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We created a flow to deactivate all contacts on a specific date which is read from a custom entity (this entity contains only one record).
We have around 6500 contacts, since by default only 512 records were being processed, we set the Pagination On and Threshold as 10000. This resolved our problem and were able to successfully deactivate, activate all records several times.
Today when we tried we were getting Pagination Error, I am getting this in two of my trial accounts as well as my licensed instance
InvalidPageResponse. The response is not a valid paginated response. The specified nextLink 'https://unitedstates-002.azure-apim.net/apim/commondataservice/shared-commondataser-1ed6529d-d7b5-48...' is not a well formed URI.
Any idea why I am getting this error today? How to fix this? Is there any issue Azure today?
Below are the snap shots
Expanding Recurrence
Expanding List Records and its settings. Here we are reading a custom entity 'Deactivation date' which contains only one record. This record holds the date when all Contacts should be deactivated.
Expanding Apply to Each 3. Here in condition2, we check if current date is equal to deactivation date and if true using List records2 we filter all Active Contacts
In List Records 2 we filter for Active Contacts, in settings we have kept Pagination On and Threshold as 10000
In apply each, we are setting the status to Inactive
The flow fails by giving pagination error
Zooming the error message
Solved! Go to Solution.
Hi @dxshyam & All,
The message I am currently receiving is "The hotfix has been deployed successfully to all the region, and the issue has been Mitigated."
What is the situation on your side? Please check it and if the problem still exists, please let us know.
Best Regards,
This appears to be a new error that I am also experiencing.
Have you heard of a fix yet?
I'm also getting this error
Same here. Starting today we are receiving this error when trying to list records with the Common Data Service connector.
I'm also getting this same error in the EMEA region. My Flow is trying to call Dynamics 365 and retrieve a list of Active Cases. It seems to retrieve the list of queues and queue items successfully, but fails with this one particular call.
InvalidPageResponse. The response is not a valid paginated response. The specified nextLink https://flow-apim-europe-001-westeurope-01.azure-apim.net/apim/dynamicscrmonline <etc etc etc> is not a well formed URI.
No, not yet. I am still looking for a fix.
I also received this error on an excel flow that updates a SharePoint list on a scheduled basis.
Same thing here, just suddenly flows that were working fine just started failing.
As soon as any of you guys find a resolution please let us know.
Getting the same issue with the Excel Online Connector. Pagination is essentially busted.
I too am getting this error today, my flow was working fine last week.
I also received this error on a flow that were working fine just started failing.
I removed pagination, and set the Threshold as 10000 and NOW ITS WORKING, I dont know if this is good for all of you guys but just in case you dont have a large amount of records you could try that. Of course I think if I have more than 10000 records then Ill be in trouble but if not I think you can try that just temporary while Microsoft says whats going on.
@Anonymous wrote:
I removed pagination, and set the Threshold as 10000 and NOW ITS WORKING, I dont know if this is good for all of you guys but just in case you dont have a large amount of records you could try that. Of course I think if I have more than 10000 records then Ill be in trouble but if not I think you can try that just temporary while Microsoft says whats going on.
This did not work for me. Unless there is something I am missing, If you disable the pagination, it pulls a maximum 256 records no mater what. If the pagination is off, the threshold settings is not even saved and resets to empty as soon as you reload.
@aegt Just gave it a try, it is in progress. will post again after the process completes.
Max value of threshold is 100,000. after the current flow completes execution. I will run that again with a threshold of 100,000 and see how it behaves.
Thank you,
@aegt, how many records were you having when it executed successfully for you?
My observation on setting Pagination to OFF and Threshold to 10,000 is that the flow ignored Pagination and Threshold, perfomed the flow with the default limit of 512 records.
Could you please confirm if you had more than 512 records processed?
Make sure it returns the records you expect, because on my case the threshold didnt matter, only returned 2048 (SQL sonnection). Probably it will work but just make sure it did return what you need
@dxshyam What connector are you are using? I am using the excel online connector and I only get 256 records.
Same for me with pagination off and threshold set to 3000 it only returns 256 rows. I'm using Excel connector
I am using List Records for Common Data Service
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"If we don't get help, a no-fly zone, heavy weapons, we will do worse [than I did]. You've seen nothing yet."
Paul Joseph Watson
The Syrian rebel fighter who infamously cut out and bit into the heart of a dead soldier has threatened to commit even worse atrocities if the Obama administration doesn't send the FSA heavy weaponry and impose a no fly zone over Syria.
In an interview with the BBC, FSA fighter Abu Sakkar, who prompted international condemnation back in May when video emerged of him cutting off and eating the internal organ of a Syrian Army soldier as his comrades chanted "Allahu Akbar," is unrepentant and actually threatens to commit more gruesome acts unless the Obama administration sends the rebels heavy weapons.
Pillorying the west for doing nothing to help the rebels, Sakkar complains, "If we don't get help, a no-fly zone, heavy weapons, we will do worse [than I did]. You've seen nothing yet."
Sakkar's act of cannibalism served to confirm that both Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron were seeking to arm some of the most violent and extreme jihadists in the region, prompting Vladimir Putin to remark, "These are people who don't just kill their enemies, they open up their bodies, and eat their intestines in front of the public and the cameras. Are these the people you want to… supply with weapons?"
Despite FSA leaders promising to bring him to justice, Sakkar is still a free man months later giving interviews with major international media organizations, again illustrating how rebel promises to expunge their ranks of extremists are nothing more than hot air. The BBC's Paul Wood goes a long way to pardoning Sakkar for his heart-eating antics, fixating on unproven claims that the victim was a rapist and that Sakkar had a tough life.
The comments of the heart-eating cannibal again underscores the lunacy of the policy recently embarked upon by the Obama administration – sending heavy weaponry to militant jihadists who commit atrocities in Syria on a routine basis.
Last week we reported on the FSA fighter who vowed to attack the US and Europe once he is finished in Syria, expressing his desire to kill all Jews and Christians.
As we have exhaustively documented, the western-backed FSA rebels have now firmly joined forces with Al-Qaeda terrorists who killed U.S. troops in Iraq and who continue to commit vile acts of barbarity – the latest example being the serial rape and slaughter of a 15-year-old Christian girl named Mariam.
– Immediately after the State Department declared Jabhat al-Nusra (the primary fighting force in Syria attempting to topple Assad) a terrorist organization, 29 different FSA rebel outfits pledged allegiance to the Al-Qaeda group, which previously killed U.S. troops in Iraq.
– A top FSA General recently told Al-Jazeera that the FSA is co-operating with Al-Nusra.
– FSA rebels are defecting to Jabhat al-Nusra in droves.
– FSA rebels have vowed to "fight the U.S." once they finish with Bashar Al-Assad.
– FSA rebels have been filmed burning US and Israeli flags on more than one occasion.
– FSA rebels have been filmed on previous occasions singing songs that glorify Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks.
– One FSA group even calls its fighting unit the "Osama Bin Laden" brigade.
– Another video shows FSA rebels chanting, "We are all with Osama bin Laden!"
– FSA rebels have voiced their desire to see the Al-Qaeda flag fly over the White House once the

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At the end of a six-year relationship, photographer Laura Stevens needed to find a creative, external outlet for all the complicated feelings she was processing internally. "Another November" is the end product, a photo series that aims to mirror those agonizing emotions that Stevens felt at the time of the breakup.
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The Warrior Moms Photo Album is the first and only of its kind to feature the faces of survivors of postpartum depression and related illnesses. We know it helps to meet others who've had postpartum depression, anxiety/OCD or psychosis and see that they are normal, everyday women just like you. These 200+ Warrior Moms have bravely shared their photos to combat the negative media images and stigmatizing stereotypes of postpartum depression, and to help other mothers see that they too can recover. The Warrior Moms photo album features women from 43 U.S. states and six countries.
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Postpartum Depression and Anxiety Survivor, 2009, Postpartum Psychosis Survivor, 2011, Maryland
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Postpartum Depression, Anxiety & OCD Survivor, 2008-2009, 2011, 2012-2013, Antenatal Depression & Anxiety Survivor, 2012.
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March 7, 2011— -- For those of the Jewish faith, Passover typically entails reading the Haggadah, a religious text that sets the order of the Seder. For forty years, journalist and ABC News contributor Cokie Roberts' Haggadah consisted of "a stapled together sheaf of papers wearing varying degrees of wine and mint sauce stains," a document she typed out herself in 1970.
Since then, Roberts' Haggadah has evolved into many different versions, just like her Passover traditions have evolved into a unique multi-cultural celebration that is exclusive to no faiths. In her and her husband Steve's new book "Our Haggadah," the couple shares a Passover guide for multifaith families based on their Haddagah, as well as their own Passover experiences as an interfaith couple.
Read the Preface from the book below, then check out some other books in the "GMA" library.
This Year in Your House
Actually "our Haggadah" has never looked anything like this. For more than forty years, a stapled together sheaf of papers wearing varying degrees of wine and mint sauce stains—that's been our Haggadah. The original one dates to 1970, and we still have a few copies, typed out on an old Smith-Corona, interspersed with more than a few typos, printed on that shiny paper used by the first copying machines. We revised it once, after twenty-five years, when our neighbor, and a regular participant in our Seders, Doug Firstenberg, offered to print up better typed, more readable copies. At first, we heard howls of protest from our friends -- where were the marks and mistakes? It didn't take long of course for us to infuse the "Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition" with a new set of wine stains.
Our Haggadah has also been something of a mishmash where we go back and forth from our homemade sheets to what we call the "blue book," a Haggadah published by the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation that we've used for decades as a supplement to the typewritten pages. Every year Steve and I argue about exactly where in the service we first move to the book, causing hoots and hollers from our longtime Seder buddies who have come to see this dispute as a Passover tradition. It's just one of the many Passover traditions—some silly, some special—that we and our friends, old and new, have come to anticipate annually as we celebrate the festival of freedom that is at the same time universal and unique. People from all ountries and cultures can relate to the theme of breaking out of bondage, but it is the Jewish people who have kept alive this celebration, often risking their lives to do it, over thousands of years.
One of the most meaningful stories I've read about Passover is in Yaffa Eliach's Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust. She tells about a group of Jews at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who signed a petition asking the commandant to give them flour to bake the matzo in exchange for their daily bread ration. After they submitted the petition, when they heard nothing from their captors, the Jews were convinced that they had signed their death warrants— that they would become the sacrificial lambs. But then the word came that they could have their flour and build an oven to bake it in and they were able to produce three misshapen black matzo. They put them on a turned-over bunk bed used as a table, along with a broken pot substituting for a Seder plate. "On it there were no roasted shankbone, no egg, no haroset, no traditional greens, only a boiled potato given by a kind old German who worked in the showers." As the prisoners wept, the rabbi leading the Seder recited the Haggadah from memory. And with children surrounding him, he proclaimed the promise of Passover: "We who are witnessing the darkest night in history, the lowest moment of civilization, will also witness the great light of redemption." Even in Bergen-Belsen the rabbi insisted that his people would go from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom. That is the faith and hope that Jews all over the world and in many different languages bring to the Passover table as they ask on the same night the same question: Why is this night different from all others?
But I am not one of those Jews. I am a Catholic who feels privileged to be included in this communion. No one invited me, I pretty much wangled myself in, and that, to me, is the point of transforming our Haggadah into something a little less homespun. There are many non-Jews who want to sit at the Passover table, and many do in churches around America. That's different, however, from serving up your own Seder, which often seems intimidating at best, intrusive at worst. So this is our story of our Haggadah, and, more important, our Passover.
Even though Steve and I knew that we wanted to recognize both of our religions and rituals in our home, we had a somewhat inchoate idea of what that meant. Since Arthur Goldberg had participated in our wedding ceremony, he and Mrs. Goldberg took an interest in our marriage and very kindly invited us to their Seder in 1967, the first Passover after we were married, when we were living in New York. With some trepidation we joined in the somewhat famous Goldberg Seder, held at the time at the residence of the United States' ambassador to the United Nation, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. As tuxedoed waiters served traditional dishes like matzo ball soup and gefilte fish laid out on elegant china, and the guests each took what seemed to me their very comfortable places in reading the words of the ritual, I was both mystified about what was going on and excited to be a small part of it. It wasn't until the crowd started singing freedom songs from the civil rights and labor movements, held over from the days when Goldberg had been a leading labor lawyer, that I felt I could participate with gusto.
Still, I understood that this central ceremony in the Jewish religion was one we needed to celebrate in our home. The next year, when I was pregnant with our first child, I felt even more strongly that Passover needed to be part of our fledgling adult life, but I didn't feel at all capable of doing it on my own. So I asked Steve's parents if they would host a Seder for us. They gamely said yes, though they had never held one before, and Steve's mom was not at all happy to take on the task of cooking a menu outside her usual repertoire. We went to their house in New Jersey, and the four of us read the ancient words out of the very contemporary Maxwell House coffee Haggadah. During dinner Steve's twin brother, Marc, called to talk to his folks and when their father said he would call back later because we were mid-Seder, we could all hear Marc's amazed, "WHY?" at the other end of the line. We could all also hear the whispered reply: "Because Cokie wanted it." Well, that was certainly true. And by the next year, after we had moved to California, where we knew hardly anyone, it was clear that if "Cokie wanted it," she better figure out how to do it herself. I went in search of a Haggadah and found one in the shop of the closest temple. It was The New Haggadah, published for the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation in 1942, the beloved "blue book," though now it's looking decidedly gray and missing its spine. The Haggadah did a great job of making the ceremony understandable and simple, but after the first year of using it, I found that a couple of our Jewish friends thought it omitted some parts of the service they loved, and I thought it included some preachy object lessons we could do without. So I sat down with several other Haggadahs, including of course the Maxwell House classic, plus our "blue book Bible," and wrote what has since been "our Haggadah." I changed the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition only by expanding gender references (the God of Abraham and Isaac became the God of Sarah and Rebecca as well, and the four sons became the four children), except where that seemed silly.
We didn't want our Haggadah to be too long— that was part of the point of writing our own—so I didn't include every prayer at every part of the service. But in picking and choosing I kept a few things in mind—first, how meaningful the particular prayers were to the Jews at the table: I had learned my first year that some recitations brought back memories that mattered a great deal; another was was whether Christians, too, might find their memories jogged by psalms they had heard during Easter services. But frankly, another consideration was keeping guests occupied while I struggled to get dinner on and off the table. As we embarked on this project of putting our Haggadah between hard covers, Steve said, "I think we should cut out 'for his mercy endureth forever.' " I was horrified. It's not only a beautiful responsorial psalm echoed joyously in the Easter Mass; it also allows me to get plates cleared and coffee served while everyone is reciting the lengthy verses. In fact there's many a year when I need the Lord's mercy to endureth a little bit longer because the cleanup takes so long.
There's so much in the Seder service that should seem familiar to someone raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition that there's no reason for first-timers to feel uncomfortable. Anyone who's been taught Bible stories as a child, much less reconsidered them as an adult, knows what Passover is about. Baby Moses in the bulrushes is one of the most common pictures decorating Sunday school classrooms, serving as a prelude to the dramatic story of the Plagues, the Exodus from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and the Jewish flight to freedom. Watching the "Red Sea" part is one of the regular attractions at the Universal City theme park in California, so people who didn't learn the story in the Bible could learn it from the movies. Beyond that, Christian teaching tells us of Jesus's observance of Passover—first as a boy with his family and then as a man with his disciples, who continued to commemorate the festival in their years establishing the church.
In fact, the Passover celebration is one of the few stories told about Jesus as a child, so I remember being fascinated with it as a little girl. "Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of Passover," Luke's gospel tells us, but when he was twelve years old, "when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it." I couldn't get over that. How could he stay behind without his mother knowing about it? I remember the priests trying to explain that people traveled in large family groups and that his parents probably assumed he was with cousins and other adults. It all sounded daring and fun. But then Mary and Joseph became frantic, looking for Jesus for three days until "they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers." We are supposed to draw from the story the lesson that Jesus was learned and ready to discuss theology, that he "must be about my Father's business." But I just thought what trouble I would've gotten into if I had pulled anything like that. It also upset me on Mary's behalf—how could he worry his mother so? So it was a story I thought about a lot, and it was a story that started with the Holy Family's annual celebration of Passover.
And the most solemn week of the Christian year begins with Jesus arriving in Jerusalem to the hosannas of his followers who greeted him with palm branches as he entered the city to celebrate Passover. The gospel writers Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that what Christians now call the Last Supper, so often depicted in great works of art, was in fact a Seder. The Passover meal, argues the Encyclopedia of Catholicism, "celebrates God's liberation of the Jewish people and the continuing covenant with them. Such a celebration offers a model for understanding Christ's liberation of the world from sin through his death." It was at that meal, in his sanctification of bread and wine, that Jesus initiated the sacrament of Holy Eucharist. And some scholars believe that the wine for that first Eucharist came from the third cup of wine in the Seder, the cup of redemption, and the afikomen (about which more later) served as the bread. At the end of the meal, the gospels tell us, Jesus left to suffer his passion after "singing the Passover hymn." I like to think that particular Hallel, or song of praise, was the one I have insisted on—Psalm 136, that's the one where "his mercy endureth forever." Readers of the blessings in the Haggadah will hear very similar words to those in the blessings over the bread and wine in a Catholic Mass. A paper issued by the U.S. Catholic bishops reminds us that the Christian order of worship " takes its form and structure from the Jewish seder: the Liturgy of the Word, with its alternating biblical readings, doxologies, and blessings; and the liturgical form of the Eucharist, rooted in Jewish meal liturgy, with its blessings over bread and wine." The symbolism of the Easter season—the references to Jesus as the Paschal Lamb and to Christ as the Passover—those symbols make more sense once the Seder becomes familiar.
That's true about many New Testament references. When John the Baptist hails Jesus as the "Lamb of God," he's signaling that it will be Jesus, rather than the lamb, who will be sacrificed to take "away the sins of the world." It's important to keep in mind the world that the writers of the books of the New Testament were living in. Rabbi Hillel, referred to in the Haggadah, was a renowned teacher and scholar, someone whose somewhat liberal ideas certainly would have influenced Jesus and his followers. Hillel's grandson, Rabbi Gamaliel, also mentioned in the Seder service, was Saint Paul's teacher, something Paul advertised to prove his credibility as a good Jew. In the Acts of the Apostles we hear him tell a crowd in Jerusalem, "As a pupil of Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in every part of our ancestral law." And for Paul the passover tradition of cleaning leavening agents out of the house provides a repeated metaphor. He tells the Corinthians to "Get rid of the old leaven and then you will be a new batch of unleavened dough. Indeed you already are, because Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. So we who observe the festival must not use the old leaven, the leaven of depravity and wickedness, but only the unleavened bread, which is sincerity and truth." The idea of cleaning out the "leaven" of sin before the redemptive feast finds its way into many cultures. The Greeks do their "spring cleaning" on the first Monday of Lent, called Kathara Deftera. The children go fly kites while the women scrub the houses and the men whitewash them in preparation for Easter. It takes a little longer—the forty days of Lent—for soul scrubbing.
Living in Greece, an ancient country so close to the Holy Land, constantly reminded us how tightly the Jewish and Christian traditions were intertwined. In fact, the Greek word Pascha means both Passover and Easter, and it's the most important time of the year in the Orthodox Church. One year we took the children to the Easter midnight liturgy at Saint Sophia, our local church. The entire place was pitch black until a priest lit a single candle and announced, "Christos anesti," "Christ is risen." Gradually, the flame was passed from hand to hand, filling the old stone structure with eerie light. Then we walked home, still carrying our burning candles, and followed the custom of making a sooty cross above our front door. It's clearly a ritual taken directly from the Exodus story, when Jews in Egypt marked their doorways with the blood of the lamb to alert God to "pass over" their houses as he carried out the most terrible of the Ten Plagues, the slaying of the firstborn.
It was on Passover that the early church celebrated the redemption from sin that we now call Easter. It wasn't until the fourth century that the feast was moved to the first Sunday after the full moon after the vernal (sometimes called paschal) equinox. Since different traditions use different calendars, the Western and Eastern Christian churches often observe Easter on different dates. But the symbolism of going from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from death to life remains consistent. Look at the beautiful opening words of the Anglican Easter vigil: "On this most holy night, in which our Lord Jesus Christ passed over from death to life, the Church invites her members, dispersed throughout the world, to gather in vigil and prayer. For this is the Passover of the Lord, in which through word and sacrament we share in his victory over death."
By saying all of this I don't want you to think that I'm in any way trying to "Christianize" the Seder. Not at all. Even when Seders take place in churches, Catholic bishops discourage any attempt to "baptize" passover, advising, "When Christians celebrate this sacred feast among themselves, the rites of the Haggadah for the Seder should be respected in all their integrity. The Seder . . . should be celebrated in a dignified manner and with sensitivity to those to whom the Seder truly belongs." And the Seder belongs to the Jewish people. I am just grateful that I am able to share in this night that is truly different from all others.
Of course my sharing in the feast also means my cooking it. And I think the thought of cooking the Passover meal is as intimidating as the recitation of the service to someone who has never done it. That wasn't as true for me as it might be for others because I had no hesitation about cooking the Seder dinner my own way. To Steve and the kids he grew up with "Jewish cooking" meant brisket and boiled chicken and delicatessen and matzo balls and gefilte fish and chopped liver. And some combination of those dishes had been part of whatever Passover meals he had attended. But to me that seemed crazy. That wasn't "Jewish" cooking (with the exception of the matzo), it was eastern European cooking, and the first Passover—thankfully, from my point of view—did not take place in eastern Europe. It took place in Egypt. And we know exactly what the main course was: lamb. Phew. I knew how to cook lamb. And from there I went on to other foods that would have been around in Egypt in the spring—eggplant, zucchini, maybe even tomatoes and okra—all much easier for me than kugel and tsimmes. Since Steve was not raised as an observant Jew, we do not follow the custom of cleansing our house of leaven and we don't have special china for Passover. Steve also doesn't feel the need to ask men to wear yarmulkes or skullcaps at our Seders. And though we don't regularly keep kosher, for this one night a year I am mindful of kosher rules about meat and milk and shellfish, which for a New Orleans cook isn't easy. When I first started serving my Passover meals and insisting that I was simply taking my menu from the book of Exodus, I got a good deal of ribbing from Steve and some of our friends about my shiksa Seder. Then, happily, the New York Times published a piece about Sephardic Passover recipes, which looked like replicas (or instructions) for mine. The only thing on our dinner plate that is still from the European branch of the family is the haroset, made with apples, nuts, cinnamon, and wine (thank heaven for the food processor!) instead of the North African dried apricots, dates or raisins, and nuts. There's only so much a shiksa can insist on. And on the hors d'oeuvres table, where I put out such Middle Eastern dishes as hummus and eggplant salad with the matzo, I do include some storebought gefilte fish and I make some chopped liver just to keep the sentimental Jews in the crowd happy.
The meal has evolved over the years as the guest list has grown. The former children at our Seders are now parents, I'm happy to say, but the burgeoning families long ago outgrew the dining room. And it's such a special night, with such a fundamental connection to Judaism, that everyone wants to keep coming year after year, which makes the celebration even more meaningful, especially to me. On other holidays with big crowds—Hanukkah and Christmas—I set up tables all over the house. But you can't do that for Passover, when everyone needs to be in the same room to participate in the service. At first we added a table to the end of the dinner table and angled it out into the hallway in an L shape. But soon that also became too small. So now we empty the glassed-in porch of all the furniture and set up rented rectangular tables. I keep saying that it looks like a VFW hall, but Steve graciously insists it really doesn't—that the warmth we intend comes through, despite the somewhat institutional looking rows of tables. Moving all that furniture and finding a place for it can be challenging, but somehow we manage to pile pieces on top of each other and cram them into the basement. For several years I insisted that we could fit only thirty-six on the porch, and the children were exiled to another room—much to their delight. But I've decided that we can squeeze in (and I do mean squeeze) a couple of more at each table, so I've gone to forty-four. Some years that's more than enough places, if families are out of town for spring break or if some flu is raging through the elementary schools; other years, when friends bring family members or all our family shows up, it means setting up a separate kids' table in an adjoining room. I still serve what's essentially a Middle Eastern meal (and as we go along I'll include a few recipes), though I long ago jettisoned the Greek egg-lemon, or avgolemono, soup, which was an annual favorite. It's just too hard to have soup for that many people and then clear plates and serve a main course, but I highly recommend it to a smaller group. I now have hired waiters to help with the dinner service and cleaning up, but that wasn't always the case. When we were young, there was no way we could afford such luxuries, and it took a lot of goodwill from our guests to get it all done. The main thing to keep in mind about the menu: Don't worry about it. This is a spring celebration, just go with that thought and you'll be fine. You can be sure that Jews over the centuries and around the world have served just about anything they had available.
Don't worry about any of it. This might be our Haggadah but it's your Passover—a night different from all others, filled with joy. This year in your house!


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News & Events
Master of Public Administration luncheon honors public service
Public Official of the Year is Daniel W. Krueger, head of Houston's Public Works
What is the proper role of government in citizens' daily lives?
It's a question debated frequently these days in the run up to the 2012 Presidential Election. The various answers getting the most media attention, however, rarely include responses emphasizing practicality.
"We are listening to and hearing what is, essentially, a rhetorical war on government and it is the cause of some concern," said public diplomacy expert David J. Firestein at a Feb. 24 luncheon hosted by the Master of Public Administration program. "What has sunk into the American psyche is that government is bad."
As the keynote speaker, Firestein said his remarks were intended as non-partisan, but that "the most vociferous criticism of government is coming from Republicans" and "the use of incendiary language about the role of government is mostly one-directional."
"What we're seeing is a kind of scapegoating of our government and that's not good for our country," said Firestein, a vice president at the EastWest Institute, a global think tank with offices in New York, Brussels and Moscow.
To counter that narrative on a local level, the Master of Public Administration used the Feb. 24 luncheon to discuss how government – and the public service professionals that lead and populate it – works each day to improve the greater Houston region
The highlight of the event was the honoring of a government worker as the MPA Program's first "Public Official of the Year" with an award bestowed at the luncheon. Attendees included City of Houston Mayor Annise Parker, City of Meadows Place Mayor Charles Jessup, City of Missouri City Mayor Allen Owen and Houston Community College Trustee Bruce Austin.
A committee comprised of one MPA student, two faculty members and two program alums chose Daniel W. Krueger, director of the City of Houston's Department of Public Works and Engineering, to receive the award for his direction of the infrastructure response to this summer's drought.
"There were 1,200 leaks a day to address during the 2011 drought in Houston," said James Thurmond, director of the MPA program. "It was a like a hurricane had hit; this was treated like that kind of a disaster. They brought it down from 1,200 leaks per day to less than the normal rate in the summer time. It takes skill and expertise to figure that out."
The underwriter of the luncheon was Peter Brown, founder of the nonprofit BetterHouston, a former Houston City Council member and a member of the College's Dean's Advisory Board. "We need more smart people in public service," Brown said of his desire to share his expertise and financial support with the MPA program, which provides high-level training and education for pre-service and in-service public managers, public policy analysts and public officials to address major public policy issues in a metropolitan scenario.
On a national level, speaker Firestein recommended that each person answer the question about government interaction with individuals by taking a value approach to the size of government: "Are you happy with what you're getting for what you're paying."
He listed some of what we pay for with our tax dollars is regulation of the business cycle, public health advancements, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the interstate highway system, Social Security income and anti-discrimination laws and enforcement.
"It was the government, not the private sector, that ended slavery in this country," Firestein noted.
But he also said much of what government does for its citizens counts as intangible benefits.
"Government provides justice," he said. "Government provides fairness. Government provides equality. Government provides security – at the micro level and at the macro level.
"Government provides negative assurances: we pay our taxes so that things won't happen."
Ultimately, changing the tone of the public discourse on the role of government is a personal choice, said Dr. Thurmond.
"I think government is bashed too much," Dr. Thurmond said. "Government does make mistakes, but so does the private sector. It's just a matter of public education that we have to say something good about government, so that the narrative is not all negative."
~ Shannon Buggs


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By MARCOS ALEMAN
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Armed men broke into a nonprofit agency that works to locate children missing from El Salvador's civil war and set fire to the group's archives, national fire officials said Thursday.
The intruders also stole computers during the early morning attack that damaged four offices of the Probusqueda Association for Missing Children. Investigators could smell combustible fluid at the scene, fire Sgt. Armando Pineda said.
While authorities provided no motive for the attack, Probusqueda said earlier this year that it had documented at least a dozen cases of children stolen by members the military during the 1980-92 war between the Salvadoran government and leftist guerrillas. Some were sold or given away for adoption, or raised by the men who took them, the group said. Efforts to investigate those cases have been hindered by the military's refusal to turn over DNA records.
The group has also received nearly 1,000 complaints about children separated from their families during the U.S.-backed war. It says it has helped at least 235 people, many adopted in the United States or Europe, locate their birth parents.
"This is clear sabotage of our work," director Ester Alvarenga said, adding that she had not yet been allowed to check the burned offices. "We don't know what documents they destroyed or took, but this is an attack against our work."
One of the office's guards said the attackers stormed in before dawn by forcing another guard arriving for work to act as decoy and get him to open the door. The first guard, who refused to be quoted by name for fear of reprisal, said he and the other guard were beaten and tied up, then their assailants appeared to open cabinets and throw objects around before setting a fire.
"They told us that if we moved, they would kill us," he said.
Official human rights prosecutor David Morales suggested the attack could be related to an appeal before the country's Supreme Court that would eliminate amnesty for people who committed grave war crimes, and he asked the attorney general to make a priority of investigating the attack.
"They have the responsibility to look at the possibility that this was a politically motivated attack intending to intimidate Probusqueda because of their work in defending human rights," Morales said.
The 1993 amnesty law has protected military commanders from being prosecuted for crimes committed during the civil war, including the murder of six Jesuit priests. But last year the Inter-American Court of Human Rights said the law goes against an international treaty.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has found the government was responsible for the abductions of at least six children also documented by Probusqueda. It ordered El Salvador to open government archives and meet other requests for action, such as providing medical and psychological support to victims, naming schools after the abducted, locating those still missing and apologizing publicly.
The nation has fulfilled only the last part of the order, holding a ceremony last year at which a Cabinet member asked for forgiveness from families.
The case recalled the experience in Argentina, where the military kidnapped hundreds of children of political opponents, and the prosecution of those responsible three decades later led to the indictment of top officers, including army Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla, then-head of Argentina's military junta. Some of the kidnapped children were adopted by military families.
In most of Probusqueda's cases in El Salvador, children were separated from their families during the confusion of war and were turned over to the Red Cross in the belief their parents were among the 75,000 people killed in the conflict. Such children were placed in shelters and offered for adoption, mostly to families in the U.S. and Europe.
Shaken human rights activists and relatives of civil war victims gathered outside Probusqueda's offices.
"They are doing the same thing they did in the 1980s,"said Apolonia Guillen, a 72-year-old who said she lost relatives in the war. "They don't like justice; they don't want justice."
Categories: El Salvador, History, International, Workers Struggle, World History


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Worst music of 2012.
This post is about music in general though, and considering just how much crud has been shovelled down our necks this year by all mediums, whether it be the internet, television or radio, you can't help but reach the conclusion that the musical apocalypse is almost upon us. The homogeneousness of the mainstream this year has been something to behold: almost every other song sounds exactly the fucking same, for the reason that they almost are exactly the fucking same. For a while I thought it was age beginning to catch up with me, and I was starting to turn into my father, who likes nothing better than listening to Radio 2 the entire day. Then I realised it wasn't me, it was everyone else. With EDM having exploded in America for reasons that no one can properly ascertain, every pop song must now sound as though it was produced in Europe circa 96 to 99, only with the occasional added screech.
Not that there's anything particularly wrong with the odd slice of Eurocheese, especially when you're between 12 and 14. I quite liked Sash! at that age, alongside the very slightly more credible likes of DJ Quicksilver's Bellissima, with Insomnia by Faithless rating as my absolute favourite. It's pretty incredible then that around 15 years later the Europop formula has returned, been suitably toned down so it doesn't sound completely like trance, and then served up for our delectation over and over and over again.
As with so much else, we have Rihanna to blame: the success of (Only Girl) In the World, written and produced by the Stargate duo, seems to have been the main catalyst. Rihanna is one of those remarkable critic proof artists, not that the critics have ever really monstered her until the release of her latest album, and that seems to have been as much to do with her renewed relationship with Chris Brown as anything else. That she can't sing and can't dance hasn't really mattered when her entire act revolves around her wearing as little as possible and all but urging the listener to imagine that they're fucking her as they do so, or indeed, actively saying that she wants you to.
Into this breach has entered Nicki Minaj, who I will admit from the beginning I simply don't get. Super Bass, one of the biggest hits of last year, was almost tolerable, even if the title doesn't make much sense when there, err, isn't really all that much bass in the track. According to her A&R, Minaj won't simply rap or sing over any old beat, which seems a strange comment considering the number of times she's featured alongside other artists, including with such notable originators as, err, David Guetta. It's even more staggering when you consider that her two main singles of the year, Starships and Pound the Alarm, are so aggravatingly execrable, both by the numbers tracks that would otherwise only be notable for the amount of flesh on display in the videos. That the top comment for Starships on YouTube currently is "this is the weirdest porno I've seen all day" pretty much says it all.
Even if she's delved into the current trend for Europop, Minaj made her name as a rapper, and so it would be remiss if we didn't also take note of "Stupid Hoe". For a start, Minaj doesn't seem to have realised that hoe has a silent e, instead saying how, making it sound as though she's asking an ungrammatical question rather than insulting someone, while secondly the video has picked up more than 600,000 dislikes on YT, more than double the likes. For an otherwise popular artist who isn't Justin Bieber, that's quite the achievement.
The other sign of how dismal a year it's been for pop is the number of one hit wonders the year is likely to become known for. It began with Gotye's Someone That I Used to Know, continued with Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe, which seems to be ironically topping some track of the year lists, and ended with the phenomenon of Gangnam Style. Psy's worldwide smash doesn't deserve to be in any worst of the year list, it's true, but it is further evidence of the homogeneity alluded to above. At first I thought it was a parody of the current Europop trend by a savvy Korean artist mocking the Gangnam area of Seoul at the same time, except it isn't. It's simply K-Pop, with a highly amusing video and nothing more. Any life it did have has since been strangled by the sheer number of parodies, each one worse than the last. It's also indicative of Western culture as it currently stands: for anything from outside America or Europe to get attention, it has to become us. Little wonder there was such a lot of sound and fury when it turned out Psy had in the past lambasted the US, leading to a humiliating apology.
In a year when the low moments just kept on coming, there was still one that must have scarred memories across the world. The Olympics closing ceremony was shockingly awful in its entirety, yet there was one moment which suggested irony was something that didn't enter into the producer's equation. Of all the ideas they must have kicked around, how was it exactly that no one objected to the prospect of Jessie J being driven into the Olympic stadium in the back of a gold Rolls Royce while she performed Price Tag? It's not about the money, they didn't want our money, they just want to make the world dance. Except they did take our money, Jessie J must have took the money, and so did Rolls Royce. Also performing was Emeli Sande, who started off last year with a track that co-opted the Funky Drummer break, and ended this one with a song that rhymes night and light and thunder and wonder. How long do you reckon she slaved over those lyrics?
Finally, we must as always recognise the role The X Factor and Simon Cowell continue to play in shaping our cultural landscape. Not only were we treated this year to a video of judge Tulisa slapping herself with her ex-boyfriend's penis, something she later described as an "intimate moment", there was this tear-inducing performance from the three finalists at the switching on of the Downing Street Christmas lights. Silent night indeed.
Addendum: Last year, I said Martin Clark was wrong to suggest there wasn't much life left in "dark 140bpm half-step beats". Straight-up dubstep has duly this year been for the most part dismal. Here then is how the genre has changed, or perhaps a better description is how it's subsequently been sequestered, from 2003 when it was still to be named, up till today.
Labels: 2012, 2012 review, music, worst music of 2012


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New Moon Rises over Pluto
Pluto may not be a full-fledged planet anymore, but it's got its share of moons. Including a tiny moon just recently spotted by astronomers. The new addition, which isn't yet named, brings the dwarf planet's number of known satellites to four. That's more than Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars have combined.
Based on Hubble Space Telescope photographs of Pluto's newfound companion, astronomers estimate the moon to be just a few dozen kilometers in diameter. Hubble also spotted Nix and Hydra, two larger moons of Pluto, in 2005. Its largest moon, Charon, has been known since the 1970s. Pluto's entire system of moons may have emerged from a protoplanetary smashup billions of years ago.
The new moon turned up during a Hubble search for a dust ring around Pluto. Such a ring could pose a hazard to NASA's New Horizons probe, now on its way to Pluto for a flyby in 2015. So far, the search for any rings has come up empty. That's good news for fans of Pluto, who are looking forward to our first close up view. And now New Horizons will have a bit more to check out once it reaches Pluto's neighborhood.
—John Matson
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]


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John Kampfner's keynote gave a broad overview of the issues, which I'm sure was particularly welcomed by those who weren't already familiar with the 'acronym soup' of Internet governance (for a quick briefing, try: WSIS, ITU, ICANN and IGF). The upcoming meeting of the ITU in Baku has led to some panic about an upcoming 'Internet Armageddon' (at least on the part of the US and some others in the West) if the ITU, a UN agency, takes a greater role in regulating the Internet. Kampfner (like everyone else on the panel) also sees the ITU as an inappropriate, and possibly dangerous, body for this role, especially given the current push from the ITU towards decreasing anonymity online and strengthening government sovereignty over the Net, and the fact that only governments really have a seat at the table at the ITU. However, the other main players in Internet governance at the international level are also limited: the IGF, while it is most open to civil society engagement, remains a "cumbersome talking shop".
Kampfner also emphasised that while the original dream of the Internet was for a freer world, the Net is becoming increasingly fettered, in large part by national governments. This is partly a response to the stepping-back of opinion-makers in society from dealing with new questions about boundaries opened up by the vast amount of information shared online. We have yet to draw firm lines around what is and is not appropriate behaviour online, and frequently the response is to send police out rather than engaging in a more nuanced discussion around unacceptable content (which Kampfner should include direct incitement to violence) and offensive but not actionable content (which Kampfner argues should include blasphemous and 'mean' content).
Christian Mihr's response to the keynote focused on two points: firstly, a defence of the IGF as both the most inclusive process for Internet governance currently available, and currently under threat from the London process; secondly, a reminder that we also need to look critically at the role of corporations. (He, very politely, did not to link this to Kampfner's role as a consultant to Google and the GNI.) Personally, I think this is crucial: when so many of us access the Internet through Apple's walled garden and Google is our main way of finding information in the vast mess of online material, the role of private corporations matters very much.
Ben Scott, former policy advisor for innovation to the US state department in the Obama administration, disagreed with Kampfner's claim that all governments were seeking more control over the Internet. He said that discussions within the Obama administration during his time there had led to the conclusion that, whether or not more control was desirable, it was impossible. They started with the assumption that while the government could control the information system some of the time, they certainly couldn't do so all of the time, and they needed to adapt accordingly. (Of course, this raises the question about surveillance and censorship provisions in the NDAA, ACTA, and other legislation.)
The discussion then shifted towards the upcoming IGF meeting in Dubai. Moez Chakchouk had a fascinating perspective here, having served as the CEO of the Tunisian Internet Agency (ITA) under the previous Tunisian government and continuing his work today. Previously, he and others in the ITA had not been able to participate in the IGF because it was likely to lead to punishment from the regime. The 2011 Nairobi IGF was the first such forum he was able to attend, and this was a step in the process of learning how to build trust and communicate with civil society. While Tunisia is interested in getting involved in discussions around Internet governance, the issue is complex and the main focus at the moment is on promoting transparent debate around Internet freedoms after years of censorship.
The moderator of the panel, Geraldine de Bastion, encouraged the panellists to reflect on how governments in the West are pushing for more control and asked what Western governments would be pushing for at the next ITU meeting in Baku.
Ben Scott's reply was simple: nothing at all. Not, however, because Western governments don't want to control the Internet, but because they don't want to control it at the UN. Scott argues that the best, and most likely, outcome for international Internet governance is that there will be decades of slow work through multistakeholder institutions, building norms, negotiating, before a international regulation is more thoroughly in place. This is not unprecedented: most international coordination efforts look very similar. Scott also acknowledged that this process will have to involve an internationalisation of current institutions, which remain largely US-centric (because of the origins of the Internet, rather than any conspiracy).
During the question time, I asked the panellists how effective grassroots-level campaigning around these issues had been, including the campaign around SOPA and PIPA. Ben Scott said that Internet-based campaigns are very good at mobilising against things, stopping bad legislation from happening, but not so good at the kind of long-term constructive engagement required to build alternatives: those who opposed SOPA and PIPA aren't creating alternative legislation (my reply that they are trying was not met with enthusiasm). Similarly, Scott said, the young people who were in Tahrir Square are now not represented in the structures of power, aren't working to build the new system (of course, not everyone sees that as a problem – see Mohammed Bamyeh's comments in my previous post, and today's panels have demonstrated that some young people are involved in the political process).
Another question focused on the perceived balance national security and freedom of speech online, asking how the Tunisian government is planning on dealing with this.
Chakchouk's answer was that for years under the Ben Ali regime they had censored large portions of the Internet, but had tried to undermine the censorship regime by demonstrating to the courts that censoring content only increased its popularity as people found other ways to share it. So because censorship is ineffective, and because they have had enough of censorship, they have been refusing all requests to censor information since August 2011. Chakchouk acknowledges that there are times that information-sharing is problematic, such as when rumours are spread or when this feeds into tensions between different Tunisian communities. But the answer is not censorship: it's countering rumours, and making better information available.
He also, in response to another excellent question from de Bastion, pointed out that the censorship software they had been buying from the West had been costing the country a lot (and those selling the software are making even more money from countries in the region who had more money than Tunisia). The hypocrisy of Western governments condemning censorship and surveillance abroad while allowing companies to sell software used for this, and indeed engaging in their own censorship and surveillance, was not lost on any of the panellists.
This opening formed a good basis for the region- and country-specific sessions that follow. Mixing presentations and panel discussions is also a useful format (even if it harder to summarise!). I wish I could also summarise some of the debates I've had over tea breaks – there are so many people with interesting perspectives to share, and I'm really enjoying the post-session debriefings. The posts that follow will look at how activists in South East Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa are using the Internet.
If you want to follow along, you can follow the #activism2action tag on Twitter or look at more of Cucchiaio's amazing comic-form summaries (which I only just discovered when looking for photos to illustrate this).


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|Matthew XIII. 34, 35.
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Homily XLVII.
"All these things spake Jesus unto the multitudes in parables, and without a parable spake He not18361836 [R.V., "nothing," following a reading accepted by Chrysostom, both here and in the comments. The received text has "not."—R. ]unto them; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things that have been kept secret18371837 [R.V., "things hidden."]from the foundation of the world."18381838 Comp. Ps. lxxviii. 2.
But Mark saith, "As they were able to hear it, He spake the word unto them in parables."18391839 Matt. iv. 33.
Then pointing out that He is not making a new thing, He brings in the Prophet also, proclaiming beforehand this His manner of teaching. And to teach us the purpose of Christ, how He discoursed in this manner, not that they might be ignorant, but that He might lead them to inquiry, he added, "And without a parable spake He nothing unto them." Yet surely He did say many things without a parable; but then nothing. And for all this no man asked Him questions, whereas the Prophets, we know, they were often questioning: as Ezekiel,18401840 Ezek. xii. 9, xxiv. 19, xxxvii. 18.for instance; as many others: but these did no such thing. Yet surely His sayings were enough to cast them into perplexity, and to stir them up to the inquiry; for indeed a very sore punishment was threatened by those parables: however, not even so were they moved.
Wherefore also He left them and went away. For,
"Then," saith he, "Jesus sent the multitudes away,18411841 [R.V., "he left the multitudes." Compare the previous sentence. But Chrysostom, with the rec. text inserts "Jesus."—R.]and went into His house."18421842 Matt. xiii. 36, the house (rec. text).
And not one of the Scribes follows Him; whence it is clear that for no other purpose did they follow, than to take hold of Him.18431843 ἐπιλαβσθαι . But when they marked not His sayings, thenceforth He let them be.
"And His disciples come unto Him, asking Him concerning the parable of the tares;"18441844 [Matt. xiii. 36, freely cited.]although at times wishing to learn, and afraid18451845 Mark ix. 32.to ask. Whence then arose their confidence in this instance? They had been told, "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven;" and they were emboldened. Wherefore also they ask in private; not as grudging the multitude, but observing their Master's law. For, "To these," saith He, "it is not given."
And why may it be that they let pass the parable of the leaven, and of the mustard seed, and inquire concerning this? They let those pass, as being plainer; but about this, as having an affinity to that before spoken, and as setting forth something more than it, they are desirous to learn (since He would not have spoken the same to them a second time); for indeed they saw how severe was the threatening therein uttered.18461846 This passage is translated according to a conjectural emendation of Mr. Field. [The Greek text seems to be corrupt here. The mss. readings yield no intelligible sense that can be considered correct.—R.] Wherefore neither doth He blame them, but rather completes His previous statements.
And, as I am always saying, the parables must not be explained throughout word for word, since many absurdities will follow; this even He Himself is teaching us here in thus interpreting this parable. Thus He saith not at all who the servants are that came to Him, but, implying that He brought them in, for the sake of some order, and to make up the picture, He omits that part, and interprets those that are most urgent and essential, and for the sake of which the parable was spoken; signifying Himself to be Judge and Lord of all.
"And He answered," so it is said, "and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, the good seed, these are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that soweth them is the devil; and the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;18471847 Or, "produce lawlessness," το ποιοντα τν νομαν, in which sense it seems more directly applicable to heretics, who may not be vicious in their own lives, but produce a contempt of God's law by their false doctrines. Transl. 286 and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."18481848 Matt. xiii. 37–43. [The long citation presents few textual variations of any kind, none that affect the sense.—R.]
For whereas He Himself is the sower, and that of His own field, and out of His own kingdom He gathers, it is quite clear that the present world also is His.
But mark His unspeakable love to man, and His leaning to bounty, and His disinclination to punishment; in that, when He sows, He sows in His own person, but when He punishes, it is by others, that is, by the angels.
"Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Not because it will be just so much only, but because this star is surpassed in brightness by none that we know. He uses the comparisons that are known to us.
And yet surely elsewhere He saith, the harvest is already come; as when He saith of the Samaritans, "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."18491849 John iv. 35. And again, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few."18501850 Matt. ix. 37; Luke x. 2. How then saith He there, that the harvest is already come, while here He said, it is yet to be? According to another signification.
And how having elsewhere said, "One soweth, and another reapeth,"18511851 John iv. 37.doth He here say, it is Himself that soweth? Because there again, He was speaking, to distinguish the apostles, not from Himself, but from the prophets, and that in the case of the Jews and Samaritans. Since certainly it was He who sowed through the prophets also.
And at times He calls this self-same thing both harvest and sowing, naming it with relation, now to one thing, now to another. Thus when He is speaking of the conviction and obedience of His converts,18521852 ὑπακουσντων . He calls the thing "a harvest," as though He had accomplished all; but when He is seeking after the fruit of their hearing, He calls it seed, and the end, harvest.
And how saith He elsewhere, that "the righteous are caught up first?"18531853 1 Thess. iv. 17. Because they are indeed caught up first, but Christ being come, those others are given over to punishment, and then the former depart into the kingdom of heaven. For because they must be in heaven, but He Himself is to come and judge all men here; having passed sentence upon these, like some king He rises with His friends, leading them to that blessed portion. Seest thou that the punishment is twofold, first to be burnt up, and then to fall from that glory?
2. But wherefore doth He still go on, when the others have withdrawn, to speak to these also in parables? They had become wiser by His sayings, so as even to understand. At any rate, to them He saith afterwards,
"Have ye understood all these things? They say unto Him, Yea, Lord."18541854 Matt. xiii. 51. [R.V., omits "Lord," so the oldest mss. and the Vulgate.—R.] So completely, together with its other objects, did the parable effect this too, that it made them more clear sighted. What then saith He again?
"The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field, the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."18551855 Matt. xiii. 44–46. [Here also the Greek text presents few peculiarities; τ is omitted before ἀγρ in verse 44, as in a few mss. of the New Testament.—R.]
Much as in the other place, the mustard seed and the leaven have but some little difference from each other, so here also these two parables, that of the treasure and that of the pearl. This being of course signified by both, that we ought to value the gospel above all things. And the former indeed, of the leaven and of the mustard seed, was spoken with a view to the power of the gospel, and to its surely prevailing over the world; but these declare its value, and great price. For as it extends itself like mustard seed, and prevails like leaven, so it is precious like a pearl, and affords full abundance like a treasure. We are then to learn not this only, that we ought to strip ourselves of everything else, and cling to the gospel, but also that we are to do so with joy; and when a man is dispossessing himself of his goods, he is to know that the transaction is gain, and not loss.
Seest thou how both the gospel is hid in the world, and the good things in the gospel?
Except thou sell all, thou buyest not; except thou have such a soul, anxious and inquiring, thou findest not. Two things therefore are requisite, abstinence from worldly matters, and watchfulness. For He saith "One seeking goodly pearls, who when he had found one of great price, sold all and bought it." For the truth is one, and not in many divisions.
And much as he that hath the pearl knows 287 indeed himself that he is rich, but others know not, many times, that he is holding it in his hand (for there is no corporeal bulk); just so also with the gospel, they that have hold of it know that they are rich, but the unbelievers, not knowing of this treasure, are in ignorance also of our wealth.
3. After this, that we may not be confident in the gospel merely preached, nor think that faith only suffices us for salvation, He utters also another, an awful parable. Which then is this? That of the net.
"For the kingdom of Heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away."18561856 Matt. xiii. 47, 48. [R.V., "which, when it was filled, they drew upon the beach," etc.]
And wherein doth this differ from the parable of the tares? For there too the one are saved, the other perish; but there, for choosing of wicked doctrines; and those before this again, for not giving heed to His sayings, but these for wickedness of life; who are the most wretched of all, having attained to His knowledge, and being caught, but not even so capable of being saved.
Yet surely He saith elsewhere, that the shepherd Himself separates them, but here He saith the angels do this;18571857 Matt. xxv. 32.and so with respect to the tares. How then is it? At one time He discourses to them in a way more suited to their dullness,18581858 παχτερον.at another time in a higher strain.
And this parable He interprets without so much as being asked, but of His own motion He explained it by one part of it, and increased their awe. For lest, on being told, "They cast the bad away," thou shouldest suppose that ruin to be without danger; by His interpretation He signified the punishment, saying, "They will cast them into the furnace."18591859 Matt. xiii. 50. And He declared the gnashing of teeth, and the anguish, that it is unspeakable.
Seest thou how many are the ways of destruction? By the rock, by the thorns, by the wayside, by the tares, by the net. Not without reason therefore did He say, "Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go away18601860 ἀπερχμενοι, rec. text, εσερχμενοι .by it."18611861 Matt. vii. 13.
4. Having then uttered all this, and concluded His discourse in a tone to cause fear, and signified that these are the majority of cases (for He dwelt more on them). He saith,
"Have ye understood all these things? They say unto Him, Yea, Lord."18621862 Matt. xiii. 51. [See note 7, p. 293.—R.]
Then because they understood, He again praises them, saying,
"Therefore every Scribe, which is instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven,18631863 [R.V., "hath been made a disciple to the Kingdom of Heaven." Chrysostom reads ἐν, the received text has ε with the accusative.—R.]is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old."18641864 Matt. xiii. 52.
Wherefore elsewhere also He saith, "I will send you wise men and scribes."18651865 Matt. xxiii. 34. Seest thou how so far from excluding the Old Testament, He even commends it, and speaks publicly in favor of it, calling it "a treasure"?
So that as many as are ignorant of the divine Scriptures cannot be "householders;" such as neither have of themselves, nor receive of others, but neglect their own case, perishing with famine. And not these only, but the heretics too,18661866 i.e., in particular the Manichæans, and other sects which deny the divinity of the Old Testament.are excluded from this blessing. For they bring not forth things new and old. For they have not the old things, wherefore neither have they the new; even as they who have not the new, neither have they the old, but are deprived of both. For these are bound up and interwoven one with another.
Let us then hear, as many of us as neglect the reading of the Scriptures, to what harm we are subjecting ourselves, to what poverty. For when are we to apply ourselves to the real practice of virtue, who do not so much as know the very laws according to which our practice should be guided? But while the rich, those who are mad about wealth, are constantly shaking out their garments, that they may not become moth-eaten; dost thou, seeing forgetfulness worse than any moth wasting thy soul, neglect conversing with books? dost thou not thrust away from thee the pest, adorn thy soul, look continually upon the image of virtue, and acquaint thyself with her members and her head? For she too hath a head and members more seemly than any graceful and beautiful body.
What then, saith one, is the head of virtue? Humility. Wherefore Christ also begins with it, saying, "Blessed are the poor."18671867 Matt v. 3; Luke vi. 20. This head hath not locks and ringlets, but beauty, such as to gain God's favor. For, "Unto whom shall I look," saith He, "but unto him that is meek and humble, and trembleth at my words?"18681868 Is. lxvi. 2. And, "Mine eyes are upon the meek of the earth."18691869 Ps. ci. 6, comp. Ps. lxxvi. 9.And, "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart."18701870 Ps. xxxiv. 18. This head, instead of 288 locks, and flowing hair, bears sacrifices acceptable to God. It is a golden altar, and a spiritual place of sacrifice;18711871 βμο, θυσιαστριον. These two words are commonly used, the former in a bad, the other in a good sense, of Heathen, and Christian, or Jewish, altars respectively. This seems to be an invariable rule, as to the word βμο, in the Greek Bible except that it is used of the Jewish altar in the following places of the Apocrypha: Ecclus. l. 12, 14; 2 Macc. ii. 19, xiii. 8, which may suffice to show that it was occasionally employed, as by St. Chrysostom here, with no unholy association."For a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God."18721872 Ps. li. 17. This is the mother of wisdom. If a man have this, he will have the rest also.
Hast thou seen a head such as thou hadst never seen? Wilt thou see the face too, or rather mark it? Mark then for the present its color, how ruddy, and blooming, and very engaging; and observe what are its ingredients. "Well, and what are they?" Shame-facedness and blushing. Wherefore also some one saith, "Before a shamefaced man shall go favor."18731873 Ecclus. xxxii. 10. This sheds much beauty over the other members also. Though thou mix ten thousand colors, thou wilt not produce such a bloom.
And if thou wilt see the eyes also, behold them exactly delineated with decency and temperance. Wherefore they become also so beautiful and sharpsighted, as to behold even the Lord Himself. For, "Blessed," saith He, "are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."18741874 Matt. v. 8.
And her mouth is wisdom and understanding, and the knowledge of spiritual hymns. And her heart, acquaintance with Scripture, and maintenance of sound doctrines, and benevolence, and kindness. And as without this last there is no living, so without that other is never any salvation. Yea, for from that all her excellencies have birth. She hath also for feet and hands the manifestations of her good works. She hath a soul too, godliness. She hath likewise a bosom of gold, and firmer than adamant, even fortitude; and all may be taken captive more easily than that bosom may be riven asunder. And the spirit that is in the brain and heart, is charity.18751875 [ἀγπ ]
5. Wilt thou that in her actual deeds also I show thee her image? Consider, I pray thee, this very evangelist: although we have not his whole life in writing, nevertheless even from a few facts one may see his image shine forth.
First, as to his having been lowly and contrite, hear him, after his gospel, calling himself a publican; for his being also merciful, see him stripping himself of all and following Jesus; and as to his piety, it is evident from his doctrines. And his wisdom again it is easy to see from the gospel which he composed, and his charity18761876 [ἀγπην.](for he cared for the whole world); and the manifestation of his good works, from the throne on which he is to sit;18771877 Luke xxii. 30.and his courage too, "by his departing with joy from the presence of the council."18781878 Acts v. 41.
Let us imitate then this virtue, and most of all his humility and almsgiving, without which one cannot be saved. And this is shown by the five virgins, and together with them by the Pharisee. For without virginity indeed it is possible to see the kingdom, but without almsgiving it cannot be. For this is among the things that are essential, and hold all together. Not unnaturally then have we called it the heart of virtue. But this heart, unless it supply breath to all, is soon extinguished. In the same way then as the fountain also, if it confine its streams to itself, grows putrid; so it is with the rich also, when they keep their possessions to themselves. Wherefore even in our common conversation we say, "great is the consumption18791879 σψι, q.d. "the wear and tear."of wealth with such a man;" instead of saying, "great is the abundance, great the treasure." For in truth there is a consumption, not of the possessors only, but of the riches themselves. Since both garments laid by spoil, and gold is cankered, and corn is eaten up, and the soul too of their owner is more than they all cankered and corrupted by the cares of them.
And if thou be willing to produce in the midst a miser's soul; like a garment eaten by innumerable worms, and not having any sound part, even so wilt thou find it, perforated on all sides by cares; rotted, cankered by sins.
But not such the poor man's soul, the soul of him, I mean, that is voluntarily poor; but it is resplendent as gold, it shines like a pearl, and it blooms like a rose. For no moth is there, no thief is there, no worldly care, but as angels converse, so do they.
Wouldest thou see the beauty of this soul? Wouldest thou acquaint thyself with the riches of poverty? He commands not men, but he commands evil spirits. He stands not at a king's side, but he hath taken his stand near to God. He is the comrade, not of men, but of angels. He hath not chests, two, or three, or twenty, but such an abundance as to account the whole world as nothing. He hath not a treasure, but heaven. He needs not slaves, or rather hath his passions for slaves, hath for slaves the motives18801880 λογισμος.that rule over kings. For that which commands him who wears the purple, that motive shrinks before him.18811881 [The translator has omitted a clause: "and dares not face him," κα ντιβλψαι ο τολμ.] And royalty, and gold, and all 289 such things, he laughs at, as at children's toys; and like hoops, and dice, and heads, and balls, so doth he count all these to be contemptible. For he hath an adorning, which they who play with these things cannot even see.
What then can be superior to this poor man? He hath at least heaven for his pavement; but if the pavement be like this, imagine the roof! But hath he not horses and chariots? Why, what need hath he of these, who is to be borne upon the clouds, and to be with Christ?
Having these things then impressed on our minds, let us, both men and women, seek after that wealth, and the plenty that cannot be rifled; that we may attain also unto the kingdom of heaven, by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.
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Hong Kong: Call for visa crackdown on bogus Buddhist monks
South Morning China Post, 24 February, 2013
Police want immigration to crack down on bogus Buddhist monks working as beggars in the same way that they deal with prostitutes
Hong Kong, China -- Mainland beggars masquerading as Buddhist monks should be treated the same as prostitutes, and the immigration authorities should crack down on the practice, according to police.
<< Bogus monks at Lan Kwai Fong
One police source familiar with a rising trend of bogus Buddhist monks visiting Hong Kong as "professional beggars" said they may be violating their three-month visitor visas.
Over the past 12 months, the city had seen a major increase in the number of people clad in monks' robes and begging in Central, Wan Chai and Tsim Sha Tsui, the source said. The police arrest people for begging, particularly in Central. But unlike prostitutes, whose work is illegal because they enter Hong Kong on tourist visas, according to the Immigration Department, begging does not constitute working.
Stronger penalties would deter bogus monks from coming to the city, the source said, adding that the police wanted a change in immigration laws.
"If you come to Hong Kong as a mainland prostitute on a tourist visa, you will be arrested by police for breaching your conditions of stay. Why are these bogus monks not treated the same?"
On Friday night, one man dressed like a Buddhist monk in Lan Kwai Fong tried to sell a wooden beaded bracelet to the Sunday Morning Post. The bracelets - which he said could bring blessings - cost HK$100 each.
The sale of these bracelets constitutes working and is a clear breach of tourist visa laws.
But an Immigration Department spokesman said it was difficult to define whether begging should be classed as work. He noted, however, that it was the police's duty to tackle begging.
"In the case of mainland prostitutes, they breach the conditions of their stay by establishing a business here. It is a clear immigration issue," the spokesman said.
"But it is also clear in the police ordinance that they prosecute beggars. The police are the appropriate authority to enforce the law here. There is no loophole in the immigration law."
Entrepreneur Rory Hussey, whose bar Solas is on Wyndham Street, Central, called the bogus monks a "plague".
Hussey recalled how he went on holiday last year to Thailand and a group of bogus monks were on the same flight, dressed in civilian clothes. "I see them every night, so I recognised them on the plane straight away. A few of them even had girlfriends with them," he said.
In Tsim Sha Tsui, Mike Brown, bar manager of Ned Kelly's Last Stand in Ashley Road, said the impostors "would try to get away with anything".
"They'd blatantly walk in here and ask my customers for money," Brown said. "They're regularly annoying tourists all along Nathan Road."
At Delaney's in Luard Road, Wan Chai, general manager Clare Kirkman told how up to 12 monks could be patrolling up and down the streets.
"They work in pairs; while one begs, the other keeps a lookout for police," she said. "They're a nuisance but they are very well-organised."
Last weekend, authorities in the northern province of Shaanxi closed down two temples on a sacred Buddhist mountain and arrested six people after tourists complained of bogus monks deceiving them into donating money.


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At the Portland State University International Conference on Business and Sustainability last week where I was speaking on Social Purchasing, two presentations crystallized an ongoing question I have had about consumer power, "green" business and sustainability in a consumer society in general.
Bill Wertz, Divisional Director of Community & Media Relations from Walmart spoke – quite openly – about their sustainability initiatives and challenges. Despite many progressives' feelings about Walmart, their push for environmental labeling and standards is pushing the entire consumer packaged goods industry faster than any lobbyist could. Answering a question from the audience, he said that from Walmart's experience, the biggest barrier to green purchasing is cost. Consumers are not yet willing to pay a premium for sustainable products – even if, as with CFLs, they will save money in the longer term.
In a following session, Libby Evans from Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers, was talking about their efforts to create sustainable livelihood for coffee growers around the world. As part of that effort, they invest in technical and marketing training on the ground, encouraging farmers to grow to "standards" and command a premium price for organic or Fair Trade certification. In one case, this resulted in farmers increasing their payment from $1.10 per pound before to $1.74 after
These two approaches raise an interesting question: if producers in the developing world are hoping to maintain a sustainable livelihood through premium prices, and if consumers are not willing to pay those prices in the long run, what result will this have? What responsibility to consumers have to ensure their purchases are resulting in beneficial results? How do we raise awareness of the consequences of our relentless quest for cheap? How should we distribute the costs of providing sustainable livelihoods to those living at the bottom of the pyramid?


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