text:
Journalists don't always get the best rap in science fiction and fantasy. For every truth-pursuing scribbler, there's a horde of hero-slandering Rita Skeeters. But that doesn't mean the genre is completely without its ink-stained heroes. Here's our roster of all-stars.
Georgia Mason, Feed
When the dead rose, the mainstream media didn't take it seriously. Bloggers did. That means in the post-zombie world, they have a great deal of credibility and do much of the world's serious investigative journalism. Up-and-comer Georgia Mason stands out among this hard-nosed bunch as the most dedicated, the most serious, and the most bad-ass. She wears all black. Owing to an eye condition, she never takes off her sunglasses. She consumes caffeine by the pitcher full, she has no patience for flacks or bullshitters, and she is completely fearless in the face of zombies.
The Lone Gunmen, The X-Files
The mainstream media they are not. But even though Byers, Frohike, and Langly won't be invited to the White House Correspondents' Dinner any time soon, this bunch is utterly devoted to and quite talented at keeping both eyes on the government's shadier activities. Mulder is a devoted reader of their newsletter, The Lone Gunman, and considers them an invaluable source of intel. Between subscriptions and support from some financial backers, they're even able to support themselves, which is none too shabby.
Lois Lane, Superman
It's a good thing her best work buddy is secretly the Man of Steel, because Lois Lane puts aside any instinct for self-preservation when chasing a story. She'll lob questions at the most corrupt of politicians and she's not afraid of sneaking in a side door to do a little sleuthing. Superman has all kinds of powers to help him fight crime, but Lois just jumps into the fray with a pen and a notepad and a byline and starts cracking figurative skulls.
William De Worde, Discworld
Young William produces a monthly newsletter that keeps influential foreigners updated on the day-to-day doings in Ankh-Morpork. It's a time-consuming little sideline, until The Truth brings the advent of movable type and suddenly De Worde has a scalable media business. He hires a team of writers, including the charming Sacharissa and the vampiric Otto. Every day is a mad scramble to make their daily deadlines, but even so they manage to uncover a conspiracy to frame William's mentor for murder and introduce investigative journalism to Discworld.
April O'Neil, Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles
When not being kidnapped by Shredder for leverage against the Turtles, this intrepid reporter covers the city for Channel 6 News. In temperament, she bears a strong resemblance to Lois Lane (though the rather stylish Daily Planet reporter would probably die before putting on that yellow jumpsuit). And she demands her editorial independence. Despite her boss's best efforts, she absolutely refuses to portray her slimy green friends as a menace to the city.
Ford Prefect, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
It's hard not to read travel writing and be entirely consumed with envy of the writer. That feeling is strong enough when reading a Budget Travel write-up of Yellowstone Park. Imagining the life of a galactic travel writer is even worse. And Prefect lives up to all the hard-partying, hard-drinking stereotypes magnificently. His luck takes a turn for the worse when he gets stuck on Earth, but that's all part of the romance, right?
Susan Rodriguez, The Dresden Files
When we first met the investigative reporter for the Chicago Arcane in Storm Front, she's tailing Harry Dresden, looking for a scoop. Susan is gorgeous and charming and witty and not shy about applying her considerable charms to bewilder our protagonist into giving up information on his latest case. The two eventually wind up in a relationship, though that doesn't work out so well for Susan.
Sarble the Eye, Consider Phlebas
Sarble the Eye is a freelance reporter, whom Banks describes as one of the humanoid galaxy's "most successful at getting into places he wasn't supposed to." Naturally, that means he's able to sneak into the game of Damage played on Vavatch right before they blow the orbital. In fact, by the time we hear about Sarble, we've already met her. Horza bumps into a tiara-wearing woman and realizes only later the headpiece was actually a camera. Maybe Sarble isn't even a single person, but a team of reporters. It's never made clear. While the character's appearance in this massive novel is brief, it's plenty of time to inspire amazed admiration.
Ben Caxton, Stranger in a Strange Land
Ok, so Ben turns out to be kind of a prude. But he earns his place on this list for being a persistent thorn in the side of future-Earth's sketchy world government. His column, Crow's Nest, tends toward muckraking indictments of the powerful. When he hears from his nurse girlfriend how the recently discovered Martian is locked up and isolated in a hospital, he immediately assumes there's something nefarious afoot and stars making plans to bust him out. Because being a gadfly isn't just an occupation, it's a vocation.
Sarah Jane Smith, Doctor Who
It's easy to forget, given her tenure with the Doctor was marked more by world-saving than newsprint, but Sarah Jane Smith was introduced as an ambitious young magazine journalist. She only meets the Time Lord in the first place because she sneaks into a top-secret government facility disguised as her aunt, a famous virologist, to investigate the disappearance of a number of scientists. And while her tendency to wander off is maddening, it does demonstrate good fact-gathering instincts. Besides, you wouldn't sit and wait in the TARDIS, either.
Added by popular request!
Spider Jerusalem, Transmetropolitan
What's any round-up of journalists without at least one gonzo? Incomplete, that's what. His list of vices is comprehensive: he drinks, he smokes, he does drugs, his temper is god-awful, and he's the ultimate misanthrope. But he is also an evangelist for The Truth, and he's not going to let anyone who abuses their power get away with it.
Edison Carter, Max Headroom
That thunk you all heard around 1:30 EST was this writer's head hitting her desk for forgetting this example. Edison Carter is the type of reporter every journalist struggles to be. As Network 23's resident bulldog, he pursues stories without regard for what the suits upstairs want. When his corporate overlords are up to something fishy, he doesn't hesitate to root it out. It's even his brain that gives birth to Max Headroom himself — when he's knocked out in a suspicious motorcycle accident, coworker and tech genius Bryce Lynch snatches a copy of his brain data and downloads it to a computer, creating the personality (the name being the last words Edison saw before the crash).
And lastly:
Carl Kolchak, Kolchak: The Night Stalker
Keeping tabs on local crime is nothing out of the ordinary for a reporter. What's unusual is choosing to investigate the outright weird cases the police won't bother with, and that's what Carl Kolchak makes his mission. The reporter wanders around Chicago chasing supernatural or science fictional stories, though he sometimes has problems obtaining sufficient evidence for his claims. Over the years, the character has appeared in novels, comic books, multiple TV shows, and a handful of TV movies, as well.


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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Editor's Note: John D. Sutter is a columnist for CNN Opinion and head of CNN's Change the List project. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. E-mail him at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Story highlights
Income inequality in America has been growing since the late 1970s
John Sutter: Policy and attitude shifts can help narrow the rich-poor gap
The first step, Sutter says, is for people to recognize how divided we've become
Policies like a higher minimum wage would help the economy work for everyone
"You have to sit back and think why is God keeping this town alive?
"If we're the poorest and we have the highest unemployment and crime rate, why doesn't God just say I'm going to wipe this town off the map? Because he knows that, in a couple years, something big is going to happen for Lake Providence.
"He's waiting for us to start to believe in ourselves."
That's 18-year-old Frededreia Willis, one of the many amazing people I met in Lake Providence, Louisiana, which is the American capital of income inequality. East Carroll Parish, where Lake Providence is located, has a wider gap between rich and poor than any other county in the United States.
It also offers clues for how things change – how people in this off-the-map farming community, and in the country as a whole, can narrow the rich-poor gap.
Income inequality isn't inevitable. As economists and the president have argued, it is the result of bad policies that favor the rich and leave everyone else struggling.
The income gap is too wide for our own good. Here are seven ways that can and should change:
1. Break down the social barriers
One of the reasons income inequality persists, says Michael Norton, an associate professor at Harvard, is that people don't realize how wide the gap between rich and poor has become. Credit masks poverty, and most of us are stuck in an income bubble – we tend only to see and associate with people who are like us, economically.
A solution: We should get out of our collective comfort zone and create conversations across the income divide. Willis, the young woman in Lake Providence, says she wants to come back to her hometown to build a bridge across the lake that largely separates the richer folks on the north from the poorer folks on the south. If they talked more, they might support policies to help each other.
2. Improve public schools; unify them
There's no surer ticket out of poverty than a solid education. But that education has to be affordable (modern college isn't) and it has to be equally distributed. It would be impossible to argue that's true of America's public schools, which are supported by property taxes. Big houses equal better schools. And poorer kids, of course, lose out. That's a tragedy, and leads, according to a recent Stanford study, to poorer students who are years behind their richer peers.
In Lake Providence, richer kids go to a private school, which has no formal scholarship program. Poorer students go to a public school that does not perform as well. Education should be a great equalizer, not a source of division. The community would benefit from closing its private school, Briarfield Academy, and creating a shared asset in the public school system. Right now, as some locals explained it to me, the business community and richer families have almost no reason to fully invest in the public schools.
3. Raise the minimum wage to 1960s levels, at least
The fast-food workers are right: It's impossible to live on today's minimum wage, which is substantially lower, when adjusted for inflation, than it was in the late 1960s. I'm not sure what the magic number should be, but I know I met several people in Lake Providence who live at or slightly above the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour and who can't pay their bills. It's not even close. One woman, Delores Gilmore, 44, works overnight as a prison guard making $8.50 per hour. She has to choose which bills to pay. At previous jobs, she was not always able to afford underwear for her children because money was so tight.
It's convenient for employers to argue they can't pay higher wages. Their profits indicate otherwise. The American dream is to work hard and get ahead. That is not a reality today, even for people who are working full-time.
4. Tax the rich at a reasonable rate
Tax rates on the very rich are so low that billionaire Warren Buffett says he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. That has not always been the case.
It's clear the rich are getting a big break on their taxes and should be paying more. The idea isn't to take so much money that taxation, in and of itself, closes the income gap. It's to use that tax money to fund programs, like public education, that could give everyone a fair shot at success in an economy that only serves the very wealthy.
5. Give workers a voice in their companies
Union membership is way down since more equal times. In the early 1960s, nearly 35% of workers were members of unions, according to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute. By 2008, that number had plunged to less than 15%. As union membership declined, workers' voices shrank to a whisper. Meanwhile, the economy, over that same period, pushed a greater and greater share of money to the richest Americans.
A narrow majority – 51% – of Americans view unions in a favorable light, according to a Pew Research Center survey from June 2013. That number is up compared to previous surveys, and that's good news. But for those who continue to see unions as inefficient or annoying, there are other ways to give workers a voice, such as supporting employee-owned companies. Publix Super Markets, for example, employs more than 160,000 people and made $27.5 billion in retail sales in 2012. It's also owned by its employees, which means they are involved in decisions about how the company is managed.
6. Reign in crazy-huge donations to political campaigns
Rich people these days have the ability and access to essentially buy – or heavily influence – political campaigns. Take a look at the recent numbers:
Limits on campaign spending would help level the playing field, ensuring that the majority of the people – not the minority of the rich – elect our representatives.
7. Give money to the poor – maybe at random
When I was in Lake Providence, a man who lives on the richer side of the lake told me you could drop millions on the poorer side of the lake, come back in a year, and absolutely nothing would have changed.
Poor would blow it on drugs and cars, he said.
Turns out, randomly giving poorer people cash as a form of charity may not be such a bad idea. A nonprofit called Give Directly, which recently was featured on NPR's "This American Life", is experimenting with the concept and seeing promising results. So far, the group's experiment is limited to Kenya, and there's no precedent for giving money at random to poor people in the United States, one of its founders told me. But, on its website, Give Directly presents a compelling case for help by lottery. "Cash transfers" have been shown, for instance, to reduce HIV infection rates in Malawi and reduce the incidence of low birth weight in Uruguay. The point to me is not exactly how a program like this should work but that when we trust people – when we see them as equals – they can succeed.
In 2013 America, and in Lake Providence, we've stopped seeing each other that way. We see rich and poor. We assume that these divisions are inevitable.
They don't have to be.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.
Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of John D. Sutter.


text:
Watch the video and then complete the to-do list.
- Video Transcript
Manage Contact Information
Accurate contact information for the recipients you communicate with is critical for Connect 5 to be successful. If you have been tasked with keeping that information up to date, this video will help you with the following areas:
- Creating a data file
- Uploading data into Connect 5
- Viewing import results
Export SIS Data
Most clients will begin the data process by exporting a file from their student or staff information system. There are hundreds of these types of systems used by our clients, so we can't go over how to do such an export here. If you need assistance with that, contact customer support for your system. But basically you will need to run a report or create a query to pull out the following information for the people you wish to contact:
- First name
- Last name
- ID number
- The site they belong to
- Up to 10 phone numbers
- Up to 4 emails
- Up to 4 SMS phone numbers
Other information you may wish to include depends on whether you are a K-12 district, a college or university, or a city or agency. These optional items include:
- Home language
- Grade
- Status
- Gender
- Any groups you might want to have that are tracked in your information system
The bare minimum you must include is Last Name and at least one contact point: a phone number, email address, or SMS number. All other fields are optional.
We strongly recommend including a unique ID number, or reference code, and at least two phone numbers per contact. If your file contains contacts from multiple sites, you will also need to have an Institution column.
Most information systems will let you choose the file type for your export. Choose CSV (comma delimited) or TXT (tab delimited) if they are available. XLS format will work too, because we can convert that into a CSV in Microsoft Excel later.
Export File Format
Here is a typical export file for a school district. When you open a CSV file, all the columns are collapsed to a uniform narrow width. To open them all up so you can see everything, click on the box in the top left corner between the row and column labels to highlight everything, then place your cursor between any two columns until you see the cursor changes, then double click. Now you can see that there is one row per contact, and one column for each information field you pulled. At the top of each column is a label, called a header. You will need to change the headers to match the headers that Connect 5 can recognize. The headers are not case sensitive, but they must not contain any spaces. Some information systems export files with no headers at all. If that's your situation, simply insert a new row at the top by highlighting the first row, right clicking on it, and clicking Insert Row.
In this file, you can see we have building, first name, last name, id, grade, language, several phone numbers, an email, and some group designations.
For Connect 5 to process this file, we have to change the headers to the acceptable ones. I will change building to institution, ID to reference code, main phone to home phone, and so on. You can download a data guide and sample file which shows all the proper headers below this video (if you are viewing it in Behind the Blackboard), as well as on the import screen itself.
Contact Types
One column that may be required for your import that is probably not already there is the Contact Type column. This is necessary only if your file contains more than one contact type (for instance, students and faculty). If your file only contains one contact type, you do not need this column. The available contact types depend on your institution type.
If you are a K-12 school district, the contact types are:
- Student
- Admin
- Faculty
- Staff
- Other
For higher ed institutions, the types are:
- Student
- Faculty
- Staff
- Prospect
- Other
And for government and corporate institutions, the types are:
- Resident
- Employee
- Business
- Other
Note that the Institution column is similar in that if all the contacts in your file are from a single institution, you do not need this column. Only if your file contains contacts from multiple institutions is this column required. What should go in this column is the name of the institution as it appears in Connect 5. For Sample Elementary School, it is called Sample ES Demo in the system, so I need to have Sample ES Demo in my file. If I leave it as Elementary School, the contact will be rejected because that institution is not recognized. So I can do a find and replace to take care of that.
Save File
Once you have changed the headers and the institution names, re-save the file. The file name does not matter for import purposes, but you probably want to give it a name that makes sense to you. Also, make sure you pay attention to where you are saving it. An easy place to find it later is your Desktop, or you can make a special folder just for Blackboard Connect imports if you want, so you will always know where to look for the file. I will name this file Connect Students and save it in my Connect folder. Make sure that in the Save As Type drop down, it says CSV comma delimited. Note that if you are on a Mac, you will need to select CSV Windows. This is important. If you choose Comma Separated Values under Common Formats, it will be saved in Mac format and your import will not work.
When you save a file as a CSV, Excel gives you one or two warnings.
- First, if your file has multiple worksheets, or tabs, Excel will warn you that saving the file as a CSV only saves the top worksheet. Click OK to accept this. (Of course, make sure all your data is on the top tab.)
- Second, Excel will warn you that CSV files do not support special formatting like custom column widths, bold fonts, formulas, etc. Click Yes to proceed with saving your file as a CSV. (Of course, don't bother to apply any of this formatting since it won't be saved.)
Now that you've saved the file, you can close it. Despite the fact that you just saved it, Excel will ALWAYS ask you if you want to save your changes. If you say yes, you will be given all those same warnings again, so if you haven't made any changes since the last time you saved, just click No. This will save you time.
Import File
To upload your file into Connect 5, log in to your account and click the Recipients tab at the top. Then click the Import Data button. If you do not see the Import Data button, you do not have the proper user permissions to upload a file, and you will need to contact your user account administrator or champion to get your permissions adjusted.
The first step on the import screen is to select your file. Click the Select button and browse to where you saved your file, and either double click on it, or single click on it, then click Open. Next, you need to specify what site the contacts you are uploading belong to. If they belong to multiple sites, you will set this drop down to All (and remember that you will need to have an Institution column in your file). If all the contacts are at the same site, you don't need to have an Institution column because you can specify the site using this drop down. Next, select the contact type you are uploading. Similarly, if the file contains multiple contact types, you will need to have a ContactType column in your file, and you will set this drop down to All as well. But if your file only contains one contact type, you do not need that column because you can specify the contact type using this drop down. The next drop down, Data Provider, can almost always be skipped because it defaults to Client, and if you are importing a file, you are the provider.
We are going to skip Advanced Options for now. My account is empty. It has no contacts in it so they don't matter for this very first import anyway.
Click the orange Import button. You will be prompted to confirm that your file is for the site you selected. Click OK. You will see a green bar at the top of the screen indicating that your file has been received and you will receive an email when it is finished processing. This email will contain the results of the import. You can also see the results by clicking the Import History link at the top. This will list all the imports ever done into your account. It shows the date of the import, what contact type was imported, what site the contacts were imported for, and the status.
Import Results
There are two possible results for the status: completed or completed with warnings. If you hover over an import, you will see an arrow on the left that you can click to expand for more information. Next to each result is a number, which indicates how many contacts had that result. Note that for many of these results, the number is actually a hyperlink, so if the import was done within the past 5 days, the results are exportable.
- Inserted means a new contact was added to Connect 5.
- Updated means the contact already existed in Connect 5, but something about that contact changed, like a phone number, grade level, etc.
- Skipped means the contact was already in C5 and no updates were required because nothing changed.
- Reactivated means the contact had been in Connect 5, was deleted, and was back in the file so was reactivated.
- Deleted applies to contacts that were listed in the file with yes in the Terminate column.
- Warnings can mean several things. Most often, no primary or attendance phone was specified, so the system is alerting you that it made one of the phone numbers that was provided the primary and attendance phone. There is no reason for concern in this scenario; it is merely an informational warning. Another cause for a warning to appear is an invalid phone or email address. For instance, if you try to upload a phone number that only has 9 digits, or an email address without the @ symbol. Obviously these are invalid. The system recognizes this at the time of import and rejects them. The contact itself was not rejected - just the individual phone number or email address. You can export the list of warnings to see what they were and which contacts they belonged to.
- Rejected means the contact was not loaded into Connect 5. This is usually caused by the Institution being incorrect, the contact being a duplicate, or the contact missing a last name. You can export these, too. The file will tell you the reference code of the rejected contact, if one was provided, along with the row they appeared on in your file.
- We will come back to Removed by Refresh later, because it pertains to an advanced option.
Since I did my first import into my account, I would expect to see a high number under Inserted, and zero under Updated, Skipped, Deleted, or Removed. If I'm doing an update, I would expect to see a few inserted, a few updated, and a few removed. At the end of the school year, I'd expect to see all graduating students removed, and at the beginning of the school year, I'd expect to see all incoming students inserted. As a general rule, any contacts that are rejected deserve further investigation to ascertain why and correct it.
Advanced Options
Let's explore the advanced options.
Remove Data by Provider
The first one is Remove Data by Provider. This can pretty much always be skipped.
Remove Contact Types Not Provided
The next option is important, though: Remove Contact Types Not Provided In the Import File. If you are uploading a full file, meaning everyone you want to be in Connect is in your file, then you should check off the contact types that are in your file. For example, if you are importing a student file, check off only student. If you are uploading a faculty file, check off only faculty. If your file has students and faculty in it, check off both boxes. What this does is delete contacts from Connect who are not in your file. For example, say you have 1000 students in Connect, and 10 left the district, so the file you are uploading has 990 students in it. In order to have the system automatically delete the 10 kids who are gone, you must check the Student box. If you do not check it, those 10 students will stay in Connect 5. On the other hand though, if you have 1000 students in Connect, and 10 new kids started attending, and your file contains just those 10 kids, do NOT check the Student box. That way, those 10 students will be added to Connect 5 and all the existing contacts will remain untouched. If you checked the box, those 10 new kids would be added, but the other 1000 would be removed. So the bottom line is: Do NOT check any of these boxes if you are uploading a partial file, but DO check it if you are uploading a full file.
I said I would come back to the import result Removed by Refresh. If you have checked one or more boxes in the Remove Contact Types Not Provided options, you may have contacts that are removed by refresh. I will import another file, just like the first one, but with 10 fewer contacts. I will check off remove students and faculty not provided. Notice my results. It says no one was inserted, everyone was skipped, and 10 were removed by refresh. And I still have the same warnings as before.
Update Provided Columns Only
The next advanced option when uploading says Update Provided Columns Only. This is only applicable if your file has reference codes in it. So if you do not have reference codes, you can skip this section. Also, if your file contains all possible headers, then checking preserving data will not make any difference either.
But if you do have reference codes, and you do not have every possible column in your file, then you need to decide whether you want to check the Preserve Data box or not.
Preserve Data
If any of your contacts already loaded into Connect 5 have information in fields that are NOT included in your file, you should check Preserve Data. That way, only the fields in your file will be updated, and the fields that are not in your file will be left alone. Here's an example. All the contacts in Connect 5 have 2 phone numbers. I want to add email addresses. I can upload a file with reference code and email address, and check preserve data. The emails will be added to those contacts, and their phones will not be touched. The result is my contacts now have two phones and one email address each. If I didn't check Preserve Data, then their phones would be erased, so they'd only have email addresses.
Now let's say everyone has two phones and half the contacts have email addresses. If I upload a file with an email address column, all email addresses in the system will be overwritten by what I'm uploading; Preserve Data will not keep existing ones from being changed. Remember, Preserve Data only applies to columns that aren't in your file. Since your file has an email column, the system is going to take what's in that email column and apply it to each contact, regardless of whether they already have something in that field in Connect.
Remove Contact Types versus Preserve Data
It's important to understand the difference between Remove Contact Types Not Provided and Preserve Data. Checking Preserve Data does not impact whether a contact remains or is removed. It only affects whether information about those contacts is updated or not. Also, note that Preserve Data does not apply to group membership.
Refresh Groups
The last advanced option pertains to Refresh Groups. This feature is intended mainly for use with data automations, so if you are manually importing a data file, as a general rule, do not check this box.
Regular Connect group associations persist even if the members are not listed as belonging to those groups in every upload. Checking refresh groups does not affect regular group membership. But membership in refresh groups is dependent upon the contact being listed as belonging to that refresh group in every single upload. If the contact is not listed as belonging to a refresh group, and the refresh groups option is checked, they will be removed from that group. This can help keep your groups accurate from day to day, but if used improperly, can result in people being removed from groups they should belong to. So again, as a general rule, when doing a manual import, do not check Refresh Groups.
Let's review. The file formats Connect can process are CSV comma delimited, and TXT tab delimited. The headers in your file must be the exact headers Connect recognizes. They are not case sensitive, but they cannot have any spaces. To upload a file, go to the Recipients tab and click Import Data. Browse for your file, select the site and contact type if your file contains only one contact type from one site, or select all if your file contains multiple sites and multiple types, but then make sure you have Institution and ContactType columns. Check one or more boxes under Remove Contact Types Not Provided only if you are uploading a full file, and only for the contact types that are in your file. Check Preserve Data if your file only contains a few columns so that the fields not included are preserved as they are in Connect. And do not check Refresh Groups when doing a manual upload. After importing, you will get an email with the results, and you can view the results online and even export them for uploads done in the past five days. Contacts that are rejected are not added to Connect; warnings are triggered when a phone number or email address is invalid, or no primary phone or attendance phone column is found. You should always investigate rejected records, while warnings are not as critical.
The To-do List
- Create a .CSV data file for upload to Connect 5 using the sample file for your vertical:
- Upload the data file into Connect 5 using the Data Importing Guide.


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Oftentimes, modifying business budgets means making sacrifices for the sake of saving. But in cases of eliminating outside document managing services and converting to on-site services you can save money and improve the security and convienience of your document handling.
Many businesses are discovering this already. In a recent survey, 65% of business decision makers at small, medium and large sized businesses cited high costs, associated with their off-site document management, as the No. 1 reason organizations decided to leave their off-site provider and perform these functions in-house.
On-Site Records Storage
Off-site records management services may seem like a convenience, but they are charging excessive fees just to store and retrieve your files. There are also other costs built into your invoice such as administrative fees, handling charges and re-boxing fees that can go overlooked as the cost of doing business.
With on-site storage you buy the storage system you need—and that's it. The rest is savings to the company. You can save up to 68% over off-site storage. Not only that, but now your records are more accessible and you eliminate any potential for a security breach or lost or damaged files—all of which can occur when records are in transit from off-site services.
On-Site Shredding
Off-site shredding services are less conspicuous. The costs at first glance are incremental. But a projected view of overall spending on off-site document destruction can reveal an excessive and unnecessary long-term cost.
Investment in shredders on-site is a nominal and one-time cost that eliminates the perpetual invoicing of off-site services. You get instant guaranteed document destruction for your peace of mind, you control who handles your confidential information, and shredding on-site only takes minutes a day.
On-Site Binding & Laminating
Consider the same scenario for binding and laminating. How many laminated and bound documents do you produce monthly? If you are not performing these tasks on-site, you are probably spending a lot at the copy shop.
By creating an in-office binding and laminating station you can save between 45 and 75% on these services. Keeping professional grade binding and laminating machines available not only saves money, but allows you to generate those needed documents quickly. You have complete control of your output, which means avoiding errors and missed deadlines. In addition, you are not risking exposing confidential information from presentations and reports to copy shop staff.


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Married Gospel Singer Says San Diego Mayor Asked Her Out in Church
A part-time gospel and R&B singer has accused San Diego Mayor Bob Filner of making unwanted advances toward her during an event at a church.
The woman, Renee Estill-Sombright, says the incident with Filner happened in June at the La Jolla Presbyterian Church where she was attending a benefit event for an organization that helps African refugees, U-T San Diego reports.
After singing the national anthem, she decided to reintroduce herself to the mayor, who she had met on one other occasion. But when she did so, she says, he asked her if she was married and then asked her out on a date.
"Oh you're so beautiful, you're so beautiful," said Filner, according to Estill-Sombright's account to U-T San Diego. "I want to take you out. This is a private invite, not a social invite."
Estill-Sombright also claims the mayor suggested she could perform a song for him in private, because he had missed her performance of the national anthem. She didn't draw attention to his comments at the time, she claims, because she was around too many people, including two bank managers she works under. She later told her assistant branch manager at the bank what had happened, 10News reports.
Estill-Sombright is the 10th woman to accuse the 70-year-old mayor of unwanted advances and inappropriate sexual behavior. Irene McCormack Jackson, a former mayoral communications director, is suing Filner and the city because the mayor allegedly sexually harassed her.
McCormack claims Filner demanded kisses, asked her to not wear underwear while working and made other sexual advances during her time working for him, The Associated Press reports. McCormack says she left her job after a deputy chief of staff complained to the mayor about his behavior toward women.
Filner, who began two weeks of behavioral therapy on Monday, previously said in a statement that he is "saddened" by the charges brought against him by McCormack.
"I do not believe these claims are valid. That is why due process is so important. I intend to defend myself vigorously and I know that justice will prevail," he said.
The San Diego City Council voted last week to file a lawsuit against Filner to recover any expenses the city might have to pay as a result of the McCormack lawsuit.
"This is part of due process," City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said, according to the Los Angeles Times. "If Bob Filner engaged in unlawful conduct and the city is held liable, he will have to reimburse us every penny the city pays and its attorney fees."
McCormack, Estill-Sombright and other women who have come forward about Filner's alleged behavior are demanding that he step down, but they aren't the only ones. A number of high-ranking Democrats in the state have said the Democratic mayor should resign, and an effort to recall Filner is underway as well.


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Armour Roofing – Lexington/Columbia
In Columbia and Lexington SC Your Local Roofer is Armour Roofing
Armour Roofing believes that every roof replacement is an opportunity for us to serve our community. Whether you own a high rise on Main Street, or you're nestled into a beautiful brick ranch, we have the team and tools necessary to take care of all your roofing needs. Armour Roofing's motto is "Protect what Matters". Whether that is a third-generation business owner whose roof just started leaking or your home where recent storms have damaged shingles, we are here to keep you covered, no pun intended! A roof leak can make life difficult. We understand the value of your home and business and strive to protect them with the highest quality roof products and installation practices available. Our experienced roofing professionals are here to ensure that you are taken care of from beginning to end and that every job is done correctly the first time. Armour Roofing is a leader in residential and commercial roofing. Our experienced insurance adjusters work hard to ensure that you get a fair and accurate settlement for your roofing claim. The Armour Team holds multiple certifications including InterNACHI, ICC Building Code and Xactimate construction estimation. Armour provides a team consisting of highly skilled roofing inspectors, insurance estimators, insurance specialists, and insurance specialists. They also guarantee that your roof is installed according to manufacturer specifications and code. As General Contractors, we possess the knowledge and expertise to provide the best roofing product and services available. Every job is assigned an experienced Project Manager who oversees the roof installation and safety of our team. Our customers have peace of mind knowing that their roof is being installed by the most qualified professionals in the roofing industry. Don't settle for less, hire the BEST!
Business Name:
Armour Roofing – Lexington/Columbia
50 Watersedge CtProsperity South Carolina 29127USA
About Prosperity
Prosperity is a town in Newberry County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 1,180 at the 2010 census. == History == Before being named Prosperity, the area was called Frog Level due to its low-lying location and large numbers of frogs living in adjacent ponds. Captain Matthew Hall settled in the area in 1827, and established a store and post office in the early 1830s. The town expanded with the arrival of the railroad in the 1850s, and in later decades would profit from its location along two major rail lines.
Neighborhoods in Prosperity, South Carolina
Andrews Subdivision, Ansley Park, Apollo Gardens, Apple Valley, Arborgate, Arkwright, Arsenal Hill, Arthur, Avondale, Ballentine, Barony, Beechwood, Belmont, Blythewood, Brookhaven
Things to do in Prosperity, South Carolina
Our Newest Profiles


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If you want to contribute to Wii Homebrew-community this would be the page to start.
Help with reverse engineering
If you are familiar with reverse engineering software/hardware or have a background in decompiling, C/C++, and ASM, join the channel #wiidev on EFnet irc-network. Lurk for a while to see what are the topics and goals of the day. Be sure to report any and all substantial findings on the wiki.
You can also help out new users in IRC by linking them to wiki articles that answer their questions, or this article and the Channel FAQ to get new users more quickly acquainted with how we do things and what we've accomplished.
Become a wiki editor
Help is always needed here on the wiki!
- You should register. It's not absolutely necessary to interact with the wiki, but it helps identifying you and with building your reputation in the community. Please use the same (or similar to the) nick you use in IRC.
- Go through the Wikipedia Editing tutorial. It's not that long, added up it's less than two pages. Go through the entire thing, make sure you are familiar.
- Read this entire page twice. Thoroughly (Especially the Rules).
- Dive into the To Do below. If you want to practice you can use our two sandbox pages. (Sandbox 1 | Sandbox 2)
- Look below for some very useful Wiki documentation. (Such as this page which searching will reveal how to do something, such as adding an article to a Category)
To do
The most benefit comes from the things detailed below. The articles here are good but could be much better. We must make them great.
Editors should use the Contributing discussion section for proposing changes and keeping track of cleanup/improvement progress.
General improvement
Formatting / Organizing
- Organize and format all articles that need it
- Make sure editing an article for this will make information EASIER to read/find. That said, just about every article could do with a heavy dose of this. Function should come at the sake of looks.
See: Categories and List of pages without category.
The goal is to have *every* article in some category.
- Make sure the categories are proper and actually apply.
- Go through all articles and make categories as necessary.
- Add an article to as many categories that it fits in.
- Use categories to make pages drastically easier to find.
- Add Development Category
- Inter-wiki linking, aka linking together (i.e. [[ Link ]] stuff). Make sure people know there's an article for something.
- Linking to relevant websites, articles on other sites, YouTube or other video site videos in articles they're relevant to are needed.
- See Also sections would definitely make finding related information much easier for users (an example). After just a few hours of reading about progress in the Wiibrew scene, it should be obvious what articles are related.
- Vandalism most often comes in the form of nonsense and gibberish added to articles here.
- If you are sure an edit to an article constitutes vandalism (e.g. intentionally false, disruptive, or crude information is added), please use the "undo" function from the article's "diff" page or undo the edit manually.
Needed articles
Believe it or not, it was over a week after Starlet was announced before there was an article. One of our primary goals is to make sure articles are written quickly and, ideally, cleanly.
Big new developments
Keep an eye out for new developments (These tend to happen frequently) and things relevant to them. Watch the latest videos and lurk IRC for new developments.
Copied articles
Re-copy or write from scratch recently deleted and other articles that are copied from WiiLi or other sites. If copied, be sure to adhere with the license of the original document, to the letter. If the document has been released under the GFDL, such as WiiLi articles, provide a citation in the form of a link on the bottom of the page and a statement saying the document was released under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
All wanted pages
The list of Wanted pages is short enough for just a few people to at least give a small article's worth of info on every one. If you know something, please take it upon yourself to add even a tiny bit of info! Any user can request a page by inter-linking (([[Page]])) to a page that doesn't exist yet. Be sure to link to pages that you want to see or think we should have!
Needs to be said, just to be clear. The point of this wiki is to be a definitive source for information about the hardware and software that has to do with running homebrew on the Wii.
Definite Rules
These are more strict rules.
- Follow Wiibrew's policies
- Never copy and paste articles or do any act of verbatim copying from any other source without following its licensing terms to the letter. If an article exists on a site that has a non-free license that should be here also, start from scratch. Illegally copied articles will be deleted as soon as they are noticed.
- Verbatim copying requires that a citation must be given (linking to the original article) and a statement that the original document was released under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
- Modifying a copied article requirements can be found on the GNU Free Documentation License page under section 4
- Always follow the Principles of Wikipedia etiquette
- All IRC channel rules
Loose Rules
These are best described as "guidelines".
- Make a clear effort to find where something fits before making a new article. (Chances are there's a place to put something unless it's *really* new.)
- Follow the suggestions set forth in the Wikipedia Editing Tutorial. (Adding a description of each edit in the Summary box, etc.)
- Proper spelling / grammar. (The latest browsers have spellchecking built in or there are plugins available to add such functionality.)
- Organize and format your writing
There is no reason to break the rules, everything we are trying to accomplish easily fits within them. Just please don't, you waste both of our time. Offending users will be swiftly dealt with.
The chance of someone able to make use of the information but didn't know it existed goes from 0% to 100% thanks to a well-placed link or piece of info. Every edit you make, page you change to add more info or format info easier to read and absorb, and everything you link to could potentially speed up homebrew development drastically.
Don't be afraid to edit — anyone can edit almost any page, and we encourage you to be bold! Find something that can be improved, whether content, grammar or formatting, and make it better.
You can't break the wiki. Anything can be fixed or improved later. Follow the rules and contribute good edits and you'll be making friends in no time.
So go ahead, edit an article and help make Wii homebrew possible! Welcome. :)
Useful links
- Wiibrew's policies
- WiiBrew Recent changes (Useful to see what the site has been up to and if anything needs reviewing. Also found on in the navigation on the left.)
- Wikipedia Editing Cheatsheet (Very handy)
- Wikipedia Editing tutorial (Required reading)
- How to edit a page (To learn how to do something, search this page)
- General Wiki Usage Info (For the curious ones)
Parts paraphrased from Wikipedia. They were originally released under the GNU Free Documentation License.


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National budget 9.24.09
GateHouse News Service National Budget
For 9/24/09 editions
Here are the top national stories coming today from GateHouse News Service. Stories are available at http://www.gatehousenewsservice.com/. Please submit stories below no later than 6 pm local time, unless you have breaking news that is changing significantly.
Contacts: Jean Hodges, (630) 348-3350, (630) 956-8834, email@example.com
Michael Toeset, (630) 348-3356, (630) 835-8870, email@example.com
SHOESTRING LIVING: Check out our new weekly frugal column, Shoestring Living, part of our growing Stretched portfolio. This week: Groceries on a budget. For more info about Shoestring Living, check out ghnewsroom.
And here's a link to the latest column:
Casey Laughman: Showcasing some nice work on a big story.
Q&A: New health Web site launched by the State Journal Register.
MORNING MINUTES: We've expanded what we're offering in Morning Minutes to provide your paper with more options and to give your readers a couple more interesting tidbits. It now includes Word of the Day, Web Site of the Day, Number to Know, This Day in History, Today's Featured Birthday and Daily Quote.
FAMILY TIME: Weekly family rail, with tips on after-school health, a review of "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs," another scary book and more.
RELIGION NEWS: Oral Roberts University out of debt -- Weekly religion rail, with items on Oral Roberts University, the church that houses Shakespeare's grave, getting to know a Christian rapper, and more.
DAVID ROBSON: Help those plants take root this winter -- As the season ends, gardeners make every last ditch effort to keep plants for as long as possible. We'll cover tender annuals with sheets and blankets and start shifting pots around, all in an attempt to prolong the inevitable.
NECOLE SIMS: How a group of Florida football players became my heroes -- Sports figures are constantly being held up as heroes to youths across the world. Why are they considered heroes? Because they can make a basket, throw a football or hit a golf ball? What do I think of when I think of a hero? Someone who has dealt with adversity and come out better for it. I met such a group of men recently.
PHYSICIAN FOCUS: Don't let back pain get you down -- Taking proper care of your back isn't something most people learn in school or even at an annual checkup. Yet low back pain affects approximately four out of five Americans and is the leading reason for missed work, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
DR. MURRAY FEINGOLD: The call in the middle of the night -- As a general rule, phone calls in the middle of the night are not good for your mental health. The chances that such a phone call bodes good tidings is unlikely.
DR. JEFF HERSH: Something fishy is good for you -- What are the health benefits of fish oil, and how much fish do I need to eat to get them? Is tuna packed in oil better for you than tuna packed in water because of the extra fish oil?
DARIN ST. GEORGE: Tips for planning ahead -- I know that it is a worn-out cliche, but "If you fail to plan you plan to fail" can't be passed over as nonsensical blather.
5 THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND: This week's suggestions: Check out "Fame," "Surrogates" or one of the other movies opening this week; celebrate National Hunting and Fishing Day (or Fish Amnesty Day); celebrate apples and Johnny Appleseed; read; and catch some Seth MacFarlane cartoons.
- LOCALIZE IT: List local places to hunt and fish under the "Gone fishin'" item, list apple-picking places (if any) under "Gone apple pickin'" and add your paper's contact information under the books item.
SUDOKU: Puzzles for September (435-462) are available for download. Previous puzzles are linked to in this file, or visit our Puzzles category.
SNEAK PREVIEW: 'Fame,' 'Surrogates' and other new movies -- What's old is new again as a "Fame" remake arrives in theaters this weekend.
'BRIGHT STAR': Director Jane Campion's star is again shining brightly -- Writer-director Jane Campion, whose best-known film is the award-winning "The Piano," takes on the subject of the romance between British poet John Keats and his neighbor Fanny Brawne in "Bright Star."
WIZARD OF OZ: Off to screen the 'Wizard' - Toto may not recognize the yellow brick road - "Oz" is going hi-def. On Wednesday at 7 p.m., the film classic will be shown nationwide in 450 movie theaters for the first time ever in high-definition. By Bob Tremblay.
THE FARR SIDE: Emmy Awards beat a few expectations -- Neil Patrick Harris was almost legendary as host of the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.
VIDEO VAULT: Zesty dialogue makes 'Wall Street' thrilling -- Whatever you think about Oliver Stone's politics or his take on history, you have to admit: The man knows how to tell a story.
JIM HILLIBISH: 'New Beatles' not the band we've known for all these years -- New Beatles vs. Old Beatles. Some of us are having trouble with this. I have to tell you where I'm coming from. The Beatles were our church of the 1960s. We worshipped them. We tithed our extra cash to them. I still have nearly all of their music. I roll it out on days I feel like an old fart. The survivor Beatles are older than me, and I feel fine.
ASSEMBLY OF DUST: Assembly of Dust gets help from top-notch talent -- Assembly of Dust's new album "Some Assembly Required" might be better described as Assembly of Dust & Friends; each of its 13 songs draws from a pool of top-notch guest talent, from jazz guitar wizard John Scofield and Woodstock icon Richie Havens to Vermont rocker Grace Potter and banjo master Bela Fleck.
ALBUM REVIEW: 'The G Files,' by Warren G -- Warren G and Dr. Dre combined in the early years of the 1990s to bring gangsta rap to the masses with their debuts, but while Dre went on to discover Eminem and continue making massive
hits, the originator of "the G-Funk Era" has been largely missing in action. So "The G Files" should do decent sales on the nostalgia factor alone.
WIT'S END: New humor cartoon: Blowing lint in the ear.
O'MAHONEY CARTOON: On the appointment of Paul Kirk to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.
GRANLUND CARTOON: On Kirk being appointed to Kennedy's Senate seat.
GRANLUND CARTOON: On parents dressing like their kids.
KEVIN FRISCH: Everything old is 'no' again.
KEVIN HAAS: In your face, Facebook - You can treat Facebook in many ways: a means to connect with friends or associates, perhaps a way to promote a business. I've always treated Facebook the same way politicians treat a question with a simple yes or no answer — I've avoided it.
EDITORIAL: Agency turf battles threaten national security - When it comes to turf wars there's one area that ought to be off limits, and that's public safety. Sadly that lesson appears not to have set in with two federal agencies, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. According to the draft of a Justice Department investigation into how the two offices conduct their business as they track down bombers and follow the trail of explosions around the country, the FBI and ATF push, shove and squabble like a couple of kids trying to get to the head of the line. An editorial from the Peoria Journal Star.
SENATE SEAT: Longtime Kennedy ally Paul Kirk will temporarily fill Senate seat - Paul G. Kirk of Marstons Mills has been appointed interim U.S. senator by Gov. Deval Patrick. He will fill the seat left vacant by his longtime friend Sen. Edward Kennedy who died in August. Kirk will serve until a special election to fill the seat is held in January. By John Basile.
- Art: Photo
'LOVE SPUD': Missouri woman gives heart-shaped potato to Obama -- A tiny heart-shaped potato has made Independence, Mo., resident Mary Apple an overnight sensation after an unexpected television appearance with President
Barack Obama.
BOMB SUSPECT NABBED: Decatur man arrested for attempting to bomb Springfield federal building - SPRINGFIELD – A Decatur man was arrested Wednesday on charges he tried to use a vehicle bomb to blow up the federal courthouse in downtown Springfield. Authorities were in on the alleged plot from the beginning, and as a result, Michael C. Finton, 29, actually parked a van containing only fake explosives. Finton appeared made his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon in the very building he allegedly wanted to destroy. By Bernard Schoenburg of the State Journal-Register. Will be updated.
Business / Ag
DAVE RAMSEY: Weekly financial Q&A, with items on widow's finances and automobile pricing.
MAKING CENTS: Ensure you have enough coverage -- The most common group benefits offered by employers are health insurance, life insurance and disability insurance. In most cases, the group health insurance is adequate for a family's health care needs. But questions arise when we look into group life insurance and group disability insurance. By John P. Napolitano / The Patriot Ledger
CHECKOUT LANE: Tips for getting a facial -- Susan Perry, owner of Susan Perry Skin Care/Day Spa in Plymouth, Mass., says warding off wrinkles can help you gain competitive advantage at work. "Age discrimination is out there. You want to look fresh and young in the workplace." By Brent Lang / The Patriot Ledger
FINE PRINT: Renters fleeced by phony landlords -- The Better Business Bureau has noticed a surge in bogus rental listings on online classified ad sites such as Craigslist that are intended to scam people out of their deposits. The Patriot Ledger
BIZ BITS: Weekly business rail, with items on breast-cancer awareness at work, BBB advice on "friendly" fraud and more.
KEEP IT GREEN: Landowners work to preserve farmland -- In the midst of fruit trees and evergreens, several ponds and corn stalks, Keith Jackson's 60-acre piece of land is devoid of urbanization. And by signing a lease agreement with the state of Ohio, Jackson is doing all he can to ensure that housing subdivisions and commercial developments never take root on this farm.
To localize: Does your state have easement agreements that restrict property usage? Is there property in your county that is preserved as farmland? Check with state Department of Agriculture, and speak to farmers
PRO FOOTBALL PAGES: Check out this week's pages. Versions available: national, New York, Patriots, Bears, Chiefs and Rams.
NASCAR PAGE: Lessons from Loudon
COLLEGE FOOTBALL NATION: Weekly college football column. Leads with item on Miami, Michigan, Washington and others showing strength they haven't displayed in quite some time. By Eric Avidon.
- Art: Column mug


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Shōko Nakagawa
Shōko Nakagawa (Japanese: 中川翔子 Nakagawa Shōko) is a Japanese voice actress for the Pokémon anime and was also one of the hosts of Pokémon Sunday, Pokémon Smash, and Pokémon Get☆TV. Currently, she is also one of the host in Meet Up at the Pokémon House?.
Nakagawa was born on May 5, 1985, in Tokyo, Japan.
She is also known under the nickname Shokotan and is famous for her extensive use of 2ch-driven language, which is known by her fans as Shokotanese (Japanese: しょこたん語 Shokotan-go).
In 2013, she wrote an autobiographical book about her experiences as a Pokémon fan and her experiences working as on Pokémon Sunday, Pokémon Smash and as a voice actress. It is titled Shōko Nakagawa: Pokémon Taught Me The Meaning of Life. She is currently working as an animator on the anime series based on the Pokémon Sword and Shield games, Pokémon Journeys.
Pokémon roles
Musical appearances
Other non-Pokémon roles
- Suzuna (Eyeshield 21)
- Diana (Sailor Moon Crystal)
- Rapunzel (Tangled)
See also
- As part of a campaign for Pokémon Sunday, Shokotan's Tropius was available for download from various Pokémon Centers in Japan from February 2 to 12, 2007.
- The Pikachu-colored Pichu that was available to those who pre-ordered a movie ticket for Arceus and the Jewel of Life has Shokotan as its OT, referencing Shokotan's voice actor role in the movie.
- In a blog entry posted on May 31, 2010, Shokotan spoke of Peg's love of Electric types and mentioned that, because of this, she wanted to capture a Zekrom. Zekrom was not officially confirmed to be part-Electric type until two weeks later.
- She is similar to Becky: both were Pokémon Sunday hosts and occasionally voiced characters on the movies.
- With the exceptional of PK25, all of her anime roles were only in movies. She does not appear in Genesect and the Legend Awakened, the film associated with the short.
- This voice actor is referred on the second Pokémon Direct, as someone who suggested early what would be the Pokémon Bank.
|This anime-related article is a stub. You can help Bulbapedia by expanding it.
|This article is part of Project VA, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each voice actor of the Pokémon anime.


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Same-sex marriage is the cause célèbre of many politicians and celebrities, and is extensively covered in the news. As debates rage, one central issue is often overlooked, believes Canadian author and speaker Dawn Stefanowicz: how does being reared in a same-sex household affect children?
Many states already allow same-sex couples to adopt children, a practice that will be further cemented in law as more states issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. Additionally, some homosexuals have children of their own from previous opposite-sex relationships. Dawn brings a rare voice to the public discussion; her father was actively involved in the gay lifestyle, and she describes herself as "raised under the GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] umbrella."
Dawn was born in Toronto. Her father became an active homosexual at an early age. He was a successful businessman. Desiring children, he married, and the relationship produced Dawn and two brothers, one her twin. After Dawn and her brother were conceived, their father ended sexual relations with his wife, and pursued homosexual relationships at well-known gay meeting places in Canada and the United States. Dawn was often brought along to many of these locations, even as a child. Her father had numerous gay lovers, and brought them into the home. At age 51, in 1991, he died of AIDS.
Today, Dawn lives in Ontario, Canada. She is a licensed accountant, a Christian, a public advocate of children being reared in homes with opposite-sex, married couples, and a vocal defender of traditional marriage. She has been married to a man for 28 years, and has two teenaged children. In 2007, she published Out From Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting, a book about her experiences growing up in the GLBT world. On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the release of her book, she spoke with Catholic World Report.
Why did you decide to share your story of being "raised under the GLBT umbrella" in your book and your speaking engagements?
Dawn Stefanowicz: I felt compelled. I made a public appearance before Canada's Senate of Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee in Ottawa in 2004, asking that they not add "sexual orientation" to the existing hate-crime legislation due to restrictions on freedom of speech and religion. Later that month, I shared my testimony before a school board. Almost immediately, gay activists who had been bussed in—and I should say I dislike using the term "gay," but it's commonly used today, so I will—began shouting at me as I testified so that you couldn't even hear what I was saying. A half dozen times I was interrupted. I was concerned for my safety, so I asked a security guard for an escort to my car. I went home and began writing my book. I wanted to share my experiences growing up in a same-sex household.
One thing you stress is that you didn't observe a monogamous relationship in your home when growing up.
Stefanowicz: Yes. For children such as myself, just because our parents are "partnered," doesn't mean they are monogamous. Monogamy in the gay community means "serial monogamy," you have a single partner for several months and then move on, or you're in a relationship but have multiple partners on the side. Research shows that most male homosexual relationships become open within the first year. A recent New York Times article confirmed this—50 percent of same-sex male "marriages" become open to other sexual partners within the first year. My father could be in a "committed," long-term relationship, but there was an agreement with his partner that there would be sexual relationships with others.
When I was growing up, I wasn't surrounded by average heterosexual couples. In my home there would be my father's partners and male friends, and they would often take me along to meeting places in the GLBT community. I was just a child, but I was exposed to overt sexual activity. When I was about nine, for example, my father took me to a downtown sex shop. He said he wanted to expose me to sexuality so that I wouldn't be prudish. There was no sense of privacy around sexuality. Sex was very public; that was part of the gay culture.
He'd take me to see the work of gay artists, whose paintings and sculptures seemed to have phallic symbols worked into their art. He'd take me to nude beaches where gay men met one another. He wanted me to take my clothes off too, but I wouldn't. It was at such places that men were involved in "cruising," propositioning one another for sex. There were areas nearby you would go to for sex. There was a network; if the police were coming, they'd tip one another off and they'd stop their sexual activity.
This was before the Internet age, but there was still an incredible network that the gay community used to inform one another about their meeting places where they could go for a "quickie." They could be public beaches, gyms, or even parks where children were playing nearby. My father would go cruising at locations all over Canada. He also loved coming to the States; his favorite cities included San Francisco, Miami, and Ft. Lauderdale. You could cruise, find someone in a few minutes, and go someplace to have sex.
My father also kept an apartment near his downtown office where he could meet someone for quick sex.
Once, when I was in the 10th grade, I was excited because my father came to school to watch me perform in the band. He never did before. I saw his eyes bug out when he saw all the teenage boys performing on the stage with me. Then I realized that he was not there for me, but to pick up young men.
As you got older, your father used you as "bait" to attract men he was interested in having sex with, too.
Stefanowicz: Yes. He'd tell me to dress provocatively, and wear this or that top, and we'd go out cruising. A man may identify himself as gay, but my dad knew they still liked attractive young women. Or, it could be a way to attract bisexual or heterosexual men.
My father liked well-dressed, "clean cut" men, who were about 10 years younger than he was. It was always a younger man, never the same age or older. I knew many gay men who had a preference for adolescent males who had just hit puberty. They would look for boys with absent fathers who were vulnerable.
Didn't you object to being used this way by your father?
Stefanowicz: I didn't like it, but I was torn. I wanted to please him and spend time with him. Ultimately I was seeking his love and acceptance. But instead, I had to accept him.
And your father also brought many men into the home for sex.
Stefanowicz: Yes. This was part of my childhood in a homosexual environment. It was not a safe one for children. To begin with, you're exposed to many diseases. I don't know how else to put this: gay sex is messy. I would see dirty bed sheets, covered with sperm, fecal matter, and lubricant gel. Condoms were not part of the picture. They didn't know about AIDS then. Years later, in fact, when I shared my upbringing with my family physician, he sent me for the same blood tests one would take if involved in gay relationships.
Different men would come to live with us for a time in our rec room. When my father was about 30, an 18-year-old artist came to live with us. They had a sexual relationship, and they'd go out cruising together or on their own. They might bring men home for group sex. My young eyes saw a lot. It was not a happy, rosy picture.
My twin brother witnessed the group sex once. He couldn't understand why dad could kiss other men, but couldn't show affection to him.
Were you sexually abused?
Stefanowicz: I have images in my mind of being sexually abused; I had nightmares about it. My mother did confirm that I was sexually abused as an infant by my father; however, she could not confirm the images in my mind involving my father and other men with me. Other adult children that came from same-sex environments shared with me that they had been [abused]. There is higher risk of sexual abuse in such an environment.
Were your dad's partners nice to you?
Stefanowicz: They might occasionally cook for me, help me with my homework, or take me to some activities. But they were not there for me or my brothers; they were there for my father. My brothers and I did not feel like we were important. Also, although different men would come to live with us for a time, they were never like a parent or member of the family.
I should also add that as a woman, I did not feel valued, appreciated, or loved. It was a demeaning environment for me. I saw a lot of confusion about gender; my father, for example, sometimes dressed in women's clothes. Or, you might see one of my dad's male partners taking on a "pseudo-female" role.
You also saw a lot of death.
Stefanowicz: Yes. Some of my father's friends committed suicide. Others died of AIDS. I watched my own father die of AIDS.
Where was your mother during all of this?
Stefanowicz: My mother was seriously ill with chronic diabetes from the age of 18. She was also a weak person. She was hurt and lonely, but did not overtly object to what was happening. She'd see things and walk away. Because of her illness and passivity, I had a lot of responsibility by age eight. I'd do most of the cooking and cleaning.
When they married, my father never intended to be faithful to her; he married her merely because he wanted children. After my twin brother and I were conceived, their sexual relationship ended.
She joined my father in visiting the subcultures. She became involved with a woman during my teen years. I remember seeing my father's partners doing her hair, combing it, and putting rollers into it.
Do you hate your father?
Stefanowicz: No, I always loved my dad, even though what he did caused me so much stress, loneliness, and nightmares. I was angry with my father, because he put his needs over mine. I felt at risk of being discarded, just as he had discarded so many of his partners. I was looking for his love, but he couldn't express affection towards me.
When he was dying, I especially prayed for him. I wanted to forgive him and be at peace. I did forgive him.
What were his final years like?
Stefanowicz: He had difficulty walking, so it was hard for him to go to the cruising areas. The AIDS caused purple splotches on his face and body, which he tried to cover up with cosmetics and long sleeves and pants. He began losing weight and lost his energy. He knew he was facing a grave situation.
He was lonely, and I kept reaching out to him to tell him I loved him. Sometimes, he didn't want to have anything to do with me. But I wore him down. He shared his inner turmoil with me. He was sexually abused as a child; his father was a violent alcoholic. He left home by age 15. It helped me to understand and forgive him. I knew I couldn't be free until I forgave him.
I still had hard feelings towards my dad's partners, however, especially the last one. He and dad had an "open" 14-year relationship. My mom was not there; he was dad's caregiver. Dad had been quite wealthy, and he knew he could gain dad's assets when he died. None of dad's partners were like adoptive parents to me; in fact, I resented that dad spent so much time with his lovers and not me. This last partner died of AIDS in 1996.
I saw dad the day before he died. He was heavily drugged, and in great pain. He had difficulty in recognizing me. I held his hand. Dad said to his partner, "Tell her I love her."
I also noticed that dad had kept a picture of a sailboat on a tranquil sea that I had bought him many years before. I was pleased that he held on to it. It showed that he valued it. I prayed that dad would have that kind of peace depicted in that picture.
And how, as an adult, did you recover from the negative experiences of your upbringing?
Stefanowicz: At about age 30, I underwent 13 months of therapy. For decades I experienced insecurity, depression, sleeplessness, and sexual confusion. My healing included facing reality and offering forgiveness.
How has your book been received?
Stefanowicz: Many support it. Over 50 adult children raised in same-sex households contacted me, identifying with my experiences. Men in the gay lifestyle wrote to me looking for answers. "How can I leave the gay community," they ask, "without the family and broader community support I need?" They are looking for love, compassion, and help. I tell them they don't have to walk down the same road my father did.
These men also say that they never thought about anyone else when they were sexually involved with other men. They didn't see their choices as hurting others. They were just enjoying the pleasure, and ignoring the consequences.
Women dealing with lesbian issues often ask about my mother.
And what do you say to your critics?
Stefanowicz: Many have been deluded by the cultural acceptance of homosexuality. They haven't thought about its long-term impact on children.
If critics are nasty, I don't respond. If they're respectful, I do. I tell them how my father never found happiness. I let them know I care, I understand their circumstances, and I have compassion for them. I say they must find a community of support where they can be honest, seek forgiveness, and find salvation through Christ. As we witness Christ to others, they'll be drawn to him.
Some critics argue that not all homosexuals are as promiscuous as your father.
Stefanowicz: True. But if you associate with the gay community, there's a higher risk you'll be involved with multiple sexual partners. Research does indicate a high level of promiscuity among men who have sex with men, and incidents of sexually-transmitted diseases continue to be much higher among men who have sex with men. Dad wasn't unique in his cruising; there are many gay men with boundless energy who value momentary flings.
You've also been in contact with the Catholic ministry to people with same-sex attraction, Courage.
Stefanowicz: Yes. Its co-founder, Father John Harvey, was incredibly supportive of me. He called me a courageous woman for sharing my story.
And what are your thoughts on the push to recognize same-sex marriage?
Stefanowicz: I've testified before elected officials in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. I briefly touch on my own history, and then go on to tell them that traditional marriage is significant historically and religiously. It is the cement that holds our culture and society together, establishing a framework in which children are best reared in a safe environment.
There's the issue of monogamy, which I've discussed, and also the importance of children having both a father and a mother, as well as relatives, to whom they are biologically related. Our identity, security, and sense of personal ancestry come from knowing our mother and father; this is lost in homosexual unions.
Every kid wants to be raised by biological parents who are faithful to one another. They do not want the huge stress of growing up with parents who put their sexual preferences first. For three decades of my life I saw my father pursue one relationship after another. That was his priority. A child cannot have his relational and spiritual needs met in such an environment.
As I said, I was torn as a child. Do I do the immoral things my dad asks me to? How do I honor my father in such an environment? And, what about my needs? Do my feelings not matter, but my father's and his partners' do?
Children don't care about the world being "gay" and friendly, they want to spend time with their fathers. They need a stable, opposite-sex, married home and a community and school which share common values. They also need the grounding of religious faith. I do get attacked by activists for promoting this view, but I do not hate them in return. My concern is for children.
I was born under the GLBT umbrella. I didn't choose that. Coming out from under has been lonely. But doing so has given me a freedom and a happiness that I want to share with others.
Suggested reading:
How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study by Mark Regnerus
The Kids Aren't All Right: New Family Structures and the "No Differences" Claim by Ana Samuel
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Like all recreational facility projects on the UT campus, The Gregory Gym Aquatic Complex was student-focused and established guiding principles centered on that theme. This facility has filled a campus void by offering new opportunities for recreation, socializing and community building.
Overall student use of Gregory Gym has increased since the facility opened. New opportunities for special events now are available on campus. Student organizations and departments have hosted socials, pool parties, concerts, dive-in movies and water recreation tournaments in the new facility.
The facility footprint transformed a parking lot and underutilized buildings into a highly functional and unique recreational space. The design incorporates the traditional feel of the UT campus with exciting new outdoor features.
This is a unique place for recreation and respite on the very urban campus in Austin. Grown from the highly successful recreation program, the Aquatic Complex offers dedicated informal recreation water space for active or passive use. Well-designed open deck areas are filled with sun and shade to meet needs of all users. Multiple recreation venues support traditional and nontraditional activities simultaneously.
This facility is specially crafted to support many activities throughout the day and night. With outstanding lighting for evening activities, most areas of the deck have multiple identities, changing from a sun-drenched pool complex by day to a richly detailed, resort-like atmosphere at night.
"Like No Place Else on Campus" is the slogan that UT RecSports uses to describe the Aquatic Complex.
Nestled in to an urban setting, the Aquatic Complex clearly fits into the university environs and commands its own place in the Texas Hill Country. Built with a large quantity of exposed limestone and native natural materials, the facility blends into the campus, integrating Waller Creek into its east perimeter.
The complex has unique neighbors with differing aesthetics. To relate to Waller Creek, the complex uses native plantings and incorporates vegetation on the hillside. On the west perimeter, Gregory Gym's strong architectural forms and rigidly articulated detail serve as the complex's border. The overall complex connects and interacts with its surroundings to create a great home for recreation.
Balancing budget against quality and constructability yields innovative design for the Gregory Aquatic Complex. Against the rich palette of natural limestone, the outdoor pool deck was crafted in multiple panels of colored and salt finished concrete to create an attractive, highly functional surface.
The "Lounge Ledge" provides an innovative and extremely popular venue for social recreation — or simple relaxation. This large pool area with a 6-inch water depth provides a wonderful place for partially submerged lounge chairs and semi-immersed pool bathers. It is the most popular spot at the leisure pool venue.
The reception garden is a unique venue within this facility. Using crushed limestone aggregate as the finished deck surface, this area creates a wonderfully soft and comfortable environment. Flanked by highly articulated multi-trunk trees and a bamboo forest, the garden is a place of special respite for recreational users.
Technology surrounds modern culture, and this facility uses it well to enhance the student experience. The entire outdoor deck is blanketed with WiFi connectivity. Exterior seating areas are reinforced with hard-wired Ethernet connections and duplex power for student access to campus networks.
The entire deck is laced with multiple sound system zones for distribution of background music and public address presentations. Multiple locations on deck support live music platforms with dynamic sound reinforcement opportunities.
The main control building for the outdoor pools is interlinked with the main control desk in Gregory Gym for parallel and redundant monitoring of systems and pool conditions.
This project was conceived during the work process in the mid-1990s that created the Campus Master Plan for the University of Texas at Austin. It creates a one-of-a-kind, student-focused space that endorses the rich heritage of this university.


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Video: OACS-E Welcome
Hello, I'm Sue Zake, director of the Office for Exceptional Children at the Ohio Department of Education. I'm pleased to introduce these online learning modules on Ohio's Academic Content Standards - Extended.
This is an exciting time of change in education for our students with significant cognitive disabilities who participate in the alternate assessment. However, these changes will not come with out some challenges.
Historically, general education content standards were considered "inaccessible" for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Today, teachers' expectations have increased as these students demonstrate literacy and numeracy skills as a result of their educational program. The 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) introduced this important change in the education for students with significant cognitive disabilities; that all students with disabilities must have access to the general curriculum, be involved in the general curriculum, and progress in the general curriculum.
Through these modules, you will be able to identify the purpose and structure of the Ohio Academic Content Standards-Extended (OACS-E). The OACS-E's will be applied to a standards-based instructional program that is applicable to the education of students with significant cognitive disabilities. As you advance through the modules, you will be introduced to appropriate methods, tools, and strategies specific to academic content areas.
Knowledge of the general education content standards, as well as extensions to these standards, provides the foundation for successful educational planning for all students, including students with significant cognitive disabilities. Each module is designed to provide training and information to participants wanting to meet the educational needs of these students.
Thank you for your interest in improving instructional practices for students with significant cognitive disabilities, and in your commitment to children with disabilities in general.


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Calendars by category, click the following: Committee Calendar | Outreach Events | All Events
[Note: A text only listing of events is available for each category, select the category (above) to access.]
The date, time and location of all regular and special off-site meetings will be posted here ten (10) days prior to the meeting. Agendas will be posted not later than 5 days prior to the meeting. Minutes of previous meetings will be available for download no more than 45 days after they have been approved.
By default, the calendar shows the current month. To select other data, please select the month and year of the meeting. Agendas and minutes (if available) will appear after clicking the calendar data.
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Beneath a Meth Moon
Beneath a Meth Moon
Renowned YA author Jacqueline Woodson writes poetically about an intense and sobering subject: teenage drug addiction. BENEATH A METH MOON is a touching novel that challenges many commonly held notions about teenage drug use and the way society treats young addicts --- the idea that addicts begin with a lesser substance, that they are troubled kids, that they lack good parental support, that most are criminals or misfits, that addiction doesn't happen to smart, good kids. This is the story of a good-natured girl who falls easily into a haze of invisibility, a peculiar kind of elegy to family and friends who support and inspire substance abusers, and to the twisted poetry of "the moon," the euphoric substance with deadly appeal for those with a death wish.
"This is a transformative novel I would highly recommend to any young adult reader, and every parent or adult who seeks a better understanding of the nature and victims of deadly substances."
By all standards, Laurel Daneau was a good girl before using meth. She came from a loving Southern family and was a cheerleader in her Mississippi high school, the new kid in town who had made a few solid friends and had shown fair prospects. But her emotional troubles began long before using meth or becoming friendless and hopeless. Laurel lost her mother and grandmother in a tragic flood during a hurricane that hit much of Mississippi hard and left the family drifting.
Laurel's father was unaware of the degree of Laurel's emotional displacement when he moved the family away from their home at Pass Christian, Mississippi, to live with relatives in Galilee. He had been dealing with his own grief along with his daughter's and was just hoping to "make a new start." Unfortunately, Laurel was still in shock even while attempting to relive many cherished childhood memories. Ironically, her grandmother's words would become prophetic and redeeming for her: "While you're living…It's the rocks in your life that will stand by you. Your words, your friends, your family."
This girl's complex psychological state is revealed very subtly and makes for some interesting reading from beginning to end. Obviously there is some increased susceptibility to peer pressure here and dangerous modes of coping. In no time at all, after her first use of "the moon," Laurel becomes a deranged beggar, her family unaware of her whereabouts and her father worried sick about her as she's out begging, unsettled, freezing, and nearly starving to death on the streets --- but still in denial. It is too easy for "respectable society" to forget and ignore kids like her, people who do nothing more than throw a coin and not look at or recognize the homeless --- something most of us are guilty of, a simple means by which we deal with our feelings of guilt, worry and disgust. Were it not for the saving grace of true friends, children like Laurel wouldn't stand a chance at recovering from serious drug addictions.
BENEATH A METH MOON is intoxicating, very artistic and emotive. It will capture hearts even while it educates readers about the complex, difficult experiences and mindsets of drug-addicted teens. Woodson is very honest in her writing style and provides a direct but caring perspective for teenagers and parents. She also provides an equal focus on society's ill treatment of the homeless, a marginalized group that is much too easily discarded and forgotten by everyone but their own families. This is a transformative novel I would highly recommend to any young adult reader, and every parent or adult who seeks a better understanding of the nature and victims of deadly substances.
Reviewed by Melanie Smith on March 23, 2012
Beneath a Meth Moon
- Publication Date: February 7, 2013
- Genres: Young Adult 12+
- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Speak


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The McClean Hydrometric Data Collection
- Collection
- 1909-1965
Daily rainfall postcards, and weekly charts of water levels at selected sites in Scotland and Cumbria including loch levels and river gauging stations. The places recorded include: River Garry, Ness, Foyers, Dochfour Ferry (Ness), Arkaig, Moriston, Gairlochy, Loch Oich, Ness - Fort Augustus, Glen Quoich Lodge, Spey, Aberlour, Spey-Laggan Bridge, Loch Arkaig, Ness Castle Farm, Loch Garry, Spey-Lochaber, Windermere Records, Loch-Gairlochy, Loch Garth, River Oich, River Foyers, River Dee. Also includes Norman Lockyer Observatory Council's Reports, Directors Reports, photograph albums, plans.
Captain William Newsam McClean


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It seems that Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, does have practical experienmce after all…. of Capital Gains Tax and is, therefore, ideally suited to overseeing plans to increase CGT for mere mortals.
Talk about Japanese footballers kicking balls into their own goal!
The claims appear to undermine repeated claims by Mr Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, that no Lib Dem MP profited from the expenses system.
In the first televised leaders' debate, Mr Clegg said: "There are MPs who flipped one property to the next, buying property, paid by you, the taxpayer, and then they would do the properties up, paid for by you, and pocket the difference in personal profit.''
Who's next? Clegg? Nothing would surprise me.


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It's interesting how quickly technology changes today.
I've talked about how it's odd to think that there are
teenagers today who've never bought an actual music
CD, all of their music as been downloaded (legally or
otherwise) from online. There are kids today who've
never experienced dial-up, they've always had DSL or
The internet isn't even that old, as far as being used
worldwide, yet last year when my modem broke for a
couple of days, I was lost without it.
I'm still behind, tech-wise, in some ways. I've missed the
texting craze. My cell-phone (only the 2nd one I've ever
owned), which I've had for maybe 5 years, is rather
old-fashioned. I remember when I bought it I was impressed
with how much smaller it was than my first one. I can fold it
& stick it in my back pocket. But it doesn't take pictures, or
record videos, or have internet access like so many others
do these days. I've never felt the need for it, since I only
have the phone for emergencies. In case my car breaks
down, and I need to call Triple A, or something like that.
So I hardly ever even have it turned on.
Last Jan. an online friend wrote in one of my blogs that
she'd sent me a text message for New Years, which was
a few days earlier, so I turned on my phone & saw it,
& it turned out that there was another text message
from a real-life friend. I had no idea that I could even
receive texts on my phone, nor do I know how to reply
to them. And it's probably because of this lack of
text-access that I've missed the lastest Next Big Thing
of the moment: TWITTER.
In the past couple of weeks I seem to be reading an awful
lot about it on various websites, and I was just listening
to a podcast a few days ago where they were talking about
it. I've also gotten a couple of requests recently, from
friends who are on it.
I don't get it. At all. I can't see the point. Now, I am not
going to trash it, or say it's some big waste of time, or
anything like that. Simply because that's what I used to
say about Myspace years ago. I thought it was stupid,
and mocked those who were on it, especially those with
huge numbers of "friends." And then I finally signed up
and quickly became addicted to it. Then a year or so ago
I signed up to Facebook and that became my new addiction.
And I've occasionally argued with "civilians" who like to claim
that Myspace & Facebook are a waste of time. So I could
be wrong about this, too.
But, really, what's the point of Twitter? Let's say I have
a Blackberry or iPhone. I'm supposed to be signed in to Twitter
constantly so I can read a bunch of "status updates" all day
long? On the podcast they were talking about how it's great
because you can see people's thoughts "in real time."
Yeah, and?
Why do I need to know what you are doing, or what's on
your mind, RIGHT NOW? Nor does anybody need to know
what I'm doing, or what's on my mind, RIGHT NOW. My life
is not that interesting. My random thoughts are not that
interesting. And, I'm willing to bet, neither are any of yours.
I mean, Mon-Fri I get up in the morning and spend most
of my day at work. My random thoughts are usually
something like:
"I want pizza."
"My feet hurt"
"Is it break time, yet?"
"I wish I could have a threesome with Halle Berry & Angelina Jolie."
"What was the name of that song I heard this morning?"
"Is it break time, yet?"
Not exactly Divine Revelations that I must share
with the world immediately.
I saw a notice on this comic-book news website that
I read, telling folks to sign up to their Twitter page. It
said something like "Sign up to get breaking news as
it happens!" And I'm thinking, why does anyone need
news about comic-books, RIGHT NOW? What's the
rush? I can wait until I get home to check out the
new 5-page preview of the June issue of Wonder
Woman, I don't need an alert @ 3:27pm telling me
that it's just been posted.
Again, I won't say it's bad, or even that I'll never sign
up, because of my previous opinions on social networking.
Who knows? By this time next year, I could be a
non-stop twittering maniac. But right now I honestly
can't conceive of having any interest in it.


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Need I even write this? Ha ha...you guessed it, Alpen Raspberry Apple & Raisin porridge with almond milk, 1/2 banana, cinnamon and a black coffee :) Perfect! I also downed two large glasses of water. About 5 of these glasses equal 2 litres, so that is how many I try to drink a day!
I had my go-to lunch of choice, tuna wrap! This may seem so boring to you guys but I actually hadn't eaten one of these in a while as we've been having a lot of soups and pasta recently! I chopped up some carrots to add to the tuna salad today which made it extra crunchy and delicious. Also added some cucumber, tomatoes, lettuce and light mayo. Yum, yum!
Chopped up Pink Lady apple and a vanilla yoghurt. These always satisfy my sweet cravings in the afternoon...I know they have sweeteners in them and they're probably not the healthiest yoghurt out there but they're better than say, a donut or something like that instead...ha ha ha!
My wonderful husband cooked dinner: chicken, green peppers & corn on the cob with boiled new potatoes and lemon pepper seasoning. Yummy!
This is something I've been loving lately as an evening treat - Nescafe Decaff Cappuccino with a few biscuits in this really cute cup complete with a biscuit pocket, ha ha ha! It's actually Jonathan's - this was his Christmas present from his sister but I'm always stealing it from him because...well, it's just so darn convenient! ;) Today I had Hobnobs but I also love this with Caramel Digestives...mmm!
What did you eat today?
Stay Stylish!