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The Marketing of AIDS
"He looks too good not to be sick," John said, and I joined my workout partner's stare toward the deeply tanned, completely luscious man across the gym floor. At the moment he was doing bicep curls, his arms like enormous grapefruits in a spandex tube. His shorts could have belonged to his little brother and his tank top provided a thin string of fabric to coyly mask his nipples. And he had no trouble getting away with any of it.
He was a queer marvel.
"Yeah, no doubt," I answered at last, and we returned to our labors on the butterfly chest machine -- the only piece of equipment that is an absolute necessity. Should a gym ever catch fire, you can be assured of one thing: at some point early in the rescue, five gay men will emerge with the butterfly chest machine, carrying it aloft like Cleopatra in an Egyptian fantasy sequence as envisioned by Colt Studios. If there is more than one machine, you can expect repeated feats of courage worthy of the eleven o'clock news.
The man doing his bicep curls suggested to John and me, again, what had become our new theory on gay men in 1998. It seems that all the hot ones have AIDS.
Of course it isn't fair to generalize, and we all know that illness and death rages on for many people with AIDS. But for two men living with HIV, working out on a typical weekday at the gym, the visuals suggest otherwise.
"That guy goes to my doctor," John says, pointing to a man with a stomach I could wash my socks on. "He wasn't half that big a year ago. Looks pretty good, huh?" Everywhere we turn we spot men from our support groups or pharmacies or from a quick glance in the lobby of the local AIDS agency.
Gay men who went out on disability but never got sick -- or got well again -- so they collect insurance checks and have their days free to work out. All that extra time, all those cloying International Male ads daring them to be hunky. You do the math. Meanwhile, their doctors are prescribing steroids and testosterone, purely medicinal mind you, and these men are bulking up faster than Bill Bixby in a bad mood.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, John and I are intimately familiar with this phenomenon. John has been on disability for years and recently began his gym routine in earnest, aided by various drugs prescribed by his doctor. I still work full time, but after a blood test showed my levels were a teensy bit low a few months ago, I've been getting regular doses of testosterone. Woof. With a little work, I might aspire to become one of the fastest growing gay "types" of 1998: the AIDS Clone. It would include the beefy upper body and fabulous arms, but may also include, if I'm not careful, the flat "AZT butt," the extended "Crixivan belly," or the spindly legs from muscle wasting.
Due to pure laziness, I already have the spindly legs but, as I keep telling John, I do not care to work out my legs, thank you very much. "But you have to have overall health, Mark," John will say, and I will answer, each time, that it is my intention to look incredible from the waist up and I'll wear jeans and I don't care what the rest looks like. Ever mindful of the holistic nature of exercise, am I. When is my next testosterone shot again?
In the topsy turvy world of AIDS these days, nothing is as it once was. Death rates are down, sex clubs are back, and many of us living with the virus have taken "empowerment" to the next level, which might include practicing a new form of viralcentricity. Why bother sleeping with men who are negative? Who needs the added anxiety?
A friend of mine had a very attractive man in hot pursuit of him recently. They chatted in the bar and were negotiating plans to leave when my friend mentioned he was negative. The face on his object of desire fell like a tousled pound cake, and he finally said to my embarrassed friend, "Really? I figured you were positive.... I have kind of a rule about that."
My friend does have some awfully fine arms and a slight belly he's been working on, so that might explain the confusion. But only in 1998 could a man be rejected for being negative and feel apologetic for his status.
The AIDS media, propelled by the marketing of drugs to treat HIV, seems to believe that memorial services are out of style and everyone with AIDS enjoys rock climbing. Pages of advertisements in gay media are devoted to handsome, chiseled men with AIDS, happily taking their drugs while keeping up a hectic schedule of pumping iron and fantasy dates. After checking out some of the fine men in these ads, if I didn't have HIV, I'd sure want it.
Where did all the sick guys go? Not far, just out of sight. When a friend died recently, it was after months of isolation, during which time he grieved that the gay community, and AIDS media, seemed ashamed of him. "I open these magazines and don't see anyone who looks like me," he would say. His wasted look had gone out of style.
It has been replaced in our world view by gym buddies, biweekly testosterone injections, sleeveless shirts and generous insurance benefits. And it comes with its own, utterly misleading marketing campaign.
AIDS. It's not a disease. It's a Club Med vacation.
Mark S. King lives in Atlanta, and has just completed his first book, In A Place Like This. He can be reached at email@example.com.


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PHOENIX � Tigers at the Phoenix Zoo are getting frozen fish snacks. Temporary cooling stations are popping up to welcome the homeless and elderly. And airlines are monitoring the soaring temperatures to make sure it's safe to fly as the western U.S. falls into the grip of a dangerous heat wave.
PHOENIX � Tigers at the Phoenix Zoo are getting frozen fish snacks. Temporary cooling stations are popping up to welcome the homeless and elderly. And airlines are monitoring the soaring temperatures to make sure it�s safe to fly as the western U.S. falls into the grip of a dangerous heat wave.
A strong high-pressure system settling over the region Friday and through the weekend will bring extreme temperatures to the already blazing Southwest. Notoriously hot Death Valley, Calif., is forecast to reach 129 degrees, not far off its world-record high of 134 logged nearly a century ago.
�We came to this special place to experience it at its best,� said Hermenn Muessner with a smile. Muessner, from the Alpine country of Lichtenstein, planned to continue his tour through the Southwest with a stop at Yosemite National Park, where temperatures were expected in the high-80s.
By 9:30 a.m., the temperature had already climbed to 110 in the shade outside a pro shop at a Death Valley golf course. Tourists appeared to move in slow motion in the intense heat. They took photos of the landscape or of themselves in front of national park signs, and then got back into their air-conditioned cars.
When he arrived the night before, Juergen Bausch saw that the car�s thermometer said the temperature outside was at 118. He took a photo of the reading and sent it to his friends back home in Germany. And then he got out of the car.
�Wow what a surprise,� he said.
The National Weather Service predicts Phoenix could reach 118 on Friday, while Las Vegas could see the same temperature over the weekend. Temperatures are expected to soar across Utah and into parts of Wyoming and Idaho, where forecasters are calling for triple-digit heat in the Boise area.
Cities in Washington state better known for cool, rainy weather should break the 90s next week, while northern Utah � marketed as having �the greatest snow on Earth� � is expected to hit triple digits.
�This is the hottest time of the year but the temperatures that we�ll be looking at for Friday through Sunday, they�ll be toward the top,� said National Weather Service meteorologist Mark O�Malley, adding, �It�s going to be baking hot across much of the entire West.�
Jennifer Smith, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center based in Idaho, said crews are especially worried about wildfires igniting in the Four Corners region where the borders of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona intersect.
Some of the strongest parts of the high pressure system are expected to be parked over the area through the weekend, where forecasters are calling for lightning but little to no precipitation, Smith said.
Scientists say that the jet stream, the river of air that dictates weather patterns, has been more erratic in the past few years. It�s responsible for weather systems getting stuck, like the current heat wave. Scientists disagree on whether global warming is the cause of the jet stream�s behavior.
The hottest cities are taking precautions to protect vulnerable residents. Police are pleading with drivers not to leave children or pets in vehicles, and temporary cooling stations are being put up to shelter homeless people and the elderly on fixed incomes who hesitate to use air conditioning.
Officials said extra personnel have been added to the U.S. Border Patrol�s Search, Trauma, and Rescue unit as people illegally crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona could succumb to exhaustion and dehydration. At least seven people have been found dead in the last week in Arizona after falling victim to the desert�s brutal heat.
Even airlines are watching the mercury for any signs that temperatures could deter operations.
In June 1990, when Phoenix hit 122 degrees, several airlines, including America West, which later merged with US Airways, were forced to cease flights for several hours because the planes didn�t have the data needed to know how they would fly in temperatures above 120 degrees.
US Airways spokesman Todd Lehmacher said the airline�s fleet of Boeings can now fly up to 126 degrees, and up to 127 degrees for the Airbus fleet.
But the company�s smaller express planes flying out of the Phoenix area may be delayed if the temperature tops 118 because as the air heats up, it becomes less dense and changes liftoff conditions.
�The hotter is it, your performance is degraded,� Lehmacher said. �We�re monitoring this very closely to see what the temperatures do.�
Officials at Salt River Project, the Phoenix area�s largest electricity provider, also are closely monitoring usage in order to redirect energy in case of a potential overload.
Company spokeswoman Scott Harelson said he doesn�t expect usage to get anywhere near SRP�s record 6,663 megawatts consumed in August 2011.
�While it�s hot, people tend to leave town and some businesses aren�t open, so that has a tendency to mitigate demand and is why we typically don�t set records on weekends,� Harelson said.
Meanwhile, over at the Phoenix Zoo, animals from elephants to warthogs will be doused with hoses and sprayed with sprinklers and misters throughout the weekend.
The tigers will get frozen fish snacks while the lions can lounge on concrete slabs cooled by internal water-filled pipes, said zoo spokeswoman Linda Hardwick.
�And they�ll all have plenty of shade,� she said. �The keepers will all just be very active looking for any behavior changes, anything that would tip them off that an animal is just getting too hot.�
In Las Vegas, two Elvis impersonators and a performer costumed as the iconic �Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas� sign said they still planned to keep up their routine of working the tourist corridor in the broad daylight and turning in for the evenings, heat notwithstanding.
�We�d much rather fight with the sun than fight with the drunk people,� Elvis impersonator Cristian Morales said.
Associated Press writers Chris Carlson in Death Valley, Calif., Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, Julie Jacobson and Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas, Michelle Price in Salt Lake City, and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque contributed to this report.

subset: commoncrawl


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DIXON – Not much time had passed after news of the city's $40 million lawsuit settlement in the Crundwell thefts, before projects such as the Veterans Memorial Pool, a sports complex and a pedestrian bridge over the Rock River became part of the conversation around town.
None of them, however, were at the top of the finance director's list.
The city will host a meeting sometime in the first week of October for Finance Director Paula Meyer to give a presentation on the economic impact of the settlement and the city's financial obligations as a result of Rita Crundwell's nearly $54 million embezzlement.
In total, the city expects to receive about $40 million, after it receives about $10 million from Crundwell's sold assets and pays another $10 million in legal fees.
The first thing on Meyer's mind: paying down debt and addressing deferred maintenance projects throughout the city.
As of April, the city had $12,656,314 in outstanding debt for five outstanding bonds, including one to construct the Public Health and Safety Building. Additionally, the city's sewer fund carries $9,720,770 in debt, including a bond for construction at the wastewater treatment plant.
These are not negative balances, but scheduled payments on loans.
About $9.5 million from the sale of Crundwell's assets will be used to get rid of negative balances in many city funds, Meyer said in May of the budget passed by the council.
Dixon has several funds – the band fund, the Social Security fund, the airport fund, to name a few – for which tax dollars are levied to bring in revenues.
Several are in the red because of the theft, and must be repaid, so about $8.9 million of the $9.5 million coming from the assets will be used to bring those accounts to a zero balance, Meyer said.
"I had no idea we were going to be getting this back now," said Meyer, who learned of the settlement during Wednesday morning's meeting. "I can't go into detail just yet, but I have some thoughts in my head. ... My presentation will show where our debt is."
The public is encouraged to attend the meeting, ask questions and make comments, Mayor Jim Burke said. The City Council will make the final determination on how to spend the money, but the residents and taxpayers are the "real stakeholders," Burke said Wednesday in a written statement.
The city should see the settlement money by the end of the year, Burke said. It is uncertain when money from Crundwell's sold assets will be received; it could take another several months.
With that said, Commissioner Dennis Considine does not want to see the council get "drunk with excitement of riches," suggesting the city would be well served to take care of debts.
"It's very important we keep our eye on the ball, and back to our strategic planning we've been working on," said Considine in a phone interview Wednesday. "It's more important to put our focus that way, on our long-range planning."
Commissioner Jeff Kuhn echoed some of the same initial thoughts as Considine.
"This is a one-time revenue, and you have to be really careful not to get into something that's going to be a recurring expense," said Kuhn in a phone interview Wednesday. "I want to go very slow with this, look at suggestions, get input from citizens, and again, be extremely careful. No haphazard spending spree."
Commissioners David Blackburn and Colleen Brechon could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Coinciding with Wednesday's news, the city continues to interview candidates for its new administrator position. A hiring could come as soon as next month, meaning the administrator could become part of the process for budgeting settlement funds.
Related links


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This article was written in response to the article titled �President Obama is a hero for his stance on gay rights� written by Robert Kellogg.
The parade of militant homosexuality continues its march forward with the drumbeats merging in the rhythms of Hell. Their pied piper leads them and their anthem is one of enlightenment. They claim they are free and are liberated from the shackles of an antiquated morality. They hold the banners of equal rights proudly, and this without any perceptible elevation of the moral standards of its devotees.
So strong are the prevailing winds of political correctness blowing, that rarely anyone appears to exert the moral courage to turn around and face the other direction. So today, I stand on the rock of truth that is unmovable amid the prevailing waves of human opinion.
Mr. Kellogg has failed to realize that God�s eternal truth does not shift to accommodate the transient opinions of men; nor should society fail to repudiate the clever euphemism of �an alternative lifestyle� in place of a sinful lifestyle.
In the book of Isaiah Chp.3, it says this �The Lord Jesus stands up to plead and to judge the people, because they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.� If God did not spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sin of homosexuality, what has deluded America from feeling she is exempt?
Where are the preachers who will lift up voices like a trumpet and show my people their sins? Even our preachers have become shivering cowards, afraid of being labeled intolerant, bigoted and hateful.
I hear preachers cry out against sin in their churches, but they will not cry out the sins of mankind in the public! They will not be a voice that warns of coming judgments. They want to retain their cultured reputations.
Where are the Jeremiahs that weep for the lost souls? It is time for the church to repent, for preachers to repent of neglecting their manly degree of importunity in achieving this objective.
The thing we no longer can tolerate is the truth. It is my considered opinion that the only one suffering bigotry, intolerance and hatred is none other than Jesus Christ himself, who suffered because He so loved the world.
Mark A. Huffman


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Mixed Lotus Biscoff Cake
Review Recipe3 stars based on 1708 votes
A soft and airy cake with a marbled caramel appearance, easily and quickly prepared. Perfect, alongside a cup of coffee.
- Mix flour and baking powder into one bowl.
- Ad heavy cream, eggs and sugar into another bowl and beat well with a manual whisk. Add the flour mixture to the second bowl and mix with a spoon into a smooth batter.
- Transfer about half of the mixture to a third bowl and add the Biscoff Cookie Butter. Beat well with a whisk until you get a smooth batter.
- Pour the light batter into the pan and place on top of it mounds of beaten Biscoff Cookie Butter using a spoon. Mix lightly with a toothpick or wooden skewer until you get a marbled appearance.
- Bake at 350°F for approximately 55 minutes until a toothpick stuck in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs.
- You can store the cake wrapped at room temperature for up to 3 days.


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As I look out the window of my office gray clouds cover the sky, hinting at rain. I check the forecast online—it's supposed to storm all weekend. Unfortunately not all summer days are sunny. Try these green indoor activities to perk up a gloomy day.
Perk yourself up on a rainy day with these green activities. Photo By pshutterbug/Courtesy Flickr
Eliminate clutter
Go through your clothes and decide what you can toss. If you can't remember the last time you wore it, chances are you don't need it.
Try swapping your clothes with friends rather than throwing away your used clothes. You could even host a "clothing swap party" and barter your clothes with a group of friends.
For the clothes that none of your friends take, try repurposing them. Turn old sweaters into oven mitts (use only 100 percent wool) or use old sweater pieces to make patchwork blankets or pillow covers. Tear T-shirts into rags for dusting or washing the car. Turn the top half of jeans into a retro purse by sewing the leg holes closed and attaching a belt for a strap. Check out more tips for greening your closet.
If you plan on donating your old clothes, don't stuff them in plastic trash bags. Pack them in reusable cloth bags to take to the drop-off location.
The average household receives 900 pieces of junk mail a year. Go through all of the extra envelopes, coupons and credit card applications you have lying around and chuck them in the recycling bin.
Start a project
Make a cute, quirky lunch tote out of old plastic bags. Try this easy project using materials you have lying around your home. All you need to complete this project is 4 to 8 plastic bags, an iron, wax paper, clothes pins and a ruler.
Play a green game
Visit Planet Green Game to play a free green game online.
Starbucks collaborated with Global Green USA, a national environmental nonprofit organization, to create the game. After looking at how greenhouse gas emissions associated with its operations negatively impacted the environment, Starbucks created the game to educate the public (and itself) about climate change.
The game takes place in the fictional town of Evergreen. Players look for ways to reduce CO2 emissions and reduce the impact of global warming. They earn points by completing various green challenges.
Continue your green web-browsing by taking an online quiz to test your knowledge about air, water and land.
Bake organic
Create something sugary and delicious with organic ingredients. In your recipes for cookies, cakes and pies try using organic flour, sugar, eggs, butter, chocolate, etc. I suggest using Organic Turbinado Sugar and Organic Shaman Chocolates.
Try this tasty recipe for Cherry Chocolate Scones.
If baking from scratch is too much for you, try the baking mixes from
Pamela's Products. These simple mixes use gluten-free, organic ingredients.
Do you have any fun green activities to brighten up a rainy day? Tell me about them in the comment section.


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Online game Extreme Maths. Play online free game Extreme Maths. Download game Extreme Maths. Games Sport - cx-en.kot-i-pios.com
Do you like winter sports, but not against the pull math? All you can do in the game Extreme matimatika.
© zxcgame.com - free online game Extreme Maths ().
Play online flash game Extreme Maths for free. Do not forget to rate this game Extreme Maths and share this game with your best friends.
Play online flash game Extreme Maths for free. Do not forget to rate this game Extreme Maths and share this game with your best friends.
Games online:
Online Games:
Game Extreme Maths online
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Fat Tuesday at Chez Flannestad.
Beans and aromatics.
Cajun Triumvirate.
Rancho Gordo Sangre de Toro Beans.
Flour into hot oil.
About half way there.
Veggies into the cooked roux.
A nice skillet corn bread.
Bar prepared. How many drinks can you think of with these ingredients?
Choose your own spirit for the Sazerac!
Chicken and Sausage Gumbo with Okra.
Beans with Collard Greens.
Anita MADE a fantastic King Cake.
I am slightly disturbed by this photo. OK, I may not have been thorough in removing all the bouquet garni from the beans.
Guests included the lawyer, the ice cream maker, IT Manager/Musician, the artist/DJ, and the blogger/photographer/tech couple. I dunno, sign of the times that just about everyone has a "slash" in their life's work, but doesn't quite have the same ring as, "Butcher, Baker, and Candlestick Maker."
Our new acquaintance, the ice cream maker, and I have been working on Sazerac Ice Cream. We're up to Iteration 4 now, and while still a work in progress, this one was the best so far. It is tough to get enough of the Whiskey flavor and still have the ice cream freeze. We served the Sazerac Ice Cream with Anita's King Cake. Mrs. Flannestad got the Baby! Guess that means she's making the cake next time!


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As first reported by FOX 5 News/Atlanta, Rock, real name Robert Ritchie, and five members of his entourage were each taken into custody on a misdemeanor charge of simple battery.
According to the report, Kid Rock stopped at the Waffle House at 5:15 AM on Sunday after performing that evening. A customer allegedly recognized a woman who was with Kid, they exchanged words, and that escalated into a fight in the parking lot.
According to myfoxatlanta.com, the customer was charged with one felony count of second degree criminal damage to property -- allegedly for smashing a window. The window damage was estimated at more than $500 -- which constitutes a felony in the state of Georgia.
Kid posted bond at about 5:00 PM and left DeKalb County jail, signing autographs for fans as he made his way back to his tour bus.


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Integrity in Vocation
Mr. Reagan is "a firm and unbending politician for whom words and deeds are one and the same." This assessment found in East German secret police files provides future generations with a lasting example of integrity. These files must …Read More
The Pastor and His Pulpit
The life of a minister is the life of his ministry." This adage is as true now as ever. In fact, ministerial integrity is an indispensable element of any sustained credibility among a discerning people with whom we have …Read More
Knowing the Enemy
There are, no matter what may be happening around the globe, at least three wars going on at the same time. There is from the garden of Eden to the consummation of the kingdom of God the battle between the …Read More
Peer Pressure
The talk shows were buzzing recently about a sex education class in a Maryland school that had students chew a stick of gum, then pass it around so that everyone in the class chewed it. This learning activity was supposed …Read More
What Is Truth?
In the present age of general laxity and departure from the orthodox Christian faith, one of the great needs is the return to doctrinal integrity. In particular, men who stand behind the sacred pulpit, should be men who teach the …Read More
Designed for Dignity
Baked ham or turkey is a traditional favorite on the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner tables of most American homes. And many of us enjoy an occasional steak or Sunday pot roast. For thousands of years, humanity as a whole has …Read More
Duty and Honor
Several years ago I was participating in a discussion with some business men in Jackson, Mississippi. In the course of the conversation, one of the men made reference to a man who was not present at the meeting. He said …Read More
Integrity, Coram Deo
What will people say about me after I die?" Have you ever asked yourself that question? It is a question that has haunted me for years, and it is one of the most captivating questions anyone can ask himself …Read More
Drifting into Heresy
More than 120 years before the American Revolution, the charter of Harvard College was established. But the "Rules and Precepts" of the college adopted in 1646 show that the leaders saw education (and all of life) as an arena in …Read More


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Care worker held over home sickness
A 23-year-old care worker has been arrested on suspicion of administering a noxious substance after staff and residents at a sheltered housing complex were taken ill.
West Midlands Police said 16 people fell ill with food poisoning-type symptoms at Goldfield Court, an extra care unit for the elderly in West Bromwich.
Four of the people were taken to hospital, where two continue to receive treatment.
West Midlands Police said several staff and residents had been taken ill at Goldfield Court in West Bromwich
The 23-year-old woman, who was arrested on Monday, has been released on police bail to a secure unit while investigations continue, a force spokeswoman said.
Further tests and inquiries are under way to determine the exact nature and cause of the illness.
Officers are working with the management of the unit, along with health care professionals and Sandwell social services, to investigate the incident.
Goldfield Court is described as "extra care housing" for older people. There are 93 flats at the site, run by Housing & Care 21.
In a statement issued on its website, Housing & Care 21 said: "Housing and Care 21 can confirm that a care worker has been suspended from Goldfield independent living scheme in West Bromwich.
"We are providing information and assistance to the police and Sandwell social services and will support them with any further investigation.
"Our thoughts are with both residents and staff at the Goldfield community and we will ensure they are fully supported during this difficult time."
In its most recent inspection of the sheltered housing complex, independent regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found the site was meeting all standards.
A routine inspection carried out last October concluded the measures in place "protected people who lived there from the risk of harm and abuse".
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projectdalek.co.ukProject Dalek is an online information resource aimed at anyone interested in building a Dalek, whether it is to be a full size, scale or virtual CG model. The Project Dalek Website contains our Dalek builder's showcases, Dalek plans previews and a vast amount of other information useful to aspiring Dalek builders, including a Dalek image reference library. Click the 'Website' link above, to access the Project Dalek Main Website.
projectdalek.comThe Project Dalek Forum is a group for members who are taking the plunge and actually building a Dalek. It is a source of highly detailed information on all aspects of the Dalek props, as well as a place to share Dalek building knowledge and experiences. Our Dalek plans are accessible to members, once they have joined the Forum. Non-members, please see the main website for further details.


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The name says it all. Concept cars preview the future direction of the automotive world in terms of design, materials, and engineering; even transportation ideas that might do away with the car altogether!
They give a car brand direction, publicly display what the company's capable of, and let the design and styling teams 'off the chain.' Flick through our gallery, and prepare for your jaw to drop.


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Drug information provided by: IBM Micromedex
Meglumine antimoniate belongs to the group of medicines called antiprotozoals. Meglumine antimoniate is used to treat an infection called leishmaniasis (Bay sore or chiclero ulcer, espundia, kala-azar or black sickness, Oriental sore, ulcera de Bejuco, uta), which is caused by protozoa (tiny, one-celled organisms).
Meglumine antimoniate should be administered by or under the supervision of your doctor.
In deciding to use a medicine, the risks of taking the medicine must be weighed against the good it will do. This is a decision you and your doctor will make. For this medicine, the following should be considered:
Tell your doctor if you have ever had any unusual or allergic reaction to this medicine or any other medicines. Also tell your health care professional if you have any other types of allergies, such as to foods, dyes, preservatives, or animals. For non-prescription products, read the label or package ingredients carefully.
Although there is no specific information comparing use of meglumine antimoniate in children with use in other age groups, this medicine is not expected to cause different side effects or problems in children than it does in adults.
Many medicines have not been studied specifically in older people. Therefore, it may not be known whether they work exactly the same way they do in younger adults or if they cause different side effects or problems in older people. There is no specific information comparing use of meglumine antimoniate in the elderly with use in other age groups.
Although certain medicines should not be used together at all, in other cases two different medicines may be used together even if an interaction might occur. In these cases, your doctor may want to change the dose, or other precautions may be necessary. Tell your healthcare professional if you are taking any other prescription or nonprescription (over-the-counter [OTC]) medicine.
Certain medicines should not be used at or around the time of eating food or eating certain types of food since interactions may occur. Using alcohol or tobacco with certain medicines may also cause interactions to occur. Discuss with your healthcare professional the use of your medicine with food, alcohol, or tobacco.
The presence of other medical problems may affect the use of this medicine. Make sure you tell your doctor if you have any other medical problems, especially:
To help clear up your infection completely, meglumine antimoniate is based on its amount of pentavalent antimony and must be given for the full time of treatment and on a regular schedule.
The dose of this medicine will be different for different patients. Follow your doctor's orders or the directions on the label. The following information includes only the average doses of this medicine. If your dose is different, do not change it unless your doctor tells you to do so.
The amount of medicine that you take depends on the strength of the medicine. Also, the number of doses you take each day, the time allowed between doses, and the length of time you take the medicine depend on the medical problem for which you are using the medicine.
It is important that your doctor check your progress at regular visits. This is to help make sure that the infection is cleared up completely.
If your symptoms become worse, check with your doctor .
Along with its needed effects, a medicine may cause some unwanted effects. Although not all of these side effects may occur, if they do occur they may need medical attention.
Check with your doctor as soon as possible if any of the following side effects occur:
Some side effects may occur that usually do not need medical attention. These side effects may go away during treatment as your body adjusts to the medicine. Also, your health care professional may be able to tell you about ways to prevent or reduce some of these side effects. Check with your health care professional if any of the following side effects continue or are bothersome or if you have any questions about them:
Other side effects not listed may also occur in some patients. If you notice any other effects, check with your healthcare professional.
Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.
Portions of this document last updated: Feb. 01, 2019
Original article: https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/meglumine-antimoniate-intravenous-route-injection-route/description/drg-20064644
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text:
Hot Rod Heated Travel Mug
Coffee to make you go vroom vroom!
- Retro style heated coffee mug with 12v power plug
- Glossy finish with analog temperature gauge and chrome touches
- Plugs into your car's cigarette lighter 12 volt port for power!
Your morning routine probably includes coffee, and a daily commute. You take great pains to make sure your coffee is rich and delicious, and, most importantly, hot. So when it comes to taking your travel mug full of hot coffee with you for your trip to work, what happens?
You guessed it. The coffee gets cold before you really get a chance to enjoy it. Most travel mugs, you see, do a very bad job at actually insulating, and bleed out heat faster than an airlock blows out atmosphere. You need supplemental heat to maintain temperature, as well as the ability to actually monitor just how hot or cold your brew has become before you put your lips to the rim.
This coffee mug evokes a nostalgic feeling that comes with 60's hot rod muscle cars. With a glossy candy-shell exterior, chrome accents, and beautiful analog gauges and switches, these mugs look fast just standing still. With the included DC adapter, you can plug your mug right into your car's cigarette lighter 12v outlet, and maintain your coffee's optimum temperature.
Your coffee will stay nice and hot, and it'll look good doing it, too.
- Thermally insulated travel mug
- 12v DC adapter keeps your beverage hot
- Analog temperature gauge and on/off toggle switch
- LED Power indicator
- Nonskid rubberized base
- Candy apple red, or midnight glossy black
- Holds 8 ounces


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Jackman + Jakey
The trailer for Prisoners, starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, was released yesterday. Hugh's daughter goes missing. He's in a rage trying to find her. Jakey's the cop on the case. Paul Dano's the creep who probably isn't the creep since they're making him look like the creep in the preview. And they're all supported by a very impressive cast including... Viola Davis. I mean this is enough, isn't it?
Viola Davis being sad about her abducted child, right there, is already a terrifying prospect. She will destroy your heart. This movie is like the boogeyman for me already. Why you have to make me FEEL, Viola? Why you have to make me FEEL so much?
In other Hugh Jackman news, here he is with James McAvoy in Montreal on the set of X-Men: Days Of Future Past. The man makes everyone around him look like an infant. Also attached -- his crazy ass biceps earlier in the week.
247PapsTV/ Splash


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Find Your Perfect Home.
Three Lakes Real Estate
Three Lakes is located in Wisconsin. Three Lakes, Wisconsin has a population of 2,125. Three Lakes is less family-centric than the surrounding county with 13.76% of the households containing married families with children. The county average for households married with children is 23.04%.
The median household income in Three Lakes, Wisconsin is $48,750. The median household income for the surrounding county is $45,736 compared to the national median of $53,482. The median age of people living in Three Lakes is 59.3 years.
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The average high temperature in July is 78 degrees, with an average low temperature in January of -0.1 degrees. The average rainfall is approximately 31.5 inches per year, with inches of snow per year.
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text:
Asynchronous Programming
What happens if you have a lot of sockets that are waiting to read or write data? Asynchronous programming lets you write code that basically says, "Call my callback when you actually have something for me." Although this approach is used all the time in C, it's even nicer in Python because Python has first-class functions.
These days, there are many servers written asynchronously. nginx is a "simplified version" of Apache that is both very fast and highly concurrent. Squid, the popular open source Web proxy, is also written asynchronously. This makes a lot of sense if you think about what a Web proxy does. It spends all of its time managing a ton of sockets, funneling data between clients and servers.
Asynchronous programming starts with operating system APIs such as select, poll, kqueue, aio, and epoll. These APIs let you write code that basically says, "These are the file descriptors I'm working with. Which of them is ready for me to do some reading or writing?" In Python, libraries like the built-in asyncore module and the popular Twisted framework take these low-level APIs and orchestrate callback systems on top of them.
Let's look at an example of asynchronous code. First, the linear (non-asynchronous) code in Example 4.
def handle_request(request): data = talk_to_database() print "Processing request with data from database."
Re-written asynchronously, you end up with something like Example 5. (You can move use_data into a new top-level function after handle_request, but it's convenient to do it this way to maintain access to request via a closure.)
def handle_request(request): def use_data(data): print "Processing request with data from database." deferred = talk_to_database() deferred.addCallback(use_data)
Notice that the talk_to_database function no longer returns a value directly. Rather, it returns a deferred object to which you can attach callbacks.
This is called "continuation passing style". Rather than waiting for a function to simply return, you must pass a callback detailing how to continue once the data is obtained. Because you must use continuation passing style anytime you call a function that might block, it soon permeates your codebase. This can be painful and prevents you from using any library that does blocking I/O unless it's written using continuation passing style.
On the other hand, living in the asynchronous ghetto has its benefits. Aside from the clear concurrency benefits, the Twisted codebase is widely regarded as well-written code, and it provides implementations for most popular protocols.
Subroutines Versus Coroutines
In the beginning, there was the GOTO. It didn't take any parameters, and it was a one-way trip.
A coroutine is like a subroutine, except it doesn't necessarily return. With subroutines, you can do things like:
f -> g -> h (return to g, return to f)
With coroutines, you can do things like:
f -> g -> h -> f
Coroutines can be used for simple cooperative multitasking. The Python Cookbook has a great recipe for coroutines based on generators. Example 6 is a simple version of it.
import itertools def my_coro(name): count = 0 while True: count += 1 print "%s %s" % (name, count) yield coros = [my_coro('coro1'), my_coro('coro2')] for coro in itertools.cycle(coros): # A round-robin scheduler :) coro.next() # Produces: # # coro1 1 # coro2 1 # coro1 2 # coro2 2 # ...
Using generators to implement coroutines is definitely a cute hack. By the way, this same trick can be used in Twisted to alleviate some of the need to use callbacks everywhere.
On the other hand, there are some limitations to this technique. Specifically, you can only call yield in the generator. What happens if my_coro calls some function f and f wants to yield? There are some workarounds, but the limitation is actually pretty core to Python. (Because Python isn't stackless, it can't support true continuations in the same way that Scheme can.) I've written about this topic in detail on my blog.


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It's hard to wrap your head around sitting in a four-wheeled dolly with a 250cc motorbike engine inches away from your soft, easily torn flesh. Watch one in action, here at Killarney racetrack in Cape Town, and it still won't seem any less insane.
This is Schalk Burger Jr. practicing for a Superkart race. He has 100 horsepower at his disposal from a PVP Yamaha TZ 250 5-KE engine that will take him from 0-62 in three seconds. And he's no higher off the ground than the stomach of a small badger.
(Hat tip to Tiian!)


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ELK CREEK –– One of the most beautiful weekends of the summer greeted fans and racers to Elk Creek Dragway this past weekend, and dealing with a few showers didn't dampen the spirits of either.
The Footbrake class kicked off action on Friday night with Robert Neal racing his Pontiac to the win with a 6.98 e.t. at 88 mph. Tim Douglas took the runner-up spot, also in a Pontiac, with a 6.98 e.t. at 90 mph.
The ATV-4 Wheeler race was also on the docket for Friday, with Ricky Ruiz running an 8.99 e.t. at 60 mph for the win. He was followed by Doug Pauley with a 12.02 e.t. at 50 mph.
Kevin Halsey was the winner of the Pro Tree class with a 10.73 e.t. Mike Willard was the runner-up after posting a 10.31 e.t.
Saturday's racing action had to work its way around a few showers, but all classes were run to their completion.
Terry Fulk of Mt. Airy took home the win in the Super Pro class, driving his dragster to a 5.20 e.t. at 120 mph. Linn Joines of Sparta was the runner-up, also in a dragster, posting a 4.89 e.t. at 129 mph.
The Elk Creek Gear Jammer class was won by John Moore of Princeton, W.Va., with a 7.69 e.t. Clyde Moyers of Lexington raced to a 6.02 e.t. for the runner-up finish.
The crowd-pleasing Outlaw class was won by Mike Lineberry of Galax, driving his Chevy Camaro to a 5.58 e.t. at 112 mph. Wayne Horton of Hillsville was the runner-up in his dragster with a 4.78 e.t. at 131 mph.
The Footbrake class winner was Steve Lyons of Dublin. Lyons drove his Plymouth Duster to the win with a 6.76 e.t. at 90 mph. Moyers ran to his second runner-up finish of the day, posting a 5.86 e.t. at 109 mph in a Corvette.
Dane Shinault of Hillsville won the Junior Dragster class with an 8.00 e.t. at 74 mph, while Lockie Bales of Atkins was the runner-up with a 10.74 e.t. at 54 mph.
The winner of the D.O.T. class was Wes Sumner of Troutdale, as his Ford ran a 7.56 e.t. at 78 mph. Robbie Copenhaver of Wytheville posted a 9.17 e.t. in his Chevelle for the runner-up finish.
Steve Horgash of Gray, Tenn., was the winner of the Motorcycle class over James Phibbs of Pulaski.
The popular Charlie Overfelt Nostalgia Show is the headliner at Elk Creek tomorrow (Saturday), with slingshot dragsters and pre-1972 racers of all shapes and sizes.
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Sarah MacLean
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake
Sarah MacLean
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake
Release Date: 3/30/2010
LIST PRICE: $7.99 (you save $2.02)
Main description:
A lady does not smoke cheroot. She does not ride astride. She does not fence or attend duels. She does not fire a pistol, and she never gambles at a gentlemen's club.
Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried—and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she's vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she's been missing.
But to dance every dance, to steal a midnight kiss—to do those things, Callie will need a willing partner. Someone who knows everything about rule-breaking. Someone like Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston—charming and devastatingly handsome, his wicked reputation matched only by his sinful smile.
If she's not careful, she'll break the most important rule of all—the one that says that pleasure-seekers should never fall hopelessly, desperately in love . . .
Review quote:
An entertaining Regency debut.... The 19th-century clothes are luscious, the 21st-century sensibility is raunchy, and it's all implausible, escapist fun.
Review quote:
MacLean has penned a fast-paced, funny tale with a marvelous cast of characters who captivate and enchant. This book should come with a warning: Once you start, you won't want to put it down!
Review quote:
MacLean's devilishly fun debut novel is an absolute delight: rich in supple wit, suffused with sensuality, and enlivened with a wonderfully engaging cast of characters.
Review quote:
Wow, what a great book! I love it. One of the best wrenching-heart scenes ever...Fabulous!
Short description/annotation:
A wonderfully talented new author joins the Avon Romance family—Sarah MacLean, who fans of Eloisa James and Julia Quinn will immediately take into their hearts! Sarah's delectable debut, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, is the Regency Era romp readers have been waiting for—fresh, fun, and wonderfully romantic—placing her solidly in the company of Elizabeth Hoyt, Sophie Jordan, and others of the new generation of exciting up-and-comers.


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Two lawsuits may force the administration to take a clear stand on whether gay people have been unfairly stigmatized, are politically powerful, and can choose to change their sexual orientation.
WASHINGTON — President Obama has balanced on a political tightrope for two years over the Defense of Marriage Act, the contentious 1996 law barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Now, two new federal lawsuits threaten to snap that rope out from under him.
Mr. Obama, whose political base includes many supporters of gay rights, has urged lawmakers to repeal the law. But at the same time, citing an executive-branch duty to defend acts of Congress, he has sent Justice Department lawyers into court to oppose suits seeking to strike the law down as unconstitutional.
The two lawsuits, however, have provoked an internal administration debate about how to sustain its have-it-both-ways stance, officials said. Unlike previous challenges, the new lawsuits were filed in districts covered by the appeals court in New York — one of the only circuits with no modern precedent saying how to evaluate claims that a law discriminates against gay people.
That means that the administration, for the first time, may be required to take a clear stand on politically explosive questions like whether gay men and lesbians have been unfairly stigmatized, are politically powerful, and can choose to change their sexual orientation.
"Now they are being asked what they think the law should be, and not merely how to apply the law as it exists," said Michael Dorf, a Cornell University law professor. "There is much less room to hide for that decision."
James Esseks, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer helping with one case, said the new suits could be game-changing.
The Obama legal team has not yet decided what path to take on the lawsuits, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the internal deliberations. But the Justice Department must respond by March 11. The debate has arisen at a time when Mr. Obama has signaled that his administration may be re-evaluating its stance.
As a candidate, Mr. Obama backed civil unions for gay people while opposing same-sex marriage. But last month, after Congress — in the final hours before Republicans took control of the House — repealed the law barring gay men, lesbians and bisexuals from serving openly in the military, he told The Advocate, a magazine that focuses on gay issues, that his views on marriage rights "are evolving."
"I have a whole bunch of really smart lawyers who are looking at a whole range of options," Mr. Obama said, referring to finding a way to end the Defense of Marriage Act. "I'm always looking for a way to get it done, if possible, through our elected representatives. That may not be possible."
Since 2003, when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing gay sex, the legal landscape for same-sex marriage has shifted. Eight states now grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples or recognize such marriages if performed elsewhere. But under the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government cannot recognize those relationships.
That has raised a crucial question: Is it constitutional for the federal government to grant certain benefits — like health insurance for spouses of federal workers, or an exemption to estate taxes for surviving spouses — to some people who are legally married under their state's laws, but not to others, based on their sexual orientation?
The Constitution declares that everyone has a right to equal protection by the law. But many laws treat some people differently from others. Courts uphold such policies as constitutional if they can pass a test showing that the discrimination is not invidious.
A law singling out an ordinary class — like owners of property in a district with special tax rates — gets an easy test. It is presumed valid, and a challenge is dismissed unless a plaintiff proves that the law advances no conceivable rational state interest.
But a law focusing on a class that has often been subjected to unfair discrimination — like a racial group — gets a hard test. It is presumed invalid and struck down unless the government proves that officials' purpose in adopting the law advances a compelling interest.
Gay-rights groups contend that the marriage act ought to be struck down under either test. Last year, a federal judge in Massachusetts agreed, saying it was unconstitutional even under the easy test's standards.
But the Obama administration, which appealed that ruling, contends that a plausible argument exists for why the act might be constitutional. Justice Department officials say they have a responsibility to offer that argument and let courts decide, rather than effectively nullifying a law by not defending it.
Justice officials have argued that the marriage act is justified, under the easy test's standards, by a government interest in preserving the status quo at the federal level, allowing states to experiment. And in its brief appealing the Massachusetts ruling, the department stressed seven times that a "binding" or "settled" precedent in that circuit required the easy test.
But for the new lawsuits, no such precedent exists. The Obama team has to say which test it thinks should be used. Courts give a class the protection of the hard test if it has been unfairly stigmatized and if its members can choose to leave the class, among other factors. By those standards, it could be awkward, especially for a Democratic administration, to proclaim that gay people do not qualify for it.
But under a hard test, the administration's argument for upholding the marriage law would be weaker, legal specialists say, in part because when lawmakers enacted it in 1996, they mentioned only in passing an interest in preserving the federal status quo as states experimented.
Some conservatives have accused the administration of throwing the fight by not invoking other arguments, like morality. And in particular, lawmakers' primary focus in 1996 was "encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing."
But the administration's filings in other cases disavowed that rationale, noting that infertile heterosexuals may marry and citing studies that children raised by same-sex parents are as likely to be well-adjusted as those raised by heterosexuals.
M. Edward Whelan III, a former Bush administration lawyer, said the Obama team's rejection of the children-based rationale amounted to "sabotage."
Another possible path, legal specialists say, would be to urge the judges to adopt the easy test because courts elsewhere have done so, without laying out any full legal analysis of how to think about gay people as a class.
Gay-rights supporters, however, call that option dishonest: those cases largely derived from decisions before the Supreme Court's 2003 sodomy ruling. The premise that it was constitutional to criminalize gay sex short-circuited appraisal of protections for gay people from lesser forms of official discrimination.
"We think there is only one answer the government and the court can come to if they apply the test conscientiously, and that is that the government must have to prove why it needs to treat gay people differently," said Mr. Esseks, the A.C.L.U. lawyer.
"And if the government has to have a real reason, as opposed to a made-up reason, we don't think there is any way that the government wins."


text:
Discussions Before an Encounter
continent. 2.2 (2012): 136–147
This introductory text is being written on a laptop on a summer Saturday in a cafe in Copenhagen by continent. Co-Editor Jamie Allen. It is here in order to contextualise a discussion document that was created using an unpaid version of Google's Docs service, authored collaboratively by editors from both this journal, continent. and the online journal Speculations in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. The outlined discussion is part of recent energies and networks actively rethinking and practically redefining the natures and practices of academic discourse. Other related activities include the Public School New York's recent Panel Discussion on Para-Academic Publishing, co-organised by punctum books and the Hollow Earth Society, as well as the upcoming interdisciplinarity-focused 2nd Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group.
As new communications formats enable more direct communication between scholars, with "the public," and amongst increasingly diverse, multi-inter-disciplinary thinkers, it becomes clear that knowledge seekers are no longer as so easily divided into C.P. Snow's two cultures of 'science' vs. 'humanities.' Increasingly, thinkers within and without academia tend more simply towards another set of extremes: Those who need and want to enact change in the world (artists, engineers, philosophers?) manifested through thought or material action, and those who would seek to maintain a more bureaucratic status quo (administrators, secretaries, health and safety officers, etc.)
The authors of this discussion, Paul Ennis, Michael Austin, Robert Jackson, Thomas Gokey, Jamie Allen and Paul Boshears, will soon meet (some for the first time offline) at a panel discussion entitled "The Aesthetics of (Para)Academic Practice" during the upcoming Aesthetics in the 21st Century conference at the University of Basel, Switzerland in September. What follows serves as both prologue to this discussion, as well as invitation for comment and interest. We thank the conference organisers at the University of Basel and the University College Dublin for their efforts in organising an event that serves to debate the very resourcing and operation of the structures within which it will take place. The panel event will celebrate and blend ideas around variegated accesses to knowledge. At issue, most generally, are the ways that monotonic institutional structures support, warp or sustain the mind, body, and our relationships and responsibilities to one another as creators, teachers and learners.
—Jamie Allen
What is academia, what are academics?
Paul Ennis (Speculations):
Academia is, for me, the name for a community. It is not always one where people get on, but certainly enough of one that those 'inside' it recognize something in one other—perhaps just a fundamental commitment to pursuing knowledge (being specific to the humanities this would need the appendage 'for its own sake'). The University, the 'home' of the academic, is altering and we find more and more academics positioned outside the gates. This has been a wake-up call of sorts. We can now see just how much gatekeeping goes on. It's always been enclosed, hence the 'ivory tower,' but now that we can clone some of its functions some of that power has been taken away.
Michael Austin (Speculations):
We should perhaps begin by distinguishing between academia and the university. I take academia to be the culture of knowledge-communication, while the university happens to be the most notable site of such communication in present society. There is no necessary connection between the two, nor should we assume academia requires the university in order to exist. What academia, understood as the communication of knowledge, requires is simply the structure of the dialogue, the transmitter and the receiver, be they book and reader, teacher and student, or the nodes of a collective. The human participants in this exchange are academics, whether or not they make their living from research, teaching, or publishing, and whether or not capital is exchanged in the pursuit of knowledge.
Robert Jackson (Speculations):
Whatever academia is (or whatever form of scholarship its supposed to support), it's in a crisis. Crises aren't necessarily bad, but they are unpredictable states of transition into unseen forms of production. I'm generalising, but it used to be the case that with the humanities and the arts, there were two options for a stable income; enter job markets which required individual creative talent or enter academia to teach, possibly research. These two areas are now largely defunct for the majority of students graduating from the so-called "vocational" courses. In the former, the distribution of creative entertainment now feeds off communicative user-generated creativity (everyone can be creative and must distribute their work for free to attract attention); in the latter humanities research is forced into a functional malaise which benefits statistics rather than society. What academia and academics are will emerge from these new modes of production and in turn how they navigate these constraints and affects. Everything was always-already precarious, we've only just realised it.
Thomas Gokey (Speculations):
Michael makes a useful distinction between the academy as a community of thinking and the university system. In the United States at least, universities have been turned into shell corporations for Sallie Mae. That might sound overly dramatic or overly cynical but I think it is the most accurate way to think about our current situation. Right now the community of questioning, learning, researching and teaching has been captured by a system whose primary function is to extract as much value out of academics as possible. The main thing that universities produce is precarious, indebted, docile workers. Universities are one of the primary tools used to produce and maintain class difference. For the most part the poorest get excluded outright, the richest pass "Go" and collect $200, everyone else gets buried in decades worth of crushing debt for the privilege of receiving an education that will be recognized. An academic is a battery that gets plugged into this dying machine. The question is whether we can break the monopoly that universities have on education. Right now the only kind of education that "counts" is the kind that universities control. I see the para-academic as a kind of overflow where the community of thinking can think on its own, without a corporate mediator extracting value from the students and the teachers. Its a very exciting development, one that is full of revolutionary potential although we still need to make good on this potential.
Jamie Allen (continent.):
Through certain context changes I've made in the past few years, I've noticed a shift in language that I have tried, on and off, to corroborate with others and other sources. To put it simply—the communities of art, design and philosophy I am involved with often use the word "academic" pejoratively, as thought or activities that are essentially pointless, wasteful or without relevance. The comment, "yeah... but that's academic," is not meant as a compliment. I've developed more ties to institutions of "higher learning" in Europe lately, and have noticed that something or someone being "properly academic" has other, more favorable implications, including synonymy with words like "cultured," "rigorous," and "thorough." There's a somewhat obscure article I recently came across called "On Being Unacademic," written by 1940's American humanities scholar J.T. Firebaugh, and he puts it this way:
In our critical vocabulary the word "academic" has two main uses. Among men who are academic, the word is usually modified by the adverb "soundly"; and among persons less soundly academic, the adverb "narrowly" is usually substituted. This usage indicates a sharp division between those of the academy and those outside of it...1
So when I think of what is 'academic' there is all this identifying tension; a polarisation of thinking and doing, between the specific and the overly-general, the applicable and the cogitative, between conservative Philistinism and the liberalist Defenders of Culture. To me this seems a much more powerful bifurcation and crisis within traditional academic activity than any disciplinary or subject specific concerns (e.g.: C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures" discussion, which seem to me descriptive and, perhaps unwittingly, prescriptive of perennial and protracted debates about the "arts" versus the "sciences."). Put another way, what I perceive of the academy as rife with a kind of crippling and calcifying anxiety about its own relevance, effectiveness and role. There are those who mostly maintain a kind of cynical momentum, protecting and defending the institution for their and its own sake—and those who wish to see things happen in the world, and so foster the requisite personal and organisational change.
Paul Boshears (continent.):
I'm piggy-backing on Michael Austin's line of thinking because I think his distinction between Academia and the University does some good work in helping us make sense of the current crisis of the University. In the last several years it's become more and more clear that if the University was ever any sort of monastic institution, cut-off from the rest of the world, it pays for its place in the world in several critical ways. One product the University delivers to the powers-that-be is debt-heavy students. Consider the following article written for. the American Association of University Professors' journal, Academe, "Academic Freedom and Indentured Students," whose by line states, "Escalating student debt is a kind of bondage."2 There is widespread concern that the University has become the next dotcom or house-flipping bubble, as we read in Businessweek's report on High Point University, "Bubble U."3
The Medieval conceit that future scholars must apprentice under established masters has been perverted in the contemporary University. The lot of the yeoman scholar today bodes ill for future generations as this quote from an article appearing in Inside Higher Ed illustrates:
Adjunct, contingent faculty members now make up over 1 million of the 1.5 million people teaching in American colleges and universities. Many of them are working at or under the poverty line, without health insurance; they have no academic freedom worthy of the name, because they can be fired at will; and, when fired, many remain ineligible for unemployment benefits, because institutions routinely invoke the "reasonable assurance of continued employment" clause in federal unemployment law even for faculty members on yearly contracts who have no reasonable assurance of anything.4
Those that would be successful in rising above the precariat5 (or who believe that they've escaped precarity falsely understood)6 will increasingly find themselves divorced or living geographically isolated from their loved ones and families.7 But this isn't only impacting junior scholars, as the situation between Oxford University Press and Steven Shaviro illustrates.8
Both Academia and the University are imagined communities, to borrow Benedict Anderson's phrase. However, the University is an institution that accredits, controls, and stamps the passports of those that would enter its territory. It is a striated space as opposed to Academia's fluid space. I would suggest that an academic is someone that can identify on two levels: first, with those slighted and pressured in the above cited political and economic circumstances; second, they enjoy reading/writing footnotes/endnotes/marginalia/figures/tables, etc.
How do styles of engagement outside of academia change knowledge, knowing?
This is a tough question; certainly being outside the academy alters your vision of the place of your discipline in the world. You have to reign in your expectations. Preaching to the choir is out the window. Scoring cheap points against allies becomes quite evidently a waste of time. These days I'm just trying to keep my ears open and learn from the world again. Within my own discipline there is always this desire to 'correct' the world, butoutside academia the conditioning is overtly from the outside in. It's given me a new respect for the empirical, or the material. I'm not sure this would have happened if I'd manage to remain surrounded by academics all day (here I should insist that I love fellow academics, but I don't think I'm going out on a limb here when I say there is a tendency to retreat into cosy topics; sometimes just from a basic fear of offending others).
One way to think about this question is in terms of the incumbent threats to the 'value proposition' of the academic institution. I often feel these days that there are two oppositional but equally threatening and powerful bulkheads advancing to threaten the worst bits of institutional academic practice (like that Star Wars garbage compactor scene aboard the Death Star—with Luke, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Princess Leia as managers, rectors, and administrators of our most traditional university systems). On one side there are pressures arising from the mostly rightfully disgruntled students and educators. University at large just doesn't really create a lot of experiential value for most students, or most professors. Others have mentioned the student debt 'bubble', the lack of 'return on investment' both intellectually and monetarily, the lack of quality course options, teaching, and community. On the other hand, there's growing grassroots and DIY teaching and learning movements that really don't care about, or for, the way that universities decide (or don't decide) to share and impart knowledge. There's a long list of excellent programmes, community initiatives, grassroots schools and 'outstitutions' that are developing to cater for people seeking out new ideas, new techniques, new thinking.
It's this second pressure I'm most interested in—as it has the most progressive potential to evolve the ways that knowledge is accessed and thought about at pedagogic, societal and political scales. The transactional nature of teaching and scholarship as it happens most commonly now (E.g.: Increasing emphasis on point systems and development of ratings for academics, and the age-old rubrics for grading and evaluation that everyone seems forced into and frustrated with.), creates a whole host of misinformed assumptions. Take for example the assumption that learning is cumulative, which is the basis for most pedagogic designs, and is the accrual model beneath 'higher' education. This might be accurate when initially learning simple language or counting, but after a certain point, and certainly at the university level, what we learn, critique and interpret should not be and is not cumulative at all—it's cyclical, hermeneutic, impossible, continuous, ongoing. Gathering up advanced degrees doesn't make you any smarter, and culturally I think people are becoming wary of people who play these strategic games too well.
I recently had the privilege to be invited by Taeyoon Choi, of Eyebeam, to teach a class on sound art at the Public School NYC in Manhattan. For a number of reasons (some of them having to do with me, some of them I'm sure not), the classroom venue was packed full at 10AM on a Saturday morning. I nearly teared-up at various points, when the realisation came that everyone who was there wanted to be there for no other reason than they wanted to be there. At 10AM on a Saturday. All of this says more about my expectations than it does about the event, and how sentimental I am about learning with other people in the right ways and places.
The question of style when it comes to the communication of knowledge and modes of knowing is perhaps the most pertinent question facing both academics and the knowledge industry today. It is becoming all the more clear that the university setting not only fails to capture the variety of ways that our world can be understood, but all too often also fails to allow for the exploration of these modes of knowing.
My time is split between academic philosophy and my work with charitable organizations (local animal rescue). Much of my own research reflects these dual interests, and is an attempt to bridge the gap between what are very different worlds, though this may not be entirely clear to either group! While much of my academic work relates to the relation of the human and the animal, and various modes of knowledge and communication, it is basically fueled by the practical work of rescuing, rehabilitating, and relating to non-human animals. This thinking-with-animals, as well as the forms of engagement necessary amongst fellow animal rescue volunteers, boards of directors, and the public, either in the form of direct interaction or through media, show a style of engagement and modes of knowing that are non-academic in the traditional sense. That is not to say that the animal rescue community is anti-intellectual (it's not), but that it requires a shift in style and often different tools when compared to publishing philosophy or teaching a course through a university. These styles and modes of knowing then have the power, when applied to academia, to cause us to dramatically rethink our world.
This is a weird question for me. I'm currently writing up my thesis part-time, whilst working as a software developer for a charitable trust full-time. So, I'm kind of in a position where other areas of engagement are always changing forms of knowledge without my permission, to the point where knowledge exists as manqué. So, firstly, I don't really surround myself with that culture, which for the most part, tends to eschew surprise. Secondly, I'm often surrounded by other modes of systems of knowledge and communities of agents (XML files, SQL query inputs, and district council pension regulations, (usually just as bureaucratic as academia) which disrupt the 'academic' walls of theory. There have been, however, many instances where I've been influenced and inspired from a sohisicated event outside of academia. I don't tend to be worried if an academic job does emerge or not; but if it did—I wouldn't hesitate to endorse other styles of engagement for these reasons.
I entered the University later than many of my peers, having dropped-out of high school and later paying my way through first my undergraduate years and now my graduate years. I have had an extensive collection of hairnets and name tags during my academic life and this has been crucial to my development as a thinker. Over the past five years I've primarily supported myself by working in the nonprofit sector, providing research support or meeting with other organizations to identify points of mutual benefit so that our entities could partner in delivering our services.
I'll continue to hold to the distinction between Academia and the University because I think that although I entered the University later than my peers, I was already seeking Academia when I entered. The University is an institutional relationship whereas Academia is a path traveled. At times the path of Academia is traversed with other academics, and at other times it's just schlepping books from one apartment to the next. What's important on a road trip—and maybe this is because I live in the U.S. where we make these week-long drives to places like California—is a good travel companion. What makes a good fellow traveler is being someone that minds the maps and raises our spirits by making great mix tapes or tuning the radio; and of course, it is someone that knows how to converse well and how to be quiet with you. I did a lot of driving across the U.S. before I entered the University and I like to believe this had a very positive effect on my thinking and how I interact with the communities with whom I work.
During the recent Nonhuman Turn conference at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Ian Bogost made a great point: if scholars are only producing scholarship for the sake of meeting tenure requirements or adding lines to their CVs, then Academia suffers. Being academic is not about being obtuse, but about promoting the conversation for our mutual benefit and because of our mutual implication in the happenings of the world. The University relationship does not necessarily promote the kind of sociality that the academic path affords.
One thing that we learn when we look at the class proposals for schools like the Public School is that there is a real desire for a certain set of classes that the academy just does not offer. Notice for example the large number of proposed courses that deal with leftist economic theories. These are the kinds of classes that just never get taught at neo-liberal economics departments and business schools, but people want to learn about it. Notice also the number of classes dedicated to continental philosophy, the kinds of classes that do not take place in the analytic dominated philosophy departments of the United States. There are also a number of hands-on practical classes, how to use a particular kind of software, or how to program for Arduino or Processing, or how to make a rain barrel or brew your own beer. It is clear that there is a widespread demand for a set of ideas and skills that are simply not being supplied by the current university system and these spaces have emerged to fill the void. In a way I think we are getting ahead of ourselves. People want to learn, they want to work on their own projects, but we don't live in a society where this self-organized project-based thinking can really thrive. We're hankering for a post-scarcity world where everyone can be an artist and an academic. What is exciting is that this post-scarcity world might be closer than it appears.
What investment do you have in the role of the academic, in the ways that knowledge comes about?
This is going to sound unduly romantic, but I believe that the most radical thing I can do with my talents is to learn with others and to share what I've learned with those others to still further others. Other people, other animals, other plants, other landscapes, other companies, other nonprofits, other songs, and so on. Being an academic, for me, is a peripatetic activity, my favorite thinkers tend to be wanderers: the Ancient Greeks (including that dog always off his leash, Diogenes), Confucius, Nietzsche.... It's in this movement that I find myself among others and as such moved by those others. If I want to see a change in the world, I must become that change and model it and so I find this wandering academic mode to be very satisfying.
Thinking has always been a social act. Hegel was not really just Hegel, Schelling was not just Schelling, Hölderlin was not just Hölderlin. It was that triplet "Schegelderlin" which produced Hegel, Schelling and Hölderlin. What is interesting to me is the ways in which the social production of knowledge is starting to change. You no longer have to be lucky and in the right place at the right time. You just need to search the web and form your own little collective of people who are asking the same questions that you are. Until this Basel conference I have never met the other editors of Speculations in person. There will be dozens of dissertations about the way that the social production of knowledge has shifted under the hive mind of the Internet.
I have a lot invested in it, I suppose. It plays a big part in my self-model. It is, more or less, what distinguishes me from almost everyone I met prior to going to University. It is what allowed me to escape and give names to feelings, thoughts, and intuitions that I once feared. It affirmed my suspicion that as deluded animals for the most part we also have a capacity for quite extraordinary stands against what is ultimately a bleak existence. So for providing me with a little armour I am eternally grateful to it.
I may be biased here, because I come from an academic background. My grandfather is a chemical engineer who is basically the authority when it comes to the mathematics of the sedimentation of polydisperse suspensions and who taught in the mathematics department at my undergraduate institution for a number of years. Being "an academic" has thus long been a part of my identity, and while I didn't pursue the natural sciences as was perhaps expected when I was younger, that identity has persisted in one form or another. I now have a different view of what it means to be an academic than I did when I would visit my grandfather's office at the university, but the position of someone who pursues and shares knowledge will always be a part of who I am, whether or not I make my own living within the university.
Any investment I have is DIY infused. I study digital arts, code, computation and corresponding artists, and one of the main reactionary identifications is with a DIY attitude of composition; for example, the ability to tinker and configure in some ad hoc fashion. Often we think of DIY projects as looking decidedly shoddy, but this isn't the case. The Speculations journal is a DIY project of sorts, with a high degree of quality research, but it very much exists as DIY. Building new systems isn't easy, building new avenues of knowledge takes even longer. We will reach a point in 10–20 years' time where, a new branch of academics, either waged or unwaged, will be quite adept at commanding attention for their own collective of interest. We just need to build the tools, the systems and the time to get it started.
My investment is particularly in the role of knowledge, learning and (what I consider to be good) scholarship is in producing change in people. Individual and communal change is something that I value inherently. I think I'm actually a proponent of quite a hopeful, romantic version of all this, which takes real education as trans-formative and hence exciting, interesting and worthwhile. For me, the 'real 'crisis of the institution', if a predominance is to be identified, is in the way people in some organisations and communities are allowed to or encouraged to feel responsible to, and for, another person's transformations. This presupposes not taking academia and its motivations (publishing, CV-padding) at face value, but continuously rethinking the nature of scholarship and teaching—in the face of the Internet and other new social and informational media, and in the face of active world-changing activities like art and politics. What I'm drawn to in the academic is the thinking practitioner (political, artistic, linguistic or otherwise), which comes about through scholarship that isn't overly concerned with disciplines or professionalism. The importance of this kind of academic "aesthetics" (or style, really) cannot be overplayed, as I think styles of engagement (channels, media, motivations) are what make changes in thinking possible, whether you're studying chemistry or literature.
What I'm talking about has been well articulated by the philosopher, musician, ethnographer, improviser, and teacher George Lewis. George was part of the important Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, an highly influential and adventurous avant-garde group of composers and improvisers formed in 1965 (and still in operation). He describes the group like this: "With the AACM, the problem was to create a community or group... What brought them together was a shared sense that they should be responsible for each other... A sense that you were responsible for someone just because they were in the same... they were trying to do what you were trying to do—which is advance as a person and as an artist. That seems to be the basis on which a kind of mutual aid society develops." I'm looking for, and hope to play some part in the creation of academic communities like this, and like George, I've often, "wondered why the academic environment couldn't be more like the AACM? That is, having a sense of people who are committed to supporting you no matter what."9
What is the future of Para(Academic) Practice?
I think one of the keys to understanding the future of the academic and of (para)academic practice is to understand that the public, by and large, want to learn. Certainly not everyone does, I'm not that idealistic, but most people are generally interested in the world around them. The philosophy department here at Memorial for instance runs a series of public lectures hosted at a pub downtown called The Ship. I had the opportunity to present one of these lectures a couple of years ago titled "Hollywood's Undead and the Philosophy of Fear," relating to psychoanalysis and popular horror films. I received an overwhelming response from both academics and the public at large, which really cemented the idea both that academics need to relate their work to a wider audience than those of an obscure journal, and that the public, when given the opportunity, want to engage with academics.
Public lectures, free schools, and online distribution show us some of the ways that (para)academic practice are already getting people to rethink higher education. I'm very interested for instance in initiatives like the University of Reddit, where anyone can teach any subject to anyone with internet access. While such pursuits don't necessarily bode well for the academic as a career, the future in that respect is bleak as it is, as anyone within the university system is all-too aware. The ability to engage with the public however, whether it be online or through not-for-profit courses, will inevitably reveal that just as those outside of the university want to learn, that they may also be willing to support academics financially as well, just as many are willing to support musicians outside of the system of major labels.
Decentralisation basically. I'm surprised it hasn't happened on a mass scale already, but the catalyst of Speculative Realism and it's proliferating attention has certainly moved it up a gear. As the confidence of independent researchers increases, so too will the rate of decentralisation. We must however remember that decentralisation has a different set of affordances, but also a different set of constraints. Like most other media which is distributed on a communicative network, it will be done on a distributed protocol basis. That is to say, the emphasis won't necessarily be placed on single individual levels anymore (academics, journals presses and universities) but on organisations of mass distribution focusing on distribution solely (like YouTube with video and Spotify with music, but with little emphasis placed on property). Everyone can produce for the collective, but only a select few collectives will organise decentralised academic practice into a manageable service, often pushing journals and authors they see 'fit' for mass appeal and attention. The cynic in me knows that the goodwill of sharing will no doubt be exploited—I saw it happen in the late 90s.
To some extent, we've seen these collectives pop up already (academia.edu, scribd to mention two famous ones), but there isn't a social collective which has confidence in them working effectively against the university or the proprietary journal. But it will happen, and when it does, academic production in the humanities will change rapidly and precariously. (Don't be surprised in the meantime to expect university conference fees to increase rapidly, due to bigger markets). Firstly, para(academics) will become more self-promoting than they are now, perhaps working harder and quicker than they would normally have done under an institutional affiliation. Secondly, boundaries between fields will dissipate—maybe become a thing of the past, as para(academic) interests will align themselves with current events. Thirdly the life of an para(academic) will be contingent not on funding, nor peer-reviewed publications necessarily (peer review will expand to lofty heights in a network) but on alignment with a distribution collective which serves a purpose within a partnership of attention. Lets just hope that good and original ideas shine through this decentralised mode of production rather than viewer numbers, although I am concerned that any new method of protocol, exhibits new methods of measuring attention.
I have started to compile a list of envisioned "outstitutions" and ways that we might be able to band-together to talk generously about ideas that are in line with the para(academic). Some of these, in the short-term are parasitic, in that they take advantage the ridiculous surpluses and insufficiencies of academic lives and careers (My own involvement in free, open Public School NYC teaching while I was supporting myself as a salaried University employee, as one personal example). The primacy of ideas, the communications channels that are available, and even the sort of looseness with which one can at-will engage with traditional, institutional academic structures (as they begin to show their age), seem to present a number of autonomous zones in which we might exist in future. Specifically, in philosophical discourse, dialogue has returned in the form of blogging, and this is something just plain new, unregulated and incredibly exciting. It may be that the most interesting forms of scholarship and thinking need to take place in the back-channels, side-chains and back-alleys until these discourses fully replace inefficient and arthritic institutional practices and thinking.
Well the situation with jobs will either ease off or be compounded. It seems the desire for advanced graduate training in the humanities remains strong despite a broad awareness that it's a bit of a fool's errand to do a Ph.D. these days (at least within theory, philosophy, and so on). But assuming that this delusion of stability is just a sort of pipe-dream or simply keeps expectant parents/friends off one's back what we will have in coming years is an army of theory-armed transients. I'd like to see some kind of alternative, parallel academy that can co-exist—since the University remains the home in terms of that which we are parasitic of/from—with the current one. In demonstrating that education can be carried out 'not for profit' it will surely begin to test the current structure. Open-access journals are already an example, but also the ability to deliver lectures on thinkers no department would let you do, and so on matters. Essentially the para-academic has a chance to reveal that which the academic 'proper' has given up, and what the price of academic 'freedom' really is.
The University must produce cheap, precarious labor for itself so that it can continue to manufacture its products for the greater good of society. Since there is presumed to be a broadly-diffused benefit to society, the University is heavily subsidized by tax payers. But who, really, has access to the work? If it is the case that basic research—which is necessary but overwhelmingly expensive and delivers minimal return on investment from a venture capital standpoint—is being funded by mechanisms that only a State can offer, then shouldn't that research be made available to the public? This was what led to the establishment of PubMed and arXiv.10 Perhaps surprising to some, the question of who receives what benefit from the work of Academia (which is not the same as the University) has been well mobilized in the world of academic publishing.
Today it's a question, whether or not the University will be able to continue in the face of the neoliberal ideological onslaught.11 In the U.S. we've seen the shift from nationalized to privatized semantically occur at the Federal level with the transition from the National Security Administration (a national effort, not an individual one) to the Department of Homeland Security (it is one's home, that individual's place, that must be defended). Of course, our neighbors to the north have articulated and demonstrated well how to resist this offense against the public good.12
It's also a question, whether or not the University is doing itself in by feeding on the efforts of an army of at-will adjuncts while simultaneously lowering the value of the work their professors work by giving it away for free.13 What MIT's OpenCourseWare indicates is that the University is shifting from producing educated human bodies to producing accredited human bodies.
The Open Access movement and the sprouting of (para)academic activities are not only about broadly distributing the ability to publish as some sort of democratic (and thereby more imbued with justice or equity or something) action. I believe what we are doing is making a sharper distinction between publishing and publication. Publishing is about making stuff knowable, publication is about public-making. Public-ation is a process, like saturation—the process of saturating—or maturation—the process of maturing. As the University raises a stink about the prices of journals,14 and the actual cost of making a journal;15 we are making a different kind of public than those that also attend universities.
I think that the para-academic is largely a function of the economics of the academy. When you have a large pool of creative, super smart, highly educated people and for most of them the idea of a tenured track position is just not available, you will see that they start writing what they want how they want. The artificial forms and styles of the academy no longer have to be followed. What is the point if you're never going to get tenure anyway? Why not just invent Black Metal Theory and write theory about D&D instead of writing boring form articles to be published in backwater journals that will only be read by—and statistically we know this to be true because there have been studies done on this—only two people. When we write what we want to write and how we want to write we end up writing better more interesting things. And partly as a result of this we find a bigger audience.
I think we are about to witness a mass exodus from the university. We can teach ourselves and each other without the mediation of the university. Schools like the Pubic School, or the school that I am most intimately involved with, The Art School in the Art School, are paving the way forward. For me the key is to create new forms of accreditation.16 The Open Badges Project seems to be the way that is the farthest along this route and I expect it to catch on. The academy is in a pretty dire situation right now. It has no way to justify itself. We can do better on our own and we will go on by ourselves. We will work directly with each other. The university system is in danger of collapsing within a few years, or at the very least it will be forced to completely transform itself. The parasite will consume and turn into the host.
The other main point of attack must be debt refusal from students.17 We must abolish Sallie Mae. We must simply stop cooperating. It will take a highly coordinated effort but we must all, simultaneously stop paying our tuition debt. We are not asking for debt forgiveness. We did nothing wrong. It is we who will forgive or not forgive Sallie Mae.
1. Joseph J. Firebaugh. "On Being Unacademic." College English. 7.7 (1946): 412–416.
2. Jeffrey J. Williams. "Academic Freedom and Indentured Students." Academe. Jan.-Feb. 2012.
3. Carol Matlack. "Bubble U.: High Point University." Bloomsberg Businessweek. April 19, 2012.
4. Michael Bérubé. "Among the Majority." Inside Higher Ed. February 1, 2012.
5. Nick Srnicek. "Precarity Everywhere." The Disorder of Things. February 1, 2012.
6. Richard Seymour. "We Are All Precarious—On the Concept of the 'Precariat' and its Misuses." New Left Project. February 10, 2012.
7. John Gill. "Leader: Why must so many go it alone?" Times Higher Education. April 5, 2012.
8. Kevin Smith. "Who do you work for, faculty author?" Scholarly Communications @ Duke. January 25, 2012.
9. My transcription from the video George Lewis: The Story's Being Told. New Music Box. American Music Center. August 1, 2011.
10. Konstantin Kakaes. "The Other Academic Freedom Movement." Slate. February 9, 2012.
11. Marc Parry. "Could Many Universities Follow Borders Bookstores Into Oblivion?" The Chronicle of Higher Education. March 7, 2012.
12. "Concordia Professors Oppose the Privatization of Universities." GEOGRADS – Geography, Planning and Environment Graduate Students Association. Department of Geography, Planning and Environment (GPE), Concordia University.
13. Steven Leckart. "The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever." Wired Science. March 20, 2012.
14. The Faculty Advisory Council. "Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing." The Harvard Library Transition. April 17, 2012.
15. John Naughton. "Academic publishing doesn't add up." The Guardian. April 21, 2012.
16. "Alternative, Autonomous Accreditation." The Public School New York. September 12, 2011.
17. See www.occupystudentdebtcampaign.org


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