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January sees the big Oscar contenders come to the UK. Many of these films have already been released over in the states to critical acclaim as you might expect.
The Impossible – 1st January
Based solely on the trailer, The Impossible is THE film to see this January. It is the first film to be released that uses the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami at the heart of it's story, telling the tale of one family caught up with thousands of strangers in a horrible natural disaster. Featuring the brilliant Ewan McGregor and the incredible Naomi Watts.
Gangster Squad – 10th January
Finally, the all-star long awaited gangster flick will be arriving on UK screens. Delayed after the tragic shootings in Aurora, Gangster Squad is a film that many people have been looking forward to seeing and now you get your chance. Featuring a cast of Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone among others.
Les Miserables – 11th January
A new interpretation of the hit musical comes to the screen this year and if you've managed to avoid the adverts featuring Anne Hathaway singing then well done. I think Les Mis is bound to do well thanks to all it's Oscar buzz and having already been nominated for 4 Golden Globes but it's not that high on my list thanks to all of it's competition.
Django Unchained – 18th January
And if Les Miserables thinks having 4 Golden Globe nominations is something to shout about then step aside for Django Unchained's 5. This is Quentin Tarantino's first attempt at a full on Western and it certainly will not disappoint! It has been nominated for Best Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz both have nominations for Best Supporting Actor; Oscars are sure to follow.
Lincoln – 25th January
Now cynics may think that Lincoln has been made with the intention of winning awards rather than pleasing audiences… that is what I believe as well. This looks like Oscar-baiting in all it's glory: a film about one of America's most celebrated Presidents telling the story of a pivotal time in America history. If this isn't Steven Spielberg shouting "GIVE ME OSCARS" I don't know what is. It seems to be working though.
Zero Dark Thirty – 25th January
Back in 2010, The Hurt Locker surprised everyone to become one of the lowest grossing winners of the Best Picture Oscar ever. Zero Dark Thirty is director Kathryn Bigelow's follow up film and tackles the events of the manhunt for Osama Bin Laden and his following death. I don't think this one will do as well as The Hurt Locker but it should make for some interesting viewing at least.


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Roderick Balfour decided to correct his forebearers horrific error of permitting the Jews to have a homeland as long as they allowed for the existing residents to retain religious, civil, property and all other rights with the exception of political rights which would be reserved for the Jews and those whom they decided to permit political rights either individually or as a group. Roderick Balfour has claimed that the reason behind the growing anti-Semitism is the lack of Israel in finding a solution to the Palestinian conflict. Apparently Broderick Balfour believes that Israel could simply impose a solution without the entire world exploding in raucous demands that Israel negotiate before reaching any agreement as the Palestinians must be permitted their input in any solution. Even were Israel to allow for the maximalist solution and destroy the literally hundreds of thousands of Israelis homes and businesses including those in East Jerusalem and returned to within the Green Line and recognize the areas beyond the Green Line as Palestine the problem would be anything but solved nor would the world accept this as a fair solution despite the generous granting of what the world currently claims is the maximalist demand. As soon as this solution would be enacted Mahmoud Abbas would be in New York, Turtle Bay to be exact, before the General Assembly of the United Nations denouncing the audacity of Israel imposing a solution on the Palestinian Arabs which is wholly unacceptable. Then he would ask what is to be done with the eight million Palestinian refugees including the millions re-exiled from Syria because of Israel not recognizing their right to return and live in and around Tel Aviv. The world would then take up the demand that Israel allow eight million Arabs to be resettled within Israel and forcing Israel to grant them full citizenship and then hold an election so they could elect Mahmoud Abbas as Prime Minister of Israel, and that would be the result of such an eventuality. The world would see nothing wrong with such a result as it would fulfill one of what appears to be a main desire of the world as a whole, the elimination of Israel and the eradication or complete subjugation of the Jewish people. If the United Nations could through the General Assembly make one religion a crime it would be Judaism. You doubt that claim but let us not forget the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 where they voted seventy-two approving, thirty-five against and thirty-two abstained declaring amongst other things, Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. That vote is all too close to that United Nations General Assembly declaration which chose the nationalist movement supporting Israel, Zionism, as a form of racism is equivalent to Israeli policies being the cause of people having antagonistic feelings to Jews simply because they are perceived to support Israel thus are suspected of Zionism and thus deserving of scorn.
Here is the reality which so few ever address, the problem with solving the Palestinian Arab problem lies with the Palestinian Arab leadership who refuse to even negotiate. What is even more revealing is the reason why they refuse to negotiate, they are rewarded for refusing to even negotiate, let alone reach an agreement. The original Oslo Accords divided the regions of Judea and Samaria into three sections depending on their likelihood for development and residence. Area A was dedicated to Palestinian Arab political and security control. Area B was left to Palestinian Arab political control and mutual Israeli and Palestinian Arab security control. Area C was given to Israeli political and security control. The intent was that Area A would remain under Palestinian Arab control, Area C would remain under Israeli control and the negotiations would be over where to draw the lines in Area B. By refusing to settle and then even to negotiate the world had rewarded the Palestinian Arabs with now demanding that Israel surrender most if not all of Area A, B and C and give away half of Jerusalem and forcing over three-quarters of a million Israelis to resettle destroying their homes and, for many, their places of work as well as where numbers of Arabs also work. And the fact that as time has passed the world had sided with the Palestinian Arabs and demanded more than the international agreement demanded from the Israelis. Israel lost any part of Area B they might have received in negotiations and all of Area C which the original Oslo Accords would have awarded Israel. But additionally the world had rewarded Mahmoud Abbas, his family members, the top members of his monopoly on power with millions, tens of millions and for the elite hundreds of millions of dollars and continues to do so year after year, month after month. The world spends more on each Palestinian refugee each year than they do on some whole groups of refugees. Further, Palestinian refugee status is the sole group of refugees whose status is passed on from one generation to the next. If a Palestinian refugee were to marry a Hawaiian and had three children who each married, one to a Parisian, one to a New Yorker and the last to a Brazilian and each of those couples had three children, how many Palestinians would that have at the end? The answer is seventeen Palestinian Arabs refugees, the original refugee, the person they married gets refugee status, each of the three children, the three people they marries and all nine children from those marriages. If that makes no sense, imagine the same thing with a Haitian refugee and the end count with the same mathematics and you end up with one Haitian refugee.
Yes, that did not help much. All the world's refugees except the Palestinian Arab refugees are cared for by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), also known as the UN Refugee Agency. The Palestinian Arab refugees are cared for by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). They are the sole group to have their own refugee agency. According to the figures for 2014 UNRWA received $1,342,180,849 to cover just over five million refugees which provides per refugee just over two-hundred-fifty dollars while UNHCR $3,055,908,219 to cover just over sixteen million refugees which provides per refugee just under one-hundred-ninety dollars. Despite this and the fact that the Palestinian Authority, the governing body responsible for governing all aspects of the Palestinian Arab refugees in Judea and Samaria, receives additional hundreds of millions if not billions per year from the European Union, United States, individual European nations, numerous Arab nations every year resulting in far greater available funds for these refugees. Additionally, there are some of the largest Palestinian Arab refugee camps located within Gaza which is governed by Hamas, a Palestinian Arab group recognized by most as a refugee entity, though that has become debatable in much of Europe and another few located in areas under Palestinian Authority governance. The difference between these refugees and the presumed Palestinian Arabs, who are also technically under United Nations definitions, also refugees are, well, which side of the barbed wire and which are permitted freedom of movement and which are restrained at gunpoint. Mahmoud Abbas and his security forces enforce a difference between the Palestinian Arab refugees residing inside the barbed wire and the Palestinian Arab refugees residing outside the barbed wire for one reason only, the ones located inside the barbed wire are left from when Jordan held the region illegally after the 1948 war with Israel and are denoted to be relocated within Israel. This makes them a form of weapon against Israel so that no matter what Israel does, as long as Israel remains the homeland for the Jewish People, then Israel has not sacrificed enough.
Israel cannot resolve the Palestinian Arab conflict simply because the problem is not the fact that there are Arab refugees but that there is a Jewish State. The Arabs decided back in the Khartoum Resolution of 1967 and the Three No's; NO peace with Israel, NO recognition of Israel, NO negotiations with Israel. Please explain exactly how Israel can resolve the problem under these conditions, and Mahmoud Abbas has assured the Arab World that he will abide by the spirit of these restrictions and will never settle for anything less than the complete destruction of the Jewish State and the Jews either scattered to the far corners of the world or exterminated. This was the promise made originally by Yasser Arafat and has been continued by his understudy, Mahmoud Abbas. This is why the Arab refugees are still held in camps. What is interesting is when Kuwait deported every last single Palestinian worker after Yasser Arafat supported Saddam Hussein during the first Iraq War after he conquered Kuwait and upon their liberation by the United States and their coalition. There has been no additional outrage when Bashir al-Assad shelled the Palestinian Refugee camps within Syria, did you even know there were Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and that they were shelled? Assad actually shelled them before any other location simply because he figured they would oppose him naturally and why not simply make sure such could not happen. We do not really know the why al-Assad decided to bomb and shell the camps before anywhere else including areas where he knew that his opposition was located. Why was there no anger throughout the world and Resolutions from the United Nations General Assembly against Kuwait or Syria over the Palestinian Refugees? Perhaps because they were not Israel? If you doubt that as the reason, well, hate to burst your bubble but that is exactly why there was no world reaction. As for Roderick Balfour and his claim that Israeli politics is responsible for growing world anti-Semitism, well, that is about as true as claiming that Canadian politics is responsible for people denigrating Canadians or Putin's intervention in Syria is responsible for anti-Cossack feelings. Roderick Balfour ends by stating his unwillingness to participate in the Centenary Celebration of the Balfour Declaration unless Israel takes unilateral action to end the conflict. One wonders if Israel took the only unilateral measure which is within her power to end the conflict would pass Roderick Balfour's sensibilities, unilaterally deporting the Palestinian Arabs to Syria or whoever else might take them.
Beyond the Cusp

subset: commoncrawl


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For those who know me, my affinity for dresses should come as no surprise. As we roll into spring, so too will Cocoa & Lace roll out a new feature – Get Dressed – honoring my favorite frocks of the season in all the trends you'll love.
Happy Saturday!
1 / Kate Spade
2 / Club Monaco
3 / J. Crew
5 / ModCloth


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(This post originally appeared on The Classical.)
The Other Day
The other day, I came to. I looked around, blinking. I was in a supermarket. This kind of thing is happening more. How did I get here? Where have I been? I used to assume my life was an unbroken chronological line through time, as if a baseball card with my likeness could list every one of my seasons and where I was and how I did. It's possible this line was never more than a powerful fiction, and even if it ever did exist it doesn't anymore. Moments flash in and out, past, present, jumbled, strewn. Everything is the other day. It may have gone this way anyway, but the arrival a few months ago of my son accelerated the scrambling of the back of my card. I make lists now to try to keep my shit together. This is how I came to in the supermarket. I was reaching into the pocket of my windbreaker for a list to see why I had ended up in the supermarket. I pulled out a toy, a little jingly giraffe. I checked the other pocket and pulled out a baseball card.
When I was a kid I believed, above all, in a line through time, along which losing could change to winning. The idea of winning, winning it all, was distant, millennial, all-encompassing, all-powerful. Just thinking about it was enough to bring tears of joy. The team I loved came tantalizingly close to winning, year after year, but in the end always lost, undone by the limited abilities of the pitching staff. I spent a lot of time staring at the cards of the superstar sluggers on the team I loved—Yaz, Rice, Fisk—but my waiting and hoping for change centered not on the cards but on a perusal of names of pitchers next to small black-and-white pictures in the back of the team yearbook, the names of those not yet arrived, not yet failed. The prospects. I was drawn to those names. I studied them hoping to find the thing lacking, the True Ace. Things were one way, but I wanted to believe things could change.
The other day, a coworker (and fellow blogger) stopped by my cubicle to show me a stack of 1980s commons he'd found for next to nothing at a tag sale. He leaned on the corner of the pasteboard entryway to my cubicle as I flipped through the stack, the two of us mocking the mulleted, the bespectacled, the hapless, the fat. I don't remember how the moment ended. All but one of the cards remains on my desk, cluttering up my jumble of project schedules and calendars and daily to-do lists. I try to keep myself fastened to a line through time. I lose that grip. I lose beginnings and endings. I come to in supermarkets, one hand holding a toy, the other holding Win Remmerswaal.
Win Remmerswaal was the most memorable of the young pitchers who existed solely as names in the back of the team yearbooks I read as a child. I never saw him pitch and don't remember noticing him registering in a box score. He appeared in only 22 major league games. But I do remember the name. The first name could not be simpler, a distillation of everything life was supposed to be aiming toward, clean and clear as an ideal: Win. The second name meandered, complex, unpronounceable but impossible to resist trying to pronounce; it beckoned, a magic spell if said correctly, everything about it a tangle of knowable and unknowable, remembering and swaying and wailing and All, the opposite of an ideal, the dream-drunk wooze of real: Remmerswaal. Who was he? Where was he? When would he arrive to bring change?
The other day, I was watching TV for a few minutes. I used to watch TV for hours, cooking my many daily anxieties to a jittery crisp, but then the baby came. There's always something to do now, up until a few minutes before nightly, ragged unconsciousness sets in, and in those few minutes I generally watch TV for old time's sake. An ad for a casino came on. The gist was that for some, second place was okay, but for this casino only first place was acceptable. I didn't want to waste my few minutes of TV watching a commercial, so I flipped around a little. There was a game show featuring people with weight problems trying to defeat other people with weight problems. I kept flipping. There was another game show featuring women in evening gowns trying to defeat other women in evening gowns. I went back to the first channel, but the casino ad was still wrapping up, hammering home the point that second place is no place at all. Images of glamorous people floating toward slot machines and gaming tables scrolled. I've been to a few casinos over the course of my life—they are devoid of glamour, cathedrals of loss. But they're crowded night and day. Everyone believes flaws and limitations can be shed, change can occur. You will be lifted up out of yourself to some idealized version of you, free of your pocked humanity. Everyone wants to win.
The back of Win Remmerswaal's 1981 card shows his stats in 22 games, the entirety of the pitcher's brief major league career, along with all but one last gasp of his minor league career. The litany of names down the left column of his table of stats lends apt accompaniment to the dim, featureless moment on the front. Winter Haven, Winter Haven, Bristol, Bristol, Pawtucket, Pawtucket, Pawtucket. Red Sox. Pawtucket. Red Sox. And so here he is, representing the last line in the chant of his faltering ascension, Giacometti thin, a presence in the big leagues but only for a moment. Soon he'll dissolve back into the blur.
The other day, I sat my son down on a Fenway Park bedspread on the floor and handed him some toys. He was at that moment in a phase of notable stability, able to sit up on his own but not yet able to crawl. After a few moments I edged away to check one of my baseball books for Win Remmerswaal stories. There wasn't much about him in the big book I pulled from the shelf, The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball, so I started leafing through the book aimlessly, or maybe you could say playfully, no real goal in mind, drifting, curious. My son, drawn to the sound of flipping pages, pitched forward into his stomach. The encyclopedia was on the floor between us. He began writhing and wrenching his little body in such a way that he moved crookedly, haltingly forward. He'd never done this before. I pulled the book a little farther away. He kept moving toward it. I edged away and away until I'd made it to the other side of the room. He kept coming, wanting to grab and tear at the pages of my book about baseball, something so relentless in his efforts that when I told my wife about it we ended up talking about the latter moments of The Terminator, when the android played up to that point by Arnold Schwarzenegger has been stripped to nothing but metal and crawling, unceasing will.
Win Remmerswaal had a lot of talent. "Remmersmell, or whatever his name is," said Reggie Jackson in 1980, "has the best arm of anyone on that staff." He also had a lot of will. Before him, no European-raised player had ever made it to the major leagues. To get to the major leaguers from anywhere, you need talent and will, a truism no truer than when that anywhere is, in major league baseball terms, a relative nowhere. What Win Remmerswaal had in addition to talent and will was an uncommon connection to the thing that precedes talent and will. He played. In the minor league stop where he lasted the longest, Pawtucket, he became known and loved for his offbeat behavior and learned curiosities and wanderings and absences. He wanted to win and not lose, but he also wrote "win" on one shoe and "lose" on the other and, according to teammate John Tudor, quoted in an excellent biography of Remmerswaal on the SABR bio site, "he'd hop off on whichever foot happened that day." Remmerswaal wanted to win and not lose, but during one road trip, his team changed planes in Washington, D.C., and he disappeared. He was gone for several days. On his reappearance he gave team owner Ben Mondor a box of cigars and explained, "I realized that I was in the nation's capital, and that I may never see it again. So I decided to stay for a few days and look around." He wanted to win and not lose but while his teammates attempted to narrow their focus only to winning and not losing and maybe some downtime painkilling swigs of beer or religion, Remmerswaal read Sartre, who once opined that "the genuine poet … is certain of the total defeat of the human enterprise and arranges to fail in his own life in order to bear witness, by his individual defeat, to human defeat in general."
The other day, I gave up trying to write about Win Remmerswaal. I had been at it for some time, failing. The dour, fearful strain in my voice, the part of me that when I write is like a mediocre guitar player (which, as it happens, I am) playing the same tired blues lick over and over, unable to break through to some new way of feeling, is tempted to present his story as evidence that life only dissolves. He never hooked on with any permanence in the majors, never completely engaged the talent he was blessed with, blithely squandered his chances, meandered onward, out of the game. Several long, hard years followed, leading directly or indirectly to him suffering a debilitating stroke and falling into a coma in 1997. Wanting to know more about what happened next to Win Remmerswaal, I right-clicked the "translate to English" option on a feature on him at a Dutch website:
When, after a few weeks awoke, his brains and nervous system so badly damaged that it for the rest of his life in a wheelchair is designated to be fed and limited him to communicate falls.
My son now moves toward what he wants. Words will follow. He doesn't know any yet. He'll learn the word win. It's a word that signifies a coming together. I'll try to teach him the opposite of that word too, which is not lose but remmerswaal. That word, if it were a word, would signify entropic unraveling. It's a middle-aged man blinking to awareness in the aisles of a supermarket, a toy in one hand, a baseball card in the other. It's the spiral of stars in the sky. It's a middle-aged man surrendering his grip on an unbroken line through the years to hold something better. It's you, my boy; it's love. And it's Remmerswaal himself, in a nursing home undone, but who just the other day was in the big leagues. Just the other day he was coming to a set position and looking for his sign. Just the other day, close enough to touch, to study like a list, he begins.


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Pastor Maldonado's exit at Williams could pave the way for Felipe Massa, the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo is reporting.
Correspondent Livio Oricchio claims talks between Venezuelan Maldonado's management and sponsors, and bosses of the Grove based team, are taking place now.
The 28-year-old has reportedly run out of patience at Williams, despite the fact his powerful sponsors PDVSA remain under contract to the British team.
Williams admits it has a problem.
"I've never seen a racing car that reacts so little to modifications," veteran team manager Dickie Stanford told Germany's Auto Motor und Sport, referring to the FW35 that has powered Maldonado to just a single point in 2013.
One unnamed team member, however, said 2012 Spanish grand prix winner Maldonado has also been part of the problem.
"He still makes too many mistakes," the team member is quoted as saying.
"In Korea, we told him repeatedly in the last stint to take care of the right front and, if possible, stay out of the battles.
"But what did he do? Drives like a madman and ruins his tyres within three laps."
Maldonado also reportedly infuriated team bosses when he forced past teammate Valtteri Bottas in the final corner of the last lap in Japan, for a mere 16th place.
Both Germany's Auto Motor und Sport and O Estado de S.Paulo say Maldonado is eyeing departing Kimi Raikkonen's seat at Lotus.
Lotus would apparently prefer to sign Nico Hulkenberg, but that depends on the team finalising its 35 per cent sale to a group of investors known as Quantum.
"They (Quantum) are always saying 'We're coming, we're coming', but nothing happens," a Lotus source told Oricchio.
That is where Maldonado could come in. His sponsor PDVSA, bringing EUR 35 million a year to Williams, remains under contract to Williams for two more years.
But Oricchio said exit talks between the Maldonado camp and Williams are taking place.
Auto Motor und Sport's Michael Schmidt said deputy team boss Claire Williams was in Caracus recently, amid rumours PDVSA could pay millions to buy its way out of the deal.
Oricchio agreed that the exit talks have intensified since Suzuka.
The Venezuelan state oil company would then back Maldonado's switch to Lotus.
It is said Maldonado's manager, Nicolas Todt, is pushing for the deal to happen because it would open Williams' door to his other charge, Felipe Massa.
The Brazilian, who has reportedly put together a sponsor package worth about EUR 6 million, including Petrobras, is looking for a drive for 2014 after losing his seat at Ferrari.
Todt said: "Yes, it's been difficult for Pastor this year, with a car that does not allow the drivers to score points.
"They have to react and they have been hiring new people. Next year it (Williams) would be an excellent option for Felipe."


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Flu, Fever in Pregnancy Tied to Autism Risk - Study
Women who had the flu or ran a fever for more than a week during their pregnancy face a greater risk of having a child with an autism spectrum disorder, Danish researchers said Monday.
The study was based on a survey of mothers of nearly 97,000 children aged eight to 14 and born between 1997 and 2003 in Denmark. Only one percent (976) of the children were diagnosed with autism.
Researchers said that mild and common respiratory, sinus, urinary tract or genital infections, as well as feverish episodes or use of antibiotics in mothers during pregnancy were not a strong risk factor for autism.
But children whose mothers reported experiencing a bout of influenza during pregnancy had twice the risk of being diagnosed with autism, while those whose mothers had a fever lasting more than seven days before gestational week 32 were three times more likely to be diagnosed with the disorder.
Pregnant women have a weakened immune system during the nine months of gestation.
The study, published in the US journal Pediatrics, also noted a small increase in the risk of autism after the mother used different antibiotics during the pregnancy.
However, the researchers stressed that ''we do not know whether the antibiotic treatment itself caused the observed association or whether the antibiotic use functioned as a proxy variable for an underlying disease.''
They also stressed that the link between fever during pregnancy and autism could be a ''coincidental finding,'' and required further study.
Given the link found between autism and fever or the flu during pregnancy, the study's authors recommended that pregnant women get a flu shot.


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India adds world's hottest chili pepper to its anti-terrorism arsenal
India's newest biological weapon, the world's hottest chili pepper, or bhut jolokia, is 400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce, and just a touch on the tongue burns, as our correspondent found. India's Army plans to use the chili in tear gas.
| Navi Mumbai, India
For about $10, Ravi Arora will sell you a pound of the Indian military's latest biological weapon in its anti-terrorism arsenal.
"No, no, no. We recommend not to try them," Mr. Arora says when asked how he suggests using them, speaking at his office in a massive wholesale spice, bean, coconut, and dried-fruit market in Navi Mumbai, Mumbai's sister city. "Before exporting these chilies we have also informed my clients not to taste them.... It is killing."
That potency is just why the Indian military said last week that it would use the bhut jolokia, or "ghost chili," which holds the Guinness World Record for hottest spice, to make tear gas hand grenades in the fight against terrorism. The nontoxic weapon can be used to choke terrorists or force them out of their hideouts, defense officials explained.
A good bhut jolokia measures just over 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measure of hotness. (Regular Tabasco sauce, by comparison, sits between a mere 2,500 and 5,000 Scoville units; Habañero sauce registers at a little more than 7,000.)
Handle with gloves
At a glance the deep-maroon dried chilies, the size of a thumb, might be mistaken for a pile of prunes. They grow in India's northeast, where Arora says farmers have toughened hands from touching them. Last year a mother in the northeastern state of Assam ate 51 of the chilies in two minutes in front of visiting British chef Gordon Ramsay, possibly setting a world record. The fiery celebrity chef nibbled on one before begging for water.
Arora's employees use gloves and mask their noses when handling the recently recruited weapon.
Chili broker Ashit Mehta, whom Arora calls the "Chili Kingpin of India," is adamant that the Indian military needs to do testing on the aftereffects of the bhut jolokia grenade. He says traditional tear gases "only have this eye burning sensation," but with bhut jolokia, they will burn the skin as well.
"People should not get burned," Mr. Mehta says, taking questions between a series of cellphone calls on chili deals in Dubai. "Normal people will have a lot of problems."
It is called a ghost chili, Mehta adds, because "even the ghosts will not eat it."
"It is much more potent than normal tear gas," says a spokesman for the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation, who asked not to be named. It gives the sensation of choking, respiratory distress, and eye irritation, he says, adding that the effects are temporary and the sufferer eventually recovers.
Taste test, with emergency yogurt on hand
Arora, the CEO of the spice exporter S.R. International, reluctantly gave this correspondent a small bag of the ghost chilies to take home. "Don't risk it," he said quietly.
The gentler, dried ones smelled like pepperoni, but left a faint tickle in the nose after a whiff. With a cup of cool yogurt, mint gum, and a friend on watch nearby, I touched the dry skin to my tongue, which immediately felt like fire ants were scurrying across it.
Two small touches to just my tongue and a nibble later, my upper lip suddenly seemed to be pressed down against a hotplate. I began to lose feeling in my nose. I understood why Mehta had said this pepper was an unfair weapon. (He also said this year's crop was much weaker than usual.)
Whether from fear or the weapon itself, I sweated for half an hour afterward.
Arora and Mehta say they primarily export the bhut jolokia to East Asia, where they're used for medicinal purposes. Buyers in the US have cropped up, too, Mehta says. "I don't know what they are using it for."


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Margaret Best is an award-winning artist whose work is held in the permanent collection at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation and in private collections around the globe. She holds a silver Grenfell medal from the RHS and her work has been shown in many ASBA juried exhibitions over the past decade. She is currently preparing for a solo show of drawings and paintings in Bermuda.
Margaret teaches graphite, color pencil and watercolor classes in Bermuda, Canada, the UK, and the US. She has developed a reputation for connecting with students, regardless of their skill level, and helping them generate their own forward movement.
Margaret is the Feature Artist for April and will also be a contributor to EE Week. Please join me in welcoming Margaret Best!
ARTPLANTAE: Margaret, you have established yourself as an authority on color. Your botanical painting classes are actually color studies. You teach classes about the colors green, red, purple, and blue. What made you decide to develop these color-specific classes?
MARGARET BEST: Actually, I also teach other important technical aspects of producing a botanical rendering such as drawing, journaling, brush techniques, form, composition, texture/detail, etc. However, it is directly through the teaching of these various aspects leading towards the creation of a complete botanical study, that I discovered very few had encountered any formal study of color. Even fewer had been taught how to make meaningful color selections. Most information readily available on the topic of color is often highly technical and very intimidating or too general to be useful to the unique needs of botanical artists.
Some of my students, in the context of botanical studies, have attended classes on color where they were presented with certain color palettes and shown how to achieve other colors through various blending combinations. But these mixing exercises tend to be laborious and result in almost robotic creation of color wheels, squares or strips and did not hold any real understanding of what actually caused the results and how it related to the plant kingdom. And little or no information was provided as to how and why the colors they were being required to mix, were selected in the first place. In essence, if you do not know something about the color you are using to mix other colors, how can you understand the results it provides?
When I first started to take a few botanical watercolor classes myself, I discovered that I would be provided each time with a supply list that included specific colors to purchase. I soon realized that this would change from teacher to teacher. Whenever I asked why particular colors and brands were chosen, I was seldom given a satisfactory explanation. For the most part, the answers appeared to be drawn from a teacher's personal response to color or their own practical art background, rather than decisions based on sound testing or research of currently available materials.
As an artist I felt compelled to explore all the pigments available to me in watercolor and as a teacher I believed I was required to be able to provide solid reasons for my selections within the botanical context. So I set about testing every pigment I could find and some manufacturers, particularly M.Graham and Winsor and Newton, were very supportive of my interest and my process of testing. Other resources such as the Michael Wilcox books on watercolor paints and handprint.com were also useful, although I found I did not always agree with their test results. I then set about the process of acceptance and elimination of pigment colors based specifically on the interests of botanical art and my need to create a functional palette.
In my teaching, I decided the best way to impart my knowledge was to focus on the individual hues and to have my students explore the possibilities of each in separate workshops. We test and analyze the individual pigments for suitability to botanical art and then apply the knowledge in a botanical rendering to reinforce their findings.
AP: What is your opinion about the use of a limited palette for botanical artists?
MB: Unfortunately, Mother Nature provides a wider range of color than can be achieved with six primary colors. Full-spectrum color in painting just cannot be simplified that way – it is frankly too restricting and color accuracy is a distinct part of the scientific component of botanical art. I am aware that some teachers suggest the use of a limited palette of six primary colors to minimize the upfront investment in paints and also to encourage students to learn how to mix a wide range of color options by varying the ratios in the combinations of the chosen six colors.
Also, I have taken classes from teachers with this limited palette approach and watched the "pain" that fellow students (with minimal color knowledge) experienced from the limitations it imposed. But I know from years of experience in my own painting and also 22 years of teaching color matching in a commercial world, that this is a very complicated and stifling approach especially to beginners.
There are some fantastic secondary and tertiary colors available in permanent, mono-pigmented form right in a tube. These will add more vibrancy and life (as well as easily repeatable accuracy) to a botanical painting than most complex, blended primary color combinations.
AP: Besides the actual hue performance of pigments available on the market, are there any other properties of pigment that are important to know?
MB: Definitely. Most importantly permanency, transparency and toxicity.
I urge my students to avoid the allure of brilliance in colors like Opera that are not lightfast. The English artist Turner ignored warnings that he was using paint that would fade over time. Imagine having a legacy of being an artist that knowingly sold paintings that would fade!
The vast majority of my paints are transparent and I encourage students how to utilize that transparency to the fullest extent. Some colors offered in watercolor ranges could be arguably termed gouache – very opaque. I know some wonderful gouache painters but do not enjoy this medium personally or currently teach the use of paints that contain white pigment. I should also point out that I avoid paints that contain black pigment too.
On the topic of toxicity, I gave up cadmiums many years ago and took this message to my students – not only because of their toxicity but also because of their opacity. There are so many other wonderful options in yellow, orange and red hues to cadmiums that are transparent and very effective in color matching.
AP: Margaret, don't you have a "white" class too?
MB: Indeed I do give a class on how to paint white flowers. But I offer this to more experienced students and those that have attended some of my color workshops. I believe you need a certain understanding of how to achieve the colors you want through exploring color before you can approach ways in which to "imply" whiteness with the appropriate degree of delicacy and light bias.
AP: You study color with such enthusiasm. What is it about color that gets to you?
MB: In my life BB (Before Botanicals) I was actively involved in a company with my husband, selling and distributing pigment to textile printers. This has spanned a period of 22 years. Incidentally, I remain involved in a technical , advisory capacity.
The demand on textile printers, by retailers and major clothing brands, for color accuracy is extremely high. I learned very quickly the value of consistent high quality pigment in order to be able to produce efficient and accurate color matches. I also became aware in a very hands-on way just how many colors were required in a basic palette to cover the blending of just about any color that was thrown at me. Vibrant, dull, muted, pastel or any other descriptive word – it had to get done with speed using the least number of pigments to make it easily repeatable. I trained color matchers, working for printers in all the major cities across Canada, how to accomplish this with our pigments.
So I guess this ability to respond to a demanding world of color accuracy became a part of me. I discovered also that pigments are universal to all color mediums and that the pigments used in textile inks were the same as those used in watercolor, oil paints, the automotive industry, etc. So all these pigments found in watercolors were already known to me. It was not long before I realized that our specific genre has unique color needs and that many paints offered by a number of manufacturers are of no use to us at all. And I felt that my students should know why some pigments can really do wonders for your artistic endeavors while others reduce your colors to a muddy mess.
My strict rule is:
Test and know every pigment you use intimately. Never test a color on a masterpiece!
AP: You learned about the work of contemporary botanical artists in the late '90s. What type of art did you create before this chance encounter?
MB: I have painted all my life – starting literally when I was a child. My late father decided that few artists make a decent living so I was allowed art as a hobby and he steered me into teaching as a career. He generously paid for me to have weekly private art tuition. I stayed with the same tutor for 9 years and she exposed me to a wide range of mediums. But she encouraged me to focus on graphite, colored pencil and pen and ink rather than watercolor. She favored a loose and painterly style seen in skillful plein air landscapes and flower paintings and because I naturally lean more towards tight detail, I just could not pull it off to her satisfaction. But I could be as controlled and as detailed as I liked with graphite, colored pencil and pen and ink. I was also drawn to architectural studies in a strong way, but then also loved to do graphite and pastel studies of animals as well. Interestingly though through the years, I often sought botanical and found applying the intense detail very satisfying.
AP: Do you remember the botanical painting or drawing that caught your attention? What was it about this painting or drawing that moved you?
MB: I experienced a landmark moment but it was not one single painting that set me on this course. I remember (and will eternally treasure) the occasion when I realized that what I had been creating from time to time over a number of years was actually a defined genre called botanical art. I was amazed to discover that there were other crazy people like me around the globe that reveled in fine-detail depictions of flowering plants.
After immigrating to Canada some 30 years ago with my husband and then infant daughter, I was fascinated by the plethora of wildflowers that emerged in a burst of color each spring. So I began depicting them in colored pencil in fine detail. But believing them to be a personal record of my pleasure at the colorful emergence of life after a long, frozen winter, I kept them for my own and my family's enjoyment and never attempted to exhibit them. They were framed and hung in our home and often drew admiring comments from friends. But they remained just that – records of the beauty of a spring awakening.
I consider my "chance encounter" with botanical art to be a gift from my mother. In the late 90's, when visiting her in England to help her cope with health difficulties, I was encouraged by her to see an exhibition that had been promoted on a local BBC radio program. I was skeptical about the accuracy of my mother's information but decided that a drive into the country with her on a sunny day was a great idea. If we could find the place she had noted on a small piece of paper, that would be a bonus.
After considerable searching we did find it. The exhibition was in a gallery in the grounds of a historical stately home at Twigworth and the artist featured was renowned colored pencil artist, Ann Swan. I took one look at her work and gasped at the fact that I had found another crazy person that had this intense love of detail in botanical subjects. And furthermore it appeared that she was successful at doing it .… for a living!!! I spent the next hour or more talking to her and pummeling her with questions. As a true educator and without hesitation, she generously gave me all the information I wanted to know about her materials, the existence of the botanical art organizations and so much more. I felt indebted, loved her work and bought a large print from her. I raced out the next day and bought all the colored pencils and paper she used. That was it – I have not stopped since – but I did make the switch to watercolors. Ann Swan is one of the leading botanical artists of our time in her particular medium and fully deserves her global recognition. I am not sure if she is aware of the impact she had on me as I have not connected with her since.
It was the legendary Anne-Marie Evans who helped me decide that the way I instinctively wanted to use watercolor would be highly suitable to botanicals and I made the switch of mediums. But I have never lost my love of both graphite and colored pencil and have returned recently to teaching both of these mediums.
Sadly, my mother has since passed away but I still have that piece of paper on which she wrote her note about the exhibition. A treasured reminder of her link to my future artistic endeavors.
AP: One of the things I admire most about your work is the movement in each of your pieces. There is always something flowing, bending, or swaying. How do you decide which aspect of a plant's energy to capture?
MB: It is interesting that you have mentioned this aspect and that my work speaks to you in this way – quite a few people have said the same thing to me.
I believe it is linked to my intense study of every plant I depict before I commit to a final composition. And I feel it is essential in my teaching to have my students understand the importance of the observation and sketching/journaling stage. Many just want to get a drawing down in a hurry and start painting – that eternal pursuit of the instant masterpiece without having to earn it. But observation and sketching is the juncture at which you explore every facet of the plant's unique structure and start to understand it – really understand it.
I distinctly remember Ann Swan saying that sometimes she takes up to a week or longer to work out a composition. That puzzled me at first. I felt I would possibly be too impatient for that approach and besides some specimens can die while the artist dithers about. But then I also read Margaret Mee's book and how she relied heavily on journaling and photography to become fully acquainted with her subject and she insisted (as does another person I admire – Auriol Batten) on understanding where and how it grows. So it is rare for me to choose a subject in a pot or cut blooms from a flower shop. I prefer to experience firsthand how it grows naturally, how it adapts to a rocky cliff or how it hangs from the tree, etc. Living in Canada, that can be challenging as I have only 3 – 4 short months in which to do all this. So it is not surprising that most of my paintings involve plants found in other regions of the world. I have now been to Bermuda three times drawing like crazy (and teaching) in preparation for my upcoming exhibition.
I need to see how the flower holds itself naturally, how the stem curves, how the leaves are attached and the angles in which they are positioned relative to the rest of the plant. I never create just for the sake of creating – in other words I do not just start drawing on quality paper and pray that the composition will just magically evolve along the way. I "think" it all out through my sketching stage considering those unique angles, and any visual movement and flow. Like Ann Swan and most especially my mentor, Pandora Sellars, I give considerable time and effort to composition and how to capture the essence of the plant's particular personality. On very rare occasions Mother Nature just presents me with a perfect composition in front of my very eyes. But they are unique gifts that do not happen very often.
I always do extensive sketches of the actual specimen and take numerous images with my trusty, little Olympus Stylus. But my drawings always tell me more than the camera. My digitals confirm certain finer details and sometimes interesting aspects of light that I may have missed or not remembered well. But my camera work never controls my color nor final compositions.
AP: Drawing upon your many years of teaching botanical art, how do students learn botanical art? Can your observations be grouped into "phases of learning"?
MB: The quick answer is that I have not sat down and formally attempted to categorize the adult art learning process in specific phases or stages. I am having so much fun with the hands-on teaching that currently draws from my own training as a professional educator, that at least in the short term, I will probably leave this to the academics of education. But I concede it is worthy of a doctorate study – if it has not already been done.
From my experience the defining phases of learning art is so much easier with children under the age of 12 that are still relatively free of inhibitions, fear of failure and other complex human behaviors that comes with adulthood.
I often say that when teaching art to adults it "can be like a box of chocolates" – you never know what you are going to get. Adults often come along with a mixed bag of just about everything "The Good, the Bad and sometimes the Ugly". I guess I have been hanging out in Hollywood quite a bit recently!! Joking aside, in teaching adults it is important to maintain a sense of humor and I have focused more on assisting my students to tear down the acquired obstacles and self-created barriers that get in the way of progress. I see this as essential for them to make the vital leap from knowing that to knowing how. And I then attempt to build the bridge between the two separate stages with my students but not for them.
Perhaps this can help explain. Most people remember with pleasure when they learned to ride a bicycle and the joy they felt to be in motion. Before getting on to a bicycle you observe and understand that it is the feet that keep the wheels turning and maintain the forward motion, that your hands steer the direction and that balance ensures you do not fall over. Putting it all together seems a monumental task until the exquisite moment when you experience the joy of the integration of all three key elements in one effective result. After that, you encounter all kinds of things that may try to slow you down, change your direction or even halt your progress, but once that controlled forward movement is felt and taken on board, the obstacles and any possible pain that comes with it, is taken in stride or put in context. The process of learning art is no different. But what bothers me most as an educator is that the half-hour solution and the need for instant gratification that many adults have learned to expect, sometimes permanently shuts down the process to carry on.
AP: Some notable teachers have created a step-by-step approach. Do you have one?
MB: I acknowledge the value of a step-by-step approach, especially with beginners. The success of this is seen in just how many "how-to" books are on the market. But I have not attempted to formularize my teaching approach and yet, given the amount of time and energy I put into workshop preparations, I sometimes wish that I had. I also believe that formularized art teaching tends to stifle the emergence of a uniquely identifiable style. At some point the student artist needs to embrace a wider circle of information sources that will enhance what they have acquired from the comfort zone that can become established by rigid step-by-step methodology.
I have heard many students say, "I can only paint well in the classroom and I am hopeless when I go home." This is another manifestation of a rigorously disciplined teaching style. At some point the trainer has to let go of the bicycle saddle or take the training wheels off!
Rembrandt, for example, taught with a rigid approach that caused his students to paint so tightly in his particular style that it has taken experts centuries to separate his works from that of his students. I do not believe copying photographs or other renowned artist past or present, is the way to foster the meaningful learning of HOW TO.
But despite what I have said here, I should also point out though that in every class I offer a road map. My teaching is never directionless. I explain carefully what it is that I wish for (students) to learn from a particular exercise and how to fit it into their world. But I cannot make them fit into their world. They must be compelled to find the bridge and cross it and I feel honored if I can provide that opportunity. It is that moment that I find so rewarding – the moment when I know that I made a difference.
AP: If you were asked to provide a "Top 5 List of Suggestions" for classroom teachers and informal science educators wanting to incorporate botanical drawing and painting into their curriculum, what suggestions would be on your list?
- The need to nurture a fascination of plants and their importance to the survival of our planet, before a student even lifts a pencil. So the subjects chosen must have real significance in terms of their everyday lives.
- That botanical drawing is a scientific art form that is very literal and that it is a creative form of record keeping that has been with us longer than any other art form. This enforces its value.
- Educators need to foster the belief that every human has the ability to draw with meaning – it is only negative outside forces that can create a different belief system.
- The fact that every mark they make on a piece of paper with a drawing tool has value in terms of sharing information with somebody else. The more effective it is, the more information they can impart without words either written or spoken.
- That it is essential to fully understand the tools for drawing and painting before they can be applied effectively.
Also See…
- Margaret's online gallery at BestBotanical.com.
- Nature's Palette: The Science of Plant Color
- Color: A Natural History of the Palette


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National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
ADHD May Be Tied to Longer-Lasting Head Injury, Study Says
Author says contact sports should be avoided; another expert disagrees
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Scientists found that children with ADHD -- who are already prone to risk-taking behaviors -- were much more likely than kids without the disorder to suffer a moderate disability after sustaining a mild traumatic brain injury from events such as car accidents, falls and injuries from high-impact sports.
"This was a phenomenon that I had noticed in my own practice -- some children with ADHD didn't recover as well following a traumatic brain injury," said senior study author Dr. Stephanie Greene, an assistant professor of neurological surgery at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. Some of the symptoms of traumatic brain injury are also symptoms of ADHD -- disinhibited behavior and impaired memory, she noted. "The effects of the [traumatic brain injury] may be additive to those of ADHD," she explained.
Encouraging activities in which the chances of brain injury are lower -- for example, swimming or track instead of football or basketball -- is a way in which parents can provide an outlet for energy while protecting their child's brain, she added.
The study is published online June 25 in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.
About 8 percent of American children have ADHD, a neurological disorder characterized by problems focusing, being overactive and exhibiting poor impulse control, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Traumatic brain injury results in more than 7,000 deaths, 60,000 hospitalizations and 600,000 emergency room visits annually in the United States, according to the study. Prior research has linked several aspects of ADHD and traumatic brain injury.
In the new study, Greene and her colleagues reviewed medical charts of all patients at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh who had ADHD and were diagnosed with a mild traumatic brain injury between 2003 and 2010. Forty-eight of these children were compared with a control group of 45 children without ADHD who had also sustained a mild traumatic brain injury.
The researchers found that 25 percent of the ADHD group suffered a moderate disability, and 56 percent had completely recovered after a nearly six-month follow-up period. In contrast, among the patients without ADHD, only 2 percent suffered a moderate disability and 84 percent had completely recovered after a much shorter follow-up of seven weeks. Moderate disability was defined as needing supervision or help for physical or behavioral problems, or having residual problems with learning or functioning.
Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York in New Hyde Park, praised the study's design and said the authors excelled at explaining the possible implications of the findings.
"As someone who specializes in the evaluation and care of children with ADHD, I know they are at increased risk of injury," he said. "I think this study is suggesting that if they do experience a significant head injury, they may have greater long-term problems from that. Why that's true is hard to know."
The study made several recommendations stemming from the results, including that doctors should counsel families of children with ADHD about expected outcomes after a head injury; that more intensive treatment and rehabilitation for these patients be initiated; and that parents perhaps discourage children with ADHD from sports or hobbies that carry higher risks of sustaining a traumatic brain injury.
"Part of the problem with children with ADHD is that they often have poor impulse control, which means that they are at higher risk of sustaining a [traumatic brain injury] by engaging in risk-taking behaviors in daily life, separate from sports," Greene said. "When risky sports are added to the already elevated risk of [traumatic brain injury], the chances of a child sustaining a [traumatic brain injury] with potentially lingering effects become unacceptably high."
But Adesman said the findings need to be replicated before he would agree with curtailing contact sports for children with ADHD.
"I would not steer all kids with ADHD away from contact sports based on single study," he said. "Certainly we know that kids can experience accidents thru a variety of means . . . sports accidents made up a very small percent of accidents" in this study.
Health News Copyright (c) 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
- More Health News on:
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Children's Health
- Head Injuries


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As War And Conflicts Proliferate, Children Become Unwary Victims And Targets
With political, military, economic and religious strife proliferating globally, children are increasingly turning up in the headlines.
And while kids have always suffered during the turmoils of war and crisis, there's a sense internationally that the burden of instability is being increasingly borne by children.
"More than ever, children are in the firing line," Jacqueline Bhabha, a professor of human rights at Harvard University told Here & Now's Robin Young. "At the moment with Syria, Gaza, the Nigerian girls, the U.S. border, it really highlights the extent to which children are at risk in situations of conflict or situations of emergency."
From the start of the Syrian civil war, children were being killed in unusual numbers in order to send a message to communities.
"From the early days, children were specific targets," said Bhaba. That tactic, carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, was intended to brutalize areas loyal to opponents of the government.
"The normal rules of war, the rules of civility have completely broken down."– Jacqueline Bhabha
Even in conflicts where children may not be specifically targeted, there can be nowhere for children to hide.
"Wars are no longer limited to the battlefield. Civilians are absolutely targeted and there aren't safe spaces where they used to be," she said. "In Gaza, homes are targeted, rooftops are targeted, so the places where children just stay, whether it's at home or playing outside their house, have become extremely dangerous."
"The normal rules of war, the rules of civility have completely broken down," Bhaba continued. "The U.N. reported last week that one child is being killed every hour in Gaza."
In other places where wars are being fought, such as South Sudan, children make up a majority of the population. Child starvation, casualties and killings are reflected in high numbers.
However, it is not just in wars where children bear the brunt of destitution and violence. Take, for example, the girls kidnapped by the Boko Haram in Nigeria, an area with a legacy of child trafficking.
Allowing that to happen with little consequence seems to erode the time-honored sense that children are off limits in other contexts of violence.
While much of the focus may be on the immediate plight of children, Bhaba argues that it is crucial to also take the larger context into perspective.
For the children at the U.S. border fleeing gang violence and poverty in Central America — where children as young as 8 are murdered by gang members — Bhaba knows addressing the larger issues is the only way to keep children safe.
"The lack of jobs, the lack opportunity, the proliferation of gangs, the massive consequences of U.S. drug consumption on Central America. These are the issues," she said.
"We haven't really thought about child protection as being a central concern of governments," Bhaba said. "It's not been something where we think structurally about the importance of education, the importance of safety, the importance of skill training and jobs."
Fixing these issues globally, Bhaba believes, is the key to keeping children safe.
- Jacqueline Bhabha, human rights professor at Harvard University and board member at the World Peace Foundation.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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The nutritional complexity of the bee hive is vast. A very unique complex of micronutrients is required to allow the lil' buggers to differentiate themselves into their different roles and provide the nutrition necessary to keep the hive going.
Royal Jelly is a honey bee secretion that allows a specific bee larvae to grow into the Queen Bee. Neat, huh? Modern spectrometric analysis suggests that royal jelly contains about 185 different organic compounds, with the most important one being a protein called royalactin. It's believed that royalactin is the compound in royal jelly most responsible for allowing a larvae to morph into the queen bee.
Royal Jelly as a Green Superfood
It doesn't take much imagination to believe that royal jelly has a wide variety of unique health benefits. What I love about royal jelly is there is so much literature surrounding its different medicinal uses that it's difficult to condense into a single article. However, an incomplete list would look like this:
- Enhances the immune system
- Promotes wound healing
- Has antitumor/anticancer properties
- Lowers cholesterol levels
- Increases fat metabolism
- Is a powerful antioxidant
- Regulates blood sugar levels
Not too shabby! What's more impressive about royal jelly is that a lot of its health benefits can be observed at low dosage levels. A frequent caveat with "food as medicine" studies is that the observed health benefits only occur when patients have taken way more of the food than you would normally with a typical diet. The amount of royal jelly needed to get the desired nutritional "oomph" can easily be obtained through a good supplement. (Like Health Kismet's green superfood powder).
Royal Jelly, Tumor Suppression, and Cancer Fighting
Royal jelly has strong cancer and tumor suppressing abilities. Its been successfully used in treatments for leukemia, and several studies have shown that its effective at reducing the adverse side effects of chemotherapy drugs.
For example, a study published in Folia Pharmacologia Japonica in 1987 found that implanted mice tumors that were treated orally with royal jelly displayed tumor suppression rates between 45% and 55%, and cell life was extended between 17% and 20% longer than mice not given royal jelly.
Cisplatin is a powerful chemotherapy drug that also has a few deleterious side effects, mainly damage to the kidneys and liver. However, a few clinical trials have demonstrated that administration of cisplatin in conjunction with royal jelly significantly negates its deleterious consequences on liver and kidney health. It's believed royal jelly achieves these effects by decreasing lipid peroxidation, and increasing the potency of antioxidants within the body like superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione (GSH) and glutathione-S-transferase (GST).
Fat Metabolism and Blood Sugar
Royal jelly also seems to do good things for your body's ability to burn fat. At least one reason royal jelly has this effect is that it inhibits lipid peroxidation within the body. Without getting too technical, lipid peroxidation is the process by which fatty acids in the body have electrons become available for "theft" by free radicals, which leaves the fatty acids malformed, and the body is unable to metabolize them. If this happens often enough, the malformed fatty acids start to add up. This is one of the reasons belly fat is such a common problem in the western world….the body is loaded up with broken fat molecules that it doesn't know what to do with. To be honest, it's not entirely clear why royal jelly is able to do this, but it's suspected a big reason is the presence of a compound called 10-HDA, which has been shown to inhibit lipid peroxidation in clinical trials.
A decrease in lipid peroxidation allows the body to metabolize more fat, which has a cascade of health benefits, including lower serum cholesterol and triglycerides, and the prevention of a variety of related lifestyle diseases.
Royal jelly may affect blood sugar levels and insulin resistance through a similar mechanism. Because it reduces serum triglycerides and cholesterol through a decrease in lipid peroxidation, it allows the body to become more sensitive to insulin. In this study rats that were fed a fructose only diet (yuck!) showed significantly better insulin, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels when they took the sucrose solution with royal jelly.
Immune System Enhancement
Royal jelly helps the body produce more immune cells, fight bacteria and heal its wounds faster. It mostly does this with a unique blend of proteins that are unique to royal jelly. The most well known immune boosting protein in royal jelly is called royalisin (not to be confused with royalactin), which was conclusively discovered by japanese researchers in 2010. The presence of royalisin, in addition to a complex of proteins called Major Royal Jelly Proteins (MJRPs) is what gives bees their ability to fight illness, allergy, and kill bacteria within nature.
The Major Royal Jelly Proteins comprise 80% to 90% of the protein content in royal jelly, and are entirely unique to honeybees. This is one of the reasons royal jelly is such a cool nutrient……its best parts really can't be found anywhere else! Both in test tubes and animals the complex of MJRP's have shown a pretty robust ability to stimulate the production of different immune cells and reduce certain allergic reactions. The queen bee typically has the strongest immunity and lifespan of all the bees in the hive, and its suspected that the dense concentration of these unique proteins in royal jelly is a big reason why.
The ability of royal jelly to enhance wound healing is curious, to say the least. Admittedly, there aren't a ton of studies done on this property of royal jelly, but the ones that have been completed are intriguing.
The most widespread application of royal jelly for wound healing in the medical literature has been carried out with diabetic foot ulcers. In this area the evidence is limited, but encouraging. No studies have been conducted with a large amount of patients or under ideal conditions, but royal jelly has had a large impact in what capacity its been used. For example, an outpatient clinic in Iran treated ten foot ulcers with royal jelly and 7 of them disappeared completely, and one other was reduced in size by 40%.
Where to Get Royal Jelly
Reading, learning, and writing about royal jelly has been a joy for me. Often when you read the existing literature on supposed "superfoods" the results will not quite back up the hype. There's either no research done at all, or what has been completed is scanty and inconclusive. However, this is most definitely not the case with this remarkable green superfood. Its uses are many, and its notable in its peculiarity. What other substance can you eat that gives an animal superhero powers? It's cool stuff.
Besides maintaining a beehive, there's no other way to eat royal jelly besides using a supplement. Some supplements exclusively offer royal jelly concentrate, while others might offer it in a cocktail of other foods. For convenience and price, I prefer a supplement that offers royal jelly in conjunction with other ingredients.
If you're interested in Royal Jelly on its own I'd suggest something like BeeAlive. If you're looking for a superfood supplement, I'd suggest Health Kismet's very own Incredible Greens, which has 80 mg of royal jelly that's been concentrated 300% in addition to 35 other raw greens, herbs, and probiotics.
Research and References on Royal Jelly:
Sver, Lidija. "Royal Jelly as a New Potential Immunomodulator in Rats and Mice" Comparative Immunology, Microbiology, and Infectious Diseases. January, 1996, pgs. 31-38
Okamoto, Iwao, et. al. "Major Royal Jelly Protein 3 Modulates Immune Responses in Vivo and in Vitro" Life Sciences. September, 2003, pgs. 2029-2045
Isidorov et al., 2012 Isidorov, V. A., S. Bakier, and I. Grzech. "Gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric investigation of volatile and extractable compounds of crude royal jelly.." Journal of chromatography. B, Analytical technologies in the biomedical and life sciences 885-886
(February 2012): 109–116.
Karadeniz et al., 2011 Karadeniz, Ali, Nejdet Simsek, Emre Karakus, Serap Yildirim, Adem Kara, Ismail Can, Fikrullah Kisa, Habib Emre, and Mehmet Turkeli. "Royal jelly modulates oxidative stress and apoptosis in liver and kidneys of rats treated with cisplatin.." Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity 2011 (2011).
Nagai et al., 2001 Nagai, Takeshi, Mizuho Sakai, Reiji Inoue, Hachiro Inoue, and Nobutaka Suzuki. "Antioxidative activities of some commercially honeys, royal jelly, and propolis." Food Chemistry 75 (November 2001): 237–240.
Siavash et al., 2011 Siavash, Mansour, Saeideh Shokri, Sepehr Haghighi, Mahbubeh Mohammadi, Mohammad Ali A. Shahtalebi, and Ziba Farajzadehgan. "The efficacy of topical Royal Jelly on diabetic foot ulcers healing: A case series.." Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences 16 (July 2011): 904–909.
Viuda-Martos et al., 2008 Viuda-Martos, M., Y. Ruiz-Navajas, J. Fernández-López, and J. A. Pérez-Álvarez. "Functional Properties of Honey, Propolis, and Royal Jelly." Journal of Food Science 73 (2008): R117–R124.
Xu et al., 2002 Xu, Donghui, Xueting Mei, and Shibo Xu. "[The research of 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid on experiment hyperlipoidemic rat].." Zhong yao cai = Zhongyaocai = Journal of Chinese medicinal materials 25 (May 2002): 346–347.


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During the last workshop we experimented with a technique that produces interesting results if it doesn't drive you mad first. The idea is to start with a background wash, draw the shapes of stones, leaves and twigs onto it, then, with a slightly darker tone fill in all the negative spaces. More leaves, twigs etc are then drawn into the darker negative areas and the negative spaces around the new shapes is made slightly darker. This incremental darkening is done 3-4 times then the shapes are modeled, ink and pastel lines are added, colors splashed on and gesso washes are used to simplify areas.
The process is a lot of fun and often triggers interesting ideas. The example below was done as a demo on aluminium composite panel primed with watercolor gesso. The heavy vertical marks were masked up and painted over the top with more watercolor gesso then the tones were adjusted.
These next images give an idea of the build up using negative shapes.
Once you get the hang of it this can be great fun. The subject can be any reasonably defined object – tools, utensils, paint brushes, pencils – anything that can layer one over the other.


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Patch 5.0.4 brought us some changes, and its taking some players like me a while to understand and absorb them. I'm damned if I can fit 9 classes worth of changes in my head at once, so I've kept to just a few. My Death Knight main and a few of the toons that I tank with: DK, Warrior, and Paladin. I'll get around to adding the Guardian Druid into that soon, and then also spec'ing the non-tanks like my Warlock and Hunter. I wonder if Hunters and Warlocks can pet tank / solo now.
One thing about the new Tanking model is that multi-mob tanking is much more viable, as long as the tank does not get stunned or overwhelmed. When either occur you are in deep trouble very quickly. DKs, Pally, and War all hurt when faces with 10+ mobs, and the old days of doing an instance in a single pull. Now if the mobs cannot hit your character for enough damage per second to chew through the shield, then your character will never get hurt at all. Generally that will never happen at level, and even (Level -10) needs to be considered. At (level-25) or less I think its the same old run and giggle mode, which is good. At level on normal mode all Tanks should be able to solo bosses like Slabhide with reasonable gear and use of cool-downs.
As a quick summary:
- Death Knights – feel essentially the same as previous Blood spec did, and play very much like a dps character. Good solid fun.
- Paladins – slow and steady damage, unkillable due to great cooldowns, highly controllable self heal. The cockroach is back.
- Warriors – fast paced leaps, charges, and thunderclaps. High damage, lower survival. Best fun to be had by far.
Death Knight – overall nothing greatly changed, and everything did. The Blood style plays the same, and it is the other tanks who now are moved to an absorption/healing based actions (aka Active Mitigation). Essentially our world changed because we have moved from having a somewhat unique ability, to having just one of the best implementations of the soak/damage model. I liked it a a DK and like it on the others too. As dps the talents feel narrow.
I'm not sold on the concept of switching talent choices per fight, except to say that if a player can do that well they are a much greater asset to their raid than a player who specs once and never changes.
Paladin – I was newbie tanking in Outland back in the day, and loved the fact that mana was returned by getting hurt. Likewise now we get all sorts of resources back from being hurt. I've run a few old heroic 70 and 80 dungeons in solo mode to test the performance of the Tankadin, and while I think their overall damage is too low, the survivability is very strong.Cooldowns are needed for heavy damage spike fights and too many mobs can rip through the bubble very quickly.
Paladin's strength is the control of when they can apply their heal, and the advantage of doing either a powerful shield strike or heal as a 3x holy power combo move. I found on bosses or big trash pulls that sometimes all I did was self heal, and the slow attrition of concentration and the AoE effects whittled down the creatures. The Paladin was never in trouble, but also never was near the DPS that the Warrior did.
Warrior – A Protection Warrior at the moment is crazy fun. They do as much damage as some lowbie dps and can head smash their way through mobs darn quickly. Having additional uses of charge via talents means that for now I grind quests as Prot. Never dying has many advantages. They are still a very agile tank, being able to move across the battle exceedingly quickly. Solo'ing was almost as easy as the others, but at times my health was dropping and it took special attention to snap it back up. Thankfully the cooldowns provide for some interesting power-ups, and I was also using Herbalism's small heal and spare potions.
If I could somehow get a huge gear jump I think the Warrior would benefit strongly from a powerful set of items and correct re-forging. Parry and mitigation re-forging appear to make a large difference in the form discussions out there, and my Warrior feels like she wants to smash heads harder, but cannot just yet. The potential is certainly there.
But why have 3-4x tank characters?
Heroic Utguard Pinnacle (h-UP), Heroic Magister's Terrace (h-MgT), and Normal Stonecore are all easily solo-able for all three classes, which means grinding for those elusive mounts is now easier as a character can be parked out the front of each to do each one each day with no travel time. Till the new world events this is what I'll be spending free time on. I'm pondering adding the Druid to be parked in front of Molten Core, purely because the rare mats and drops from there still sell well.
In terms of comparison neither the Paladin or the Warrior can hold a torch to a Death Knight for solo'ing and damage. Some of that might be due to much better gear (ilevel 333 vs 378) and my familiarity with the DK class, but it seems the DK is slightly ahead for now. Warrior is probably a close second, but their healing is still not as exceptional or as controllable as the Death Knight. Things will be interesting at level 90 where we are meant to be playing, as I can see a Warrior becoming once again the powerhouse of Tanking. Having the only AoE taunt will be an exceptional ability, and as gear improves their block/soak mechanics will get stronger and stronger. A Paladin too might also be powerful again for the ancient reason they were awesome in the past, that they have so many cooldowns which increase survival. By comparison the DK cooldowns are just trivial. This is also good as I think there needs to be some separation between the tank styles and perhaps this is enough. Not sure as yet.
I'm looking forward to adding a Monk to the lineup too; 5x Tanks will be excellent.
Related articles
- Mists of Pandaria Beta: Rage tanks get angrier (wow.joystiq.com)
- Initial thoughts on WoW patch 5 (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
- For WoW Tanks, It's Time To Take Our Pants Off Again (mmomeltingpot.com)
- What do I know about other classes and specs? (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)


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Does Larry Curry Get One More Chance?
I'm not usually very astute at connecting the dots. I guess since I am not a conspiracy theorist by nature, I tend to look at things and pretty much take them at face value. I have to be hit on the head by an anvil in order to see something that hasn't been fully announced. Even then, I'm normally not too accurate in my predictions. So, take it for what it's worth when I see a connection between two separate announcements that were made earlier this week.
On Monday, we learned that Dreyer & Reinbold Racing was parting ways with engineer and team manager Larry Curry, along with his son Matt – who also worked for the team as an engineer. Based on the results we've seen from DRR for the past two seasons, I'd say the move was justified.
Wednesday brought the unexpected news (unexpected to me, anyway) that Ed Carpenter Racing was being formed for a full-season effort with backing from Fuzzy's Vodka. We knew that Fuzzy's was going to make an announcement on Wednesday, but most people (myself included) thought they were going to back Ed in an oval-only program to continue at Sarah Fisher Racing. I had no idea that Carpenter was in the process of forming his own team in conjunction with his stepfather Tony George as a co-owner.
So where do I connect the dots? Am I too off base to suggest that Larry Curry might end up at Ed Carpenter Racing for 2012?
Larry Curry is an interesting, if not controversial, figure in the paddock. He was the man behind Team Menard's success throughout the nineties. When Tony Stewart won the IRL championship in 1997, he credited Curry with much of his success. Stewart backed up those words when he brought in Curry as a co-owner and to manage his short lived Tri-Star Racing program; for which Stewart drove in the 1999 Indianapolis 500.
Larry Curry made himself an easy target with his conviction of pilfering money from his boss in the nineties, John Menard. Reports of the theft range from less than a million to more than $1.5 million. Curry began serving a thirty-two month sentence in a federal penitentiary in July 2001. Many predicted his career in auto racing was over.
After his release, Curry actually resurfaced at Vision Racing after Tony George asked for and received permission from John Menard. He managed Vision Racing until after the start of the 2008 season. Ed Carpenter and AJ Foyt IV qualified second and third respectively for the season opener at Homestead. However, both cars failed technical inspection and started at the rear of the field.
Although not immediately, Curry was eventually dismissed by Vision for reasons that I certainly understand. Being in the position of CEO of the league, Tony George could not have his own team being cited for cheating. There are just too many bad scenarios that can come from that. Having the CEO owning a team already presented a potential conflict of interest image, he didn't need to give that any further ammunition.
By the time the Indianapolis 500 rolled around that May, Curry had already been picked up by Marty Roth. By late summer of 2008, he was in his most recent gig at Dreyer & Reinbold.
For the past three off-seasons, we kept hearing how Dreyer & Reinbold was the team to watch for "next season". Larry Curry was expected to do great things along with other engineering expansions and driver upgrades. Instead, driver injuries have plagued the team as they resorted to a revolving door of thirteen drivers over the past two seasons. For those reasons and others, the results just didn't come and Larry Curry had to go.
While many contend that Curry is an outstanding engineer, his resume is a mixed bag. He is considered the man responsible for Team Menard's success in the IRL from 1996 to 1998, before leaving to go to Tri-Star and Tony Stewart in 1999. Although Menard won the IRL championship in 1999 with Greg Ray, they never fully regained their form after that. His results with the low-budgeted Tri-Star were less than stellar. They did no better than seventeenth in 2000 while running Jeret Schroeder in 2000.
His stints with Vision, Roth and DRR produced poor to mediocre results. Things looked up for 2010 at DRR, especially for the Indianapolis 500 until Mike Conway's ferocious crash on the final lap. After that, it was pretty much downhill for Dreyer & Reinbold. His only real highlights came at Homestead at 2008, when he was ultimately found to be in violations of the rules.
So, why on earth would Ed Carpenter have any interest in Curry at this time? Although he may not be considered one of the best engineers in the paddock, I think he is still thought of as above average. Plus, he seems to really excel in setting up a car on an oval. Ed Carpenter's strength is oval racing. That is where he can expect the best results. He has to decide whether to focus on his strength or to build on his weakness – road/street courses. I think it's wise for a new team starting from scratch to focus on its strengths at first.
The new 2012 chassis is another consideration. A new start-up team will need a better-than-average engineer to come to grips with a new car out of the box if they hold any hopes of being competitive. Larry Curry fills that need.
Obviously, Ed Carpenter and Larry Curry have worked together before. I don't pretend to know if they even like each other – much less work well together. But when starting a new team with a new car, Ed Carpenter Racing will probably need all the new familiarity that they can get. Even though Tony George will be a co-owner, he no longer holds an official position with INDYCAR and will therefore not have to be any more conscious of team image than any other team on the grid.
Although his moral compass might be more than slightly askew, I think that Larry Curry has the know-how to get a new team off the ground. His engineering prowess is also probably up to the task of getting the new chassis up to speed. There may be better and more capable people out there to run a team and also serve as a team's engineer, but they are already employed by the top teams. Given the set of circumstances, I think Larry Curry would be a steal (no pun intended) for Ed Carpenter Racing.
Engineers are not a dime-a-dozen in the IZOD IndyCar Series. As time moves on, the engineer's role becomes more and more important. Regardless of his shortcomings, Ed Carpenter should snatch up Larry Curry if he can.
George Phillips
8 Responses to "Does Larry Curry Get One More Chance?"
Funny, but the question I kept asking myself yesterday after Ed's announcement was "What happens to SFR now?"Ed racing with his father-in-law seems to at least put SOME financial wheels in motion, especially when you add Fuzzy Zoeller to the mix, but where does that leave SFR?
My suspicion is that the new equipment (and the financial reources involved in that,) plus the mandatory engineering budget that's going to be necessary to "dial in" the new cars, probably doesn't bode very well for several of the teams, SFR included, that are somewhat under-funded.
On another blog I commented that this might be an opportunity for an "all distaff" team, with Pippa Mann as driver. I can't think of two other people who've had more hard luck in racing, although in the case of Sarah, the win at Kentucky, particualrly right after finding out that you're losing Dollar General as your main sponsor, was a career highlight.
Consider that Pippa is going to need more time to heal (not unlikely when you consider the extensive injury she suffered to her hand,) and that SFR was probably not going to do too much before Indy, the timing might come together well for both of them.
Yummmm,Curry is my favorite spice! It really clears out the nasal passages.
Pippa Mann needs to go find another hobby.
For SFR, I am sure they knew Ed was planning this. So it probably comes as no surprise.
They have already ordered new cars, so they obviously have some funding in place already for 2012. They will be fine.
Ed is working with Derrick Walker. So expect DW to hire most of the folks. I'd look for Nathan O'Rourke to be Ed's main engineer.
I think we'll see the Curry's land with Davey Hamilton with his new team.
Agreed – I saw Cavin mentioned Walker this morning and that is great to hear, but I think it makes this Curry engineering for Carpenter theory much less likely.
I cringe every time when someone says Tony Stewart is an IndyCar champion. To put that IRL title on the same level as what Rahal did in 92, Little Al did in 94, or what Dario has been doing the last several years devalues those championships.
I couldn't agree with you more and what you said cannot be said strongly enough.
How good is Curry, not very good in today's league, has he done any good on ovals, I don't think so. How many smaller teams smoked dreyer and reinbold this year with less equipment. Curry's kid, does he even have a high school diploma? Curry has not produced anything good ever and Tony had some of the best equipment from Menard and he has talent to drive anything, Curry was just lucky and was in the right spot at that point. He has no good results ask his wife.
[…] Does Larry Curry Get One More Chance? [Oilpressure]George says, "I'm not usually very astute at connecting the dots." That must mean that he SUCKS at that Bob Evans kids' menu game where you make boxes by connecting dots. Not to worry, George. I'm not that good at it either, which is why I use crayons so that my lines at least look colorful. […]


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"Advent's intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional
memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child.
This is a healing memory; it brings hope."
Pope Benedict XVI
(mother's kitchen funnel has seen better days / Julie Cook / 2018)
This pitiful image of what was once my mother's kitchen funnel, that I have
obviously "loved" to death by overuse and wash, always reminds me of the hat of
the head of the tinman from the Wizard of Oz…
albeit a kitchen funnel and not an oil funnel.
Who can forget Jack Haley singing…if I only had a heart…
When a man's an empty kettle he should be on his mettle,
And yet I'm torn apart.
Just because I'm presumin' that I could be kind-a-human,
If I only had heart.
I'd be tender – I'd be gentle and awful sentimental
Regarding Love and Art.
I'd be friends with the sparrows …
and the boys who shoots the arrows
If I only had a heart.
Picture me – a balcony. Above a voice sings low.
Wherefore art thou, Romeo? I hear a beat…
How sweet.
Just to register emotion, jealousy – devotion,
And really feel the part.
I could stay young and chipper
and I'd lock it with a zipper,
If I only had a heart.
Wizard Of Oz – If I Only Had A Brain/Heart/Nerve Lyrics
If I only had a heart…
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26
To remove the heart of stone and receive the heart of flesh…
And so it seems on that fateful day when an apple was received and in turn eaten,
two hearts grew hard…
spawning a spiraling outward of generational stone hardened hearts.
Shuttered hearts.
Closed hearts…
turned cold
Yet all the while the mind deludes, claiming otherwise.
The mind convinces the heart to remain closed and hardened,
otherwise, there will be pain, weakness, and vulnerability…
C.S Lewis says it this way…
"There is no safe investment.
To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one,
not even to an animal.
Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements;
lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change.
It will not be broken;
it will become
The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.
The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers
and perturbations of love is…
Yet it was the famed English preacher, Charles Spurgeon, who had previously addressed this
notion of the heart of stone.
"Spurgeon surmised that the stony heart is, specifically:
not easily softened and utterly senseless.
He said the person with the hard heart is "Satan's throne."
And he said the hard heart is "impervious to all instrumentality,"
(Cliff Vaughn)
In a sermon delivered in 1887 Spurgeon addresses the hardened heart:
Hardness of heart is a great and grievous evil.
It exists not only in the outside world,
but in many who frequent the courts of the Lord's house.
Beneath the robes of religion many carry a heart of stone.
Nothing good can come out of a stony heart;
it is barren as a rock.
To be unfeeling is to be unfruitful.
Prayer without desire,
praise without emotion,
preaching without earnestness — what are all these?
Like the marble images of life, they are cold and dead.
Yet he reminds us that all is not lost.
The Holy Spirit makes us like wax, and we become impressible to his sacred seal.
Remember, you that are hard of heart, that your hope lies this way;
God himself, who melts the icebergs of the northern sea,
must make your soul to yield up its hardness in the presence of his love.
Nothing short of the work of God within you can effect this.
"Ye must be born again," and that new birth must be from above.
The Spirit of God must work regeneration in you.
He is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham;
but until he works you are dead and insensible.
Even now I perceive the goings forth of his power:
he is moving you to desire his divine working,
and in that gracious desire, the work has already begun.
Note next, that as this tenderness comes of the Spirit of God,
so it also comes by his working in full co-operation with the Father and with the Son.
We hear the Father say, "I will pour upon the house of David the spirit of grace,"
And so it is from that same genealogical house–the house of David which is born the Grace
which is our hope from the impenetrable death found in the stone cold heart.
It is a hope found in the genealogical line from Abraham, to David, to the Christ.
Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David,
fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon,
and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah. (Matthew 1:17)
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea,
to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and
was expecting a child.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,
and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. (Luke 2:4-7)
And so the genealogical line of hardened hearts, hearts which once seemed destined to reside
closed for all time and destined to spend an eternity in Hell,
will be broken…broken by the gift found in a genealogical line of hope,
the gift found in the birth of a single child…
And a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6)
Leading once stone hardened hearts, now broken by Grace, to healing found only in Salvation.


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API Codex
Welcome to the DPLA API Codex! This is where you can find authoritative documentation for the DPLA API and resources you can use to make the most of it. We're happy to have you. (Wondering why we built an API in the first place? Check out our philosophy.)
What now?
- If you've never played (or worked) with an API before, head on over to API Basics. We'll get you started accessing some of our data.
- If you're already familiar with APIs in general and you just want to know how to get at our data, skip the basics and dive right into requests (Make sure you get an API key first.)
- Once you've got some shiny new JSON-LD, how can you tell what it all means? In responses, we explore the structure of objects and define the fields within those objects that the API will return.
- Ready to start building something against our API, but want to know how we operate? We've got you. Check out our policies.
- Uh oh. You're lost. We're lost. Everything's broken. I'm confused. Time to check out our troubleshooting and FAQ page!
- Confused by the terminology we're using? Check out the glossary of terms.
- Did we miss/break/overlook/forget something? Tell us.
The essentials
Need to start right now? Here's a cheat sheet.
https://api.dp.la/v2is the base URL of the DPLA API.
collectionsare the two resource types you can request.
- In order to pass requests to the API, you'll need to request an API key first. You also need to append
$YOUR_KEYis your 32-character key) to any requests you make.
- All records are returned as structured, wonderful, JSON-LD objects. And we have reasons for that.
- We've got a boatload of fields you can query, and a whole bunch of ways you can query them.
- Dive head first into a bucket full of kitten metadata:
https://api.dp.la/v2/items?q=kittens&api_key=. (Copy and paste the URL into your browser and add your API key on the end.)


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A four-level series for teenagers that uses powerful ideas from TED Talks to develop confident users of English in speaking, writing, and on international exams.
Language(s): American English, British English
Level(s): A2, B1, B2, C1
Language(s): American English
Level(s): Advanced, C19781337808071
1st Edition
© 2018, Published
National Geographic Learning programs for learners of English help teenagers discover who they are, and to explore what they might become in the future. Our programs use real-world content about people and places from around the world to teach the language and 21st century skills, such as collaboration and critical thinking, teenage learners of English need to understand their place in the world.