to detail—is the exact same quality that allows contemporary aphorists the opportunity to dispense arguments, insight, enlightenment, and wisdom in a succinct package, what Lough describes as a “quickly-digested little word morsel, delightful and instructive, that condenses thought, insight, and wordplay.”
  Our century has produced brilliant aphorists who have updated the form while making use of its enduring and universal quality of brevity, metaphor, arresting detail, and the mystery that can be implied by a few short words that seem to gesture towards something slightly beyond our field of sight, and who embody Gross’s description of the genre as one which exemplifies a “concentrated perfection of phrasing which can sometimes approach poetry in its intensity.” Authors like Haspel, Lababidi, Don Paterson in The Fall at Home: New and Selected Aphorisms, and Sarah Manguso in 300 Arguments may take as their subject matter issues of current concern, from the Internet to climate change, but they do it in a form that wouldn’t seem out of place on a bit of frayed pre-Socratic papyrus.
  Consider the power and poignancy of Manguso’s maxim “Inner beauty can fade, too.” In only five words, and one strategically placed comma that sounds almost like a reserved sigh, Manguso demonstrates one of the uncanniest powers of the form. That it can remind you of something that you’re already innately aware of, something that relies on the nature of the aphorism to illuminate that which we’d rather obscure. Reading 300 Arguments is like this. Manguso bottles epiphany, the strange acknowledgment of encountering that which you always knew but could never quite put into words yourself, like discovering that the gods share your face. Lababidi does something similar in Where Epics Fail, giving succinct voice to the genre’s self-definition, writing that “Aphorisms respect the wisdom of silence by disturbing it, but briefly.” Indeed, self-referentiality is partially at the core of modern aphorisms; many of Paterson’s attempts are of maxims considering themselves like an ouroboros biting its tail. In the poet’s not unfair estimation, an aphorism is “Hindsight with murderous purpose.”
  Lest I be accused of uncomplicated enthusiasms in offering an encomium for the aphorism, let it be said that the form can be dangerous, that it can confuse brevity and wit with wisdom and knowledge, that rhetoric (as has been its nature for millennia) can pantomime understanding as much as express it. Philosopher Julian Baggini makes the point in Should You Judge This Book by Its Cover: 100 Takes on Familiar Sayings and Quotations, writing that aphorisms “can be too beguiling. They trick us into thinking we’ve grasped a deep thought by their wit and brevity. Poke them, however, and you find they ride roughshod over all sorts of complexities and subtleties.” The only literary form where rhetoric and content are as fully unified as the aphorism is arguably poetry proper, but ever fighting Plato’s battle against the versifiers, Baggini is correct that there’s no reason why an expression in anaphora or chiasmus is more correct simply because the prosody of its rhetoric pleases our ears.
  Economic statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb provides ample representative examples in The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms of how a pleasing adage need not be an accurate statement. There’s an aesthetically harmonious tricolon in his contention that the “three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary,” and though of those I’ve only ever been addicted to bread, pizza, and pasta, I’ll say from previous addictions that I could add a few more harmful vices to the list made by Taleb. Or, when he opines that “Writers are remembered for their best work, politicians for their worst mistakes, and businessmen are almost never remembered,” I have to object. I’d counter Taleb’s pithy aphorism by pointing out that both John Updike and Philip Roth are remembered for their most average writing, that an absurd preponderance of things in our country are named for Ronald Reagan whose entire political career was nothing but mistakes, and that contra the claim that businessmen are never remembered, I’ll venture that my entire Pittsburgh upbringing where everything is named after a Carnegie, Frick, Mellon, or Heinz demonstrates otherwise. The Bed of Procrustes is like this, lots of sentences that are as if they came from Delphi, but when you spend a second to contemplate Taleb’s claim that “If you find any reason why you and someone are friends, you are not friends” you’ll come to the conclusion that far from experience-tested wise maxim, it’s simply inaccurate.
  Critic Susan Sontag made one of the best arguments against aphoristic thinking in her private writings, as published in As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980, claiming that “An aphorism is not an argument; it is too well-bred for that.” She makes an important point—that the declarative confidence of the aphorism can serve to announce any number of inanities and inaccuracies as if they were true by simple fiat. Sontag writes that “Aphorism is aristocratic thinking: this is all the aristocrat is willing to tell you; he thinks you should get it fast, without spelling out all the details.” Providing a crucial counter-position to the uncomplicated celebration of all things aphoristic, Sontag rightly observes that “To write aphorisms is to assume a mask—a mask of scorn, of superiority,” which would certainly seem apropos when encountering the claim that if you can enumerate why you enjoy spending time with a friend they’re not really your friend. “We know at the end,” Sontag writes, that “the aphorist’s amoral, light point-of-view self-destructs.”
  An irony in Sontag’s critique of aphorisms, for embedded within her prose like any number of shining stones found in a muddy creek are sentences that themselves would make great prophetic adages. Aphorisms are like that though; even with Sontag’s and Baggini’s legitimate criticism of the form’s excesses, we can’t help but approach, consider, think, and understand in that genre for which brevity is the essence of contemplation. In a pose of self-castigation, Paterson may have said that the “aphorism is already a shadow of itself,” but I can’t reject that microcosm, that inscribed reality within a few words, that small universe made cunningly. Even with all that I know about the risks of rhetoric, I can not pass sentence on the sentence. Because an aphorism is open-ended, it is disruptive; as such, it doesn’t preclude, but rather opens; the adage both establishes and abolishes its subject, simultaneously. Hui writes that the true subject of the best examples of the form is “The infinite,” for “either the aphorism’s meaning is inexhaustible or its subject of inquiry—be it God or nature of the self—is boundless.”
  In The Aphorism and Other Short Forms, author Ben Grant writes that in the genre “our short human life and eternity come together, for the timelessness of the truth which the aphorism encapsulates can only be measured against our own ephemerality, of which the brevity of the aphorism serves as an apt expression.” I agree with Grant’s contention, but I would amend one thing—the word “truth.” Perhaps that’s what’s problematic about Baggini’s and Sontag’s criticism, for we commit a category mistake when we assume that aphorisms exist only to convey some timeless verity. Rather, I wonder if what Hui describes as the “most elemental of literary forms,” those “scattered lines of intuition…[moving by] arrhythmic leaps and bounds” underscored by “an atomic quality—compact yet explosive” aren’t defined by the truth, but rather by play.
  Writing and reading aphorisms is the play of contemplation, the joy of improvisation; it’s the very nature of aphorism. We read such sayings not for the finality of truth, but for the possibilities of maybe. For a short investment of time and an economy of words we can explore the potential of ideas that even if inaccurate, would sink far longer and more self-serious works. That is the form’s contribution. An aphorism is all wheat and no chaff, all sweet and no gaffe.
  If art is in one sense the processing of reality, how can an artist hope to process that which, in all its horror and incoherence, resists interpretation?
  
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  Since this is the final episode from the SEMA 2013 show, I thought I’d include a picture taken on the last day. My dad (Dallas – original Chevelle owner) and I with the car in the final hours of SEMA.
  This is our final podcast show featuring interviews recorded during the 2013 SEMA show. All of this weeks interviewees have contributed parts or knowledge to building of the Chevelle….and I am very thankful for that!
  1. Detroit Speed and Engineering – I caught up with Stacy and Kyle Tucker at the Detroit Speed (DSE) booth and thanked her for the well engineered products installed in the Chevelle. Stacy and I discussed their new Mustang line, their entry for Kyle Busch’s Toyota “Dream Build Challenge – Rowdy Camry”, and how we can convince them to begin developing Mopar parts! Kyle and I discussed the 5 billion races he was running before, during, and after SEMA – including the Baja 1000!
  2. Vintage Air – Vice President, Rick Love. I asked Rick about the compatibility that is being worked into future systems will have with the MSD Brainwave system. He told me this integration will help our custom vehicles take advantage current and future technologies to make them drive better and more economically. They are also working on making their systems more plug and play that will just drop in and work right.
  3. Ron Francis Wiring – Scott Bowers, President of Ron Francis Wiring. Scott, Larry Callahan (my partner in the Pro-Touring.com Podcast) and I discussed the cool car in Scott’s both (i.e.m mine) and talked about how many of their systems were incorporated into the Chevelle. As always, Scott was good sport….and has a nice one liner at the very end of the show!
  4. RestoreATag – Shawn Mahaney, owner and chief restorer at Restore A Tag. Shawn did the restoration on my original 1964 Kansas license plate and discussed their high quality, hand finished, plate restorations. Shawn has done very high level show plates for many cars and even for Jay Leno. Currently they have around 85,000 plates on hand!
  5. Chris Holstrom Concepts – Chris and Alyssa Holstrom talk about the path from starting a business back in 2008 to Good Guys Gold Award winner in 2013.
  Faith in God takes a priority and hard work has made Chris Holstrom Concepts The SEMA show car this year is a 67 Nova, super charged LS9, 6 speed transmission, custom metal trim work, DSE quadralink rear suspension, 14″ rotors vehicle that is “Built to drive”.
  
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  The determination and ebullient nature of The Stranglers fanbase in Cambridge last Friday night at The Corn Exchange was a real demonstration and indicative of what it is that the band brings and what their music evokes in so many. To say that they were pioneers and unique sounds so trite but it is ultimately the truth. They were instigators in the early punk scene in the 70’s but equally created some songs that are musically and lyrically breath-taking that weave such a varied, and truly oppositional set list sometimes leaving you thinking you are hearing two different bands.
  But, what you see is nothing other than the precision of execution that appears almost effortless no matter what the tempo. Taking into account that only two of the original band members are on stage, you then come to realise what they have actually managed to do. The band continues to gain more devout followers while they attempt to improve on perfection regularly with every solid performance. Their technically challenging songs are seamless with every note and none disappoint.
  With lead singer and guitarist Baz Warne having replaced Hugh Cornwall eighteen years ago, they show no signs of wear or age, they are still as potent and technically adept. As they strolled easily on stage, it is clearly a walk down familiar paths for many in the audience as the crowd thrashed about getting as raucous as middle-aged folk can do without causing any true harm. It is a blessed and clearly golden-hued revisit to the punk days of yore for many.
  They started their set with ‘Curfew’ and covered their catalogue more completely from there bringing out the expected pleasers but also some not-so-often aired songs. Baz announced after the first song, ‘I can smell something exotic in here, or is it just me?’ which had everyone roaring in agreement. That stoked the moshiness of the crowd down front while the band rolled into ‘Grip’ next, deftly displaying their talent for urgent, slick and gritty mingled with the raw nature of so much of their music. Much of their lyrics are well-managed dissidence which from the start garnered them the following they still have today and rightly so. Further, that’s what draws more fans consistently is how relevant their subject matter is and continues to be.
  When they got to ‘Always The Sun’, you got to see the band really stretch their legs which lends to their range ably by combing such complex chords and arrangements. It came across as eloquent as ever and judging from the crowd accompaniment, it was received with great love. A personal favourite in the set, ‘Relentless’, had such a tight constancy and with the relaxed harmonies, it just flowed beautifully.
  For song ‘Harry’, JJ Burnel took the lead vocals for the first time that night (which he did several times throughout) and again, there was such a change in atmosphere as there was no bass just a simple, quite pared back feel yet very affecting. It again proves this band has such ability to transform their aura song to song. And, throughout the night, Dave Greenfield’s punchy, eclectic and yet liquid keyboards was endlessly amazing.
  Despite one heckler, the band and audience were symbiotic with lots of back-and-forth, and so many fans grinning non-stop throughout the night was actually quite endearing seeing their unfettered pleasure. It has to be mentioned that the production was uber stylish as the videoscape mixed with the lighting made it an all-together ‘Experience’ for each song.
  
  Months of screaming, shouting and swearing ended yesterday at the National Conference, with delegates failing to agree on key issues.
  Conference Chairman Justice Idris Kutigi (rtd) announced that plenary would resume on August 4 when delegates are required to consider and approve the draft reports of the conference for presentation to the Federal Government.
  Signs that the conference might end without a compromise on resource control emerged immediately delegates settled for the business of the day.
  Justice Kutigi said the “50 wise men”— chairmen, co-chairmen and deputy chairmen of committees who were scheduled to meet on Friday to resolve some knotty issues in the recommendations of the Committee on Devolution of Power could not meet.
  He blamed the inability of the select group to meet on the closure of the Abuja Airport, which he said prevented those invited for the meeting from attending.
  Insiders, however, said that northern delegates shunned the meeting“because of their opposition to the 18 per cent derivation principle proposed for the oil producing states of the Niger Delta”.
  Justice Kutigi told delegates that he was still of the view that the group should be given some time to resolve the controversy surrounding the proposed 18 per cent derivation principle, five per cent solid mineral fund and five per cent insurgency fund.
  He briefly adjourned proceedings and mandated the select groups to meet for two hours and report back to plenary.
  This is coming after days of fruitless discussions Justice Kutigi held with leaders of geo-political zones, other principal officers and chairmen of all the standing committees to resolve the matter.
  The two hours Justice Kutigi gave the select group ended up to be five hours as members emerged from their meeting venue wearing gloomy faces.
  Apparently as a last-ditch effort to resolve the logjam, Conference Deputy Chairman Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi invited five members of the group – General Ike Nwachukwu, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, Chief Olu Falae, Hon. Mohammed Kumalia and General Geoffrey Ejiga- for “special discussion”.
  Insiders said after over five hours close-door meeting with the leadership of the conference, southern and northern delegates did not agree on some of the issues thrown up in the initial meetings of some regional leaders.
  Our correspondent gathered that three issues were raised during the meeting. These are 18 per cent derivation for mineral producing area, five per cent for the development of solid minerals and five per cent for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of states in the northern region ravaged by insurgency and internal conflicts.
  While northern delegates were said to have insisted the five per cent for reconstruction and rehabilitation should be only for the North, southern delegates were reported to have argued that the fund should be for the entire country.
  The disagreement between on the issue was said to have split the delegates along South and North lines.
  Our correspondent also gathered that it was suggested that since there were other areas funded from the Federation Account outside the issues being considered, “it would be proper to have a technical committee to take a global look at the revenue allocation framework and determine the appropriate percentages on the three issues under consideration and advise government accordingly”.