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News Sports Southern Miss Life Opinion Obituaries E-Edition Legals
Offseason work pays off for Mullens, Thompson
Jason Munz
Southern Miss Sports Writer
The first touchdown catch of D.J. Thompson's senior season came on a play he likely would not have made in 2015.
In the second quarter against Savannah State, Southern Miss quarterback Nick Mullens found his receiver in the south end zone with a ball that floated over Thompson's shoulder and into his waiting arms. On Monday, while explaining the value of player-led, post-practice work, Mullens said that play brought about flashbacks.
"Last year, one of D.J.'s weaknesses was that over-the-shoulder catch," he said. "So this summer, we worked tirelessly on that. Just from about me to you, just dumping balls. So when he scored that touchdown, I was like, 'That's summer work right there, that's summer work!' To see that stuff translate onto the field is definitely beneficial."
Mullens added he can't explain why, but those after-practice sessions oftentimes are more valuable than anything else for he and the receiving corps.
"I don't know why but just by ourselves, no coaches, just us few guys out there throwing routes," he said, "I think that's where me and the receivers get better. After every practice, we throw just a few routes of what we're going to hit in a game and really just try to visualize it and see it happening. It's awesome to see that work translate onto the field."
Proud defensive coordinator
The Southern Miss defense turned in a record-breaking performance in last week's 56-0 win over Savannah State.
The Golden Eagles, under first-year defensive coordinator Tony Pecoraro, gave up just 41 yards of total offense and only three first downs and kept the Tigers. The 41 yards allowed (one fewer yard than number of plays ranr) established a new Conference USA record and the shutout was the team's first since 2009.
Pecoraro called it the best performance in his career by a defense he's coached.
"They played hard," he said. "They played tough. We prepared hard last week and they went out and executed at a high level."
Pecoraro, who praised the defense's improved communication, was especially proud of keeping Savannah State off the scoreboard.
"Always like those," he said. "To me, it's always about points. You win and lose with points, so if you don't give up any points, you can't lose."
Southern Miss has not given up a point since the 56-second mark in the second quarter of the team's season opener at Kentucky on Sept. 3 — a span of six-plus quarters.
Offense impresses Troy coach
Troy football coach Neal Brown earned his stripes as one of the brightest offensive minds in the profession.
Addressing the media on Monday, one of the first things Brown pointed to about his team's opponent this week was the Golden Eagles' offense.
"(Southern Miss features) similar styles to what we run," he said. "I'm impressed with the schemes they are doing, especially running the football. They are doing some creative things."
Brown didn't stop there, identifying Mullens, running back Ito Smith and center Cameron Tom as the primary threats.
"This doesn't get talked about, but their offense really starts with their center (Cameron Tom). He is a dominant player up front. (I'm) as impressed with him as any of the linemen that we've seen so far this season, without question. That includes the Clemson guys."
Kickoff between Southern Miss and Troy is set for 6 p.m. Saturday at M.M. Roberts Stadium. The game will be televised by beIN Sports (Comcast channel 729 in Hattiesburg area).
© 2021 www.hattiesburgamerican.com. All rights reserved.


Home / 2D animation / Cartoon Saloon / CP / Independent animation / news / UK & Ireland / Web & Independent Animation / Song Of The Sea Screening In London Film Festival October 18th & 19th.
Song Of The Sea Screening In London Film Festival October 18th & 19th.
Song Of The Sea- Tomm Moore's follow-up to The Secret Of Kells- has been on our radar for some time now. Early buzz coming out of its first screening at Toronto International Film Festival has been nothing short of fantastic, so we're only getting more and more excited. Mere weeks after its premiere it's heading back across the pond for its debut UK showing as part of the BFI London Film Festival 2014.
Screening as the festival's Family Gala, it will be showing at the Odeon West End on October 18th and the Vue West End on the 19th. Tickets can be bought through the British Film Institute's website, so hurry to be sure you don't miss out. The film is being distributed in the UK and Ireland by Studio Canal, but a release date has yet to be confirmed- so this is your first chance to see it most likely a good few months before it's full release. In the UK but can't make it to London? There will be another chance for UK audiences to catch it at the Leeds Film Festival on November 15th.
Song Of The Sea tells the story of two children named Ben and Saoirse, who get caught up in an adventure based on traditional Irish Folklore, and is produced by Ireland-based studio Cartoon Saloon. Check out the stunning trailer below.


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How I Made: Swiss Portrait on his 'Safe House' EP
The Scotland-based producer and songwriter chats the collaborators, software and influences that have shaped his new EP
In this feature on Dummy, we're asking artists to drill down into how exactly they make their music. We're looking to hone in on the processes, equipment and locations they made their sounds in, and following Big Zuu, we speak to Swiss Portrait, the Edinburgh-based producer and songwriter making waves with his strictly DIY approach. Highlighting the intimacy of the Scottish multi-instrumentalist's music as well as his versatility carving out a unique brand of dream pop, his latest EP, 'Safe House', starts a bold new chapter. To find out more about how the record was created, we sat down with Swiss Portrait to take a deep dive into his musical influences and production methods.
Where was this record made?
'Safe House' was written in my tiny spare room in rural Midlothian (Scotland). It will actually be the last time I record in this room as I'm going to be moving to Glasgow later this year. So sad times for me, but also exciting to live in a city again, hopefully I don't hate it haha. I started writing the songs in October 2021 and finished I think on January 31st, 2022.
What software or hardware did you use to complete the album?
I recorded everything on Logic Pro for the EP, it was the first time I have actually used it. Not everyone believes me when I tell them, but all my older songs were recorded on Garageband, I kinda take that as a compliment. But to be honest, there isn't that much of a difference. I could just use more interesting plug-ins. I also used some fun analogue things like a cassette recorder for some vocal parts.
Who did you work on it with?
For most of the songs I recorded everything myself, however, on the songs 'Safe House' and 'Play with Fire' I worked with my friends.
On the song 'Play with Fire' I asked my friend Federica, from the band Phantom Handshakes, if she would be interested to record vocals for the song. She said yes and within 3 hours had sent back the vocals so that I could mix them in. After a few different versions we got it to a place that we both liked.
The song 'Safe House' was the first song I have written with my live band. I wrote the song for my previous album 'Familiar Patterns' (a very different version) but I didn't like the drum beat I had made for it. However, when I started playing the song in the practice studio with Brett on guitar, Carron on bass and Andy on drums, they all added in their bits without thinking. It was very organic the way it came about. Something that I might look to do more of in the future.
Safe House by Swiss Portrait
Could you talk through some of your main musical inspirations?
It's a hard question to answer to be honest, I listen to a lot of music. But the most played people on my Spotify are Turnover, Mom Jeans, Joji and Vansire. I listen to them most days and they are quite different from each other. I think I'm more attracted to how a song makes me feel than anything else. I think that is what inspires me the most. Also, a lot of 80s music hits the spot for me.
Were there any non-musical influences on the record?
I'm a contemporary artist, so I think I approach making music in a different light to maybe some other people. It's more like an experiment to me and when you study art you do learn that you can't really make a mistake. It's all about the process and the things you learn on the way.
Swiss Portrait is performing at The Caves in Edinburgh on Friday May 20. Tickets are available to purchase here.
Listen to the album below, or via your preferred service here.
Read next: How I Made: Gabriel Gifford on his 'Daffodils in Transit' EP

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The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1
From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons
By Russ Kick
Edited by Russ Kick
Part of The Graphic Canon Series
Category: Graphic Novels & Manga
*This title is not eligible for purchase to earn points nor for redemption with your code in the Reader Rewards program
About The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1
THE GRAPHIC CANON (Seven Stories Press) is a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind trilogy that brings classic literatures of the world together with legendary graphic artists and illustrators. There are more than 130 illustrators represented and 190 literary works over three volumes—many newly commissioned, some hard to find—reinterpreted here for readers and collectors of all ages.
Volume 1 takes us on a visual tour from the earliest literature through the end of the 1700s. Along the way, we're treated to eye-popping renditions of the human race's greatest epics: Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odyssey (in watercolors by Gareth Hinds), The Aeneid, Beowulf, and The Arabian Nights, plus later epics The Divine Comedy and The Canterbury Tales (both by legendary illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast), Paradise Lost, and Le Morte D'Arthur. Two of ancient Greece's greatest plays are adapted—the tragedy Medea by Euripides and Tania Schrag's uninhibited rendering of the very bawdy comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes (the text of which is still censored in many textbooks). Also included is Robert Crumb's rarely-seen adaptation of James Boswell's London Journal, filled with philosophical debate and lowbrow debauchery.
Religious literature is well-covered and well-illustrated, with the Books of Daniel and Esther from the Old Testament, Rick Geary's awe-inspiring new rendition of the Book of Revelation from the New Testament, the Tao te Ching, Rumi's Sufi poetry, Hinduism's Mahabharata, and the Mayan holy book Popol Vuh, illustrated by Roberta Gregory. The Eastern canon gets its due, with The Tale of Genji (the world's first novel, done in full-page illustrations reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley), three poems from China's golden age of literature lovingly drawn by pioneering underground comics artist Sharon Rudahl, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a Japanese Noh play, and other works from Asia.
Two of Shakespeare's greatest plays (King Lear and A Midsummer Night's Dream) and two of his sonnets are here, as are Plato's Symposium, Gulliver's Travels, Candide, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Renaissance poetry of love and desire, and Don Quixote visualized by the legendary Will Eisner.
Some unexpected twists in this volume include a Native American folktale, an Incan play, Sappho's poetic fragments, bawdy essays by Benjamin Franklin, the love letters of Abelard and Heloise, and the decadent French classic Dangerous Liaisons, as illustrated by Molly
Crabapple.
Edited by Russ Kick, The Graphic Canon is an extraordinary collection that will continue with Volume 2: "Kubla Khan" to the Bronte Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray in Summer 2012, and Volume 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest in Fall 2012. A boxed set of all three volumes will also be published in Fall 2012.
Also in The Graphic Canon Series
About Russ Kick
Founder of the website The Memory Hole, which archived sensitive and difficult to find official documents, RUSS KICK has devoted much of his life to digging up what others hope to keep buried. His bestselling anthologies, including You Are Being… More about Russ Kick
Published by Seven Stories Press
May 22, 2012 | 512 Pages | 8-1/2 x 10-7/8 | ISBN 9781609803766
People Who Read The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1 Also Read
"While many of the great graphic books tackle dark subject matter, this ambitious three-volume set is a sheer delight. A huge roster of artists illustrates the Western Canan, including the works of Homer, Shakespeare, the Brontë Sisters, and Hemingway. A visual feast, the collection offers a fresh way of interpreting and appreciating the classics—and might encourage you to pick up a few you've never gotten around to" —Reader's Digest
Read more: http://www.rd.com/slideshows/graphic-novels-for-adults/#ixzz32HtWca8W
"Through the reprinted and newly-produced work of 59 (mainly American) adapters and 58 adapted titles, this is not only a survey of the world's diverse artistic past, but also a breathtaking glimpse of this young medium's incredible future."
"The graphic publishing literary event of the year."
"This meaty slab is laced with more wit, beauty, social commentary and shock than one might expect. . . If artists, as British sculptor Anish Kapoor famously said, make mythologies, then this volume is genuinely a marriage of equals."
"The Graphic Canon is absolutely the most ambitious book I've picked up this year."
"The Western literary canon has long been debated and criticized by academics, and rightly so. Which books belong and which don't? Now The Graphic Canon, a three-volume series edited by Russ Kick which presents classic lit as comic strips, adds a bit more fuel to the intellectual fires."
—Steven Heller, The Atlantic
"These are 500 pages that contain more intelligence, wit, and savvy social commentary than anything else I have read in a long time. It is an amazing work. It is wild. It is dirty at times. It is nothing short of beautiful."
"The diversity and excellence of this volume is just about overwhelming."
"Looks like a must-buy for all academic libraries, many public libraries, and many high schools, and an exciting new benchmark for comics!"
—Martha Cornog, Library Journal
"This is a masterpiece of literary choices as well as art and interpretation. It is a perfect graduation or summer-reading present, and the solid editing, including introductory notes for each piece, makes it a required purchase for any library."
"It takes time to read this book, but it is a book worth taking time over […] Robert Berry and Josh Levitas' adaptation of Shakespeare's eighteenth sonnet is among the best of the lot. They succeed, not only in doing justice to the original poem, but also, with the illustrations, in adding a kind of meditative short story reflective of the emotion the sonnet conveys."
— The Comics Journal
"This series is the mother lode of beautifully illustrated and refreshingly adapted classics, featuring stories from throughout the globe and human history. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, The Tale of Genji, Candide… the list of tales is as staggering as the list of contributing artists, who include Will Eisner, Robert Crumb, Milton Knight and Molly Crabapple. And it's not just the far past that's brought to these pages; you'll also find the poetry of Langston Hughes, Marquez's dreamlike epic One-Hundred Years of Solitude, and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest here. It's a veritable library made into a series of elegant artworks, and perhaps the ultimate example of the capabilities of the humble comic book." –IGN.com
"This delightful trove of comics and graphics adapted from and inspired by classic works of literature brings together mostly new works by dozens of contributors, from the legendary (e.g., Will Eisner, Robert Crumb) to newer talents (e.g., Fred Van Lente, Matt Wiegle). The diverse voices include women, Native American, Asian, queer, Jewish, and other creators; the artistic styles run the gamut of experimental to cartoonish to photo-realistic; and the tones of the adaptations range from serious to irreverent. One can imagine many potential audiences for this unique volume, including practitioners in art and design, students of world literatures and/or religious traditions, and instructors who deal with issues of adaptation and translation. Readers will be fascinated to see on display in one volume so many varied approaches to visualizing classic texts, including wordless comics adapting Beowulf and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a contemporary setting for Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18," a simultaneously textually faithful and visually stunning rendition of The Odyssey, and a lesbian reinterpretation of John Donne's "The Flea." Substantial notes on texts, translations, and contributors round out a bargain-priced, must-have title. Summing up: Essential. All readers."
—Current Reviews for Academic Libraries


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Jesta Digital Finally Kills Bitbop Mobile Video Service
Ingrid Lunden Jan 27, 2012 - 3:39 PM CDT
It looks like the death spiral that was the Bitbop mobile video service is finally no longer. PaidContent understands that the service — once built and owned by News Corporation (NSDQ: NWS) and sold, along with the rest of Fox Mobile, to IT services company Jesta when News Corp. couldn't make a business out of it — is today laying off most of the staff that worked on Bitbop and shutting down the service.
According to a source, there are about 50 people getting laid off — people who worked on the Bitbop mobile video service. A small group will stay on to help with the final wind-down of operations, which should take about four weeks. The services that were live in the U.S. and Germany are getting shut down today, we have been told.
There were once big hopes for Bitbop, but things took a challenging turn as competition in the form of Hulu, Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and others invested heavily in their streaming services and delivering them to mobile devices.
However, this is not the end of Jesta Digital. The Jamba ringtones business — a German company that News Corp. once paid nearly $400 million to purchase in 2008 — is still a healthy cash generator, and it will continue to operate.
Bitbop is understood to have some 20,000 subscribers who pay $9.99 per month to receive premium mobile video services. But with the service never getting a coveted outlet via an iPad app, it's had a hard time scaling up, and with many of its original content deals up for renewal at the moment, it looks like it became clear that Bitbop's business model was no longer sustainable.
Earlier in January, we noted the problems at the company, including some executive departures. At the time, Jesta told paidContent in a statement that it would continue to develop new mobile products in the future, without specifying what they were.
We will update this story as we learn more.
Bitbop
europe-region
jesta


The special feature "Sports Information Science Update" focuses on databases and sport information centre services that support and enhance the work of the sport science research community, sport coaches, athletes and sport administrators. "Sport Information" is very broadly constructed and includes the whole spectrum of old and new forms - from printed books, periodical articles, sport photography and film to Internet and websites with archives and real time capabilities. An interesting collection of articles from all around the world is included, such as "Summer of 64 and the Olympic Database" by Bill Mallon, "Sport England's Sport Facilities database" by Nick Evans and Becky Penty and "Sport Images: Access to Current and Historical Resources" by Gretchen Ghent. This Bulletin also keeps you up to date with news from ICSSPE, Members and Partners in the regular sections of the Bulletin.
We are pleased to offer you now the archived issues of the Bulletin No. 57. Please download the file below.


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Второй дивизион Джей-лиги 2015 () — 17-й сезон Второго дивизиона Джей-лиги с момента его создания. Сезон стартовал 8 марта и закончился 23 ноября 2015 года. В чемпионате приняли участие 22 команды.

Турнирная таблица

Результаты матчей

Ссылки
Второй дивизион Джей-лиги 2015 на сайте rsssf.com

2015
Япония
Спорт в Японии в 2015 году

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Klusemann is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

 Georg Klusemann (1942–1981), German painter and illustrator
 Caterina Klusemann (born 1973), documentary filmmaker, Georg's daughter

See also
 Klusmann
 Klussmann


A client's desire to evoke the spirit of the elegant clubs of the 1930's was the motivation for the design of the Touch Club in Beverly Hills, California.
A sense of luxury coupled with a desire to create an environment which encourages one to touch (as in "touch dancing") and to interact comfortably were underlying criteria for a design solution in which a guest perceives himself or herself to be a participant in the overall club experience. Even the treatment of lighting, viewed as being the tradition of the 1930's, follows the concept of task ambient lighting with the resulting light levels very flattering and relaxing.
The Touch Club and restaurant consist of 9,100-sq. ft. on one level. It has been featured in numerous international publications and has been seen on film and television. The original drawings of the Touch Club are part of the Whitney Museum of Art permanent collection.


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Home Leisure Chargers' Ukraine-born Olshansky defies stereotypes
Chargers' Ukraine-born Olshansky defies stereotypes
IJN StaffDec 22, 2008Leisure, Sports0
By Nisha Gopalan, Nextbook
NEW YORK —— In "Knocked Up", Seth Rogen extols Steven Spielberg's "Munich" for so demonstratively debunking the myth of the Semitic Wimp.
"Every movie with Jews, we're the ones getting killed," he says. "'Munich' flips it on its ear."
When reminded of the quote, Igor Olshansky, the laconic football player for the San Diego Chargers, grunts out a giggle of approval in his hushed baritone. That's because this intimidating, Ukraine-born defensive end knows he's the antithesis of that stereotype. You see, Olshansky is not just Jewish huge; at 6-foot-6 and 309 pounds, he's homo sapien huge.
"In the early 1920s, there were a lot of [Jews] in boxing. In wrestling, too," says the 26-year-old, who has a Star of David tattooed near each shoulder.
But despite the NFL's strides in diversity, Olshansky is still hard pressed to name any Jewish players who've been drafted since the dogged days of famed New York Giants quarterback Benny Friedman.
"I can't think of any," he says. "I guess there's just not a lot of my people that are my size."
(For the record, there are at least a handful currently in the league, among them the St. Louis Rams' Adam Goldberg, the Cleveland Browns' Lennie Friedman and the Houston Texans' Sage Rosenfels.)
The Olshansky clan left the Eastern Bloc for San Francisco when Igor was 6. With assistance from the Jewish community — who'd help find jobs, housing and schools for immigrants ‹ Igor attended a Hebrew academy on scholarship, which stoked his ethnic enthusiasm.
It was his athletic dad, meanwhile, who egged him on to play basketball at the JCC. As his physique swelled, he switched over to football, which meant leaving his familiar enclave to attend a Catholic school.
"I always lifted weights when I was young. It created a temperament in me," Olshansky says. "You need a certain amount of controlled aggression to be a football player. You have to like hitting people, you have to like people hitting you. And when you fall down, you have to have that in you to get up and fight again . . . Not a lot of people would come up to my face and discriminate against me."
In 2004, Olshansky graduated from the University of Oregon, joined the NFL, and fast became a poster boy for his cultural awareness.
"I know Jewish people take pride in me, and I'm comfortable with that. But I don't consider myself religious . . . I play for myself and my teammates and my family. And I'm relentless."
Yet he's also conscientious about paying visits to kids at synagogues and Jewish schools (they like to ask him how much he benches, which reportedly is as much as 505 pounds), perks up while pondering a visit to Israel, and points out that he found it "important to marry a Jewish woman and Russian-speaking, too."
He wed Liya Rubinshteyn in 2005.
Previous PostHow Friedman made football a quarterbacks? game Next PostStudents' letters to survivors
IJN Staff


Over the years, we have cemented our root in the industry as a renowned manufacturer and supplier . We offer Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). Our range is manufactured under the strict supervision of qualified professionals, who are experts in their respective job field.
Designed as per the industry standards our range is preferred by our clients for its optimum performance, resilience and efficiency. Years of experience in the field have enabled us to develop customized products that meet the diverse requirements of the clients. The well equipped infrastructure, research and development department, vigilant quality controllers, along with diligent efforts of our workforce, all have contributed towards the success of our organization. In addition, we also ensure timely delivery of appropriately packaged freight to any location specified by the clients.
Our team of committed and talented professionals has also been a prominent reason behind our success. The team puts in a lot of hard work to ensure that our clients get the best quality products that cater to their individual requirements. At par with international standards, the finished goods are stored at our spacious warehouse, which helps us to fulfill bulk orders, without any hassle. The innovative range of products offered by us is outcome of the efforts of our research and development professionals, who put in endless efforts to improve upon our existing range. Before being dispatched to the clients, the consignment is checked by our quality controller on different parameters to ensure optimum quality and performance of products.


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Tanks - Lido 120 Or Fluval 90 - Feedback?
Re: Tanks - Lido 120 or Fluval 90 - feedback?
I don't have a Fluval Roma 90, but I have several of the Roma 125 tanks and 200 tanks. I have some on the cabinets and others built into things like a tv stand. I'm not overly keen on the filter that came with the set up as I found them a bit bulky, and have used different filters, but I find the aquariums very easy to work with (I'm quite short) because the lids come in sections. I have added various different lights to several of my tanks too.
I have a Fluval F90, is that what you mean? It's a cracking tank. I have an upgraded 306 filter. With the pre-drilled inlet/outlet and the sensational LED lighting, it really is a lovely bit of kit.
Topics that relate to "Tanks - Lido 120 or Fluval 90 - feedback?"
Cichlid tanks v Community tanks?
Extremely high nitrates. Fluval Vicenza 190ltr, with Fluval 206 external.


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Commercial Guide: A Cost Breakdown to Open a Restaurant
by Serena Solomon January 8, 2019
written by Serena Solomon January 8, 2019
A restaurant renovation cost guide to opening your own business—from walk-throughs and permits to MEPs and construction deadlines
Chikarashi renovation by Sweeten architect Steven and Sweeten general contractor Carl
Restaurant renovation costs are hardly a prix fixe situation; they can vary dramatically based on the project. Is it a turnkey situation in which you're planning to open up shop in the location of a former restaurant that already has a kitchen, gas, and electrical? Or are you starting from scratch? The city you're in will also impact the cost, as will the quality of the finishes and the other professionals you hire for your team. Sweeten, a free service matching business owners with vetted general contractor, offers some categories to account for and tips on how to draw up an initial budget.
Building Journal puts the national average cost for a 5,000-square-foot restaurant with mid-level finishes at $160 a square foot, or $480,000. This can include the build-out, permits, equipment, and design. That cost is higher if you're based in an expensive city such as New York ($216 per square foot) or Philadelphia ($180 per square foot). "We tell chefs in NYC who are typically looking at a 2,000-2,500 sq/ft space for a 50-80 seat restaurant that costs can range from $300-350 per square foot for the front of house and $200 per square foot for the back of house," says Jonathan Garnett, the creative director at architectural firm MNDPC. "Multiply that by the 2,000-square-foot space and you have a ballpark." Note that this scope does not include furniture, fixtures or restaurant equipment.
What your food and beverage establishment will cost is unclear until you sit down to develop a budget. Here are elements to seriously consider when pulling together an initial budget.
For some, starting a restaurant is a creative endeavor, so they prefer to work closely with their general contractor, architect or designer on the design. Some smaller projects like a cafe might not warrant hiring a restaurant designer.
It's a huge range: Those looking to bring in a designer could pay as little as $25,000 or as much as $400,000 and beyond, according to Jimmy Haber, from ESquared Hospitality, which has a long list of successful restaurant ventures all over the world. The cost depends on the "celebrity" quotient of the designer, whether the space requires a lot of alterations in order to implement a certain design, or how elaborate the decor will be. A restaurant designer won't just help with the look and feel of the place, but also the all-important layout. The layout will greatly impact the flow of service from kitchen to patron and your staff's ability to do their job during busy moments. Bringing in an architect early on in the process will provide cost-effective expertise from start to finish, saving time and headache. Basic services include drawing up schematics and submitting the Certificate of Occupancy, but a full-service architect can provide guidance from project management to various levels of interior design.
A designer's expertise could also increase the number of seats in the establishment, increasing income in the long run. "By the time you construct and open your restaurant, the mistakes are already there and it is too late," said Jimmy, on why a designer is worth considering. If you're big on the creative aspect, then make sure you select a designer who you feel will work within your vision rather than commandeer it.
Review the MEPs – mechanical, electrical, and plumbing
This is critical to do before even renting or buying a space (if you're at this stage, read our earlier post). Perhaps the MEPs are so far gone you will opt for a different venue altogether. Regardless, accessing the MEPs will help you set a realistic budget. For example, a decrepit HVAC system can blow the budget out by tens of thousands of dollars, according to Dan Soloway, a hospitality consultant with Kitchen Options.
In big bureaucratic cities like New York, connecting the gas can take months, which is why Jimmy no longer uses gas appliances in his establishment. He only uses electric to save clients from costly delays of connecting gas.
Fitting out a new restaurant or renovating an existing one will rope in a lot of government departments—the fire department, the gas provider, buildings department, etc.—from whatever town or city you're in. The actual permits can be a low-cost item on a budget (Jimmy estimates less than $5,000), but getting those approved can add substantially to the overall restaurant renovation cost.
Before you sign a lease, always check the certificate of occupancy (CO). This will dictate what the space can be used for. If it doesn't give permission for a food and beverage establishment, changing it could be expensive and time-consuming, or in some cases, impossible.
Once you've checked the CO, Jimmy recommends spending the $25,000 or so to bring in a mechanical engineer, a kitchen consultant, and a lawyer. That team can look over everything from the liquor license (if the location has one, which is ideal) to the MEPs that we mentioned above. If these areas are not up to par, that could delay the approval of your permits.
What if your location isn't already approved for a liquor license? It has become increasingly common for clauses to allow restaurateurs to exit the lease if a liquor license application is denied, said Dan, the restaurant consultant. "That's because the business might hinge on your ability to sell alcohol," he said.
Floors might still need to be laid and bathrooms built or renovated. A survey of more than 700 responses from the industry publication Restaurant Owner found for a medium restaurant—around 3,200 square feet—construction alone or build-out cost an average $50 a square foot.
Even if it is a turnkey restaurant, things like accessibility must be up to current standards, according to Slavica, a Sweeten contractor. Since the Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, businesses and employers are required to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. This could mean a ramp instead of steps, and bathrooms and doorways wide enough to fit a wheelchair.
The restaurant renovation cost of fitting out a bar and kitchen, including all the equipment like burners and espresso machines, can be a big budget line item. The Restaurant Owner's survey put the average cost of a 1,000-square-foot bar and kitchen, including the equipment, at about $75,000, or $80 a square foot.
Restaurateurs can buy second-hand equipment, but first, they must do their due diligence. That usually involves spending a few hundred dollars for a technician to look over the equipment before buying it, said Dan, the restaurant consultant. There is also the option to lease equipment, which means a reduced upfront payment, but possibly more in the long run. However, the leasing company normally handles repairs and might even provide things like detergent with a dishwasher.
Rent and labor contingency
Of course, things can go wrong in a renovation. On average, the Restaurant Owner's survey found that the overrun on a restaurant remodel budget to be 34 percent. Numerous hurdles can slow down your opening and delay that exciting moment when you make your first sale. Meanwhile, you're still paying rent for the space.
"I think your pre-opening rent can be a big wild card. It usually takes much longer to open than you think it does," said Jimmy, from ESquared Hospitality. A six-month rent contingency can be a business-saver, as is a few months' contingency for staff costs. Sometimes staff members are already hired—manager, chef, sommelier, etc.—and on the payroll when a delay arises. A labor contingency means you can continue paying them during the delay. Otherwise, they could look for new jobs, which means starting the hiring process from scratch.
Assessing and writing a restaurant renovation cost plan can be like charting a new land—confusing, tedious, and with a few questions marks—but a realistic budget can set you up for a win and bring you one step closer to that dream business. Here is a budget breakdown for a 2,000-square-foot restaurant in New York City by Sweeten contractor Tony.
Thinking about renovating a retail space? Check out our first post on commercial construction, 5 steps to remodeling a business space.
Sweeten is a free service for business owners who are looking to renovate a restaurant, retail space, office and more. We handpick the best general contractors to match each project's location, budget, and scope, helping until project completion. Here's how we can help you build your commercial space. When you're ready to renovate, start your renovation on Sweeten.
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The House of the Merchant Antoshkevich in Mogilev
The history of beautiful Mogilev is interesting and really multi-faceted. It is believed that Belarusian Mogilev is one hundred years younger than the Russian capital. It is known that in the historical chronicles Mogilev is mentioned towards the end of the XIII century. However, many historians claim that locations in this area refer to an earlier period. It so happened, Mogilev was involved in many major historical vicissitudes in which the powerful states took part. In the outskirts of Mogilev one of the key battles of the war with Napoleon Bonaparte took place – the battle of Soltanovka that is now considered by many historians as a turning point in the war. It is also known that Mogilev was the General Headquarters of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II for a few years. Interestingly, in the Soviet period Mogilev some time was considered as a possible capital of the BSSR, but those plans were not to be...
Over its long and multi-faceted history of Mogilev was part of once major world states ranging fr om the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Russian Empire and the BSSR; that resulted in its varied architecture. However, the Second World War negatively influenced the appearance of Mogilev, when many fine buildings were razed to the ground by enemy bombs and shells. This had a significant impact on the future of historical buildings built centuries ago which in the postwar period had the same fate, associated not with the enemy bombing and but with the ill-considered Soviet construction. Historical houses were demolished and in their place there were built the Soviet standard, unremarkable structure.
Therefore, there are not many medieval monuments in the town as it was originally. One of the finest examples that have survived to this day – the House of the Merchant Antoshkevich in Mogilev built in the XVII century, now restored and functioning as the Museum of Belynitsky-Birulya - a popular painter. Vitold Kaetanovich was born in the estate Krynki in Mogilev and throughout his long career considered himself a Belarusian and a Belarusian artist. Almost all his works are connected with the Belarusian beautiful places. Still Vitold Kaetanovich is a true master of spring landscapes.
The monument of the Middle Ages is located in Lenin Street and is always glad to numerous guests: the flow of tourists does not dry up there. This building has two floors with a classic planning, inside of which there is a staircase with rooms adjoining to it. The part of the facade is decorated with original elements of Baroque style.
The House of the Merchant Antoshkevich in Mogilev is interesting for many tourists. First of all, as a stunning monument of architecture that has survived since times gone by. And secondly, as a place hosting the Museum of the amazing artist Belynitsky-Birulya wh ere there is much to watch for fans of the paintings of "the Old Belarusian village".
, Mogilev , Belarus
Distance to airport: 200 km
PaulMarieApartments on Prs. Mira


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As a Christian school we are committed to supporting charities and other good causes. We believe that it is part of our Christian duty to help those in need wherever they may be. We regularly take part in national events such as Jeans for Genes, Red Nose Day, the Poppy Appeal, the RNLI Lifeboat Appeal and Help for Heroes. We also support charities such as Water Aid, Barnados, Cancer Research, the Samaritans and the Bexley and Greenwich Hospice.
The School Council take an active role in fund-raising by organising non-uniform days, bring-and-buy sales, cake sales, sponsored events and days where everyone wears something of a particular colour (eg. blue for Water Aid). We annually put together Christmas gift boxes for the Samaritans to send abroad to poverty-stricken children. We also support the Women's Refuge in Marylebone at Harvest time by sending them our food collection.
If you would like to find out more information about 'Operation Christmas Child', then please follow the link below to the Samaritan's Purse website.


Anybody got one of these or ever handled one? Sure don't look bad for $179.00!
It used to be very popular a few years ago. I think it has good specifications for the price, especially being a Chinese reproduction. I tried it once using my dad's for bird hunting. The action was rather rough, but I could get used to it.


Description With images from over 8,000 collections and more than 29,000 artists, Bridgeman represents international museums, galleries and artists by providing a central source of fine art for image users. Every subject, concept, style and medium is represented, from national museums to private collections. Fine art is just one of the sources of images; design, antiques, maps, architecture, furniture, glass, ceramics, anthropological artefacts and many others also feature in the collection.


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Creationist Goals and Tactics
The ultimate goal of the creationist movement is to replace our public school system with fundamentalist church schools through all grades, from kindergarten through 12th grade. A clear obstacle to achieving this goal is the fact that science simply does not support fundamentalist dogma. In an attempt to overcome this obstacle, religious fundamentalists have attacked science with an unending litany of distortions, half truths, misquotations and outright falsehoods, all disguised as "creation science." In their books, web pages, and e-mail exchanges, creationists have made it clear that creationism and religious fundamentalism are one and the same.
Religious fundamentalists provide heavy support to stealth political candidates who, if and when elected, will attack the public school system by denying funding to reduce class sizes, purchase supplies, and build much needed facilities. All this to "demonstrate" that the public school system is "failing" to provide a good education to students. The next step is the voucher program, which would allocate millions of tax dollars to instruction in sectarian religious dogma disguised as "creation science."
Most creationist claims are so absurd that they can be readily refuted by the basic principles of science and obvious factual evidence. One would think that when presented with this information, the typical creationist would doubt the validity of his/her beliefs. In exchanging messages with a number of creationists, I have found that this is not the case. Without admitting any possibility that they could be wrong, creationists will feign interest in learning more about the evolution/creation controversy.
A favorite tactic is the "Let's have a fair and open debate so both sides can present their views and then decide" gambit. The problem here is that any discipline of science, whether biology, astronomy, thermodynamics, or geology, contains information that is complex and not easily understood. It is not possible for either side to cover all the detailed aspects of all the evolutionary sciences.
Creationists are well aware of this, so they evade responding to clear evidence of creationism's failures by the "debate" gambit. They cite distorted interpretations of references taken out of context from legitimate scientific journals. Their goal is to keep their opponent constantly running down one misstatement after another. By this tactic creationists strive to direct attention away from the major issues, such as the impossibility that the Grand Canyon could have been created in a single catastrophic event.
Rank and file creationists have no knowledge of science and cannot deal with its complexity. They are not willing to deal with scientific detail, preferring to limit their "knowledge" of scientific "truth" to conclusions that are consistent with their religious beliefs. Examples of this attitude can be found in the e-mail messages I have received from creationists. These messages display a consistent religious fundamentalist overtones and a reluctance to deal with the major issues in the creation/evolution controversy.


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LGBT RIGHTS: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
February 25, 2014 · by prospectjournalucsd	· in CULTURE, HUMAN RIGHTS.	·
By Viet Tran
Sixty years ago, a series of political movements convulsed the world. These movements sought to bring equality under the law for misrepresented peoples. Most notably, the United States marked the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. These landmark bills signaled the end to an era of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination. At the time, it appeared that animosity, civil disobedience and nonviolent protests would be a thing of the past. But fast-forward to the present and the world faces a new controversial civil rights topic: LGBT rights.
We currently live in a time of changing perceptions towards LGBT rights. Though only 17 of 50 states recognize it, our own president openly supports gay marriage. Elsewhere, the Catholic Church is now headed by a pope who has articulated his stance in a far less inflammatory manner than his predecessor. Pope Francis told reporters "if someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" While the pope does continue to criticize the "gay lobby," his words reveal a possible silver lining on this contentious topic.
But in many other places in the world, discrimination still stands as the rule, not the exception. The recent publicity surrounding Russia's anti-gay social and political atmosphere only scratches the surface of LGBT discrimination around the world. As President Obama remarked, "what's happening in Russia is not unique."
The following countries have some of the worst cases of LGBT abuse today:
This country plays host to some of the world's most draconian anti-gay legislation. In a report by the Iranian High Council for Human Rights, the Iranian secretary-general made a statement to another foreign lawmaker that castigated homosexuality as a "sexual immorality and a disease." Such views foster persecution of the gay community.
Under Iran's harsh Islamic law, most acts of homosexuality are punishable by death. Until recently, the Iranian penal code also considered sodomy a capital offense for all those involved in consensual sexual intercourse. However, the supposed reforms to the penal code still impose a minimum punishment of 100 lashes while keeping open the possibility of a death sentence. The same punishments apply to lesbianism, creating a fearful environment for Iran's homosexuals
In 2009, a Ugandan lawmaker introduced an anti-homosexuality bill that originally set a death penalty for homosexual acts. After drawing widespread condemnation from around the world, legislators altered the bill. The revised bill changed the maximum punishment from death to lifetime imprisonment while maintaining a 14-year jail sentence for first time offenders. Despite Western opposition, Uganda president Yoweri Museveni made a public announcement confirming his intention to sign the bill into law. Two days ago, the bill went into effect, signaling a massive step backwards for LGBT rights in the Uganda.
There is a certain degree of irony when the Supreme Court of the world's largest democracy upholds one of harshest anti-gay laws. But that's exactly what happened in India in 2009. The court deemed constitutional a colonial-era statute that prohibited "carnal intercourse against the order of nature." The ruling drew widespread criticism, with the Human Rights Campaign denouncing the decision as a "disturbing step backward" for LGBT rights. Those criminalized for their homosexuality could face a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab state in the Middle East and an invaluable ally of the United States. But under its harsh Sharia Law the punishment for homosexual acts is death by stoning. The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a religious "task force," polices private gatherings and arrests those exhibiting homosexual behavior.
Though many countries in the world we live in impose a hostile environment for the LGBT community, others have taken the initiative to improve LGBT rights. Here are a few notable examples:
In 2012, Argentina opened a new chapter in the struggle for transgender rights by passing one of the most progressive legislations yet,. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner legalized the Gender Identity Law, allowing individuals who identify as transgender to legally change the gender on their birth certificates. This continued a trend of progressive legislation for Argentina—it became the 10th country in world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2010.
Despite this communist state's spotty record on human rights, Vietnam has surpsingly become a pioneer for LGBT rights in Southeast Asia. A potential breakthrough in gay rights occurred when Vietnam held its first gay pride parade in 2012. This country demonstrated further progress when the country's ministry of health publicly announced his recommendations on the legalization of same-sex marriages in 2013.
Trinidad and Tobago/Jamaica
The Caribbean region is another center of progress for LGBT rights. Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar recently wrote a letter to United Kingdom-based Kaleidoscope Trust, a LGBT rights group. In the letter, she committed herself towards ending anti-gay sentiment and discrimination via national policy. Elsewhere, Jamaica, a country where violence towards the LGBT community is common and condoned by the police, now has a prime minister who has declared support for gay rights.
One of the smaller countries in southeast Africa has shown that it can be a big player in championing LGBT rights. In 2012, Malawian President Joyce Banda publicly announced an initiative with parliament to repeal the country's anti-gay legislation. If her campaign to overturn anti-gay legislation succeeds, Malawi will be just one of two African nations where homosexuality is not criminalized.
Everyday countless people around the world face violence and inequality because of an inherent quality. They are persecuted because of whom they love, how they dress or simply who they are. Whether we are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, all these identities are integral facets of our beings and should never be subjected to discrimination of any form. At the end of the day, we are all human after all.
Image by lighttripper
Tags: homosexual, Human RIghts, Iran, lgbt, uganda
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Tag Archives: Frederick K.C. Price
Afrocentrists, Evangelicals, Hebrew-Israelites and the False Revolution
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, Boy @ The Window, Carnegie Mellon University, Christianity, culture, Eclectic, Hebrew-Israelite, Mount Vernon New York, Patriotism, Pittsburgh, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, University of Pittsburgh, Youth
Afrocentric, Afrocentricity, Authentic Blackness, Authority Figures, Black Action Society, Child Abuse, Covenant Church of Pittsburgh, Cross of Gold (1896), Dick Oestriecher, Domestic Violence, Estelle Abel, Evangelical Christianity, Frances Cress Welsing, Frederick K.C. Price, Gospel of Prosperity, Hoteps, Jack Van Impe, Judah ben Israel, Karl Marx, Kenneth Copeland, Kufi, Marxism, Maurice Eugene Washington, Molefi Asante, Neo-Marxists, Ostracism, Prosperity Gospel, Racism, Rapture, Religion, Wendy Goldman, William Jennings Bryan
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Believer's Voice of Victory television broadcast, November 23, 2011. (Carpetsmoker via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC-SA-3.0.
For nearly all of my life folks with even a kernel of authority have tried to convince me that there was one right way to live, one true path to liberation. Mostly religion has been the means through which others have attempted to box me in, although ideologues around Marxism, Afrocentricity, and Capitalism have all been in my figurative kitchen over the years. And like any well-meaning human being, at times I tried real hard to adapt myself to these right ways of thinking, of living out the one correct way to live. Only to fail, or rather, to recognize that none of these ways are the one right way, unless you are a closet right-winger, a conservative (non-ideological) wearing revolution-esque clothing.
My introduction to this madness began with my years as a Hebrew-Israelite, from April '81 to April '84 (although I wore my kufi until September '84). That any parent could suddenly impose a new religion on their kids without explanation is abusive enough. When combined with vague notions about the Lost Tribes of ancient Israel and the wearing of clothes that set us apart culturally while in the middle of puberty, it was a forced societal ostracism. Even still, I tried to live by these strictures. "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy." Eat kosher food, don't use Ivory soap, shop only at Black or Hebrew-Israelite stores, avoid "unclean issues of blood." But the physical abuse and poverty that came with being a Hebrew-Israelite in the Judah ben Israel madhouse of contradictions at 616 made me despise anything involving Hebrew-Israelite pretty much for all time.
Molefi Asante speech, Philadelphia, PA, September 13, 2014. (AP photo/file).
Fast-forward a few years to the early 1990s, to the rise of Afrocentricity and the Afrocentric ethos. After three and a half years of being around Hebrew-Israelites, these kente-cloth wearing fools made me weary more times than not of their exclusionary our-way-or-no-way Blackness. Molefi Asante and the late Frances Cress Welsing were just the tip of a much larger iceberg in search of revolutionary "authentic" Blackness. From the Afrocentric undergrads who hijacked the Black Action Society leadership at the University of Pittsburgh in 1991 to folks who picked arguments with me for "sounding White" while I was in grad school, I saw them the same way I saw my now idiot ex-stepfather and the obnoxious Estelle Abel from my high school days. They were well-meaning but stupid. As far as I was concerned, they thought that their words alone would foster a revolution, that being Black meant turning one's back on the world while also indirectly embracing an ethnocentric capitalism. Or at least, a Black American collective individualism, otherwise known as an "Afrocentric cool." I could not, I would not, exchange one form of oppressive uplift in Hebrew-Israelites for the shiny fool's gold that mostly represented the Afrocentrists.
The neo-Marxists I met in Pittsburgh throughout the 1990s were no better. For all their revolutionary rhetoric, theirs was a world of theoretical activism, of scholarly examples of past oppression. Most of them didn't know poverty and didn't comprehend oppression beyond their own limited experience. Most of all, they couldn't find a connection between American racism and class oppression if I gave them an industrial strength magnet. The fact that most of them hadn't read Franz Fanon, W. E. B. Du Bois, Eric Williams, C. L. R. James, Anna Julia Cooper, Zora Neale Hurston, Derrick Bell, Angela Davis — but could quote Karl Marx the way Hebrew-Israelites could quote the Torah and Afrocentrists could quote Asante and Welsing — I found troubling. That's putting it nicely. I found it contemptuous that folks who didn't know my experience or who would all but refuse to read folks who written about experiences like mine would expect my allegiance to an ideology that was never meant for people who look like me.
The evangelical Christian part of my life was literally the last of the major dogmas to go. It was the hardest for me because I literally had given my life to Jesus in the midst of the whole Hebrew-Israelite crisis, Easter Sunday '84. With my Mom coming down the same path by the late-1980s, it made it easier to not interrogate my Christianity as thoroughly as I would excoriate Afrocentrists and Marxists in graduate classes and in articles and papers a decade later. But even at nineteen, I realized that the Van Impe's weekly predictions of the Apocalypse were as ridiculous as Welsing's exulting of the magical properties of melanin. Or, for that matter, a fake Balkis Makeda cautioning against the use of Ivory Soap among her Hebrew-Israelite flock because of a dream she had.
Grant Hamilton cartoon for Judge Magazine on William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech, Democratic National Convention, Chicago, July 9, 1896. (Wikipedia). In public domain.
I went along to get along for years, until the hypocrisy of evangelical Christianity's Gospel of Prosperity became too much. They took the metaphor of William Jennings Bryan's cross of gold and actually went literal and nuclear with it. Somehow being Christian now meant blind patriotic allegiance to anything US and fully supporting capitalism, and yet an exclusionary separation between "true" evangelical Christians and the rest of the world. Especially on Rapture Day.
The last time I sat comfortably in a pew was in January '97, although I've been to churches of various denominations dozens of times since. I still believe in Jesus, the life and the death and even the resurrection. But I don't believe in most who claim to represent him, yet turn around and ignore the vulnerable standing right in front of them, making weak claims around individualism and poverty in the process.
In so many ways, evangelicals, Marxists, Afrocentrists, and Hebrew-Israelites are more alike than different. They all insist on a singular path, a quintessential truth. While some aspects of their thinking are appealing, I find accepting their bullshit in entirety poisonous to my spirit, mind, and gastrointestinal tract. There still may well be a revolution or even a rapture, but it won't be because of any of these groups.
My Christianity at 30
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, Christianity, culture, Eclectic, Hebrew-Israelite, Mount Vernon New York, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Youth
Action, Activism, Atheism, Atheists, Christianity, Critical Thinking, Easter Sunday, Evangelical Christianity, Evangelicals, Faith, Frederick K.C. Price, Gospel of Prosperity, Hypocrisy, Renewal, Revelation, Salvation, Social Control, Social Justice, Spirituality, Wisdom
The full prayer kneel, April 8, 2014. (Donald Earl Collins).
No, today's not my thirtieth birthday — I'm still forty-four and twenty months away from entering middle age. But, it has been thirty years since I converted to Christianity, two weeks before Easter Sunday '84, sometime between 8:55 and 9 am. You could say — and many would — that this marks three full decades since my spiritual rebirth, a milestone as significant as my birthday on the final Saturday of the '60s at Mount Vernon Hospital.
In many ways, it was a renewal, a reboot, a beginning of sorts. To claim control over my life and my destiny, at least, as much control as I could muster. In the past thirty years, the issues of control and perfection, faith, knowledge and wisdom, and the expectations I have of myself, my God and those who either don't see God as real or as real to me have remained constants in my life.
Perhaps this has been because of how I became a Christian in the first place, a bit more than three months after an aborted suicide attempt on my fourteenth birthday. With my abusive stepfather Maurice and his insistence that we were Hebrew-Israelites, I couldn't be open about my conversion or the thought and faith process that led me to Christianity. At least, I didn't feel strong enough back then to be open about it. I remained a clandestine Christian for five months before I stood up to the idiot after my first day of tenth grade — my first time not wearing my kufi since sixth grade — and dared him to kill me. He didn't, and it was my first full victory against my stepfather.
As for my classmates, the splits between the denominational Christian, agnostic, atheist and Nation of Islam sets were ones I'd become aware of long before my conversion. And, by tenth grade, it was obvious that many of my immediate Humanities classmates were about as accepting of the spiritual as Bill Maher and the late Christopher Hitchens. Maybe not openly so, but the barrier of intolerance and disdain was there.
Break the chains, April 8, 2014. (http://www.flrministry.com).
Over the years, my walk with Jesus' life, death and resurrection has grown more complicated, with euphoric highs, quiet lows, and periods of almost evangelical revival along the way. Still, I remain faithful, even as I remain disillusioned, about my life, humanity, the universe and the afterlife. I still pray, and believe that God listens to my prayers, but understand that prayer without action is tantamount to talking to myself. "Faith without works is dead," is what the good book actually says. Unfortunately, there are way too many alleged Christians in exalted places and in positions of power who practice neither faith nor the works of Jesus. All they do is talk about their Christianity while acting like pagan Roman emperors.
I no longer welcome debate about what and in whom I believe. I find those who smirk and call my walk the equivalent of someone with a mental illness or an imaginary friend about as bigoted as a Christian who believes that all atheists are the sons and daughters of Satan. There's a certain hubris in claiming the nonexistence of the spiritual because the people whom are representatives of the religious are themselves flawed and full of crap. Then, I guess, there's a certain hypocrisy in the universe, in evolution, in all life, and I don't think any of us have enough knowledge to be that cynical and nihilistic.
I no longer regularly attend church. I've been to at least a dozen churches in the DC area over the past decade and a half, and combined, I've gotten less out of all of those services than in one service I attended at my mother-in-law's church in Pittsburgh last September. Heck, I've found more wisdom and compassion and realness in some of the courses I've taught than at most of these churches. Church is a place for fellowship with other Christians, but I have a hard time with my own contradictions, much less those of others.
Bertrand Russell wisdom quote, April 8, 2014. (http://izquotes.com).
For my son Noah's sake, though, I want to find a place or two where we can feel comfortable exposing him to Christianity. Places where the hypocrisy quotient isn't so high, and with the understanding that this is a long spiritual walk, not a magical carpet ride of infinite miracles and treasure chests full of gold. I'm tired of the megachurches, the Gospel of Prosperity, the overly emotional, the attempts to strangle human behaviors, and the endless predictions of apocalypse based on homophobia, misogyny, Whiteness, and a terrible understanding of history.
But I do have a one-on-one spiritual walk that's mine, that no one — atheist or evangelical — can take away from me. It's a walk that has taken me far from the despair and abuse of my youth, warts and all.
The Whore of Babylon (and other wacko comments)
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, Boy @ The Window, Christianity, culture, Eclectic, Marriage, New York City, Patriotism, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion
Amy Grant, Apocalypse, Book of Revelations, Christian Zeal, Christianity, Evangelical Christianity, Frederick K.C. Price, Gov. Rick Perry, Hebrew-Israelites, Jack Van Impe, Jimmy Swaggert, John Hagee, Kenneth Copeland, Oral Roberts, Politics of Fear, Rachel Maddow, Rapture, Televangelism, Televangelists, The Response
Televangelist John Hagee sans glasses compares Texas Gov. Rick Perry to Abraham Lincoln, The Response, Reliant Stadium, Houston, August 6, 2011. (Source/http://www.businessinsider.com).
I used to be one of them. One of those evangelized Christians. Coming off of three years as a Hebrew-Israelite, I became a Christian in the spring of '84, without a church, and without an immediate family member who had any real experience as part of a Christian family or community.
So naturally, when my mother — who still appeared to be a practicing Hebrew-Israelite — would tune our one working stereo radio to the Christian AM stations in the New York City area in the summer that followed my secret conversion, I'd listen. I'd hear everything from Amy Grant's "Angels Watching Over Me" to folks like Jimmy Swaggert and Kenneth Copeland on those two stations. Plus, there was the 700 Club, Oral Roberts and Frederick K.C. Price on our TV at 10 am Monday-Friday, and Sunday mornings between 8 and 11 am.
With the exception of Price, a good portion of what these televangelists and radio preachers would talk about was the Book of Revelation of St. John. They'd outline in detail everything from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to the gigantic sucking sounds of great death as the Lord opened one seal after another. As a fourteen-year-old and brand-new Christian, it was scary listening to them. So scary that it seemed unlikely that I'd make it to thirty before the entire world was on fire.
The Whore of Babylon, from a 1800s Russian engraving. (Source/Wikipedia). In public domain.
When Swaggert or Roberts or Robertson would get to the part of Revelations that talked about "the whore of Babylon," they'd lament about how America was the "whore" that John of Patmos had described in his letters to the Christian churches in what is now Turkey — 2,000 years ago. But for Swaggert, Roberts, Robertson, et al., it was because of gay rights, or because of Blacks having kids out-of-wedlock while collecting welfare, or because women were on an assembly line to have abortions, or because of out-of-control government spending that America had become the ultimate harlot.
I put much of what they said aside even then, because my life at 616 and in Mount Vernon was scary enough without thinking about the fate of four or five billion humans. But all of this came up again, especially once my mother revealed herself as an evangelical Christian in '89, in the last days of her marriage to my idiot (ex-) stepfather. In the years that followed, whenever I visited over the holidays or came home to work for the summer, I'd see more of Kenneth Copeland, Oral and Richard Roberts, Pat Robertson than I'd see of regular television.
In particular, a "new" guy, Jack Van Impe, along with his wife, was on. Every week in the summer of '90, my
Jack Van Impe, circa 2010, predicting an Apocalypse via Iran. (Source/http://wn.com).
mother would make me sit in front of the TV to hear this guy relate things like the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August of that year to the Rapture and the Apocalypse. Somehow, the evil spiritual forces intent on world domination and human corruption were unleashed by Iraq and the US response to Iraq that summer. Van Impe was so worried about the rebuilding of the Roman Empire via the expanding European Union that he looked like he was about to collapse from a brain aneurysm.
My mother once said, "You think they crazy, but when the Rapture comes and you're stuck here, you won't." I didn't think that they were crazy — I knew they were. But more importantly, what I was really thinking was, why is she watching this, and making me watch this stuff, too? It's not as if anyone, whether an atheist or a Zen Buddhist, didn't or doesn't really know that our world faces a multitude of challenges that could lead to a perfect storm of global crises, causing immense destruction and death. That's true. Still, I couldn't see how any of us could make sense of what we face as a planet by using the Book of Revelation as a guide.
So, when Rachel Maddow decided to go after Governor Rick Perry and "The Response" party down in Houston earlier this month on her show, I, unlike most Americans uninvolved in mind-bending forms of Christianity, wasn't surprised. I didn't feel shock that there was such a thing as the New Apostolic Reformation, because there isn't anything new about it. I wasn't even surprised that the likes of John Hagee would consider Oprah Winfrey the "Whore of Babylon" because of her ability to use verbal voodoo on the millions of people who worship everything she does. And I was unsurprised, unfortunately, that a snake-oil salesman like Perry would fall into their camp.
Oprah Winfrey at her 50th birthday party at Hotel Bel Air 2004. (Source/Alan Light/http://www.flickr.com/photos/alan-light/216012860/). In public domain, cc-by-2.0.
Quite frankly, there are only two things that surprise me. One is that there are millions of people like me who could find more holes in the evangelical apocalyptic paradigm in one nanosecond than Maddow could in one day, yet we're never called on to refute and inform. The other is that it's taken this long for mainstream media to really pick up on what has been a four-decade long trend in the meshing of the wackiest of "Christian" ideas with politics that exploit America's imperial fears. That our days as #1 are at an end.
Bittersweet Symphony
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Christianity, Eclectic, Religion
Atheism, Bigotry, Bill Maher, Christianity, Creflo Dollar, Frederick K.C. Price, Gospel of Prosperity, Hebrew-Israelites, Jimmy Swaggert, Kenneth Copeland, Liberation Theology, Pat Robertson, Televangelism
This weekend marks twenty-six years since I became a Christian. Given how torturous my nearly three and a half years of wearing a kufi and walking in the beliefs of the Hebrew-Israelites (at least nominally) were, I dare say that the turning point for all of my life occurred in April '84. I'm grateful every day — and I mean, every day — for finding my way to God and Jesus. But, as I'm come to understand myself and Christianity over the years, I've also come to regret the religious and anti-religious narcissism that is infused in all of our conversations about Christianity, God, Atheism, evolution and so many other things that require more than scientific knowledge and absolute certainty.
For better and for worse, I have to start with the people who helped me get on the Christian path in the first place. If not for televangelists like Frederick K.C. Price and Kenneth Copeland, my understanding of Christianity would've been limited to conversations with my best friend in elementary school and my pedestrian attempts at understanding the New Testament. So I have to thank both for opening my eyes to the endless possibilities that all people have through faith and redemption, salvation and grace.
Still, their work, and the work of others like Benny Hinn, Jimmy Swaggert, Robert Tilton, Pat Robertson, Oral and Richard Roberts and others has revolved into a form of narcissism. Their gospel — and the gospel of the megachurches that now populate our nation — should be remembered by historians as the Gospel of Prosperity. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking control over your finances, giving to a church to provide community and social services or even using principles of faith (beyond the religious or spiritual) in order to make one's life better materially. There is something vitally wrong, though, when this is almost all your ministry is about. I must admit, I was inspired by Price when I was a teenager, listening to his story about how he grew up in Alabama, about the poverty he had to overcome in order to become an ordained minister and establish his church in L.A. It was much later that I learned how enriching a Gospel of Prosperity could be for those with the power of the pulpit and the will to wield that power.
Seeing it firsthand at my church outside Pittsburgh (in Wilkinsburg for those of you familiar with Western Pennsylvania) was what made me realize how incredibly shallow this kind of preaching is for a church and its flock. The leadership began a campaign to raise something in the order of $1 million toward building a new church, as this church now boasted over 3,000 members. That was in December of '96.
Within a couple of months, we had easily exceeded this amount, which was on top of the amount church member normally gave. Within a week, the pastor announced that God had given him a vision that another $3 million would be needed to help with the costs of building a new church and maintaining the current church building. A vision? Really? I think even God realizes that most of us, with help, can decipher a budget sheet to know what's needed to build a building the size of a 3,000-seat church. What made this particularly dishonest was that the leadership should've let us sheep know what was needed from jump street, not a staggered campaign of visions in order to build the congregation's confidence in giving. Not to mention the tapping into our American obsession with getting rich or becoming well-off.
Around the same time, Price was doing the same thing via his TV program. A whole series on Jesus as a materially rich Jew living in Galilee, and not as the relatively poor son of a carpenter and fisherman as portrayed in the Gospels. "How could he be poor and feed 5,000 people? Why would a poor man need to hire an accountant?," Price asked at one point in his series in '97. Although I think you could argue that Jesus' ministry was doing well enough to keep him and his disciples in food, olive oil and sandals for three years, I'm not sure what this means for the average Christian or average person. The implication of all of this, of course, is that if you end up in debt, or without significant upward changes in income, or somehow become unemployed, that you somehow didn't display enough faith. Or give your full tithe to your local pastor or church. Or for that matter, give beyond the tithing to pastors like Price, Copeland, and numerous others.
It couldn't be about education, the kinds of job individuals have, or the wrecked state of the American economy, right? Or that, no matter how much faith we have, it's our acting on that faith, having the skills necessary to make our dreams real possibilities, and of course, meeting people who are well positioned in our lives to help us (and oddly enough, vice-versa)? No, our lack of faith in The One is to blame. Need I mention that folks like Price have been saying for at least thirty years that we as Christians shouldn't worry about the world's oil reserves running out, as there's more than enough to carry us all the way to the Rapture?
Before those in Bill Maher's camp laugh in wild glee, I've found in my academic and spiritual walk narcissistic intolerance among many atheists as well. As if all Christians — and all people who believe in a higher power in general — are delusional, are absolutely orgasmic about seeing the world go up in flames and think science is something to be discarded. Theirs may well be the Gospel of Scientific Absolutism, as if science and the scientific method alone holds all of the answers in the Cosmos. I'm not arguing against evolution, the Big Bang, or String Theory. What I am standing up against are overly simplistic answers for the "why" questions — questions that come with weird and somewhat unscientific explanations — that can confound many a biologist or astrophysicist. Or, for the purposes of this post, atheists who refuse the acknowledge the myriad examples of intelligence in the supposedly random universe. While I stand in almost all respects on the side on science, complete randomness isn't something that I choose to believe in.
So where does this leave me after twenty-six Christian years? In a very lonely place, where I'm both a complicated Christian and a less-than-scientific scientist in a broad sense. I stopped watching Price in '98, and the other televangelists between '88 and '01. Christianity is about so much more than prosperity and pontificating pastors, learning about much more than science. Social justice, wealth redistribution, speaking truth to power, fighting for equality in this life and the next. Both religion and science have this possibility and have provided this for many people over the course of human history.
Unfortunately, folks like Price think that this is about speaking power to truth, and people like Maher already believe they know everything they need to know. Both have missed the point that faith, or belief, is important in every endeavor, and serves as a catalyst for great human achievement and for great human atrocities. So, for me, this Easter truly is a bittersweet one, where my salvation is real, and my doubt almost as much.


text:
The Official Site of the St. Louis Blues
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Blues Archive
Preview: Blues at Sharks
by Chris Pinkert / Notes by Brett Barczewski
BLUES AT SHARKS
When: Saturday, Dec. 21 at 9:30 p.m. CT
Watch: FOX Sports Midwest, FOX Sports App
Listen: 101 ESPN, NHL App
The St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks will meet for the first time since the Western Conference Final last season. The Blues won the best-of-seven series in six games en route to their first Stanley Cup championship.
THE MATCHUP
BLUES The Blues swept a four-game homestand Wednesday with a 2-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers at Enterprise Center. Jake Allen made 35 saves while Brayden Schenn and Mackenzie MacEachern scored in the win.
"I thought we played a real solid game, 60 minutes," Blues Head Coach Craig Berube said after the game.
The Blues improved to 22-8-6 (50 points) to extend their lead atop the Western Conference and are 8-3-0 in their last 11 games.
SHARKS Fortunes have certainly changed for the Sharks, who were one of two teams left standing in the Western Conference in last season's playoffs. As of Dec. 20, the Sharks sat 12th in the Western Conference with a 16-18-2 record (34 points).
San Jose, who relieved Head Coach Peter DeBoer of his duties earlier this month, have lost seven of their last eight games and two of three since Bob Boughner was named interim head coach on Dec. 11.
Logan Couture leads the Sharks with 32 points (11 goals, 21 assists) this season, while Tomas Hertl (28 points) and Evander Kane (26 points) rank second and third, respectively. Patrick Marleau returned to San Jose in the offseason after a stint with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but longtime captain Joe Pavelski, who played 13 years with the Sharks, departed and signed a three-year deal with the Dallas Stars in the offseason.
Video: Vitale, Pang preview Blues / Sharks
BERUBE'S 100TH GAME
Berube recorded his 60th win behind the Blues bench on Wednesday, matching a franchise record for the most wins for a coach in his first 100 games. The record was previously set by Ken Hitchcock, who was 60-27-13 in his first 100 games behind the Blues' bench.
Saturday's game in San Jose will be Berube's 100th game as the Blues' head coach. With a win, Berube would set the new franchise record with 61 wins.
BLUE NOTES
The Blues have collected 50 points in 36 games this season. Only the 2001-01 team (31 games) and the 2013-14 team (34 games) have reached the 50-point mark faster. In the last 35 years, only four different Stanley Cup champions have reached the 50-point mark in fewer games than the Blues… The Blues are 4-0 to begin a stretch of 12 consecutive games against Western Conference opponents. Overall, the Blues are 15-2-3 against the West this season.
Video: Blues, Sharks meet at SAP Center
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text:
Parcs d'attractions et parcs à thèmes

Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer
 Playland Skhirate
Magic Park salé
 Safari Park d'Oulmès
 Jardin zoologique national de Rabat
 TRAMPOMAROC : Parc de Loisirs avec des activités aériennes à Rabat - Salé
 Jardins exotiques de Bouknadel

Grand Casablanca

Casablanca
 Parc Sindibad de Casablanca, www.parcsindibad.ma  (Casablanca - Aïn Diab)
 Tamaris Aquapark à Casablanca (Route d'El Jadida)
 Crazy Park Casablanca (Route de tamaris)
 Loupi Land Casablanca
 Casa Park entertainment (projet?)
 Parc Jouba Land (projet?)

Mohammedia - Benslimane

DREAM VILLAGE (www.dreamvillage.ma)
VGK: village de port et loisirs avec karting, plage artificielle, sport... (www.vgk.ma)
Lanoria:Club sportive et espace de jeux pour enfants

Marrakech-Tensift-Al Haouz
 Palooza Land, Marrakech
 Ludiparc, parc de loisirs pour enfants (Marrakech)
 Oasiria-Aquapark (Marrakech)
 Terres d'Amanar, parc d'aventures dans le Parc national de Toubkal
 Magic Park Marrakech (Marrakech) (projet?)
 La ferme pédagogiqie, Ourika Park Marrakech - Espace de jeux pour enfants (Marrakech) (projet?)
Adouar parc D'attraction (Marrakech) - Douar Oulad Mansour Wahat Sidi Brahim 40 000 - Marrakech - Maroc

Fès-Meknès
 ATLAS parc aventure, Parc national d'Ifrane - parc accrobranche
 COCO PARK à Meknès - Le plus grand parc d'attractions au Maroc - ouverture prochaine
 Ludiparc à Meknès
 Parc Aquatique Aqualand, Meknès
 KS Fantasy Park à Meknès
 Fun Park Label Gallery, Parc de jeux indoor, Meknès
 Tropicana Parc, Fès
 Festiland, (Parc de Jeux) à Fès
 Parc aquatique Diamant Vert, Fés
 Rim Aquatique, (parc aquatique) à Fès
 Fun Park Borj Fez Mall, Parc de jeux indoor, Fès

L'Oriental
 Aquapark de Saidia-Mediterrania

Tanger-Tetouan
 German Kindergarten (Parc de Jeux) à Tanja Balia
 Smir park (parc aquatique) à M'Diq (à  de Tetouan sur la Route N13 Tetouan-Sebta)
 M'nar park (parc aquatique) à Tanger
 Magic Park à Tanger (projet?)

Sous-Massa-Drâa
 Parc aquatique d'Agadir
 Parc de Jeux de la Médina d'Agadir
 Magic Park d'Agadir (projet?)

Al Hoceima
 BLUE BEACH - Base nautique et loisirs , plage Sfiha

parc de loisirs marocains

parc de loisirs marocains
Parcs de loisirs


For more and more young classics, classic cars and historic cars, KW automotive, the suspension manufacturer, develops adjustable dampers and coilover kits. For the Mercedes-Benz 190 (W201), offered between 1982 and 1993, we now have a KW classic suspension kit available. Back then the Mercedes-Benz 190 was the first sedan that the automobile manufacturer has developed with a modern 5-link rear axle. The front axle was designed without a MacPherson-construction. For this reason, also at the front axle, the struts and the helical springs of the KW Classic suspension kit are a separated, or divorced setup. So, on the W201, the continuous lowering on the drive axle as well as on the front axle is directly adjusted via the height-adjustable spring perch. The lowering can be adjusted on the front axle from 40 to 65 millimeters and between 35 and 60 millimeters on the drive axle.


It was windy & chilly; a typical San Francisco summer day, in Golden Gate Park! But none the less, the Chipotle Cultivate Festival was delicious and hilarious, AND I sure did learn a lot! Buying local-grown, fresh food seemed to be the take-away message. That, and…don't ever leave home without your trusty magenta Northface windbreaker (and a scarf)! You never know (or in the case of SF locals–you always know) when a chilly wind will come.
ALso, who in the whole world can say no to free, ^^ fresh guacamole??? No man can, I say.
I had real, live, amazing cooking lessons from a few of Food Networks finest …granted my girl Buffie was the real foodie fan, but she filled me in enough to have me appreciate being in the presence of the Richard Blais! Guys, I am excited about cooking…even if I can't recreate his (virgin) "frozen margarita's"!
Also, if any of you know me at all, you know that the hi-light of the day was……^^ hitting up the Tobasco tent!!
It wouldn't be a festival in SF without some jammin' tunes ^^ (free!).
Early bird get's the worm…or in my case, ^^ SKIPS THE LINES!!
Hope you're weekend was equally awesome and delicious! hugs, hanalei.


text:
Ellen Corbett, former lawmaker, running for…
Possible explosive device forces downtown Oakland evacuations, authorities give all-clear
NewsPoliticsElection
Ellen Corbett, former lawmaker, running for East Bay Regional Park board
By Denis Cuff | dcuff@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: July 22, 2016 at 4:40 p.m. | UPDATED: February 24, 2017 at 1:07 p.m.
OAKLAND — Former state Senate majority leader Ellen Corbett is running for the East Bay Regional Park District board in November — two years after she was termed out of the state Legislature.
Corbett, a former San Leandro mayor, said she filed papers this week to run for the board in regional park district Ward 4, which includes San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Alameda, and parts of Oakland and Hayward.
The Ward 4 incumbent, Doug Siden of Alameda, confirmed Friday he will not seek re-election after 24 years in office.
Otis Sanders of Alameda, a retired park district equipment operator, confirmed Friday he is running against Corbett.
Corbett, 61, an attorney and a Democrat, served in the state Assembly between 1998 and 2004 and in the state Senate from 2006 to 2014, serving as majority leader during part of that term. She ran for Congress in 2014 against Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin and lost.
Corbett currently works as a member of the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.
Contact Denis Cuff at 925-943-8267. Follow him at Twitter.com/deniscuff or facebook.com/denis.cuff.
East Bay Regional Park District
Denis Cuff | Reporter
Denis Cuff covers environmental, water, and outdoor recreation news for the Bay Area News Group. A graduate of Stanford University with a B.A. in communications, he enjoys hiking and cycling in his spare time.
dcuff@bayareanewsgroup.com
Follow Denis Cuff	@DenisCuff
GOP blocks voting bill, Democrats try rules change
Ivanka Trump, under pressure from NY investigators, posts 'image rehab' food-drive photos
Bay Area congressman joins 27 other House Democrats not to seek reelection


text:
package actions

// This file was generated by the swagger tool.
// Editing this file might prove futile when you re-run the swagger generate command

import (
	"net/http"
	"time"

	"golang.org/x/net/context"

	"github.com/go-openapi/errors"
	"github.com/go-openapi/runtime"
	cr "github.com/go-openapi/runtime/client"
	"github.com/go-openapi/swag"

	strfmt "github.com/go-openapi/strfmt"

	"github.com/c3sr/openwhisk-go/swagger_models"
)

// NewInvokeActionParams creates a new InvokeActionParams object
// with the default values initialized.
func NewInvokeActionParams() *InvokeActionParams {
	var ()
	return &InvokeActionParams{

		requestTimeout: cr.DefaultTimeout,
	}
}

// NewInvokeActionParamsWithTimeout creates a new InvokeActionParams object
// with the default values initialized, and the ability to set a timeout on a request
func NewInvokeActionParamsWithTimeout(timeout time.Duration) *InvokeActionParams {
	var ()
	return &InvokeActionParams{

		requestTimeout: timeout,
	}
}

// NewInvokeActionParamsWithContext creates a new InvokeActionParams object
// with the default values initialized, and the ability to set a context for a request
func NewInvokeActionParamsWithContext(ctx context.Context) *InvokeActionParams {
	var ()
	return &InvokeActionParams{

		Context: ctx,
	}
}

/*InvokeActionParams contains all the parameters to send to the API endpoint
for the invoke action operation typically these are written to a http.Request
*/
type InvokeActionParams struct {

	/*ActionName
	  Name of action

	*/
	ActionName string
	/*Blocking
	  Blocking or non-blocking invocation. Default is non-blocking.

	*/
	Blocking *string
	/*Namespace
	  The entity namespace

	*/
	Namespace string
	/*Payload
	  The parameters for the action being invoked

	*/
	Payload *swagger_models.KeyValue
	/*Result
	  Return only the result of a blocking activation. Default is false.

	*/
	Result *string
	/*Timeout
	  Wait no more than specified duration in milliseconds for a blocking response. Default value and max allowed timeout are 60000.

	*/
	Timeout *int64

	requestTimeout time.Duration
	Context        context.Context
	HTTPClient     *http.Client
}

// WithRequestTimeout adds the timeout to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) WithRequestTimeout(timeout time.Duration) *InvokeActionParams {
	o.SetRequestTimeout(timeout)
	return o
}

// SetRequestTimeout adds the timeout to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) SetRequestTimeout(timeout time.Duration) {
	o.requestTimeout = timeout
}

// WithContext adds the context to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) WithContext(ctx context.Context) *InvokeActionParams {
	o.SetContext(ctx)
	return o
}

// SetContext adds the context to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) SetContext(ctx context.Context) {
	o.Context = ctx
}

// WithActionName adds the actionName to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) WithActionName(actionName string) *InvokeActionParams {
	o.SetActionName(actionName)
	return o
}

// SetActionName adds the actionName to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) SetActionName(actionName string) {
	o.ActionName = actionName
}

// WithBlocking adds the blocking to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) WithBlocking(blocking *string) *InvokeActionParams {
	o.SetBlocking(blocking)
	return o
}

// SetBlocking adds the blocking to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) SetBlocking(blocking *string) {
	o.Blocking = blocking
}

// WithNamespace adds the namespace to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) WithNamespace(namespace string) *InvokeActionParams {
	o.SetNamespace(namespace)
	return o
}

// SetNamespace adds the namespace to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) SetNamespace(namespace string) {
	o.Namespace = namespace
}

// WithPayload adds the payload to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) WithPayload(payload *swagger_models.KeyValue) *InvokeActionParams {
	o.SetPayload(payload)
	return o
}

// SetPayload adds the payload to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) SetPayload(payload *swagger_models.KeyValue) {
	o.Payload = payload
}

// WithResult adds the result to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) WithResult(result *string) *InvokeActionParams {
	o.SetResult(result)
	return o
}

// SetResult adds the result to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) SetResult(result *string) {
	o.Result = result
}

// WithTimeout adds the timeout to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) WithTimeout(timeout *int64) *InvokeActionParams {
	o.SetTimeout(timeout)
	return o
}

// SetTimeout adds the timeout to the invoke action params
func (o *InvokeActionParams) SetTimeout(timeout *int64) {
	o.Timeout = timeout
}

// WriteToRequest writes these params to a swagger request
func (o *InvokeActionParams) WriteToRequest(r runtime.ClientRequest, reg strfmt.Registry) error {

	r.SetTimeout(o.requestTimeout)
	var res []error

	// path param actionName
	if err := r.SetPathParam("actionName", o.ActionName); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	if o.Blocking != nil {

		// query param blocking
		var qrBlocking string
		if o.Blocking != nil {
			qrBlocking = *o.Blocking
		}
		qBlocking := qrBlocking
		if qBlocking != "" {
			if err := r.SetQueryParam("blocking", qBlocking); err != nil {
				return err
			}
		}

	}

	// path param namespace
	if err := r.SetPathParam("namespace", o.Namespace); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	if o.Payload == nil {
		o.Payload = new(swagger_models.KeyValue)
	}

	if err := r.SetBodyParam(o.Payload); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	if o.Result != nil {

		// query param result
		var qrResult string
		if o.Result != nil {
			qrResult = *o.Result
		}
		qResult := qrResult
		if qResult != "" {
			if err := r.SetQueryParam("result", qResult); err != nil {
				return err
			}
		}

	}

	if o.Timeout != nil {

		// query param timeout
		var qrTimeout int64
		if o.Timeout != nil {
			qrTimeout = *o.Timeout
		}
		qTimeout := swag.FormatInt64(qrTimeout)
		if qTimeout != "" {
			if err := r.SetQueryParam("timeout", qTimeout); err != nil {
				return err
			}
		}

	}

	if len(res) > 0 {
		return errors.CompositeValidationError(res...)
	}
	return nil
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
good 4 her
Olivia Rodrigo released "good 4 u" on May 14. Her full album will be released on May 21.
Alyssa Klimowski, Team leader
"Good 4 u" is a song released by Olivia Rodrigo on May 14. It is the sixth song on her debut album coming out on May 21.
Rodrigo spread the news of her debut album and track list on April 13, with "drivers license" "deja vu" and "good 4 u" being on the list.
Rodrigo teased "good 4 u" on April 26, posting a picture on Instagram. The picture is a photo of her costume from "good 4 u" by the locker number 514 and a number 6 on the lock. Meaning on May 14, the sixth song on her tracklist would be released.
The music video for "good 4 u" follows Rodrigo as she sings with a group of cheerleaders. She leaves the school to buy gasoline and popcorn. She eventually is singing in a room filled with gasoline with the curtains set on fire.
I stayed up until midnight on May 13 just to hear Rodrigo's new song. While it is nothing like her other songs, I enjoyed it. It has been on repeat since it came out. I personally love that with her three released songs, each one has a different feeling attached to it. I believe that Rodrigo's new album Sour will have no skips on it.
Rodrigo also spread the news of her heartbreak hotline in a promo for her album Sour. It premiered during Saturday Night Live on May 15. If you call the number 323-622-SOUR (7687), you'll hear Rodrigo play a snippet of songs from her album. She also says to call again for "more flavors of sour." Most fans take this as when you call, you can get a preview of different songs.
Hi, I'm Alyssa. This is my second year in publications and I'm so excited to say I'm a team leader. I'm a senior and I can't wait to see how...
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