Lodoe Gyatso—also known as Sogkhar Lodoe Gyatso because of his home area of Sog (Chinese: Suo) county, Nagchu (Chinese: Naqu), the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)—is now in his mid-50s.
Later that day, dressed in a white traditional Tibetan garment known as a chuba and a shirt, he was detained by police while marching around the Potala Palace carrying out his demonstration.
His wife, Gakyi, has also been sentenced to two years in jail, according to sources.
A Tibetan, who is a former prisoner who continued to protest while in prison despite being subjected to the most severe torture, has been detained again after apparently carrying out a solo demonstration outside the Potala Palace in Lhasa on January 28, 2018.
According to exile sources, Lodoe Gyatso, who has served over 20 years in prison and had a death sentence commuted, is again in detention after he released a video announcing his intention to carry out a peaceful protest. A video message by Lodoe Gyatso was posted by Voice of America Tibetan service showing Lodoe Gyatso (also known as Sogkar Lodoe based on his home county of Sog) dressed in pristine white Tibetan garment speaking to camera.
Lodoe announces in the video (an English translation of the message is included at the end of this report) his plan of staging a protest calling for world peace, describing his action as part of a long campaign of non-violent Tibetan protest. A Tibetan source told Radio Free Asia that Lodoe Gyatso is now being held in custody in his home county of Sog (Chinese: Suo) in Nagchu (Naqu) prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region.


A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. High 16C. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 km/h.
A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. High around 60F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.


text:
Upload Printed Application
Program Protocol
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By WhatsApp
Fraud and Other Warnings
The Program's Protocol (including its Schedules) sets outs the procedure, terms, and conditions that apply to the Program. These include:
The nature of the compensation that the Program offers.
The types of Injuries that are eligible for compensation under the Program.
The conditions that need to be met:
In order for an Application for compensation to be receivable.
If an Application is receivable, in order for you or the person you represent to be eligible to receive compensation under the Program.
Before submitting an Application for compensation under the Program, you should carefully read the Program's Protocol and its Schedules.
All Applications and other Program forms that are submitted to the Administrator will be dealt with in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Program's Protocol and its Schedules.
The Program Protocol sets out the processes and procedures which will be followed for claiming compensation under the AVAT No Fault Compensation Scheme.
Download "Program Protocol"
The Program Definitions are the list of definitions used in the Program Protocol.
Download "Program Definitions"
The AVAT No Fault Compensation Scheme, as detailed in the Protocol and its Schedules.
Serious bodily injury or illness suffered or sustained by a Patient that:
requires Hospitalization or prolongs an existing Hospitalization; and
results in permanent total or partial Impairment; or
is a congenital birth injury or illness in an unborn or new-born child of a woman who received a Vaccine and results in permanent total or partial Impairment; or
results in death.
A written claim for compensation completed by an Applicant on the application form approved by and provided by the Administrator, as set forth in Schedule 2 to the Program's Protocol, which must be accompanied by all Supporting Evidence, using the prescribed form in Schedule 3 to the Program's Protocol.
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Except as explicitly provided above, all other rights are reserved.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Pre-Columbian weaving tools. Chancay and Wari culture. Weaving swords and bobbins with carved human and animal figures. Longest implement is a highly unusual Wari bobbin with a standing figure that is 21 inches long and carved from a dark, very hard wood.


Two of the consistently most hyped teams in Super rugby round off week 2′s action.
Both teams laboured to first round derby victories. Both teams made significant backline signings in the off-season and both look to have strong squads on paper. Games between these teams are often close fought and go down to the wire. Will the Stormers build on their win in the Coke tin and please the Newlands faithful, or will the Waratahs boost their semi final hopes with a crucial away win?
Stormers: 15 Joe Pietersen, 14 Gio Aplon, 13 Jaque Fourie, 12 Juan de Jongh, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Peter Grant, 9 Ricky Januarie, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Francois Louw, 6 Schalk Burger (captain), 5 Andries Bekker, 4 De Kock Steenkamp, 3 Brok Harris, 2 Tiaan Liebenberg, 1 JC Kritzinger.
Replacements: 16 Deon Fourie, 17 Eusebio Guinazu, 18 Anton van Zyl, 19 Pieter Louw, 20 Dewaldt Duvenage, 21 Lionel Cronjé, 22 Sireli Naqelevuki.
Waratahs: 15 Sosene Anesi, 14 Lachie Turner, 13 Tom Carter, 12 Kurtley Beale, 11 Drew Mitchell, 10 Berrick Barnes, 9 Luke Burgess, 8 Wycliff Palu, 7 Phil Waugh (captain), 6 Ben Mowen, 5 Kane Douglas, 4 Will Caldwell, 3 Al Baxter, 2 Tatafu Polota-Nau, 1 Benn Robinson.
Replacements: 16 Damien Fitzpatrick, 17 Sekope Kepu, 18 Hendrik Roodt, 19 Dave Dennis, 20 Josh Holmes, 21 Daniel Halangahu, 22 Rory Sidey.
I hope this ref has a decent game and doesnt stuff up like he did against the Sharks.
I hope they dont disappoint this evening!!
The Bulls game starts soon. Will you be supporting them too??
@wpw (Comment 11) : Hopefully he feels he owes SA a favour.
The stadium doesnt look full. Whats up wiff dat??
@wpw (Comment 13) : Probably still more people than anywhere else so far.
@provincejoulekkading (Comment 14) : There you go. The Province faithful deliver once again.
Hello Keith Brown my old friend.
Stormers lose their first lineout, Schlak knocks on and Habana tries to get away but gets called back for the knock, scrum Tahs.
There was nothing wrong with the ref against us last week.
Tahs full of running early on, cutting through the Stormers line but some good goal line defence by the stormers wins them a penalty and Joe P clears the line.
Lineout on Stormers 5m, Duane Vermuelen decides to run it out, stormers get to 45 m line and the penalised.
I wonder if KSA Shark will be defending the referee thru'out this game??
Schalk Burger replaced for Pieter Louw, dont know why.
TRY TIME!Don't know how the tmo called it but he did. Francois Louw!
Why the hell didnt De Jongh pass there??
Francois Louw having a great game. Stormers on the attack now!!
Peter Grant having an ordinary day at the office, Habana looking for work.
Did pee wee just tell the ref to f off?
They need to bring Habs and Aplon into the game. Why the hell dont they use their outside backs??
Not convinced that january has got his form back.
And the mechanic shuts us up by putting Habs away!
Wpw – mechanic is getting worse.. time to bring on dewage.. GO HABANA!!!!
Did you not see what he just did??
PJLD – he is better though thans Ricky…mechanic gives away way more than he creates.
Duvenage is not bad. Does the basics well but thats about it.
Duvenage is not in the same class as Ricky.
@Just a Fan (Comment 87) : Dewaldt is extremely overrated.
@Just a Fan (Comment 87) : I'd have a club 2nd team scrummie in my squad before I pick Duvenhage.
At the moment so is January.
Stormers set up a maul in Waratahs territory.
Geo Aplon definitely holding his own…def one to watch for the future.
@Just a Fan (Comment 96) : Heres the thing, Dewaldt Duvanhage is extremely talented, he is also extremely prone to doing dumb stuff like random no look pop passes to nobody.
Are hyou guys seriously disputing Ricky's contribution?
7 kicks and 4 runs v 23 passes – thats what a 9 should do.
Duvenhage is ok – but Ricky just needs to be fit and he is a massive asset.
Excellent 2nd half from the Stormers so far – much better than watching that team who played the Cheetahs yesterday.
He is about 27 – not an investment in the future.
Mapoe, Mvovo and maybe the new Lions wing Muir rates so highly are more likely future contenders.
PJLD – sounds like you're describing Ricky January.
Someone has had a brain fart! Taking off aplon.
If Gary Golds twitter updates are anything to go by then Juan De Jongh is gonna be on Springbok duty this year.
And then De Jongh fluffs the last move of the game.27-6 final score.
It's amazing how this wanker did nothing wrong last week and this week all the things he was super strict on last week are being let go that little bit longer.
In South Africa a skaapsteker is a snake.
Well done to the Stormers!!
I wonder who will get MOTM.
Crikey but Pietersen has an awesome tackling technique.
Feels good to put 21 points on a team and keeping them tryless.
Thought Ricky looked great. Passing was crisp and he started darting around again. Some good hassling there towards the end too.
Great intensity by the Stormers.
Key was the support play and ground work. Looks like a well-drilled team for once.
Presser : Coetzee happy with the team performance.
Schalk asked to come off, doesn't know exactly whats wrong, will only know on Monday, first time he has felt something like this.
Coetzee: Stormers want to keep the ball in hand more, fortunate to have Ricki in the squad, pleased to see him perform well.
Coetzee: Always knew it would take time and patience to get through Tahs defence.Players knew playing in the right areas on the field with patience would win the penalties.
Thanks PJLD. Was any of Voldy's staff at the presser??
Bekker: Tahs were very illegal in the maul.
Brown, what a quality ref.
Hey McLovin. Enjoy the game did you??
@wpw (Comment 144) : I did.
Hope they keep it up. Brumbies a quality side & Stormers record not that hot against them.
GEE DIE BAL VIR BRYAN!
PS. Phil Waugh is a box.


In the World map, you can move to different "Points" which are connected by "Routes" you can move along. At Cities and other points, you can change your equipment, and story events may occur. At Cities and Bases, you can select from 5 different items from within the City Menu.
You can talk to characters at the City or with your party members. There are times when events will occur as well.
You can accept "Quests" here.
You can purchase items here.
You can create new Routes within the World.
You can give your support in order to develop Cities further.
Dungeons are dangerous areas where monsters roam. Within a dungeon, "Enemy Symbols" wander around, and by touching these "Enemy Symbols" a battle will begin. There are also times when events related to the story may occur.
When there's an event within a dungeon, a [!] mark will be displayed on the mini-map and the floor map. The event will begin once you move into the vicinity of the mark.
You can obtain Credits and items.
Obstacles that block the way forward. Destructible Objects take various forms, and it is possible to destroy them by swinging your weapon with the x button. By destroying them, you have a small chance of obtaining items.


Recently I was on babysitting duty again and brought the Stephanie Lim, Jiayeen, Kate Lee, Chenelle Loh and Magdeline Wang from Malaysia's Hottest Bloggers over to the Poh Kong boutique in Sunway Pyramid for the preview of their Christmas 2014 collection. Poh Kong was established in 1976 with just a single outlet in Petaling Jaya, and over the years they have grown to become the largest jewellery chain store in Malaysia with over 100 outlets to date!
If you're stumped for ideas for a Christmas present for that special someone this Christmas, and you don't want to get her another box of chocolates or another handbag why not have a look at these?
Poh Kong's 2014 Christmas Collection features a wide range of pendants, necklaces, bangles, earrings and rings expertly made from white, yellow and rose gold, blinged up with diamonds and mother of pearl to provide that extra glitz and dazzle! The collection is inspired by evergreen Christmas tales including glitzy ribbons, lucky four leaf clovers and fluttering butterflies. These elegant and timeless pieces are designed to be mixed and matched to create an ensemble, or simply wear them individually to add some vivacity to your outfit!
Multiple Joy series feature stackable rings.
Boundless Bliss series offer bangles and rings that can be worn separately or even combined for added effect.
Little Treasures continues Poh Kong's colourful and vibrant charm bracelet tradition which is refreshed with new designs available in white, yellow and rose gold, further infused with mother of pearl for that extra classy and feminine touch!
Mickey Magic from the Disney collection offers an array of pendants that you don't need to go to a land far far away to obtain! Be the Belle of the party with the pendant fully-embellished in diamonds, or mix it up with the gold and white gold combination, or the white gold and diamond studded-variant.
The Poh Kong outlet in Sunway Pyramid is located at LG2.82, LOWER GROUND TWO.
Also under the Poh Kong umbrella is the Diamond Boutique which focuses primarily on jewellery that features diamonds – a girl's best friend! The Diamond Boutique range of pendants contain cheery-coloured gemstones and diamonds that will make you the envy of your friends! The pride of Diamond Boutique is HEMERA™ – the world's most brilliant diamond with 101 facets, a true masterpiece that embodies the 4 C's of diamonds – Colour, Clarity, Cut and Carat.


text:
The Christian Finish
by Neil Carter
If you are like me and you've got years of writing as a Christian out there to remind you of just how much your mind has changed about, well…everything…then you know how cringey the experience of reading your old stuff can be.
It's not that what you said before wasn't intelligent, because it was…in its own way. And yes, I know there are plenty of atheists out there ready to ridicule those who believe in talking snakes, floating axeheads, and walking on water, but those of us who used to belong to that camp still "get it."
We still remember what it was like to be able to bend our minds around the things we were raised to believe, and it makes us far less cocky today. We know as well as anyone how easily we can be wrong about important things. We of all people should have learned epistemological humility by now.
In our defense, they got to us when we were young. Very young. We eventually learned critical thinking skills, yes; but first we learned to believe whatever the Bible says and then we developed our reasoning capabilities around those prior commitments in such a way that, no matter how smart we got, there were certain things marked as "special" which never got the same rigor of critique that everything else did.
Related: "Why Do Intelligent, Well-Educated People Still Believe Nonsense?"
Every now and then, we go back and reread the stuff we said back when we were still "within the fold" and it's almost unbearable to read. But why?
It's not only because we used to believe things that now embarrass us (you can read an example of that here, with the follow-up article here). There's something else that rubs us the wrong way:
It always…always…follows a template. And that's a problem.
Back when we first wrote what we wrote (whether online or in our private journals), we didn't really grasp how slavishly we were imitating a pattern we had learned to emulate from birth. But every time we picked up a pen or opened our laptops to put our thoughts into words, we unconsciously mimicked a narrative arc which ended on a predictably positive note no matter how messy or angst-ridden the beginning.
We were programmed to end everything with The Christian Finish.
See, while some cultures view the world as cyclical (see most Asian philosophies), in the Christian way of looking at the world everything is supposed to be linear—moving toward a victorious telos, a final endpoint that wraps up the entire journey with a neat little bow.
At my seminary they taught us the ordo salutis (lit. "order of salvation") but most evangelicals would simply call it the "plan of salvation." Whether we're talking about our own individual lives or else the history of the human race as a whole, the Christian narrative has a consistent story arc that goes from creation to fall and from fall to redemption. If you were to draw it out, it would resemble an inverted bell curve.
For an audio-visual representation of what I mean, here's Kurt Vonnegut talking about the same thing in slightly different language. He called the one I'm talking about the "Man in a Hole" plot line.
Whatever the particulars of the story, we "westerners" are positively addicted to, well…positivity. We seem hidebound to envision a happy ending no matter how bleak the circumstances may appear at the time.
My children for example find it difficult to enjoy stories that don't have happy endings, and I blame their surrounding culture. They are Americans first and foremost, and they are growing up in a world increasingly owned by Disney, an entertainment company famous for taking stories with dark endings and cleaning them up for mass marketing.
But more than that, they have spent more of their formative moments than I care to think about attending my family's evangelical megachurch, and evangelicals are especially geared toward expect things to wind up neatly wrapped with a pretty bow. Because God.
To some degree, this owes to our human nature and cannot be completely avoided. The way I see it, humans are wired to need a story—a story in which they can find themselves—and nothing motivates you more than believing that your story will ultimately have a happy ending. It gives you something to work toward.
I recently heard a podcast which explained that, even when all other socio-economic factors are filtered out, religious belief can give people the kind of optimism that motivates them to attempt things they wouldn't have otherwise, and that taking those risks gives them an edge over those who had no such hope. You're more likely to attempt bigger things if you believe a supernatural power will intervene to "bless" your efforts.
Related: "Faith and the Power of a Magic Feather"
But the Christian faith in particular takes the innate western belief in human progress and supercharges it, framing all human efforts into a story in which everything will turn out well in the end…provided you're on the right side of the Christian religion, that is. Life for those who don't subscribe to the right beliefs will end very, very badly, but ultimately that doesn't matter because those who buy into this belief system expect better things for themselves, and that's what they care about most.
Have you ever read the psalms in the Bible that begin with the writer crying out to God for vengeance? Some of the "imprecatory" psalms are just incredibly dark. I'm reminded of the song in particular that Jesus was said to have quoted while dying on the cross:
As hopeless as that sounds, the psalm he was quoting didn't end in despair. It did what most psalms do: It ended on a happy note. No matter how dark or despairing things start out in the beginning, before all is said and done it will find a way to pivot back to optimism and hope whether or not an actual reason is given for it. No reason is needed, in fact, when you believe in a deus ex machina, a "ghost in the machine" on whom you can depend to swoop in and miraculously fix everything because that's just what they do.
Looking back over the stuff I wrote when I was still a Christian, I see this indefatigable commitment to ending everything I said on a positive note. And it's not hard to remember why I kept doing that, either. First of all, I wanted to give the reader something encouraging to chew on rather than something depressing. I wanted my writing to be a shot in the arm, so to speak. Life is hard enough without surrounding yourself with negativity.
But the other reason I felt compelled to end on a high note was that I felt that anything else would be a failure on my part to demonstrate faith that God makes everything right in the end. If I truly believed that God's kingdom was on its way, it behooved me to demonstrate that trust by showing that no matter how dark my feelings were at the moment, there was always a light at the end of the tunnel.
Fake It Till You Break It
So what exactly is wrong with ending on a high note, anyway? I'll tell you…
It teaches artificiality. It's an insincere way to process life and communicate it to others because it forces everything into a prefabricated template no matter how things actually turn out.
We humans evolved beyond our other primate relatives, at least in part, because we learned the value of empirical observation and we allowed it to teach us new things we didn't know before. Each time we encountered something unexpected in the world around us, we stopped to consider what it meant and how we should change our understanding of the world to adapt to this new discovery. That's what set us apart from our ancestral predecessors.
But you cannot truly discover anything in a closed system in which you feel you must force all perception and experience into a predetermined mold. When you do, your belief system becomes a procrustean bed which categorically eliminates anything contradictory at the outset. Learning becomes impossible except by rote memorization, I suppose.
Living like this teaches you to be dishonest with yourself and with others because you can never allow things to appear any different from how you were told to expect them to look. This commitment creates a breeding ground for hypocrisy.
Related: "Why Christianity Keeps Producing Hypocrites"
You will never see yourself or others the way you/they truly are as long as you are compelled to make everything end on a high note. And of course I'm not saying that optimism and hope don't serve a useful function in life, because they do. I think we need goals to work toward and the world already has enough negativity to crush anyone's dreams. We should rage against the dying of that light with all we have, but we should be careful never to fool ourselves into thinking we are guaranteed success simply because we were raised to expect a miracle would occur, somehow.
And the same thing goes for the human race as a whole. Just because we want to progress as a species doesn't mean we are automatically guaranteed success. It's altogether possible we will blow ourselves up, or starve ourselves through a mismanagement of our planetary resources. Nothing guarantees that our species will survive what Carl Sagan called our own technological adolescence. Perhaps we will create something much more powerful than ourselves only to see whatever-that-is turn around and wipe us out. Anything could happen, honestly.
But if we want to survive and thrive as a species we are going to have to be brutally honest with ourselves, and that entails learning to wrestle against our own compulsion to end everything we say with an optimistic glossing-over. Many of us learned that from our upbringing in church, but it's a tendency of which we need to rid ourselves.
Sometimes life is messy. In fact, most of the time it is, and we need to learn to give ourselves permission to call it how we see it. Our humanism needs to be tempered by the realization that we are not guaranteed success in anything we attempt as a species. It will always take work, and sometimes it will end in failure. We just have to keep picking ourselves up when we fall.
The Christian Finish just feels right to those still enslaved to it, but it's a fundamentally dishonest way to talk about ourselves, and those of us who left that world behind need to be careful not to succumb to this habit of the mind. It may turn out to be a matter of existential survival.
[Image Source: Adobe Stock]
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Tagged: bible, Christianity, Deconversion, deconversion, evangelicals, Faith, God
Neil Carter
godlessindixieblog@gmail.com
Neil Carter is a high school teacher, a father of four, and a skeptic living in the Bible Belt. A former church elder with a seminary education, Neil now writes mostly about the struggles of former evangelicals... More by Neil Carter
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Requirements: Have a degree in a relevant discipline or Diploma in JoumalismfMass Communication OR A Higher National Diploma In Secretarial Studies (KNEC) with Typing Ill (50 w.p.m)fComputerized Document Processing Ill, Shorthand 111(100/110 w.p.m)/Audio-typing Ill and Business English/ Communications II from KNEC. ii. Three (3) years relevant experience. iii. Demonstrable knowledge of the working of hansard reporting and legislative proceedings and committee systems. iv. Have proficiency in the use of basic computer applications.


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text:
Q: How to not hard code rule values in grammar My grammar contains the following (condensed):
block:
: specialfunction

specialfunction
: SPECIALFUNCTION OPAR (parameter (',' parameter)*)? CPAR
;

SPECIALFUNCTION : 'FUNCTION1'| 'FUNCTION2';

The list of possible values for SPECIALFUNCTION can and will change over time. The names are also used elsewhere in the code so rather than hardcoding them in the grammar and code, I'd like to have a method that returns valid SPECIALFUNCTIONs that can then be called from various places in the code as well as the grammar.
SPECIALFUNCTION : <make a call to get the current list of SPECIALFUNCTIONS e.g. SomeClass.GetListOfNames>

public SomeClass
{
     public string GetListOfNames()
     {
          return "'FUNCTION1' | 'ANOTHERSPECIALFUNCTION' | 'NEWONE'";
     }
}

Then as new SpecialFunctions are added I'd just add'em to GetListOfNames.
Note I am using C#.

A: As far as I know, you can force the lexer to emit another token type than it's own, see section "Lexer Rule Actions" on this page.
If you modified a general Identifier rule like this:
Identifier : [a-z]+ { if (isSpecialFunction(getText()))  setType(SPECIALFUNCTION );}

This would make certain Identifiers a SPECIALFUNCTION, based on information that will be available after creation of the lexer/parser.
I have to admit I don't know if getText() is the correct method in a lexer action.
Alternatively you could also create the lexer dynamically at runtime and modify the lexer's source by adding additional alternatives.
Another option would be to modify the token stream after lexing by changing the token type of those Identifiers that are a SPECIALFUNCTION.
Yet another option would be to make SPECIALFUNCTION a parser rule and check at parse time if an Identifier is a SPECIALFUNCTION.

A: Based on only what you have given, you could just change the SPECIALFUNCTION rule to something like
SPECIALFUNCTION : 'func' NAME      ;
NAME            : [A-Z_] [a-zA-Z_]*;

When you walk the parse tree, you can determine whether the NAME in the SpecialFunction context is acceptable or not.
If you are trying to validate run-time options during the parse, the better option is probably to defer that work to when you walk the parse tree.
To do it during the parse, add a semantic predicate to validate the string matched by NAME
SPECIALFUNCTION : 'func' NAME { isValidSFName($NAME.text) }?     ;

Update:  In your last comment, you say that it is better to provide the lexer a list rather than have the lexer check the validity of the name.  However, if you think about it, there is no actual difference between having the lexer check a list and having the lexer, in a semantic predicate, check a list.  In both cases, as far as the lexer is concerned, the rule will succeed or fail identically.
If, instead, your requirement is for the list of lexer token types to include the changed special function names, the only way to achieve that is through a recompile of the lexer.
Note, if you recompile the lexer, you will need to recompile the parser parser as well. The token type values are not required to remain constant through compile cycles.
Update2: To clarify in view of your comment on Bart's suggestion, the NAME rule in effect accomplishes the same lookahead without resort to user code - just allow the rule to match any string that would be an allowable special function name. Whether the NAME rule might create an ambiguity would depend on the rest of the lexer rules, but in practice is not too difficult to avoid.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


LGBT group the Rainbow Project has organised a protest at a south Belfast church on Saturday morning against what they have labelled "conversion therapy". Windsor Baptist has advertised the event as a True Freedom Trust Conference, however, Rainbow Project director John O'Doherty, said: "We will always stand against conversion therapy in whatever guise it presents itself". Mr O'Doherty said: "Conversion therapy, reparative therapy and all other so-called sexual orientation change efforts are rightly condemned by reputable mental health, counselling and psychotherapy bodies around the world as unethical and harmful to the people who are subjected to these practices.


Massy Duracell Cougars have their crown.
Toni Atherley scored a game-high 33 points as Cougars finally ended the reign of two-time queens Preferred Insurance Brokers Pinelands via Tuesday's 85-79 overtime victory in Game 3 of the No.1 Beauty Supplies & Exchange Women's Basketball finals.
Playing at the Wildey Gym, Atherley appeared to have decided the contest with a late go-ahead triple with 20.4 seconds remaining only for the jumper to be ruled as a long two-pointer.
But Cougars eventually pulled away in the extra period with a 6-1 surge before Atherley sealed the deal with another three-pointer.


hellow my name is george I am a student of psychology and music lover, internet and science. Greetings and good day.
Welcome to the Funhouse, thepsychiatrist!
....If you haven't already, Please *READ* the rules!
The Rules: Please Read Before Posting!
Drawn only to be washed away, For the time that I've been given....I am what I am!


text:
Q: Non nullable instance field must be initalised im new to Dart-flutter.
i have watching a tutorial video from udemy course writing in dart pad
so i also wrote in dartpad. but it showing error in it.
this is the code wrote in udemy..
import 'dart:convert';

 void main(){
  var rawJson = '{"url": "https://helo.com","id": 2}';
  var parsedJson = json.decode(rawJson);
  var imageModel = new ImageModel.fromJson(parsedJson);

  print(imageModel.url);
 }

class ImageModel{
  int id;
  String url;

  ImageModel.fromJson(parsedJson) {
    id = parsedJson['id'];
    url = parsedJson['url'];
  }

   ImageModel(this.id, this.url);
}

in that video it runs, but for me it shows error as
Error compiling to JavaScript:
Info: Compiling with sound null safety
Warning: Interpreting this as package URI, 'package:dartpad_sample/main.dart'.
lib/main.dart:15:3:
Error: This constructor should initialize field 'id' because its type 'int' doesn't allow null.
  ImageModel.fromJson(parsedJson) {
  ^
lib/main.dart:12:7:
Info: 'id' is defined here.
  int id;
      ^^
lib/main.dart:15:3:
Error: This constructor should initialize field 'url' because its type 'String' doesn't allow null.
  ImageModel.fromJson(parsedJson) {
  ^
lib/main.dart:13:10:
Info: 'url' is defined here.
  String url;
         ^^^
Error: Compilation failed.

i have no idea what the problem is..
can you guys help me to troubleshoot the error

A: Since you're compiling with null safety, you may change to this:
int? id;
String? url;

For further info about null safety, please refer to this link https://dart.dev/null-safety

A: Try using null safe code:
eg:
int? id;
String? url;

A: You will try like this
import 'dart:convert';
 class ImageModel{
  final int id;
  final String url;

  ImageModel({required this.id, required this.url});

 factory ImageModel.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> parsedJson) {
  return ImageModel(
    id: parsedJson['id'] as int,
     url: parsedJson['url'] as String,
    );
   }
  }

 void main() {
   var rawJson = '{"url": "https://helo.com","id": 2}';
   var parsedJson = json.decode(rawJson);

   print(parsedJson['url']);
   print(parsedJson['id']);
 }

A: You are probably watching tutorial that was recorded before null-safety introduction in Dart (null-safety is a Dart feature that helps prevent NullRefference exceptions in runtime).
You can either go with nullable values (like @Sowat Kheang suggested in another answer) for id and url in ImageModel class (change String to String? and int to int?). Then you will be fine, but it defeats the purpose of null-safety.
Or you can change your code so it will handle null values in proper way. Code will look something like this:
import 'dart:convert';

 void main(){
  var rawJson = '{"url": "https://helo.com","id": 2}';
  var parsedJson = json.decode(rawJson);
  var imageModel = ImageModel.fromJson(parsedJson);

  print(imageModel.url);
 }

class ImageModel{
  // Make your fields 'final' if you don't plan to change them later
  // this will make your life easier and is a good practice.
  final int id;
  final String url;

  // we add curly braces to make arguments named
  // and add 'required' keyword to indicate that constructor can't be called
  // without actually passing arguments into it
  ImageModel({required this.id, required this.url});

 // here we use factory constructor that will call our default constructor
 // it's also a good practice to specify type of a variable if you know it (Map<String, dynamic> in this case)
  factory ImageModel.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> parsedJson) {

    // since we don't know for sure if 'parsedJson' has key 'id'
    // we would add '??' — null checking operator.
    // So if parsedJson['id'] is null, value -1 will be passed
    // to the constructor. Same with 'parsedJson['url']'.
    return ImageModel(
        id: parsedJson['id'] ?? -1,
        url: parsedJson['url'] ?? '');
  }

}

A: var rawJson = '{"url": "https://helo.com","id": 2}';

Actually it is a Sting Json and Encoding is not perform properly  So follow the step..

*

*Map data={"url": "https://helo.com","id": 2};

*Encode that data.   json.encode(data);

*Now the Encoding is done then you can send the data any server if you have..

*When you get back data then... json.decode(rawData)

*Then parsing work properly


text:
FEDUSA Slams Perx Plans to Retrench Ex Telkom Employees
You are here: Home / Uncategorized / FEDUSA Slams Perx Plans to Retrench Ex Telkom Employees
The Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) has slammed telecommunications company Perx's plans to retrench employees it outsourced from Telkom only 15 months ago, promising that it will look after them. This is after Perx issued a Section 189 Notice to 400 employees in terms of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) that allows an employer to lay-off staff for operational reasons after consultations with their trade union representatives.
This majority of the affected workers are members of the Alliance, South African Communications Union (SACU) – an affiliate of FEDUSA, and Communication Workers Union (CWU) – an affiliate of Cosatu- are what is left of the 600 employees who were outsourced from Telkom in April 2018 in terms of Section 197 of the LRA. All of the affected staff is employees that was transferred in terms of the section 197 process. One of the key provisions of Section 197 is that workers' new salaries and other conditions of employment at the new company or employer cannot be materially different from those at their old company or employer. However, the principal argument that new employer Perx has advanced at the CCMA Section 189 consultations that commenced last month is that it can no longer afford to pay salaries levels that these workers received at old employer Telkom despite the fact it formally pledged that it can do so following due diligence and a service level agreement with the state agency.
Perx has argued at the CCMA that it will have to retrench these workers if fails to secure an agreement with SACU and CWU on an alternative arrangements which is to remove its medical aid and pensions contributions to former Telkom employees and their salaries from R23 000 a month to between R8 000 and R10 000 a month that it pays its own employees.
The Perx Section 189 Notice points to a worrying trend. Perx has now become the third company to which Telkom has outsourced workers, that is also planning retrenchments after BCX and WNS which actually effected retrenchments. Like Perx, the latter had also committed to upholding the requirements of Section 197 following due diligence processes. Although Telkom is not legally responsible for these retrenchments after 12 months have passed in terms of Section 197, the decision to outsource its own employees in the first place, casts a visible shadow over their fate.
FEDUSA is the largest politically non-aligned trade union federation in South Africa and represents a diverse membership from a variety of sectors in industry.
See www.fedusa.org.za for more information.
FEDUSA Welcomes President Ramaphosa's R1.1 billion to Fight Gender Based ... Comply with National Minimum Wage to Support Decent Work – FEDUSA


text:
Q: How do I add a target="_blank" attribute to Footer Menu Block Link in Drupal 7 Is there any way to add blank attribute if i created a Footer Menu Block with Links in Drupal 7 ?
Attached see my options so far...

A: Please try: https://www.drupal.org/project/menu_attributes for d7.. You would get attributes for each menu link.


Hurry and print the $0.75 off (1) Immaculate Baking Co.™ Baking item coupon while it's available. Please note, these coupons are time sensitive!! Most coupons allow you to print twice, so hit the back button and get both of yours!


Nancy helped to start Advocate Safehouse Project in 1987 and has been involved with ASP since then.
For the past 23+ years Julie has been the Executive Director of the Advocate Safehouse Project in Glenwood Springs. Prior to 1995 she worked in Alaska for seven years at various human service organizations with three years at a dual domestic violence/sexual assault program in Homer, Alaska. She received her Masters of Social Work degree from the University of Denver in 1988.
On June 11, 2012, Julie Olson was honored with the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence Purple Ribbon Award's 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Colorado Advocacy in Action Conference in Vail, Colorado. She was nominated by her peers for her 20 plus years of work in the field of domestic violence, 17 of which have been with ASP. Julie was recognized for her successful work within the community as a result of her creativity, innovation and dedication; the leadership and mentoring that she has provided for the coalition and other programs throughout the state; and for improving the safety of domestic violence victims and their children in Garfield County.


text:
Home Mark Klock
Mark Klock
Professor Klock has taught at the George Washington University since 1987. He has also taught at Penn State School of Law, Boston College, and University of Baltimore. He has taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes at GW including financial management, working capital management, investments, financial markets and institutions, financial econometrics, and microeconomics. His research interests include corporate governance, financial market regulation, and law and economics. Professor Klock has authored or co-authored more than 40 journal articles which include publications in American Economic Review, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporation Law, and Wisconsin Law Review. Professor Klock served as a department chair for seven years and an associate dean for two years. He currently serves on the executive board of the Center for Law, Economics, and Finance at the GW Law School.
Peter Vail Award for teaching and service to the doctoral program, 2011
Nasdaq Faculty Award in Finance, 2001
Faculty inductee into Beta Gamma Sigma, 1997
Bernstein Prize, 1988
American Jurisprudence Prize Award, 1987
Eagle Scout, 1973
Ph.D., Boston College, 1983
J.D., University of Maryland, 1988
B.A., The Pennsylvania State University, 1978
Professor Klock's scholarship has increasingly focused on law and policy matters, especially as they relate to financial markets and economics. He has conducted analysis of reactions to changes in certifying accountants, poison-pill adoptions, corporate governance changes, securities class action lawsuits, and market maker concentration. He has also written on numerous Supreme Court cases.
"Cooperation and Division: An Empirical Analysis of Voting Similarities and Differences during the Stable Rehnquist Court Era—1994 to 2005," Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Vol. 22 (Spring 2013), pp. 537-588
"The Virtue of Home Ownership and the Vice of Poorly Secured Lending: The Great Financial Crisis of 2008 as an Unintended Consequence of Warm-Hearted and Bone-Headed Ideas," Arizona State Law Journal, Vol. 45 (Spring 2013), pp. 135-182
"On the Acquisition of Equity Carve-outs" (with Chintal Desai and Sattar Mansi), Journal of Banking and Finance, Vol. 35 (2011), pp. 3432-3449
"Lessons Learned from Bernard Madoff: Why We Should Partially Privatize the Barney Fife's at the SEC," Arizona State Law Journal, Vol. 42 (Fall 2010), pp. 783-835
"Contrasting the Art of Economic Science with Pseudo-Economic Nonsense: The Distinction between Reasonable Assumptions and Ridiculous Assumptions," Pepperdine Law Review, Vol. 37 (March 2010), pp. 153-204
"Two Possible Answers to the Enron Experience: Will It Be Regulation of Fortune Tellers or Rebirth of Secondary Liability?" Journal of Corporation Law, Vol. 28 (Fall 2002), pp. 69-109
"Does Corporate Governance Matter to Bond Holders?" (with Sattar Mansi and William Maxwell), Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 40 (December 2005), pp. 693-719
"The Impact of Intangible Capital on Tobin's q in the Semiconductor Industry," (with Pamela Megna), American Economic Review, Vol. 83 (May 1993), pp. 265-269
Securities Regulation and the Financial Crisis
Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management
George Washington University School of Business (1987-present), Washington, D.C. 20052: Professor of Finance (1996), Associate Professor (1990), Assistant Professor (1987)
Dickinson School of Law, the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Penn. 16802, Visiting Professor of Business and Law (spring 2008)
University of Baltimore, 1420 N. Charles St., Baltimore, Md. 21201, Assistant Professor of Finance (1984-1987)
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02167, Instructor, Department of Economics (1980-1983).
CAPITAL AIKIKAI, INC., Silver Spring, Md. 20910, Director (2008-present)
Professional Association of Diving Instructors, Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. 92688, Divemaster (2002-present)
Tompkins Karate Association, Gaithersburg, Md., Instructor (2002-present)
National Association of Securities Dealers, Washington, D.C. 20006, Arbitrator (1998-2004)
View curriculum vitae


theMALC: Are We Overloading Our Adult Students?
Why do I have fewer adult students today than I had five years ago? I dealt with this question during a consulting call from a dojo owner. Like many martial artists running a traditional curriculum, he has expanded his teaching format to include groundwork, training students for amateur MMA bouts in his area, and he instituted separate women's self-defense classes. After implementing these changes, he still has fewer adult students this year.
I asked some probing questions. What do you charge for classes? What's your average contract total? What is your retention rate? A good businessman, he knew these answers. Finally, I asked, what do you require of your adult students for rank? He talked about students learning Japanese terms, counting in Japanese, and studying Japanese culture and history. We discussed the physical requirements for rank advancement – how many one step drills, katas, and sparring combinations students were expected to know. He also talked about the teaching requirements for his advanced students.
I can't go into the details of his consultation. But, this work did generate some serious questions. Adults come to study the Martial Arts for many reasons – regular workouts, learning some self-defense; some come to share a healthy interest with other adults in an environment that isn't related to their work. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) defines job stress "as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker." Stress comes in two different forms. There's constructive stress – the workout that pushes you, the challenge of learning new skills, the joy of pushing past your perceived limits. There's also debilitating stress – physically pushing yourself to injury, feeling overwhelmed by how much you have to do, and dealing with demands you feel unable to meet. When I substituted the word – Studio for Job and Student for Worker in the NIOSH definition, the answers became clearer.
Another issue increasing stress is when the teacher attempts a number of different corrections in the same class. If you correct the angle, hand position, stance etc. on a movement, how easily could any student make all those adjustments? The human (student's) mind can only concentrate on its currently dominant thought, one single thing at a time. A better method would be to make a single adjustment and allow the student to train on it. This also allows the instructor to check on the other faulty areas during training to see if they mend with time and effort.
Finally, we must remember that students, even advanced students, come to the studio to learn and have fun. If teaching other classes is a requirement to progress, the classes need to be scheduled in advance. Adults have many other responsibilities. We need to respect that our adult students have other concerns and their training time is limited.
Happy adult students train harder, stick around, and often, bring their friends. Start looking at your curriculum through their eyes.


Join us for our official Arena* Welcome in the Winter Garden of the historic Glyptoteket amid palm trees and ancient fountains.
Take part in a day of inspiring talks, stirring performances, and dynamic conversations on our Arena* topic: Silent Knowledge.
Enjoy a memorable evening of good food, drinks with new and old friends, art, music and more at Copenhagen Contemporary.


text:
Margento: on text, image, and sound.
POETRIES & COMMUNITIES
THE GRAPH POEM
ASYMPTOTE Fortnightly Air Mail feat. MARGENTO--"New Year, New Resolutions"
A Happy New Year to all our readers! To the 56 of you who've contributed $5,035 to our mini-Indiegogo campaign, THANK YOU for giving our New Year an auspicious start. We'll be able to celebrate our milestone fifth anniversary in at least ten global cities—maybe even a city in which you live. Stay tuned for the event announcements!
Your Itinerary Today
1. TAKE OFF: Listen to our new podcast episode!
2. SKYWRITING: New Year's Reading Resolutions from the team
3. PASSAGES: Spotlight on Dominique Eddé's Kite
4. TOUCHDOWN: Last reminder about our $4,500 Translation Contest (Deadline: 1 Feb 2016)!
New Year, new podcast episode! This month, we examine a character who has been influencing the minds of authors for thousands of years: the Devil. We'll be taking a look at that fiery hell-demon we all know and love to hate (or fear), but we'll also discuss how other cultures view this figure. We first consider Maximon, a Guatemalan saint not recognized by the Catholic Church—a fusion of Satan, Judas, Cortes, and the Mayan trickster god Mam. Then we'll move on to Russia, where we will look at how the Devil influenced two hundred years of their literature. We'll end with an exploration of the Voodoo religion, which isn't as devilish as you may think. Download the podcast here.
After the recently concluded blog series in which we looked back on 2015's literary discoveries, it seemed only natural to follow up with New Year's resolutions. Let's hear it now from the following staff members who've volunteered to go public with their reading resolutions.
MARGENTO, Romania & Moldova Editor-at-Large:
My resolution for 2016 is to read ALL the thousands of poetry collections launched in the upcoming year in North America. Critic and literary theorist Steve McCaffery once did the math and realized that if one read a collection every day it would take them 10 years to read all the poetry collections published in the US in one year. Nobody actually does that—let alone cover the ones published in Canada as well, plus the ones translated from various languages and literatures into English and published in North America. It is a huge market, and the supply has actually gone up since McCaffery's alarming assessment. How am I—together with Professor Diana Inkpen and our team at uOttawa—going to do that? Computationally, as part of the Graph Poem project, getting the machine to read and analyze hundreds of thousands of pages of poetry and organize them into network graphs that showcase their subject/themes, formal features, diction-related specificity, stylistic trademarks, and so on, while identifying (often unsuspected) commonalities or contrasts across oeuvres, corpora, schools, periods, regions, and (trans)national and/or virtual communities. We are actually also going to toss into that huge reservoir the over 600 (print and online) North American literary periodicals specializing and/or featuring poetry in English or in English translation, as well as the available archives and databases, in a first-time-ever Big Data and data intensive approach to poetry jazzed up with "distant reading" and "cultural analytics."
P.T. Smith, Assistant Editor:
Two years ago, creating a list of five, just five, books to reread was my private reading resolution. It failed utterly. Now, I'm hoping that making a resolution public will help it stick. And this time it will be two-fold: reread some books without a list of defined ambitions; and read books first published some years ago and that I already own. For the first, even without making a certain list, I have to return to that old, failed resolution. Returning to failure seems to me a fitting tone for a reading-related resolution.
This year, I have more encouragement for one of those old names. Max Frisch is a writer I don't hesitate to call one of my favorites, yet I struggle to recall specifics of his books, of what I loved so much; instead, I remember only a sensation that those books fit me, fit my reading desires and identity. As part of their dedication to collecting literature lovers to write about a specific author, an underappreciated subject, The Scofield selected "Frisch & Identity" for their spring issue. How could I not want to reread at last one of his books so that I can appreciate the contributions to that publication all the more?
Another failure of that lost resolution is Kōbō Abe, another I easily call one of my favorite writers, though unlike Frisch, I can say why. Abe's protagonists are rejected by the world, and reject it. Out of that rejection, a new space is created, whether it be the dunes, secret levels underneath a hospital, a trip to the underworld, or an ark full of other rejects, hiding from nuclear apocalypse. Normal life, which hasn't been comprehended clearly anyway, has been replaced by another life, odder, full of dread. Or at least this is how I think about his varied oeuvre years after reading it. A reread will put my thoughts to the test, and could happily see them destroyed, replaced by a new interpretation.
As for the other half of my reading resolution, to read books that are not recent publications: this could manifest as so many different authors, different books, but I'd be remiss if I didn't at least commit to a few. Why not start with a confession, admitting an embarrassing gap in my reading? It's time I read Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch (trans. Gregory Rabassa). Intimidated by its length and the near-demand to love it, I've stayed away. Knut Hamsun's Mysteries (trans. Sverre Lyngstad), one of my top found-on-the-berm books is another on this not-list, my step beyond Hunger. I want to return to travel books, so should pull Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts off my shelf. Not so much a traditional travel book as an inventive satire of the genre, how about A Journey Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre (trans. Andrew Brown)? Keeping with the French, moving forward in time, to a writer whom, like Hamsun, I need to encounter more of, this year would be a good time for Julien Gracq's Balcony in the Forest (trans. Richard Howard). I only know him as an essayist, with Narrow Waters, and want to see that mind and aesthetic at play in fiction. My final non-resolute detail of a resolution leaves translation. I'll return to another writer I refer to as one of my favorites: Herman Melville. Only because of his books that I haven't read, it's the one sitting on my shelf, this year I should read Israel Potter.
Honestly, even if all the names change, even if I only read a couple of books fitting these descriptions, I'll be happy. It'll be a reason to pause in the reading, to take extra pleasure in patience, because I knew it was something I needed, and I broke off from momentum and habit of years of reading for a different, refreshing, direction.
Matt Phipps, Communications Manager:
One of my reading resolutions for 2016 is to focus principally (if not exclusively) on reading titles by South American authors. To that end, and relying on recommendations from some of my most trusted sources, I plan to start my year with a focus on strong voices and stories from below the Equator.
Chico Buarque is a beloved elder statesman of twentieth-century Brazilian folk and protest music, frequently mentioned alongside other notables such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, and in recent years the singer/songwriter has dedicated himself to writing fiction. 2012's Spilt Milk (Grove Atlantic), his fourth novel, is told from the occasionally confused perspective of an aging patriarch on his deathbed, and provides the account of nearly one hundred years in the narrator's life, and by extension, the turbulent history of the country at large. I'm told the voice is unforgettable, and this interview with translator Alison Entrekin only sharpens my interest!
Next on my list is The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra (New Vessel Press), a slim mystery novel by Argentine writer Pedro Mairal that explores the legacy of a troubled, prolific painter—mute since the age of nine—and the disappearance of a series of canvases that may shed light on certain unresolved family intrigues. Longlisted for the 2014 Best Translated Book Award and translated by two-time Valle-Inclán prizewinner Nick Caistor, this one has been sitting next to my bed for a while now, and I simply can't wait to dig in.
Selina Aragon, Spanish Social Media Manager:
A few Christmases ago, I gave Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (1962) as a gift. I was buying a book by Borges anyway—I'd heard his books translated nicely into English due to the influence of the latter in the syntax of his writings. Labyrinths caught my attention in an Edinburgh bookshop, and I ended up getting it mainly because I had never heard of it in Spanish. When I opened the book, I realised I had read all the short stories in it. He translated from English from a very young age before becoming a published writer, so his use of Spanish is quite different to that of, say, Cortázar.
Labyrinths is a collection that was put together and edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby for Penguin Books. It's not a translation from any of the original books in Spanish; however, it contains most of the short stories from Ficciones (1944) and El Aleph (1949)—and a selection of Borges' essays and parables. Seeing this collection made me think I've only read a handful of literature in Spanish in translation—some short stories and poetry by Silvina Ocampo and Poet in New York by García Lorca. Growing up in Mexico, I've experienced the opposite when reading Spanish translations of literature in English, long before I could read and understand the language.
In the spirit of finding out how people in the English-speaking world have read and perceived Spanish and Latin American literature in translation, my reading resolution for 2016 is to read English translations of major Latin American authors. I have in mind Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Julio Cortázar, Rosario Castellanos, Borges of course, amongst others that will surely become relevant in this quest. Right now, I can only say I have the feeling next year will change my view of Literature in Spanish and open new doors for exploring literature in translation!
Dominique Eddé's, Kite, translated from the French by Ros Schwartz and excerpted in our July 2012 issue, is significant for being the first piece that we arranged to be published in our network of partner journals. (From Schwartz's English version, we commissioned a new Chinese translation from Golden Melody Award-winning lyricist Li Zhuoxiong, which ran in the September 2012 print edition of Unitas, introducing Eddé to Chinese readers for the first time.) Although the following breathtaking passage is taken from a novel, it works wonderfully as a self-contained piece, and, as a novel within a novel, perfectly illustrates my favorite literary device—the mise en abyme.
—Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief
'What is a novel?' Mali asked her students.
It was October 1968, shortly after she and Farid had broken up for the first time. She was teaching French that year at a government school in Beirut. She had been given a class of sixteen-year-olds, about sixty boys, most of whom were behind in their studies and had only a smattering of French since they were sitting their baccalaureate in Arabic. Their replies, hesitant at first, came thick and fast. Mali jotted them down. Running on from each other, they read as follows: the novel's a story that's long and wide; it's life but in a book; it's like my uncle who married my aunt without asking for permission; if you observe life carefully, the novel is all around us; it's a story that has a beginning and no end; it's an Arabian Nights; it's when love is a river that meets a dam; I've got a novel, Miss, it begins with some Russians; the novel is full of things that happen at the same time and we don't know why; a novel is so sad it makes you laugh; well, my father says that our defence minister is a novel all by himself; if a novel begins, there's no more rest, that's it; what happened between Abdo and Mohammed the day before yesterday's a novel; the novel's for the French, we Arabs have poetry; Miss, is my sister's death a novel? everyone has novels, there's no need to die; only Allah writes novels; I want to write a novel about Palestine, so that it stays somewhere.
One boy sitting at the back of the class had said nothing. Gazing out of the window, his arms folded, he looked not so much absent as irritated. Yet he was the only one who spoke French. Mali addressed him. 'Ali, I haven't heard anything from you. What is a novel?' He resisted. She insisted. 'It's a story someone tells,' he replied eventually, 'that's all.' 'Give us an example,' she answered, expecting him to give a book title and the name of an author, but that was not how he understood the question. This is what he replied:
It was a winter's day. The sun came and went. The clouds grew bigger. The whole sky was like a stormy sea. Abu Sami pushed his orange cart shouting,'Ten piastres a kilo!' The street was empty, no one could hear him but he paid no attention. He shouted, 'Ten piastres a kilo!' and dreamt of a woman he loved. The hands on the clock were turning, daylight was fading and the clouds were growing darker and darker still. The rain began to fall, the dust turned to mud and Abu Sami's dream came and went, like the sun, its light vanished, he could hardly see the face of the lady he loved. Abu Sami no longer had the strength to shout,'Ten piastres a kilo!' He trundled behind his orange cart in silence. Several oranges rolled off but he didn't pick them up. Just then, an American car pulled up beside him and a lady sitting in the back wound down her window to buy five kilos of oranges. He put the fifty piastres in his pocket and went home with his oranges. A neighbour was waiting for him on his doorstep. He said, 'I have bad news for you, Abu Sami, the dancer is dead.' The dancer was the woman who had been going round and round in his head while he walked. Her name was Camelia. He'd seen her once at Ain el Mraisseh in a cabaret called Chéri. Only once but he loved her.
'There, that's a novel,' grunted Sami, shrugging his shoulders. And as Mali, smiling, wrote down the closing sentences in a notebook, he added in a more conscious, even solemn, tone, 'Once is enough to kindle a dream and a cloud is enough to snuff it out but, for the person telling the story, the dream and the cloud can last a thousand years. The novel doesn't move like an ordinary watch, its hands can stop for an hour on a minute and for a second on twenty years. It's a machine that can gobble a life in two pages.'
Visit our Archive for more such treasures.
We hope you've enjoyed this New Year's edition of our Fortnightly Airmail. Just a quick reminder to those of you who are translators: our $4,500 translation contest closes exactly one month from now! For those of you who speak Spanish, consider joining us on our Asymptote en español Facebook page; we're almost at 1,000 followers! On the other hand, we're now at 23, 346 on Facebook and 6,656 on Twitter—not too bad for a literary journal about to turn five! Help us celebrate our fifth anniversary (and connect our authors to even more readers) by inviting your friends to join us on social media—we'd really appreciate it!
Your friends at Asymptote
Posted by Chris Tanasescu at 8:19 AM
ASYMPTOTE Fortnightly Air Mail feat. MARGENTO--"Ne...
*Iulia Militaru
*Teodora Coman
350poems
A B Series
Ada Carol
Adrian Matejka
Adrian Podoleanu
Alan Liu
Amanda Earl
Andrei Dobos
Andrei Dosa
Ann Townsend
Anni Lorei Mainka
Argentina Gribincea
Benjamin Fondane
Betsy Warland
Bob Holman
Boulderpavement
Bywords
Casa de Pariuri Literare
Catalina Balan
Cenaclul Republica
Charles Bernstein Web
Claudia Serea
Commission for History & Philosophy of Computing
Cristina Cirnicianu
Cutia cu vechituri a lu' Potra
Dan Ciupureanu
Dan Gulea
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Visit the nearest DOVES office, alternatively speak to your Shop Steward.
The claimant (legal owner of the policy, the main member, the spouse or the appointed beneficiary if the main member and spouse have both passed on and there is other legal owner) will present to DOVES branches the documents required above. If the claimant requires the cash without a funeral, 3Sixty Life will pay the claim amount into the claimant's bank account via electronic fund transfer.
Only when the claimant is none of the persons as specified, will 3Sixty Life request an invoice from the funeral undertaker and pay the undertaker and issue a cheque for the balance to the deceased's estate.


text:
Tag Archives: stand your ground
Posted in 2018 Midterm Elections, 2020 Presidential Election, Commentary, Gun Control, Organized Labor, Politics, The Presidency, Trayvon Martin
Tagged arming classroom teachers, assault rifles, concealed carry, concealed weapons, Donald Trump, george zimmerman, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, mass murders, NRA, Parkland shooting, school shootings, stand your ground, students, teachers, trayvon martin, wayne lapierre
June 6, 2014 by farlefty
It Could Be Open Season On Open Carry In Texas
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/wnhppp/june-5–2014—tom-cruise
The magnificent Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. Watch the first two segments on Open Carry in Texas where Open Carry meets Stand Your Ground. It's both laws existing side by side taken to their ultimate lethal absurdity. It's the NRA as both the Earps and the Clantons in a good old-fashioned, state-sanctioned gunfight (of course that was in Arizona and not Texas but the analogy still works) playing both sides against the middle.
Watch the first two show segments, although the third segment is hilarious and worthwhile. In Texas, you have the right to enter a Mickey D's or a 7-11 with your AR-15 slung over your shoulder. At the same time, if you're a parent eating lunch with your young children at said Mickey D's and you THINK or FEEL that your lives are in danger from those scary gunslinging munchers, with their ball caps, heavy jackets, heavy beards, heavy bulk (or even the thinner guys) because you don't know if they just came in to munch a Big Mac or to spray everyone with bullets out of their large capacity clips (with more sticking out of their jackets under which you can spy their Kevlar bulletproof vests), you have a legal right to take your .9mm Glock semiautomatic pistol out of your Open Carry shoulder holster and put a round through each of the munchers' heads if that's what makes you and your scared children safer.
And chances are no one will convict you of murder or manslaughter in Texas because Stand Your Ground is all about state of mind. If you THINK you are being threatened with bodily harm or FEEL that your life and those of your loved ones are in danger, that's all the law requires for you to legally terminate the source of the danger that you feel with extreme prejudice.
Posted in Commentary, Gun Control, Media
Tagged Jon Stewart, NRA, Open Carry, stand your ground, texas, The Daily Show
July 16, 2013 by farlefty
Juror B37 Stands Her Ground
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/15/justice/zimmerman-juror-book/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
So, Juror B37 really saw this trial as an opportunity to cash in on Trayvon Martin's murder and the subsequent media circus laughingly called a "trial". Little tell-tale remarks clearly show her bias towards George Zimmerman: "…I think his [Zimmerman's] heart was in the right place. It just went terribly wrong." "I think George got in a little bit too deep, which he shouldn't have been there." In fact, she refers to Zimmerman twice as "George" if you listen to her comments, although she it seems to be in her personality to refer to people she doesn't know by their first names if you listen to her comments.
And from her comments you get the clear impression that this a well-to-do elitist white property owner who would welcome Zimmerman as a neighbor if "he didn't go too far"—like killing an innocent male black teen on his way back to his dad's girlfriend's condo where he was visiting? She believes that although Zimmerman shouldn't have gotten out of his car, she clearly believes his story that he was attacked by Trayvon Martin with no other evidence than Zimmerman's testimony, because I think she believes this is what black men do when they're being followed. She's convinced it was Zimmerman's voice on the 911 tape calling for help, because why would Trayvon be calling for help just because he's locked in a death struggle with a scary dude who's been stalking him for unknown reasons?
She also amply proves that, as I've always suspected, when a judge orders a panel to disregard certain testimony in court, at least some jurors ignore that order. She says she was influenced by the important testimony from Sanford Police Detective Chris Serino that he had found Zimmerman to be "truthful", a remark that the judge ordered the panel to disregard. Juror B37 claims she based her decision on that testimony, which I think would and should invalidate the verdict and call for a re-trial—IF there were any justice in Florida.
She also condescendingly describes Trayvon's friend, Rachel Jantel, "not credible" and felt sorry for her because Jantel seemed "to feel inadequate because of her poor education and communication skills" (as described in a NPR report). Juror B37 would have us believe that she is so intuitive and insightful that she can read into the minds of both George Zimmerman and Rachel Jantel and thoroughly know their characters. What a white elitist snob she is.
One of her most telling comments which clearly shows why she lives in Florida: "I think he has every right to carry a gun. I think everyone has a right to carry a gun." You can bet this woman is a Republican who supports the Stand Your Ground law. The juror admits both she and her husband had concealed weapon permits but she let hers lapse.
The most telling comment of all was that she believed Zimmerman was not guilty from the start. And yet the prosecution allowed this person to sit on the jury which was assigned to judge Zimmerman impartially and on the facts. It was a setup from the beginning by the Florida legal system which doesn't recognize that black citizens deserve justice, too. At least the proposed book deal that she hoped to use to capitalize on her verdict has been cancelled. I guess there is still some justice in Florida after all.
As I was upset by the black jury that acquitted O.J. Simpson of a double murder, I find no difference between that panel and this white one that acquitted Zimmerman of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. It serves to prove that miscarriage of justice in this country remains color blind.
Posted in Commentary, Trayvon Martin
Tagged Chris Serino, CNN, florida, george zimmerman, Juror B37, npr, Rachel Jantel, stand your ground, trayvon martin
April 12, 2012 by farlefty
Stand Your Ground About To Stand Trial
Trayvon Martin was an ordinary, average 17 year old kid. Well, mainly average and ordinary. He was also black in a south Florida town, which some people think is a crime until itself. I would assume as most ordinary and average 17 year olds go, Trayvon never gave any thoughts to starting a movement to reverse insane NRA-written gun laws, or to strike back against the bigotry and discrimination hurled against most black people in the U.S. throughout every waking hour of their days. And in fact, Trayvon on his own didn't start those twin movements. George Zimmerman did–by choosing to pump a 9mm slug into Trayvon's chest under very shadowy and suspect circumstances. Trayvon Martin's parents didn't realize at the beginning that they were at the genesis of two national movements; they were just trying to get justice for their son. There was such pushback from the white power structures among the police and Florida state government that they soon found that the only way to get justice was to grow these two movements in the name of their son.
George Zimmerman was charged today with second degree murder and taken into police custody. He will stand trial. At a press conference, one of the Martin family attorneys, Benjamin Crump, said something I have been saying for weeks and I will paraphrase: the Stand Your Ground law will be on trial along with Zimmerman. This is the third national movement that Zimmerman created that night.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has found something he hates worse than Occupy Wall Street: Stand Your Ground. And this time, Bloomberg is standing on the right side of the law. He is calling for the repeal of these types of laws from every state which has put them in place. Van Jones and Color Of Change have mounted all-out campaigns against ALEC and its member companies who are responsible for funding the politicians who voted and signed these laws into place. Thanks to COC, companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation, and Kraft Foods have dropped out of ALEC, with more corporations to follow. The back has been broken on ALEC, and perhaps the NRA as well.
These Stand Your Ground laws have spread to 32 states like a foreign weed. Under this law, justifiable homicides in Florida from 12 a year to an average of 36. This means that either a lot of killings got a bum rap before this enlightened law, written by the National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), or else this law is now being used as a license to murder, with the police and the courts unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
What Stand Your Ground allows is for someone to setup an entrapment situation where they lure someone into their home—or even the street—where they can then blow them away and successfully claim self defense. The Martin family is extremely lucky that Zimmerman had such delusions of law enforcement grandeur and was so stupid that he botched it up for himself, and now everyone else trying to disguise their murderous deed within the law.
George Zimmerman did not "stand his ground" according to Special Prosecutor Angela Corey. In the words of Dennis Baxley, the Republican state representative who carried the SYG bill through the Florida House, Zimmerman chose to "pursue and confront".
There is an old adage: "the truth shall set you free". George Zimmerman and his surrogates have now learned the opposite lesson: perpetuating a lie will land you in jail facing a second degree murder charge.
Win or lose the Zimmerman trial, the genie is out of the bottle now. After almost 150 years, black folks feel they're more than entitled to full citizenship in this country with all the legal and social and professional rights it bestows. And people in general feel that they no longer want to be subject to laws that essentially make them living targets so that the NRA can get more guns and bullets sold which stuffing its special interest campaign coffers so full of cash that they have to shoot the lock off to get the damned treasure chest open.
So to all you white racists who hide your Confederate flag tramp stamps above your ass, or anyone who fancies themselves the thing standing between civilization and black anarchy, it's time to face reality: this is 2012 and a black man is the President of the United States. Blacks are people, too, my friend. Not sure I can say the same about you.
Posted in Trayvon Martin
Tagged ALEC, Angela Corey, Benjamin Crump, Color Of Change, dennis baxley, florida, george zimmerman, NRA, stand your ground, trayvon martin
March 23, 2012 by farlefty
Mayday! Mayday! The GOP Is Being Shot Down In Flames
There are a number of military analogies to apply to today's GOP: being shot down in flames, a bunker mentality from being surrounded on all sides, on a suicide mission, launching all of their nuclear missiles hoping a few get through.
The national agenda the GOP has carefully and methodically assembled over the past 40 years is falling apart. Assault on women's rights, including anti-abortion? The damn women are standing up and fighting back. Why, you can't even call a young female law student a slut and a prostitute on national radio and get away with it.
Lower corporate taxes? A Democratic President has usurped that issue our from under their very noses by proposing it as part of his budget.
ObamaCare? They may have to live with most or all of it for another two years if the Supreme Court decides to kick the whole thing down the road. And the more they know about it, the more Americans like ObamaCare.
Fear of foreigners? Immigrants, legal and otherwise, are tired of being pushed around and having their children forbidden from going to college after graduated from the public schools system.
Gun control? Murder one black teenage boy in cold blood and they make an international incident out of it.
Starting with Occupy Wall Street, continuing with the successful online campaign to get censorship of the Internet set aside—for now—all of the oppressed groups and people just fed up with right wing Republican tea party politics are standing up and saying "No more!" And they're fighting back. Florida governor Rick Scott has announced a special state task force will be looking into the Trayvon Martin shooting as well as looking at changing any state laws that allowed it to occur (Stand Your Ground). The Department of Justice will be investigating the Sanford, Fl. police department (who just lost their police chief, temporarily or otherwise) for possible civil rights violations, incompetence, corruption, and racism.
Even as I write this, the Republicans are making "Hail Mary" passes across the country: attempting to gather marchers for "religious freedom" from health care reform, attempting to pass a flurry of new anti-woman legislation, attempting to pass even more voter suppression laws.
But they look at Wisconsin and see their Republican governor and four Republican state senators up for recall. One of the senators decided to resign while the resigning was good and she's gone, taking with her the Republican majority in the state Senate.
Lastly, the GOP looks at the slate of clowns with big shiny red noses galumping around the country in their big, floppy clown shoes while the President sits in the Oval Office laughing with enjoyment at their performances. You've got Mittens The Clown dressed in a top hat and doing magic tricks with an Etch-A-Sketch. You've the Rick The Clown with the painted-on sad face, crying because the Devil is in the D.C. details. You've got Newt The Clown wearing a moon rocket and leaping unsuccessfully into the air as he runs around the stage. And finally, you've got Ron The Clown with his head barely peeking out from his giant clown suit, always falling down onto the floor and refusing any help to get back up. After the performance, President Obama comes out onstage like Ed Sullivan saying, "Thank you Republican clowns for that wonderful bit of comedy."
But truth be told, the floppy shoes guys are flopping all over the country. Hardly any Republican voters beyond the troupe's base is coming out to see them. Voting is way down among registered Republicans where primaries have so far been held. These guys are the 2012 version of the Not Ready For Primetime Players. Who knew the Republicans had a Minor League?
So, the GOP plane is going down in flames while all on board are throwing gasoline on the fire and not one of them knows how to land that thing.
Politics has always been cyclical. Don't like being shut out of power? Just wait a few decades until your turn comes around again. But the Democrats can't afford to get too comfy with their anticipated victory. After all, the Democratic ship of state's got a few leaky holes and is taking on a little bit of water. The Keystone XL pipeline Oklahoma crude and Canadian tar sands oils flow into one hole. The Afghan War is pouring water into another hole. But the largest hole of all, the leak that could sink the ship, is the hole that American jobs keep falling through. Yes, it hasn't gotten any bigger, hasn't shrunk by much, but it's enough to possibly cause the Obama Administration to pull a Titanic.
But that's where the Republican clown troupe comes in. They've proven themselves extremely adept at pumping water out of the ship and into their Clown Car as they perform their wonderful bit of comedy.
So, as the Republican Party sinks quickly on the Right, we bid a fond farewell to the presidential aspirations of the GOP as we mix metaphors and turn off our radar screens so we don't see the search beacons leading us to the eventual crash site. The Republicans are big on the DIY (do-it-yourself) lifestyle. They got themselves into this mess, they can get themselves out. They've already begun eating their own to survive.
Tagged democratic, GOP, keystone xl pipeline, ObamaCare, Occupy Wall Street, republican party, rick scott, stand your ground, trayvon martin, wisconsin recalls
Trayvon Martin And The Republican KISS Of Death
Republican voters believe in the KISS system, as in Keep It Simple, Stupid. First, because they're all stupid. Being stupid, they need it kept simple.
Keep in mind that the rich and powerful who run the Republican Party are highly intelligent and understand how to convert complex issues into simple-to-remember talking points. You don't get that rich and that powerful by being stupid, unless you inherited your rich and powerfulness from a smart rich and powerful pater familias.
For Republican voters, they don't have to remember that more domestic oil is being produced by the U.S. than ever before. They don't have to write down that U.S. oil imports are down because consumption is at record lows, while U.S. oil exports are up. They don't have to understand how oil speculators account for 85 cents of every dollar per gallon increase in the price of gasoline. Nope, for them, the Republican Party has distilled the entire issue into three little words: drill, baby, drill. One word is even repeated for greater simplicity.
Abortion and birth control are converted to "religious freedom". Taxation laws, which are way beyond any Republican voter's ability to comprehend, are boiled down to "economic freedom". Anybody can understand freedom, right? Republicans are all about personal freedom, except if the freedom includes marrying who you want and getting an abortion if you choose to.
Simple is as simple does to the Forrest Gump Party. That's why the "Stand Your Ground" and "Castle Doctrine" laws pushed nationwide by ALEC and the NRA have been so popular with Republicans. With the latter, a resident has the right to use lethal force to defend themselves against an intruder or anyone else who they "reasonably" perceive as presenting a hostile threat to their personal being—personal property not included. If they blow the perceived assailant away using the Castle Doctrine, it's stay out of jail free card. With the former, if someone "reasonably" feels they are in mortal danger, they can use lethal force on the perceived threat anywhere they perceive themselves to be in mortal danger: on a public street, or in the backyard of a condo in a gated community. They don't have to turn around and run, they can pull out their concealed 9mm semiautomatic handgun and fire at will, or whatever the perceived assailant's first name happens to be.
It's perfect in its simplicity. The shooter/victim is also innocent; the shot/assailant is always guilty—and dead. No thought required because the law has been written so there doesn't have to be any. These cases are notoriously hard to prosecute and get a conviction because the court can only hear evidence from the shooter that they felt their life was in danger. The deceased assailant always remains strangely silent, offering no testimony on their behalf. Case dismissed, if it even got that far.
But George Zimmerman of Sanford, FL, apparently won't use "Stand Your Ground" as his defense for shooting Trayvon Martin. He's going for self-defense. You see he was armed only with that 9mm semiautomatic handgun against Trayvon's bag of Skittles and a bottle of iced tea. Trayvon could have opened that bag of Skittles and poured it down Zimmerman's throat, causing him to possibly choke. And that bottle of iced tea? That would smart something fierce if Zimmerman were hit upside the head with it. Just think of the abject fear Zimmerman felt when trailing the kid after 911 distinctly told him not to. If he had seen that bag of Skittles gripped at Trayvon's waistband, he had no way of knowing if that bag were empty or if it was loaded with Skittles. And he wasn't about to take any chances.
Stand Your Ground makes it easy for cops to not do their duty, too. A dead male black teenager walking alone through a primarily white gated community at night? Undoubtedly he represented a perceived threat to somebody and it's a good thing a decent and honorable Neighborhood Watch captain stood his ground and dispatched this menace to white-owned private property. The law made it unnecessary to test Zimmerman for drugs and alcohol or to even verify that he actually wasn't officially part of any Neighborhood Watch group. Had Zimmerman actually been part of Neighborhood Watch group, he would have known that Rule One is you can't carry firearms and Rule Two is you don't stand your ground in front of a perceived assailant. You call 911 and let the police stand THEIR ground.
Since Stand Your Ground requires no thought or moral considerations, the Sanford Police Chief, the Mayor, the City Manager, and the City Attorney thought nothing of sweeping the whole incident under the rug and going on about their business. George Zimmerman apparently thought nothing of the 17-year-old life he'd taken when he "reasonably" perceived his own life to be in danger from a black male teenager packing a bag of Skittles and a bottle of iced tea.
Drill, baby, drill. Shoot, baby, shoot. Very simple to remember. And one word is repeated for even greater simplicity.
Tagged ALEC, castle doctrine, drill baby drill, george zimmerman, neighborhood watch, NRA, republican, republican party, sanford florida, stand your ground, trayvon martin


text:
Home *Opinion*
Making NB a tax haven: an absurdity
by Alain Deneault
What's wrong with this picture? (Image on the provincial flag from Offshore Shell Games)
Our eyes widen in amazement when we read the latest proposal by the new Liberal leader, Kevin Vickers: make New Brunswick into a tax haven. The idea not only is completely unacceptable in principle but also raises a potential dispute from a political point of view. First, tax havens are a scourge that explain the difficulty that Western jurisdictions, such as New Brunswick, have in properly funding public services. Canadian businesses funnel tens of billions of dollars into tax havens to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, and at the same time federal and provincial governments, allowing themselves to be strangled by debt, must either cut services or charge fees for them, moving the tax burden onto the middle class and small and medium businesses.
Every year we see that countries such as Barbados, the Bahamas or Luxembourg are among the main destinations for "foreign direct investment" from Canadian firms. A well-known example is the Irving family. Some fifty years ago, they devised accounting schemes in Bermuda, legalized here by the public authorities they know how to influence.
In wanting to make us the "Ireland" of America, Mr. Vickers wishes to invite large multinational companies to create corporations on our territory that will artificially channel profits into their tax-free New Brunswick accounts, and deprive the countries where those profits were generated of their fair share of revenue.
Not only is this decadent way of thinking about the economy completely irrelevant in terms of job creation, it also shows how taxpayers here have been abused for decades, leaving a large part of the profits generated here to be artificially accounted for elsewhere, by means of convenient, tax-friendly legislation.
But it gets worse. Ireland's tax measures, to which the Liberal leader refers, have been severely criticized by the European Union! In 2016, Europe forced Apple to repay 13 billion euros because of Ireland's undue largesse. This is the largest penalty ever imposed on a company for illegal state aid, to which we can add the numerous fines that Google has received for the same reasons. On this occasion, the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, denounced Ireland, a member of the EU, explicitly describing its tax policies as a form of legislative abuse. By providing tax benefits for companies that were in reality operating largely outside its borders, Ireland was legislating on how capital generated in other countries should be administered. This form of political interference is reprehensible in principle.
Not only does this proposal demonstrate a feeble imagination, it is also truly distressing. Moreover, by declaring himself fiscally "conservative", "NDP" on social issues and "greener than the Greens" on the environment, Mr. Vickers finally reminds us what a "liberal" is in our country: a politically confused subject who is only in the business of electoral seduction.
Alain Deneault is a professor of philosophy at the Université de Moncton (Campus de Shippagan) and the author of Canada: A New tax Haven (Talonbooks) and Legalizing Theft (Fernwood).
This op-ed first appeared in Acadie Nouvelle and was translated for the NB Media Co-op by Jeff Bate Boerop. The original article in Acadie Nouvelle about Kevin Vickers' plan, based on an interview with the Liberal leader, is here.
Tags: Alain DeneaultIrelandKevin VickersLiberaltax havens
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In the past, slots used to be available only in brick and mortar casinos, but nowadays the face of gaming has changed so much that slot machines can be played on the internet as well – so much so that they are among the most beloved and sought-after online games ever.
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