Founded in 1999 by Karin Drakenberg and Scott Goodson, StrawberryFrog began as a small independent agency in Amsterdam with a big vision; to challenge the traditional agency networks. For the past 15 years, the agency has done exactly that by delivering world-class strategy, innovative communication platforms and breakthrough campaign tools. We thrive in the development of cultural movements for our clients, and it is our strategic approach that sets us apart from the rest. Today, StrawberryFrog is one of the leading independent agency networks in the world. READY. SET. LEAP!


text:
var mongoose = require('mongoose');
var User = mongoose.model('User');
var express = require('express');

exports.browseStartup = function(req, res){
		User.find(function(err, data){
			if(err){res.send(500, err);}
			res.send(data);
			return data;
		})
	};

	exports.browse_Startup = function(req, res){

			console.log('are you here in browse_startup');

			User.find({companyname: req.params.id}, function(err, data){
				if(err){res.send(500, err);}
				console.log(data);
				res.send(data);
				return data;

			})
		};

exports.browseInvestor = function(req, res){
		User.find(function(err, data){
			if(err){res.send(500, err);}
			res.send(data);
			return data;
		})
	};

exports.browseLocation = function(req, res){
    console.log(req.params.name);
      User.find({location: req.params.name}, function(err, data){
      if(err){res.send(500, err);}
      console.log(data);
      res.send(data);
      //return data;
    });
	};

exports.browseIndustry= function(req, res){

			User.find({industry: req.params.name}, function(err, data){
			if(err){res.send(500, err);}
			console.log(data);
			res.send(data);
			//return data;
		})

	};

exports.follow = function(req, res){

	User.update({username: req.params.id}, {$push: {follow_investor: {investor_company: req.params.name}}}, {upsert: true}, function(err, data){
		if(err){ res.send(500, err);}
		console.log('in success data  ' + data);
		res.send(data);
	});
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


I am not sure how useful/practical/precise this adapter will be, but I am sure some Sony a7 user will be happy to have it.
Techart lens adapters are sold on eBay.
This entry was posted in Leica Accessories, Leica Lenses and tagged Leica Adapters, Techart Leica M lens to Sony E-mount autofocus adapter, Techart Pro, using Leica M lenses on Sony E-Mount cameras. Bookmark the permalink. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.


Rockefeller is a music- and entertainment complex in downtown Oslo. It consists of three venues. Rockefeller (capacity: 1350) and John DEE (capacity: 420) are located at Torggata Bad. Across the street is our largest stage: Sentrum Scene (capacity: 1750). Our main function is to be one of the leading providers of rock and pop concerts in Norway. However, we host shows in a wide variety of musical genres, club nights, film screenings, television broadcasts and a variety of private events for businesses, organizations and individuals. We take great pride in our skilled and experienced staff at every level, and making every event enjoyable for all of our guests.
Office hours Weekdays from 9 am to 5 pm.
E-Ticket is the easieast way to buy tickets. By selecting eBillett as your delivery method, your tickets will be e-mailed to you. You will receive them immediately and can print them out yourself or show them on your phone.
Unless a show is sold out, we also sell tickets at the door on the evening of the show.
Rockefeller and John DEE normally open 7 pm on weekdays and Sundays, and 8 pm on Fridays and Saturdays. At Sentrum Scene the doors normally open 7 pm every day.
All of our venues are licensed to stay open until 3.30 am (last call is at 3 am), but we usually close when the show / after-show entertainment is over. A concert with one act usually last 90 – 120 minutes, but this is subject to change. On weeknights and Sundays we try to ensure that shows end before public transportation service ends.
Most shows have an 18-year age limit. We have no chaperone system and everyone who enters must be over the age of eighteen. Valid forms of ID are: Passport, driver's license, pictured ATM cards, and government issued foreign ID.
When this is stated, it is an all ages-event and no alcohol is served.
Subway: Any line to Jernbanetorget, Stortinget or Grønland (exit right behind Narvesen).
Tram: Line 11, 12, 13, or 17 to Brugata.
Buss: Line 30, 31, 32, 34 or 54 to Brugata.
Nearest 24 hour indoor parking is at Ibsen P-hus, C.J. Hambros plass 1, and at Oslo City shopping mall, Stenersgaten.
Lost or left items may be picked up at our offices (Badstugata 2) on weekdays between 9 am and 5 pm. Please call (+47) 22 20 32 32) or email (post@rockefeller.no) in advance.


From the raw beauty of the Atlantic coast to the delightful refinement of the elegant function rooms and suites, The Woolacombe Bay Hotel is the perfect home to your most special day. Everything is taken care of by your Wedding Planner so you can relax and enjoy every second. Wedding venues in Devon do not come more timelessly lovely than this. After your ceremony, take a hand-in-hand stroll down to the beautiful sands (twice awarded 'Best UK Beach' - TripAdvisor) and whisper sweet nothings, surrounded by the elements.
For the perfect "I do" moment, there are five fabulous ceremony rooms for you to choose from. Each is unique in size and style, all are equally special. There are also two churches nearby, should you prefer.
Our flexible wedding options have been created with you in mind, they are designed to help you create the day you dream of. Simply choose your favourite venue for your ceremony, followed by your wedding breakfast, and how you'd like to celebrate the evening. Your wedding day is an unforgettable beginning to your life together, and our experienced wedding planner is here for you from the moment your wedding is booked. Simply give us a call on 01271 870388 or email enquiries@woolacombe-bay-hotel.co.uk to get in touch.


Olympia Law Group also extends its service of helping homeowners in distress nationwide through its Of Counsel attorneys. Olympia Law Group has Of Counsel attorneys in multiple states who assist homeowners who are seeking viable and permanent solutions to their hardship and mortgage problems by providing legal consultation, review of mortgage situation, analysis of mortgage and financial information and a lot more. Predatory mortgage lending, according to the office of inspector general of the FDIC, is "imposing unfair and abusive loan terms on borrowers." This has led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"), the federal governmental agency responsible for protecting consumers from improper conduct by banks, to establish strong protections for homeowners who are facing foreclosure. Regulations X and Z, also known as the "Dual Tracking Prohibition," were established to assure that homeowners are treated fairly. These federal regulations of the CFPB require the lender to provide alternatives to foreclosure, and do not allow foreclosures under certain circumstances, assuring that the homeowner must be treated fairly. Olympia Law files lawsuits on behalf of plaintiff homeowner(s) in State or Federal Court. We file actions on an individual basis.
Causes of action may include: ROSENTHAL FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT (VIOLATION OF CAL. CIV. CODE § 1788 et. Seq.) – If the servicer has been calling the Plaintiff in an attempt to collect on the loan when they are not supposed to. For example, calls before 8 am or after 9 pm or calling neighbors, friends or family. Double collection also pertains to this action. Double collection is when the lender servicing the loan transfers the loan and both the old and new servicer attempt to collect the same payment. BREACH OF CONTRACT – An example of breach of contract could be when the servicer has breached a loan modification agreement or not offered a permanent modification after the trial payment plan has ended even though the Plaintiff has abided by the terms of the trial payment plan. CALIFORNIA HOMEOWNER BILL OF RIGHTS The California Homeowner Bill of Rights became law on January 1, 2013 to ensure fair lending and borrowing practices for California homeowners. The laws are designed to guarantee basic fairness and transparency for homeowners in the foreclosure process. Key provisions include:Restriction on dual track foreclosure: Mortgage servicers are restricted from advancing the foreclosure process if the homeowner is working on securing a loan modification. When a homeowner completes an application for a loan modification, the foreclosure process is essentially paused until the complete application has been fully reviewed. Guaranteed single point of contact: Homeowners are guaranteed a single point of contact as they navigate the system and try to keep their homes – aperson or team at the bank who knows the facts of their case, has their paperwork and can get them a decision about their application for a loan modification. Verification of documents: Lenders that record and file multiple unverified documents will be subject to a civil penalty of up to $7,500 per loan in an action brought by a civil prosecutor. Lenders who are in violation are also subject to enforcement by licensing agencies, including the Department of Business Oversight, the Bureau of Real Estate. Enforceability: Borrowers will have authority to seek redress of "material" violations of the new foreclosure process protections. Injunctive relief will be available prior to a foreclosure sale and recovery of damages will be available following a sale. (AB 278, SB 900)(clickable link to here) http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0251-0300/ab_278_bill_201207 11_chaptered.html Tenant rights: Purchasers of foreclosed homes are required to give tenants at least 90 days before starting eviction proceedings. If the tenant has a fixed-term lease entered into before transfer of title at the foreclosure sale, the owner must honor the lease unless the owner can prove that exceptions intended to prevent fraudulent leases apply. (AB 2610) (clickable link to here) http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_2601-2650/ab_2610_bill_20120 925_chaptered.pdf Tools to prosecute mortgage fraud: The statute of limitations to prosecute mortgage-related crimes is extended from one to three years, allowing the Attorney General's office to investigate and prosecute complex mortgage fraud crimes. In addition, the Attorney General's office can use a statewide grand jury to investigate and indict the perpetrators of financial crimes involving victims in multiple counties. (AB 1950, SB 1474) (clickable link to here) http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_1451-1500/sb_1474_bill_20120925_chaptered.pdf Tools to curb blight: Local governments and receivers have additional tools to fight blight caused by multiple vacant homes in their neighborhoods, from more time to allow homeowners to remedy code violations to a means to compel the owners of foreclosed property to pay for upkeep. (AB 2314) (clickable link to here) http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_2301-2350/ab_2314_bill_20120827_chaptered.pdf The California Homeowner Bill of Rights marked the third step in Attorney General Harris' response to the state's foreclosure and mortgage crisis. The Mortgage Fraud Strike Force was created in May 2011 to investigate and prosecute misconduct at all stages of the mortgage process. In February 2012, Attorney General Harris secured a commitment from the nation's five largest banks for up to $18 billion for California borrowers. A thorough review of your loan documents and/or factual inquiry is usually necessary to determine if a case exists. Contact the Real Estate Law Center specialized attorneys to see if we can help. Website has been reviewed and approved by lead attorney Matin Rajabov.


Is the Belgian and Dutch tradition of Black Peter racist?
SINT-NIKLAAS, Belgium — To a visitor from across the Atlantic the scene would be disconcerting to say the least.
Dozens of young Europeans in satin britches and curly afro wigs, in blackface, cavort through a gleeful crowd. Their rouged lips and darkened faces recall the notorious minstrel shows of 19th-century America.
Dressed in scarlet and blue, with lace collars and feathered caps, the performers descend on ropes from the neo-gothic Town Hall tower. One walks a tightrope high above the market square. Flashing white grins, groups scamper around the packed plaza scattering fistfuls of candy to delighted kids.
Welcome to the world of Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter, the controversial character who replaces the elves as Santa's little helper in Belgium and the Netherlands.
To some, St. Nick's black-painted assistant represents a harmless and cherished tradition. To others it's outdated, offensive and inappropriate in an increasingly multi-ethnic European society.
In a Facebook post to civil rights campaigner Rev. Al Sharpton, Murrell argues for cultural sanctions against the Netherlands in response to Black Pete.
Although many Dutch and Belgian families now also give gifts at Christmas, traditionally the big day for children in the Low Countries has been St. Nicholas day on Dec. 6. The celebration recognizes a fourth-century bishop from what is now Turkey who became renowned among medieval Christians for his generosity and help for children.
A kindly, white bearded figure in red bishop's robes, the Dutch "Sinterklaas" became the prototype for Santa Claus in 19th-century America.
Around the same time, back in the Netherlands, St. Nick gained a black assistant. His origins are obscure. Some say he evolved from a devil tamed by the saint, others that Pete is an Ethiopian slave freed by St. Nick, or a Moor with origins in Spain. Attempts to make him more politically correct suggest that Black Pete's black face is actually the result of climbing down chimneys to deliver presents.
Initially Black Pete was a frightening figure who would whip bad children or bundle them off to Spain in his sack, while Saint Nicholas rewarded the well-behaved with treats. These days, Pete has mellowed into a mischevious scamp who assists his elderly boss with the present distribution business.
In this town named for the saint, there's no doubt who the kids are most excited to see. "Zwarte Piet, Zwarte Piet," they shout as the youths in blackface toss candy into the air while inhabitants of Sint-Niklaas — including several members of its sizable black community — celebrate the annual arrival of their patron saint on Nov. 15.
Van Bellingen hit international headlines in 2007 when three local couples refused to allow the newly elected black councilor to officiate at their weddings. In a gesture of support for the center-left politician, 626 local couples gathered at the city hall weeks later to have Van Bellingen renew their marriage vows.
After complaints from immigrant groups, efforts have been made in The Netherlands to replace Black Pete's blackface with rainbow-colored makeup, but such initiatives have had little success.
Van Bellingen thinks banning the blackface would be counterproductive — he thinks it will simply fade away.


Exchange gift cards for cash when you sell Carvel Ice Cream gift cards on the Raise online marketplace. Try setting the selling price of your Carvel Ice Cream gift card to at least 5% less than its current value in order to maximize your return, but ultimately the choice is yours. The higher discount you provide, the faster your gift card will sell. Carvel Ice Cream gift cards make great holiday presents, so list your item on our gift card marketplace now while demand is high!
Please call Carvel Ice Cream at (866) 650-6049 to check your card's balance.


When the Maniacs Get Loose, you know the Speakers are in for a treat. And that's exactly what this EP offers. Pure energy, captured like a raging bull with its 4×4 rhythm. Screeching synths and solid kicks keep you motivated from drum to drop and back. Don't be fooled by raw monikers, each of the three tracks keeps the kicks loud and the distortion level up. So take a trip to the asylum and dance. Dance to your inner weirdo!


text:
3 grandmothers self-isolate together during coronavirus to prevent loneliness
These friends of more than 40 years have been through a lot together — and now they've decided to move in together, so self-isolation from the coronavirus isn't so lonely. "We look after each other," they said during an interview with BBC News.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
#ifndef AES128_H_
#define AES128_H_

#include <QByteArray>

namespace AES128 {
  // Key better be 16 bytes long, same with the iv.
  QByteArray decrypt(QByteArray input, QByteArray key, QByteArray iv);
}

#endif  // AES128_H_


Blessed Sacrament Novenas by Catholic Book Publishing is a helpful, illustrated booklet filled with the most popular Novenas in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. Purse- or pocket-size and printed in two colors for anywhere, anytime prayer, Blessed Sacrament Novenas is a 64-page, easy-to-use source of inspiring Novenas to the Blessed Sacrament.
Size: 4 1/4" x 6 5/8"


text:
Dec 1, 2022 | AIDH news, Digital Health, Events, Women in Digital Health, Workforce
An information session for the 2023 Women in Digital Health Leadership program took place on Wednesday 30 November 2022 with 48 potential candidates joining the live virtual event.The potential candidates were provided with an overview of the program by Community...
Nov 28, 2022 | AIDH news, Community of Practice, Digital Health, Events, Nursing & Midwifery Informatics, Women in Digital Health, Workforce
The next International Nursing Informatics Conference will be held in Manchester, UK in July 2024. We are seeking willing and enthusiastic individuals to join our Scientific Programme and Editorial Committees. We would welcome expressions of interest from individuals...
Nov 21, 2022 | AIDH news, Community Chats, Community of Practice, Digital Health, Women in Digital Health, Workforce
Applications are open until 20 January 2023 for the Institute's Women in Digital Health (WiDH), leadership and professional development program. Now in its second year, WiDH was developed to advance the digital health careers of women through immersive coaching and...
Advancing workforce capability: Healthcare in a digital society
Nov 17, 2022 | Advocacy, AIDH news, Australian Health News, Community of Practice, Workforce
Australia needs a health and social care workforce with a strong digital health capability if it is to deliver consumer-centred services now and into the future. The Australasian Institute of Digital Health has a long-standing commitment to workforce advancement and...
Partnership to advance digital health workforce
Oct 22, 2022 | Advocacy, AIDH news, Australian Health News, Community of Practice, Workforce
The Institute is working with the Australian Digital Health Agency on strategies to deliver digital health capability across the health workforce. The Capability Action Plan (CAP) enables Australia's health workforce to develop the skills needed for healthcare...


Having commissioned a website, it is vital that further work is undertaken to ensure that the project features high on search engine results for your key words.
Search Engine Optimisation is part of our website design packages In addition to writing succinct and interesting copy, we perform detailed analysis and tune the site so that it appears high in searches.
As part of this work and at according to client instructions, we can link websites to Social Media, Review Sites, Maps and business listings.


Pour boiling water over tomatoes in small bowl to cover. Let stand 5 minutes; drain.
Chop tomatoes. Combine tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, mushrooms, and radishes in large salad bowl.
Combine 2 tablespoons water, vinegar, oil, bouillon granules, chervil, mustard, and red pepper in jar with tight-fitting lid; shake well. Add to salad; toss gently.
Serving size: 1/4 of total recipe.
Exchanges per serving: 2 Vegetable.


Discussing the potential of liberal arts: outdated or essential?
In order to deal with worsening unemployment for Liberal Arts students in college, specialized departments and majors regarding Liberal Arts affiliation have appeared in various universities. Majors are systematically established by universities in order to foster the growth of convergent and competent students and experts in subdivided fields of study. The universities provide freshman with a variety of advantages such as scholarship, foreign training, and entrance to employment.
For example, in 2012, Sogang University created a convergent major of liberal arts and computer engineering titled " A r t & Technology." It aims to produce a "Korean Steve Jobs" and manages educational curriculum by integrating engineering, humanities, culture and arts.
The specialized departments on Liberal Arts affiliation also emphasizes the keyword of heading towards globalization. Currently, there are a variety of majors focusing on the area of being global, especially in the area of business management and economics. The fundamental disciplines they provide are overseas training and foreign language education, which differ from universities according to the fields of study.
For instance, the School of Global Service at Sookmyung Women's University inaugurated the first entrepreneurship major domestically. It endeavors to produce global business leaders by equipping students with classes all conducted by English and by presenting a diverse range of foreign field study. Similarly, in 2014, the LD (Language & Diplomacy) major was newly established at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Its main objective is to encourage the internationally expertized human resources through educating students on foreign studies and diplomacy field of study. Kyunghee University's Department of Global Eminence also highlights the importance of becoming a globalized world leader.
Kang Ji-yoon, a freshman from the Department of English Language a n d Literature at Kyunghee University, discussed the controversy considering the increasing tendency of universities establishing a specialized department.
The Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) launched CORE (Initiative for College of Humanities' Research and Education) in 2016. Under government support, universities designated as trial schools are to work on developing their own strategies to strengthen its humanities education.
As one of the 19 schools taking part in the initiative, Ewha participates in building three out of the five models proposed by CORE: convergence studies, regional studies, and intensive fundamental studies. Through the Lucete Humanities Project, the school provided tutoring programs for Latin and Cantonese. Necessary credits needed for graduation were increased for most Liberal Arts majors except for those majoring in Chinese, French or German. Humanities curriculums became more closely knit with graduate schools, as its departments now provides "track" systems which students apply according to their future plans.
With the news that large companies prefer people from science and engineering fields through the media, students feel the pressure to learn science subjects in order to live a successful life.
Professor Yoon Bo-suk, the head of College of Humanities explained how the society has to change in order to increase the chances of employment for students majoring in humanities.
He also added how Ewha is encouraging knowledge exchange between humanities and STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
"In Ewha there is the Humanities & Technology interdepartmental major, which was created to foster creative students with a balanced understanding of humanities and science and IT-centric practical S/ W technology and data processing capabilities," Yoon stated.
Furthermore, Yoon expressed lament as he believes that some students feel intimidated and scared to take such courses with the students who actually major in STEM. Thus, he suggested that Ewha should expand the courses where humanities major students could learn computing, coding, and science other than STEM majors.
Similarly to Professor Yoon, Scott Hartley, a U.S. venture capitalist, also argued that the humanities and social sciences are becoming more important in the age of technology and that professionals in those fields are at the center of business growth.
His book, The Fuzzy and the Techie, which supports his argument, was recently published in Korea. In the original, "Fuzzy" refers to humanities and social sciences majors and "Techie" refers to engineering or computer science majors.
Hartley also suggested ways in how universities can enable collaboration and knowledge exchange between humanities and STEM majors.


text:
package org.ovirt.engine.api.restapi.types.externalhostproviders;

import static org.ovirt.engine.api.restapi.utils.HexUtils.hex2string;
import static org.ovirt.engine.api.restapi.utils.HexUtils.string2hex;

import org.ovirt.engine.api.model.ExternalDiscoveredHost;
import org.ovirt.engine.api.restapi.types.Mapping;

public class ExternalDiscoveredHostMapper {
    @Mapping(from = org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.ExternalDiscoveredHost.class,
            to = ExternalDiscoveredHost.class)
    public static ExternalDiscoveredHost map(
            org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.ExternalDiscoveredHost entity,
            ExternalDiscoveredHost template) {
        ExternalDiscoveredHost model = template != null? template: new ExternalDiscoveredHost();
        String name = entity.getName();
        if (name != null) {
            model.setId(string2hex(name));
            model.setName(name);
        }
        if (entity.getMac() != null) {
            model.setMac(entity.getMac());
        }
        if (entity.getIp() != null) {
            model.setIp(entity.getIp());
        }
        if (entity.getSubnetName() != null) {
            model.setSubnetName(entity.getSubnetName());
        }
        if (entity.getLastReport() != null) {
            model.setLastReport(entity.getLastReport());
        }
        return model;
    }

    @Mapping(from = ExternalDiscoveredHost.class,
        to = org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.ExternalDiscoveredHost.class)
    public static org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.ExternalDiscoveredHost map(
            ExternalDiscoveredHost model,
            org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.ExternalDiscoveredHost template) {
        org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.ExternalDiscoveredHost entity =
                template != null? template: new org.ovirt.engine.core.common.businessentities.ExternalDiscoveredHost();
        if (model.isSetId()) {
            entity.setName(hex2string(model.getId()));
        }
        else if (model.isSetName()) {
            entity.setName(model.getName());
        }
        if (model.isSetMac()) {
            entity.setMac(model.getMac());
        }
        if (model.isSetIp()) {
            entity.setIp(model.getIp());
        }
        if (model.isSetSubnetName()) {
            entity.setSubnetName(model.getSubnetName());
        }
        if (model.isSetLastReport()) {
            entity.setLastReport(model.getLastReport());
        }
        return entity;
    }
}


I went to the latest Smurfs film The Lost Village primarily for the entertainment for my three-year-old daughter. But came out feeling as though I'd seen the world changing before my very eyes.
Some big questions are addressed in the film. What happens as patriarchy gives way to something new? And as our definition of 'being' expands to include hybrid and artificial entities? As gender codes fragment before us and as our understanding of nature and consciousness evolves? I was amazed at how far the smurfs take us into these issues in The Lost Village.
The film revolves around the Smurfette, who represents a storyline recycled from the late 19th century misogyny of thinkers like Schopenhauer and Nietsche.
She is a golem or cyborg, depending on which century you wish to borrow your language from – an artificial creation of evil wizard Gargamel. Her purpose is to lure the Smurfs away from the path of 'bros not hos' and throw them into disarray.
Schopenhauer could have thought up the Smurfette. He considered women to be tricks of Nature, attractive simulacra designed to lure men away from higher pursuits. They are creatures of artifice and dissimulation, not of truth.
The Smurfette is just such a lie. She's a fake smurf, puppet of an alien agenda. It's a tough problem for the Smurfs narratively and commercially. What do they do with this storyline in a social context rapidly moving into a new post-patriarchal configuration?
The Lost Village tackles the issue in a brave and radical way. It doesn't shy away from the miserable sexism surrounding the creation of the Smurfette. It doesn't just give her some sassy lines and martial-arts moves, or a liberal-feminist storyline in which she finds herself and rewrites the script, contemporary Disney-style.
Instead it goes right to the heart of the matter. At her lowest point in the film, the Smurfette is confronted with her fakeness – with the fact that the she'll never be a real Smurf and will always be excluded, suspect and problematic. She decides to embrace her fakeness and to journey right into the heart of the misery associated with it.
Her choice is to sacrifice herself to save the Smurfs – to absorb Gargamel's evil into her body to drain his power. The outcome for her is that she regresses back into her own abject origins. She goes back to being a lumpen piece of clay, inert and gross.
The power of her sacrifice generates such a tidal wave of love amongst the Smurfs (whose community has now widened to include a whole village of female Smurfs) that she is physically resurrected and given the gift of full being.
Her new being is not just a full passport to Smurfdom and 'equal rights'. It's expressed as a boundless freedom and potential. She can be whatever she likes – she can evolve. She leaps from suspect ontological hybridity (a weird mix of legitimate Smurfiness and suspect fakeness) to the fullest expression of being the Smurfs can imagine and give.
I'd like to end by summing up what makes this story such a leap forward in the narration of social change – and why cultural expressions of every kind should take note of what is going on here.
First, this is a feminist story – but it's not a liberal-feminist story. In other words, it's not about an individual finding empowerment and making her own way. Instead, it's about the community giving the gift of full being and full freedom to be, as a sacred act of love in response to a sacred act of sacrifice.
Second, the film addresses the theme of the cyborg through the Smurfette who is herself an artificial entity. The storyline gives full being to cyborgs, opening the portals of what we define as 'being' to include unlimited capacity to evolve. No one group – whether it's humans, men, white people or any other – can claim fuller ownership of being and consciousness over any other.
Third, the film reveals that social change on this deepest of levels releases a tremendous amount of creative energy. Feminism, or diversity in general, is breaking out of the idea of 'representation'. It's no longer about how things look – for example, having an extra black person or woman on the cast. Instead, It's about freeing the creative energy that's been suppressed through injustice and power monopolies.
This is an exhilarating ride – travelling with the Smurfs for some of it is a pleasure and an awakening.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged cultural change, feminism, semiotics on 29/07/2017 by admin.
Louise is a writer, editor and semiotician with over fifteen years experience crafting words and ideas for commercial clients. She can give a vibrant language makeover to any kind of content or publication, with results that will delight you and your audiences. With a PhD-level academic background, Louise is also an ideal writer to bring on board if you want to take a deeper look at language and tone of voice.


Are the results as you planned?
through the cities and skies.
and the salt brings out the suburbs in me.
Michael Garrett Ashby II is a writer and poet based in South Florida. His works have been published in literary magazines and journals such as Spark Anthology, Digital Papercuts, eFiction India, Touchstone Magazine, and Coastlines Literary Magazine. You can keep up with his current projects and publications on his website at Mute Publishing.
You can also follow Mute Publishing on Twitter.


text:
Learn more about nOps for partners here
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Ewere Diagboya | Change Management, Tutorials | 29 February, 2020
Boost Your AWS Infrastructure Performance — and Lower Your AWS Costs — by Detecting Low Network Utilization
When you set up an Amazon EC2 instance and attach an Amazon EBS volume to that instance, AWS will charge you for the instance and the Amazon EBS volume. And, if for any reason you have instances that are not actively churning business value, and you forget to stop the instances, you will continue to get charged. One of the methods to identify these unused EC2 instances is low network utilization.
Low network utilization is a symptom of unused Amazon EC2 instances that are still running. In an actively used Amazon EC2 instance, there should be good network I/O throughput showing both inbound and outbound traffic to that instance.
Low network utilization can also occur when an instance is running, but the network I/O throughput is quite low. If the instance isn't running a workload that is critical to the business, it can either be snapshotted (for backup purposes) and terminated or stopped.
Identifying low network utilization
nOps cloud management platform has uniquely defined rules that can help you identify low network utilization. Then, you can take action to terminate the instance, or you can change the type of instance to reduce costs.
Here are the easy steps to identify low network utilization using nOps:
Sign up to get an nOps account.
Integrate your nOps account with your AWS account, so that you can obtain data for insights.
On the main dashboard, click on Rules > nOps Rules.
Click on the Cost tab to view information on your AWS Account.
Under the list of resources found by nOps, you will find a line item that states the number of Amazon EC2 instances that have very low traffic.
Click on that line item to see the resources and more details.
You will then see a table that shows the Name, IP Address, and the instance types of the EC2 instances that have low network utilization. This table also shows you the estimated cost that can be saved from shutting down these resources.
Choosing the appropriate type of Amazon EC2 instance
When your Amazon EC2 instance is underutilized (the instance size is too large), you can change the type of instance accordingly. Amazon EC2 instance types are organized in instance families. Each family includes one or more instance sizes (to scale resources based on the needs of your target workload) and are categorized by their different capacities in terms of memory, CPU, and network I/O:
General-purpose instance family: Designed for generic workloads, this family is commonly used when deploying an application or service for the first time. While such instances are provisioned with a balance of CPU, Memory, and Disk I/O, they don't contain the highest grade of CPU, memory, or other resources. The types of instances in this family are A1, T2, T3, T3a, M4, M5, M5a, M5n, and M6g. They are usually applied to web server workloads, containerized applications, data stores, cluster computing, gaming servers, caching fleets, and development environments.
Compute-optimized instance family: Used for compute-intensive workloads that require high-performance processors, such as high-performance web servers, scientific modeling, batch processing, distributed analytics, high-performance computing (HPC), machine/deep learning inference, ad serving, highly scalable multiplayer gaming, and video encoding. The types of instances in this family are C5, C5n, and C4.
Memory-optimized instance family: Used for memory-intensive workloads that process large data sets in memory and require fast performance, such as high-performance databases, distributed web scale in-memory caches, midsize in-memory databases, and real-time Big Data analytics. And, if you are going to run a Java application, high memory capacity will be needed to support the instantiation of objects in this Object-Oriented programming language (OOP). The types of instances in this family are R5, R5a, R5n, R4, X1e, X1, z1d, and High Memory.
Accelerated computing instance family: Designed to perform functions such as floating-point number calculations, graphics processing, or data pattern matching using hardware accelerators or co-processors instead of software running on CPUs. It's used for machine/deep learning, high-performance computing, computational fluid dynamics, computational finance, seismic analysis, speech recognition, autonomous vehicles, and drug discovery. The types of instances in this family are P3, P2, Inf1, G4, G3, and F1.
Storage-optimized instance family: Designed for workloads that require high, sequential read and write access to vast data sets on local storage, with delivery of tens of thousands of low-latency, random I/O operations per second (IOPS) to applications. It's used for NoSQL databases (e.g., Cassandra, MongoDB, Redis), in-memory databases (e.g., Aerospike), scale-out transactional databases, data warehousing, Elasticsearch, and analytics workloads. The types of instances in this family are I3, I3en, D2, and H1.
Q: What is Amazon EC2?
A: Amazon EC2 is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud.
Q: What happens when you terminate an Amazon EC2 instance?
A: EC2 instances are visible in the console for a short time after they're terminated. When an instance terminates, the data on any instance store volumes associated with that instance is deleted. Deleted, terminated, or released resources can't be recovered. You can't connect to or start an instance after you've terminated it. However, you can launch additional instances using the same AMI.
Q: What happens when you stop an instance using the AWS CLI?
A: When an EC2 instance is stopped using the stop-instances command, the API request will send a button press event to the guest, which will stop various system services. Graceful shutdown is triggered by the ACPI shutdown button press event from the hypervisor. When the graceful shutdown process exits, the instance will shut down. Stopping a running instance is only supported by instances that were launched with an EBS-based AMI. An instance in the stopped state enables you to modify certain attributes of the instance, including the instance type.
Q: What is AMI?
A: An Amazon Machine Image is a special type of virtual appliance that to creates a virtual machine within the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. It is the basic unit of deployment for services delivered using EC2.
Q: What is an Amazon EBS Volume?
A: Amazon Elastic Block Store provides raw block-level storage that can be attached to Amazon EC2 instances and is used by Amazon Relational Database Service. Amazon EBS provides a range of options for storage performance and cost.
To boost your AWS infrastructure performance — and save on AWS costs — check for low network utilization. Use the nOps cloud management platform to detect low network utilization. Then, you can terminate the instance, or you can change the type of instance to reduce costs.
Want sharper visibility into low network utilization on AWS and see how much you can save? here here to get started with a free 14-day trial of nOps (or click here to sign into nOps if you're already a user) and review low network utilization in your account.
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Massimo Troisi (San Giorgio a Cremano, 19 de fevereiro de 1953 — Óstia, 4 de junho de 1994) foi um ator de teatro, cinema e televisão; diretor e poeta italiano, que soube reinterpretar e inovar a tradição e os costumes de Nápoles. Troisi faleceu precocemente em decorrência de um problema cardíaco.

Biografia
Troisi nasceu em San Giorgio a Cremano, pequena cidade a 4 quilômetros de Nápoles, e era filho de Alfredo Troisi e Elena Andinolfi. Criado em uma numerosa família, durante anos viveu em uma casa com 16 pessoas, onde morava com: o pai, a mãe, cinco irmãos, um tio, uma tia, cinco primos, o avô e a avó. Tímido, católico e muito ligado a Nápoles, Troisi, se orgulhava da tradição e dos costumes dos napolitanos, e registrou isso em quase toda sua obra. Massimo Troisi é considerado um dos maiores humoristas da Itália e é tido como um dos grandes símbolos de Nápoles, por ser defensor da cultura e do dialeto do seu povo, que historicamente é discriminado por parte dos italianos de outras regiões (principalmente da Região Norte da Itália).

Carreira
Troisi começou sua carreira de ator, em 1969, no teatro Paroquial da Igreja di Sant'Anna junto a alguns amigos de infância (entre eles Lello Arena, Nico Mucci e Valeria Pezza).

Em 1977, Troisi, Lello Arena e Enzo Decaro formaram o trio cômico chamado "La Smorfia" (tirado o nome do "livro dos números" tradicionalmente utilizado em Nápoles para jogar na Loto ou bingo). Algum tempo depois o trio trabalhou também na televisão e tornou-se famoso em toda Itália.

Troisi se tornou conhecido internacionalmente devido ao sucesso de seu filme O carteiro e o poeta (título original: Il postino), pelo qual recebeu indicações de: Melhor Ator, Melhor Filme e Melhor Roteiro Adaptado, na premiação do Oscar de 1996. Troisi trabalhou em outros premiados filmes, como Ricomincio da tre (o qual foi exibido ininterruptamente nos cinemas italianos por mais de dois anos), Scusate il ritardo, Le vie del signore sono finite, ou No grazie, il caffè mi rende nervoso. E trabalhou com grandes figuras do Cinema italiano como: Anna Pavignano, Marco Messeri,  Lello Arena, Pino Daniele, Roberto Benigni, Ettore Scola e Marcello Mastroianni.

Seus personagens (em maioria) fazem referência ao cotidiano dos italianos, dos napolitanos e as diferenças e peculiaridades entre o norte da Itália e a Itália meridional, fazendo referências mais especificas a Nápoles e aos costumes napolitanos.

Troisi e Roberto Benigni trabalharam juntos nos filmes: Non ci resta che piangere, "FF.SS." - Cioè: "...che mi hai portato a fare sopra a Posillipo se non mi vuoi più bene?" e Morto Troisi, viva Troisi!.

Doença e Morte
Em 1972, foi-lhe diagnosticada uma anomalia cardíaca, que em 1976 o obrigou a ir para os Estados Unidos para fazer uma operação. A operação foi feita em Houston e, inicialmente, foi um sucesso. Troisi pôde retomar a sua carreira teatral e cinematográfica pouco tempo depois. Troisi quase não falava sobre a sua doença, apenas os seus familiares e amigos íntimos sabiam sobre o seu problema de saúde.

Troisi voltou aos Estados Unidos e passaria por outra cirurgia, mas não a fez porque não queria adiar as filmagens do seu novo filme: Il postino. No dia 4 de junho de 1994, Massimo Troisi faleceu na casa da sua irmã Annamaria, em companhia do seu grande amigo de infância Alfredo Cozzolino, em Óstia. O ataque cardíaco aconteceu 12 horas após o término das filmagens de Il postino. A notícia sobre a sua morte foi de grande tristeza e surpresa para os italianos. Il postino foi um dos filmes de maior glória e sucesso do ator e diretor.

Eduardo De Filippo, ator e escritor napolitano, declarou: "Troisi era um comediante do futuro, porém - felizmente - com suas raízes no passado."  Troisi e os seus filmes foram indicados e já venceram o Prêmio David di Donatello (Principal prêmio cinematográfico da Itália).

Homenagens
Muitos atores e diretores homenagearam Massimo Troisi ao longo dos anos, além dos eventos e premiações cinematográficos e televisivos da Itália. Entre os amigos e companheiros que o homenagearam estão: Roberto Benigni, Pino Daniele, Enzo Decaro, entre outros. Em 1996, (dois anos após a sua morte) em San Giorgio a Cremano (sua cidade natal) foi criado um prêmio em sua homenagem: o Prêmio Massimo Troisi.

Em 2003, um museu foi criado em sua homenagem na mesma cidade. E com a morte repentina do companheiro e amigo Troisi, o humorista Roberto Benigni fez um poema em sua homenagem batizado de "Poema a Massimo Troisi". Em 2011, a Pixar Animation Studios se inspirou em Troisi para criar o personagem do curta-metragem La Luna, dirigido e roteirizado por Enrico Casarosa com música de Michael Giacchino.

Filmografia

Ator
 Ricomincio da tre (1981)
 Morto Troisi, viva Troisi! (1982) - filme para TV
 No grazie, il caffè mi rende nervoso (1982)
 Scusate il ritardo (1983)
 "FF.SS." - Cioè: "...che mi hai portato a fare sopra a Posillipo se non mi vuoi più bene?" (1983)
 Non ci resta che piangere (1984), co-dirigido com Roberto Benigni
 Hotel Colonial (1987)
 Le vie del Signore sono finite (1987)
 Splendor (1989)
 Che ora è? (1989)
 Il viaggio di Capitan Fracassa (1990)
 Pensavo fosse amore... invece era un calesse (1991)
 Il postino (1994)

Diretor

 Ricomincio da tre (1981)
 Morto Troisi, viva Troisi! (1982) - filme para TV
 Scusate il ritardo (1983)
 Non ci resta che piangere (1984), co-direção de Roberto Benigni
 Le vie del Signore sono finite (1987)
 Pensavo fosse amore... invece era un calesse (1991)

Roterista

 Ricomincio da tre (1981)
 Morto Troisi, viva Troisi! (1982) - filme para TV
 No grazie, il caffè mi rende nervoso (1982)
 Scusate il ritardo (1983)
 Non ci resta che piangere (1984)
 Le vie del Signore sono finite (1987)
 Pensavo fosse amore... invece era un calesse (1991)
 Il postino'' (1994)

Ligações externas
Página de um fã
Reportagem sobre os 20 anos da morte de Massimo Troisi
Artigo da Wikipédia em italiano

Atores da Itália
Atores premiados com o David
Atores premiados no Festival de Veneza
Prémio David de melhor filme
Cineastas da Itália

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Search results for: "Columbiana, Alabama"
Apply several filters to get precise search results
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Bid NotificationPre-Bid NotificationActiveArchived
Showing opportunity 1 - 10 of 1,945
Looking for opportunities in Alabama, United States?
Show Opportunities: All - Active (23) - Archived(1922)
Sort: Relevance - Post Date - Due Date - Distance
Uniforms for Youth Baseball and Softball Programs 2023
Type : Bid Notification
Due : 02 Feb, 2023 (in 4 days)
Posted : 23 days ago
Started : 03 Jan, 2023 (25 days ago)
Uniforms for Youth Baseball and Softball Programs 2023 Category:RFB OFFICE OF CITY CLERK – Mark Frey Project: Uniforms for Youth Baseball / Softball Bid Request Posted this Date: January 3, 2023 Bids to be Opened this Date and Time: February 2, 2023, 10:00 AM To Whom It May Concern: Bids shall be sealed and delivered to the Office of the City Clerk, City of Alabaster, Alabama, prior to the above specified date and time. Bids shall be publicly opened at the date and time specified above or as soon as practicable thereafter. To be considered by the City, a bid must comply with Alabama law, including, but not limited to, Ala. Code (1975) §§41-16-50 et seq. and 31-13-1 et seq., and provide documentation of enrollment in the E-Verify program pur...
From: Alabaster (City)
CLEANING OF KITCHEN & FOOD SERVICE AREAS EXHAUST HOODS
From: Jefferson County Commission (County)
OFFSET PRINTING, COPY SERVICES & RELATED ITEMS
Underground Utility Locating Service
Due : 08 Feb, 2023 (in 10 days)
Posted : 2 days ago
Invitation to Bid Prospective Bidders: Sealed bids for furnishing and delivering items and/or services on Underground Utility Locating Services. The attached forms will be received in the Purchasing Department of the Birmingham Water Works Board, located at 3600 First Avenue North, Birmingham, Alabama 35222, until 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, February 8, 2023, at which time and place they will be publicly opened and read. The bid opening will be via Teams meeting. The link is listed in the email for the Invitation to bid. We advise you to check your connection a day before the bid opening to make sure you can join. Please join or call in 5 minutes before the bid opening. Specifications and Conditions and Bid Forms are attached, and all bids shall...
From: Birmingham Water Work (City)
FEMININE PRODUCTS, HYGIENE, & PERSONAL ITEMS
Mayor's Office Renovations for the City of Hoover
ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDSSealed proposals, in duplicate, from Qualified General Contractors will be received by the Awarding Authority: Hoover City Hall, 100 Municipal Lane, Hoover, AL 35216, until 2:00 p.m. local time, Wednesday, February 15, 2023.MAYOR'S OFFICE RENOVATIONS FOR THE CITY OF HOOVERArchitect Job No. 22-77Bid No. 23-003At such time and place, the bids will be opened and read. Bids that are received via mail and not presented at the bid opening are to be considered non-responsive. It is the responsibility of the bidder to assure that bids are presented at the time of the bid if they choose to mail the bid. Contractors must notify the Awarding Authority if a bid is to be received by mail.A cashier's check or bid bond payable to Cit...
From: City of Hoover (City)
OVERHEAD DOOR MRO & INSPECTIONS-ESD & ROADS AND TRANSPORTATION
Started : 28 Dec, 2022 (1 month ago)
Invitation to Bid\n\nProspective Bidders:\n\nSealed bids for furnishing and delivering items and/or services on Cisco SMARTNET. The attached\nforms will be received in the Purchasing Department of the Birmingham Water Works Board, located at 3600\n\nFirst Avenue North, Birmingham, Alabama 35222, until 10:00 a.m., Thursday, February 9, 2023, at which\ntime and place they will be publicly opened and read.\n\n\u201cSpecifications and Conditions\u201d and \u201cBid Forms\u201d are attached, and all bids shall be F.O.B. destination,\nfreight prepaid, and atno charge. One copy of the bid form should be returned, and the bidder should retain a\ncopy.\n\nThe right is reserved to reject any bids submitted, waive any informalities and technicalities,...
Grounds Maintenance for Jefferson Campus (Bid #23-001)
2601 Carson Road Birmingham, Alabama 35215-3098 Bid Invitation #23-001 Bid for Grounds Maintenance for Jefferson Campus Bid Opening Date: February 14, 2023 Bid Opening Time: 2:00 P.M. Bid Opening Location: George Wallace Hall Room #115 Submit bid proposal to: Jefferson State Community College JSCC Bid #23-001 Attention: Ann Cimalore George Wallace Hall Room #100 2601 Carson Road Birmingham, Alabama 35215 Table of Contents General Conditions and Instructions to Bidders ....................................................... 2-3 Nonresident Bidder Information .................................................................................. 4 Vendor Certification by AL Department of Revenue .......................................................
From: Jefferson State Community College (Higher Education)
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text:
The Blessed Mother
Make A Gift In Honor of Our Lady
As of this posting, the State of the Union address has yet to be delivered; however, there is much to be addressed concerning the union's state. Political speech has been reduced to soundbites and tweets and the rhetorical distinctions between news reports and commentaries are vanishing. Even before last Thursday 's vote on the two bills drafted to temporarily finance the government, newscasters announced the anticipated failure of both. When on Friday an agreement was reached to end the partial government shutdown for three weeks and to open negotiations on defense spending, news media focused on who caved or who defeated whom, which party gained the upper hand and how many voted against their party's bill. In a land of binaries, union and common ground are jeopardized; in a world of numbers, individuals fade; caught in our own political fray, we lose sight of a suffering world. Pierced because of her son's sufferings, Mary's heart remains open, a source of mercy and strength for all to receive and share. Let us accept that grace and challenge.
By BlessedMother|2019-01-31T13:13:23-05:00January 31st, 2019|Sister Fran|0 Comments
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text:
Braves have reportedly shown some interest in Marcell Ozuna
Could the Braves seek another outfielder this offseason?
By Kris Willis@Kris_Willis Nov 19, 2019, 8:00am EST
Share All sharing options for: Braves have reportedly shown some interest in Marcell Ozuna
It is free agency time for Major League Baseball and rumor season comes along with that. We are still a few weeks away from the Baseball Winter Meetings, but we have already seen a bit more activity this offseason than we have in the last couple.
The Atlanta Braves inked closer Will Smith to a three-year deal last week but still have several needs for the 2020 roster. It is not clear how high adding another outfielder to the mix would be on the priority list. Still, the Braves are reportedly one of several teams that have some interest in former Cardinals outfielder Marcell Ozuna according to a report by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Derrick Goold.
The interest in Ozuna gained some clarity for his agent Melvin Roman this week as he met with teams. At least six teams have expressed initial interest in Ozuna and according to multiple sources that group includes the Reds and the White Sox. Atlanta and Texas also have some interest. The Cardinals and Ozuna's agent both say they remain in contact. Ozuna has expressed an interest in remaining with the Cardinals. The Cardinals are reluctant to commit the amount of years Ozuna seeks.
Ozuna just turned 29 and hit .243/.330/.474 with 29 home runs in 130 games for St. Louis in 2019. That equated to 2.6 fWAR as his defensive skills have been on a downward trend for the last several seasons. He did go 9-for-21 with three doubles and two homers against the Braves in the Division Series.
I feel like Ozuna could provide a boost to some team due to his offensive skills but it would seem like a strange fit for Atlanta. The Braves already sacrificed a draft pick to sign Smith earlier this offseason. While they might be willing to lose another, it would seem that a starting pitcher would be the more likely target. This feels like a situation where Atlanta is exploring options for a middle of the order bat should Josh Donaldson sign elsewhere.
Right now I don't put a whole lot of stock into this rumor but is worth keeping an eye on. This just feels like a situation where a team is doing its due diligence on an available player.


Here is an interview I recently conducted with John Ensor, Director of Urban Initiatives for Heartbeat International, an organization for Christian communities establishing pregnancy help centers worldwide.
John, tell us a little bit about yourself--your background, family, writing, ministry, etc.
I grew up in a small town (DeKalb, IL), came to faith as a senior in High School during the Jesus Movement days of the early 70's, and had the joy of seeing my mother and all my siblings come to Christ in the following year. Today my mother is on a short-term missions trip to Guatemala. She is 76. So my family carries a profound awareness of God's life-changing grace.
My first date with my future wife was a study date for John Piper's Greek class at Bethel College in Minnesota in 1977. We have been married for 28 years. We lived in Boston's inner-city for 20 years and raised our three children there. I served as pastor of a small church and then led in the development of six pregnancy help centers.
Our youngest son is currently deployed on the Ronald Regan aircraft carrier, assigned to electronics on a squad of F/A 18 fighter jets. My daughter just graduated Wheaton College and is working in Securities as she prepares for a career in missions. My oldest son and his wife live in Atlanta, where they are preparing for our first grandchild in May. Last month, my wife and I moved from Boston to Miami to take up an urban initiative called Heartbeat of Miami. So we are among those thankful for email and cell phones.
I am, at heart, a pastor. But I do not lead a local church. Rather I speak, preach, write, and labor mostly to instruct and inspire the Christian community about the biblical mandate and practical opportunity we have to defend the weak and the innocent through the establishment of pregnancy-help medical clinics, otherwise known as pregnancy centers.
What exactly is a "pregnancy center"?
Pregnancy Centers are the Christian community's most visible expression of their rejection of the shedding of innocent blood in their midst. They are commercial spaces set up at our own expense to provide life-affirming, practical assistance to women and couples vulnerable to abortion due to their difficult circumstances. Many of them are now equipped with ultrasound, offer parenting classes, abstinence education, and more. They rescue babies from a violet death by helping one woman at a time find the faith and resources she needs to parent or place for adoption.
There are about 2,200 pregnancy centers now in the U.S. and more developing internationally. Nearly all of them are the efforts of local churches working together. They reflect a gathering repentance of the Christian church over abortion; some turning their direct guilt regarding abortion into something life-affirming for others now in similar circumstances. Others, like myself, found it necessary to repent from passively accepting abortion. Both bring us into blood-guilt (Deut. 21:1-10). We find in the pregnancy center movement a practical and winsome way to faithfully answer the biblical call to "rescue those being dragged off to death" (Prov. 24:10-12). I think history will show them to be the dynamic equivalent of the "safe houses" on the underground railway. They provide direct help, at our own expense, to save lives, one woman at a time.
Tell me about Heartbeat of Miami. When and why did it start? What are its goals?
Heartbeat of Miami is a pilot project for a slowly emerging national strategic plan for steering the pregnancy help center movement into the major cities of America; and more specifically, into urban neighborhoods. It reflects the horrific reality that abortion is now firmly consolidated into our cities and disproportionately aimed at minorities. 94% of abortion facilities are now in urban neighborhoods. This is "de facto" racism. Nationally, Black women make up 12% of the female population but account for 36% of abortions. Latino women make up 13%, but account for another 20% of all abortions. Yet to date, the pregnancy centers are mostly set up in suburbs and small towns across the country where the "sanctity of life" has been addressed the most.
My prayer and future labor is going to go toward mainstreaming the pregnancy-help center into the urban Christian community. Since abortion is profiting most off the minority community, they hold the economic key to closing them down. When the Black and Latino pastors of our nation stigmatize abortion for what it is, the diminution of human dignity and a direct assault against the integrity of God as Creator, the abolition of abortion is in sight.
Miami is a city plagued with 37 abortion facilities. It has only one pregnancy-help center. In Boston, the Christian community, working together, started six pregnancy help centers over the last 15 years. We have seen hundreds of women and couples reject abortion on a yearly basis. We now have only six abortion facilities, and the abortion rate dropped 25% from the early 90's.
Last year I turned 50. To celebrate my midlife crises I thought I should either buy a motorcycle or venture a new work in Miami. My wife agreed that Miami might be the better way. We are now working full-time to open 3-5 ultrasound-equipped, medically licensed, fully staffed, Christian-based pregnancy centers in the neediest neighborhoods of Miami. Our first effort is in Hialeah, a neighborhood with seven abortion facilities. We hope to open around Mother's Day.
What happens when a pregnant woman considering abortion sees an ultrasound of her baby?
The data suggests that about 75% of women who receive an ultrasound exam and a consultation with a medical professional during the critical weeks that they are considering abortion, will never have one. The ultrasound allows a woman to see her baby and hear the heartbeat. She finds new reserves of strength and faith that she did not know she had. Or the ultrasound scan reveals that a miscarriage is pending and she needs to do nothing. I have seen women come in to our pregnancy center determined to have an abortion and start weeping when they see their baby is dying from natural causes. The ultrasound is truth. When backed up by the love--the direct, neighbor-loving, problem-solving kind--women choose life. And by the time it all works out, many times, the baby ends up saving the mother's life. In the outworking providence of God's life-changing grace, this crisis is the pivotal point in coming to trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins and for daily bread.
You've written about "abortion hot zones"--what does that mean, and where are they?
Abortion as a business, as a practice, is consolidating into our major cities and feeding off the minority populations which live there. And in particular, the highest concentrations appear to be in New York, L.A., Las Vegas, D.C., and Miami. That is why our defense of the innocents must go urban. The racial, theological, and political barriers between the Black and White Christian Church is significant and daunting. I tremble at the obstacles. Nonetheless, I have burned my ship on the shoreline of the city and am committed to learning my way forward.
Is it true that abortion providers are targeting minorities? If so, why?
One of the horrible effects of racism is targeted child-killing. As the Egyptians increased their oppression of the Israelites (Exodus 1:8) they not only instituted forced labor (1:14), they promoted child-killing (1:19) and eventually turned it into public policy (1:22). Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a eugenicist and aimed her "birth control" squarely at the non-European races. Today, the overt racism of Planned Parenthood is gone, but the "de facto" element is very real. Just ask yourself where the push is on to open contracepting, abortion-referral offices in schools. Disproportionately they are set up for the "poor" as if there is a condom for the heart and child-killing is a God-honoring solution to poverty.
What is the biblical basis for evangelical action to end abortion?
My full answer is written in my book, Answering the Call (Focus on the Family, 2003). There I provide both the biblical foundation and bits of the inspiring history, from the first generation of the church onward, of the Church faithfully and ardently defending innocent human life.
But three Scriptures have formed the foundation of my thinking and action. First, Deuteronomy 21:1-9 teaches us how to respond to the shedding of innocent blood. The point is that we are to respond. We are not to have business as usual (which would mean we have made peace with death). God calls the leaders to lead (shocker!) in insuring that the whole town feels the loss; by shutting down business, gathering the community together on a prime piece of commercial property and with expensive stock and going through a ritual that re-gilds the human heart with a godly responsibility to protect human life. Their leaders prayed, "We did not shed this blood nor see it done" (1:7). Too many leaders are silent, leaving the church vulnerable to abortion and acting as if they are helpless to stop it. I see the expense and time and teaching involved in opening pregnancy centers as one clear testimony of God's people feeling the loss of the innocents and responding according to the law of love.
That law is succinctly stated in Proverbs 24:10-12. "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter; If you say, "Behold, we did not know this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?" I particularly love the fact that this calling has no context other than our rationalization to say, "I didn't know." This is the signal that not wanting to get involved is the sure sign that we should. God sees our intentional ignorance and avoidance and reminds us that faith, which boasts, "God is safeguarding my life" can risk and act courageously to defend the innocent when it is dangerous or unpopular to do so. If not, it is a puny faith.
One example of what faithfulness to Proverbs 24 looks like is in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which calls us to be a death-defying, life-saving people. In the context of abortion, that means drawing near to pregnant woman in turmoil, and making their problems, our problems. That is what compassion means. Just today I was on the phone with a Christian woman who is working with a 15-year-old girl in foster care, who is nearly 15 weeks pregnant. This teen is being pressed to abort by people who want her problem to go away in the simplest way. But loving this teen means intervening, looking at what this abortion will do to her young body and her psyche. If she aborts, she becomes vulnerable to further sexual exploitation and the lifestyle that will eventually destroying her. Loving her means helping her think and change and consider this event as the pivotal opportunity to change her life, trust in God, and prepare to parent or place for adoption. It is work! But it is the labor that neighborly love calls us to do!
Pro-life critics sometimes say that we only care about babies in the womb, but our concern ends when babies are born. Is there any truth to that? How do you respond?
It is the same charge made against the church that we care only for people's soul's and care little for their physical well-being. Since the hospital is an invention of the church (Basil of Caesarea), that alone should be enough to dismiss the charge. But it is made by those who actually dismiss the value of preborn children. Saving them is legitimate, even if that is all we did. After all, we don't say to those who work with prisoners, "You only care about them when they are in prison, but not when they get out." We don't say to those engaged in feeding the starving, "You only care about their bellies. What about their housing needs!" Stopping babies from being violently killed is a legitimate work, by itself. But it never ends up being "by itself" any more than those who work with prisoners confine themselves to the prison. They often end up working with transitional ministries as well. And those ministries responding to starvation, do what they can to provide shelter and eventually education and micro-finance, etc. Every pregnancy center in the country, given the resources that it has, is seeking to help young mothers find the long-term help they need to parent well, or place for adoption. Most also work at prevention (abstinence education) and restoration (post-abortion ministries).
You've written an excellent exposition on The Great Work of the Gospel (Crossway, 2006). Another criticism of the pro-life movement is that it's "social gospel," and that instead we should just preach Christ and him crucified. In your mind, what's the connection between the gospel and working to end abortion?
It is no small lesson that that the great missionary, William Carey, who labored to bring the Gospel to India, who translated the Bible into three languages over 40 furlough-less years, and portions of the Bible into some 30 dialects, also labored to end child-killing in India. The prolife legislation that finally outlawed the practice of throwing babies into the Ganges River to be eaten by alligators is called Carey's Edict. The Gospel saves the innocent and proclaims good news to the guilty. They are not at odds with each other or Christ would not have pointed to the Samaritan and said, "Go and do likewise." When we preach Christ and him crucified, we are proclaiming the extreme end to which God proves his love of human life; body and soul. That is why when Amy Carmichael (again in India) rescued an innocent young girl from a cult temple of prostitution, her ministry was transformed. She soon was rescuing dozens of young girls, opening orphanages and schools, and her gospel message rang with authority to the glory of God. But prior to this, she was one fruitless missionary.
What can readers of this interview, who care about the cause of life, do to help?
Repent for navigating around death and pretending it is not happening in our homes and churches and neighborhoods. Then resolve to do something where you feel the pain and loss of the innocents in our midst. I think for most of us, and our churches, that means doing something sacrificially to support a pregnancy center. And if you don't know of one, help me start them in Miami, then L.A., then D.C., etc.
My latest effort is coming out this spring from Crossway Books entitled, Doing Things Right In Matters of the Heart. I am really jazzed about it. It is my contribution to those looking for guidance in establishing an healthy, tender, long-term, mutually satisfying relationship.
Thank you for your time, John.
If the Lord is leading you to help support this ministry, you can visit this page.


text:
TIMEP Briefs
TIMEP Brief: Right to Due Process in Egypt
Mass trials, politicized death sentences, civilian trials in military courts, prolonged pretrial detention, and forced disappearances are all common violations of due process that occur in Egypt. The government has been notably emboldened in its infringement on due process in the period after the official announcement of President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi's second term, with the unjust detention and trials of high-profile activists, researchers, and journalists.
It is estimated that three to four people were forcibly disappeared every day on average in 2017 and the first three months of 2018, based on documentation from El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture.
The use of such tactics undermines the rule of law in the country and faith in the independence and integrity of the judicial process, which is of particular concern given an increased number of executions carried out since the end of 2017.
Overall Situation:
The most common violations of the right to due process in Egypt are civilian trials in military courts, mass trials, mass death sentences, the widespread use of prolonged pretrial detention, and forced disappearances. Often, though not always, these violations occur in combination, and at times they appear to be politicized, raising serious questions about the political independence of Egypt's judiciary. Since the April announcement that Sisi had officially secured a second presidential term, the government appears even increasingly emboldened, with flagrant due process infringements against high-profile activists, researchers, and bloggers. The American, German, Turkish, and British governments have expressed concern over Egypt's politicized judiciary, sentiments which the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. secretary-general have echoed.
Some violations of due process committed today are similar in nature (if not in intensity) to what occurred under former President Hosni Mubarak with his use of the Emergency Law, which was in place for over 30 years. The state of emergency allowed security services to arrest and detain people indefinitely without charges. Following the 2011 uprisings against Mubarak, the state of emergency was lifted in 2012, only to be reinstated in April 2017 after a series of terrorist attacks.[1] Although the instatement of the state of emergency is constitutionally limited to three months, this provision has been avoided by allowing the state of emergency to "expire" for a brief period and for a new state of emergency to be declared immediately after, effectively allowing it to remain continually in place. The government most recently extended the state of emergency in April 2018.
Military Trials for Civilians
Article 204 of the 2014 Egyptian Constitution allows for civilians to be tried before military tribunals under exceptional circumstances of "direct assault" against military facilities; when facing military tribunals, civilians have limited access to lawyers, are unable to call upon witnesses, and have no opportunity for appeal. Military trials for civilians is an issue with roots in the 2011 Egyptian revolution, a year in which almost 12,000 civilians were arrested and tried before military tribunals. The use of military trials for civilians was officially approved in December 2013, when the 50-member committee tasked with drafting the constitution decided to approve the "conditional" trial of civilians before military courts. Sisi issued a decree on October 27, 2014, that deemed crimes committed against the state's public and "vital" facilities as offenses that may be tried before a military judiciary. Under the scope of the law, both schools and universities are regarded as vital facilities, so any crimes committed "against" them result in a military trial.
Various notable Egyptian activists have been arrested for protesting military trials for civilians, including Alaa Abdel Fattah, Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma, and Muhammad Adel. Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 7,420 Egyptians were tried before military courts between 2014 and 2016. In one of the higher-profile cases, scholar and journalist Ismail Iskanderani, who served as a visiting fellow at the Wilson Center, was sentenced to 10 years in military prison in May 2018 because of his work on the Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt is currently engaged in a years-long counter-insurgency battle.
Pretrial Detention
Lengthy pretrial detentions violate Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a party. As of May 2016, it was confirmed that at least 1,464 people in four governorates were being held in pretrial detention beyond the legally mandated two-year limit. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights described the use of prolonged pretrial as a "tool for political punishment" being used as a replacement for the repealed state of emergency.
Mass Sentencing
The practice of mass sentences within Egypt's judiciary came under close scrutiny in 2014, after two mass death sentences were issued by a single judge in Minya. In a particularly high-profile case, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Badie, was sentenced to death along with 682 other defendants. Condemning the verdict, Amnesty International argued that mass sentences "expose how arbitrary and selective Egypt's criminal justice system has become." The Egyptian Foreign Ministry hit back against criticism from the United States and European Union over 230 life sentences issued in February 2015, calling such criticism "unacceptable." The yearly number of death penalties handed down peaked in 2015 at 538 before decreasing in 2016, yet Egypt has seen another spike in recent months. In late 2017 and early 2018, executions were conducted so regularly that rights activists began referring to Tuesday as "Execution Day."
Forced Disappearance
A spate of high-profile arrests and disappearances in April and May 2018 has drawn attention to the practice of forced disappearance, which has been on the rise in Egypt since the appointment of Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar in March 2015. A report from Amnesty International called the trend "unprecedented," for its use of violence and extensive number of cases; El Nadeem estimates that three to four people were disappeared per day by security forces during 2017 and the first three months of 2018. Cases documented by Amnesty and other rights organizations show how Egyptian citizens are being abducted, tortured, and held for months without access to a lawyer or the ability to contact their families. This pressure is often used to coerce the victims into confessing to crimes they did not commit. Despite these reports, the government has shown no serious steps to rein in the practice: in August 2016, the deputy minister for legal affairs in the Interior Ministry told a parliamentary committee that claims of forced disappearances are false and spread by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Analysis and Areas of Concern:
Since 2011, the Egyptian judiciary has worked alongside the state to curb political dissent and exert control over the population and public space, applying justice arbitrarily and submitting to the influence of , rather than protecting citizens' rights and freedoms despite it. The sentencing of civilians before military courts, mass sentences, mass death sentences, and extended pretrial detention have served as tools to this end.
The recent increase in forced disappearances is particularly worrying, and signals that the practice is used as a matter of routine by Egyptian Homeland Security and the military. Moreover, the return of the state of emergency has empowered the security apparatus to operate without checks on its authority. Following the official announcement that Sisi had secured a second term in April 2018, the regime has further attempted to assert control by force. With a series of disappearances and harsh sentences for internationally recognized activists, journalists, and researchers, the government has indicated that no amount of global renown can protect an individual from the state.
The use of these tactics undermines the rule of law in the country as well as faith in the independence and integrity of the judicial process, and the increasingly expanding web of counterterrorism laws and other provisions supporting such actions are used in worrying combination with blanket state denial of the existence of such problems. Such violations of due process are compounded with the increasing number of executions, which many rights groups have called for halting until improvement is seen in the respect of due process rights and for the rule of law.
TIMEP Coverage:
In April 2018, Nonresident Fellow Sherif Azer wrote an article describing the process of forced disappearances in Egypt and how they are conducted by security officials.
In November 2017, Nonresident Fellow Mai El-Sadany co-authored an article with Nathan Brown on the normalization of the state of emergency in Egypt.
In March 2017, TIMEP condemned the continuation of Egyptian case no. 173, which has violated the constitutionally guaranteed due process of several Egyptian nongovernmental organization workers.
[1] The state of emergency had been reinstated in North Sinai in October 2014, but its purview was limited to certain areas of that province.


Owsley Stanley, the prodigiously gifted applied chemist to the stars, who made LSD in quantity for the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Ken Kesey and other avatars of the psychedelic '60s, died on Saturday in a car accident in Australia. He was 76 and lived in the bush near Cairns, in the Australian state of Queensland.
His car swerved off a highway and down an embankment before hitting trees near Mareeba, a town in Queensland, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Stanley's wife, Sheilah, was injured in the accident.
Mr. Stanley, the Dead's former financial backer, pharmaceutical supplier and sound engineer, was in recent decades a reclusive, almost mythically enigmatic figure. He moved to Australia in the 1980s, as he explained in his rare interviews, so he might survive what he believed to be a coming Ice Age that would annihilate the Northern Hemisphere.
Once renowned as an artisan of acid, Mr. Stanley turned out LSD said to be purer and finer than any other. He was also among the first individuals (in many accounts, the very first) to mass-produce the drug; its resulting wide availability provided the chemical underpinnings of an era of love, music, grooviness and much else. Conservatively tallied, Mr. Stanley's career output was more than a million doses, in some estimates more than five million.
So widely known was Mr. Stanley that he appears in the Encyclopedia Britannica article on LSD under the apparently unironic index term "Augustus Owsley Stanley III (American chemist)." The Oxford English Dictionary contains an entry for the noun "Owsley" as "an extremely potent, high-quality type of LSD." In 2007, Mr. Stanley was the subject of a long profile in an issue of Rolling Stone magazine commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love.
Mr. Stanley was previously a ballet dancer and a member of the United States Air Force.
Young Owsley, whose adolescent hirsuteness caused him to be known ever after as Bear, was sent to a military preparatory school in Maryland. He was expelled in the ninth grade for furnishing the alcohol that, as he told Rolling Stone in 2007, had nearly all his classmates "blasted out of their minds" on homecoming weekend.
He briefly attended the University of Virginia before enlisting in the Air Force, where he learned electronics. He later worked in Los Angeles as a broadcast engineer for radio and television stations. He also studied ballet and for a time was a professional dancer.
Mr. Stanley had found his calling, and at the time it was at least quasi-legitimate: LSD was not outlawed in California until 1966. What he needed to do was learn his craft, which he accomplished, as Rolling Stone reported, in three weeks in the university library, poring over chemistry journals. Soon afterward, he left college and a going concern, the Bear Research Group, was born.
In 1965, he met Mr. Kesey, and through him the Dead. Enraptured, he became their sound man, early underwriter, principal acolyte, sometime housemate and frequent touring companion. With Bob Thomas, he designed the band's highly recognizable skull-and-lightning-bolt logo. Mr. Stanley also made many recordings of the Dead in performance, now considered valuable documentary records of the band's early years. Many have been released commercially.
His other clients included John Lennon, who, according to "The Beatles," a 2005 biography by Bob Spitz, contracted to pay Mr. Stanley for a lifetime supply of his wares.
In 1970, after a judge revoked Mr. Stanley's bail from a 1967 drug arrest, he served two years in federal prison. There, he learned metalwork and jewelry making, trades he plied in recent years.
Besides his wife, Sheilah, Mr. Stanley's survivors include two sons, Pete and Starfinder; two daughters, Nina and Redbird; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Though he helped transform the culture, Mr. Stanley asserted that he had never meant to do so. As he told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2007, he had set out only to make a product he knew he could take, because its ingredients were known.


Healing with Guided Meditations - The Time of Light Psychic Readings, Zorica Gojkovic, Ph.D.
and, most importantly, become aware of thoughts, beliefs, desires that are outside our conscious awareness thereby giving us access to our greater reality allowing us to make accurate decisions for our lives.
Guided meditations are an easy and pleasant way to help you with your life, improve it and bring success, fulfillment, abundance, love, peace, joy -- all the good things we all want. Most of all they can bring about a connection to your divine self, which of course means unlimited expansion and potential.
Guided meditations are a fantastic, pleasant and powerful healing modality.
I started creating my own guided meditations when I started giving psychic readings. In givings psychic readings, I saw how energy operates in the human energy field, how energy behaves to create our reality. What that means is that to change anything, we have to first change the energy field, our aura.
Thoughts, beliefs and feelings are energy. They create your reality. These thoughts, beliefs and feelings can be from any time in our life, including childhood.
When I saw psychically how this energy flowed in the human energy field, what became obvious was the specific energy that needed to change to bring about certain results. I wanted to use this knowledge of how energy operates in the aura to make changes in my own life. And since I could not find anything on the market that worked from this knowledge base, I started creating my own guided meditations.
Let me give you an example of how a guided meditation works to bring about improved life conditions. Let's take my Evening Peace: A Guided Meditation.
I created Evening Peace because I needed something to help me calm down from the day, something that would help me handle my worries and concerns, focus me on what was important, relax from the day and set positive intentions and envision the next day.
Evening Peace is meant to be used at the end of the day, though you can use it any time.
At the end of the day we're all buzzing from the day, so the guided meditation starts by having you become aware of your thoughts and feelings and sensations in the body. It's a way to come back to self, pull back your energy that's out there on people and things and tomorrow, and on and on, and back to yourself and find out what is going on with you, a way to become aware of what is preoccupying your mind, and do something about it.
Most of the time we are worried about things . . . and we keep worrying . . . and we keep worrying -- when the only way to stop the worry is to ask yourself: what do I really want? What is important?
So, what goes on in the aura, the energy field at those times? When we have lots of worry thoughts cycling in our system, it is difficult to find solutions: because you are not looking for solutions -- you are focused on the worry.
To move past this worry stage, you identify your worry and you identify what you want.
Your thoughts are energy that create your reality. And now you are directing your thoughts in a constructive direction. This opens up the energy field. When your energy field is open, you are connected to All That Is. You are receptive to answers and solutions.
So, if every day, you identify your worries and concerns, identify what you want, identify what is important to you, you clear your aura. You set yourself up for a condition of well being and progress in directions that are positive for you.
How many times do you ask yourself -- and really listen to the answer -- what do I really want? What is really important to me? Most of us don't. We just keep doing life. Listening to Evening Peace you get to ask yourself that question and hear the answer, and hopefully take action as a way to improve your life.
We are happiest when we are paying attention to ourselves, to our feelings, needs, desires, soul callings -- and acting to fulfill them. This attentiveness, awareness, and responsiveness create an amazing state of being, vitality and health.
Listening to Evening Peace I have had unbelievable insights and revelations that have completely altered my life. For example, I became fully aware of the body as distinctly having needs of its own and not just about eating well and getting exercise, but the body as wanting to experience incarnation in its own right separate from what the mind wants. While it is operating in this physical reality, the body wants to really experience this reality, enjoy it, revel in it. This is my experience. Everyone will have their own experience.
I love my guided meditations and use all of them regularly and am always creating more. I find myself in a certain emotional state where I notice a limitation to my own expression in some way and a meditation comes to mind as a solution as to how to bring about change. It comes to me all done in my head, the entire structure of it. It takes me forever to refine it once I start to work on it, but the concept comes to me as a whole, like a download. So I create it, listen to it, make the desired changes, expand my energy field, expand my life, evolve, bring in more light, love, joy, peace and creativity. I love it!
I write about how energy operates in my book, The Working of Energy in the Human Energy Field: A Psychic's Perspective. This explains further how my guided meditations are effective.
If you've not worked with guided meditations, I highly recommend you try them -- mine in particular because they are exceptional (yup, I could be a tad biased, but heck if they work wonders for me how can I not love them. They are very important in my life.) -- and make them a wonderful part of your life. I have mine on the tablet and listen to them with headphones.
Affirmations of Highest Truth is the first guided meditation I created. I was writing The Workings of Energy and at the end, the meditation just came. It came to me as fast as I could write it. Definitely higher self came in and wanted to end the book with huge inspiration. It then came to me to set it to music. It has its own perfection besides being wonderfully integrative.
Attunement came from a desire to listen to something in the morning as a way to orient for the day, set the mood, set positive intentions, remember the wholeness of being, remember my own divinity, my own inviolate nature, remember my existence in God.
Evening Peace I've already talked about, but it was primarily motivated by simply letting go of the day, by resolving remaining concerns, establishing them in the greater reality of All That Is, and remembering to direct my consciousness toward light, toward possibilities, in the direction of expression of soul potential.
Relax, Let Go came from the simple desire to finally have a good guided meditation for relaxation. I wanted a beautiful voice, beautiful music and a guided meditation that actually made sense, taking into consideration the entire process of relaxation.
If you're very up-tight and worried, you just can't relax, so I start Relax, Let Go by addressing your current state of being. To relax, you have to start with where you are, your present state of being. By being present with yourself in this way, your preoccupations automatically begin to dissolve. For this reason I created three different versions and lengths of Relax on the same CD to address different degrees of stress.
If you are really stressed, you use the longest version which has the longest debriefing time from worries and concerns. Version number one, which is the shortest, goes into relaxation right away. Version number two is for when you have some concerns, but are not majorly stressed.
What is absent in general relaxation guided meditations is the larger Reality in which we live that includes spirit, includes are divine nature. When we come into our larger, expanded reality, we instantly relax. We are not alone. Our earthly problems are put in perspective. All of Relax, Let Go takes place in this larger, spacious reality of the divine. Soooo good and soooo wonderful.
This guided meditation took the longest to create. It includes going back in time to childhood experiences that create present difficulties, so it was difficult to write because of my own memories, and even more difficult to test because I'd cry every time I'd listen. However, its power is amazing. The realizations I have had, the shifts in consciousness, the illuminations -- priceless.
Not too long after I started giving psychic readings, I was given a vision, was shown how to heal by changing energy in the aura. Healing Core Energies is the result of the information I was given.
How it actually works, I think, will take an entire book to explain, so I won't try it here. The short explanation is that we walk around in the present with certain problems. Those problems have an energy. Those problems were usually created in childhood -- that's when that energy was created. To change the present, you identify that core energy, core feeling, trace it back to when it started, and then change the energy in that original situation.
Changing that core energy creates healing in the present.
It is a challenging meditation to do, but the results are phenomenal. I suggest using it only if you are very experienced with doing self-healing. You will also have to know how energy works in the human energy field, as I am seeing it psychically. Reading my short book, The Workings of Energy in the Human Energy Field, gives that information.


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text:
Gerald Henry Flohr
The Flohr family is saddened to announce the passing of Gerald, a resident of Stony Plain, at the age of 77.
Left to cherish his memory is his second spouse and companion, Helen; four children: Tracy (Ying), Theresa, Derek (Jamie) and Dana; seven grandchildren and one great granddaughter. He also leaves behind one brother, Arnold (Heather) and two sisters Elaine (Doug) Streibel and Dorothy (Dan) Dobrich; as well as numerous nieces and nephews, relatives and friends.
Gerald was predeceased by his first wife Corinne, of 50 years, in May 2010. He was also predeceased by his parents.
Gerald moved to Hinton, AB after he retired from the Air Force. Moved to Stony Plain after the death of his wife Corinne where he met Helen.
As requested by Gerald, no service will take place. Donations can be made to the cancer institute.
© 2021 Serenity Family Service Society Gerald Henry Flohr


text:
Former 'X-Factor' star Thomas Wells dies in freak conveyor belt accident
LeBron James is fined $15,000 for doing 'Big Balls Dance'
Singer Thomas Wells — known for competing talent shows including "X-Factor," "America's Got Talent" and "The Voice" — died in a gruesome accident at a tire factory earlier this month, a report said Friday.
The 46-year-old was working at the manufacturing plant in Oklahoma when he got caught in an automatic conveyor belt, which did not stop, his wife Jessica Wells told TMZ. He died on Nov. 13 at a Texas hospital, according to his obituary.
The father of three showcased his pipes on a series of reality TV shows after teaching himself how to play instruments by ear as a child, the obit said.
"Thomas had an amazing voice and loved singing hymns as well as contemporary music," the obituary reads. "He always had a smile and loved to joke and give people a hard time. He was a great entertainer and always became the center of attention."
Wells' wife, Jessica, revealed Thomas was caught in a conveyor belt and later died at a hospital on Nov. 13.
Wells also appeared on NBC's "The Winner Is" in 2013. He was 46 years old.
On Thanksgiving, Jessica, his wife of 17 years, recorded an emotional video from his gravesite about his rapid deterioration.
"It was the worst day of my life because I lost my husband, but the best day of my life because God told me he was home," Jessica said in the video, posted to Facebook on Friday.
"I know one hundred and million percent that Thomas is up there waiting for me."
Source: NYPOST
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