text:
Russia gains independence from Babylon
Aug 29, 2017
Russia's President Putin has succeeded in freeing Russia from Rothschild slavery to the international banking system.
In June last year President Putin banned Jacob Rothschild and his New World Order banking cartel family from entering Russian territory "under any circumstances," and now, just over one year later, Putin has declared "total independence" from the global banking cartel and Rothschild international money lending organizations.
Declaring the achievement the "greatest gift" that can be given to future generations, Putin hosted a party in the Kremlin to celebrate the achievement.
"They said we couldn't do it, they said we would be destroyed," Putin told staff and senior associates. "Our future generations will be born without Rothschild chains around their wrists and ankles."
"This is the greatest gift we can give them."
This is why Putin has been condemned by the Fakestream Media, and it is why Russia is considered an "enemy" of the USA. He is really an enemy to what we know as Mystery Babylon, but our political leaders consider Babylon to be the USA. After all, Babylon conquered this country in 1913 when the Federal Reserve Act was passed, bringing us into one of the final stages of beast captivity.
Most people do not understand Bible prophecy, so they are largely unaware of what is really going on in the world today, and they are susceptible to the lies from the Department of Propaganda. I believe that Russia and China are the modern "kings from the east" mentioned in Revelation 16:12, who are setting the stage for the overthrow of Mystery Babylon. (The original "kings" were Cyrus of Persia and Darius the Mede, who overthrew the original Babylon.) Iran is ancient Persia, so as an ally of both Russia and China, Iran too is playing a role in the overthrow of Babylon. That is why western Babylonian governments consider Iran to be an enemy.
I also believe that the last few months of 2017 will be crucial in the overthrow of Mystery Babylon, and that this will continue into 2018. Many changes are about to occur, but if you know and believe the promises of God and the divine plan revealed in prophecy, then you will have the strength to stand in the face of chaos.


text:
I did drink margaritas in the garden, but I'm not sure that warrants a whole blog post.
This weekend I would like to eat outside, I'm hoping the weather will be good enough for us to pitch the tent and get painting it, and that would be a good excuse to spread a blanket out and have a picnic on the lawn.
Copyright: JanPietruszk / 123RF Stock Photo
Food eaten outside always tastes nicer, and it's not hard to organise, especially in your own garden! I will be buying a bag of ice for £1 at the local supermarket and filling the cool box with water, ice and cans of J2O, ginger beer, actual beer and gin and tonics.
For the picnic I'll choose some summer fruits, berries are bright and colourful, encouraging healthy eating! I might make a pasta salad with rocket and baby lettuce leaves, and then some nibbles. I adore French bread and pate eaten outside for some reason it feels quite luxurious (may have to add a bottle of wine to my cool box!). Crisps of course, mini scotch eggs, tiny sausage rolls….oh I love a picnic.
Now of course I've cursed it and the weather will change. If it does I'll eat all that in the conservatory! I refuse to be denied my picnic.
Have I missed any essential picnic food? Have you eaten outside this week? Do link up and add the badge to your post or blog.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Created 08-22-2017 07:04 AM
Created 08-22-2017 09:55 AM
Hi @Shreya Gupta,
Immutable Resilient Distributed Dataset(RDD) or DataSets/DataFrames [again that been stored as RDDs under the hood]
so based on the API call you issued it get represented accordingly.
val texFileRDD = sc.textFile("README.MD") # represents the data in RDD textFileDS.getClass res8: Class[_ <: org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset[String]] = class org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset val textFileDS = sqlcontext.read.textFile("README.md") # represent the data in Dataset. texFileRDD.getClass res10: Class[_ <: org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD[String]] = class org.apache.spark.rdd.MapPartitionsRDD
to know the format of the datatype stored in a variable. getClass method will help
more on this can be found at https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/quick-start.html


text:
Date(s) - Saturday, April 28, 2018
9:00 am - 2:00 pm
Timonium United Methodist Church
Boy Scout Bazaar and Flea Market Annual Fundraiser Vendor Sign Up
Troop 328 was founded in 1939 and has served the community for over 75 years and are looking forward to more wonderful years to come.
Event Information
Boy Scout Troop 328 in Timonium MD, will be hosting their first Bazaar and Flea Market to raise funds to purchase new canoes and other Troop equipment. The Scouts will be working at the event to help pay their own way through their efforts. For the event the Scouts will assist with the unloading and moving each vendor's items to their space.
We are anticipating a wonderful turn out for this event as the church will have several other events occuring the same day which will draw a crowd. The church will be hosting a community shredding event, along with a kids moon bounce, crafts, and flower sale on the same day.
Come take advantage of a day to sell your wares and help to support the boys of Troop 328.
Space Information
We have the following spaces available for vendors.
Inside Spaces 6'x10′ in size
•Available with either a 6'x30″, 8'x30″, or 60″ round table (Limited Quantities of Each) $25/Space(check) or $27.22/Space
Outside Spaces on Asphalt
•18'x19′ $25/Space(check) or $27.22/Space
•27'x19′ $30/Space(check) or $32.46/Space
Payment Information
Space selection and payment can be made through this link https://troop328.ticketbud.com/troop328flea-market immediately or if you prefer to pay with a check you can download the registration form from our Troop website, https://www.troop328timonium.com/, and mail the payment to
Boy Scout Troop #328
c/o TUMC
2300 Pot Spring Road
Timonium, MD 20193
Spaces will only be held after payment is received, it is recommended to purchase space through this listing to ensure space is reserved, especially as we get closer to the event date.
Drop off and Setup Information
The Boy Scouts of Troop 328 will be at the church to assist in unloading and transporting vendors items to their space. During the week of 4/2/18 vendors will receive a communication from the Troop with their Scheduled arrival / setup window. During this time the Scouts will help unload your vehicle and take your goods to the assigned space while you park your vehicle. This service is included in your space reservation price.
Important Information
All fees paid are non refundable. The event will be held rain or shine. Troop 328 appreciates the generosity of our community in supporting our scouting functions and we look forward to making this event an annual happening.
Please contact us at [email protected] with any questions


text:
The Hemingway Room
Named for "Papa", a fanatical baseball fan and not a bad novelist who, while living in Cuba, built a baseball diamond that helped fuel that nation's love of the game. This second story room in our Cooperstown, NY bed and breakfast, is a Movable Feast for your senses. Decorated with rich coffee walls, crown ceilings and a beautifully restored herringbone floor. Join us in our Cooperstown inn.
The room's décor hints of safari, but rewards with a sumptuous brass queen bed, basecamp leather reading chair, flat screen TV and features wildlife art reminiscent of a savannah. Its private bath is among the more spoken-about rooms in the Inn, where an alluring Jacuzzi tub and shower rests against the exposed brick of the mansion's original chimney, creating a space unlike any other.


text:
5 Art Nouveau Furniture Pieces for your home
Art Nouveau is an artistic movement employed in design, architecture and visual arts, which emerged in the first part of the 20th century, and still leaves an important imprint on interior design today. The Art Nouveau style reveals itself as a combination of artistic decorative baroque details with organic touches, feminine curves, and elongated leaf-inspired aesthetics. The Jnane Tamsna loves to incorporate in within Moroccan inspired spaces, L'Hotel Grand Amour owns some unique vintage pieces: Art Nouveau can boost any contemporary design into an even sophisticated one.
Moroccan Hammered Vase in GoldEl Fenn From £120
This round gold vase is a shining example of Moroccan craftsmanship. The copper-plated metal is hand-hammered once the vase has been shaped, by local artisans. And their attention to detail shows in the delicately flared rim and expertly executed shape. This piece comes in two sizes – medium or large. And both are a bright idea. Medium's great for smaller bunches of flowers, or as a standalone decorative piece. While the larger size is perfect for bigger blooms.
Large Vintage Mirrored Glass AshtrayHotel Grand Amour
Mirror, mirror on the wall, what's the best ashtray of all? A vintage one, designed in the 1930s by Jean Luce – famed glassware expert and ceramicist designer. A truly classic piece crafted from antique mirrored glass, its larger size makes this piece perfect as a cigar ashtray or trinket tray. Use it to bring character to the top of modern furniture, or to complete your collection of vintage home accessories. The striking mirrored finish will make it stand out however you style it. Unique vintage piece
Black and Gold Moroccan BenchJnane Tamsna £1,815
Its woven top and antique-effect gold frame aren't the only things that set this Moroccan bench apart. It's crafted by hand, and is an original design by Meryanne Loum-Martin – developed exclusively for her boutique hotel Jnane Tamsna in Marrakech. Naturally, it has Moroccan style covered – thanks to its metallic frame and geometric sculptural details at each end. And it'll make a comfy seat in a hallway or living room, with its padded, woven top.
Black and Brass Industrial LampJnane Tamsna £1,069
Interior designer Meryanne Loum-Martin is the definition of a bright spark: she designed this industrial large lamp herself, especially for her boutique hotel Jnane Tamsna in Marrakech. She works with local Moroccan artisans to make sure her design is executed to perfection – it's handmade using time-honoured techniques. The semi-globe shape and dark metal meets brass finish helps this table lamp tread genres – it's got Moroccan glam covered, but with an industrial edge. It'll brighten up any interior style.
Zinc Industrial Pressed Glasses, Set of 6Hotel Grand Amour From £40
Set your table soaring with this set of 6 industrial style ribbed glasses. They're from the Zinc collection – Fabrice Gibilaro was inspired by aircraft engines when he designed this glassware collection for the oldest traditional art glass maker in Europe, Verrerie La Rochère (founded in 1475). And the traditional glass maker used a pressed glass technique to bring the grooved idea to life. They're thick and durable, and because of their short, wide shape, they're a practical everyday addition to your collection. Crafted in France


text:
I was panicking. The man I had been dating was sure that he wanted to marry me. But I was nowhere near that certainty, and I knew if the final result was that we went our separate ways, I shouldn't put my decision off (at least as a favor to him).
I loved him, I did. I wanted him to be happy and I wanted the same for my own future. But I didn't know if it was right for us. I was happy with him and I pictured happiness with him for the future, but I also had a vivid imagination of what could happen. I knew his weaknesses and flaws. The question was, Could I look past them for eternity? Or worse, would looking past mine for that long be possible for him?
I had a hard time making big decisions and this was no different. That emotions were involved at all gave me a harder time trusting both myself and Logan. I had been engaged before, had felt all the lovey dovey feelings and, quite frankly, had let those feelings blind me to things I knew deep down I couldn't live with—just to have both his and my own time wasted and our hearts broken in the end.
Once, while thinking about marriage that first time, I heard one of my family members say that you have to date a large enough variety of people to know yourself and what kind of person you like best. "Date at least 31 people so you will know your favorite," he had said. It was the Baskin-Robbins approach to dating, and I was convinced of the idea's wisdom. (Looking back, the funny thing is, whenever I went to a place like Baskin-Robbins I took forever to decide on a flavor and I was always in a different mood, anyway.)
With Logan, I was happy where we were dating, I was comfortable. Staying that way would have been easy: I wouldn't have had to dig into the chasms of my biggest fears and deepest desires and make the biggest decision of my life. If I didn't face the question of marriage with Logan, I would not have had to confront the shadowy stigmas and baggage that my past had cast in front of me. I would have just kept sailing along. But because of his sure feelings, and because I really loved him, I felt a huge amount of self-inflicted pressure to decide ASAP if I wanted to spend eternity with him or not. This brought the heat—and the panic accelerated.
"You need to date other people," I told him
"Not happening," he'd tell me.
"I found a girl that is perfect for you."
"No, she's not ."
"Just give her a shot. You need to know for sure you like me, and you can't possibly know with how little dating experience you have."
It sounds crazy, but those words really came out of my mouth. I was convinced that with the conflicting feelings I had-—despite having dated a ton-—he couldn't possibly be sure about marriage having had so little dating experience. I wanted to speed things along to have us figure it out.
Thankfully, his answers remained unchanged. He continued to have patience even as I voiced similar crazy ideas. He even continued to have patience when I insisted on going on dates with other guys, trying to break up with him. (I didn't want to mislead the people I was dating.) But he was constant, filled with faith in me and in a future together, throughout all of the back and forth I gave him.
And frankly, his steadfastness anchored me. I had gone my whole life moving and changing my mind like a tumbleweed and he helped me see a need for roots. His steady response to my insanity gave me comfort. He loved me even as I put him and our relationship through torture. He never once suggested or hinted that we should give up; he just watched and waited.
Now, we look back at that time and laugh. I actually love recalling that season of our dating: Because it is the first time I recognized his ability to help me calm down, the first time he provided that firm pillar to me. I still smile at the patience he demonstrated. He was my constant then, and still is today. That is what I really needed in a marriage, and I believe it is largely what marriage and families are for. It is only when we are rooted that we grow.
- Making My Dream Marriage - September 29, 2016
- Showing Love In The Details - August 30, 2016
- How A New Hobby Helped My Anxiety In Marriage - August 22, 2016


text:
By Richard Roth, J.D., Editor, the CCH Federal Banking Law Reporter, CCH Bank Compliance Guide, Bank Digest; co-author, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act—Law, Explanation and Analysis.
There were enough warning signs before the financial crisis struck that it could have been prevented, according to the final report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Commission Chairman Phil Angelides said that "The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done. If we accept this notion, it will happen again."
"The captains of finance and the public stewards of our financial system ignored warnings and failed to question, understand, and manage evolving risks within a system essential to the well-being of the American public. Theirs was a big miss, not a stumble," the report asserts.
The FCIC report spreads blame for the crisis broadly, covering banks and bankers, regulators and consumers. It traces the crisis to five main causes:
- regulatory failures, which specifically include the Federal Reserve Board's failure to act against "toxic mortgages";
- corporate governance failures, including recklessness and excessive risk-taking;
- excessive borrowing and risk-taking by both consumers and Wall Street;
- policymakers' failure to understand fully the financial system they were supposed to regulate (with the Fed, Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Bank of New York receiving special notice); and
- systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels.
Contrary to some assertions, the FCIC determined that while the government-sponsored housing enterprises contributed to the crisis, they were not a primary cause. The GSEs participated in the expansion of subprime and other risky mortgages, but they followed rather than led Wall Street and other lenders in the rush for fool's gold, the report concludes. However, a dissenting report by Commissioner Peter J. Wallison principally places the blame for the crisis on the federal government's housing policies.
Warning Signs
The FCIC report specifically describes a number of signs that should have warned of an impending crisis, such as:
- an explosion in risky subprime lending and securitization;
- an excessive rise in housing prices;
- egregious and predatory lending practices;
- large increases in consumers' mortgage indebtedness;
- rapid growth in financial firm trading activities, in derivatives and in short-term "repo" lending markets.
The FCIC attributes the failure to heed these warning signs to pervasive permissiveness and deems the Fed's failure to act against toxic mortgages as the "prime example."
Financial System Component Failures
The report goes on to describe how problems in specific components of the financial system contributed to the crisis. According to the FCIC:
- The decline in mortgage lending standards combined with the mortgage securitization process to both start and spread the crisis.
- Over-the-counter derivatives contributed to the crisis by encouraging mortgage securitization, permitting the creation of synthetic collateralized debt obligations, and being "in the center of the storm" when the housing bubble popped. The FCIC specifically notes the effects of legislation in 2000 that prohibited the regulation of OTC derivatives, calling it "a key turning point in the march toward the financial crisis."
- Credit rating agency failures were essential to the crisis. "Their ratings helped the market soar and their downgrades through 2007 and 2008 wreaked havoc across markets and firms," according to the report.
Minority Report
Three commissioners, including the vice-chairman, filed a dissenting report. The dissenters identify 10 causes of the financial crisis:
- a credit bubble with its roots in the 1990s when China, some developing nations and the oil producing nations accumulated large capital surpluses that they loaned to the United States;
- a housing bubble that began in the 1990s and grew in the following decade;
- the use of nontraditional mortgages that often were deceptive, confusing and beyond consumers' ability to repay;
- failures in credit rating and securitization that "transformed bad mortgages into toxic financial assets";
- financial institutions that concentrated risk in housing, mortgages and related investments;
- excess leverage and liquidity and inadequate capital;
- risk of contagion—the fear that the failure of one large firm would bring others down as well;
- "common shock"—many financial institutions failing because they made the same investments;
- financial shock and a resulting loss of confidence in the financial system; and
- the financial crisis spreading to a crisis in the broader economy.
The complete reports are available on the FCIC's website at www.fcic.gov.


text:
Cabbage Patch Doll Costume
Rate this costume:
172 votes
|19 comments · add a comment
My real life cabbage patch granddaughter
|Costume type:
|Costumes for Babies
This homemade costume for babies entered our 2012 Halloween Costume Contest.
A word from Debbie, the 'Cabbage Patch Doll' costume creator:
This is my granddaughter Addisyn. My daughter in law saw a picture of a crocheted wig for a cabbage patch doll and this costume came from that. I created a "box" from foam board leaving the back open. The depth of the box will depend on your child, make sure there is plenty of leg room. I cut the front opening in the shape of a cabbage patch kids box. I cut notches in the top and bottom to coincide with the umbrella stroller frame I was using. After hot gluing and taping the box securely together I wrapped the entire box in poster paper and painted it. I printed out a Cabbage Patch Kids logo sized to fit the box on card stock. I cut it out and glued on the front. I painted flowers and used a Cricut to put the lettering on. I cut a piece of fabric and hot glued it to the inside top,sides, and bottom to look like the backing of the box. Make sure there is enough fabric so when the child is put in it won't pull the fabric away from the box. Cut slits to put the safety belt through. I printed another Cabbage Patch Kid logo on card stock large enough to cover the buckle. The box sits on the front of the stroller. The "doll" was loaded from the front. Dress your "doll" in any outfit and put wig on. Luckily she took a pacifier which worked out perfect for the effect.
Similar costumes:


text:
09 Mar We Need to Modernize Education. The Clock Is Ticking | #ModernEDU #ModernLEARNing #LEARNing2LEARN
Flipping the curriculum could help us meet the demands of the artificial-intelligence era
Technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and biotech are redefining what it means to be human—and employable.
Jobs are disappearing as automation replaces the need for people. New occupations are emerging that demand competencies that can transfer across the multiple assignments workers will experience in their lives. The disappearance of global boundaries presents opportunities—and risks—for all workers.
These changes demand a significant, ambitious evolution in how we prepare students for their future in a world that's increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. We need a relevant and modernized education.
Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.edweek.org


text:
We all know the sad story of California. Once a magnet for Americans seeking opportunity it has become a dystopian nightmare controlled without challenge by the hard-left of the Democrat party.
Every statewide office in California is held by a militant Democrat. The Republican party is extremely weak and the productive middle class is fleeing.
But two populations are staying and growing. There are reported to be 150,000 homeless living on the streets of California's cities while uneducated, unskilled illegal immigrants are expanding in number every single year; there now are millions of them in California.
California has the highest poverty rate in America and the biggest gap in income inequality between the ultra-rich – mostly Democrats – and the poor. Yet it is one of the richest places on earth, even richer than the entire nation of Britain.
The path that California has followed is classic: It became a super-wealthy place with lots of nice scenery and a welcoming climate and thus it became a magnet not only for Americans who wanted to improve themselves but also for the maniacs, losers, screwballs and moochers.
These people are always attracted to wealth; they live off of it and steal it. That is how wealthy places get sucked dry of their prosperity and optimism.
California started to tip over to the radical left in the 1960s and it has never gone back. The drug culture, the 'hippie' culture, the welfare culture and the crazy anything-goes culture, all encouraged and tolerated by opportunistic politicians and con artists in Hollywood and the left-wing universities, started in California and have metastasized on themselves and destroyed the state.
The left-wing takeover has spilled into the business world. Corporations like Toyota are fleeing The Golden State. The company called Intel, the 'grandfather' of the Silicon Valley computer giants, has not created any jobs within California since the year 2000.
This is a result of the increasing tax burden and regulatory state emanating from the Democrats. Meanwhile Intel has expanded in Oregon, Nevada, Utah and other places. Toyota moved to Dallas.
This trend also can be seen in the East Coast socialist haven of New York state. Once one of the richest places in the world, it has lost its younger, educated and skilled population by the millions because it has become very left-wing in its policies which has caused businesses, the wealthy and the middle class to feel unwelcome.
New York City lost a guaranteed 25,000 jobs when Amazon was confronted by a vocal, anti-business movement on the Democrat left. Meanwhile rich people are fleeing New York's astronomical tax rates and taking their wealth with them. This had led to a budget gap over $2 billion.
As California has moved further and further to the left with its militant policies decent and sensible people have felt increasingly less welcome. In addition they have been priced out of urban housing by the booming high-end economies which have pushed up rents, and they are being crushed by outrageous taxes and regulations.
San Francisco is a case in point. San Francisco's decline is attributable to a blanket tolerance for any kind of awful behavior; exorbitant housing costs; sky-high taxes and regulation; and an explosion in homeless and drug addicts on the streets.
The homeless and drug addicts come out of San Francisco's long history of "tolerance". From its bawdy start in the 1850s, the city's reputation grew and grew over the next 100 years. The bad behavior was always in the background but it burst into the open during the so-called Summer of Love in 1967 when the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood became a 'hippie' haven full of drugs, sex, nihilism and sloth.
The media portrayed the Summer of Love as a great success but ignored the dismal aftermath. By 1969 Haight-Ashbury was a boarded-up dump full of deadbeats and spaced-out crazies.
Today San Francisco has gotten so bad that there are literally computer maps pinpointing the location of piles of human waste on the sidewalk. Drug addicts shoot up in the open and dangerous needles litter the streets. This is American liberalism at its worst.
On the other hand we don't see such conditions in a rural, conservative, white small town in America.
To make matters worse, modern-day San Francisco has seen relentless increases in housing costs as the economy prospered including in the super-wealthy Silicon Valley area nearby.
There might be some redress if San Francisco were a normal place that encouraged new housing to keep rents lower through the natural law of supply and demand. But SF is not normal.
Nikitas3.com saw a video about a San Francisco laundromat owner who wanted to build a small apartment complex on the land that he owned. But the permit process was so daunting and slow, and the neighborhood reaction so strong in opposition that he gave up.
In short San Francisco thwarts new development in two crucial ways: On the one hand it wants to retain its "charm" and so there is constant opposition to new construction, while on the other hand the city is a bureaucratic nightmare.
Nikitas3.com recently saw another video from a town north of San Francisco where one homeowner wanted to expand his small house. The permit costs alone were $60,000.
Thus we can see how the middle class is being driven out of California since the middle class is rational and only puts up with so much baloney before common sense tells them to pack up and go.
Meanwhile 9News.com reports about the decline in public order in another "tolerant" Western US capital city, Denver, Colorado.
Denver City Council voted unanimously Monday night to lessen the punishment for people convicted of certain low-level crimes like lying in a public right-of-way, urinating in public and panhandling.
City leaders and immigrant rights advocates argued the changes will protect Denver's immigrant community from facing unintended consequences.
"Many times it becomes a deportable offense if you've been convicted of even a minor ordinance violation that's punishable by a year in jail," Mark Silverstein said, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.
Before the ordinance passed, all violations of Denver municipal code were punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a fine of up to $999.
Here are the offenses which are now considered lower in priority:
… Class 2 offenses, which carry a maximum 60-day jail sentence and no fine.
• Sitting or lying in the public right-of-way
• Unauthorized camping on public or private property prohibited
• Urinating or defecating in public
• Panhandling
• Curfews and closures
• Storage and loading
• Prohibitions
• Solicitation on or near street or highway
How about ultra-hip, ultra-liberal, ultra-wealthy Seattle, the home of Starbucks coffee and Amazon and Microsoft? Same thing. City Journal reported in Autumn 2018:
Seattle is under siege. Over the past five years, the Emerald City has seen an explosion of homelessness, crime, and addiction. In its 2017 point-in-time count of the homeless, King County social-services agency All Home found 11,643 people sleeping in tents, cars, and emergency shelters. Property crime has risen to a rate two and a half times higher than Los Angeles's and four times higher than New York City's. Cleanup crews pick up tens of thousands of dirty needles from city streets and parks every year.
At the same time, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal, the Seattle metro area spends more than $1 billion fighting homelessness every year. That's nearly $100,000 for every homeless man, woman, and child in King County, yet the crisis seems only to have deepened, with more addiction, more crime, and more tent encampments in residential neighborhoods. By any measure, the city's efforts are not working.
Here's more about "tolerant" Seattle from Jonathanturley.org:
The judges and court staff at Seattle's King County Courthouse have been fighting to get something done about the disgusting conditions around the outside door. Homeless people left excrement and urine around the door — a stench that is deterring jurors and others from coming into the building. Judges have asked for the city to take action and clean up the unsanitary conditions with a simple power washing and better policing. That would seem a no brainer but objections were heard from city council members, including one who reportedly said that the use of hoses might be racially insensitive or traumatic.
In case you don't know, that last sentence actually means… get this… that the use of hoses to wash away the filth reminds some lunatic leftists of the water hoses used by police in the South to push back black civil rights protesters in the 1950s. And so they oppose the cleaning up.
In other words, the insanity never ends with these people…
Meanwhile Chicagopressrelease.com reported about another horrible idea advocated by liberals – "waterless" urinals promoted by 'greenies' to save water in mens' bathrooms:
There's been a stench coming from the second floor of City Hall — and it has nothing to do with the steady stream of Chicago aldermen convicted on corruption charges.
Waterless urinals installed to promote water conservation in the public men's room outside the City Council chambers have turned into a stinky mess.
The odor got so bad that the "green" urinals are now being ripped out and replaced with the old-fashioned kind at a cost City Hall has refused to disclose.
Disgusting, right? So you can see that liberals screw up virtually everything that they touch. It is no surprise that Democrats are so closely associated with offensive bathroom issues. Meanwhile Tyler Durden on Zerohedge.com reports about California:
Almost everyone that goes out to visit one of our major cities on the west coast has a similar reaction.
Those that must live among the escalating decay are often numb to it, but most of those that are just in town for a visit are absolutely shocked by all of the trash, human defecation, crime and public drug use that they encounter.
Once upon a time, our beautiful western cities were the envy of the rest of the world, but now they serve as shining examples of America's accelerating decline. The worst parts of our major western cities literally look like post-apocalyptic wastelands, and the hordes of zombified homeless people that live in those areas are too drugged-out to care. The ironic thing is that these cities are not poor. In fact, San Francisco and Seattle are among the wealthiest cities in the entire nation. So if things are falling apart this dramatically now, how bad will things get when economic conditions really start to deteriorate?
Let's start our discussion by looking at the rat epidemic in Los Angeles. Thanks to extremely poor public sanitation, rats are breeding like mad, and at this point they have even conquered Los Angeles City Hall…
Officials at Los Angeles' City Hall are considering ripping all of the building's carpets up, as rats and fleas are said to be running riot in its halls.
A motion was filed by Council President Herb Wesson on Wednesday to enact the much needed makeover amid a typhus outbreak in the downtown area.
Wesson said a city employee had contracted the deadly bacterial disease at work, and now he's urging officials to investigate the 'scope' of the long-running pest problem at the council building.
People from all over the world are drawn to Los Angeles because of what they have seen on television, but it is truly a filthy, filthy place. The number of homeless has been rising about 20 percent a year, public drug use is seemingly everywhere, and there are mountains of trash all over the place. Needless to say, rats thrive in such an environment, and the epic battle that one L.A. journalist is having with rats was recently feature in the LA Times …
Eastside, Westside, north and south, they're everywhere. If you're a rat, the California housing crisis has not hit you yet and it never will.
At our house, it sounded like the rats were having relay races in the ceiling, and they don't wear sneakers. Your eyes blink and your leg twitches as you drift off to sleep knowing that if the plague comes back, you are living at ground zero.
In our garden, they devoured entire heads of lettuce. They destroyed my squash just before it was ripe and ready to eat. They stole my tomatoes, cilantro and Anaheim chili peppers. Were they bottling their own salsa?
The same things that are going on in LA are happening in cities all over the Western US including "nice" places like the state capital of Oregon. Durden continues:
For example, a massive rat infestation recently forced authorities to close a shockingly filthy homeless encampment under a bridge in Salem, Oregon.
Amid the trash, human despair and anguish, one weeping woman prepared to leave the most recent place she knows as home without any real inkling of where she'll go next.
Terry Balow, an outreach worker with the Salvation Army, has been here for the darker moments of living life under a bridge — anger, mental illness, drug use and human frustration boiling over at times everywhere one looks.
Yet it was a rat infestation and concern about human health that prompted the city of Salem to move the campers out.
"It just grew and grew and got worse," Balow said. "It's badder than people can imagine."
Yes, there have always been homeless encampments in this country, but in modern times we have never faced anything on the scale that we are facing now.
Remember the prosperous 1950s, when we didn't have these problems, when everyone had jobs? The 1950s that liberals hate?
Indeed homelessness has grown astronomically since then as American politicians have paid no attention to the deteriorating economy and job migration to third-world countries. And now that president Trump is paying attention, the liberals hate him.
Conservative/libertarian activist John Stossel reports about San Francisco:
Each day in San Francisco, an average of 85 cars are broken into.
"Inside Edition" ran a test to see how long stereo equipment would last in a parked car. Their test car was quickly broken into. Then the camera crew discovered that their own car had been busted into as well.
It has been said that "as goes California, so goes the country", and if this is where the rest of the nation is headed then we are in serious trouble.
When Bill Blain recently visited San Francisco, he was so horrified by what he encountered that he felt he must write about it… I hope my American hosts will forgive me for raising this, but the squalor we saw in The City was frightful. San Francisco has always been one of favourite US cities, but the degree of homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse we saw on this trip was truly shocking.
Walking round SF on a Sunday Morning and we saw sights we couldn't believe. This must be one of the richest cities in the world – home to 4 of the 10 richest people on the planet according to Wiki. I asked friends about it, and they shrugged it off.. "The City has always attracted the homeless because of the mild weather,".. "It's a drug thing".. "its too difficult"… "you get used to it.."
Well, I didn't.
I found it quite shocking the number of folk sleeping rough on the sidewalks, the smell of weed and drug impedimenta everywhere, the filth, mental illness and degradation on view just a few meters from the financial centre driving Silicon Valley. It's a city where the destitute seem to have become invisible to the Uber hailing elites. We found ourselves hopping on one of the beautiful F-Route Trolley Buses to find nearly every seat occupied by someone lugging around their worldly possessions around in a plastic bag. It was desperately sad.


text:
The necessary allegiance to family and the constant state of war and turmoil along the Border shaped the everyday lives of the people. Living depended largely on livestock rather than crops, and their agricultural system followed a regular pattern. Raiding took place all year round, but it was more popular from autumn to spring when the nights were longer and time wasn't devoted to growing crops. However most time and effort was given to raising cattle and sheep. In April the Borderer would move up to the higher ground, living in his sheiling for four or five months while his beasts were pastured. These summer communities were safer than their winter homes but were still subject to occasional raids. This nomadic life suited the borderers well. They had learned from years of living through wars not to build permanent dwellings but to live constantly on the move.
Their meals probably consisted largely of beef or mutton broth. Bishop Leslie commented extensively on their diet, referring to them eating mostly 'flesh, milk and boiled barley' and that bread was only eaten rarely but that 'hearth cakes of oats' were eaten instead. He said that the borderers took very little beer or wine which is probably why drunken behavior gets few mentions in the Border records.
Both men and women dressed necessarily in practical and hard wearing clothes. However some style and finery must have existed given the descriptions of items of stolen clothing in the complaints lodged with the March wardens on Truce Days.
The women were usually well treated and highly respected and were said to be generally regarded as fair and comely. An unwritten law in the Reivers' code forbade the attack and violation of women and rape was an uncommon crime. The children were raised in the strong tradition of their family surnames but it did not last very long and there is a record of an 11 year old Johnson taking part in a raid.
Most of the people of the borders lived in makeshift houses that could be built in a short time. Stakes would be driven into the ground and the gaps filled in with stones and turf sods. The walls were finished off with clay and the roof would be either turf or thatch. Wooden shutters kept out the worst of the weather and the doorway hung with a length of cowhide. These huts could be built in about three or four hours.
Excerpt from Exploring Border Reivers History by Philip Nixon,
Published by Breedon Books Publishing


text:
We Are Borg
"Are you kidding me?" That was the intrusive thought as I perused the electronics store looking for home security systems. My personal privacy is one thing I treasure, and, I wanted to protect my new hermit sanctum from uninvited and opportunistic "guests."
My sense of what to expect in the way of suitable equipment was stand-alone motion sensors, site alarms, and, maybe closed-circuit camera surveillance, all of which would be subject to my personal control.
But, the systems on display here touted such wondrous features as voice control, inter-device wireless communication, remote viewing of my hermit cave from another city, even talking to a person ringing my doorbell from 200 miles away. And, it was touted, I had personal control of the entire security spectrum through my smart phone or other computerized device. Such control would be managed over Al Gore's marvelous invention, the World Wide Web. YES! That would be the same internet that allows our identities, wealth, and reputations to be stolen… where employers can read your thoughts on personal web sites and fire you for being non-compliant with the employer's views.
Another thought, chilling to my personal sense of privacy and control of my life, flashed through my mind on the heels of that hype: George Orwell's 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Its distinction was the introduction of the term Big Brother, the name of an authoritative government whose power derived from the application of thought control over its citizens, a power facilitated by confinement and brain-washing of non-compliant persons.
It was the term "internet" that fueled my spine-tingling thought of Big Brother. That net would be the same place that has stored all the formerly private information about my financial dealings, my bank information, my medical information, my comments on Facebook and Twitter, my political affiliations and opinions, my religious convictions, my familial connections; even the kind of music and movies I see and hear, and the kind of things I enjoy and purchase at the grocery store. All known to the internet.
Yes, your personal calendar, though fortified against intrusion by that secret password known only to you, is vulnerable to any hacker's eyes.
Oh, for the good old days of real privacy. Back then, your personal information was not sold or given away by businesses with whom you contracted, and the use of cash did not announce to the world your name, your address, your description, your employer, your location at the time you made payment, etc.
Cash is a private transaction, whereas credit cards and debit cards scream out everything about you over a virtual public-address system.
I just love internet sites' declarations of privacy toward your personal business: Because we respect your privacy, we will not sell or give away your information to others… except to our affiliates and 3rd parties who can help us make another buck, and they have not agreed to anything regarding the privacy of your personal information.
That previous paragraph was my personal summation of what that 10,000-word, fine-print declaration of respect intimates.
Once, I considered myself to be "John Q. Citizen." Now, I have become stamped on the forehead as "Grade-A Prime Marketing Prospect."
I resist, but I know…
resistance is futile.
I try to remain apart, but, I know…
I will be assimilated.
Though Orwell missed the bigger picture, his Big Brother has jumped into the Collective Mind of internet feet first. NSA, FBI, FCC, KGB, and a host of other alphabet soup agencies and dot-com web sites gleefully mine the mother-lode of data held within that COLLECTIVE mind of internet.
Another chilling thought from the universe of Roddenberry's Star Trek…
Resistance is futile.
You will be assimilated.
WE ARE BORGRead Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
Digital Vendetta
…and I am not just paranoid. They ARE out to get me!
Something old and nothing new. I rough-drafted this article about 6 months ago, but, I'm still chaffed by those events, so I am completing it now as ointment on my nagging hot spots.
Your words for the day (my definitions, so there):
- 'pooned = harpooned; grievously wounded; irked to the max
- lampooned = made fun of; grievously wounded; irked to the max
- dissed = see lampooned
Apple: The computer maker, not the fruit. I can't complain much about their products, since I have yet to own one. "Why not?," you may ask. When I first started thinking about getting a computer about 15 years ago, I thought the iMacs had the most stylish appearance. The price tag was stylish, too — about 3 times the cost of a PC, which I could also not afford. I immediately wrote iMac off my present and future Christmas lists, since I knew the hardware was almost identical to that of the less expensive (and less stylish) PC. I mean, Apple didn't use precious metals exclusively in the iMac, or they would have been the only computers thieves would have targeted. And over the years, I have not bought Apple's gimmick of marketing a "great" product as they start the clock and the hype for a better (albeit the same) "much-anticipated and improved" product — annually.
Microsoft: Deleted my Starter Word 2010 program that came with their Jim-dandy new Win7 with a "critical" update that told me I had to buy the full Win7 Word at full price if I ever wanted to see my documents again. Let's hear a round of applause for the system reset option. The critical update was persistent, though. I had to go through the system reset routine 3 times before it gave up.
Microsoft (or maybe Hewlett/Packard): My Jim-dandy new Win7 laptop by HP came complete with a jack rabbit cursor that jumps somewhere else on the document while I am typing, and sometimes when I just look at the screen. My typing point jumps to wherever the idle mouse cursor is resting.
Microsoft: Though happy with Windows XP, I finally gave in and got a Win7 laptop. The price was right. A few months later, Win8 made the scene. The salt in that wound? Win7 (which sucks) deep-sixed a number of features I liked on XP, while Win8 has features that resemble those in XP that I had become friends with, such as that floating portfolio that clicked so neatly when opened or closed. I never learned to use it, but, I loved its being there, and it looked a lot more professional than all those "post-its" on my Win7 desktop.
Microsoft: Long suppressed irks. Around year Y2K, this pioneering software developer went beyond Windows 98 with new programs. Windows 2000, followed by Vista, and — in their dust — the finally-got-it-right-almost Windows XP. There were more satisfied buyers of the XP than the one-night-stand Win2000 and Vista. Wave bye-bye to 2000 and Vista.
Microsoft: Deja vu… all… over… again. All you purchasers of 2000, Vista, and XP, get your checkbooks over to that retail outlet and buy Windows 7… no, Windows 8… uh, no, Windows 8.1… shatspah! Reserve one of those Windows 9 units I am hearing about.
Quick question to MS: Are you using Steve Jobs' and Apple's marketing ruse of designing a product then producing incomplete versions of it with a promise to add "new" (wink, wink) features (that you already designed into it) as an upgrade in each of the next 3 years? If you do as good a job as Apple of hyping your much-anticipated "upgrade," you can get the same schmucks to buy the same piece of hardware they already own next year with an "extra" in the software… which could have been added to the unit in-hand electronically at no extra cost to the customer.
Kudos to the marketing masters at Apple for taking the Cabbage Patch Doll generation to the cleaners year after year. They were ripe for it.
T-Mobile: Electronic upgrade is what T-Mobile did to the "My Touch" unit I liked so much several years ago. On a quiet Sunday night around 2:00 a.m., the screen message said — in effect — "Don't touch nuthin'. Your Android Ver. 2.0 is being upgraded to a newer version of Android. We are in control. You can have your new and improved phone back when we are done with it." …sigh! If only that had been the case. The brain enhancement they gave my little phone was a lobotomy. T-Mobile techs worked with it for a week and finally decided it was brain-dead. I had the sad duty of boxing it up in a casket and sending it back to T-Mobile, while greeting its less-than-acceptable free replacement, a Samsung Galaxy S.
There is more of this digital dissing of my horse-and-buggy mind-set, but, this is depressing me. Soon, I will be heading over to the electronics store and see if the Windows 8.1 units are on sale. That's what will happen just before the next "newer and so much more improved" version comes out. (Maybe they will throw in a vintage Cabbage Patch Doll that I can adopt.)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
Microwaves, Bluetooth and Health
Whoa! Have I shown you my mutated…
Electromagnetic radiation is a basic in the Universe's structure and operation. It is everywhere (probably). The Great Learned of Earth have examined it, mulled it, and catalogued its various manifestations to their satisfaction. The inventive among them have figured out how to capture that theoretical* stuff and make it work for humans. Thus, we have devices that can employ, create, record, and interpret long waves, short waves, microwaves, radio waves, x-rays, gamma rays, and, I am sure there are a lot of other descriptive tags** for all that stuff…
…some of which — in ANY concentration — ain't good for nobody.*** Think of it as a Cosmic Candy & Pastry Bistro, with aisle after aisle of freshly prepared, aromatic come-ons everywhere. As long as you sample very sparingly, the delight remains delightful, but, over-absorption leads to complications within your biomass… and repeat trips to the clothing store, dietician's office, medical specialists, and, that once-in-a-lifetime dream trip to the mortician's workshop.
For simplicity — and fewer words — let's just call all that stuff microwaves. It is omnipresent and useful to that naked ape tool-maker, homo sap us. But, like all things human, we tend to overdo it. You ride the wind, you go where it takes you.
Our bodies were developed amidst the wild, chaotic, and yet, orderly, workings of the Universe. That ambient level of microwaves was calibrated into our genetic makeup. But, those clever, industrious humans have learned to create and issue billions of new sources of microwaves (radar grids, cell phones, Bluetooth technology, GPS…) that traverse the whole of their environment; have they tipped the scale of neutral microwave effect beyond the normal and natural safe limit of absorption? If so, to what effect? If not, how will they ever know?
Hey, I am just one of trillions upon trillions of living entities. Like all them others, I got lots of questions and almost no answers. Trial-and-error and wait-and-see are the only strategies any of us have. But, we humans have invented something else to pass the time between birth and death: games — such as one-upmanship, he said-I said, unprovable hypothesizing, hot-button journalism…
In the realm of human-generated microwave transmissions, there is either too much or not enough data to determine the degree of impact on human organisms. Until that is resolved, we will all keep playing our word games.
…hmm! What do you call that, anyway?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
Cell Phones and Brain Tumors
There is an old saw about preoccupation and tunnel vision. I think it goes, "you can't see the forest for the trees." For this article, I think I will use that in this manner:
- You can't see the microwave forest for the cell-phone tree.
Speaking of trees, once upon a time that was the only source of reliable heat. Right off it was noted that the side effect — smoke — was bad to breathe. The coughing, choking, burning eyes and such were the tip-off. So, it was used outside until the overhead smoke draft was thought up to give indoor smoke a way to the outside.
It has been pretty much the same story with all of our other energy sources:
- Fossil fuels had pretty much the same problem as wood — black soot and sulfur all over everything; black lung wasn't a good selling point, either.
- Nuclear energy seemed to be a clean, abundant alternative — except for the tissue-destroying radiation effect.
- Electricity is clean enough, but you gotta use fossil or nuclear fuels to generate it.
Communication methods have had a lighter impact on the environment than energy extraction. Sign language, body language, and talking had little impact on environment. With the advent of smoke signals, parchment, paper, quills and ink, trees and birds bore the brunt of any negative ecological impact.
The telegraph and telephone caused a lot of wire to be strung all over the place. Other than being an eyesore, not much environmental impact.
Then along came Jones… Marconi… Guglielmo Marconi and his invisible radio waves — and wireless transmission (except for the power cord to fire up the transmitter) strutted onto the human scene. Homo smart sapiens followed that with microwave transmission and cell phones. Result: the everyday person now has the world at its fingertips, conveniently tucked into a belt, pocket, purse or inside its ear. Clean, portable, efficient… except that…
Some years ago, this guy got himself a brain tumor. He must have had a cell phone and kept it glued to the side of his head where the tumor showed up 'cause he screamed, "THE CELL PHONE CAUSED IT!" Cause and effect, or coincidence? We know that microwaves can be harmful (check with that lump of charcoal in you microwave oven that just went in to become a warm biscuit), but I lean toward "coincidence" because:
- Brain tumors have been around a lot longer than cell phones, and, heretofore, have not required that input.
- Throughout the general population, over a span of time, there will be numerous incidents of brain tumors. It is historical.
- The cell phone has a broad appeal to the general public, some of whom will undoubtedly experience brain tumors in their lifetimes (and kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, glaucoma, Parkinson's… you get the picture). Owning the latest version of the iPhone or Oprah Winfrey's recent entry in the magazine business will not change that inevitability.
- Other than one unfortunate victim of tumor-ism, there was nothing to suggest that tumors appeared concurrently with the advent of cell-phone-ism.
But the media picked up on the allegation and gave it press time. "Researchers" looked into it, manufacturers installed microwave blocks on cell phones, and the government established a "safe maximum microwave output" for cell phones. The public and the media went back to their routines (involving the constant use of cell-phones?) quietly satisfied.
I saw this video on the Yahoo! home page a couple of weeks ago in which the narrator listed the top 5 cell phones that come closest to the government-established safe limit for microwave radiation. And I got a good laugh.
Since all of the phones listed were within the established safe limits, the story accomplished only 3 things:
- Smirched the reputations of manufacturers and their products that were in compliance with established standards.
- Gave a video "journalist" a hot button to entice site visitors who would be exposed to embedded advertising.
- Allowed the aforementioned "journalist" to prove once again that The Big Pee* will miss the THE BIG STORY because they are focused on hot-button-sensitive audiences… to make a buck.
The BIG story our videographer missed:
- The Universe is naturally full of microwave radiation. We are immersed in it constantly.
- Cell phones spend most of their time in pockets, purses, and on belts. At home and office, they are often on a desk.
- It is that cool-looking blue-tooth device plugged into the ear emitting microwaves that is right up against that brain.
- Microwave transmission towers that comprise the cell-grid making the cell phone possible emit much stronger impulses than that puny little cell phone. Everyone in the cell coverage area spends all of their time in range of two or more of these mega-emitters.
- Inside your home, which is bathed liberally in microwave tower emissions, you have added wireless broadband, wireless printers, wireless television, and maybe even a wireless security system. (For the slow-minded among us, wireless transmission means microwave transmission.) All of that together is a lot more than the government-mandated limit for your little cell phone emissions.
And don't forget that when you are a member of a large gathering of people, 95% of everyone there has a cell phone. Are they keeping their tumor-causing emissions to themselves, or are they sharing with you?
The cell phone is just one tree in the microwave forest, but, the Media, perpetual complainers, and obliging bureaucrats just can't see the forest that surrounds it.
And if litigators can ever get something to latch onto, they will count on the "tunnel vision**" of the jury panels to line their pockets with filthy lucre… that would be "ill-gotten gains"… by suing the hapless manufacturers of an insignificant source of microwaves.
* As in "press" with a capital "P"
** Ignorance is another good wordRead Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )


text:
Get off work early, and go see some art. I think that should be my new mantra… I spent an afternoon on the Westside and had a chance to see the latest KAWS exhibit, "Man's Best Friend". I've managed to see every one of the shows he's had at Honor Fraser, and although this one wasn't as grandiose, it was just as good. He returned with a new body of work that encompassed black and white pieces and the use of Charles M. Schulz's iconic Peanuts characters.
If you've seen "Man's Best Friend", I'm sure you got some pretty cool Instagram photos for your followers. Any KAWS piece would warrant that. But have you taken the time to really examine what he does? Sometimes the meaning gets lost. I know because I've done that just for content on Fatlace. But this time, I went through the gallery and studied lines, shapes, and colors. I stepped back and stared at his chaos, his interpretation of pop culture and dystopia, and tried to make sense of it.
I think I should change my mantra to take time, instead.
Anyway, here are some photos from the show. It runs through October 31 at Honor Fraser in Los Angeles.


text:
Rainy Season in the Tropics
(Regenzeit in den Tropen)
Frederic Edwin Church
American art
double rainbow · green · rainbow · people · mountains · blue sky · palm tree · clouds · colorful · rainy · season · Tropics
Rainy Season in the Tropics by Frederic Edwin Church
1866 · Öl auf Panel · 63.37 Megapixel · Picture ID: 9430
Add to favorites
5/5 · Show reviews (4)
19.04.2017Mehmet Yücel S.
Art print on Canvas glossy, 75cm x 50cm, stretched on stretcher.
27.09.2017Mila T.
Perfect reproduction of one of my favorite paintings.
(Machine translation)
Original comment: Perfecte reproductie van één van mijn favoriete schilderijen.
Art print on Canvas glossy, 120cm x 80cm, stretched on stretcher.
24.08.2018Nadine K.
Art Print on Photo paper matte/satin, 90cm x 60cm.
10.03.2019Gerrit L.
Art print on Canvas glossy, 50cm x 33cm, stretched on stretcher.
|Frederic Edwin Church was an American artist who traveled a lot. On his travels he made many sketches and photos of the landscape he saw. At home in his studio he painted precise and impressive landscapes. The places he painted did not really exist but were a combination of his sketches and pictures. One of his pictures he calls "Rainy Season in the Tropics". It is inspired by his Jamaican journey and presented in an amazingly realistic way. Palm trees on the left and mountains on the right frame the misty valley, while a rainbow connects the landscapes. Not only is the picture wonderful to look at, but Church also wanted to give meaning to his work. The interpretations of this picture are very different, but since it was painted in the post-war period, it should probably show hope. © Meisterdrucke


text:
The title is not a misnomer. Karen Marie Moning is another author I liked reading because her historical series is about Highlanders. Yes, those Scottish men most historical romance authors liked to write about. Sometimes, I think that although the chances of me going to Scotland are nil, I feel as if I've been there from all those books that feature the wild beauty and grandeur of the Highlands (and Lowlands).
I have only read Moning's Highlander series. There are eight books in all! After the first book (and I read them in order), I could not put it off. Although each story can be read on its own, it helps if you have a background of other characters that show up in other books. I had to know more and learn more about the Druids, warriors and the Fae.
I highly recommend this series because the blend of fantasy and reality was well put by Moning. There were just enough magic, mystery and romance that can easily transport you into their realm.
Also, it's really a boon to be able to forget where the mundane realities of life resides.


text:
Lambda Pi Eta Inducts 16 New Members
Congrats to the 16 Communication Studies students who were inducted into Lambda Pi Eta, Canisius College's Communication Studies Honors Society. These students were inducted at a ceremony on Sunday, April 7 in front of family and friends.
Students are selected and asked to join the honor society based on rigorous academic standards set by the Lambda Pi Eta National Organization. Graduating Lambda Pi Eta members were also honored and presented with their red and white honor cords to wear at graduation in May. Congratulations to all!
Congratulations to:
Noah Cliff
Cora Ivison
Madeline Rickett
Erisa Miyasawa
Emily Simon
Imuetinyan Okuns
Rebecca Brandel
Domenico Renna
Courtney Kelly
Robert Grant
Adam Duke
Kate Liscavage
Simone Riter
D'jhai Patterson Ricks
Emma Vicaretti
Zhane Irby


text:
#AtoZChallenge : To my Xerox Shop
Image source
My dear Xerox shop,
First of all I am sorry. Sorry for not making you turn into reality. Destiny had its own plans for me. My plan of owning you remained nothing but a plan. Don't be upset with me. I have an explanation. Please hear me out. And I know that you are a photocopy machine and not a xerox machine. So don't correct me.
It was my first year in college and it being the first year I was all so excited. I had decided right at the beginning of the year that I would do my best. I would be prompt in my studies. The college I studied in being an autonomous college (now a university) we had this lesson plan with information regarding the subjects and the books to refer for each subject. No it did not end there. There was a different book for different units in the same subject. Buying each of those books was definitely not possible. I ran to the library to get all the books possible but there being limited copies I had no choice. I had to resort to getting photocopies of the lessons in various textbooks by borrowing it from friends or from the library. I sat making my own notes from those photocopies. And then the lecturers announced that they would be handing over the notes that they had made in the xerox shop and we had to get our copies from there. We didn't care much when the lecturers told but as the exams drew closer, the lines in front of the xerox shops near college only grew. That was just the beginning. As the months passed, there were multiple assignments and projects, the material for all of which was available in the xerox shop. I had to ask money from mom more often as I had so many photocopies to make. Slowly the number of people attending classes reduced. I was quite regular though. Now being the regular one, I had a task at hand - to take down notes in class. And then my note books would travel to the xerox shop and there were copies made, multiple copies of my dear notes. I was amazed at the business that the shop owner would make. So many photocopies to be made each day. Imagine the profits. So much money!
A couple of years passed by and I was in the beginning of my final semester and the placement season was about to begin. I was not sure about getting placed and so I made up mind that I would open you, my very own xerox shop. I loved the smell of paper and I could open a tiny book shop also. I could run this business and I could even write that novel of mine while sipping from a cup of tea. Life would be good. But then I got placed and I am sorry but I just forgot about you. There were so many other things to think about and I had no time to think about you. I am sorry for that. Just a couple of days ago while I was photocopying a few documents I remembered you. How I had decided to open you and how I had forgotten about it. But now that I remember, well may be I'll see you post my retirement? So please don't mind but I just can't make you reality now. Hope that you are still relevant post my retirement!
I'm taking up the
and my theme is "A letter for a letter". So make sure you read all the letters from A to Z.
Also participating in the
Ultimate Blog Challenge


text:
About My Beard
It's MY beard! It's MY face. It's MY head. When I was a child, and up to age 16 I would get a flat top or what was commonly referred to as a crew cut every spring when school let out for Summer Vacation.
By September my hair would grow back in. Most of my uncles wore crew cuts. The idea behind it was ease of maintenance (year round) but especially comfort in simmering summer weather. The "crew cut" originated some time in the '40's or early '50's with competitive college sculling or rowing "crews". Early on, the hair style was considered a radical fad – a thing about which I was completely unaware.
In our elementary and high schools we had dress codes of sorts, another thing we were pretty much oblivious to, but we generally conformed to a common hygienic standard. In those days we were taught personal hygiene, good posture, respect for authority, patriotism and so forth. But by my senior year in high school I'd been negatively affected by dirty politics which made school seem rather pointless and I was more than antsy to get out. At that somewhat rebellious stage in my life I decided to just let my hair grow. And truth be told, I was, like everyone else, under pressure from the fashions of the time, e.g. The Beatles.
Pity me, my blonde hair was far too wavy front to back to style after Elvis Presley's pompadour with a "duck's ass" or the Beatles casual helmets. My hair formed tight, almost kinky waves, and the waves on either side of my head broke this way and that and the best I could do is part it down the middle just to compromise. Parting my hair (on either side) would just leave my head looking lopsided and really odd.
In my 18th year I was drafted and, while undergoing Basic Training (BCT) I, or rather we trainees, were not allowed facial hair – or ANY hair at all. We were required to get haircuts once a week (and pay for them ourselves) and shave every day – and for some of us, even twice a day. During Basic we were bald skinheads. We were shorn like sheep in hurried assembly-line fashion. I remember one poor soul bleeding profusely from a scalp wound after being brutally stabbed with an errant electric shear. Shaving was, for the most part, letting the blood flow – scraping off newly erupted acne and yesterday's scabs.
Afterward, for the most part, we were still harassed skinheads, but we were allowed a modest mustache. The irony being, by the time I turned 19 and came home from the Vietnam War I still couldn't even grow a respectable mustache.
At the time the whole country was abuzz about "The Great Mens' Hair Controversy" any way. The Army of course, had their reasons to oppose long hair and beards as did (and still do) employers.
We all have our own biases. Which brings me to one of my favorite expressions I picked up while in the Army:
"Opinions are like assholes – everybody's got one."
And mostly, uninformed.
A mustache, a beard, long hair on men, (throw in some tattoos) and you've got the makings for a strong case of discrimination. I digress in saying that, so long as a surplus of labor is maintained, discrimination, no matter how petty, can and will be both exercised and enjoyed.
After my military service I let my hair grow, even dallied, if only briefly, with mustache wax. (I'd rather have leftovers in the old "soup strainer")
In dating I quickly discovered that half the women liked my beard and the other half didn't. It was a toss-up defaulting to my own discretion. It is my face after all. If you don't like my beard you can come over to my house and give me a shave every morning.
I will say that women who hold a strong opinion either way tend to be control freaks.
I've never enjoyed the daily blood-letting anyway. And, speaking of blood-letting, the manly art of barbering as a profession has pretty much gone by the board largely due to feminism and HIV/AIDS. Charlie Brown's father was said to be a barber. "Barber" or "barbering" used to be masculine terms and a worthy profession allowing a man sufficient income to support a wife and children; but no more. No more shaves, hot towels and facials along with a carefully done haircut, no. Today we have women hairstylists, greedy, bitter, harried, often divorced, man-hating shrews renting barber chairs from even greedier corporate franchisees; giving bad haircuts to innocent victims. Obviously, I haven't had a good haircut in decades.
In a perfect world I'd frequent a barber shop as in the days of yore and enjoy being pampered a little and always looking my best, but that is not to be.
Some ethnic groups have little or no facial or body hair. Is it right – is it wrong? Is it good – is it evil? Is it superior or is it inferior? Or is it just poor human judgement?
Given my personal history and the idea that it was made pretty much illegal for me to work or get gain, I enjoy what little freedom I'm given and thus let my hair and beard grow just as it pleases me so to do.
I do not obsess over such things as some people do. It is a mere coin-toss whether you're born a man or a woman.
"But the very hairs of your head are all numbered." – Matt. 10:30
So if God numbers the hairs on your head – Who am I to argue against God? I think if I were naturally bald I would handle it with better grace than some men. So my hair is (or was) wavy,
"That which is crooked cannot be made straight. . . . ." -Eccl. 1:15
Some are obsessed. They struggle their whole lives vainly and futilely against God's own creation, never accepting the hand they were dealt. They spend vast fortunes on hair dyes, toupees, cosmetic surgery, wrinkle cream, shoe lifts, tummy tucks, contact lenses, breast enlargement, penis enlargement – all-in-all chasing after some vague physical ideal or the eternal Fountain of Youth. Vanity. Futility.
It's MY head; it's MY face; and it's MY beard!
Can you remember a time when you were in a hurry to grow up? Now would be a good time to start.
Over the years my hair and beard have gone through gradual changes in both color and texture – only the length was ever under my control.
It was in that period (a number of years ago) when I was more fully enjoying the default freedom of saving money by not getting a bad corporate haircut that I wore a 2½ years-long salt and pepper ponytail and very long and full beard that I was pressed into service by a neighbor lady to portray the august and much beloved saint:
Santa Claus.
But that is a story for another time.


text:
FREE SHIPPING on all orders to continental US!
Barcode: 077326830932
Size: 4.2 oz
Form: Paste
Out of Stock
Our Fluoride Free Children's Toothpaste uses calcium and silica to gently clean, and the delicious real fruit flavor appeals to your child's taste. No artificial sparkles and bubble gum flavors found here Because it's fluoride-free, you won't have to worry if more toothpaste ends up in your child's tummy than in the sink
Other Ingredientsglycerin,water,calcium carbonate,hydrated silica,natural flavor,carrageenan,sodium lauryl sulfate
WarningsKeep out of reach of children. As with all dietary supplements, consult your healthcare professional before use. See product label for more information.
Type: Dental (Oral) Care


text:
What is Midlife Mojo? And why would you want to find it?
The word mojo has a few meanings.
It can be a good luck charm or a magic power. It also means self-confidence and self-assuredness.
The ability to bounce back from a negative situation.
I define Midlife Mojo as when you embrace all life's opportunities for more fun, more health, more adventure, more money, more freedom with excitement, curiosity, passion and energy. You wake up raring to start the day and go after dreams. You are comfortable with yourself when you look in the mirror. You feel fulfilled with what you are doing in your career. Your sex life is red hot. You are proud of your healthy, fit body. You surround yourself with supportive people. You take risks and try new things. You've learned to say no. You put you first.
Losing your mojo doesn't just happen open overnight. It is an accumulation of compromises we make, opportunities we pass up, draining people we allow into our life, old traumas we never healed. It's marriages that fall apart. Raising a family putting our needs below everyone else. We lose our mojo little by little when we don't speak our truth and use our voice for fear of sounding stupid or uninteresting, offending someone, thinking no one would listen or believe you or just being too intimidated. The wear and tear on our body's over 40, 50, 60 years can make us feel older than we are. Poor health and decreased physical conditioning as we age prevents us from doing activities we once loved. Our sex life has either become routine or virtually non existent. We become uncomfortable in our own skin and start to hide under big clothes and refuse to be in photos. Losing our mojo is like becoming invisible.
Nothing is a quick fix but finding your midlife mojo is vital to your health, wellbeing and happiness to make the second half of your life even better than the first. If you are ready to get your mojo back and rock the new year then you are going to love and benefit from the 8 week Finding Your Midlife Mojo Course. It is based on my Amazon best selling book called "No Sweat: It's Just Menopause: Eating, Exercise & Essential Oils For A Healthy Change". But don't let the book title fool you we go beyond the menopausal years to include the entire midlife transition. Each week will address a different topic from the book including, nutrition, exercise, libido, hot flashes, beauty, better sleep, decreasing stress, mood management and empowering your mind to not just survive bit thrive in your 40's, 50's and 60's.
You will learn:
What hormones are and how they effect the aging woman
How the toxins in our everyday products and in our environment are a major contributor to female health issues and how to reduce exposure
Which foods best support hormonal health and help to reduce the midlife midsection
Why choosing the right kinds of exercises is important for your heart and bone health and specific exercises that benefit the midlife women best
How essential oils can support all systems of your body and specific oils to improve physical and emotional wellbeing
What happens to your body during hot flashes and night sweats and how to best deal with them
Ways to increase your libido, improve vaginal lubrication and spice up your sex life
How to maintain youthful hair, skin and nails appearance
How lack of sleep and increased stress can effect your adrenal system and ways to naturally better manage both
Ideas to empower your thoughts leading to taking inspired action to live your best life
and so much more...
By the end of the 8 weeks you will be well on your journey to Finding Your Midlife Mojo!
The 8 week course begins and ends with taking a Midlife Mojo quiz to measure your progress as well as an introductory Zoom call prior to the January 14th start date so we are all ready to roll day one.
The program includes:
A paperback copy of my book "No Sweat It's Just Menopause: Eating, Exercise & Essential Oils For A Healthy Change" with inspirational book mark
2- 30 minute Private Zoom calls
Weekly Live 60 minute Group Zoom Call
One Hour Pre-Recorded Essential Oils 101 Webinar
Midlife Mojo Toolbox (8 essential oil infused products to support the weekly topic)
Vision Board Instructional Video
5 ml Transformation Essential Oil Rollon
Midlife Mojo Journal
One Hour Fighting Fat after 40 Pre-Recorded Webinar
8 Recipe Cards
8 Exercise Demo Videos
Access to private Finding Your Midlife Mojo Facebook page
Weekly Facebook Live Q & A
Can you believe all this cool stuff you get? That's because I love to give value. All of the contents of this course offered individually would be over $750. But I am on a mission to serve the midlife woman. To offer a safe space to learn and share about topics that have been in the past taboo or too awkward to speak of with others. Therefore I am offering the 8 week program, products and support for just $197. A true investment in you!
E-book "What To Eat When Your Plate Is Full:
A Busy Woman's Guide To Healthy Eating"
E-book "Scentsible Snacking: Healthy Cooking With Essential Oils"


text:
(Clearwisdom.net) Because of Teacher's arrangements, I get to meet people who have a predestined relationship with me. As such, I met Mr. Wang Yang. After often talking to Mr. Wang about the truth of Falun Dafa, he came to realize that Teacher and Dafa teach people to be good, and that Dafa practitioners are being severely persecuted and slandered by the Chinese Communist Party(CCP). He then told me his thoughts, "The CCP is simply very bad. Because I work within the CCP system, I am well acquainted with all the despicable means the Party uses all the time. I have long lost confidence in the CCP and do not hold out any hope for it." Mr. Wang decided to quit the CCP and its youth organizations. He also showed support for Dafa practitioners. As he spoke, he took out a 10,000 yuan donation for practitioners to use to prepare truth clarifying materials. As an awakened being, Mr. Wang did a good deed.
Of course, according to Dafa's principles we do not accept any donations from any organizations or individuals. All the financial resources used to make truth-clarifying booklets or CDs come from practitioners. However, Mr. Wang said to me, "Please take this money. It will come in handy when you do your Dafa work and make truth-clarifying materials." Because I thought that this was also an opportunity for a being who has understood the truth to position himself, I accepted the money. Mr. Wang, please do not worry. The money that you donated will be used on Dafa projects for clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings.


text:
Moments passed without either a word exchanged. Truly, I bit back more disgust. Maybe this man did save me or maybe he promised not to harm me, but he was still a Kakodaemon and I, still a prisoner. And with the deplorable condition of my body, not to mention the bitter taste of betrayal still a fresh sting to my heart, nothing could stop this godless creature from finishing what Elias started.
"Kel is it?" This time I didn't try to hide the disdain coating my voice. This man wasn't a child and the smell of spilled blood clung rampant to every facet of his body.
An elegant brow arched up, wrinkling an otherwise smooth forehead. A curious light glinted from deep within those crimson pools staring down at me. Laughter? I wrinkled my nose in response. Was he mocking me? Yet, no sound came out from those thin lips nor did he gnash his teeth in anger. Again he reached over and swept a few wisps of blonde hair from my eyes and again I flinched away. Then I settled, glaring at him with a mixture of confusion and oddly enough, curiosity. That's when a bellow of rich laughter burst from the Kakodaemon but not the mocking or triumphant laughter I expected.
"After all that has happened to you, I don't blame you for your hesitation." Kel spoke once his laughter died. He folded his arms over his chest, cocking his head slightly to the right. "So, Ylanna tells me that you are Captain Malachai Lu'Umar, an Avant-garde in the Agathodaemon Army."
So she knew who I was. Wasn't really a surprise though; she didn't seem to be a greenhorn in my eyes. My eyes fell on my bandaged chest. How I wish I could sit up. I twitched my abdomen and winced feeling their protest. A few more days. At least I was alive. For now. Then I looked back up at Kel.
"I take it you are the leader of this facility." More statement than question. Seeing the respect Ylanna paid for the man spoke volumes.
"I am." Again he smiled down at me. "Get some rest. When Ylanna releases you come see me at my tent. She'll inform you to its location."
Before I could respond, Kel retreated out of the room leaving me to my own devices. Sighing, I pulled at the edges of the bed until I successfully turned myself onto my left side, off my injured wing. Then I closed my eyes hoping that I would wake up the next day. What in Tartarus was going to happen to me? Betrayed. Broken. And now in the company of my enemy. Still, things couldn't get worse.


text:
Zunamic gains Google Apps Certified Admin status with Mark Arambula who is an experienced engineer, analyst, and consultant servicing small law firms and small business google apps needs in Orange County, Irvine. We are proud to offer our clients expanding services in the cloud as we are experts in migrating businesses to Google Apps, and Google for Work. We support groups from a few up to a few hundred, with Google Apps as it is one of the best email and group management tools. Learn more about Google Apps (Google for Work) and see how we can help you save money by transitioning to the cloud.
Ditch those in-house servers and be worry free with the #1 global email provider Google.


text:
Beyond the Hold of Death: The Issues and Concerns of Women Formerly on Death Row in the Philippines
Date of Award
Degree Type
Restricted Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Social Work
This ethnographic study examines the life histories and persisting concerns of women who once received the death sentence in the Philippines. This research examines the circumstances that led to these women's incarceration and sentencing and the consequences thereof for their families, particularly their children. This study also looks into the impact of the June 2006 abolition of capital punishment on their situation.
The research methods for this project included participant observation with former death row inmates in the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) and the Correctional Institution for Women-Mindanao (CIW-Mindanao). The researcher also conducted in-depth interviews with 27 women formerly on death row, nine members of their families, and eight corrections staff. Finally, the researcher engaged in document analysis of prison and dormitory rules and regulations, articles and reports on the death penalty and incarcerated women in the Philippines, and other pertinent sources.
The majority of the inmate-respondents were incarcerated for kidnapping and drug-related offenses. A smaller proportion of the women were incarcerated for such crimes as: parricide (killing their husbands), murder, car theft with murder, and arson with homicide. Only 10 women pleaded guilty; of this, two women charged with parricide claimed that they had killed their husbands in self-defense or in response to their in-laws' abuse of their children. The remainder claimed that they had been implicated in the offenses of their husbands, partners, relatives, and/or acquaintances or framed up by more powerful players in the drug trade, drug users negotiating a lighter sentence, law enforcement agents, and members of organized crime syndicates. The majority also reported police brutality and/or extortion upon their arrest.
When asked about their time on death row, the majority of the women recalled their fear and outrage when they were sentenced to death--especially those who insisted on their innocence--and their inability to eat, sleep, and concentrate shortly after their transfer from jail to prison. The women largely acknowledged the moral support of their fellow death row inmates. Others recounted the stigma they faced as death row inmates.
All the women mentioned the sense of relief and hope they felt upon the abolition of capital punishment. The women's sentences have since been commuted to life imprisonment without parole. The only exceptions are those whose sentences were commuted to regular life imprisonment terms before the abolition of the death penalty. There is a great deal of confusion among the women as regards the terms of their new sentence, in that many assume that they are automatically eligible for parole.
To date, no sociological studies on women formerly on death row, let alone women inmates, have been conducted in the Philippines, thereby reinforcing their invisibility. This research intends to make women formerly on death row more visible and to advocate for continued reforms in the criminal justice system on their behalf.
Recommended Citation
Veloso, Diana Therese Montejo, "Beyond the Hold of Death: The Issues and Concerns of Women Formerly on Death Row in the Philippines" (2012). Dissertations. 400.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2012 Diana Therese Montejo Veloso


text:
But nothing could have prepared me for the awesomeness that is The Night of the Giving Dead. Not only is this woman funny, she's generous too.
To celebrate the release of her debut YA novel, Bad Taste in Boys, Carrie is hosting an auction to benefit the Giving Library at the University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital, a hospital that serves about 70,000 kids. Yeah, totally worthy recipient, right?
Here are just a few of the items you can bid on:
- Signed copies of great books like Clarity by Kim Harrington and Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.
- Audio cds of books like Torment by Lauren Kate
- Query and manuscript critiques from agents like Tina Wexler, Alyssa Eisner Henkin and Kate Schafer Testerman or authors like Beth Revis, Caroline Star Rose or Cynthea Liu.
- Weronika Janczuk is even offering a full manuscript critique and Michelle Wolfson has a 30 minute phone call up for grabs.
But check out the grand prize drawings:
- A Kindle preloaded with Bad Taste in Boys OR
- A 6-month mentorship with Carrie herself
Help sick kids, get cool stuff -- it's a win-win for sure. The auction only runs through July 25 so make sure you make your bids before time runs out.
And just so you know, tomorrow night while Carrie vicariously attends the midnight showing of Harry Potter with me, I'll be catching my zzzz's through her. We're part of the Order of the Blog Ninjas. We can do things like that :D


text:
Empty property? Better act fast.
It is important to fill your property quickly to maximise your rental income, but we also understand that selecting the right tenant is essential. We always screen tenants thoroughly to ensure the tenant matches the property.
Once we have a suitable potential tenant, there is no time to waste. We aim to process all tenant applications within 3 days, taking them through a comprehensive background check including employer and landlord referencing and a full credit check. In addition to this we look into affordability, personal references and build up a good picture of the potential tenant's background before proceeding.
Before completing the tenancy agreement, we always ensure that we are entirely satisfied that the tenant can afford the rent and that they will look after your property as we would ourselves.


text:
Well, it's now been at least a week since my colleague with a sim free HTC Desire got his Froyo update, yet still no sign of the update on 3. Surely 3 must know this delay is going to annoy people, because it certainly has for other providers. I know most companies do have their own custom bits added, but surely they can get their fingers out and do the right thing by all the people who pay for these phones and get cracking as soon as the updates become available. The last article I read suggested Froyo would not be available on 3 Androids until the end of summer, and with talk of Gingerbread already in the air, that isn't good enough. Come on 3, get it sorted, and soon. Grumpy of Tiptree….
« Final quick Android post before I nod off…. Froyo on Three. The drip feed of information continues. »


text:
Let SmileScapes Dentistry in Alpharetta Help You Achieve the Best Smile Hiding your smile? Do you need teeth pulled due to poor oral hygiene? There are numerous reasons why you may be considering a visit to your local cosmetic dentist. Here are some signs that you may be a candidate for dental implants. Insecurities Due… Continue Reading
Read Our Alpharetta Dental Blog
How to Stop Grinding Your Teeth
Do you have frequent headaches? Difficulty chewing? Jaw and neck pain? These all may be signs of bruxism. Bruxism is the term that is used to describe grinding, clenching, or gnashing of... Read More
Why Regular Dental Check-Ups Are So Important
Regular dental checkups and cleanings are essential to good dental hygiene and health. SmileScapes Dentistry in Alpharetta recommends that patients receive a check up at least once every six months to help... Read More


text:
A lot of people shy away from competition because each time they hear competition they think 'enemy', 'rival', 'opposition'. People look at competition with a lot of violence. While it is true that some people take competition to a whole other level, there is much to be achieved by a healthy dose of it. A dose of healthy competition could boost work productivity.Workplace competition could be doing a world of good without you realizing.
How does competition boost productivity in the workplace?
- Competition motivates workers to put in more effort. When you see a colleague doing so well, getting awards or even promoted, a hunger for that acknowledgement stirs in you and you find yourself doubling your efforts.
- If everyone becomes as competitive and start striving for excellence, the rate of productivity would automatically increase not just in quantity but in quality as well.
- Competition unlocks creativity. Everyone involved starts thinking up better ideas, creative ways to get the job done. It triggers 'outside the box' thinking.
- A willingness to take risks is activated. When you suddenly realize that there are people around who could possible do your job better than you, risk taking becomes inevitable to maintain your position. This increases overall productivity.
- When there is healthy competition in an office it's hard not to notice. The office is charged with energy and people are eager to get their job done.
- It stirs respect. When you see someone accomplishing a task and in record time, you may not be friends but you'll develop respect for their work. This respect leads to mutual understanding and in turn a peaceful environment.
Just like with everything, too much competition can prove counterproductive leading to dispute and rivalry. Keep the competition light and neutral. Also keep in mind that rewards make competition much more worthwhile as people are more inclined to do something if a prize is attached to it.


text:
Medical IDs and Seizure Disorder
Seizure disorder bracelet or seizure disorder jewelry is probably the last thing on anybody's mind when dealing with a seizure disorder diagnosis. After all, bracelets, necklaces and anklets may not seem to serve any purpose beyond being decorative. However, when it comes to chronic diseases like seizure disorders, being quickly identified as having this medical condition is often necessary.
This is why seizure disorder bracelets are often worn, not just to inform anyone about the wearer's health status, but to alert people, such as first responders, first-aid staff and medical professionals of the appropriate action to perform when the wearer is involved in an emergency.
Seizure disorder is a medical condition that is characterized by recurrent seizures. Unfortunately, seizures in people suffering from seizure disorder are unpredictable and may occur at any time. The mildest seizures involve staring spells, while some people with seizure disorder suffer from violent shaking fits.
Many people with seizure disorder take medication to keep seizures under control. Missed doses of seizure disorder medication may result in a seizure, leading to a medical emergency.
The Importance of Seizure Disorder Identification
When people with seizure disorder were first encouraged to wear seizure disorder bracelets, some people were not very supportive of getting "tagged" as having seizure disorder or as an epileptic. However, the fact that the bracelets were medical alert tags and could help in an emergency showed why it was a necessity.
Seizure disorder is a serious condition, and it is important that those suffering from the condition are properly identified with a seizure disorder medical bracelet in case of an emergency. Because severe seizures could result in unconsciousness, seizure disorder ID bracelets are helpful for proper identification of the reason for the seizure. Medical professionals may waste time trying to diagnose the condition when the symptom is a part of a person's ongoing condition.
A seizure disorder medical bracelet will alert medical professionals to the condition. Information regarding a patient's primary doctor may also be included on the seizure disorder ID bracelet. Emergency medical personnel can contact the patient's doctor to receive detailed information about the type of seizures the patient suffers from, which will help rule out other complications.
If medication is taken for seizures, this information can be noted on a seizure disorder medical bracelet. This will give medical professionals a better idea of what kind of seizures a patient typically has, and a dose of this medication may be administered to help stop seizures.
Seizure disorder requires special medical care and attention. Often the person suffering from a seizure may not always be able to speak or communicate. He or she may even be completely unresponsive. Furthermore, an emergency may occur when a relative or a friend who has knowledge about the seizure disorder may not be around. In these cases, a seizure disorder bracelet can silently inform the attending medical personnel of the disease.
Preparing for a Seizure Disorder Emergency
Seizure disorder can be a difficult condition to have as you cannot always control your environment. So, on top of letting your loved ones know what they can do to help when seizure occurs, you should wear a seizure disorder bracelet. It should list important information such as an emergency contact and what a stranger could do to help in a public setting. It can be useful to include your name in a situation where you may not be able to talk. Having a seizure disorder bracelet will let the medical staff know how to make the appropriate medical decisions that can save your life. In case you're in an accident, medical professionals will know what your likely medications are and what not to give you.
Always ensure that you or your loved one is wearing a seizure disorder bracelet at all times and especially before leaving the house. If necessary, pack an extra bracelet during special trips, particularly if you will be traveling alone or leaving town for an extended period. Always wear the bracelet where it can be spotted easily and avoid taking it off. There are new styles to fit your personality and wearing it can mean the difference between living a healthy life and suffering serious medical consequences.
- Medical IDs for:
- Diabetes
- Kids
- Allergies
-Bee Sting
-Metal Allergy
- Alzheimer's
- Aneurysms
- Asthma
- Autism
- Bleeding Disorders
- Blood Clots
- Blood Thinners
- Caregivers
- Celiac Disease
- Chronic Kidney Disease
- Dementia
- Down Syndrome
- Epilepsy
- EpiPen
- Galactosemia
- Hearing Impairment
- Heart Patients
- Marfan Syndrome
- Mental Health
- Seizure Disorder
- Substance Use Disorders
- Organ Transplants
- Vision Impairment