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Voices of Iraq
I don't want to see stores looted or buildings burned; but African- Americans have been living in burning buildings for years, choking on smoke as flames burn closer and closer. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
That's not a chip on my shoulder. That's your foot on my neck. – Malcolm X
"We must never, ever give up. We must be brave. We must be courageous." John Lewis, activist, congressman. 1940-2020
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~ Dalai Lama
"Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public." Professor Cornel West.
"Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat." Audre Lorde
"The serious function of racism is distraction". 1995, Toni Morrison; Portland lecture, Playing in The Dark
"If I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me." Nora Ephron
"Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another." author Toni Morrison (1931- 2019)
"If I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me"; Nora Ephron, author/comedian
"Make your story count". Michelle Obama
"Social pain is understood through the lens of racial animus". Researcher/author Sean McElwee writing in Salon, 2016
"We are citizens, not subjects. We have the right to criticize government without fear." Chelsea Manning; activist/whisleblower
"My father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I'm going to stay right here and have a part of it, just like you, And no fascist minded people, like you, will drive me from it. Is that clear?" Paul Robeson; activist/singer
"We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent". from civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson
"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?" Frederick Douglass, WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS 4TH JULY? 07.05.1852 (full text in blog)
Senator Elizabeth Warren "We're a country that is built on our differences; that is our strength, not our weakness"
"We are more alike than we are different" ~ Maya Angelou
As a Black writer, I was expected to accept the role of victim. That made it difficult in the beginning to be a writer. James Baldwin
I often feel that there must have been something that I should've done that I didn't do. But I can't identify what it is that I didn't do. That's the first difficulty. And the second is, what makes you think you're it?
Harry Belafonte, activist and singe
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble; It's what you know for sure that just ainst so.
You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.
You can't defend Christianity by being against refugees and other religions
Pope Francis:
"I don't have to be what you want me to be". Muhammad Ali
"The Secret of Living Well and Longer: eat half, walk double, laugh triple, and love without measure" attributed to Tibetan sources
Recent audio posts include interviews with Rumi interpreter Shahram Shiva, London-based author Aamer Hussein, South African Muslim scholar, professor Farid Esack, and Iraqi journalist Nermeen Al-Mufti's brief account of Kirkuk City history. Your comments on our blogs are always welcome.
Ali Mazrui (1933-2014) 1997 essay "Islamic Values, The Liberal Ethic and the West", part 3
by Barbara Nimri Aziz
Part 3 Life Among the Believers
Many of the issues (outlined in parts 1 and 2) are bound up with religion. Westerners consider many problems or flaws of the Muslim world products of Islam and pride their societies and their governments on their purported secularism. But when it comes to separation of church and state, how long and wide is the distance between the two cultures?
A central question is whether a theocracy can ever be democratized. British history since Henry VIII's establishment of the Church of England in 1531 proves that it can be. The English theocracy was democratized first by making democracy stronger and later by making the theocracy weaker. The major democratic changes had to wait until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the vote was extended to new social classes and finally to women. The Islamic Republic of Iran is less than two decades old, but already there seem to be signs of softening theocracy and the beginnings of liberalization. Nor must we forget Muslim monarchies that have taken initial steps toward liberalization. Jordan has gone further than most others in legalizing opposition groups. But even Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states have begun to use the Islamic concept of shura (consultative assembly) as a guide to democracy.
The West has sought to protect minority religions through secularism. It has not always worked. The Holocaust in secular Germany was the worst case. And even today, anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe is disturbing, as are anti-Muslim trends in France.
The United States has had separation of church and state under the Constitution for over 200 years, but American politics is hardly completely secular. Only once has the electorate chosen a non-Protestant president – and the Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy won by such a narrow margin, amid such allegation of electoral fraud, that we will never know for certain whether a majority of Americans actually voted for him. Jews have distinguished themselves in many fields, but they have so far avoided competing for the White House, and there is still a fear of unleashing the demon of anti-Semitism among Christian fundamentalists. There are now more Muslims – an estimated six millions – than Jews in the United States, yet anti-Muslim feeling and the success of appeals to Christian sentiment among voters make it extremely unlikely that Americans will elect a Muslim head of state anytime in the foreseeable future. Even the appointment of a Muslim secretary of commerce, let alone an attorney general, is no more than a distant conjecture because of the political fallout that all administrations fear. When First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton entertained Muslim leaders at the White House last year to mark a special Islamic festival, a Wall Street Journal article cited that as evidence that friends of Hamas had penetrated the White House. In Western Europe, too, there are now millions of Muslims, but history is still awaiting the appointment of the first to a cabinet
position in Britain, France, or Germany.
Islam, on the other hand, has tried to protect minority religions through
ecumenicalism throughout its history. Jews and Christians had special status as People of the Book – a fraternity of monotheists. Other religious minorities were later also accorded the status of protected minorities (dhimmis). The approach has had its successes. Jewish scholars rose to high positions in Muslim Spain. During the Ottoman Empire, Christians sometimes attained high political office: Suleiman I (1520-1566) had Christian ministers in his government, as did Selim III (1789-1807). The Moghul Empire integrated Hindus and Muslims into a consolidated Indian state; Emperor Akbar (1556-1605) carried furthest the Moghul policy of bringing Hindus into the government. In the 1990s Iraq has had a Chaldean Christian deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz. And Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a Coptic Christian, would never have been appointed secretary-general of the United Nations if not for his long and distinguished service in the foreign ministry of an otherwise Muslim government in Egypt.
The Republic of Senegal in West Africa, which is nearly 95 percent Muslim, had a Roman Catholic president for two decades (1960-80). In his years presiding over that relatively open society, Léopold Sédar Senghor never once had to deal with anti-Christian disturbances in the streets of Dakar. His political opponents called him a wide range of derogatory names –hypocrite, stooge of the French, dictator, political prostitute – but virtually never taunted him for being a kafir (infidel).
When Senghor became the first African head of state to retire voluntarily from office, Abdou Diouf, a Muslim, succeeded him, and he remains president today. But the ecumenical story of Senegal did not end there; the first lady is Catholic. Can one imagine an American president candidate confessing on Larry King Live, "Incidentally, my wife is a Shiite Muslim"? That would almost certainly mark the end of his hopes for the White House.
One conclusion to be drawn from all this is that Westerners are far less secular in their political behavior than they think they are. Another is that Muslim societies historically have been more ecumenical, and therefore more humane, than their Western critics have recognized. Islamic ecumenicalism has sometimes protected religions minorities more effectively than Western secularism.
Between the Dazzling and the Depraved
Cultures should be judged not merely by the heights of achievement to which they have ascended but by the depths of brutality to which they have descended. The measure of cultures is not only their virtues but also their vices.
In the twentieth century, Islam has not often proved fertile ground for
democracy and its virtues. On the other hand, Islamic culture has not been
hospitable to Nazism, fascism, or communism, unlike Christian culture (as in
Germany, Italy, Russia, Czechoslovakia), Buddhist culture (Japan before and
during World War II, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea), or Confucian
culture (Mao's China). The Muslim world has never yet given rise to systematic fascism and its organized brutalities. Hafiz al-Assad's Syria and Saddam Hussein's Iraq have been guilty of large-scale violence, but fascism also requires an ideology of repression that has been absent in the two countries. And apart from the dubious case of Albania, communism has never independently taken hold in a Muslim culture.
Muslims are often criticized for not producing the best, but they are seldom congratulated for an ethic that has averted the worst. There are no Muslim equivalents of Nazi extermination camps, nor Muslim conquests by genocide on the scale perpetrated by Europeans in the Americas and Australia, nor Muslim equivalents of Stalinist terror, Pol Pot's killing fields, or the starvation and uprooting of tens of millions in the name of Five Year Plans. Nor are there Muslim versions of apartheid like that once approved by the South African Dutch Reformed Church, or of the ferocious racism of Japan before 1945, or of the racist culture of the Old South in the United States with its lynchings and brutalization of black people.
Islam brings to the calculus of universal justice some protection from the abyss of human depravity. Historically, the religion and the civilization have been resistant to forces that contributed to the worst aspects of the twentieth century's interludes of barbarism: racism, genocide, and violence within society.
First, Islam has been relatively resistant to racism. The Koran confronts the issue of national and ethnic differences head on. The standard of excellence it sets has nothing to do with race, but is instead moral and religious worth – what the Koran calls "piety" and what Martin Luther King, Jr., called "the content of one's character." An oft-quoted verse of the Koran reads: O people! We have created you from a male and a female, and have made you nations and tribes so that you may know one another. The noblest among you is the most pious. Allah is all-knowing.
In his farewell address, delivered on his last pilgrimage to Mecca in A.D. 632, Muhammad declared: "There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, and indeed, no superiority of a red man over a black man except through the piety and fear of God… Let those who are present convey this message to those who are absent."
Unlike Christian churches, the mosque has never been segregated by race. One of Muhammad's most beloved companions was an Ethiopian, Bilal Rabah, a freed slave who rose to great prominence in early Islam. Under Arab lineage systems and kinship traditions, racial intermarriage was not discouraged and the children were considered Arab regardless of who the mother was. These Arab ways influenced Muslim societies elsewhere. Of the four presidents of Egypt since the revolution of 1952, two had black African ancestors – Muhammad Nagib and Anwar al-Sadat.
Islam has a doctrine of Chosen Language (Arabic) but no Chosen People. Since the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine I in A.D. 313, Christianity has been led if not dominated by Europeans. But the leadership of the Muslim world has changed hands several times: from the mainly Arab Umayyad dynasty (661-750) to the multiethnic Abbasid dynasty (750-1258) to the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922), dominated by the Turks. And this history is quite apart from such flourishing Muslim dynasties as the Moghuls of India and the Safavids of Persia or the sub-Saharan empires of Mali and Songhai. The diversification of Muslim leadership – in contrast to the Europeanization of Christian leadership – helped the cause of relative racial equality in Islamic culture.
Partly because of Islam's relatively nonracial nature, Islamic history has been free of systematic efforts to obliterate a people. Islam conquered by co-optation, intermarriage, and conversion rather than by genocide.
Incidents in Muslim history, it is true, have caused large-scale loss of life. During Turkey's attempt in 1915 to deport the entire Armenian population of about 1,750,000 to Syria and Palestine, hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps up to a million, died of starvation or were murdered on the way. But – though this does not exonerate Turkey or its responsibility for the deaths – Armenians had provoked Turkey by organizing volunteer battalions to help Russia fight against it in World War I. Nor is the expulsion of a people from a territory, however disastrous its consequences, equivalent to the Nazi Holocaust, which systematically took the lives of six million Jews and members of other despised groups. Movement of people between India and Pakistan after partitioning 1947 also resulted in thousands of deaths en route.
Saddam Hussein's use of poison gas against Kurdish villages in Iraq in 1988 is more clearly comparable to Nazi behavior. But Saddam's action was the use of an illegitimate weapon in a civil war rather than a planned program to destroy the Kurdish people; it was an evil incident rather than a program of genocide. Many people feel that President Harry S Truman's dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was also an evil episode. There is a difference between massacre and genocide. Massacres have been perpetrated in almost every country on earth, but only a few cultures have been guilty of genocide.
Nor did Islam ever spawn an Inquisition in which the burning of heretics at the stake was sanctioned. Cultures that had condemned human beings to burn and celebrated as they died in the flames, even hundreds of years before, were more likely to tolerate the herding of a whole people of another faith into gas chambers. Islam has been a shield against such excesses of evil.
For More on Mazrui see a), b) and check out his courageous and censored TV series The Africans: A Triple Heritage
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The tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching our goals, but in having no goals to reach
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Motsoko Pheko, former South African parliamentarian
Tahrir Diwan
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"Soft Facism"
read by novelist/poet Mohja Kahf
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Talaal Badru Alayna
praises to the Prophet, from Nazira CD, female voices
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Wat Si Saket
Wat Si Saket Vientiane
Wat Si Saket is an ancient Buddhist pagoda, which famous for over 2000 none – head Buddha statues and many other valuable statues.
Located in Setthathirath Road, Vientiane, Laos, formerly the place where the Emerald Buddha festival was held. Wat Si Saket was built by King Chao Anuvong, the last king of Lan Xang kingdom, in 1818. It is located near Phra Keo pagoda, where the famous Emerald Buddha statue is located. At that time, Laos had just become the vassal state of Siam, which explains why this pagoda had Bangkok structure. It also can be the reason why Wat Si Saket was not destroyed when the Siamese army attacked Vientiane in 1828 and only Emerald Buddha statue was robbed. Therefore, Wat Si Saket is known as the oldest pagoda in Vientiane. Besides this explanation, there is another legend about the pagoda. When the Siamese attack the pagoda, the sky was covered by dark cloud. The army were scary and retreated immediately because they believed that was the anger of heaven. Thus, only Wat Si Saket survived, continuing to play an important rule in spiritual activities of Vientiane people since the 19th century until today.
Wat Si Saket architecture and artifacts are the main reasons that attract many tourists to visit this area every year. The Bangkok architecture with 5 corridors surrounds "sim" (the main shrine). The gate of the pagoda is made of simple textured laminated woods, but tourists will be amazed at the huge number of all sizes Buddha statues inside Wat Si Saket. Most of the statues are not intact such as: lost their hands, legs or cracked, etc. but they all lost their heads. The walls of the corridors are home to more than 2000 big and small Buddha statues, made in the 16th - 19th centuries. Around the corridors, there are more than 300 Buddha statues in the style of Lao sculptures which made of wood, stone or tin. The western corridor displayed a series of broken statues – result of the Siamese army's attack in 1828.
The Central Praying Hall
It is also a museum where more than 8000 valuable books are kept and 6840 Buddha statues were made of many materials such as bronze, stone, wood, silver or plaster, etc. Inside the main shrine has thousands small blocks, each block placed a Buddha statue, creating a sense of protection for the prayers. The outside corridor system also placed hundreds of big and small Buddha statues. There is also a nearly 400-year-old library with many ancient Buddhist scriptures written by hand on palm leaves.
Until now, monks in Wat Si Saket still go on a mendicant journey, to have daily meals and give tribute to the souls which were sent in the pagoda. Local people give their food to the monk's pagoda, which is also the way they show their respect to Buddha, praying for peace and health.
If you have chance to visit Vientiane, the capital of Laos, do not forget to come Wat Si Saket and discover the fascinating things of this ancient pagoda.
Wat Si Saket Map

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C.15136 - 2 years young - hardly lived in and immaculately maintained. 1st floor, SE lake view carriage home checks all boxes! Write a contract today and be ready to move in tomorrow - enjoy season in your new Naples home! 12'x24" tile in main living areas, quartz counter tops, soft close doors and drawers on all cabinets, 5.5" crown molding and base boards, extra high hat lighting in kitchen and baths, upgraded SS appliances, comfort height toilets. Wide open kitchen, great room, dining area. Perfect for entertaining or simply relaxing after a tough day at the nearby beach or community pool. Large pantry. Upgraded storage cabinets and countertop in laundry room. Ceiling fans in all rooms. Plantation shutters on all windows and sliders. Hurricane impact resistant, low E glass on all windows. Motorized sun shades on lanai. Extra sound insulation in the walls. 2 car garage with epoxy floor. Ultraviolet light on AC for extra protection against mold and bacteria. Friendly, gated community close to everything offering large pool with cabanas, clubhouse, and state of the art fitness center. Low fees! Walking distance to North Collier Community Park and Oakes Seed to Table Market.


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ABOUT SMSS
2019 Leadership Team
DONATE TO SMSS
Society of Military Spouses in STEM
Envisioning what doesn't exist yet.
Illuminating Spouses in STEM: Lily Snyder
An interview with one of SMSS' members featuring her journey and achievements as a military spouse in a STEM career field.
Meet Lily Snyder. Lily is originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has a BBA from Grand Valley State University in Management Information Systems and International Business. She worked as an IT consultant on enterprise software implementations for many years. In 2016 she took the risk and joined a virtual reality startup, Doghead Simulations. Now she works as the Content Manager for SMSS while taking time to raise her son. No matter where she moves she always finds a martial arts dojo. She loves to be active outside of the office whether it's walking her dog or participating in a local 5K. She thinks races are a fun way to get involved in and see a new town.
Tell us an interesting story about growing up that is related to your field of work.
Growing up, my parents worked from home. My dad had an office in the basement where he worked on government contracts. My mom ran the accounting side of the business. It wasn't unusual to see my dad spray paint toy tanks different camouflage patterns and placing them around the yard to test their visibility with his computer programs. I'll never forget the time he ordered an electronic wheelchair and turned it into a robot. He steered it around our house, trying to track our dog. "The tail is the hardest point to track because of the way it moves." He said. Who knew that this was the first glimpse into my future, combining my love for technology and the military life.
What do you enjoy about your current duty station?
My husband and I are both from Michigan. We joke that we come from the frozen north. After so many long winters, I really enjoy the warm weather in Tennessee. There are lots of outdoor opportunities in the area and only being 50 minutes away from Nashville is a huge plus!
What company do you work for or if in school, what school do you go to?
I worked remotely and moved from state to state before I married my husband and we moved for the Army. I used to think it was no big deal to keep pursing my career while working from home. Since becoming a military family, I have a new perspective on what that means.
My fellow military spouses are what inspires me. I want to show that you can make an impact, follow your dream, and have a career no matter how often you move or where you're located.
How does your day start or what gets you out of bed in the morning?
These days my one and a half year old son is what gets me out of bed in the morning. After he goes down for nap I hop online to see the latest technology news and remote work trends. Since I was in a VR startup, I love to write about how VR will influence our lives.
What's the coolest thing you're working on right now?
The coolest thing I'm working on right now is SMSS! I was overjoyed to see a society for military spouses in STEM. I finally felt like I found a place where I belonged. I think it's so important to join professional organizations as a military spouse because even if you don't work at the moment you can still stay involved in your industry.
What do you appreciate about your work environment?
I am grateful to be able to work remotely. I've worked from home, local coffee shops, airports, planes, hotel rooms, convention centers, and my car. I love the efficiency of being able to get online from wherever I'm at to knock out some work.
What is your biggest achievement to date – professionally?
This is tough. I think my biggest professional achievements were when I was invited to speak at IIeX Europe in Amsterdam about virtual reality and marketing. Also, when I was nominated by my connections on LinkedIn to be the Keynote Speaker for VR Day at Cincinnati Startup Week.
What do you like most about your job?
My favorite part of working in tech is to spread joy and bring enthusiasm to a project. There are so many ways tech projects can fail but when we work together as people with a new technology we can create great things.
How do you see being a military spouse or being in the military space has helped you with your job?
Being a military spouse has helped me with my job because it's allowed me to connect with colleagues who served or are part of the reserves on another level. There are special networking opportunities in the military space that I wouldn't have otherwise. I am grateful for the unique bond that forms between everyone with a military connection.
How do you feel like Professional Organizations like SMSS can help you with your career or professional goals?
I think professional organizations like SMSS help with career and professional goals by connecting members to potential employers. Professional organizations provide learning opportunities, chances to speak and hear from other professionals in your field, they are great for networking. Talking to other professionals helps keep your mind engaged.
What advice would you give to new spouses about being in the STEM career field?
You have a lot of options. Join professional organizations, be active on LinkedIn, and be proud of being a military spouse in STEM. You've taken on a challenge, STEM career and military lifestyle, that not everyone gets a chance to take. You've got this!
Lily Snyder is an IT Consultant and freelance writer. She is passionate about telling her story of working remotely, cofounding a startup, and speaking worldwide all while PCSing from post to post. Lily is a proud military spouse to her husband, an active-duty Army physician. You can find her on her website Lilyotron.blog or reach out to her through LinkedIn.
Article by SMSS Admin / Illuminating Military Spouses in STEM 1 Comment
Belinda Bicknell says
Great interview! I hope to see more.
Join SMSS
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Zaltbommel är en kommun i provinsen Gelderland i Nederländerna. Kommunens totala area är 89,06 km² (där 9,12 km² är vatten) och invånarantalet är på 26 137 invånare (2005).

Kända personer
 Conrad Leemans
 Willem Gerard van Nouhuys

Externa länkar

 Officiell Webbplats

Orter i Gelderland

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


On Monday 21 November, 2016 the diocese of Achonry held their 1st Pope John Paul II Award ceremony in St Nathy's College, Ballaghderreen, Co. Roscommon.
Bishop Brendan Kelly presented the Award to 19 students from secondary schools in Charlestown, Tubbercurry, Ballymote, Ballaghaderren and Ballisodare in the presence of their families, teachers and friends.
This first group, is seen as a very important development in the diocese. Monica Morley, of Mid West Radio spoke to the gathering and encouraged the young people to keep deeply involved in their church, making the point that Parish is the touchstone. Bishop Brendan thanked the young people and congratulated them on their achievements.
Three of the recipients spoke of their journey through the Award process and it was evident the journey had been good for them. Activities included volunteering in St Vincent de Paul shop, being part of the youth group on our Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes, helping a local priest edit and publish the parish bulletin, joining the Folk Group, being Ministers of The Word and much more. All in all, impressive presentations by impressive young people. Well done to them all.
Members of the Knights of St Columbanus were also in attendance. Fr Joe Gavigan, Chaplain to the Knights of St Columbanus, welcomed them all and wished them well.
The Pope John Paul II Award is run in 21 Irish dioceses and 2 in the UK. It was launched in the diocese of Achonry in 2014 with the valued support of the Knights of St. Columbanus. Each young person taking part in the Award chooses to get involved in parish life as well as participating in social awareness activities in their locality.
If you want to get involved in the Award in the Diocese of Achonry, you can find information and Award resources on the Achonry Award website.


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November 2, 2016 March 26, 2019 by unaverdandi
The Master of Mischief, Part IV: Loki's Charms
Loki's Charms
In the modern day, Loki is occasionally drawn up as being power-hungry and possibly psychopathic, but this interpretation obscures the complexity of his original character. While the mythological Loki does some truly horrifying things (he does bring about the destruction of the Nine Worlds, after all), he is mostly just a troublemaking pain in the arse and he often gets kicked around for it.
It's hard to know quite where to start discussing the master of mischief, but as usual, it's best to start at the beginning—in this case, with the early myth of Mjolnir's creation.1
Getting Hammered
For reasons unknown, Loki gives Thor's wife, Sif, a surprise haircut, so Thor threatens Loki until he agrees to fix it. Loki seeks help from two dwarves simply known as the sons of Ivaldi, who produce golden hair that will grow like natural hair, plus a spear (Gungnir) and a ship that folds up small enough to fit into a man's purse (Skidbladnir).
But Loki isn't done. He spots two other dwarves, Brokk and Eitri,2 and wagers that they can't make any items finer than the ones he has just received. If he loses, they get to keep his head. The game is rigged, of course, and while the dwarves work, Loki turns into a fly and bites them. They keep working, and when they are done, they present a boar with golden bristles (Gullinbursti), a gold ring that drips eight copies of itself every nine days (Draupnir), and a hammer that if thrown, will return to the thrower's hand (Mjolnir). One dwarf says that Mjolnir's handle is shorter than intended because a fly bit his eyelid and the blood obscured his vision while he worked the bellows.
Loki and the two dwarves take the lot back to Asgard to be judged and, wouldn't you know it, the dwarves win the wager. Loki tries to flee, but Thor thwarts his efforts. Finally, Loki calls up a technicality, saying that the dwarf can have his head but not his neck. Of course, you can't really cut off someone's head without taking part of their neck, so the dwarves stitched Loki's lips together and left.
It was Loki's mischievousness that caused the problem, and his willingness to make amends saved his life—at first. But when his mischievousness (combined with greed and possibly a desire to win favour from the Aesir) got him into more trouble, his cleverness very literally saved his neck.
Loki's motivation for cutting Sif's hair is unclear. I've heard one person suggest that it may be related to Sif's infidelity, which Loki exposes at Aegir's feast while claiming to be the other party to the, ahem, dirty deed. This is an interesting hypothesis, but it's also quite possible that he was just being foolish and impetuous, or that he found it amusing to embarrass Sif and/or Thor, who is responsible for safeguarding the women in his life. Of course, Loki would have known that upsetting Sif would get him in deep trouble with Thor (which it did), and at that early stage he hasn't yet developed the vicious streak that shows up in the later myths. But (if you will indulge my speculation) perhaps we're missing part of the story and Loki acted under compulsion. It would certainly fit the pattern established by several other myths.
Promises Made, Promises Kept
One of the core values of Viking society was honour, and one of the most honourable things you could do was follow through on your oaths. The Vikings often lived in relatively small communities, were highly social, and their daily lives were primarily taken up with work from morning until night. They had animals and crops to tend, kids to raise, food to cook, and clothes to make—from scratch.3 Winter was coming and things just had to get done. Oath-keeping was critical for the members of these societies to just survive, so trustworthiness and reliability were highly prized traits.
Knowing this, would you be surprised to learn that Loki consistently makes good on his promises? Well, he does and, ironically, it's one of the reasons he lands himself in so much trouble.
Consider the story of Geirröd's attempt to kill Thor. In Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, Loki flies to Geirrödgard in Frigg's falcon cloak4 and sits up in a high window of the hall. Geirröd spots the "bird" and sends his servant to retrieve it. Amused by the servant's struggle to climb the wall, Loki sits and waits because he thinks he will have time to escape. However, when he tries to take off, his feet are stuck to the ledge and he is captured. Geirröd interrogates him but gets no answers, so he locks Loki in a trunk and starves him. After three months, Loki finally tells him his name and, under threat of harm, agrees to bring Thor to back to Geirrödgard without his hammer or belt of strength.
The Prose Edda does not elaborate on exactly how Loki convinces Thor to leave Mjolnir behind, but it is implied that he uses some rather crafty means. Indeed, it seems that Thor doesn't know much about Geirröd, because when he visits Gríd, one of his father's mistresses, she tells him that Geirröd is dangerous. She then lends him her belt, steel gloves, and staff to protect himself.
Granted, Thor's not the sharpest sword in the armoury, but one would think that being persuaded to visit a land full of enemies without a weapon would set those warrior instincts a-screamin'. Apparently not. But it's a good thing Thor had some kind of weapon on hand because Geirröd and his daughters all try to kill him and instead are all killed by him.
According to Sturluson's version of the myth,5 Loki goes back to Geirrödgard with Thor, although he doesn't seem to play an active role on the journey. You could ask why Loki accompanies Thor this time, but perhaps the question should be why he even complies with Geirröd's demands in the first place. If Loki really were as duplicitous as some popular conceptions would have it, then it would be much easier for him to make the promise to save his own skin and then break it for the same reason.
The most reasonable answer to both of the above questions, however, is likely that Loki was very simply keeping his oath. Geirröd trapped and starved him, then extracted information and promises from him under duress. Since Loki had no known relationship to Geirröd outside of this story, it's extremely unlikely that this was a relationship Loki would care to maintain. He did have a relatively close relationship with Thor, however, and had Thor realized that Loki had delivered him into enemy hands under false pretenses, he could easily have beaten the tar out of Loki. Additionally, if Thor had been killed and the Aesir discovered Loki's treachery, Loki most certainly would not receive a warm welcome at their dinner table ever again.
Perhaps Loki hoped that Thor would kill Geirröd (Loki certainly had reason to hate him), but then why lure Thor with deceit? Surely, Asgard's ultimate alpha male would be more than willing to prove his dominance, especially if he knew that an enemy was itching for a fight. Geirröd stipulated only that Thor was not to bring his hammer or belt, so another weapon could have been—and was in fact—allowed. Loki could have turned on Geirröd or played Thor and Geirröd against each other to save his own hide. Instead, he did what he promised and nothing more.
But by no means is this the only case where Loki gets himself out trouble by promising to do things that cause further mayhem.
An Apple a Day … Attracts Hungry Jötnar
While travelling with Odin and Hoenir, Loki loses his temper with the Jötun Thjazi (who is in eagle form) and strikes him with pole that mysteriously fastens itself to both parties.6 Thjazi flies away, dragging Loki along for a rough ride that only stops when Loki promises to help Thjazi kidnap Idunn and her apples of youth.
Just as in the story of Geirröd, Loki keeps his promise, but this time the Aesir find out what happened and demand that Loki set things right, which he does. He manages to retrieve Idunn, but Thjazi flies after him. The Aesir build a fire, and when Thjazi flies overhead, his wings are burned and he crashes to the ground where he is killed. When Thjazi's daughter, Skadi, arms herself and comes to Asgard, she demands that the Aesir compensate her with a husband and with someone to make her laugh.7 The second job falls to Loki, who ties his testicles to the beard of a goat in a most absurd game of tug-of-war. Needless to say, he gets the job done.
Of course, all this misery (and much more besides) could have been avoided if Loki had learned to manage his impulses, but that was just not his way. However, there are also cases where Loki is not at fault for some awful situation but the Aesir put him on clean-up duty anyway.
An Eight-Legged Boy and his Mother
A builder came to Asgard and offered to build a protective wall that would keep out all enemies, asking for Freyja and the sun and moon as payment. He said he could do it in three half-years, but as much as the Aesir wanted the wall, they did not want to make this payment. Their counter-offer required him to do it in one winter (six months) with no help from any man. The builder asked if he could still employ his horse, Svadilfari; at Loki's suggestion, his request was granted.
However, Svadilfari was no ordinary steed. He worked night and day to bring boulders back to his master, who came worryingly close to fulfilling his end of the bargain. The Aesir rather conveniently concluded that Loki must have been behind all this and threatened Loki with a terrible death unless he could find some way to thwart the builder. Clever Loki turned himself into a mare and neighed to attract Svadilfari's attention. The ploy worked: Svadilfari came running and the two disappeared, to the builder's dismay. Unable to complete his work on time, the builder showed himself to be a Jötun and was subsequently killed by Thor. Loki returned sometime after giving birth to Svadilfari's foal, the eight-legged Sleipnir, whom Loki gave to Odin.
What's curious is that there are no winners here. Really, everyone comes off looking pretty bad. The builder offers a reasonable service, albeit for an unreasonable price and possibly for malevolent purposes. The Aesir set him up to fail by making a deal that looks fair but which they don't believe can be fulfilled. They blame Loki for their conundrum, but there is no evidence that Loki actually colluded with the builder. Why Loki prodded the Aesir accept builder's request―whether it was to deliberately assist the builder or whether Loki just figured that this would make the deal appear more acceptable so the Aesir would get their wall―is an interesting question. But regardless of Loki's intentions in the matter, the Aesir broke their oath. When the builder came close to earning his pay, not only did they create a crisis that would cause him to fail, but they also had him killed when they found out who he was. The Aesir reneged on their deal, the builder died a swift and brutal death, Odin got "the greatest of all horses",8 and Loki did the Aesir's dirty work, becoming a "pervert"9 in the process.
The mythology turns tragic, however, when Loki ceases to be a friend to Odin. In Part V: Ragnarök, I will deconstruct the end of the world and how it represents the breakdown of society.
Part VI: Trickster, Blood Brother and Nemesis
While it is tricky to put the myths in a specific order, there are a few myths that clearly belong in early, middle, or late periods in the mythological setting. Since Thor has his hammer for virtually the entire known mythology, this story clearly fits into an early period. ↩
At some point after the Middle Ages, someone scrawled "Brokk and Sindri" in the margins of the Poetic Edda, but Eitri is the correct name. [Lindow, John. Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford University Press, Toronto [2001], pp. 106, 267.] ↩
Just making clothes could be a full-time job. The wool had to be collected, carded, spun, woven, and sewn, all by hand. Although the Lendbreen tunic pre-dates the Viking Age, it took 760 hours to produce using technologies that probably had not changed much by the time the Vikings appeared. To give you some perspective, 760 hours at 40 hours per week works out to 19 weeks, or just over four months, to make one tunic. Now imagine trying to clothe an entire family. ↩
In "Thrym's Poem" in the Poetic Edda, Loki borrows Freyja's falcon cloak. ↩
In the poem "Thórsdrápa", an earlier version of the myth told by tenth century skald Eilíf Gudrúnarson, Thor is accompanied by his faithful human servant, Thjalfi . The poem, or a large part of it, is included in the Prose Edda. ↩
As you can see, Loki has a way of becoming inconveniently "stuck" to things. ↩
Blood money was a common way to legally settle violent disputes without further bloodshed, so this sort of compensation for the death of a family member was not unusual. ↩
Sturluson, Snorri. The Prose Edda. transl. Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, Ph.D. Oxford University Press, New York [1916], p. 28. ↩
In "Loki's Quarrel", Odin tries to silence Loki by recounting a now-lost story of how Loki gave birth and was thus a "pervert". [Larrington, Carolyne, transl. The Poetic Edda. Oxford University Press, New York [2014], pp. 84, 295.] ↩
Posted in Norse mythologyTagged Loki, Norse mythology, Viking culture
Previous Link Roundup #1: Going A-Viking
Next I'm not dead yet—I feel happy!


Join us on April 29 to celebrate World Tai Chi & Qigong Day. We will be offering a free outdoor tai chi practice session from 9-10am at Sherwood Gardens, Baltimore. Meet at the east side of the gardens near Underwood Rd. Sherwood Gardens is located one block east of the 4100 block of St Paul Street. Dress for the weather and wear flat-soled outdoor shoes. Coffee and treats provided!
Please join our meetup group to find out about classes, special events, and social activities.
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Video: 162mph in a Lola T70... blind!
Tickets now available for the Goodwood Revival
We'd advise headphones for this one, the noise from the wonderful Chevrolet V8 in the back of Pedro Macedo Silva's beautiful Lola T70 makes the video worth a play on its own.
The race is the Whitsun Trophy (highlights of which you can see here), which closed the second day of the Goodwood Revival with an incredible collection of stunning pre-'66 Can-Am cars. While the race would eventually be won by Goodwood unofficial lap record holder Nick Padmore, it is our camera car that gets the jump off the line.
Sadly for Pedro, if you keep an eye on the rear view camera you will see Padmore immediately on the Portuguese's tail, and he's back at the head of the field before the cars are through St Mary's. Padmore streaks off into the distance, and took the chequered flag just under a second clear of Olly Bryant's T70 following a safety car affected race.
What is more astonishing than the sheer speed shown by the awesome Lola is that Macedo Silva was able to keep up enough pace to finish fourth, despite an almost unbelievable build up of oil and dirt, thrown up by the races numerous incidents. By the end of the race you can barely see out of the camera's discoloured screen and Pedro's visor must surely have ended up in a similar fashion.
However, despite his drenching in oil and filth, it seems he rather enjoyed his outing in West Sussex. Pedro wrote after the race: 'My lack of experience compared to the high caliber of the race drivers like Nick Padmore, Tony Sinclair, Oliver Bryant and Jay Esterer that were racing with me. The race ended sooner than it was supposed to because of an accident, a lot of oil on track, and with the not so perfect car setup, I ended in 4th, which is not bad at all! I hope I'm invited next year to this magnificent race to try and do better.
'It´s definitely sensational to race at Goodwood Revival.'
Enjoy the video…
The Revival Collection
Video - Record Holder Wrestles Lola T70 Round Goodwood
Video: Qualifying a Lola T70 is a growling symphony
Video: From P6 to P2 in one lap in a Lola T70
Goodwood Greats: Lola T70 Spyder
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Might as well jump.
Review by	Dan Whitehead, Contributor
Despite what the title may lead you to believe, the Free Running game actually has more in common with Parkour. "Aren't they the same thing?" you cry, understandably confused. "No", I reply. "No, no, no."
I once thought as you did, that there was only one urban sport involving running around and jumping off rooftops, and that it had two interchangeable names - a flouncy French one, and a more prosaic English version. Then I did a little Wikiresearch for this review and discovered that Free Running and Parkour are now totally different things. David Belle, who appeared as the runny-jumpy guy in Luc Besson's District 13, represents Parkour. This involves getting from one point to another in the most efficient way possible. Sebastien Foucan, who appeared as the runny-jumpy guy in Casino Royale, represents Free Running. This involves getting from one point to another in the most stylish way possible.
See? Totally different. Don't laugh. It's a serious distinction. Google it. People get into fights over this stuff. Tsk.
Nosy parkours
Pierre wasn't sure what worried him more - his imminent fatal plunge or his paisley cycling shorts.
So, even though it's called Free Running and features a virtual Foucan as your mentor, this game clearly adheres more closely to the Parkour philosophy. Scores and success come from agility and speed rather than flair and flamboyance. No doubt free running message boards are imploding with volcanic outrage already.
With that annoying semantic distinction out of the way, what to make of this first videogame outing for the self-proclaimed art of urban movement? It's been officially described as "Tony Hawk without skateboards" and that does a pretty good job of encapsulating the style of control and gameplay while also summing up the general redundancy of the whole experience.
As in every skateboard game since 1999, you navigate purposefully designed environments in search of things to trick off. Over fifty moves are available, depending on the context. Some, such as somersaults and flic-flacs, can be pulled off while running. Others, like the slingshot, require a specific situation - in this case, a horizontal wall-run with a drainpipe at the end. There are oodles of mini-challenges to complete, from simple checkpoint races to more bizarre fare - such as a free running robot that must be subjected to as much damage as possible. Variety is never a problem, but the controls are simply too fussy to fully capture the grace and fluidity of the free running concept.
Freefalling
The Liberace Twist, one of the most dangerous and fabulous moves in the world.
It's all about flow, you see, chaining together your moves into one effortless glide around the scenery. Just as in skating games, there are moves that can be used to segue between larger stunts, most notably the Breakfall - a little forwards-roll used to maintain your forward momentum when landing from a jump. Prodding square at the right time is all that's required to use this vital manoeuvre, yet the timing has to be precise to a split-second. Get it wrong and you stumble, losing precious flow.
This problem blights the game in general. The camera and controls are too stiff and awkward, so there's a definite limit as to how agile you can realistically be. Even the most basic trick can be hit or miss, while more complex acrobatics are even more infuriatingly elusive when the chips are down. It's not that I think the game should be easier, per se, just that it seems so determined to make you master every last handspring and footfall that the inherent appeal of free running - the "I can't believe I just did that!" factor - is all but lost amid a sea of unwieldy control combos and stern admonishments for not pressing X the nanosecond your feet touched a railing.
Still, it's easy to see why this game exists. A rising new extreme sport (though the more precious practitioners will snootily insist that it's neither extreme nor sport) with considerable youth appeal and an undeniably cool visual aesthetic - it's almost custom made for the videogame treatment. Except...it already exists in hundreds of other games. Making impossible leaps and nimbly navigating obstacles has been the bread and butter of gaming for, what, over a quarter of a century?
History repeating
Not pictured: Donkey Kong.
In fact, as I lunged for ledges and struggled to point in the right direction for an important leap, a nagging little thorn of familiarity kept pricking at my mind. For all the "first game of its type" fanfare, I was plagued by déjà vu. It was only when I remembered that Rebellion's Derby studio, where this game was produced, used to go by the name Core Design that it clicked.
Free Running is Tomb Raider.
Maybe not literally, I wouldn't go so far as to accuse them of using the same game engine, but there's an undeniable whiff of Lara in the boxy locations, the awkward movement, the very feel of the thing. The penny probably should have dropped sooner - they even make a sly reference to the series when you learn the Pharoah Walk manoeuvre. Yet it's a Tomb Raider devoid of narrative or any other tangible objective beyond running, jumping and landing for no other reason than because that's what the game is about. Commentators with more cultural deconstructionist tendencies might find value in such a post-modern minimalist concept, I suppose.
Still, seeing a real live human being leap from one building to another is undeniably astonishing. Making a videogame character do the same is...nothing special. Especially when that's all the game has to offer. It's almost too obvious to point out but, with its superior controls and camera, Prince of Persia is already a better free running game than the Free Running game. It just has silkier pants and a ruddy big scimitar. Hell, there's more "wahey, look at me!" exhilaration to be found while hurling yourself into empty space collecting Agility Orbs in the Crackdown demo. By contrast, Free Running feels joyless and rigid, a game so obsessed with functional efficiency that there's little room for anything else. Like, you know, fun.
Free Running is a noble effort to apply the platform game template to a seemingly appropriate real world pastime, but it's hamstrung from the start by gameplay that is neither agile nor fluid enough to deliver an engaging experience, and by a concept that is considerably less unique on a joypad as it is in reality. Certainly an interesting experiment but not something that's likely to appeal to more than a few die-hard aficionados.
More about Free Running
Free Running Review
Dan Whitehead
Dan has been writing for Eurogamer since 2006 and specialises in RPGs, shooters and games for children. His bestest game ever is Julian Gollop's Chaos.
Dying Light 2 showcases console comparison video and co-op gameplay
In final livestream before launch.
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Vineyard Haven is a charming, waterfront community nestled in the town of Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard, although "Tisbury" and "Vineyard Haven" are often used interchangeably. Vineyard Haven is the Island's primary port, offering ferry service to and from the Massachusetts mainland year-round.
This quaint community was once the site of a prominent whaling station and features historic homes and buildings remaining from the 1800s. These days, Vineyard Haven is a vibrant island community rich in culture.
The residents of Vineyard Haven are known to be friendly and welcoming, as many visitors to Martha's Vineyard reach the Island by ferry through Vineyard Haven Harbor. Because of the village's waterfront location, there is a prevalent boating/sailing scene. The Vineyard Haven Yacht Club is located along the shores of Vineyard Haven Harbor and offers members and guests access to sailing, tennis, and swimming.
This section of the Vineyard is well-known for its jovial summer culture, but the year-round residents know that this New England gem is a great place to live in all four seasons.
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Owen Park Beach
Owen Park Beach is located very close to the town center and ferry port, making it one of the Island's most easily accessible beaches.
West Chop Light
This iconic lighthouse is located in the West Chop neighborhood and has helped guide boats to Martha's Vineyard for almost 200 years. The original lighthouse was built in 1817 and the current tower was constructed in 1891.
Martha's Vineyard Film Center
The Martha's Vineyard Film Center is a very popular destination for both tourists and year-round residents. This cultural hub is owned and operated by the Martha's Vineyard Film Society, a non-profit arts organization. The Film Center features a modern, 177-seat digital cinema, and a lovely art gallery. The Film Society also operates the historic Capawock Theatre in downtown Vineyard Haven.
Martha's Vineyard Seafaring Center
The Martha's Vineyard Seafaring Center is located in downtown Vineyard Haven and features a variety of memorabilia and artifacts from the area's storied history.
Mink Meadows Golf Club
This semi-private, 9-hole golf course is located just a few minutes from the Island's northern shoreline. Mink Meadows' beautiful course can be played at 9- or 18-hole experience, and is great for both beginners and experts. The people at Mink Meadows are very friendly and everyone is united by their common passion for the game and love of Martha's Vineyard.
The Black Dog Tavern
The Black Dog Tavern is one of Martha's Vineyard's most famous restaurants. It's harborfront location, laid back atmosphere, and delicious food combine to make this a local favorite. The Black Dog restaurant is committed to serving Martha's Vineyard -- that's why it was the first restaurant on the Island to be open year-round.
Artcliff Diner
The Artcliff Diner is a classic destination for breakfast, brunch, and lunch on the Vineyard. This adorable little restaurant has an excellent menu featuring creative takes on American classics. Also, keep an eye out for the Artcliff Diner food truck, which serves up some of the restaurant's most popular offerings across the Island.
Copper Wok
The Copper Wok is a stylish, Asian-inspired restaurant and sushi bar. This restaurant is great for a night out with friends and family because of the lively and fun atmosphere. If you are a sushi fan, there is no better place on Martha's Vineyard to get a roll.
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The Tokai Manor Ghost
In the Tokai Forest Plantation, popular with riders, joggers, dog walkers, hikers and mountain bikers, is Tokai Manor. It is at the end of Tokai Road, Upper Constantia Valley, Cape Town. The historic Tokai manor house is to become the headquarters of the Table Mountain National Park, and the area around it is to be transformed into a multipurpose "gateway" to the park. This follows the signing of a ten-year lease agreement, renewable for a period of 15 years, with the Table Mountain National Park Manager, Paddy Gordon. In terms of the lease agreement, SANParks will directly or indirectly invest approximately R12 million towards renovations and improvements to the premises and surrounding areas. These will include developing the property as a public amenity for the foreseeable future and the possible development of visitor facilities such as restaurants, accommodation facilities and parking areas. The public hand-over of Tokai Manor to SANParks concluded years of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a commitment from the national parks authority to invest no less than R11 million to upgrade the precinct. The funding has been secured from the National Department of Environmental Affairs' Infrastructure Development Fund for this purpose.
Although grazing rights on the lands around the Tokai Manor House were originally held by Simon van der Stel, the estate was sold in 1792 to Johan Andreas Rauch, chief of the armory and head caretaker of the Groote Schuur Estate. Andreas Teubes bought the property. It soon became known as Tokay (named after a wine producing area in Hungary). Three years later the gifted architect Louis Michel Thibault designed the Manor House. It would soon be described as the most outstanding homestead in the Peninsula. The Homestead was raised well above the customary ground level, with a very unusually high front stoep, with massive round pillars, and two dramatic curving flights of stairs. The Manor House was completed in 1796, in time for the marriage of Alida Teubes, the daughter of Andreas. She was to wed Nicolaas Roussouw, from the neighboring farm Steenberg (now the fabulous hotel and golf estate). Ultimately, the cost of building this splendid house ruined Teubes financially, and he was forced into bankruptcy in 1799, and had to sell the estate. In the early 1800s the residence was owned by Petrus Michiel Eksteen. He was a gregarious spendthrift, who spared no cost in hosting the finest banquets for the elite of the Cape social scene. His parties were famous, his cellars was well stocked, and he had a thoroughbred Arabian stud, which was the envy of the Cape. Eventually in 1849, he too was declared insolvent, and had to put the estate up for auction.
During one of Eksteen's New Year's Eve parties, his son Frederick accepted a wager from his father to ride his horse up the staircase and into the dining room. The guests watched on as he mounted the precipitous steps of the Manor House on horseback. The horseman circled the dining room table, hooves clattering, spurred on by cheers and laughter from the revellers. Then, in full sight of the whole entourage of dinner guests, tragedy struck. The dinner guests rose to watch horse and mount depart. While descending the very steep steps, the horse tripped and both horse and rider fell to their deaths. The young man broke his neck in the fall and lay dead alongside his horse at the bottom of the staircase.
It is said that the Spectral horse and rider still canters through the forest and sometimes, especially on New Year's Eves, still tries to repeat their foolhardy bet. Over the years since that tragic night, quite a few reports put this pair in the area around the Manor House. Without a logical explanation, sometimes exuberant laughter and neighing of horses can be heard from inside the Manor House at night. In the dark early hours of the morning forestry workers have heard a horse at full gallop along the road. The rider reportedly wears clothes from a bygone era and heads straight towards the old house and mounts the steps….
General, Global Interest, Odd Facts about South Africa, Road Travel Favorites	Groote Schuur Estate, SANParks, Table Mountain National Park, Tokai Manor, Tokai Manor Ghost
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balkan poetry today
turkish poetry today
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Our Man in Montenegro…
Follow Tom's amazing adventures in the poetic darklands of Montenegro as he tackles the complexities of literary life in the shadows of the recent conflicts…
Wednesday 22 June
It's not yet high season on the Croatian coast, but Dubrovnik Old Town is packed. The three of us – Mary, Peter and I – are on our way to Niksic in Montenegro for a conference on writing and place, but after an early morning flight from a rain-soaked Bristol we're sneaking a holiday into half a day: seafood lunch, swim, ice-cream. Like the famous bridge in Mostar, much of the Old Town is a reconstruction: sections of neater stonework like scar tissue attest to the destruction wrought by artillery shells lobbed onto the city from the surrounding higher ground. By the breakwater in whose lee people swim, a man and three boys are heaving loose stones from under the city wall and tossing them into the sea. The earnestness with which they do this suggests that this isn't merely a game; they too are engaged in some form of reconstruction.
Nikola's due to pick us up outside the West Gate in his dark-blue Audi. This is the most tenuous part of our travelling arrangements, relying on our remembering each other from two years before when Nikola drove a van full of delegates from another conference down the hair-raising hairpins lacing the cliff-face behind Kotor. Despite the odds, the rendezvous passes off without incident and we're soon driving south along the coast road, high above the Adriatic, before turning inland for the first in a series of border crossings: from Croatia (and the EU) into Bosnia & Hercegovina and from Bosnia & Hercegovina into Montenegro. Each crossing entails two stops at passport control – leaving one country, traversing a strip of no man's land and then entering the next. Unlike previous years, I only get one stamp in my passport – on the way into Montenegro.
There's little sign of human activity in a landscape of bleached rocks and scrubby trees. The occasional restaurants at the roadside don't look like they've seen much trade. The only town we skirt is Trebinje in southern Bosnia, a new road system swinging us through the suburbs of graffiti'd apartment blocks. Mist hangs in swags across a reservoir, the residue of an abrupt shift in the weather that afternoon when the temperature plummeted and a rainstorm broke. On the final leg down towards the plain on which Niksic sits surrounded by mountains, Nikola points out the island-spotted lake below. There are just enough vocabulary overlaps between his Montenegrin and my rudimentary Bulgarian for me to grasp that the lake isn't natural, it's another reservoir.
The Hotel Sindcel is directly opposite the university in Niksic. It's where I stayed two years ago – only this time I get a room with a balcony. There's hardly time to offload our bags before we're off again, just down the road to a new cafe where Marija is waiting with her husband Neil. I've helped her out with this year's conference, but she's done most of the work. We sit drinking unfermented Niksicko beer and eating smoked Montenegrin ham but the 4.30am start is taking its toll – and we have two days of conferencing ahead. Reluctantly we bow out early.
Thursday 23 June
The conference is the follow-up to 2014's 'The Balkans in Travel Writing'. When Marija and I put round the call for papers we received more than 40 proposals from academics across Europe and America. Concerns about time and expense have halved that number, but we've still got a programme that runs from 9am to 6pm each day and papers that range from transnational identity to dystopian literature, notions of home and locative deixis. There are still quite a few delegates who haven't shown up by the time we're filing into the main seminar room but that is the kind of conference it's going to be: people come and go. Some drive all night to get to Niksic from Serbia, Bosnia or Kosovo and when they've delivered their paper get back in their car and drive all night to go home. It's a reminder that many of these academics have come here under their own steam, at their own expense.
The vice-dean of the University of Montenegro gives the official welcoming address and then I'm up, stumbling through an improvised introduction to Peter, the keynote speaker. He discusses his own poems in relation to the concept of 'home' and how writing and art are amongst the means by which we form attachments to places. It's more than thirty years since we first met – when he taught me at university the first time round. I've known Mary for almost as long – since I taught her to use a UHER reel-to-reel tape recorder on a radio training course. It seems simultaneously strange and inevitable that the three of us should now be sitting together in a seminar room in Montenegro.
Back home, it's EU referendum day. Most of the conference delegates are from countries aspiring to join the union. They're slightly puzzled as to why the UK might want to leave. So are we.
I've slipped a joke about it into my own conference paper – although by the time I read it, the joke doesn't seem all that funny.
Even by Balkan standards, the weather is unseasonably hot. When the conference wraps up for the day, Mary and I go in search of a supermarket, but even though I've been to Niksic before I lead us in completely the wrong direction and end up wandering along a suburban street of half-built houses with newly mown lawns. At the cigarette kiosk near the university, the woman behind the counter describes to Mary the differences between unfamiliar brands.
The official conference dinner is at a restaurant overlooking tennis courts whose popularity attests to the Djokovic effect. We're right at the edge of town, shadowed by forest. Marija is explaining how, when she was researching DH Lawrence's travel writing, there was only one copy of Twilight in Italy in the whole of Montenegro. Even now resources remain scarce: there's a little library of English books in the room where we've been taking our coffee breaks but neither students nor staff are allowed to borrow them. Fortunately, the strong red Montenegrin wine dispels any sense of Brexit foreboding as we walk back along a leafy boulevard towards our hotel.
Fri 24 June
We may have spent yesterday discussing intercultural exchange and liminal hybridity, but now it's dawn and I'm sitting on my tiny hotel balcony as post after post goes up on Facebook. Eventually I get a text from my wife, who's sat up all night watching the referendum result come in: all it says is 'I can't speak'. Over breakfast I suggest burning our boarding passes: I'm only half-joking.
More new delegates arrive. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that the two researchers from Kosova who are talking about locative deixis are, in fact, the two postgraduate students who showed me round when I first arrived at the University of Prishtina for an Albanology conference three years ago. This sort of thing seems to be par for the course – and never mind the chain of events that brought me to the Balkans in the first place.
At lunchtime, first Mary and then Peter slip away to find some time and space to try and make sense of the news from the UK. I stay on in the restaurant where, it turns out, Marija and Neil first met – she a Montenegrin lecturer, he a Native Canadian photographer. I tell a couple of Bosnians that Mostar is one of my children's favourite places. 'Mostar is hot,' is all they say. It takes a while for me to realise that they are probably from the Republika Srpska whereas Mostar is in Bosnia's other post-Dayton 'entity', the Bosnian Federation. Philipp, a Belgian professor, laughs politely at my efforts at post-Brexit gallows humour.
We bring the conference to a close at six that evening after Mary has played recordings of Native Americans and Afro-Caribbeans talking about their ideas of home. Marija and I agree that we have enough good papers for phase two: a book of critical essays. We walk back to the restaurant at the edge of the forest. Peter and I are doing a poetry reading with Amela – a Serbian poet from Novi Pazar. A good number of the conference delegates show up and seem to enjoy the reading, even if the latter stages are punctuated by a particularly yappy stray dog. To round off the evening, Marija and Neil have us all writing short poems based on random words delivered to us on folded pieces of paper. My word is 'solace'. I can't help wondering if that was deliberate. When there's only a handful of us left, I take solace of a different kind: a glass of potent quince raki.
Sat 25 June
We're off to the seaside. Marija has organised a conference excursion to Herceg Novi – a resort on the shores of the only fjord in Europe outside Norway. Nikola pilots the university minibus along the main road out of town and we head south towards the coast. Marija's uttered dire warnings about the traffic, but there doesn't seem to be much about – at least not until we've come down through the mountains and arrived on the coast road.
In Herceg Novi itself, the little beaches and bathing spots are crowded and there's a steady drift of holidaymakers along the streets. Tower blocks built in the 60s and 70s to house workers in the local dockyards and factories flutter with multicoloured towels. Many of the tourists are Russian. The Montenegrin coast has yet to emerge as an alternative 'costa' for west Europeans.
Everyone seems desperate to swim – mainly because the temperature's now up around the 40 degrees mark – but I don't fancy it and sit on the pebbles in my long trousers and long-sleeve shirt like the archetypal reluctant Brit. Lunch, of course, is seafood – a three-hour buffet of mussels, squid and sea bass over which conversations fade in and out of focus, interrupted by forays outside to see if the heat shows any sign of abating. It doesn't. Peter, Marija and I hole up in a beach bar where the steady stream of goodbyes begins: our colleagues disperse, some back to Niksic, some off on holiday, some to visit family. Walking back to our guesthouse along the front, fully exposed to the glare off the white concrete and the silvery fjord, it's hard to find any shelter – or that word again: 'solace'.
I wake up from a nap with stomach cramps. We're to walk to the old town and have another seafood dinner in another restaurant at which Marija and Neil are regulars. Marija's telling us about coming on holiday to Herceg Novi as a child, when it was still part of Yugoslavia, and staying with her grandmother and tripping down the old town steps to a corner of beach overlooked by a statue of a nymph or goddess. We pass it as we emerge from the tunnel that divides the town between the rambling verticals of the old and the concrete horizontals of the new. By the time we've assaulted a long and staggering staircase I realise that I'm coming down with something. Marija suggests the Balkan cure-all – raki – but I've tried that before and the results have never been pretty. I stick to Fanta as we take a breather in a square overlooked by a clock that might have come from a fairy tale illustration. I don't want to turn in early on this, our last night, but have to admit defeat, wandering back through the upper town between luminous storefronts until dropping back down through a dark public garden to the lights laced on poles along the shore.
Sun 26 June
The imminence of departure inevitably brings with it a sense that I should have done more to catch up with the latest new writing in SE Europe, that there are plenty of conversations I should have had. As has happened before, what I'm coming away with is a naive sense of possibility – that, while the position of writers, artists and academics in the Balkans is no less precarious than it is anywhere else, there's a lot going on here. The papers we've heard at the conference, the ideas about place and home and new writing spaces, have reignited thoughts about exchange and collaboration – and how translating and publishing contemporary Balkan literature isn't simply about exposing it to English-speaking audiences, of – as it were – bringing 'them' to 'us'.
My intestinal rebellion means that breakfast is orange juice by the fjord while the others tuck into something more substantial. The heat's already building and the water's dotted with bobbing heads. Somewhat inevitably, we're reflecting on the incongruity of travelling days: waking in an unfamiliar country, going to bed at home – if that's the word for the place we're heading back to and for the moment can only glimpse through shrieking post-referendum headlines.
Waiting for the taxi that'll take us to Dubrovnik airport, I'm looking again at the specific shades of grey and green across the water and the hills, the cotton wool scrub, the tatty apartment blocks and cottages hidden behind burgeoning oleanders, the fag butts and dust on the pavement. Marija and Neil are talking about how they'll spend the rest of the day before driving back to Niksic: a reminder that the place won't simply freeze the moment I leave and then magically reanimate itself the next time I fly out here. The urge to burn my boarding card momentarily resurfaces.
The only hold-up is when we're crossing the Croatian border; we have to queue to get back into the EU. But it's not a major delay and we're soon at the airport, seeing Phillipp off on his flight to Belgrade and onwards to Brussels. We scrape together enough Croatian kuna to pay for a round of soft drinks and find a slab of shade in which to sit out the wait for our flight. It feels as if we're a long way from home – but, of course, we aren't. It's 150 minutes in the air and already, on the bus from the terminal to the plane, a couple from Bristol are filling us in on the latest news: the resignations, the tumbling economy, the things we've missed and don't miss. And, of course, there are clouds over western Europe and we jolt down through them to a Bristol that's being lashed with rain and walk into the airport terminal with our conference folders and our notes and our intentions to read the authors whose work we've encountered for the first time and our photographs and our recordings and our memories of discussions, dinners and a poetry reading interrupted by a vociferous dog.
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Chandler Macocha - Actor
Home Bio Gallery Films I've Made Reel & Resume Contact
HomeBioGalleryFilms I've MadeReel & Resume
Filmmaker, Making Films
Here's what I've been up to over the past few years: writing, directing, acting, shooting, and editing.
"Skywalker's Apprentice" -Star Wars Fan Film / In the wake of the destruction of Starkiller Base, a young Jedi knight, one of the few surviving pupils of Master Luke Skywalker, gathers his own Padawans for a learning lesson in the ways of the Force. However, this simple exercise soon turns dangerous when a sinister visitor, a Knight of Ren, comes looking for the Jedi's legendary teacher. RT 17:29
JURASSIC WORLD 2 Fan-Made Trailer: What if after the events of JURASSIC PARK, someone came along and discovered Dennis Nedry's infamous preserved Barbasol can filled with dinosaur DNA vials? RT 01:00
"What If LOGAN ending had a Post-Credit Scene? Feat. DEADPOOL (*SPOILERS*)" / Fan-Made: No, his mouth isn't sewn shut. Deadpool shares a moment of silence for his hairy, angry, Canadian friend... RT 01:20
Adapting 'RANT' to the Big Screen: Anyone familiar with the works of Chuck Palahniuk knows that it takes a special kind of crazy to adapt his books into a screenplay, but J.J. Pardo of Banana-Dragon Productions has spent the last few years painstaking crafting just that: the perfect adaptation of 'Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey.' RT: 03:44
BB-8: Gonk Droid Awakens (Star Wars Fan Film): After the fall of the Empire, one GNK Power Droid has fallen on hard times. With STAR WARS back on the silver screen, this forgotten droid gets some help getting back on his feet from a very special die-hard fan. RT 03:36
Deadpool & MST3K Riff "X-Men Origins: Wolverine": While wandering the movie theater aisles somewhere in the world, Wade Wilson aka Deadpool comes across a screening of something so evil, so vile, so ungodly horrifying. His first on-screen appearance in X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE. RT 06:19
'Fight Club' 'Hit Me' SfS Scene Recreation: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can," Tyler demads of Jack, and we all know what happens next. RT 02:23
"Fight Club: Copy of a Copy"/The Book Ending Of 'Fight Club': What if 'Fight Club' the movie ended as originally written by the author of 'Fight Club' the novel? Experience our shot-for-shot recreation of the film ending and original adaptation of the novel's ending all in one! RT 13:12
Commercial Ad 'Heist: Op Dorito Retrieval': A fun twist on a 'heist' theme to promote a fun snack, the client received an adventure of miniature proportions. RT 00:30
"When We Were" Short Film: A powerful glimpse into the aftermath of a relationship falling apart, and the struggle to face an uncertain future. Written and shot in one weekend by four friends. RT 10:52
Visit Banana-Dragon Productions!
chandlermacocha@gmail.com
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Only about 20 percent of patients in India who seek outpatient services and less than 45 percent of those who are looking for indoor treatment reach their goal.National Health policy suggests some decent ways to improve the quality, availability and affordability of health care.
K-12 education majors typically take upper-level courses in educational philosophy, classroom management, child psychology and human development, as well as methods of teaching subject areas such as mathematics, reading and science. More often than not, students must choose an age group they plan to teach—whether it be elementary, middle, or high schoolers. Electives might include special education, teaching gifted & talented (GT) students, teaching in a multi-cultural environment, or these courses might be required.
K-12 education is actually very much necessary for one to sharpen their minds. There are various options available for students pursuing courses but to realize their true value and benefit is also crucial to initiate. There are many advantages associated with k-12 education act. The following write is an explanation on the above to guide each. A person is recognized and attempt to establish in the cruel world by means of his / her educational grooming.
The San Jose Unified School District has enacted a unique plan to build relationships with the local community in order to overcome an old negative image.
The Magic bag is a great kids' activity for introducing fossils. It is simple to do and captivating with any age group. The lesson plan is easily adapted to classroom or home school settings.
So, your hectic schedule prevents you from spending all day on campus and streaking through the quad during the night. Well, that's unfortunate, however it certainly doesn't have to preclude you from following your dream of beginning or continuing your engineering education and career.
Read More: Can You Draw a Perfect Hexagon?
In the spring of 2006, the Virginia schools signed an agreement with SACS CASI. Under this agreement, Virginia schools divisions will be encouraged to pursue accreditation with the Council. The agreement complements Virginia schools already rigorous accreditation standards and will build strong foundations for continued growth in learning and achievement within each school and each school division.
Como y quР№ empacar en la maleta cuando se va de viaje. Consejos para que las mujeres empaquen su maleta.


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BEWARE! 65-foot asteroid set to get dangerously close to Earth today, warns NASA
Hindustan Times 26-11-2022 HT Tech
When it comes to space, both exploration and protection is equally important for scientists and space agencies. That is why before the Artemis-1 mission, which is aiming to send crewed spacecraft back to the Moon to explore its polar region, NASA took up the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) where a spacecraft was used to change the path of an asteroid. And the reason this test was done was because of many asteroids which threaten the Earth with their potential to destroy cities and even countries. One such asteroid will be paying a visit to the Earth today itself, November 26. Read on to know whether an asteroid strike is possible.
Scary asteroid to come very close to the Earth
The Planetary Defense of NASA is made up of multiple departments, all of which are tasked with monitoring the Near-Earth Objects (NEO). These departments include Center for Near Earth Objects Studies (CNEOS), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Small-Body database. The cumulative data from these departments has revealed quite a bit about this space rock. The asteroid is named 2022 UD72. It was first discovered recently in October 2022, and hence the four digit number in its name. The 65-foot asteroid will be coming as close as 4 million kilometers to the Earth. While that may seem like a large distance, traveling at a speed of 15,408 kilometers per hour, it can close that gap within days in case there is a last moment deflection.
However, the prediction by NASA at the moment is that there is little chance that 2022 UD72 will strike the Earth. It is expected that the asteroid will make a safe passage. However, various instruments will be monitoring it till it is at a safe distance from us.
NASA's asteroid tracking technology
Ever since NASA understood the risk of the near-Earth objects (NEO), it has dedicated itself to track and monitor as many space rocks in the inner circle of the solar system as possible. Using the prowess of JPL and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope, the US space agency collects data for over 20,000 asteroids.
Sign on to read the HT ePaper epaper.hindustantimes.com
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I have been playing with colour a lot in recent months. It was all sparked off by Bohemian Rhapsody, that design just made me want to explore colour more. And I have been studiously sticking to my plan of making one block of Bohemian Rhapsody every 2 weeks. I have now completed 11 – only another 7 to go.
And I am now working on something with the remaining 6 colours which may take a while, so I won't share that with you yet.
You can't tell from the photo just how soft this yarn is. But you can tell it gives good stitch definition and it blocks well; my uneven knitting now looks quite passable!
It is now written as a pattern and can be found in my Ravelry, Craftsy and Etsy web stores.
All this colour work has really boosted my creativity, and yet another colour project is on my hook right now! So there will be a few more colourful reveals in the not too distant future.
Love, love, love this! Not only does it lift the spirit to make it, it must lift the spirit every time you wear it. Revealed just in time for Yarndale too, thanks!
It's beautiful! I'm going to add this to my list! I just finished the Anniversary Sharf and by the way I wanted to say thank you for such a great pattern! I loved knitting it!
Thank you for all these lovely comments! The pattern is quite straightforward, it is the yarn that makes it so beautiful.


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CX Leaders Trends & Insights
An Execs In The Know Report Series
CX Leaders Trends & Insights provides in-depth insights into the experiences and perspectives of both consumers and practitioners alike, including commentary and analysis from Execs In The Know community members. The CX Leaders Trends & Insights Series is published twice yearly, including a fall Consumer Edition and a late winter/early spring Corporate Edition.
It's Survey Time!
The Corporate Survey is NOW OPEN!
Participate in the just-launched CX corporate survey that will support the upcoming CX Leaders Trends & Insights Corporate Edition report.
The survey takes no more than 25-30 minutes to complete, and your name, company name, and your specific responses will never be shared publicly. Your participation will guarantee you early access to the results, with a scheduled release for late winter/early spring 2022.
Your experience and expertise are highly appreciated, and we look forward to informing and inspiring your CX operations with these results.
CX end-users only
Taking our CX industry research
Introducing CX Leaders Trends & Insights: Consumer Edition, the next iteration of our long-standing, biannual CX industry research series.
The CX Leaders Trends & Insights Report Series, the successor of the long-standing CXMB Series, has been the go-to resource for industry knowledge and inspiration since 2012. Over the years, Execs In The Know (EITK) research has produced insights about the experiences, opinions, and perspectives of both consumers and corporate leaders, publishing on a bi-annual basis. In 2021, we revisited our approach to industry research with a complete rebranding, new elements suggested by our EITK community, and a new focus on practitioner insights. This new report series will still focus on consumer behavior and expectations using dynamic survey data, as well as corporate strategies and best practices, but will also infuse many of the views and opinions of experts within our community.
Two Reports
ENDLESS INSIGHTS & IDEAS
CX Leaders Trends & Insights provides in-depth insights into the experiences and perspectives of both consumers and practitioners alike, including commentary and analysis from Execs In The Know community members. The CX Leaders Trends & Insights Series is published twice yearly, including a fall Consumer Edition and a winter/spring Corporate Edition.
Consumer Edition
The Consumer Edition focuses on the experiences and opinions of consumers.
The full report is available now.
Special thanks to our edition sponsor, Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS), a global leader in digital customer experience and customer journey optimization. Be sure to check out HGS's expert analysis on these results in the Sponsor Commentary.
Download the Full Report
Corporate Edition
The Corporate Edition provides insight into the strategies and best practices of top brands.
Execs In The Know is gathering responses for the 2021 CX Leaders Trends and Insights: Corporate Edition, and we could use your help. Your individual responses will never be shared, and your participation will help broaden this year's insights and results.
Take the Corporate Survey
Key Insights from the Consumer Edition
As a part of the changing face of Execs In The Know's CX industry research, CX Leaders Trends and Insights takes a fresh new approach to categorizing channels. Based on this new categorization, it is clear consumers are as open to Text-Based solutions as they are Voice-Based. But age plays a notable role in contact preference with those 44 years and younger preferring Text-Based solutions over Voice-Based by 2-to-1 (versus 3-to-4 for those 45 years and older).
Age isn't the only factor that plays a role in channel preference. In fact, solution preferences are largely driven by ease and effectiveness (i.e., ability to resolve an issue or inquiry). Therefore, according to consumers, self-help and unassisted tools continue to get better based on their ability to resolve transactions and inquiries, steadily improving year-after-year since 2018.
A year into the pandemic and there are few consumers (16%) who felt their view or use of self-help or unassisted tools had been changed by the pandemic. But the reality is consumer behavior (and even contact center best practices) has changed more than most realize, especially given the strong shift to self-help and CX automation. Furthermore, consumers who said their view/use of self-help had changed were eight times more likely to plan on using self-help and unassisted tools "More Often" in the future.
Explore Other Industry Research
CX Hot Topics Research
Take a deep dive into some of the hottest, trending topics within the industry. Put your finger on the pulse of the industry and discover which topics are being discussed and investigated within the greater Execs In The Know community.
Execs In The Know is all about leaders learning from leaders. We continually tap into our resources to conduct in-the-know industry research. Our community gains insights and actionable ideas due to our multi-layered approach when it comes to research.


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