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LOS ANGELES — Challenged by injuries and a schedule that will demand they play 31 games in 30 days, the Dodgers' pitching staff could use a little help from their friends.
Mookie Betts, Trea Turner and Justin Turner stepped up, each clubbing home runs in a five-run sixth inning as the Dodgers turned around an early deficit to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 7-6, in the first game of a doubleheader on Tuesday afternoon at Dodger Stadium.
Left-hander Tyler Anderson is scheduled to start the second game of the first doubleheader at Dodger Stadium since July 1999 and the first scheduled doubleheader here since September 1987.
The win in the opener was the Dodgers' third in a row. They have erased multi-run deficits in each (the last two against the Diamondbacks).
"I don't pay as much attention to it. But if you take a step back and look at it from your lens, I would say definitely. This is time for the offense to carry us through," Betts agreed, when the pitching staff's challenges were pointed out to him. "It is what it is. That's why we have a really good team. We just have to do it."
Tuesday's early hole came by virtue of a three-run third inning against Dodgers starter Ryan Pepiot.
The rookie, making his second big-league start, walked the first two batters he faced before retiring the next eight in a row, four by strikeout.
But Pepiot let a 1-and-2 count turn into a two-out walk of Josh Rojas in the third inning. The mistakes compounded when a passed ball moved Rojas into scoring position and Pavin Smith cashed him in with an RBI single on an 0-and-2 pitch.
That brought up Christian Walker who seems to have hit half of his career total of 60 home runs off Dodgers pitchers. It's actually only 13 of those (still, the most he has hit against any opponent) after he crushed a 2-and-2 fastball Pepiot left over the heart of the plate for a two-run home run.
"Two-out walk, you never want to do that," Pepiot said, reliving the worst part of his day. "Then I would love the 0-2 pitch to Pavin Smith back, for sure. I threw a good slider the pitch before then just left the one 0-2 right over the plate to him. Then the home run, I let a fastball leak over the middle of the plate and it wasn't high enough.
"Those are two pitches I would love to have back. But it's a learning experience."
Pepiot came back to retire the side in order in the fourth before Manager Dave Roberts went to the bullpen.
The Dodgers started to dig out of this early hole with a solo home run by Will Smith in the fourth inning. But that was half of the Dodgers' hits against Diamondbacks starter Tyler Gilbert through the first five innings.
Hanser Alberto led off the sixth with a single – and Gilbert had to go through the Dodgers' lineup a third time. It didn't go well.
Alberto rode home on Betts' game-tying home run – his third in the past four games. Two batters later, Trea Turner gave the Dodgers the lead with a solo home run. Justin Turner added another two-run homer after Max Muncy drew a two-out walk – and Diamondbacks manager Torey Luvollo sat on his hands.
All three home run hitters have started to come out of some early-season doldrums. Betts is 24 for 71 (.338) with four doubles and six home runs over his past 17 games. Trea Turner's homer was his first since April 16 and part of a 12-for-35 surge (.343) over his past nine games. Justin Turner is 9 for 29 (.310) over his past seven.
Betts made it a three-hit game with a double in the seventh inning and scored on an RBI single by Freddie Freeman.
"I think we're getting going a little bit more," Trea Turner said. "We've talked about it quite a bit this year, but nobody's really played up to their potential. You've got Mookie right now and maybe Freddie but Freddie thinks there's more in there, too.
"So just having conversations with guys, we know there's a lot more in there."
The Dodgers needed every bit of the offense. The Diamondbacks pulled to within one with a solo home run by Alek Thomas and a little help from the Dodgers' defense. But Craig Kimbrel stranded the tying run on base when he struck out Jordan Luplow to end the game.
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Name: John Henry Hahn
Age: 13
Current school: Jubilation T. Cornpone Middle School, Orlando, FL
Request transfer to: Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Reason(s) for request: Um, my school has like, totally failed to keep pace with my educational needs, or something. At least that's what the state says, because they hit us with an "F." They said it was because our history book ends with a chapter called "Our New Friend, Steam." But it's also because this place is way crowded. There's 72 kids in my homeroom alone. And we don't even have real classrooms. I live in a trailer, I go to school in a trailer. I need something to break up the monotony.
I was just going to stick it out, until somebody told me that being in an "F" school in Florida means you can get out while the getting is good. I figured I'd shoot for Indiana, since the Princeton Review just named it the number one party school in the country, and being on the top of any list is really like getting an "A" when you think about it. It'll be nice to go with a winner for a change.
At Indiana, I'm looking forward to getting a superior education, improving my cultural awareness and maybe even pledging a bitchin' frat. It's like my older brother says: If you want to get ahead in the business world, you're going to have to know how to drink beer through a funnel. (He goes to UMass on a scholarship. Right now, he's on academic probation. More later.)
Intended course of study: Public relations, maybe poetry
References (state relationship to you): Clarence T. Holland (pastor); Raymond "Ray-Ray" Anderson (neighborhood pharmaceuticals distributor)
Favorite works of literature: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; The Catcher in the Rye; Girls Gone Wild!
Extracurricular activities you intend to pursue: Lacrosse, Tekken 3
Additional comments: Look, I know I'm a long shot for Bloomington. But it can't hurt, right? The old college try? Ha-ha. (They say you're supposed to let your personality come through in these applications.) Most kids who get vouchers are wanting to stay in the same grade, only at a private school. But a lot of those places are religious, and my dad says he won't let some nun try to teach me that the Apostle Paul discovered radium.
Some people say I'm shallow to want to go to Indiana just because it made the top of some party list. Hey, at least it made me want to stay in school, and that's more encouragement than I'm getting around here.
I already feel like I'm kinda cut out for Indiana, anyway. I heard that the poll they won was called "irresponsible" and "unscientific" by the American Medical Association, and I get told I'm irresponsible all the time. Plus, you want to know what else is unscientific? My science class.
But I guess it could be worse. There's this little kid on my block who goes to Mollie Ray Elementary, and they make him wear a T-shirt that says "F=Fantastic!" It's supposed to build his self-esteem, but he knows it just makes him look like a dumbass. It's like coming home from camp with the award for "Best Hug Giver." They should just tattoo "'TARD" on your forehead.
Things here are getting weird even when I'm not in school. I was at Target a few weeks ago, and guess who I saw in the checkout line? My teacher, buying a bunch of chalk and crap. I thought the school paid for all that. Guess not, 'cause she kept looking through her pocketbook, over and over again, like she was out of money. She looked really upset. It freaked me out so bad that I totally forgot to throw anything at her.
You've got to get me out of here, so I don't have to see stuff like that anymore. I hope I hear from you soon.
P.S.: Oh, and there's another thing. Everybody at my school just wants to talk about stupid Britney, and I'm way into The Vines.

subset: commoncrawl


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Privacy Governance, Data Protection & Compliance
- TYPE: Track START DATE: Wednesday, May 15, 2019 START TIME: 14:30
The EU GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), is in force since May 25, 2018, and had a global impact not only on data privacy but on the interaction between businesses and their customers and consumers. Organizations had to review how they onboard customers and consumers and how to convince these of giving consent, but also review the amount and purposes of PII they collect. Building an identity and access management strategy is a key factor to comply with the GDPR, to manage customer identities and to help improve the business's view of its customer and its relationship with them.
Continuing Professional Education Credits:
KuppingerCole is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State Boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credits. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry through its website: www.learningmarket.org
After attending this track you will be able to:
- Understand the key benefits and challenges around several privacies enhancing methods and technologies
- Understand how customers use anonymization in their data analysis and what insights they gain from it
- Understand new privacy controls and requirements that are coming when dealing with US citizens
- Understand how privacy must be a consideration for services going forward
- Explain how privacy will have an impact on upcoming technologies
You can get 3 CPEs for this track.
GDPR - Digital Risk and the Catalyst for Global Opportunity
How to Turn Privacy and Data Protection Regulations into a Competitive and Trust-Building Advantage
Consumer Consent - The Make or Break of your PSD2 Compliance Implementation
European Identity & Cloud Conference 2019
- Language:
- English
- Registration fee:
23100.00 kr
- Contact person:
Mr. Levent Kara
+49 211 23707710
- May 14 - 17, 2019 Munich, Germany


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My sweet boys just headed home with their parents - all three spent Thursday night and
then just Josiah and Caleb slept over last night. With Thanksgiving and time with three and then two sweet boys, it has been a busy few days; but days which have left me feeling so very blessed!
First of all, on Thanksgiving I was able to enjoy a tasty meal with my husband, children, daughter-in-law, grandsons and parents; I know so many people across the country are not able to spend special times with family and so I am extremely thankful I am and count them as some of my dearest blessings!
Secondly, while two and three boys with no shortage of energy leave me tired, it is worth every second of being tired! Again, I know many grandparents do not get to have sleepovers with their grandchildren, so I sincerely appreciate being able to do so. We played games, made cookies, watched movies and just enjoyed laughing and being together! Josiah (age 6), Caleb (age 3) and Shane (age 1) are such sweet rascals - they acted like they were going to kiss me, but raspberried me instead! I told them they were rascals, which apparently they liked because later Caleb raspberried me again and asked me if he was a rascal again! I am so very blessed!
Finally, I know the One Who gave me all these many blessings; and He loves me! I am so thankful . . . and He loves you, too!
I hope as you reflect on your Thanksgiving, you are blessed as I am!


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The placenta is an amazing and normally disregarded organ that develops in your uterus during pregnancy. This structure provides oxygen and nutrients to your growing baby and removes waste products from your baby's blood. The placenta attaches to the wall of your uterus, and your baby's umbilical cord arises from it.
Many women are unaware of the many nutrients and hormones the placenta holds, these nutrients and hormones can be greatly beneficial for women to help in their post partum recovery. Placenta Encapsulation and Placenta Remedies are natural ways of healing your mind and body and replacing vital nutrients that the body craves after the trauma of labour and birth. For more information on the hormones and nutrients please visit www.placentules.com/
Placentophagy (Placenta ingestion) has been around for years and in so many countries. Women would add their placenta into dishes such as stews and casseroles or other homemade recipes.
Nowadays women choose to consume their placenta in a more modern form, such as having their placenta encapsulated (made into capsules) and adding other placenta remedies alongside the capsules.
Just from one placenta, women can request as many remedies as she would like, these include:
- Placenta capsules,
- Placenta smoothie,
- Placenta essence,
- Placenta tincture,
- Placenta creams/balms
- Placenta oils
For more information on any of these remedies please visit www.placentules.com/about-our-products
Tree of Life
Placenta remedies are very unique to the mother as the remedies are made from her own placenta and is for her use only. The placenta is symbolic to "The Tree of Life" which comes from the intricate pattern of veins which appear on placentas. It is truly a life giving symbol as the placenta is a lifeline in the womb to baby and can give mother the feeling of energy and new life after birth.
Benefits of Consuming the Placenta
Mothers who have consumed their placenta in capsule form have reported the following:
- A boost in energy levels
- Increased and enriched milk supply
- Balanced moods and hormones
- Increased iron levels
- Faster recovery from birth
- Uterus returning to normal size faster
- Decreased incidence of postnatal depression/baby blues
- Reduced postnatal bleeding
- General improvement in health and well being
If you would like any information on placenta remedies then please visit www.placentules.com/ where you will find information on the various types of remedies, how to book your placenta services and how they can be beneficial for post partum recovery.


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Whether on or off the ice, Travis James strives for excellence
When crafting the men's apparel line Tora, Travis James, a lifelong Cos Cob resident, obsessed ("and I mean obsessed") over everything from the quality of his ultra-soft cottons to the stitching that allows the shoulders of his tailored T-shirts to drape just so. "For the longest time, I've wanted to create the simplest of garments with a flawless fit," says James, a former professional hockey prospect, who long struggled to find casual, comfortable pieces that would hang properly on his athletically broad shoulders and tapered waist.
With prices starting at around $75 for his signature V-neck T-shirt, James hopes to make Tora the go-to brand for discerningly dapper yet laid-back guys. James spent years conceptualizing Tora's polos, hoodies and T-shirts. "I never trained as a designer but always had a knack for it," he says. (He designed his junior hockey goalie gear, "right down to the thread color.")
The accidental designer, now thirty-two, was influenced by the stylish menswear that captured his attention while studying in Tokyo as a University of Vermont exchange student. "They are design masters and take their clothing and fabrics seriously," says James. Tora, which means "tiger" in Japanese, was chosen because of the nickname James' Japanese instructors gave him thanks to his fierce and ambitious nature.
Leaving the financial industry to bring Tora to market without the help of deep pocket investors required a lot of that ambition. He launched his label online last December while also working as an assistant coach for Greenwich High's standout boys' hockey team.
What do his young charges think of Tora? "Some of them appreciate the quality and colors," says James. "But it's not something I could really stand to see them tossing on the locker room floor. I do hope they'll be customers in a few years." tora.com


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The plenary meeting and working group meeting of ITU-T SG20 (standardization Bureau of IEC) kicked off in Wuxi of Jiangsu Province, China. The informatization and industrialization integration standard, "Methodology for building Sustainable Capabilities during Enterprises' Digital Transformation", was approved officially and expected published on March 2019. The standard was developed by National Industry Cybersecurity Research Center under the guide of MIIT.
SESEC analyzes: the standard was organized on the base of China recommended national standards GB/T 23000-2017 and GB/T 23001-2017,clarifies accurately the definition and term of "informatization and industrialization integration". The approval by IEC indicates a virtual step of internationalization of China standards.


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Earlier this week we teased you with a quick look at the HTC Touch 3G. The full review is now online. It's got large portions of high-quality pictures, screen shots and videos of the phone in action. Head over to this page to see what we thought of it or buy one from devicewire.com.
The Touch 3G is an evolution of the original HTC Touch that a lot of your probably still own. There's a faster processor, 3G on-board and a better camera. The interface has been improved too, plus you'll get GPS. If you were happy with the HTC Touch then you'll love this.
Links – HTC Touch 3G Review – devicewire.com


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- What we learned: Today, we learned about the phalanx and how it helped Macedonia defeat Persia.
- Classwork: We continued working on our Guided Reading for Chapter 8 Lesson 3.
- Homework: Finish the worksheet (due date varies by class due to the early out on Monday; check your Google Classroom for your class's due date).
- If you missed class: Fill out the Absence Check-In Form and see Mr. Kaltwasser when you return.


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Reality TV star and a member of the Kardashian clan, Kylie Jenner, has given birth to her first baby.
Kylie, 21, had her daughter on Thursday, February 1, as announced on her verified Twitter handle.
The baby's dad, musician Travis, grandma Kris Jenner, sister Kim Kardashian and friend Jordyn Woods were all seen at the hospital, according to E!.
A source said Travis was showing the baby off to his crew, saying: 'He seems so happy and just keeps rubbing her head and saying, 'Daddy's here. Daddy's here."
Kylie also posted a video marking her pregnancy, which was pretty much kept under wraps for the last nine months.
See the tweet announcing the delivery:
— Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) February 4, 2018


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Take steps to strengthen yourself and your church ministry by attending a Stronger Church Conference. You will find valuable help in three areas: discipleship, church revitalization, and church planting. As you make plans to attend, consider bringing deacons and other leaders from your church.
The registration fee for an individual is just $35, which includes a copy of John Greening's book Strong Church. Depending on your church's size, if you bring three or more people, your group rate could be as little as $100 for everyone. You will find full registration information at GARBC.org/stronger.
We are offering three Stronger Church conferences this spring.
- February 2–3 Faith Baptist Church, Vero Beach, Florida
- March 2–3 Ankeny Baptist Church, Ankeny, Iowa
- April 13–14 Emmanuel Baptist Church, Flint, Michigan
Plan now to attend one of these conferences and take new steps in building a stronger church. Visit Stronger Church Conference for more information and online registration.


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For Easter this year, my family and I went to Whispering Canyon Café, where they were serving an all you can eat Easter brunch. This got me thinking: a lot of people ask me what I think of the Disney buffets because they're worried they'll completely go off the wagon. Surprisingly, if you play your cards right, they can actually be one of the healthier routes for meals at the parks. Hear me out - you can have your Mickey Waffles and eat them too! - and enjoy some of my best practices for handling the two types of Disney buffet.
Firstly, it's important to note that there are two types of buffets at Disney World. Some restaurants will bring you a platter or skillet of sorts with multiple food options for the table and serve it family style. From there, if you want more of specific items in your platter, you can let your server know. Others are a more traditional buffet. You're seated, order your drinks, and then get up and serve yourself from the buffet options. Here's a list of all the different restaurants on property that offer buffets or family-style meals at Disney World:
And, in case you're heading to the west coast, here are Disneyland's buffet and family-style offerings:
And, of course, some of these restaurants will have characters that come to mix and mingle with you, or one of the mealtimes (i.e. breakfast only) will be a character breakfast. These can be a little bit more pricey, but are great for either families with children who want to get a bunch of signatures in a short timeframe, or for the kids at heart who don't feel like waiting in lines to meet characters!
Because you have control over what goes on your plate, buffets are usually options that can be pretty good for calorie counters, Weight Watchers, etc. You can bulk up on lean proteins, veggies, and fruit but still indulge a little on some special Disney treats you won't get to enjoy once you're back home from your vacation or, if you are a local like me, usually refrain from having. But that can also be dangerous if you worry about portions, so here are some of my best practices to follow when you're enjoying a Disney buffet.
Which Disney buffet is your favorite? Characters or no characters? Let's chat in the comments!
As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Read more here!
Leave a Reply.
Jessica is a huge Disney, anime, and Star Wars nerd who channeled that love into motivation to lose 75 lbs.
April 2022


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It is 86 degrees today in Birmingham, AL and it's only a matter of time before we are up in the 90's. I'm sweating just thinking about it. Alabama summers are unlike any other, because you get the outrageously high temps AND you get swarmed by humidity so thick you can reach out and grab it. Permanent back sweat, glistening foreheads, pit stains – these are the things Alabama summers are made of!
Okay all whining aside, I really do love summer. It's my favorite time of the year because there are so many fun things going on. Especially summer in Birmingham, because you've got Barons games every week, breweries, rooftop bars, events at railroad park all the time, amazing food + outdoor patio scenes, the list goes on. Every summer I have a few items that I know I HAVE to have in order to brave the heat and look cute doing it.
Up at the top of this list is summer shoes. Let's go by the 3 C's rule: I like to have 2-4 pairs of shoes every summer that I can count on to keep me comfortable, cool, and cute both day and night. I always like to have a casual option and a more dressy option. These two shoes are recent additions to my closet for the season, and they did not break the bank! These brown sandals are seriously so comfortable, they have a padded sole and are perfect for a casual daytime look. I bought mine for $14.99 at Ross, and I couldn't find the exact pair to link, but I found a comparable pair on Amazon for the same price. You can find them here. These grey wedges are from amazon and I love love love them! They are perfect for dressing up some jeans and a nice top, or with a summer dress for church or dinner. You can seriously pair them with so many outfits – and they are under $30.00. They come in several colors and are very comfortable to walk in. They check all my boxes: comfortable, cool, cute.
I shared this leopard print shirt earlier this week, paired with some work pants and my nude heels and it got so many comments!! This has been such a statement spring/summer staple in my closet. You can wear it so many different ways, and the ruffled sleeves are so fun and feminine. I snagged it at TJMaxx for under $20.00, but It is made by a boutique in Los Angeles called Green Envelope. I found a similar leopard shirt for about the same price here, and it's so cute I honestly might go buy that one too.
This is a tried and true summertime staple!!! A reliable and comfortable blue jean short, (left) made by Old Navy and only $25.00. These shorts are the perfect length, not too short, and will be worn all summer long. I have another pair in the darker wash, and both will be on rotation. My white linen tank is another staple piece, and it's on sale right now for $15.00!! I've paired it with nice pants and heels for work, and also barefoot with linen shorts on the beach. It can seriously be worn so many ways, and it comes in several colors. The green linen shorts (right) are from Altar'd State, and are $40.00 online. I have another pair in a rustic navy blue color, and I will wear both all summer as well. They are the perfect casual look, paired with a tank or T-shirt.
This shirt is made by a designer called Sigrid Olsen, her website can be found here. Unfortunately, I cannot find the link for this exact shirt, but I bought it at TJMaxx for $15.00, and I love it. Honestly, this shirt makes me so happy! I love when I find very cute and unique statement shirts, because otherwise, I stick to my neutrals. This one really stood out to me and I'm so glad I bought it. It's 100% linen, and very breathable, which is perfect for Alabama summer. While I was looking for something similar to link, I did find this linen tank on Amazon and I miggght go buy it in every color. Linen is no joke.
These green pants!!! These were another recent steal at TJMaxx, and they are made by a brand called Max Jeans, but I found an identical pair on Nordstrom online for the same price, about $30.00. These are a lightweight, comfortable material and can be worn casually or dressed up as well. A secret to looking good is feeling good, and these pajama-like pants do the trick! My tank is 100% thrifted, about $4.00 even. I hope you enjoyed my summer outfit inspo, and I would love to know what you've got in your closet this season!


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Synth Magic has released a free download for Native Instruments Kontakt.
The Wonky Tape Atari library features a collection of sound effects and instruments sampled from the Atari 2600 gaming console, recorded to a vintage Teac reel-to-reel tape.
I recorded an Atari 2600 with various games to a Teac reel to reel to make some atari percussion/drums and zaps etc.
Wonky Tape Atari requires a full version of Kontakt 5.2.1 or higher.
Make sure to check the Synth Magic site for some more quality free and commercial sample libraries.
More information: Synth Magic / Wonky Tape Atari


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National Pecan Day
Who doesn't love a reason to be nutty?
Pecans and Pancakes?? OH YES…we are a little nutty sometimes!!
Make your own from scratch http://abc7chicago.com/food/national-pecan-day-pancakes/648171/
or make them easy with Sturdiwheat Almond Pecan Walnut Pancake Mix. You Decide!
Pancakes are just not for breakfast. Good to know, right?
Sturdiwheat's Almond Pecan Walnut Pancake Mix with Almond Pecan Butter Sauce.
Breakfast lunch or dinner, these are a winner. . easy for you "Just Add Water" to our Sturdiwheat Pancake Mixes. Don't forget a little bacon and some eggs.
Good to go with more protein and your family will love the change!
Recipe Link for Almond Pecan Butter Sauce and Coconutty almond Pecan Pancakes.


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Streetcart Pigeon? This Can't Be Right
According to this Twitter user the Trini-Paki Boys cart (on 43rd & 6th) will be serving pigeon today…? Could it have said pigeon peas? Photo confirmation is welcome here. (The least they could do is call it squab, right?)
Posted by Zach Brooks at 10:30 am, July 22nd, 2009 under Asides, Trini Paki Boys Cart.
15 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
15 Comments
This is soooooo tempting.
Pigeon is lovely.
will go well with hummingbird cupcake. did you know that a pigeon will eat chicken? true, I spilled some of my veronica's cart jerk chicken by accident the other day and a huge fight ensued. those wacky animals!
I had squab one time and while it was tasty, it was still difficult for me to get over the fact that it was a pigeon. This was in breast form, I hope these guys serve it whole and someone posts pictures…
there's not much more than breast meat,dubs.
enough of this talk?!?! Who the hell went and got this?
BTW, props for the Trini Pak boys for helping out with the pigeon infestation of midtown. Now just put a couple rat-kabobs on the menu.
Mamacita eats rat in kebab form? Cool!
I was mistaken. The sign said "pigeon (pulao)." Didn't realize that pulao is pigeon PEAS. It was good though. Tasted like dirty rice.
Pulao is actually the rice/ grain in the dish. It should be Peas Pulao to avoid any confusion. Oh well.
Disappointing it's not the real deal, I like pigeon. There's a great scene in the Samual Selvon novel Lonely Londoners where one of the Trinidadian immigrants is so hungry he kills a pigeon in Hyde Park, to the disdain of a nearby Englishwoman. If only our Trinidadians would get inspired.
I've always wondered why the homeless don't eat pigeons. Is it that nyc street pigeons are dangerous to eat and the squab we eat in a restaurant is of a different quality?
Not feral pigeons….wood pigeon,collared doves.
you know it's wild when you get a Ding! from the toilet the next day as the shot its the pan
So to speak.
Yeah, dubs, you'd be surprised how diet totally changes taste. That's why you never hear of people eating carion birds, because they taste like rotten meat. I imagine a NYC pigeon would taste something like a homeless person. They sort of are street people of the skies.
Note to self: don't eat homeless people
LOL mamacita… speaking of pigeons, we missed National Pigeon Day last month! http://www.magicksandwich.org/2009/06/national-pigeon-day-again-im-not.html
and homeless people will not eat pigeons, it's official… http://www.bandersnatch.com/pigeon.htm


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Resilience of social-ecological systems is one of the core research interests of sustainability science (Kates et al. 2001). Interest in resilience has grown dramatically over the past decade (Xu and Marinova 2013, Baggio et al. 2015), which has led to an increasing demand for methods to apply resilience thinking. One of the best-documented approaches is described in The Resilience Assessment Workbook (Resilience Alliance 2010). This is based on a strong foundation of theory and empirical research on social-ecological systems, from a complex adaptive systems perspective (Quinlan et al. 2015). On the other hand, different civil society movements are also applying resilience thinking, such as the Transition Movement, which promotes transformative societal change in response to contemporary sustainability challenges (Hopkins 2009). The Resilience Assessment process is the most developed scientifically based approach to applying resilience thinking, whereas the Transition Movement represents one of the largest communities of practice working with resilience thinking. We present a novel comparison of these two approaches that analyzes how they can cross-fertilize to improve the application of resilience thinking in participatory processes.
The Transition Movement and the Resilience Assessment represent two different approaches to using resilience thinking with potentially complementary strengths. Previously, scholars applying Resilience Assessment in practice have found that it fails to provide guidance on how to manage the participatory learning process (Mitchell et al. 2014, Sellberg et al. 2015). Furthermore, although resilience scholars often emphasize transformational change for sustainable development (Gunderson and Holling 2002, Folke et al. 2010, Olsson et al. 2014), the practice of Resilience Assessment as of yet has failed to support transformations of social-ecological systems (Walkerden et al. 2013, Sellberg et al. 2015). Earlier work has addressed these issues by combining Resilience Assessment with ideas from adaptive management and collective learning (Walkerden et al. 2013, Mitchell et al. 2014). However, no one so far has engaged with the Transition Movement, even though it focuses on mobilizing citizens in collective learning processes for transition (Hopkins 2011). Haxeltine and Seyfang (2009:20) provided an initial comparison between literature on social-ecological resilience (e.g., Folke 2006) and the Transition Movement and found that the movement has been successful in using resilience as a framing concept, but that there is a lack of a deeper understanding of what building resilience means for each specific context, as well as "an adequate conceptual and operational framework for resilience." Within the movement, there is also an interest in analyzing resilience and assessing the impact of initiatives (Hopkins 2011). This suggests that the Resilience Assessment approach also could be useful for the Transition Movement.
In this paper, we compare and combine the Resilience Assessment and the Transition Movement approaches, with an aim to generate insights for the application of resilience thinking in participatory settings. Specifically, we (1) compared the notions of resilience as presented in the handbooks of the two approaches (Hopkins 2008, 2011, Resilience Alliance 2010) through a qualitative text analysis and (2) developed a new participatory workshop protocol influenced by the two approaches, in collaboration with local partners active in the Transition Movement in Southern Sweden, and assessed the benefits and challenges of that cross-fertilization process. To our knowledge, this is the first time the Resilience Assessment and Transition Movement approaches have been compared and combined in a scientific study.
The Resilience Assessment Workbook was developed by the Resilience Alliance research network (2010) and was originally aimed at the practical management of regional ecosystems. The current process includes describing a social-ecological system, assessing its resilience, and finding options for interventions. The aim is to generate an understanding of the dynamics and aspects of resilience in a system, rather than measuring resilience (Walker and Salt 2012). The approach has a strong theoretical foundation and builds on earlier work by the Resilience Alliance to apply resilience thinking (Walker et al. 2002), as well as recent insights from case studies of social-ecological systems (Quinlan et al. 2015). The latest version of The Resilience Assessment Workbook for Practitioners has been applied across the world (Resilience Alliance 2016) and in different contexts (e.g., Haider et al. 2012, Liu 2014, Sellberg et al. 2015), but most extensively in Australia by regional water catchment management authorities (e.g., Walker et al. 2009, Mitchell et al. 2014). In this way, the approach of the Resilience Alliance (2010) is more flexible compared with other recent approaches that are tailored to specific contexts (Quinlan et al. 2015), such as social-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (UNU-IAS, Bioversity International, IGES, and UNDP 2014).
The Transition Movement, also called the Transition Towns movement, emerged in 2005 in the United Kingdom, and its rapid spread has caught the attention of a growing number of researchers, relating it to grassroots innovations (Seyfang and Haxeltine 2012, Feola and Nunes 2014), community development (Connors and McDonald 2011), and social movements (Smith 2011), among others. In 2016, the movement included well over 1000 initiatives across the world (Transition Network 2016). Rob Hopkins is the movement's front figure and has written two handbooks, with support from the Transition Network:The Transition Handbook (Hopkins 2008) and The Transition Companion (Hopkins 2011). The Transition Handbook has sold more than 25,000 copies in the United Kingdom alone (Transition Culture 2017). The purpose of the handbooks is to inspire citizens around the world to join the movement, and to guide local transition initiatives to be successful. Resilience is a key concept in the Transition Movement, with a specific focus on building resilience of local communities to peak oil, climate change, and economic crisis (Hopkins 2008, 2011). As opposed to other approaches to applying resilience (e.g., Rockefeller Foundation 2013), the movement is strongly influenced by the Resilience Alliance's definition of resilience (e.g., Walker et al. 2004, Walker and Salt 2006, as cited in Hopkins 2008). Nevertheless, with the exception of Haxeltine and Seyfang (2009) and Brunetta and Baglione (2013), few studies relate the Transition Movement to theory on social-ecological resilience.
Both the Resilience Assessment and the Transition Movement are characterized by a high level of interplay between written guidelines and practical applications in different contexts. Therefore, we applied two different methodological approaches: a qualitative text analysis of their written guidelines and a participatory case study (Fig. 1). The comparison of their written guidelines allowed for a general comparison that highlights differences and commonalities between the Transition Movement and the Resilience Assessment. By complementing this analysis with a practical case study embedded in a specific region, we captured some of the discrepancies between theory and practice. Below, we describe the two methods further.
The material we selected included The Transition Handbook (Hopkins 2008), The Transition Companion (Hopkins 2011), and The Resilience Assessment Workbook for Practitioners (Resilience Alliance 2010). These are the most widely used written guidelines for the respective approaches. Hopkins (2011) accounts for some of the conceptual and practical changes in the movement since Hopkins (2008).
Following Esaiasson et al. (2007), we developed a framework to structure the comparison (Table 1). The framework included a brief narrative analysis based on the approach of Leach et al. (2010), which helped provide a context for the rest of the findings (1. Narrative); the interpretation of resilience, using, e.g., Biggs et al.'s (2015) resilience principles and Folke et al.'s (2010) resilience thinking framework (2. Definition and use of resilience concept); and conceptualizations of social-ecological and cross-scale interactions, and the types of activities advocated (3. Emphasis on theory vs. practical tools). The last category was based on preliminary case study findings, which indicated that the Transition Movement approach focused more on practical tools, whereas the Resilience Assessment had a stronger theoretical foundation. This notion also aligned with another recent study of a resilience assessment process (Sellberg et al. 2015). In order not to miss interesting findings, we also included interpretations of resilience in practice that emerged from the text analysis (2E in Table 1). A more detailed description of the analysis and framework is provided in Appendix 1.
In the case study, we cross-fertilized the Transition Movement and Resilience Assessment approaches through developing and testing a new workshop protocol that combined the two approaches, and then evaluated the benefits and challenges of that cross-fertilization process.
The case study was conducted in Southern Sweden in collaboration with a LEADER organization (Fig. 2). LEADER is the EU's rural development program and aims to strengthen locally driven development within defined rural areas (European Commission 2016). The organization was already influenced by the Transition Movement approach, e.g., through their involvement in a broader project called "LEADER learns for transition to sustainability." In 2013, two project coordinators at the organization contacted us, because they were interested in learning more about resilience thinking as an important part of the Transition Movement approach and using Resilience Assessment as a tool for participatory strategic planning. Both of them had personal experience of the Transition Movement: one of them in a local transition initiative and the other through starting up and working with education in the national Transition Movement in Sweden.
Inspired by the transdisciplinary research process of Lang et al. (2012), we formed a team of researchers and practitioners who framed the research task, created a one-day workshop that we conducted in three different local communities between January and April 2014 (more details in Appendix 2), and attempted to integrate the outcomes in our respective practices. The goals of the workshop were to perform the first steps of the Resilience Assessment; contribute with a new perspective to the ongoing local planning processes that took place in two of the localities; and to contribute to learning, both for the participants regarding resilience thinking and for us through method development. The workshop agenda included (1) deciding what needs to be resilient and what is threatening those values, (2) identifying strengths and weaknesses related to the threats, and (3) mapping strategies to increase resilience. Apart from the workshop protocol, we also coproduced a list of characteristics of resilient systems, which we used during the last part of the workshop (Appendix 3). Thresholds of potential concern were not assessed, because that would have required a longer learning process. The workshop participants (72 in total) were people engaged in their local community and/or in environmental issues, including representatives from civil society and local authorities, which is similar to the Transition Movement's activities in different parts of the world.
To document the process, we wrote field notes (Jorgensen 1989) and conducted semistructured interviews (Kvale and Brinkmann 2009). We interviewed the two collaborators from the LEADER organization, hereby referred to as the partners (partner 1 = P1 and partner 2 = P2), both before and after the workshops to capture their expectations and aspirations, as well as their reflections of what they had learned and what the challenges had been (Appendix 4). The interviews, as well as the reflection rounds in the end of each workshop, were recorded and transcribed. Field notes were written after each meeting with the partners and included memos of preliminary interpretations of the data (Glaser 1998, Charmaz 2006). To analyze the case study data, we used an inductive approach influenced by grounded theory (Charmaz 2006, Wagenaar 2011). We analyzed transcripts from the interviews and reflection rounds at the workshops, field notes, and material from the workshops, such as invitations and agendas, using the software Atlas.ti (Friese 2012). The codes were developed iteratively and were framed by our research question to identify benefits and challenges of cross-fertilization (Table 2, Appendix 5).
Here we present the key commonalities and differences derived from the written guidelines of the Transition Movement and the Resilience Assessment (Fig. 3, detailed table in Appendix 1). We also describe the main benefits and challenges of combining the approaches, synthesized from the case study analysis (Appendix 5).
Both approaches emphasize the need to build resilience in their narratives, and share an overarching goal of sustainability (Fig. 3, Appendix 1:1). For example, the work of Hopkins (2011) is based on values of global environmental sustainability, human well-being, and social justice, and Resilience Alliance (2010:4) is concerned with achieving a "sustainable long-term delivery of environmental benefits linked to human well-being."
The approaches also share a complex adaptive systems perspective (Fig. 3, Appendix 1:2D4). The concept of complex adaptive systems is a key component of resilience thinking (Walker and Salt 2006): the underlying theoretical framework of the Resilience Assessment approach. Similarly, resilience thinking and the idea of self-organizing systems influence the Transition Movement approach (Hopkins 2011). However, Resilience Assessment includes more concepts related to complex adaptive systems and dynamic systems, such as alternative system regimes with thresholds (Resilience Alliance 2010) and the adaptive cycle and panarchy (Resilience Alliance 2010).
The Transition Movement handbooks promote building community resilience (e.g., Hopkins 2008), while the Resilience Alliance (2010) promotes building resilience of social-ecological systems delivering important ecosystem services (Fig. 3). To define system boundaries, the Transition Movement approach is guided by citizens' perceived sphere of influence (Hopkins 2008, 2011), whereas Resilience Assessment uses key natural resource management issues (Resilience Alliance 2010). Nevertheless, Hopkins (2011:44) is also concerned that a community's resource base should be "resilient and accessible." This indicates that both approaches have a social-ecological perspective, but with different starting points: the community versus the landscape and its natural resources.
The Transition Movement guides the choice of focus issues, whereas Resilience Assessment leaves it open initially (Fig. 3). The Resilience Assessment approach is framed around natural resource management and increasing environmental change caused by human activities (Appendix 1:1C), but apart from that, key issues and disturbances ("resilience to what") are open to be decided at the outset of each assessment (Resilience Alliance 2010). Any indicators of resilience will be context dependent and not predefined. The Transition Movement approach, on the other hand, guides local initiatives to build resilience to peak oil and economic contractions, as well as to mitigate the effects of climate change (Hopkins 2011). A key strategy is then for a community to reduce its dependence on cheap energy and fossil fuels, reflected in the proposed resilience indicators of Hopkins (2008). However, the approach is also about local responses to mitigate climate change, following the slogan "think globally, act locally" (Hopkins 2011:280). The Resilience Alliance (2010) focuses on the resilience of a local-regional focal system and does not ask questions about how that system could affect the global scale on an aggregate level. It could more easily be used for climate adaptation than for climate mitigation, shown by the examples of flooding in New Orleans and forest fires.
The two approaches put different emphasis on transformability as an aspect of resilience (Fig. 3). Transformability is the ability "to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing system untenable" (Folke et al. 2010:3). The Resilience Assessment describes transformation as an option if existing structures become untenable (Resilience Alliance 2010). Both examples in The Resilience Assessment Workbook are transformations to more adaptive and ecosystem-based governance and management: Kristianstad and the Great Barrier Reef. The Transition Movement describes transformation as necessary for becoming resilient (Appendix 1:1C). Resilience is seen as "more than 'sustaining current models and practices'" but rather "a rethink of assumptions about infrastructure and systems that should lead to a more sustainable, resilient and enriching low-carbon economy" (Hopkins 2011:45). When Hopkins (2011) envisions the future of food, energy, and housing, he writes about a revolution or transformation of the current system.
Even if sharing an overarching sustainability goal, the approaches have different purposes and promote different activities (Fig. 3). The Transition Movement intends to mobilize citizens in local transition initiatives; therefore, broadening participation and encouraging learning are key strategies (Appendix 1:2D5-6). It suggests a number of activities for engaging people, building social networks, and raising awareness (Appendix 1:3A), and Hopkins (2011) includes a range of practical tips on how to, e.g., speak in public or run effective meetings. In contrast, the purpose of the Resilience Assessment is foremost to generate system understanding to improve natural resource governance. Resilience Alliance (2010) applies the theoretical framework of resilience thinking to develop conceptual diagrams and a synthesized understanding of the system, which serves as a basis for decision making and adaptive management.
We synthesized the case study results of cross-fertilizing the Transition Movement and Resilience Assessment approaches into the following four categories of benefits.
Through the collaboration project, the partners learned to apply and communicate resilience: "...Now I've got both words, tools and examples that allow me to communicate to others..." (P1; Appendix 5:3). The Resilience Assessment approach contributed to this in three main ways. First, we used its overall structure, which begins by deciding what should be resilient and to what type of disturbances ("resilience of what, to what," sections 1.2 and 1.3 in Resilience Alliance 2010), to design the workshop agenda (Appendix 2). Second, the resilience characteristics (Appendix 3), e.g., modularity and diversity, were useful to communicate resilience to the workshop participants and explore strengths and weaknesses of their communities. Third, we also communicated the idea of complex systems in presentations and exercises during the workshops. One of the partners said afterward that "to understand resilience, you need to understand complex systems" (P1) and saw the workshop as potentially useful to foster an understanding of resilience and complex systems more broadly within the Transition Movement (Appendix 5:1).
The partners saw the Resilience Assessment approach as a way to overcome difficulties in reaching ordinary people in the countryside with a global sustainability perspective (Appendix 5:4), as well as to bridge the present divide between sustainability and rural development in their own organization (Appendix 5:5). Compared with the Transition Movement approach, which one of them described as being "more about transitioning for the sake of the climate, that is a lot for someone else's sake, for your children and grandchildren's sake," the Resilience Assessment approach enabled them to "target small, local communities" and "invite to a workshop called 'Is your community ready?'" (P2; Appendix 5:6). The Resilience Assessment's analytical framework was open enough to host both global and local issues: Strengths and weaknesses of rural communities were also addressed, e.g., services disappearing (Appendix 5:7-8). Then, as one of the partners expressed it, "I can easier tie it (the global perspective) to the point where people already are" (P1). Compared with sustainability, resilience was a new concept that people had fewer preconceptions about (Appendix 5:9). One of the partners described it "as a possibility to use other arguments to advance the sustainability perspective," by appealing to long-term "security for people, or the rural community with surroundings" (P2; Appendix 5:6).
The Transition Movement approach complemented the Resilience Assessment with practical tools and exercises to strengthen learning and participation. Both partners stressed the importance of participation, e.g., by letting participants decide "resilience of what, to what," and emphasized the need for practical, pedagogical exercises in the workshop. Six exercises were used in the workshop (Appendix 2), three of which originated from the Transition Movement approach. For example, we adapted the Web of Resilience exercise from Hopkins (2008) and used it to illustrate diversity as an aspect of community resilience. Another exercise, developed by one of the partners, visualized thresholds and resilience, and was successful in starting a discussion among the participants about, e.g., what the system is and if resilience is always desirable (Appendix 5:11).
The Transition Movement approach directed the Resilience Assessment workshop in a way that opened up for transition to sustainability. The partners actively promoted transition to sustainability (Appendix 5:13), exemplified by our project being a part of the broader "LEADER learns for transition to sustainability" project. Two examples of how this affected the workshop design were (1) that human needs were used as a starting point for resilience of what (Appendix 5:14), which opened up discussion about changing how needs are met, instead of limiting participants to current structures for meeting those needs; and (2) that we introduced climate change, peak oil, economics, global inequality, and the state of ecosystems in an exercise in the beginning of the workshop (context cards, Appendix 2), before the participants defined resilience to what. This exercise presented a negative picture of the current situation, and thereby promoted a need to change.
The three main challenges we encountered in the case study related both to cross-fertilizing the approaches, as well as applying resilience thinking in participatory processes in general.
The partners recognized the pedagogical challenge of communicating new theoretical concepts, new ways of thinking, and global sustainability issues in a local context (Appendix 5:15-16). They realized that understanding resilience and complex systems is a learning process. Time is required to get familiar with new concepts, both for pedagogical exercises and individual reflection. Even though some participants demonstrated this understanding in the workshops, it became clear that expecting a deeper understanding of resilience from only one workshop was unrealistic.
In the beginning, the partners had an ambition to substitute the traditional statistics in their organization's upcoming strategy document with statistics describing the resilience of their geographical area (Appendix 5:3). They wanted to do this in a participatory manner, by inviting local people to define resilience of what and to what, and then collect quantitative data related to the workshop output, which were categorized according to resilience characteristics (Appendix 3). However, many characteristics they were interested in assessing, e.g., economic modularity, were absent in existing statistics. Instead of spending time on a separate analysis, they decided that it was most important to generate an understanding of resilience thinking and focus on the learning process. In hindsight, one of the partners reflected on whether a factual report might have made a bigger impact on the upcoming strategy.
Another challenge in the case study was how to balance the more open Resilience Assessment with the Transition Movement's values and assumptions about the future. The Transition Movement proposes specific things that need to be resilient, as well as what futures are seen as both likely and desirable (Hopkins 2008). The Resilience Assessment leaves the definition of what should be resilient and what futures are possible or desirable open, even though the process is framed by values of sustainable social-ecological systems. One of the partners pointed out this difference by stating that "you cannot build a movement only on resilience...; we need to complement it with saying what it is that we value," whereas "this problem does not exist in the Transition Movement, because there it [resilience] is an integrated part, and not the only perspective", and there is also a strong justice perspective, for example (P1; Appendix 5:2). Our strategy to balance the approaches was to first introduce participants to global sustainability challenges, and then leave it open for them to identify their own potential future threats. However, this was a delicate balance. For example, one participant expressed feeling steered toward certain solutions by the global issues (Appendix 5:17), at the same time as threats were identified during the more open session that did not directly align with the partners' intention to promote transition to sustainability, such as the risk of war.
Our results demonstrate that the Resilience Assessment and Transition Movement approaches have complementary strengths that could be integrated to improve the application of resilience thinking in participatory processes. Below we discuss how an integrated approach (1) strengthens the participatory learning process and fosters complex systems understanding, (2) generates context-specific understanding of resilience, and (3) better addresses transformations to global sustainability (Fig. 4). We also discuss additional challenges in applying resilience thinking highlighted by this study and suggest how they could be addressed.
Both in comparing the written guidelines and in the case study, we found that the Transition Movement approach contributed practical knowledge on learning and participation to the Resilience Assessment. Although the Transition Movement aims to be inclusive, it has been criticized for lacking diversity (Smith 2011, Feola and Nunes 2014) and for focusing more on raising awareness than experiential learning (Seyfang and Haxeltine 2012). Nevertheless, in our study we found that the Transition Movement approach complemented the Resilience Assessment's lack of guidance on process design (Sellberg et al. 2015).
Combining the Transition Movement and Resilience Assessment approaches also created synergies in fostering complex systems understanding. The written guidelines of both approaches share a complex adaptive systems perspective (Fig. 3). However, our case study indicated that this understanding is not widely spread within the Transition Movement (Appendix 5:1). At the same time, complexity thinking has been identified as a key aspect of enhancing resilience thinking in the governance of social-ecological systems (Biggs et al. 2015), and systems thinking as one of the teaching practices that can increase resilience (Spellman 2015). An integrated approach to applying resilience thinking could foster this understanding by combining the Resilience Assessment's complexity theory, e.g., the adaptive cycle and panarchy (Gunderson and Holling 2002), with the Transition Movement's pedagogical exercises on resilience and systems thinking. We started exploring this synergy at the workshops by combining a short presentation of complex systems with practical exercises to visualize thresholds and resilience. These exercises helped address the pedagogical challenges of communicating a new way of thinking to a diverse audience (Appendix 5:11) and could be further elaborated by using existing methods for teaching systems thinking, such as The Systems Thinking Playbook of Booth Sweeney and Meadows (2010).
The Resilience Assessment approach provided a "conceptual and operational framework" that generated context-specific understanding of resilience, which Haxeltine and Seyfang (2009:20) argue the Transition Movement is lacking. In the workshops the Resilience Assessment did this in two main ways. First, it contributed a conceptual framework, including complex systems and resilience characteristics (Appendix 3), which was used to facilitate and clarify the meaning of resilience in practice. Second, it provided our partners with a stepwise process to explore the application of resilience for a particular context and location. The framework was open enough to host both local and global concerns, which helped them to address both local-regional rural development issues and global sustainability. Generating an understanding of resilience that is both locally embedded and linked to global sustainability issues is also interesting for the broader audience of communities, cities, and local governments who are working to apply resilience (e.g., UNISDR 2012, Rockefeller Foundation 2013).
Although we generated context-relevant understanding of resilience, we also learned that there is a need to manage expectations of quantitative outputs when applying resilience. There is a lot of interest in measuring resilience indicators (Quinlan et al. 2015), also from the Transition Movement (Hopkins 2008). Although a focus on measurable goals can be useful in well-understood situations when it is clear what to measure and how, it is less useful in situations with unclear goals and system definitions. Approaches to assess resilience can help clarify goals and useful system definitions, because they "focus on understanding the dynamics of social-ecological systems" (Quinlan et al. 2015:2). Quinlan et al. (2015) review approaches to assessing and measuring resilience. We agree with their conclusion that these approaches can be complementary, if the assessment is used to guide the construction of useful indicators. This corresponds to the focus of a recent framework building on the Resilience Assessment approach, which guides users in identifying the most relevant indicators for their context (O'Connell et al. 2015), in line with, e.g., the systems theory–based process for producing sustainability indicators of Meadows (1998) and the structured learning process of Strategic Adaptive Management (Biggs and Rogers 2003). Indicators can be linked to general concepts to enable cross-case comparisons (Quinlan et al. 2015). The disadvantage of such processes is that they require more time and resources, and therefore a careful process design.
Our comparison highlighted that the Resilience Assessment approach does not sufficiently address systemic transformations, nor how local places affect global sustainability (Fig. 3). This finding matches previous research stating that Resilience Assessment "has not adequately addressed the need for the deeper, more profound transformational change" in social-ecological systems (Walkerden et al. 2013:169). Despite resilience research emphasizing the need for deliberate transformations toward global sustainability (e.g., Gunderson and Holling 2002, Folke et al. 2010, Moore et al. 2014, Olsson et al. 2014), these ideas are not incorporated into the Resilience Assessment.
One possible explanation for this gap is that the Resilience Assessment has been primarily developed for regional natural resource management, where there is a strong emphasis on maintaining regional ecosystem services rather than on transformation (Appendix 1:1C). Current efforts to integrate transformational change in the Resilience Assessment focus on transformations of local-regional social-ecological systems, in order for the same systems to become sustainable over the long term (Walkerden et al. 2013, O'Connell et al. 2015). However, they do not explicitly address the local-regional transformations that need to happen to enhance planetary resilience (e.g., transforming to a low-carbon economy) and to avoid unwanted erosion of the resilience of other places (e.g., halting illegal ivory imports). On the contrary, the Transition Movement has adopted an interpretation of resilience that focuses on the root causes of environmental problems (Brown 2014, Cretney 2014, Cretney and Bond 2014). For example, it calls for a transformation away from societies' heavy dependence on cheap fossil fuels to avoid dangerous climate change globally (Appendix 1:1C). Addressing these issues is critical for assessing resilience in the Anthropocene, in which socially mediated interactions across scales and among distant places have increased in strength and variety (Steffen et al. 2011).
Based on this study, we suggest that existing resilience research on transformation processes (e.g., Walkerden et al. 2013, Westley et al. 2013, Moore et al. 2014) should be better integrated into the Resilience Assessment approach. We also have three suggestions for addressing transformations to global sustainability in particular:
Policy makers and practitioners in diverse fields are increasingly adopting the term "resilience" (e.g., Davoudi et al. 2012, Baggio et al. 2015), but interpretations range from preserving the status quo to being open for transformative change (Cretney 2014, Davidson et al. 2016). Our suggestions provide a starting point for further transdisciplinary research (Lang et al. 2012, Seidl et al. 2013) to cocreate transformational ways of applying resilience thinking. These types of applications are necessary, both in highly vulnerable and dynamic contexts (Davidson et al. 2016), and in response to the call of sustainability science for sustainability transitions (e.g., Kates et al. 2001).
We believe that further comparisons and cross-fertilizations of different approaches to applying resilience thinking and sustainability that bridge the science-practice divide are likely to yield additional insights that will advance sustainability science and practice. The relative and context-specific nature of such comparisons will reveal different strengths and weaknesses of the approaches (e.g., Feola 2014).
In this study, we have presented a novel cross-fertilization between two major approaches for applying resilience thinking: the Transition Movement (Hopkins 2008, 2011) and the Resilience Alliance's Resilience Assessment (2010). Our findings highlight the possibility of improving the application of resilience thinking in participatory processes by integrating their complementary strengths: the Transition Movement's narrative of the need to transform in response to global sustainability challenges, as well as practical tools for learning and participation, with the Resilience Assessment's scientifically based framework and process for how to generate context-specific understanding of resilience. Combining the approaches also created synergies in fostering complex systems understanding. Our results show that the application of resilience thinking could be further improved by developing useful ways for how relevant indicators can be constructed through participatory learning processes.
Improving and adapting the application of resilience thinking are required in response to the growing demand from policy makers and practitioners for practical approaches to resilience across a variety of problem domains. This study demonstrates how a mutual learning process between two communities of practice created insights useful to the wider community working on applying resilience thinking for sustainable development. Therefore, we urge resilience practitioners and scientists to collaborate with one another to improve the theory and practice of resilience assessment and management for sustainability.
We would like to thank all the participants at the workshops in the LEADER region for their openness and engagement. We are grateful for having had the opportunity to collaborate with our partner organization, Astrid Lindgrens Hembygd, and especially Hillevi Helmfrid and Daniel Hägerby who were the main organizers of this collaboration project and contributed much time, engagement and creativity. We thank Anna Helgeson, Megan Meacham, Lisen Schultz, Stephan Barthel, and Rebecka Milestad for useful comments, and Louise Hård af Segerstad for workshop assistance. This research was conducted under the SEEN (Social-Ecological dynamics of Ecosystem services in the Norrström basin) project, financed by the Swedish Research Council Formas (project no 2012-1058). This research contributes to the Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (www.pecs-science.org). Borgström was also supported by the COMPLEX project, funded by the EU FP7 (no 308601), and the ARTS project, funded by the EU FP7 (no 603654). The Stockholm Resilience Centre is funded by the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, Mistra.
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Do what your heart wants. . .
My heart wants to rip his balls off and tie therm to his head using his penis
You must be Logged in to post a comment
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. So says Shakespeare.
That bastard was a pimp
I feel bad for that guy... And I'm not even a guy!!
I think I know this girl


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Jacksonville killer stalked victims with 2 handguns, laser sight
David Katz carried out his killing spree at Jacksonville's Landing Complex Sunday armed with two handguns, both purchased legally in Maryland less than a month ago.
Katz, who killed two fellow gamers before taking his own life, had two guns on his person — a .45 and a 9mm pistol — when he opened fire, leaving 13 victims in his wake.
Police officials said Monday that Katz had extra ammunition with him, but there was no indication Katz had planned the shooting in advance.
Purchasing a firearm at a licensed dealer means Katz would have had to pass an FBI background check that would have reviewed his criminal history.
Under federal law, people are prohibited from purchasing firearms if they are convicted felons; have a history of illegal drug use; have been adjudicated as mentally ill or involuntarily committed for mental health treatment; are classified as fugitives; or have been convicted of domestic abuse.
More:'We all just ran for our lives,' said a Madden tournament player injured in the Jacksonville shooting
More:Who is David Katz? Suspect in shooting at Jacksonville Madden video tourney was 24Law enforcement searched the upscale home belonging to Katz's parents in Baltimore's Federal Hill neighborhood Sunday, but did not reveal whether they found additional weapons at the home.
Katz used only one of the two handguns during the shooting, and it was equipped with a legally purchased aftermarket laser sighting device, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said at a press conference.
The red dot associated with a laser pointer can be seen hovering over a gamer's chest during a live-stream video broadcast from the tournament, moments before the shooting started and the video feed went dead.
Officials said all of the injured are expected to fully recover from their injuries.
"As bad as this is, this could have been much worse," Williams said, adding that he did not have any comment on reports that a hospital had reported finding a hollow point bullet in one of the shooting victims.
Sunday's shooting stands in contrast to previous mass killings in Florida and elsewhere where gunmen used semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 to deadly effect.
The high powered nature of those guns coupled with expanded magazine capacity contributed to high casualties at the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland last February and at Orlando's Pulse Nightclub in 2016, where, respectively, 19 and 49 people lost their lives.
In the case of the high school massacre, shooter Nikolas Cruz, 19, legally bought his AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon — also called a long gun — about one year before committing the crime. Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen also had legally purchased his weapons, a Sig Sauer long-gun and a 9mm Glock 17 pistol.
More:Multiple fatalities at Madden tournament shooting in Jacksonville
More:Jacksonville shooting: $25K riding on Madden tournament where gunman opened fire
In March, Florida governor Rick Scott signed a new gun law, prompted by the high school shooting, which raises the minimum age of purchasing a firearm to 21 from 18. The National Rifle Association has opposed the measure, arguing that 18-year-olds are legally considered adults.
Katz would not have had any issues purchasing his firearms in Florida: He was 24.
According to police officials, Katz wordlessly walked past other patrons of the Chicago Pizza store until he reached a part of the restaurant where gamers were busy playing. Katz, a former football video-game champion, then opened fire with his handgun.
Police still have offered no motive for the shooting.


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JetBlue just announced Go All Over, a flash sale which is bookable through August 24. Flash sales are not unusual at JetBlue. The deals are usually pretty good, but you only have a day or two to book them. Be prepared for a nice discount on your next flight.
Go All Over
One of the many things that I like about JetBlue sales is that they are never particularly complicated. Go All Over is no exception. Simply enter promotion code FALL2016 when booking the flight and you're good to go, with 20% off domestic base fares and 15% off international base fares. Sorry, you're still stuck paying taxes and fees.
Terms And Conditions
Like most sales, Go All Over has a few restrictions. Weekend travelers are going to be disappointed, for instance. No discount on Friday and Sunday flights. Likewise, don't plan on a holiday getaway. The sale starts right after Labor Day and ends right before Veterans Day weekend. October 1-10 is blacked out, so Columbus Day is shot, as well. Maybe you could celebrate Boss's Day (October 17) by skipping out on the boss for a long weekend?
Full T&C
- Promo Code: FALL2016
- 20% off base airfare on domestic flights or 15% off base airfare on international flights (base airfare excludes government taxes/fees)
- Book by 8/24/16
- Travel 9/7 – 11/9/16 (Blackout dates: 10/1 – 10/10/16)
- Excludes travel on Friday & Sundays
- Flight must originate in a U.S. JetBlue city including Puerto Rico
- Not valid on previous bookings
Nothing too terrible.
One More Thing: Mosaic Is Your Friend
Look at that last bullet point. The dreaded "Not valid on previous bookings." With a fare sale, of course, it's understandable that the booking has to be a new one. Besides, who wants to pay those change fees?
Well, if you have Mosaic status with JetBlue, those caveats don't apply to you. JetBlue waives change and cancellation fees for its Mosaic members. So go ahead and book without concern. You'll get the lower price. And not only will you get the lower price, but so will everybody else on your itinerary.
Note: You may also be able to get a credit for the difference if you rebook within 14 days of your original purchase.
Cover Photo: JetBlue Press Room


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Fact of life: hard drives crash. computers fail. files get deleted.
I've spoken with 2 people recently who have complained about recent computer crashes; one of them lost a large amount of digital photos. I've personally had 2 computers die over the course of the last 4 years. It happens. You're working on it at night, and in the morning it won't start. The question then becomes:
What would you do tomorrow if your computer wouldn't start?
If you have irreplaceable photos & video on your computer, you should already have that question answered. If you run your business from your computer, you'd better have that question answered. And for those of us who do both of the above... Let's just say I'm a backup fanatic.
Not sure what options are available, or which might work best? Here are some ideas you might want to consider.
CD-ROM. A small, cheap, easy solution. If you're backing up mostly data files, and you don't have too many, this is an easy solution. Each CD holds about 700 MB of data – enough to hold your household spreadsheets, word docs, quicken files, etc. You can put the CD in the drive and copy files to it in much the same way you would copy them to a different folder on your computer.
DVD. Basically the same concept as a CD, except it holds 4.7 GB of data. That might be enough for several thousand digital pictures, or a thousand songs. And unlike data files which might get updated, pictures and music don't change, so you don't have to re-copy the same pictures each time you back up.
External Hard Drive. You can find external hard drives ranging in size from big & clunky to the size of a calculator. They'll plug right into a USB port, and many of those sold today have more memory than the computer you're currently using. You could copy ALL your files over as often as you'd like.
Secondary Computer. If you have a home network &/or wireless connection, and each computer has extra hard drive space, you could back up each computer's data onto the other. This way you'll still have both computers' data regardless of which computer crashes.
Online Service. I don't recommend too many products, but I love Mozy! You can backup up to 2 GB for free, or have an unlimited amount of storage for $5 per month. It's very easy to set up, with an option to let Mozy find certain types of files on your computer. Or you can have full control, telling it what to backup, and how often, and how much computer power to use while running. It also allows you to restore a specific file from a specific date – a lifesaver when you accidentally hit Save when you meant to hit Save As...
How often should I backup? That depends on how hard it would be to recreate your lost data. I add new content, clients, modifications, etc. every day, and some of my files would be impossible to recreate, so I backup every day (sometimes Mozy runs multiple times in a day). If you work less frequently, you can backup less frequently.
Where should I keep my backups? The number one mistake people make is not backing up their computer, so when the computer fails their data is lost. So just by backing up you're ahead of the crowd. But if you keep your DVD / External Hard Drive / Secondary Computer in the same place as your computer, what happens in the case of a fire, or flood, or burglary? Most experts recommend to keep your backup data in a separate location – if your backed up data gets destroyed, you still have your computer. And if your computer gets destroyed, you'll be able to restore everything.
There are a lot of choices available – many more than I've described here. Please choose one. And you're welcome to email me if you need helping figuring out the best option for you. I hate hearing about people losing data..
Your getting off his soapbox now Realtor,
Chris Butterworth
[tags] backup data [/tags]