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The 12th Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival kicked off last night with comedian Mark Steel in the Black Box and Abie Philbin Bowman in The Dark Horse. For the next week and a half, Belfast's Cathedral Quarter will be alive with song, laughter, drama and chat.
If you're shopping in Belfast city centre over the long weekend (Saturday 30 April – Monday 2 May), watch out for Granny Turismo, the "world's first (and only) formation shopping trolley dance team".
The Bank of Ireland on Royal Avenue will be hosting Multiple, a pop-up shop and exhibition of twelve local artists, open between 1pm and 8pm until 8 May. "Expect wry insights into the city as they present art 'for sale' as lo-fi commodities, collectables, souvenirs, posters and paraphernalia. Catherine Roberts of Budgie Butlins fame is one of the artists participating.
Other personal highlights include:
Saturday 30 April
noon – Writers Square – The May Day rally and march leaves Writers Square (opposite St Anne's Cathedral) at 12.30pm after speeches at noon. After the march, Writers Square will host a Diversity Festival between 1pm and 5pm, an afternoon of music and entertainment.
Sunday 1 May
8pm – The John Hewitt – Australian band Wishing Well.
Monday 2 May
1pm – The Black Box – The Silent Picture House "recreating some of the magic" of silent movies with a Buster Keaton / Laurel and Hardy double bill with live piano accompaniment.
5pm – Cotton Court – The Chipolatas are gagging musicians and billed as "a special kind of alchemy which rakes the base ingredients of music, rhythm, juggling and comedy to turn them into a show packed full of sheer joy".
Wednesday 4 May
9am-5pm – Lagan Lookout – PLACE invites architects, city officials and creative thinkers to its CQ Charrette to work in cross-discipline teams to respond to a design brief and make a contribution to the Belfast townscape.
1pm – The Black Box – Northern Irish poet, Michael Longley.
8pm – Duke of York – On the eve of the Assembly and Local Government elections and the referendum on Voting Reform, join Grimes, McKee and others in the Big Election Comedy Quiz as they "steer you through the (tri-lingual) Vote, Votail, Big Heid Coont".
Thursday 5 May
1pm – The Black Box – Dramatised readings from the works of Brian Moore.
8pm – Oh Yeah Centre – The 4th Annual David Ervine Memorial Talk. As well as guest speaker and guest artists, awards will be announced for successful applicants to the David Ervine Foundation which supports "educational, training and/or personal/development opportunities to children and young people from socially and economically deprived background".
Friday 6 May
1pm – The Black Box – John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, will give the first public reading from his new novel The Absolutist which is currently Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4.
8pm – The Dark Horse – Poland 3 Iran 2 is part of Polish Cultural Week a conversation between Join Seyf and Dobrowolski about monumental historic events including the eponymous victory of the Polish football team in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
Saturday 7 May
3pm – Festival Marquee – English folk musician Kate Rusby will be performing a family matinee in the Custom House Square tent on Saturday afternoon. Her 8pm evening show is now sold out.
Sunday 8 May
2pm – The Black Box – More folk music from much recommended local five piece band, The Rapparees.


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Teenager Carlton Morris says he has no concerns about shouldering the pressure of leading the line for Oxford United after signing on loan.
The England Under 19 international completed a move from Norwich City yesterday, which will keep him at the Kassam Stadium until January.
It provides a welcome boost for United, who have been looking to reinforce their attacking options throughout pre-season.
Despite Morris only making his debut for Norwich's first-team in a friendly last week, the U's will be looking for the 18-year-old to hit the ground running when the season starts this weekend.
But the weight of expectation to score goals holds no fears for the rising star.
"As a striker it's something you have in your whole career, so you either get used to it or change position," he said.
"I've played in lots of varieties of football now and I just take it as it goes.
"You have to adapt to every game and I'm ready for the challenge. I'm just excited to get going with it."
Morris has been at Norwich since he was a ten-year-old and was part of the Norwich side which impressively won the FA Youth Cup final against Chelsea two seasons ago.
Although the Canaries were relegated from the Premier League last season, the chances of first-team football in this campaign were limited.
And when he became aware of United's interest, there was only going to be one outcome.
Morris said: "I got a call from my agent that there was some interest from a top League Two club.
"As soon as he told me I put two and two together and Oxford was top of that list.
"I'm buzzing to finally be here. It's a big club with a lot of history, so why wouldn't you want to be a part of that?"
Michael Appleton was thrilled to secure the livewire front man's services amid interest from elsewhere.
The U's head coach said: "We have always said that we will wait until the right player is available, someone we believe will strengthen what we already have, and Carlton fits the bill perfectly."
United's boss also made clear it was not the end of their search to add competition for places up front this month.
"We will though continue our efforts to bring in further attacking options before the transfer window closes," he said.


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder says the Justice Department plans to collect data on police stops, searches and arrests in an effort to study racial bias in law enforcement.
Holder said in a video message Monday that the data will be collected in five pilot cities over two years as part of a new initiative called the National Center for Building Community Trust and Justice. He said racial disparities in the criminal justice system "breed resentment" toward law enforcement.
The $4.75 million project will be funded through grants; the cities will be named later.
After the acquittal of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the Florida death of Trayvon Martin, President Barack Obama directed the Justice Department to work with local law enforcement to help ease tensions between police and minorities.


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Just before the holidays last year, a green sea turtle named Peanut tooled around San Diego Bay, swinging by docks north of the Sweetwater River, in a pioneering journey captured by satellite data.
What made Peanut's jaunt remarkable was that it was the first time researchers had recorded one of the endangered turtles venturing that far north of its protected enclave in the extreme south bay.
Last week, another turtle popped up by the USS Midway Museum, even farther north than any turtle that researchers had recorded.
"Until this turtle, we had never, even once, tracked a turtle north of Sweetwater," said Jeff Seminoff, a marine ecologist with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, who said the turtle sightings signal a shift in the creatures' movements throughout the bay.
The change, he said, is likely linked to closure of the South Bay Power Plant, dubbed the "Jacuzzi" by scientists, who noted how the hulking reptiles stayed predictably near its warm water outfalls.
With the decommissioning of the plant two years ago, and its implosion on Saturday, the turtles appear to be wandering from that safe harbor into harm's way.
Their movement could trigger changes for commercial and military activity in the bay, and pose an issue for boat traffic, officials said.
"The turtles are starting to move to areas that are more industrialized, with greater boat traffic," said Seminoff, who heads the center's Marine Turtle Ecology and Assessment Program. "So the threats of human interactions are higher than they've ever been."
The findings on turtle distribution are so new that Navy officials hadn't reviewed the data yet, and were surprised to hear of the turtles' northward trek. The Navy funds research by the fisheries center, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So they'll review the upcoming studies to see how the turtles' movements affect their operations.
"Our concerns were: Are they in areas where we operate? And if so, what can we do to minimize any impacts we have to them?" said Mitch Perdue, a senior biologist with Naval Facilities Engineering Command.
Tanya Castaneda, a spokeswoman with the Port of San Diego, said port officials wouldn't comment until the research is published.
Six turtles have been killed in the past two years in accidents including fishing entanglement and boat strikes, Seminoff said. That's up to 10 percent of the San Diego Bay population, estimated at 60 to 80 animals, he said. And it's an increase over previous decades, which saw one turtle killed every few years.
"It's the fastest rate of encountering turtles in the bay in my 10 years with the agency," Seminoff said. "It's cause for major concern."
Green sea turtles range along the Pacific coast of Mexico, to San Diego Bay and a few spots in Orange County, Seminoff said.
Although the total population is hard to tally, he said it probably numbers more than 100,000 turtles.
The turtles' name stems from the greenish color of their fat — a delicacy used in the past as a base for soups, Seminoff said. Their shells range in hue from dark caramel to jet black, with shade of charcoal and coffee in between, he said.
Decades ago, the turtles were threatened by subsistence hunting in Mexico, where they were "the equivalent of hamburger meat in the U.S.," Seminoff said. They've rebounded recently because of dietary changes and conservation efforts but remain an endangered species, still vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear, poaching and boat strikes.
Munching on eelgrass, algae and crustaceans, the turtles can grow to several hundred pounds; the biggest one caught in the bay weighed in at over 500 pounds, Seminoff said. Large adults can measure up to a meter long, he said, with a front flipper span of about five feet.
"They glide, effortlessly through the water," he said, using powerful front flippers for propulsion, and employing their back limbs like rudders, for steering.
"They are monster animals," Seminoff said. "These are charismatic, huge, sort of living dinosaurs. It's like the best-kept environmental secret in San Diego." Part of that secret was their secluded location in the San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge. There, the huge marine reptiles charged their metabolisms in warm water outfalls of the former power plant, and five mile an hour speed limits kept the turtles safe on the glassy lagoon.
With the warm water gone, however, the turtles had little incentive to stay there, and are roaming into deeper, more heavily trafficked waters elsewhere in the bay, scientists said.
"They're going to areas where there's faster and denser boat traffic," said Sheila Madrak, a PhD candidate in ecology, at San Diego State, who collaborates on turtle research with Seminoff and spotted the turtle near the USS Midway while collecting data on Thursday.
Fast boats and dredging pose the biggest risks to the turtles in the bay, said Walt Wilson, a marine biologist with the Navy Region Southwest, who said the Navy considers the entire bay to be potential turtle habitat, and temporarily suspends activities when the animals appear.
Navy officials said they would review those procedures in light of new information on turtles, but Wilson cautioned that data on their changing locations is "new and incomplete."


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So while I have my blogging head on – hot off the news that Delicious is disappearing and Facebook has undergone yet another redesign – I thought I'd jot down my thoughts on the state of the social media nation for the coming year. It's not all good. Here we go…
Confidence will go down
Social media lives in the cloud (or 'online' as we used to say). This is good, in that the cloud is a wonderful thing where you can pool computing resources and readily share information. But its fluidity is a problem. I've already written about my dislike of the state of 'permanent beta' of such services, and with the recent make-over of Facebook, I remain annoyed. The bigger a site gets, the more we depend on it. The more it changes, the less we like it – not just because we have to relearn it, but strategists have to go back to the blueprints, trainers have to re-do all their materials, and so on. And that's nothing compared to what happens when sites like Delicious just disappear. How can you invest time and effort, how can you plan, when you don't know what's going to happen over the next few months, let alone the next year?
Monetisation will continue to be a problem
Yahoo owns the biggest bookmarking service around, and it cannot make money off it. Twitter, as far as I'm aware, still doesn't have a monetisation strategy. I don't quite understand how Mark Zuckerberg can be so rich off the back of Facebook. Anyone remember the dotcom boom and bust? Social media feels horribly similar, in that I believe the people who make money off social media right now are the ones who get paid to assess its value. It's very like the old gold rushes – the ones who got rich were the ones who sold the spades to dig for the gold, not the poor fools actually looking for it.
PR still won't 'get it'
I still feel my temples throb when I meet up with digital colleagues at PR agencies, who recount phrases they continue to come across such as "Let's do some blogging stuff" or "Maybe we should send some tweets out." Social media is still new, but it's gone from burbling helplessly in the cot to at least toddling. Four-plus years is enough for PR people to have understood the basics, but my anecdotal evidence suggests that PR people, while they are completely brilliant at issues, are unrivalled organisers and demon communicators, are completely at sea when it comes to the high-level strategy and the low-level nuts and bolts of getting through to people online. I don't see this changing any time soon.
Freelancers will find it an increasingly tough gig
I admit I haven't found the past year easy by any means. People rightly want the confidence of an agency behind their programmes in case I get run over by a bus. And if/when you do finally get a client who's prepared to work with you in the longer term, again they quite rightly want to know your 'secret sauce' – and then do it for themselves.
Digital agencies will rise
While I find PR people don't 'get' digital, I do find digital 'gets' PR. My prediction here is that, far from PR subsuming digital, it will eventually be the other way around. Digital agencies have the heft of a professional outfit, with a proper team structure and a wealth of expertise that, I think, will be the umbrella model for the future.
Social media curves will continue to go up, but results will continue to disappoint
I still find it astonishing that, for example, in 2010 there was more social media traffic than all years combined (trust me, it's a valid statistic, but I cannot find the source for that right now). At the same time, broadcast and mainstream media just has those huge exposure figures that social media simply cannot compete with. Dan Sabbagh of The Guardian recently showed us this (and this time I do have a link): of the recent Alan Partridge Fosters YouTube videos he says: "The first episode has racked up 492,000 plays on YouTube at the time of writing, and while the latest episode, 5, has dropped to 135,000, [Henry Normal, the man who "minds the shop" at Partridge actor Steve Coogan's production company Baby Cow] claims the results are a success, even though a new comedy on Channel 4 would expect to be seen by 1.5m to 2m viewers." OK, so 15-minute YouTube clips are cheaper to disseminate but 135,000 views is NOTHING compared to 2 million viewers – regardless of trendy notions of 'engagement', 'dialogue' or 'the network effect'.
Facebook will continue to dominate
Facebook is a juggernaut and it's not going to slow down any time soon. This is a pity because the web was never meant to be a single-application platform. It was supposed to be a resilient, open resource through which information could freely – which also means anonymously – pass. One day Facebook will break and then we'll all be sorry.
Dashboarding and curating will grow
I truly believe that every company should be monitoring what people are saying about it, its issues and its competitors, on a daily basis. Even if they don't then engage, there is simply no excuse for not listening, especially when marvellous sites such as Netvibes make dashboarding easy as cake, a piece of pie. Set up an internal dashboard monitoring your competitors and what people are saying about them. That's research. And have an external one showcasing what you say and the areas you want to 'own'. That's marketing. Where's the harm in that?
Social media will only provably work for big companies that have stuff to sell
This is possibly the most controversial point here. Social media only works when it scales up. If you don't have enough followers/members/contacts, it won't work. People are the fuel that drives the social media engine. So smaller companies that genuinely want to engage will not see the benefit. However, larger companies that can command a large amount of interest online will see the benefit – and that will primarily be through selling. Take Dell, for example. It has sales that have grown, year on year, from 1 million dollars, to 3, to 6, to 18 million. That's a steep curve, and whereas it's peanuts for a company that size, I can see that they can totally point to an ROI that means they will continue to invest in it. Meanwhile your smaller enterprises will give up. This is a real pity because, in the same way the web isn't meant to be one big application (see my Facebook point above), social media was supposed to give the little man a voice. Again, terms like 'engagement' and 'dialogue' are nice, but only if you can afford to invest in them without necessarily pointing to an ROI. 'Selling', on the other hand, is what the CEO is interested in, and will shell out money for, and you can only do this effectively if you're big.
So, there you go. What will I do next year? Don't know really. Maybe I'll continue ploughing my furrow and see what transpires. Maybe I'll close shop and go and work for a digital agency. Maybe I'll set my own up. Maybe I'll get out of social media altogether (again) and focus on something nice and comfortable, like copywriting.
And you? What will you do? Here's my advice if you're thinking about using social media next year:
- Make sure you're doing other forms of marketing too. Social media on its own will not cut it.
- Make sure whoever you work with in social media knows what a strategy is. If they say "We're all about tactics", walk away.
- Really think about monitoring. It doesn't take long to set up and you will be amazed at what you find out.
- Be prepared to work in the dark to an extent – you may never really know how much money you make off the back of your investment.
- Keep your eyes and ears open for changes and closures. No social media site/channel/platform is too big to go under.
That about wraps it up for 2010. I'm going to finish my cup of tea and then work on thawing my toes out, then I'm going to sit by the log fire and stare into the distance for the next two weeks. Toodle pip.


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Family Storytime: Sweet Treats
Mount Airy | Website
This event occurred in the past.
For All Ages. We'll share books, stories, rhymes, music, and movement. Come talk, sing, read, write, and play together in a format appropriate for young children. Children 3 and under must be accompanied by an adult caregiver.


text:
Philippe Michelon is an Application Engineer in the Intel Software and Services Group. He can be reached at [email protected]
Editor's Note: For more information on Moblin, go here.
Since computers have turned multimedia, video has been one of the most popular media consumed on such devices. As the computing world is getting more and more mobile, there is a patent need to enhance the experience of high quality video consumption in mobility situation. PDAs and smartphones have failed so far delivering such experience in terms of format support and in terms of quality. Who hasn't tried to play such videos and found that the video plays jerky or not at all? Good video playback experience with the main existing formats is one of the promises Mobile Internet Devices claim to bring. Let's see how this can be achieved on an Intel Atom processor-based MID.
The MID Promise
As mobile phones are gaining in capabilities, they started to support some video playback. This experience remains poor due to the screen size as well as the processing power of the platform that is somewhat limited. There is thus no way for example to have a wide variety of content supported. Usually the content is tailored to the device in size and in format. Basically there is virtually no chance that the video content you play on your PC, plays at all on your mobile phone. MIDs come with a new promise to the mobile device users: the capability to play most of the video content that a PC plays including full movies.
Owing to its 4,5-6 inch screen which has at least a resolution of 800x480, the visual experience of video playback on MID is very pleasant. The Intel Atom processor, being an x86 architecture, the MID can support most of the codecs available out of the box including the most common video formats like MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264 and VC-1. It allows the user to view the same video content he is downloading over the web and playing on its PC.
Nevertheless, it remained two drawbacks that prevent to deliver the full promise: The processing power necessary to decode some video files available on the internet may overcome the MID processing power. Decoding such heavily compressed content which are usually encoded with relatively high definition requires a lot of performance. The second is that decoding a video on the processor drains significantly the battery. In the case of a MID, it is essential that the user can view at least a full movie relying on its battery while he is in situation of mobility. That means autonomy of about several hours of video playback.
To solve the challenges mentioned above, Intel has integrated a video hardware decoder in the Intel GMA 500 MID chipset. On one hand, with this solution, the user can view up to two movies with one charged battery. The electrical power needed to decode a video stream is significantly decreased. On the other hand, the decoder can handle HD streams decode in the most common formats available: MPEG-2, MPEG-4 layer 2, H.264 and VC-1. To use the HW video decoder, the applications must send the video stream to the hardware decoder. With Windows, the hardware video decoder of the Intel GMA 500 is accessible through the DXVA API. With Linux, this is done in using a new public API called the VA API. The Intel GMA 500 chipset enables the Intel processor-based MID to offer the best in class video experience a user can expect on such a small device.
MID Hardware Video Decode
Windows and Linux drivers for the Intel GMA 500 are available to allow applications to access the hardware video decode feature. In this paper we will focus on how to enable this capability on Linux using the VA API.
Video decoding can be represented as a pipeline. It has some pure decoding stages like Variable Length Decode, Inverse Quantization, Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform, Motion Compensation, De-blocking (if applicable) and some post processing stages like color space conversion or scaling. The compressed data stream needs to go through all the stages to be properly decoded. The pipeline can be fed at any stage with the appropriate data. This is what we call an entry point.
The VA API is a public software API specification which provides access to graphics hardware acceleration for video processing. It is meant to enable hardware accelerated video decode at various entry points (VLD, IDCT, Motion Compensation, etc…) for the prevailing coding standards today (MPEG-2, MPEG-4/ASP/H.263, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, and VC-1/WMV9), as well as hardware accelerated video post-processing such as de-interlacing, color adjustments, color space conversion and output scaling. The VA API provides much more functionality than the existing XvMC API. XvMC was designed to support MPEG-2 motion compensation only.
As this is a public API, it could be used in many graphical chipsets. Some may implement it partly, only giving access to a subset of entry points. In the case of the Intel GMA500 it supports VLD level offloads for all formats which includes VLD, iDCT, Motion Compensation and in-loop de-blocking (if applicable).
MID Video Acceleration Driver Architecture
The VA API provides an interface between a video decode application (client) and the hardware decode accelerator (server), to off-load video decode operations from the CPU. The basic operation paradigm is, for the client, to send parameters and compressed data buffers to the server using the API, while the server decompresses and post processes the bit stream it receives from the client.
From the client perspective, the server acts as a virtual decode pipeline dedicated to the application. Several applications can access the driver concurrently resulting in multiple video decode offloaded to the chipset. In this situation, each application has only access to its own virtual decode pipeline. Moreover, an application can create multiple virtual decode pipelines allowing the application to decode several streams concurrently.
The core API itself is windowing system agnostic, and could be implemented with a variety of windowing systems potentially. The current Linux video acceleration driver for the Intel GMA 500 is implemented with the X window system. The output rendering function (vaPutSurface) is to be used for X11 Drawables. It is particularly well suited for standard 2D video players which need to display video in a screen-aligned pixel rectangle.
With the first driver architecture based on DRI, it is not possible to map efficiently the video decoded in hardware, in a 3D environment. With the future evolution of the driver to DRI2, if the target drawable is an X pixmap, then the video output could also be used as a texture in the OpenGL pipeline with the ext_texture_from_pixmap extension in order to achieve more sophisticated visual effects.


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Choreography by: Christopher Wheeldon
Music by: Samuel Barber
An animated ballet set to a vivacious score, Soirée Musicale's youthful cast entices you to dance the night away under a blanket of stars.
Set to Samuel Barber's Souvenirs, Soirée Musicale was originally created for the School of American Ballet Workshop performance in 1998. In 2013, Wheeldon revived the work, with some slight additions and revisions, and the ballet had its New York City Ballet premiere at the Company's Spring Gala performance as part of a three-week American Music Festival. The reworked ballet features a cast of 17 dancers, newly designed costumes by Holly Hynes, and lighting by Penny Jacobus.


text:
April 8
"Whose Resurrection?"
By Marsh Chapel
Easter Sunday
It is not so long ago that Jesus came to us wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. We murmured with the Shepherds and knelt with the Kings. We sang: "Christ the Savior is born." We were innocent and young and happy at birth.
True: some noticed the straw in his hair and the stench of the manger.
True: a few wondered at the humble birth of God.
True: some worried about Rachel weeping for her children.
Mostly, though, we happily received and reported glad tidings of great joy to all people. It is not so long ago that the trees and the greens, beautiful they were, came down.
It is not so long ago that Jesus stripped himself before us and knelt in the Jordan to be baptized. Granted, we have been busy carving our hearts and arrows into the trees of life. Granted, we have been finding jobs and homes and churches and relaxation. We prayed and watched TV.
True: some of us noticed the mud on Jesus' face after his baptism.
True: a few wondered at the humility of such an act, God stooping to be covered in the icy, rolling, filthy waters of this world.
Mostly, though, we were happy to greet Jesus at his baptism, and day by day like us he grew. We went on to another month of paychecks and forechecks and last respects. It is not so long ago that Jesus and John bathed together.
It is not so long ago that Satan tempted our Lord. Jesus stood tempted and we with Him: tempted to make of life a scramble to the top, no matter who gets hurt; tempted to make of religion a closed shop, no matter who is closed out; tempted to take up a government without a government of the heart. You saw him last month, just up the hill from Jericho, stalking in the wilderness.
True: some blanched at the forty days.
True: some pondered the choice of God to lavish love on a twilight world.
Mostly, though, we thanked Jesus for his troubles and succumbed to the temptations he defeated. It was not so long ago.
It was not so long ago that Jesus healed and taught. Among us there was healing of the sick, though not all of the sick, and teaching of the sinful, though not all were docile, and announcement to all of the Mystery of Love.
True: some noticed the somber tone in the verses about hardship to come.
True: some wondered at divine life lived on the periphery.
True: some rued the unexplained tragedy and individual loss of the time, and the teaching frightened us at times.
Mostly, though, we tilled our gardens. And not so long ago.
Is it only a few days ago that Jesus washed our feet in holy hands? Is it only a few days more that Jesus completed a life of servant love? Is it more than hours ago that Patience and Humility and Wide Mercy were nailed up to make way for the 'god of this world', whose violence has not yet been vanquished in fact as we trust it is in principle (Geoffrey Wainwright). Is it only a few hours since the cross covered our past like a baby put to sleep and opened our future like a window flung wide?
True: some noticed the back ache, and the calloused knees and the worn hands of the worker Messiah. A few—was it you?—spotted the hidden glory in such care.
Mostly though we went to the market and to the bank, preparing for an earthly future we thought might be without end. We lived, not just the young, but all, as if 'temporarily immortal'. No, it is not so long ago that the Lamb of God met us in poverty, humility, temptation, healing and sacrifice.
We have been prepared to answer the question. Whose Resurrection? Whom did God raise? On Whom did God set God's seal? Whom did God choose as first fruit? On what kind of life, what kind of future, did God rain glory?
Cruciform life. Easter the resurrection of Jesus, the worker Messiah, Servant Love. Love crucified is love raised. It is the same worn Jesus whom God calls 'the future'. No wonder the disciples did not at first believe, and no wonder we have our doubts as wel
l. The preacher leans against the cross on Friday, and leans against the resurrection on Sunday. For the cross is still with us, followed by but not replaced by the resurrection.
Christ the Lord is risen today: ours the cross, the grave, the skies. If Jesus is God's future, then his resurrection is our future, and we are well advised to seize the day. Easter is in the first place the resurrection of Servant Love.
Exegetical Interlude
Yet listen again, for just a moment, to John 20. One of the delights of preaching over many years is how startling yet another reading of a familiar passage can nonetheless be. You too have spent some time with John, and with this chapter. It holds no fewer than four, complementary, even competing resurrection accounts. Two of these we heard this morning, the tomb and the garden. Two others, the Spirit and Thomas, come later. Together they present a pastiche of resurrection as presence, on the one hand, and absence, on the other, fearless of the contradiction in that combination. On this reading, for your current preacher, one startling discovery emerged. In scene one, the tomb, Mary refers to Jesus as 'the Lord', a formal, accurate, and courteous nametag. In scene two, the garden, Mary refers to Jesus as 'my Lord'. You can hear the difference in the original. (If the choir can sing in German I can preach in Greek!) John 20:2, heran ton kurion . John 20: 13: heran ton kurion mou. Here in the heart of violence is a move, slight but clear, a move toward intimacy. Violence usually crushes intimacy, but not so here.
So here is a second response to the question of Easter's possessor. It is this preached question which makes of Easter a change of heart—a saving change of heart—rather than just a remarkable weekend in first century Palestine. On the cross walk, resurrection is yours. On the way of the cross, you walk in newness of life. You receive resurrection eyes, resurrection ears, and a resurrection smile.
For this change of heart John Donne longs:
I have a bed of sin; delight is a bed:
I have a grave of sin; senselessness of sin is a grave:
And where Lazarus had been four days
I have been for fifty years in this putrefaction;
Why doest thou not call me,
As thou didst him, with a loud voice,
Since my soul is as dead as his body was?
I need thy thunder, o my God;
Thy music will not serve me. (Devotions xxi)
I need thy THUNDER o my God…We might speak of a new epistemology at the turn of the ages, a new eschatology at the turn of the ages, and a new psychology at the turn of the ages. But let's stick with eyes, ears and smile.
The resurrection of Servant Love helps us see that the resurrection is meant for us, to open us to a new way of engaging in the world, being at home in the world, being confident in the world. Your struggle you can see in a new way, with resurrection eyes–if you will. What is most fragile in the world, which is grace, when seen aright, is the toughest of entities.
If you were to ask at what point I truly felt at home in Boston, the response would be last Tuesday at 11:30am. I saw the world differently. After morning 'administrivia', I walked to the dentist. Theology helps us choose, dentistry helps us chew. Predictably, my gaze was footward on route to the chair of judgment. My mind brooded about the fierce cultural wind about us, as fierce for common life as is the winter wind off the Charles River for the lone pedestrian. There is an authoritarianism, even sometimes a pseudo-sacramental authoritarianism, blowing from above, I feared, and a determinism, even sometimes a pseudo-biblical determinism, blowing from behind. Shall freedom and grace die of pneumonia? Such were the pre-paschal ruminations of the forenoon on Tuesday of Holy Week.
So when I crossed University Road, in front of the BU Academy, and heard a car honk, I forged ahead. After all, one hears nothing but horns at that corner. There is not an unhonked moment there. I asserted my pedestrian rights. But the car honked again, and then again. In a fit of pique I turned, ready to exchange icy glares, snarls, perhaps a word of invective, possibly a gesture or two. Not a very clerical pose. Behold: there, driving by, with a knowing gleam in the eye, chuckling, and giving a salutation, friend to friend, was a Boston University leader I have come to enjoy. See: the car was not honking AT me, but honking at ME. Not AT me. But at ME! One sees now a greeting my name, in person, eye to eye, I and Thou.
Resurrection eyes see connections, possibilities, welcomes, openings, and spiritual friendships in the offing. We tend to see the world not as it is but as we are, and the resurrection gives us new eyes. All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. Much appears gracious to the Easter eye. Life is not honking AT you, but at YOU. Across the crowded traffic of a congested world, we shall need every possible resurrection vision, to have hope for the future.
The resurrection of Servant Love grants res
urrection ears, too. On the cross walk, one hears rumblings of justice. It takes resurrection ears to hear it, but the trumpet sound, though far off, is ringing. Wrote Luther, "here in this life our heart is in too great straits to lay hold of it, but after death, when the heart becomes larger and broader, we experience what we have heard through the Word". He is sounding forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat. One defeated leader said recently, "For all the grandness that is so apparent in our time, something is missing. There is a hunger for something to believe in and to hold onto, something grander that can lift our aspirations instead of lowering them. Something that appeals to the highest in us: our generosity, our optimism, our courage".
Easter demands a sturdier hope:
Hope is a dimension of the soul, and it is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation…It's deepest roots are transcendental, just as are the roots of human responsibility…It is an inner experience…The most convinced materialist and atheist may have more of this genuine transcendentally rooted inner hope than 10 metaphysicians altogether…Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as the joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather the ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it has a chance to succeed. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from 'elsewhere'. (V. Havel, DPT, 23).
Take out the 'as it were' and you have Easter, in the words of Vaclev Havel.
The Resurrection of Servant Love brings happiness, too, a resurrection smile. So Isaiah can sing out: 'everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.' As part of the alliance of servant love, one really has cause to smile. A resurrection smile—I have no interest at all in how much you actually smile—is a sign that you can risk. You can risk change, transition, a cross road.
When the circus came to our little town, growing up, we watched the trapeze artists enthralled. These aerial acrobats touch something deep in life.
You can swing from one bar to another on the existential trapeze. Back and forth the bars swing, and at least half a dozen times in life you will be changing bars. It's scary. Waiting for the bar to come, you know you will have to jump. That is the thing about faith. There is always a bit of a leap in it. From home to college. Jump! From college to…whatever. Jump! From single to married or married to single. Jump! From calling to second calling. Jump! From work to retirement. Jump! From chief household executive to the nursing home. Jump! Easter gives a radiance to life that loosens us, smiling, for the changes in life. You are a part of the alliance of suffering love. Go ahead and jump. Some of us will spot you, and be there to catch if you slip a little. Smile. The risks of change make sense in the service of Servant Love. And every one of these jumps, courageously made, gives you further confidence in the Everlasting Arms of the last jump, the final horizon. Easter is the promise of eternal life!
From this pulpit, at Easter, we may remember, as we did with C T Vivian on Tuesday, the voice of Martin Luther King:
No matter who you are today, somebody helped you to get there. It may have been an ordinary person, doing an ordinary job in an extraordinary way.
There is a magnificent lady, with all the beauty of blackness and black culture, by the name of Marion Anderson that you've heard about and read about and some of you have seen. She started out as a little girl singing in the choir of the Union Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And then came that glad day when she made it. And she stood in Carnegie Hall with the Philharmonic Orchestra in the background in New York, singing with the beauty that is matchless. Then she came to the end of the concert, singing Ave Maria as nobody else can sing it. And they called her back and back and back, and she finally ended by singing, 'Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen'. And her mother was sitting out in the audience, and she started crying; tears were flowing down her cheeks. And the person next to her said, "Mrs Anderson, Why are you crying? Your daughter is scoring tonight. The critics tomorrow will be lavishing their praise on her. Why are you crying?
And Mrs. Anderson looked over with tears still flowing and said, "I'm not crying because I'm sad, I'm crying for joy." She went on to say, "You may not remember, you wouldn't know. But I remember when Marian was growing up, and I was working in a kitchen till my hands were all but parched, my eyebrows all but scalded. I was working there to make it possible for my daughter to get an education. And I remember Marian came to see me and said, "Mother, I don't want to see you having to work like this." And I looked down and said, "Honey, I don't mind it. I'm doing it for you and I expect great things of you."
And finally one day somebody asked Marian Anderson in later years, "Miss Anderson, what has the been the happiest moment of your life? Was it that moment in Carnegie Hall in New York?" She said, "No, that wasn't it/" "Was it that moment you stood before the Kings and Queens of Europe?" "No that wasn't it". " Well, Miss Anderson, was it the moment Sibelius of Finland declared that his roof was too low for such a voice?" "No, that wasn't it." "Miss Anderson, was it the moment that Toscanini said that a voice like your comes only once in a century?" "No, that wasn't it." "What was it then, Miss Anderson." And she looked up and said (smiling) quietly, "The happiest moment in my life was the moment I could say, "Mother, you can stop working now."
Marian Anderson realized that she was where she was because somebody helped her to get there. (MLKing, "A Knock at Midnight"). That's power.
Whose resurrection? Jesus' resurrection giving you new eyes, ears and smile. The resurrection of Servant Love, granting new sight, new sound, new soul.
One ancient writer, not an earthly success, not an ecclesiastical victor, nonetheless wrote in the year 160ad: "the resurrection is the revelation of what is, the transformation of things, and a transition into newness (Treatise on the Resurrection).
Eyes, Ears, Smile.
Today we are set free to wonder at life, to work for justice, to weather change. And to do so with grace.


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Wolverines seek redemption in clash with visiting Falcons
Ann Arbor, MI – With little time to lick their wounds following an embarrassing season-opening loss to the defending national champs, the 19th-ranked Michigan Wolverines get back to action this weekend as they play host to the Air Force Falcons at the Big House in Ann Arbor.
Air Force is 1-0 on the young season thanks to a 49-21 triumph over FCS foe Idaho State. The Falcons, who are hoping to make some noise in the Mountain West Conference this year, are seeking just their 17th win all-time in this their 92nd game against a ranked opponent. Air Force last beat a member of the Top-25 in 2010 when it got past No. 24 BYU, 31-14, at home. Its last win over a ranked foe on the road was a 23-21 decision at No. 23 California back in 2002.
Michigan's clash with No. 2 Alabama last Saturday night in Arlington, Texas was supposed to the be the marquee matchup of college football's opening weekend, but the game got out of hand quickly as the Crimson Tide dominated to the tune of a 41-14 victory.
Head coach Brady Hoke was obviously disappointed in the outcome, "We didn't play Michigan football, and that is something that bothers our team, bothers the coaches. I don't think we played or tackled well enough on defense. We didn't control the line of scrimmage enough offensively," He continued, "We've got a lot of work to do. We've got a lot of things to correct."
The Wolverines were without starting RB Fitz Toussaint due to suspension, and they will be attempting to improve to 110-18-2 all-time in home openers this week. Michigan has won 15 straight home games during the month of September.
This game marks just the second meeting between Air Force and Michigan on the football field, with the latter winning the first at home back in 1964, 24-7. The Falcons are 5-9-2 against Big Ten teams, while the Wolverines are 3-1 against the Mountain West, and 6-0 against clubs that currently call the conference home.
Air Force got a sensational individual effort from RB Cody Getz in last week's season opener against Idaho State, as the diminutive senior ran for 218 yards and three TDs. QB Connor Dietz added 74 yards and a score on the ground, while tallying 142 yards through the air. In all, the Falcons churned out 490 rushing yards, and 628 yards of total offense. They did not commit a turnover.
Getz, who became the first Falcon to rush for more than 200 yards in a game since Chad Hall turned the trick in 2007, wont have it as easy this week against a more formidable Michigan defense, but don't expect Air Force to deviate from its plan much as it will stick with the run as long as possible.
While it's true they faced an inferior opponent, the Falcons put forth a stifling defensive effort against the run last week, limiting the Bengals to 66 net rushing yards. Idaho State did produce 365 passing yards, but that was done mostly in an effort to play catch-up.
Defensive back Steffon Bates and LB Austin Niklas posted 11 tackles apiece for the Air Force defense, which was credited with six TFL, which included two sacks.
As Denard Robinson goes, so does the Michigan offense. With the running game pretty much non-existent last weekend, Robinson had to go it alone in an attempt to keep the Wolverines relevant against what turned out to be a superior Alabama squad. The talented signal-caller threw for 200 yards and a TD, but completed just 42 percent of his passes (11-of-26) and was intercepted twice, one of which was returned for a TD.
Robinson carried the ball 10 times, but managed just 27 net yards. He did score a TD on a six-yard run late in the second quarter to put the Wolverines on the board, but they had been trailing 31-0 at the time. Wide receiver Jeremy Gallon caught four balls for 107 yards.
Robinson, while acknowledging a total team breakdown in the opener, is even more critical of himself, "I didn't make the throws that I should have made and I feel that I didn't play as the Michigan quarterback. I've got to step it up and be more accountable."
The Michigan defense was shell-shocked in last week's opener, as Alabama scored three TDs in the first quarter to set the tone early. When the dust had settled the Crimson Tide had amassed 446 yards of total offense, including 247 on the ground. Shoring things up at the point of attack will be paramount to performing better against another potent rushing team in Air Force.
Safety Thomas Gordon led the UM stand against 'Bama, what there was of one, with nine tackles, while fellow DB Jordan Kovacs and LB Desmond Morgan logged eight stops each.


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Release Date: February 13, 2013
BUFFALO, N.Y. — University at Buffalo experts are available to speak to the media about ideas and proposals that President Barack Obama shared in his State of the Union address, from energy policies to the need to better prepare American students for high-tech careers and increasing the minimum wage.
Joseph A. Gardella Jr.
John and Frances Larkin Professor of Chemistry
University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences
716-645-1499; cell phone number may be obtained by contacting Charlotte Hsu at 716-645-4655
Gardella can discuss the president's message regarding the need to equip American students with skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to meet the demands of a high-tech economy.
He is director of the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Partnership (ISEP), an initiative to improve science education at 12 Buffalo Public Schools by increasing interdisciplinary, hands-on learning. The program engages about 60 middle and high school teachers each year in research-based professional development that encourages them to enliven classrooms with experiments and other hands-on activities.
"ISEP is an example of a STEM program that is leveraging university and community resources to provide young people with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in modern, high-tech careers," Gardella says. "We work with middle and high schools to develop and implement STEM learning experiences that meet the unique needs and interests of both students and teachers."
"ISEP is funded by the National Science Foundation, and is an example of a federally-funded program that is bringing new, needed opportunities to schoolchildren," Gardella adds. "Thanks to the leadership of the Obama administration, in both the Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, there is a tight focus on aligning STEM work in higher education to supporting teacher professional development and school based innovation to bring STEM related classroom content and curricula to all students."
Erin Hatton
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
University at Buffalo
Hatton focuses on work and those making – or struggling to make – a living from it. Her first book, "The Temp Economy: From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America," examines the temporary help industry and its adverse effects on the economy and workers, and her research also extends to the fields of gender, race, labor, political economy and public policy.
"The proposed increase in the minimum wage is both important and necessary. It will certainly not be enough to solve all struggling families' problems, but when you're supporting a family on the minimum wage, every little bit counts. In fact, such an increase represents a 25 percent pay increase," Hatton says.
"Although an extra $70 a week might be meaningless to those who earn over $100,000 a year, it is not meaningless to the thousands of parents who feed their children and pay for medical bills on a minimum wage job."
Jerry M. Newman
SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor
School of Management
University at Buffalo
Newman is co-author of Compensation, the leading book on that topic for the past 25 years. He can also speak on the topic of minimum wage from personal experience, having worked undercover at seven fast-food restaurants while writing his book, My Secret Life on the McJob: Lessons from Behind the Counter Guaranteed to Supersize Any Management Style.
"Raising the minimum wage is a complicated issue," Newman says. "Retailers will tell you that it will be the end of their businesses, but minimum wage workers will tell you that it is the beginning of a life for them."
Jessica Owley
Associate Professor of Law
University at Buffalo Law School
Owley, an expert in environmental law and land conservation, can speak on the president's remarks on energy and climate change.
"The President's energy policy gives environmentalists both something to cheer about and something to worry about," Owley says. "It is encouraging that he is reinforcing his support of renewable energies. His support of using public land as places to locate renewable energy facilities (like wind and solar) will help move the country forward. This must be done carefully, however. The push to develop solar quickly has outpaced our studies of the potential environmental impacts of those facilities. The President is continuing to support his 'all of the above' approach for energy, though, championing development of domestic oil and gas. This strategy slows our need to reduce fossil fuel use and increases environmental degradation in the meaning time."
"Without mentioning the term hyrdrofracking, the President's speech implies that he supported increased use of this technique. He talks about burning cleaner and speeding up permits but does not talk about other environmental concerns. The environmental implications of hydrofracking development remain uncertain. Last year Obama pledged to require disclosure of the chemicals. That has yet to occur. Furthermore, we need to go beyond chemical disclosure and subject this industry to the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws."
Owley adds that the president's suggestion to develop an Energy Security Trust is "a good idea. "We need to be reducing our energy use and increasing efficiency. This is an area where American ingenuity has excelled, and we should draw on it more."
Owley teaches environmental law, property, land conservation and Federal Indian Law. She received her PhD in environmental science, policy and management from the University of California-Berkeley in 2005, shortly after completing her JD at Berkeley Law in 2004. Though her general research is on land conservation and property rights, her current scholarship focuses on using property tools for conservation in the context of climate change.
Neel Rao
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics
University at Buffalo
Neel Rao's research interests are in the areas of labor economics, health economics and organizational economics. Recent working papers include "Social Learning in the Labor Market: An Analysis of Siblings," and "The Impact of Macroeconomic Conditions in Childhood on Adult Labor Market Outcomes."
"Although some claim that a rise in the federal minimum wage will increase unemployment overall, it is not obvious that this is always the case. Basic models of competitive labor markets do predict some increase in unemployment from a higher minimum wage, an effect that may be especially important for younger, unskilled workers. However, not all empirical studies find evidence of this phenomenon, and other more complex models do not make this prediction," Rao says.
"A higher federal minimum wage might benefit some workers with low earnings. In real dollars, the federal minimum wage is lower today than in the 1970s. Income inequality also appears to have increased in the U.S. since then."
Kelly Roy
Director, Early Childhood Research Center
University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education
Roy, an expert in early childhood education and pre-kindergarten training, can speak on the president's remarks on the need to expand early education for 4- and 3-year-olds.
"Basically, the president is planning to increase funding to support universal pre-K for children in low- to middle-income families," Roy says. "Currently the states bear the vast majority of the responsibility for this. Mr. Obama is interested in increasing the number of children and potentially reducing the age of the children to 3 who receive this valued service."
"In 2011, the State of New York served about 45 percent of the eligible 4-year-olds. This initiative is a result of the decades of data supporting the long-term individual and societal benefits of children attending preschool."
"Numerous long-term studies, including the Perry Preschool, which began in the early 60s, have found that individuals and society benefit from children attending high-quality preschool as early as possible. The long-term benefits include increased educational success measured through increased achievement and attainment; decreased special education and grade repetition; decreased behavioral difficulties, depression, drug use, or involvement in crime; increased earnings; and employment success. These individual benefits result in savings to society in costs associated with crime and punishment, health care costs and social service costs associated with dependence on government support.
"Short-term benefits include increased cognitive skills — kids are learning positive things and they enjoy it. Social and emotional skills also develop well in a high-quality program. Children learn how to regulate their own behavior to learn well in a group. Elements of a high-quality program include teachers who are well-educated and paid fairly. They plan well to meet the children's needs and then reflect on their work to continuously improve the children's learning. Class size and ratio of teachers to children should be adequate to meet the needs of the class and allow the teacher to do his or her job well. There needs to be a policy foundation within which a preschool operates that supports its success for it to be high quality."
Paul Zarembka
Professor, Department of Economics
University at Buffalo
Paul Zarembka specializes in Marxist theory, U.S. labor history and economic development. He is editor of the annual series "Research in Political Economy" (Emerald Group) and the author of "Essays in Modern Capital Theory."
"A federal increase in the minimum wage is likely to have a positive effect on U.S. employment figures because it will increase the purchasing power of workers, which has a tendency to increase sales and overall employment. Studies of state minimum wage increases show the same result," Zarembka says.
"Employees can readily understand this result. Employers, however, are often short-sighted and think only of its immediate effect on wage costs and are not conscious of the greater total profits this may generate for their businesses," he adds.
"In general, an increase in the federal minimum wage may somewhat increase incomes at the bottom end of the employment scale – that is, the incomes of workers who make a more important contribution to your life relative to their incomes than do CEOs."
Charlotte Hsu
News Content Manager
Sciences, Economic Development
Tel: 716-645-4655
Twitter: @UBScience
Pinterest: UB Science


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We're in the midst of an economic downturn.
It's a world where people are predicting the end of printed newspapers within a generation due to advertisers – who pay for, or at least subsidise papers – preferring to take their business online.
So it was a bit of a shock to discover that just as I moved out of East Belfast in January, a new local newspaper was started.
By chance I met Fiona Rutherford on Sunday morning, the editor of the East Belfast Herald. Selling in local newsagents, the paper covers local stories and activities and is very much a community publication.
I remember driving past the Upper Newtownards Road offices of the East Belfast Observer on the way in and out of work until it closed a couple of years ago.
If you're an East Belfastian, look out for the Herald in your local corner shop. And if you're planning an event or match in the area, or have something you want to advertise, I'm sure the team would be very grateful to hear what you're up to. You can contact them on 90732114 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Good luck to the Herald.


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As October 1861 rolled around some progress had been made toward freedom for the slaves. Abolitionists could point to such things as Gen. Benjamin Butler's "contraband of war" policy endorsed first by the Lincoln administration and then by Congress when it passed the First Confiscation Act in August. They could mention a U.S. House resolution in July absolving the Union Army of capturing fugitive slaves, a move which no doubt made it harder in practice for Maryland slaveholders to reclaim their slaves who had found refuge in army camps. They could be heartened by Gen. John C. Frémont's bold decision at the end of August to free the slaves of disloyal Missouri slaveholders (even if it was soon countermanded). They could even–quietly or not–cheer Jayhawker James H. Lane's sacking of Osceola, Missouri, on September 23, where he carried away several hundred slaves to freedom in Kansas.
Yet the main feeling of many abolitionists in Fall 1861 was one of frustration. The source of that sentiment was the Lincoln administration's failure to embrace emancipation as a war goal. They could not understand why Lincoln could not see the logic that the Civil War represented an unprecedented opportunity to rid the United States of the curse of slavery once and for all. As Frederick Douglass put it in September, "The present policy of our Government is evidently to put down the slave-holding rebellion, and at the same time protect and preserve slavery. This policy hangs like a mill-stone about the neck of our people."
It was left to the New York Times, usually closely aligned editorially with the Lincoln administration, to explain the government's reluctance to move beyond confiscating slaves of disloyal owners to freeing them. A Times editorial read, in part, on October 9, 1861:
But as things stand, now, no policy could possibly be adopted which would be half so fatal to the Union cause as that which is pressed by the Abolitionists upon the Government. Its first effect would be to divide the North, — to create a powerful party in nearly every Northern State against a war to be prosecuted by such means and for such an end. Unquestionably Slavery has lost the hold which it had previous to the rebellion, on the forbearance and quasi respect of the great mass of our people. The slaveholding section is felt to have forfeited all claim on the country by its mad attempt to overthrow the Government. But still there are tens of thousands of our citizens who do not believe that the condition of the slaves would be improved by immediate emancipation, while they shrink with natural horror from the scenes of butchery and outrage by which such an event might be attended. They believe in fighting for the Union, — and are willing to devote themselves, thoroughly and heartily, to the task of sustaining the Constitution and restoring the authority of the Government; — but they would not give either men, money or moral support to a war waged for the emancipation of Southern slaves.
¶So long as this sentiment pervades the public mind to any considerable extent, it is very evident that the policy recommended would destroy utterly that unanimity of opinion and of action which, up to the present time, has constituted the strength of the Government in its contest with rebellion. No true friend of the Union will do anything to divide the North. No more effective way of aiding the rebels could be devised than to thrust into the controversy some new and exciting issue which should have that effect. The country has need of the utmost energies which the hearty and unanimous action of the people can bring forward. Yet who does not know that thousands and tens of thousands of those officers and men, who are now in the field to defend the Union, would withdraw instantly, if the war were to be openly and avowedly waged for the emancipation of the slaves?
¶This of itself would be a sufficient reason [???] for opposing, under existing circumstances,the policy proposed. There are other considerations, equally cogent, against it. The real contest for the Union is in the Border States. There is a powerful and resolute Union Party in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee, fighting with the North and West in defence of the Government, it would be unwise to weaken their hands by any act not absolutely required by the rest of the country; — and while the Union cause would be weakened through divisions in the North and West by an emancipation edict, it would be ruined in the States we have named. We can see nothing to be gained anywhere to the Union cause by such a policy. We do not see how it could have any practical effect upon the rebel States most interested in Slavery; for it could not liberate a single slave beyond the lines of our army, where there would be no power to carry it into execution. If there had been any indication of a purpose on the part of the slaves to rebel, such an edict might stimulate and encourage them in so doing. But it is among the most remarkable features of the war that, up to the present time, we have no authentic intelligence from any quarter of the slaveholding States, of any movement whatever, large or small, towards an insurrection of the slaves. Although the great mass of the fighting men of the South are in Virginia, the slaves in all the Southern States have made as yet no attempt to secure their freedom. Until they do so — or until the Union men in the Border States shall ask such action at the hands of the Government, as calculated to aid them in their contest with rebellion, we see no possible good to be accomplished, while much serious evil would certainly be caused by an edict of emancipation. We can see no quarter in which it would strengthen the hands of the Government, — or give greater effect to its blows; while it would divide and weaken public sentiment in the loyal States, and strengthen the rebels in those where the contest is doubtful.
¶President LINCOLN has taken upon this subject the ground of a wise and true statesmanship. While he has been faithful to the policy and sentiments of his whole life, he has held the Government to a firm and steady course upon this question. We believe that his policy is just and wise, and that it will be fully vindicated by the results. The Government has simply nothing whatever to do with Slavery — and it should have nothing whatever to do with slaves. That it may and should deprive rebel owners of their services, whenever it deprives them of their property of any kind, by way either of precaution or of punishment, there can be no doubt. Nor ought our military commanders to assume for a moment the office of slave-catchers for rebel owners; — there is no law whatever to justify them in so doing. If the slaves of such owners come within our lines let the owners pursue them and recapture them, taking all the risks and running all the chances of being themselves held to answer for their treason. Under a purely passive, let-alone policy on the part of our armies, there is no danger that Slavery will reap any undue advantage from the rebellion which is waged on its behalf against the Government.
It would take another year of war for Abraham Lincoln and many other people in the North to see the logic of the abolitionists and embrace freedom for the slaves. For their part, the slaves would not wait, as they had already shown and would continue to prove over the same period. They could and would act even Lincoln would not, and in the process they would help make clear the logic of abolition to Union victory.
Sources: 1) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1459; 2) http://www.nytimes.com/1861/10/09/news/the-slavery-question.html.


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If you're a fan of Jason Statham action films, you'll be happy to know his latest movie, a remake of The Mechanic, opens this weekend. Like the 1972 Charles Bronson film that it's based on, Statham plays a 'mechanic', which is "an elite assassin with a strict code and unique talent for cleanly eliminating targets." Unlike some remakes that stray far from the original, Statham's remake uses the same plot, but updates all the technology and kills. Also, Simon West directed (Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) the film so the action is well done. I actually thought the remake was a lot of fun and casting Ben Foster to play the apprentice was a smart move as he's a very talented actor that brings a lot to the role. For more on the film, watch 4 clips here.
Anyway, I recently participated in a roundtable interview with Statham and you can either read a transcript or listen to the audio after the jump. During the interview with the press shy action star, Statham talked about where his career is going, what it was like to make The Mechanic, his preparation process, upcoming movies like Safe and The Expendables 2, does he ever think Crank 3 could happen, and a lot more:
If you'd like to listen to the audio of the interview, click here. Otherwise, I've posted the entire transcript below. The Mechanic opens January 28.
Jason Statham: Hello there. What's going on?
Question: How you doing? So do you enjoy doing this kind of press, room to room?
Statham: Well I've got to be a good actor and say "yes, I love it".
Some actors say that they do the acting for free and they get paid to do the promotion.
Statham: I can see where the inspiration for that saying is. But, you know – we have to do it don't we.
Well how did you like this role, as I've spoken to you before about kind of the evolution of your screen tough guy, kind of, usually outside the law kind of guy, and you know, The Bank Job was sort of different from a lot of movies you usually make, this seemed to have more interesting character stuff going on, more interpersonal relationships than before, where do you see this on your path of character evolutions?
Statham: I think it's moving in a direction that I want to be moving in. It's a little more interesting to play this kind of a character than some of the other roles that I've done. And I'm getting to work with more experienced producers and more experienced directors, and you know, people like Ben Foster, working with someone of that quality. I think everything just, once you get a good screenplay, it starts… everything sort of comes in to effect with having a good screenplay. You get good producers… Everything gets raised in some way and I think that's the driving force, for me to work with better people doing better things, and having better scripts and I think this is certainly something that I can say is going in the right direction.
I'm curious about the way you get ready for a role. How do you get ready for it? Do you do prep work 2 months and out or are you going to the gym more? Can you sort of, talk about your regiment?
Statham: It changes so much, depending on how injured I am. It depends on what kind of action they want from it. Usually I'm trying to work with people that I've worked with before, so we have a certain amount of know-how and what we're going to do together. But it wasn't like we had a ton of, you know, extensive choreography to learn, but I always have a gym that I always go to that preps me. And I work with a ton of stunt men there. It has the environment, it's a place called 87-11 up near LA-X and there's a ton of stuntmen working out all the time and it's great to go there before I go shoot a film. But in terms of you know, dieting and losing weight… I try not to focus too much on that unless it's really really necessary. But my routines, my prep before a movie changes so much yeah.
You talked about how your goal is to work with better people and work in better productions, and you know, everything getting better. I'm just curious, how have you evolved over the last ten years? Are you more comfortable in your shoes now as an actor?
Statham: Yeah, I think I know what I'm doing: just! You get to know what you're doing. And there's no substitute for the experience, and you know, the more you do the better you get. The more you understand what you need to do. A lot of the elements are not in your control and when it all comes together in a good way then it's all good. I mean, for me, to be now working opposite Robert De Niro and Clive Owen, you know that's definitely a step in the right direction I feel.
Have you started on that?
Statham: Have I started on it? We finished it. Yeah, almost at the end of the first directors edit. His first cut we'll be seeing soon.
So how was it? Was it intimidating?
Statham: I don't know. Working with De Niro is very intimidating yeah, as you can only imagine. You don't want to make a fool of yourself in front of that man!
So is that a remake of the Peckinpah film?
Statham: It's not no. I'm not sure if that'll be the finished title.
So there's no theme questioned for 70s tough guy movies?
Statham: No.
I'm curious – I mentioned a second a go about the way you get ready for a movie. Your going to act, well you acted opposite Clive and De Niro, how did you get ready for that one maybe differently than from some of your other projects?
Statham: Well are you talking about physical prep or?
Either way, mentally…
Statham: Well I'm not a method actor, I hope you know that! (laughs) You don't have me working for the SAS soldiers, you know. I find an ability to be able to play the roles that I do.
Of course, that wasn't where I was going.
Statham: Ok. In terms of the physical stuff, you know, it's just about being available to the choreography and the locations and the stunts that are required. So the prep, there's a certain style that you might need. There's a certain aspect that we address in terms of the fighting style. And that's just about what the character did and what kind of a background he comes from so…the physical stuff is easy. The other prep comes from rehearsals and communication with the director, and that all comes when you get to wherever you are filming.
Are you comfortable with your image of sort of, the true action man of your generation?
Statham: Very comfortable I suppose! If that's what you want to call me. You know, I'm just working away and I'm very happy doing what I'm doing and you know, things have been going well recently. I've been working with some good people.
Well Stallone basically told me that when he thought of who he would cast, as your guy in The Expendables, someone that age, you were the only person he could think of – that you're it for this kind of thing that, you know, had so many multiple people trying to do it back in the 80s and such. How did that happen? Culturally, or with you individually or what?
Statham: I don't know. We just ended up doing a couple of films with Luc Besson, and we did a couple of other movies that Sly liked. Who knows what runs through a director's head, and whether you're right for the part. A lot of the other people he might have called were doing other things so, I don't know, maybe I was down on the list.
I think you're underplaying it.
Statham: [laughs]
Have you heard about a sequel to The Expendables?
Statham: Yes I have heard about a sequel and I'd be the first to say yes to a phone call from Sly. I mean, we spoke about it as soon as the movie started to do really well and he says, you know, it would be great to do this again, and if there's anyone who can do a good sequel it's Sly Stallone! He's done a fair amount. Yeah, we had a good time. It's something I'd like to repeat.
Speaking of Sly, he's been in the business for so long now, and this is a remake of a movie from the early 70s and I just wonder, did you get any inspiration from movies made in that time for yourself, did you grow up with them in any way and…?
Statham: Yeah, I watched a lot of movies over my time. Do they influence me?
It was sort of a difference to then I guess, and now you're basically in the action shooters, but did you grow up with action stars like Sly, and also Charles Bronson and…
Statham: Of course, I've seen every film they've all done. Yeah, that's why they're so great you know? They do films that you can watch time and time again. I've always been a fan of Bronson and Stallone.
Was there any hesitancy about tackling a classic Charles Bronson character or was it kind of exciting?
Statham: It's always, you know, the comparisons that are going to be made, and you know, it's not the first remake that I've done. We did a remake of The Italian Job years ago, and that was such a great classic movie that some people would think should never be touched. But you know, the movie ended up really, you know…. It was really a very decent job. It's the same with this. There are a lot of people who won't remember the original or won't even have seen it. There's a whole generation. It was almost 30 years ago. Yeah, I don't think we're too bothered about it.
I was wondering, since you seem to make a lot of action films, what type of films do you like to watch when you go to the movie theatre? Are you more of a romantic movie type of guy or…?
Statham: I like all kinds of films.
He says through gritted teeth!
Statham: [laughs] I don't have any particular favorites. No, you know, I enjoy myself. When I go to the cinema I watch all different kinds of films.
Well what have you seen recently?
Statham: What did I see recently? Last movie I went to see? I saw The Fighter, I saw The King's Speech.
And what did you think of those two?
Statham: I thought they were terrific, both of them. Very good indeed.
I'm a big fan of your pairings with Neveldine/Taylor, I'm curious, when you think of the Crank movies, what's the first thing that comes to your head and do you ever think there'll be a third?
Statham: It's a shame the last one didn't do that well. I think the first one had a little bit more success and usually if you do a sequel, it usually has to in some ways take a little bit more money than the first one.
Well the second one is just balls up crazy.
Statham: Yeah, it was absolutely nuts, which reflects exactly who those two are. I don't know, whether we'll do another one? Who knows? I just know we had a great…working with those two guys is not like working with anybody else. I mean, they are absolutely mad as hatters. And Neveldine, moved to the country not so long ago, and has been living a different kind of life. I don't know how plugged in he is to doing a third one.
Well they're directing Ghost Rider 2 right now, so they're clearly back in the game.
Statham: We're always in touch. We always mention the idea of, shall we do another one, I don't know.
Why do you think movies about hitmen continue to be so popular with audiences, and something they want to see?
Statham: I don't know. Maybe you can answer that better than me.
I don't know, I was just getting your opinion on it.
Statham: I have no idea.
Well why do you think they always have such nice houses in the movies?
Statham: Very lucrative job, huh?
What else have you got coming up? There's a title called Safe?
Statham: Yeah, I did a movie with Boaz Yakin and Lawrence Bender produced it. Movie called Safe that we've just finished in New York.
Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Statham: I don't know if I should tell you about it really. I was here to talk about The Mechanic. I mean, it's an action film, as you can probably gather.
Are you a hitman in it?
Statham: I'm not a hitman no, not this time around. But we'll do all the press with that I'm sure, soon enough.
So apart from making action films what do you like to do in your free time and training and stuff like that?
Statham: I like to relax. Spend it with people that I've grown up with, or people that I care about, and you know, just relax, sit around doing nothing or sitting on a beach.
Are you in to soccer at all?
Statham: Not so much. All my friends are. I'm not as big a soccer fan as people might imagine, being British.
I wanted to know if you could talk about working with Luc Besson. You've obviously had a great relationship with him. Could you sort of talk about the dynamic between the two of you and how it works when you're filming?
Statham: Yeah, I met Luc years ago and again, he's one of the key figures in my career and you know, he was basically the person that gave me a shot at being, at playing the lead in a movie. If it wasn't for him, the action movies, I don't think would have had the same effect on my career so, yeah. He is a very significant man and I remember way back, we had a bite to eat in Paris, and the next thing you know he'd written a script in a few weeks.
He's famous for that. I mean, he churns out scripts faster than anybody. Do you have any input in that kind of stuff or…?
Statham: No, there's no time to have any input, it's done in three weeks and there's the script! He's so involved, and I remember some of the rehearsals that we did, you know, he tends to find kids at a film school and he'll use them and sort of… He'll write the script and he'll have them come in and sit in and he'll basically orchestrate the rehearsals and show exactly what the shot should be and then send them away and then, you know, they're almost like puppets, basically do exactly what he wants them to do. And he's just a master of it. He can just find people in the street, turn them in to actors and actresses. He's got an amazing talent in finding people.
Are you having conversations with him for maybe, some future stuff?
Statham: I bumped in to him when we were doing some press on The Expendables and we spoke about maybe doing something in the future yeah.
Ben [Foster] just told us how you messed up his shoulder during shooting the fight scene stuff, anything happen to you, you know, any of the stunts you did challenge you?
Statham: I was injury free on this one. Normally I get beaten up and I end up doing something that needs a bit of time to heal, but this time I was pretty good.
Did you do anything that you didn't do before, that really pushed your buttons?
Statham: Not on this one no, this was an easy gig for me in terms of the action.
You're not in to soccer, do you follow competitive diving at all?
Statham: No, it's probably the smallest sport in the world!
I don't know if it's even followable or not?
Statham: No it's not even followable no! Literally as soon as I retired from diving I had no interest in it.
Statham: Yeah.
So how did you start getting involved in diving? Was it something that you liked and that's how you started it?
Statham: I tried it, and you know, within a year I was on the British team and all of a sudden, you know, you're traveling all around the world competing and there's a certain aspect of that that's very appealing to a young man. You know, the competitive element and traveling internationally with the British squad, there's a lot of fun in that. Next thing you know, click your fingers, turn around and 12 years have gone. It's just one of those things.
It looks like a very demanding sport now.
Statham: It was very good for me to do what I'm doing now, because a lot of the training is all sort of, pointed in a direction that, you know, allows you to gain aerial awareness, so if you're doing a lot of the stunts, you have a very great sense of distance and timing. And you know, a lot of the tumbling that I used to do, and trampolining, it's paid dividends in so many ways doing all the stunts. And it's definitely a large portion of my early physical life. It's definitely paid off.
With so many roles and physical stunts under your belt, were you able to give your girlfriend Rosie any tips for shooting Transformers 3?
Statham: We're not asking about Rosie.
Your character in this movie is a big car enthusiast, is it something you're interested in?
Statham: I love cars actually, yes. We could talk all day about vintage cars, yes.
So it must have hurt to see that beautiful vintage car blow up.
Statham: I'm not sure what they did, but I'm sure they just made a shell that was very cheap and the same color, but yeah, the old E-type is a great car.
Do you have any cool cars?
Statham: I don't have any classics no, they tend to break down a lot and there's always a problem with that. There's nothing reliable about an old classic. It's just great to sit in and walk around and admire, but you know, the practical side of them is…
You don't like tinkering around with them?
Statham: No, I'm not much of a tinkerer, no. I just like the design and the materials that they use. I'm particularly fond of all the Jags, the old Austin Martins, the British cars.
How far out do you plan for your career? I mean, are you thinking already, I've got films lined up all in 2011, you know, I've got four things, or are you sort of like, I take one project at a time and that's as far as I'm going to look?
Statham: Sometimes you can get kind of chopped up with it. This is the first period in several years now that for the next few months I'm not doing anything. Normally come January the last three years, I've always had something in front of me. The trouble is, once you sign on to do a movie, there's always an aspect of that, that you might miss something else, so.. The most I've had is a couple of movies in front of me, but now I'm just waiting for Stallone's next film, The Expendables [2].
You talked about it a second ago, but there's been a lot of conjecture that, 'it's definitely going, that it might be going'…
Statham: It's more than likely yeah. I'm very positive that it will be going.
Oh, so this is what you're waiting on.
Statham: Yes. Right now.
Ben Foster was mentioning before that to make movies for him sometimes it makes him a better person, or learn a bit more about himself, is it also helpful to you to make movies? Have you learned more about yourself over the years or…?
Statham: Not personally no. I enjoy making movies, that's a guarantee. I mean he's… Ben's a lot different to me. And I think that's what makes this pairing so good in the movie. He's a very different person indeed. That's what makes the world go around.
Was there a particular scene in The Mechanic, while you were shooting it where you just kind of thought: this is great, this is why I make movies, this is so much fun?
Statham: I think just being strung up there with Ben, to see how scared he was when we was doing the down the side. It makes me sound a little bit sadistic there, but yeah. It's great when you do something good and everyone… there's a great excitement to… it seems that a lot of the action is always so much more rewarding doing something in terms of the action than, you know, you do a good dramatic scene, there's no-one clapping for that. Apart from, you know, people might get touched by it, but the actual immediate reward, if you do a good stunt and it works out well, there's a great euphoria on set. And that just doesn't happen in dramatical scenes. A lot of people just don't get that immediate reward.
So when you're dangling there with Ben, is there a kind of sense when you're looking at him and you're going, "where's your Method acting now?"
Statham: It was quite fun yeah, he was pooping himself.
And how was it shooting in New Orleans?
Statham: We had a great time down there. We met some good people and made some great friends. It's the second film I've done down there. It's slightly more appealing in the winter time than it is in the summer. It gets kind of sticky.
Thank you.
Statham: All the best.


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Build Info Tag Plugin
compile "org.grails.plugins:build-info-tag:0.3.1"
Puts a build.info file in the generated WAR file and provides a few GSP tags to display the information in it. For now, the build number is the date and the plugin also collects the GIT commit number and displays it.
grails install-plugin build-info-tag
Build Info Tag PluginThis Grails plugin puts a build.info file in the classpath and provides a some GSP tags to display the information in it.For full documentation see Github documentation.
Release log
Version 0.3.1
- Added support for Windows


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Starting Oct. 1, the Columbus Metropolitan Library will reduce fines for late DVD returns and roll back the charges accrued for overdue material.
Starting Oct. 1, the Columbus Metropolitan Library will reduce fines for late DVD returns and roll back the charges accrued for overdue material.
At the same time, the library system will increase the borrowing period for DVDs from five to seven days. And the number of renewals allowed for all material has increased from five to 10.
While library officials acknowledge that fines help encourage customers to return materials on time and protect the collection, they recast the fine structure because of the wider availability of inexpensive DVDs, said Kim Snell, spokeswoman for the Columbus system.
"The initial purpose for charging higher fines for DVDs than books was because DVDs were more expensive and because we purchased fewer copies of each item," she said. "But this isn't really true any more. The cost for all the materials is nearly the same."
All fines for overdue adult materials -- books, CDs, DVDs -- will be 20 cents per day. Currently, the library charges 20 cents for books and CDs, and $1.25 per day for overdue DVDs.
All fines for overdue juvenile materials will be 10 cents per day. The library now charges 10 cents for books and CDs, and $1.25 per day for overdue DVDs.
Another significant change is that all any one adult item can accrue in late fees will be $5. Now, any one item can accrue up to $15 in fees. That will change for youth patrons, too. The most any one juvenile item can accrue in late fees will be $1. For the time being, any one item can accrue up to $15 in fees.
And the borrowing period for all books will change to 21 days. Popular book releases now must be returned after 14 days and those in less demand, 28 days.
What will not change is that cards will be blocked and customers will not be able to check out any materials if they have $10 or more in late fees, Snell said.
"The goal of the library is to get our materials into the hands of as many customers as we can," she said. "We believe lowering our fines will help ensure fewer customers are blocked from checking out books due to large fine balances from DVDs."
The library received about $1.5 million annually from late fees and fines for damaged material, Snell said.
"It sounds like a big figure, but with regard to our budget, it's about 2 percent," Snell said. "So it's not like a major contributor to our revenue stream."
Still in the discussion phase is a plan to eliminate a daily fine system in favor of a flat fine system, the timeline and dollar amount to be determined, Snell said. The board isn't expected to vote on that issue until next summer, she said.


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True Media has picked up more than a few accolades along our journey. Inc Magazine has listed us as one of the fastest growing companies every year since 2009, we won Bionic's Agency of the Year award for 2014 and 2015 and we were one of the 2012 Missouri Fast Track Award winners, just to name a few.


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DWTS12 End of Season Award Winners – Which Dance Was the Worst?
John: To be honest, I didn't really enjoy any of Wendy's or Kirstie's dances really. I enjoyed their humor and their one liners. I just wasn't a fan of their dancing at all. Even Kendra was a disappointment (we should have had an award for that). However, Wendy definitely takes the cake for worst dancer this season. Can you say awkward?
Vogue: Yeah, I picked Wendy too. She was not very good. Plus, her attitude was poor and egotistical. Poor Tony. I really felt sorry for him. Wendy wasn't as bad as Kate Gosselin, but, at times I had to kind of wonder?
Courtney: The fact that Wendy thought she was hot sh*t, coupled with some very (IMO) kindergarten choreography is what made this dance so bad. She was barely moving, yet with all the bravado she was throwing around both before & after the dance, you would have thought she danced like Nicole Scherzinger. The hair, the makeup, the dress, the choreo, the attitude – blech. No wonder Wendy ran away with more than half the vote! Mike & Lacey's foxtrot – ok, pretty bad, but it had a bit of a trainwreck appeal to it…and Mike was pretty damn lovable. Kirstie & Maks' jive wasn't the strongest technically, but it did have a pretty strong entertainment quality. I'm honestly surprised Kendra & Louis' Viennese waltz didn't get more votes – that was the dance that Kendra managed to somehow contort into some bizarre Mafia tribute, and she looked like a lost puppy the whole time. Oh – and it's also the week she said she didn't care about elegance 😛 I can't really fault Ralph & Karina for their samba being tacky – what the hell are you supposed to do when you get "Sweet Home Alabama" as your music? But of course, the judges raked them across the coals for it – just like they did everything else this season. *sigh* I actually kinda liked Chelsea & Mark's jive, but I agree that it was maybe a bit too "out there" to please the judges, and wasn't proper jive technique; Romeo & Chelsie's rumba was just a non-event. Perhaps the most interesting response in the write-in category: Chelsea & Mark's freestyle. It's interesting because the freestyles are almost universally popular with fans – but I have to agree that this one was a dud, and will probably go down in DWTS history as one of the worst…it just felt like such a cop-out to me. Just some routine that was thrown together, without any sort of connection to Chelsea. Some other responses: Ralph & Karina's salsa (ok, not their best, but I don't think it was worse than a lot of the dances above!), "Hinds" freestyle (I'm gonna assume you mean "Hines" :-)), Wendy & Tony's quickstep (I actually thought this one was the most tolerable of their 3 bad dances…), and "anything by Chelsea (OVERRATED)" lol. While I think Chelsea was blatantly overscored more often than not, I did enjoy a few of her dances – namely her foxtrot & jive. Overall, I think the right dance won this category – it was the combination of bad costuming, bad choreo, bad execution, and bad attitude that made this one a champion. But are there REALLY any winners in this category? 😉
Marianya: Do we REALLY have to pick? I mean, I would have thought it be pretty obvious. Wendy! Since the other bloggers have already said everything that needed to be said in regards to this celeb… all I'm going to say to TPTB is this: please be nicer next time, someone like her is an easy way to turn off the TV.
Heidi: Wendy…worst dancer, biggest diva. And that's just cray-cray. I quickly got to the point where I never wanted to see her face or hear her voice EVER again. That bit on the finale – I almost had turn the channel. 🙂 I would have, if it weren't for the cheesecake awards. All for you people. 😉