Back in March I was down at Portobello beach on a windy, cold afternoon, and this group in white robes descended from the promenade onto the sand, and proceeded to sing towards the sea. I have no idea why, although it sounded and looked religious in nature, the singing in a language I didn't know, but it sounded quite happy, joyful even.
The end of an early spring day, last light hitting the peaks of the Campsie Hills, diffused through a band of cloud along the summit line.
Looking down the Fife side of the Firth of Forth, past Inchcolm island (you can just see the silhouette of the 12th century abbey on the island), towards the mighty Forth Rail Bridge through the mist, with the mid-2oth century suspension road bridge behind, then the (at the time still being constructed) new cable-stayed road bridge.
Simply walking round town one day, saw this newly married couple who had decided to pose for their photos on the Vennel steps, which cut up from the Grassmarket, past the Flodden Wall, towards the Meadows, so I grabbed a quick candid shot from the hip as I passed.
Street market on a bright, spring day in the Grassmarket, I was taking candid people-watching shots, and got this young couple pushing their baby stroller, just as the light and shadow came together.
At the comic con, bumped into one of my colleagues and her husband, there with their wee girl, who was dressed up as Rey from Star Wars and having great fun. Cutest Jedi padawan ever!
Another from the comic con, this couple had matched up their cosplay costumes, which I just loved.
I went on the March For Science in the spring and took a bunch of pics, but I especially loved this one with the student waving her sign and giving the camera a great, big smile.
Walking through the Grassmarket one bright day, and there was an open-air tango class going on, right there in the middle of the square, underneath some trees, so the light through the leaves was dappled. I was taking several pics when one of the dancers saw the camera and just as I clicked she smiled right at me, and I was lucky enough to capture it. Sometimes you get lucky and grab a little moment like this.
Slightly different weather in this one! I was going around the Meadows Festival when it started to rain. As I scuttled for cover I managed to snap off a couple more candid shots of people at the fest in the rain, including this one with the lady and her umbrella.
Singer with her band at the annual Canal Festival and Raft Race, on the nearby Union Canal.
As I came out of one of my film festival screenings I saw actor and director Danny Huston on the red carpet, about to go into the cinema for the festival screening of his own new film, The Last Photograph. The camera is always in my bag, so quickly out and click.
Something I have been meaning to photograph for ages – the beautiful cloisters in the Neo-Gothic Glasgow University.
Out with dad for a day in the Trossachs, a day of constantly shifting light and shadow as sun poked through clouds to illuminate patches of the landscape in shafts of light, while casting large cloud shadows over the rest. Gorgeous.
How colourful is this costume on this wee chap at the Jazz and Blues Festival carnival??
Close up portrait of one of the performers at the carnivale.
Clan gathering in summer when all of our Canadian relatives were over, rest of the family all got together for food, drink and chat, while the kids played in the garden. Someone brought out soap bubbles, and one little cousin, Wee Joe, was mesmerised by them!
All that playing can be tiring though, one of the kids curled up for a wee nap!
Festival time on the Royal Mile, and on a whim I wandered behind the bustle of the main drag, behind the cathedral, and saw these two performers. They were rehearsing before going out onto the Mile, and didn't see me at first, so i was clicking away merrily.
Some street portraits of performers strutting their stuff on the Royal Mile during the Fringe, trying to attract an audience to come to their shows, always a happy hunting ground for taking photos.
Fringe bustling all around, but this one young woman had found herself a quite spot on the edge of the cathedral, in the sunlight, to take a wee break.
Freehand night shot, coming out of the Book Festival on a rainy night, wet streets reflecting the lights.
Saw this musician and her partner several times on the Mile during the Fringe, and took several shots, but I really liked the way this one came out, think it caught something of the joyful exuberance she was showing as she sang.
This lady in traditional Korean costume was dancing on one of the small stages on the Mile, where the Fringe performers can put on excerpts from their shows to try and entice audiences to come along. I shot a lot of photos of her and her fellows, but kept zooming in closer, only to find her moving just as I lined up the shot. Finally I got one, very close up, in focus and in frame. Quite pleased with this one.
Another Fringe performer on the Mile – I loved her smile and her sign!
Juggler on the Royal Mile.
Author Ken MacLeod reading from a book of his and the late Iain Banks' poetry at the regular Shoreline of Infinity science fiction evening in Edinburgh.
This is standing inside an old doocot (dovecot), at Elcho castle, looking straight upwards, but the effect, especially in monochrome, seems otherworldly.
"Blue Hour" in Edinburgh in autumn, when the sun has set below the western horizon but there is still some pale, blue light in it, not yet the full black of night sky. One of my favourite times for taking night photos in Edinburgh. Here it's the Scott Monument silhouetted against that sky, and the Castle and the National Gallery.
Musician Aurora Engine was playing the harp and singing at a Shoreline of Infinity evening. I took several pics of her, then on a whim I zoomed in to try and capture her fingers moving deftly over the harp strings. It was in an underground venue in fairly low light, and I didn't expect it to work, but I got this fairly sharp image and was quite pleased with it.
Walking around Commercial Quay at Blue Hour – these were all old dockside warehouses by the Port of Leith. Once left neglected after their working life ended, they have since been beautifully restored and are now home to apartments, businesses and many restaurants.
Same evening, little later and darker, freezing evening, taking night photographs along the Water of Leith, by The Shore, a regenerated area near the docks which boasts lots of very nice pubs, cafes and restaurants, plus the sight of the buildings at night reflected in the river. Been meaning to take some night shots down this way for ages.
Spur of the moment shot – I was zooming in on the weathervane at the top of the steeple on the Auld Kirk in Kirkintilloch when suddenly the skies darkened and these crows descended on the steeple. Suddenly it went from a detail of some old architecture to a brooding, Gothic photo that looks like a scene from a Poe novel.
A couple of weeks ago, walking past Edinburgh University, bright but cold day, sun so low in the winter sky it cast as many shadows as it did light. I passed one student sitting on this bench by a stone wall, the sun casting sharp shadows and it was just begging for a black and white shot.
Boxing day, 2017, dad and I drove over to Schoenstatt, a religious retreat by Campsie Glen, under the shadow of the hills. Freezing but bright and clear, snow had started falling on Christmas night and by next day it was crisp and frozen, crunching under foot as I walked through it, while the foliage was encased in ice, with the low winter sun shining through it.
Had a nice photo walk around The Shore, the Water of Leith and near the Port of Leith recently, around dusk and then night. With the sun setting so early now it's pretty easy to take some nocturnal shots without having to wander the streets late at night with the camera and tripod. I'm rarely down this part of town so this was a chance to take some night shots of an area I've not covered much of with the camera. Good, long walk, took a bunch of pics, got some exercise but man, damnably cold – okay when you are walking about, but very chilly when standing still to take a long exposure shot.
Nearby is Teuchter's Landing, which is the same company that has Teuchter's in the West End of the New Town, which is slightly pricey but still a favourite pub of mine (also dog friendly, which is handy if I am meeting my chum and his hounds). This one is right on the waterfront, where the Water of Leith starts to meet the Port of Leith, and then the mighty Firth of Forth. In fact the back of the pub not only sits over the edge of a spur off the river by the docks, it even has its own floating outside beer garden moored on the water! Although understandably nobody was using it on a cold evening in November (although a couple of smokers were sitting outside the front of the pub, heavily wrapped up.
It wasn't quite full dark as I walked back over to the Water of Leith, although it was darker than it appears here where the camera sat drinking in much more light on a long exposure. This is down at the very end of the Water of Leith, which winds its way through the city (it runs near my flat and offers a "countryside" walk to the National Gallery of Modern Art rather than walking through town) and eventually makes it down to Leith and the busy Shore area of bars and restaurants. This is by the Malmaison, and after this spot is just the old swing bridge and then it opens into the actual docks.
Last night on my way home from work, the iconic old Bank of Scotland building which stands at the top of the Mound by the road which curves up from the Georgian-era New Town to the medieval Old Town above on its volcanic ridge. There was a large crescent Moon rising in the early evening sky, and from this perspective it looked as it it were right above the dome on the bank building, so I had to get a shot of it. These are the sorts of things you just get to see walking home from work when you live in Edinburgh. Not a bad commute, is it?
This lady in the pics directly above and below looks familiar to me – I'm sure I don't actually know her, but her face looks familiar and I have a feeling that perhaps I've photographed her before at some other event in Edinburgh, but given how many thousands of pics I've taken it may take a bit of browsing to verify! Anyway, while I was clicking away, I got this shot as she danced with her partner and looked right at the camera with this wonderful, big smile (one of those really good smiles, the kind that isn't just the mouth moving but the eyes and the whole face smiling). Joyful scene to just come across all these people so happily dancing away in the sunlight in the middle of the Old Town.
Since I have a few days off to use up, I took the train up the coast, crossing the mighty Forth Rail Bridge and round the coastal rail route to get off at Burntisland for a wee while. The railway runs right by the beach there, on a raised embankment above the promenade and the beach (quite a bit of this line hugs the Fife coast so you get some good views on your trip). There are tunnels under the line leading from the parkland behind it to the promenade.
Being early afternoon on a weekday in March it was pretty quiet, mostly either parents with very young kids or senior citizens and the odd dog walker – tends to be a bit busier in the warmer weather of spring and summer!
On the ride home I decided to jump off at North Queensferry for a while before heading back across river to Edinburgh, and walked down the steep slope to where the village nestles around the northern base of the Forth Rail Bridge, right by the banks of the Forth.
At this side of the river you can walk right under the end of one of the vast "diamond" shapes of this massively over-engineered cantilever structure, and despite the now bitingly cold wind it was worth the chill to walk down by the lapping waters of the Forth past this iconic piece of engineering that has become a landmark.
It's a massive Victorian structure, hugely over-built (a reaction to the earlier failure of the Tay Bridge), and you know it is large, I mean you can see if from parts of Edinburgh for goodness sake, you can see the top parts of the diamond shapes from the main Edinburgh-Glasgow railway line. But there's nothing quite like going underneath a structure like this to really get a sense of the sheer size and strength of it. It's like standing under the Eiffel Tower, but turned on its side. Magnificent piece of history and engineering.
Jenners old department store with its richly carved facade normally towers over me as I walk along the street, peculiar to be looking down on it, rather than up…. As ever, click on the pics to see the bigger versions available on my Flickr page to see more details.
Looking towards Saint Andrew Square and the tall column of the Melville Monument – normally I have to look up at this, but from the top of the Scott Monument I could zoom in and take a pic of the statue at the top from a straight-on perspective rather than angled up from the ground. In the background in the distance you can see some of the modern apartments which have sprung up in parts of the old dockside areas down in Leith, by the mighty Forth.
Looking eastwards towards the huge Scots-Baronial architecture of the Balmoral Hotel, which started life as one of the great Victorian railway hotels. The clock tower, a landmark on the Edinburgh skyline, has a timepiece which is actually set a few moments fast, by tradition – to encourage travellers to hurry down the stairs in front of it in time to catch their train in the station below. As with the Melville Monument I normally have to take pics from an angle looking up from far below, but from this vantage point I could zoom in and take a photo looking pretty much straight on for a change.
The great bulk of Arthur's Seat, the enormous extinct volcano which sits right at the heart of the city, with the palace and parliament nestled at its feet, the whole lying in a royal park – you can go not just for a "countryside" walk but a decent bit of hill-walking here without leaving the city centre! And the views from the top are pretty spectacular too. Part of the ancient volcanic topography which gave Edinburgh its unique cityscape, it is also one of the places which inspired the modern science of geology, with Hutton wandering around Arthur's Seat as he began to form some of the first understandings of how our planet is shaped over vast eons of time. And it's a pretty spectacular piece of scenery to have right in the middle of a capital city – I rather enjoy looking at it each day on my way to work.
The low, now rapidly setting winter sun casts shadows and warm tones across the western side of the New Town, with the tall, triple spires of Saint Mary's Cathedral, more landmarks on the city's skyline, almost silhouetted in the declining sunlight.
And the view looking downwards towards Princes Street below!
And here's what I had to clamber up to take those pics – over two hundred feet of a Gothic rocket, like a stone version of Thunderbird Three. I have always thought it exceptionally civilised that this enormous monument – the largest monument anywhere in the world to a writer – is not dedicated to some king or general, but an author, a teller of tales, of stories and books. Given that my Edinburgh is built as much of the printed pages as it is history and geology and architecture (look here, Robert Louis Stevenon's home, there the Sherlock statue marking where Conan Doyle's family house was, there the pub where Inspector Rebus drinks in Ian Rankin's novels, there the spot where the early encyclopedias and dictionaries were published, there a cafe where a then impoverished single mother huddled for warmth and wrote her tales of a boy wizard, here the Writer's Museum, there the Storytelling Centre, over there the largest literary festival on the planet). The Scott Monument itself boasts dozens of sculptures from top to bottom, characters taken from Sir Walter Scott's many books. Literature in stone.
The vile Farage, within a short few hours from the vote in the Houses of Parliament on allowing the government to trigger Article 50, has pointed his followers to a list of the minority of MPs who voted against it, branding them all "enemies of the people" and demanding they pay for their temerity in not agreeing with him and his friends at the next election.
So basically this little creep, who already branded high court judges as enemies because they dared follow the law and say yes, parliament has to be consulted on constitutional changes like Brexit (how dare they do their job!) now tries to publicly bully the small number of MPs who don't agree with him and his chums. Even though they didn't affect the outcome, they must pay. No, not divisive or vindictive at all… Oh, no, wait, it is, it's also threatening and bullying, an attempt to intimidate anyone who might speak out with a contrary view because when he and others screamed rabidly about "taking back control" of UK affairs they meant as long as we all did what they wanted – anyone wishing an actual democratic right to debate opposing ideas is an "enemy of the people". This is how dictatorships are born.
Oh and Nigel? Nearly half of those dissenting MPs were from the Scottish National Party, the party which took almost every single Westminster parliamentary seat at the last election, in the country that voted overwhelmingly to remain IN the EU. So how can they possibly be "enemies of the people" when they were standing up for exactly what the people of Scotland who elected them wanted them to do??? If you think they should have voted differently from what their electorate wanted then by your own twisted logic you become an enemy of the people, you vile little hate-monger.


Jaewon Han was working at Deloitte in his home country of Korea back in 2016. At that time, Jaewon says he knew "almost nothing" about the tax regime in Singapore. Now, barely 18 months later, he is based in Singapore and is an associate at KPMG, where he advises multi-national companies on local tax options for their businesses.


text:
Katrina Cameron
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Jesus didn't shy away from using earthly means to bestow both physical and spiritual blessings. In His first miracle, He changed water into wine. (John 2:1-11) Our Lord would later multiply loaves of bread to feed the people. (Matthew 14:13-21) And He allowed Mary to anoint His feet with oil. (Mark 14:3-9) Those elements have continued to play a prominent role within Christianity ever since our Lord first started using them.
One of the areas in Scripture where Christians differ is on the nature of the sacraments. I believe much of the variance is due to man's unfortunate tendency to separate spiritual matters from all physical realities.
God didn't have to come up with sacramental elements that are vitally connected to physical and spiritual health, but He did it anyway. And for that matter, God could have decided to create man without a physical body but only a soul. Instead, He united body and soul in such a way that it is practically impossible to separate one from the other.
In spite of God's holistic design, man sure seems intent on trying to keep physical realities and spiritual realities in two separate compartments. I'm not exactly sure why, but I suspect it has something to do with our desire "to be in control" of our own spirituality.
And yet in the midst of that desire for control, God "invaded our space" not only with His Son, and His cross, but then also with a few particular elements attached to special promises. The holy One gave Himself over to death for our sins, and the gift just keeps on giving when the bodies and souls of believers intersect with the sacraments which Christ instituted.
What are we to make of such an unusual spiritual dynamic? After all, we prefer to think about just one dimension at a time. Our minds naturally tend to go that way. And then God comes along and provides a multidimensional means for believers to interact with their Savior. This New Testament development involves the combination of certain physical and spiritual elements. At first, this unexpected approach doesn't seem to register on our theological radar.
But as we start to come to terms with this unique and divine arrangement, we can't help but notice the way Scripture places such a high value on the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and also on prayers for healing. The elements of water, wine, bread and oil all come into contact with the bodies of God's people. Hmm. What do you suppose the Lord was up to when He instituted such a tangible approach to spiritual and physical health?
There are plenty of Christians who view the sacraments as merely "symbolic" of God's grace in our lives. And at first blush, the argument sounds fairly convincing. After all, belief in Christ is all we really need, right? Well, yes and no.
We only need faith in Jesus to be forgiven. (see Romans 3:28) And anyone who trusts Christ as Savior receives God's grace and forgiveness. For example, the thief on the cross who trusted Jesus was forgiven of his sins, even though he was not baptized and he never participated in the Lord's Supper. Nevertheless, he is in heaven today. So that proves it, right? All that matters is faith.
Wait just a minute. If the thief had not died, guess what? He would have proceeded to have his body and soul come into contact with the water and the promise connected to Christian baptism, as well as the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. And at some point, he may have been anointed with oil while receiving healing prayer for his body. So while it is true that he is in heaven without having engaged in the sacraments, it is also true that Jesus instituted the sacraments for the well-being of His people.
"Hold on Pastor Dan. You said the 'well-being' of His people. That seems to imply something 'more' than mere symbolism." Correct. It does indeed.
Think of it this way. If water, wine, bread and oil only symbolize something, then why did God go to all the trouble to establish practices involving elements which come into contact with our bodies? Why would God "risk" having us think there is more than symbolism here, unless of course there truly is something more than just symbolism going on? And why would God attach blessings not only to saving faith, but also to a faith-filled participation of the sacraments? Did God want to confuse us concerning the nature and benefits of the sacraments? Obviously not.
I can understand though why we as Christians are prone to jump to the conclusion that these elements are nothing more than symbolic of spiritual blessings. After all, look at those religious leaders who place much emphasis on communion and baptism, but at the same time seem to be very confused concerning the nature of the Gospel. If they don't teach grace correctly, how in the world do their sacraments bless anyone? In truth, the sacraments do not benefit anyone who denies the message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.
But remember. The water, wine, bread and oil do not belong to Rome, or to any religious institution. They belong to Christ and His church. And my strong hunch is that the majority of spiritually reborn individuals do not attend worship services in a congregation that has an emphasis on the sacraments while lacking a proper understanding of the Gospel. After all, "faith comes from hearing the message" of salvation. (Romans 10:17) And if a religious group isn't proclaiming the Gospel consistently, how many people in their midst are even spiritually reborn in the first place?
But we must not throw the baby out with the bath water. Just because some religious leaders promote the sacraments while missing the Gospel doesn't mean we can blame their error on the sacraments. Instead, the problem lies with those religious leaders who are not placing their full confidence for salvation in the finished work of Christ on the cross. They are striving to "shore up" their standing with God through their earnest and devout religious deeds. And when church leaders are not spiritually reborn through total reliance upon Christ's death, the result is that their hearers are often left to starve spiritually no matter how many times they come into contact with the water, wine, bread and oil.
When the Gospel is proclaimed and the sacraments are administrated properly in accordance with our Lord's commands, heaven comes down and God meets with His people in a special way. After all, God invented this approach in order to bless His people.
"Are you saying Pastor Dan that there are physical and spiritual blessings associated with the water, wine, bread and oil?" That is exactly what I am saying because that is what God's Word teaches. Where you have God's command and promise connected to the elements and the sacrament, you have the blessing and the grace of God available to the recipients.
And so yes, heaven comes down to those who trust in Christ alone and who then participate in these God-ordained sacraments with humble and repentant hearts of faith. I didn't say that certain "feelings" come down. Something much deeper is going on in the sacraments, whether a person immediately "feels" something or not. And many times, there isn't some mystical feeling. But don't kid yourself. God always keeps His promises based on His faithfulness, regardless of man's emotions in the moment. That's actually quite comforting and reassuring, wouldn't you say?
"But the sacraments and the elements do nothing substantive. They are only symbolic." Are you sure about that? Do you know for a fact that God doesn't bless his people through the elements which are connected to the promise? Well here is a thought. Try taking a step back for a second and honestly ask yourself this question: Could God work through the elements and the promise to strengthen the soul of the recipient, just as He works through food to strengthen the body of the one who eats it?
"No way, you say. God would never attach a spiritual blessing of any kind to a physical element that is connected to a biblical promise." Oh really.
I must ask this question then. Why this insistence on separating the physical from the spiritual? And why this determination to dismiss the physical aspect and claim that only the spiritual part of the sacrament brings any benefit? I sure am glad God didn't approach it that way when He created man. He placed a high value on both the physical and the spiritual. And when the Son of God took on human flesh, the Lord met man at our level in order to save us.
On the night when He was betrayed, Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper with an emphasis on His body and blood. On Friday, Christ hung on the cross as His body was crucified. And when Christ rose from the grave, it involved a bodily resurrection. Physical and spiritual suffering on the cross, and a physical and spiritual Lord who rose from the grave. True God and true Man.
What if Jesus had only come to earth "in the spirit" but not in the flesh? In that case, how could He have been nailed to a cross for our salvation? The real presence of Jesus involves both his divine nature as well as his human nature.
Have you ever stopped to consider how the incarnation is played out beautifully in the Lord's Supper? Or is the physical presence of Jesus "bound to heaven" and unable to reach our bodies and our souls during these days when we need Him the most? Is that what your theology has taught you about the real presence of Jesus with believers today? Are you limiting God by an insistence that God could never work through physical elements attached to biblical promises? If so, I am curious how often you or your spiritual leaders anoint the sick with oil as you pray for their healing?
God is much bigger than we sometimes want to make Him.
It was this Savior who instituted baptism as a means of grace for those who confess Christ as Lord and Savior. "Hang on Pastor Dan. What do you mean by "a means of grace" for believers? Well, baptism is either a means of grace, or a work of man. And if baptism truly is "man's first work of obedience" as is commonly taught by those who believe the water is only symbolic, then consider what that would mean for Scripture passages such as Mark 16:16 and Acts 2:38. In that line of reasoning, he who believes and "does one good work" will be saved. I don't think so. Don't believe it. That line of thought contradicts everything the New Testament teaches about salvation by grace through faith alone.
So then where does baptism "fit" within Christianity? Is is part of justification, or sanctification? Is it part of the "foundation" of the new birth, or part of the "house" of Christian discipleship? Is baptism part of the "washing" process of body and soul, or part of the "doing" of Christian living? Is baptism God's work upon us and within us, or is it only our response to God's love for us in Christ?
The Bible teaches that baptism is God's work from start to finish. Scripture describes the body of a believer being "washed with pure water." (Heb. 10:22) This is why no one in the Bible is instructed to baptize himself. Baptism gets "done to you." There is a reason God set it up that way. And there is also a very important reason Jesus linked belief and baptism when He stated, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved." (Mark 16:16) Jesus would not have connected belief and baptism to salvation if baptism is essentially man's first work of obedience. You only end up with that idea if you force it into the text.
Through belief and baptism, God washes away the sins of the soul and the body. All of man gets washed, cleansed and justified through belief and baptism. And if a person will approach the Bible openly and honestly without any preconceived notions concerning baptism, this obvious interpretation is easily grasped and accepted.
So is baptism magic? Heaven's no. God doesn't operate in magic. It is below Him. Instead, God operates through grace and through His divine power and blessing.
Allow Hebrews 10:22 to sink into your theological mindset. The blood of Jesus cleanses the soul through faith. The water of baptism washes the body with pure water. You can take God's Word for it. If the water of baptism was meant to be only symbolic, there would have been no reason to have the believer's body come into contact with the water.
The same thing is true with the Lord's Supper. Why involve the body? And why keep doing it over and over again? We already had an excellent symbol, and that is the cross where the one-time perfect sacrifice took place. But the Lord gave us more than another symbol. He wanted our bodies to participate in a meal that reaches the whole person. This includes both spiritual and physical benefits. Faith is strengthened when the Lord's Supper is celebrated in remembrance of Christ's death.
When the Christians in Corinth abused the Lord's Supper by their lack of love for one another, they were "guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord." (1 Cor. 11:27) That was not a "symbolic sin." It was a real violation of God's will. And the bodies of these believers suffered as a result of their sin. A number of them became weak and sick. And some of those Christians even died and went to heaven. It's true. (see 1 Cor. 11:29,30) That's what happened to them as a result of their real participation in this real sacrament involving the real presence of our Lord's body and blood. God intended to bless them through this meal, but they chose to make a mockery of the sacrament by the way they were dishonoring one another.
The benefits of the Lord's body and blood isn't limited only to those times when believers are celebrating the Lord's Supper. Far from it. Read our Lord's lengthy description in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. (see John 6:25-59) It is incredible to know that a Christian has "spiritual" contact with the flesh and blood of Jesus all day long.
But did you know there is only one place where the Lord's body and blood comes into sacramental contact with the bodies of believers? That only happens in the Lord's Supper. And even though we don't chew Christ's body or swallow His blood, we nevertheless "make contact" with Christ's body and blood in a sacramental way. That's the way God designed it. And that's why it is so beneficial to believers, and why the first Christians participated in this holy meal together every week.
The spiritual eating Jesus talks about in John 6 goes on all day everyday in the life of a believer, and it is not merely a symbolic eating. It is a real spiritual eating. Likewise, the Lord's Supper involves real eating as well. It is a sacramental eating. During that meal of remembrance, there is both the spiritual eating through faith as well as a sacramental eating of Christ's body and blood.
God's Word declares, "Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16) The body and soul of the believer receives the body and blood of Jesus for the strengthening of faith and the assurance of forgiveness and salvation.
So how did we get to a point where so many Christians adopt the "symbolic" interpretation of the sacraments? Very simply, I believe it has been largely an overreaction to the religion of Rome. Tragically, many priests still do not lead people to have the assurance of salvation through faith in the death of Jesus on the cross. This huge oversight harms the souls of people who are thirsty for the assurance of salvation and for unconditional forgiveness through Christ alone. Until a group of professing Christians gets the Gospel right, the sacraments they employ will also miss the mark.
If a Christian was just a soul with no body, there would have been no need for Jesus to institute the sacraments. But He did so with a very practical purpose in mind. After all, no one is more practical than God, and only He knows how best to provide His grace and strength to the bodies and souls of His people.
So go ahead. Rest in His love. Bask in His grace. Rejoice in His salvation. Trust in His death. And participate in baptism and the Lord's Supper as you believe His promises and stand on Christ's victory at the cross.
Embrace the water, wine, bread and oil for the strength they bring to believers, and the peace which flows to the one who knows His sins are forgiven on account of Christ's one-time sacrifice on the cross 2000 years ago.
Come to think of it, the life-giving event of Calvary is just as objective as the elements and the promises of the sacraments. And in a world filled with subjective religious experiences where people are tempted to place faith in their feelings, God chose to meet our need in an objective manner. He gave us the unadulterated Word, an all-sufficient Gospel, an atoning sacrifice, and tangible elements to provide physical and spiritual health for His family.
So think of the sacraments as "God's medicine" for His people. What a mighty and loving God we serve, and what a marvelous way the Lord has entered our realm with His holy presence.
Halloween: Should Christians Trick Or Treat?


The combination of on- the- job training coupled with formal education is the perfect formula for success in the lawn care business.
In 1987 Carmelo Castillo began his career working in southwest Florida with a few lawn services enterprises and various nurseries while going to school to learn more about plant growth and maintenance, different types of soil, insects, funguses, worms, scales and the recognition of the various types of grasses and how to take care of them.
Upon completion of his studies Carmelo started Castillo Lawn Service in 1995 with 8 initial customers. Thanks to excellent service and care, Castillo Lawn Service received quite a few referrals from existing clients and soon the business grew to have 120 clients in Naples and Marco Island.
We have a full and capable staff dedicated to providing excellent lawn services and care. We do projects ranging from one residence yard to commercial office complexes to condominium associations. No job is too small or too big.
Call us for a free estimate for your lawn or landscaping needs. We are here to serve you.


American consumer finances have got turned on their head in the last few years. High unemployment and falling house prices have all taken their toll on people's net worth. Some people have underwater mortgages on their house where they owe more than the house is worth. The credit crisis has shown people cant rely on the traditional approaches if they want to be financially free sooner in life. Financial freedom for many people means ultimately paying off their mortgage and being debt free. But after the credit crisis, they now know that the existing financial systems are not going to help.
The traditional mortgage advice is to get a 30 year fixed mortgage, paying the fixed month on time every month. However this is exactly what the banks would like you to do. They get there fixed monthly payment every month for 30 years, and you end up paying more interest than principal on the loan. Go to work, pay the bank, work harder, pay the bank, repeat every month! We are not trying to be down on hard working people who can only afford to pay the standard mortgage payment every month – just recognize that the math is working in the bank's favor not yours!
The traditional mortgage accelerator advice is to do the good old fashioned way of saving extra each month and overpaying on your mortgage. One technique is to overpay principal every year as you can afford it. Another technique suggests adding a small amount every month to your standard mortgage payment. Yet another suggests changing your mortgage payment to be biweekly (every 2 weeks). These are sound techniques as they will reduce principal faster earlier in the life of the loan, and ultimately greatly reduce the amount of interest you pay to the bank. This is great advice and it works well. But the main issue here is that you are always using your own savings! Once you have invested that saved money in the mortgage, you aren't free to invest it for other things – you have lost opportunity cost.
Overpaying on your mortgage if you can afford to do it is obviously a very good thing over the longer term. However in the short term you still have to shovel your own extra hard earned cash at the mortgage. Once it's in the mortgage you no longer have any access to it (you have lost the opportunity to invest it elsewhere).
We have developed a technique where you can borrow money incredibly cheaply at 1% to 2%, then use that money to pay your mortgage payments to the bank several months in advance. Effectively you are running your own bank – borrowing money at low rates to pay off your higher rate mortgage much earlier than normal.
This technique combines traditional mortgage over payments ideas with how to get the cheap loan, to save you hundreds of dollars a year and help you pay off your mortgage early.
You need good credit and discipline to execute these techniques successfully. However we have now proven that they work by testing it out for 2 years since 2012, and successfully applied this mortgage acceleration technique to over $30,000 in mortgage payments. We have christened the idea the "Float My Mortgage" method.
Pay less mortgage interest – Save mortgage interest payment by overpaying principal on your mortgage today. However don't actually pay the principal payment out of your own pocket until many months in the future.
Invest – start making money today on the cash that you would have paid towards your mortgage payments and overpayments.
Beat inflation – postpone mortgage payments and overpayments. Make payments today, but don't actually pay the mortgage provider until many months in the future. $1000 today is worth more than $1000 next year.


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Home » D-BRIEF – Employment & Pensions Blog: Legislative Changes in the New Tax Year
D-BRIEF – Employment & Pensions Blog: Legislative Changes in the New Tax Year
Whilst businesses continue to deal with the ever-changing restrictions and guidance being issued by the Government in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the latest iterations of which will form part of an upcoming blog, it is important that employers ensure that they are aware of other legislative changes that have been implemented upon the dawning of a new tax year.
Legislative Amendments
Changes that businesses need to be aware of that took effect earlier this month include the following:
Reforms to the IR35 rules on the engagement of contractors/consultants via their own intermediaries;
Increases to the national minimum wage, weekly pay cap and statutory rates of pay for absence; and
Reporting on an organisation's gender pay gap.
Reforms to the IR35 Rules
"IR35" is the tax regime that applies where an individual provides their services to a client via a connected intermediary, such as a personal service company. From 6 April 2021, the coverage of the IR35 regime is scaled back and instead the Off-Payroll Working regime will apply to such engagements where the 'client' is a medium or large private sector organisation (this regime already exists in the public sector).
The client will have to determine if the individual would have been an employee if they were providing their services directly. If so, Income Tax and National Insurance will need to be deducted from the fees payable to the individual's intermediary. Responsibility for making those deductions will either rest with the client (if it contracts directly with the individual's intermediary) or if there is a chain between the client and the individual's intermediary then (in most cases) with the party in the chain immediately above the individual's intermediary.
With employer NICs payable, and potentially also the apprenticeship levy, this means that such engagements will now become more costly. In addition, the liability for PAYE and NICs can shift if one party does not comply with its obligations.
In light of the above, it is critical that businesses engaging contractors/consultants via their own intermediaries (whether directly or indirectly) carry out the following:
Issue Status Determination Statements: the client must determine whether the individual is a 'deemed employee' and communicate that result to the individual and the party with whom the client is contracting. The client must take reasonable care in making that determination. There is a gov.uk tool that can be used which, if completed accurately, HMRC will accept the output of;
Have a dispute resolution process: so that the individual and party responsible for deducting and accounting for tax and NICs (if not the client itself) can challenge the status determination result. The client must respond to any challenge within 45 days;
Set up compliant payroll processes: where an individual is deemed to be an employee for tax purposes, and the client is contracting directly with their intermediary, then the client will need to put the individual on its payroll and ensure that it is deducting the correct amount of tax and NICs from the payments being made to them;
Maintain a clear audit trail: in order to demonstrate to HMRC that businesses have complied with the relevant legislation; and
Check contracts with agencies if an agency will be the one contracting with the individual's intermediary: to ensure it is clear who is responsible for doing what and to seek protection against tax liabilities moving within the chain if one party does not comply with its obligations.
Statutory payments
As usual, April sees an increase in the rates of pay set by statute. Employers will need to ensure that they are applying the new rates, in particular noting that the age threshold for the highest NMW rate has now dropped from 25 years old and over to 23 years old and over.
Payment Amount Date of change
National Minimum Wage where aged 23 and over (the National Living Wage) £8.91 1 April 2021
National Minimum Wage where aged 21 and 22 £8.36 1 April 2021
National Minimum Wage where aged 18 – 20 £6.56 1 April 2021
National Minimum Wage for Apprentices £4.30 1 April 2021
Weekly pay for statutory redundancy pay calculations (also relevant to unfair dismissal calculations) £544 6 April 2021
Statutory maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental and parental bereavement leave pay £151.97 4 April 2021
Statutory sick pay £96.35 6 April 2021
Report on Gender Pay Gap
The obligation for employers with 250 or more employees to publish their 2020/21 reports on the gender pay gap by 5 April 2021 has been delayed for six months. Please see a blog that Devonshires recently published on this point here.
The "snapshot date" for the purposes of 2021/22 reporting has just happened so employers will now be able to assess whether they will need to report in April 2022.
The changes to the tax rules around engaging contractors/consultants are something which most businesses should already have prepared for as these were due to be introduced in April 2020 but were then delayed for 12 months. However for those whose use of contractors/consultants is very ad hoc, this may not have been given much attention at the time but needs to be borne in mind now for next time they do want to use the services of an individual who operates via their own intermediary.
Regarding the change in statutory pay rates, HR and payroll need to ensure that the correct figures are being used in calculations. Policies are not always updated annually to refer to the up-to-date statutory figures but for those employers who do this every year then they should be doing so now.
For more information on the changes mentioned within this blog, please contact a member of the Employment Team.
Employment Blog
First Remediation Contribution Order pursuant to the Building Safety Act 2022 made by the First Tier Tribunal
Managing tenancies where your resident lacks mental capacity: a step by step guide
Building Safety Act 2022: Service Charges and Landlord's Certificates – Top 10 Facts
Governance and Disclosure Guidelines for Housing Associations Seeking Funding from Capital Markets
Purchasing a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV): Key issues to consider at the outset
ESG considerations and your supply chain commercial contracts – working to Net Zero
Issuing and enforcing possession claims in the High Court
The Building Safety Act
PFI Expiry Series
Payment in Lieu of Notice (PILON)


After my father died, my mother, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, moved in with my patient husband, Larry, and me. My sweet, exasperating mother got the guest room at the end of the hall; my teenage daughter Anna got to share her bathroom; and I got a spiffy new therapist named Stuart.
A year has passed since then. It is winter again, and snow once more shrouds the ground that I trekked across after the funeral to pinch a few flowers from the bouquets covering my father's grave, flowers that I dutifully carried into my kitchen and put in a vase, as if they had any connection at all to him. They were hothouse roses, a funeral-industry staple, like taped organ music and hours-old coffee. I don't remember my father ever remarking on a flower in his life.
In the weeks following the funeral, my sister Sue and I labored, with help from our families, to steer our mother along the twisting corridors of Alzheimer's. Every day was like waking up in a strange old hotel with high ceilings, the kind that you find in big cities: You step tentatively out of your room and go searching for the elevator that will bring you down to the familiar street, but that elevator isn't so easy to find. Everywhere you turn are hallways and more hallways, snaking and braiding and dividing up there on the tenth floor. You realize with certainty and horror that you could wander those featureless halls forever without touching the earth again.
I am not a churchy person by nature, but I've decided to start taking my mother to the Presbyterian church near my house. She is a lifelong Presbyterian, and I figure the familiarity of the liturgy might make her feel more comfortable and secure in her new surroundings. And it does, a little. We sit side by side near the back of the sanctuary and recite the Lord's Prayer, asking that our debts be forgiven and promising to forgive our debtors. We sing the Gloria Patri and the doxology. The church's two ministers are like spirited young colts. They seem so happy up there on the pulpit; they almost sing their sermons, spinning shiny new metaphors from old biblical text like jugglers spinning plates on the Ed Sullivan Show. They seem to be at once devout and clever.
My mother often has a hard time following the bulletin and finding the hymns in the hymnal, and I sometimes lean over and help her. Other times, usually on mornings when she has asked me again and again who I am — even asked me if I am her mother — I sit tight, irritated, and let her wander through the pages while the congregation reads in unison. One morning at breakfast she asked me for what seemed like the hundredth time if I was her mother, and I snapped, "Do I look like I'm 115 goddamned years old?" That's how mean I can be.
One of the uncomfortable things about living with a person who suffers from Alzheimer's is that it makes you confront your own character flaws. Just when you thought it more or less clear from all the times you've sent money to public radio and boycotted Wal-Mart that you were the incarnation of Albert Schweitzer, or Gandhi, or both, you find out you're really just a slightly bitchier version of Martha Stewart. Your well of compassion and patience, which was never very deep to begin with, is now just an empty cistern.
A few weeks after my mother moved in, I dropped her off at my sister's house so that I could go hear environmental writer and activist Terry Tempest Williams speak on the campus of Michigan State University. I and a small crowd of other liberals, all chastened by the outcome of the 2004 presidential election, had emerged from our dens, licking our wounds, and crept out through the March sleet to listen to Williams talk about sustainable living in the global age. We disappointed blue-staters hadn't been out much since November, what with the bad weather following the election like fallout, but we assembled in a large, anonymous lecture room, and Williams lit a candle and began to speak about community and living in the service of something beyond ourselves. She quoted Henry David Thoreau: "Let us consider the way we spend our lives." And she described the rain that comes after periods of drought, even in the desert, where she lives, and the life that appears in puddles within hours of a deluge.
I thought about how dried up and brittle I was feeling inside, like seasoned cordwood, when what I wanted was wetness, fluidity. And I did feel a keen desire to serve something beyond myself; I merely needed the capacity to do so, which could come only from buoyant, sloppy, perilous, life-sustaining love. Inside my dry-kindling self, I felt the possibility of a damning conflagration, and I realized that hell, like the kingdom of God, lies distinctly within. And I recognized sin as a condition of self that draws a border around its private appetites — for time, money, power (insert your private hoard here) — and excludes everything and everyone else.
My mother's Presbyterians have a great interest in sin. I froze up momentarily one Sunday when the young minister paused midgallop to endorse the Reform Tenets of the church, which include original sin. Then I took a moment to breathe and remind myself that most of the people sitting around me had never seriously considered the implications of that grim doctrine. They came to church so that they could be a part of something larger and better than themselves, and so that their children could color pictures of Jesus in the sunny Sunday-school classrooms. Certainly the nice minister's wife, when she'd introduced herself to us, had not loomed like one of the arrogant elect; she'd said hello and welcomed us and shown us around.
But, as I said, after going to my own church, which is what I felt I'd done with Terry Tempest Williams and that mob of damp and disheartened liberals, I reconsidered the problem of sin. I realized that steps needed to be taken . . . and that I had to take them. I considered the way I'd been spending my life lately. Anyone who didn't look too closely might have told you I was doing a fine job fulfilling a daughter's duties: My sister and I had hired an aide to spend several hours a day with my mother. We had assembled a medical team of "ologists" to oversee her body, and a legal-financial team to oversee her assets. But somehow, I knew, I had to do something more, something that for me was radical and terrifying: I had to make the dense and rigid borders of my self permeable. I had to stop recoiling from and deflecting my mother's pain and instead let it in, where it would reshape my life and claim my time and energy. You can't imagine how much I didn't want to do that. But I suspected it was just that sort of full communion that would lead me to where the water is. I wasn't exactly sure how to tap into this subterranean sea that I sensed (or, rather, hoped) lay beneath my crusty separate self like an aquifer beneath a desert. I had no divining rod except a raggedy sort of faith in the power of love — the pure stuff, not the compromised cupfuls we flavor and bottle and hand out in small portions and sometimes take back.
It was becoming clear that I had to do less managing of my mother's affairs and more listening.
To that end, I set myself deliberately along a new course. No more sitting my mom in the next room with the television on while I washed and peeled and stir-fried vegetables for dinner, as if she were company, an elderly auntie too fragile to pitch in. I invited her into the kitchen, handed her a paring knife, and sat her down at our old farm table to slice peppers. Enough pretending that all was well — it wasn't. Might as well admit it. She had sustained staggering losses.
"What do you miss the most, Mom?" I asked her.
"My house. The girls. Ken." Ken was my father; the "girls" were a group of eighty-year-old women she'd known since they'd worked together at the Standard Oil Company in the fifties. They still met for lunch once a month, though naturally they were down a few girls. "Especially Cathy," she added in her small voice. Her best friend.
Against my better judgment, I found my mom's small voice irritating, imagined I heard in it an implicit reproach: A good daughter would find the time to drive me home once in a while. I bit my lip and chopped Vidalia onions.
Nothing happened quickly. In May we bought antique lawn chairs and painted them purple and sat in them in the garden each evening. We walked our old dogs together. But I struggled to open myself and continued to feel crowded by my mother's enormous needs and the claims they made on my life.
And then — a godsend. The summer my mother came to live with my sister and me, moving back and forth between our two homes, we cleaned out her house so that it could be rented, coming away with odd bits of furniture, stacks of books, and a few boxes of mementos to be sorted out later. When "later" came, I discovered among the old passports and birth certificates my mother's wedding picture. She is beautiful in it, standing alone at the bottom of a stairway in her satin dress. But most of all she is young — younger than my own daughters.
I hung her portrait in my house just as I'd found it — discolored at the edges, its frame rickety and peeling. I study it almost daily, and here is what I am finding: the girl in that photograph awakens my tenderest, most protective instincts. I want to take her by the hand and promise that the world will be gentle with her, that she won't come up empty-handed; I will see to it.
That, of course, is a promise I can't make even to my own children. But the wonder of it is that I am meeting that lovely bride now, at the other end of her life. The world, as it turns out, was not gentle with her at all, but I am here to take her hand, in its old woman's skin. Mother, daughter — what does it matter the order, the age?
Those people who say that life isn't perfect — well, they are right. I am still overly busy, and my mother is still often sad. But my borders, at least, have relaxed and grown noticeably porous, the way they were when my daughters were young. I am getting better at letting my mother into my life: schlepping her along in the snow to a fundraiser for earthquake victims; sitting her down for chai at my favorite cafe; even working her into my noisy book group, where she seems happy to engage in small talk. And I am surrendering my role as protector, learning to let her help me too. When I crawled out into the English ivy to be near my old dog, who was dying, she ran for blankets and tissues and tea. Back and forth she went on her unsteady feet, the ivy grabbing at her ankles — but I let her care for me. Because permeable, breathing borders both let out and receive love.
"This has been a tough year," I said, sniffling.
We sat there until the sun went down. Then we got up and went inside.
A different version of this essay appeared previously in Zion's Herald.
Jan Shoemaker's writing has appeared in The Other Side, Fourth Genre, Passages North, and a couple of slick, commercial magazines she's too embarrassed to mention. A self-professed impatient driver, she once caused a three-car pileup (no one was hurt) on her way to a Buddhist monastery for a meditation retreat. She lives in Okemos, Michigan.


Victoria Stanton (Montreal, Canada) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher/curator/educator who works with live action, human interaction, video, film, photo, drawing, and writing. Her time-based work includes performance for stage, performance for the camera, actions in public spaces, and one-on-one encounters in intimate contexts. Investing a performative presence and consciousness within multiple spaces/times, she continuously underscores the complex aspects of "transaction" and the possibility for transformation. Considered a pioneer of transactional practices in Quebec, Stanton has presented exhibitions, performances, infiltrating actions, and films/videos in Canada, the U.S., Europe, the U.K., Australia, Japan and Mexico.
For the festival "Live Art for Children 2018″, she presented the work "Full circle – what goes around comes around". Here, children can feed adults – parents or strangers – and there is food for thought about the life-long relations with food, that are established in our childhood.


Air Source is a great company. They are honest, affordable and dependable. I use them to service my house and rental property. When I needed some remodel work, I had them reconfigure duct work in the basement and was very happy. Rob and his crew are intelligent and know their business. I refer all of my customers to Air Source for all of their heating and a/c concerns. Great, honest company!!
Phillip gave fine service to me during a seasonal check of my equipment, which Air Source installed in 2015. He was friendly and efficient. I have experience with Rob, Brandon, and Josh also, and have only good things to say about their company and products. I highly recommend Air Source to anyone looking for an HVAC upgrade or service for an existing installation.
Josh & Phillip did a great install on our new HVAC system in triple digit temps. They protected our flooring before moving equipment and finished more quickly than we expected. We recommend Air Source!
GREAT PRICE! Very fast! Very helpful! They gave me all the options and more information to help me make a decision that best suited my circumstances at the time. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND!
Phillip Purty was absolutely professional and considerate not to mention very polite and informative! Thank you so much!
After having 2 different people come out and my A/C still not work I called these guys and they had it fixed in a couple of hours. I've now been a member for 2 years and have been very happy with their service. Brandon is always the one who comes out to do my seasonal cleaning and he's great. He's always on time and does a great job. He's always willing to answer questions and recommend products but has never tried to "push" extra products or services. You really can't get a better price with quality service like theirs.
The service technician, Philip, was prompt and efficient. He was courteous and quick. I am very satisfied with the maintainance service he provided.
I am writing this review in hopes of helping anyone who is considering purchasing a home. I placed an offer on a house and went through the inspection process. The inspector found the duct work to be very rusty. Since heating and air was not his expertise he recommended having it inspected by someone in this business. Based on reviews I contacted Air Source Heating and Air. I spoke with ******** and he agreed to look at the ductwork. He went above and beyond, he not only inspected the ductwork but he also determined if the existing air conditioner was the correct size unit for the size of the house. He found the ductwork to be extremely rusty and needed to be replaced. He also found an even more serious problem. Because the furnace was not the correct size for the house they had cut a hole in the floor, so the furnace would not shut off, and were sucking air out of the crawl space to heat the house. ***** spent an hour and a half inspecting the home and then took plenty of time to explain everything. If you ever have any heating and air concerns contact ***** at Air Source Heating and Air. I eventually purchased the home and had them install a new air conditioner and replace the ductwork.
Air Source installed a 60K Btu Amana furnace and a 2 1/2 ton 14 SEER Amana A/C to replace a 20-year old system. Their prices were unbeatable. All other quotes were way, way more. Installation was professional. They just completed the free 1-year service. I also got an Emerson Sensi WiFi thermostat. This is really convenient. I can program and adjust temperatures from any cell phone. Have had no problems with any components. I would highly recommend them.
Service on my HVAC system was carried out efficiently, with the technician arriving at the appointed time and completing the work quickly. My only suggestion would be "booties" to prevent tracking in dirt from the outside.
When we originally had our system installed, everyone involved were very professional and a wealth of knowledge; they were nice and pleasant with a great work ethic. We just had our first system check, and again, it was a pleasant and informative experience. Air Source has a great team and we're very satisfied with the service and equipment. Thank you.
Jerry did an awesome job explaining everything to my mom and went out of his way to get her service scheduled.
Great customer service. Rob is very knowledgeable and will give you the best advice for the situation. He will also do his best to help you save some money. Highly recommended.
I don't have a computer but I want to make sure Rob gets the full 5 stars so I am calling to let you know how happy I am with him. He came right out and took care of my air conditioner. He did a great job!
I have used Air Source for years and they have always been very professional. Both Josh and Brandon have serviced my unit in the past and both are very knowledgeable. Great family business. I would very highly recommend them to anyone.
I give Service Pro Rob 5 Stars,Excellent Job,Rob explained what the problem was so I could understand and get the job done right.Thank You Rob!


Make sure to stop by See Mama Teach today!
I've shared some of my quick and easy tips for taking photos this holiday season with your iPhone! I've also shared some of my favorite photo editing apps and how I use them there! So make sure to hop over and have a great week!
Nice tips. This is very useful. Thank you so much for sharing.
Tip # 1: Use a high-speed shooting on your iPhone camera app.


Tax preparation and accounting activities are much easier to perform today due to the use of powerful accounting software. In fact, you can perform many of these necessary tasks on your own at home or at your business. However, it is often much easier to hand over this work to a professional in the industry. This type of work can be carried out efficiently by one of several local top accounting firms. Indianapolis is served by companies that can handle all of your tax accounting needs, saving you a considerable amount of time and effort. You can also rely on the professionals who work for these firms to provide you with accurate accounting and tax prep services.
The work performed by accounting firms can be highly valuable to residential and business customers. You may have thought you could handle this work on a DIY basis, however, if you are busy like many people, there may be very little time in your schedule to get these required tasks completed. In these cases, it's important to obtain the services provided by top accounting firms.
It's often a prudent step to conduct some research in advance of choosing an accountant to handle your financial matters, including tax preparation. You have a lot of choices when it comes to businesses that are willing to handle your tax prep and accounting needs.
It's important to verify that your accountant possesses legitimate credentials in order to provide you with accounting services in the State of Indiana. You should review the experience of your prospective accounting firm and request references or examples of prior clients or work respectively that the company has available to share. Top accounting firms serving Indianapolis should be able to provide you with this information.
The qualified accounting firm serving the Indianapolis area can help you move forward and obtain the benefits of having your accounting and tax prep requirements handled in an efficient and accurate manner. Be sure to review your options carefully and verify the services and capabilities you'll have access to from any particular accounting firm.


A little while back, I noticed that Instagram stopped supporting its ability to post to Flickr… at least I think it did. I mean a lot of my pics from Instagram can be found on Flickr… But in any case, at this time there is no link between the two. And as I use Instagram whenever I don't have my real camera at hand (I love the filters), and my website has a Flickr stream, I started to look for a way to connect them.
With my new job title of Linux System Administrator (more correctly "Administrateur Systèmes Linux"), there are some new things I have had to learn. One is the wonderful world of Ansible.
However, there is one thing that plagued me, rebooting the system and having it wait to run the next command. This is important for patching up a server then making sure everything came back up alright.
After scouring the web and trying out every post I found. I found a post that I was able to piece together other's response to get a valid, working, solution.
If you asked me 5 years ago what my 5 Year plan was… I would never have guessed I would have gotten this far.
That nostalgic feeling… How things have changed….


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House votes down pension borrowing
With time running short, House lawmakers have shot down a plan to borrow to make pension payments, making even more difficult their choices on a new budget.
The House voted 59-57 today for Senate Bill 3514, which would borrow to pay about $4 billion in payments owed to the pension systems next year. It needed 71 "yes" votes to pass.
House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, warned her colleagues that while voting to borrow to pay off massive pension debt and obligations wasn't a "great choice," it was much better than the alternative.
"We're flat broke and we do not have close to $4 billion in walking-around money," Currie said. "We're stuck. We're mired in, and I don't see any good options but this."
Currie said if lawmakers don't support this borrowing, the next step is likely to be suspending pension payments until January. That means billions of dollars in payments have to wait six months and forces the systems to sell off assets to cover their costs. The negative result, she warned, over 35 years would be a $36 billion hit to the state.
Opponents, mostly Republicans, were unconvinced, saying more borrowing is a reckless response.
"Somebody pull the fire alarm because this place is on fire," said Rep. Tim Schmitz, R-Batavia.
Both parties took shots at the other for shoddy budget choices. Schmitz said Republicans have been warning about Democrats' overspending for years, while Democrats said the GOP hasn't been about solutions.
"Where have you been? Cowering in the corner! We're waiting. We're waiting," said Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Collinsville.
State Capitol Bureau


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As an offering with the Andersen Family of Brands, Andersen's large door offerings compliment a variety of window products. Specialty door offerings include lift and slide, folding doors, as well as pivot doors and European styled tilt and turn windows. Virtually limitless options include curved and corner configurations and oversized panels. The portfolio provides performance-grade products including aluminum, wood, and wood clad profiles complementing the Andersen offerings.
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An education progarmme to improve a child's competency in their mother tongue.
At the Primary School level, we recognised a need for fluency in reading and writing in the parent language. A child's competency in Kannada is believed to have a positive impact on the study of other subjects.
The Learning Improvement Programme (LIP) is delivered to students who have been identified from Grade 3 to 5 as having difficulties in reading and writing Kannada language. The classes serve as two-hour long remedials taken by animators for students with weaker grades and language-specific learning difficulties. Many of the activities conducted in the classes are practical in nature, involving activity cards, blackboards, seeds, beads, stationary and more. Reading material and workbooks are also distributed to facilitate the programme.
As an extension of the programme, Children's Clubs have been set up in 40 schools. These clubs encourage extracurricular activities, inculcate important values while also identifying and nurturing special talents and skills.
Parents are an active part of this programme and parent meetings as well as home visits are scheduled by animators to track the progress of students.
have improved in Kannada language with the help of 125 animators.
The impact and transformation that we have created breathe through the community of Yadgir. We continue to learn from them and use their experiences to create a more personalised approach.
Yellappa was a shy student. He had difficulties in understanding and learning concepts. He was not confident about reading and writing english. Through Kalike's Proficiency in English program, Yellapa today is confident about reading aloud in the class, his comprehension skills have shown marked improvement and he also actively participates in various class events. He has won several prizes for hand writing, reciting rhymes, etc.
The library was restructured and renovated in this village and village school, but people wanted to safe guard the books than read it. Kalike's Library program put a system in place through which students now are encouraged to borrow and read the books. The biggest recognition came when about 8 students opened their own school library.
The Kalike library initiative not only sets up libraries in dedicated spaces in schools, but has also encouraged students to collect books and set up home libraries of their own.


The Glasgow Coma Scale is a scoring system most commonly used to describe the level of consciousness of a person. The use of the this scale is to be able to communicate effectively a change in a patient's status in case their level of consciousness changes quickly in a period of time.
The Glasgow Coma Scale is used mostly in people who may have a brain injury. The scale will be done by trained personnel, such as Emergency responders at a car crash, or sports injury, also can be used inside the a hospital on the intensive care unit or emergency department. The Glasgow Coma Scale is used on most patients who are being transported emergently by ambulance. This is used on adults only, there is a separate scale for pediatric patients.
The scale is documented as three individual scores for each category, then are added together to give the final GCS score.
The normal GCS is 15, which means you score a 4 in Eye opening, 5 in Verbal and 6 in Motor Response.
Anything lower than the GCS 15 means that you aren't completely oriented.
Individual scores of the GCS are important too, not just the final score. It will help easily show if anything has changed in a category to help decide on a patient's status.
The Glasgow Coma scale is used for brain injury, but can also be used to describe any decrease level of consciousness of any kind. This could mean dementia, or stroke. There are three levels of brain injury. Each level coincides with a number on the GCS scale.
The pGCS (pediatric Glasgow Coma Scale) is used on children two and under. There are some different modifications to the scale. The final score though for completely oriented is 15. Eye response scores are the same as the adult GCS and so are the motor response. The verbal responses are a little different and geared towards kids under two.
The GCS and pGCS are used mostly by emergency responders, emergency department, or brain injury units. It has become one of the most common scales to describe the decrease of consciousness. And one of the most easily communicated between trained personnel.


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Nutrient Uptake and Metabolism
Parasite Genetics and Adaptations
Immune Responses
Host Genetics and Responses
IRTG 2290 calendar
Malaria Seminar Series
Life After PhD
PhD Medical Doctor Students
Coordination Office
IRTG2290 in the News
Research Reflections
Finding the Coordination Office
Stellenbosch Symposium and Retreat
Juli-Anne Gabelich
The STIAS Research Centre, nestled within the backdrop of the Cape Winelands of Stellenbosch, became the stage for the joining of researchers from three different continents. In line with the ideology of the international emphasis of the IRTG2290 program, scientists from Germany, South Africa, and Australia shared an experience in discussing progress towards understanding and controlling Plasmodium during a two day symposium.
The interconnection of research topics half a world over highlighted different perspectives of the same story. For example, the work of Jacky Snoep of Stellenbosch University focuses on modeling the metabolism of glucose in blood stage P. falciparum infection as a biomarker for disease severity. The conclusions drawn from this work were that a hypoglycemic state was negatively associated with survival outcome. In a way, this could indicate that Plasmodium responds to glucose levels of the host – either by reacting or influencing. Meanwhile, the group of Maria Mota works on nutrient sensing of the Plasmodium parasite in rodent malaria, which considers both stages of infection. In a 2017 Nature paper by Liliana Mancio-Silva of the Mota group, they explored the effects of caloric restriction on parasitemia and discovered that mice experiencing caloric restriction exhibited lower parasitemia compared to their non- caloric restricted counter parts. At first sight, it appears these two bodies of work may be at odds with one another. How can one group conclude that a hypoglycemic state predicts worse host survival chances, while the other group states that caloric restriction, and thus lower glucose levels, leads to lower parasitemia? However, they may not be contradictory at all. On one hand it may indicate the necessity for metabolic models to include information on the starting nutrient status of the host, or maybe it needs input on nutrient status during the liver stage of infection. On the other hand, it may be a highlight in the differences between rodent and human models of Plasmodium infection.
A large percentage of the South African based researchers focus their attention on drug discovery from a chemistry based background. This goes hand in hand with the cell biology that is often found within the IRTG cohort. The study of Francois Korbmacher on membrane transport proteins, Merryn Fraser on the mechanisms of membrane asymmetry, and Ayman Hemasa on the requirements of riboflavin all open up potential avenues for drug targeting and discovery. The work of these students would align nicely with that of John Woodland, who utilized fluorescent derivatives of a drug, in this case chloroquine, in order to ascertain interaction with its theorized targets. The cell biology would determine function and importance while the biochemical proteomic work would confirm interaction and mechanism.
All of the work within the IRTG, both on the Australian and German side, focuses on the Plasmodium parasite within the vertebrate host which is why I found the work presented by Lizette Koekemoer to be of particular interest. Her research focuses on vector control within South Africa. They take a hands on approach to eliminating the mosquito vector responsible for transmitting malaria, and this involves maintaining mosquito quarantine facilities that allow for study of the vector. Since these facilities are located within a malaria endemic region, it is of critical importance to adhere to strict safety protocols in order to prevent accidental release. This is in contrast to the protocols at the HU which are less stringent. Because the Molecular Parasitology mosquito breeding facility is based in a non-endemic location, accidental release of an individual uninfected, mature mosquitos does not pose a public safety risk. This highlights the importance of location when undertaking vector research.
Overall, the work presented during the Malaria Symposium, while sometimes straying from our areas of expertise, provided an appropriate complement to our work in the IRTG which helps round out our foundational knowledge as novice malaria researchers.
anu canberra
hu berlin


The kids are headed back to school and you finally have 6 minutes to yourself. Time to grab a bag of chocolates (or Red Vines, or Skittles…I'm not picky), one of these books, and settle in for some of the best school reading you'll ever do.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the story of a young girl, Francie, fighting her way into adulthood as she pushes herself through a hard-earned education in the classroom and on the streets of turn-of-the-century Williamsburg. Betty Smith is a not only a wordcraft genius, but the pictures she paints are powerful and honest, subtle and beautiful. READ. IT. NOW. I've never regretted any of my dozen plus forays into its spectacular pages.
Think Annie, but at college-age and sans the red curls. The story is of Jerusha Abbott, an orphan-turned-writer whose education is being funded by an unknown sponsor who has requested monthly letters as repayment. It's a light-hearted, easy-to-read love story that will keep you turning pages.
If you've ever seen the movie, you know the power of the written word…and why you now need to read the book. There's just something different about watching the story unfold on pages instead of the screen, and doubtless, you'll be just as inspired by Jamal and William's journey to learn from each other outside the classroom.
A classic that's always worth another read. And if it's your first go, you'll fall in love with Mr. Chips and his gentle way of shaping generation after generation of students. And hopefully remind you of a Mr. Chips or two in your life.
If you're late to the party on Wonder, don't worry, you'll catch up quick since you'll never actually put it down. Told in parts from many of the characters' perspectives, it's a triumphant story of coming together in terribly difficult circumstances by putting into practice the most important of Mr. Browne's precepts: Choose kind.


Join us for an informal welcome orientation.
Newcomers or other interested attendees can meet with NTEN staff and NTC Ambassadors — experienced NTEN community members — who will let you know more about NTC and answer any questions. If you like, head on over with them to one of the unofficial community events for further socializing before the conference.


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Meta4orce Exclusive Part Two: Rick Palmer and Alex Norris interviews
Posted on June 12, 2008 by Jonathan Melville
The second part of my three-part series of interviews looking at the creation of new BBC animated drama Meta4orce continues as Executive Producer Rick Palmer and Director, Producer and Editor Alex Norris take time out to discuss the programme and their hopes its future.
Jonathan Melville: Can you tell me a bit about your background?
Rick Palmer (Executive Producer): My background is in online. In the late 90's I set up and ran the largest independent film site in the UK, Reelscreen.com, which I sold to Future Publishing PLC in late 1999. Subsequent to that I founded BLOC Media as a digital agency working for clients in the entertainment industry and more recently the company has started to develop cross-platform formats such as Meta4orce.
How did the idea for Meta4orce come about?
Rick Palmer: The BBC approached us with the idea to create a new Teen Detective Drama for BBC Switch, but the actual format, story and world were left to us to develop.
We really wanted to bring some comic book sensibility to the story and John, our Creative Director and Assistant Producer on the show, was pretty adamant the story be set in the future so that we could have some fun with technology and the world around them.
We then approached one of our all time favourite comic book writers about the series and were over the moon when he agreed to get involved.
How similar is it producing an interactive series to a traditional TV series?
Rick Palmer: I've no experience producing traditional TV so wouldn't presume to answer this, however from many years of experience developing highly successful online formats for companies including CBBC and PlayStation, I would suggest that the addition of a fully interactive version of the show adds significantly to the overall work involved.
What has it been like working on the series? Is there a buzz surrounding it?
Rick Palmer: Meta4orce has been a fantastic series to work on and a significant commission for BLOC Media. Getting the chance to work with such a highly respected comic book writer, as well as an amazing animation and interactive team has made the series a joy to work on.
And the feedback from TV and web viewers and the client has made the project really worthwhile.
Is interactivity a "must-have" these days?
Rick Palmer: Whilst there is clearly still a lot of demand for standard TV formats, interactivity is certainly the new buzzword in the industry right now. And as a digital business, this is good news for us!
Do you have overall control of the online games as well as the series itself?
Rick Palmer: Absolutely. This is one of the reasons why BLOC Media was approached from the outset. We've been working with the games industry for the best part of a decade and in that time have made some really popular online games.
Did you always know what your timeslot was going to be?
Rick Palmer: Roughly, although our actual timeslot changes each week, we always knew we were making a series for Saturday afternoon on BBC Two.
The BBC Switch audience is a younger one – did you have to tone down any ideas for the timeslot?
Rick Palmer: There was clearly some self-censorship required when defining the overall world and the storyline detail, plus the final mini-series also needed to be cleared by the BBC to make sure it was on the money for the target audience… but for the most part this didn't have an effect on the output.
How successful does a series like this have to be for the BBC to recommission it?
Rick Palmer: You'll have to ask the Beeb!
Is Meta4orce being looked upon as a prototype for future BBC series?
Rick Palmer: Certainly 360 programming is a mantra at the BBC right now, so from a multi-platform perspective I would say absolutely… whether they want to make any more graphic novel inspired interactive cartoon series for teens is another question…
How important is the BBC iplayer is in the future success of series such as Meta4orce?
Rick Palmer: iPlayer is an invaluable part of the mix for BBC programs and it has been a real thrill to see Meta4orce in the line-up, jostling for attention with the big boys. However, as we are essentially an interactive series, the best place to view Meta4orce online is at the official website where the full interactive experience can be enjoyed.
Do you see the series spinning off into other media – audio or books perhaps?
Rick Palmer: Absolutely. I'd love to see Meta4orce the comic series. And as for Meta4orce The Movie… Well, put it this way, we've already registered the domain…
What can you tell us about your plans and hopes for the future of Meta4orce?
Rick Palmer: Meta4orce has the potential to become incredibly successful. As a company we will be pushing hard for a series commission and are already in talks with companies worldwide about the format.
Next up is the Director, Producer and Editor of Meta4orce, Alex Norris.
Alex Norris (Director/Producer/Editor): My background is in directing promos and TV commercials. Through my promo work I started directing animation a couple of years ago.
The exciting thing about animation is that you can do anything – if the script says "flying saucers blow up London" then that's what's going to happen. It's quite a buzz to get a script that says "the hovercraft skims across the waters of drowned London" and know that you can actually do it.
Unless you're shooting a Bond movie you just don't get to do these kind of things in British film / tv.
How early did you get involved with Meta4orce?
Alex Norris: Bloc had been developing the project for a few months before I joined. They'd already decided on a graphic style for the characters and Peter (Milligan) had written the first outline of the story.
From the outset my main mission was to work with Peter to try and help expand the story – flesh out the characters' backgrounds and make this much more than just a straightforward murder case.
Had you worked in animation before?
Alex Norris: Yes, in promos etc, but not on this scale. Our biggest challenge was coming up with an animation style that was achievable on our budget but still had real style. I think what we've hit on is something very unique and distinctive – a graphic novel come to life basically.
Which comes first – the animation or the voice recording of the actors?
Alex Norris: The voiceover (VO) recordings come first – the animators then work to that performance in terms of lip synch, character movements and so on. After the first stage of animation is complete we then get the actors back in to re-do the final voiceovers.
How did you go about casting for the characters?
Alex Norris: We did a casting session for a couple of the roles but for most of the parts we knew who we wanted to work with – and were very happy that they agreed to come along for the ride.
Do the actors rehearse together?
Alex Norris: No, sadly. There isn't the time or the money to get them all in a room together for long enough.
Alex Norris: The programme's got some pretty wild stuff in it for a Saturday lunchtime slot – so yes, we had to be a bit careful. Although the show is really for teenagers who would take all that stuff in their stride, it has to be suitable for younger kids that could be watching at the same time. An obvious example would be Soma's vampirism – we weren't allowed to show her actually biting anyone.
Alex Norris: You're going to be seeing a lot more shows that try and make use of more than one platform, for sure. The challenge is going to be finding ways to keep the drama gripping while introducing all the other elements – games, interactivity etc. At the end of the day the only thing that will never change is that the audience wants to be told a good story – and all the extras need to back that up.
Alex Norris: We've created a very dense world here – the setting of a flooded London divided into ultra rich and ultra poor, this sinister MAKO organisation, the heroes struggling with their powers and identities – all the ingredients are there for something with a big future.
What's really exciting about it is that it's uniquely British – apart from the good Doctor we don't really do enough sci-fi in the UK – and it gets a bit dull when it's all American all the time. We've been talking with Peter Milligan [series writer] about some possible future storylines and things get pretty crazy pretty quickly.
This is just the beginning!! Hopefully…
Rick Palmer and Alex Norris, thanks for your time!
Part One of my interview is with series writer Peter Milligan
Part Three is with the Animation and Interactive team behind Meta4orce
For more information on Meta4orce and to watch – and live! – the series, visit the official BBC website. Watch the Meta4orce trailer on YouTube:
This entry was posted in 2000s, Television and tagged Alex Norris, BBC iplayer, Meta4orce, Rick Palmer by Jonathan Melville. Bookmark the permalink.