A rugged, seemingly indestructible rock mountain that is thickly blanketed by the volcanic ash it spews.
Inside the mountain, fissures in spilled and hardened lava form enormous caverns.
Location of Stark Mountain in Sinnoh.
Stark Mountain (Japanese: ハードマウンテン Hard Mountain) is home to the Legendary Pokémon Heatran. The Pokémon is only available on the second visit to the mountain, after talking to both Buck and his grandfather in the Survival Area. The player is required to have Pokémon with Strength and Rock Smash to proceed through the volcano. After encountering their rival in the entrance, the player will find Buck inside, who will go with them through the mountain to the entrance of Heatran's room.
In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Buck will take the Magma Stone from Heatran's room, but later returns it after being advised by his grandfather in the Survival Area to do so.
In Pokémon Platinum, Charon takes control of Team Galactic and travels through Stark Mountain to take the Magma Stone and capture Heatran. Once the player follows Charon to Heatran's room, with the aid of Buck, Looker arrests Charon and takes the Magma Stone. Buck later returns the Magma Stone after he and the player accompany Looker outside the mountain.
Stark Mountain's exterior changes between Pokémon Diamond and Pearl and Pokémon Platinum, however, both maintain the heated feel of the mountain. The road ascends in a huge contour up the mountain and, at that point, Route 227 ends and the exterior of Stark Mountain begins. In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, a huge clearing opens up that contains a large patch of tall grass. The entrance to the interior of the mountain can be found to the west.
In Pokémon Platinum, the exterior is more complex and the path winds around pools of bubbling lava. It is darker and aesthetic features have been enhanced. The large patch of tall grass is still present, but it is not as big. By going northwest, an item can be found in an indented section of track. By traveling to the northeastern corner, a path will open up. By following it, the road will lead through two pools of smoking, bubbling lava around another bend to the entrance of the interior of the mountain.
After the player crosses the planks they will encounter Buck, who will ask them to investigate a bunch of goons in space suits who are up to no good at the mountain while he returns to the Pokémon Center to heal. After the player enters the inside of Stark Mountain, Buck will return and accompany the player through the cave. Like the other Stat Trainers, Buck will fully heal all of the player's Pokémon after each battle.
In addition to any HMs listed below, Strength and Rock Smash are required to reach this area.
These Pokémon (excluding swarm, Poké Radar, and Dual-slot Pokémon) will be faced in Double Battles if the player is with Buck.
Note: Trainers listed below may be battled either in Single or in Double Battle mode, optionally with Buck as the partner.
Stark Mountain appeared in The Magma Stone. Buck arrived at the site too late to prevent Charon from awakening Heatran, and was soon joined by Looker, who was seeking to arrest Charon. Although Looker managed to knock Charon unconscious and Buck successfully restored the Magma Stone to its proper place, thus resealing Heatran, Charon managed to get away with the help of his two underlings.
Stark Mountain appeared in the Platinum chapter. After hearing Looker talking about Team Galactic's activities at the mountain, Buck departed for the volcano, intending to protect Heatran from the villainous team. Upon reaching the volcano in Interrupting Ivysaur, he decided to call his brother Flint, who told him about the Magma Stone hidden inside the deepest part of the volcano. Having noticed a group of Galactic Grunts following him, Buck attacked them and demanded information from them, but when he failed to get any answers from the mute Grunts, he decided to simply find the Magma Stone first. With the help of his Claydol, Buck soon found the room with the Magma Stone. Thinking that the Magma Stone was what Team Galactic was after, Buck tried to take it away, only to unwittingly unseal Heatran, which was then caught by Charon.
Alerted by the earthquakes caused by Heatran's awakening, Looker traveled to Stark Mountain to help Buck, and managed to interrogate Charon long enough to learn that he was collecting the Legendary Pokémon of Sinnoh in preparation for his attack on the Distortion World, where Giratina lives. Charon managed to escape soon after, while Looker and Buck only barely managed to get away thanks to the help from Platinum's Pokémon, although not without being severely injured.
This listing is of cards mentioning or featuring Stark Mountain in the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
While in the interior maze area, the game camera is zoomed out significantly, allowing the player to view more of the surrounding area.
The Ace Trainers guarding TM50 ask "What is time?" and "What is space?", referencing Dialga and Palkia.
In Pokémon Platinum, if the player does not talk to both Buck and his grandfather in the Battleground after the Stark Mountain mission, then Heatran will not appear in its chamber should the player return to it.
It is the only area in the game that is not a route where the player can re-battle a Trainer using the Vs. Seeker, as Dragon Tamer Darien is outside and thus it is able to be rematched, even though his team does not change.


Video is the medium that moves the world, and educators who keep up with technology shifts are preparing their students to achieve in an ever-evolving global landscape.
The use of video and interactive technology is well established as a best practice in education, dating back to the days of TV display push carts. But with 65 percent of the population seen as visual learners, what began as a teaching aid is now indispensable to the education experience.
Even as displays increase in size and resolution, they may not be reaching their full audience. In an average classroom, 57 percent of students cannot read content on a 70-inch flat panel, according to data from Radius Global Market Research.
Clearly, the issue is one of scale. From classrooms to college lecture halls, the need for vibrant, impactful visuals that enhance the education experience is growing. Educators must be able to reach all students equally all the way to the back row.
With high definition 1080p (and up to WUXGA) resolution and ultra short-throw projectors that can reproduce visuals greater than 100 inches from just inches away—even including intuitive finger touch models that turn a flat wall into an interactive experience—panel technology simply can't stand up to the size, brightness and articulation offered by modern projection technology from leading brands like Optoma.
For educators to fully invest in technology, it must be flexible, adaptable and cost effective. Optoma's Education First program allows educators in every K-12 and higher education institution to enrich their classrooms, lecture halls and auditoriums with projection technology.
Get up-close with Optoma projectors and visualize how projection can transform your classroom or lecture hall into a multimedia learning environment.
This information sheet details how educators can take advantage of deep discounts, enhanced tech support, extended product warranties and even education-centric exclusives through the Optoma Education First program.
Connection to Optoma's HDCast Pro and Amazon FireTV via onboard HDMI, or to Google Chromecast through USB, puts Optoma projection at the front of edu-tainment tech. Optoma ultra short-throw projectors also feature multiple inputs and outputs, enhanced lamp life and a built-in speaker with a mounting system that's quick and easy to install.
Ready to Learn How Education First Can Help You?
Visit Optoma online now to learn about the 4-3-2 Warranty and the four easy steps to getting onboard with Education First.


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Tag Archive jodie woods
What to do with your picnic table after a hurricane
October 14, 2021 Comments Off on What to do with your picnic table after a hurricane	By admin
By JULIA GRAHAM, AP Weather, storm and power are the worst in decades for many New Yorkers.
Some of the worst conditions are expected this weekend, but many more will likely happen in coming weeks.
A severe storm is expected to dump as much as a foot of rain on the Northeast, with winds of 75 mph and winds of 70 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
Some neighborhoods will see up to 15 inches of rain, with a chance of up to 12 inches in parts of New York.
But for most, the outlook is much calmer, with highs expected in the teens and lows in the mid-30s.
A few areas will see winds of 40 mph and wind gusts of 60 mph.
A tropical storm warning has been issued for parts of the Northeast.
The storm, which is still a tropical storm, will bring tropical storm force winds to up to 80 mph, and will be headed toward the Mid-Atlantic coast and Florida.
The forecast calls for rain and gusts as high as 50 mph, followed by showers and thunderstorms with winds as much 60 mph or higher.
In New York City, the storm will bring heavy rain, flooding and power outages to parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and Staten Island, and parts of Staten Island.
Wind gusts could reach 100 mph in parts and gusty winds in other parts of NYC.
New Jersey, which had a severe storm warning, has been ordered to get rid of all trash and yard waste by Sunday, the National Guard said.
"There's going to be a lot of trash everywhere and garbage piles up all over the city," Mayor Stephen Sweeney said.
The mayor said his department is already on alert and will take action.
The National Guard issued a storm surge warning for parts on Saturday, and said there was a chance flooding could occur.
New York Gov.
Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday he was ready to use the storm surge threat to get debris removed from New York, which he described as "the greatest threat to life."
The storm surge danger is expected in parts north of the Bronx and Staten Islanders and in parts along the Jersey Shore, according the National Hurricane Center.
The New York Red Cross said it was also working with the city to remove debris and clean up after the storm.
New Yorkers should expect to see snow on Saturday as temperatures reach 40 degrees.
The cold front is expected this week, with some areas getting up to 5 inches of snow.
Snowfall is expected for parts along Lake Ontario on Monday, with gusts in the low to mid-40s and a chance for up to 3 inches of falling snow.
Some roads are expected to be impassable with ice and snow.
Weather.com's Weathercast team contributed to this report.
jodie woods, melissa wood health, wood picnic table
jodie woods, wood shed
How do you feel about Tiger Woods wife Jodie Woods?
August 4, 2021 Comments Off on How do you feel about Tiger Woods wife Jodie Woods?	By admin
Jodiette Woods has taken a liking to her husband Tiger Woods.
A new interview has revealed that the couple is quite close, even in the face of some very ugly and personal disagreements.
The interview with Indian-American comedian and TV personality Jodiewoods wife, Jodi Woods, was conducted by The Hindu, and reveals a great deal about the couple and how close they are.
Jodi is currently engaged to Tiger Woods, and it is said that they have been friends for a long time.
She has revealed in the interview that Tiger Woods was the first person she would ask when she first met him.
"I asked him 'How old are you?' he was 20, I was 24.
Tiger had been with me since he was 18, I had been in the same city as him and I was like, 'I have a big life.
How can I talk to him about that?'
So I asked him and he was like 'Oh, you are 21?' and I said 'yes.'
He was like: 'You are 21, right?
You look 21.
I am 23.'
And then he was so excited, he just said, 'Yes, it is the year 2016.'"
Jodie, who has become one of the most popular women on TV in recent years, also reveals that Tiger has never told her that he was gay.
"It is true.
Tiger has said that he is gay.
We have never been in a relationship.
Tiger told me that he had been seeing other guys, he has not told me anything about his sexuality.
I never asked him about it, I just knew it was him," Jody said.
According to the couple, Tiger has not even revealed that he has a crush on Jodia, who is a model.
Tiger Woods wife said that she and Tiger are both very close and has said it's important to not judge people for their looks.
Read the full interview here:
jodie woods, tiger woods wife, wood ear mushroom, wood pellet grill, wooden nickel

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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< Search for More Games
Mac, PC, PlayStation 4
T (Teen, 13+)
Mild Language
Transistor is an action-adventure game with science fiction themes.
Cool Gameplay
Great Graphics/Art
Simone's Pick
Click a title to learn more about each topic.
Story & Themes
Transistor is about one woman's struggle to take back her city from a corrupt political group called the Camerata, and the robots that they used to achieve dominance.
Red is a singer whose work was considered controversial in Cloudbank. Because of this, the Camerata tried to kill her--instead they just killed her companion, and Red lost her voice in the brawl. At the beginning of the game Red discovers her unnamed male friend dead, and that his personality now lives in the Transistor. The Transistor is a great sword that looks a bit like a USB stick. The Camerata planned to use it to kill Red and take over the city.
Red and the Transistor at first try to escape the city, but after some run-ins with the Process (the Camerata's robots) she decides to take the Camerata down instead. We get the impression that Cloudbank was once a vibrant city, but now it is almost completely abandoned. Red occasionally comes across the prone body of a former community member, and she uploads their spirits into the Transistor. Each person uploaded into the Transistor grants her a new ability.
She finally crosses paths with Asher Kendrall, a Camerata member who reveals to her that the Process have broken free from the Camerata's control, and that the Camerata never meant for the city to be destroyed and for people to come to so much harm.
Eventually Red fights her way to the last living Camerata member, Royce Bracket. She fights with Bracket inside the Transistor and defeats him. Having won, she can now begin to rebuild Cloudbank. Instead, realizing that the man inside the Transistor can never be returned to his body, she lies down beside him and stabs herself with the Transistor, so that they can be together inside of it.
Transistor deals heavily with themes of government surveillance. In many of the character biographies, it is revealed that people who died were instrumental in the governance or planning of the city of Cloudbank. Their dissenting opinions may have led to them being neutralized by the Process.
The game also touches on what it means to be living. Red makes a choice to die but live in a virtual world with her lover (and presumably, the rest of the people uploaded to the Transistor). In the real world, her entire city had been destroyed and the population either killed or displaced. She saw no point in spending more time in that world. This raises interesting issues of escapism and whether reality is something tangible or whether we choose what our reality will be.
The player can choose to save at checkpoints throughout the game. There is usually one after every encounter, though some areas will have less.
Transistor might be complicated for new players. There are lots of different moves that you can load into your repertoire, and each can be tweaked to have different effects. That being said, playing with all the different configurations is fun and there are few ways to do it wrong.
Violence Most of the fighting in Transistor is against robots. However, that are some instances where people get stabbed with the Transistor. All this is shown without blood or gore.
Scary Imagery Some characters commit suicide. While this is not shown in graphic detail, the content could be frightening to some players.
Strong Language There is occasional usage of "hell."
Discrimination Transistor has a very cool female protagonist in Red.
The Process started out under the control of humans and then revealed their own agenda. Do you think this reflects our own society's fear of drones? Do you think using technology like is risky, or just a step towards the future?
Red chooses to stay in Cloudbank and fight the Camerata. Was this a brave choice? Is it brave to risk your life if there's almost no chance of winning?
Many people are uploaded to the Transistor's virtual world. Do you think this is better or worse than dying? If you could have your mind uploaded to a computer after your body dies, would you want to live like that?
Interests / Subjects:
Art (Painting, Drawing, etc.),
Robots/Mechs,
COMPETENCIES / INTELLIGENCIES:
Critical thinking,
Emotional intelligence,
REGION OF ORIGIN:
North America/U.K./Australia
ONLINE PLAY:
Cannot be played online
DIFFICULTY SETTINGS:
Violence:
Scary Imagery:
Sex & Nudity:
Strong Language:
Substance use:
Consumerism:


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Prince of Persia Remake for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 Listed by Online Retailer
by on August 19, 2020 at 3:38 PM, EDT
A store listing for a remake of Prince of Persia has appeared online, and hinted at as genuine by games journalist Jason Schreier.
The listings allegedly appeared on a Spanish-language version of Max.com, though we are still seeking an archive of the webpages. Twitter user @KenXyro captured an image of the search page, showing the games are supposedly coming to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.
Games journalist Jason Schreier added to the leak's credibility; tweeting "Video game retailers sure love leaking Ubisoft's surprise announcements." While this may have been referencing how in July Far Cry 6 was leaked ahead of its reveal by the Hong Kong PlayStation Store, Schreier later tweeted "This tweet won't age well lol" in reply to another Twitter user who doubted the listing was genuine.
Schreier may have contacts who he believes are credible when it comes to this information. If true, it is likely this was set to be revealed at the supposedly upcoming Ubisoft Forward presentation in September. Exactly which Prince of Persia title is being made is unknown, though the art may indicate it is one of the 3D titles since 2003.
Most recently, Taiwan's game ratings board has leaked a Nintendo Switch port of Grasshopper Manufacture's No More Heroes. Ubisoft published it and its sequel No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle in North America. XSEED Games published Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes in North America, while developer Grasshopper Manufacture is publishing No More Heroes III worldwide.
We will keep you informed as we learn more.
Prince of Persia Remake, Ubisoft
About Ryan Pearson
Ryan was a former Niche Gamer contributor.


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Robert Morrow
Robert Morrow Bow Maker
Maker of fine bows for stringed instruments
Smithsonian Magazine, April 2004
By Russ Rymer
The office of the botanical research station of the Center for Cacao Research, a farmer's cooperative outside Porto Seguro, Brazil, is a small, whitewashed and mud-spattered cinder block house with bare tile floors and a poster on the wall that welcomes visitors with a helpful hint: "If bitten, go straight to hospital. Remember to take the snake with you for identification." The five visitors who paused in front of this placard on a balmy midwinter morning in June 2002, though not wearing the rubber boots highly recommended by another poster "to prevent accidents with snakes," were undeterred. They had come a long way, two of them from as far as Germany, and there was something on the grounds they wished to see. Led by the center's director, José Roberto de Melo, the men ambled up the wide dirt drive past a row of greenhouses and through a grassy field dotted with spreading trees, and then down a fire road into the forest. Soon, even that avenue gave out, and the men struck off through the brush single file along a winding and barely discernible trail. Two of the cooperative's workers took up the lead, wielding machetes and wearing regulation high rubber boots, and another brought up the rear, alert for predators and, of course, cobras.
To enter a Brazilian rain forest is to trade one sensory realm for another. The trees close in high above and a twilight descends on the forest floor, and the world of sight quickly gives way to one of sound. The effect is eerily like the dimming of house lights in a concert hall in the moments before the musicians begin to play. As the men walked, the swooshing of vegetation threw a whispering shadow around their steps and the echoing chatter of parakeets and the call of crickets sparkled like stars in a firmament. When the men had spent most of an hour on the trail, de Melo stopped and laid his hand proudly against the trunk of a large tree. "Here," he proclaimed. "Do you recognize it?" To the untrained eye, the tree's gray-splotched bark seemed little different from that of myriad other trees the group had passed, and its lowest identifying leaves were lost in the stratosphere of the canopy. But the visitors did indeed recognize the tree immediately: an especially large and old specimen of Caesalpinia echinata, known commonly as pernambuco or pau-brasil.
The visitors had an intimate connection with this species. They were archetiers, craftsmen who make bows for violins, violas, cellos and basses, and wood from the pernambuco tree is the only known material, synthetic or natural, out of which a bow maker can construct a top-quality, performance level bow. For centuries, trees like this one had been harvested from the Brazilian forest and shipped to Europe and North America to be turned into bows. These particular bow makers, though, had not come to harvest the tree. They'd come to save it. Pau-brasil is today becoming scarce, so scarce that wood dealers must trek deep into the forest, just as these men had done, to find the remaining mature specimens. So scarce that international organizations have been debating measures to restrict the wood's use worldwide. And so scarce that bow makers from around the world have mobilized, starting an organization called the International Pernambuco Conservation Initiative (IPCI), with the mission of rescuing the species. In the process, they hope also to rescue their profession.
Jostling through the underbrush, the bow makers gathered around the old trunk like siblings posing at a family reunion, and a camera flash thundered through the twilight.
The bow is the Cinderella of the orchestra, the overworked and overshadowed helpmate of its more glamorous partners. Few people, even among lovers of classical music, think of the bow as an instrument in its own right, but players of stringed instruments know better. "Some people think a bow is only wood and hair," says Günter Seifert, violinist with the Vienna Philharmonic and head of the Wiener Geigen Quartet. "But the bow can be more essential to expressing the soul of the music than the violin is." For this reason, pernambuco bows are used by almost all serious orchestral and chamber musicians, whether they be professionals or amateurs, and by most advancing students, who learn early in their education that "it's better to have a fine bow and a mediocre violin than a fine violin and a mediocre bow." Seifert notes that some virtuosos often play on a range of instruments but insist on a single favored bow.
A bow may be favored for many reasons. Daisy Jopling, 35, a violinist in Triology, an avant-garde string trio based in Vienna, Austria, has sat on her fragile 150-year-old German bow, and in the heat of one mid-rehearsal argument (a hallmark of the trio's creative ferment in its formative years), she even threw it. So she respects it, first of all, for not breaking. But she also remembers the first time she laid it on her violin's strings. "Friends, when they heard me playing, said, 'What's happened to you? You could never have played that passage that way before!' You see, it's only a bow. But it changes things."
Other players might quibble with such claims, though their qualifying tends to reinforce the rule. "People who say that the bow is more important than the instrument, this I don't believe," says cello virtuoso Heinrich Schiff. "Sometimes you depend on the bow more than the cello. Sometimes it's the other way around." This from a man whose cellos are Antonio Stradivari's 1711 "Mara" and Domenico Montagnana's 1739 "Sleeping Beauty," two of the most revered instruments in the world.
On November 24, 2002, Schiff lugged his Sleeping Beauty onto the stage of the venerable Konzerthaus in Vienna to play a Bach suite and other selections in a concert that also featured the Wiener Geigen Quartet and Triology. The Konzerthaus is one of the preeminent domains in the music world, and the night's performers were among that world's celebrities, but the declared stars of the evening were the pernambuco bows the performers were using. Seifert debuted his composition "The Pernambuco Waltz," and before the intermission, the lights stayed low and taped calls of Brazilian jungle birds filled the hall as an image flashed on a screen over the stage: a photograph of the five men posing beside a pau-brasil tree in a forest half a world away.
Those same bow makers were now seated in the audience. One of them, Klaus Grünke, took the podium to incite in the general public, for the first time, the urgency bow makers have been feeling for years. "We have the chance now to react and serve as an example for others, a chance that may never come again," he said. "All of us, musicians, bow makers, instrument makers and music lovers alike, have profited from the wood pernambuco for centuries. It is time to give nature something back."
Klaus Grünke, 46, is one of IPCI's founders. He lives in Bubenreuth, Germany, a small village north of Nuremberg that is a center of instrument making. His shop is a clean, functional space, heated with a wood stove and lit with north-facing windows. A profusion of chisels, planes and knives inhabits the workbenches, and a basement storeroom holds a cache of seasoning pernambuco wood, already cut into bow sticks. As befits the atelier of a traditional craftsman, the Grünke shop is multigenerational; Klaus' father, Richard, and his brother, Thomas, work at adjacent benches. Atoy bench sits between them, scaled to the early efforts of Thomas' 3-year-old son, Raphael, and 5-year-old daughter, Lilian. But the lineage is more than familial. An apprentice from Brazil also works there under Klaus' tutelage, and former apprentices include Thomas Gerbeth, now a master maker in Vienna and the organizer of the November benefit in the Konzerthaus.
Bow makers are far flung and work independently. But they share a common genealogy, going back more than 200 years to another atelier, set beside the Seine in Revolutionera Paris, where the modern instrument bow was invented by an artisan named François-Xavier Tourte. According to sketchy historical documentation, Tourte was a lifelong illiterate and an avid fisherman who brought skills to the bow trade he'd learned during his earlier apprenticeship as a clockmaker. There were bows before Tourte, of course— they've been applied to stringed instruments since the reign of the caliphs in Arabia in the seventh and eighth centuries, and those used during the Baroque period preceding Tourte's time have many similarities with the modern bow. But Tourte compiled a series of innovations—most his own but some from others—into something new and powerful. His model was concave, with the wood bent into its shape over dry heat in a process called cambering. It had a higher head than earlier bows, to hold the horsehair away from the stick; a ferrule, or metal ring, to press the hair into an even, flat band; and a screw mechanism to draw it to the desired tension for playing. Most important, Tourte standardized every measurement of the bow, determining the optimum dimensions and weights, the logarithmic curve and precise taper of the stick. His invention earned him the honorable nickname Stradivari of the Bow.
Many string players consider that faint praise. In concert, the delicate interplay of materials, strength, resilience and balance that Tourte worked out gives performers a magical tool, allowing them to both dance and dig, to execute delicate and difficult phrasing, bouncing off the string with a strong attack in one place and, in another, settling into the string to draw the sound out of the instrument's belly. That sound emanates in part from the bow, for in addition to its acrobatic talents, the bow resonates. Its frequencies interact with the instrument's own to create a distinctive tone. ("It's 50 percent of your sound," Jopling says.) This constellation of virtues spurred Giovanni Battista Viotti, the 18thcentury violin virtuoso who is rumored to have consulted with Tourte on the bow's formulation, to declare: "Le violon, c'est l'archet"—"the violin, it is the bow." The bow is so crucial that much of the music of Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert and their musical heirs would not be performable without it, at least not in a way we're used to hearing.
"For modern techniques, the modern bow is required," says Rudolf Hopfner, director of the instrument collection in Vienna's Kunsthistorische Museum. He presides over an extensive collection of wind, keyboard and stringed instruments there, and of bows, including those of the Baroque and modern periods as well as the "transitional period" that fell between them and ended with the advent of Tourte. "The Baroque bow is superior to the modern bow for the music of its time," he says. "But if you think of Paganini and all the tricks of his day, you couldn't get that bounce and ricochet with the Baroque bow. Just as you can't play the chords of Brahms or Sibelius with a transitional bow. Their music has a drama and power that can only be achieved with a Tourte." Fine bows are among the last few non-ornamental items in Western life produced by hand by an individual, not out of nostalgia but because that remains the best and fastest way to produce them. Bow makers work today very much as Tourte worked, with tools and techniques passed from master to apprentice through the generations. The apprenticeship is as arduous as the bow's standards are rigorous, and only a relative handful of craftspeople ever become master makers. In addition to reinventing the bow, Tourte may be said to have established the working standards for a nascent profession. Just as his bow has come down through two centuries without significant alteration, so, too, has the job of the archetier.
Those centuries may be coming to a close.
On an early Sunday morning in the fall of 2001, a year before the Vienna concert, Klaus Grünke and Josef Gabriel, a fellow bow maker from Germany, stood in a light rain outside the locked doorway of a Beaux-Arts building near the Parc Monceau in Paris, waiting tensely. Soon, other bow makers began arriving, greeting each other in French and Spanish and English and German and Portuguese. Someone produced a key to the building, and the group filed upstairs to take seats around an enormous boardroom table. The table belonged to Comurnat, an organization that forges a vital link between the conservation of wild species and their commercial use by enlisting craftspeople into the cause of the materials they depend on. Comurnat's founder and director, Marco Ciambelli, has an intimate understanding of the plight of such craftspeople— his family had been tortoiseshell workers in Italy and France for generations before the material was restricted in 1989 to protect the sea turtle, which caused the atelier Ciambelli gradually to collapse. Through that business, and even before he started Comurnat, Ciambelli was acquainted with bow makers; for centuries they had used tortoiseshell in some of their finest bows. In the fall of 1999, he met with a small group of French bow makers in a Montparnasse café to relay a concern. He had learned that CITES—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora—might soon consider listing pernambuco on one of its appendices. CITES puts the weight of international law enforcement behind the conservation of plants and animals by regulating their international trade. Placing any species on the most severe of its three appendices would make its commercial use as restricted as that of ivory and tortoiseshell. Ciambelli strongly suggested to the bow makers that, given the risk to their profession, they should organize and find concrete ways to advance the conservation of pau-brasil. The result was the conservation initiative, IPCI.
Although CITES has not, as of early 2004, listed the pernambuco, the bow makers' fears of losing the use of the wood remain strong. At the meeting in Comurnat's offices in the fall of 2001, debates over the fine points of strategy and budgeting were made all the more urgent by a sense that the stakes could not be higher. "Well," Grünke had said to Gabriel as they stood in the rain waiting for things to get started, "today we find out if the profession is to survive."
Before the conversation in the café, the profession had been sailing along peacefully with little warning that an iceberg lay in its path. Bow making was in fact enjoying a renaissance, after the damage inflicted by the upheaval of two world wars. The wars had fractured the old European bow-making dynasties, whose secrets were in danger of being lost forever. Since the 1980s, though, a new generation of archetiers has rescued that knowledge by apprenticing itself to the last of the oldtime masters. The younger men and women have since mentored each other and set about producing some of the best bows ever made. New bow-making centers have sprung up in villages where nothing of the sort existed before the wars: Bubenreuth, Germany, and Domingos Martins and Guarana, in Brazil. Port Townsend, Washington, a seaside town on the Olympic Peninsula, has by happenstance become (along with nearby islands) the home of Charles Espey, Paul Siefried, Ole Kanestrom, Chris English, Morgan Anderson, Peg Baumgartel, Robert Morrow and enough other legends and strivers in the trade to make it the undisputed center of American bow manufacture.
Even before the refinements of François-Xavier Tourte, bow makers used a host of valuable materials: pearl, ivory, silver and gold, silk, ebony, whalebone and tortoiseshell. When tortoiseshell was listed by CITES, it was easy for bow makers to give it up because its use was entirely ornamental. The same went for elephant ivory, for which bow makers substituted fossilized mastodon tusk. But one material, the wood for the stick itself, was irreplaceable. "
People think gold is precious," Charles Espey, 57, once told me. "It isn't. You just go to the store and ask for it. The stick is a different story. You'd go to the ends of the earth and crawl on hands and knees to get that stick."
Tourte didn't have to go to those extremes, though he conducted quite a search to find the perfect wood. It is said he combined his fishing trips along the Seine with visits to Russ Rymer, recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, is at work on his book Out of Pernambuco (Houghton Mifflin), due out in 2005. the wharves, where he scavenged slats from New World packing crates and the staves of sugar barrels with which to experiment. Only pernambuco displayed the proper range of beneficial properties: in addition to its springiness, density and strength, it was workable, readily adopting a curve when heated and holding the curve seemingly forever.
The wood does have its drawbacks. It can be thorny and twisted, and is often too light or otherwise unsuitable for the manufacture of good bows. Substitutes have long been sought. An all-steel bow stick was tried in the mid-19th century, and, more recently, composite fiber bows have been produced to passable reviews, though they have yet to rival pernambuco in quality or popularity. Pernambuco's unreliability also made it expensive: one 19th-century expert maintained that one could go through eight to ten tons of pau-brasil to find the wood for a single, fine, 70- to 80-gram bow. Though that ratio has been improved dramatically by modern techniques, there still remains a lot of waste. Only a portion of even the best trees are suitable for fine bows, and woodcutters in the forests, unheedful of conservation and unschooled in craftspeople's needs, have been known to fell tree after tree before finding one containing usable wood.
Fortunately for bow makers of Tourte's time, the wood was readily available in Europe whenever a war wasn't disrupting maritime commerce. Its importation was owed to a red pigment that suffuses its grain ("pau-brasil" means "furnace- red wood" in Portuguese), which was extracted for dyeing the robes of nobility. The dye trade made pernambuco the main export from the Portuguese colony of Brazil in its early years, a distinction memorialized in nomenclature. Pau-brasil was not named after the colony; Brazil was named after the wood. In Tourte's time, 168 acres of central Paris were piled head-high with pau-brasil logs.
The trade in the wood collapsed after the invention of aniline dyes in the mid-1800s, leaving bow making the only international industry still reliant on the pau-brasil tree. That reliance was small compared with the volumes of wood that had been needed to produce dyes, but it was big enough to confer an inescapable responsibility on bow makers. Even if they used relatively little wood, the wood they were using was rapidly disappearing.
"It's like the Georges Bank fishing grounds," says Espey. "Georges Bank has been fished out by industry for hundreds of years. But if grandpa takes grandson and some fishing poles down some weekend and catches the very last scrod, who exterminated the species? Grandpa did."
Contemporary bow makers are determined not to become villains in a similar extinction drama. Soon after IPCI began deliberating over a response to the pernambuco crisis, its members turned their attention to more basic matters than the effect of a CITES listing on their careers. They began worrying about the fate of the tree itself.
Pau-brasil grows in a particular Brazilian habitat known as the Mata Atlantica, the forests of the coastal plain. Those forests were once lush, with dozens of species of trees, and seemingly endless, stretching uninterrupted southward from the mouth of the Amazon to the Argentine border. Today the forests exist only in tiny isolated fragments. They were plundered in the 16th century to supply world markets with woods like mahogany and pernambuco, and portions were leveled for sugar cane plantations, but the destruction has vastly accelerated since World War II with the building of highways and the intensification of development. The trees are burned for charcoal to supply the country's steel mills, and cut down by farmers clearing fields for beans and by big farming conglomerates creating pastures for beef cattle. In the states of Espírito Santo and southern Bahia, square mile after square mile of forest has been replaced with regimental rows of fast growing eucalyptus to feed a giant pulp mill at Aracruz.
The more intrepid of the world's 200 bow makers have long paid visits to the Mata Atlantica, with a single purpose: shopping. The quest for wood often brought them to Guarana, the home of the late Horst John, a German expatriate wood dealer who founded his own bow-manufacturing company in 1976, the first such in Brazil. The visitors arrived from the United States or Europe with a camera and a bathing suit, but left, more often than not, with a suitcase full of sticks. "There's a saying in the trade," says Yung Chin, 48, a bow maker who has a shop near Manhattan's Carnegie Hall: " 'A bow maker never vacations in Brazil.' "
They still are not vacationing there, but they are coming more frequently, and with a grander mission. Slowly, IPCI is building a hard-fought success on the ground. The group began, in 2001, by digging wells and installing irrigation systems to help save 100,000 pernambuco seedlings threatened by drought in a Recife nursery, and inviting such authorities as Haroldo Calvacante de Lima, director of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, to Paris to consult with IPCI on growing pau-brasil. The trees' needs are little understood. Despite pernambuco's status as Brazil's official national tree, and despite its long commercial history, its growing habits and preferred habitats are still mysterious. There is not even a scientific consensus on how many varieties and species of pau-brasil exist.
To fill this knowledge gap, IPCI sought out the cacao farmer's research concern and began to shape with it a program that includes population inventories and taxonomic studies. If all goes as planned, the studies, paid for by contributions from bow makers around the world, will culminate in the replanting of pau-brasil in the cacao habitats of Bahia state. Cacao, the source of chocolate, is a shade-loving plant; by coupling a pernambuco over story with the welfare of the cacao crop beneath it, the cacao research center's botanists hope to provide farmers with an economic incentive for keeping the trees standing during the 30 years or so needed to produce usable wood.
A quarter-century ago, wood dealer and bow maker Horst John recognized the need to replenish the dwindling stock of trees and began planting pernambuco on his property in Guarana. His effort has been expanded by Jacy Sousa, who has headed Horst John Bows since the founder's death in November 1997, and is being replicated by Arcos Brazil and Waterviolet Bows, also in the Guarana area, and by Marco Raposo Bows farther south in Domingos Martins. Floriano Schaefer, who runs Arcos Brazil with Celso de Mello, has worked to salvage and use nonliving sources of pernambuco, such as dead logs lying on the forest floor.
Those same bow makers have been spearheading IPCI's efforts with the government, which require a native's understanding of the Byzantine world of Brazilian law and politics, a territory less charted and fraught with greater peril than the country's snake-infested forests. Federal and state laws already forbid the cutting of pernambuco under most circumstances, and the transportation or use of most of the wood. As a result, Brazilian bow companies have come under close inspection by the national ecological policing agency, which wants assurances that the companies' wood stocks (and some of the wood they've sold to foreign bow makers) do not come from illegal sources. As the Brazilian makers labor to demonstrate that their suppliers are reputable, the IPCI bow makers must allay other suspicions. Brazilians have a fear, grounded in the hard lessons of their history, of the intentions of outsiders, who have traditionally come to extract the nation's natural riches but not to help the country. IPCI bow makers have had to ensure that they are not merely putting an idealistic face on the same exploitation that supplied wood to their professional forebears for 200 years.
To that end, the contract that IPCI signed with the cacao research center in November 2003 goes far beyond simply ensuring the future of the tree. It offers environmental education and economic support for poor and landless farmers. Thanks partly to the involvement of the German Association for Technical Cooperation, an agency dedicated to conservation and development issues, the contract is also integrated with efforts to establish bio corridors—extended and uninterrupted ecosystems—critical to the survival of many species of the once-universal, now fragmented Mata Atlantica. "This is big," Yung Chin observed on a tropical Bahian summer evening last November, after he, Klaus Grünke, Marco Ciambelli, Charles Espey and Marco Raposo had hashed out the final details of the accord with the cacao research center. "Three years ago I thought we were just going to go to Brazil and dig a hole in the forest and throw some money in. Boy, was I wrong. We're part of something that's bigger than we ever imagined."
The profound interconnection between a musical tool, a plant, an ecology, an economy, and a society and its history is a lesson of the forest. On the June day in 2002 when the visiting bow makers walked into the Mata Atlantica to find the old pau-brasil tree, José Roberto de Melo explained the significance of the plants they beheld: how this vine was sacred in the African religions transplanted to Brazil by the slave trade, how another had medicinal use. One of the cooperative's workers cut a large leaf from a palmetto and held it up with a smile. "This is an instrument too," he said, one that the aboriginal Indians had used to communicate over long distances. He hit the end of the stalk with the shank of his machete, and a loud, hollow bass note boomed through the forest. "Warning," he translated. The IPCI bow makers are sounding a similar alarm: the future of a high art rests on the future of an imperiled tree.
Copyright © Robert Morrow Bowmaker Ltd.


The main purpose of both website and blog is to promote Preston and the surrounding area. Particularly what the area produces.
Made in Preston, the website, started in 2002 and has steadily grown from just aircraft and buses to include history and food and plenty of other stuff. The separate blog started in February 2009 for topical comment.
The website and blog are a retirement hobby and there is no financial input except from my pension. If there are comments in support of something, it's because they're worthy, relevant or adding interest. Not because of payment.
Comments will be gladly published but they don't appear until approved. Thanks to Akismet spam blocker for it's easy control of spam, of which there is plenty, and WordPress for the free blogging software. Comments are blocked on older posts as that also controls spam.
The writer now lives in the Wyre area but was brought up in Ashton and lived in the area of Walton Le Dale for many years.
In mid-2009 a blog called 'Origin North West' was begun to take in broader based commentary.
Linked to the website www.madeinpreston.co.uk which is generally in support of people and organisations that produce things and preferably innovate as well.
I have had this web site in my favorites for quite some time and having been born and raised in Preston and now having lived in the USA for almost 50 years I do visit the site maybe twice a year and I find it very interesting. I was back in Preston for the Guild celebration's, my fourth Guild and once again enjoyed the Guild and the other couple of weeks I was there. I have never looked at the Blog page before and quite enjoyed going through it today. I will be back. Have a nice day.


Let's just assume Jack White doesn't sleep. His latest adventure finds him working with producer T Bone Burnett, and director-actor Robert Redford to executive produce a three-part documentary, a feature-length film, and a collection of recordings all titled American Epic.
British filmmakers Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty helmed the multi-faceted series, which "takes us on a journey across time to the birth of modern music, when the musical strands of a diverse nation first combined, sparking a cultural renaissance that forever transformed the future of music and the world," per a press release.
The American Epic Sessions film captures today's legends using that same machine for "a once-in-a-lifetime chance to relive the experience of the founding mothers and fathers." Said legends include: White, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Beck, Nas, Alabama Shakes, Merle Haggard, Taj Mahal, Raphael Saadiq, The Avett Brothers, Los Lobos, Bettye LaVette, Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, and many, many more.
Columbia Records will issue the more contemporary performances. Meanwhile, Sony Music's Legacy Recordings will be responsible for the archival recordings, which have been restored by Lo-Max Films, Nick Bergh, and Peter Henderson. Naturally, Third Man Records will release a deluxe box of vinyl records.
The magic begins this fall on PBS and BBC Arena. Watch a preview below.


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The Alpinestars Always Fleece Hoodie is brand new for 2017! This Alpinestars pullover hoodie is perfect for cold days & nights at the track. It is made from a cotton and polyester blend, perfect for retaining heat while maintaining breathability. It is equipped with a hood for those extremely cold days with drawstrings to keep the wind out. The Alpinestars Always Fleece Hoodie features screen printed graphics on the chest. The sweater features a front pouch as well as ribbed cuffs and waistbands. This dirt bike hoodie is a casual way to sport the Alpinestars brand while staying warm! Size XXL FEATURES 80% Cotton / 20% Polyester 280g fleece Pull over fleece with printed chest logo Internal and external labeling EXACT MEASUREMENTS Armpit to armpit laying flat: 62cm Shoulders across (laying flat): 56cm Length (back of neck to hem at bottom of shirt): 83cm Sleeve length (underarm to wrist): 58cm Sleeve opening at wrist: 12.5cm Check out my other items for sale - happy to combine postage for multiple items. Let me know if you would like any measurements or if you have any further questions about this amazing item! I post your item within 24 hours of receiving full payment for very quick delivery. Happy shopping!


Can I Trust a Dissertation Writer?
Hiring someone to write a dissertation for you is a big commitment. Being that it is a doctoral and mandatory for your graduate degree, it may be risky to have someone else complete the work for you. It is likely that you have more knowledge and experience in the medical industry than someone who works as a professional writer. It might require more work on their end and there's not always a way to verify that they would do a better job than you on this important project.
What is the Subject Focus?
Dissertations can take a long period of time to complete. The assignment presents a main idea and it's the student's job to research, review sources and highlight the most important data. The student is responsible for elaborating on the hypothesis and how significant it is to the thesis. Note that if the writer has to perform more research than you and is doing so with little to no experience, you may not get the dissertation results you desire. Choosing the topic for this assignment can be overwhelming. You will have to collect notes and data that you have kept over the years to complete the project.
This is something that ultimately defines you and what you have learned in academia. It will identify you as a professional in the field. Just because your dissertation is written by someone else professionally, it doesn't mean that it will relate to what you have learned throughout college. It is your job to justify why you have chosen the topic and your responsibility to add meaning to it.
If you choose to hire a dissertation writer there's no saying how much they'd charge for such a heavy project. You would have to provide them with all of the research and assignments you've completed over the years. Hiring someone for this is also asking them to assume your position and write from your own point of view. Have you already decided what debates you find intriguing, what issues you are interested in and whether or not there are problems in your field of study?
If you choose to work with a dissertation service it still requires that a professor looks over your work. They are likely to narrow down the project's main questions. As the instructor goes over the content they may ask you to refine information. This will require a lot of communication and exchanging of data between you and the service. Remember that instructors have worked with many students who write dissertations. They've gone over your work and writing style throughout the year. If it is different than what you have created in the past, it may not look great towards your degree (especially on such an important paper.) By realistically framing your own topic, conducting your own research and writing the paper carefully - you'll be better off than if you were to hire someone to complete the work for you.


This is a brief introduction for product managers and developers about the Uplyft Graph API.
This document was written for product managers and developers as an integration guide for the Uplyft Graph API.
Uplyft is the first open loyalty platform that helps businesses to easily connect, reward and engage users across multiple loyalty networks, currencies and applications.
The baseline for any loyalty program are customer events e.g. a customer purchases a product in a shop or a customer visits an event or ordering a service. The Uplyft Graph API provides a simple, secure and lean interface to send events to the Uplyft platform. To learn more about GraphQL visit the official GraphQL project page here.
In order to send events from within your product, you'll need to integrate the Uplyft Graph API. This enables you to reward your customers or simply track their behaviour. To get access to the Uplyft Graph API, you need to create an app on your Uplyft Platform account, so that you can authorise on the API.


The picture below give a sense of how big the duct coming up from the undercroft is.
Of course, even if the new installation qualifies as not horribly ugly, one still has to ask if a project that altars the aesthetics of the church while only cooling part of the church is really worth the effort and expense.
I discovered the photograph below hiding behind the photo I posted earlier today. It is of a principal Sunday service after lighting improvements were made in the church. For many weeks, there was scaffolding in the church, which was a particular burden for the choir. Choir members made jokes about needing miner's lamps to read their music.
How many people remember the old undercroft? It was very gloomy, and our shiny new undercroft was in sharp (and welcome) contrast. I find it hard to believe that Building the Vision happened more than twenty years ago.
Partners in Preservation is distributing $1 million in grants to non-profit organizations in and around Washington, D.C., for preservation and restoration. Washington National Cathedral is seeking a $100,000 grant to allow safety netting inside the building to be removed. The netting was erected to protect worshipers from falling debris caused by the 2011 earthquake. You can help the cathedral win its grant by voting on the Web. Details can be found on my other Web site here. You may vote once a day through May 11.
Update, 5/15/2013: Washington National Cathedral did win the $100,000 grant. Read the announcement here.


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Kelly Clarkson Reveals Why She Really Took a Break From 'The Voice'
Lauryn Snapp Published: August 25, 2022
The Voice via YouTube
Kelly Clarkson fans were devastated when they learned the "Stronger" singer wouldn't be returning to her position on the coaches panel for Season 22 of The Voice.
But give the woman a break — and we mean literally.
The singer recently sat down with the TODAY show to explain why she took a break from the hit TV singing competition.
Speaking to Hoda Kotb and Carson Daly, Clarkson said she is finally taking some time off for herself for the first time since she was a teenager.
"I don't think it's maybe common for a lot of working people. You don't get summers off generally unless you're in high school. But I hadn't had a minute, and it's obviously been a rough couple of years," she said, acknowledging her divorce from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock.
"So it was really important to me to shut down for a minute," Clarkson continued, adding she prioritized her family this summer.
Instead of sprinting through TV tapings, she and her family "literally four-wheeled in the mountains and walked."
"My sister, my nephew and I, and a couple of friends literally spent the whole summer in the mountains, just getting out in nature," Clarkson shared.
Clarkson also revealed she and her kids — River, 8, and Remington, 6 — were able to spend some quality time together visiting Blackstock in Montana.
"The kids were with me and their dad, and it was nice because they usually have to travel a lot because of our separation. We were both in Montana. I think my kids felt a little more centered as well. So it was nice," she explained.
While Clarkson's absence on The Voice will surely be felt, pop star Camila Cabello will be stepping in to fill the American Idol alum's chair.
The Voice Season 22 premieres Sept. 19 at 8/7CST on NBC and Peacock.
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Source: Kelly Clarkson Reveals Why She Really Took a Break From 'The Voice'
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How Smart Is Our Government???
Currency is not a commodity like corn or something. To just print the money would cause inflation, etc. Now the Fed. does increase the amount of money in circulation sometimes to help in some situations but not in the way you are suggesting. And by the way a penny is worth more than a penny, a nickel is worth almost a dime, etc, just from the metals in them. Where the government is not smart is that there are so many members of Congress and other elected officials who go just by polls or lobbyists and make decisions on all kinds of things that they know nothing about, especially technical things. One good example is they listened to extreme environmentalist about making ethanol from corn and this drove food prices way up and is resulting the extreme polution of water ways from the fertilyzer run off.
Every time the Federal Reserve prints money, it is either to replace worn out money or increase the amount of money that is in circulation. Since only a small amount of money needs to be replaced on a regular basis, the rest is used to increase the money supply, i.e. inflation. When the amount of money in circulation increases, while the amount of goods remains the same, it requires more dollars to get the same amount of goods. This money is simply printed sheets of paper; the paper itself has almost no value. Think about it, except for the ink printed on a bill, there is no difference between a $1 bill and a $100 bill. The only reason it is worth more is because the government says it is and enforces that. That means they can create as much money as they desire, all the while reducing the value of money in circulation (your money). So each time the Federal Reserve injects extra cash in the economy, they are literally indirectly taxing you, by taking away your purchasing power. They are taxing without representation. What is the solution? Our money must actually have value, like gold and silver does. That is why the Constitution says, in Article 1, Section 10, that "No state shall...make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts;" So this paper fiat money we use is actually illegal! So who is making the short term profit on this printed money? Whoever gets the money, as far as I see it. So if a big bank makes some stupid mistakes and gets bailed, they are the ones walking off with the profit. I just wonder why the same people making the problems related to the current economic crisis are supposedly the ones who can fix it?!?
I think the prices going up and down is a reaction of the market to the extra money inserted into circulation. There may be some other things that influence inflation, but I think all the extra cash is the main one.
Your government is far more better than mine. Mine was like the most stupid and corrupt government in the world. Hope they'll change eventually.
The extra money goes to the postal service for the shipping.. I am not sure how much one dollar weighs, not much, but a stack of bills would weigh a good bit, according to how big the stack was.. So, the post office has to charge according to weight and my guess would be that the extra goes to the post office or, maybe in some of our elected officials pockets.. I can't comprehend this amount but I do agree with you 1000%, Someone sure as hell is getting the money and it ain't me either.. You need a job in the government, you may just save us a few trillion dollars.. I am not sure if that is the highest amount that you can go to or not but on the lighter side let me add a joke in here.. Skydivers killed A Blonde is watching the news with her husband when the newscaster says,"Two Brazilian men die in a skydiving accident." The blonde starts crying to her husband, sobbing, "That's horrible!!! So many men dying that way!" Confused, he says, "Yes dear, it is sad, but they were skydiving, and there is always that risk involved." After a few minutes, the blonde, still sobbing, says, "How many is a Brazilian?" Well, when our government figures this amount out, that is what our National Debt will be a few Brazilian..


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1.What brought you to CrossFit in the first place?
I heard a lot about CrossFit through word of mouth and online media. The general consensus was that it was hard work but you got the results you were looking for. For exactly that, I decided to join CrossFit.
My first impression was that I won't be able to do this. After watching a full CrossFit session, looking at the movements and power that was required, I thought there is no way! But the professional trainers are great at modifying the level of difficulty to suit your fitness level and still allow you to feel apart of the group.
Im sore! especially in the mornings since I started CrossFit. My flexibility and mobility have increased, as for my energy level, I've noticed that i'm a lot less tired throughout my day at work.


AUSTIN – The Office of the Governor's Committee on People with Disabilities announces the winners of the 2018 Lex Frieden Employment Awards (LFEA). Named for Texas disability rights champion Lex Frieden, the awards are bestowed upon Texans who have displayed a commitment to empowering their employees, co-workers, and fellow Texans with disabilities.
The winners of the 2018 Lex Frieden Employment Awards will be honored at a ceremony co-hosted by the Governor's Committee on People with Disabilities and the City of Plano. The ceremony will be held on October 24, 2018 at 6:30 p.m. at the Plano Events Center. To register for the award ceremony, visit LFEA Registration. The keynote speaker for this event is José H. Velasco, Vice-President of Products and Innovation and leads the SAP Autism at Work program in the Americas.
Congratulations to all of the 2018 Lex Frieden Employment Award winners.


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Steve Stricker's imminent victory eludes him, loses to Tom Lehman at the Tucson Conquistadores Classic
By John Strege
Ryan Young
His PGA Tour Champions debut was unfolding the way it was scripted for Steve Stricker, for whom victory was a formality, at least until the happy ending was rewritten late on Sunday.
Stricker had the inherent advantage of being the youngest player on a tour where skills tend to erode quickly. He remains competitive on the PGA Tour, as his World Ranking, 108th, suggests. He shot 63 on Saturday to open a three-stroke lead and led by two with three holes to play on Sunday.
That he lost the Tucson Conquistadores Classic by one was the more remarkable of two unexpected conclusions at the Omni Tucson National Resort. The other was that Tom Lehman, 58, in only his second start since undergoing elbow surgery in November, prevailed by shooting a seven-under par 66 to Stricker's three-under 70.
Stricker was largely responsible for the reversal of fortunes. He squandered the two-stroke advantage at the par-3 16th by hitting his tee shot 50-feet short of the pin. Three putts later, he had a bogey, while Lehman made a 20-footer for birdie.
RELATED: Tom Lehman's go-to shot
They were tied when they came to the difficult 18th hole, dogleg right, with water on both sides framing the fairway. After Lehman hit driver down the middle, Stricker chose 3-wood and hit his ball through the fairway and into the pond on the left.
The penalty stroke proved the difference, as Stricker made bogey, while Lehman made a stress-free two-putt par to win for the the 10th time in his PGA Tour Champions career.
"I knew I had to make some birdies," Lehman said about the two-stroke deficit he faced with three to play. "Steve is such a great player. I didn't know he was so far short on 16. I thought he had a 20, 25-footer, so I thought I had to get it up there close. I hit a beautiful 6-iron right at it, below the hole, where I had a makable putt. Eighteen, he got unlucky. I thought he hit a really good 3-wood and it went through the fairway and gave me an opening."
The consolation prize for Stricker is the deja vu he experienced and how his career played out the first time he finished second on the same course. He went on to enjoy a long, lucrative career that includes 12 victories and more than $42 million in earnings.
No doubt, there are better days ahead once more.
WATCH: GOLF DIGEST VIDEOS


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About Frontiers
At the 100th anniversary of the Council's founding, we are proud to honor its founders and to celebrate the achievements of policy-relevant and solutions-oriented social and behavioral science. Every month we feature new articles from the most recent issues of each founding association's flagship journal. Across disciplines, the frontiers of social and behavioral science are rapidly advancing, and with them, our collective capacity to support global well-being.
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The Mercury Project
The Mercury Project is a global consortium of researchers dedicated to combating the impacts of mis- and disinformation on public health and to finding interventions that support the spread and uptake of accurate health information.…
Impacts of prenatal care across generations
Medicaid expansions between 1975 and 1988 enabling access to prenatal care improved health outcomes not only for babies born to newly enrolled mothers, but also for their children.
Multigenerational Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net: Early Life Exposure to Medicaid and the Next Generation's Health
Chloe N. East, Sarah Miller, Marianne Page, and Laura R. Wherry
East, Chloe N., Sarah Miller, Marianne Page, and Laura R. Wherry. 2023. "Multigenerational Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net: Early Life Exposure to Medicaid and the Next Generation's Health." American Economic Review, 113 (1): 98-135. Copy
We examine multigenerational impacts of positive in utero health interventions using a new research design that exploits sharp increases in prenatal Medicaid eligibility that occurred in some states. Our analyses are based on US Vital Statistics natality files, which enables linkages between individuals' early life Medicaid exposure and the next generation's health at birth. We find evidence that the health benefits associated with treated generations' early life program exposure extend to later offspring. Our results suggest that the returns on early life health investments may be substantively underestimated.
The effects of divorce on turnout
The differential timing of divorces relative to elections reveals that divorce disproportionately reduces male turnout in Sweden, primarily due to the absence of spousal mobilization.
The Ex-Factor: Examining the Gendered Effect of Divorce on Voter Turnout
Sirus H. Dehdari, Karl-oskar Lindgren, Sven Oskarsson, and Kåre Vernby
American Political Science Review
DEHDARI, S., LINDGREN, K., OSKARSSON, S., & VERNBY, K. (2022). The Ex-Factor: Examining the Gendered Effect of Divorce on Voter Turnout. American Political Science Review, 116(4), 1293-1308. doi:10.1017/S0003055422000144 Copy
The absence of a gendered analysis of the effect of marriage on voting is surprising given researchers' cognizance of the heterogeneous effects of marriage on a range of other social outcomes. In this paper, we shed new light on spousal dependency by studying the gendered effect of marital disruption, in the form of divorce, on voter turnout. First, drawing on Swedish populationwide data, we use the differential timing of divorces in relation to general elections to generate more credible estimates of the causal effect of divorce on turnout. Second, although we find that both sexes are adversely affected by divorce, we show that the effect is much more pronounced for men. Specifically, the long-term effect is almost twice as large for men. Finally, we use these data to show that the gendered effect of divorce is mainly driven by asymmetrical spousal mobilization due to higher levels of turnout among women.
Unpacking racial disparities in school discipline
An innovative video experiment reveals both that teachers are more likely to discipline Black boys for misbehavior, and that students of all races are more likely to be blamed for misbehavior in schools with large minority populations.
Double Jeopardy: Teacher Biases, Racialized Organizations, and the Production of Racial/Ethnic Disparities in School Discipline
Jayanti Owens
American Sociological Review
Owens, J. (2022). Double Jeopardy: Teacher Biases, Racialized Organizations, and the Production of Racial/Ethnic Disparities in School Discipline. American Sociological Review, 87(6), 1007–1048. Copy
Bridging research in social psychology with scholarship on racialized organizations, this article shows how individual bias and organizational demographic composition can operate together to shape the degree of discrimination in schools. To understand Black and Latino boys' higher rates of discipline that persist net of differences in behavior, I combine an original video experiment involving 1,339 teachers in 295 U.S. schools with organizational data on school racial/ethnic and socioeconomic composition. In the experiment, teachers view and respond to a randomly assigned video of a White, Black, or Latino boy committing identical, routine classroom misbehavior. I find that, compared to White boys, Black and Latino boys face a double jeopardy. They experience both (1) individual-level teacher bias, where they are perceived as being more "blameworthy" and referred more readily for identical misbehavior, and (2) racialized organizational climates of heightened blaming, where students of all races/ethnicities are perceived as being more "blameworthy" for identical misbehavior in schools with large minority populations versus in predominantly White schools. This study develops a more comprehensive understanding of the production of racial/ethnic inequality in school discipline by empirically identifying a dual process that involves both individual teacher bias and heightened blaming that is related to minority organizational composition.
Challenging the "democratic peace"
A new dynamic model of social networks applied to data on militarized disputes from 1816 to 2010 reveals two distinct blocs of democratic states, only one of which exhibits unusually low rates of conflict.
Dynamic Stochastic Blockmodel Regression for Network Data: Application to International Militarized Conflicts
Santiago Olivella, Tyler Pratt and Kosuke Imai
Journal of the American Statistical Association
Santiago Olivella, Tyler Pratt & Kosuke Imai (2022) Dynamic Stochastic Blockmodel Regression for Network Data: Application to International Militarized Conflicts, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 117:539, 1068-1081. Copy
The decision to engage in military conflict is shaped by many factors, including state- and dyad-level characteristics as well as the state's membership in geopolitical coalitions. Supporters of the democratic peace theory, for example, hypothesize that the community of democratic states is less likely to wage war with each other. Such theories explain the ways in which nodal and dyadic characteristics affect the evolution of conflict patterns over time via their effects on group memberships. To test these arguments, we develop a dynamic model of network data by combining a hidden Markov model with a mixed-membership stochastic blockmodel that identifies latent groups underlying the network structure. Unlike existing models, we incorporate covariates that predict dynamic node memberships in latent groups as well as the direct formation of edges between dyads. While prior substantive research often assumes the decision to engage in international militarized conflict is independent across states and static over time, we demonstrate that conflict is driven by states' evolving membership in geopolitical blocs. Our analysis of militarized disputes from 1816 to 2010 identifies two distinct blocs of democratic states, only one of which exhibits unusually low rates of conflict. Changes in monadic covariates like democracy shift states between coalitions, making some states more pacific but others more belligerent. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Ethics debates in archaeology
The use of archaeological geophysics to detect the unmarked graves of Indigenous children prompted disciplinary conversations about the ethics of research involving human remains.
Archaeology in 2021: Repatriation, reclamation, and reckoning with historical trauma
Lindsay M. Montgomery and Kisha Supernant
Montgomery, Lindsay M., and Supernant, Kisha. 2022. " Archaeology in 2021: Repatriation, reclamation, and reckoning with historical trauma." American Anthropologist 124: 800– 812. Copy
Archaeology in 2021 was characterized by a continued call to use the tools of the discipline to document the violence of settler colonialism in the past and present, pushing anthropology to reckon with its own role in perpetuating historical trauma. The tension between disciplinary reflection and reform was most clearly articulated in the use of archaeological geophysics to detect the unmarked graves of incarcerated Indigenous children who died at residential and boarding schools in Canada and the United States. The highly publicized investigation of these schools has brought renewed attention to issues of repatriation and historical reclamation for many communities impacted by settler colonialism. These discussions have reverberated throughout the discipline, prompting revisions to the Society for American Archaeology's "Statement Concerning the Treatment of Human Remains," reopening conversations around an African American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and informing debates around the ethics of DNA research. These conversations are part of a larger movement toward decolonizing the field by using archaeological methods to explore marginalized histories and support communities most impacted by the violences of settler colonialism.
Muslim ethical traditions in colonial India
Urdu-language ethics texts produced and circulated in India between the 1870s and 1930s suggest local Muslim cultural traditions placing a high value on ethical striving.
Urdu Ethics Literature and the Diversity of Muslim Thought in Colonial India
Farina Mir
The American Historical Review
Farina Mir, "Urdu Ethics Literature and the Diversity of Muslim Thought in Colonial India." The American Historical Review, Volume 127, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1162–1189. Copy
This essay discusses Urdu-language akhlaq (ethics) texts produced and circulated in late-colonial India (1858–1947), situating them both within a classical genre of Islamic ethics and in the context of Indian vernacular print culture. It focuses on three akhlaq texts published between the 1870s and 1930s to consider contemporary Muslim ethical concerns and schema, arguing that the genre points to a widespread, everyday, and unexceptional Muslim subjectivity that placed a high value on ethical striving. The essay offers new perspectives on the history of Muslims in late-colonial India by highlighting a non-institutional, diffuse, and capacious intellectual formation whose ideas were disseminated through print in a commercial market. It also expands existing notions of Muslim authority from individuals—such as the ulama (Muslim clerical class)—and institutions—such as madrasas (religious schools and seminaries)—to include literary genres themselves. Finally, the article broadens the range of Muslim subject-positions represented in scholarship on Islam in colonial India.
Reconsidering "context" in psychological science
A new approach to studying context in psychological science proposes that psychological events emerge in ecosystems of signal ensembles, such that the psychological meaning of any individual signal is entirely relational.
Context Reconsidered: Complex Signal Ensembles, Relational Meaning, and Population Thinking in Psychological Science
Barrett, L. F. (2022). Context reconsidered: Complex signal ensembles, relational meaning, and population thinking in psychological science. American Psychologist, 77(8), 894–920. Copy
This article considers the status and study of "context" in psychological science through the lens of research on emotional expressions. The article begins by updating three well-trod methodological debates on the role of context in emotional expressions to reconsider several fundamental assumptions lurking within the field's dominant methodological tradition: namely, that certain expressive movements have biologically prepared, inherent emotional meanings that issue from singular, universal processes which are independent of but interact with contextual influences. The second part of this article considers the scientific opportunities that await if we set aside this traditional understanding of "context" as a moderator of signals with inherent psychological meaning and instead consider the possibility that psychological events emerge in ecosystems of signal ensembles, such that the psychological meaning of any individual signal is entirely relational. Such a fundamental shift has radical implications not only for the science of emotion but for psychological science more generally. It offers opportunities to improve the validity and trustworthiness of psychological science beyond what can be achieved with improvements to methodological rigor alone.


A charter of incorporation granted to Chippenham by Queen Mary on 2 May 1554 and confirmed by Elizabeth on 29 Jan. 1560 placed the government of the town in the hands of a bailiff and 12 aldermen with power to co-opt new members. By Mary's charter, the corporation was granted lands in Chippenham, formerly the possessions of Lord Hungerford, to provide for the upkeep of the bridge and for the expenses of the town's burgesses in Parliament. The town appointed a high steward, although the office was not mentioned in the charter, and its holder in 1567 was the first Earl of Pembroke. It is probable that his son held the office later in the reign.
During the Elizabethan period the electorate consisted only of the bailiff and 12 burgesses. The electoral history of the borough during the period can be divided into two parts: from 1559 to 1589 and from 1593 to 1601. Most of the Members returned during the early period were local men or had local associations. Those returned in and after 1593 were nominees of the heirs of Sir Henry Sharington, to whom the borough paid an annual rent of £8 for the market.
Both 1559 Members were gentlemen living near Chippenham. Edward Baynard resided at Lackham, two miles away, and owned property in the town. Nicholas Snell of Kingston, three miles from Chippenham, was farmer of the hundred of Chippenham and also steward of the 1st Earl of Pembroke, but there is no evidence that Pembroke intervened on his behalf either in 1559 or in 1563. Francis Newdigate, the other Member in the latter year, was married to Protector Somerset's widow, and, in her right, was in possession of the manor of Monkton Farleigh near Chippenham.
All the Members returned in 1571 and 1572 were townsmen. On both occasions the 2nd Earl of Pembroke had received instructions from the Privy Council to ensure a 'good choice' of burgesses in Wiltshire. In 1571 he forwarded the Council's instructions to Chippenham, but does not appear to have nominated anyone. Two local gentlemen were returned at the 1584 election: Robert Baynard, son of the 1559 MP, and Robert Hyde, eldest son of Lawrence Hyde I, the Wiltshire lawyer. Hyde probably owed his return at Chippenham in 1584 and 1586 to the and Earl of Pembroke. It has proved difficult to decide whether the 1586 Lawrence Hyde was the father or brother of Robert Hyde. In 1589, Henry Baynton II, a gentleman with local estates, and William Swayne, who lived in Chippenham, were returned.
2. Weinbaum, Borough Charters, 119; SC6 Edw. VI, 487; Wilts. IPMs (Brit. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 21-30; Add. 48018; Chippenham Recs. 266-71, 292-6, 327, 328, 339.


Fluent in DCS/PLC/HMI/OIS/SCADA/SOE Applications. (Digital and Analog Control Logic Diagram, Ladder Logic, Function Block, Scripting, network mapping and integration).
Copyright © 2019. Redgate Technical Solutions Inc. MBE.


Do you enjoy playing board games and card games? Come play board games at Arlington George W. Hawkes Library on Saturday April 20, 2019 from 10am to 10pm!
• We will be giving away games via door prizes! Must be present at the time of the drawing to win.
• It's come and go! OR come and stay all day!


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Samker's Computer Forum - SCforum.info
World TOP Headlines: => Latest Security News & Alerts => Topic started by: Amker on 23. June 2007., 14:52:34
Title: U.S. general: Google Earth danger to security
Post by: Amker on 23. June 2007., 14:52:34
WASHINGTON - The head of U.S. Air Force intelligence and surveillance on Thursday said data available commercially through online mapping software such as Google Earth posed a danger to security but could not be rolled back.
"To talk about danger is, if I may, really is irrelevant because it's there," said Lt. Gen. David Deptula, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
"No one's going to undo commercial satellite imagery," he told reporters in Washington.
Deptula cited Google Inc.'s Google Earth, which gives Web users an astronaut's view of the Earth and allows them to zoom down to street level. He said it had provided anyone with a credit card the ability to get a picture of any place on Earth.
"It is huge," he said. "It's something that was a closely guarded secret not that long ago and now everybody's got access to it."
Asked if the U.S. military might try to implement restrictions or blackouts on imagery of some areas, Deptula said he was not aware of such an attempt.
"I don't want to speak to specifics, but not that I'm aware of," he said.
Instead, governments are trying to mitigate the effect through camouflage, concealment and deception, he said, providing no other details.


Chris Paul made a career-high eight 3-pointers and scored 32 points to help the Los Angeles Clippers beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 122-105 on Monday night in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal.
Paul, who had never made more than five 3-pointers in a game, had 10 assists. Blake Griffin scored 23 points, Jamal Crawford had 17 and J.J. Redick added 12 for the Clippers, who shot 55 percent from the field and made 15 of 29 3-point attempts.
Russell Westbrook scored 29 points, Kevin Durant had 25 and Serge Ibaka added 12 for the Thunder, who suffered their worst home loss since moving to Oklahoma City.
The Clippers scored 23 points off Oklahoma City's 18 turnovers.
Both teams were coming off Game 7 wins in the first round on Saturday night.
Oklahoma City opened by taking a 16-10 lead but the Clippers responded with a 24-6 run. Paul hit five 3-pointers in the first quarter, matching his career high for 3s in a playoff game in the first 12 minutes. The Clippers shot 67 percent in the first quarter to take a 39-25 lead.
Los Angeles extended its lead to 24 points in the second quarter and took a 69-52 halftime lead with Paul getting 22 points and six assists.
Durant and Westbrook scored 16 points each in the first half, but the Thunder committed 11 turnovers before halftime.
A quick 3-pointer and a pull-up jumper by Paul pushed the Clippers' lead to 78-56 in the opening minutes of the third quarter. The Clippers reached 100 points with just over a minute left in the period and led 104-78 heading into the fourth quarter.
NOTES: Oklahoma City G Thabo Sefolosha rejoined the starting lineup after sitting out the final two games against Memphis. Thunder coach Scott Brooks said before Monday's game that he started Caron Butler in Games 6 and 7 against Memphis because the team needed another offensive weapon. ... Clippers F Blake Griffin attended the University of Oklahoma. He got a mixed reaction during pregame introductions. ... The Clippers made 7 of 10 3-point attempts in the first quarter. ... Ibaka was issued a technical foul in the third quarter after getting his legs tangled up with Griffin. ... Clippers C DeAndre Jordan made just 1 of 8 free throw attempts. ... Durant was issued a technical foul for arguing with an official with 10:40 remaining in the fourth quarter. ... The Clippers committed just nine turnovers.


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Home > Reviews > Jonathan Stroud
The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud
An excellent fantasy adventure, full of magic, intrigue, excitement and humour.
Fantasy Book Review Children's Book of the Month, December 2010
In October of 2010 Jonathan Stroud released the much-awaited prequel to his best-selling Bartimaeus trilogy. Having just read and thoroughly enjoyed it (the e-book in case you were interested) I can confidently say that The Ring of Solomon is brilliant in two important ways - both as an introduction to the trilogy for those lucky enough to not have already read it (as in they still have a treat in store) and also as a fascinating insight into the past of my – and many other fantasy fans' - favourite djinni, the irascible, insolent, yet strangely lovable Bartimaeus.
The year is 950 BC and the self-proclaimed master djinni Bartimaeus is to be found causing chaos whilst serving at the court of King Solomon in Jerusalem. But with the arrival of Asmira, an assassin girl sent by the Queen of Sheba, things begin to get even more interesting and Bartimaeus must use all his skill and cunning to not only survive, but also aid Asmira in the theft of the all-powerful Ring of Solomon.
I am going to keep this review pretty simple, short and sweet as all I really need to say is "get it, read it, enjoy it". However, for those who need a little more persuasion, here is my reasoning.
If I was asked what it was I believed to be Jonathan Stroud's forte I would unhesitatingly answer that it is his perfect use of humour within his books. There is always a fine line that needs to be trodden when injecting humour into a narrative - too much and it begins to grate, too little and the results can be rather dry. Stroud uses delightfully subtle humour in just the right amounts and his charming mix of wit and sarcasm (used in the main by Bartimaeus) often results in the reader emitting frequent, out-loud bursts of laughter.
Here is an example of a passage that really tickled me in which Bartimaeus explains his preeminent throwing skills, aided by a footnote. Footnotes are a favourite of the author's and it is within these that the most fun is stored.
'Like the throwing technique?' I grinned. 'Learned it squirrel-tossing with the Mongol nomads*'.
*On quiet nights we'd go down to Lake Baikal with a basket of plump ones each and send them skimming out across the waves. My record was eight bounces, seven squeaks.
The Ring of Solomon: Chapter 26
And then we have the moving and oddly profound relationship between Bartimaeus and Asmira. Generally speaking there is nothing but mutual hatred between the summoned spirits and their human masters but here, as was the case with Nathanial and Bartimaeus previously, Asmira and Bartimaeus form an almost affectionate friendship that has each questioning who and what they are.
In conclusion, the truth of the matter is that Stroud does everything extremely well: dialogue, world-building, humour, plot – all are done with consummate skill. I have said this before but it is worth mentioning again – I firmly believe that those who have worked previously as book editors often become very good authors and Stroud is a case in point. He is able to write books that are effortless to read thanks to an impressive command of words and how they should be structured plus an admirable attention to detail. So, any aspiring authors out there looking for a job to pay the bills while they write – go and get a job as a book editor.
The Ring of Solomon is an excellent fantasy adventure, full of magic, intrigue, excitement and humour. A real must-buy and a perfect Christmas present for readers of all ages.
Jonathan Stroud, as well as being the author of the Bartimaeus books, has written the standalone novels Heroes of the Valley (which I also strongly recommend, read the review here), Buried Fire, The Leap and The Last Siege. Now a full-time writer he lives in St Albans with his wife and two young children.
The Ring of Solomon (Bartimaeus)
Publisher: Doubleday Childrens (14 Oct 2010)
This The Ring of Solomon book review was written by Floresiensis
All reviews for: The Bartimaeus Trilogy
The Ring of Solomon
The Bartimaeus Trilogy: Book 0
The year is 950 BC and the self-proclaimed master djinni Bartimaeus is to be found causing chaos whilst serving at the court of King Solomon in Jerusalem. But with the arri...
The Amulet of Samarkand
Have you read The Ring of Solomon?
The Ring of Solomon reader reviews
Nathan from Pamilan
Stroud, as expected, has always been very unexpected at storytelling. Even though the book is fun, it does drive in some philosophical content. A very enjoyable book because the pace is just right, Bartimaeus is a big time idiot and a cool demon too, author takes us to palaces, deserts, ancient monuments, smoke filled 'other world'... the list is exhausting. And most of all there is this bond btw. Bartimaeus and the girl, that u can't fail to soak into your skin. This is one of the best books. Truly.
Earthsea Saga
As a young dragonlord, Ged, whose use-name is Sparrowhawk, is sent to the island of Roke to learn the true way of magic. A natural magician, Ged becomes an Archmage and hel...
"I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my l...
Harry Potter is an ordinary boy who lives in a cupboard under the stairs at his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's house, which he thinks is normal for someone like him wh...
Year of the Unicorn
Far from the besieged home of Simon and Jaelithe, in peaceful Norsdale, we meet Gillan, who longs to leave her dull life in a secluded country abbey. But when her wish come...
Shadowfell
Sixteen-year-old Neryn is alone in the land of Alban, where the oppressive king has ordered anyone with magical strengths captured and brought before him. Eager to hide her...
The Silvered
The Empire has declared war on the small, were-ruled kingdom of Aydori, capturing five women of the Mage-Pack, including the wife of the were Pack-leader. With the Pack off...
The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School
When her mother finds her sleeping on the ceiling, Amy Thomsett is sent to Drearcliff Grange School in Somerset. Although it looks like a regular 1920s boarding school, Amy...
The Lightbringer Trilogy
Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. His strength, wit and charm are all that preserve a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exac...
The Saga of Recluce
LE Modesitt Jr
Young Lerris is dissatisfied with his life and trade, and yearns to find a place in the world better suited to his skills and temperament. But in Recluce a change in circum...
Recommended books/series featuring wizards and magicians
About Jonathan Stroud
Jonathan Stroud was born in Bedford and grew up in St Albans. He always had a burning desire to write a full-length work of fiction which he would have wanted to read when ...
More about Jonathan Stroud...
Books by Jonathan Stroud
The Screaming Staircase
Lockwood & Co #1
The Whispering Skull
The Hollow Boy
The Creeping Shadow
Heroes of the Valley
The Amulet of Samarkand: A Bartimaeus graphic novel
The Ghost of Shadow Vale
Brenda Clough
Betrayal at Falador
TS Church
Christie Golden
Perdido Street Station
A Sickness in the Family
The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter
Steve Vander Ark
Eve of Darkness
SJ Day
Cleopatra's Daughter
Michelle Moran
The Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice


The Russian-Chinese relations are at the highest level ever, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
The negotiations are held ahead of the Russia-India-China ministerial meeting.
Lavrov said the Russia-India-China format retains its importance under the current conditions.
"We are supporting the agenda," he said. "Our experts have offered a substantial declaration, and I am sure we'll be able to adopt it today."
"Our relations are at the highest level ever," Lavrov said adding he hoped all bilateral issues would be developing.
The Chinese foreign minister called Lavrov his old friend stressing "China's president pays special attention to cooperation with Russia, he will find time to meet" with the Russian minister. Wang Yi said "over the past year, foreign ministers of our countries applied great efforts to implement the agreements, reached by leaders of our countries."
Beijing will develop further the strategic contacts and cooperation with Moscow according to the benchmarks outlined at the top level, the Chinese foreign minister said.
Celebration of the 70th anniversary of victory in WWII will give a positive impetus to the entire world, he said.
"We should cope with various 'crisis spots', which are emerging one after another, thus observing our international obligations," the Chinese foreign minister said.