text:
Ed and Lorraine Warren
Amityville Rehaunted
Leave a comment October 22, 2019 Steve Wiggins
One of the problems with scarce resources is the desire not to squander any of them. Time is so rare these days that I keep multiple writing projects going (and growing) and when they're ripe I pluck them and take them to market. One of my writing projects had me read Hans Holzer's Murder in Amityville. Why? Fair question. It was the "inspiration" behind Amityville II: The Possession. I discuss this film in Nightmares with the Bible, and I've been going back and reading those period pieces from the 1970s that formed so much of our culture through the end of the last century.
In case you didn't grow up with an interest in parapsychology, Hans Holzer was a pretty big name then. I can assert that with some confidence because I grew up in a small town without access to big city resources (where fame is made) and I knew about him. Holzer wrote well over 100 books, which might give you a hint regarding their quality. He was an interesting person. Like Ed and Lorraine Warren he made a living by investigating, writing, and lecturing. (I can't seem to break into that cycle—times have changed!) A firm believer in ghosts and demons, Holzer was naturally drawn, like other moths around the candle, to Amityville. Murder in Amityville is his summation of his investigation and all I can say is it's a good thing he wasn't a lawyer. Apart from containing lengthy transcripts of Ronald DeFeo's trial, the book also contains interviews conducted by Holzer. Full of leading questions and lacking evidence, it fails to convince even a sympathetic reader.
Still, you've got to give Holzer credit for including interviews where his loaded questions get him nowhere. In interviewing a town historian for Amityville, Holzer kept bringing up allegations about the house at 112 Ocean Avenue only to have the nonplussed historian tell him point blank that his (Holzer's) allegations are incorrect. His assertions of an "Indian burial ground" are taken for granted, although no historical records substantiate it. His interview with DeFeo demonstrates Holzer's irrepressible faith. After being told by DeFeo that he'd heard no voices—something he made up for a failed insanity plea—Holzer keeps coming back to what the voices told him to do. Not only that, when Holzer does stumble upon a good question he fails to follow up, chasing some other notion down another rabbit hole. There was clearly enough material here to work into a horror movie, but for sorting out the troubled home life of the DeFeo family the critical reader finds her or himself being asked to take a lot on faith.
Local Hauntings
In my on-going research (as I think of it), I watched The Haunting in Connecticut. I recently wrote about A Haunting in Connecticut, distinguished from the theatrical version by an indefinite article. Both claim to be based on a true story and the story itself is disputed because it doesn't fit into a materialist paradigm. Ah, but that's another can of worms. Regarding the movie, it abandons the base story to add an entirely fictional subplot that drives the horror. Or so the writers and director think. The tale ends up jumbled and the confusion it generates is not the kind borne of intelligent planning. The Campbell family, struggling to pay the bills against a case of childhood cancer is real horror. In our healthcare system that is a true story.
According to the diegesis of the movie, Matt Campbell can see the dead because he's close to death. In case you don't know the story—the family has to move to be closer to the hospital where Matt is receiving his treatment. Once ensconced in their new house they learn it used to be a funeral home and hauntings ensue. The writer of the original book claims to have made much of it up, while interviews with witnesses make the claim that much of it actually happened. Matt ends up in a mental hospital. In the movie a subplot of necromancy and a young boy medium are added. Souls whose bodies have been bound are trapped in the house until Matt figures out how to break the spell with the help of the medium's ghost. Instead of Ed and Lorraine Warren investigating, a local minister is added. Also suffering from cancer, he figures it out too, but too late to help the Campbell family.
In Holy Horror and Nightmares with the Bible I do not treat made-for-television movies. A large part of the reason is that they often lack the cultural impact of a theatrical release. (Although Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead may have reached a point of familiarity with numbers to rival big screen efforts.) In the case of the cinematic treatment of the Snedeker ("Campbell") family, however, the television treatment might well have been scarier than the big-budget studio effort. Whether fictionalized or not, the Discovery Channel show stays closer to the book (In a Dark Place, by Ray Garton). Using the Usher-like ending of destroying the house doesn't seem to offer any release in the big-screen version. Sometimes reality is scarier than the tales we tell after dark.
Reading Railroad
Leave a comment August 27, 2019 Steve Wiggins
Rereading books takes time. When I was a professor my reading time was largely limited to the summer and winter breaks. Those who haven't experienced the academic lifestyle firsthand may not realize just how incredibly busy you are during term time. Class prep, grading, delivering lectures, leading seminars, committee meetings, office hours—it really is much more than a nine-to-five job. Time to sit down and read through books is limited, and since those books are heady, academic tomes, they take considerable time. (I'm reading an academic book at the moment and I can only get through a finger-full of pages at a sitting.) All of this means I'm generally reluctant to reread books. Not that I'm a traditional academic anymore, but because I have a huge and growing stack of books I haven't read yet.
Nevertheless, a project on which I'm working required rereading Gerald Brittle's The Demonologist. I read this about two years ago, while commuting. The thing about reading on a bus is that the quality of reading time is strained. Recall isn't the same as when you're in a comfy, stationary chair, and no stranger's head is lopping onto your shoulder as they doze. (Yes, that happens, and frequently for those of us on the first bus of the day.) In any case, my copy of this book doesn't have an index and I couldn't remember if some specific instances were discussed. The only thing for it, then, was to read it again. My second reading was done with more skepticism than I could conjure on a bus ride, but still my original sense remains: we willfully cut out much of human experience if we stop our ears completely. At least in principle.
Ed and Lorraine Warren were self-taught ghost-hunters. More often than not, their cases turned into what they believed were demonic cases. Since academics tend not to publish much about such things, the self-taught are pretty much free to declare themselves experts—just switch on reality TV and check me on this. Experts are those with experience who are willing to share it. The other day I met someone who, like me, used to live the commuting life. We both agreed that telecommuting was a more authentic way to exist—your otherwise mandated three or four daily hours traveling can be more sanely used at home. Still, we had to agree, bus time could be used for activities like reading, and once you stop commuting you have to carve time out for it. In such a situation rereading a book is at times necessary. When I was a professor, I reread frequently. But then, it was mostly articles or books that I wouldn't take on in their entirety. In the reading life there's never enough time.
Summertime Boos
There are so many of them that it's difficult to keep up. Movies, I mean. And they can be an expensive habit. As some readers may know, I've followed The Conjuring franchise pretty much from the beginning. That particular film was long anticipated (at least in certain circles), but still I waited until it was available for home viewing to see it. I always feel kind of selfish going to the movies on my own since they are a kind of event—a form of social outing. For me, however, horror movies are research, but that hasn't taken away the thrill of seeing one on the big screen once in a while. The Conjuring branched off into the Annabelle movies, and I caught the latest offering in the latter series in a theater. I hadn't realized that The Curse of La Llorona had been released a couple months earlier, and that it was being considered part of the diegesis. It was back to the small screen to catch up.
La Llorona is based on a Mexican folktale and is tied to the other films in its universe by a character who recurs from Annabelle, Fr. Perez. He's not the protagonist, but he does introduce one way in which horror responds to the present insanity we call the US government—the character who defeats the fiend is hispanic. In fact, most of the characters in the film are from hispanic families in Los Angeles. They take down the ghost without the assistance of border guards or any kind of wall. They don't need the simpering help of the GOP. Like most of the movies in this franchise, however, they do make use of religion.
When Fr. Perez can't offer immediate help to the family beset by La Llorona ("the weeping woman"), he points them to a local shaman. In this otherwise Catholic world, the truly amazing outcome is that the faith healer does possess the knowledge and ability to stop the evil. While the backstory of the ghost is well known, the nature of the entity is a bit unclear. Most Conjuring films feature a demonic presence, so it's kind of a relief to have a garden variety ghost for a change. You see, when Ed and Lorraine Warren challenge entities in these movies they do so with religious accoutrements which tend not to fail. Ghosts, however, traditionally don't require a religious banishment. We're entering new territory here, of course. And I hadn't even known about this film until after I'd seen its predecessor. How can you hope to keep up with spirits? It's a full-time job.
Conjuring Success
Leave a comment August 6, 2019 Steve Wiggins
I wonder if it's one of the consequences of success. While writing up some thoughts on The Conjuring diegesis, I got to wondering how accurate the movies' portrayal of the occult museum of Ed and Lorraine Warren is. The museum set appears in multiple films, and in Annabelle Comes Home it serves up a smorgasbord of horror. Some of these artifacts, such as Annabelle, really do hold places of infamy in the establishment and some are clearly used in the cinematic version to set up spinoffs to keep the franchise alive forever. Curiosity drove me to the open web—website owners of spaces of reputation now distrust this "open web," what with its money grubbing and lack of peer review—to peruse some actual photos. That's how I learned the museum is permanently closed. The reason given: zoning issues. (I presume they don't refer to the Twilight Zone issues.)
That The Conjuring franchise has proven remarkably successful hardly requires footnoting. With The Conjuring 3 due out next year, a total of eight films will have been produced over seven years, currently and it currently stands as the second most profitable horror franchise in history. For anyone wondering why I wrote Holy Horror, such numbers may help explain. Now what of these zoning issues? I wonder if it's not the number of visitors drawn by the films that have created a problem. (Those with questions aren't purchasing Holy Horror, that's for sure!) Since the Warrens have now both passed away, the New England Society of Psychic Research runs the museum and is seeking a new place for it. (We have space in my garage, just sayin'.) And hey, Gettysburg isn't too long a drive from here!
Success, I suspect, does come with its price tag. People are drawn to those who've captured the interest of the big screen, and what with everyone dying death is a growth industry. I suspect part of horror's appeal is just that. We all have to face it some day and while many run from it screaming some use this opportunity to prepare. But I've also got to wonder if it can maintain its level of fear. I recently watched the current iteration of It and found little that was even frightening about it. But then again, clowns have never bothered me that much. The bullies are the scariest thing in the film and Washington DC's full of them. Talk about success and its consequences.
Ghouls and Dolls
Leave a comment July 28, 2019 Steve Wiggins
It was my plan—as if plans ever really work out—to see Annabelle Comes Home on opening weekend. July got away from me but I finally found my way to the theater yesterday. My current book, Nightmares with the Bible, deals with demons in cinema. One of the chapters covers The Conjuring universe, and since this is the sixth film in that diegesis (with one tangentially attached spin-off) watching the movie was as much research as it was fun. While the demon utilizing the doll Annabelle is clearly the main villain, the film, as in most of the franchise, interjects any number of entities. Ed and Lorraine Warren, in real life, kept a museum of occult objects in their house. This room contained items that had figured in their cases—they maintained demons didn't possess objects, but people—including the doll Annabelle.
The new film maneuvers three girls (Judy, the Warrens' daughter, her babysitter, and a friend) into the house alone. One of the girls releases Annabelle from her blessed case, and a nighttime of terror ensues. The demon behind Annabelle animates several of the haunted objects, so the girls have to deal with many ghoulish threats. The film knows it is following tropes such as a car breaking down by a cemetery at night, and the idea of a babysitter being attacked by monsters, and at times it gives a slow wink to fans of the genre. Still, there are plenty of genuinely creepy moments and a few jump startles. It also shows the clearly demon in its "true form" at the climax of the film. When it does so, it matches traditional renditions.
Set to become the highest grossing horror series of all time, The Conjuring universe mixes films that claim to be "based on a true story" and others, such as Annabelle Comes Home, that use real settings but without claiming to follow actual events. What I found engaging about this particular movie was the fact that the youngest girl, Judy Warren, was the one who figured out how to re-capture the demon. There are holes in the plot, of course, but featuring a young woman not requiring a man's help to trap a demon is somewhat unusual in a Catholic diegesis. True, she doesn't perform an exorcism, but Judy does contain the evil without a priest, or even her father's direct help. As this diegesis wends its way into American folklore, moments like this are increasingly important. Even though there are demons here, the women don't require men to do the heavy lifting.
Dolls and Puzzles
Leave a comment June 14, 2019 Steve Wiggins
Maybe you're anticipating it too. Annabelle Comes Home, I mean. My latest book, Nightmares with the Bible, has a chapter on The Conjuring universe, and with the recent death of Lorraine Warren I've been working on another piece trying to fit this whole puzzle together. "What puzzle?" did I hear you ask? The puzzle, I answer, between what really happened in the Ed and Lorraine Warren investigations. You see, the paranormal is one of those things we've been taught to laugh at, and we're told that people who "see things" are dweebish kinds of gnomes that don't see the light of the sun enough. Reality television has brought some of these ideas into vogue, what with ordinary people gathering "scientific" evidence of ghosts and the rest of us scratch our heads while hoaxes are revealed on the B reel. But still, Annabelle lives.
It has also been announced that The Conjuring 3 is in development. For some of us—and I'm well aware that movie-making is an industry and that profit is its goal—the question of what's real can be as haunting as any ghost. You see, I buy into the scientific method, as far as it goes. That caveat is necessary, however, since science is neither able to nor interested in assessing all the strange things people see. Our senses can be fooled, and a great many people haven't developed the critical ability to scrutinize their own observations skeptically. Skepticism itself, however, need not become orthodoxy. It's like any other tool in our mental box—each has its own purpose. A car engine is dismantled in order to rebuild it in working order. And there may be a ghost in the machine.
That's what gets me about this whole Conjuring thing, and beyond that the contested livelihood of the Warrens. There may be such a thing as mass hysteria (the current state of the US government can hardly be explained any other way), but the Perron haunting that was the subject of the first film provides, I think, a good test case. A family of seven living in a house where they experienced things not only collectively and individually but also in different combinations would seem to be a place where multiple angles could be used. According to Andrea Perron's written account, the Warrens' investigation never really took off there. That didn't prevent a very successful movie franchise from being launched, loosely based on their story. And getting at the truth is never as simple as buying your ticket online and waiting for the show to begin.
1 Comment April 21, 2019 Steve Wiggins
Resurrection, as I argue elsewhere, is a scary thing. Since today's Easter, at least in the western Christian world, people are—or should be—thinking about resurrection. In the case of Jesus, a young man who died "before his time," resurrection seems only fair. Indeed, in the earliest biblical hints of the concept it applied to people in precisely that category. The story's different for older folk who are beginning to wear out and are ready to go to a better place. Christianity made the idea of resurrection more palatable by stating that you get a new and better body next time around. The creeds say, after all, "the resurrection of the body." Heaven, it seems, is an embodied location. Resurrection is necessary to get there.
Horror writers and film makers have used revenants to great effect. When they do, pop culture latches on. Think about the vampire craze of the early 2000s. Or the ongoing fascination with zombies. Even your basic garden-variety ghost. They're all revenants that attract and repel us. We're not quite sure what to make of life after death. It's okay if it's played out beyond human senses, but as much as we want life to go on we don't want to witness it here. Horror films like to play on this ambiguity. They're closely related to religious ideas. I'm occasionally asked why I watch horror; it's essentially the same question as why I study religion. Sometimes you just need to look closely enough to find the connection. Resurrection, as I discuss in Holy Horror, is tied to some of humanity's most basic fears.
Just two days prior to Easter, Good Friday in fact, Lorraine Warren passed away. A fervent believer in resurrection, she was half of the dynamic paranormal investigating couple of Ed and Lorraine, about whom I've posted from time to time. This coincidental occurrence illustrates once again the connection between resurrection and horror. The Warrens were fond of declaring that haunting spirits of the human kind were those that had not passed over into the next world. Revenants were confused spirits (not to be mistaken as demons, which were something completely different). Resurrection, presumably, awaits just the other side of the veil. Clearly religion shares this roadmap with horror. Just as the Warrens will be resurrected as characters in this summer's forthcoming Annabelle Comes Home, such returns to life may take many forms. It's Easter for some of us, and it can integrate horror and hope, if viewed a particular, perhaps peculiar, way.
Devil or Con?
1 Comment March 21, 2019 Steve Wiggins
You can't believe everything you read. That's one of the first tenets of critical thinking. This whole process is about how to get to the truth, and in a materialistic world that truth can't involve anything supernatural. These were my thoughts upon finishing Gerald Brittle's The Devil in Connecticut. Controversy accompanied Ed and Lorraine Warren's investigations and some of the people involved in these cases have later claimed the extraordinary events didn't happen. Others claim that the Warrens offered them to make lots of money by selling their stories. The effect of reading a book like this is a blend of skepticism and wonder. Among their fans the Warrens are held in the highest regard. Anyone who begins to look into their work critically ends up frustrated.
So when I put this potboiler down—it is a compelling read—I went to the internet to find out more. Then I realized what I was doing. Using the internet? To find the truth? It's a vast storehouse of opinion, to be sure, but what with fake news and alternative facts who knows what to believe anymore? I found websites debunking the whole case as a hoax. Others, naturally, claim the events really happened. Both kinds of web pages have the backing of someone in the family involved. It's a pattern that follows the Warrens' work. In one of the many books I've read about them they claim to have ten books. If my math is right this was number ten. Even that remains open to doubt.
The word "hoax" seems a bit overblown. Dysfunctional, maybe, but hoax? Reading Brittle's account it's clear there were some issues in this family. Having grown up in a working class setting, I'm aware such scenarios are extremely common. Accusations were made that this was an attempt to spin gold from straw. The nearly constant stress of blue collar families makes that seem less far-fetched than a stereotypical devil showing up in a modern house because a satanic rock band placed a curse on the family. Lawsuits—the most avaricious of means for determining facts—apparently prevented a movie deal and have even made this book a collector's item. Somebody, it seems, is making money off the story. As after reading the other nine books, the truly curious are left wondering. My skepticism kicked in early on, but then again, I've always liked a good story.
Leave a comment March 9, 2019 Steve Wiggins
Although it may be only a venial sin, overwriting is nevertheless an offense. As a professor I read many papers from students who had great difficulty clarifying what they were thinking only to disguise it with too many words. I have finally finished Andrea Perron's House of Darkness, House of Light. Because academics too often dismiss personal testimony, I feel compelled to consider it. Now over 1,300 pages later, I have discharged my duty. Ed and Lorraine Warren, despite being famous, are difficult to assess in book form. Yes, they (ghost-)wrote ten books, but they never had permission to include the Perron story that stands behind The Conjuring. The eldest daughter took on the task herself and even seems to be aware of (in the acknowledgements) a dubious talent for overwriting. What the Warrens saw as demons, she sees as ghosts. Who has the right to decide?
I wish the author well in her writing career—those of us who write tend to be natural boosters of others—but it would've been nice to have had a more condensed version focusing on the events in the Harrisville house. One interesting thing caught my attention here: according to Perron the Warrens called by phone after the Perrons moved from the offending house and tried to talk Carolyn, the mother, into a book deal. Offering a healthy income from the proposition, they gave a hint of what other writers have claimed—they had the business angle firmly in mind. I've read enough from people who actually knew the Warrens to believe they sincerely believed they were helping people. They also had to make a living, and ghost stories tend to sell well. Some use that as evidence that they were only trying to make money. I'd remove the only, without dismissing the financial incentive.
It's nearly impossible to read a very long book and feel that you haven't come to know the author. Also, it's difficult to dismiss material written, even if overwritten, so sincerely. We live in a world that we don't understand nearly as well as we think we do. Call it old school on my part, but I believe in extending the benefit of the doubt to eyewitnesses, particularly when there are several of them and they have a decade to observe closely what many others never get a chance to see. This set of three books is a window into a realm over which the drapes are usually drawn. For those willing to do some hard mining, there's something of value here.
3 Comments February 19, 2019 Steve Wiggins
Reading about demonic possession is enough to scare you away from ever using a ouija board. In fact, I've never played with one; growing up my strict religion would've prevented it in any case, and already as a child I'd been warned of the dangers. During my research for Nightmares with the Bible, I've been reading quite a bit about ouija. Originally a species of divination, the ouija, or spirit board, became popular during the growth of Spiritualism. Spiritualism is a religion based on the idea that the dead still communicate with the living, ensuring believers that life continues beyond death. It still exists, but not with the numbers that it boasted in the early days. Among the solemn admonitions of Ed and Lorraine Warren (about whom I've posted much in recent months) was that ouija boards opened doorways for demonic entities. Some of their stories are quite scary.
Image credit: Mijail0711, via Wikimedia Commons
Whatever else you can say about America, a fact beyond dispute is that if something can make a buck it will be marketed and sold. So it was with ouija boards in the 1970s. I remember seeing them on the shelf with other games at local department stores. Even then I knew they weren't a toy and I wondered how anyone could be promoting them for general consumption. At Grove City College—that bastion of undergraduate conservatism—stories circulated about how students (usually coeds) were attacked in their locked rooms after playing with ouija boards. This is, I was later to learn, a staple of collegiate urban legends. At the time, however, I took it very seriously.
Thus it's strange when I find out that others my age were more curious about them. Recently at a party with friends around Valentine's Day, the question naturally came up of how some of us met our spouses. One of the women mentioned that before she'd met or even heard of her future husband (who has an unusual surname) a ouija board spelled out his name. She later met and married him, not on the board's recommendation, but she remembered that years before she'd been given a hint. Now these friends are not cheats and liars—they're not even Republicans. They're people we trust. On our drive home that night my wife mentioned she'd used a ouija board once, with friends, back in her high school years. She asked the name of her spouse (long before we met) and came up with Sam. I'm no Sam, but when we first met in grad school I was still going by my stepfather's surname and my initials were S-A-M. Coincidence? Probably. My future wife did not pursue me; indeed, it was the other way around. Even so, there in the dark on the nighttime highway I felt a familiar frisson from childhood concerning a form of divination that seems to know more than it should.
Troubled Trilogy
The quest for the truth is never-ending. New information keeps emerging and our poor brains have evolved to survive the perils of weather and wild animals, not to receive all available information. It's the fear that I might've missed something that has me going back to a place I'd rather not go. Andrea Perron's account of what happened in Harrisville, Rhode Island is the only real published source by eyewitnesses that's readily available. Her three-book account, however, is a deeply personal ramble that isn't easy for the fact-finder to follow. A couple of months ago I posted on volume one, intimating that I would probably have to go back and read two and three. There's a compunction about completion that humans have. An economist once told me not to measure a venture by sunk funds. The same applies to books, I guess.
In my ongoing research into demons, and particularly the work of Ed and Lorraine Warren, I felt I had to continue with the troubled trilogy. Volume one barely mentioned the Warrens. Volume two finally revealed some of the story. It took 260 pages to get there, but finally, an eyewitness account! It has plenty of gaps, of course, but it is, as they say, different from the movie. You have to understand that a certain sector of the internet was buzzing like flies in January over The Conjuring. Based on a true story, it was a sympathetic treatment of the Warrens' work that it was hoped would give credibility to the demon-hunting duo.
House of Darkness, House of Light in total is well over a thousand pages long. I know, I know—"caveat emptor." Nevertheless, I've always felt that long books owe it to their readers to deliver on the promises. I want my haunted house books to be scary. Or at least moody with a gothic sensibility. I do understand the desire—the compunction—to approach life philosophically. Were I ever to put my life out there on display, beyond the occasional forays on this blog, I would hope to do it in a way that left readers wanting more, not less. Biography is a dicey subject. Autobiography even more so. The traditional publisher steps in with an editor firmly in hand. I know because I've been doing this for about a decade now. The writer and the editor, like the farmer and the cowman, should be friends. It's tough, painful even, when someone takes a pen to what you've carefully crafted. The results, when they work, give the reader what s/he wants. The quest may indeed be never-ending. At least trilogies have only three parts.
Leave a comment January 18, 2019 Steve Wiggins
Fair play, so the adage dictates, includes turnabout. Well, that may be overstating it a bit, but after reading Joe Nickell I decided to give the other side a shot. Guy Lyon Playfair's account, This House Is Haunted: The Amazing Inside Story of the Enfield Poltergeist, was originally written in the aftermath of the truly bizarre happenings at that location in the late 1970s. My reason for reading the book, as maybe you've guessed, is that Ed and Lorraine Warren had a hand in the story. Or at least a finger. The movie The Conjuring 2 was based on the Enfield case and it placed the Warrens front and center in its resolution. This is Hollywood, however, and since I'm working on a book on demons I need to try to dig beneath the surface a bit, into regions where tenure-seeking academics often fear to tread.
Interestingly, the Warrens are not even mentioned in Playfair's book. The edition I read was updated in 2011. Playfair himself was one of the two primary investigators from the Society for Psychical Research. The other was Maurice Grosse (who features in the movie). Before eyeballs start rolling, it's worth noting that the Society for Psychical Research is actually a respectable academic association. As Playfair makes clear in his book, many of the members are skeptical and few believed that the evidence gathered by Grosse and Playfair indicated anything paranormal at all. The book isn't shy about dropping the names of the many investigators who dropped in—some uninvited—to either study or debunk the infamous poltergeist. The incident, however, went on to inspire the movie Poltergeist by giving it free license to change almost all of the details. Of the many investigators the Warrens remain unmentioned.
On this blog I've been chronicling the on-going struggle of trying to figure out what Ed and Lorraine Warren were up to. Those who met and interviewed them invariably state that they were/are sincere. They didn't accept payment for their investigations, and often seem to have been genuinely interested in helping the people plagued by what mainstream science claims simply can't exist. Nevertheless, they had and have detractors even amid the parapsychology crowd. Playfair's account is quite interesting. Called in early after the onset of strangeness on Wood Lane, Playfair recorded and recounted what he saw. He caught some trickery and wasn't shy about pointing it out. At the end of the episode, however, he remained convinced that something unexplained had happened there. Nickell dismisses it all with a sentence or two. In the interest of fair play it would seem only right to hear the other side of the story.
Fun with Skeptics
1 Comment January 14, 2019 Steve Wiggins
You have to love skeptics. Really. Like most people who've spent many years attaining a doctorate, I'm naturally skeptical about many things. One thing that I only temporarily lost (between about 1991 and '99, if I recall) was an open mind. That is to say, I discounted many things out of hand because people with doctorates don't countenance such things. I eventually realized the folly of academic arrogance and went back to considering things by actual evidence. The results were interesting. In order to help with my Ed and Lorraine Warren dilemma, I decided to read The Science of Ghosts by Joe Nickell. It's hard not to like Nickell. He was a stage magician and eventually earned a doctorate in folklore. He then made a career out of being a paranormal investigator.
He begins his book by claiming to have an open mind about ghosts. Very quickly, however, a skeptical reader with an open mind notices his magician's tricks. He's very good at misdirection. While putatively not debunking (but actually debunking) ghostly encounters, he time and again comes to the states of consciousness when individual super-impose images from the unconscious mind onto what they're seeing: when falling asleep, in the middle of the night, when waking up, when doing routine chores, when concentrating, when working. That about covers over 90 percent of human time. During these periods we're likely to mistake what's not really there for what is. It could explain much of the driving I've witnessed in New Jersey, if not ghosts. And he also picks straw men (and women) to knock over (pardon the violent metaphor). Accounts by the credulous are his favorites to explain away.
What we really need is a middle ground between credulousness and a skepticism that can't be convinced even by evidence. Yes, ghost hunters use ridiculous methods for claiming "proof." Yes, some credible people legitimately see incredible things. Nickell never deviates from his definition of ghosts as a form of energy left by the departed. Nobody knows for sure what ghosts are, of course. If they did there'd be little mystery about them. Although Nickell claims openmindedness, he states at several points that at death brain activity ceases therefore nothing can think, walk, or talk afterward. As any experimentalist knows, the results reflect the way an experiment is set up. If the assumption is that there can't be ghosts, there won't be ghosts. To get to the truth of the matter something between credulousness and biased skepticism must be brought to the table to see if it really tips. Skeptics are fun, but an actual conversation might be more fruitful.
Now Hiring?
In keeping with my recent theme of jobs you never knew you could have, I recently read a story a friend sent me from The Vintage News. The story concerns a spiritual counselor who is planning to marry a ghost. I didn't know that spiritual counselor was an available job. You see, I had taken enough psychology courses in college that I could've had it as a minor, but I didn't declare it. At the time I was destined, or so I thought, for a career in ministry and psychology seemed a good subject to assist with that. Also, I naturally tend to try to figure out what motivates people. Like most career options, not having a science background prevented me from pursuing psychology as a fall-back career. But spiritual counselor?
The woman in the story lives in the United Kingdom. Here in the United States, where unhappy people seek any opportunity they can find to sue someone, having a job as a spiritual counselor probably involves ordination. Even if you're ordained, as I learned from long years both attending and teaching in seminaries, you always refer those who come to you to a licensed psychologist. Clergy can easily be sued for providing bad advice. That's why the counselor part of this job seems so odd to me. That, and the woman the story features is only 27. I suppose that's time enough to finish a doctorate, for the truly ambitious, but apparently she doesn't have a terminal degree. Just a post-terminal lover.
Also, I learned that spectrophilia is a condition with a name. The idea of intimacy with spirits is nothing new, of course. The ancient idea of incubi and succubi reflect this concept, and a number of the stories in the Ed and Lorraine Warren oeuvre include sexual attacks by demons or ghosts. What's different here is that the young woman wants to marry a spirit she can't see. Unlike most such reputed cases of spectrophilia, she claims spirits are superior to physical lovers. Despite the oddities that make such a story newsworthy (in a sense) a potentially important point could emerge from all of this. Love is not a physical phenomenon. We all know it when we feel it. I suspect that other such feelings, like finding the perfect job that matches your skills and interests, are likewise intangible. The problem is finding out that such jobs even exist.


The X-Ray Telescope (XRT) aboard NASA's Swift satellite captured the first light echoes ever seen from a soft-gamma-ray repeater. These stellar remnants, which are thought to be highly magnetized neutron stars called magnetars, occasionally belt out a series of X- and gamma-ray flares. On Jan. 22, 2009, an object known as SGR J1550-5418 began its second and most intense round of outbursts since October 2008. In the following days, Swift's XRT captured what appears to be an expanding halo as X-rays from the brightest bursts scatter off of intervening dust. Multiple rings form as the X-rays interact with different dust clouds. Closer clouds produce larger rings. Both the rings and their apparent expansion are an effect of light's finite speed and the longer path the scattered light must travel.. They will be studied to make a more reliable measurement of the distance to the source and to the dust clouds.
Nibiru Anunnaki - ALERT - RADIATION FROM THE ALCYONE PHOTON BELT WILL EFFECT ALL DNA STRUCTURE !!!!.
Susan Joy Rennison Interview. Diamond Age.


Also known as Ballyket Courthouse, The Ballyket Courthouse, Barry's Fancy, Clogger Quilt, The Clogger Quilt, The Cogger's Quilt, Corry Hilly, The Glogger's Quilt, Kathleen's Fiddle, Larry Redican's, Larry Redigan's, Micho Russell's Favorite, Micho Russell's Favourite, Paddy Finlay's, Rattigan's, St Andrews, St. Andrew's, St. Andrews, The Swallow.
A tune by this name has been recorded together with The Humours Of Westport (lots of times), The Abbey (a few times), The High (a few times) and Swinging On The Gate (a few times).
The Clogger's Quilt has been added to 1 tune set.
The Clogger's Quilt has been added to 76 tunebooks.
# Added by Donough 14 years ago .
I have added this tune as one of the tunes on the Dezi Donnelly album 'Familiar Footsteps', that has not yet been posted.
I have the 5th track (Gan Ainm) if anyone wants it sent directly to them as I don't see much point in posting it as a Gan Ainm.
Post it anyway. A name might appear for it sooner or later.
# Posted by Jamie 14 years ago .
I play this tune in G so it will sit nicely on my flute. Great tune!
Martin Hayes calls this The Swallow, and I've seen it elsewhere under that name.
On an "Outlet" label compilation as "Saint Andrew's" reel, I think played by The Sean Ryan Trio. It's also in Bulmer & Sharpley Vol. 3 under this name.
Er, BallykeT, 'scuse the typo in the comment header.
This tune can also be found on Joe Burke's and Andy McGann's album: a Tribute to Michael Coleman. It's great. It doesn't appear in the details due to a typo when the album was submitted.
NYC fiddler Jackie Roche, student of James Morrison, recorded this in the late 50s on his Avoca LP Irish Violin as Rattigan's. Probably the first recording of it.
# Posted by KLR 11 years ago .
This is the one called "Larry Redigan's" on "Music at Matt Molloy's" CD.
They play this as the last tune in the Mountain Road set. I always thought it quite similar to Tom Ward's downfall. Lovely tune. Prefer it in F than G.
Yes, it's nice in F. In our local session, this F tune is played as a different tune from the one in G, which I posted as a separate entry here: https://thesession.org/tunes/7678.
When Will posted this tune as a duplication in a different key he was mistaken indeed. I've always known B.C as Paddy Finlay's and definitely different to this tune, The Swallow.
Submitted on September 4th 2007 by Dow.
Submitted on August 15th 2008 by nicholas.
This one ~ was played a lot in sessions in Durham (UK) back in the Seventies. I think it was in one of the Bulmer-Sharpley tunebooks, which were used a lot, as a "Gan Ainm" tune. At any rate, it was always played in F Major, so I've entered it here thus, just in case it's one of those odd tunes like Julia Delaney that is conventionally always played in some less usual key.
Kathleen Collins, Larry Redican, etc.
The Kathleen in "Kathleen's Fiddle" was fiddler Kathleen Collins. At the time that the tune appeared on the "Tribute to Michael Coleman" LP in 1965, she was married to Joe Burke so as Burke, Andy McGann and Felix Dolan had no real name for the tune, they named it for Kathleen. When the recording was reissued on Green Linnet as a CD, however, that name was annulled in favor of "The Clogger's Quilt." Sean Ryan called it "The Swallow" on his LP with button accordionist Pat Lyons, "Back Home to the Cliffs of Moher" and that title was used by Martin Hayes when he recorded it. It is remembered in New York as a composition of Larry Redican, who definitely favored the key of F, but there is no documentary proof of that.
Patsy Hanley's playing on 'An Fheadóg Mhór' accompanying CD.


text:
#parents | #teensvaping | New Jersey Students to Receive Messages on the Dangers of Vaping
The new campaign is being released in the midst of a nationwide explosion of teen use of vaping devices or e-cigarettes, which the United States Surgeon General declared has reached epidemic levels.
"Vaping can inflict significant damage to one's health, especially for youth," Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey Executive Director Angelo Valente said. "We want teens throughout the state to know the risks they are taking if they choose to use e-cigarettes and to encourage them to avoid using these potentially dangerous products."
The campaign, which emphasizes the risks associated with vaping by comparing e-cigarette use to skydiving without a parachute, also will appear on billboards, trains and buses throughout the state. The messages include a pathway to gather additional information at VapeFactsNJ.com, the New Jersey Department of Health's website on e-cigarettes and vaping.
"The popularity of e-cigs and vapes among youth threatens to reverse hard-fought declines in adolescent smoking and create a new generation of nicotine addicts," said Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal. "We must raise public awareness about the dangers of vaping to prevent another deadly addiction epidemic from taking root in our communities."
Vaping is considered less harmful than smoking traditional cigarettes and tobacco products, because e-cigarettes contain fewer toxic chemicals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, like regular cigarettes, e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is highly addictive and makes vaping devices just as addictive as cigarettes.
Nicotine raises blood pressure and spikes adrenaline, which increases a person's heart rate and the likelihood of having a heart attack. Nicotine affects the development of adolescent brains by changing the way synapses are formed, which can negatively change parts of the brain that control attention and learning, according to the Surgeon General. Recent data also links vaping to chronic lung disease and asthma.
As of December 27, 2019, the CDC reported that 2,561 people throughout the United States had been hospitalized with severe lung injuries caused by vaping. This outbreak also was responsible for 55 deaths. In New Jersey, there have been 53 confirmed and 46 probable cases of vaping-related illness and one death, according to the Department of Health.
In 2019, more than one in four high school students reported using an e-cigarette in the previous 30 days, according to preliminary results from the CDC's annual National Youth Tobacco Survey.
The results indicated a significant increase in teen vaping, up from 20.8 percent of high schoolers in 2018 to 27.5 percent in 2019. The use of e-cigarettes has exploded in the past decade, especially among teens. In 2011, just 1.5 percent of high school students said they used an e-cigarette.
Best known for its statewide substance use prevention advertising campaign, the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey is a private not-for-profit coalition of professionals from the communications, corporate and government communities whose collective mission is to reduce demand for illicit drugs in New Jersey through media communication. To date, more than $100 million in broadcast time and print space has been donated to the Partnership's New Jersey campaign, making it the largest public service advertising campaign in New Jersey's history. Since its inception, the Partnership has garnered 180 advertising and public relations awards from national, regional and statewide media organizations.
SOURCE Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey
#teensexting | #sexting | FAU Professor Sameer Hinduja Publishes Research on Safe Sexting for Teens January 17, 2020
#students | #parents | Student fight videos investigated at La Costa Canyon High January 17, 2020
#cyberbullying | #cyberbully | Del. Cardin: Bill would end competitive elections for Circuit Court judges January 17, 2020
#cyberbullying | #cyberbully | B.C. teen Amanda Todd's cyberbullying case could go to court in 2020 – Smithers Interior News January 17, 2020

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/WxSdk/Base.php');

require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/WxSdk/Message.php');
require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/WxSdk/User.php');
require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/WxSdk/Menu.php');

require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/WxSdk/OAuth.php');
require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/WxSdk/Js.php');

require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/WxSdk/Pay.php');

class CI_WxSdk{
	var $option;

	public function __construct($option)
    {
		$this->CI = & get_instance();
		$this->option = $option;
	}

	//基础接口
	public function checkSignature(){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Base();
		return $qc->checkSignature($this->option['appToken']);
	}

	public function getAccessToken(){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Base();
		return $qc->getAccessToken(
			$this->option['appId'],
			$this->option['appKey']
		);
	}

	public function getServerIp($accessToken){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Base();
		return $qc->getServerIp(
			$accessToken
		);
	}

	//用户接口
	public function getUserDetailInfo($accessToken,$openId){
		$qc = new WXSdk_User($accessToken);
		return $qc->getUserInfo(
			$openId
		);
	}

	public function getUserList($openId=null){
		$qc = new WXSdk_User($accessToken);
		return $qc->getUserList(
			$openId
		);
	}

	//Message接口
	public function getMessage(){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Message();
		return $qc->getMessage();
	}

	public function sendMessage($message){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Message();
		return $qc->sendMessage($message);
	}

	//Menu接口
	public function setMenu($accessToken,$data){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Menu($accessToken);
		return $qc->setMenu($data);
	}

	public function getMenu($accessToken){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Menu($accessToken);
		return $qc->getMenu();
	}

	public function delMenu($accessToken){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Menu($accessToken);
		return $qc->delMenu();
	}

	//OAuth接口
	public function getLoginUrl($callback,$callbackInfo,$scope){
		$qc = new WXSdk_OAuth();
		return $qc->getRedirectUrl(
			$this->option['appId'],
			$callback,
			$callbackInfo,
			$scope
		);

	}

	public function getPcLoginUrl($callback,$callbackInfo,$scope)
	{
		$qc = new WXSdk_OAuth();
		return $qc->getPcRedirectUrl(
			$this->option['appId'],
			$callback,
			$callbackInfo,
			$scope
		);
	}

	public function getLoginCallBackInfo()
	{
		$qc = new WXSdk_OAuth();
		return $qc->getState();
	}

	public function getAccessTokenAndOpenId()
	{
		$qc = new WXSdk_OAuth();
		return $qc->getAccessTokenAndOpenId(
			$this->option['appId'],
			$this->option['appKey']
		);
	}

	public function getUserInfo($accessToken,$openId)
	{
		$qc = new WXSdk_OAuth();
		return $qc->getUserInfo(
			$accessToken,
			$openId
		);
	}

	//Js接口
	public function getJsApiTicket($accessToken)
	{
		$qc = new WXSdk_Js($this->option['appId']);
		return $qc->getJsApiTicket(
			$accessToken
		);
	}

	public function getJsConfig($jsApiTicket,$url)
	{
		$qc = new WXSdk_Js($this->option['appId']);
		return $qc->getJsConfig(
			$jsApiTicket,
			$url
		);
	}

	//支付接口
	public function getOrderPayInfo($openId,$dealId,$dealDesc,$dealFee,$dealNotify){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Pay(
			$this->option['appId'],
			$this->option['appKey'],
			$this->option['mchId'],
			$this->option['mchKey'],
			$this->option['mchSslCert'],
			$this->option['mchSslKey']
		);

		return $qc->unifiedOrder(array(
			'openid'=>$openId,
			'out_trade_no'=>$dealId,
			'body'=>$dealDesc,
			'total_fee'=>$dealFee,
			'notify_url'=>$dealNotify,
			'trade_type'=>'JSAPI'
		));
	}

	public function getJsPayInfo($prepay_id){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Pay(
			$this->option['appId'],
			$this->option['appKey'],
			$this->option['mchId'],
			$this->option['mchKey'],
			$this->option['mchSslCert'],
			$this->option['mchSslKey']
		);

		return $qc->jsPayOrder(
			$prepay_id
		);
	}

	public function getPayCallBackInfo(){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Pay(
			$this->option['appId'],
			$this->option['appKey'],
			$this->option['mchId'],
			$this->option['mchKey'],
			$this->option['mchSslCert'],
			$this->option['mchSslKey']
		);

		return $qc->notifyOrder();
	}

	public function sendRedPack($openId,$money,$orderId,$shopName,$wishing,$actName,$remark){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Pay(
			$this->option['appId'],
			$this->option['appKey'],
			$this->option['mchId'],
			$this->option['mchKey'],
			$this->option['mchSslCert'],
			$this->option['mchSslKey']
		);

		return $qc->sendRedPack(array(
			'nick_name'=>$shopName,
			'send_name'=>$shopName,
			'mch_billno'=>$orderId,
			're_openid'=>$openId,
			'total_amount'=>$money,
			'total_num'=>1,
			'min_value'=>$money,
			'max_value'=>$money,
			'wishing'=>$wishing,
			'act_name'=>$actName,
			'remark'=>$remark
		));
	}

	//查询代金券批次信息
	public function getCoupon($couponStockId){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Pay(
				$this->option['appId'],
				$this->option['appKey'],
				$this->option['mchId'],
				$this->option['mchKey'],
				$this->option['mchSslCert'],
				$this->option['mchSslKey']
		);

		return $qc->getCoupon($couponStockId);
	}

	//发放代金券
	public function sendCoupon($couponData){
		$qc = new WXSdk_Pay(
				$this->option['appId'],
				$this->option['appKey'],
				$this->option['mchId'],
				$this->option['mchKey'],
				$this->option['mchSslCert'],
				$this->option['mchSslKey']
		);

		return $qc->sendCoupon($couponData);
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
HomeABC PoliticsAbortion in US with no Roe v. Wade would get very complicated, attorney Kathryn Kolbert says
Abortion in US with no Roe v. Wade would get very complicated, attorney Kathryn Kolbert says
Thu, May 5, 2022 by ABC News
Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney Kathryn Kolbert has spent a majority of her career thinking about the after-effects on reproductive rights if the Supreme Court was to overturn Roe v. Wade. She believes prohibiting abortions will force some women to turn to unsafe practices to terminate pregnancies that will put their lives in danger.
"Women are crafty," said Kolbert. "I'm not advocating that they break the law, but the reality is, as in the days before Roe, the underground market will operate."
Kolbert is best known as one of the lawyers who argued and helped win the landmark 1992 abortion case Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. Now, a leaked draft opinion for the Supreme Court appears to indicate that the court is poised to fully overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Kolbert told ABC News' podcast Start Here that if the ruling is overturned, so-called "trigger laws" will immediately go into effect to ban or prohibit abortions across half the country.
"The reality is that women in those 25 or 26 states will not be able to obtain the reproductive health care that they need," said Kolbert. "The bottom line: Women will have to travel hundreds of miles, sometimes thousands of miles, to obtain reproductive health care. That's what they did in the 1970s."
If women cannot afford to travel to obtain proper reproductive care, Kolbert said that some women will take dangerous measures, either through unsafe surgical abortions or medical abortions, that could result in serious consequences.
"They'll figure it out and there's all kinds of ways they can do that. Internet access from doctors around the world, getting drugs from their friends… traveling across the border, and picking up the drugs, all kinds of ways," said Kolbert.
Kolbert said that, although medical abortions, which is the use of different medications to terminate a pregnancy, are safe under medical supervision, there are still always risks that women can bleed more than expected. For those who obtain the drugs illegally, they'll often be deterred from seeking follow up medical care when they need it.
"[A woman in Texas] was prosecuted for self-managing her abortion. They dropped those charges eventually, but [she] was dragged into court," said Kolbert. "[Authorities] found out because she went to a hospital, because she was bleeding and wanted appropriate health care."
Kolbert said another risk is women receiving "bad drugs."
"For the most part, [medication is] safe when you get the right drug, but there's unscrupulous people out in the world and that's a risk," said Kolbert. "But the reality is, even with the risks of medication… [For some women] being forced by the government to carry your pregnancy to term is unthinkable and they will do, as they did in the days before Roe, just about anything to terminate a pregnancy."
The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 13% of annual maternal deaths can be attributed to unsafe abortions. The same study states that in developed regions, it is estimated that 30 women die for every 100,000 unsafe abortions.
For now, abortions are legal while the final Supreme Court decision remains pending. Kolbert said that there are three things people can do to help: donate money to abortion rights causes, get political and build "a badass social justice movement" because "change has never happened until there has been a cry for change."
"The young people in our country really need to demand that their rights, their liberties that they've enjoyed their entire lifetimes, be respected," said Kolbert. "It is not appropriate to tell women that they can't make decisions about their lives. It is not appropriate to tell women that their bodies do not belong to themselves. We need to stand up and say, 'No way.'"
California Bar seeks to disbar ex-Trump attorney over quest to overturn 2020 election
Why would senators not be given access to the Biden and Trump classified documents?


text:
Danicheh Kheyr (, also Romanized as Danīcheh Kheyr; also known as Danīcheh Kheyre, Dunicheh Khair, Dūnīcheh Kheyr, and Maḩmūdābād-e Danīcheh Kheyr) is a village in Khorrami Rural District, in the Central District of Khorrambid County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 303, in 76 families.

It is located about 5 km from Safashahr and 170 km north of Shiraz.

References

Populated places in Khorrambid County

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Cruelty Free Europe
Who we are News & Updates Shop Cruelty Free Donate
On World Day for Animals in Laboratories we reveal the number of animal tests worldwide
Animal tests & Covid-19
Read our latest briefing on number of animals used in experiments in the EU
We rely on the generosity of our supporters to create a world where nobody wants or believes we need to experiment on animals.
Every single donation received. whether large or small, helps animals in laboratories.
> Cruelty Free Europe is launched
Cruelty Free Europe is launched
European animal protection groups come together to end animal testing in the EU
Posted By Stephanie on 11th July 2019
We have joined forces with fellow animal protection organisations from across Europe to form a new network - Cruelty Free Europe. With over 10.5 million animals a year still suffering in experiments in European laboratories, the network is calling on the newly elected European Parliament to make ending animal testing a priority.
Cruelty Free Europe will be working with experts, politicians and supporters across the continent to come up with a comprehensive plan. Priorities will include reviewing EU funding of alternative tests, ensuring the cosmetics testing ban is upheld and securing an end to tests on dogs, cats and non-human primates.
At the launch in Brussels yesterday, where the group will be based, Geoffrey Deckers – chair of animal protection group Een Dier Een Vriend from the Netherlands and part of the new network – said: "The number of experiments taking place on animals in the European Union has remained high and more or less static for the past five years. That's just not good enough. We want to see that number coming down significantly year on year. Ethically, morally and in the interests of better, humane and human-relevant science, it's time that EU decision-makers made this issue a priority."
Our CEO Michelle Thew said: "People across Europe are shocked to discover how many animals – including monkeys and dogs – continue to suffer in experiments in Europe. Cruelty Free Europe is going to turn the volume up on this issue and make sure change happens."
© Cruelty Free Europe aisbl


text:
Home Hip-Hop How Freddie Gibbs And The Alchemist Cooked Up "Alfredo" | The Formula...
How Freddie Gibbs And The Alchemist Cooked Up "Alfredo" | The Formula S2E3
After years working separately, Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist had all the ingredients they needed for a front-to-back classic when they finally linked up to make 2020's "Alfredo." Here, the pair breaks down the making of "Skinny Suge," the haunting confessional that finds Gibbs reliving the trauma of having one foot in the rap game and one deep in the streets of Gary.
Rodney Carmichael | November 12, 2021
The Grammys was never the goal for Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist. Anyone intimately familiar with the hard-hitting discographies of both underground kings knows this all too well. But when their joint album "Alfredo" — a mafioso-inspired combination of both their names — earned a nod for Best Rap Album last year it was one of the rare occasions that the Academy got hip-hop right.
Alfredo also proves the power of a well-executed collaboration. The best sonic alliances can elevate artist and producer and change the career trajectory of both. Most fans probably don't know that the first time Gibbs and Alchemist collaborated, in the early 2000s, Gibbs was a new signee on Interscope and Alchemist was a rising producer in demand. Though the unreleased tracks they made never saw the light of day after Gibbs' deal soured, the duo was destined to reconnect like Voltron. First, though, they each played major roles in elevating joint rap albums to high art with other high-powered collaborators. While Alchemist built long-running discographies with the likes of Prodigy, Action Bronson, Boldy James, Evidence and many more, Gibbs made two front-to-back classics with Madlib. The pair had relinked for a trial run alongside Currensy on 2011's "Scottie Pippens," which led to the trio's 2018 LP "Fetti." From there, "Alfredo" was just over the horizon.
On this week's episode of The Formula, the third in a season that digs into the collaboration between rappers and producers, we visit Alchemist's L.A. studio for a smoke-veiled conversation with the duo as they share the special sauce for "Alfredo," an LP equal parts brooding and boastful. They break down the making of "Skinny Suge," the haunting confessional that finds Gibbs reliving the trauma of having one foot in the rap game and one deep in the streets of Gary. The resulting classic, "Alfredo," is what happens when two masters of their craft link at the top of their game: Everybody eats.
Previous articleReport: Rapper Slim 400 Shot, Killed In Inglewood
Next article.M.E.N.A.C.E. – Protect Ya Neck Freestyle
Tafari XL – The Blue Tape
Young Fahro – Love Or Loyalty Ft. The Game, Sea Beatz, All.In.The.Fam
Uncle Murda – Rap Up 2021 (Official Audio)
My Lifeumentary ft @TheRealGoodz Executive produced by @therealjiggyjay_
Zieme – Told You So
Boss Fetti – Haters Don't Matter (Album)
Big Daddy Kane & KRS-One Trade Hits On Star-Studded "Verzuz"
Netflix's "Squid Game" Generated $891 Million In Value: Report
Travis Barker & Kourtney Kardashian Are Engaged
Junior Dos Santos Calls Out Roman Reigns Over AEW Criticism


text:
Disbelief and anger over $1m funds 'squandered' by cleaner's widow
Madam Pusparani Mohan, 34, with her children (from left) Dharmaa, 10, Thurgashini, two, Sarveswaran, 11, and Mageswaran, seven. In the background is a portrait of her late husband Chandra Mogan Panjanathan, who was killed after he was hit by a taxi outside Changi Airport's Budget Terminal in 2012.ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
http://str.sg/Fka
$1m all gone? Many demanded to know spending details of cleaner's widow
Joyce Lim
joycel@sph.com.sg
The tragic death of a Malaysian cleaner two years ago set off an outpouring of public sympathy in the form of cash donations for his widow and children.
But that sympathy turned to anger two days ago, after The Sunday Times reported how Madam Pusparani Mohan, 34, had run through close to $1 million received in donations and insurance payouts in a year.
The story reached about 1.1 million readers on social media, and was shared, liked or commented on 139,000 times, a record for a story in this newspaper.
Many readers were shocked and angry at how quickly the $1 million had been squandered, and demanded to know details of Madam Pusparani's spending.
Some accused her of being irresponsible for cashing in her children's insurance policies, while others felt she was trying to gain sympathy and more money by telling a sob story.
On March 17, 2012, Madam Pusparani's husband Chandra Mogan Panjanathan, 34, was killed after he was hit by a taxi while operating a cleaning machine outside Changi Airport's Budget Terminal. The Chinese national who hijacked the taxi is in jail.
His death left Madam Pusparani, a cleaning supervisor, with four young children to raise, one of whom was two months old.
A donor told The Straits Times he had given money as he felt sorry for the children. "I am very angry she did not do what was right in the interest of the children... A decent terraced (house) in Johor can cost less than RM500,000 (S$195,000). She should have bought it. That should have been the first priority."
Mr Vignesh K. R., 40, who contacted the paper to offer advice to Madam Pusparani, said he had met many people who were overwhelmed when they were suddenly given a huge sum of money.
"They would try to figure out how to use it, like go for a holiday or invest in a business. But very often, they don't keep track of how much money they still have in the bank, and before they realise it, they are left with their last dollar," said the treasurer with the Microfinance Society (Singapore).
Madam Pusparani said Changi Airport Group had engaged a financial adviser to help her manage the donations. She invested about $800,000 in insurance policies for her four children - then aged two months, five, eight and nine. But a reliable source confirmed she later cancelled those policies and withdrew the money.
About $500,000 went into a failed transport business started by her brother, while the remaining half had been used up by May last year.
Though The Straits Times probed her repeatedly up until yesterday, on how she could have spent $400,000 in five months, she said in a phone interview from Malaysia: "I really don't know how I used up the money. I am sorry it's all gone. I am not asking for more money. I just want to be honest about it. What I need now is a job in Singapore.
"I read the story and comments online. I feel very sad. It is true I don't know how to manage the money. I am ashamed. It's a lesson learnt and I want to start afresh. I hope people don't judge me too quickly."
When contacted, Madam Pusparani's former employer Campaign Complete Solutions said the company would consider hiring her should there be a job opening.
"She was with the company for barely three months when her husband was killed. At that time, she was working as a cleaning supervisor. We will consider hiring her since she has experience in this job," said human resource manager Elsie Teo.


Buhlites are the ideal choice for creative lighting solutions in architectural, TV studios, location lighting, corporate and educational conferencing, video streaming and video conferencing.
Manufactures and distributes digital video projectors.
Backstage was created to provide a source for fully integrated high end video systems.
George R. Snell Associates, Inc.


Ventilation Product Registration | Tamarack Technologies, Inc.
Your answers are used to evaluate the service that you have received and to learn how Tamarack can better serve the needs of our customers and end users. Thank you for your participation.
How did you purchase this product?
Were you given an opportunity to see a demonstration of the product?
Did the sales associate answer all of your questions to your satisfaction?
Was the item you wanted in stock?
Please provide the name the retail outlet.
Was your order processed in a timely manner?
Did you receive the product within the delivery time stated?
Please provide the name or URL of the vendor.
How was this product installed?


TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian authorities gave seven suspects life in prison and handed out other sentences Saturday in a trial for two 2015 attacks in Tunisia that killed 60 people, mainly tourists.
Samir Ben Amor, the lawyer for one of the 44 defendants, said the verdicts were handed down for the deadly attack against the country's famous Bardo Museum and a massacre at a popular seaside resort.
Other defendants received jail terms ranging from 16 years to six months, while the charges against 27 of the suspects were dismissed, according to Ben Amor.
They were tried in a single trial that wrapped up at dawn on Saturday. The prosecution will appeal the verdicts.
The suspected mastermind of both attacks, Chamseddine Sandi, hasn't been caught and is thought to be hiding in Libya.
Police say the defendants denied having participated directly in the March and June 2015 attacks during their questioning but several of them acknowledged having provided logistical assistance to Sandi.
On March 18, 2015, at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, 22 people were killed by extremists. Two of the gunmen were killed by police.
Three months later, on June 26 in the coastal city of Sousse, attacker Aymen Rezgui walked onto the beach of the Imperial Hotel and used an assault rifle to shoot at tourists, killing 38 people. Rezgui, a Tunisian student who trained with Libyan militants, was killed about 15 minutes later by police.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for those attacks, which devastated the country's tourism sector as travel agencies pulled out and governments issued travel warnings.
Tourism has since partially bounced back after Tunisia's government implemented a series of security measures to protect popular destinations.


text:
Atomic Testing, One Panel at a Time
UNLV professor Andy Kirk's "Doom Towns" takes a ground-level view of ground zero, and presents it in the form of graphic novel about Las Vegas' position in the atomic firmament.
A panel from "Doom Towns" explores atomic fears in the age of testing. (Illustration by Kristian Purcell)
By Jason Scavone
Sixty-five years ago, the exercises at Camp Desert Rock called for soldiers to charge into ground zero seconds after an atomic bomb was detonated.
In all, some 6,500 troops were sent running toward fire and haze as the ground melted to glass at the Nevada Proving Ground, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. From Oct. 22-Nov 22, 1951, bombs went off three times during the round of testing, known as Operation Buster-Jangle. Among other things, the tests were to determine the psychological effects on military personnel. Would troops still be able to function after seeing the bomb?
And then, after they went into the middle of the devastation, the radiation? They were swept off with a broom. "Looked like it came right off the rack at Sears Roebuck," one soldier described it.
For your nuclear decontamination needs: Sears! Somehow, the slogan didn't catch on.
That kind of story is part and parcel of Doom Towns: The People and Landscapes of Atomic Testing, an ambitious graphic history from history professor Andrew Kirk published by Oxford Press.
Kirk served as a principal investigator for the Nevada Test Site Oral History project from 2003 to 2008. It zeroed in on the lived experience of test site workers, those living in the area outside the gates, and others affected by atomic testing — not necessarily high-ranking personnel normally found in academic works.
Kirk's primary research field is environmental history, so the chance to write about desert dwellers who offered a rebuttal to the idea of the Mojave as an empty wasteland made Doom Towns a natural fit.
Originally, though, Kirk hadn't intended to write a book after helping bring the oral history into being. An editor at Oxford talked him into it with an unusual pitch: marry his past research with a graphic novel approach. The idea resonated. Just as the oral history project had given voice to those seldom asked, this book could honor the art that had come from the era. With a graphic approach, that homespun art that came out of the people directly affected by testing could be presented in a way that wasn't always readily apparent in oral history.
"During the oral history project, I realized that art and visual representation of work and life in atomic regions was very much a part of the historical experience and part of the culture that emerged from living in secrecy and doing this kind of extraordinary work, and living around that kind of extraordinary, experimental landscape. It was part of the historic record people didn't really look at."
Kirk identified U.K. artist Kristian Purcell, who had specialized in paintings of the intersection of people and technology in militarized landscapes but had never done anything in a graphic novel format.
"I had to restrain my lecturing and instead really rely on Kristian to convey themes and tone through the art. I think he did an amazing job doing that," Kirk said. "One of the things that was challenging was he was in England, I'm in the United States. I think it all really came together when we decided we would Skype. He would literally sometimes draw while I was looking. I really got a sense of his process as an artist and I think he got a good sense of my process as a scholar. It was a collaboration to make the art and scholarship cohesive."
The result is a collection of rare primary source documents and a traditional history of the era anchored by a 100-plus page graphic representation of the age of atmospheric atomic testing, starting with the Manhattan Project Trinity test in 1945 through the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. The treaty forced nuclear testing underground until 1992, when the United States fired Operation Julin's Divider, the final nuclear test on U.S. soil. By 1996, the door was closed on the testing era , with 1996's Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
"Doom Towns" tells the story through the lens of the people who were on the ground, like Dorothy Grier Whitcomb, one of the clerical workers for the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory during Operation Ranger in 1951; or Donald English, the Las Vegas News Bureau photographer who captured some of the most iconic images of the testing era, including the mysterious Miss Atomic Bomb photo.
It's New York Times reporter Gladwin Hill that Kirk poses as kind of Virgil of this nuclear era. Hill was the Los Angeles bureau chief for the Times and began covering the tests in 1951. He documented much of the era until becoming one of the first environmental reporters in the country, for the Times, in 1969.
"One of the things as an environmental historian I noticed was [Hill's] perceptions of the people around Las Vegas and the nuclear testing region was pretty simple in the beginning but became more sophisticated and thoughtful as he got to know them," Kirk said. "The UCLA archive has this astounding collection of this guy's field notebooks. I went to UCLA to access these collections and learn more about this influential character. They brought out this dusty box and cracked it open and this big whiff of cigarette smoke came pouring out. It actually smelled like a 1950s reporter.
"At the time there were a lot of people who were passionate and who thought it was right, and there were protestors who were passionate and thought it was wrong. But the bulk of the people were doing jobs and they worked incredibly hard. They worked long hours in arduous conditions, so they weren't waxing poetic about history. They were living it.
Hill, he said, managed to be both in the action around him while standing a bit apart to observe. "It enabled him to articulate some of the same things I was interested in as a historian."
More than 40 graduate students worked on the project, both on the oral history and afterward. One offshoot even included middle- and high-school students from Clark County School District who were selected in 2013 to travel to the National Atomic Testing Museum's Kazakhstani counterpart, the EcoMuseum, on a U.S. State Department grant.
It wasn't just students who worked on the oral history project and the book that helped out. Kirk used some of his undergrad students as a test site of his own. "I did do some beta testing of some of the draft chapters with several sections of History 102, and they gave me excellent feedback that was as useful to me as the extensive academic peer review I got," he said.
"This was a fantastic project for student participation. Throughout the research there were at least eight different classes participating in some way in the research that led to the creation of the book, or on an aspect of the book itself. It was a fabulous opportunity to teach about method and about working with sponsored projects on grants toward an end that was clearly going to have an impact academically but also in the community."
A Brief History of the A-Bomb
1942 Creation of Manhattan Project; first nuclear chain reaction, University of Chicago
1943 Los Alamos Laboratory established
1945 Trinity, first nuclear explosion (21 kt); atomic bombings of Hiroshima (15 kt) and Nagasaki (21 kt), Japan; WWII ends
1946 Operation Crossroads begins U.S. postwar atomic testing in Pacific
1947 Atomic Energy Commission established; Doomsday Clock announced
1949 First Soviet atomic test, Joe 1
1951 Nevada Proving Grounds selected as continental atomic test site
1952 Mike, first full-scale thermonuclear test (10.4 mt)
1957 Rainier, first contained underground test; HOOD, highest yield U.S. atmospheric test at Nevada Test Site (74kt)
1958 Temporary testing moratorium
1961 Temporary testing moratorium ends; Soviet TSAR bomb most powerful in history (50 mt)
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty bans atmospheric atomic tests
1968 Boxcar, highest yield underground test conducted (1.3 mt)
1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
1974 Threshold Test; Ban Treaty signed
1976 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions treaty signed
1977 U.S. Department of Energy established
1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty signed
1982 Nevada Desert Experience begins annual protest program
1988 Largest anti-nuclear protests at NTS
1991 Russian nuclear test conducted at NTS; U.S. approves Nuclear Weapons Testing Moratorium
1996 President Clinton signs Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
A Brief History of the Making of Doom Towns
2003 Nevada Test Site Oral History Project launched funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, with Andy Kirk & Robert Futrell as co-principal investigators
2006 Completely digital archive of research results with full online access launched with the help of UNLV University Libraries
2010 Oral History Project wins National Council on Public History Best Research Project Award
2012 Kirk publishes "Rereading the Nature of Atomic Doom Towns in Environmental History"
2013 U.S. State Department grant sends12 UNLV researchers and students to Soviet Test Site in Kazakhstan to create new archive of oral histories
2015 U.K. artist Kristian Purcell joins project, completing 800 pieces of original art for graphic section of book
2016 Doom Towns: The People and Landscapes of Atomic Testing published by Oxford University Press
Jason Scavone
Originally Posted In
UNLV Innovation
Nevada history, Our Faculty, faculty profile
Administrative Units:
Office of Community Engagement
Related Experts:
Andrew Kirk
Share your thoughts about this story. To comment, you'll need to login into your Facebook account. Your comment will post immediately. Comments that are not in keeping with our comment policies may be removed by editors.
An Eastsider's Perspective
Research | July 17, 2019
Latinx oral history project gives grad student a way to up-end the misperceptions of the Las Vegas community he grew up in.
Myth-Busting UNLV Study Reveals that Gamblers Can't Detect Slot Machine Payout Percentages
As casino operators optimize the house advantage, a new UNLV study contradicts long-held beliefs about a player's ability to detect differences in how much – and how often – a slot machine pays.
Alumni Event Reveals Ancient Maya Secrets (and Rebel Pride)
UNLV archaeologists Arlen and Diane Chase spoke with Salt Lake City alums as the Alumni Association launches its new Rebels Forever membership structure.


Developing lasting relationships with his clients is "priority one" at Birdsong Builders, Inc. for over 24 years. Billy Birdsong personally manages every phase in the construction of your custom built home and he's been building in East West Communities since 1996. His hands-on experience assures that you receive the quality product you want and deserve. Birdsong Builders has helped many families build their dream home in quality communities like Gatling Pointe South, Graystone at Eagle Harbor, Founders Pointe, and The Riverfront at Harbour View.
I would like more information on building a new Birdsong Builders custom home at The Riverfront.


text:
Steradián (sr) je v soustavě SI jednotka prostorového úhlu. Název je odvozen z řeckého stereos.

Je definována jako prostorový úhel, který vymezí ze středu na jednotkové kouli jednotkovou plochu (nebo na kouli o poloměru r plochu r²).

Steradián je v současné podobě SI bezrozměrná odvozená jednotka.

V astronomii se kromě steradiánu používá také starší jednotka čtverečný stupeň (1 sr ≈ 3282,80635 čtverečných stupňů).

Prostorový úhel odpovídající celé kouli je 4π ≈ 12,6 sr.

Poznámky

Reference

Externí odkazy

Odvozené jednotky SI
Jednotky prostorového úhlu
Bezrozměrné jednotky


text:
London Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2014.
copyright2014.
One single mom. One chaotic family. One quirky stranger. One irresistible love story from the New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You American audiences have fallen in love with Jojo Moyes. Ever since she debuted Stateside she has captivated readers and reviewers alike, and hit the New York Times bestseller list with the word-of-mouth sensation Me Before You. Now, with One Plus One, she's written another contemporary opposites-attract love story. Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied, and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can't afford to pay for. That's Jess's life in a nutshell-until an unexpected knight in shining armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess's knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages. maybe ever. One Plus One is Jojo Moyes at her astounding best. You'll laugh, you'll weep, and when you flip the last page, you'll want to start all over again.
Families -- Fiction.
Single mothers -- Fiction.
Carlingford Book F MOYE
Constitution Hill Book F MOYE
Newington Book F MOYE


HONOLULU (KHNL)- A nationally televised PBS show is in Hawaii to shoot some episodes. "Antiques Roadshow" shot a story at Kamaka Ukulele today, but the big story will come on Saturday when 6,000 people head to the Hawaii Convention Center to get their own antique pieces appraised.
This is the show's first time in Hawaii. Executive producer Marsha Bemko is hoping to see some fantastic relics of old Hawaii. "I'm sure we're going to see koa wood, royal Hawaiian objects. I imagine we'll see vintage aloha shirts."
The crew is shooting 3 episodes in Hawaii to air sometime between January and June 2007. They'll firm up the air date this fall and post it on PBS's website when they have decided. Check back frequently at pbs.org/antiques, and click on "Broadcast Schedule" on the left side of the screen. The air dates are listed by city.
Generally speaking, Antiques Roadshow show airs on PBS every Monday at 8 p.m.


In 1956 Meltzer and Franklin described arthralgia, purpura and weakness as the three core symptoms of essential cryoglobulinemia. These are generally seen in people who have type II and type III cryoglobulinemia. It is seen in 25-30% of patients with cryo. I just thought I'd share this.
Cryo Symptoms: Points to Consider Cold Soaked? Seven Ways to Warm Up.


text:
Q: Replace foreign key with value from linked table I have the following tables.
Table-A

id int(11)
table_b_id int(11)// foreign key to table_b
name varchar

Table-B

id int(11)
name varchar

Now I redesigned the db schema so that the table_b_id field type is changed tovarchar. How can I replace the table_b_id's value to corresponding name value on Table-B ?

A: Try the following
UPDATE TableA
    SET table_b_id =(
       SELECT name FROM TableB
       WHERE id = TableA.table_b_id
    )

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


For the year ended December 2018, on time performance over all routes operated by participating airlines (Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Regional Express, Tigerair Australia, Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines) averaged 79.8 per cent for on time arrivals and 80.8 per cent for on time departures. Cancellations represented 1.8 per cent of all scheduled flights. The equivalent figures for 2017 were 82.0 per cent for arrivals, 82.7 per cent for departures and 1.9 per cent for cancellations.
The 2018 on time arrivals figure was below the long term average performance for all routes of 82.5 per cent and the on time departures figure was also below the long term average of 83.8 per cent. The rate of cancellations was higher than the long term average of 1.5 per cent.
Qantas achieved the highest on time arrivals among the major domestic airlines at 80.9 per cent, followed by Virgin Australia at 80.8 per cent, Jetstar at 75.3 per cent and Tigerair Australia at 68.0 per cent. QantasLink was the best performing regional airline for on time arrivals at 84.3 per cent, followed by Regional Express at 79.6 per cent and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 75.3 per cent. The Qantas network (Qantas and QantasLink combined operations) recorded 82.7 per cent for on time arrivals while the Virgin Australia network (Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines combined operations) recorded 80.4 per cent.
Virgin Australia achieved the highest level of on time departures for 2018 at 82.5 per cent, followed by Qantas at 81.5 per cent, Jetstar at 73.1 per cent and Tigerair Australia at 69.3 per cent. The regional airlines were led by QantasLink at 85.2 per cent, followed by Regional Express at 83.0 per cent and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 78.2 per cent. The Qantas network recorded 83.5 per cent for on time departures while the Virgin Australia network recorded 82.2 per cent.
Tigerair Australia had the highest percentage of cancellations at 3.5 per cent during 2018, followed by Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 2.7 per cent, Jetstar at 2.5 per cent, Qantas at 1.9 per cent, Virgin Australia at 1.7 per cent, QantasLink at 1.5 per cent and Regional Express at 0.9 per cent.
Airlines' on time performance varies across the routes they serve. Individual route data by specific airline for 66 routes are shown on pages 9-23.
Of the 64 routes which met the criteria for on time performance reporting for all 12 months in 2018 (excludes Melbourne-Townsville and Townsville-Melbourne routes on which Jetstar is the only operating carrier after July 2018), the Adelaide-Gold Coast route had the highest percentage of on time arrivals at 90.8 per cent and the Adelaide-Port Lincoln route had the highest percentage of on time departures at 92.1 per cent. The Brisbane-Mount Isa route had the lowest percentage of on time arrivals at 65.8 per cent and the Ayers Rock-Sydney route had the lowest percentage of on time departures at 60.0 per cent.
Cancellations were highest on the Sydney-Melbourne and Melbourne-Sydney routes at 5.4 per cent, followed by the Brisbane-Sydney route at 3.0 per cent, the Broome-Perth route at 2.9 per cent, the Sydney-Brisbane and Canberra-Sydney routes at 2.8 per cent and the Alice Springs-Darwin route at 2.6 per cent.
Emerald Airport recorded the highest percentage of on time arrivals at 90.0 per cent and Port Lincoln Airport recorded the highest percentage of on time departures at 90.3 per cent. Mount Isa Airport recorded the lowest percentage of on time arrivals at 65.8 per cent and Ayers Rock Airport recorded the lowest percentage of on time departures at 60.0 per cent. These figures only refer to reported routes and do not cover all flights at these airports.


We are entering our shortest week of the year!!! We have lots of fun Thanksgiving read alouds planned and can't wait to celebrate our first round of informational writing as a class on Tuesday. These first graders have become experts at teaching how-do different jobs at home and at school. Be sure to check the photo stream to see our celebration fun and check out pictures from our Toy Day at school too.
Come have a yummy dinner or dessert and support our school!!!
November 22 – Happy Thanksgiving!!!
November 22 – Happy Birthday Charlotte!!!
Thank you so much for all your donations for our PE CARES food drive. Our school collected thousands of items for families in need!!! Way to go, Georgetown families!!!
This entry was posted in News from Mrs. Stadt on November 18, 2018 by rstadt.


The redesign of the Mercedes-Benz SLK 340 Judd is probably the most successful project of Carlsson tuner.
This racy SLK by Carlsson features a carbon-fiber bodyshell. Thanks to the extensive use of this ultra-light yet rigid component, German tuners have achieved a curb weight of just 1,720 pounds. The brake system made out of light-weight materials saves extra weight. The racer features advanced construction techniques.
The SLK 340 Judd by Carlsson is powered by a 3.4-liter V8 engine, which pumps out 610 horsepower and 317 pound-feet of torque. The powertrain is coupled with a Hewland transmission with paddle shift operation and a 3-way adjustable KW competition suspension.
The race car wears BBS wheels (10×18 front, 13×18 rear) and AVON tires. The exterior is also highlighted by a powerful rear wing.
Maximum support and maximum safety are offered by a complex safety cage, and Carlsson `racing seats from Fibreworks.
The Carlsson SLK 340 Judd was presented at the Geneva Motor Show.


Joseph Tayadaneega (1743-1807) called the Brant, the Great Captain of the Six Nations. Thayendanegea, means "two sticks bound together", denoting strength.
Source: Natural History and pictures of the mammals by Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, Zurich, 1824. Drawn by Karl Joseph Brodtmann. Original: Naturgeschichte und Abbildungen der Säugetiere von Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, Zürich, 1824. Gezeichnet von Karl Joseph Brodtmann.
This entry was posted in 1798, 18th Century, Canada, Native American, North America and tagged Native american dress, North American costumes on 3/6/16 by world4.


Refine your search of 111 storage facilities in Prairie Grove.
42 units reserved in Prairie Grove, Arkansas yesterday. Reserve now to secure your unit.
How does self-storage in Prairie Grove work?
When looking at pricing for storage units in Prairie Grove, it's important to think about rental rates in terms of price for value. Sometimes, the cheapest storage unit doesn't always mean it's the best unit for YOUR needs.
If you're looking for a cheap 5x5 unit in Prairie Grove, you'll get the best value by renting a $35.00 unit at Superior Storage - Shady Grove.
If you're looking for a cheap 10x10 unit in Prairie Grove, you'll get the best value by renting a $60.00 unit at Superior Storage - Oak St.
If you're looking for a cheap 10x15 unit in Prairie Grove, you'll get the best value by renting a $89.95 unit at Affordable Storage of Centerton.
If you're looking for a cheap 10x20 unit in Prairie Grove, you'll get the best value by renting a $148.35 unit at Southern Storage.
How does self-storage in Prairie Grove compare to nearby Arkansas cities?


Discover New orleans Football Friends Date, the totally free football fans dating site for singles who play football & those looking to meet New orleans footballers.
Browse local New orleans Singles who love Football - New Orleans single men or New Orleans single women.
Meet New orleans Football Fans. The place to find your New orleans Football Fans Dating Match.


text:
Timmons announces deal to settle Greenville Health System dispute; final vote to come
Deal, if approved by GHS trustees, would end effort to sell GHS and increase community donations to $100 million
Timmons announces deal to settle Greenville Health System dispute; final vote to come Deal, if approved by GHS trustees, would end effort to sell GHS and increase community donations to $100 million Check out this story on greenvilleonline.com: https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/south-carolina/2018/03/01/sen-william-timmons-announces-deal-settle-ghs-dispute/385234002/
Liv Osby and Tim Smith, The Greenville News Published 12:59 p.m. ET March 1, 2018 | Updated 4:38 p.m. ET March 1, 2018
GHS(Photo: GHS)
COLUMBIA – The state Senate on Thursday gave tentative approval to a proposal that would scuttle the idea of selling Greenville Health System after one of the legislation's authors announced a potential deal with GHS.
Greenville County senators voted 6-0 to give the newly amended bill a second reading, but to hold a final vote until later this month in anticipation of a GHS board decision on the deal.
Sen. William Timmons, a Greenville Republican and one of the bill's authors, said the deal includes increasing the amount of community donations to $100 million over 25 years, including at least 25 percent to socio-economically disadvantaged or minority communities.
It also includes a prohibition against extraordinary executive compensation, a ban on "golden parachutes" for outgoing executives, and a requirement for financial reporting to Greenville County Council.
The amended bill removes the sale of GHS and replaces it with approval of a master lease agreement for the hospital restructuring.
"A resolution that everyone dislikes equally is the best path forward," Timmons said. "This will end the legal controversy surrounding it."
The bill to sell GHS was introduced by eight members of the Greenville County Legislative Delegation last month. It called for dispersing the sale proceeds — which they estimated at between $2 billion and $3 billion — among various governmental, educational and other groups.
They said they took the step because public trust was shaken when GHS "unilaterally restructured and leased our publicly-owned, multibillion-dollar asset without the legislative delegation's input or consent as the law requires."
More: OPINION: It's time for the government to divest from Greenville Health System
GHS restructured from a public nonprofit to a private, nonprofit multi-regional health system in 2015. But the plan was met with opposition from the legislators, who said it would end government oversight of public assets.
The hospital system received about $82 million in county tax funds during the 1960s and 1970s to build parts of Greenville Memorial, Hillcrest Memorial, North Greenville Hospital and Allen Bennett Memorial.
GHS, which called the original bill a political attack and not in the best interest of the community, on Thursday issued a statement characterizing the proposed deal as progress.
"Senior management ... (has) been in discussions with members of the Greenville County Legislative Delegation on potential steps that can be taken to address their concerns," spokeswoman Sandy Dees said.
"Discussions are ongoing, and we are hopeful that these discussions will soon reach the point that they can be considered by our trustees and directors," Dees said. "We believe that the decision made by the Senate today to eliminate the provisions of a bill calling for the sale of GHS is a major step forward. However, there is still a similar bill in the House which provides for the sale of GHS."
Meanwhile, local reaction to the amended bill was largely positive.
Greenville County Council Chairman Butch Kirven, who called Timmons' original bill "a heavy-handed political overreach," said the deal would be in everyone's best interest.
"If all parties agree to this ... hopefully GHS can move forward and put aside a lot of the uncertainty this has generated and continue to provide outstanding health care to the citizens of Greenville County and the Upstate," he said. "This has been very disruptive and almost created a chaotic situation.
"And if we can put that behind us, everyone will benefit and move forward constructively."
Kirven said that Dr. Spence Taylor, president of GHS, has already met with several County Council members as part of renewed efforts at better communication, which he called "a welcome sign."
Greenville County Councilman Joe Dill, who supported the sale and earlier said the hospital's failure to consult the legislative delegation about the restructuring led to hard feelings, also said the deal "looks good" to him.
"I think this is a good solution to the problem," he said. "County Council wants to be more informed of what's going on. As long as that happens, I think everything can work out. Then I think things will get back to normal."
Councilman Ennis Fant also called the deal "a step in the right direction" toward a better working relationship between GHS and the Greenville County community.
"The really big thing that everybody's frustrated about is that the hospital has been unilaterally making decisions without any discussion with government entities and saying, 'Live with it,'" he said.
"That's what caused the schism ... a strained relationship between (GHS and) county council and the legislative delegation," Fant said. "They cannot work in isolation and tell everybody what they do after the fact. So whatever can be worked out and provide quality health care, I'm all for it."
Councilman Lynn Ballard said he's glad, as well, that progress is being made to stop the sale.
"I was very concerned that if you put it on the market it would be swallowed up by a huge conglomerate that is controlled by people who never even heard of South Carolina. Now it's local," he said. "It would be a very good move on the part of the legislature."
Ballard also wondered whether the measure, if it passes, would make a lawsuit filed over the restructuring moot. That suit hasn't yet been heard.
Sen. Thomas Alexander, a Walhalla Republican and chairman of the Senate finance panel that oversees health-care spending, called the amendment "a great stride."
"My concern all along has been about the sale of the hospital, so this takes that off the discussion," he said. "I'm encouraged and pleased where we are in the process. It appears to have the potential to bring finality to many different issues."
Rep. Mike Burns, who was among those who introduced the original legislation, said he was buoyed by the latest development.
"I'm encouraged that we're closer than we've been, but there's always a fly in the ointment," he said. "If this is ratified by the GHS top board, and everything holds, we've got something encouraging to talk about."
In addition to Timmons and Burns, the other legislators who introduced the original bill are Sen.Tom Corbin and Reps. Bill Chumley, Dwight Loftis, Leola Robinson-Simpson, Garry Smith and Ashley Tranthum.
Smith said he would withhold comment until he has a chance to review the details of the measure.
Read or Share this story: https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/south-carolina/2018/03/01/sen-william-timmons-announces-deal-settle-ghs-dispute/385234002/
Clemson University begins planning for new student housing
Neighbors protest more homes, more traffic, a broken pool and missing soccer field
Clemson student Bryn Turner, 22, dies in Jacksonville Beach accident
3-year-old boy dead after falling into grease trap at Tim Hortons on University Avenue