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Late last year, Google announced that it had reached a settlement with several major publishers that would end their copyright lawsuit against the Google Books service. The settlement would put in place an agreement between Google and existing copyright holders, and give the search giant rights to out-of-print and orphaned works—those for which the copyright holder cannot be identified. Despite the complexity of the settlement, it was on a fast track to approval, with a final thumbs-up scheduled for May. Now, it looks like a delay in the decision is inevitable, as opposition to it seems to be rising and the Department of Justice is looking into the antitrust implications of the deal.
A portion of the objections come from within the publishing community itself, where a small collection of authors and copyright holders have requested four more months to evaluate the proposed settlement before deciding whether to sign on to it. Google countered with an offer of a two-month delay. The judge ultimately approved a four-month extension.
The authors who sought the delay appear to be concerned about not having time to fully evaluate the details of the settlement, but there is also significant opposition to the deal itself. The technology blog at The New York Times notes that a number of academics have described significant objections to the terms of the deal. These attack nearly every aspect of the settlement, but focus on the fact that many significant rights appear to be transferred to Google under the settlement.
So, for example, the agreement as structured could essentially turn Google into the sole rightsholder for orphaned works, which would mean that anyone would have to negotiate with the company over the use of these works. Other objections focus on the fact that Google could control the sale and distribution of out-of-print works, even if the original author decided to release it under a more liberal license. Other recent objections suggest that the settlement, by giving the search giant control of how the out-of-print works are displayed, could allow the company to censor and selectively display these works, based on community standards or political concerns.
If those within the publishing industry are getting concerned about the power it grants Google, they're not alone. Online sources of book material are also worried that the settlement is specific to one company; all others will have to negotiate one with the publishers on their own, without Google's market power and, potentially, after the settlement has been put into action. These fears prompted the Internet Archive to file a motion in which it attempted to intervene in the settlement, which would make it a party to it. In a tersely worded order, Judge Denny Chin, who is overseeing the case, rejected this attempt. The group that attempted to intervene can file an amicus brief or an objection to the settlement, but they will not be allowed to become a party to it.
As if all of these issues weren't enough, the Department of Justice may be getting involved. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the DoJ has been talking to the parties involved in the settlement due to concerns that the exclusive agreement would raise antitrust issues. Nobody was willing to go on record as confirming this leak, and there's no way of knowing whether it will result in a formal antitrust investigation, but the mere threat of antitrust action was sufficient to get Google to back away from a potential deal with Yahoo.
So, the indications are that Judge Chin intends to keep the settlement between Google and the publishing industry, but is willing to give those parties the time they need to sort through its complexities. That suggests that anyone who is opposed to the settlement will either have to convince existing parties to the suit that it is not in their interests or convince the DoJ to start a formal inquiry—an extra four months certainly won't hurt in either regard.
Listing image by Stock.xchange user alaahammou


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Transition Kindergarten
What is Transition Kindergarten?
Kindergarten begins an exciting new chapter in the lives of children and their families and sets the tone for children's social and academic future. With the increasingly academic nature of Kindergarten, however, some parents are finding that their children are not quite ready for the pace and rigor of the Kindergarten program. These children quite often have a fall birthday.
The Los Angeles Unified School District is pleased to offer a Transition Kindergarten program that will benefit children who need the gift of time to develop socially, emotionally, physically and/or intellectually before entering Kindergarten the following year.
Using California state standards for Kindergarten, teachers implement developmentally appropriate practices to accommodate various learning styles while integrating experiential "hands on" activities in an engaging setting. This program allows students to develop skills and concepts at their own pace and acts as a bridge between a more flexible curriculum and the academic rigor of elementary school.
Transition Kindergarten is a full day program and follows the schedule of Traditional Kindergarten. Enrollment in Transition Kindergarten is voluntary. Parents who are interested in this program for their child may complete a parent request available at Kindergarten Orientation, the school office and on the school website. Parent request forms are due at the time of school registration. For more information, please call Carpenter Community Charter at (818) 761-4363.

subset: commoncrawl


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March 1, 2016 Leave a comment
Hello, old friend. It's been a while. You look.. um.. great? You really wear dying a miserable death, barely mourned and unloved well.
Playing an XBLIG in early 2016 is like visiting a dying relative in hospice care. You know any visit could be the last you'll have, but you go anyway in secret hopes that they'll leave you something nice to remember them. For those confused by the situation, yes, Xbox Live Indie Games are still alive. The last rites have been administered and happy families have been notified that a donor for Daddy's faulty platforming engine has been located, but it's technically still alive in the same way Ben Carson's campaign is still technically ongoing. For now. No new games will be uploaded after September, 2016 and the marketplace will shut down entirely after September, 2017. Will you be able to access the games you already bought after that? The fuck if I know.
I do know that here it is, nearly two years after my last XBLIG review and I'm still basically known as "that girl who reviews XBLIGs." And you know what? I'm proud of that. Plus, a few last second hidden gems that savvy indie fans have come to associate with the XBLIG market are still showing up. Take today's game, Multitasking. It caught my attention because it twists the formula of WarioWare (my favorite game ever) by making you play multiple microgames at the same time. My family had a terrific chuckle at the thought of me playing such a game. Some people have coordination that makes them capable of rubbing their bellies while patting their heads at the same time. Meanwhile, I have such good coordination that I once broke my ankle falling three-inches off a Dance Dance Revolution platform at a bowling alley. I wish I could say I was joking, but I'm not. Given that and the fact that I can't chew gum and talk at the same time without either biting my cheek or gagging on the gum, they said maybe I should rethink my choice in games to play. But fuck them and their lack of faith in my ability to step up my abilities. I was determined to prove them wrong.
I failed. Not even with honor either. I was just awful at Multitasking. Except on Easy Mode, but this is one of those games where success there carries an undeniable shame with it. Again, the idea is "WarioWare, only playing multiple games simultaneously." Your TV is divided into four screens. The top screen is controlled by the bumpers, the left screen with the left analog stick, the center screen with the face buttons, and the right screen by the right analog stick. The games are very basic, many of them lifted directly from WarioWare. The difference here is, instead of the speed increasing, the amount of games thrown at you increases. The games play fine and control solid, with one exception involving moving the analog sticks at bullseyes, which feels a bit too loose. It's kind of annoying because I can't blame being awful on the controls. It's all on me.
For what it's worth, Multitasking is fun. But, unlike games where my comical badness didn't affect my overall enjoyment (Spelunky for example), I have to admit that my ceiling of fun was lowered here. I was damn near ecstatic about it at first, but the further I played it, the more I realized I just could not get better at it. God knows I tried, but no strategy seemed to work. The games are spit out at random, and my best runs by far were the ones where one of the games being displayed required simple button mashing with no finesse. If both games required my attention, I was screwed. On the rare instances where I made it far enough to have three games on-screen, I never survived the first wave of it. I'm just not wired for games like this. Multitasking is fine, albeit basic and kind of boring in how it's presented, but fine. The online scoreboards suck to use (presumably to be corrected in the upcoming PC port), but fine. I probably would have ranked it higher if I could get better, but it's hard for me to get worked up over a game that's as impossible for me to play well. Yea, I love WarioWare, but I wouldn't want to play two of them at once. I already feel like a douche for that time I played WarioWare Twisted using my GameBoy Player. This isn't helping.
Multitasking was developed by yyrGames
Point of Sale: Xbox Live Indie Games
$1 jumped the gun so many times in the Wild Gunman minigame that she lost count in the making of this review. Though I do have to ask, when people had those duels in the old days, what happened if someone shot too soon and hit? Did the person shot get to come back from the dead so they could pace off again? If not, damn, I would have been the best gunfighter in the west! How come nobody else thought of the "just shoot first and say MY BAD" strategy before me? Someone get me a time machine, I need to try this shit out.
Multitasking is Chick-Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.


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Welcome! I'm Katherine Monahan. I grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I just moved from Alabama to Chicago.
This is me:
I have a weird expression on my face because if I put the puppy down, it pees.
I live with Scott.
He's a physicist. I was a lawyer in Manhattan, but now I write this humor and food blog, among other food and writing-related projects. I'm trying to figure out (again) what to be.
We have two dogs.
She's a cross between a French and English bulldog. She's about 1 1/2 years old.
And this is Seymour:
We think he's Australian shepherd, maybe mixed with collie. He's 3 months old. [Update: he's now 50 lbs. and has eaten the couch he's pictured on above.]
An eggton is what you get when you dump a bunch of croutons into a skillet of eggs. I discovered this at 2 o'clock one morning when a bag of herbed croutons fell into the omelet I was making. It was delicious because the croutons got warm and plump and the herbs melted into the eggs. You should probably try it.
I don't have formal cooking or baking experience; I've just always enjoyed it. Also, I have no idea what I'm doing with the camera. But I can tell you it's a Nikon D90 and I usually use a 50 mm lens.
I'm so glad you're here. Email me any time at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Disclaimers and Copyright Information:
(1) Unless otherwise indicated, all content on this site (except the recipes themselves) is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. (Hot.) So before borrowing a picture (even if you're linking back here), shoot me an email from the contact page to ask, eh? Thanks. Also, please no "reblogging." It violates copyright and wordpress shouldn't be providing the option.
(2) Nothing on this site constitutes legal advice or a legal opinion of any kind, or an admission.
(3) While we are on the subject of law (snooze), please note that any activities and recipes described on this site are undertaken at your own risk. For example, should you discover that you are allergic to almonds or you accidentally huff some insulation while reading this blog, you are on your own, my friend. I might bake you "feel better" cookies, but I will not be held liable, folks.
Gwasch #
This is the best and funniest blog ever. So glad I "stumbled" upon it. Can't wait to read the future posts. Hope Alabama is good.
GrantDecember 9, 2011
Julie Latham #
I found you blog from @thebloggess. She is AWESOME! I am married to a corporate attorney and his humor is not nearly as great as yours. What is your secret ? Oh i know, you are no longer a corperate attorney. Ha. Please keep up the great work. It gives me hope about hubby quitting and finding his humor again.
Take care..December 11, 2011
Amanda #
Hi there! Just thought I'd let you know I also found you through The Bloggess and I think you're delightful and funny 🙂 Will be subscribing.
Thanks and hope life is well!December 13, 2011
annie #
Must say . . . I am quickly becoming obsessed with your blog. I have literally "snortled" aloud whilst reading your posts. I *may* have even had a coworker ask if I was choking while I attempted to refrain from spraying coffee on my screen, mid-guffaw, during the Stalker Eggshell Necklace discussion with Scott that preceded your stop at the Christmas-saving unclaimed luggage depot.
Thanks for making my day have more smiles, and, well, if I am honest . . . coffee stains. Keep it up . . . Please! 🙂January 6, 2012
so happy to have stumbled upon your blog! bloody brilliant, you just had me laughing at the screen for a good 5 minutes. and really admire your guts for quitting your job as an attorney and doing something you love and enjoy, that's been really inspiring for someone fretting about life after uni.April 15, 2012
Hi, Katherine!
You've just been nominated for the One Lovely Blog & Very Inspiring Blogger Award!
Thanks for being awesome =)October 31, 2012
Todd #
Your website looks so great! Nice work!!!! I hope life is treating you great!February 17, 2013
Your comment on Movita's blog drew me here. Wow! I feel very late to the party..but if you are still accepting guests, I think I'll be dropping in regularly! 🙂March 2, 2013
Hey! Would you mind if I share your blog with my zynga group?
There's a lot of folks that I think would really enjoy your content.
Please let me know. CheersJuly 30, 2014


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The question of whether modern humans made love or war with our ancestors has swung back and forth over decades of often acrimonious debate. At present, most researchers trying to read prehistory in our genomes believe that we contain no trace of species past and that we are all descended from a group that left Africa within the past 100,000 years and replaced all other humans, such as Neandertals, without interbreeding.
Those who favor the alternative view feel that the issue is moving their way, however. "Things are coming to the surface that don't fit that model" of a single recent migration out of Africa, says Murray Cox of the University of Arizona. Cox believes that he and his colleagues have found the clearest sign so far that modern humans mated with Homo erectus, a species that originated about two million years ago that many believe has a place on the lineage leading to ourselves.
The case for the all-conquering Africans is based mainly on studies of the Y chromosome and the mitochondrion, an energy-generating structure within the cell that has its own small genome and passes down the female line. All modern variation in these sequences traces back to Africa and shows relatively recent common ancestors. (The absence of obviously hybrid fossils also supports this idea.)
But, Cox says, there are plenty of other places for genes from our relatives to hide. Studying the genetics of modern human populations, he and his colleagues stumbled across a region of the X chromosome, called RRM2P4, that shows large differences between people in different places—a sign of an ancient genetic split. To pin down the gene's origins, the researchers sequenced some 250 individuals, half from Africa, the rest from China, Central Asia, the Basque Country of southwestern Europe, and the Pacific Islands.
Translating the differences between gene sequences into a date for their divergence, the researchers conclude that the various forms of RRM2P4 last shared a common ancestor about two million years ago—around when H. erectus migrated from Africa into Asia. And the oldest variant seems to have originated in Asia, where it is now almost exclusively found.
The combination of great antiquity and Asian origins is compelling, Cox believes. Fossils suggest that H. erectus may have survived in Asia up until about 30,000 years ago, overlapping with modern humans by about 15,000 years. "This gene is most common exactly where you find Homo erectus fossils," says Cox, who described the finding in the January edition of Genetics. The team also used new statistical techniques to show that the gene is significantly more likely to have arisen in Asia than in Africa. The possibility that
H. erectus and modern humans interbred is all the more surprising, he adds, because most researchers think there is no evidence for our having swapped genes with the more closely related Neandertals.
Other researchers note that many factors can create deep genetic divisions among human groups. No one disputes that the large majority of our genome has a recent African origin. But that dominance makes it difficult to tell what might be the legacy of a small amount of breeding with other lineages and what might be chance. Across the whole genome, some groups will show large differences even if they all left Africa at about the same time, explains geneticist Peter Underhill of Stanford University. "When you see these outliers, are they really emblematic of something dramatic, or are they just the extremes of the normal distributions? To me, it's still an open question," he says.
Alternatively, the Asian form of RRM2P4 might have been present in a group that left Africa but later died out in that continent. Or the researchers might simply have not looked at enough Africans to find it; in fact, the DNA sequence that Cox and his colleagues think came from H. erectus existed in one African. This finding suggests that Asian RRM2P4 probably did originate in Africa, argues Peter Forster, who studies what has become known as archaeogenetics at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England. "It spoils the story considerably to find this gene in an African," he says, adding that "I don't see it as convincing evidence" of ancient mixing between humans.
Cox counters that the lone African's RRM2P4 sequence is identical to the Asian group, suggesting that this person probably descended from recent Asian immigrants. The team also has preliminary data on a second DNA region that shows an equally ancient split, where one group seems to be exclusively Asian.
No one gene can settle the matter, says geneticist Rosalind Harding of the University of Oxford. Nevertheless, several studies suggest that the human genome records some strikingly deep splits between populations. Her group, for example, has found that part of the gene for hemoglobin seems very old. If discoveries of ancient sequences continue to stack up, archaeogeneticists might eventually be convinced that we all have a little erectus in our blood.


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Dear Mauritian fellows,
Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras are being installed in a few regions of the country for our own security.
Flic en Flac is the first region to be covered with 83 cameras as from the 25th May 2009, with a cost of around 50 million rupees. Just to remind you, those cameras were of great help to solve a false kidnapping case filed a few weeks ago.
Port Louis seems to be in the next phase of the implementation of 271 CCTV cameras and 69 cameras for Grand Bay which are to be installed till the end of this year. Indeed, a few cameras have been spotted along the motorway (near Roche Bois).
This clearly indicates that the invasion installation has already started.
Out of subject…
A little error has unfortunately been introduced in today's online edition of Le Mauricien.
Read the image's caption, human errs.. We understand…
Update : Error has been corrected a few hours later. Perhaps, because I informed them through a polite mail?
I would invite you to read in this same article, the declaration of Bhai Harish.
Back to the main topic
I firmly believe that this great initiative will help in protecting Mauritians and tourists. These cameras will surely make people think twice before trying to engage themselves in some illegal activity or robbery.
How do you welcome this decision of the government? Do you think that this will help to decrease the number of crimes in Mauritius?
And what about Bhai Harish? 😛
Don't forget, Keep Smiling… Big Brother is watching us!


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Christians are now being punished for what others think
David Roberston
Yesterday I shared a post by our friend Gavin Ashenden–his post was about mob rule
and the cancel culture.
It was a post which highlighted the cancel culture attacking J.K. Rowling and her
defense of biological sex.
Despite Rowling being an ardent feminist, the mob has cared not…
all because in the mind of the mob,
biological sex does not exist and don't you or anyone else dare to say otherwise.
Dr. Ashenden noted that in today's topsy turvy society, truth is considered to be anathema,
an abomination…and because truth is perceived as hurtful and in turn hateful,
it is something that must now be canceled because the mob will not tolerate it.
So let that sink in…this current culture of ours will not tolerate truth—
because truth runs contrary to the mob's own beliefs.
Truth has become the foremost casualty in this insidious culture war of ours.
And so I found it more than coincidental that yesterday, a day following Dr, Ashenden's post,
our now down-under friend David Roberston wrote a column for Christianity Today based
on this very notion of the mob, truth, personal thought, and the lack of tollerance
The story focused on the firing of a young, UK Christian teacher, Kristie Higgs
for something, she had posted on her personal Facebook page.
She wrote the post using her maiden name and did not mention anything about being a teacher
herself, nor anything about the school where she worked but rather she wrote a post as a mother
who was concerned about what her young son was being taught in his school.
According to David's article, "She was concerned about her nine-year-old son being taught
that gender is just a social construct and you can change your gender if you wish.
She objected to the mandatory Religious and Sex Education,
which the government had determined was to be taught to children as young as four.
She argued, correctly, that it was brainwashing."
"She was concerned about the impact of transgender ideology being taught to young children –
a concern which is more than justified by the evidence becoming available which describes
the harm that is being caused to children.
But an anonymous complainant went to the headteacher and described her posts as
"homophobic and prejudiced to the LGBT community".
The headteacher is then reported to have asked the complainant to find more offensive posts.
Kristie was subsequently investigated, suspended and fired.
The panel which investigated her, said her views were "pro-Nazi"
and she was told to "keep your religion out of it" when she tried to defend herself.
According to the tribunal, her dismissal
"was the result of a genuine belief on the part of the school that she had committed
gross misconduct".
Kristie was not dismissed for her beliefs but rather because of the beliefs of the school.
I have a genuine belief that the tribunal was being irrational, discriminatory and prejudiced
by the criteria the tribunal uses,
so that means they should find themselves guilty! Unless my belief is irrelevant,
that is, and only some beliefs count.
It gets worse. The tribunal states that Mrs Higgs was found guilty of posting items
on Facebook that "might reasonably lead people who read her posts to conclude that she
was homophobic and transphobic".
Yet that same tribunal admitted that Mrs Higgs was not transphobic or homophobic,
nor did they state that the posts themselves were transphobic or homophobic –
just that some people might think they were, and thus they would cause upset.
That is why this ruling is so important. If this judgement is allowed to stand,
it will mean two things. Firstly, the whole standard of law will now be changed.
Guilt is now determined not upon evidence but simply upon the faith and feelings
of the prosecuting party! Based on an anonymous complaint, a tribunal decided that
a private post (which was not available to the public) was sufficient grounds
for an employee to be fired. This means that anyone who finds what someone says
to be potentially upsetting or offensive, now has the ability to get them fired.
Objective evidence is irrelevant. (my bold text)
Except it does not mean that.
It does not mean that ANYONE who finds something offensive can get someone else fired.
It just means that only certain approved and protected groups have the ability to use
the law to enforce their views.
I suspect that the school would not have fired a teacher who posted a message
that I would find offensive about Christianity. If this judgement stands,
we will have lost the principle of 'all are equal before the law'.
In the Brave New Britain, some are now more equal than others and a society
is emerging where pluralism is disappearing and along with it, freedom of religion,
freedom of speech and freedom of thought. State approved indoctrination within the schools
is now going to be backed up by the law, which in effect bans all other points of view.
It is ironic that Mrs Higgs was accused of holding Nazi-like beliefs by a school
which is using Nazi-like authoritarian methods (kangaroo courts, anonymous complainants,
transgression of state ideology) to impose its own exclusive ideology.
David rounds out his piece with a similar lament which we read yesterday by Dr. Ashenden…
the real help in this mad mad world of ours is going to have to come from the Chruch.
But what of this Chruch of ours—this global community of believers?
"The church needs to be united on this and I realise how difficult that
is when so many churches have sold out to progressive ideology.
It speaks volumes that Steve Chalke, in light of this case,
not only warned that churches who do not accept this ideology face prosecution,
but also suggested that even expressing pastoral concern or praying for people with
gender confusion or unwanted same-sex attraction was "psychologically abusive".
In these times of moral confusion,
those of us who love the Lord and want to stand on his word need to stick together.
Christians Are Now Being Punished For What Others Think – CT


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THURSDAY, April 24, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a human papillomavirus (HPV) test as a first step in cervical cancer screening for women aged 25 and older.
"Today's approval offers women and physicians a new option for cervical cancer screening," Alberto Gutierrez, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in an agency news release.
HPV, a sexually transmitted virus, is thought to cause the majority of cervical cancers. Certain strains, such as HPV 16 and 18, are most strongly tied to these tumors. The virus also causes genital warts in both men and women and certain head and neck cancers.
Roche Molecular Systems Inc. makes the cobas HPV test. Women who test positive for the two high-risk HPV strains (16 and 18) would then be asked to undergo a colposcopy. This involves using a device that allows a doctor to get a clear view of the vulva, vagina and cervix and take a sample for further testing.
Women who don't have HPV 16 or 18 but have other high-risk types of the virus would have a Pap test to see if a colposcopy is needed, the FDA said.
One expert welcomed the test's approval.
Dr. Jill Rabin, head of urogynecology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y., called the FDA approval "quite exciting."
But she tempered her enthusiasm with "some caveats," noting that "in many cases an HPV infection may resolve on its own." Rabin also stressed that "most -- but not all -- cervical cancers are caused by HPV," so the test is not foolproof.
The data the FDA reviewed for its decision came from a trial that included more than 47,000 women.
The FDA first approved the cobas HPV test in 2011, to be used with or as a follow-up to a Pap test. Thursday's approval expands the use of the test as either a "co-test" or as an initial screening test for cervical cancer. But, it doesn't change current guidelines for cervical cancer screening.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, women should have a Pap test every two years starting at age 21. Women aged 30 and older who've had three normal Pap tests in a row can now have one every three years. Women older than 65 may be able to stop having Pap tests, but should discuss the matter first with their doctor.
Typically, an HPV infection clears up on its own and doesn't lead to health problems. But, about 10 percent of women infected with high-risk HPV develop a persistent infection that may put them at risk of cancer, the FDA said in the news release.
The FDA approval followed a unanimous vote by the agency's Medical Devices Advisory Committee Microbiology Panel in March that concluded the test was safe and effective as a first-line screen for cervical cancer.
Testifying before that expert panel, Dr. David Chelmow, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, said that "cervical cancer screening has been a huge success in decreasing cervical cancer incidence and death."
Chelmow, representing the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, added that "the college strongly supports further improving cervical cancer screening through the introduction of new paradigms such as HPV testing for primary screening. HPV testing as a primary screening method for cervical cancer is very promising, and appears effective for screening for cervical cancer."
Dr. Andrew Menzin, a gynecologic oncologist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., told HealthDay that "HPV testing has been a remarkable advance in cervical cancer screening."
Its greatest value is helping to decide whether a follow-up colposcopy is needed, he said. "The idea of reversing the order of testing is an approach to try to refine and minimize who [unnecessarily] goes on to colposcopy," he said.
Whether doctors will accept using an HPV test first instead of a Pap test will depend upon the clinical trial data supporting it and on doctors and patients being educated about it, Menzin said.
He noted that current guidelines still favor using the Pap test first, "but the guidelines continue to evolve."
There are two approved vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, that can protect against HPV. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all girls and boys be vaccinated between the ages of 9 and 11.
More information
For more on cervical cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.
This article: Copyright © 2014 HealthDay. All rights reserved.


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text:
This one is sort of hard for me, because first I had to look back at the last time I had the
fight or flight mood happen. As I was going back in memory lane, it came to me. It was about a year and a half ago.
I hesitated to write about this, because it was a sensitive topic, and the person involved still can trigger emotions in me yet today.
The topic is something that I rarely speak about out loud, as if it will curse me. You know what I mean. You start saying something negative about your car, and boom, it happens, what you talked about running so good, or having no problems, all of a sudden, it happens!
I have a wonderful brother, who by now you all know, but Al and I also have a step-sister. A woman ten years younger than myself. I can remember a time when we were pretty close. It was the baby sister looking up to the big sister, wanting to be just like her, but things changed. Life changed, our father passed away. All three of us kids had the same father.
When dad passed a way, it was the worst time in my life, the worst tragedy that I have ever lived. It was worse than my divorce, or being more poor than I am now. There was a will, and that is when all hell broke loose.
Our father knew us well, he knew each of us and how we handled monies, and therefore, he made arrangements for each to have certain things at different times in our lives.
Dad was smart, I must say, he knew Al would always need extra help. Help with living arrangements, medical, and survival. Dad never knew that I took care of Al of course, but I guess that is hindsight, the real point here is that dad made sure Al would be alright if anything happened to him, dad.
Our sister wanted more than what she received, and so as a lot of people do, they attack the weakest, which in this case was Al, with his mentality. One day I went to the mail box, and there was that certain white, big envelope. The kind that sort of makes your stomach rumble as it doesn't look like an ad or a bill.
I took it inside and opened it and learned that our sister was taking me to court to switch Al from my care to hers. I instantly got hot inside. I was too scared to cry, and I did not go immediately to God with my problem.
I sweated for the better part of these two weeks before the court date. Al and I cried a lot, for fear of being separated from each other. I think I bit my nails down to the quick, and I lost some weight also.
One day a few days before the court date, a friend reminded me to go to the Lord with this. He was the miracle worker, he was the one that saw things for what they truly were, and he knew what was right from wrong.
I got on my knees and prayed. I can still remember it so well. Al got on his knees also, and we held hands, he cried and I prayed, and when we were finished, I felt so much calmer. I had come to a realm of new realization. I had nothing to fear. I knew that I was doing the best I could with Al's care.
The day came, and my stomach started to churn. I sat in the front of the court room on my designated seat. Before, the judge walked in, I silently prayed again, for God to use my mouth to form the correct words. Please Lord, do not let me make a fool of myself from my nerves. Help me to look calm and confident.
The judge entered and the questions started coming at me. One, two, three, four, five, and finally it was over. I made my last statement, and my voice never quivered. As soon as I was finished, the judge looked back at my brother, who was sitting in the background, and he asked him to stand up. Al stood up and the judge asked him if he had anything he wanted to say.
My brother started crying very hard, and somewhere in between the cries and the silence of the room, the judge and I, and all others involved heard my brother say,
Please don't take me a way from my sister. I love living with her. I love her. We go places and she takes me out to eat and takes me to the Goodwill stores to buy coca-cola. I don't want to live with the other sister.
I think when I looked or stared into the judges eyes as Al spoke, I could swear a saw one shiny tear fall from his eye. The judge coughed and cleared his throat, and looked back at me and said,
This case is a waste of my valuable time. There is nothing here to judge, as I can see Al is very well taken care of and is happy where he is living. Case is dismissed.
I said, I don't know how many thank-you's to the judge, as he leaned from his pulpit and reached down and shook my hand. He said for me to continue the good job. I walked quickly over to Al, and he was still crying. With his mentality problems, he didn't comprehend what was happening, so I just said,
Hey bud, you ready to go get something to eat and go home?
He looked at me and asked,
You mean home with you? and I said yes!
I got the biggest smile I have ever seen in my life taking care of him. He got it! He understood, we had won, and she had lost. He grabbed his hat and waved at the people in the courtroom, telling them goodbye, and we took off to go celebrate.
What a wonderful God we have walking beside us. Some of you can sit and say, I may have won without asking for God's help, but really, why would I want to take such a big risk of losing and counting on my own nervous self? No way, I wanted God on my side as judge and jury.
Related articles
- Daily Prompt: Fight or Flight (burningfireshutinmybones.wordpress.com)
- (Inspired by) Cold Blood (angieinspired.wordpress.com)
- Fight or Flight, the Daily Prompt (keiththegreen.wordpress.com)
- Good Bye Grandma (randomnerves.wordpress.com)
- A Fall Without A Stumble (alittlebananas.com)


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Yeshua is Our Tabernacle
Reflecting on the topic of my recent blog series about our spiritual journey through the tabernacle, I find it impossible to overlook Yeshua's portrayal of Himself. The parallels between His identity and the tabernacle are no coincidence.
The tabernacle the Israelites built and carried through the wilderness before entering the Promised Land includes ten pieces that God instructed Moses to arrange inside the courtyard – seven created by man with God's specific blueprints, and three pieces created by God alone. The first thing we understand from this is that the tabernacle is a combination of God and man, a place where God and man come together, a foreshadowing of both God and man on earth – a foreshadowing of the Messiah, Yeshua. (more…)
Our Spiritual Journey Inside the Tabernacle – Part 5: The Menorah
So far we've seen that God has given us faith to enter through the fence of the tabernacle courtyard into His glorious kingdom. We've found forgiveness through God's own Son offered on the Bronze Altar. We've taken a good look at ourselves in the Bronze Basin and committed to a new life with God. And now we want more. (more…)
Our Spiritual Journey Inside the Tabernacle – Part 1: Yehovah's Invitation to Intimacy
I find that the more I study Yehovah's character, the better He gets. He is awesome, holy and righteous, yet loving and patient with us at the same time. He never stops pursuing us; He desires for us to be in His presence continuously, so that He can reveal more and more of Himself to us. The tabernacle in the wilderness described in Exodus is a place where we see this character in Yehovah.


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Category: books
Nick Hornby's Funny Girl and Disagreeing About Culture
Maybe you noticed, but I've kinda got a thing for television. In that I love it. A lot. And I've also kinda got a thing for Nick Hornby. (In that I love him.) (A lot.) And the spine of Nick Hornby's latest novel, Funny Girl, is a television show, a fictional mid-1960s BBC comedy called Barbara (and Jim). The novel is the story of the stars, writers and producer/director over the course of the show's four series, and of the way Britain was changing in the 1960s. It's also a story about high-brow culture versus low-brow culture, about who gets to make the decisions about which is which, and whether we should find value in one over the other.
Funny Girl's titular character is an actress named Sophie Straw, but arguable the most compelling character is Barbara (and Jim)'s writer/producer, Dennis. Dennis is not a comedian, not as a writer or as a performer, and his colleagues regularly mock his attempts at jokes. He's an Oxbridge intellectual, often the only square in a roomful of bohemians, "a BBC man from his head to the holes in his socks," as Sophie puts it. But he loves comedy just as much as anyone else that works for the series, and that sets him apart from his BBC contemporaries and his thoroughly unfunny wife as much as it binds him to his co-workers.
Dennis is the character that most exemplifies the way Britain was changing over the course of the 60s. Sophie, a woman with dreams that far exceed the life of a Blackpool beauty queen, a woman who sees an affair with a married man as an unappealing but necessary step towards accessing a television for Sunday afternoon I Love Lucy reruns (her own personal church), is already a part of Britain's future, as are Bill and Tony, Barbara (and Jim)'s writers, two men who met in a jail cell after being arrested for attempting to seduce the same undercover policeman in the same men's bathroom, and Clive, Sophie's self-absorbed straight-man co-star and on-and-off boyfriend. Dennis, just a bit older than the rest of them, is a man out of a different era, and a different culture. He lives on the border between high-brow and low-brow. And Dennis is the character invited onto a national television show to debate whether the two can co-exist on the BBC. To argue that comedy, specifically the situational television comedy, has value at all, let alone on a network funded by taxpayers.
This isn't an argument that's specific to the 1960s. You still see it now, 50 years later, any time a news organization attempts a conversation about pop culture (even on a pop-culture-specific blog), any time someone proudly announces that they "don't even own a TV." There's a sort of hierarchy to the acceptability of culture, one that goes something like literary fiction > "film" (independent/foreign/"important") > "prestige" (or really just cable) television > commercial movies > network dramas > genre fiction > single-camera network comedies > multi-camera network comedies > reality television > CW programming > genre television (this order is open to some debate, and probably missing several billion categories), and even when a particular piece of culture manages to break out of its usual role in this hierarchy, as has happened with comedies like Parks and Recreation and Community, or dramas like The Good Wife, and gain respect, it's often seen as an exception that proves the rule, or it's still undervalued by some who don't see exceptions as possible.
Even the comedy-obsessed characters that work on Barbara (and Jim) don't necessarily agree on what makes comedy good, or on what they want their comedy to be. The central marriage of Barbara (and Jim) is not the one between the eponymous characters, but between Bill and Tony, the writers. Though their stories start the same, in that jail cell, over the course of the novel they find themselves diverging in interests. Tony falls in love with a woman, gets married, has a baby, and though he loves his job, loves to make people laugh, he sees comedy as a means to a means. It's a way of supporting his family. Bill, meanwhile sees comedy and writing as an art form, and as a vehicle to challenge the status quo. To some extent he looks down on the show, and on Tony, for taking what is, in his opinion, the easier road. (Not just in comedy. While Tony does not quite know how to define his sexuality, Bill doesn't believe that there can be a middle ground between gay and straight. He sees Tony as taking the easy way out in life as in comedy, by marrying a woman and embracing a sort of Christmas card life.)
The differences between Tony and Bill are what give Barbara (and Jim) its tension. It premieres a year before the real show Till Death Us Do Part, the program that inspired All in the Family and fundamentally changed what a situation comedy could do, and while Barbara (and Jim) marks a new era in television, from Barbara's broad Blackpool accent to the titular parentheses indicating that Barbara is the boss and Jim's along for the ride, it is not, to Bill's chagrin, the bold step forward that Till Death Us Do Part, with its head-on confrontation of racism, sexism and personal politics, would be. As Bill and Tony's opinions about their show diverge, the comedy on Barbara (and Jim) becomes broader, more situational, and then begins to disintegrate as Barbara and Jim head into marriage counseling for the course of the show's fourth and final series. They become a metaphor for their writers, whose differences have finally grown too significant to hold their partnership together.
The novel doesn't present either Bill or Tony as right about comedy. Tony's methods are more conventional. He writes for the every man (or woman). He just wants to make people laugh, and to have a steady paycheck. And he's successful at both. And while Bill is perhaps more ambitious, using his writing to challenge his readers, and wishing for an audience he sees as superior to the one he can reach with Barbara (and Jim), he's also less traditionally successful. The audience he wants, the one for a searing, semi-autobiographical novel of a gay man in 1960s London, is much smaller than the one for a TV comedy about a modern marriage, and there's very little overlap between the two.
Funny Girl takes place in a specific period of time because it was one of marked change, and series like Barbara (and Jim) were only a small part of that. By 1967, the year the program goes off the air, it was no longer illegal to be gay in the United Kingdom. Divorce was more prominent, and more socially acceptable. Women had more autonomy. But many of the debates at the center of the novel are still taking place today. We still argue the value of culture, still disagree on comedy (hence the collective critical groan every time Modern Family takes home another Best Comedy trophy, despite its continued commercial appeal). There are still viewers who can't see the difference between The Good Wife and any other case-of-the-week drama, who think single-camera means quality where multi-camera doesn't. These debates rage on. And they will, in different shapes, for years to come.
The point that Funny Girl best makes is that these arguments are worth having. They won't be solved by one great television show, or one network changing of the guard. Barbara (and Jim) goes off the air and it's replaced by new series that reflect and affect the world, as happens with every television show, and these same disagreements mutate with their times and carry on.


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This is the last post in series about the lessons my husband (NT) and I (aspie) have learned during the 25 years we've been married.
Learn how to recognize your partner's expressions of love
Aspies and NTs speak completely different languages when it comes to expressions of love. You can either learn to translate your partner's "love language" or you can spend the rest of your marriage wondering if this person you're sleeping next to every night really, actually loves you.
How does this translation work? Like this:
The Scientist: "You don't have to make my lunch every morning. I can pick something up in the cafeteria."
Me: "I don't mind. It only takes a few minutes and I know you'd rather have something healthy to eat. This way you don't have to waste time waiting in line."
The Scientist: "So you mean you make my lunch because you care about me, right?"
Accept that there are things you'll never understand about your partner
No matter how long you live together or how much you love each other, there will be moments when you feel like your partner is the most incomprehensible person on Earth. The aspie and NT brains have key differences. The sooner you accept this, the less frustrated you'll be when your partner does something that leaves you scratching your head.
There have been many times when The Scientist has given up on a conversation with the words, "I just don't understand you." It's not that he isn't trying. He'll ask me lots of questions to try to zero in on an explanation for something I've done or said. He'll wait semi-patiently while I sit mutely and stare off into the distance, unable to put words to what I'm feeling. He'll repeat things back to me to see if he's hearing me correctly. But no matter how many different ways I explain it, it still doesn't make sense to him because we're both starting from fundamentally different places.
This goes both ways. The day The Scientist told me that he feels something–a physical sensation of warmth was how he described it–when he says, "I love you" I was stunned. I tell him that I love him every day but I've never associated a physical feeling with those words.
I can logically understand what this physical feeling might be like, but I'll probably never know exactly what he feels. By the same token, I can tell him that when I sit in a crowded restaurant, my brain is tracking the conversations at all of the tables within earshot, but I don't think he can ever replicate that experience in his own head.
We can make educated guesses at what's going on inside the head of our partner, but there will always be some experiences that we can't truly understand.
Have realistic expectations but don't stop trying to grow and improve your relationship.
When faced with the day-to-day challenges of an aspie-NT marriage, it would be easy for both partners to simply give up in frustration. I can think of plenty of times when walking away would have been easier and less painful than trying to work things out.
Balancing realistic expectations–by both partners–with a concerted effort to improve can be a relationship-saver. Realistic expectations go both ways. The NT partner shouldn't expect the aspie partner to morph into a typical person overnight. (The Scientist says he wouldn't want this even it were possible.)
By the same token, the aspie partner shouldn't expect the NT partner to simply put up with an endless barrage of unchecked aspie behavior. Knowing what can be changed and what can be tolerated is essential.
The second part of this equation is one that might draw some heat from aspies. I'm a firm believer in trying to improve my ability to function in an NT world. Before anyone jumps down my throat about the potential evils of assimilating, let me explain.
The day I explained to my husband about my Asperger's, one of the first things he said was, "I love you exactly the way you are." I treasure that and I know it's not something he said just to make me feel better. He means it. But I also know that I'm hard to live with. I find myself hard to live with at times. So when I say I want to improve my level of functioning, it's because I want to struggle less on a daily basis and because I want the people around me–the people I love–to struggle less. It has nothing to do with conforming to the expectations of an NT world and everything to do with making life less stressful and more enjoyable for myself and my family.


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PEOPLE or CITIZEN - WHICH ONE ARE YOU?
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The thing about elections is that the country's basically voting on what to have for lunch for the next five years, and every option is a shit sandwich. Mostly you only get offered cat shit and pig shit and bowel-infection shit and oh god is that a tapeworm and basic pride won't let you dignify the farce by choosing, but once in a while you're offered a horse shit sandwich and, horrified, you find yourself thinking well at least it's high in fibre….
At least Peter Mansbridge gets to say "Prime Minister Trudeau" again; you can tell he likes it.


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Franco Harris may be able to pick a wobbly incompletion from just above the turf, but he doesn't know how to pick his battles. His insistence on becoming the alpha Joe Paterno apologist rings with the dregs of denial: "He played such a minor part in this." Aaaaand now he's dragging JoePa's cardboard form to the Penn State season opener, conscripting the dead coach as a self-promoter. The reanimated two-dimensional Paterno appears to be sandwich-boarding a sign that reads "DUE PROCESS FOR PSU JVP." Presumably this is a call for Penn State to rewind the findings of the Freeh Report, which Harris has dutifully skimmed and which resulted from an investigation that Penn State itself ordered and financed. Harris should take a cue from the school itself and accept that there won't be a redo on this one.
And regarding "due process" for Joseph Vincent Paterno? He's dead. He was a Catholic, meaning his soul has already been delivered to whatever Biblical force welcomes us to the other side of eternity. Unless editorial cartoonists have been fibbing all these years, we can assume that welcome committee was headed by Saint Peter, bedecked in a halo and a toga, kicking it behind a lectern. And the Saint must've asked Paterno, in a sing-songy but stern tone, whether those who abnegate their power to prevent the prolific rape of children should be allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And when Paterno stammered, and reflected on what he truly knew and could hide perhaps from himself but not from God, he would have understood that he had no good answer to the saint's question. That was the path that Paterno chose. Franco Harris may call for us to reconsider Paterno's legacy or some such. But we all know JVP has already been duly processed by a judgment none of us has the power to overturn.


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Filaflex material safety data sheet | download in english
Filaflex technical data sheet | download in english
Filaflex profile Cura 1.75mm low speed | download profile
Filaflex profile Cura 3.00mm low speed | download profile
Filaflex Craftware profile | download profile
Filaflex Kissslicer profile | download profile
Filaflex Slic3r profile | download profile
Black flexible filament Filaflex
created by Recreus for 3D printing, 3.00 mm diameter, 250 grams of material.
Recreus creates fantastic elastic filaments for 3D printing: in fact they are TPE (thermoplastic elastomer)
with a polyurethane base plus some additives to make all works better during the printing process.
Every filament has an important elasticity that permits the creation of all of the flexible parts of your next project: it become possible to print stuff like shoes, flip-flop and havajanas, junctions, sealings, elastic hinges, minifigures, more secure toys and so on.
Using right configurations it will be possible printing perfectly with Filaflex without any kind of problem: for this reason normally this material is considered printable with every model of FDM printer.
If your extruder is not equipped with internal PTFE tubing, it's better consider these raccomendations: 20mm/s for reference printing speed at 240° and pratically no retraction, max 1mm at 30mm/s; extrusion percentage at 105/115% if the flow is not regular; if necessary it's better reduce the pressure between the counterspring and the gear.
Specific printing parameters
Printing temperature 225-260° C on dependance of used extruder;
suggested printing speed 20-110mm/s;
very sticky with the printing bed;
heated printing bed is not needed;
kapton or blue tape is not needed;
adhesive spray for printing bed is not needed;
It is resistant to acetones and solvents;
no toxic substances released during the printing process;
diameters available both measures, 3.00mm and 3.00mm;
diameter tolerance +/- 0.05mm.
Last but not least, the producer told us to advice this fantastically useful article, written by Gyrobot: How to print with flexible filament.
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(2015) True Life Adventure (Warner Brothers) Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Brendan Gleeson, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, Michelle Fairley, Tom Holland, Paul Anderson, Frank Dillane, Joseph Mawle, Edward Ashley, Sam Keeley, Osy Ikhile, Gary Beadle, Jamie Sives, Morgan Chetcuti, Nicholas Jones, Donald Sumpter, Richard Bremmer, Charlotte Riley. Directed by Ron Howard
Most people are aware of the saga of Moby Dick, the story of Captain Ahab's obsession with a great white whale that took his leg and eventually much more than that. Many consider it the greatest novel ever written by an American. What a lot of people don't know is that it is based on the story of the whaleship Essex which was attacked by an unusually large whale in the Pacific in 1820.
It's a story that has made the rounds in Nantucket and the whaling community of New England, so Herman Melville (Whishaw) wants to get the scoop right from the horse's mouth – the last survivor of the Essex, Tom Nickerson (Gleeson). At first, Tom is loathe to tell the tale but at the urging of his wife (Fairley) who points out to her husband that they need the money – and to Melville that Tom needs to let all of the demons of that ill-fated voyage that have troubled him for so long out. Eventually, Tom tells the tale and quite a tale it is.
Putting to sea for a two year voyage, the Essex is commanded by George Pollard (Walker), scion of a respected Nantucket seafaring family but inexperienced at the helm. He is given Owen Chase (Hemsworth), a well-regarded first mate who has ambitions to captain his own ship someday but a son of landsmen (or land lubbers if you prefer). As they head out on their trip, hoping to pull In 400 barrels of whale oil, Pollard steers them directly into a squall, nearly wrecking the ship in the process. Not an auspicious start.
Things get worse though. The usually fruitful hunting grounds of the Atlantic are barren – already almost completely fished out – so the crew makes a try to go around Cape Horn for the Pacific fisheries, a long journey adding months to their already long and arduous trip. Lurking there is an abnormally large white whale, one that means business. The encounter between the whale and the Essex won't be a happy one – certainly not for the seamen of the Essex.
The ship is stove and the crew is forced to abandon ship, the survivors getting into three ships normally used in the harpooning of whales. One disappears completely, never to be seen again (in reality, the third ship washed ashore years later with three skeletons aboard, and while the remains were never positively identified it as believed to have been the one from the Essex) while the other two, try for the coast of South America or at least Easter Island. However there are more than a thousand nautical miles to make it there and little food or water. Pollard commands one ship, with his cousin Henry Coffin (Dillane) aboard while Chase the other with his close friend Matthew Joy (Murphy) and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson (Holland) on board. Which ones, if either, will make it to safety? And what must they do in order to get there?
Tales like Treasure Island and Moby Dick have always excited the American imagination, although to be honest in these more cynical days of CGI and cell phones, the lure of uncharted waters is not as enticing so in that sense In the Heart of the Sea is something of a hard sell for the American moviegoing public. It would take a truly stirring movie to get people into the theater to see it.
Unfortunately, that's not what Ron Howard delivered. There are moments, yes, where the movie really works – the sequence of the whale attack is actually one of them, although it is clearly a digital creation. The framing device of the conversation between Melville and a middle-aged Nickerson also works, mainly because Gleeson is so compelling an actor.
But there are also moments in which the movie just seems to drag. Quite frankly, watching sailors slowly dying of starvation and dehydration is not exciting which sounds a little bit cold but there you have it. Howard and screenwriter Charles Leavitt draw parallels from the whaling industry of the 1820s to the oil industry of today, parallels which have some justification, but still the harpooning sequences are bloody and a off-putting to modern sensibilities. I'm not sure we need to be told that whaling was a brutal, bloody business.
I did want to like this movie more than I ended up doing and I think that I may well have gone a little easy on it if the remarks of other reviewers are to be believed. Hemsworth, usually reliable an actor, feels like he's had all his charisma sucked out of him for this one; you get the sense he's like a caged animal, wanting to break out of the shackles his character has had put upon him. When the framing sequence is what works best about a film, you have a problem. And yet, I still recommend the movie nevertheless. There is enough here to keep one's attention, but if you choose to wait until it's available on home video, I wouldn't dissuade you.
REASONS TO GO: Rip roaring adventure yarn. Framing sequences work well.
REASONS TO STAY: The story isn't as exciting as the book based on it was. The pace is a bit leaden through the second act.
FAMILY VALUES: Some startling violence, disturbing images, moments of peril and adult themes.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the sixth film directed by Howard to be based on a true story. The others are Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, Frost/Nixon and Rush.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/30/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 42% positive reviews. Metacritic: 47/100.
NEXT: Youth


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The recent linked post about being a "good girl" in STEM focused a lot on following the rules and how that can actually be bad for you. I was particually happy with the list of practical things that you can do to resist, but they were all geared toward "after tenure." BTW – there is a male-equivalent to being a "good girl." I call it being a "boy scout." Many of the men in my department are boy scouts, which makes being a good girl not so out of the ordinary or weird.
In the original post, there was an undertone that you should be a "good girl" before tenure, because you don't jeopardize your tenure case. Seeing how a large number of my male colleagues get away with doing little or crappy service – even before tenure – I think it is worth exploring things you can do to avoid or get out of service before tenure. This is especially important if your department doesn't have a protection policy for untenured assistant professors. It is even more important if you were protected pre-tenure, are now tenured, and are staring down the barrel of a sh*t-ton of service. Here are a couple solutions of some ways to get out of service, or at least spend time on service you value so it isn't a "chore."
- Mildly suck at your service. A senior faculty in an adjacent department gave HusbandOfScience and me some advice when we first got our jobs – don't do a good job at your service assignments. This means not going the extra mile for service. You should prioritize it last, do it at the last possible minute, and perhaps miss assignments and deadlines sometimes. Spending only a quarter of the time on it you "think" you should. I definitely did this on some committees like graduate admissions and personnel committee stuff. It's not that I did a bad job, per se. I am still basically a boy scout/good girl at heart, but I definitely didn't spend a long time on these things. Why is this OK? A. Service is not going to get you tenure. B. On campus service never got anyone tenure. C. No one is going to not give you tenure because you sucked at your service. D. They might not ask you to come back.
- Play one service role off another. This basically means to use any other service you have as leverage to say no to the thing you are being asked. When I was asked to serve on admissions for GradProgramX, I was able to say no because I was already serving on admissions for GradProgramY. I ended up serving on both in consecutive years for about 4 years total – flipping between GradProgram X and Y. This was great, because I learned a lot about how each program did things and could communicate successes and failures between the programs. Once you are committed to a big service role like admissions, personnel committee, or quals committee, you can use that commitment to say no to a lot of other department and college service.
- Make Up Your Own Service. When I got to UState DepartmentOfX, there was no women's group, despite the department having a very small fraction of women and minority students. So, I started a women and minority group. We met for tea, and there was a lot of bitching because there was a lot to bitch about. The students told me they didn't have a venue to give 1-hour talks, so I started a student seminar series where they could talk to each other and practice job talks and just exchange ideas. We discussed professional development and work-life balance. I told the department chair that I was doing this, and that it should be a service assignment (and not just assigned to women and minorities). And he made it one, and I got to do a service role that I really cared about. Along the way, I have invented or help invent with others other service assignments including Publicity committee (to fix and update the website more regularly) and a Departmental Teaching Luncheon working group. These were all things I cared about and were providing a service for the department. In addition, because I was doing these roles, I was also able to say no to other requests on my time (see #2 above).
- Question Yourself. One question you can ask yourself when considering a request of your time is: "If I had only a limited time to live, would I spend my time doing this?" If the answer is "Yes, this is important. It will help me leave a mark and affect a positive change," then say yes. If the answer is, "No, this is a waste of my precious time," then say no. I had a minor breast cancer scare a couple months ago (don't worry it was a cyst!), and I went through all my commitments and thought, "If I do have breast cancer, do I want to work on this?" and for most of the things I was doing (my made-up service) the answer was yes. I feel like the service I am doing and have been doing is really good to affect positive change in the lives of students and my department colleagues, and it is worth doing.
- Armageddon: Blow Up Your Service. OK, I am NOT recommending this, and certainly don't do this before you get tenure, but… another way to get out of service is to be so miserable and heinous to work with that no one wants to work with you. Call everyone assholes to their face. Accuse them all of being racists. Act racist yourself. Start flame email wars and never, ever let anyone else get the last word. Be super negative and disgruntled about everything. This behavior is what we call, "un-collegial," and it will get you out of service. But, there is a price. Just as the price of being a good girl/boy scout is that you get dumped on. The price of being a truly heinous colleague is that you never get to do service. You are not trusted with the responsibility. You certainly will not be trusted to lead or have any important service. In fact, you might get stuck with the worst service, having no impact, but high work load, if you act this way. If you are fine with that, go for it. But, if you think you are important and you should be heard, don't act like this.
So, what do you think? Are there other ways to get out of bad service? Not all service is bad, and you can get out of anything, actually. You can even back out of service you already said yes to. People won't hold it against you, especially if you are over committed and won't get the work done. Also, if you get better service and don't have time for something that isn't good or interesting to you, you should back out. To get an email every time I post, push the +Follow button.


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18 of '18: The Best Music Videos of the Year
Just under a full week into 2019 doesn't seem like much but it affords time to go over what all of 2018 has to offer, right up until midnight on December 31. It's a method that also provides room for close examination of the year's finest releases in each major category (songs, music videos, and albums). While it's literally impossible for any one person to hear or see every single release in those formats, a focus should be given to the best of what's been experienced. Thousands of music videos made their way through the Heartbreaking Bravery channels, these 18 selections found ways to stand out from the pack.
Anna Burch – With You Every Day
Ever since the music videos for Anna Burch's gorgeous Quit The Curse started rolling in, there was a unified visual aesthetic. It's a point that was strengthened with the release of "With You Every Day", which finds Burch eschewing some of the sunnier palette tones to lean further into a '90s art world sensibility. More than that, "With You Every Day" wisely refocuses from underlining Burch's carefree tendencies to zero in on the sheer joy that's evident in the emergent songwriter's live performances. Tied together, those elements make for a mesmeric video that comes off as unabashedly honest, leading to another quiet triumph for Burch.
Car Seat Headrest – Nervous Young Inhumans
It's next to impossible to talk about Car Seat Headrest's "Nervous Young Inhumans" without mentioning that the song's chorus is a fucking monster. A reworked full band version of one of Will Toledo's most celebrated solo releases, the video was used — and used extremely effectively — to tease the total overhaul of Twin Fantasy. Visually striking and teeming with meaning, the side-by-side widescreen clip lays out everything you'd expect from one of the decade's more discussed breakout acts: tongue-in-cheek humor, wry witticisms, a clear level of self-awareness, and enough artistry to dispel any notions of being effete. While some might find the act cloying, the self-directed "Nervous Young Inhumans" video goes all in on just about every one of the band's aspects and winds up as one of the band's most definitive individual release to date.
Phoebe Bridgers – Scott Street
Phoebe Bridgers' Stranger In the Alps proved to have quite a bit of staying power through 2018, with the record spawning a few widely-circulated music videos well afters its initial release. Far and away the most moving of that selection was the restrained, lovely clip for "Scott Street". The premise of the clip's simple enough: several people dress up as Phoebe Bridgers and enjoy a day out together, riding mechanical bulls, taking to a trampoline park, and taking a bus to some unknown destination. All of it's lensed tenderly, letting a palpable sense of affection become the clip's defining element. When Bridgers herself finally makes an appearance in the clip's final stretch, there's a surreal emotive heft to the gesture that propels "Scott Street" from being great to being unforgettable.
Sean Henry – The Ants
"The Ants" stood out on Sean Henry's latest release, Fink, and was rightfully tapped for a music video. The visual treatment the song's given plays into the song's enigmatic nature, positioning Henry front and center, following the songwriter's trip through NYC in costume store vampire teeth. Nervous tension and general mischievousness collide in an unexpected way, rendering the core narrative of "The Ants" oddly gripping. Aided by some stunning cinematography, "The Ants" becomes a fascinating journey on multiple levels that pull the viewer deeper into a world that's more concerned with presenting questions than providing answers outright.
Casper Skulls – Colour of the Outside
From a beguiling, extended introductory sequence, "Colour of the Outside" takes great pains in comprehensively immersing its viewers into the world it places Casper Skulls. Softly lit and bathed in ghostly blue hues, the first half of "Colour of the Outside" provides a tug-and-pull between competing sense: familiar comfort and an unsettling tension that grows in small increments. Eventually, that dichotomy detonates as a huge portion of the set falls away and the band's revealed to be playing in a basement. The light increases, objects get smashed, and the spell manages to find a route to amplification, lingering as the song dissipates amidst a haze of feedback. A deceptively clever clip, "Colour of the Outside" also manages to be strangely powerful.
Haley Heynderickx – No Face
Haley Heynderickx's "No Face" is one of a handful of clips on this list that took a simple premise and executed it with panache by Evan James Atwood, leading to surprisingly memorable results. A stop-motion video that puts Heynderickx in full silhouette, "No Face" uses static framing to perfection. Consisting of no more than Heynderickx miming along to the song and another pair of hands for some additional meaning, "No Face" is a testament to what anyone can achieve with a shoestring budget. A million frames can make up an incredible picture, even when the images barely differ. An inspired — and inspiring — work from a deserving breakout artist.
Swearin' – Grow Into A Ghost
One of the most heartening things about a year that didn't always have a lot of those on hand was the return of basement pop legends Swearin'. Select orders of their first record after reuniting came with a version of 3D glasses that'd been relegated to a curious footnotes in the annals of film history. A fun gimmick on the surface was provided some extra weight with a pair of videos with "Grow Into A Ghost" becoming a genuine standout. Embracing a '50s aesthetic and the stoic sensibilities of the era, Swearin' have all sorts of fun with the animation integrated into a modernized strain of an updated technology. "Grow Into A Ghost" was the perfect reminder of what we've been missing.
Lucero – Long Way Back Home
Jeff Nichols is one of the most talented filmmakers working today. His collaborations with Michael Shannon have yielded countless accolades and an overwhelming amount of acclaim. Nichols' brother, Ben, also happens to front Lucero, who have provided a few songs to those films. The brothers Nichols and Shannon team up once again for this short film set to Lucero's "Long Way Back Home", teeming with the quietly desperate rural lyricism that's flickered away in the core of the trio's work for years. A few more notable actors make appearances in a narrative that keeps the viewer in a vice-like grip up until the ambiguous final moments. While there's no clear resolution, "Long Way Back Home" is a ride worth taking.
Mitski – Geyser
While the Christopher Good-directed clip for "Nobody" makes appearance after appearance — and deservedly so — on The Best Music Videos of 2018 lists, it's also worth taking a look at the clip that preceded that one, "Geyser". A gorgeous tracking shot on a desolate beach follows Mitski as the songwriter mimes the words to "Geyser" before abandoning that conceit entirely, fleeing the camera and collapsing onto the shore, writhing around in a place between catharsis and desperation, pointing to the sheer nakedness of the work on Be The Cowboy. A huge moment for both Mitski and filmmaker Zia Anger.
Iceage – The Day The Music Dies
Iceage and Graeme Flegenheimer teamed up for "The Day The Music Dies" video, which finds the post-punk act tapping into a strain of Southern Gothic visuals once again, producing a series of visuals that immediately register as formally classic, bringing to mind cinematographer Robert Elswit's work on There Will Be Blood. "The Day The Music Dies" is flooded with iconic imagery but for all its formality, there's a very evident sense of playfulness coursing through the clip. Tongue-subtly-in-cheek — check out those borderline nonsensical breaks for the car commercial shots — and fiery as hell, the clip's a very strong example of how abandoning reservations can significantly elevate the material.
Noname – Blaxploitation
A cutting, socially conscious work from Noname, "Blaxploitation" leans hard into metaphor and film history. Taking its cues from the monster film genre, "Blaxploitation" depicts a young black child navigating a model set. Framed as a towering monster, the subject explores the small neighborhood, clearly innocent despite striking an imposing figure, relative to the setting. Tragic for all of the typical, endlessly frustrating reasons, Alex Lill's video for "Blaxploitation" is every bit as thoughtful as the record on which it resides. Hypnotic and incredibly pointed, "Blaxploitation" is very clearly not just among the finest music videos but the visual format as a whole.
Lonely Parade – Night Cruise
"Night Cruise" was the first of Lonely Parade's releases to get a huge push and that attention couldn't have come at a better time. Released in advance of one of the year's best records, the clip ably demonstrated the band's identity. Soft strobes of neon hues, softer saturation levels, and some clever one shots cut to the core of the band's confrontational sensibilities. "Night Cruise" showed that Lonely Parade know exactly who they were and exactly what they were about while still managing to be visually hypnotic. Easily one of the year's best hangout clips, "Night Cruise" marked the arrival of a band whose career promises to be worth following.
La Dispute – Rose Quartz / Fulton Street I
La Dispute made a return in the year's final month, unveiling the startlingly intense animated clip for "Rose Quartz / Fulton Street I". A fever dream narrative plays out in the clip, which centers around a car colliding with a deer on the road. Psychedelic imagery swirls around this event, which plays out more than once, lending additional meaning to the event. There's an impact, things are altered, objects are wrecked, but there's a beauty that undercuts the despair, reminding the viewer of life's fragility as much as its inherent tenderness. "Rose Quartz / Fulton Street I" is an astonishing work that may just be the band's finest release to date.
Mozes and The Firstborn – Hello
For all the serious subject matter that tends to dominate these types of lists, there are moments of lightness to be found and celebrated. For instance: Mozes and the Firstborn's humorous, lighthearted clip for "Hello". It's an exceptionally simple premise that's executed to perfection and imbued with genuine joy. One tracking shot keeps guitarist/vocalist Melle Dielesen front and center, surrounded by a marathon that was taking place in real time. Layers of clothing are shed, several with song-specific message scrawled or printed on them, a cigarette gets smoked, and the song is mimed while runners react to Dielesen's tongue-in-cheek antics. Easily 2018's most outright fun video.
Dusk – Leaf
Finn Bjornerud has long been Tenement's go-to music video director and continues to work with the members' other projects. As good as some of the Tenement clips have been, Bjornerud hits a career high by some margin with the breathtaking video for Dusk's "Leaf", which remains one of the best songs of the present decade. The song itself lends an additional potency to Bjornerud's signature camera movements but also forces the camera to stay relatively still, fixating on the mundane details of winter life in the upper Midwest: the boots in the snow, clothing layers being shed, a flock of geese taking off from a snow-capped field. Tethering in a quiet, loving relationship between two people finding ways to celebrate their continued survival gives "Leaf" another empathetic layer that's strong enough to ensure its rightful place on this list.
Fog Lake – Push
Some of 2018's most brilliant editing work in a music video came courtesy of Noah Kentis' twisting, multilayered visual for Fog Lake's "Push". The first of a series of intentionally blurred smash cuts hits at just after the minute mark and every time is startling and powerful enough in its execution to warrant chills. No matter how many times its replayed or used, there's a singular perfection to the framing and implementation that's enough to knock a viewer out. As the Charlie Kaufman-esque narrative of "Push" unfurls, there's a deepening sense of mystery inextricably tied to the ambiguity that characterizes the clip's final moments. A masterclass in composition and editing, "Push" also stands tall as one of the most mesmerizing videos to have come out over the past handful of years.
IDLES – Danny Nedelko
For some reason or another, white supremacists started using the okay sign as a "covert" way of communicating their reprehensible ideology. Since they're terrible at everything, the general public discovered what they were doing right around the time it started happening. Enter: IDLES, the band who made 2017's best music video and missed that title this year by a hair. "Danny Nedelko" a standout track from Joy As An Act of Resistance was a song explicitly about their friend, an immigrant. The black-and-white video follows Nedelko through a series of vignettes, meeting up with other immigrants while dancing, laughing, and flashing the okay symbol with a sheepish grin. It's a pointed missive of reclamation that's framed with a welcome level of affection for its subjects. Joy As An Act of Resistance indeed.
Hop Along – How Simple
Every publication told its readers the same thing at the end of 2018, which was destined to be a certainty from the moment of its release: the music video that defined the year was Hiro Murai's astonishing clip for Childish Gambino's "This Is America". While that video more than deserves all of the praise its received, the aim of this site is to shed some more light on what's flickering away in the shadows, which brings us to Hop Along's incredible video for 2018 highlight "How Simple."
The first image of Derrick Belcham's video for "How Simple" is a spotlight, centered on an unopened door. As a visual cue, it's deceptively striking and open to many valid interpretations but it's an image that only lingers for a few second as guitarist/vocalist Frances Quinlan seizes that spotlight and turns in a tour de force performance as the clip's central subject. Exuding classic Hollywood charisma, bringing to mind the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, and Jean Simmons.
Quinlan's an inherently magnetic presence on stage (and in studio) so it's not a surprise the wildly gifted songwriter dominates nearly every frame of the "How Simple video, which is perhaps a calculated outcome for a narrative so heavily centered on personal identity. There's an incredible emotional spectrum on display here with Belcham leaning hard into Quinlan's facial expressions, which tell a story all their own.
"How Simple" is an incredible journey that's gifted an incredibly appealing setting as its story unfurls, navigating everything from shame to resentment to anger to acceptance to celebratory self-reconciliation. Wisely making its home in the mundane nature of every day existence, "How Simple" cuts to the root of several hard-won realizations. By the clip's purposeful resolution is revealed, Belcham's ensured a moment of appreciation for a quiet triumph of perseverance, putting one last piece of finite punctuation on the best music video of 2018.
Further Watching: Peach Kelli Pop – Drug Store's Symbol of Happiness | Lemuria – Kicking In | Advance Base – Your Dog | Dilly Dally – Doom | Pedro The Lion – Yellow Bike | Vundabar – Acetone | Hala – Sorry | Free Cake For Every Creature – Be Home Soon | Slothrust – Double Down | Onlyness – Comfortable | Deaf Wish – FFS | Spirit Was – Golden Soul | Harry Permezel – Wax Man | Alien Boy – Somewhere Without Me | The Magic Gang – Getting Along | Shame – Lampoon | Clearance – Had A Fantastic | Amos Pitsch – Piece of the Season | illuminati hotties – Cuff | Snail Mail – Heat Wave | Courtney Barnett – Charity | Lauren Hibbard – What Do Girls Want? | Tomberlin – Self-Help | Homeboy Sandman & Edan – The Gut | sewingneedle – Feel Good Music | The Beths – You Wouldn't Like Me | Zuzu – Can't Be Alone | Flasher – Material | The Glow – Beamer


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Jessica Penne (10-1) is Invicta Fighting Championships' first-ever title holder.
The two-time Bellator Fighting Championships veteran claimed Invicta gold in the 105-pound atomweight division with a second-round stoppage of previously undefeated and top-ranked Japanese import Naho "Sugi Rock" Sugiyama (8-1).
The bout served as the headliner of Saturday's Invicta FC 3 event, which took place at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan.
Penne looked strong from the beginning, as after a brief exchange on the feet she quickly caught a Sugiyama kick and pushed her opponent to the floor. From there, she smoothly transitioned into full mount and looked to be in complete control. However, despite facing an apparent strength disparity, Sugiyama scrambled and bucked and avoided any type of finish.
That would change in the second.
After moving into a Thai clinch, Penne violently snapped her opponent to the floor, but Sugiyama smoothly rolled into top position. However, Penne was slick from her back and showed a deft transition into a triangle-choke position. Sugiyama remained calm in defense and looked as if she might survive the trouble, but Penne adjusted the hold and finally elicited the tap at the 2:20 mark.
Penne now boasts a three-fight win streak since her lone career defeat – a Bellator 25 loss to Zoila Gurgel in 2010. Sugiyama loses for the first time as a professional.
In the night's 135-pound co-feature, Shayna "The Queen of Spades" Baszler (15-7) looked impressive in a second-round finish of onetime Strikeforce fighter Sarah "The Monster" D'Alelio.
In the opening frame, grappling ace Baszler took the fight quickly to the floor and moved from side control almost immediately to her opponent's back. D'Alelio showed fine defensive capabilities as she defended any potential choke attempts, but Baszler's threatening submission game left her unable to mount any counter attacks. Baszler also showed some vicious creativity with several painful-looking stomps the heel and calf of her kneeling opponent.
In the second, Baszler continued her grappling-based assault by taking the fight again to the floor and then unleashing a vicious ground-and-pound assault. D'Alelio tried to counter by snagging a leg, but Baszler simply shucked off the attempt and transitioned to the back ina scramble where she immediately locked in the rear-naked choke. D'Alelio had no choice but to tap at 37 seconds into the second frame.
Baszler improved to 5-1 in her past six matchups and could be in line for an Invicta FC title shot, as well as a potential call from Strikeforce. D'Alelio sees a two-fight win streak snapped.
In a 135-pound rematch of a hotly-contested split draw from Invicta FC's debut event, Leslie "The Peacemaker" Smith (4-2-1) earned a second-round stoppage of five-year veteran Kaitlin Young (7-7-1).
The pair wasted little time in engaging, as they moved moved forward from the opening bell and fired off strikes in the pocket. But the fight got especially interesting when the bout hit the canvas, as Smith focused on delivering damage from top while Young looked close to ending the fight with armbar and triangle choke attempts from the bottom. The action was back-and-forth in the opening frame, but that changed in the second.
In the sophomore stanza, the two again grappled on the canvas, but it was Smith who was on the attack. Bringing the action down with a rolling kneebar, she missed on the opening attempt but alertly scrambled to top position, where she settled into a mounted crucifix and began unloading punches. Young tried desperately to work free, but Smith was heavy on top and remained in control until the bout was waved off at the 2:19 mark of the second.
Smith snapped a two-fight winless streak while Young falls to 0-2-1 in her past three appearances.
Earlier in the night Barb Honchak (7-2) and Vanessa Porto (15-5) each picked up clean-sweep unanimous-decision wins.
Honchak defeated Irish import Aisling Daly (13-4) and has now earned six-straight wins since opening her career at 0-2. Meanwhile, Porto improved to 5-1 in her past six appearances after shutting out 10-year veteran Tara LaRosa (21-3).
- Jessica Penne def. Naho Sugiyama via submission (triangle choke) – Round 2, 2:20 to become first-ever Invicta FC atomweight champion
- Shayna Baszler def. Sarah D'Alelio via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 0:37
- Leslie Smith def. Kaitlin Young via TKO (punches) – Round 2, 2:19
- Barb Honchak def. Aisling Daly via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
- Vanessa Porto def. Tara LaRosa via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
- Cat Zingano def. Raquel Pennington via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 3:32
- Michelle Waterson def. Lacey Schuckman via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
- Julia Budd def. Danielle West via TKO (strikes) – Round 1, 2:32
- Carla Esparza def. Lynn Alvarez via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 2:53
- Joanne Calderwood def. Ashley Cummins via knockout (knee) – Round 1, 3:13
- Stephanie Frausto def. Amy Davis via submission (guillotine choke) – Round 1, 0:48
- Jessamyn Duke def. Marciea Allen via submission (armbar) – Round 1, 4:42
- Tecia Torres def. Kaiyana Rain via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
- Ediane Gomes def. Katalina Malungahu via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 1, 4:19
(Pictured: Jessica Penne)


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