text:
If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy
policy, please feel free to contact us by email at
Contact us form.
At hazratsultanbahu.com, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us. This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by hazratsultanbahu.com and how it is used.
Log Files
Like many other Web sites, hazratsultanbahu.com makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol ( IP ) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider ( ISP ), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track users movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.
Cookies and Web Beacons
hazratsultanbahu.com does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.
DoubleClick DART Cookie
.:: Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on hazratsultanbahu.com.
.:: Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to hazratsultanbahu.com and other sites on the Internet.
.:: Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL - http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html
Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include ....
Google Adsense
hazratsultanbahu.com has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.
You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. hazratsultanbahu.com's privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.
If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites.
Users and Community Guidelines
1. Your Acceptance
By using or visiting the hazratsultanbahu.com website or any hazratsultanbahu.com products, software, data feeds, and services provided to you on, from, or through the hazratsultanbahu.com website (collectively the "Service") you signify your agreement to (1) these terms and conditions (the "Terms of Service"), (2) Google's Privacy Policy, found at http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/, (3) Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Privacy Policy, found at http://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule and incorporated herein by reference, and also incorporated herein by reference. If you do not agree to any of these terms, the Google Privacy Policy, or the Community Guidelines, please do not use the Service.
Although we may attempt to notify you when major changes are made to these Terms of Service, you should periodically review the most up-to-date version. hazratsultanbahu.com may, in its sole discretion, modify or revise these Terms of Service and policies at any time, and you agree to be bound by such modifications or revisions. Nothing in these Terms of Service shall be deemed to confer any third-party rights or benefits.
2. Service
These Terms of Service apply to all users of the Service, including users who are also contributors of Content on the Service. Content includes the text, software, scripts, graphics, photos, sounds, music, videos and content, audiovisual combinations, interactive features and other materials you may view on, access through, or contribute to the Service. The Service includes all aspects of hazratsultanbahu.com, including but not limited to all products, software and services offered via the hazratsultanbahu.com website, such as the hazratsultanbahu.com channels, the hazratsultanbahu.com "Embeddable Player," the hazratsultanbahu.com "Uploader" and other applications.
The Service may contain links to third party websites that are not owned or controlled by hazratsultanbahu.com. hazratsultanbahu.com has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party websites. In addition, hazratsultanbahu.com will not and cannot censor or edit the content of any third-party site. By using the Service, you expressly relieve hazratsultanbahu.com from any and all liability arising from your use of any third-party website.
Accordingly, we encourage you to be aware when you leave the Service and to read the terms and conditions and privacy policy of each other website that you visit.
3. hazratsultanbahu.com Accounts
In order to access some features of the Service, you will have to create a hazratsultanbahu.com. You may never use another's account without permission. When creating your account, you must provide accurate and complete information. You are solely responsible for the activity that occurs on your account, and you must keep your account password secure. You must notify hazratsultanbahu.com immediately of any breach of security or unauthorized use of your account.
Although hazratsultanbahu.com will not be liable for your losses caused by any unauthorized use of your account, you may be liable for the losses of hazratsultanbahu.com or others due to such unauthorized use.
4. General Use of the Service Permissions and Restrictions
hazratsultanbahu.com hereby grants you permission to access and use the Service as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that:
You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Service or the Content without hazratsultanbahu.com prior written authorization, unless hazratsultanbahu.com makes available the means for such distribution through functionality offered by the Service (such as the Embeddable Player).
You agree not to alter or modify any part of the Service.
You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the videos and content playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means hazratsultanbahu.com may designate.
You agree not to use the Service for any of the following commercial uses unless you obtain hazratsultanbahu.com's prior written approval:
the sale of access to the Service;
the sale of advertising, sponsorships, or promotions placed on or within the Service or Content; or
the sale of advertising, sponsorships, or promotions on any page of an ad-enabled blog or website containing Content delivered via the Service, unless other material not obtained from hazratsultanbahu.com appears on the same page and is of sufficient value to be the basis for such sales.
Prohibited commercial uses do not include:
uploading an original videos and content to hazratsultanbahu.com, or maintaining an original channel on hazratsultanbahu.com, to promote your business or artistic enterprise;
showing hazratsultanbahu.com videos and content through the Embeddable Player on an ad-enabled blog or website, subject to the advertising restrictions set forth above in Section 4.D; or
any use that hazratsultanbahu.com expressly authorizes in writing.
(For more information about what constitutes a prohibited commercial use, see our FAQ.)
If you use the Embeddable Player on your website, you may not modify, build upon, or block any portion or functionality of the Embeddable Player, including but not limited to links back to the hazratsultanbahu.com website.
If you use the hazratsultanbahu.com Uploader, you agree that it may automatically download and install updates from time to time from hazratsultanbahu.com. These updates are designed to improve, enhance and further develop the Uploader and may take the form of bug fixes, enhanced functions, new software modules and completely new versions. You agree to receive such updates (and permit hazratsultanbahu.com to deliver these to you) as part of your use of the Uploader.
You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, "robots," "spiders," or "offline readers," that accesses the Service in a manner that sends more request messages to the hazratsultanbahu.com servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser. Notwithstanding the foregoing, hazratsultanbahu.com grants the operators of public search engines permission to use spiders to copy materials from the site for the sole purpose of and solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. hazratsultanbahu.com reserves the right to revoke these exceptions either generally or in specific cases. You agree not to collect or harvest any personally identifiable information, including account names, from the Service, nor to use the communication systems provided by the Service (e.g., comments, email) for any commercial solicitation purposes. You agree not to solicit, for commercial purposes, any users of the Service with respect to their Content.
In your use of the Service, you will comply with all applicable laws.
hazratsultanbahu.com reserves the right to discontinue any aspect of the Service at any time.
5. Your Use of Content
In addition to the general restrictions above, the following restrictions and conditions apply specifically to your use of Content.
The Content on the Service, and the trademarks, service marks and logos ("Marks") on the Service, are owned by or licensed to hazratsultanbahu.com, subject to copyright and other intellectual property rights under the law.
Content is provided to you AS IS. You may access Content for your information and personal use solely as intended through the provided functionality of the Service and as permitted under these Terms of Service. You shall not download any Content unless you see a download or similar link displayed by hazratsultanbahu.com on the Service for that Content. You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of hazratsultanbahu.com or the respective licensors of the Content. hazratsultanbahu.com and its licensors reserve all rights not expressly granted in and to the Service and the Content.
You agree not to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the Service or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any Content or enforce limitations on use of the Service or the Content therein.
You understand that when using the Service, you will be exposed to Content from a variety of sources, and that hazratsultanbahu.com is not responsible for the accuracy, usefulness, safety, or intellectual property rights of or relating to such Content. You further understand and acknowledge that you may be exposed to Content that is inaccurate, offensive, indecent, or objectionable, and you agree to waive, and hereby do waive, any legal or equitable rights or remedies you have or may have against hazratsultanbahu.com with respect thereto, and, to the extent permitted by applicable law, agree to indemnify and hold harmless hazratsultanbahu.com, its owners, operators, affiliates, licensors, and licensees to the fullest extent allowed by law regarding all matters related to your use of the Service.
6. Your Content and Conduct
As a hazratsultanbahu.com account holder you may submit Content to the Service, including videos and content and user comments. You understand that hazratsultanbahu.com does not guarantee any confidentiality with respect to any Content you submit.
You shall be solely responsible for your own Content and the consequences of submitting and publishing your Content on the Service. You affirm, represent, and warrant that you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to publish Content you submit; and you license to hazratsultanbahu.com all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in and to such Content for publication on the Service pursuant to these Terms of Service.
For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to hazratsultanbahu.com, you hereby grant hazratsultanbahu.com a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and hazratsultanbahu.com's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service. The above licenses granted by you in videos and content Content you submit to the Service terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your videos and content from the Service. You understand and agree, however, that hazratsultanbahu.com may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of your videos and content that have been removed or deleted. The above licenses granted by you in user comments you submit are perpetual and irrevocable.
You further agree that Content you submit to the Service will not contain third party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material and to grant hazratsultanbahu.com all of the license rights granted herein.
You further agree that you will not submit to the Service any Content or other material that is contrary to the hazratsultanbahu.com Community Guidelines, currently found at www.hazratsultanbahu.com.com/t/community_guidelines, which may be updated from time to time, or contrary to applicable local, national, and international laws and regulations.
hazratsultanbahu.com does not endorse any Content submitted to the Service by any user or other licensor, or any opinion, recommendation, or advice expressed therein, and hazratsultanbahu.com expressly disclaims any and all liability in connection with Content. hazratsultanbahu.com does not permit copyright infringing activities and infringement of intellectual property rights on the Service, and hazratsultanbahu.com will remove all Content if properly notified that such Content infringes on another's intellectual property rights. hazratsultanbahu.com reserves the right to remove Content without prior notice.
7. Account Termination Policy
hazratsultanbahu.com will terminate a user's access to the Service if, under appropriate circumstances, the user is determined to be a repeat infringer.
hazratsultanbahu.com reserves the right to decide whether Content violates these Terms of Service for reasons other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscenity, or excessive length. hazratsultanbahu.com may at any time, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, remove such Content and/or terminate a user's account for submitting such material in violation of these Terms of Service.
8. Digital Millennium Copyright Act
If you are a copyright owner or an agent thereof and believe that any Content infringes upon your copyrights, you may submit a notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") by providing our Copyright Agent with the following information in writing (see 17 U.S.C 512(c)(3) for further detail):
A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site;
Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material;
Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail;
A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
hazratsultanbahu.com's designated Copyright Agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement is Shadie Farazian, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, email: Contact us form, fax: 650-872-8513. For clarity, only DMCA notices should go to the Copyright Agent; any other feedback, comments, requests for technical support, and other communications should be directed to hazratsultanbahu.com customer service through Contact us form . You acknowledge that if you fail to comply with all of the requirements of this Section 5(D), your DMCA notice may not be valid.
Counter-Notice. If you believe that your Content that was removed (or to which access was disabled) is not infringing, or that you have the authorization from the copyright owner, the copyright owner's agent, or pursuant to the law, to post and use the material in your Content, you may send a counter-notice containing the following information to the Copyright Agent:
Your physical or electronic signature;
Identification of the Content that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the Content appeared before it was removed or disabled;
A statement that you have a good faith belief that the Content was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or a misidentification of the Content; and
Your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address, a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal court in San Francisco, California, and a statement that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of the alleged infringement.
If a counter-notice is received by the Copyright Agent, hazratsultanbahu.com may send a copy of the counter-notice to the original complaining party informing that person that it may replace the removed Content or cease disabling it in 10 business days. Unless the copyright owner files an action seeking a court order against the Content provider, member or user, the removed Content may be replaced, or access to it restored, in 10 to 14 business days or more after receipt of the counter-notice, at hazratsultanbahu.com's sole discretion.
hazratsultanbahu.com is in compliance with 17 U.S.C. § 512 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ('DMCA'). It is our policy to respond to any infringement notices and take appropriate actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ('DMCA') and other applicable intellectual property laws.
If your copyrighted material has been posted on hazratsultanbahu.com or if links to your copyrighted material are returned through our search engine and you want this material removed, you must provide a written communication that details the information listed in the following section. Please be aware that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you misrepresent information listed on our site that is infringing on your copyrights. We suggest that you first contact an attorney for legal assistance on this matter.
The following elements must be included in your copyright infringement claim:
Provide evidence of the authorized person to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed, as well as authorized person and owner identity proof.
Provide sufficient contact information so that we may contact you. You must also include a valid email address.
You must identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed and including at least one search term under which the material appears in hazratsultanbahu.com search results.
A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Must be signed by the authorized person to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly being infringed.
Send the infringement notice at Contact us form
Please allow 1-3 business days for an email response. Note that emailing your complaint to other parties will not expedite your request and may result in a delayed response due to the complaint not properly being filed. 9. Warranty Disclaimer
YOU AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES SHALL BE AT YOUR SOLE RISK. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, hazratsultanbahu.com, ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICES AND YOUR USE THEREOF. hazratsultanbahu.com MAKES NO WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THIS SITE'S CONTENT OR THE CONTENT OF ANY SITES LINKED TO THIS SITE AND ASSUMES NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY (I) ERRORS, MISTAKES, OR INACCURACIES OF CONTENT, (II) PERSONAL INJURY OR PROPERTY DAMAGE, OF ANY NATURE WHATSOEVER, RESULTING FROM YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF OUR SERVICES, (III) ANY UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR USE OF OUR SECURE SERVERS AND/OR ANY AND ALL PERSONAL INFORMATION AND/OR FINANCIAL INFORMATION STORED THEREIN, (IV) ANY INTERRUPTION OR CESSATION OF TRANSMISSION TO OR FROM OUR SERVICES, (IV) ANY BUGS, VIRUSES, TROJAN HORSES, OR THE LIKE WHICH MAY BE TRANSMITTED TO OR THROUGH OUR SERVICES BY ANY THIRD PARTY, AND/OR (V) ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN ANY CONTENT OR FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND INCURRED AS A RESULT OF THE USE OF ANY CONTENT POSTED, EMAILED, TRANSMITTED, OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE VIA THE SERVICES. hazratsultanbahu.com DOES NOT WARRANT, ENDORSE, GUARANTEE, OR ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY PRODUCT OR SERVICE ADVERTISED OR OFFERED BY A THIRD PARTY THROUGH THE SERVICES OR ANY HYPERLINKED SERVICES OR FEATURED IN ANY BANNER OR OTHER ADVERTISING, AND hazratsultanbahu.com WILL NOT BE A PARTY TO OR IN ANY WAY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MONITORING ANY TRANSACTION BETWEEN YOU AND THIRD-PARTY PROVIDERS OF PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. AS WITH THE PURCHASE OF A PRODUCT OR SERVICE THROUGH ANY MEDIUM OR IN ANY ENVIRONMENT, YOU SHOULD USE YOUR BEST JUDGMENT AND EXERCISE CAUTION WHERE APPROPRIATE.
10. Limitation of Liability
IN NO EVENT SHALL hazratsultanbahu.com, ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, OR AGENTS, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM ANY (I) ERRORS, MISTAKES, OR INACCURACIES OF CONTENT, (II) PERSONAL INJURY OR PROPERTY DAMAGE, OF ANY NATURE WHATSOEVER, RESULTING FROM YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF OUR SERVICES, (III) ANY UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR USE OF OUR SECURE SERVERS AND/OR ANY AND ALL PERSONAL INFORMATION AND/OR FINANCIAL INFORMATION STORED THEREIN, (IV) ANY INTERRUPTION OR CESSATION OF TRANSMISSION TO OR FROM OUR SERVICES, (IV) ANY BUGS, VIRUSES, TROJAN HORSES, OR THE LIKE, WHICH MAY BE TRANSMITTED TO OR THROUGH OUR SERVICES BY ANY THIRD PARTY, AND/OR (V) ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN ANY CONTENT OR FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND INCURRED AS A RESULT OF YOUR USE OF ANY CONTENT POSTED, EMAILED, TRANSMITTED, OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE VIA THE SERVICES, WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT, OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY, AND WHETHER OR NOT THE COMPANY IS ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. THE FOREGOING LIMITATION OF LIABILITY SHALL APPLY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW IN THE APPLICABLE JURISDICTION.
YOU SPECIFICALLY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT hazratsultanbahu.com SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR CONTENT OR THE DEFAMATORY, OFFENSIVE, OR ILLEGAL CONDUCT OF ANY THIRD PARTY AND THAT THE RISK OF HARM OR DAMAGE FROM THE FOREGOING RESTS ENTIRELY WITH YOU.
The Service is controlled and offered by hazratsultanbahu.com from its facilities in the United States of America. hazratsultanbahu.com makes no representations that the Service is appropriate or available for use in other locations. Those who access or use the Service from other jurisdictions do so at their own volition and are responsible for compliance with local law.
11. Indemnity
To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless hazratsultanbahu.com, its parent corporation, officers, directors, employees and agents, from and against any and all claims, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney's fees) arising from: (i) your use of and access to the Service; (ii) your violation of any term of these Terms of Service; (iii) your violation of any third party right, including without limitation any copyright, property, or privacy right; or (iv) any claim that your Content caused damage to a third party. This defense and indemnification obligation will survive these Terms of Service and your use of the Service.
12. Ability to Accept Terms of Service
You affirm that you are either more than 18 years of age, or an emancipated minor, or possess legal parental or guardian consent, and are fully able and competent to enter into the terms, conditions, obligations, affirmations, representations, and warranties set forth in these Terms of Service, and to abide by and comply with these Terms of Service. In any case, you affirm that you are over the age of 13, as the Service is not intended for children under 13. If you are under 13 years of age, then please do not use the Service. There are lots of other great web sites for you. Talk to your parents about what sites are appropriate for you.
13. Assignment
These Terms of Service, and any rights and licenses granted hereunder, may not be transferred or assigned by you, but may be assigned by hazratsultanbahu.com without restriction.
14. General
You agree that: (i) the Service shall be deemed solely based in California; and (ii) the Service shall be deemed a passive website that does not give rise to personal jurisdiction over hazratsultanbahu.com, either specific or general, in jurisdictions other than California. These Terms of Service shall be governed by the internal substantive laws of the State of California, without respect to its conflict of laws principles. Any claim or dispute between you and hazratsultanbahu.com that arises in whole or in part from the Service shall be decided exclusively by a court of competent jurisdiction located in Santa Clara County, California. These Terms of Service, together with the Privacy Notice at http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ and any other legal notices published by hazratsultanbahu.com on the Service, shall constitute the entire agreement between you and hazratsultanbahu.com concerning the Service. If any provision of these Terms of Service is deemed invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, the invalidity of such provision shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions of these Terms of Service, which shall remain in full force and effect. No waiver of any term of this these Terms of Service shall be deemed a further or continuing waiver of such term or any other term, and hazratsultanbahu.com's failure to assert any right or provision under these Terms of Service shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. hazratsultanbahu.com reserves the right to amend these Terms of Service at any time and without notice, and it is your responsibility to review these Terms of Service for any changes. Your use of the Service following any amendment of these Terms of Service will signify your assent to and acceptance of its revised terms. YOU AND hazratsultanbahu.com AGREE THAT ANY CAUSE OF ACTION ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICES MUST COMMENCE WITHIN ONE (1) YEAR AFTER THE CAUSE OF ACTION ACCRUES. OTHERWISE, SUCH CAUSE OF ACTION IS PERMANENTLY BARRED.


text: Back Watch that Backpack Load When your child acts as if she's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, maybe you should check her backpack. Overloaded or poor-fitting backpacks can hurt girls and boys. Children can hurt themselves by using poor postures—arching the back, bending forward, twisting, or leaning to one side—while hefting a heavy backpack. Such postures can skew the spine's alignment so its disks can't absorb shocks as they should. Overloaded backpacks also place stress on muscles and soft tissues. That causes fatigue and strain, increasing the risk of neck, shoulder, and back injuries and even nerve damage. Experts offer these tips for parents and children: Pick a lightweight backpack with two wide, padded shoulder straps, a padded back, and a waist strap, which can help spread the load. Use both straps to spread the weight and promote good posture. Using one strap means one side of the body bears most of the weight. Take care when putting on and taking off backpacks. Avoid twisting too much. When bending to pick up a heavy backpack, bend with both knees, not at the waist. Position the backpack evenly in the middle of the back, near the body's center of gravity. The backpack should sit 2 inches above the waist. Adjust the shoulder straps so the backpack can be put on and taken off with no trouble. The straps should permit free arm movement without being too loose. Limit the load to 10 to 15 percent or less of the child's body weight. Load the heaviest items closest to the child's back. Use all the compartments to spread the weight. Make frequent school locker stops to remove items that aren't needed right away. Remember that rolling backpacks must be carried up stairs.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Pappus păp´əs [key], fl. c.300, Greek mathematician of Alexandria. He recorded and enlarged on the results of his predecessors, including Euclid and Apollonius of Perga, in his Mathematical Collection (8 books; date conjectural). The six and a half extant books, edited and translated into Latin by Commandinus (1588), stimulated a revival of geometry in the 17th cent.; Descartes expounded several of his problems. The collection was reedited by Frederick Hultsch (1876–78). Pappus' other works include a commentary on Ptolemy's Almagest.
See T. L. Heath, A Manual of Greek Mathematics (1931).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Mathematics: Biographies


text:
Itzer is a city in Middle Atlas.
Get inEdit
Take a grand taxi from Azrou (30 dirham), Zeida (8 dirham), Midelt (15 dirham), Boumia (10 dirham).
Get aroundEdit
The town is small enough to walk from one end to the other in about 20 min. There is beautiful hiking in the area, very accessible from the town.
Visit the traditional weavers in the town's artisan association, Atlas Fil et Couleur. Ask for the Association or for "Moumi", the president of the Association.
Spend a day or two or three trekking in the mountains, forests and valleys surrounding Itzer.
Climb the plateau that overlooks the town, the nearby volcano, and the beginning of the High Atlas mountain range.
Visit a public bath ("hamman") (7 dirham)
Come on a Saturday morning for the regional souq, with everything from livestock to carpets and every kind of very fresh produce from the region.
Traditional, naturally-dyed Berber carpets, handbags and other artisan crafts. (www.afcmaroc.org)
Traditional Couscous made from medicinal herbs grown in the area (20 dirham/kg)
Traditional fried potato cakes ("makoda") in a sandwich with fresh soft bread and spicy sauce.
Snack "Moumi" next to the souq on Fridays and Saturdays for homemade sausage sandwiches and makoda (2.5 dirham).
There are several small and very nice cafes that serve freshly-brewed Moroccan tea, banana/apple smoothies and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
Contact Moumi to set up a traditional Berber homestay with one of the artisans from the Association. Email email@example.com or call Moumi at +212 666 76 55 68
Moumi, the president of the Association Atlas Fil et Couleur is your go-to man for just about anything you might need or want in the area. Email: email@example.com, Mobile: +212 666 76 55 68 (French, English or Arabic)


text:
Ortiz's 2 HRs, 6 RBIs power Red Sox over Astros
Red Sox 10, Astros 7
David Ortiz hit a pair of two-run homers, including his 400th in a Red Sox uniform, and drove in a career high-tying six runs to power Boston past the Houston Astros 10-7 Saturday night.
Big Papi joined Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski as the only players to hit 400 homers while playing with the Red Sox. Ortiz did it with his shot into the first row of the center-field seats in the third inning.
Ortiz hooked his other around the Pesky Pole in right in the fifth. He has 459 home runs in his career, which started with Minnesota.
Ortiz added a two-run double in the eighth. He left to a standing ovation for a pinch-runner, tipping his helmet as the crowd gave him a curtain call.
Williams hit 521 homers and Yaz had 452. Both spent their entire careers with the Red Sox.


text:
Super Crush KO will be released on Nintendo switch on January 16, 2020
Super Crush has been confirmed for Nintendo switch by the Officials and it will be released on January 16, 2020.
About the game
Super Crush KO is a fast-paced brawler set in a vibrant, near-future city. Zip up your favourite neon jacket and combo your way through swarms of deadly robots to save your kidnapped kitten and, while you're at it, save humanity from an AI apocalypse.
Key features
- Lightning-fast gameplay that seamlessly blends run n' gun action and intense beat-em-up combat
- Launch, juggle, and shoot waves of robots out of the sky in stylish, easy-to-execute combos
- Keep your score climbing from enemy to enemy with thunderous ground smashes, high flying aerial attacks, and the devastating Super Beam
- Blast through a vibrant world inspired by colourful urban cityscapes and pastel skylines
- Online leaderboards and ranking systems will keep you coming back to S-Rank over 20 challenging levels
Source: Click here
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Lst Ark: Servers are shutting down today to allow more fans to play
On February 11th the new MMORPG Lost Ark was released in its Free2Play version for all people who just want to try it. That's a lot though, which is why the game is still struggling with server issues. That should change now.
Update 8:05 a.m.: The servers are now down.
When will the servers shut down? As announced by Amazon via the Lost Ark official website, the servers will go offline this morning, that is, on February 13, at 8 a.m. GMT.
The downtime affects all European servers equally and you will not be able to log into the game in the meantime.
How long will they stay offline? The maintenance work is planned for about 3 hours. So if all goes well, you'll be able to return to the world of Arkesia at 11 a.m.
We'll keep you up to date in the live ticker when the servers return and if there will be any delays again.
Lost Ark's last scheduled server maintenance was scheduled for 4 hours, but ended up lasting over 10 hours, leading to some negative reviews on Steam.
Why are the servers going down? Since Lost Ark was released, the new MMORPG has been struggling with long queues and server problems. At the prime time on February 12, more than 1.3 million people played the action game at the same time.
This also meant that some servers had to be completely closed to new players. Especially the server Asta, on which many German players gather, is affected by long queues.
Sometimes the fans have to wait up to 6 hours just to log in. Incidentally, this only works if you already have a character on the Asta server. New players were completely denied access until the evening hours of February 12th.
To address this situation, Amazon is working with Smilegate to increase server capacity. At this point, however, they are not telling us exactly how this is supposed to work.
Are the queues gone then? No, probably not. In the blog post, the publishers emphasize that they only want to create the basic framework for further updates and more server capacities during the downtime.
We, therefore, do not assume that you will be able to continue gambling directly at 11 a.m. without queues, even if that would be desirable.
Lost Ark: An exact time when the servers will go online
Today at 6 p.m. the Lost Ark servers should (re)open to all players after the scheduled maintenance. But nothing will come of the official Lost Ark Launch! The launch is delayed due to "deployment issues".
An exact time when the servers will go online again has not yet been announced. "We hope that this problem will be fixed in a few hours," the announcement simply says.
We'll keep you posted on updates here!
Unfortunately, the launch has been delayed due to deployment issues. We hope this will be fixed in a few hours.
Your patience is appreciated and we will update you soon.
Restart Lost Ark Client
We have received important information from the Community Team. Waiting in the server screen doesn't seem to help. The server list does not appear there automatically. So a reboot is required.
Waiting at the server screen won't help, as it will require a fresh launch of the client as far as I'm aware.
You can read our guide for Lost Ark here.
New pioneer package with server change in Lost Ark
Lost Ark has been better received than many thought. Even Amazon did not expect this rush. And so there were long queues on some servers, as was the case with New World. Since a real server change is not possible, many players simply created a new character on a new server. However, some of these players have already redeemed their pioneer package on the first server and thus used it up unnecessarily.
As Amazon has now announced, we will get an additional set of exclusive items on the new server. These items are bound to the character and thus cannot be traded. They can soon be redeemed on every new server.
During the Head Start period for Lost Ark, a massive number of heroes arrived in Arkesia. While we are thrilled to have so many players joining us, we also recognize that this has brought about large queues on our more popular servers, leading to a less than ideal experience for these players.
In an effort to improve the player experience for those who have faced queues, we will be taking several steps to put preventative measures in place ahead of our full launch tomorrow morning, in addition to addressing some of the outstanding issues surrounding Founder's Pack claims.
Founder's Pack Redemptions
Players have let us know one of the reasons they are reluctant to switch to lower population servers is because many of them have already redeemed their Founder's Packs on another server. To help combat this and make exploring new servers a more reasonable choice, we will be granting ALL Founder's Pack purchasers that redeem their pack by 12 PM PT (8 PM UTC) on Monday, February 14th with an extra set of the exclusive items from the Founder's Pack they redeemed (e.g., the Founder's Exclusive Pet and Founder's Title from the Bronze pack; see full list below) as well as some additional Royal Crystals for Silver, Gold, and Platinum Pack purchasers. These items will not be tradeable, and will be delivered to a player's Product Inventory so they can be claimed on a new server. Your original Founder's Pack will not be affected by this, and will remain on the initial server where you redeemed it (or in your Product Inventory, if you have not yet redeemed it).
We are currently working to get these item grants ready to go, and will update players when they are ready to claim — these will be claimable on any new server you choose, so in the meantime we encourage you to find a perfect server to call home.
Bronze Pack
Founder's Title*
Founder's Exclusive Pet (Untradeable)
Silver Pack
150 Royal Crystals
Founder's Title*
Founder's Exclusive Pet (Untradeable)
Gold Pack
500 Royal Crystals
Founder's Title*
Founder's Exclusive Pet (Untradeable)
Northern Lawmaker Skin (Untradeable)
Platinum Pack
1,000 Royal Crystals
Founder's Title*
Founder's Exclusive Pet (Untradeable)
Northern Lawmaker Skin (Untradeable)
Founder's Platinum Skin (Untradeable)
Founder's Exclusive Mount (Untradeable)
Platinum Welcome Crate (Untradeable)
Founder's Exclusive Wallpaper*
Founder's Exclusive Structure
Legendary Rapport Gift Selection Chest
Launch Limited Card Pack
*If the Founder's Title or Founder's Exclusive Wallpaper are used on the same Roster where a pack has already been redeemed, you will not be able to use these items.
Please note that this is a one-time grant, and we do not have plans to continue to make additional grants of items available to players in the future. For example, there will be Starter Packs available for purchase at full launch tomorrow (more details to come), and we highly recommend only redeeming them once you settle into your permanent home server.


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I wasn't originally planning to attend this game, as I had already gotten most of the Bulls players autographs that I wanted, and the opposing team, the Charlotte Knights, didn't really have any players that were worth a trip out to the ballpark. But when it was announced back in June that the Bulls were going to retire Chipper Jones' uniform number in August, and that Chipper himself was going to be there, of course I had to go.
As with any game I go to, I showed up (along with my dad) to the ballpark around thirty minutes before the gates were set to open. With the large crowd expected, due to Jones being there, the gates opened up an extra thirty minutes earlier than usual, which was nice, as when I headed down to my normal spot beside the Bulls dugout, I was able to witness batting practice for the first time at the DBAP:
Taking in batting practice at this particular ballpark is something I've always wanted to do — it's usually over by the time the gates open — ,however, after seeing it, I can honestly say that it wasn't any grander than any other BP I've seen at major league parks. (I guess that makes sense; I don't know what I was expecting, really.)
But getting back to Chipper Jones; I stuck around by the dugout for nearly an hour, at which point the ushers cleared out the aisles. I made my way to an empty nearby seat, and shortly thereafter, Chipper entered the ballpark, in a Porsche (as to be expected), to make a "parade lap" around the warning track:
It was great to see Chipper again, for what will likely be the last time. The crowd was electric upon his entrance, and it truly was an amazing moment to be apart of.
After making his way around the park, and back to the infield, Jones headed up onto the stage that had been set up for the ceremony, where he was given a piece of the old 'Hit Bull, Win Steak' sign…:
….shown a brief highlight video of his career….:
….and presented his number 10 retirement plaque….:
….before taking to the podium, for his speech:
Jones didn't speak terribly long, but he didn't have to. People know what he did here, and what he went on to do. A no doubt Hall of Famer, Chipper Jones is one of those few players that comes along and just does everything right, both on and off the field. Calling Durham "the greatest place to play Minor League Baseball in the country", the fans still, and always will, admire Jones as one of the best to ever come through Durham, on the way to a successful Major League career.
After throwing out the first pitch of the game, Chipper quickly exited the ballpark. Although I didn't get an autograph like I was hoping, it was still one of the greatest times I've ever had out at a Minor League Baseball game. It was an incredible night.
But the night didn't end when Chipper Jones left. There was still a game to be played.
Bulls' starting pitcher, Mike Montgomery, started off the night great, as he didn't allow a hit until the fourth inning. After the one hit, however, the wheels fell off. Giving up three runs in the fourth, the Bulls quickly found themselves down 3-1. But they didn't waste any time answering back, posting three runs of their own in the bottom half of the same inning.
Both teams would score a run in the fifth, putting the score at 5-4, Bulls. And that's how things would end. (An appropriate ending to the night, in my book.)
I stopped by the Bulls' retired numbers wall on the way out of the ballpark, where Jones' number had already been added:
I have no doubt I'll stop to glance at the wall every time I head out to the ballpark from now on; recalling the night of August 20, 2013 — one of the most special nights I've ever experienced at the DBAP.


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Hormes et al 2001 is noted up in passing by the NAS panel, but is given short shrift relative to Thompson. It is not mentioned at all in the IPCC 4AR second draft. This article is one of the underpinnings for the view that there have been 8 warm intervals in the Alps during the Holocene. Rather than worrying about these interesting matters, which I may get to on another occasion, I want to glean some information about how glacial sediments are formed in this particular case and why stratigraphy should be mapped. Let me note in passing that stratigraphy is mapped carefully in mining geology with attention paid to both cross-sections and level plans.
Hormes et al 2001 reported on the discovery in the late 1990s of finds in the outwash plain of the Unteraargletchser as follows:
In the summer of 1995, tree stems and disk-like rounded Cyperaceae fen peat fragments were found on the Unteraarglacier's outwash plain at an altitude of 1920 m asl.; these were clearly eroded from the glacier's bed and transported by an enormous jàulhlaup (glacier outburst flood) event in context with the actual retreat…
Here is a map from the article showing the location of the finds. They report other data from outwash plains of several other nearby glaciers.
Figure 1. Location map from Hormes et al 2001, showing location of finds in outwash plain of the Unteraargletscher.
I don't know much, if anything, about what happens in a jàulhaup (the word comes from Iceland). They also note that this particular glacier had experienced a decadal advance from 1979-1991, which seems to be related to how the final delivery of the subfossil trees to the outwash plain eventually took place:
As the present glaciers can be considered as the decaying remnants of larger "ÅLittle Ice Age' glaciers, at least partial reworking of our samples during that advance is likely. Final delivery of the samples to the glacier forefield, however, occurred only with the 1979–91 readvance and subsequent retreat.
The outwash plain itself is reported to have several terraces with a total width of about 1.7-3.2 m.
The proglacial area of the Unteraargletscher is divided into three terrace levels: 0.5–1 m (level I), 1– 2 m (level II), or .2 m (level III) above the main Aare meltwater stream. The floodplain (level I) is rapidly changing due to the shifting braided river. Level III contains complex moraine and fluvioglacial deposits. Clasts of organic material were flushed out of the glacier by a jàulhlaup-type flood. Subglacial channels and water bodies are subject to constant changes of a continuous and discontinous nature (plastic deformation of the ice and collapse of drainage systems). Due to drainage processes, water passages are created, widened or destroyed because of variations in hydrostatic water pressure (Iken et al., 1983). As a consequence of such processes, sudden and rapid draining of water from within a glacier may occur (jàulhlaups or "glacier burst" floods) (Maizels, 1997; Paterson, 1994). From levels I and II, 112 wood and 166 clasts of peat were sampled in October 1995 and 13 wood samples in September 1996. From these 125 wood samples, which were up to 126 cm long and 30 cm in diameter, 36 pieces were radiocarbon dated.
Similar descriptions are provided for samples from the areas of the other glaciers under study. When the wood samples and peat were subjected to radiocarbon testing, they had dates ranging over nearly 10,000 years, which Hormes et al grouped into 8 intervals (although impressionistically the interval definition is not tight.) They compared the dates of these intervals to intervals previously estimated in Scandinavia and reported considerable, but not exact overlap. While the wood samples contained numerous specimens from the Roman Warm Period (and the authors report historical evidence of Roman passes now engulfed by glaciers), they did not report any samples from the Medieval Warm Period – or for that matter from subsequent period, although the LIA advance must obviously have engulfed some wood from a more recent period.
By examining the surface of the wood and peat, they concluded that it had been transported and reworked and was not in situ. They concluded that the wood and peat had grown upslope of the find location and had been transported downslope over the years.
A crucial factor is the original growing location of the subfossil trees and of the peat: did the trees and peat grow where glaciers now fill the basin? This is undoubtedly the case because the reworked peat is glacially compressed and in geological terms we are dealing with a sedimentary basin confined by the Holocene lateral moraine complexes. Peat clasts from Unteraargletscher and Vadrec del Forno point to the existence of in-situ organic material in former proglacial areas which are now occupied by the glaciers (Figure 4). In particular, the steep slopes of the environment are far from suitable habitats for substantial peat growth and suggest that the peat grew in the former proglacial area itself and, therefore, cannot have been fallen onto the glaciers. Radiocarbon dates on wood and peat clasts therefore correspond with the time of glacial recessions and tree growth at higher elevations than at present. The reworked and mechanically deformed condition of the wood samples indicate that glacial readvance did actively override trees and peat. This is supported by palaeovegetational evidence that the tree-line was up to 100–200 m higher than present during the Holocene (Burga, 1988; Tinner et al., 1996).
Following is their Figure 4. If one multiplies this by 8 repetitions with different advances and retreats, one would be getting the idea.
I also presume that (not shown here) there is a continuous downslope movement of the ice at lower levels. In ice cores at summits (e.g. Quelccaya, Kilimanjaro), the observed thickness of the annual layers decreases more or less in an negative exponential. In order for this to occur, a percentage of each layer has to be "extruded" downslope every year. I presume that this would be happening throughout the glacier so that, in equilibrium, the annual accumulation over the entire glacier (net of surface sublimation) would be balanced by a type of "undertow" delivery to the downslope tongue. (I've not consulted texts on this, abd it's probably explained more clearly in glacier texts, but this mechanism seems to be required to explain the negative exponential annual layers at the summit.)
Here is my understanding of what's happening with stratigraphy in these small alpine glaciers, based on reading a few articles and not on independent expertise. It appears that glaciers advance and recede on a variety of scales, presumably ranging from annual to millennial. What makes interpretation rather difficult is that the most recent glacier surge (the Little Ice Age) surge was the largest since the last Ice Age. Moraines (consisting of till bulldozed by the glaciers) from the LIA advance are readily discerned on surface photographs. Unfortunately for people attempting to recover the past history, the most recent advance bulldozed older tills (say from a first millennium advance) which typically no longer exist. As a type of image, think of the advances as being types of wave breaks on a beach, with the most recent LIA advance being a big wave that wiped out sand ripples from earlier wave breaks. It's not a precise analogy, but it puts one in an appropriate frame of mind, I think.
One can picture a lot of different possibilities in how tree stems, even in situ stems, could be exposed. For example, in Alberta, the stratigraphical evidence is that the recently exposed 2900-year old in situ stumps were a bed of about 5 m thickness, presumably some sort of paleosol, but we don't have any cross sections or level plans. The warmth in the Holocene Optimum was clearly more than in the MWP. Could one have had a situation where the 2900-year old trees were destroyed (but not uprooted) by the 2900-year advance; they were covered up by paleosol in a subsequent retreat, but without trees re-advancing to that elevation in the Roman WP or MWP. Then the big LIA glacier advance re-arranged everything leaving it possible for the trees to be re-exposed following retreat of the LIA glacier.
I don't think that the present evidence in Alberta enables one to say that the glacier did not retreat to its present position during the RWP or MWP – I would say that that question is open- all one can say right now is that it's likely that the treeline did not advance to the 3000-year old treeline during either the RWP or MWP. Also neither the treeline nor the glacier are in equilibrium with the present climate and there is both more glacier retreat and more treeline advance in inventory even with no further temperature increase. It would be interesting to see what the present estimates are for what the treelines and glacier lines would be under present conditions.
If we go from these two cases to Quelccaya, what do we know about finds there? All we know is that they found a 5000-year old fossil plant. What has been reported about the stratigraphy of the find? Nothing. Is this the only organic discovered at Quelccaya? Is it the only one that's dated? Both of these possibilities seem pretty unlikely. When one sees the complications of the stratigraphy at other alpine glacier sites that have been reported in greater detail (although still hardly adequately), what can we conclude from the isolated Quelccaya find? Can we conclude that the glacier has retreated further than at any point for 5000 years? In the other two cases, this is not necessarily the case. So how can anyone draw any conclusions from a find which has been so poorly reported?
Hormes, A., MàÆà⻬ler, B.U. and Ch. SchlàÆà⻣hter (2001): The Alps with little ice: evidence for eight Holocene phases of reduced glacier extent in the Central Swiss Alps.- The Holocene 11/3: 255-65. url
Anne Hormes website


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After many years, Monica Lewinsky is back in the news. CNN's Athena Jones takes a look at where she is now.
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- Integrate your store with Google Ecommerce Analytics
This is a must-have extension for CS-Cart to measure the number of transactions and revenue that your website generates.
- Get an overview report
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View all steps the customer goes through before purchase to shorten and simplify their way.
Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce is the extended professional analytics for online shops to track user behavior across your e-Commerce store and get advanced reports and analytics. Alongside with the default functionality of Google Analytics, you can now generate more specific reports on shopping behavior like when customers added items to cart, started the checkout process, completed a purchase, and many more.
Implementing Enhanced Ecommerce requires technical skills, especially on a production site with massive data. To prevent you from hard times coping with the code, we developed the Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce add-on. All you need to do is install the add-on, get a Tracking ID from Google Analytics, and enjoy all the useful features of Enhanced Ecommerce.
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|System: X360, PS3, PC
|Review Rating Legend
|Dev: Capcom
|1.0 - 1.9 = Avoid
|4.0 - 4.4 = Great
|Pub: Capcom
|2.0 - 2.4 = Poor
|4.5 - 4.9 = Must Buy
|Release: Feb. 5, 2007
|2.5 - 2.9 = Average
|5.0 = The Best
|Players: 1
|3.0 - 3.4 = Fair
|ESRB Rating: Mature
|3.5 - 3.9 = Good
by Matt Cabral
This fourth entry in the stylish demon-slaying series is an especially significant one; the revered franchise is not only making its next-gen debut, but it's also, for the first time, rubbing elbows with Master Chief and Marcus Fenix on the Xbox 360.
A few years back you would've been more likely to spot Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell in an affectionate embrace than see this once Sony exclusive series appearing on Microsoft's hardware. But, like Leon Kennedy and Solid Snake before him, Dante has defected. While Sony fanboys might disagree, this is a good thing for both gamers and Capcom, as a whole new legion of players can experience this slick sword-and-sidearm series.
But enough about the decline of third-party exclusives; that's a discussion for another day. This is Dante's day. Or is it? It would appear that the franchise's favorite demon-slayer is taking a back seat to a brand new antihero. That's right; the white-haired, smack-talkin' pretty boy is now sharing the spotlight with the similarly coifed and cocky Nero. Before you Dante-lovin', flamewar-instigating fans run to the message boards in protest, understand that your knight in long red leather is still playable for nearly 50% of the campaign and has a significant role in DMC4's story. In fact, he immediately--and impressively--struts his stuff in the game's cinematic opening. We won't spoil it for you, but an assassination of a high profile holy man, preceded by lots of shattered glass combine to make Dante's entrance a memorable one.
The eye-catching opening, which sets up the story and introduces the dynamic between Dante and Nero, quickly gives way to the player controlling the fresh-faced protagonist. Newcomers to the series won't know the difference and will likely see the two characters as one in the same; they look nearly identical, have similar personalities and sport different, but equally super-slick fighting styles. Of course, if you've been dancing with the devil since the original game then you'll, no doubt, miss Dante at first, but will quickly adjust to the new hell hunter on the block. Nero is younger and therefore comes off a bit more angsty than cool, but despite his potential to annoy as an emo goth, he remains a likeable and welcome addition to the series. It's actually plausible to imagine him as a younger, less jaded Dante, a bit naive and more sincere than sarcastic.
But hey, this is Devil May Cry, not a personality analysis, so let's get to the goods: is he as proficient as Dante at beating back the hounds of hell? Well, despite a different style--that veterans will need some time to get used to --,Nero more than holds his own in the death-dealing department. Like Dante, he relies on swords and side arms, but he's also got a nasty little trick up his sleeve, literally. His right arm, dubbed the Devil Bringer, is an invaluable asset in his arsenal that works wonders for both fighting and platforming. Its ability to be used as a grappling-like device gets him to hard to reach areas, and its strengths in battle include grabbing enemies, slamming them into objects, and delivering deep impact punches. Visually, it puts on quite a show during fights, sporting different animations depending on which type of enemy Nero's disposing of. Take on a lance-wielding knight and Nero's ass-kicking appendage will grab the lance and repeatedly drive it through the knight's midsection. Equally pleasing to the eye is the arm's ability to grab a winged beastie from the air and swing it around by its tail. The Devil Bringer is an absolute blast, and one of the cooler weapons this genre has seen since Kratos' Blades of Chaos.
Nero's demon arm alone can often get the job done, but you'll want to incorporate his Red Queen and Blue Rose (even the names are cool!) as well to unleash some devastating combos. The former is his oversized sword that actually has a motorcycle-like throttle control capable of revving up his attacks, and the latter is his double-barreled pistol that can also be upgraded for maximum punishment. As with previous DMC titles, the fun in the fight comes from stringing together over-the-top stylized combos, and these three weapons offer that opportunity in spades. With a few simple button presses he'll fire off a few rounds, jump through the air, sword swinging, and maybe finish up by thrusting his possessed arm into the skull of a nearby hell dweller. Players will continually enhance their abilities by learning new combos, earning different weapons and generally becoming bigger "badasses" by spending collected orbs on upgrades.


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The Drowning
A short story
My father came from the old country in middle age, and to his last he instilled in me the peculiarities of his native tongue. Even now, at the age of seventy, I am left with his manners of speech, his inflections and growls. He left me with his sayings, and I recall one in particular, his favorite, a hall-comic shout of equal parts exasperation and petition: "Help me, Father Alphonsus!"
Most often this was uttered in moments of high disgust. My father worked as a hod carrier until he was seventy, a job that condemned him through all those years to being eternally strong and eternally exhausted. At night, sitting in his chair in the parlor of our tenement, he would brood over the five of us, his children, as we bickered over one thing or another-the last scrap of the night's loaf, a new toy pilfered from a classmate-and he would take on the resigned look of a condemned man, and invoke the name of this priest, a man he had known long ago. And then, if my mother didn't rush from the kitchen to herd us from danger, my father would often hit one of us.
Even late in life he had ridged muscles along his chest and back. His face was etched with a sunburned and skeptical squint. When we were young, he hit hard. When he sat down again, walled in now by the wails of a child, he'd rub the sting from his cracked hands and fall into a black mood. "Forgive me, Father Alphonsus," he'd mumble. The meaning always seemed clear. My father was a man of weakness and vices, and he made no apologies. He prayed for strength in the face of us. Much later in life I found myself praying aloud to Father Alphonsus a time or two, such as when my own son stole a car. The matter was quietly settled in the office of a police-department captain, with the victim of the theft staring at me from across the table and my son quietly sobbing. Father Alphonsus, the faceless man of grace, hovered ethereally over the proceedings.
Alphonsus, my father told us, was the most well-intentioned man he had ever known, "if such things should count for anything." Alphonsus was a near relation, the keeper of faith in Fenagh, the hamlet on Lough Ree where my father was born.
"He was a man who knew nothing but to offer the best he could," my father said. "I have neither his patience nor his benevolence." My father wasn't cruel, but he lived a life of bricks on his back, the stabbing workday sun, and day's end liquor bought with the desire for the most liquid at the lowest negotiable rate. He'd drink and play our battered phonograph, closing his eyes and giving himself over to the crackling arias. Though he often invoked the name of his old village priest, he found no priest here to be worthy, and he fell away from the Church despite my mother's prodding. When I was seventeen and was offered a scholarship to Boston College, he complained bitterly that I could do better than to deal with Jesuits, insincere bastards that they were. I suspected that my father could have done much better than his dire life, but he seemed not to want to, couldn't fully engage in the way things were. It didn't seem unusual that a hod carrier would prize his books, his Greek classics and sweeping histories. He was Irish, and illegal. He could not become lace-curtain Irish, and my father had nothing good to say about those who were. He maintained through his life the sidelong glance he had learned when he first came off the boat, before he found my mother and married her.
This Father Alphonsus was one of the few people mentioned from my father's youth. I had no sense of what the man was like, his look or manner. At times I wondered if he was real. But one day, late in his life, my father came to feel a desperate need to tell me a story.
This would have been 1952. My father was about the same age as I am now, but he was much closer to death than 1 assume myself to be. A resolute smoker of filterless Camel cigarettes, he was in the advanced stages of cancer of the larynx, which at the time was virtually incurable. In the nursing home, in a wicker wheelchair, he talked compulsively despite the ongoing strangulation of his voice box. He'd take a deep breath and then release it in long, rattling phrases, and I would sit and listen to monologues about his job and friends and enemies and crooks and aces. Later, in his yellow-walled hospital room, he'd go on and on while I watched the rectangle of sunlight glide imperceptibly across the waxed floors and then fade and die. I sensed in all this talk a spiraling movement toward something central. He had, he told me, things he needed to say. Important things. What happened on Father Alphonsus's final day was one.
Alphonsus had been the youngest of six, born six weeks after his father's death by pneumonia, and from the moment of his birth his mother had unshakable plans for him. Alphonsus would be her last chance, and she was the kind of woman who felt that producing a priest was a fitting and necessary act of completion to her maternal career. From the earliest age Alphonsus was groomed for sacred duty. She made him tiny knitted vestments and pasteboard altars as playthings, enlisting his older brothers, rougher boys, to encourage Alphonsus to believe that he was different. Alphonsus's mother spoke to him nightly about the duties he would assume, bedtime tales about faith and good works. His oldest brother, Eamon, explained, to him about celibacy, and none too charitably. But Alphonsus listened and nodded. The details Eamon so eagerly shared, using examples of his own sordid exploits as proof of what Alphonsus would miss, horrified the younger boy. Eamon waited then for a response. Alphonsus's nightly sessions with his mother allowed him to apply the appropriate word: sacrifice. "Good lad," Eanion said. Aiphonsus, even as a child, was looking forward to the priest's solitary life. His heroes were the Irish hermits of the Middle Ages. He read stories of their lives on the rocky islands off the west Irish coast, lives of gray skies and gray seas. These stories filled him with awe for the heroism embodied in shunning the world.
Sacrifice did not define the process of Alphonsus 's rise to the priesthood. He slid through seminary and took up his works back at St. Enda's in Fenagh, his boyhood church. When his superior, the aged Father O'Donnell, passed away on the night after Christmas, 1906, the twenty-six-year-old Alphonsus became his village's spiritual leader.
Nights, standing in his bedroom as rain washed the windows of the drafty stone rectory, he thought that he didn't regret what he had become but that he wouldn't ultimately measure up. The feeling wasn't new. He had completed his studies with neither distinction nor exceptional difficulty. He had never considered himself brilliant, but he had enough intelligence to see his own utter lack of intuition. Could a priest, confronted with the fluid nature of reality, afford not to rely heavily on hunches and inspiration? In his small room in the seminary he prayed long and searchingly, believing that a sudden feeling of enlightenment or resolve might be transmitted from the Creator. But when he finished with his prayers, he felt nothing.
In the first dozen years or so after ordination things went relatively well. His posting to the village seemed clear notice that not much was expected of him from his superiors. Alphonsus presided over the reassuring cycle of dawn masses, funerals, and weddings; he taught catechism and organized a football team of the younger boys. These were the things Alphonsus had imagined himself doing effectively. He'd stand at the edge of a rain-softened field, the winds off the laogh making the edges of his cassock snap and tighten around his legs, and he'd watch the boys, some playing bare-foot as they kicked the ball about. He felt like a giant then, affecting a sternness he recalled in O'Donnell. He hoped to instill in them the fear he'd held of the old man. But at the same time, he felt small and weak in the face of the unanticipated crisis. It had not yet happened, but he knew its inevitability, if not its form. He felt that these things could be seen by the shrewd among his parishioners: His stammering uncertainty when faced with the difficulty of a pregnant girl, Amanda Flynn, asking to be quietly married, even though half the town had already heard whispered dispatches of her condition. Or the town's thieves and adulterers and his sheeplike acceptance of them sitting in the front pews, their faces masks of haughty and false devotion. He would meet their eyes briefly and then look away.
One day, after years of this stoic service, Alphonsus awakened early to a knocking on the door. This tapping was light but relentless, on and on until he had let his eyes adjust and find the phosphorescent hands of his clock. It was three o'clock. An early riser, Alphonsus was surprised to be rolled out of bed, and the insistent softness of the knocks as he descended the stairs indicated to him a call for last rites, perhaps for the elder John Flanagan, who'd been kicked shoeing a horse and was not expected to recover. At the door he found a boy, perhaps ten years old, shivering.
"Father, you have to hear a confession," the boy said.
"A confession. You hear confessions, don't you?"
"Well, I thought you were. . ." Alphonsus felt a twinge of anger. "Of course I hear confessions. But I generally don't find children on my doorstep at odd hours. Now, get inside here. We'll do it in the study, and it had better be good."
"It's not I who needs to," the boy said. "The person is waiting inside the church."
What was this? Alphonsus made the boy stand in the entry while he ascended the stairs to change clothes. The oddity of this demanded confession made him suspicious. For a shaky moment he worried that this would be a robbery. He sat at the edge of the bed, still in his underclothing, his cassock across his knees. He tried to place the boy's face. The child was not one of his footballers; the face was reminiscent of the O'Neals, a family of beggars who lived in a beaten-down mud cottage outside the town, near the lough shore. Alphonsus heard the door below open and then shut. The thought of what might be afoot-being lured out by the boy and then thrashed for his pocket watch-made him wary. Alphonsus went to the bedroom window and looked out. The boy had left the house and now stood on the dark lawn with a man. They were shadowy forms, but he could see that they were looking up at him. The man raised his arm and waved. Alphonsus waved back and then held out a raised index finger: one moment. The man nodded.
When Alphonsus came out the door, he felt the glassy cold cutting through his sweater. The man and boy moved forward to meet him, in the steam from their own breathing. The man, his face hidden by the pulled-down front of his cap, was staring at the ground.
"The boy said you'd gone inside the church," Alphonsus said.
"No, Father. He's right inside the confessional."
They stayed in the yard while Alphonsus went in. He fumbled for a candle at the back of the nave, still half waiting for hands to seize at him from the dark. But in the weak light the church was still. He entered the confessional, snuffed the candle, and slid back his screen.
"Are you there?" Alphonsus said.
"Aye, Father."
"Then go ahead."
The voice began its mumbled recitations, and as he waited, Alphonsus rubbed his eyes of sleep and wondered about the elder John Flanagan and whether he had lived through the night. Alphonsus was feeling light and electric, not quite anchored in the dark. He realized that the man had stopped talking
"Go ahead," Aiphonsus said.
"Father, I've breached the Fifth Commandment."
Alphonsus was silent. He was sure the man was confused. "Do you mean adultery, then?" he said.
"Tell me the Fifth Commandment."
"Thou shalt not kill."
Alphonsus felt strangely calm. This was the first time he'd encountered such an infraction. A killer! He silently recalled the seminary lessons: Forgiveness is the priest's task, punishment the law's.
"Who?" Alphonsus said.
"I don't know his name."
"Who knows about this?"
"No one, Father."
"Not your friends outside?"
"Not even them. Only you."
"And where is the dead man?"
"In the woods near the lough."
"Is that where you killed him?"
"That's where I did him, Father."
Alphonsus leaned back against his bench. He told himself to go slow.
"And while you were standing over his body there in the woods, were you feeling remorse for your act?"
"I felt sorry I had to breach a commandment."
"Was it self-defense?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"What manner was that?"
"That we are all in danger, Father."
"Some men, to prove their remorse, might turn themselves in."
"Aye," the voice said. "Some might."
"And why not you?"
"Others will be involved. Others who don't deserve such troubles."
"How so? Troubles from whom?"
"From the Black and Tans."
"Oh, my," Alphonsus said. He ran his fingers along the starched smoothness of his collar.
Matters had taken on a more troubling dimension. He now understood that the dead man was a policeman from the RIC, the Royal Irish Constabulary. Four years had passed since the Easter Rising in Dublin, and in this four years of undeclared civil war the RICs, seen by many as agents of British rule, had often been targets. The RICs were Irishmen, but more and more the younger men had left the ranks, some openly disavowing their ties, others simply slipping out, often to England. Those who remained were the older hands, who after years of service were not sure whether to be more afraid of the Irish Republican Army or of a lost pension. But with each new death of a constable came more recrimination and violence.
The Black and Tans, since they'd been brought in from England, had begun a policy of retribution that was as simple as it was vicious. When a policeman was killed, the Tans generally burned the village nearest the killing. Alphonsus did not need to calculate the distance to the shores of Lough Ree: as a sport fisherman, he knew the lough, a landlocked elbow of water a mile wide and eleven long.
"Father ... ?"
"My penance?"
Good God! Was this how simple it should be? Alphonsus was speechless. Penance? He sat for a long time, thinking, wondering whether he could somehow find a way to consult with someone. What was the penance for such an act?
"I can grant no penance yet," Alphonsus said. "I want you to return here at the same time tomorrow night. I want you to do nothing except pray. Take no action. Now, where is this body?"
"Father, I don't know if…"
"Good Lord, man!. Tell me where this poor lad is, so he can receive the sacrament due him!"
"Do you know the path to the rock formations on the east side of the lough?"
"I do."
"He's twenty or thirty yards north of the path, about a quarter mile up from the shore."
"How did he get there?"
"He was answering a call for help."
The man fell silent. Alphonsus could hear his breathing. "Father?" he said. "Father, I thought you had to grant penance."
"Not in the case of the Fifth Commandment," Alphonsus said. "Most people have no experience in this." He quivered at his own lie, but his voice remained firm.
As Alphonsus sat in the confessional, listening to the receding footsteps and then the slam of the church door, he rubbed his hands on his knees, trying to calm himself. Indeed, he was thinking of the town of Balbriggan, which had burned a few weeks before at the hands of the Black and Tans.
But, Alphonsus wondered, could this man who had spoken to him in the confessional truly be repentant, having known what his actions would lead to? Alphonsus thought not. But he had, from his training, clear guidelines: as much as he wanted this man to turn himself in, he could not require it. And doing so probably wouldn't help, once the dead man was discovered. The Black and Tans, so called because of their odd makeshift uniforms of khaki army trousers and black RIC tunics, were men in whom the cruelty of war had become ingrained. They were being paid ten shillings a day, good money, but still they often sought as payment the suffering of those they saw as enemies, which was nearly anyone Irish.
Alphonsus relit his candle. The movement of the shadows in the boxed closeness of the confessional made him think of the lick of flames. The Black and Tans' terror felt close at hand. Why should anyone be absolved?
In the morning he offered sunrise service to a handful of sleepy elders and then returned to the rectory for breakfast. The housekeeper, Mrs. Toole, had brought in a two-day-old copy of The Irish Times, and over his toast he went through it slowly, looking for news on the Troubles. In the village he had heard talk of how the Black and Tans had taken to roaring down Dublin streets in a lorry, wildly firing their weapons; in Kiltartan a woman was dead, hit by stray shots with a child in her arms. But in the Times he found no mention.
He changed into his gardening clothes. His flower beds faced the woods, and at the edge of the trees he had vegetables. He spent hours here, for the priesthood had not proved to be excessively demanding. Many days he stood at his fence, watching the movements of the drawn carts and of his parishioners, the cottiers coming from the clodded potato fields. Far off, on an open meadow, unfurled bolts of linen bleached in the sun, long white bars against the hard green. Today, in the garden, he contemplated the early-morning confession, and the meeting that night. He felt ludicrous standing here in the garden, but at the same time he wanted to be nowhere else, for he was alone.
Down the rutted lane that curved behind the near cottages he saw Sean Flynn, the retired schoolteacher, walking his dog. The animal, runty and of no clear breed, dug at a rabbit hole. Flynn, leaning on his cane and softly cursing the dog, saw Alphonsus, and ambled up.
"Mr. Flynn."
"Have we been fishing this week, Father?" "I confess I haven't. But soon."
"Father, the weather's turning cold."
"I know, I know. It's pitiful that 1 haven't."
"Today, then."
"No, I have some matters."
"Father, clear your mind."
"You really should."
"I think I will, Mr. Flynn. Really."
"Yes, today."
It would be his reason, then, to go to the lough. In the house, packing his equipment, he slipped in his stole and oils. He put on a clean cassock and adjusted his biretta, his priest's crown with its hard sides and pompon. Mrs. Toole was down below, dusting in the dining room, and he went to the kitchen to pack a jam sandwich. "I'll be off fishing now," he said.
"Today?" she said.
"Why not?"
"With Mr. Flanagan on his deathbed from that horse kicking him?"
"Urn, well, I'll be back by midafternoon. I heard he's doing better."
"Really? Who told you?"
"Mr. Flynn. We were just talking outside."
Mrs. Toole went back to dusting the china cabinet. "You and the fishing," she said.
"Every chance I get," Aiphonsus said.
"You're fishing dressed like that?"
"If anyone does need last rites, I don't want to do it in my fishing clothes. I shan't be long, anyway."
The row from his usual fishing spot to the shoreline edge of the path was longer than he was used to. After pulling his boat onto the rocks, he walked up and down the path several times, first making sure no one was near, and then beginning to scan the thick woods for any sign of the body. The killing had been in the dark, he assumed, so perhaps the instructions were confused. The day had become brilliantly crisp, and he couldn't see anything human amid the play of shadows and light. Alphonsus stepped off the path and walked broad circles, searching, pulling up the hem of the cassock so he wouldn't get muddy. He kept his eye on the path, too, in case someone came. He wouldn't have an answer if asked what he was doing.
After an hour he sat. He unfolded his sandwich from its greased paper and ate, thinking. He had, in his estimation, covered nearly every possible spot where a body might be. He wondered if this was a hoax. He was too exhausted and tense to fish, and the winds beyond the woods seemed to be picking up. Had he been fishing, he might have been in dangerous waters. He wished he didn't have to return to the village, to the confessional. Bad things were to happen, and he had no idea how to stop them. If he didn't find the body, someone else would: the absence of this constable would eventually become known. Though some constables deserted, slipping away to the north or across to Britain, Alphonsus reasoned that only proof of a desertion would curb the Black and Tans' impulse for destruction.
His calling was powerful, but an unwillingness to absolve the man in the confessional was stronger, a mixture of revenge and principle he couldn't shake free of. He didn't know if that man had been an O'Neal, but he was certain the man was like the O'Neals, someone embittered with his lot and perhaps too willing to blame everything on the British. But he had to absolve, to heed his vows. When his sandwich was gone, he walked down to the lough and drank at water's edge from cupped hands. Back up the path, but now not as far from shore, he plunged into the woods, again searching.
The body was half hidden with wet leaves, the accumulation on the windward side like dunes overtaking a pyramid. Alphonsus knelt, put his hand on the shoulder, and gently rolled the man on his back.
"Hello, Thomas," Alphonsus said.
He hadn't considered the possibility that he would know the deceased. The body was that of Thomas Shanahan, a royal constable stationed at the RIC barracks on the other side of the lough. Thomas had from time to time come to mass at Alphonsus's church. Alphonsus had made a point of welcoming him, for he believed that all were equal in the eyes of God. Thomas was also a fisherman, and after mass they had often talked of their favorite spots. Thomas's face was clean, his clothes neatly straight. He wasn't in uniform but in thick wool trousers and shirt, as if off duty. Alphonsus turned him again, and now saw the crust of hardened blood on the back of his head. As he removed his oils and stole from his fishing kit, Alphonsus scanned the trees, ready to become prone should he hear footsteps.
Thomas was middle-aged, a bachelor who, Alphonsus sensed, was as private a person as he. Thomas lived in the RIC barracks, but in his conversations with Alphonsus never spoke of any of his mates. But of course one couldn't, in the same way that Alphonsus understood he would hear no mention of the Black and Tans and their tactics. Alphonsus, as he daubed the oils upon the cold face, assumed that Thomas had deplored all this, and Alphonsus didn't care to know different.
When he finished the last rites, Alphonsus sat for some time on a rock, looking at the body. How had Thomas come here? Had he been ambushed fishing? No rod or kit lay nearby, but those might have been spoils for the killer. He could go on speculating, but he couldn't avoid what he now planned to do. From his own bag Alphonsus extracted his trowel, the best he had been able to manage without being noticed. He walked in a circle around Thomas, looking for the softest and highest ground, and then knelt and began digging.
This act, he knew, transformed him. He had no business doing this. The dirt did not give way as easily as he'd imagined; he'd felt, coming out in the boat, that he could be back at the rectory by dusk. But the soil was choked with rocks. Hours into it, he stood back and looked at the pitiful rut he'd clawed out, and he laughed in despair.
"Tommy," he said to the body, "I damned well don't know what to do with you. This just isn't Christian, is it?" Tommy, on his side, stared out onto the lough.
Alphonsus peered up through the trees, not able to shed the sense that he was being watched. He had the feeling that the killer might come back, to see that the body was still there. The IRA wanted the body to be found, surely, so that a bloody raid by the Tans was inevitable. The killing of a fellow Irishman like Tommy would create doubt and ambivalence unless it was followed by the necessary retribution by the Brits. Was he being used in this? Did someone expect that Alphonsus himself was going to report the death? Or would the killer return, having thought things over, to put Tommy in a more conspicuous place?
His plan had been to bury Tommy, but Alphonsus now saw that he wasn't capable of finishing the job. The hole was barely two feet deep. Alphonsus recalled his grandfather's stories of the Famine, of skeletal men burying cloth-shrouded friends as packs of starving dogs gathered at the periphery, yelping with hunger and bloodlust, set to dig as soon as the living moved on.
"Forgive me, Tommy, but I can barely move now," Alphonsus said. "I thought my gardening had made me fit enough to undertake this."
A wind was picking up on the lough, making the water choppy and whitecapped. The row back would be dangerous if he didn't go soon. He felt a rising panic. He would have to drop Tommy into the deep waters-he saw this. He'd not be back until well after dark, but his midnight confession awaited. He'd have to be there or the killer would certainly have suspicions.
Down by the water he searched for a way to weight the body. Rocks were all around, but no means of attachment. His fishing kit could be loaded with them, but the top was loose and the ballast might fall out as the package sank. Alphonsus saw one way to do what he needed to do. Standing above the body, he removed his cassock, and then pulled off Thomas's pants and shirt.
Getting the cassock onto the body was easy. Thomas was a bigger man than he, but the cassock was loose. Alphonsus adjusted the braces of Thomas's pants and rolled up the pants and shirt cuffs so that he was clothed for the stealthy trip back to the rectory. In a pocket was a purse with Thomas's papers and a sizable bit of money. Alphonsus was surprised that this hadn't been taken.
The boat rode low on the water with two men in it, the dead one loaded down with stones, the live one weighted by the terror of being caught. Alphonsus had used his fishing line to bind the bottom of the cassock around Thomas's ankles to hold the rocks; the collar was snug at the neck. The last trace of sunlight was nearly gone. Alphonsus stroked hard against the winds, slicing out toward the rough middle of the lough.
He was a sinner now-he could see that. He would dump a dead man into the cold waters as if he were a load of garbage, would grant penance to a murderer. He would return to his rectory, slip past Mrs. Toole so that she wouldn't notice his inexplicable change of clothing, and spend the rest of his life trying to live with this. And all he wanted was for no one to be hurt. So be it. If this body somehow resurfaced or washed to shore, with a cracked skull and wrapped in a cassock, so be it. Or if the Tans correctly interpreted Tommy Shanahan' s disappearance and overran Fenagh anyway, so be it. "So be it, Tom," Alphonsus said. "A week will pass and you won't turn up, and they'll know, they'll know."
He stopped rowing. The moon shone through a break in the clouds, giving definition to the far edges of the lough. To say a prayer at a moment like this seemed crude and sacrilegious, desperate and artificial. But he prayed now anyway, prayed for guidance.
Nothing came to him. He felt that matters were on an inevitable course and he could do nothing but send Tommy to the bottom and then go home. "Do as we must do," he said to the body.
He grabbed the shoulders of the cassock. He crouched in the boat, the balance becoming uncertain, and then he lurched and Tom hit the gunwale. The boat was listing. Water was pouring in. He had imagined a noiseless letting-go of the body, but now Alphonsus was in a fight, and in his panic he wasn't sure whether he was trying to shove the body away or pull it back on board. But neither was happening and now he was underwater, the coldness and dark shockingly sudden. He looked up and could see only a single blurred spot of weak light. He wanted to reach for it, that moon in the sky over on the other side of the surface. His hands were still clenched to the bunched fabric of his own cassock, now weighted with death, and he let go of it, and the solid block that was Thomas grazed his leg and ankle and then was gone.
Alphonsus had been hanging on to the side of the overturned boat for some minutes when he decided that he would not return to Fenagh. That he would survive was not a given; the water was cold enough and his arms were tired enough from the digging that he felt almost nothing, except for the dull pain of the thick muscles along his neck. But he clung on, the wind and waves rocking him in crests and swells, until he was desperate enough to push away from the boat and swim for shore.
His thought, as he crawled out of the water on his hands and knees, was of his hat, his black biretta, floating like an ornate ship far out of reach, its black pompon now a keel. He had seen it from the boat, puffed by the wind and etched by moonlight, unwilling to sink with the cassock. The boat, too, would be found, far off on the lough, known by those fishermen who knew him.
In the woods he undressed, squeezed water from his clothing. He considered trying to light a fire. Naked in the cold air, he plunged into the water again to clean himself, and then dressed in the wet woolen shirt and trousers. His black brogans squished loudly when he walked, but he was moving quickly. In no time he was well up the path and along the rutted highway toward Dublin. By dawn he would find a ride in a chicken lorry, and by that evening he would use Tommy Shanahan's wet money to get a room over a public house by the docks. Three days later, his clothes dry and black stubble making his face lose its delicacy of appearance, he would bribe a dock worker to get him into the steerage of the first ship leaving Ireland. The dock worker would ask, "Why are you going?" The answer would be this: that the stowaway was a royal constable from near Fenagh, that he was running away, and that he hoped no one would find out. And when these words were out, the dock worker's face would be twisted with revulsion and the story of his flight would be common knowledge in Fenagh in a few days' time.
My father, telling this story thirty-two years later in a wheelchair in the rest home where he would die, told me that this is how he came to be a man born in middle age, with a name picked from a city directory. He told me he felt the need to unburden himself, that my mother never knew, and that he was for that reason glad she had preceded him into death. He said this without a hint of expectation that I would say anything to console him, and I didn't. I couldn't. I was in my twenties then, leaning over the man who had hit me so hard and so frequently that I had gone to bed many nights wishing to be someone else, a different child. I should have said something. But I stared at him until a nurse came to us and said he needed to eat.
A few years ago I went to Ireland, for the simple reason that I am a devout Boston College football fan and that year they played a game in Dublin against West Point. I boarded an Aer Lingus 747 packed with alumni, and we sang drinking songs high over the Atlantic. Only on the day after the football game did I think to rent a car and take a drive. Asking in Dublin, I found no one who'd heard of Fenagh, but I set out toward Lough Ree, and on its eastern shore I got directions to the town. There I parked, and walked the length of its primary streets, and stood for a while in front of St. Enda's Church, without going in. At a small shop I talked to the keeper, a man older than I, and he told me he had a niece in Boston he sometimes went to visit. I told him I'd had a relative here, a Father Alphonsus.
"Of course," he said. "I've seen the plaque." He pointed me down the road toward a knoll overlooking the water. There, behind some overgrown brambles, I found an engraved plate, the size of an envelope maybe, mounted on a rock.
"Father Alphonsus Kelly, RIP. Drowned November 5, 1920." I stood on the knoll and looked at the harsh waters where this man had lost his life and become someone else. He was a man who became old and could not aspire to the better part of himself he believed he had squandered-who had come to find, I think, that in his exile he couldn't bring himself to try to be like Alphonsus, who indeed was a specter that floated over all our lives. Standing at the edge of the lough, I said a prayer for my father. I petitioned that he might be delivered from a purgatory of which I had been part.


text: We just got a tip that AT&T store managers received emails stating that the iPhone launch would be at 8:00 AM on July 11th, and not 6:00 PM like last year. Our tipster stated this was 8:00 AM CT, but we'd guess if 8:00 AM was indeed the launch time, it would be 8:00 AM local time just like last year. We're working to confirm this and the post will be updated when we do.


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Medical Student Won't Perform Pelvic Exams on Anesthetized Patients | The UnnecesareanPosted: September 4th, 2010 | Author: Kink On Tap Editorial Staff | Filed under: Briefs | Tags: 57, consent, medical, morality, women | Comments Off on Medical Student Won't Perform Pelvic Exams on Anesthetized Patients | The Unnecesarean
What's most terrifying about this story is not the fact that medical students are regularly given the opportunity to preform pelvic exams on female patients who are anesthetized and unconscious waiting for another procedure, although that's frightening enough. No, what's most terrifying about this story is that it this invasive, nonconsensual practice has already been reported on; but in January 2010 AND – and here is where it gets really scary – in 2003, on the defunct medical blog ShamExam.com. This is not late breaking, this is re-breaking, from at least seven years ago, and clearly the practice is still going on. Dr. Michael Gerger says in the original '03 article " If you're anesthetized and you're in the OB/GYN department you probably have had students practice pelvic exams on you regardless of what you're in the hospital for – even if the procedure you need doesn't require a pelvic exam!" How is that not malpractice?