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A Cartoonist's Funny, Heartbreaking Take On Caring For Aging Parents
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Roz Chast, is one of the New Yorker's most popular cartoonists. We fans love how she depicts anxieties, insecurities and neuroses. Her new graphic memoir, a memoir illustrated with cartoons, sketches and photos, is about her changing relationship with her parents during the last years of their lives.
It was difficult for her and her parents to even talk about end-of-life issues, which is why the book is called "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" The book is funny, heartbreaking and unflinching in dealing with her parents' stubbornness and denial as they became frail and increasingly unable to care for themselves, and her own feelings of guilt that no matter what she did, she wasn't doing enough.
The book begins when her parents were still living in the Brooklyn apartment where Chast grew up and follows them as they move into assisted living, have repeated stays in the hospital, and finally enter hospice. Her mother outlived her father and died in 2009 at the age of 97. Roz Chast lives with her husband in Connecticut. They have two children who are now in their 20s.
Roz Chast, welcome back to FRESH AIR. I love your new book. And I'd like you to start with a reading from not the absolute beginning but toward the beginning of the book. And I'm going to ask you to also describe some of the cartoons that you've drawn to accompany your words.
ROZ CHAST: All righty. I'll start now. Two things about my childhood: One, I was an only child; and two, my parents were a lot older than other kids' parents. And I have this illustrated with me, there's four kids, and they're each saying something. Your mom's old. She's like a zillion. Your dad's old too. That means they're going to die soon.
And even when they really were a zillion, they and I never talked about the future. And this is a drawing of my mother and my father. My mother says we're going to 100, and my father says don't strain your voice, Elizabeth. Why tempt fate? And this is a drawing of I guess a cartoon grim reaper, you know, in the black cloak, holding a scythe, and he says what's this, the Chasts are talking about me. Why, I'll show them.
As my parents and I moved inexorably into this future, I became more and more aware that at some point we were all going to have to deal with this aging thing. And there's a drawing of me standing a little bit behind my parents on the moving sidewalk of life, and there's a little sign that says caution, drop-off ahead.
But they weren't asking for help, and I wasn't volunteering. In 1990, my husband, our three-year-old son and I, pregnant with our soon-to-be-born daughter, moved out of the city to the suburbs of Connecticut, where there was more space and greenery and good public schools. If doing right by our kids meant abandoning my then-78-year-old parents, so be it. The longer we were there, the more impossible schlepping into Brooklyn seemed. If they wanted to see us so damn much, let them make the trip.
And there's a little drawing of my increasingly elderly parents with little tiny suitcases standing in the snow of Connecticut.
GROSS: Thank you for reading that. That was Roz Chast, reading from the beginning of her new graphic memoir called "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" And it's about her aging parents and what it was like to try and take care of them in the years before they died. At what point did you feel you really needed to talk with your parents about aging and nearing death?
CHAST: Probably when they were in their late 70s I started to think more about what we were going to do. I think part of it was that I was no longer living in the city, and in the back of my mind I knew that that was sort of bringing up a few questions, like what was going to happen when they became less independent, when I wasn't living a couple of blocks away.
I could tell that they would just want to change the subject. My father did, you know, I got the title from him because he would say can't we talk about something more pleasant. They knew that it would probably involve them leaving their apartment, and I think they really didn't want to do that, and I didn't really want to talk about it.
And so we would sort of dip our toe into these unpleasant waters and then pull the toe out again. We did this for many years.
GROSS: The illustrations and the text, it's such a wonderful mix of, like, funny and heartbreaking. And you can easily see, as the reader, how complex your emotions were, you know, a mix of, like, anger and sympathy and sadness and frustration. But I'm wondering if you kept journals at the time, during your parents' last years of their lives, and if those journals were illustrated and how much of what's in the book is work that you did at the time, that the writing and the images describe and how much of it was done in reflection, in retrospect.
CHAST: Well, the book really is a combination of a lot of different things. Some of the pages are cartoons that I did at the time. The cartoons, for instance, after the World Trade Centers were hit, those two cartoons I did right afterwards. And part of this is because I submit these groups of cartoons to the New Yorker, we call them batches, every week, so some of them I turned in as part of my weekly group of cartoons for the editors to look at, like the one with the, I think it was called "A Rare Sex Talk," where my mother is telling her theories about women and shoes.
CHAST: And this - you know, one of her friends, who is well into her 80s, she always wears the highest heels, and she's always surrounded by men. My mother's theory was the higher the heel, the more available you were signaling that you were. And so that cartoon was done years ago. There are a few in the book. "The Dirty Checkers" one, which my father - it was a combination of actually two different things, that he had told me that when he was a kid, he got this, like, terrible infection once from washing a set of dirty checkers, which just for some reason, I don't know, it just seemed like really funny to me, not like the infection part but just that - I don't know, like the unlikelihood of getting an infection from washing dirty checkers. And...
GROSS: It makes the whole world a frightening place because if dirty checkers can nearly kill you, you can't really touch anything, can you.
CHAST: No, you can't. You would think that somehow the checkers - how dirty could they be?
GROSS: Really.
CHAST: You know, I mean, like, you know, were they dropped into, like, a latrine in the middle of, like, Calcutta? I mean, what are we talking about here? But anyway, that cartoon also combined the dirty checkers talk with once I was - we were sitting in the living room and he noticed our fireplace, and he suddenly went into some whole talk about, I can't remember who the writer was but some disastrous - oh, about the avalanche and killing everybody because the people in the story are all sitting around a fireplace.
And he just associated our fireplace to this story where people are sitting, maybe it's Nathaniel Hawthorne, they're sitting around a fireplace talking about, you know, what are we going to do in the future. Oh, I don't know. Let's, maybe we'll do this, maybe we'll do that. Suddenly an avalanche comes and kills them all.
CHAST: And he just was - you know, it was like that. He associated, you know, he always had that at the top of his mind, stories like that.
GROSS: Since it was so difficult for you to talk with your parents about facing death as they became much older, and death became nearer, and it was hard for them to talk about it, you hired an elder lawyer who you write specializes in the kinds of things you and your parents found it most difficult to discuss: death and money. Would they talk to the lawyer about things they wouldn't talk to you about?
CHAST: Amazingly, they did. I think, well, this person was really good, and I think he was able to put them at their ease, or not really at their ease but to somehow make them trust him enough that they could open up a little bit about things that they really never wanted to open up about, like money and talking about, you know, the future.
And I was there with them when he came over, and we talked about things like, you know, health care proxy forms, things I had never thought about, had never heard of, you know. It was very, very helpful.
GROSS: So you were there while they talked with him.
CHAST: Yes, yes.
GROSS: So a lot of us who have had elderly parents have dealt with the falls. Your mother had a terrible fall off of a stepladder, and she wouldn't go to the hospital. Why was she so averse to going to the hospital?
CHAST: Well, I think she thought, and possibly to some extent rightly so, that a hospital was a place where you didn't necessarily get better, that you might get sicker, and you might die, and in general you were better off at home. She was really afraid of hospitals, and she did not like doctors. But, you know, with that fall off the ladder, as I wrote about, it wasn't the fall off the ladder that caused all the problems, although it was the sort of beginning of the next phase of everything.
It was that she had been battling diverticulosis, or diverticulitis I think is when diverticulosis flares up, but she had had that for years. And sometimes she would call me, and she would be in pain, and I would say mom, you have to, you know, go to the doctor, you know, this sounds awful. And she would tell me these symptoms that would send any other person immediately running to the doctor, but she would wait it out.
GROSS: You write that your mother was such a strong personality that neither your father nor you could persuade her to do anything that she didn't want to do, even when she was in a weakened state. Because your mother was such a strong-willed personality and so angry and wouldn't allow anybody to persuade her to do the right thing, did that affect your confidence in your own ability to persuade anybody to do anything?
Since you couldn't persuade - since your mother kind of ruled the home and couldn't be persuaded by you, did you go through life thinking, well, maybe you can't persuade anybody, maybe as a mother you won't be able to persuade your children? Maybe you couldn't even train an animal. Do you know what I mean?
CHAST: Oh, absolutely, yeah, totally, totally. I mean, I - I mean that sort of sums it up to a T. I think I'm probably a pretty passive person.
GROSS: How did you deal with that as a mother?
CHAST: Well, at the beginning, I learned a lot, especially with my first kid. It's interesting because I felt like I had these two modes, and one was sort of ineffective screaming because I didn't have my mother's gift of terrorizing anybody.
CHAST: So it would just be like this insane person, sort of like mindlessly yelling, and I'm so angry that my toes are curling. You know, just like nonsensical kinds of things.
CHAST: Or I'm so angry I cannot speak, you know, just pointless, terrible. And - or total doormat, where like do anything you want, I - and I realized that these were not effective parenting tools. And I actually read books. I read some books. I went to the library, and I don't read self-help books. I hate most of them. They seem to be written for morons. But I found a couple of parenting books that really did help me a lot.
GROSS: I was thinking about how your mother was an assistant principal in an era when, in my experience anyways, principals were kind of scary.
CHAST: Oh yeah.
GROSS: And they were the kinds of principals who could just, like, give you a look and, like, which just sent chills down your spine.
CHAST: Oh, that's absolutely true, and she had a terrible temper. She was a fearsome person, which is why anybody tries somebody to me, oh, she's a force of nature, I always think run the other way.
CHAST: Leave the room, just back out quietly, you know.
GROSS: So in talking about your parents and the health problems they had toward the end of life, it is so difficult, after you parent gets home from the hospital, to then leave them in their home and go home to your home. Talk a little bit about what that was like for you, when your mother got home after the bout of diverticulitis, and she still wasn't, like, healthy. And your father was already into early stages of dementia. So he wasn't really going to be helpful.
CHAST: Oh, that was one of the worst - that year, because they were home for about another year after she got home from the hospital, was crazy because they - she was so - she never really got her strength back after being in the hospital. And she didn't get out of bed very much, even being home. She just got weaker and weaker.
And visiting them was terrifying because I just thought how can I leave them in - I should be, like, moving in with them to take care of them at this point. But, you know, it was a little complicated because I live in Connecticut, and I had my own family, you know, children and a husband, and...
GROSS: And a job.
CHAST: And a job, yes. I couldn't drop everything.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Roz Chast, who is a famous New Yorker cartoonist, and now she has a new memoir in cartoon form, and it's called "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" And it's about the last years of her parents' lives, when they didn't want to talk about facing death, and she had to deal with what were they going to do as they became unable to care for themselves and then as her father died and then her mother. Let's take a short break; then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR, and if you're just joining us, my guest is Roz Chast, who is famous for her New Yorker cartoons. Now she has a new graphic memoir, a memoir told in cartoon form, and it's called "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" And it's about how she and her parents couldn't really face talking about old age when they reached that point and how they dealt together with the final years of her parents' lives.
You finally convinced your parents that they had to move from their Brooklyn apartment into assisted living, and they moved into an assisted living facility near you.
CHAST: Yes.
GROSS: So you were able to be a more active part of their lives. And it was a decent place. I mean, you shopped other places that you really didn't like, but it ended up being just really incredibly expensive. You know, talk a little bit about how the expenses mount up.
CHAST: Oh, God, it's, it's a complicated thing because on one hand, you just feel - I just felt so awful thinking about the money, but it was terrifying. There are so many expenses at the end of life that insurance doesn't touch. When a parent goes to assisted living, it's really expensive, and insurance doesn't pay for any of that. And if they have savings that they have sort of scrimped together, as my parents did, to see is sort of rushing out.
I mean, my parents were born in 1912. They were - grew up in the Depression or graduated from college into the Depression. They, you know, kept notebooks where they kept track of every nickel that they spent, and these habits, these habits of frugality from having grown up so poor, you know, to having graduated in the Depression, had never left them. They were frugal. They were very careful about money.
They, you know, used everything. I remember they would - my mother would take slivers of soap and put them in a washcloth and then sort of sew this little, like soap bag out of the slivers of soap. She made a bathrobe out of towels that she, you know, sewed together.
GROSS: Wow.
CHAST: I mean just - to see all of that scrimping just sort of like a Niagara Falls of expense at the end, there's a kind of black comedy to it, too, that I could sort of see. Like, you know, there I am thinking (makes noises), but it's also, you know, oh my God, this is like $14,000 a month, and it's like I could've had that money. And then you just think, like, God I'm disgusting. I am, like, the most disgusting person in the world because at least, you know, they saved it, and it's their money, and it went to help take care of them.
GROSS: But you were afraid the money wouldn't last.
CHAST: Yes, that was...
GROSS: With good reason you were afraid of that.
CHAST: Right, yeah.
GROSS: And you talked to some of the elder care people, and they said - I think at this point it might have ever been hospice people, I can't remember, and they said it's OK to talk to your mother about this, about your concerns about, you know, money. So what did you want to talk with her about? What did you talk with her about?
CHAST: Oh, God, it was so, it was so terrible. It was just - this was at the very end, and I have no idea how much of this she understood, but, you know, I would say things to her like it was OK to let go. I mean, these are phrases that the hospice people teach you. You know, it's OK to let go. It's just bizarre. I mean, the whole thing is strange.
GROSS: But you told her that you were afraid you were going to run out of money?
CHAST: Yeah, yeah.
GROSS: What was her reaction to that? I mean, what was she supposed to do, say, well, I'll die now because...?
CHAST: Yeah, I know, I know, I know.
GROSS: We're running low. It's like, it's such an impossible - that's a hard conversation.
CHAST: It's impossible. Well, she was - I think she was pretty much out of it by then. But there was a surprising amount of time. I mean, I don't know, maybe she did take it in. But it's terrifying how strong the instinct is to cling to life. I think that really spooked me, you know, thinking about it for myself, too, you know.
GROSS: Roz Chast will be back in the second half of the show. Her new graphic memoir is called "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" She's a cartoonist for the New Yorker. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Roz Chast. She's been a cartoonist with the New Yorker since 1978. Her new graphic memoir, illustrated with cartoons, photos and drawings, is about her relationship with her parents in the final years of their lives. It's called "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" Her mother, who outlived her father, died at the age of 97 in 2009.
In your book you have a series of sketches of your mother in the last weeks of her life in bed. They're basically death bed sketches and they're really haunting. And I'm guess I'm wondering what did you see when you were looking at her face during those last weeks and sketching it that you wanted to preserve and remember by drawing it?
CHAST: I wanted to remember what she looked like and also I wanted to really look at her and draw her. And I did see - I don't know, it's just really hard to explain. The word sad is just not really it. I don't know, I did feel a lot of compassion for her and anger and sadness, and I also wanted to just look at her and draw her. So I guess it was a combination of a lot of things.
GROSS: Was it a rare opportunity for you to draw her without her being annoyed by it or even cognizant about it, so you could just stare at her...
CHAST: Yes.
GROSS: ...without making her feel self-conscious or anything 'cause she was sleeping all the time?
CHAST: Oh, that's absolutely true. I think that really says it very, very well. Yeah. It was a way for me to look at her and be with her and draw her, and she was completely passive.
GROSS: Were you with your mother when she died?
CHAST: No. You know, there had been so many back-and-forths and at the very end I got a call. I can remember it was around 8:30, or I can't remember when - it was in the evening - I got a call from the live-in aid that my mother was fading. She had gone into hospice for a second time and they had the oxygen tank in the room in case her breathing got labored. And so the aid called me and I drove there and I missed her death by maybe 10 minutes. She was still warm.
GROSS: Mm-hmm. Were you surprised by anything that you felt when she - when your mother did die? And she was what, 97?
CHAST: She was 97. I think it's just so surreal. Sorry. I think one thing about the night - that night that my mother died was, you know, when my father died, my mother was still alive. And I think when your second parent dies, there is that shock that like: Oh man, I'm an orphan.
GROSS: Mm-hmm.
CHAST: You know, there's also this relief, it's like it's done, it's finished, it's over. Because I had felt for so many years that there was this sort of sense of going through this whole passage, this whole last part of their lives, and all the, you know, emotional and practical difficulties of that. And when my mother died, it was like, for the most part, it's over. Of course, it wasn't completely over because, you know, then there's all these other nonsense - excuse me, nonsense things you have to deal with. But basically it was over.
GROSS: When a family member dies, like when a parent dies, especially after your second parent dies, you have to deal with the possessions that they left behind and that's a really emotionally difficult thing to do, because you're seeing all the stuff that brings back memories and then you're having to decide what do you want to keep, what do you want to throw away, what do you want to donate?
You had dealt with this I think before they died...
CHAST: Yes.
GROSS: ...like when they moved from their apartment into assisted living.
CHAST: Right.
GROSS: And it looks from your illustrations that your parents would have been semifinalists on "Hoarders."
CHAST: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
GROSS: They wouldn't have made the final cut necessarily but...
CHAST: Right.
GROSS: ...you know, they would've had a shot.
CHAST: Oh, totally. There were no rat droppings, but they were on their way to rat droppings, I think. Maybe a few years down the road.
GROSS: One of my favorite parts of your book, you have photographs of some of their stuff. You took all your mother's handbags and laid them out on the bed and it covers like the entire surface of the bed, and it's a queen or king-size bed.
CHAST: Yeah. Yeah, it's a king-size bed.
GROSS: And I just had all these like memories of like my mother's handbags and old handbags just seeing this. And then you took pictures of her eyeglasses, like eyeglass frames from before your time, as she would put it.
CHAST: Yeah.
GROSS: And then a photograph of like what was in the medicine cabinet and a photograph of what was left over in the refrigerator. And then photographs of like desks and beds and tabletops that just have like papers and stuff and magazines piled up like several feet high. Wow.
CHAST: Well, I - dealing with their apartment and, you're right - by the time my mother died I had dealt with their possessions. There wasn't really much left. But when I moved them out of their apartment in which they'd lived for - from 1959 to I guess 2007, 2007...
GROSS: Four rooms.
CHAST: Four small rooms. Yeah. They never threw anything away, and it was not like there was anything quote valuable unquote. It was mostly just, you know, old beat up luggage and typewriters and my father's old, you know, French textbooks. He was a French and Spanish teacher, and an old rexograph machine and, you know, bajillions of old bed slippers and umbrellas and shoes and towels, you know, where the nap was completely gone. Just detritus of decades. And when I was going through the stuff I would be in the apartment and I would think, well, OK, I want to keep this, and I want to keep that. It was very surreal, very bizarre.
And then at a certain point it was like, I don't want anything. I want like the photo albums and a few things off the wall. And I started like putting stuff in garbage bags because I thought maybe I could do this myself, and I filled up a few of them and it was like I had not even like done one percent. And I just finally, I wound up paying the super to empty it, and it was horrible in some ways because I just couldn't make any more trips out to Brooklyn to go through their (bleep). It was just I could not do it. I just had it. And sometimes I'm horrified when I look back on this. On other hand, I think about something a friend of mine who had gone through something similar said, which was that if you don't think your children will be interested, don't keep it. And he's absolutely right. I mean I feel much more conscious of how much stuff I have now and what are my kids going to do with my stuff once I die. And, you know, do I want more stuff in my house? Like not really.
GROSS: Did you feel the sense of futility? Like your parents had saved and saved and saved things, and in part because they were hoarders, and in part because they were so frugal, having come of age during the Depression. And then they get sick and everything just gets put in Hefty bags and that's it.
CHAST: Oh, totally. I mean that's kind of what I meant by like black comedy. I mean the frugality, the, I don't know. But I mean it wasn't just, it's, yeah, their - I guess when you go through, maybe that's one of the things that happens when your parents die, you start to - well, I use this word in my book that you see things, you see objects more like post-mortemistically(ph) and...
GROSS: Oh, yeah. I love - you made up that word, I think, post-mortemistically.
CHAST: Yes.
GROSS: But I really love that thought, like what's going to happen to this after I die?
CHAST: Yeah.
GROSS: Is it worth having now?
CHAST: Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that I've like become, you know, a Buddhist or anything like that, but he can't help but look at stuff differently. Like I used to like to go to thrift shops and secondhand shops, and I still do but not to the same extent because now I look at it and a lot of times I look around and I think, ooh, dead people stuff. You know, this all came out of somebody cleaning out somebody's parents' apartment or house or whatever. And I didn't want it out of my parents' house so why do I want it out of your parent's house?
GROSS: My guest is New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast. Her new graphic memoir about her relationship with her parents in the last years of their lives is called "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" We'll talk more after a break.
This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast. And her new book is an illustrated memoir. It's called "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" And it's about the last years of her parent's lives and her attempts to help them.
You had your parents cremated and you have their remains in your closet. I love this. Your father used to carry around his Channel 13 tote bag. Channel 13 is the public TV station in New York.
CHAST: Yeah.
GROSS: So you have his remains placed in the tote bag. I mean it's in a box and everything...
CHAST: Yeah.
GROSS: ...but all of the encasing is now in his Channel 13 tote bag.
CHAST: Yeah.
GROSS: I think that's hysterical in some ways, like a great fundraising pledge like for a premium.
GROSS: Like you pledge now and you get a tote bag that you can put your parent's remains in.
CHAST: Yes. Yes. Although, I think they call them, if they've been cremated...
GROSS: Cremains.
CHAST: Cremains.
GROSS: Yeah. But did you talk to your parents about whether they wanted to be cremated or not or was that like your decision?
CHAST: Years before my mother, I think, in one of the very rare times she ever talk about anything like this, she just sort of threw it out there that she wanted to be cremated. And we never really talked about that after that. And the idea of burying somebody in the ground just seems ridiculous to me. I don't know. It's sort of repellent and I just kind of went with what she said and my own feelings about it.
GROSS: What is it like for you to have the remains on the floor of your closet? And how did you choose that as the space for it?
CHAST: Well, it's a kind of default place. I don't think about them being there permanently. I just don't have a better place for them right now. And the idea of putting them in a decorative urn, you know, and then putting it on the mantle piece, is kind of gross. And tossing the ashes, you know, they didn't have a sort of favorite place. They didn't, you know, oh, our little family island where we always took vacations and I went out on the sailboat with mother and father and I'll toss them in - you know, my father was, you know, it wasn't like we went out on, you know, in the coast of Maine and, you know, no, that would just seem arbitrary.
GROSS: When your parents were younger, did they enjoy reading your New Yorker cartoons? Did they get them? Did they ever try to talk you out of them or explain why your cartoons were not funny?
CHAST: They didn't try to talk me out of doing them but I think that my sense of humor was not their sense of humor. You know, my mother, my mother, they liked jokes, you know, they liked like, you know, Henny Youngman and my mother liked to tell jokes with a punch line. You know, a woman goes to the doctor, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then punch line. And, you know, there's a lot of things that I find funny that they probably would not find funny. Like I love "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and I love "South Park" and, you know, I don't think that they would necessarily find that funny. I don't know.
GROSS: Did they criticize your cartoons?
CHAST: They didn't criticize them. Although my father used to carry around this cartoon in his wallet, which was not mine. It was - I don't know who did it. It was in Saturday Review and it was a guy sitting, lying on his psychiatrist's couch and the gag line was I feel inadequate because I don't understand the cartoons in the New Yorker.
CHAST: And you know, at the drop of a hat he would pull that out and show it to people. So I think this was their way of telling me that they were very proud of me. They were very, very, very proud to have a daughter whose cartoons were in the New Yorker, but that they didn't really understand them. And then, of course, as they got older, there were references that they had no idea what I was talking about. Yeah.
GROSS: You know, when I think about how old your parents were, like, they were born before World War I.
CHAST: Yes. My mother remembers the troops coming home from World War I.
GROSS: Wow. I mean, that's...
CHAST: Yeah.
GROSS: That's just so long ago.
CHAST: I know.
GROSS: And so much was invented during their lifetime. Like, they lived almost throughout the entire 20th century.
CHAST: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, they lived through both World Wars and the Depression, and learning about the Holocaust and, you know, just everything. Everything that happened is astonishing, really, that they did - in some ways, that they did as well as they did, you know, considering what they came from, you know, first-generation Americans growing up really poor, with parents that didn't speak English.
My mother's mother, when she first saw a television, thought that the people - in fact, not just the first time, but I think for a little while, she thought that people on the TV could see her. And she wouldn't, you know, be, like, in her underwear in front of them.
GROSS: So there's one more thing I want you to read from your graphic memoir "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?", about the last years of your parents' life and what that was like for you. And this is called "Gallant and Goofus: The Daughter Caretaker Edition." And there's two columns, one in which you're wearing a halo and you're the kind of good, angelic daughter. And the other is where you have devil's horns and you're the kind of grudging daughter. Would you read that for us?
CHAST: OK. When I was a kid, I subscribed for a few years to a magazine called Highlights for Children, which many people only know from being in the dentist's office. But it was sort of quasi-educational, in a way, and it had these various features, one of which was "Goofus and Gallant," which was about a boy who was about eight or 10 years old.
And Goofus was always kind of, like, the bad kid, the selfish kid, who, like, cheated and sort of, like, didn't tell the truth and was selfish. And Gallant was the good boy. So, I was sort of fascinated with this page. But anyway, so this is my version of it: "Gallant and Goofus: The Daughter Caretaker Edition." And I'll read Gallant first, and then go to Goofus. So...
Gallant has forgiven her parents for all the transgressions of her youth, which she now knows were committed out of love. Goofus is still seething about resentment about crap that happened 40 years ago. Gallant treasures the time spent with her parents, because she knows that soon, they'll be gone. Goofus mostly, when with her aged parents, wishes that she were somewhere else.
Gallant doesn't worry about the money, because if it runs out, she would be thrilled to have them come live with her. Goofus: The idea of her parents living under her roof makes her want to lie down and take a very, very, very, very, very, very long nap.
GROSS: So, where do you fit in the scale between Gallant and Goofus?
CHAST: I think I kind of ricocheted between both of them. I tried to be Gallant, but very often, I felt that I was being very Goofus-y.
GROSS: Well, Roz Chast, thank you so much for talking with us about your book and about your late parents. I really appreciate it.
CHAST: Well, thank you, Terry. Great to talk to you.
GROSS: Roz Chast is a New Yorker cartoonist. Her new graphic memoir - which includes cartoons, sketches, and photos - is called "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" You'll find an excerpt on our website at freshair.npr.org. Coming up, John Powers reviews the film he thinks may be the greatest road movie. It's just come out on DVD and Blu-ray. This is FRESH AIR.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
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Fluoro Loop
- Fluoroscopy images are stored for later viewing and documentation
- The last 512 fluoroscopy images are saved automatically to replace potential exposure scenes at a higher dose
- The maximum storable fluoroscopy time depends on the selected pulse rate, e.g. 17 s at 30 p/s, 34 s at 15 p/s
Requerimientos Generales
Minimum Software Version
syngo X Workplace: VB21
Please note: Additional technical prerequisites may apply. Upon receiving your request, your local Siemens representative will clarify whether your system meets the requirements.

subset: commoncrawl


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Temporary Judge Program
About the Temporary Judge Program
The Superior Court of California, County of Solano maintains a list of attorneys who have been appointed to serve as temporary judges. The Court uses temporary judges for small claims and traffic hearings and may use them for other case types.
Temporary judges are trained, qualified and experienced attorneys who have satisfied the requirements for appointment under California Rules of Court, rule 2.812 2.815 and have been appointed by the court to serve as a temporary judge.
An attorney interested in serving as a temporary (Pro Tem) judge for the Superior Court of California, County of Solano, must complete the Application to Serve as Temporary Judge , which can be obtained at the Court Executive Office or on this web page, by clicking the document name.
The complete Guidelines and Procedures are available by clicking the document name.
Back to Top


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The gold standard for high-throughput labs
The Thermo Scientific TSQ 9000 triple quadrupole GC-MS/MS system is the gold standard for the sensitive and specific quantitation of target compounds in high-throughput analytical laboratories. This system features multiple monitoring and scan modes as well as the triple off-axis Thermo Scientific DynaMax XR detection system. The system is equipped with either the Thermo Scientific TRACE 1300 or TRACE 1310 gas chromatograph.
Introducing the TSQ 9000 triple quadrupole GC-MS system
Laboratories performing food, environmental, or forensic toxicology testing demand analytical systems that are unstoppable in every way. That's the purpose of the TSQ 9000 GC-MS system.
UNSTOPPABLE Sensitivity
The TSQ 9000 GC-MS/MS system delivers attogram-level sensitivity and best-in-class selected-reaction-monitoring (SRM) performance, so you consistently meet required detection limits for high capacity methods as you run samples.
Choose either the rugged Thermo Scientific ExtractaBrite ion source or the ultra-sensitive, ultra-robust Thermo Scientific Advanced Electron Ionization (AEI) source. Available in a dedicated system configuration, the AEI source provides highly efficient ionization and a more tightly focused ion beam to drive down instrument detection limits and reduce time-consuming sample concentration steps.
The Enhanced Velocity Optics Collision Cell (EvoCell) augments sensitivity and precision for complex methods. It can be used to increase the scope of SRM methods to fit a wider range of compounds and matrices, increase sample throughput by compressing GC time, or increase method resistance to matrix effects and retention time shifts.
UNSTOPPABLE Uptime
Extended instrument uptime reduces turnaround time and overhead costs. The TSQ 9000 GC-MS/MS system is specifically designed for complex sample matrices in high-throughput applications. Whether you select the ExtractaBrite or AEI ion source, you benefit from high matrix tolerance to minimize maintenance.
With NeverVent technology for the ExtractaBrite source, it's possible to isolate the mass spectrometer from the gas chromatograph, allowing source cleaning, column replacement or injector maintenance, without downtime for venting. This boosts instrument productivity to unprecedented levels, meaning your time can be spent on producing quality results.
UNSTOPPABLE Ease-of-Use
The TSQ 9000 GC-MS/MS system enhances the user experience, learning, and ease of switching from other platforms with automated software for tuning, method development, and targeted quantification workflows.
SIMBridge, AutoSRM, and t-SRM automate development and optimization of SRM-based targeted workflows, allowing even less-experienced users to develop MS/MS-based methods. Retention Time Alignment (RTA) adds an easy way to maintain retention times for high-throughput work. SmartTune simplifies instrument tuning, and if needed, informs the user of corrective actions, ensuring the system performs as required.
UNSTOPPABLE Scalability
It's difficult to predict the challenges ahead. The fully scalable TSQ 9000 GC-MS/MS system provides a upgrade path from basic to advanced configurations, allowing you to add capability if you need it.
UNSTOPPABLE Workflows
Pressure to increase productivity, and the growing list of compounds that laboratories must quantify and screen, necessitate workflow-driven software.
Intuitive Thermo Scientific Chromeleon Chromatography Data System (CDS) software is available to support quantitative workflows. Add Thermo Scientific eWorkflows to simplify creation of analytical sequences. If you need to jump-start method development, download ready-to-use eWorkflows from the Thermo Scientific AppsLab Library.
Add Thermo Scientific TraceFinder software and make targeted and untargeted analyses in food, environmental, and forensic toxicology applications simple, fast and productive. To simplify U.S. EPA-based environmental applications, the Environmental Analysis Extension Pack provides a set of predefined templates and GC-MS methods.
Talk to an expert about the power of UNSTOPPABLE triple quadrupole GC-MS/MS
Provide your contact information and we will have one of our experts contact you to answer any questions you may have about the UNSTOPPABLE TSQ 9000 triple quadrupole GC-MS/MS system.
Unlike other systems, the TSQ 9000 GC-MS/MS system offers laboratories the opportunity to select best-in-class SRM performance, even for high capacity methods, while still benefiting from increased analytical robustness.
The TSQ 9000 GC-MS/MS system is uniquely placed to offer truly scalable performance that addresses increasingly challenging regulatory requirements, as well as providing effective ease-of-use tools to deliver consistent, class leading results, by both experienced and newer users.


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Written Sources on Andean Cosmogony
Mesoamerican and Andean theories of cosmogonic creation were anciently related as myths, and reunited after the Spanish conquest by accounts written between 1550 and 1633. Two groups separate about 1572: the earlier mentions only two creations, and a later one includes evolutionary schemes and systems of three, four and five creations like those of Mesoamerica. These literary traditions are more Spanish than Indian, but they reflect an underlying and ancient unity of Amerindian cosmogonic theories. The illustrations are taken from Mexican and Andean manuscripts and monuments.
On Text and Pictures in the Late Middle Ages from the Example of the Altar of St. Barbara in Wrocław (1447)
This article brings up the question of the relationship between pictorial and literary traditions from the example of the cycle on the altar in Wrocław (1447) depicting St. Barbara's life on earth as well as her going to heaven. How the pictorial legend existed on its own, as well as how the literary impulse influenced the tradition of the visual language of the picture – this is the general framework the detailed analysis works within. The legend found on the altar in Wrocław mainly comes from one no longer alive today and originating at the turn of the 14th to the 15th centuries from the Franco-Flemish legend of St. Barbara, which also influenced the form of the altars of Master Francke and of Gonzalo Perez. The creator of the altar in Wrocław who came to Silesia from the Upper Rheinland in this cycle made fragmentary modification at different levels of pictorial representations and these were dictated by reading the legends from the literature, among others the legends in manuscripts which, at the start of the 15th century, were in the Dominican Cloister in Wrocław.
The exhibition The Genius of Venice held in the winter of 1983–1984 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, was the largest and probably the last such show to be dedicated to the Venetian Cinquecento. Although some works were of questionable attribution and others, such as the paintings of the Brescia and Bergamo schools, seemed out of context there, the exhibition provided an impressive survey of the material, and the catalogue will remain an essential reference work. The present article is intended as a critical gloss on what might be regarded as useful additions and corrections to the catalogue, in particular for the Kingston Lacy Judgement of Solomon. Doubts arise over the practice of delegating the catalogue to an equipe of forty two scholars of variable expertise, and the final impression is that of a scatter-shot aggregation of mostly fine works without a presiding point of view.
The Venetian Lagoon and the Sea of Galilee: The Calling of the Sons of Zebedee by Marco Basaiti
The canvas signed and dated 1510 is now in the Accademia in Venice. It was meant for the main altar of St. Andrea della Certosa in Venice and contains references to monastic traditions of the Carthusian order (the themes of the cage as volontary retreat bringing salva-tion, and of the imitiation of Christ by choosing martyrdom) as well as the election of the Carthusian Patriarch Antonio Suriano, the probable sponsor of the painting who wanted to re-spond by it to criticisms raised of his election and, as summarized in a letter from Blessed Paolo Giustiniano found in a monastery near Frascati. The Calling of the Sons of Zebedee shows how the humblest may be an example to their brothers even accepting responsibilities apparently in contradiction with their initial choice of solitude. The theme of the cage is also analyzed with reference to other examples found in the mosaic in the apse of St. Clement's Church in Rome and in other contemporary paintings of the Venetian school.
The discussion includes the drawings associated with the marble David and the lost bronze David. There is an occasional departure from conventionally accepted attributions to given projects. An example is the sketch of David and the head of Goliath on the well-known Louvre sheet, 714 recto, long connected with the lost bronze David, which is, instead, Michelangelo's first visualization of the marble David. A drawing, assigned by Hartt to St. Lorenzo, Florence, as a study for a sculptured St. Lawrence, is actually a drawing for the lost bronze David. Another drawing, traditionally accepted as a rendering of the Apollo Belvedere, is, instead, a fighting young David. Four other drawings have been reassigned, as applicable, to the two Davids. The drawings have been placed in the context of an iconographic consistency proceeding from a study of the political aspects of the marble David.
Dürer, Celtis and the So-called Bishop Achatius in Relation to the Iconography of Dürer's Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand
This article leads to the conclusion that what iconography manuals have called the theme «Achatius as Bishop» is a false interpretation originating from one Diptychon (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum Nr. 822). Rather according to mediaeval ecclesiastical literature it should be of Bishop Hermolaus, the Baptizer of the 10,000. He is mentioned by name in the official breviaries of the diocese of Bamberg already at the time of Dürer. The material gath-ered so far is therefore to be called «Bishop Hermolaus Baptizer of the Ten Thousand».
A correct identification requires that one understand Dürer's altarpiece The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum Nr. 835). It is connected with Dürer's stay in Venice (Hermolaus Epitaph in S. Simeone Maggiore) and with the place the picture was meant for (Hermolaus' reliques in the castle church in Wittemberg). In the painting the just deceased Konrad Celtis, in the main group in the middle points therefore to Hermolaus the baptizer of the 10,000 and in this way to the meaning of baptism. This is the hitherto un-known basic message of the work.
«Who is in the Brothel of Avignon?», a question inferred by the joking and play-acting in front of Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, provides a basis for an examination of its formal and symbolic possibilities. A re-examination of the familiar anecdotes, snapshots, sketches and quotations concerning the creation of the Demoiselles places the genesis of the painting squarely in the context of the Bateau-Lavoir where caricature in the tradition of Al-fred Jarry was the weapon of the avant-garde. Placed within the mocking arena of the brothel, Picasso's vocabulary of pose, gesture and expression calls into question the academic methods and sources of his chief rival, Henri Matisse. Also, correspondences between the Demoiselles and photos from L'Etude Academique, a periodical used by artists, students, and voyeurs, sheds new light on the riddle of the medical student and the sailor depicted in Picasso's original sketch.
Building transforms space into place; establishing place, it articulates an ethos. Building thus has an ethical function. Today this function is threatened by the commitment to objectivity that has shaped modernity. If that commitment has brought a new freedom, it has also brought a loss of place. Such displacement breeds dreams of a more genuine dwelling. But, while we must recognize the legitimacy of such dreams, we should not sacrifice freedom to them. Man belongs to the earth and to the light. This twofold belonging is never without tension. Building can regain its ethical function only when it learns to preserve and articulate that tension. But to do so, it must first open itself to the ambiguous language of space and place.


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BALTIMORE (BP) –- Presidents of Southern Baptist Convention seminaries noted growth in enrollment and financial support in their reports to messengers June 11 at the SBC annual meeting in Baltimore.
MIDWESTERN -- Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is enjoying record enrollment, major financial gifts and academic expansion, President Jason Allen announced in his report to the SBC.
Midwestern has avoided crises of resources, identity and mission common at other theological institutions in America, Allen said, thanking Southern Baptist churches for their support through the Cooperative Program.
"I'm pleased to report to the messengers of this convention that there is no crisis in Kansas City," Allen reported. "Our resources are not in abundance but they are more than adequate, and we are responsibly stewarding all that God has entrusted to us."
Allen said Midwestern Seminary's primary commitment is not to seek the approval of the academic or the broader evangelical world, but to train pastors, ministers and missionaries to serve in Southern Baptist churches.
"There is no ambiguity as to why Midwestern Seminary exists," Allen said. "Anyone who knows much of anything about Midwestern Seminary knows we exist for the church."
Midwestern's spring enrollment was the largest spring enrollment in its history and interjected the student body with new vitality, Allen said.
"These students are arriving on campus eager to give their lives for the cause of Christ and eager to be equipped for such a ministry," he said.
Midwestern Seminary's new $12 million chapel complex was dedicated debt free this spring, thanks to a generous gift from Gene and Jo Downing of Oklahoma. The seminary received $5 million in gifts and pledges over the past year, Allen said. Christian George, formerly of Oklahoma Baptist University, has joined Midwestern's staff as curator of the Spurgeon Library.
"Dr. George's hiring is one of the several key steps in positioning the Spurgeon Collection and the Charles Spurgeon Center for Biblical Preaching as a world-class, internationally-known hub of Spurgeon scholarship and preaching instruction," Allen said.
Midwestern is aiming to double its master of divinity enrollment over the next five years and has increased its doctoral offerings, especially in its doctor of philosophy program, Allen said.
"We are especially proud to have expanded our Ph.D. offerings to include biblical theology, biblical ethics, biblical missiology, biblical ministry and biblical preaching, all offered in nonresidential formats," Allen said. "With more than 500 students, our doctoral program ranks as one of the largest in the world, and its growth continues to accelerate."
The seminary has launched its Midwestern Training Network, a strategic partnership with churches to facilitate theological education within the local church, and has retooled its undergraduate program led by John Mark Yeats, the new dean of Midwestern Baptist College.
Allen concluded his report by expressing renewed conviction to lead Midwestern into the future.
"Institutional convictions and mission are often lost, but seldom regained. When God blessed the SBC's Conservative Resurgence, He did not give us the assurance of His perpetual blessing on our efforts," Allen said. "He gave us a second chance. The promise that began in 1957 -- that was recovered in the 1980s and 1990s -- is being realized and fulfilled in new and unprecedented ways in Kansas City. By God's grace and for His glory, it will persist."
SOUTHERN -- "Vast shifts" in American culture present an "unmistakably huge" task to future generations of pastors, missionaries and evangelists, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said in his report to the SBC.
"We can no longer live with the illusion of what sociologists used to call 'American exceptionalism,'" said Mohler, who this summer begins the 22nd year of his presidency. "America, as it turns out, was not the exception to the trend of secularization; we were just behind Europe. And we are fast catching up."
He described the "vast shift" in "American society over the last 200 years," citing polls that indicate one-third of Americans younger than 30 claim no religious affiliation. Claiming that no one alive today has experienced "a time such as this," Mohler said Christians live "in a time morally when the world is turning on its axis."
This "moral upheaval," Mohler said, "presents an enormous challenge to every preacher, every evangelist and every missionary."
With the "totality of these challenges," Mohler stated the task of Southern Seminary: "We now understand that the task we have is unmistakably huge. And we should recognize that that is exactly where the Lord Jesus Christ directed His church to be, ready to face that challenge with the full measure of biblical conviction, armed with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and with the knowledge of what God has spoken in His Word."
Comparing the current generation's challenges with those in the book of Acts, Mohler said the seminary trains ministers of the Gospel to respond to these challenges in the same way Peter did in Acts: 10. Peter "opened his mouth."
"The Lord is raising up a generation ready to open their mouths and speak all that the Lord has commanded," Mohler said. "And Southern Seminary is committed to training up a generation of those who will open their mouths and say what Gospel faithfulness requires and all that Gospel faithfulness requires."
The seminary will enroll this fall more than 4,600 students, more than at any other time in the school's history, Mohler said, including more than 1,700 master of divinity students. Those pursuing the M.Div. comprise the largest such group assembled at one time in one institution in the history of theological education, Mohler reported.
Mohler described three initiatives by which the seminary prepares students to speak to the challenges of the day.
First, the school's Bevin Center for Missions Mobilization helps the seminary train students in evangelism, missions and church planting, and helps equip and send students and faculty on short-term missions trips globally.
To address the ever-increasing global influence of Islam, the seminary's Jenkins Center for the Christian Understanding of Islam exists to inform and train students and faculty to engage Muslims for the sake of the Gospel, Mohler said.
He also highlighted the Mathena Center for Congregational Revitalization, an initiative to train ministers in reviving declining and dying churches.
Concluding his report, Mohler thanked messengers for their support and for funding the seminary through the Cooperative Program.
NEW ORLEANS -- With New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary's centennial just three years away, President Chuck Kelley opened his SBC report with a glimpse of history.
"In 1917, Southern Baptists did something they'd never done before in their history: they decided to give birth to a seminary," Kelley said, noting that there were then only five or six Southern Baptist churches in New Orleans. "It was not exactly easy pickings for a seminary, but was absolutely crucial to the United States economy. It was a place of great world significance. And wanted a place for training ministers where ministry was going to be part of the curriculum."
Today, New Orleans is consistently ranked a top city for entrepreneurs and business. The movie industry is booming in New Orleans, which ranks behind only Hollywood and New York in movie production. Millennials, underrepresented in Southern Baptist churches, are moving to New Orleans in droves, Kelley noted.
"Now imagine that. Nearly a hundred years later, New Orleans is ground zero for the future of the Southern Baptist Convention," Kelley said. "A place where the Great Commission is not a conversation, nor is it a trip or a field experience. It is the daily life of all of us that are there.
"It is a good thing to be in the city of New Orleans."
NOBTS has dedicated the Doris Kelley Showers of Blessing Resource Center on its main campus. Named for Kelley's late mother, the center will house a homeschool program and a campus community center. The seminary will launch in August the Leake Magee Center for Christian Counseling, which will offer counseling services for campus families and community families alike. Kelley described the dire need for counseling services in the city.
"In New Orleans after Katrina, we lost nearly all of our Christian ministries for counseling and helping broken people," Kelley said, adding that there are only 25 mental health beds in the entire city. "So we are going to use this center for counseling to introduce people to Jesus Christ, and there will be professions of faith from the community as they come to us to learn how Jesus can make a difference in healing broken lives. Both you and I know, at that He excels."
Last year, more than 3,800 students trained for ministry at NOBTS, which offers 10 degrees entirely online and non-residential doctoral programs. The seminary is expanding its extension center network and offering credit through events, conferences, workshops, mission trips and study tours. Additionally, students are free to weave together any combination of class formats to suit their needs.
"Everything we do is like Legos -- it all fits together," Kelley said. "We are putting the needs of our students at the center of how we do theological education."
Kelley briefed messengers on the new Caskey Center for Church Excellence, a partnership with an anonymous donor who gave an initial $1.5 million to provide free theological education for small church (less than 250 in attendance) and bi-vocational pastors and staff of Louisiana Southern Baptist churches. The goal is to provide up to $6,000 per year, a full scholarship, for up to 100 students who qualify.
The program targets the overwhelming majority of Louisiana churches, 91 percent of which have less than 250 in attendance each Sunday. Convention-wide, 89 percent of churches fit that category.
"We are a convention of small churches," Kelley said.
With more than 125 applicants to date, response has been so great that just two weeks ago the anonymous donor gave an additional $1.5 million to bolster the program, Kelley said.
"And then as I'm walking to our alumni luncheon today, in the hallway of the convention, I was handed an envelope" containing an additional $1.5 million, Kelley said.
Kelley closed by challenging messengers to never be discouraged, to always trust God and to always serve faithfully, in spite of difficult circumstances.
"I don't want you to ever forget as you are laboring and working, as you are doing work that is unappreciated and appears to be unnoticed by everyone around you, you remember God is always at work," Kelley said.
SOUTHWESTERN -- In his report to the convention Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson praised students and faculty members for their evangelistic zeal and answered a messenger's question regarding admission of a Muslim into the school's archaeology program.
After showing a seminary-produced video about alumni working to translate Scripture among unreached people groups in China, Patterson praised students and faculty for fulfilling the seminary's motto, "Preach the Word, Reach the World." He described an atmosphere of evangelism that has spread on campus, as teams regularly go into the community to share Christ and students and professors practice personal evangelism everywhere they go.
"I'm very grateful for the enthusiasm of our faculty and our students for the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ," Patterson said.
Patterson then opened the floor to answer questions from messengers.
Jim Richards, executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and a messenger from First Baptist Church of Keller, Texas, described a partnership between the seminary and SBTC to provide a bachelor's degree program to inmates in the Darrington Prison Unit near Houston. Richards then asked Patterson to explain why the seminary admits atheists and other non-Christians into such a program.
Patterson said Southwestern patterned the work after a similar program provided by New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary at Angola Prison in Louisiana. As a requirement of the state, the seminary was not allowed to discriminate against non-Christians in the admissions process, Patterson said. He also noted that the program is privately funded through donors, receiving no funds from the state.
"We have no choice," Patterson said. "We have to admit into the class, but the wonderful thing, of course, as you would guess, is that as they study in class, they are coming to know the Lord."
For students who cannot get into the degree program, "we have Bible studies going on where formerly all kinds of things were going on, and we thank God for that. It shows the power of the Gospel in any context," Patterson said.
In a second question, William Blosch, a messenger from First Newark Baptist Church in Thomasville, Ga., asked Patterson for "a straightforward explanation as to why, at your direction, the seminary admitted a Muslim student on campus in violation of the seminary's charter and your admissions guidelines."
Prior to offering an explanation, Patterson noted that this was his 63rd consecutive SBC annual meeting and said this year's meeting was the "greatest convention that we have ever had," noting the great things God is doing within the convention.
"Therefore, you can probably understand then, in light of that, why it is today that I come to you with an apology," Patterson said.
"I owe the convention an apology, particularly to all of you that I have caused sorrow, heartache, disillusionment or any other kind of sorrow," he said.
"I apologize to the whole convention that after as great of a convention that we have had, that it would come down to a report like this where I have to make that apology."
Patterson also apologized to his family, Southwestern's faculty and the school's board of trustees. He took full responsibility for the exception to the admissions policies, noting it was his decision alone.
Patterson then explained the circumstances of the exception. Southwestern leads two archaeological digs, one in Israel and one on the island of Cyprus. Participants at the dig sites include Christians, Jews, Muslims and members of other faith traditions that are interested in archaeology.
The student who was admitted is a Palestinian from a Muslim background. Having observed Southwestern's students and faculty, the young man asked to be admitted into the Ph.D. program in archaeology, Patterson said.
"I fell in love with" the student, Patterson said, "because he was a remarkable young man, very open at this point to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I explained to him that it would be most unusual, but eventually I did make the exception to the rule.
"I made an exception to a rule that I assumed, probably wrongly, that the president has a right to make if he feels it is important. He was admitted as a special student in the Ph.D. program, and that is not with Cooperative Program assistance."
Patterson explained that the student has studied on Southwestern's campus and has not been a problem in any way.
"In fact, we think the odds are pretty good with 2,800 sold-out evangelists and one Muslim student," Patterson said.
"I have apologized to you in a heartfelt way," Patterson continued. "I should not have disrupted the convention and did not do it knowingly, but apparently I did, and I am sorry.
"It is a different question what I will say to God when I stand before the judgment seat of the Lord."
Patterson recounted two previous exceptions he made to admissions policies, one admitting an atheist to Criswell College and the other admitting a Syrian Orthodox Priest to seminary. Both students came to Christ during their studies, Patterson said. He also cited an article just published online by Malcolm Yarnell that tells the story of Southwestern Seminary founder B.H. Carroll, who entered Baylor University as an atheist at the exception of school president Rufus Burleson (see theologicalmatters.com/2014/06/11/the-evangelistic-seminary/).
"Well, what will I say to God?" Patterson asked. He then shared a passage from Ezekiel 3:17-18, concluding, "I believe that when I stand before the Lord God, I'm going to say, 'Dear God, I violated a policy, but I didn't want to stand before You with blood on my hands. Dear God, I did the best I knew how.'"
Steven James, chairman of Southwestern's board of trustees, concluded the report with a statement assuring messengers that the board's executive committee will meet in September and the full board will meet in October to address the issue.
"The trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, whom you have selected and elected, have heard you," James told messengers. "Your concerns are our concerns. We take them to heart, and we take the role and responsibility that you have given to us very seriously.
"The concerns that you have expressed ... will all weigh into those discussions that we have as a board and with our president, whom I believe in. So, what I ask of you is to not so much talk among yourselves but talk to the Lord. Intercede for us, for this president, for the presidents of every seminary, for the students of every seminary, for the challenges in life they face, so that we can rise up and be the denomination, be the people, who don't act like Christians, we act like Christ."
Based on reports from Tim Sweetman of Midwestern Seminary, Aaron Cline Hanbury of Southern Seminary, Frank Michael McCormack of New Orleans Seminary and Keith Collier of Southwestern Seminary. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress) and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).
Copyright (c) 2014 Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist Press www.BPNews.net


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And then I find out that only ONE PARENT signed up to do ONE WEEK. That means the rest of the weeks are mine, all mine...
And did I tell you that I got this news on a Wednesday, and the first reward activity time was scheduled for that Friday? As in, two days to come up with an activity and prep it.
After the "What heck am I going to do" panic left, I realized that this could be a good opportunity for me. Nothing stretches the creatives muscles better than a little bit of repetitive exercise.
The school that my daughter goes to is one that focuses on the arts, so I wanted the activity to be fairly open ended for the children to express their individuality. And not having met most of these children, I wasn't entirely sure what they'd be capable of doing.
So the first project had to be cheap, easy to prep, open-ended, and fairly simple. No biggy. Heh. Heh. Heh.
I was two steps away from running out to the craft store to buy some cardboards shapes for the kids to glues feathers on to when inspiration struck.
When I was a kid I had an origami book. Most of the projects were too complex for me, but I did remember one that was easy to do. A few simple folds could turn a rectangle into a little house. A square of paper folded in half could make a roof. The cool thing about this little house is that it shows the inside of the house more than the outside. What if I folded up a bunch of little houses and let the kids decorate them? Would that work?
In a word, YES. They LOVED it!! Waaay more than I expected they would. They really got into it, with pictures of beds and tables and couches and TVs. I had kids running up to me and showing me what they drew inside their houses. They were all so proud of their creations! The teacher got out a bucket full of plastic bears that they use for counting, and let the kids put a trio of little bears in each house. Even MORE fun!!
Needless to say, I felt a little bit like a rockstar when I left.
Look at the one that Liv made:
Liv's teacher had me show her how to make one so she could show the other 1st grade teachers. Which got me to thinking - maybe other people would like to know how to make some little paper houses. Perhaps a tutorial is in order?
I think it is. And so....
This really is a simple folding project. The house itself is made from an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper. The roof is just a 6" x 6" piece of paper folded in half. I used cheap-o cardstock from Michael's - the stuff that comes 50 sheets for $2.99 and is so thin that it can hardly be considered cardstock. Not good for making cards, but perfect for this project. Copy paper is too thin, but really thick cardstock would be too hard to fold.
1. Fold your cardstock in half (the short way).
2. Fold both edges to the center and crease. I usually measure to find the center and make a small pencil mark there as a guide.
4. And the top down, making a triangle.
Here's another view of the same step. See how the top crease of the folded rectangle is lined up perfectly with the fold at the side of the rectangle?
Here's my stack of 20 that I made for the class. It took about 30 minutes to fold all 20, plus cut and fold the roof pieces.


text:
Author : Virarajendra
(Copyright reserved to Author)
The great Significance of Kodungallur of Kerala in the history of Kerala & Tamil Nadu
Part - 1
A Prelude to the Research Article on Kodungallur
"Kodungallur" is a region in the southern tip of the present Thrissur district of Kerala State, South India - adjoining the Arabian sea. Today it remains a city of less commercial and industrial activities and modern buildings. However it has centres of religious worship, namely the Temples, Churches and Mosques.
Kodungallur was also known as "Cranganore" during the English occupation of the region. Kodungallur could be placed as the first region of Kerala "of much historical importance", while Thiruvananthapuram the present capital of Kerala could only take the third place, while Kollam takes the second place.
However due to less developments in this region, it has not attracted the attention of many Keralites who are still not aware of "the great historical significance of this region in Kerala history". This could be the possible reason why the Kerala Map Printers too show the name of Kodungallur in tiny letters in their Kerala Maps, and in some Maps it is not shown at all.
The objective of this Article is do give a deep insight into the actual history of Kodungallur hitherto not known to many, and to highlight the great significance of this region supported by evidences.
Note to Readers:
The following is a Research Article complete with evidences meant for Scholars in "Early Kerala History".
However a General Reader who is not keen in the study of relative evidences but only in the subject matter, could read the contents of this Article "less" the evidences and it's sources - shown in 'darkblue' under "References" in each sub-section.
(1) The two eras of Kerala History
The history of the present Kerala State - South India could be divided into two eras, one ranging from ancient times to the end of the twelveth century (A.D.1200) and classified as the Tamil Period of it's History, and the other ranging from the beginning of the thirteenth century (A.D.1201) to this date and classified as the Malayalam Period of it's History.
The above are confirmed by the following Reference:
(2) The traditional geographical boundries of Kerala
Kerala is the Sanskritised version of the Tamil "Chera", and the region of the Chera country had as it's boundries the "Kolikkodu" in the west, "Palani" in the north, "South Kaasi"(Ten Kasi) in the east, and the seafront in the south covering eighty Kavatham of land (Kavatham - a land measure).
The above is better understood, if taken as the Chera country encompassed within the outer boundries Kolikkodu, Palani, Ten Kasi and Sea (south beyond Kovalam).
The above are confirmed by the following Reference:
".....Vadakku thisai Palani vaan Keel Then Kaasi Kudakku thisai Kolikkodaam - Kadatkaraiyil
oramo Thetkkahum ulla En Pathi Kavatham
Chera Naatu ellai ena seppu....."
Perunthohai by M.Ragavaiyangar, Verse - 2091, Madurai Thamil Sangam Publication 1935 - 1936
(3) The Kings of early Kerala
From the earliest known times up to the end of the twelveth century the Kerala (Chera Nadu) situated on the western part of the South India was ruled by Tamil Hindu kings, and many Tamil Literary works of the early and medieval periods of both Kerala and Tamil Nadu refer to them as the Chera kings.
The region of the former Chera country was encompassed within the present Kerala state, while the regions of the former Chola and Paandiya (Pandiya) Countries were encompassed within the present Tamil Nadu State, and were known in the early days as the "Muth Thamil Nadu" (three Tamil Countries).
These three Tamil countries from their early days had as their royal emblems the Bow (Chera), Fish (Paandiya), and Tiger (Chola) respectively in their flags.
The above are confirmed by the following References:
"........vada thisai marungin mannarkku ellaam then Thamil Naattu chelu Vil, Kayal, Puli manthalai aetra varaiha eengu......."
Silappathikaaram - by Ilango Adihal, Vanji Kaandam, Kaatchi Kaathai U.V.Swaminatha Iyer edition
".......mudi udai venthar moovarullum
kudathisai aalum kotram kuntraa
aaram maarpit Chera kulathu uthiththor....."
Silappathikaaram - by Ilango Adihal, Vanji Kaandam - Katturai. U.V.Swaminatha Iyer edition
(4) The references to Kerala in the early Indian Literature
The earliest known references to Kerala (Chera Nadu) in the Indian Literature are found in the original Sanskrit epics - namely the Raamaayana of poet Vaalmihi, and the Mahaabhaaratha of poet Viyaasar.
In Raamaayana it is noted Sukkrivan requesting Anuman to go in search of Sita in the countries in the southern region of India - among Kerala, Pundhara, Chola and Paandiya countries.
In Mahaabhaaratha we find Sanjayan while mentioning the countries in the south of India to king Thirutharastra, refers to Kerala along with Andhra, Karnataka and Chola. Mahaabhaaratha further states the Keralas along with the Paandiyas and Cholas fought on the side of the Paandavas in the Mahaabhaaratha war.
There are 'many' other references to Keralas in the Viyasa's Mahaabhaaratha. (Refer to my thread titled "The references to Tamil dynasties and countries in the Mahaabhaaratha" in this same Website)
The above are confirmed by the following References:
"...sarvam eve anupashyata tathaiva Aandhraan ca Pundran ca Colaan, Paandyaan, Keralaan....."
Raamaayana - by Valmiki, Kishkinda Kanda,Volume 4, Chapter 41, Lines 12
"……Sanjaya said, listen to me O king (Thiratharastra).......to the names of the provinces as I mention them. They are.......the Keralas......the Andhras......"
".....There are other kingdoms O bull of Bharatha's race, in the south. They are the Dravidas, the Keralas......the Karanatakas......the Cholas......"
Mahaabhaaratha – by Viyasa, Bhisma Parva, Page 21& 22
"........When that host was being thus struck and slain by heroic warriors, the Parthas headed by Vrikodara advance against us. They consisted of Dhrishtayumna and Sikhandin, and the five sons of Draupadi, and the Prabhadrakes, and Satyaki, and Chekitana with the Dravida forces, and the Pandyas, the Cholas, and the Keralas, surrounded by a mighty array,......".
Mahaabhaaratha – by Viyasa, Karna Parva, Page 25.
(5) The Confederacy of the Kerala (Chera), Chola and Pandiya
In South India there has been a confederacy of the Tamil kingdoms (Tamira Countries) of Chera, Chola, and Pandiya (Muth Tamil Nadu) to jointly prevent the kings of the north and central India from invading their countries. This confederacy that existed for 113 years from B.C.283 was broken by king Karavela of Kalinga in the year B.C.170, which was a potential threat to his own kingdom.
The Tamil kingdoms of Chera, Chola and Pandiya of that period, ensured the unity of the southern Tamil Nadu of that period even at times of their individual invasions of the northern Ariyan kings. The Ariyan kings too recognised the unity and the strength of the Tamil kings and have referred to them 'as the kings of Tamil Nadu in the south' who have carved their royal emblems the Bow, Tiger and Fish individually on the mountain range of the Himalayas at different times.
The Kerala kings too in their North Indian expeditions, considered it as a great pride to have carved their emblem the Bow on the Himalayas, and having seen the Thamilakam (Chera, Chola & Pandiya) of that period bound by seas all round - were in unity.
This confederacy of the three southern Tamil kingdoms the Kerala (Chera), Chola and Pandiya, prevented the Maurya Emperor Asoka too from conquereing their countries in Southern India. This could have been the reason why when his domains extended as far as Mysore, he has referred in his Second Rock Edict that the Kerala (Chera), Chola, and Pandiya countries as being beyond his domains. However Emperor Asoka were successful in penetrating the three Tamil countries as far as Tamiraparni river in south Pandiya Nadu, with his Buddhist Dhamma religious mission.
In the above edict the Keralas are mentioned as the Keralaputras, that is the Putras of Kerala, meaning the sons of the soil of Kerala. From the above it is very clear that the Keralas were known to the people of North India also during the period of the Maurya Emperor Asoka, who ruled the Maghada kingdom from B.C.273 - 236.
The Fourteenth Edict of Asokan period has only mentioned of the Cholas and Pandyas, but it is already clear that they knew of the kingdom of Kerala in the South India as seen from the Second Edict.
The above are confirmed by the following references:
"............vada Aariyar padai kadanththu
then Thamil Naadu orungu kaana........"
Silappathikaaram - by Ilango Adihal, Mathurai Kaandam, Katturai kaathai
U.V.Swaminatha Iyer edition
"…….then Thamil Nadu aalum venthar seruveatu puhantru elunthu min thavalum ImayaNetriyil vilangu vil, puli, kayal poriththa naal empolum mudi mannar eengu illlai polum
Silappathikaaram - by Ilango Adihal, Mathurai Kaandam, Katturai kaathai
U.V.Swaminatha Iyer edition
"…..Imayam vitporith imil kadal velith thamilakam vilanga…."
Pathirtrupaththu - 2nd Patthu - by Kumatoor Kannanaar, U.V.Saminatha Iyer edition
"....Every where within Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi's domain, and among the people beyond the borders, the Cholas, the Pandyas, the Satiyaputras, the Keralaputras, as far as Tamraparni, and where the Greek king Antiochos rules,....."
"......Now it is conquest by Dhamma that Beloved-of-the-Gods considers to be the best conquest. And it has been won here, on the borders, even six hundred yojanas away, where the Greek king Antiochos rules, beyond there where the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas and Alexander rule, likewise in the south among the Cholas, the Pandyas, and as far as Tamraparni. Here in the king's domain among the Greeks, the Kambojas, the Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Palidas, everywhere people are following Beloved-of-the-Gods' instructions in Dhamma......"
Edicts of Asoka - an English rendering by Ven Dhammika, publised by Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka - 1994 (Net Edition)
(L.11) ".......and (he) thoroughly breaks up the confederacy of the T[r]amira (Dramira) countries of one hundred and thirteen years, which has been a source of danger to (his) Country (Janapada)....."
Hathigumpha Inscription of Kharavela of Kalinga (B.C.170)
Epigraphia Indica - Vol. XX, 86-89.
(6) The Rivers flowing in the close vicinity of Kodungallur of Kerala (Chera)
Among all the rivers flowing across Kerala, the longest river is the present Periyar river, flowing in to the Kodungallur Lagoon (Lagoon - a lake fed by sea water). The present Periyar of Kerala was originally known as the Periyaaru meaning the big river (in Tamil). However it's original name was not merely Periyaaru, but was known as the "Chulliyam Periyaaru" of Cheras.
We see many references to different rivers in India with such name combinations namely as Gangai Periyaaru, Kaviri Periyaaru, Pennai Periyaaru, Vaikai Periyaaru etc. Hence from the foregoing it is clear the Periyaaru has been used in the sense of "Periya Aaru" (in Tamil) meaning the big River, with their actual names prefixed to the term Periyaaru. Hence it is clear that "Chulliyam" was the original name of the Periyaaru of Kerala, which the poet states belonged to the Chera kings (Cheralar).
Also there is another river named Pullut Phuza (Pullut River) which flows from the north of Kerala passing adjacent to the present Kodungallur region - the former Vanchi nagar, and then turns around this region to the west and falls into the same Kodungallur Lagoon. The Pullut Phuza (Phuza in Malayalam = River) was the former Aan Porunai River(in Tamil) mentioned in many Tamil Literary works of the early period, and positively confirmed by Silappathikaaram as surrounding the Vanji Nagar of Cheras, and is of much importance in the study of Kerala (Chera) history.
There is the third river named Chalakkudi which joins with Periyar near present Chowkakadavu and then falls into the Kodungallur Lagoon. From the Kodungallur Lagoon the confluence of these three rivers falls into the nearby sea at the present Alikode (Aalikkodu), the former region of the famed seaport city of Musiri.
The above are confirmed by the following References:
In Ahananooru the rivers Chulliyam, Kaviri, Pennai of South India, and Ganga of North India are referred to as Periyaaru.
"....Cheralar Chulliam Periyaartru vennurai kalanga........................................... ............valam elu Musiri"
Ahananooru - chapter 7, verse 149
"…..Kadatkarai melikkum Kaviri Periyaaru….:"
Ahananooru - verse 126
"……kadum punal malintha Kaviri Periyaatru……"
Ahanaanooru – verse 62
"…..Pennai am Periyaartru……"
Ahanaanooru – verse 35
In Silappathikaaram the rivers Vaihai of south India, and Ganga of north India are referred to as Periyaaru
"…..Vaihai Periyaaru valamsuranthu ootalum…."
Silappathikaaram, Katturai Kaathai, line 208
"……kadun punal Gangai Periyaatru ventroi……"
Silappathikaaram, Nadukal Kaathai, line 121
".......vaali varu punal neer Aan Porunai sool
tharum Vanjiyar komaan than thol kulame...."
Silappathikaarem – Vaalthukaathai – 14
(7) The Musiri the earliest known Seaport city of Kerala near Kodungallur
The Musiri is the earliest known seaport city of the Kerala (Chera-Kothai) kings at the estuary of the confluence of three rivers, at the present Alikode in west Kerala adjacent to the sea.
The scenic description of the Musiri port is described in the contemporary period Tamil Literary work Puranaanooru as follows: :
"…..With the fish piled up and the paddy heaped within the elevated house of boats (ambi) with the pepper bags (too) within this house (outer) fortification, brought the load to the shore of the sea where the seaport Musiri was situated possibly along the rivers (undoubtedly along Aan Porunai, Chulliam Periyaru, and Chalakkudi), (where) the ships with gifts of gold (too) brought to shore by small ships (thoni) – (thus) the products of hills and the seas unloaded and distributed to those who came there (for trading) was the Kuttuvan's Musiri (port) with noise of the roaring sea…..".
The Greeks and the Romans with the discovery of the favourable wind named "Hippalus" (in A.D.47), travelled to the nearest seaport of India namely the Musiri in much quicker time of forty days from the Ocelis port of Arabia.
The first known reference to Musiri from the external sources comes from the Roman Historian named Pliny in A.D.77, who refers to Musiri as a seat of goverment under the rule of Chera kings was a seaport city at the height of prosperity frequented by ships and was of leading importance. Muziris of the Cheras abounds in ships sent there with cargoes from Arabia(pre-Islamic) and of Greeks. From the Tamil historical sources we note this king was the Imayavaramban Neduncheralathan (A.D.74 - 132).
Further reference to Muziris is made in A.D.100 by a Greek historian named Periplus who states "….Musiri was not a desirable place of call, with pirates being in the neighbourhood who occupied a place called Nitrias (the Naruvu as known to Tamils north of Musiri occupied by Kadambar) and besides it is not well supplied with wares for traffic. Ships besides anchor at a great distance from the shore and cargoes have to be landed and shipped by employing boats. During this time the Caelobothras (Keralaputhra) was the sovereign of that country….."
The Musiri being the seaport city of the Chera kingdom is also confirmed by Ptolemy in the year A.D.150. He refers to ".....Musiri Emporium as a sea port city that was ruled at that time by Kerobothras....." which is a corruption of Cheraputhras or Keralaputhras, as found in the Asokan Inscriptions, meaning the people of Kerala (Chera) country.
Further from the Ptolemy's geographical cordinates it is clear that the Muziris emporium a seaport city was situated immediately north and at the mouth of the Pseudostomos river, identified as the "specific reference" to the "AanPorunai river" (present Pullut river), entering the sea as a confluence of three rivers the other two being the Periyar and the Chalakkudi rivers.
Hence the sea port city of the Chera Nadu of the first and second century A.D. known as Musiri could be very positively located at the river (mouth) estuary of the confluence of these three rivers the principal river among them being the Periyar river, where they meet the sea around the present Alikode region near the Kodungallur.
The above are confirmed by the following references
"….Kothai Musiriyar Koman....."
Muththolaayiram – section 3 (on Cheras), verse 116
"…..Meen noduththu nelkuvai yi
misai ambiyin manai marukkunthu
manaikkuvai iya kari moodaiyal
kali summaiya karai kalak kurunthu
kalam thantha pot parisam
kalithoniyaan, karaiserkunthu
malai thaaramum kadal thaaramum
thalai peithu, varunarkku eeyum
punal am kallin polanthaar Kuttuvan
mulanghu kadal mulavin Musiri anna....."
Puranaanooru – verse 343
"....the voyage from Syagrus a cape in Arabia reckoned at 1335 miles, can be performed by aid of the west wind which is there called "Hippalus".....To those who are bound for India, Ocelis is the best place for embarkation. If the wind called Hippalus be blowing Muziris the nearest mart of India can be reached in forty days. It is not a desirable place of call, pirates being in the neighbourhood who occupied a place called Nitrias, and besides it is not well supplied with wares for traffic. Ships besides anchor at a great distance from the shore and cargoes have to be landed and shipped by employing boats. At the time I was writing this Caelobothras was the sovereign of that country......"
Ancient India as described in Classical Literatue - translated by J.W. M'Crindle - page 111-112 (Natural History by Pliny (A.D.77), Vol 6, chapter on Geography of India
"....Then follow Naura and Tyndis the first marts of Limyrike, and after these Muziris and Nelcynda the seats of Goverment. To the kingdom under the sway of Ceprobotras, Tyndis is subject, a village of great note situate near the sea. Muziris which pertains to the same realm is a city at the height of prosperity, frequented as it is by ships. It lies near a river at a distance from Tyndis of 500 stadia whether measured from river to river or by the length of the sea voyage and it is 20 stadia distant from the mouth of its own river. The distance of Nelcynda from Muziris is also nearly 500 stadia whether measured from river to river or by sea voyage but it belongs to Pandion.
Periplus Maris Erythraei - translated from Greek by J.W M'Crindle (extracted from Classical Accounts of India by R.C, Majumdar, Page 305)
"..Then comes Naura and Tyndis, the first markets of Damirica, and then Muziris and Nelcynda which are now of leading importance. Tyndis is of the kingdom of Cerobothra, it is a village in plain sight by the sea. Muziris of the same kingdom abounds in ships sent there with cargoes from Arabia and by the Greeks. It is located on a river distant from Tyndis by river and sea five hundred stadia, and up the river from the shore 20 stadia. Nelcynda is distant from Muziris by river and sea five hundred stadia and is of another kingdom Pandian..."
Mouziris, an emporium ...................................117 deg 14 deg
Mouth of the river Pseudostomos.....................117 deg 20 min 14 deg
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea - translated from Greek by Wilfred H Schoff, page 44
(8) Subsequent invasion of Musiri by the Pandiyan king Cheliyan
From a poem in the Tamil Literary work "Ahanaanooru" we also come to know that the Pandiyan Cheliyan once raided the ancient estuary (of Periyar) at Musiri (seaport city), where the warlike Cheliyan (Pandiyan king) with tall strong elephant surrounded (the city) to the shock (of the inhabitants) raided in severe battle, and took (to himself) the statue.
Among two other poems from "Ahanaanooru", one confirms that the Pandiyan (king) Cheliyan raided the city of Musiri at the estuary (Musiri munthurai), while the other refers he having won the Cheral (possibly ruling Musiri), and in both the Cheliyan has been referred to as having "koi suvar puravi kodi ther" meaning the `Cheliyan with chariot having horses of trimmed mane and flag'. Hence the the Pandiyan king Cheliyan was no other than the "Thalai Alanganaththu seru ventra Cheliyan" as seen in one of the latter two poems of Ahanaanooru.
It is noted that there is no reference in these poems to him capturing the Karur or Vanji in the same raid, being the capital city of the Chera kings. This indicates the purpose of the raid by Pandiyan Cheliyan was to `secure to himself a Statue'("padimam vaviya") from the seaport city of Musiri, that has been of much value and importance to him.
At the time of this raid the Kadamba king (known for their pirate activities) named Erumaiyooran ruled from Naravu north of Musiri.
This above are confirmed by the following references
"........valam elu Musiri arrpu ela valaiyee
arum samam kadanthu padimam vaviya
nedu nal yanai adu por Cheliyan......"
Ahananooru - chapter 7, verse 148
"......koi suvat puravi kodit ther Cheliyan
muthu neer mun thurai Musiri muttri....
kaliru pada erukkiya kallen gnatpin
arumpunn urunarin varunthinal...."
Ahanaanooru - verse 57
"……ko isuvar puravi kodither Cheliyan
Alanganaththu ahan thalai sivappa,
Cheral, Sembiyan, …………………..
…….Naar ari Naravin Erumaiyooran
Eluvar nal valam adanga oru pakal
Murasai yodu venkudai ahappaduththu…….."
Ahanaanooru - verse 36
(9) The Karuvur the earliest known inland capital city of Kerala near Kodungallur
The inland capital of the earliest known Kerala (Chera) kings was the Karuvur also known as Karur. (The latter is also spelt as Karoor with the same pronounciation). This capital city was located at the present Karuvapadna, a little distance north from the Kodungallur Lagoon along the present Pullut river (former Aan Porunai river) and on the right side of it near the present Vallivattom bridge.
It is clearly evident that the present Karuvapadna and the region surrounding same were the former Karuvur Pattinam of the Cheras, which is confirmed by the very fact the regions in and around Karuvapadna are known even today as Karoor Paadam, Karoorpadna junction, Karoorpadna Kulam etc. This was undoubtedly the ancient Karur City, and is confirmed in the above reference that it was the royal seat meaning the capital city of the Kerobothras (the Keralas or Cheras).
It is also shown in the Ptolemy's map that it was located a little interior but not far from Musiri, and on the right side of the river Pseudostomos river. Further we are aware that all three rivers namely the Periyar, the Chalakudi, and the Pullut river that meets at the Kodungallur Lagoon and falling into the sea, are not shown in Ptolemy's map. Only one river is shown in same, and is also mentioned that the Karoura - the royal seat of Kerobothras was on its right side adjacent to it.
From the above geographical locations as shown in the Ptolemy's map, it is clear that the river shown in his map is no other than the "Aan Porunai river" the present Pulut Puzha (not the river Periyaru or the river Chalakudi), which flows adjacent to and on the right side of the present Kodungallur (the region of Vanji Nagar - the later capital of Cheras), and a little distance upstream in the northernly direction it is seen that the "Aan Porunai river" flows adjacent to and on the left side of the present Karuvapadna the region of Karuvur - the former capital of Cheras. The Ptolemy's map refers to it as "Carura Regia Cerobothri" - the Karur kingdom of Cheras. This reference of Ptolemy on Karuvur, is the first evidence available to us presently in any historical or literary documents of that period, as being the captal city of Cheras.
From a reference from the Tamil Literary work Ahanaanooru it is noted that Karuvur was adjacent to the Aan Porunai River. Karuvur served as the earlier interior capital of Cheras, while Musiri remained the seaport capital during this period.
The Ships coming to then Chera Nadu from foreign countries anchored at Musiri harbour the first known seaport city of Cheras which stretched from the seafront near present Alikode upto the of Kodungallur Lagoon. Just little beyond on the north-east of this lagoon along the Pullut River (Aan Porunai river) was the region known as the "Karuvur Munthurai" (Mun Thurai = Harbour Front : Harbour is a section of a river or sea opposite a landmass region used for parking or harbouring - small boats and Thonis or large ships, and Kalangal) which is referred to in the Ahanaanooru as "….more than the sand (crystals) on the high bunds of clear water Aan Porunai river at the Harbour front of the prosperous and wonderous large city of Karuvur of the Kothai (Chera) king, with the strong elephant and tall Chariot….."
From further references in Silappathikaarem and Ahanaanooru too, we note the term "Munthurai" is used to mean the "harbour front". The harbour front of Kaviri river - refers to Poompuhar or Kaviripoompattinam the seaport city of Cholas, the "harbour front" at Kotkai - refers to the Kotkai seaport city of Pandiyas, harbour front at Musiri - refers to the Musiri seaport city of Cheras (Keralas).
Hence it is clear that there was also a "harbour front" opposite Karuvur near the present Vallivattom bridge just beyond the Kodungaloor lagoon along the Pullut River the former Aan Porunai river, up to which it was navigable for small boats and ships, with goods from Musiri port to the interior capital the Karuvur.
From the Tamil Literary work "Ahanaanooru" we note the earliest Chera king who rose on the throne of Karuvur and ruled Chera Nadu was Koperum Cheral Irumporai.
Important Note:
The present Karuvur region near Thirutchiraappalli in TamilNadu, was one of the earliest capital city of the Cholas long before Uraiyur same Karuvur the inland capital of the early Chera kings not much far away from their seaport capital the Musiri adjacent to the Musiri in the Kodungallur region. Some of the Chera kings who became powerfull during the early and medieval periods, also captured the second Karuvur city of Cholas at Thirutchiraapalli and ruled over same (leaving some inscriptions on their endowments made during that time to the temples in this region), but many times lost same back to Cholas. The Karuvur or Karur of Cheras, and the Karuvur of Cholas, are two different entities.
From the early Tamil Literary Work named "Palamoli Naanooru" we note that the Ministers after the death of the Chola king at Karuvur near Thirutchiraappalli met at a region known as Kalumalam and gave a (trained) Elephant with a garland and instigated it to select by garlanding the next successor to the Chola throne. Accordingly the Elephant went to the city of Karuvur near Thirutchiraappalli and garlanded on the very young Karikatcholan who was accepted and crowned as the next Chola king of the (Chola) Karuvur. This traditional story is referred to in "Palamoli Naanooru" as follows.
Further in the Periyapuraanam in the chapter on Puhal Chola Naayanaar a reference again confirms beyond doubt the [u]Karuvur near Thirutchiraappalli district was the [u]early traditional capital of the Cholas before Uraiyur and different to that of Cheras.
In the above `further evidence' is thrown to prove that Karuvur at present Thirutchiraappalli was the the ancient capital of Cholas and not that of Cheras by the mere fact the king of the "kuda pulam" the Cherar brought tributaries to the Chola king at Karuvur with a procession of tall elephants.
The above are confirmed by the following references
The Ptolemy's geography states that among the inland cities of Limryke was the :
Karoura the royal seat of Kerobothras.......... 119 deg 16 deg 20 min
Ancient India as described by Ptolemy - translated by John W McCrindle
".....Cheraman Karuvur eariya ol vaarl Koperung Cheral Irumporai......."
Puranaanooru - verse 5
"….kadum pahattu yanai nedunther Kothai
Thiru ma viyan nagar Karuvur mun thurai
then neer uyar karai kuvai iya
than Aan Porunai manalinum palave….."
Ahanaanooru - Verse 93
"…..Muthu neerk kaviri munthurai padutthal ….."
Silappathikaarem – Vanji Kaandam, kaatchikkaathai lines 23-24
"…..ivar thirai thantha eerngkathir muththam
kavar nadai puravikaal vaduththa pukkum
nal ther Valuthi Kotkai munthurai......"
Ahanaanooru – verse 130
"…..muthu neer munthurai Musiri…"
Ahanaanooru – verse 57
"…….venthirai parappin Thondi munthurai……"
Ahanaanooru – verse 290
"……Kalumalaththil yaaththa kalirum Karuvur
vilumiyon met sentru….."
Palamoli Naanooru – A Jain Poet, Verse 89
"……Senni Nee Anapaayan thirukkulaththu vali muthaloar Ponni nathi puravalanaar Puhal Cholar ena polivaar………kongarodu kudapulaththu komannar thirai konarath thangal kula muthat thani nagaram Karuvur-il……kudapula mannavar konarntha oli nedung kalitrin ani…."
Periyapuranam by Seikeelaar, chaper 41, verses 8,11,13


text:
ActiveState has released Version 5.0 of its Komodo IDE which has been optimized for team development. Komodo IDE 5.0 is built on the Mozilla 1.9 branch, the same code base Firefox 3.0 is built on. This includes a number of bug fixes and performance improvements, and provides a more platform-native look-and-feel. With the 5.0 release, Komodo open multiple top-level windows, letting you configure your workspace the way you want when editing or debugging. Other features include:
- Support for the Git, Mercurial (hg), and Bazaar distributed version control systems (or the already supported Subversion, Perforce, and CVS). You can share your code with whichever SCC system you choose. Smart cross-SCC system checkout wizardry makes it easier to get to work on shared repositories.
- Code Formatting: Configurable commands for formatting selections and documents.
- SCC Checkout: A new interface for checking out working copies of a repository from within Komodo.
- Multiple top-level windows, slicker UIs for tabs and sidebars.
For more details on the Komodo IDE 5.0 release, see this Dr. Dobb's interview with Trent Mick, Komodo product manager.