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WRiTE CLUB 2015 - Playoff Round Bout #4
57 comments
My vote goes to MissWriteNow. This isn't a story I care to read on, though, and that's because I don't care for this style of writing. But the second piece confused me so much, I just couldn't vote for it. Eleanor McInnes - you might want to watch those pronouns. Too many shes and hers that don't seem to go with the last name mentioned. I had a hard time following who was doing what.ReplyDeleteReplies
I read the revised version and my vote doesn't change.Delete
Miss Write Now for me. I like Eleanor too, but being dropped into the scene, I found it harder to get engaged with the characters.ReplyDelete
Miss Write Now - I really like the concept of boys exploring faith and friendship, but feel like this needs some fleshing out. The whole beat-up-for-looking-at-another-man's-girl has been done - many times - and I don't see anything to distinguish Juice Head and Bikini Brunette from their predecessors. Even in minor characters, I want real people, not flat props. I also felt like the descriptions of various faiths relied too much on stereotypes. Find something unique - something the average person wouldn't know - about each of these faiths. It will add a beautiful authenticity to your work. Also, try to cut down on the -ing words!ReplyDelete
Eleanor McInnes - You never named your main character, and I think you may have started in the wrong place - or maybe the conversation with Mama was a bit too long. I'm not sure. On the positive side, I got a clear picture of each of the characters in the scene. You did an excellent job portraying Mama's weariness and the girl's aversion to her aunt. I'm not sure how long I'd keep reading, but I would like to see how tea with Aunt Clarice goes. Despite my concerns with this piece, I feel like its characters are more original and more fleshed out than Miss Write Now's, so my vote goes to Eleanor.
MissWriteNow gets my vote today :)ReplyDelete
Eleanor on characterization and not relying upon stereotypes.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 10:16 AM
Eleanor wins my vote today! I felt sympathy for the little girl and would keep reading. (And, just a side note, her excerpt is definitely shorter than 500 words!)ReplyDeleteReplies
- Eleanor McInnesJuly 2, 2015 at 10:25 AM
My entry was 500 words. Only 390 appear here. I have been trying to contact DL Hammons and web support all morning with no success. The entire ending of the story I submitted is missing. Thanks for noticing. I am sure we will get it fixed soon.Delete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 10:34 AM
Uh oh! Hopefully he will fix it soon. I would love to read more. :)Delete
- Eleanor McInnesJuly 2, 2015 at 10:36 AM
Thank you so much.Delete
So sorry about that! I've updated the entry and will post a correction post alerting people to my mistake. Somehow when I copied the entry over, it only copied the first page.ReplyDelete
Miss Write Now for me today.ReplyDelete
I'm voting MissWriteNow because it was easy to read and though a little annoying- was definitely more entertaining than Eleanor's. Sorry your story got cut short, but I still didn't get enthralled in the story.ReplyDelete
Eleanor McInnesReplyDelete
Sorry you got cut short, but I still liked your characters more.
- AdellaJuly 2, 2015 at 1:30 PM
Eleanor again!ReplyDelete
MissWriteNow - There is a lot going on in this little entry.ReplyDelete
Eleanor McInnes - Excellent ending. I like the characters. I think this could be a stronger piece in first person.
My vote is for MissWriteNow.
A vote for MissWriteNow.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 2:03 PM
Eleanor- I like the characters, but I agree with the other post that this should have been in first person. You still get my vote, though.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 2:46 PM
Eleanor McInnes is getting my vote today.ReplyDelete
Eleanor McInnes gets my vote!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 3:15 PM
MissWriteNow gets my vote. Interesting how this piece made religion a character as well.ReplyDelete
I enjoyed Eleanor's piece but I'd spend money on MissWriteNow.
Eleanor McInnes- I agree with the earlier post that MissWriteNow was a bit annoying. I wish that we knew Eleanor's character's name, but it was still the more compelling piece.ReplyDelete
Vote for Eleanor McInnes.ReplyDelete
I don't like the stereotypes in MissWriteNow's piece.Replies
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 4:51 PM
Strange, K. Young, that your vote appears 3 times at the same clock time. This thread sure has its tech problems today.Delete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 10:58 PM
Last week I went three days without being able to get a vote to post. I think there are a lot of tech problems.Delete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 11:21 PM
I too was unable to vote for days last week. I emailed the issue and have yet to hear a response.Delete
Blogger changed some things with their commenting algorithm that didn't allow people to post anonymously unless they were signed in with a Google account (even if they didn't display their name). This was an issue on Blogger's end that seems like they resolved. Sorry that Blogger's been having some technical difficulties, these are the sorts of things that we can't predict or do much about.Delete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 4:52 PM
I just didn't care for MissWriteNow's piece. Seemed like I've heard it before, and it was too full of clichés. I didn't care for the characters. Eleanor drew me in with the sights and sounds. I can imagine what the family is going through and I want to read more. Eleanor gets my vote.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 4:57 PM
Eleanor McInnes. Her characters seemed real. Just don't care about the other piece. Needs more character work.ReplyDelete
Eleanor McInnesReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 5:46 PM
Eleanor McInnes!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 5:57 PM
Eleanor McInnes. Great story!! Would have voted for you before the rest got published anyways!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 6:06 PM
Another vote for Eleanor McInnes. Though I was very confused - so many pronouns without ever naming the MC. I did get an appreciation for the scene and the characters. It just skimmed the surface - Depth of character/situation preferable to back-story.ReplyDelete
MissWriteNow's piece, though it had some vivid descriptions, was one tired stereotype after another. I would have liked the story to begin with Zahir, exploring the potential of that relationship.
- Laura HJuly 2, 2015 at 6:11 PM
Wow... I'm not sure how Eleanor's piece is winning here. It's writhing with pronouns and heavy on dialogue. MissWriteNow ' s work has issues as well, but it's nothing that confuses or drags the story.ReplyDelete
MissWriteNow for me.
Eleanor for the win!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 6:43 PM
Eleanor McInnesReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 8:19 PM
Not sure on this one. Neither entry really hooked me. I'll vote for MissWriteNow because I liked the concept of auditioning for different religions.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 8:36 PM
I vote for Miss Write Now.ReplyDelete
While I'm more interested in the situation in Eleanor's piece, I see the same developmental gaps as in Eleanor's piece in the earlier bouts. There is a twist ending that comes as a clever surprise. Nothing wrong with twists or surprises IF they grow out of who the characters are. But, once again, this ending is imposed onto a character. The little girl mainly whines to her mother about having to interact with her annoying old aunt. It's the mother who thinks of everything.
The child has not shown the kind of resourcefulness and cleverness it would take to come up with a punch line like this ending. It would take more careful plot development for her to say such a line on her own, rather than the author putting the words into her mouth.
And, contrary to other opinions, I do see Eleanor's piece just as having stereotypes. We have the child who pesters relentlessly and asks question after question. Mom, playing the peacemaker stereotypical mom's do, is basically dismissive of the child's complaints, cajoling her into doing what mom wants done. This sort of interplay of Mom and kid is pretty cliche. So is the demanding, nutty old lady a common type. The piece doesn't delve into original, individual characters.
There are a lot of grammar and punctuation errors in Eleanor's piece. Not capitalizing where it's needed and capitalizing where it isn't needed. Commas where there should be periods and vice versa.
The prose structure repeats monotonously: something in quotes followed by a statement in the same subject-verb order. Examples:
"Annie! Come join me," the white-haired woman patted the seat next to her on the settee.
"My name ain't Annie," she crossed her arms and planted her bare feet firmly on the rug.
So the piece does not show much creative command of language and the repeating structures grow tiresome.
Stylistically, Miss Write's prose shows more creativity and a greater command of language with its rich variety of sentence structures. Far more interesting to read.
I agree that it would be better for MWN to go beyond the most familiar trappings of each religion though. MWN relies on the tried-and-true depictions typical of certain categories of people, and I find I don't care about them very much, especially the cliche tough talk toward the end.
So, content-wise, I'm not keen on either story. I vote for Miss Write Now for more convincing plotting and more creative prose with commendable cadence and variety.
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 9:50 PM
My vote is for MissWriteNow. Her piece is better written, has better characterization, and is just better overall. The only thing that jumped out at me was that I believe the 'rights' in 2nd paragraph should be 'rites'.ReplyDelete
The Eleanor piece is a bit dry, there are punctuation and capitalization issues, and again, there is an issue with sentence clarity.
Here is an example....Her babies died during a war when they needed the medicine for soldiers and there wasn't any left for her sick babies..... This reads to me like the babies needed the medicine for the soldiers. A slight rearrange of ....Her babies died during the war WHEN medicine was needed for soldiers, etc.
I agree with another commenter's comments that the last line seems out of character, too mature and clever, for the girl speaking, which makes the line seem authorial convenient to end a piece with more pizazz the material has as a whole.
I do hope the triple vote for Eleanor by one person is fixed. I was already suspicious that some of her votes in the previous round came from friends who would vote Eleanor's way no matter how her piece compared to her competitor's because there were so many issues with the writing on various levels compared to her competition that it left a bad taste in my mouth when the better piece lost. This is a writing contest. It's not a popularity contest where the quality of writing has no bearing. Right?
Again, my vote is for MissWriteNow. If there is justice to this contest, the more well-written piece will win this time.Replies
The extra comments were deleted. We were never intending to count them towards the total votes, since they were obviously duplicates. Your other allegations are noted and we will look into it.Delete
You might try taking a look at Bout #19 and referring to the email I wrote expressing my similar concerns before the elimination rounds were finished.Delete
Enjoyed both. Voting EleanorReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 10:56 PM
My vote is for the better piece, MissWriteNow.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 11:00 PM
Easy vote to make....MissWriteNow.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 2, 2015 at 11:30 PM
MissWriteNow gets my vote!ReplyDelete
Did I really see someone say they would have voted for the Eleanor piece still, even though it ended abruptly before the balance of the piece was displayed? That confirms my suspicion for Eleanor's last round and this round....friends voting for a friend regardless of the writing's merits. That is completely unfair.
And someone complained about the stereotypes in the MRN piece but was okay with those in the Eleanor piece?
I swear, if the lesser piece wins AGAIN, I will avoid this contest in the future.
Looking into it.Delete
- AnonymousJuly 3, 2015 at 8:36 AM
I loved the vampire piece Eleanor did for the other rounds. I was hoping for more action and horror, but was disappointed with this story. If she goes on in this competition she needs to go back to what she's good at.ReplyDelete
MissWriteNow gets my vote, but I don't like this story any more than the other. The only reason she gets my vote is grammar.
I think this has been the weakest round of any round yet.
- AnonymousJuly 3, 2015 at 2:28 PM
Eleanor McInnes!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 3, 2015 at 8:57 PM
Eleanor, for sure.ReplyDelete
Both of these have issues; but I will vote for Miss Write now as it was easier to follow the characters and the action.ReplyDelete
Eleanor, your concepts are intriguing, and I did like this bit of interplay between the mom and child, and the Aunt and child. It would have been easier to follow without all the pronouns, and if the child would have had a name. You write well in 3rd pov, and I enjoyed the old fashioned language and thinking.
- AnonymousJuly 4, 2015 at 2:46 PM
MissWriteNow gets my voteReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 5, 2015 at 5:35 AM
I have already voted, but I am just have to respond to some of the remarks that have been made here. Isn't this about opinions? I'm an avid reader, and I just voted for which piece I like here. Just like in the other bouts. I do not see the lack of civility in the others I see here. I expect more out of people who actually read, and this, too, is just one opinion. Thank you.ReplyDeleteReplies
I can only answer for myself, but I looked at grammar, punctuation, sentence clarity, characterization, plotting, etc.Delete
I didn't see this contest as merely placing a subjective (opinion) vote, but I looked at the nuts and bolts of the writing as a whole since this is a 'writing' contest.
I'm choosing: MissWriteNowReplyDelete


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Press Release | Fact Sheet
The United States Department of Justice (Department) initiated this matter as a compliance review of Smyth County, Virginia, (County) under title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-12134, and the Department's implementing regulation, 28 C.F.R. Part 35.
The review was conducted by the Disability Rights Section of the Department's Civil Rights Division and focused on the County's compliance with the following title II requirements:
As part of its compliance review, the Department reviewed the following facilities, which – because construction or alterations commenced after January 26, 1992 – must comply with the ADA's new construction or alterations requirements: Animal Shelter, Solid Waste Transfer Facility, County Office Building, and County Courthouse.
The Department's program access review covered those of the County's programs, services, and activities that operate in the following facilities: County Jail & Sheriff's Office, Riverside Community Center, Konnarock Community Center, County Health Department, and Smyth Bland Regional Library.
The Department conducted a program access review of the following polling places: Adwolfe Fire Department, Atkins Elementary School, Chilhowie Town Hall, Northwood Middle School Shop, Saltville Town Hall, Smyth Career and Technology Center, Riverside Community Center, Marion Recreation Department, Marion Senior High School, Sugar Grove Combined School Shop, and W.W. Scott Senior Citizens Center. This review was limited to the areas of the facilities used by the voting public: parking, the route from the parking area to the area used for voting, and the area used for voting. The following polling places were accessible for persons with disabilities: Marion Recreation Department, Marion Senior High School and Sugar grove Combined School Shop.
The Department reviewed the County's policies and procedures regarding voting, emergency management and disaster prevention, and sidewalk maintenance to evaluate whether persons with disabilities have an equal opportunity to utilize these programs.
Finally, the Department reviewed the County's Sheriff's Department's policies and procedures regarding providing effective communication to persons who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.
For the County:
By: ____________________________
Date: ___________________________
For the United States:
JOHN L. WODATCH, Chief
Date: June 9, 2010
Project Civic Access | archive.ADA.gov Home Page
June 14, 2010

subset: commoncrawl


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This new post to Rudi's blog shows how, with the help of an external class you can use PHP to grab information from a torrent file.
To use this code you first need to include a file with the benc, bdec and hex2bin functions. To get the torrent data (like the announce url, the files etc) it is enough if we decode the content of the torrent. On the other hand, if we want to read the number of seeds, leechs and downloads, we must encode the info part of the torrent, encrypt it with the sha1 function and convert the result to lowercase.
He includes the code to make the decoding/encryption of the results a copy and paste away (once you have these functions to work from). He's even provided an example using the code that gets the information from a torrent on the Pirate Bay website.


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WATCH: Sneak Peak of Get Hard
When millionaire hedge fund manager James (Will Ferrell) is nailed for fraud and bound for a stretch in San Quentin, the judge gives him 30 days to get his affairs in order. Desperate, he turns to Darnell (Kevin Hart) to prep him for a life behind bars. But despite James' one-percenter assumptions, Darnell is a hard-working small business owner who has never received a parking ticket, let alone been to prison.
Together, the two men do whatever it takes for James to "get hard" and, in the process, discover how wrong they were about a lot of things—including each other.
Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart join forces in the feature comedy Get Hard, also starring Tip "T.I." Harris, Alison Brie and Craig T. Nelson.
The film is directed by Etan Cohen, making his feature directorial debut following a successful writing career, with credits including Tropic Thunder. The screenplay is by Jay Martel & Ian Roberts and Etan Cohen, story by Adam McKay and Jay Martel & Ian Roberts. Chris Henchy, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are the producers, with Ravi Mehta, Kevin Messick and Jessica Elbaum serving as executive producers. This film is rated R for pervasive crude and sexual content and language, some graphic nudity, and drug material.
Theatrical Premiere: March 27, 2015
Arts &


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Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War was a big hit. Relic's next game, Company of Heroes, was even better. So the company's next game, Dawn of War II, will continue the trend, yes?
Sort of.
Fans of Relic's previous two games will be surprised to find that Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II bears little resemblance to either. Where Dawn of War shot for Warhammer's sense of epic warfare and came up short, this game goes in the opposite direction, forgoing scale for intimacy as you find yourself in command of an army of...eleven men.
Which is tiny. Teeny tiny. Definitely not the sort of thing you expect from a real-time strategy game. Which is lucky, then, because Dawn of War II isn't really a real-time strategy game. Least, not one like you've ever seen before.
Level Up - You'll only end up commanding between 8-11 men in the game, split over four "squads", and those four squads are led by heroes. Don't think of these heroes as RTS pawns. Think of them as RPG party members. They have names, they never really die, and between missions their attributes can be levelled up to make them more formidable. You'll grow very, very attached to them.
Loot Drop - The RPG similarities continue with loot, which is dropped throughout missions. You'll get better weapons and better armour for killing bad guys, which can then be used in later missions. Because the game is built on such a small scale, these items can actually be seen on your men in battle (oh, look, he's carrying his new Heavy Bolter!), which is a real kick.
Homeless - Unlike previous Relic games, Dawn of War II has no buildings. Your men are dropped into a mission, and that's it. No unit building ,no resource gathering, you don't even need to hold command posts. It's just you, your men and the mission at hand, which is really, really liberating.
Choose Your Own Adventure - Giving RTS players a choice between 1-2 missions is nothing new, but giving you a choice between 2-4 missions on each of 3 planets is. Such choice means if you wake up one day and only want to fight Orks (each enemy army plays a very different game), just fly to a planet with an Ork mission and you're set.
Not One Game, But Two - All this RPG talk of loot and levels applies only to the singleplayer campaign. Multiplayer matches are more like those found in Company of Heroes or Dawn of War, with units to be built, strongholds to be upgraded and command points to be held. This effectively means you're almost getting two games for the price of one.
Rock, Paper, Chainsword - Aside from your "avatar" character, a Space Marine Force Commander, you can only take three of the game's five other squads/heroes into battle with you. And each of these squads have wildly varying strengths and weaknesses, meaning you not only have tough strategic decisions to make when deciding who to take on a mission, but flexible tactical options at your disposal once on it.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat - Most missions involve you having to fight your way across a map to fight a boss (yes, this game even has boss fights). Actually, 95% of missions have you doing this, and while it's a blast, some more variety would have been nice, especially when the few defensive missions in the game prove to be the game's most enjoyable.
If what you've read above makes the game sound like a rich, creamy Diablo/Warcraft III/Company of Heroes soup, well, that's because that's exactly what it is. One minute you'll be using cover and flanking like Company of Heroes, the next you'll be using special powers to bring down a colossal boss character, the next you'll be collecting loot off its corpse and improving your "party" with it.
Which makes this an amazing game to play. It's like Relic have taken some of the most addictive and endearing elements of both real-time strategy and role-playing genres and smashed them together, the resulting game something that's able to appeal to fans of both genres without alienating either.
Warhammer 40000: Dawn Of War II was developed by Relic and published by THQ for the PC. It was released on February 19, and retails for $50. Played single player campaign to completion, played multiple skirmish battles online. Did not play co-op campaign, which game also features.
Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.


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- Price As Marked.
- About The Brand -Signature Elegance With A Modern Aesthetic.
- Please Note – For Us Conversions Please Reference Size Chart.
- Made In Italy
- Color/Material -White And Rose Gold Leather
- Design Details -Rose Gold-Tone Pyramid Stud Details
- Lightly Padded Leather Insole
- Rubber Sole With Traction
- Our Products Are 100% Genuine. In Some Cases We Purchase Merchandise From Trusted Independent Suppliers And Not Directly From The Brand Owner. In All Cases We Stand By The Authenticity Of Every Product Sold On Our Site.


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Springer doing a show on tabloid newspapers
Staff Writer
Columbus Monthly
NEW YORK (AP) — Jerry Springer is getting another television show.
The Investigation Discovery network said Thursday that Springer will be host of "Tabloid," a new weekly series that will look at some of the bizarre stories in the tabloids found at supermarket checkout lines.
The series will debut early next year.
ID said Springer was a natural choice because he's no stranger to over-the-top characters. His brawling talk show is a staple of daytime television. Springer said he enjoys telling stories that cover the full range of human experiences and emotions.


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(CNN) - The midterm election season officially gets underway Tuesday, as Texas holds the first primary contests of 2014.
The voting in the Lone Star State comes eight months to the day before Election Day in November. Here are some things to watch:
[twitter-follow screen_name='psteinhausercnn'] [twitter-follow screen_name='KilloughCNN']
Tea Party vs. Establishment
A top House Republican faces a tea party challenge in Tuesday's primary. Grassroots conservative activist Katrina Pierson is taking on Rep. Pete Sessions, a nine-term congressman and chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee.
Pierson won the backing of top national groups such as the Tea Party Express, the Tea Party Patriots and FreedomWorks, as well as influential figures on the right such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and conservative firebrand Rafael Cruz, the father of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Despite her impressive list of endorsements, Pierson's fundraising lags far behind that of Sessions, the odds on favorite in the race. Sessions, who represents the Dallas area 32nd Congressional District, is one of eight GOP House leaders or committee chairs nationwide who face primary challenges this year.
Challenges from the right
Sen. John Cornyn faces a number of conservative primary challengers. The most well-known of the candidates is Rep. Steve Stockman. But Cornyn, the No. 2 ranking Republican in the Senate, doesn't appear to face much of a threat Tuesday.
But Cornyn has had to alter tactics since the 2012 election of Ted Cruz, who's become a hero to grassroots conservatives. Cruz has put Cornyn and other members of the Senate GOP leadership on the defensive a number of times over some key issues.
While most pundits expect Cornyn to top the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff, look for his margin of victory to gauge anti-incumbent sentiment.
Cornyn is one of 12 Republican senators running for re-election this year, and half, including Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, face conservative primary challenges. While neither McConnell nor Cornyn expect to face difficult primaries, some other senators, such as Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Pat Roberts of Kansas, might face bigger challenges.
Preview for big gubernatorial showdown
Turnout in the gubernatorial race could be an indicator of what's to come in the showdown between Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott and Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis, the two likely nominees in the governor's race.
Battleground Texas, a group aiming to turn the Lone Star State blue, has been working on get-out-the-vote efforts for Davis, hoping to make Republicans sweat as the state moves closer to the general election.
The race is already one of, if not the, most expensive gubernatorial contest in the country. Abbott's campaign reported having nearly $30 million cash on hand last week, while Davis' team reported having $11.3 million. Davis, however, raised slightly more than Abbott in the reporting period from January 24 to February 22.
The next generation Bush
Other statewide races worth watching include the primary for Texas land commissioner, a job George P. Bush has been gunning for this past year. Bush is the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, nephew of former President George W. Bush and grandson of former President George H.W. Bush.
Coming from a strong political family, however, doesn't protect one from opposition. Bush, who's considered the favorite, will face off against conservative David Watts.
Nonetheless, the primary marks Bush's first big contest as he launches what many political observers expect to be a must-watch career in politics.
Another tough contest for Dewhurst
Perhaps the most vulnerable incumbent Tuesday is Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who's in a tight race with state Sen. Dan Patrick. If neither candidate exceeds 50%, they enter a run-off set for May 27.
Dewhurst, who lost the 2012 run-off for the U.S. Senate against Cruz, may find himself again in an extended primary race.
Age in the spotlight
At the age of 90, Republican Rep. Ralph Hall is the oldest member of the U.S. House. He faces a difficult road to re-nomination, with five challengers taking him on in the primary. And most of them are arguing that after Hall's more than three decades in the seat, it's time for new representation in the state's 4th Congressional District.
Looks like Texas is preparing to send another one of those Bushes to DC...Grrr
Texas, one of the few last good states with common sense.
And exploding manure processing plants!
Should just let them secede. They can have President perry and VP cruz. Then we can allow them back into the Union, but only as a quasi state (after they beg to be Americans again)... they will not be allowed to send representives or Senators to congress until they can provide the US with a clean UA and psych eval showing they are actually healthy enough mentally to become a state.
Make them show us their papers.
Allow Austin back in as it's own independent state immediately, but giev the rest of the state a 25 year probationary period. .
Do a cavity search on them in front of everyone (like they did those two women on the side of the highway -because the cop 'smelled' marijuana).
Giving TX back to Mexico would be no great loss....
............the BLUE.......is coming to Texas real SOON.....................
This will be a serious test for the T baggers. If they don't do well in this reddest of the red states they have no chance in November.
Republicans fighting the TeaKKKlan to be the party of 15%. And that's in Texas. Nationally, the GOP is cooked – likely not to reach double figures in approval for many many years.
texas isn't going to vote for that lying con artist wendy davis. her lies and deceit rival obama's. american voters have had enough of it. you lie, good bye.
I read about all these heavily pro-Christian (as opposed to freedom of religion) folks hiding behind code phrases like "traditional" and "family values". Why don't they just come out and say "we are pro-Christian and want a Christian country" then people could decide whether they want a theocracy or not. I think they know what would happen.


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In a new report, the U.S. Education Department projected that this fall, the percentage of white students in public schools will drop from 51 percent in 2012 to 49.7. In other words: for the first time ever, the majority of students in the public school system will be children of color. The implications are tremendous. EURweb has the rest:
According to a new report by the National Center for Education (NCES), the racial landscape of students in the public school system is about to change. Minorities – namely, Hispanics, Asians, African Americans, Native Americans, and multiracial individuals will account for 50.3% of the public school student population. 51% of grade level pre-kindergarten to 8th grade will be minorities and they will make up 48% of 9th to 12th graders.
It appears the change in the enrollment is due to the percentage of US-born Hispanics and Asians in the overall population. Between 2012 and 2013, the Hispanic population grew by 2.1% and the Asian population grew by 2.9%. This will increase the number of Asian and Hispanic students attending public schools between 2011 and 2022. Hispanic students will rise by 33%, Asian/Pacific Islanders by 20%, multiracial students by 44%, and African-Americans by 2% between 2011 and 2022.
Meanwhile the percentage of Caucasians is projected to decrease by 6% and American Indian/Alaska Natives is expected to decrease by 5%.
The shift begs questions around how curriculum standards might change to better reflect the student population.
Check out this graph below that illustrates the demographic shift:
RELATED VIDEO: Marc Morial of Urban League Tells How To Close The Education Achievement Gap
Today's Freedom Fighters
Anti-DEI Bill Would 'Prohibit' Black Fraternities And Sororities In Florida, Lawmaker Worries
Jonathan Majors Video Evidence, 'Woman Recanting' Assault Claim Will Clear Actor Of Charges, Lawyer Says
'Get Out Of The Country': Video Shows Black Man Kicked Out Of School CRT Meeting As 'Racist Woman' Stays
Thanks, Ron DeSantis: Florida School District Pulls 'Ruby Bridges' Movie After 1 White Parent Complains
Graphic Videos Showing Tekashi 6ix9ine Being Brutally Beaten In Florida Gym Go Viral
University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Pleads Not Guilty To Racist Attack On Black Student Despite Video Evidence
NAACP Opposes Cash Reparations To Descendants Of Enslaved People In San Francisco


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Benches clear in DC after Harper gets plunked
Nationals outfielder drilled by Teheran one at-bat after hitting long home run
WASHINGTON -- The tension between National League East rivals Atlanta and Washington was evident on the field at Nationals Park and even playfully on Twitter.
After homering to deep center field in the third inning, Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper stepped into the batter's box with one out in the fifth and Anthony Rendon on second base. Braves starter Julio Teheran hit the side of Harper's right thigh with a four-seam fastball on the first pitch.
Harper yelled and pointed at Teheran as he walked to first base. Braves catcher Brian McCann took offense to the comments and had to be restrained by home-plate umpire Joe West. Both benches and bullpens emptied, but there were no physical confrontations between any members of the two teams.
Harper said after the game, which Atlanta won, 2-1, that the incident was "part of the game" and something that Teheran has "got to do." The 20-year-old was then asked if he was surprised by the pitch.
"I hit that ball pretty far off him," Harper replied, "so no, not really."
Teheran said that he didn't hit Harper on purpose.
"I didn't want to make a mistake like I did with the homer. That's how I hit him," Teheran said. "I got upset because I didn't want to hit him. So when he said that to me, that's when I started working."
"I think he was trying to go in on him, fastball in," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "The fastball that he hit for a home run was out over the plate. I think he was just trying to go with a fastball in and might have held onto it a little bit and got him in the thigh."
McCann said that Harper took too long to round the bases after his home run, which landed in the batter's eye in center field.
"Yeah, he sat there for a little bit," McCann said. "But it is what it is."
While Teheran said that he didn't pay attention to Harper's home run trot and was only concentrating on the next batter, Ryan Zimmerman, the reigning National League Rookie of the Year Award winner thought otherwise.
"It's part of the game, like I said," Harper said. "If I walk off on somebody and he wants to drill me, I'll let him drill me and I'll stand on first base and say some choice words and get over it."
As the skirmish ended, pitchers returned to their respective bullpens and the field was cleared. West issued a warning to both clubs, and Nationals starter Gio Gonzalez said that he was reminded of the warning three times. Nationals manager Davey Johnson said that West told him that he didn't think that Teheran intentionally hit Harper because the pitch was low.
Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman said that Harper was still upset even when the ordeal had calmed down. Harper didn't say anything at first base.
"Usually, I talk to everybody. But I left him alone," Freeman said. "When he hit the single [in the seventh inning] and came down, he was fine. So I think it was totally heat of the moment."
Even the Braves' and Nationals' official Twitter accounts chimed in. The Braves tweeted, "Clown move bro," to which the Nationals responded, "Which part, giving up the home run, or drilling the 20-year-old on the first pitch his next time up?"
@Braves Which part, giving up the home run, or drilling the 20-year-old on the first pitch his next time up?- Washington Nationals (@Nationals) August 7, 2013
Teheran retired the next two batters to end the inning. Gio Gonzalez pitched two more innings and did not retaliate. He said that retaliation would have been "selfish."
"I think that it's a tough situation to go about," he said. "You want to protect your guys as much as possible. Again, Bryce, it's a tough situation. It's a tough way to answer that one. I think the best way to do it is go out there and shut them down two more innings and give your team a chance to come back and hurt them the other way, try to get a win."
Nationals first baseman Adam LaRoche, who played with the Braves for 3 1/2 years and said he was familiar with Teheran, couldn't tell whether the right-hander had hit Harper on purpose.
"I don't know. It's a pretty convenient situation to do it in," LaRoche said. "If he did, that's pretty weak."
Fredi Gonzalez said that he was pleased with how West and his crew handled the situation.
"Boys being boys," he said. "Everybody settled down and just went back to playing baseball."


text:
Reflecting on the Stokes Brothers' Legacy
Brick City Theatre youth create and perform the Stokes Brothers' story
Reflecting on the Stokes Brothers' Legacy
February 2, 2017
5:30 - 7:00 pm
Lakeview Terrace Community Center, 1290 W 25th St, Cleveland, OH 44113
A special Black History Month showcase exhibiting the original artwork and performance material created by the youth participants of Cleveland Public Theatre's Brick City Theatre program, in partnership with Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority. During this session, Brick City Theatre participants engaged in performance activities such as drama, dance, singing and creative writing with a special focus on the legacy of the Stokes brothers. When exploring this topic, Brick City Theatre participants wrote original rewrites of the Stokes brothers' story and explored their own life stories. These final performances are a culmination of our extended learning process at Brick City Theatre.
Over 150 residents of Lakeview Terrace, Woodhill Homes, and Outhwaite Homes – youth ages 5-14, plus parents, grandparents, siblings and friends – have participated in arts experiences that nurture self-expression, encourage family collaboration and intergenerational exchange, support academic achievement, develop life skills, and provide personal enrichment.
Brick City Theatre is conducted after school, up to 4 days per week in the public housing Community Centers at Lakeview, Woodhill, and Outhwaite. Participants at each site created their own reflections on the Stokes brothers' story, so each of the three performances will feature a wholly different play.
A community meal follows each presentation.
Caitie Hannon, 216-631-2727 email@example.com


text:
Detailing the restoration of a classic Spencer 35...
|Vessel Name:
|Christy Lee
|Vessel Make/Model:
|1963 Spencer 35
|Hailing Port:
|Chesapeake, VA
|Steph & the kids
|"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain


text:
Now, where were we? has been saved
Now, where were we?
ME PoV Fall 2012 issue
Strategy implementation challenges for public sector organizations in the ME
Strategy – whereby a set of initiatives to be executed within a specific duration are defined – is critical for the success of any organization, regardless of its business nature or its industry and accordingly contributes to achieving its overall vision and mission. While many organizations do have well-defined strategies, they face challenges in implementing them.
Others believe that they are following a certain strategy but can't understand why they are not realizing their objectives. So what is the issue? Is it the strategy itself? Is it the people executing it? And why is it sometimes so difficult to implement a strategy?


text:
You throw away your life because you've come to assume that it'll bounce right back into your lap, but the human soul is not a rubber ball. It's vulnerable, impermanent, but stronger than you know. And more valuable than you can imagine.
- 1 Nature of Souls
- 2 After Death
- 3 Deals and Markers
- 4 The Power of Souls
- 5 Characters' Souls
- 6 Souls in Religion and Lore
- 7 External Links
- 8 See also
- 9 References
Nature of Souls
Well, what about souls? They fuel your demon deals. Souls are living batteries. They're full of energy. They're full of light. Each one is as powerful as... 100 suns?
A soul is a person's essence, and what persists after death. In the natural order, souls are transported to the afterlife by reapers, and with the supervision of Death. The reaper Tessa refused to tell Dean, on more than one occasion, where she takes the souls. Known destinations of souls are Heaven, Hell and Purgatory.
In Supernatural, a soul separate from its body is visualized as a blinding white light. Death and Famine have transported souls in a doctor's bag and briefcase respectively. Angels can determine whether or not someone has a soul, or the taste of it, via a painful procedure in which the angel reaches inside a person to touch the soul.[1]
Souls are also a powerful energy source, Famine was able to consume them to strengthen himself, and demons bargain for them, and even angels have traded in them. Souls also provide sustenance for certain supernatural creatures like the crocotta and the shtriga. The Grigori find human souls to be a delicacy and have fed on them since their expulsion from Heaven thousands of years ago.
Death revealed to Dean that souls are so powerful that even he can't break them. They can be damaged, but never broken. When ghosts are put to rest, their souls are not destroyed; they are simply ferried by a reaper to their final destination, though it had been believed by many hunters to be "death" for them with oblivion waiting for them afterwards. Amara -- the manifestation of the Darkness also consumed souls, which helped to accelerate her growth and strength.
When Castiel rescues Sam from Lucifer's Cage, his soul remained trapped in the Cage until Death retrieved it for him. Without his soul, Sam felt no empathy, guilt or compassion. However, he was not evil, but rather lacked any moral compass, and was willing to resort to more questionable actions, such as allowing Dean to become a vampire to help them find an Alpha, albeit also knowing that there was a cure for vampirism, than he might consider when normal. While he continued to have physical needs for food and sex, he didn't require sleep, and had a high tolerance for pain. On other occasions that people have lost their souls, they have had different reactions. When souls were stolen by Abaddon's demons, they appeared to act on basic instinct with the littlest thing setting them off. As this was different from Soulless Sam, Sam suggests that different people have different reactions to losing their soul.[2] Additionally, Amara's soulless victims tended to quickly become homicidal and one noted that it felt like something dark was hatching inside of him.[3][4] In the instance where a soul is forcefully removed, if it is released from whatever is binding it it will return to its body.
After losing his soul, Donatello Redfield remained mostly the same by using "what would Mr. Rogers do?" as his moral compass.[5] The only time this changed was when Donatello was corrupted by the power of the demon tablet without his soul there to filter out whatever darkness existed inside of the tablet.[6] After his brain is restored by Castiel, Donatello resumed his usual soulless personality without the corruption nor any memory of the events during this time.[7] He would later describe to Jack Kline having no soul as emptiness: no pity, no empathy, no humanity though he stated that losing your soul doesn't make you anything. He believed that by following the example of the best person you knew in uncertain situations, a soulless person could learn how to live a relatively normal life.[8]
It is possible for a human to use Enochian magic to gain angel-like abilities, but the cost of this is that each time a piece of their soul is burned away until it is completely gone. However, if even a sliver of soul still exists, that sliver will go onto whatever the person's final destination may be.[9][10]
Anubis, an Egyptian deity used as a judge by Heaven following the departure of God, reveals that a soul's final destination is not chosen by Death, the reapers or even God himself. Instead, a soul's final destination is chosen by the person themselves and their actions in life. Anubis will "weigh" the soul and determine where it will go, though their final destination can be changed by something such as a final selfless sacrificial act.[10] However, the claim Anubis made about God not deciding where a soul goes upon death is disproved when it's revealed that Chuck caused Kevin to go to Hell instead of Heaven and changing the rules by making it impossible for souls from Hell to go to Heaven.[11]
During his time working with Dumah, it's revealed that Jack can transform humans into angels by forging human souls into angelic grace with ease.[12]
Despite lore stating that God can restore souls that have been completely lost,[13] He later claims that it is beyond even His power, which is proven to be another lie when Jack's brief visit to the Garden of Eden restores his soul.[14][15]
After Death
Most spirits are transported by reapers after death to the next destination. Those who refuse to move on can become ghosts or vengeful spirits[16]
Demons are formed in Hell by the corruption of a human soul over centuries. Lucifer made Lilith into the first demon in order to mock God's creation of humanity.[17] While in Hell, Dean eventually broke under Alastair's torture and started torturing souls himself, and doing so likely would have transformed him without Heaven's intervention.[18] Angels are able to rescue souls from Hell, though this generally requires a massive incursion,[19] but a human can rescue a soul as well if they can sneak into and out of Hell with said soul without being detected.[20]
The process of converting a soul into a demon essentially corrupts the soul; when Crowley attempted to offer his soul to Plutus for the demon tablet, the offer was rejected as he did not have a soul to offer.[21]
When the demons of Hell prove reluctant to abandon their loyalty to Crowley, Abaddon decides to create her demons by having her loyalists steal souls from still living humans, in order to create her own demonic army to take Hell.[2]
Father Max Thompson developed a way to wash away the corruption a demon endures during its time in Hell and restores their humanity through a ritual of human blood, either by a human having their blood purified after going to confession or donated blood sanctified by a priest.[22][23][24]
According to the demon Belphegor, a soul that has been condemned to Hell can never get into Heaven. Though John Winchester[25] escapes from Hell through the Devil's Gate in Wyoming and got into Heaven after finding peace upon Azazel's death. Bobby Singer[20] got into Heaven after he was admitted by Naomi to complete the second trial to seal the gates of Hell. Crowley also loaned Castiel 50,000 souls from Hell to make his first stand against Raphael in Heaven, though he only did so to weaponize their collective energy rather than admit them into Heaven.[26]
Belphegor believed that God had simply made exceptions for them and without God's help, it would be impossible.[11] However, given how Naomi admitted Bobby into Heaven, it's more likely that for condemned souls to enter Heaven, they require permission from one of the angels leading Heaven. Since the second trial to seal the gates of hell is to rescue an innocent soul from Hell and deliver them to Heaven, it's also possible that God changed the rules to prevent Sam and Dean from returning the souls he unleashed back into Hell.
Since Sam and Dean were admitted to Heaven upon their final deaths, given that they both died and went to Hell at some point, Bobby confirmed that Jack made a few changes before the New God left for parts unknown, granting condemned souls salvation in Heaven, including the Winchesters along with their deceased allies who were initially condemned by Chuck. [27]
Another destination for souls is Heaven, although the criteria for entrance depends on the person's choices in life. Raphael mentions devoutness as one possibility, which trumps all others, such as in Ken Lay's case.[28] In Heaven, each soul has its own version of Heaven where he or she relives their happiest memories. According to Ash these Heavens are individual, except in the case of soulmates, who share the same Heaven, which Sam and Dean appeared to share as they were easily able to travel to and form each other's happy memories. Personal Heaven's are grouped alphabetically, and divided into individual sections pertaining to the deceased names.
Most souls cannot leave their own allotted space, although Ash worked out a way to move between them freely.[29] Bobby Singer was able to find his Heaven's escape hatch and wander the halls of Heaven where the angels perform their maintenance duties on the individual Heavens. Jack Kline's nature as a Nephilim, allowed him to realize something was wrong in his personal Heaven and exit it when the Cosmic Entity from the Empty invaded to retrieve Jack.
Purgatory is a spiritual realm where the souls of supernatural creatures such as vampires and shapeshifters go after they die. This place is not connected with Heaven or Hell, though Crowley and the rogue reaper Ajay have said that it is Hell adjacent. After resurrecting Samuel Campbell, Crowley has him tracking down high-ranking creatures, specifically Alphas, so that he can question them about the location of Purgatory, which he wants for "development purposes." Though in truth, Crowley and Castiel had joined forces to find Purgatory in order to get the souls, which would aid Castiel in his war against Raphael. When Dean kills Leviathan leader Dick Roman, both he and Castiel get transported there without dying due to their proximity to Dick Roman when he was stabbed with the righteous bone of a mortal.
Due to Dean being a living human being, a portal was created in Purgatory specificity to "spit him out"[30] according to the vampire Benny Lafitte, who helped Dean find it in exchange for Dean taking him through the portal. Dean escapes Purgatory with Benny's soul inside his arm, allowing him to resurrect the vampire. When Dean is released Benny's soul from his body onto Benny's bones he speaks the words: Anima. Corpori. Fuerit corpus totem resurgent. Which roughly translates as "Soul. Body. Whole body shall be raised." When Sam later escapes from Hell with Bobby Singer's soul, he carries him out of Purgatory in a similar way to what Dean did with Benny's soul.
Deals and Markers
Souls are first mentioned in relation to the deals made by crossroads demons, wherein a person agrees to give their soul to the demon upon death in exchange for some benefit when they are alive. Deals are traditionally sealed with a kiss, but more formal contracts can be made up in lieu of the act. A deal with the demon Lilith, however, required sexual intercourse to be officially sealed.
Deals have a set time limit at the end of which the subject of a deal, if still living, is killed. John Winchester gave up the Colt and sold his soul to Azazel in exchange for Dean's life,[31] and Dean sold his soul, with a one year marker, to resurrect Sam after he was killed by Jake Talley. Sam also attempted to sell his own soul to bring back Dean, but the demons refused to make a deal as they wanted to keep Dean in Hell.[32]
Bobby Singer agreed to temporarily sell his soul to Crowley to get information on Death's whereabouts in order to help stop the Apocalypse (with the added bonus of getting the use of his legs back). Crowley was able to make the details of the contract he made with Bobby manifest as writing on his skin.[33] When Crowley refused to give back Bobby's soul per their agreement, citing that he only needed to make best efforts to return Bobby's soul, the deal was undone when Bobby, with help from Sam and Dean, threatened to destroy Crowley by burning the bones of his human self.[33]
In trading for Aaron Birch's soul, the angel Balthazar left an identifying mark on it. Castiel detected it when he "read" Aaron's soul.[1]
While bidding on the Word of God tablet, Linda Tran and Crowley each offered souls as a price for the auction, with Crowley initially offering three million souls from Hell while Linda offered her own soul. Plutus accepted Linda's offer over Crowley's due to the potential sacrifice of Linda's bid, prompting Crowley to offer his own soul, but this bid was rejected as he didn't have a soul to barter. Plutus noted that he owned various other souls from his past deals, but he was killed by Beau and Crowley before he could take Linda's soul.[21]
The Power of Souls
Each soul a beautiful little nuclear reactor. Put 'em together, you have the sun.
Souls are extremely powerful sources of energy, often likened to nuclear weapons.[34][35][28] The Horseman Famine sought out the souls of others because of their power so he could strengthen himself by ingesting them.
Balthazar bought the soul of a boy, Aaron Birch, in exchange for a part of the Staff of Moses. When asked why he bought it, Balthazar refered to souls as the only thing left of value; he was eventually forced to return it by Castiel.[1] Death hinted at the value of souls when he talked to Dean, saying that even he could not destroy a soul, or alter it. Death also said that a soul was "vulnerable, impermanent, but stronger than you know. And more valuable than you can imagine."[36]
Angels can channel the power of souls. During a fight with Rachel, Castiel is severely wounded by an angel blade. The injury drains much of his power, making it impossible for him to retrieve Dean and Sam from the past. He tells Bobby that the human soul is pure energy, and if he touches Bobby's soul he might be able to draw on that energy to revitalize himself. Castiel tells him that if done incorrectly, the procedure could cause Bobby to explode. Bobby agrees and endures great pain, and Castiel is able to bring back Sam and Dean through time from 1861.[35]
Crowley's interest in Purgatory, the resting place of the souls of monsters, relates to the untapped power inside. Before her death Eve explains that her actions in rising from Purgatory, and mobilizing all the monsters, were in reaction to Crowley capturing and torturing "her children." She speculated that Crowley is after the souls from Purgatory as together they would form a powerful weapon.[34]
Crowley's partner in the search for Purgatory was Castiel, who was convinced by Crowley that the souls from Purgatory would give him the power to fight Raphael, as without some extra force he is no match for the archangel. A loan of 50,000 souls from Hell from Crowley allowed Castiel to briefly overpower Raphael.[28] Later, Atropos accused Castiel of sinking the Titanic to create 50,000 more souls in order to "fund his war machine." She said that "He (Castiel) couldn't mint money, that it was wrong and dangerous and she wouldn't let him."[37]
Balthazar warned Castiel that if he takes in the souls of Purgatory, he may not be able to contain them and may explode "taking a substantial chunk of the planet" along with him.[38] When Crowley and Castiel finally determine how to access Purgatory and the souls there, Castiel cuts Crowley out of the deal, refusing him access to that power. Castiel opened the gate to Purgatory and absorbed all the souls, which allowed him to destroy Raphael with a snap of his fingers. He then declared himself the new God.[39]
After Castiel ingested all of the souls of Purgatory, he became a God-like being, or as Death put it a "mutated angel," for a time before he returned the souls. However, the Leviathans hung on and briefly able to take control of Castiel, which allowed them to escape into the world.[39][40]
As part of a spell to travel through time, Henry Winchester used his own soul as a power source, something that surprised Sam and Dean as they thought only angels could do that. According to Henry, he would need a week for his soul to recharge enough to safely travel in time again, though in desperation he tried to make the trip early despite the possible risks.[41]
Lily Sunder was able to use Enochian magic, which allowed her strength and longevity, among other abilities. However, that magic came with a price. Every time she used the magic, a piece of her soul burned away, and would continue to do so until there was nothing and she was a soulless husk.[9] When Lily stopped using this magic, she began to age again with only a sliver of her soul that remained.
Lily was able to use this same magic to cure Jack Kline's condition after his resurrection. Like with Lily, using Enochian magic burned away a piece of Jack's soul, but Lily stated that it won't be anything he will miss as long as its only used to sustain his body.[10] In a desperate moment, Jack was able to use the magic keeping him alive to tap into the power of his soul like Lily did. When Jack used this power to disintegrate five attacking monsters, it manifested in a manner similar to Jack using his powers while he still had his grace. Like with Lily's use of Enochian magic, Jack burned away another piece of his soul to accomplish this feat.[42] On another occasion, Jack was able to use the power of his soul to exorcise the archangel Michael out of Rowena and destroy him, leaving behind only Michael's grace which Jack consumed to restore his original powers.[43] However, doing so burned away a great deal of Jack's soul, possibly all of it.[8]
The demon Belphegor attempted to use Lilith's Crook to absorb all the demons and Hell Ghosts that escaped from the rupture Chuck created. He wanted to make himself akin to a god and eventually take over Hell, Heaven, and Earth. While the horn manages to absorb a large number of ghosts, Castiel manages to make his way to Belphegor and kill him, destroying the crook in the process. Rowena manages to use a spell from the Book of the Damned to absorb all the souls into her body and imprison them in Hell along with herself.
Rowena provides Ada Monroe magic capable of killing the Akrida queen which will be powered by a piece of Ada's own soul.[44]
Characters' Souls
Sam's Soul
Castiel: Somehow, when Sam was resurrected, it was without his soul.
Dean: So where is it?Castiel: Well, you pose an interesting philosophical question.
Castiel: My guess is still in the cage with Michael and Lucifer.
Dean: So is he even still Sam?
– Dean and Castiel discuss Sam, 6.07 Family Matters
After his return from Lucifer's Cage, Sam appeared different, especially to Dean. He exhibited little compassion, which caused Dean to become increasingly suspicious that Sam may be possessed by Lucifer. Castiel refutes the idea, saying that if Lucifer were free they would know.[45] It was eventually Veritas, the Goddess of Truth, who confirmed Dean's worst fears that Sam was "not human" when he proves to be immune to her power. Sam admits that he knows something is deeply wrong.[45] Dean calls on Castiel, who ascertains that Sam was resurrected without his soul.[46]
Crowley claimed that he pulled Sam out of Lucifer's Cage, but kept the soul "hostage" and that he would return Sam's soul if the Winchesters help him find Purgatory -- a task he has had Samuel Campbell working on since his resurrection. Crowley later revealed to Dean, Sam and Castiel that he is incapable of raising Sam's soul from Lucifer's Cage, stating that raising Sam's body from the Cage was a very difficult task to perform.[47]
Castiel later revealed that it was he who pulled Sam from Hell, but that he was not powerful enough to do it completely, thus leaving Sam's soul behind.
Once again, I went to harrow Hell, to free Sam from Lucifer's cage. It was nearly impossible, but I was so full of confidence, of mission. I see now that was arrogance... hubris... because, of course, I hadn't truly raised Sam -- not all of him.
For a while Sam continued to insist to Dean that he is still Sam -- "same melon, same memories" -- just without his soul, but Dean finally confronted Sam:
Dean: I mean, it's your gigantor body and maybe your brain, but it's not you. So just...stop pretending. Do us both a favor.
Sam eventually admits that "I'm not your brother. I'm not Sam." to Dean. Before he confessed that he doesn't think having no soul is "better or worse, just different", but decided that he should get his soul back.[48]
In 6.09 Clap Your Hands If You Believe..., the Leprechaun senses Sam's lack of soul.
Leprechaun: The human soul gives off a certain perfume. Your soul is far away, but not completely out of reach.
He tells Sam that he could get his soul out of Lucifer's Cage though the use of real magic, but Sam banishes him back to his realm.
Castiel and Crowley both predicted that Sam's soul will have been tortured by Lucifer and Michael, and would be so severely damaged that it would harm Sam to have it returned, even drive him insane.[47] Following this revelation, Sam decided he didn't want his soul back, and summoned Balthazar to see if there is a way to keep a soul out of its body. Balthazar informs him of a ritual that involves him defiling his body, that needed the blood of his father (that needn't come from the "father of your blood") to keep his soul out his body. This led Sam to try and kill Bobby Singer, only to be stopped at the last moment by Dean.[36]
Sam ws eventually reunited with his soul when Dean approached Death for help.[36] Death himself liberated it from Hell and personally delivered it back to Sam's body, despite his protests. Death installed it with the promise that a wall would be erected in Sam's mind which will prevent him from remembering his torment in Hell, but advises him to not "scratch away at it" lest the wall collapse and his memories come flooding back -- though he suggests that this may happen over time regardless. Castiel says of the soul's condition once it is returned that it feels like it has been skinned alive.[49]
As Castiel got closer to accessing Purgatory, he plead with the Winchesters not to fight against him, but they refused. Castiel touched Sam's forehead, which cracked the mental barrier that was planted there by Death, saying, "I'll fix him when this is all over." The breaking of the wall in Sam's mind caused him to have a breakdown; and become trapped inside his mind with the memories of what he did when he was soulless and what happened to him in Hell. Sam managed to overcome this long enough to make his way to help Dean and Bobby in their efforts to stop Castiel. However, Sam began hallucinating Lucifer and slowly went insane until Castiel transferred the madness into his own mind, solving Sam's problems but driving Castiel insane instead. According to Castiel, Sam's hallucinations of Lucifer are an "aftertaste" of his time in Hell and simply projections of his own mind.
Dean's Soul
Dean made a deal with a crossroads demon and exchanged his soul for Sam's resurrection. The demon revived Sam but only gave Dean a year rather than the standard ten. At the end of the allotted time in the deal, Dean's soul gots dragged to Hell by a hellhound and was constantly abused and tortured by the demon Alastair. After much painful torment, Dean agreed to torture other souls to stop his own torment. His soul is later retrieved by the angel Castiel and brought back to Earth.
Dean's stoicism and disinterest in the pleasures of life are discussed by Famine in terms of his soul.
Famine: Hunger doesn't just come from the body it also come from the soul.
Dean: Funny, it doesn't seem to be coming from mine.
Famine: Yes, I've noticed that.
After touching his chest, Famine tells Dean that while his soul is still in place, he is empty inside, which is why his powers don't affect Dean.
In 9.23 Do You Believe in Miracles? Dean's soul is transformed into a demon by the Mark of Cain after he is killed by Metatron. In 10.03 Soul Survivor, Sam reverses this with the demon cure.
Bobby's Soul
Bobby Singer, seeing no other way to locate Death, the last Horseman of the Apocalypse, sells his soul to Crowley to gain the Horseman's location. Crowley takes advantage of the deal to blackmail the Winchesters into not killing him, but also restores Bobby's legs out of apparent altruism with the deal. Crowley later reluctantly gives it back after Bobby threatens to have Sam and Dean burn his original human bones.[50][33]
After his fight with Rachel, Castiel, severely wounded and drained of his power, finds it impossible to retrieve Dean and Sam from the past. He tells Bobby that if he touches his soul he might siphon off enough power to bring them back. Bobby agrees, but experiences extreme pain in the process.[35]
After death, instead of going to his afterlife where he belonged, Bobby's soul stayed behind on Earth as a ghost to help Sam and Dean stop Dick Roman.[51][52] However, when Bobby's ghost begins exhibiting vengeful spirit behavior at the mere sight of Dick Roman, he agrees to have Sam and Dean lay him to rest. After his flask is burned, Bobby's soul is taken by rogue reaper Ajay to Hell instead of Heaven on Crowley's orders as a result of what Bobby has done to him and his men. Bobby's soul spends the better part of a year in Hell before being rescued by Sam as part of the second trial to close the Gates of Hell. Bobby's soul was carried back to Earth in Sam's arm as they escaped from Hell and Purgatory. On Earth, Sam released Bobby's soul unto Heaven, but Crowley intercepted it with the intention to take it back to Hell. Naomi intervened and released Bobby's soul, allowing it to rise to its true resting place in Heaven.[20]
After Bobby broke out of his personal Heaven to aid Sam and Castiel in breaking Metatron out of Heaven's prison, he is visited by by some angels, and his fate in Heaven is left unknown.
Jimmy's Soul
Initially, the soul of Jimmy Novak remained in his body, but was rendered dormant after Castiel took Jimmy as a vessel. When Jimmy regained control of his body, he compared the experience to being strapped to a comet, unaware of most of Castiel's actions while in control apart from bits and pieces of recollection. He eventually consented to let Castiel use him as a vessel again after Castiel possessed his daughter Claire, but after his body was disintegrated in a confrontation with Lucifer, his soul passed on as the body could only retain a soul if it also retained a certain structural integrity. Jimmy's soul is now in Heaven where he has been reunited with his wife after her own death, indicating that they could be soulmates.
Amelia's Soul
After being captured by the Grigori Tamiel, Amelia Novak's soul was fed upon by the angel while she was in a dream state where she was in her perfect Heaven of being reunited with her missing husband Jimmy Novak. As a result of the feedings, she was left in a weakened state and even a fully restored Castiel couldn't heal her. Tamiel also indicated that she would eventually die of it. It is unknown if this is true or not as Tamiel killed her with his angel sword and Amelia's soul reunited with Jimmy in Heaven, her ability to share a Heaven with him indicating that they could be soulmates.
Donatello's Soul
While trying to track down God, Amara consumed the soul of newly-made prophet Donatello Redfield. Despite losing his soul, Donatello retained the same general personality and states that with his loss of conscience he bases his actions upon the motto "What would Mr. Rogers do?" Even with the loss of his soul, Donatello still retains his prophet powers and status. However, without his soul acting as filter, Donatello would become corrupted by the demon tablet's dark influence, attempting to kill Sam, Dean and Castiel in order to keep it's secrets and power to himself. After being reawakened by Castiel months later, Donatello still lacked a soul, but his original personality was restored without the corruption of the demon tablet.
Lily Sunder's Soul
In her effort to gain revenge upon Ishim, Lily began using Enochian magic which burned away a piece of her soul every time she used it. Like Soulless Sam, she lost her ability to dream and lost much of her humanity by the time she got her revenge.[9]
After getting her revenge, Lily stopped using her powers as she still had a sliver of her soul left, which she wanted to go to Heaven and be reunited with her daughter. When Lily originally met Anubis, he weighed her soul and determined that she would go to Hell. After dying of a heart attack following the resurrection of Jack Kline, Lily met with Anubis who weighed her soul again and determined that she was worthy to go to Heaven. What was left of Lily's soul then passed on to her final resting place in Heaven where she would be reunited with her daughter.[10]
Jack Kline's Soul
As a Nephilim, Jack possessed both a soul and archangel grace with the combination making him stronger than even Lucifer. After Jack's death, his soul got its own Heaven like any deceased human, but it was also sought after by the Cosmic Entity who believed that Jack's angel half meant that his soul belonged in the Empty instead. After making a deal with the Entity, Castiel returned Jack's soul to his body briefly, and then Jack who completed an Enochian spell provided by Lily Sunder that used part of his soul to sustain his body and cure him. In the process, this piece of Jack's soul was burned away, but Lily believed that it wouldn't be anything that he would miss.[10] Later, during an attack by Michael's Monsters, Jack was able to use the magic keeping him alive to tap into the power of his soul and disintegrate five attacking monsters in a similar manner to what he could do while Jack still had his grace. Due to the nature of the magic, another piece of Jack's soul was burned away doing this leading to Castiel warning Jack of the consequences of the continued use of his soul in this way.[42] Although he continues to use his soul primarily to stay alive, having to use it to heal himself of a re-occurrence of his illness at least once, Jack used his powers to heal Castiel after he gets poisoned by the gorgon Noah Ophis and the antidote fails to work. After Michael escapes Dean's mind and possesses Rowena, Jack uses his powers to exorcise the archangel from her and destroy Michael, leaving only his grace. When Jack consumes Michael's grace, his powers are restored, eliminating the need for him to use his soul to access his powers.[43]
It's later revealed that Jack burned away a great deal of his soul in the process, leaving him mostly, if not completely, soulless. However, Castiel expresses a belief that Jack still has some of his soul left, but he doesn't know how much.[8] Castiel later admits that Jack's soul is completely gone, something that he knew since witnessing Jack kill the snake Felix.[13][53] Though Castiel sought God's help to restore Jack's soul,[13] Chuck claimed that He couldn't as souls are complicated, even for Him. The veracity of Chuck's claim could not be confirmed nor denied. After his death, Jack ended up in the Empty where he was greeted by the Entity and Billie.[14]
Following Jack's resurrection by Billie, he initially remains soulless.[54] However, his soul is later restored after Jack visits the Garden of Eden through the Occultum.[15]
Eileen Leahy's Soul
After being killed by a hellhound controlled by Arthur Ketch,[55] Eileen's soul was dragged to Hell.[56] When God unleashed all of the souls of Hell upon the Earth,[14] Eileen's soul escaped as well and quickly fled the area in time to avoid the magical barrier established by Belphegor that contained all of the escaped souls.[57] Left as a ghost, Eileen eventually managed to reach out to the Winchesters in hopes of getting into Heaven with their help, but they had learned that souls that had been condemned to Hell could not get into Heaven.[11] Instead, while looking for Rowena's journals to discover how to make a Soul Catcher, Sam discovered a resurrection spell Rowena had been creating that could bring the dead back by turning spirit to flesh. Sam was able to use this spell to resurrect Eileen.[56]
Souls in Religion and Lore
The key events in the 1.01 Pilot- the night when Sam is fed demon blood by Azazel and Mary dies as well as the night Jessica dies exactly 22 years later- occur on November the second which is known as All Souls Day.
- Chassidic concepts of souls
- The soul in religion and philosophy from the Catholic Encylopedia
- Wikipedia entry on souls.
External Links
- Heaven and Hell: Powering the Clockwork a Revelation from Episode 6.4 by zazreil (October 2010); archive link
- Supernatural - What am I, without my soul? by shadowkat67 (November 2011); AO3 link
- Angels and Souls: Don't have a soul to sell? by lurea (November 2012); archive link
- Soul, spirit, body: The tripartite division of self in Supernatural by outpastthemoat (February 2013); archive link
- Each soul generates its own paradise: Thoughts on Supernatural's heaven by outpastthemoat (February 2013); archive link
- Supernatural: The Economics of Heaven & Hell & The Quality of Souls As Power Sources (Masterpost) by jkateel, nerdinessboundaries, ambular-d, deathbycoldopen (March 2013); archive link
- Monsters, Humans, and Hunters: The Function of Souls in a Supernatural Universe by todisturbtheuniverse-archive (April-May 2013)
- "Blood and Bones" - The Physical Residence of the Soul by neven-ebrez (September 2013); archive link
- The Human Soul: The Monster Within and Without by messier51 (October 2014); archive link
- Part 6 - This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land/This is My Father's World - The people, the flora, the fauna, and the land are all part of "God's most cherished creation" on Supernatural. by larinah (January 2015); archive link
- Head for the hills! by larinah (January 2015); archive link
- 1.1: Woman in White vs other ghosts by larinah, yarnyfan, welkinalauda (March 2015); archive link
- Untitled commentary on 10.20 by larinah (April 2015); archive link
See also
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 6.03 The Third Man
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 9.17 Mother's Little Helper
- ↑ 11.05 Thin Lizzie
- ↑ 11.06 Our Little World
- ↑ 13.02 The Rising Son
- ↑ 13.14 Good Intentions
- ↑ 14.12 Prophet and Loss
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 14.15 Peace of Mind
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 12.10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 14.08 Byzantium
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 15.02 Raising Hell
- ↑ 14.19 Jack in the Box
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 14.17 Game Night
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.20 Moriah
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.13 Destiny's Child
- ↑ 2.01 In My Time of Dying
- ↑ 4.21 When the Levee Breaks
- ↑ 4.10 Heaven and Hell
- ↑ 4.01 Lazarus Rising
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 8.19 Taxi Driver
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 8.02 What's Up, Tiger Mommy?
- ↑ 8.22 Clip Show
- ↑ 8.23 Sacrifice
- ↑ 10.03 Soul Survivor
- ↑ 2.22 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part Two
- ↑ 6.20 The Man Who Would Be King
- ↑ 15.20 Carry On
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 6.20 The Man Who Would Be King
- ↑ 5.16 Dark Side of the Moon
- ↑ 8.05 Blood Brother
- ↑ 2.01 In My Time of Dying
- ↑ 4.09 I Know What You Did Last Summer
- ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 6.04 Weekend at Bobby's
- ↑ 34.0 34.1 6.19 Mommy Dearest
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 6.18 Frontierland
- ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 6.11 Appointment in Samarra
- ↑ 6.17 My Heart Will Go On
- ↑ 6.21 Let It Bleed
- ↑ 39.0 39.1 6.22 The Man Who Knew Too Much
- ↑ 7.01 Meet The New Boss
- ↑ 8.12 As Time Goes By
- ↑ 42.0 42.1 14.10 Nihilism
- ↑ 43.0 43.1 14.14 Ouroboros
- ↑ 1.12 The Tears of a Clown
- ↑ 45.0 45.1 6.06 You Can't Handle the Truth
- ↑ 6.07 Family Matters
- ↑ 47.0 47.1 6.10 Caged Heat
- ↑ 6.08 All Dogs Go to Heaven
- ↑ 6.12 Like a Virgin
- ↑ 5.20 The Devil You Know
- ↑ 7.10 Death's Door
- ↑ 7.18 Party On, Garth
- ↑ 14.18 Absence
- ↑ 15.12 Galaxy Brain
- ↑ 12.21 There's Something About Mary
- ↑ 56.0 56.1 15.06 Golden Time
- ↑ 15.01 Back and to the Future


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For the introduction to the "Seed" project, click here.Other recent installments include an interview with a donor to the sperm bank and commentaries by sperm bank mothers. This is an update on how the search is going and a preview of what's coming next.
Last week, on a trip to Southern California to meet Nobel sperm bank mothers, I spent an afternoon with Paul Smith. Smith was the first director of the bank, the Repository for Germinal Choice. He is one of the few people remaining who knows how the repository worked and perhaps the only one who will talk about it. (Click here for why there is so much silence.)
Smith—a sanitary engineer, dog breeder, and Vietnam draft-dodger—was repository founder Robert Graham's most zealous employee, and he has devoted his life to the cause of genius sperm banking (or "high-achievement sperm banking," as he calls it). He supervised the repository during its most notorious years, from 1980-84, and since he left, he has operated his own genius sperm bank, Heredity Choice. Today he and his wife, Adonna Frankel, run Heredity Choice from their home in the California desert. Click here to read more about Smith and the very odd history of his sperm bank.
Smith, Frankel, and I spent several hours discussing how the Repository for Germinal Choice actually worked. This is an interesting subject because essentially every bit of public lore about the sperm bank is false. When the repository opened in 1980, the press corps and public were enthralled (and sometimes horrified) by the myth of the "Nobel Prize sperm bank." No one ever learned its proper name because "Nobel Prize sperm bank" was such a mesmerizing substitute. Founder Graham played up the bizarre glamour of the operation, and the press loved it. Stories depicted a kind of strange James Bondian experiment: Majestic Nobel Prize winners were covertly handing over their precious life fluids to a mysterious millionaire inventor. He guarded these priceless vials ferociously, entrusting the precious semen only to the most superb women, Mensa-qualified geniuses who passed his rigorous qualifying tests.
In fact, none of this was true.
Graham, who made his fortune by inventing "impact resistant" plastic eyeglasses in the late '40s, had been obsessed since childhood with improving human genetic stock. Graham believed intelligent people had an obligation to go forth and multiply—he had eight kids himself. In the mid-'60s he started the Foundation for the Advancement of Man to pay for the birth and care of children born to poor married couples of "superior mental qualifications."
Eventually Graham fixated on the idea of using a Nobel Prize sperm bank to spread the best seed widely. (The sperm bank idea had originated in the '30s with Hermann Muller, a Nobel Prize-winning geneticist. Muller, a communist, had tried to recruit Josef Stalin as a donor.) Graham's bank would provide women with "the choicest genes … above average is not enough," as one early pamphlet put it. In his view, the repository couldn't stop the social welfare system from breeding morons but could provide a few talented people who might repair the damage caused by the imbecilic masses. In 1978, after he sold his company Armorlite to 3M, Graham went to work. He housed the repository—essentially some liquid nitrogen storage tanks—in the basement of a well house on his San Diego estate. Later he moved it to a small office in Escondido.
Graham scoured California for Nobelists, approaching the more than two dozen who lived in the state. Only three agreed to give their sperm. Graham's assistant collected from them in 1979. But when Graham announced the Nobel sperm bank to the press in early 1980, the outcry frightened his laureates. Two immediately broke their association with the bank. Only William Shockley admitted his affiliation, but even he never donated sperm again. ("It's too bad," says Smith. "Shockley's sperm was actually pretty good.") Graham was left with a Nobel sperm bank with no Nobel sperm. (Graham also rationalized the Nobelists' departure by saying they were too old to provide decent sperm anyway.)
Without Nobelists, Graham needed a new scheme for his sperm bank. At this time, Smith arrived to assist Graham. His chief task was finding new donors. "Instead of recruiting Nobelists, I decided to predict who the future Nobel laureates would be," Smith says. He approached young scientists who had won awards. He haunted the campuses of University of California at Berkeley and Caltech, where young Übernerds are thick on the ground. At first, Smith and Graham focused on hard scientists and cared only about intelligence, but they soon realized their clients weren't satisfied with just brains. "Women would always ask how good-looking he was and how tall he was, and they would want to know if he was athletic. We realized that if you are going to offer choice, you have to offer women a real choice," Smith says.
Smith's hit rate was dismally low. He estimates he approached about 100 men during his four years at the bank, and only "six or eight, maybe 10" became donors. "Some of them thought I was a Nazi or the devil. Some of them had wives who said no. Some of them probably had had a vasectomy. Some of them probably knew they had some condition that would disqualify them," Smith says. (The repository collected elaborate medical histories of donors and excluded those with low sperm counts, bad family histories, or certain diseases.) And the repository didn't pay its sperm donors a penny, which also surely discouraged them.
The few who signed up, Smith says, tended to be civic-minded men who sympathized with Graham's eugenic anxiety. "Show me a blood donor, and I will show you a sperm donor," says Smith. "One donor told me he thinks he is doing more for society with this than he has with any of his inventions or patents. And he has 17 patents."
(In case you were wondering, none of these donors have gone on to win Nobel Prizes, though Smith says that's because many of them are in mathematics and computer science, which are not Nobel categories.)
All of the repository's donors were white. Was Graham a racist? Click here for a brief discussion.
Smith made house calls around the country to collect the sperm. One donor recalls meeting Smith at a seedy motel and supplying his sample there. Another time Smith had him use his office bathroom. Smith says he has never brought pornography with him: "My donors have always had sufficient imagination that I don't need it." When Smith appeared on television or in newspaper photos to promote the repository, he wore a mask or hid his face. That way, he says, secretaries and colleagues of his donors could not recognize him and know that he was gathering seed.
Smith traveled with a small mobile collection kit. The kit Smith uses today—a rolling flight attendant suitcase—contains a small tank of liquid nitrogen, a microscope, a centrifuge, collection cups, and something called a "Makler counting kit," which allows him to estimate the number of motile sperm in the specimen. He freezes the sample on the spot in the vapors of liquid nitrogen. Each ejaculation is divided into as many as five vials, each of which could be used for one insemination. Some later donors had to do all this work themselves. The repository would send them liquid nitrogen, collection cups, and vials and have them prepare their own samples. "You had to thaw the buffer, then ejaculate in a cup, then transfer it using a needle to vials, then freeze them for 40 minutes, then put them in the liquid nitrogen. It was incredibly time-consuming to do it," says one donor.
Graham and Smith advertised their wares in a highly unglamorous mimeographed catalog. It identified each donor with a color and number, summarized him—"Gifted research biologist at world renowned research center"—and described his personality, manual dexterity, hobbies, athletic achievements, and general health. It also listed standard features such as ethnic ancestry, eye color, skin color, hair color, height, weight, and general appearance. You can see sample pages from donors " Fuchsia No. 1," " Coral No. 36," " Turquoise No. 38," and " White No. 6."
The other great myth of the repository was that it restricted its sperm to Mensa members. Graham did promote the repository in a profile for a Mensa magazine, but he never made Mensa membership—or any intellectual qualification—a condition. The repository took essentially any married woman who applied. (Graham's wife made him exclude single women and lesbians.) Smith says that hundreds of women applied in the first few years, and only two were rejected: one who was taking lithium, another who was obese and diabetic.
Most mothers, Smith says, didn't apply to the repository because they expected a superbaby. Almost all applicants had infertile husbands, so they chose the repository as the best of bad options. Repository literature did brag incessantly about the A-one sperm, but most clients seem to have recognized that this was not exact science. They hoped for a slight boost, not a mini-Nobelist.
Smith says that there was a remarkable concentration of doctors and nurses among the women applicants. My own investigation so far seems to confirm this. Of the six mothers I have spoken to, four are in the healing professions, and they sought the repository for the health as much as smarts. Says one mother who's a doctor, "I see terrible health problems all the time in 3-D—suicides, bad illnesses. I went to the repository because I did not want to plague a child with that."
Of the repository's hundreds of applicants, only a small fraction bore children. The process was inexpensive—Graham, who saw the bank as charity work, did not charge for sperm—but it was onerous. Sperm vials were mailed out to women or their doctors, who had to thaw and insert them at the right moment in the ovulation cycle. It frequently required several cycles before a pregnancy took, and some women never got pregnant at all. Mothers waived their right to sue if they didn't get pregnant, the right to know the donors, and the right to sue if a child didn't meet their expectations. Only 20 women had children by 1984, Smith estimates.
That was the year Graham dumped Smith as repository director after a defamation suit by another sperm bank. A rival bank in Oakland sued after Smith told a magazine reporter, "If [women] want defectives, they can go to Oakland." Smith took all the donors with him when he left the repository and opened Heredity Choice. (If you missed the sidebar about Paul Smith and the odd story of Heredity Choice, click here.)
After Smith's departure, Graham became his own chief recruiter. He wrote solicitation letters to young men listed in scientific "Who's Who" guides. He attended scientific conferences and introduced himself to promising new Ph.D.s. (Graham kept conference-going till his death, literally. He died at age 90 when he slipped in a bathroom at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.) Graham came to recognize that not all women were excited by lab coats, so he expanded his stable to include athletes, artists, and businessmen. According to one report, he even tried to persuade Queen Elizabeth's husband, Prince Phillip, to donate. (Given that the prince has never shown any evidence of any kind of brain activity, the solicitation certainly does not speak well for Graham's notion of achievement.)
Graham's son Robin says his father was "aloof" to his own children. Graham seems to have reserved his warmth for his sperm bank kids. He visited many of them and wallpapered his office with their snapshots. One mother wrote me that she has always considered Graham, not the donor or her ex-husband, the father of her children.
The repository produced about 15-20 kids per year through the late '80s and early '90s, but Graham's 1997 death essentially killed it. Graham had funded it out of his own pocket, probably to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars per year. Graham had considered providing for the repository in his will but eventually left the decision to his heirs. His wife and children apparently didn't share his enthusiasm, and the bank closed in early 1999.
News of the shutdown shocked some mothers. Some had hoped they would be able to use the repository to find their donors or their kids' half-siblings. Indeed, the repository staff had helped several moms correspond anonymously with their donors. The repository's closure ended any hope of further contact. The repository destroyed its thousands of semen samples. As for the repository's records, no one will say what happened to them. State law does not require the repository to keep its records and certainly doesn't require it to release any information to mothers. No one connected to the repository in its final days is willing to talk about the records, either to me or to mothers who want to find their donors.
This vacuum is the main reason why mothers are contacting Slate. The records are gone, so they hope the collaborative power of the Web can help them find donors and siblings. And that is exactly what the next Seed articles will do.
For a preview of what's coming next and an update on the search for families and donors, click here.
If you have information about the Repository for Germinal Choice, or if you are a mother, child, or donor who wants to tell your story anonymously, please e-mail me at firstname.lastname@example.com, or call me at (202) 862-4889.
The Seed Series
Part 1: An introduction to the Seed project
Part 2: An interview with donor "Entrepreneur"
Part 3: The first responses
Part 4: The real history of the "Nobel sperm bank"
Part 5: An update and a preview
Part 6: A mother searches for "Donor White"
Part 7: An update on the donor list
Part 8: The weird history of "positive" eugenics
Part 9: The Nobel sperm bank celebrity
Part 10: The donors
Part 11: A look at the parents
Part 12: The rise of the smart sperm shopper
Part 13: The genius babies grow up
Click here for Michael Kinsley's explanatory introduction to Seed.
Join the Discussion
5. Eugenics, Privatized
If you are interested in sharing any information about the Repository for Germinal Choice, send e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com.


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MISSION STATEMENT: ANOTHER 21 YEARS OF LIVING ART(1998-2019) is art that compassionately practices an appreciation for life and is a durational continuation of my exploration of the art of consciousness. The artists/lifeists invited to this experience,ecumenically choose their own unique methodologies and explore their work while remaining in virtual/internet communication with each other throughout their practice of compassionately transforming their life,via art. It is based on Linda MARY Montano's endurance: 7 YEARS OF LIVING ART + ANOTHER 7 YEARS OF LIVING ART= 14 YEARS OF LIVING ART, 12/8/1984—12/8/1998.
www.lindamontano.com,www.vdb.org http://lindamarymontano.blogspot.com/
DESCRIPTION: "When I finished 14 YEARS OF LIVING ART,an art experience-endurance based on the 7 chakras, I became so enamored of working with time that I wanted to share that joy with others, and so I designed ANOTHER 21 YEARS OF LIVING ART. I felt that other artists could become virtual/internet art family and I would feel as if I were in good company, with like-minded friends, doing work based on time,endurance and with reference to my past work, but interpreted by each artist according to their discipline, practice and personal aesthetic. I am proud and honored to be in the company of the following life-artists." Linda Mary Montano
MICHELLE BUSH: SEVEN YEARS OF POSITIVE OBSESSIONS,12/8/2005-12/8/2012. I obsess on one sentence/statement and colour in relation to the chakras producing collaborative or interventionist and performance pieces each year.
BARBARA CARRELLAS: EIGHT NEW/ANCIENT SACRAMENTS OF PLEASURE AND CHANGE, 12/8/2004-12/8/2011. I create chakra-based rituals which I celebrate on the eight natural holidays (solstices, equinoxes, etc.) that explore and celebrate the paradoxes between the fixed commitments/initiations of the seven sacraments of the Catholic church and the ever-changing, fluid realms of intuition, pleasure and nature. EIGHT YEARS OF LIVING ART, www.barbaracarrellas.com
SC DURKIN: SEVEN YEARS OF MUSIC, 12/8/2005-12/8/2012.I endeavor to learn one musical instrument a year for the next seven years. SEVEN YEARS OF MUSIC,www.scdurkin.com
KOOSIL-JA HWANG: 12/8/2004-12/8/2011. www.dancekk.com
VERNITA N'COGNITA: 7 MORE UNTITLED YEARS OF WHEREVER MY ART LEADS ME, 12/8/2004-12/8/2011. www.ncognita.com
ESTHER K. SMITH: THEIR HOUSE IS A MUSEUM,12/8/2004-12/8/2011. Seven years in other people's houses. EK SMITH MUSEUM, www.purgatorypiepress.com
KRISTA KELLY WALSH: SEVEN MIRRORS, 2006-2012. My work is based on the Cabalist system of reading the will of the seven planetarty spirits in the seven mirrors that are made of seven metals and associated with the 7 days of the week, seven planets and cooresponding themes. Each year I will make a corresponding mirror and wear a bead of the same metal, make projects and performances based on the themes of that metal.
SATELLITE PROJECT:The satellite project is an ongoing congruent program of artists/lifeists within ANOTHER 21 YEARS OF LIVING ART.
STEVEN REIGNS: S(T)EVEN YEARS, 1/12007-1/1/20014. I intend to explore the connection between art, life,and spirituality through writing practice, public writing workshops, and publishing chapbooks. S(T)EVEN YEARS SANCTUARY, www.stevenreigns.com
VICTORIA SINGH & KURTIS CHAMPION: SON/ART—CHAKRA COLOR RITUALS, 7/7/04-7/7/11. Kurtis celebrates the chakra colors of each 'year' with art projects on the 7th day of each month.
ELIZABETH STEPHENS & ANNIE SPRINKLE: LOVE ARTLABORATORY—7 YEARS EXPLORING LOVE AS ART,12/8/2004-12/8/2011. We make art about love. LOVE ARTLABORATORY
Friday, November 19, 2010
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ISD Board receives audit details
St. Joseph County Intermediate School District met Monday to review an audit conducted by Rick Strawser from Norman & Paulsen, P.C.
An unqualified report was issued on the financial statements of the St. Joseph County ISD, the highest assurance given by auditors.
The condition of the governmental activities remains stable for the district, Strawser said in his report.
Overall revenue was $15.3 million and expenses were $14.9 million, resulting in a $433,209 increase for the fiscal year, according to the audit.
Enrollment decreased for the 2012-13 school year, with the level similar to 2008-09.
Also at the meeting, Ann Wallace presented a glimpse into the Level 5E Program located at Mendon Elementary School. Wallace is in her 12th year teaching the program and assistant Kim Pavek is in her 10th year.
The program allows mentally impaired children to learn a variety of skills, such as language, reading and writing. Children are also taught behavioral and social skills.
"It's the happy faces that bring us back at the end of the day," Wallace said.
Follow Justin Wright on Twitter, @jwrightSJ.


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Flat, discreet design
Excellent video quality
Vandal resistant
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Power over Ethernet
Monitoring outdoor entrance areas
Designed for placement near building entrances to strengthen security, the palm-sized AXIS M3113-VE Network Camera is a cost-effective, ultra-discreet fixed dome for monitoring outdoor entrance areas of stores, restaurants, hotels, banks and offices. The camera is vandal-resistant and can detect tampering attempts such as blocking or spray-painting.
The camera can operate in temperatures from 50°C (122°F) down to -20°C (-4°F). The UV-resistant casing comes with a weather shield for protection from sunlight, rain and snow.
Models without the weather shield, which provide a greater tilt range, are suitable for semi-outdoor, ceiling-mount installations where the shield is not required, such as in a cold storage room or under a porch. Naturally they can be used indoors as well.
Excellent video quality at full frame rate
AXIS M3113-VE has support for SVGA streaming at full frame rate. The use of progressive scan produces clearer images of moving objects. The pixel counter helps verify that the pixel resolution of an object or face meets regulatory or specific customer requirements.
Quick and reliable installation
The camera is designed for quick and reliable installation. The desired field of view and a leveled image can be easily achieved by using the supplied lens tool to direct and rotate the ball that holds the lens and image sensor. Power over Ethernet support further simplifies installation since only one cable is needed for carrying power and video.
AXIS M31-VE Network Camera Series
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AXIS M31-VE Network Camera Series - Installation Guide
AXIS M31-VE Network Camera Series - User's Manual
Weight: 330 g (0.73 lb.)