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The king was pouting. "I want to sit on the Iron Throne," he told her. "You always let Joff sit up there."
"Joffrey was twelve."
"But I'm the king. The throne belongs to me."
"Who told you that?" Cersei took a deep breath, so Dorcas could lace her up more tightly. She was a big girl, much stronger than Senelle, though clumsier as well.
Tommen's face turned red. "No one told me."
"No one? Is that what you call your lady wife?" The queen could smell Margaery Tyrell all over this rebellion. "If you lie to me, I will have no choice but to send for Pate and have him beaten till he bleeds." Pate was Tommen's whipping boy, as he had been Joffrey's. "Is that what you want?"
"No," the king muttered sullenly.
"Who told you?"
He shuffled his feet. "Lady Margaery." He knew better than to call her queen in his mother's hearing.
"That is better. Tommen, I have grave matters to decide, matters that you are far too young to understand. I do not need a silly little boy fidgeting on the throne behind me and distracting me with childish questions. I suppose Margaery thinks you ought to be at my council meetings too?"
"Yes," he admitted. "She says I have to learn to be king."
"When you are older, you can attend as many councils as you wish," Cersei told him. "I promise you, you will soon grow sick of them. Robert used to doze through the sessions." When he troubled to attend at all. "He preferred to hunt and hawk, and leave the tedium to old Lord Arryn. Do you remember him?"
"He died of a bellyache."
"So he did, poor man. As you are so eager to learn, perhaps you should learn the names of all the kings of Westeros and the Hands who served them. You may recite them to me on the morrow."
"Yes, Mother," he said meekly.
"That's my good boy." The rule was hers; Cersei did not mean to give it up until Tommen came of age. I waited, so can he. I waited half my life. She had played the dutiful daughter, the blushing bride, the pliant wife. She had suffered Robert's drunken groping, Jaime's jealousy, Renly's mockery, Varys with his titters, Stannis endlessly grinding his teeth. She had contended with Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and her vile, treacherous, murderous dwarf brother, all the while promising herself that one day it would be her turn. If Margaery Tyrell thinks to cheat me of my hour in the sun, she had bloody well think again.
Still, it was an ill way to break her fast, and Cersei's day did not soon improve. She spent the rest of the morning with Lord Gyles and his ledger books, listening to him cough about stars and stags and dragons. After him Lord Waters arrived, to report that the first three dromonds were nearing completion and beg for more gold to finish them in the splendor they deserved. The queen was pleased to grant him his request. Moon Boy capered as she took her midday meal with members of the merchant guilds and listened to them complain about sparrows wandering the streets and sleeping in the squares. I may need to use the gold cloaks to chase these sparrows from the city, she was thinking, when Pycelle intruded.
The Grand Maester had been especially querulous in council of late. At the last session he had complained bitterly about the men that Aurane Waters had chosen to captain her new dromonds. Waters meant to give the ships to younger men, whilst Pycelle argued for experience, insisting that the commands should go to those captains who had survived the fires of the Blackwater. "Seasoned men of proven loyalty," he called them. Cersei called them old, and sided with Lord Waters. "The only thing these captains proved was that they know how to swim," she'd said. "No mother should outlive her children, and no captain should outlive his ship." Pycelle had taken the rebuke with ill grace.
He seemed less choleric today, and even managed a sort of tremulous smile. "Your Grace, glad tidings," he announced. "Wyman Manderly has done as you commanded, and beheaded Lord Stannis's onion knight."
"We know this for a certainty?"
"The man's head and hands have been mounted above the walls of White Harbor. Lord Wyman avows this, and the Freys confirm. They have seen the head there, with an onion in its mouth. And the hands, one marked by his shortened fingers."
"Very good," said Cersei. "Send a bird to Manderly and inform him that his son will be returned forthwith, now that he has demonstrated his loyalty." White Harbor would soon return to the king's peace, and Roose Bolton and his bastard son were closing in on Moat Cailin from south and north. Once the Moat was theirs, they would join their strength and clear the ironmen out of Torrhen's Square and Deepwood Motte as well. That should win them the allegiance of Ned Stark's remaining bannermen when the time came to march against Lord Stannis.
To the south, meanwhile, Mace Tyrell had raised a city of tents outside Storm's End and had two dozen mangonels flinging stones against the castle's massive walls, thus far to small effect. Lord Tyrell the warrior, the queen mused. His sigil ought to be a fat man sitting on his arse.
That afternoon the dour Braavosi envoy turned up for his audience. Cersei had put him off for a fortnight and would have gladly put him off another year, but Lord Gyles claimed he could no longer deal with the man… though the queen was starting to wonder if Gyles was capable of doing anything but coughing.
Noho Dimittis, the Braavosi named himself. An irritating name for an irritating man. His voice was irritating too. Cersei shifted in her seat as he went on, wondering how long she must endure his hectoring. Behind her loomed the Iron Throne, its barbs and blades throwing twisted shadows across the floor. Only the king or his Hand could sit upon the throne itself. Cersei sat by its foot, in a seat of gilded wood piled with crimson cushions.
When the Braavosi paused for breath, she saw her chance. "This is more properly a matter for our lord treasurer."
That answer did not please the noble Noho, it would seem. "I have spoken with Lord Gyles six times. He coughs at me and makes excuses, Your Grace, but the gold is not forthcoming."
"Speak to him a seventh time," Cersei suggested pleasantly. "The number seven is sacred to our gods."
"It pleases Your Grace to make a jest, I see."
"When I make a jest I smile. Do you see me smiling? Do you hear laughter? I assure you, when I make a jest, men laugh."
"King Robert—"
"—is dead," she said sharply. "The Iron Bank will have its gold when this rebellion has been put down."
He had the insolence to scowl at her. "Your Grace—"
"This audience is at an end." Cersei had suffered quite enough for one day. "Ser Meryn, show the noble Noho Dimittis to the door. Ser Osmund, you may escort me back to my apartments." Her guests would soon arrive, and she had to bathe and change. Supper promised to be a tedious affair as well. It was hard work to rule a kingdom, much less seven of them.
Ser Osmund Kettleblack fell in beside her on the steps, tall and lean in his Kingsguard whites. When Cersei was certain they were quite alone, she slid her arm through his. "How is your little brother faring, pray?"
Ser Osmund looked uneasy. "Ah… well enough, only…"
"Only?" The queen let a hint of anger edge her words. "I must confess, I am running short of patience with dear Osney. It is past time he broke in that little filly. I named him Tommen's sworn shield so he could spend part of every day in Margaery's company. He should have plucked the rose by now. Is the little queen blind to his charms?"
"His charms is fine. He's a Kettleblack, ain't he? Begging your pardon." Ser Osmund ran his fingers through his oily black hair. "It's her that's the trouble."
"And why is that?" The queen had begun to nurse doubts about Ser Osney. Perhaps another man would have been more to Margaery's liking. Aurane Waters, with that silvery hair, or a big strapping fellow like Ser Tallad. "Would the maid prefer someone else? Does your brother's face displease her?"
"She likes his face. She touched his scars two days ago, he told me. 'What woman gave you these?' she asked. Osney never said it was a woman, but she knew. Might be someone told her. She's always touching him when they talk, he says. Straightening the clasp on his cloak, brushing back his hair, and like that. One time at the archery butts she had him show her how to hold a longbow, so he had to put his arms around her. Osney tells her bawdy jests, and she laughs and comes back with ones that are even bawdier. No, she wants him, that's plain, but…"
"But?" Cersei prompted.
"They are never alone. The king's with them most all the time, and when he's not, there's someone else. Two of her ladies share her bed, different ones every night. Two others bring her breakfast and help her dress. She prays with her septa, reads with her cousin Elinor, sings with her cousin Alla, sews with her cousin Megga. When she's not off hawking with Janna Fossoway and Merry Crane, she's playing come-into-my-castle with that little Bulwer girl. She never goes riding but she takes a tail, four or five companions and a dozen guards at least. And there's always men about her, even in the Maidenvault."
"Men." That was something. That had possibilities. "What men are these, pray tell?"
Ser Osmund shrugged. "Singers. She's a fool for singers and jugglers and such. Knights, come round to moon over her cousins. Ser Tallad's the worst, Osney says. That big oaf don't seem to know if it's Elinor or Alla he wants, but he knows he wants her awful bad. The Redwyne twins come calling too. Slobber brings flowers and fruit, and Horror's taken up the lute. To hear Osney tell it, you could make a sweeter sound strangling a cat. The Summer Islander's always underfoot as well."
"Jalabhar Xho?" Cersei gave a derisive snort. "Begging her for gold and swords to win his homeland back, most like." Beneath his jewels and feathers, Xho was little more than a wellborn beggar. Robert could have put an end to his importuning for good with one firm "No," but the notion of conquering the Summer Isles had appealed to her drunken lout of a husband. No doubt he dreamt of brown-skinned wenches naked beneath feathered cloaks, with nipples black as coal. So instead of "No," Robert always told Xho, "Next year," though somehow next year never came.
"I couldn't say if he was begging, Your Grace," Ser Osmund answered. "Osney says he's teaching them the Summer Tongue. Not Osney, the quee — the filly and her cousins."
"A horse that speaks the Summer Tongue would make a great sensation," the queen said dryly. "Tell your brother to keep his spurs well honed. I shall find some way for him to mount his filly soon, you may rely on that."
"I'll tell him, Your Grace. He's eager for that ride, don't think he ain't. She's a pretty little thing, that filly."
It is me he's eager for, fool, the queen thought. All he wants of Margaery is the lordship between her legs. As fond as she was of Osmund, at times he seemed as slow as Robert. I hope his sword is quicker than his wits. The day may come that Tommen has some need of it.
They were crossing beneath the shadow of the broken Tower of the Hand when the sound of cheers swept over them. Across the yard, some squire had made a pass at the quintain and sent the crossarm spinning. The cheers were being led by Margaery Tyrell and her hens. A lot of uproar for very little. You would think the boy had won a tourney. Then she was startled to see that it was Tommen on the courser, clad all in gilded plate.
The queen had little choice but to don a smile and go to see her son. She reached him as the Knight of Flowers was helping him from his horse. The boy was breathless with excitement. "Did you see?" he was asking everyone. "I did it just the way Ser Loras said. Did you see, Ser Osney?"
"I did," said Osney Kettleblack. "A pretty sight."
"You have a better seat than me, sire," put in Ser Dermot.
"I broke the lance too. Ser Loras, did you hear it?"
"As loud as a crack of thunder." A rose of jade and gold clasped Ser Loras's white cloak at the shoulder, and the wind was riffling artfully through his brown locks. "You rode a splendid course, but once is not enough. You must do it again upon the morrow. You must ride every day, until every blow lands true and straight, and your lance is as much a part of you as your arm."
"I want to."
"You were glorious." Margaery went to one knee, kissed the king upon his cheek, and put an arm around him. "Brother, take care," she warned Loras. "My gallant husband will be unhorsing you in a few more years, I think." Her three cousins all agreed, and the wretched little Bulwer girl began to hop about, chanting, "Tommen will be the champion, the champion, the champion."
"When he is a man grown," said Cersei.
Their smiles withered like roses kissed by frost. The pock-faced old septa was the first to bend her knee. The rest followed, save for the little queen and her brother.
Tommen did not seem to notice the sudden chill in the air. "Mother, did you see me?" he burbled happily. "I broke my lance on the shield, and the bag never hit me!"
"I was watching from across the yard. You did very well, Tommen. I would expect no less of you. Jousting is in your blood. One day you shall rule the lists, as your father did."
"No man will stand before him." Margaery Tyrell gave the queen a coy smile. "But I never knew that King Robert was so accomplished at the joust. Pray tell us, Your Grace, what tourneys did he win? What great knights did he unseat? I know the king should like to hear about his father's victories."
A flush crept up Cersei's neck. The girl had caught her out. Robert Baratheon had been an indifferent jouster, in truth. During tourneys he had much preferred the mêlée, where he could beat men bloody with blunted axe or hammer. It had been Jaime she had been thinking of when she spoke. It is not like me to forget myself. "Robert won the tourney of the Trident," she had to say. "He overthrew Prince Rhaegar and named me his queen of love and beauty. I am surprised you do not know that story, good-daughter." She gave Margaery no time to frame a reply. "Ser Osmund, help my son from his armor, if you would be so good. Ser Loras, walk with me. I need a word with you."
The Knight of Flowers had no recourse but to follow at her heels like the puppy he was. Cersei waited until they were on the serpentine steps before she said, "Whose notion was that, pray?"
"My sister's," he admitted. "Ser Tallad, Ser Dermot, and Ser Portifer were riding at the quintain, and the queen suggested that His Grace might like to have a turn."
He calls her that to irk me. "And your part?"
"I helped His Grace to don his armor and showed him how to couch his lance," he answered.
"That horse was much too large for him. What if he had fallen off? What if the sandbag had smashed his head in?"
"Bruises and bloody lips are all part of being a knight."
"I begin to understand why your brother is a cripple." That wiped the smile off his pretty face, she was pleased to see. "Perhaps my brother failed to explain your duties to you, ser. You are here to protect my son from his enemies. Training him for knighthood is the province of the master-at-arms."
"The Red Keep has had no master-at-arms since Aron Santagar was slain," Ser Loras said, with a hint of reproach in his voice. "His Grace is almost nine, and eager to learn. At his age he should be a squire. Someone has to teach him."
Someone will, but it will not be you. "Pray, who did you squire for, ser?" she asked sweetly. "Lord Renly, was it not?"
"I had that honor."
"Yes, I thought as much." Cersei had seen how tight the bonds grew between squires and the knights they served. She did not want Tommen growing close to Loras Tyrell. The Knight of Flowers was no sort of man for any boy to emulate. "I have been remiss. With a realm to rule, a war to fight, and a father to mourn, somehow I overlooked the crucial matter of naming a new master-at-arms. I shall rectify that error at once."
Ser Loras pushed back a brown curl that had fallen across his forehead. "Your Grace will not find any man half so skilled with sword and lance as I."
Humble, aren't we? "Tommen is your king, not your squire. You are to fight for him and die for him, if need be. No more."
She left him on the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat with its bed of iron spikes and entered Maegor's Holdfast alone. Where am I to find a master-at-arms? she wondered as she climbed to her apartments. Having refused Ser Loras, she dare not turn to any of the Kingsguard knights; that would be salt in the wound, certain to anger Highgarden. Ser Tallad? Ser Dermot? There must be someone. Tommen was growing fond of his new sworn shield, but Osney was proving himself less capable than she had hoped in the matter of Maid Margaery, and she had a different office in mind for his brother Osfryd. It was rather a pity that the Hound had gone rabid. Tommen had always been frightened of Sandor Clegane's harsh voice and burned face, and Clegane's scorn would have been the perfect antidote to Loras Tyrell's simpering chivalry.
Aron Santagar was Dornish, Cersei recalled. I could send to Dorne. Centuries of blood and war lay between Sunspear and Highgarden. Yes, a Dornishman might suit my needs admirably. There must be some good swords in Dorne.
When she entered her solar, Cersei found Lord Qyburn reading in a window seat. "If it please Your Grace, I have reports."
"More plots and treasons?" Cersei asked. "I have had a long and tiring day. Tell me quickly."
He smiled sympathetically. "As you wish. There is talk that the Archon of Tyrosh has offered terms to Lys, to end their present trade war. It had been rumored that Myr was about to enter the war on the Tyroshi side, but without the Golden Company the Myrish did not believe they…"
"What the Myrish believe does not concern me." The Free Cities were always fighting one another. Their endless betrayals and alliances meant little and less to Westeros. "Do you have any news of more import?"
"The slave revolt in Astapor has spread to Meereen, it would seem. Sailors off a dozen ships speak of dragons…"
"Harpies. It is harpies in Meereen." She remembered that from somewhere. Meereen was at the far end of the world, out east beyond Valyria. "Let the slaves revolt. Why should I care? We keep no slaves in Westeros. Is that all you have for me?"
"There is some news from Dorne that Your Grace may find of more interest. Prince Doran has imprisoned Ser Daemon Sand, a bastard who once squired for the Red Viper."
"I recall him." Ser Daemon had been amongst the Dornish knights who had accompanied Prince Oberyn to King's Landing. "What did he do?"
"He demanded that Prince Oberyn's daughters be set free."
"More fool him."
"Also," Lord Qyburn said, "the daughter of the Knight of Spottswood was betrothed quite unexpectedly to Lord Estermont, our friends in Dorne inform us. She was sent to Greenstone that very night, and it is said she and Estermont have already wed."
"A bastard in the belly would explain that." Cersei toyed with a lock of her hair. "How old is the blushing bride?"
"Three-and-twenty, Your Grace. Whereas Lord Estermont—"
"—must be seventy. I am aware of that." The Estermonts were her good-kin through Robert, whose father had taken one of them to wife in what must have been a fit of lust or madness. By the time Cersei wed the king, Robert's lady mother was long dead, though both of her brothers had turned up for the wedding and stayed for half a year. Robert had later insisted on returning the courtesy with a visit to Estermont, a mountainous little island off Cape Wrath. The dank and dismal fortnight Cersei spent at Greenstone, the seat of House Estermont, was the longest of her young life. Jaime dubbed the castle "Greenshit" at first sight, and soon had Cersei doing it too. Elsewise she passed her days watching her royal husband hawk, hunt, and drink with his uncles, and bludgeon various male cousins senseless in Greenshit's yard.
There had been a female cousin too, a chunky little widow with breasts as big as melons whose husband and father had both died at Storm's End during the siege. "Her father was good to me," Robert told her, "and she and I would play together when the two of us were small." It did not take him long to start playing with her again. As soon as Cersei closed her eyes, the king would steal off to console the poor lonely creature. One night she had Jaime follow him, to confirm her suspicions. When her brother returned he asked her if she wanted Robert dead. "No," she had replied, "I want him horned." She liked to think that was the night when Joffrey was conceived.
"Eldon Estermont has taken a wife fifty years his junior," she said to Qyburn. "Why should that concern me?"
He shrugged. "I do not say it should… but Daemon Sand and this Santagar girl were both close to Prince Doran's own daughter, Arianne, or so the Dornishmen would have us believe. Perhaps it means little or less, but I thought Your Grace should know."
"Now I do." She was losing patience. "Do you have more?"
"One more thing. A trifling matter." He gave her an apologetic smile and told her of a puppet show that had recently become popular amongst the city's smallfolk; a puppet show wherein the kingdom of the beasts was ruled by a pride of haughty lions. "The puppet lions grow greedy and arrogant as this treasonous tale proceeds, until they begin to devour their own subjects. When the noble stag makes objection, the lions devour him as well, and roar that it is their right as the mightiest of beasts."
"And is that the end of it?" Cersei asked, amused. Looked at in the right light, it could be seen as a salutary lesson.
"No, Your Grace. At the end a dragon hatches from an egg and devours all of the lions."
The ending took the puppet show from simple insolence to treason. "Witless fools. Only cretins would hazard their heads upon a wooden dragon." She considered a moment. "Send some of your whisperers to these shows and make note of who attends. If any of them should be men of note, I would know their names."
"What will be done with them, if I may be so bold?"
"Any men of substance shall be fined. Half their worth should be sufficient to teach them a sharp lesson and refill our coffers, without quite ruining them. Those too poor to pay can lose an eye, for watching treason. For the puppeteers, the axe."
"There are four. Perhaps Your Grace might allow me two of them for mine own purposes. A woman would be especially…"
"I gave you Senelle," the queen said sharply.
"Alas. The poor girl is quite… exhausted."
Cersei did not like to think about that. The girl had come with her unsuspecting, thinking she was along to serve and pour. Even when Qyburn clapped the chain around her wrist, she had not seemed to understand. The memory still made the queen queasy. The cells were bitter cold. Even the torches shivered. And that foul thing screaming in the darkness… "Yes, you may take a woman. Two, if it please you. But first I will have names."
"As you command." Qyburn withdrew.
Outside, the sun was setting. Dorcas had prepared a bath for her. The queen was soaking pleasantly in the warm water and contemplating what she would say to her supper guests when Jaime came bursting through the door and ordered Jocelyn and Dorcas from the room. Her brother looked rather less than immaculate and had a smell of horse about him. He had Tommen with him too. "Sweet sister," he said, "the king requires a word."
Cersei's golden tresses floated in the bathwater. The room was steamy. A drop of sweat trickled down her cheek. "Tommen?" she said, in a dangerously soft voice. "What is it now?"
The boy knew that tone. He shrank back.
"His Grace wants his white courser on the morrow," Jaime said. "For his jousting lesson."
She sat up in the tub. "There will be no jousting."
"Yes, there will." Tommen puffed out his lower lip. "I have to ride every day."
"And you shall," the queen declared, "once we have a proper master-at-arms to supervise your training."
"I don't want a proper master-at-arms. I want Ser Loras."
"You make too much of that boy. Your little wife has filled your head with foolish notions of his prowess, I know, but Osmund Kettleblack is thrice the knight that Loras is."
Jaime laughed. "Not the Osmund Kettleblack I know."
She could have throttled him. Perhaps I need to command Ser Loras to allow Ser Osmund to unhorse him. That might chase the stars from Tommen's eyes. Salt a slug and shame a hero, and they shrink right up. "I am sending for a Dornishman to train you," she said. "The Dornish are the finest jousters in the realm."
"They are not," said Tommen. "Anyway, I don't want any stupid Dornishman, I want Ser Loras. I command it."
Jaime laughed. He is no help at all. Does he think this is amusing? The queen slapped the water angrily. "Must I send for Pate? You do not command me. I am your mother."
"Yes, but I'm the king. Margaery says that everyone has to do what the king says. I want my white courser saddled on the morrow so Ser Loras can teach me how to joust. I want a kitten too, and I don't want to eat beets." He crossed his arms.
Jaime was still laughing. The queen ignored him. "Tommen, come here." When he hung back, she sighed. "Are you afraid? A king should not show fear." The boy approached the tub, his eyes downcast. She reached out and stroked his golden curls. "King or no, you are a little boy. Until you come of age, the rule is mine. You will learn to joust, I promise you. But not from Loras. The knights of the Kingsguard have more important duties than playing with a child. Ask the Lord Commander. Isn't that so, ser?"
"Very important duties." Jaime smiled thinly. "Riding round the city walls, for an instance."
Tommen looked close to tears. "Can I still have a kitten?"
"Perhaps," the queen allowed. "So long as I hear no more nonsense about jousting. Can you promise me that?"
He shuffled his feet. "Yes."
"Good. Now run along. My guests will be here shortly."
Tommen ran along, but before he left he turned back to say, "When I'm king in my own right, I'm going to outlaw beets."
Her brother shoved the door shut with his stump. "Your Grace," he said, when he and Cersei were alone, "I was wondering. Are you drunk, or merely stupid?"
She slapped the water once again, sending up another splash to wash across his feet. "Guard your tongue, or—"
"—or what? Will you send me to inspect the city walls again?" He sat and crossed his legs. "Your bloody walls are fine. I've crawled over every inch of them and had a look at all seven of the gates. The hinges on the Iron Gate are rusted, and the King's Gate and Mud Gate need to be replaced after the pounding Stannis gave them with his rams. The walls are as strong as they have ever been… but perchance Your Grace has forgotten that our friends of Highgarden are inside the walls?"
"I forget nothing," she told him, thinking of a certain gold coin, with a hand on one face and the head of a forgotten king on the other. How did some miserable wretch of a gaoler come to have such a coin hidden beneath his chamber pot? How does a man like Rugen come to have old gold from Highgarden?
"This is the first I have heard of a new master-at-arms. You'll need to look long and hard to find a better jouster than Loras Tyrell. Ser Loras is—"
"I know what he is. I won't have him near my son. You had best remind him of his duties." Her bath was growing cool.
"He knows his duties, and there's no better lance—"
"You were better, before you lost your hand. Ser Barristan, when he was young. Arthur Dayne was better, and Prince Rhaegar was a match for even him. Do not prate at me about how fierce the Flower is. He's just a boy." She was tired of Jaime balking her. No one had ever balked her lord father. When Tywin Lannister spoke, men obeyed. When Cersei spoke, they felt free to counsel her, to contradict her, even refuse her. It is all because I am a woman. Because I cannot fight them with a sword. They gave Robert more respect than they give me, and Robert was a witless sot. She would not suffer it, especially not from Jaime. I need to rid myself of him, and soon. Once upon a time she had dreamt that the two of them might rule the Seven Kingdoms side by side, but Jaime had become more of a hindrance than a help.
Cersei rose from the bath. Water ran down her legs and trickled from her hair. "When I want your counsel I will ask for it. Leave me, ser. I must needs dress."
"Your supper guests, I know. What plot is this, now? There are so many I lose track." His glance fell to the water beading in the golden hair between her legs.
He still wants me. "Pining for what you've lost, brother?"
Jaime raised his eyes. "I love you too, sweet sister. But you're a fool. A beautiful golden fool."
The words stung. You called me kinder words at Greenstone, the night you planted Joff inside me, Cersei thought. "Get out." She turned her back to him and listened to him leave, fumbling at the door with his stump.
Whilst Jocelyn was making certain that all was in readiness for the supper, Dorcas helped the queen into her new gown. It had stripes of shiny green satin alternating with stripes of plush black velvet, and intricate black Myrish lace above the bodice. Myrish lace was costly, but it was necessary for a queen to look her best at all times, and her wretched washerwomen had shrunk several of her old gowns so they no longer fit. She would have whipped them for their carelessness, but Taena had urged her to be merciful. "The smallfolk will love you more if you are kind," she had said, so Cersei had ordered the value of the gowns deducted from the women's wages, a much more elegant solution.
Dorcas put a silver looking glass into her hand. Very good, the queen thought, smiling at her reflection. It was pleasant to be out of mourning. Black made her look too pale. A pity I am not supping with Lady Merryweather, the queen reflected. It had been a long day, and Taena's wit always cheered her. Cersei had not had a friend she so enjoyed since Melara Hetherspoon, and Melara had turned out to be a greedy little schemer with ideas above her station. I should not think ill of her. She's dead and drowned, and she taught me never to trust anyone but Jaime.
By the time she joined them in the solar, her guests had made a good start on the hippocras. Lady Falyse not only looks like a fish, she drinks like one, she reflected, when she made note of the half-empty flagon. "Sweet Falyse," she exclaimed, kissing the woman's cheek, "and brave Ser Balman. I was so distraught when I heard about your dear, dear mother. How fares our Lady Tanda?"
Lady Falyse looked as if she were about to cry. "Your Grace is good to ask. Mother's hip was shattered by the fall, Maester Frenken says. He did what he could. Now we pray, but…"
Pray all you like, she will still be dead before the moon turns. Women as old as Tanda Stokeworth did not survive a broken hip. "I shall add my prayers to your own," said Cersei. "Lord Qyburn tells me that Tanda was thrown from her horse."
"Her saddle girth burst whilst she was riding," said Ser Balman Byrch. "The stableboy should have seen the strap was worn. He has been chastised."
"Severely, I hope." The queen seated herself and indicated that her guests should sit as well. "Will you have another cup of hippocras, Falyse? You were always fond of it, I seem to recall."
"It is so good of you to remember, Your Grace."
How could I have forgotten? Cersei thought. Jaime said it was a wonder you did not piss the stuff. "How was your journey?"
"Uncomfortable," complained Falyse. "It rained most of the day. We thought to spend the night at Rosby, but that young ward of Lord Gyles refused us hospitality." She sniffed. "Mark my word, when Gyles dies that ill-born wretch will make off with his gold. He may even try and claim the lands and lordship, though by rights Rosby should come to us when Gyles passes. My lady mother was aunt to his second wife, third cousin to Gyles himself."
Is your sigil a lamb, my lady, or some sort of grasping monkey? Cersei thought. "Lord Gyles has been threatening to die for as long as I have known him, but he is still with us, and will be for many years, I do hope." She smiled pleasantly. "No doubt he will cough the whole lot of us into our graves."
"Like as not," Ser Balman agreed. "Rosby's ward was not the only one to vex us, Your Grace. We encountered ruffians on the road as well. Filthy, unkempt creatures, with leather shields and axes. Some had stars sewn on their jerkins, sacred stars of seven points, but they had an evil look about them all the same."
"They were lice-ridden, I am certain," added Falyse.
"They call themselves sparrows," said Cersei. "A plague upon the land. Our new High Septon will need to deal with them, once he is crowned. If not, I shall deal with them myself."
"Has His High Holiness been chosen yet?" asked Falyse.
"No," the queen had to confess. "Septon Ollidor was on the verge of being chosen, until some of these sparrows followed him to a brothel and dragged him naked out into the street. Luceon seems the likely choice now, though our friends on the other hill say that he is still a few votes short of the required number."
"May the Crone guide the deliberations with her golden lamp of wisdom," said Lady Falyse, most piously.
Ser Balman shifted in his seat. "Your Grace, an awkward matter, but… lest bad feeling fester between us, you should know that neither my good wife nor her mother had any hand in the naming of this bastard child. Lollys is a simple creature, and her husband is given to black humors. I told him to choose a more fitting name for the boy. He laughed."
The queen sipped her wine and studied him. Ser Balman had been a noted jouster once, and one of the handsomest knights in the Seven Kingdoms. He could still boast a handsome mustache; elsewise, he had not aged well. His wavy blond hair had retreated, whilst his belly advanced inexorably against his doublet. As a catspaw he leaves much to be desired, she reflected. Still, he should serve. "Tyrion was a king's name before the dragons came. The Imp has despoiled it, but perhaps this child can restore the name to honor." If the bastard lives so long. "I know you are not to blame. Lady Tanda is the sister that I never had, and you…" Her voice broke. "Forgive me. I live in fear."
Falyse opened and closed her mouth, which made her look like some especially stupid fish. "In… in fear, Your Grace?"
"I have not slept a whole night through since Joffrey died." Cersei filled the goblets with hippocras. "My friends… you are my friends, I hope? And King Tommen's?"
"That sweet lad," Ser Balman declared. "Your Grace, the very words of House Stokeworth are Proud to Be Faithful."
"Would that there were more like you, good ser. I tell you truly, I have grave doubts about Ser Bronn of the Blackwater."
Husband and wife exchanged a look. "The man is insolent, Your Grace," Falyse said. "Uncouth and foul-mouthed."
"He is no true knight," Ser Balman said.
"No." Cersei smiled, all for him. "And you are a man who would know true knighthood. I remember watching you joust in… which tourney was it where you fought so brilliantly, ser?"
He smiled modestly. "That affair at Duskendale six years ago? No, you were not there, else you would surely have been crowned the queen of love and beauty. Was it the tourney at Lannisport after Greyjoy's Rebellion? I unhorsed many a good knight in that one…"
"That was the one." Her face grew somber. "The Imp vanished the night my father died, leaving two honest gaolers behind in pools of blood. Some claim he fled across the narrow sea, but I wonder. The dwarf is cunning. Perhaps he still lurks near, planning more murders. Perhaps some friend is hiding him."
"Bronn?" Ser Balman stroked his bushy mustache.
"He was ever the Imp's creature. Only the Stranger knows how many men he's sent to hell at Tyrion's behest."
"Your Grace, I think I should have noticed a dwarf skulking about our lands," said Ser Balman.
"My brother is small. He was made for skulking." Cersei let her hand shake. "A child's name is a small thing… but insolence unpunished breeds rebellion. And this man Bronn has been gathering sellswords to him, Qyburn has told me."
"He has taken four knights into his household," said Falyse.
Ser Balman snorted. "My good wife flatters them, to call them knights. They're upjumped sellswords, with not a thimble of chivalry to be found amongst the four of them."
"As I feared. Bronn is gathering swords for the dwarf. May the Seven save my little son. The Imp will kill him as he killed his brother." She sobbed. "My friends, I put my honor in your hands… but what is a queen's honor against a mother's fears?"
"Say on, Your Grace," Ser Balman assured her. "Your words shall ne'er leave this room."
Cersei reached across the table and gave his hand a squeeze. "I… I would sleep more easily of a night if I were to hear that Ser Bronn had suffered a… a mishap… whilst hunting, perhaps."
Ser Balman considered a moment. "A mortal mishap?"
No, I desire you to break his little toe. She had to bite her lip. My enemies are everywhere and my friends are fools. "I beg you, ser," she whispered, "do not make me say it…"
"I understand." Ser Balman raised a finger.
A turnip would have grasped it quicker. "You are a true knight indeed, ser. The answer to a frightened mother's prayers." Cersei kissed him. "Do it quickly, if you would. Bronn has only a few men about him now, but if we do not act, he will surely gather more." She kissed Falyse. "I shall never forget this, my friends. My true friends of Stokeworth. Proud to Be Faithful. You have my word, we shall find Lollys a better husband when this is done." A Kettleblack, perhaps. "We Lannisters pay our debts."
The rest was hippocras and buttered beets, hot-baked bread, herb-crusted pike, and ribs of wild boar. Cersei had become very fond of boar since Robert's death. She did not even mind the company, though Falyse simpered and Balman preened from soup to sweet. It was past midnight before she could rid herself of them. Ser Balman proved a great one for suggesting yet another flagon, and the queen did not think it prudent to refuse. I could have hired a Faceless Man to kill Bronn for half of what I've spent on hippocras, she reflected when they were gone at last.
At that hour, her son was fast asleep, but Cersei looked in upon him before seeking her own bed. She was surprised to find three black kittens cuddled up beside him. "Where did those come from?" she asked Ser Meryn Trant, outside the royal bedchamber.
"The little queen gave them to him. She only meant to give him one, but he couldn't decide which one he liked the best."
Better than cutting them out of their mother with a dagger, I suppose. Margaery's clumsy attempts at seduction were so obvious as to be laughable. Tommen is too young for kisses, so she gives him kittens. Cersei rather wished they were not black, though. Black cats brought ill luck, as Rhaegar's little girl had discovered in this very castle. She would have been my daughter, if the Mad King had not played his cruel jape on Father. It had to have been the madness that led Aerys to refuse Lord Tywin's daughter and take his son instead, whilst marrying his own son to a feeble Dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest.
The memory of the rejection still rankled, even after all these years. Many a night she had watched Prince Rhaegar in the hall, playing his silver-stringed harp with those long, elegant fingers of his. Had any man ever been so beautiful? He was more than a man, though. His blood was the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and gods. When she was just a little girl, her father had promised her that she would marry Rhaegar. She could not have been more than six or seven. "Never speak of it, child," he had told her, smiling his secret smile that only Cersei ever saw. "Not until His Grace agrees to the betrothal. It must remain our secret for now." And so it had, though once she had drawn a picture of herself flying behind Rhaegar on a dragon, her arms wrapped tight about his chest. When Jaime had discovered it she told him it was Queen Alysanne and King Jaehaerys.
She was ten when she finally saw her prince in the flesh, at the tourney her lord father had thrown to welcome King Aerys to the west. Viewing stands had been raised beneath the walls of Lannisport, and the cheers of the smallfolk had echoed off Casterly Rock like rolling thunder. They cheered Father twice as loudly as they cheered the king, the queen recalled, but only half as loudly as they cheered Prince Rhaegar.
Seventeen and new to knighthood, Rhaegar Targaryen had worn black plate over golden ringmail when he cantered onto the lists. Long streamers of red and gold and orange silk had floated behind his helm, like flames. Two of her uncles fell before his lance, along with a dozen of her father's finest jousters, the flower of the west. By night the prince played his silver harp and made her weep. When she had been presented to him, Cersei had almost drowned in the depths of his sad purple eyes. He has been wounded, she recalled thinking, but I will mend his hurt when we are wed. Next to Rhaegar, even her beautiful Jaime had seemed no more than a callow boy. The prince is going to be my husband, she had thought, giddy with excitement, and when the old king dies I'll be the queen. Her aunt had confided that truth to her before the tourney. "You must be especially beautiful," Lady Genna told her, fussing with her dress, "for at the final feast it shall be announced that you and Prince Rhaegar are betrothed."
Cersei had been so happy that day. Elsewise she would never have dared visit the tent of Maggy the Frog. She had only done it to show Jeyne and Melara that the lioness fears nothing. I was going to be a queen. Why should a queen be afraid of some hideous old woman? The memory of that foretelling still made her flesh crawl a lifetime later. Jeyne ran shrieking from the tent in fear, the queen remembered, but Melara stayed and so did I. We let her taste our blood, and laughed at her stupid prophecies. None of them made the least bit of sense. She was going to be Prince Rhaegar's wife, no matter what the woman said. Her father had promised it, and Tywin Lannister's word was gold.
Her laughter died at tourney's end. There had been no final feast, no toasts to celebrate her betrothal to Prince Rhaegar. Only cold silences and chilly looks between the king and her father. Later, when Aerys and his son and all his gallant knights had departed for King's Landing, the girl had gone to her aunt in tears, not understanding. "Your father proposed the match," Lady Genna told her, "but Aerys refused to hear of it. 'You are my most able servant, Tywin,' the king said, 'but a man does not marry his heir to his servant's daughter.' Dry those tears, little one. Have you ever seen a lion weep? Your father will find another man for you, a better man than Rhaegar."
Her aunt had lied, though, and her father had failed her, just as Jaime was failing her now. Father found no better man. Instead he gave me Robert, and Maggy's curse bloomed like some poisonous flower. If she had only married Rhaegar as the gods intended, he would never have looked twice at the wolf girl. Rhaegar would be our king today and I would be his queen, the mother of his sons.
She had never forgiven Robert for killing him.
But then, lions were not good at forgiving. As Ser Bronn of the Blackwater would shortly learn.


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Ed Tech Tuesday (ETT) is a faculty development program presented by the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Faculty Development on the 4th Tuesday of the month. It is co-sponsored with the Department of Academic Technology and the Information Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC) of the Faculty Senate. ETT is designed to introduce tools for effective teaching and learning using technology and to provide basic skills training for faculty and staff. Our Academic Technology team is continually looking at emerging tools and resources to make the tasks of teaching easier and enjoyable. We hope Ed Tech Tuesday programs provide our OUHSC community with an introduction to teaching with tech resources as they become available.
Tool Time takes the place of Ed Tech Tuesday in June. Academic Technology highlights applications that can be used in education. All applications showcased at Tool Time go through an approval process.
Richard McMahon
Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Technology
Laura Fentem, M.Ed.
Manager, eLearning Technology
Click here to view the ETT program archives

subset: commoncrawl


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Nobel Women Delegation 2018, held a press conference today in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Nobel peace laureates Tawakkol Karman, Shirin Ebadi and Mairead Maguire, addressed what they have heard and witnessed during their visit to Rohingya refugee camps near Cox's Bazar and the no man's land between the Bangladeshi and Burmese border. They called for an immediate end to the Rohingya genocide in Burma, and for sister laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, to put an end to the persecution of the Rohingya people or face prosecution herself at the International Criminal Court.
Watch the Press Conference Below:
LIVE: Three Nobel laureates at press conference in Dhaka. Shirin Ebadi, Tawakkol Karman, and Mairead Maguire have just returned from the Bangladesh-Burma border where they heard the stories of #RohingyaWomen in three refugee camps and no-man's land.
Posted by Nobel Women's Initiative on Tuesday, 27 February 2018


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Next week after Labor day, I'll be heading out on the road to Utah for work travel. Since I'd love to experience some real hiking while I'm out there, I'm going to drive my own car and spend some extra time there to enjoy it. I'll be staying in Tooele, UT (which I just learned is pronounced "Too-well-ah" and NOT "Tool") so I'll be just outside of Salt Lake City. My goal is to do some local hiking/camping in Big/Little Cottonwood Canyons. But I also want to explore some more of Utah on the way there/back. I'll be bringing my Subaru STi so I'm probably stuck to paved roads to explore. Yeah I know there is wayyyy more to access in Utah via Overland, but I doubt I could safely access most of those. My plan is to replace my spark plugs, air filter, and maybe belts before heading out. I'll be bringing tools in case anything else goes wrong along the way.
Anyone have suggestions for places/parks to explore? I'll be hiking and camping for the most part and want to take in as much of Utah I can.


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New exhibition showcases Access Art program's artists
Amy Pitcher had never held a paint brush before she started going to a Thursday morning class about a year ago.
She had never worked with oils or water colours, or had the opportunity of artistic expression.
Today, her art hangs proudly on the walls of the Katherine Cinema.
Her work is part of an exhibition, Textures, showcasing artists who attend the Access Arts program run by Katherine Regional Arts.
"Each week, the group of artists who have disabilities ranging from intellectual disabilities, autism and cerebral palsy utilise the strengths brought through their disability to create these unique art pieces," Step Out CEO Viv Bailey said.
Step Out supports adults with complex support needs, and the art class is just one of the programs the artists are involved in to develop life skills and promote independence.
"[The exhibition] has been an opportunity for the artists to have professional guidance towards expressing their feelings," Ms Bailey said.
"And it gives them the opportunity to be recognised for the artists they are."
Since the beginning of the year, Fiona Campbell has worked with the artists closely, exposing them to different textures, providing a creative outlet, and experimenting with tools.
"It has been challenging to find niche tools the artists can use to create their work with the daily restrictions they deal with," Mrs Campbell said.
"For instance Jesiah has minimal motor skills, so we strapped on a body loofah... That is his tool, we can get paint on it and he can get creative."
Everything from ice cubes, spaghetti, cotton buds and pastry brushes have been used as a means to bring the canvases to life.
"We have used layers of different mediums to create different textures," Mrs Campbell said.
And while there was no great goal to the class other than providing enjoyment and a chance to get messy, Mrs Campbell has noticed improvements in manual skills.
"Any form of creative expression is healing," she said.
For Ms Pitcher, who used ice cubes to create two of her art works, and incorporated dot painting for another of the sea, the art classes have been a chance to meet with friends and experiment with paints.
The exhibition is running at the Katherine Cinema Foyer Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm until September 12.
While you're with us, you can now receive updates straight to your inbox each Friday at 6am from the Katherine Times. To make sure you're up to date with all the news, sign up here.
Discuss "New exhibition showcases Access Art program's artists"
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My Computer decided to stop talking to my monitor.
I bought a new one and sent the old one to recycling.
Believe it or not, it didn't give me more time to read.
I did the taxes.
The Read: Is the 2012 end-of-the-world theory responsible for the increase in paranormal fiction over the last ten years? Thinking back on the books I've read recently, I'm beginning to wonder. For example, the plot of Justine Musk's book Blood Angel revolves around stopping an apocalypse caused by the man-eating demon (mentioned in my last blog) who plans to invite demons across an inter-dimensional rift so they can cleanse the earth of human venality (ie: eat 'long pig'). Who's going to stop them? Why a novice mage, who must be taught to use her magical talents yesterday by a burned out mentor/lover (?) before the demons come pouring through the rift. Sounds like a chiche, but I didn't read it as such.
Blood Angel is one of those "I wish" books ... meaning I wish I could write like that. Love the images Musk conveys without resorting to "purple prose". Examples from mentor reading the demon's grimorie, written almost a 1000 years ago:
1) "The books were repulsive to the touch. ... pages made from human skin, bearing inks and dyes mixed with both human and animal fluids: saliva, semen, blood."
2) "He read through each book, the parchment sighing and squirming beneath his touch, as stray phantom-bits
crawled off the pages and rose like smoke in the air around him: dark, distorted shadow faces, hollow eyes and gaping mouths, retreating to the corners and watching from the dark."
Turns out Musk is a dark fantasy/horror writer who published between 2005 to 2008, then sort of disappeared in spite of favorable reviews. I can't remember seeing her in B&N recently. Can't help but wonder if a divorce turned her writing life up-side down. Whatever, her blog (http://tribalwriter.com) indicates she working a new thriller, The Decadents plus had some useful comments on the two blogs I scanned.
Progress: With the computer doing a black out, most of the work on Maren turned into sorting all the pieces of paper I accumulated about her and her world. Result: two feet of bare wood has appeared on one of my desks. My circular files have filled with excess paper from as far back as 2002 since I cleaned 1/5 a file drawer.
Also woke up at 3AM with a new title for Emma: "The Bad Luck Magnet". Am getting ready to pitch it at the Northern Colorado Writers conference at the end of March.
Might as well include the rest of the eye-popping-open episode. Also came up with a few more comments to tack onto the end of Britt and company.
Also woke up at 3AM with a new title for Emma: "The Bad Luck Magnet". Am getting ready to pitch it at the Northern Colorado Writers conference at the end of March.
Might as well include the rest of the eye-popping-open episode. Also came up with a few more comments to tack onto the end of Britt and company.
Trivia: The old man is complaining about these new informal "political parties" -- the Tea Party and the Coffee Party. He wants to join the "Little Brown Jug Party" because he thinks it has more class than the "Mason Jar" Party. We used to get good corn whiskey in our western town, but the stores don't stock it no more. At least, we'd have a decent cause.


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You don't want to miss this TWO PART EPISODE of SYMPATHETIC MONSTERS where hosts Raquelle Jason (@RaquelleJason) and Jess McDonald (@McJesssandwich) discuss the science behind why having a crush LITERALLY makes you crazy. We cover the chemical reactions that take place and what happens if, genetically, you are missing some specific love and fidelity receptors.
Plus, we're not sure how we feel about the latest U.S. court ruling on public toplessness.
Rate! Review! & Subscribe!
Listen, yell at your phone about how wrong we are and then forget to leave a review on Itunes. It's fine. We know how busy you are.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:36 — 50.0MB) | Embed
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Tottenham 4-0 Crystal Palace
Tottenham Hotspur's Son Heung-min scored his first goals of the campaign as they put their early season struggles behind them with the 4-0 thrashing of fellow London side Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday.
Palace boasted the meanest defence in the top flight before the game, conceding twice in four matches, but strikes for Son and a goal apiece for Serge Aurier and Erik Lamela inside 45 minutes gave Spurs their first win since the opening day.
Roy Hodgson's Palace side were behind after nine minutes, when Son ran on to a long ball from Toby Alderweireld before shifting it on to his left foot in the area and driving into the bottom corner, leaving goalkeeper Vicente Guaita motionless.
The South Korean then turned provider in the 21st minute, playing the ball to Aurier who was overlapping on the right into the box and struck a low cross, only for it to deflect into the net off Palace defender Patrick van Aanholt.
Aurier returned the favour barely two minutes later. A deep cross by the Ivorian found Son at the far post to volley in the third before Lamela got a fourth just before halftime by firing home Harry Kane's cross from the edge of the six yard box.
Spurs took their foot off the gas in the second half, presumably with one eye on their opening Champions League group game against Olympiakos Piraeus on Wednesday, while Palace barely registered any dangerous attacks.
For a better society


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PPAI stands for Promotional Products Association International. The Association was founded in 1904 by 12 manufacturers of promotional products and currently represents over 25,000 companies within the promotional products industry.
In 1906 the PPAI had 56 members and one honorary member, Henry S. Bunting, wrote a book about promotional products which was widely recognized at the time for bringing light to the newly founded industry. His publication and book focused on how businesses could use these advertising items to grow their organizations.
In 1914 the PPAI held their first tradeshow in which distributors and suppliers got together. They now hold the PPAI Expo every January in Las Vegas. This has become one of the best places to learn about promotional product trents and network with like minded individuals within the industry.
Need custom branding items for your organization? Get started here.
If you enjoyed please share this post using the links below or to the side. We are a growing company and every share helps 🙂


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Apply for Next Step
Next Step Application Procedure
Application dates for Session 2, 2020
|Applications open:
|20 March 2020
|Applications close:
|17 July 2020
|Tuition fee due date:
|24 July 2020
Important notes:
- Applicants must pay an Application Processing Fee ($100). Application fees are non-refundable.
- No applications will be accepted after the final closing date.
- Information on application processing fees, open and closing dates for Session 1 2021 will be available at a later date.
- The Next Step program is an upfront tuition fee based program - you must pay the tuition fees by the tuition fee due date. The fees are not deferrable through HECS or FEE-HELP.
Step 1
Please ensure to follow through Steps 1 to 3 to fully complete the Next Step application process.
Please pay your application fee online, and pay only ONCE.
*No applications will be accepted after the final closing date, application fees are non-refundable.
Prepare the following supporting documents and have them ready before filling in the Next Step online application.
Supporting Documentation (required):
- Evidence of Australian citizenship or permanent residency. ONE of the following documents must be provided:
- A current passport OR;
- an Australian Citizenship Certificate OR
- Visa Grant Notification.
(An Australian driver's license is not an acceptable document).
- ATAR advice (applicable to recent school leavers) - sent to your home or on your student portal, must clearly have your full name and ATAR on the same page.
- BOSTES summary of assessment bands (applicable to recent school leavers) – Your HSC Record of Achievement document must show clearly the full subject names and bands you obtained in HSC. You can download your HSC record of achievement from the StudentsOnline portal.
- An official academic transcript or record of study (if applicable). A transcript must clearly show the name of the institution, your student number, your name, the names of each unit or subject you have undertaken, the semester in which the study was undertaken and the result for each unit/subject. A printout of your current academic record from your University's student system is acceptable. Your transcript should be recently issued and cover the current session.
Step 2
Choose a maximum of two units of study per session from the Next Step unit list below.
**Please refer to the 2020 Next Step unit list AND the degree requirements under section 'Which degrees will I be eligible for?' before completing the application form.
Please note that there are ATAR requirements for each unit and some units are only offered in one Session.
After you have decided your units of study:
Complete and submit the Next Step online application form, including the application payment form with your receipt number, with pdf format of all supporting documentation.
Step 3
Please be sure to check your nominated email regularly for our correspondence.
Once your application has been assessed you will be contacted via your nominated email address two weeks after submission of application.
Application Validity
New commencing students will need to complete the above application process from Step 1 to 3 and pay the application fee through a link within the online application form.
Next Step students will usually spend one to two sessions from time of admission to complete the pathway program.
If you are a continuing re-enrolling Next Step student who have not met the articulation requirement after one session, simply fill out a Next Step Change of Unit Enrolment form to add units for the following session and you will not be required to pay the application fee again.
However, if you have discontinued the Next Step program for one year or longer, you will be required to complete the full online application form and pay the application fee.
Contact and More Information
For more information about the Next Step program, please click here.
Should you have any enquiries, please contact us OR email email@example.com.
Content owner: Pathways Last updated: 05 Jun 2020 10:45am


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In 2017, Parker County, TX had a population of 126k people with a median age of 39.6 and a median household income of $70,608. Between 2016 and 2017 the population of Parker County, TX grew from 123,601 to 125,963, a 1.91% increase and its median household income grew from $67,979 to $70,608, a 3.87% increase.
The 5 largest ethnic groups in Parker County, TX are White (Non-Hispanic) (84.4%), White (Hispanic) (8.98%), Some Other Race (Hispanic) (1.87%), Two or More Races (Non-Hispanic) (1.64%), and Black or African American (Non-Hispanic) (1.3%). N/A% of the people in Parker County, TX speak a non-English language, and 97.1% are U.S. citizens.
The largest universities in Parker County, TX are Weatherford College (987 degrees awarded in 2017).
The median property value in Parker County, TX is $180,900, and the homeownership rate is 77.5%. Most people in Parker County, TX commute by Drove Alone, and the average commute time is 30.1 minutes. The average car ownership in Parker County, TX is 2 cars per household.
Parker County, TX borders Tarrant County, TX, Johnson County, TX, Wise County, TX, Hood County, TX, Palo Pinto County, TX, and Jack County, TX.


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Woman's Risk for Heart Attack Higher If Mom or Grandma Had a Stroke
Being the daughter or granddaughter of a stroke victim is linked to increase risk of heart disease, including a higher risk for heart attacks.
Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011 - A family history of stroke — especially among female relatives — may help predict the risk of acute coronary syndromes in women, a large prospective study found.
The study of almost 2,200 patients with heart attacks, stroke, or mini-strokes called transient ischemic attacks connected the dots between maternal stroke and the daughter's risk. The same connection was not seen for women whose fathers had strokes, according to Dr. Peter Rothwell, of the University of Oxford in England, and colleagues.
A women with acute coronary syndromes, which includes mild-heart attacks and heart pain at rest, were more than twice as likely to have a female -- versus male -- first-degree relative who had suffered a stroke, Rothwell and co-authors reported online in Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics.
"Stroke in female first-degree relatives may help to identify women at increased risk of acute coronary syndromes, as well as ischemic stroke," they wrote.
Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City agreed -- saying in a statement that maternal stroke history may be an important piece of information in assessing a woman's risk for cardiovascular disease.
"When women suffer from heart disease, their outcomes are significantly worse, so knowing the correlation between family history of stroke, especially in her mother, is an essential aspect to know in assessing her risk of heart disease," said Steinbaum, who is also an American Heart Association spokesperson.
Although stroke in female first-degree relatives has been shown to be a powerful predictor of ischemic stroke in women, its association with acute coronary syndromes, encompassing heart attack and chest pain (unstable angina) had not been established.
Familial stroke history is not included in standard MI risk-prediction tools, which are not as accurate for women as they are for men.
Rothwell and his colleagues evaluated data from the Oxford Vascular Study, a prospective investigation of patients with acute coronary syndromes, stroke, or mini-strokes.
The current analysis included 942 patients with acute coronary syndromes and 1,015 patients who had experienced a stroke or a mini-stroke.
A history of stroke in first-degree relatives was equally likely among patients with acute coronary syndromes and those with stroke or mini-strokes.
The researchers speculated about possible explanations for the observation that stroke in female relatives was associated with risk for heart disease in women -- but not men -- with acute coronary syndromes.
One possibility, they wrote, is that females tend to report family history more accurately than males for some diseases.
Another is the so-called "Carter effect" -- which comes into play in diseases that disproportionately affect one sex over the other. That includes heart attack, which the authors said is less common among women.
"Women with [heart attack] are likely to have required a greater number of genetic risk factors than men for [heart attack] to have occurred, and would therefore transmit more MI susceptibility genes to their children than men with [heart attack], which effect would be again most clearly manifest in female offspring," Rothwell and his colleagues explained.
"If there were shared risk factors between [heart attack] and stroke, a Carter effect might be expected for family history of stroke in [patients with acute coronary syndromes." A final possibility, the authors noted, is the presence of sex-specific genes or behaviors that predispose to vascular disease across arterial territories.
In an analysis of the subset of patients for whom there was angiography data, no association was found between parental stroke history and either the location of disease or the presence of multi-vessel disease.
Those findings suggest "that maternal stroke affects acute coronary syndromes in females by a mechanism unrelated to atherosclerosis or coronary anatomy, perhaps being associated with thrombosis," according to the researchers.
"Future analyses should consider sex-of-parent/sex-of-offspring associations in prospective studies" to better understand how sex-specific differences in family history may lead to sex-specific differences in the pathogenesis and outcomes of heart disease, the authors added.
They noted that genome-wide scans have yet to produce data that can be used for clinical risk prediction of vascular disease, so more detailed use of family history data "may provide a low-cost, low-technology alternative in the interim."
Learn more in the Everyday Health Heart Health Center.


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Hot Picks
Profondo Rosso
Deep Red
The Hatchet Murders / Rosso - Die Farbe des Todes / La Tigre dai Denti a Sciabola / Profoundly Red
Italy 1975
produced by Salvatore Argento, Claudio Argento for Rizzoli Film, Seda Spettacoli
directed by Dario Argento
starring David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia, Macha Méril, Eros Pagni, Giuliana Calandra, Piero Mazzinghi, Glauco Mauri, Clara Calamai, Aldo Bonamano, Liana Del Balzo, Vittorio Fanfoni, Dante Fioretti, Geraldine Hooper, Jacopo Mariani, Furio Meniconi, Nicoletta Elmi, Fulvio Mignozzi, Lorenzo Piani, Salvatore Puntillo, Piero Vida
written by Dario Argento, Bernardino Zapponi, music by Goblin, Giorgio Gaslini, special effects by Carlo Rambaldi, Germano Natali
review byMike Haberfelner
Available on DVD !
CLICK HERE to buy from
One night, when coming home, pianist Marc Daly (David Hemmings)
witnesses the murder of psychic Helga Ullmann (Macha M�ril) in the
appartment directly above his. And even though he rushes right up, the
killer can escape, and all Marc has to go on is a vague memory of a
painting that might reveal the identity of the killer - but that has
mysteriously disappeared by the time the police arrives. And when, thanks to
nosey reporter Gianna (Daria Nicolodi) a photo of his - as the only witness
of the crime - is printed in the newspapers, he sees himelf threatened by
the killer, and since the police seems to rather bumble about, Marc finds
himself forced to investigate on his own.
But Marc's investigation - sometimes aided by reporter Gianna, who soon
falls in love with him and vice versa - turn more and more into a wild
goose chase, his clues being a children's tune, an author on urban legends
(Giuliana Calandra) - who is promptly murdered before Marc can speak to her
-, an allegedly haunted house, a plastered over wall painting in that
house, a walled up room and finally a corpse inside the walled up room
that must have been there for some 20 years ...
But exactly when Marc has found all these clues, the haunted house goes
up in flames, and not only does he almost die in the house, also all his
collected evidence is destroyed in one go ... until he and Gianna find a
child's painting that resembles that one in the haunted house too close for
comfort - so they break into the school where the kid who did the painting
went to 20 years ago to find out the kid's name.
But of course, the killer is very close behind ...
Profondo Rosso is considered Dario Argento's first masterpiece,
one of the masterpieces of the giallo genre, and also the first that sees
Argento's talent in full bloom. Sure, Argento has made giallos before,
pretty much since the inception of the genre, and good ones even, but with
this one, he really seemed to have found his cinematic language, where
moments of both shock and suspense would relie more on strong pictures and
music/sound design than on story, becoming impressive setpieces in their
own right, pretty much carrying the story instead of just supporting it -
and frequent trips into the bizarre or the ultra violent only help to give
these sequences extra spark, as does the strong score by prog rockers
Goblin (their first collaboration with Argento) and jazz pianist Giorgio
Gaslini. Plus the camerawork is first class, featuring impressive visual
compositions throughout.
That all said, one can't help but noticing the story of this film is
hopelessly convoluted, and relies on coincidence and far-fetched plot
twists a bit too much - but that hardly matters while watching the film,
which is quite simply an audio-visual masterpiece!
Quick Links
review � by Mike Haberfelner
Feeling lucky ?Want tosearchany of my partnershops yourselffor more, better results ?
The links belowwill take youjust there !!!
Find Deep Red at the amazons ...
Looking for imports ?Find Deep Red here ...
eThaiCD.comYour shop for all things Thai
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find Deep Red at adultvideouniverse.com
Thanks for watching !!!
Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,cuddly toys andshopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to ChillYour Bones tois all of that.
Tales to ChillYour Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-playsranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalypticto the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up bythe twisted mind ofscreenwriter and film reviewerMichael Haberfelner.
Tales to ChillYour Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now fromAmazon!!!
On the same daya Burglar wants to kill youand your Ex wantsto make up ...
... and for the life of it, you can't decideWHICH IS WORSE!!!
A Killer Conversation
produced by and starringMelanie Denholme
directed byDavid V.G. Davies
written byMichael Haberfelner
starring Ryan Hunter
andRudy Barrow
out now on DVD


text:
One of the many wonderful things about being based here is that so many local food producers are just as passionate about an organic lifestyle as we are and produce award-winning, healthy, planet-preserving food. We asked Jules Willis of the Cornish foodie website Kernoweats to share some of his favourite organic food suppliers.
Organic farms & producers
Cusgarne Organic Farm (near Truro) – 100 acres of fields, orchards and tunnels which have been farmed organically sine 1988. Produce is available at the onsite farm shop and for local delivery.
Keveral Farm Organic Community – This farm in south-east Cornwall is the oldest soil association certified organic farm and provides fruit and vegetables for boxes available for local delivery.
Nancarrow Farm - 100 acre organic farm producing beef, lamb, mutton and pork. Meat available at Truro and Falmouth farmers markets and online in the form of meat boxes.
Cottage Farm Organics – Organic beef and lamb from this farm near Bude. Available as meat boxes online and at Bude Food Assembly.
Tree of Life Organics – Organic vegetable boxes primarily grown on a smallholding near St Agnes and available for delivery to the local area.
Food Assembly – This nationwide organisation provides a convenient way for customers to interact direct with local producers. There are now assemblies in Bude and Newquay with others planned across the county. It is possible to only display organic products as part of the online ordering process.
The Cornish Food Box – This store in central Truro supplies exclusively Cornish items including many organic products. Online ordering and delivery is available.
Other products
Bread – Baker Tom's Bread – Speciality bread made with traditional methods with organic ingredients. There are shops in Truro, Wadebridge, Falmouth and the Bakery Café and shop in Pool.
Wine – Trevibban Mill Vineyard – Cornwall's first certified organic vineyard now produces a range of 9 organic wines.
Ice Cream, fudge & jam – Roskilly's – Roskilly's farm on the Lizard produces a large range of award winning ice cream from their certified organic herds. Other organic products available at their farm which is open for visits.
Seaweed – The Cornish Seaweed Company – A variety of certified organic seaweeds harvested by traditional methods. Available online, in farm shops and at the Natural Stores in Helston, Falmouth and St Austell.
Cheese – Cornish Organic Brie – Handmade by the Cornish Country Larder to organic standards this cheese is available in supermarkets, delis and farm shops across Cornwall.
Beer – Atlantic Brewery – This brewery on the north coast of Cornwall produces exclusively certified organic ales.
Restaurants & cafes
There is only one certified organic restaurant in Cornwall, which is:
Bangors organic B&B and restaurant
There are many others who have strong commitments to using Organic produce including:
The Greenhouse – A small family bistro in St Keverne on the Lizard using only local and primarily organic produce.
Potager garden & cafe - Delightful café based in a large greenhouse in amongst ornamental gardens. Specialising in homemade food from local organic produce.
Archie Browns – Health food shops and cafés based in Truro and Penzance. The cafes provide vegetarian and vegan food with organic produce when possible.
Jules is passionate about helping to share the really wonderful food producers and companies he discovers. Find the best farm shops, farmers markets and much more at Kernoweats.com


text:
- monthly subscription or
- cancelable any time
"Tell the chef, the beer is on me."
Almost a year ago, I was hired by Ushahidi to work as an ethnographic researcher on a project to understand how Wikipedians managed sources during breaking news events.
Ushahidi cares a great deal about this kind of work because of a new project called SwiftRiver that seeks to collect and enable the collaborative curation of streams of data from the real-time web about a particular issue or event. If another Haiti earthquake happened, for example, would there be a way for us to filter out the irrelevant, the misinformation, and build a stream of relevant, meaningful and accurate content about what was happening for those who needed it? And on Wikipedia's side, could the same tools be used to help editors curate a stream of relevant sources as a team rather than individuals?
When we first started thinking about the problem of filtering the web, we naturally thought of a ranking system that would rank sources according to their reliability or veracity. The algorithm would consider a variety of variables involved in determining accuracy, as well as whether sources have been chosen, voted up or down by users in the past, and eventually be able to suggest sources according to the subject at hand. My job would be to determine what those variables are -- i.e., what were editors looking at when deciding whether or not to use a source?
I started the research by talking to as many people as possible. Originally I was expecting that I would be able to conduct 10 to 20 interviews as the focus of the research, finding out how those editors went about managing sources individually and collaboratively. The initial interviews enabled me to hone my interview guide. One of my key informants urged me to ask questions about sources not cited as well as those cited, leading me to one of the key findings of the report (that the citation is often not the actual source of information and is often provided in order to appease editors who may complain about sources located outside the accepted Western media sphere). But I soon realized that the editors with whom I spoke came from such a wide variety of experience, work areas and subjects that I needed to restrict my focus to a particular article in order to get a comprehensive picture of how editors were working. I chose a 2011 Egyptian revolution article on Wikipedia because I wanted a globally relevant breaking news event that would have editors from different parts of the world working together on an issue with local expertise located in a language other than English.
Using Kathy Charmaz's grounded theory method, I chose to focus editing activity (in the form of talk pages, edits, statistics and interviews with editors) from January 25, 2011 when the article was first created (within hours of the first protests in Tahrir Square), to February 12 when Mubarak resigned and the article changed its name from "2011 Egyptian protests" to "2011 Egyptian revolution." After reviewing the big-picture analyses of the article using Wikipedia statistics of top editors, and locations of anonymous editors, etc., I started work with an initial coding of the actions taking place in the text, asking the question, "What is happening here?"
I then developed a more limited codebook using the most frequent/significant codes and proceeded to compare different events with the same code (looking up relevant edits of the article in order to get the full story), and to look for tacit assumptions that the actions left out. I did all of this coding in Evernote because it seemed the easiest (and cheapest) way of importing large amounts of textual and multimedia data from the web, but it wasn't ideal because talk pages, when imported, need to be re-formatted, and I ended up using a single column to code data in the first column since putting each conversation on the talk page in a cell would be too time-consuming.
I then moved to writing a series of thematic notes on what I was seeing, trying to understand, through writing, what the common actions might mean. I finally moved to the report writing, bringing together what I believed were the most salient themes into a description and analysis of what was happening according to the two key questions that the study was trying to ask: How do Wikipedia editors, working together, often geographically distributed and far from where an event is taking place, piece together what is happening on the ground and then present it in a reliable way? And how could this process be improved?
Ethnography Matters has a great post by Tricia Wang that talks about how ethnographers contribute (often invisible) value to organizations by showing what shouldn't be built, rather than necessarily improving a product that already has a host of assumptions built into it.
And so it was with this research project that I realized early on that a ranking system conceptualized this way would be inappropriate -- for the single reason that along with characteristics for determining whether a source is accurate or not (such as whether the author has a history of presenting accurate news article), a number of important variables are independent of the source itself. On Wikipedia, these include variables such as the number of secondary sources in the article (Wikipedia policy calls for editors to use a majority of secondary sources), whether the article is based on a breaking news story (in which case the majority of sources might have to be primary, eyewitness sources), or whether the source is notable in the context of the article. (Misinformation can also be relevant if it is widely reported and significant to the course of events as Judith Miller's New York Times stories were for the Iraq War.)
This means that you could have an algorithm for determining how accurate the source has been in the past, but whether you make use of the source or not depends on factors relevant to the context of the article that have little to do with the reliability of the source itself.
Another key finding recommending against source ranking is that Wikipedia's authority originates from its requirement that each potentially disputed phrase is backed up by reliable sources that can be checked by readers, whereas source ranking necessarily requires that the calculation be invisible in order to prevent gaming. It is already a source of potential weakness that Wikipedia citations are not the original source of information (since editors often choose citations that will be deemed more acceptable to other editors) so further hiding how sources are chosen would disrupt this important value.
On the other hand, having editors provide a rationale behind the choice of particular sources, as well as showing the variety of sources rather than those chosen because of loading time constraints may be useful -- especially since these discussions do often take place on talk pages but are practically invisible because they are difficult to find.
Analyzing the talk pages of the 2011 Egyptian revolution article case study enabled me to understand how Wikipedia editors set about the task of discovering, choosing, verifying, summarizing, adding information and editing the article. It became clear through the rather painstaking study of hundreds of talk pages that editors were:
It was important to discover the work process that editors were following because any tool that assisted with source management would have to accord as closely as possible with the way that editors like to do things on Wikipedia. Since the process is managed by volunteers and because volunteers decide which tools to use, this becomes really critical to the acceptance of new tools.
After developing a typology of sources and isolating different types of Wikipedia source work, I made two sets of recommendations as follows:
Regarding a ranking system for sources, I'd argue that a descriptive repository of major media sources from different countries would be incredibly beneficial, but that a system for determining which sources are ranked highest according to usage would yield really limited results. (We know, for example, that the BBC is the most used source on Wikipedia by a high margin, but that doesn't necessarily help editors in choosing a source for a breaking news story.) Exposing the variables used to determine relevancy (rather than adding them up in invisible amounts to come up with a magical number) and showing the progression of sources over time offers some opportunities for innovation. But this requires developers to think out of the box in terms of what sources (beyond static texts) look like, where such sources and expertise are located, and how trust is garnered in the age of Twitter. The full report provides details of the recommendations and the findings and will be available soon.
This is my first comprehensive ethnographic project, and one of the things I've noticed when doing other design and research projects using different methodologies is that, although the process can seem painstaking and it can prove difficult to articulate the hundreds of small observations into findings that are actionable and meaningful to designers, getting close to the experience of editors is extremely valuable work that is rare in Wikipedia research. I realize now that in the past when I actually studied an article in detail, I knew very little about how Wikipedia works in practice. And this is only the beginning!
Heather Ford is a budding ethnographer who studies how online communities get together to learn, play and deliberate. She currently works for Ushahidi and is studying how online communities like Wikipedia work together to verify information collected from the web and how new technology might be designed to help them do this better. Heather recently graduated from the UC Berkeley iSchool where she studied the social life of information in schools, educational privacy and Africans on Wikipedia. She is a former Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board member and the former Executive Director of iCommons - an international organization started by Creative Commons to connect the open education, access to knowledge, free software, open access publishing and free culture communities around the world. She was a co-founder of Creative Commons South Africa and of the South African nonprofit, The African Commons Project as well as a community-building initiative called the GeekRetreat - bringing together South Africa's top web entrepreneurs to talk about how to make the local Internet better. At night she dreams about writing books and finding time to draw.
This article also appeared at Ushahidi.com and Ethnography Matters. Get the full report at Scribd.com.
From what I can tell, most of my fellow educators spend more time criticizing Wikipedia than engaging with it.
The conversation tends to go round in a fairly tiresome circle: The first educator points to an article on the subject of his/her expertise and points to a glaring error to demonstrate that the whole enterprise is worthless. The interlocutor responds with a (highly debated) study to argue that "Wikipedia is more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica."
But neither side comes to terms with the real Wikipedia revolution: It represents a restructuring of the architecture of knowledge. In the decade since its founding, the crowdsourced platform has grown exponentially, radically improved its content, and established a firm foothold in the online environment, now ranking as the fifth most-visited site in the world. The entire enterprise is based on Wikipedia's utopian vision, as spelled out on the back of the staff business cards: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."
That said, many observers -- starting with the Wikimedia Foundation itself -- realize that this vision is far from realized. This has led the foundation to launch a series of initiatives designed to improve the infrastructure and broaden participation. One of the most intriguing developments is the Public Policy Initiative and its corps of campus ambassadors.
The challenges are formidable. Let's leave aside, for the moment, the two-thirds of the world's population that has yet to gain access to the Internet. The creation of Wikipedia content has striking limitations, even among the 400 million users who visit the site every month. According to Wikipedia's own estimates, only 0.02-0.03 percent of visitors actively contribute to articles.
And although technically, content can be created by anyone with an online account, the pattern of participation is admittedly skewed. According to Barry Newstead, the foundation's chief global development officer, "Eighty percent of our page views are from the Global North, and 83 percent of our edits." The English language Wikipedia's content and participation far outstrip those for its 270 other languages, especially non-Western. Of the active contributors, between 80 and 85 percent are male, and half are under 22. Furthermore, participation has plateaued (and even declined) over the last few years, settling in at somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 active editors per month in all languages.
What are the obstacles to growth? First of all, "Wikipedian" culture is known for its contentious behavior, especially toward newcomers who haven't mastered the arcane style and coding. One result is that the content has become skewed toward geek topics, featuring state-of-the-art articles on technology, science fiction and military history, with more erratic offerings in the humanities and social sciences.
In early July, the Wikimedia Foundation renewed its efforts to improve the balance by holding its first Higher Education Summit as part of the Public Policy Initiative. According to the foundation leadership, the goals of the year-old project are to:
• bring in more quality content in underserved fields, starting with public policy;
• narrow the gender gap by recruiting increased female participation;
• improve diversity of contributors, and
• make the initiation process more user-friendly.
Backed by a new strategic plan and a $1.2 million grant from the Stanton Foundation, the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative was born. The foundation decided that the natural focal point for the effort was academia. Colleges and universities were, after all, the traditional centers of learning -- and it made sense to look to students who were researching and writing papers as potential contributors of content.
The missing link was the Wikipedia knowledge. This was addressed by the creation of a cohort of Wikipedia "ambassadors" to coach and mentor professors and students through the wickets. Fifty-four campus ambassadors were selected over 2010-2011, charged with offering on-site support in classroom and personal tutorial settings.
These were often students with an extensive (and successful) record of creating and editing Wikipedia content. In other cases, they were university librarians, tech support, and other staff who took on the challenge as part of their classroom support services. (At the summit, Sue Gardner, director of the Wikimedia Foundation, proudly pointed out that almost half of the campus ambassadors are female.) The campus ambassadors were complemented by 91 online ambassadors, experienced Wikipedians who offer support to students in any school.
The United States was divided into 10 regions, each assigned a regional ambassador. Professors from 24 colleges and universities signed up as inaugural Wikipedia Teaching Fellows to participate. In return, the professors made a commitment to assigning Wikipedia content creation as part of their course requirements, and to stage the assignments over the course of the semester, to allow for an editorial learning curve.
By coincidence, I had created an unwitting control group for this effort. Last fall I assigned my Media & Society class at Bard College to write or edit a Wikipedia entry, unaware that there was a Wikimedia program for classroom support. I had a few Wikipedia edits under my belt, but I was unprepared for my students' struggles with Wikipedia policies on issues such as notability, verifiability and sourcing. These policies are highly specific, not always intuitive, and don't necessarily mirror academic practice.
My international students writing on foreign subjects had far more trouble than my U.S. students in publishing their articles, even if they were of comparable quality (partly, I believe, because it's harder to provide approved citations for local information about countries such as Afghanistan and Burma). I was also remiss in not directing my students toward the sandbox to develop their articles before posting them -- leading to some swift and merciless deletions.
For many of us, the Higher Education Summit was a welcome opportunity to meet campus and online ambassadors and to hear how fellow professors worked with the project in the classroom. I was surprised to learn that while some of the professors were experienced Wikipedians, many of them had little editing experience with the platform. This was not regarded as a problem. The program was structured to task the ambassadors with Wikipedia skills, allowing professors to focus on shaping syllabi and course content. (The summit's invitees included professors of law, anthropology, political science, and literature.)
At the same time, there are many signs that the Wikimedia Foundation is eager to make the editing process more user-friendly. It has been conducting usability studies to see where the bumps are. Wikipedia has been expanding its live help and a rich trove of learning materials for newbies. These resources are scattered across the Wikipedia terrain and not easy to locate, but the foundation is taking active steps to both build out and codify the materials. It's also sponsoring some friendly competition with a leaderboard to monitor which classes are posting the most contributions over the semester, as well as a "What's Hot" list of most edited articles by students.
The Wikimedia Foundation states that over the next five years it hopes to increase the number of readers to a billion, and the percentage of editors in the Global South to 37 percent. The international initiative is starting with Brazil, India and the Middle East/North Africa, which have already begun to receive advance guards of campus and online ambassadors. (The summit included academics from Brazil, India, Germany, the U.K. and Canada, as well as the U.S.)
The Wikimedia Foundation's Newstead told the summit attendees that the organization is still struggling with the challenge of adapting to mobile platforms, the bridgehead for online media in much of the world. "At this point you can't edit on mobile; it's read-only," he reported. "Most people who move to mobile stop surfing the web. They just surf apps."
Whatever the challenges, the Wikipedia ambassadors are recruiting a new generation of professors and students to carry the vision forward. There are all kinds of creative challenges to adapting classroom assignments to the mission. Students like publishing their classwork online, but express frustration at team members who don't pull their weight. Professors enjoy the classroom enthusiasm, but struggle with the mechanics of grading collaborative writing projects and articles that are edited by a broader community. Nonetheless, there's every indication that the Wikimedia Foundation's experiment in higher education will take Wikipedia to another stage of its wildly unpredictable ride.
Anne Nelson is an educator, consultant and author in the field of international media strategy. She created and teaches New Media and Development Communications at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She consults on media, education and philanthropy for Anthony Knerr & Associates. Her most recent book is Red Orchestra. She tweets as @anelsona, was a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».
These are my links for September 21st through September 28th:
Lauren McCullough, who has led The Associated Press' efforts to engage social networks, has been named manager of Social Networks and News Engagement at the new AP Nerve Center. McCullough will head the Social Network Center, one of four components of the new headquarters center in New York. She will direct the work of editors there and around the company in pursuing journalistic material from social networks, promoting AP's presence and content on social networks, and providing feedback to news managers on topics of high interest on social networks.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: We're highlighting a few of the entries in this year's Knight News Challenge, which just closed Tuesday night. Did you know of an entry worth looking at? Email Mac or leave a brief comment on this post. —Josh]
You may have already heard of The Journalism Shop, the assemblage of ex-Los Angeles Times staffers that has evolved into an editorial matchmaking service. (Its survey of ex-LATers detailing their predictions for the paper's failure got some notice from Romenesko a couple weeks ago.)
It's an online co-op where former Times reporters, editors, and designers can hang a freelance shingle and land jobs. The site, which evolved out of an email list for laid-off staffers, currently has around 30 members. And it's throwing its hat into the ring for a Knight News Challenge grant. According to their application, they hope to build:
— a national network of regional reporters/editors/researchers/graphic artists who will create original work on spec, to be placed by The Journalism Shop editors.
— acting as an assigning conduit for editors looking for freelancers (a modern version of the old photo agency structure, but for writers and editors).
— a "pitching engine" to solicit assignments for our members.
— pursuing grants for topic specific journalism.
— building out the existing website to publish those stories (we're working on some ideas for that now.
Scott Martelle, one of the co-founders and a former Times reporter himself, said The Journalism Shop helps assignment editors quickly find and tap experienced journalists for coverage. And since all of The Journalism Shop's members are former LAT staffers, they have a built-in credibility with editors that not all freelancers can boast.
"There's very little going on out there that tries to keep experienced journalists in the profession," Martelle said. "We're trying to keep people alive until the Big Bang ends and the solar systems begin to coalesce again."
As you can see from the Shop's Facebook page, work doesn't always originate from traditional news organizations. The boundaries have expanded to include things like alumni magazines, annual reports, consulting, book work, and the like.
A News Challenge grant would allow Martelle and co-founder Brett Levy to dedicate more time to the project. Specifically, they want to build out the infrastructure and create additional opportunities for their stable of writers through outreach and advertising. Martelle said the model could also be extended to other locales.
"Tell the chef, the beer is on me."
"Basically the price of a night on the town!"
"I'd love to help kickstart continued development! And 0 EUR/month really does make fiscal sense too...


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Get out of the boat
It wasn't the easiest of weeks I can tell you that. I wanted life to just pause, freeze, rewind, no... really I just wanted it to stop.
Another episode of my baby sister back in the ICU and it all happened within a month. "Really God? You've got to be kidding!! When will this F&*$% nightmare just be over with?"
For a recap, my baby sister was hit by a drunk driver back in 2010. Ever since that horrendous day I have yet to hear my baby sister speak, nor her husband or her five year old daughter for that matter.
It's been a saga with no ending point.
So when I got the call that my baby sister was back in the ICU, my mind
June 2020


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Julie Wright – Glass Slippers, Ever After, and Me
"If fairy godmothers existed, there would never be an emptyspace in the freezer where the ice cream goes. Any responsible fairy godmotherwould keep that space magically stocked at all times."
When aspiring author Charlotte Kingsley finally gets published, she thinks all her dreams are finally coming true. But the trouble begins when her publicity firm reinvents her quirky online presence into a perfectly curated dream life. Gone are the days of sweatpants posts and ice cream binges with her best friend and downstairs neighbor, Anders, replaced instead with beautiful clothes, orchestrated selfies, and no boyfriend. Only, that carefully curated fairytale life is ruining her self esteem and making her feel like a fraud.
When another bestselling author takes Charlotte under her wing–almost like a fairy godmother–she helps Charlotte see the beautiful person she already is and the worth of being authentic. But is it too late to save her relationship with Anders? The clock is quickly ticking toward midnight, and Charlotte must decide between her fairytale life and the man she loves while she tries to figure out if she is the woman in peasant clothes or the woman in the ball gown.