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Iliza Shlesinger Was Part Of The Netflix Comedy Juggernaut Before It Was Cool
Andrew Husband
News & Culture Writer
Netflix/Emily Shur
Iliza Shlesinger isn't wasting any time. That's why, just over two minutes into her new Netflix special, Elder Millennial, the 35-year-old comic playfully insults the audience members who "were so quiet" when she categorized herself as a member of Gen X's successor. It's also why she surprised me with a phone call a few minutes before our scheduled chat. "I'm always a little early," she says before teasing me. "Are you surprised? You weren't going to the bathroom, were you?" For the record, I was not.
Not that it matters, because Shlesinger is more than ready to keep working in a career that traces its lineage to NBC's Last Comic Standing reality competition series, which she won in 2008. The comedian continued hitting the stand-up circuit on and off late night television, with appearances on shows like Chelsea Lately and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, before becoming one of the first performers to debut a special exclusively on Netflix in 2013. Shlesinger followed War Paint with Freezing Hot and Confirmed Kills in 2015 and 2016. Now it's Elder Millennial, which she taped inside an aircraft carrier after Netflix said they "[wanted] higher production value" in future specials.
"I do a lot of USO tours," she explains. "We did a show on the USS Stennis out in the Persian Gulf a couple of years ago, and I remember how special that was, so I thought it'd be cool to do something like that. We looked for retired aircraft carriers and we found one that felt right, was available and it was the right time of year for it, too. There was one in New York, but it would've been too cold and as it is, the USS Hornet is basically in Oakland. It's in Alameda, and it was February in San Francisco, so it was freezing. I was freezing my tips off. It was the only time in my career that the stage lights didn't make me sweat."
Lower temperatures notwithstanding, Shlesinger made the most of Netflix's directive and set Elder Millennial aboard the USS Hornet Museum near Old Alameda Point. What's more, the USO regular also inadvertently created one of the more striking visual juxtapositions in recent stand-up memory: a decidedly feminist comedy set in the era of #MeToo and Time's Up performed in front of a collection of vintage warplanes. "I hadn't thought about it that way," she says when asked about the image. "This special is less about that. Confirmed Kills was a strong thesis and this was more a retrospect. I felt I had the experience and the wisdom to look back at the life I'd led up to that point."
That's not to discount the planes' placement behind the stage, however, as the arrangement was intentional from the start, though for other reasons. "They had all of these vintage World War II and Korean War planes there. I just thought it was very special, and the production design did a great job. The museum let us move around a couple of the planes and decorate the stage with some of the maritime flags the U.S. Navy uses to communicate via semaphore. If you look at the set, there are two rows of flags, each flag represents a letter and they spell out two different messages. So if you're versed in maritime linguistics, I encourage you to figure out what the flags say."
TOPICS#Social Media#Stand-Up#Comedy#Streaming#UPROXX Interviews#Netflix
TAGScomedyIliza ShlesingerNETFLIXSocial MediaSTAND-UPstreaminguproxx interviews


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Tag: kristin latour
Vintage Sundress with Kristin LaTour
Up next in our blast from the past is an author who has fought her hardest not to stay in the past. Kristin LaTour, author of poetry collection What Will Keep Us Alive, is no stranger to the world of publishing. As the author of four other chapbooks, one being an e-chap published in December of 2018, LaTour has certainly had her highs and lows in the past few years, and she graciously spoke with intern Lauren Sutherland about what she has learned and how she has kept moving forward.
Sutherland: What has changed for you since What Will Keep Us Alive was published?
LaTour: Looking back over the three years since What Will Keep Us Alive was published, some things have changed, and others haven't. I still write free verse poems which tend to focus on word choice around sound and that have themes around marginalized people or current events. I've been trying more experimental forms like erasures and footnotes to real texts. I think my reading has become wider, even though I still read mostly female poets. Since I've stopped having the time or energy to go to readings around my area, I find that instead of hearing the same voices at readings every month, I'm forced to read, and that gives me more options in whom I choose to read or hear. Sadly, I am submitting fewer poems to journals, but maybe I'll make that a goal in the coming year—to send more work out.
Sutherland: Has the publishing of What Will Keep Us Alive altered your perspective on the literary community?
LaTour: Overall, people were very supportive of What Will Keep Us Alive when it came out. I had a big release party and some smaller readings around my area. I was also having health issues that made promoting it difficult. I think the glow was off about six months after it was published like it was time to move on to the next thing.
Sutherland: Was your rise to publication smooth or a struggle? What obstacles did you face?
LaTour: Publishing was, and is, hard. I graduated from my MFA program in 2007 thinking my thesis was a fully-formed manuscript. It took a couple of years of it being rejected for me to realize it was not. I kept writing, revising, sending out individual poems. I published a couple chapbooks. I lost time teaching at a community college and being braindead from grading papers so I couldn't write much most of the year.
I stopped sending out a manuscript for a couple of years. At AWP in 2014, Kristy Bowen, who published my third chapbook, Agoraphobia, asked me to read at a joint event with Sundress Publications and Hyacinth Girl Press. Erin Smith approached me after the reading and asked me to send her a manuscript. I was elated but also cautious, knowing her request didn't guarantee publication. I went home, worked on the neglected manuscript, and put together my best effort. It was accepted later in 2014 and then published in 2015. Altogether that's ten years if you count the time in my program writing toward my thesis. I think if Erin hadn't asked for my manuscript, I would have kept writing, publishing, and getting rejected, but her request was a huge boost to the dismay of being rejected for seven years.
Sutherland: What is something worth noting about being published that you would want unpublished writers to know?
LaTour: Not much changes after getting a full-length book published. You have to start from zero again: writing new poems and getting them published, which also means getting rejected. There is some consolation in knowing that I did it once so I can do it again, but the work is still there.
I would say my advice to unpublished writers is to not take for granted that because your manuscript is published, your job is done. I worked with Erin for months in 2015 leading up to the book coming out. We reordered poems, argued about section headings, figured out where the "holes" were in the book. That meant I had to write more poems.
Writers should be very nice to their editors who are working for little to nothing to make the best book they can. However, writers should also stand firm for what they believe in their work. They need to be ready to compromise and cooperate.
Sutherland: Have you published other full-length works or chapbooks since being published at Sundress?
LaTour: I have published a very short chapbook with Sundress as an e-book with drawings from a friend. I wrote the poems in 2014, and Angel Perez did the artwork in the same year. Since it was artwork and poetry together, I looked for publishers who worked with that kind of collaboration, and the chapbook was rejected by about 5 of them. I let the file sit on my computer a while, and then I realized Sundress might be a good fit for them. Sometimes it's right under my nose. Again, I didn't expect Sundress to automatically accept the work, but I was so happy when I got a positive response. The book came out in December of 2018 and is called Mend.
Sutherland: What are you working on now?
LaTour: I have a lot I'm working on. I'm sending out a second full-length manuscript, The Whaler's Wife. It's been rejected several times too. Every time, I tweak things, making it better. It's a series of narrative poems that tell the story of a New England couple who meet as kids, fall in love, and struggle to be together and build a family.
I'm working on a non-fiction book for lay people on how to appreciate poetry.
Teaching at a community college, I meet a lot of reluctant learners. I think there needs to be a book for people whose friends drag them to a poetry reading so they can enjoy what they hear and maybe be encouraged to read some on their own. Most "how to read a poem" books are very academic, long, and not exciting. I'm trying to write a short, fun book.
Not to ignore my poetry, I'm working on a third manuscript inspired by sideshow performers from the early-mid 20th century, when the traveling carnival was starting to fade, and people weren't as comfortable paying to see "freaks."
Kristin LaTour's most recent collection, Mend, illustrated by Angel Perez, is available as an e-chap at Sundress Publications. Her full-length, What Will Keep Us Alive, was published in 2015 with Sundress. Her work has been included in anthologies, three chapbooks, and many online and print journals. She teaches comp and literature classes at Joliet Jr. College and has a loving home full of pets, a husband, and books in Aurora, IL.
Follow these links to find more of Kristin's recent work on the web:
"October 15, 1834" on Tinderbox Poetry Journal's website
"Writer's Block," a craft essay, on the Sundress blog
Lauren Sutherland is a recent graduate of Lee University in Cleveland, TN and proudly has a Bachelor's degree in English with a writing emphasis and a deaf studies minor. Lauren enjoys reading and writing poetry, but her ultimate passion is for editing. She has been an intern with Sundress since July and loves getting the opportunity to have a hand in the literary community.
sundresspublications	Admin	Leave a comment March 21, 2019
A Craft Essay by Kristin LaTour
Writer's block is like constipation. Writers know they have ideas and thoughts up in their brains, but they won't come out onto the page. A search on the Walgreen's website for a cure gave me no help. CVS was a little better but only because it changed "writers" to "whiten" and suggested a deodorant pen. Writers do use pens, and sometimes their writing stinks, but I don't think this tool would help. I'm not sure it would even help stinky armpits. I wouldn't want a pen tip going across the sensitive skin of my armpit. And how effective can something so thin and defined be? Anyway, I usually don't have issues with writer's block, as one can tell from my copious thoughts on deodorant pens. However, my students do, and I know other writers do too. Luckily, I have the brain laxative, or solution, to help.
I should start with some things not to try. Like being constipated, any health care professional will tell someone not to sit on the toilet and try to force the situation. In the case of writer's block, the toilet is a blank computer screen or journal page. While the brain won't get hemorrhoids, it's as frustrating and unproductive as sitting on the pot for over an hour. Waiting for something to happen by ignoring the problem and doing other tasks will also not help. Again, the repercussions in the health arena are much more serious. Please do not wait days or weeks to poop. This will lead to a hospital visit and very unpleasant treatments. In the writer's world, it just leads to nothing being written, which wasn't the goal. One who is not trying to write doesn't get writer's block, the same way people who don't eat don't get constipated. But the latter will die. The writer will just be a sad sack who is a bore at parties full of other writers.
Now for some concrete solutions. Read. Reading is the laxative of the writer's brain. Read work that is inspiring. Read work that is frustrating. In the case of the former, you might be inspired by the writer's style, word choice, or tone. In the case of the latter, you will likely be frustrated and think you can do better. Then do it. Make that person's ideas even better. Don't publish this, and don't share it with that writer. It's best left in the journal on computer file unless you've made it uniquely your own or unless you're into making other writers sad.
Mimic and steal. If you're claiming you have no ideas (which isn't true if you've been reading or you are a thinking human being), then take someone's writing and mimic it. Write a poem using the same theme, line length, and rhyme scheme. Take a short story's first line and, use it as your own first sentence.
Get a prompt. I know some writers poo-poo prompts. "Real creative writers don't use prompts," I've heard at least one fellow writer say. Fuck that. Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein after being prompted by Lord Byron that she and he, along with Percy Shelly, should each write gothic ghost stories. Also, creative writers use current events all the time in their writing. I Googled books on Hurricane Katrina, and the first five results are "best book" lists. On a side note, I can't say "fuck that" to my students. Also, all my students are assigned prompts. This is mainly because if I let them write about anything they wanted, I'd be inundated with essays on legalizing pot and students so overwhelmed with their choices they'd have writer's block.
Remember two important things: you are writing a draft, and you can't revise what you haven't written. I tell my students this all the time. "I can't write my ideas well," they say, or, "I'm afraid what I write will be awful." Therefore, they write nothing. I had a student once who had this problem through the whole semester and ended up failing because he never wrote a word. This is a psychological problem. I am not a therapist, but I can tell writers that you have to write the shit down to make it no longer shit. I can't say "shit" to my students, so I call it the "crappy draft." This aptly fits my metaphor of constipation and writer's block.
Banish the thought that you have nothing to add to what is being written. I just went to GoogleScholar and searched for Shakespeare. Over 1.4 million entries came up. You can add to what is being written about anything. You can also assume that a lot of what is written isn't good, in your opinion or someone else's. Then you get a chance to write it better. You get to write it in your style, in your words. Someone will love it. Someone will hate it. Who cares? You got it out of you. That's what's important.
With all that said, banish the thought that no one will ever read it anyway. Poets, with the exception of Maya Angelou and Billy Collins, all know that hardly anyone in the large scheme of things will ever read our work. Most novelists will never reach the sales of Stephen King. Still not convinced? According to Wikipedia, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone sold 107,000,000 copies. It seems like EVERYONE read that book, right? Not even close. The world population had grown by about 2 billion people from 1995 (Harry was published in 1997) to 2017.* So roughly, 5% of the whole world has read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Write for yourself. If you decide to share it, that's great, but unless you are doing it for a living, it's not what's important.
Don't label yourself. Here is a list of things I've heard writers say about themselves that keeps them from writing:
I don't write poetry/essays/stories.
I only write in _______ style/genre.
I'm a reader, not a writer.
I'm an ideas person, not a writer.
I stink at writing.
I am not smart enough to write.
I have been through many years of cognitive behavioral therapy for my depression and anxiety. When a therapist told me to practice "positive self-talk," I laughed. I didn't believe I could just say things to myself and overcome years of believing I was unattractive, unworthy, and unintelligent. My therapist asked me what I would tell a friend who said things like that about herself. She asked me to imagine my best friend sitting next to me, saying those things about herself. What would I say to her? Of course, I'd say none of those things were true! What would she say to me if I were saying those things about myself to her? She'd say the same. So I started, slowly, telling myself nice things about myself or correcting my negative thoughts. When I thought I wasn't looking my best, I'd picture my friend in my head saying I looked great. When I felt dumb about something, I'd remind myself I am educated and have experience but I'm still learning new things all the time. It started working.
If you tell yourself you're not a novelist/poet/writer, then you won't be. If you tell yourself you can't write because all your teachers said so, you had awful teachers. Terrible human beings. And they don't know you now. People change. I used to be pretty weak in math skills, but as I've aged and my brain has changed, I'm pretty good at it now. I used to say, "I can't do math." Now I say, "I can do a lot of math."
If you think you stink at writing, that doesn't mean you can't improve. It's the same as playing an instrument. Pretty much everyone stinks at it when they first start, but with practice, and learning, they get better. Not everyone gets to be a professional bassoonist, but adults who played bassoon in high school band can pick it up again with practice and enjoy it. They are going to have a hard time getting back into the swing of breathing and fingering, and reading music, but they will get better. You will too. Also, revisit paragraph 6.
Finally, I am reminded of the small bottle of stool softener in my medicine cabinet. I don't use it often, but when I need it, I'm glad I have it. I'm also glad for Pepto-Bismol, but that's a different problem and a different metaphor for another essay. Writers need to remember there are so many tools available through Google searches, books on writing, and online and in-person writing groups. My favorite website for help when I'm writing is called The Sunday Whirl, which gives a set of words every Sunday that writers can use to jump-start their writing. When I'm feeling dried up, I read a favorite poet. There's never a reason not to write. There are so many reasons it's good to write. Write your words. You need to let them out.
*data from Population Reference Bureau
Kristin LaTour is a poet and professor living in Aurora, IL. Her book, What Will Keep Us Alive, and forthcoming chapbook, Mend, are both published by Sundress. Readers can find her in journals all over the web and in print. This is her only published essay. She wrote it in a few weeks. She didn't procrastinate in writing it, but she did forget she had it done and to send the damn thing in.
sundresspublications	Admin	Leave a comment December 5, 2018
Lyric Essentials: Kristin LaTour reads "Teaching Experience" by Marge Piercy
Sundress: Welcome to Lyric Essentials, where writers and poets share with us a passage or poem which is "essential" to their bookshelf and who they are as a writer. Today Kristin LaTour, whose full-length collection What Keeps Us Alive was released from Sundress this fall, reads "Teaching Experience" by Marge Piercy.
Kristin, before we dive into "Teaching Experience," can you tell us a little about Marge Piercy? Where did you first come across her work?
Kristin LaTour: I first read a couple of Marge Piercy's novels in a contemporary lit class in college in the early 1990s. Then I found her poetry when I was browsing a bookstore. I loved it. It was lyrical free-verse, something I hadn't encountered in much of my reading or education up to that point. It spoke to me, my values of feminism, religion (even though we are not of the same religion) and finding meaning in daily life. I went to the local bookstore and bought every book of hers that was out at the time, and then every book after that.
Sundress: Are religion and feminism prominent themes in Piercy's work? And, I'm assuming she taught at some point, is education also a reoccurring theme?
Kristin LaTour: Religion and feminism are pervasive in Piercy's work. Her Judaism and concerns for women also come into her novels, although the feminism more so. She also writes about the environment, science and the intersection of politics with all of these. Her writing reminds me of Margaret Atwood, another feminist/environmentalist/humanist writer.
Education does come up now and again in her poems. It is usually brutally honest. She has a poem about how awful it is to go to colleges to give readings and stay in dismal dorms and have few people attend her readings. I can't recall the title of that poem. She has another about the pointlessness of MFA programs, and that was long before the explosion of low-res programs. It's titled "For the Young Who Want To" and includes the line: "The real writer is the one who really writes." I thought a lot about that poem before applying to an MFA program, and it made me remember that a degree wasn't going to turn me into a poet, and really, I'd have to be aware to stay true to my own voice and not become just like my mentors there. Piercy isn't a formal academic, but she has lectured and given workshops at hundreds of colleges and conferences. She teaches in the best way, without all the trappings of a bureaucracy. I envy that.
Sundress: Being able to teach without the trappings of bureaucracy is certainly a privilege, or at the very least, extremely lucky. How do you feel about "Teaching Experience" as an educator?
Kristin LaTour: From the teacher side of me, especially when I teach developmental writing classes, the first part of this poem makes so much sense. The students don't want to be there. I do everything I can to engage them, but usually all is for naught with the majority. And the second half, yes, that too makes me nod my head. When I have a student one-on-one we get more done, and the energy levels off in both directions. I can relax, and the student opens up. Also, teaching something like roasting a goose is much more fun than teaching writing, at least the fundamentals. Plus, we get to eat the goose. Commas, not so much.
From the student side of me, I get it too. Sometimes the things we are supposed to learn aren't exciting. We go in with bad attitudes and shut down our receptors. I listen better in small groups than in large ones, like classrooms. Being a student who taken many poetry classes and workshops, there's also the point that you can't write poems from nothing. One has to have lived life to get all the nuances of it. We can't expect high schoolers to write the same poems as people in their 50s. Both can be great poets, but they are different based on their experiences.
From me as a fan of Marge Piercy, I want to shake the students who wouldn't give her every ounce of their attention. And I want to go on a nature hike with her. I also know I have students who have loved taking class with me and would say the same thing to students who get bored in my classes. "Pay attention! Open up!" And those few who gotten to know me outside of class know that teaching goes on outside of my classroom. So does laughter. And sometimes tears. Hopefully for good reason.
Sundress: I remember helping out in secondary classrooms during my undergrad, it made me laugh to hear her list her students, especially the one"pricing my clothing piece by piece"—I've met that student, the one staring intently at you but obviously not listening to a word you're saying. And yet, the poem overall, is moving and inspirational; while listening to this, I picture this speech being given to poetry grad students. Stylistically, how does "Teaching Experience" compare to Piercy's other work?
Kristin LaTour: This poem is much like her other poems as far as style and form go. Like I said, her work showed me how free verse narrative poems could work.
I like how this poem starts out with a command a metaphor. This is what teachers are told to do, and how a lot of teachers feel, at least once in a while. After the first two stanzas of metaphor and imagery, the poem gets more narrative, but by the third stanza, I trust that this is a poem, not just a story. I also like the line breaks in the 6th stanza. "I could show you how," sets up a little mystery, makes me curious to know what she can teach me. The break that ends with "bones" is creepy. Then the last image brings in an element of environmentalism, another passion of mine as well.
The last three lines inspire me as a poet. Since Piercy's poems were my first big inspiration for writing, having her teach me about poetry. And there's the irony, that she can be in a classroom and not get through to students, face-to-face, but little me in Ashland, Wisconsin, is learning from her.
Sundress: If you could tell her students to read Piercy, to take that time to sit and read and learn from her, other than this poem, which ones would you recommend?
Kristin LaTour: I'm going to stick to Piercy's older work since we've been focusing on that. In her 1992 book, Mars and Her Children, I'd like to look at "Softly During the Night" for a lesson on the environment. The poem is a simple one about an overnight rain that gives way to a cloudless morning, but the last two lines strike me. The leaves on roadside bushes hold drops of water that "bear witness to what came and left/ furtive as if it took instead of giving." Our relationship with the natural world is complex. We take from it, and it gives to us, but there's something more here. There's a symbiosis that we don't always understand. And Piercy leaves us wondering with her just what it takes from us.
Going back even further to her 1977 book The Moon is Always Female, which was the second of her books I read, there are two poems I think teach lessons. For a protest poem with some lessons on grassroots action, I like "The Low Road." The poem starts with how "they" can take a person and torture her, and how there's nothing the solitary person can do to stop "them." But the rest of the poem grows to a couple fighting their way out of a mob, three people forming a "wedge," a "dozen make a demonstration," and finally ten million can make a nation. Together, as a group, we can make a lot of progress in the world.
The last poem is "For Strong Women." Obviously this is a feminist poem, but it's message is rousing and moving. The first five stanzas start with the phrase "A strong woman" and then develops what she does. She works, takes abuse and keeps going, doesn't let others tell her she can't accomplish a task. She deals with physical pain. The last stanza starts with the idea that a strong woman is comforted by those who love her for her strength and her weakness. The last three lines are a raising of fists and a kick to the chest at the same time. "Strong is what we make/ each other. Until we are strong together,/ a strong woman is strongly afraid." I don't know if Piercy meant the "we" to be just women, or both women and men. I like to think of it as both. Pierce was writing in the time when Roe vs Wade was new, and here, almost 40 years later, we are dealing with women's health clinics closing, being attacked by men with guns, rape culture, and a continuing struggle for equality in many aspects of society. We all need to learn to come together and be strong for women and other marginalized groups.
Sundress: How do Piercy's novels compare to her poetry? Which novel would you first recommend to those who like her poetry?
Kristin LaTour: Piercy's novels are also very feminist, environmentalist, and she also varies from historical fiction to sci-fi/speculative fiction. The first novel I read was Braided Lives. While I grew up in the 1970s and '80s when abortions were legal, I felt deeply moved by her writing about young women's sexual lives and the freedom and danger that came with having relationships with men. I had never read anything so explicit and honest about young women's sexual lives and it resonated with me like someone had turned on a light in a dark room. I loved He, She, and It a sci-fi novel that blends feminism, the pros and cons of artificial intelligence and religion. She's never a one or two-dimensional writer. Everything comes to a full life. While I haven't read either of the novels in years, I can bring the characters and settings up in mind easily.
Comparing the two based more on content isn't as easy. Her imagery in both is vivid. Her wit and opinions come through in both. She's honest, not holding anything back. I really admire that quality. I hope in my own poems I do the same. I can't even say what novels I'd recommend based on her poetry. All of them, really. If you are a fiction reader and want to get into her poetry, I'd start with Mars and Her Children. It's a good overall starting point. If someone wants to explore a more linear set of poems, Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing moves through the seasons, but also has a foot in Judaism, the image in the title coming from the story of Ezekiel. Her newest book, Made in Detroit, touches on much of Piercy's life, and readers will find a lot there to enjoy, from friendships between women to gardens to cats. Well, you'll find cats in all her books of poetry. Lots of cats.
Kristin LaTour's first full-length collection, What Will Keep Us Alive, is available from Sundress Publications. Her most recent chapbook is Agoraphobia, from Dancing Girl Press (2013). Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Fifth Wednesday, Cider Press Review, Escape into Life, and Massachusetts Review and in the anthology Obsession: Sestinas in the 21st Century. She teaches at Joliet Jr. College and lives in Aurora, IL with her writer husband. Readers can find more information at KristinLaTour.com.
sundresspublications	Lyric Essentials	Leave a comment December 3, 2015 December 4, 2015
Project Bookshelf: Kristin LaTour
I know, I know. It's a mess. Book aren't supposed to be kept on their sides. Someday, I'll have a huge library. For now, Ikea shelves are okay.
My books are pretty organized. At the very top, there's books on witchcraft and voodoo, my travel journals and books on Greece. I spent a month in Greece when I was in college and loved it. There's not much better than getting a gyro on the street stuffed with meat and fries with an Amstel (not that light crap either) on the side. That vase is my hubby's from his trip to Greece before we met. Another sign we were meant for each other. (Stop gagging.) That wooden box holds a Bible I got when my great-grandfather died when I was in 8th grade. I never thought about the fact that it lives next to witchcraft stuff. Hmmmm….
On the second level are all my poetry books. You can tell the Hyacinth Girl Press ones from the ribbons. I'm obviously running out of room. There's also a photo of my paternal grandfather as a baby and my mom and aunt.
Third shelf is almost all British and Irish authors, at least the ones that are shelved properly. We keep the Bevington because we need a booster seat for friends' kids once in a while. "Get the Bevington!" we holler. Piled above my lovely Brits are a handmade journal my sister made me, some poetry books that haven't made it to the second shelf yet, my Vintage Hairstyling book, and Dream Symbols, which really isn't helpful and will probably get donated to my local non-profit bookstore. When I had a dream that my husband's family was all vampires living in a barn, there really wasn't anything helpful there. It did make a good poem that is published in Adanna this fall.
Fourth shelf… stereo obviously. I think I was magnanimous when we were setting up the shelves, and I offered to house it. My husband's bookcase is opposite of mine with the cds keeping peace between them. Anyway, this shelf is American authors, mostly dead ones. The antique Kodak Brownie is from my in-laws' house. The photo is my maternal grandma's senior picture.
The fifth shelf is where all the excitement is. My city has a non-profit used bookstore, where I also volunteer, so I get lots of books there. The Newberry Library also has an awesome used book sale twice a year. All my finds go on this shelf for future reading. Behind those three stacks are all my novels that I love and can't part with.
The bottom shelf is 1/3 travel scrapbooks (England twice, Ireland twice, France, a road trip we took in 2002, my collection of children's books, most from my childhood with the addition of a collection of different illustrated copies of "The Velveteen Rabbit." The last pile there is more poetry books and journals I haven't read, and some books that need to get donated.
Kristin LaTour has three chapbooks: Agoraphobia, from Dancing Girl Press (2013), Blood (Naked Mannequin Press 2009) and Town Limits (Pudding House Press 2007). Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Massachusetts Review, Fifth Wednesday, Cider Press Review, Escape into Life, and Atticus Review. Her work appears in the anthology Obsession: Sestinas in the 21st Century. A graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program, she teaches at Joliet Jr. College and lives in Aurora, IL with her writer husband, a lovebird, and two dogitos. Her first full-length collection is due out from Sundress in 2015.
sundresspublications	Admin	Leave a comment October 1, 2014 October 2, 2014

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


On April 2 the final leg of the Swatch Freeride World Tour takes place in Verbier, Switzerland, with the world's top off-piste skiers and snowboarders competing on the mighty face of the Bec des Rosses to be crowned 'the best of the best'. Judged by a distinguished panel of ski and snowboard legends, the contestants will show off their skills on more than 500 metres of steeps, including rocky cliffs and narrow couloirs of snow.
Verbier is the culmination of a five-leg worldwide tour, which began in January, that has taken them from Andorra to France to Austria, and most recently to the dramatic widerness of the Chilkat mountains near Haines, Alaska, where I was fortunate enough to see the riders perform live.
In each leg of the contest, the competitors have just one run to show their mettle – and after the third event in Fieberbrunn, Austria, the field was cut from 58 to 28. In Alaska another five were cut, meaning the pressure was on to secure a place in the final.
The Venue – the face on which the Haines leg takes place – is a massive playground for the riders. Nearly 800 metres of vertical – a heart-stopping 45-degree vertical – is interspersed with cliff drops and snow-covered ridges known as spines all the way to the bottom. The athletes must navigate these creatively to increase their score with stylish airs and flips, as well as choosing an interesting route down. They have to push hard to impress – and, most importantly, not lose control and fall.
First came the snowboard men, then ski men, snowboard women and ski women – ski men being the biggest category with 14, the others with 4 to 7. From a ridge opposite, all were gripped by the jaw-dropping runs – the judges, commentators, and riders watching their peers.
There were gasps as the second snowboarder to go, Canadian Jonathan Penfield, fell head over heels several times before righting himself to air off another cliff. I imagined the gasps echoing around the world as the event filmed by cameramen in helicopters is webcasted live. Then outbursts of whooping as American skier Drew Tabke headed for a zone that no one else had covered, a natural halfpipe, and threw a massive backflip. Swiss snowboarder Anne-Flore Marxer, performing last in her six-woman category, took a extremely steep untracked line from the top, following it up with a huge controlled air near the bottom of the run.
The pros make some of it look easy. But imagine the longest, most challenging run you could do – and now imagine doing it nonstop with style and control.
Of course the pros on the Swatch Freeride World Tour are not like average riders, and neither is the way they attack slopes that are steeper and more difficult than the toughest many of us would go near. But that doesn't mean it's easy for them, or that they're not nervous.
For a start, this is a competition, so there's pressure to perform. And accidents happen. At Fieberbrunn snowboarder Sascha Hamm, the only Briton in the contest, crashed and suffered serious injuries which meant he couldn't compete in Haines despite qualifying.
Many of them have never been on this face before, for some it's their first time in Alaska and – as everyone from the riders to the massive team of organisers, mountain guides, judges, TV crew, photographers and commentators says – Alaska presents different challenges. Slopes up to 55 degrees are coated with snow that sticks in volume but it may slough around riders as they go down the slope, and the "bowling ball" effect means that the slope rolls away from them so they can't see what's below.
Before the contest in Haines these experienced pros studied photos of the face, listened to guides giving information on its characteristics, snow conditions and safety, trying to decide what line to take on the slope from one of the two possible starts.
Most were able to warm up and test themselves – but only on other runs – with the help of helicopter, snowcat or snowmobile as there are no lifts here. There is a 10-day window allowed for the event to take place because the weather is so changeable. The first possible day was Thursday, March 17, but it wasn't until the Saturday that the contest was confirmed to take place on Monday, March 21, near the end of the window.
Riders have to be ready to perform at short notice. And so does the crew: equipment and tents were ready on the viewing ridge for a week, a team poised to broadcast to the world.
Every day mountain guides held meetings to decide if the time would be right. Every day at dawn, there was a crush at the Seaba Heli offices as everyone scrambled for a place on a helicopter or snowcat. And every day they would wait and wait, looking hopefully at the mountains.
On the morning of the event we travelled in the Haines school bus at 6am to the 33 Mile café – 33 miles from town and the helicopter take off point – the riders dozed and studied the Venue on their phones. They form part of the incredible logistical effort needed to get 100 or so people – technicians, judges, the few spectators – to the top of the face.
After one warm-up run, pros were ferried to their chosen start, the judges immediately voting and awarding points to rank the riders – pressured to come to a decision quickly – before the next run can start.
The riders often don't find out until they're back at the viewing ridge how they've done. There's some commiseration, for those who don't qualify, but also much to celebrate. Austrian Flo Orley, who's snowboarding in a gorilla suit to celebrate his last tour after 16 years, makes the podium in third despite a fall in shadow at the bottom of his run; French skier Julien Lopez comes to the commentators' box and is ecstatic to find he's come sixth and will go to Verbier.
Italian skier Arianna Tricomi, on her first tour and first trip to Alaska, came third to stay ranked second overall; Drew Tabke's stylish but different run got him third in the ski men; outstanding runs from skier Eva Walkner of Austria and for Swiss snowboarder Anne-Flore gave them the wins and they are tour leaders for their categories.
Logan Pehota of Canada won the men's ski category, beating tour leader Loïc Collomb-Patton of France into second so that there's still a battle to be had for the overall title in Verbier.
As co-commentator Ed Leigh said at the end of the webcast, "No one held back, everyone was sending it today." And there will be more of the same in Verbier. Don't miss it.
The elite competition in Verbier runs from 9am to 1pm on April 2 2016. The live webcast in Haines failed thanks to a satellite problem but it can be view now online at freerideworldtour.com. The website also features full rider line-ups and biographies, more video, photos and event details.


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Theory of evolution
By Father John Catoir
The theory of evolution has prompted many Catholics to question their faith. Before you join them in their doubt, you should know more about the troubles that surround Darwin's theory.
The doctrine of original sin is true. Even if the story of Adam and Eve is only a parable that tells us that human nature fell from grace in some mysterious way, the main point is that we do need a savior.
In order to live joyfully because of the knowledge of God's love, each of us must hold fast to the Nicene Creed or we will become sad and confused, and Jesus will say, "O you of little faith."
Many aspects of Darwin's theory of evolution are disputed among his own followers, who are divided into two camps: the gradualists and the saltationists.
The gradualists maintain that the higher species of life evolved gradually from the lower by small changes, which over millions of years brought about many new species through a process Darwin called "natural selection."
The saltationists are honest enough to admit that there is no scientific evidence to prove Darwin's gradualism. So they maintain that new forms of life do appear, but suddenly, after millions of years of stability. They believe that a reptile one day produced an egg that in turn produced not a reptile but a bird. They claim this is all done without any divine intervention.
Scholar Larry Azar responded: If any sane person believes this, then he surely must believe in fairy tales.
Azar wrote a 636-page book with over 40 pages of carefully researched, scientific bibliography entitled "Evolution and Other Fairy Tales" (published by Author House in 2005). It is a book that carefully studies the claims of the evolutionists and examines the logic and cogency of their arguments.
Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI approved the concept of theistic evolution, which presumes that God is the first cause of our evolving universe. How and when we humans appeared in the process is not spelled out clearly.
Jesuit Father Kenneth Baker wrote an excellent review of Azar's book in Homiletic & Pastoral Review (July 2006), saying that "this is not a book of creation science. It is a critical analysis of the claims of the evolutionists. The author shows that there is no evidence for evolution in the sense that essential changes occur in a rising spiral from amoeba to reptiles to birds to mammals to apes to man."
Beware, all you Catholics who left your religion behind because of your misguided acceptance of the unverifiable theory of evolution. You may have traded your birthright for a bowl of cold porridge.
Albert Einstein is correct: There must be a supreme intelligence behind the universe.
The church is also correct in teaching that Jesus Christ is our divine savior. The story of the fall in Genesis is not to be interpreted as literal history; rather, it is a revealed truth that teaches us to turn to Jesus as our Lord and savior.
For me, the doctrine of original sin, which proclaims the fallen state of mankind, is the easiest doctrine to prove. Just look at the carnage of the last century.
The theory of evolution gave Nazi Germany the principle of racial superiority that validated the belief that certain classes of people -- such as Jews, Gypsies, blacks and Catholics -- were inferior.
It is a theory that is deeply flawed.
Jesus said, "By their fruits you will know them" (Mt 7:16).


Photo 2:Educators visit the library of Yunnan University.
On June 27-28, the "2017 Yunnan-Thailand Education Cooperation Conference", organized by Yunnan University and sponsored by Royal Thai Consulate General in Kunming and Yunnan Provincial Department of Education, was held in Yunnan University.
Thailand is located in the center of Southeast Asia and it is an important country along the "Belt and Road". As China's gateway to South and Southeast Asia, Yunnan is adjacent to and culturally connected with Thailand. The Yunnan and Thai peoples are friendly to each other, which makes another advantage in education cooperation.
Lin Wenxun, president of Yunnan University, introduced the cooperation between Yunnan University and Thailand to the journalist. He said that the cooperation between Yunnan University and Thailand started pretty early and has been very practical. In the field of talent cultivation, a joint undergraduate program major in Mandarin Chinese international education was launched together with Prince of Songkla University and Xibokang University, and a joint undergraduate program in Thai language was developed with Chiang Mai University and Mahilung University. With the constant deepening of the cooperation between Yunnan University and Thai universities and colleges, exchanges between these 2 parties are more frequent. Over 100 Thai students come to Yunnan University to study various subjects at different levels.
Ms. Kaewjai Nacaskul, director of the Office of International Affairs and Global Networking, Chulalongkorn University, said that undergraduate students of Yunnan University must take a strict language proficiency test before applying for a master degree program at Chulalongkorn University. In their cooperation, teachers from multiple academic areas will be exchanged to teach, so that they can learn from each other to make mutual improvement.
"In recent years, Yunnan's education cooperation with Thailand has borne abundant fruits. In 2016, Thai students in Yunnan were over 2000 while Yunnan students in Thailand were over 4000," said Zhou Rong, the head of Yunnan Education Department, when he gave the address at the exchange activity. Now, Thai language study programs have been offered in 28 universities and colleges in Yunnan. 2 Confucius Schools have been established jointly by Yunnan and Thai Universities. The 2+2 joint programs are welcomed by the students.
The journalist learned from the exchange activity that since the Thai government officially approved the legalization of Chinese medicine, the popularity of Chinese medicine has been continually increased. Chinese medicine, which has been in China for thousands of years, is a new booming medical science in Thailand. Currently, there are over 200 hospitals in Thailand have Chinese medicine clinics. Because of its significant effect, more and more Thai people like to see a Chinese medicine doctor.
The popularity of Chinese medicine has also promoted the study and research of Chinese medicine in Yunnan's universities and colleges. "Yunnan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine has always been adhering to the subject of Chinese medicine, excavated and developed traditional medicine academic discipline with Yunnan local medical resources, supported the integration and emergence of academic disciplines.
Mr. Pornpop Uampidhaya, Royal Thai Consul General in Kunming, said that the 2017 Yunnan -Thailand Education Cooperation exchange activities has set up a good platform for both parties to conduct deeper communication that will upgrade the pragmatic education cooperation and enhance the friendly relationship between the 2 countries for win-win and mutual benefits.


By introducing in-memory persistent storage, Apache Spark eliminates the need to store intermediate data in filesystems, thereby increasing processing speed by up to 100 times.
This book will focus on how to analyze large and complex sets of data. Starting with installing and configuring Apache Spark with various cluster managers, you will cover setting up development environments. You will then cover various recipes to perform interactive queries using Spark SQL and real-time streaming with various sources such as Twitter Stream and Apache Kafka. You will then focus on machine learning, including supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and recommendation engine algorithms. After mastering graph processing using GraphX, you will cover various recipes for cluster optimization and troubleshooting.
Rishi Yadav has 19 years of experience in designing and developing enterprise applications. He is an open source software expert and advises American companies on big data and public cloud trends. Rishi was honored as one of Silicon Valley's 40 under 40 in 2014. He earned his bachelor's degree from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in 1998.
About 12 years ago, Rishi started InfoObjects, a company that helps data-driven businesses gain new insights into data. InfoObjects combines the power of open source and big data to solve business challenges for its clients and has a special focus on Apache Spark. The company has been on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies for 6 years in a row. InfoObjects has also been named the best place to work in the Bay Area in 2014 and 2015.
Rishi is an open source contributor and active blogger.
This book is dedicated to my parents, Ganesh and Bhagwati Yadav; I would not be where I am without their unconditional support, trust, and providing me the freedom to choose a path of my own.
Special thanks go to my life partner, Anjali, for providing immense support and putting up with my long, arduous hours (yet again).
Our 9-year-old son, Vedant, and niece, Kashmira, were the unrelenting force behind keeping me and the book on track.
Big thanks to InfoObjects' CTO and my business partner, Sudhir Jangir, for providing valuable feedback and also contributing with recipes on enterprise security, a topic he is passionate about; to our SVP, Bart Hickenlooper, for taking the charge in leading the company to the next level; to Tanmoy Chowdhury and Neeraj Gupta for their valuable advice; to Yogesh Chandani, Animesh Chauhan, and Katie Nelson for running operations skillfully so that I could focus on this book; and to our internal review team (especially Rakesh Chandran) for ironing out the kinks. I would also like to thank Marcel Izumi for, as always, providing creative visuals. I cannot miss thanking our dog, Sparky, for giving me company on my long nights out. Last but not least, special thanks to our valuable clients, partners, and employees, who have made InfoObjects the best place to work at and, needless to say, an immensely successful organization.


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Washington Watch > Election
DNC: Georgia Doctor/Delegate Wants Docs to Join the Fray
— Become a community activist
by Joyce Frieden, News Editor, MedPage Today July 29, 2016
PHILADELPHIA -- In addition to voting, physicians should consider becoming more involved in their communities through civic engagement, according to Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, PhD.
Doctors -- especially those in primary care -- used to be a bigger part of the community when they were doing home visits, but now they are often sitting behind a computer during an office visit and are less engaged in the world outside of the office, said Jones, a Clinton delegate from Georgia and senior fellow at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine, in Atlanta. In a video interview Thursday at the Democratic National Convention, she also discussed her hopes for the presidential race and healthcare reform.
Wondering why MedPage Today covers politics see this explanation from Editor-in-Chief Peggy Peck, editor-in-chief.


Well, answer is that event was bugged and there is no plans for compensation. If they find cause of this issue in future they may repeat event and it will be possible for exchange. There is no plans for it at current moment.
Last edited by Alkaris; 07-24-2018, 06:16 AM.
Just wanted to say that I am still looking at the shiny, useless amulets in my inventory..my Dragon Staff and Chiara's Blood Chalice...the issue got solved on my GTA account within a week.
Weird, because which i write above was provided by same people, which fixed your issue on your GTArcade account within week. And well, i cant say that i am surprised, but answer i have received was final.


Carpet vs. laminate: Which is cheaper?
If you are thinking about upgrading your home, you have a lot of decisions to make. Home renovations can be as cheap or as costly as you want them to be: it all depends on the quality of materials you want to install, the functionality of your room, and how much of the work you want to do yourself.
According to Consumer Reports.org, usage, functionality, and the size of the space are all factors that should be considered when deciding on which type of flooring you need.Once you've got the basics narrowed down - like where you want the new flooring to be and how much wear-and-tear it'll get on a daily basis - you can start considering which types of flooring will work best for you.
Two of the more popular choices you may want to consider are carpet and laminate. Laminate is a great choice for high traffic rooms. It's easy to clean and it doesn't wear away when it gets wet. Carpet, on the other hand, is may be best suited for rooms where people want to relax, such as living rooms, dens, and bedrooms. It usually can't sustain a lot of moisture and it's not as easy to clean.
One of the first questions to answer as you're considering carpet and laminate is how you want the room to feel. Do you like the sophisticated look of hard floorings or the more comfortable appeal of carpeting? As you're pondering your aesthetic inclinations, keep one number firmly in mind: your budget.
Carpet and laminate can both be affordable - or very expensive. Shop around at a few different stores and be sure to bring samples home before committing to anything. You may have to pay a few bucks to bring the samples home, but it's well worth it.
Home Depot offers laminate flooring in a variety of styles such as wood planks and tile. The cost varies from $0.99 to $2.99 a square foot. The price of carpet varies depending on the name brand and texture. They can range from $1.98 to over $3.00 a square foot.
Which do tenants and homeowners prefer?
As a tenant, you may find many apartments have carpet throughout the space. Landlords like carpet because it can help dull the sound between floors and because it's easier to deep-clean carpet than to replace any damaged laminate flooring.
The decision of laminate versus carpet for homeowners is strictly a personal preference. But the future resale value of the home should also be taken into consideration. Styles are likely to change before you put your home on the market, but you may be able to get an idea of what homeowners in your area are looking for by browsing the "For Sale" section of real estate sites. Is wall-to-wall carpeting put right up front in many listings, or do the majority mention wood-style floors?
With all these considerations in mind, you're sure to find something you love in the price range you want. Happy shopping!


Can CEOs Deal with the Challenge of Automation's Impact on Job Creation?
Labor market experts disagree about how many American jobs will be lost to automation. A 2013 report by Oxford University researchers concluded that about 47 percent of total U.S. employment is at risk because of automation. A 2015 report by McKinsey & Co. forecast that automation could eliminate as much as 45 percent of work activities currently performed in the U.S.
Forrester Research predicts that robots—all forms of automation, machine learning and intelligent machines—will replace 16 percent of American jobs but will create the equivalent of 9 percent of those jobs by 2025. That would represent a net loss of 7 percent of jobs.
CEOs have become acutely aware that the loss of jobs was a particularly hot issue in the 2016 elections. Labor market experts point to automation and globalization as the primary reasons for jobs being eliminated or shifted overseas. For decades, employers have hired young people and trained them to do a particular job. Today, however, employers are expecting job applicants to be better prepared for jobs with highly technical requirements.
The problem is that young people entering the workforce are often ill equipped with the required skills. "Educational systems can't turn on a dime," Mary V.L. Wright, senior director of national career education advocacy group Jobs for the Future told SHRM, but "employers can help colleges figure out what the competencies are." While some local and regional job training partnerships involving employers have shown great promise—and apprenticeships are drawing increasing interest from employers—the best programs are not large and widespread enough to make a big dent in the ranks of the unemployed.


(Boulder County, Colo.) -- The Board of County Commissioners today enacted a temporary, six-month moratorium (Resolution 2018-112) on processing applications for proposed development in the Niwot Rural Community District (NRCD), pending consideration of Boulder County Land Use Code amendments.
After meeting with community members and staff, the Land Use Department has determined that the existing Land Use Code provisions concerning the NRCD are not adequate to provide the necessary direction in reviewing development projects in this District. Community members have raised concerns about the density and design parameters.
The current regulations concerning the NRCD were written in 1993, and last updated nine years ago, prior to various changes in development patterns, community needs, and population growth. The regulations are due for review in light of the current concerns over the impacts of continuing development activities within these districts and the Niwot community.
As it has been more than 25 years since the community has had a meaningful review and conversation about land use planning in this area, the Board of County Commissioners feels it is necessary for the regulations to be updated to address current development trends. The goal is to utilize and maintain the unique character of Niwot so it continues to be a healthy and vibrant community.
Article 4-116 of the Land Use Code was adopted in the early 1990s, as part of the process for establishing a Rural Community District (RCD) under Article 4-115, to address the unique characteristics and future development of the Niwot rural community. The regulations have undergone several, mostly minor, amendments, with the last significant update to the regulations occurring nine years ago.
Staff and community stakeholders have identified several areas in need of clarification in the regulation language, including provisions regarding mixed-use development and a need to better understand and clarify the intensity of development appropriate within the NRCD. While the existing NRCD design guidelines work reasonably well in some areas of the district, the potential for inconsistent application exists in other areas. Neighbors have also raised concerns with the level of residential development allowed, density and design parameters, and whether the NRCD regulations facilitate the appropriate mix of residential, retail, and office uses.
The Colorado Local Government Land Use Control Enabling Act, C.R.S. §§ 29-20-101 et seq., provides the county with the broad authority to plan for and regulate the use of land to best protect and promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the present and future inhabitants of Boulder County and to guide future growth, development, and distribution of land uses within the county.
Boulder County Land Use staff has begun to analyze whether the existing NRCD regulations, and more generally the RCD regulations, are sufficient to protect and promote the public health, safety, and welfare, by appropriately balancing changes in development and growth with the present and future needs of the Niwot community.
Staff anticipates the time needed to analyze necessary amendments to the regulations, as well as develop a plan to propose and adopt new regulations, is approximately six months in total. This timeframe assumes approximately two months for studies, community outreach, and staff meetings; two months for drafting, referral to interested third parties, and public review of those drafts; one month to notice and conduct Planning Commission hearings; and one month for BOCC hearings.


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Is Russia's Hidden Hand Somewhere in the Samir Kuntar Assassination?
Missile strike on target in Damascus is clear challenge to Moscow, which raises question of whether there was some kind of understanding or coordination in advance.
Send me email alerts for new articles by Anshel Pfeffer
Members of Hezbollah carry the coffin of Lebanese militant Samir Kuntar, killed in an airstrike in Damascus, December 21, 2015.AFP
Around 20 airstrikes in Syria have been attributed to Israel over the last four and a half years. While Israel has not taken direct responsibility for any of them, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged last month for the first time that Israel is operating in Syria to interdict arms shipments to Hezbollah. Israel once again refused to confirm or deny it was behind the strike on a building in a southern suburb of Damascus on Saturday night, but ostensibly, this would seem the one that is easiest to connect. After all, the most prominent of the nine people killed in the attack, reportedly by four missiles hitting the structure, was Samir Kuntar, one of the most reviled killers in a long history of anti-Israeli terrorists, whom Israel released in a prisoners-for-bodies 2008 deal after he served 29 years for the murders in the 1979 Nahariya attack on the Haran family.
When Nasrallah promises revenge, Israel better take him at his word
Three days after Kuntar assassination: Putin and Netanyahu speak on Syria
Samir Kuntar in 1995 interview: We have to accept Israel as a fact
But it is unlikely that the airstrike was a straightforward act of revenge, and on closer examination many questions remain unanswered as to the timing, location and intended target of this attack. With Kuntar dead, buried and eulogized by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, it seems clear now that he was no terror super-mastermind. Tasked with mobilizing his fellow Druze on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights to carry out terror attacks against Israel, he was largely unsuccessful, causing the deaths of more Druze than Israelis. Marginalized by Hezbollah, who preferred using their own operatives, he was cooperating with Iran's Quds Force when killed.
If indeed Kuntar was killed by Israeli missiles, it would indicate that the intelligence which guided the planners to his location also included details of another cross-border attack he was planning. But this was still not a straightforward interdiction, and not because of Kuntar's blood-drenched past.
Most of the previous strikes attributed to Israel took place near the Syria-Lebanon border, on Hezbollah convoys transporting arms to the organization's strongholds. At least two strikes were on targets around Damascus but those were also connected to convoys and arms depots or development centers. The only previous strike that targeted individuals, rather than materiel, came in January when Hezbollah commanders Jihad Mughniyeh and Mohammed Issa, along with Iranian Revolutionary Guard Brig. Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, were killed near Kuneitra. In the aftermath, there were those in Israel's security hierarchy who feared that such prominent targets being killed could lead to an Iranian-backed escalation with Hezbollah. The retaliation 10 days later; a border explosion killing two Israeli soldiers, was seen in Israel as "limited."
Manner, timing of strike is significant
Kuntar, despite his past notoriety, was not in the league of Mughniyeh, Issa and Allahdadi. But the manner and timing of his death is significant. Not only was he killed by missiles hitting a residential building in Damascus, but the attack took place three months after Russian forces began deploying to Syria and Vladimir Putin's Kremlin officially became patrons of Bashar Assad. Israel has reportedly carried out three attacks in Syria during this period, but those were on convoys in the Qalamoun region near the border, not the Syrian capital, now under the Russian air-defense umbrella of Sukhoi interceptors and the S400 missile system. American aircraft now fly only over a very restricted area of Syria, just Raqqa, ISIS's main stronghold in the northeast, for fear of conflict with Russia's fighters.
A missile strike on a target in Damascus, even if, as has been reported by some media, it was carried out using standoff missiles outside Syrian airspace, is a clear challenge to Russia. Unless, there was some kind of understanding or coordination in advance, it is hard to imagine Israel going ahead with such an attack.
Since Saturday night there has been no response from Russia. On Tuesday afternoon, Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone, and according to the Prime Minister's Office they discussed "the war on terror." Did Kuntar come up in their chat? At any rate, the Kremlin has not voiced any displeasure with the fatal strike.
Moscow's calculations
Russia has two interests in Syria. One is maintaining its hold on the port of Tartous, its only military base on the Mediterranean (Warm-water ports are a strategic obsession of the Russians since the days of the Czarist empire.) The other interest is forcing the West to accept the fact that it can't dictate Assad's removal. There have been setbacks for the Russians – the shooting-down by Turkey last month of a fighter jet that crossed the border, and a less than successful ground campaign to retake large areas of Syria's heartland controlled by the rebels. Ostensibly its allies on the ground are Iran and Hezbollah, but Putin is interested in keeping Syria's southern neighbor on side as well.
Unlike the Obama administration, which demanded that Assad leave, and is now shamefacedly walking that back in the interest of pursuing a joint diplomatic solution with Russia and focusing on ISIS, Israel has remained officially agnostic on Assad's future. Despite fears in parts of the Israeli defense establishment that Russia would "bind Israel's hands" in Syria, the coordination between the two sides is working well, by all accounts. Last month a Russian jet inadvertently crossed the border over the Golan, but the solution was quickly resolved. "We don't stand on their balls and they don't stand on ours," said one senior Israeli official.
As 2015 ends, Syria may be ending a transition period, with attempts to impose a cease-fire. Russia may have ensured Assad's survival, which should be good news for Iran and Hezbollah, who were there for Assad, helping him butcher at least a quarter of a million Syrians, from the early stages of the civil war. But most of Iran's ground forces have been withdrawn, after multiple casualties, including a number of senior officers killed. Hezbollah is still there but has lost around 1,400 fighters and thousands more injured; an estimated third of its fighting force.
Meanwhile, Russia is firmly in control and seems to be taking Israel's security concerns into consideration. Such an outcome, where their man is taken out in Russian-dominated Damascus, allegedly by Israel, was hardly what they were contemplating in Tehran and in Nasrallah's Beirut bunker.


Fashionistas, tonight is your night. The 2010 edition of Fashion's Night Out, a.k.a "the biggest fashion party in history" will be taking place tonight in New York City….and you're all invited! There are hundreds of retailers participating in this epic event, and after some extensive research, we are proud to bring your our list of BFF-approved events!
ALDO: You can never have too many military-inspired accessories. Visit ALDO from 6-11pm and 50% of proceeds from the ALDO Combat Boot (which will look fabulous with your BFF bracelet!!) will go to ALDO Fights AIDS in support of the NYC Aids Funds.
Bloomingdales: Swing by this fashion favorite for a chance to meet Designers Michael Kors and Carmen Marc Valvo! You can also fine-tune your cooking skills with a demo from Iron Chef Morimoto and witness the intensity of the Spin Ping Pong Tournament!
MAC Cosmetics: It may be hard to apply make-up while laughing, but a live performance from everyone's favorite funny girl, Sarah Silverman, is definitely worth the sacrifice!
Dylan's Candy Bar: With all that shopping, you're going to need to take a candy break. Shoot fashion victims with flying marshmallows from the signature Marshmallow Gun, sip on candy cocktails, and dance to the sweet tunes of DJ MSG!
Share your Fashion's Night Out pics with us on our facebook wall!


addition, graphic illustrations appear throughout the book to make abstract concepts easy to understand. Checklists and Projects provide plentiful opportunities to learn and reinforce chapter topics.
Laura J. Gurak is associate professor at the University of Minnesota, faculty fellow at the University of Minnestoa Law School, and director of the Internet Studies Center.


Delicious Merci Chocolate box - 250 g - chocolates with different fillings and milk chocolate. Add Merci Chocolate box to the selected bouquet or flowers.
Select a bouquet or arrangement.	Add Merci Chocolate box during the checkout.


Have Questions About Warehousing… How About Truck Parking?
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The BAE Systems RG-31 Agrab 120mm 4x4 mortar carrier vehicle to be produced in UAE.
According to a contract between the UAE-based International Golden Group (IGG) and BAE Land Systems on December 2011, the Agrab RG31 armoured utility vehicles are to be produced by the UAE as early as next year.
The Rg-31 Agrab is fitted with the 120mm the SRAMS (Super Rapid Advanced Mortar System).
"We have delivered a few fully assembled vehicles already but are doing this with our partner IGG as part of our partnership and the future development of the industry in the region and UAE," said Natasha Pheiffer, BAE Land Systems' director of business development and communications.
The 4x4 armoured and mine-protected vehicle with all-steel welded armour is fitted with a 120mm super rapid advanced mortar system that is mounted on the RG31 vehicle and an ammunition-handling system that can deliver 46 mortar rounds.
It is designed to have a three-man crew with the ability to deploy and deliver firepower in less than one minute.
The UAE Special Operations Command operates RG31 Mk5 command vehicles.
Ms Pheiffer said that a team of Emirati engineers has visited South Africa to see how the vehicles are built.
"Emirati engineers have been fully involved and running the programme from the start and are dealing not only with the platform vehicles but also all the other systems that would be included in them," she said.
Fadel Al Kaabi, chief executive of IGG, said they have worked with BAE Systems' Land Systems South Africa business for many years as a prime contractor.
"We are looking forward to a long and successful future providing combat-proven mine and armour-protected systems to forces in the Middle East," he said.
There are more than 2,500 RG31s in service around the world.


The city's schools would lose the equivalent of 46 teaching positions if the district has to fork over $3 million to help meet costs associated with Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB), according to School Superintendent Melinda Boone. The money would be part of $5 million City Manager Mike O'Brien plans to put into a trust fund from the fiscal 2014 budget as a payment toward future retiree health care benefits estimated to cost more than $656 million.
In addition, it is not clear whether the state would even allow the school district to contribute to OPEB.
"I am sure you're aware that the Massachusetts DESE [Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] has provided an initial opinion that OPEB assessment may not count for net school spending until the benefit is paid in future years. It is clear that future discussion and planning together on this item needs to occur," Boone says.
Also in the memo, which is included in the informational packet for the City Council's Nov. 13 meeting, Boone says her administration is bracing for the impact of federal funding sequestration, which came out of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA). As it stands, Boone notes, reductions for discretionary federal funding are set to go into effect Jan. 2. If that happens, she continues, the result would be an approximately 8.5-percent reduction in grants for Education for the Disadvantaged; School Improvement Programs; Special Ed; and Career, Technical and Adult Education.
That, she continues, would equate to another 24 teaching positions.


text:
Is the Universe Actually Made of Math?
FROM THE JULY 2008 ISSUE
Cosmologist Max Tegmark says mathematical formulas create reality.
By Adam Frank|Monday, June 16, 2008
RELATED TAGS: MATH, COSMOLOGY
photography by Erika Larsen
Cosmologists are not your run-of-the-mill thinkers, and Max Tegmark is not your run-of-the-mill cosmologist. Throughout his career, Tegmark has made important contributions to problems such as measuring dark matter in the cosmos and understanding how light from the early universe informs models of the Big Bang. But unlike most other physicists, who stay within the confines of the latest theories and measurements, the Swedish-born Tegmark has a night job. In a series of papers that have caught the attention of physicists and philosophers around the world, he explores not what the laws of nature say but why there are any laws at all.
According to Tegmark, "there is only mathematics; that is all that exists." In his theory, the mathematical universe hypothesis, he updates quantum physics and cosmology with the concept of many parallel universes inhabiting multiple levels of space and time. By posing his hypothesis at the crossroads of philosophy and physics, Tegmark is harking back to the ancient Greeks with the oldest of the old questions: What is real?
Tegmark has pursued this work despite some risk to his career. It took four tries before he could get an early version of the mathematical universe hypothesis published, and when the article finally appeared, an older colleague warned that his "crackpot ideas" could damage his reputation. But propelled by optimism and passion, he pushed on.
"I learned pretty early that if I focused exclusively on these big questions I'd end up working at McDonald's," Tegmark explains. "So I developed this Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde strategy where officially, whenever I applied for jobs, I put forth my mainstream work. And then quietly, on the side, I pursued more philosophical interests." The strategy worked. Today a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tegmark travels among the world's top physicists. Backed by this well-earned credibility, his audacious ideas are sparking fascination and taking flight.
These days Tegmark is a busy man. With his wife, the Brazilian cosmologist Angelica de Oliveira-Costa, he balances science with the demands of raising two young boys. Our interviewer, theoretical astrophysicist Adam Frank of the University of Rochester in New York, finally caught up with Tegmark as he made his way home to Winchester, Massachusetts, from a conference at Stanford University. In a comic juxtaposition of the profound and the profane, they spoke about the nature of reality by cell phone for three hours as Tegmark jockeyed his way through an airport rental car return, security lines, and a long wait for a delayed flight. A riff on reality would brake to a halt so Tegmark could avoid being hit by a rental-agency van. Just as the conversation plunged into parallel universes, Tegmark would have to downshift the dialogue for the bewildered security guard checking his boarding pass. Tegmark's infectious excitement over the big issues, from physics and philosophy to kids and cosmology, made for one hell of an afternoon's ride.
Max, you have gained a reputation for thinking far outside the box even for a cosmologist. Have you always pondered deep questions of Life, the Universe, and Everything?
No. I was a very confused youth. I came to it all pretty late, and there was no one I talked about philosophy with as a teenager. I did have one friend in high school who did everything the opposite way from everyone else. If people were sending letters in rectangular envelopes, he would make triangular envelopes and send letters in those. I remember thinking, "That is cool. That is how I want to be."
Is that why you decided to go into physics?
Actually, my dad is a mathematician, and he was always very encouraging about math, but physics was my single most boring subject in high school. So I began as an undergrad in economics.
That was an interesting choice....When did physics show up on your radar screen again?
A friend gave me a book, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by the physicist Richard Feynman. It was all about picking locks and picking up women. It had nothing to do with physics, but it struck me how between the lines it said loud and clear, "I love physics!" I couldn't understand how this could be the same boring stuff from high school. It really piqued my curiosity.
If you see some mediocre guy walking down the street arm in arm with Cameron Diaz, you say to yourself, "I'm missing something here." So I started reading Feynman's Lectures on Physics and I was like, whoa! Why haven't I realized this before?
So then you changed your major?
Umm, no. You don't pay for college in Sweden, so I was able to do this kind of scam where I enrolled in a different university to do physics without telling them I was already in college for economics.
You were in two colleges at the same time?
Yeah. You can see I was confused. It got complicated at times. I would have exams in both places on the same day, and I'd have to bike really fast between them.
Was it in college that you started to think about the bigger questions?
I was taking the one and only quantum physics class offered, and when I got to the chapter on measurement I felt sure that I was missing something.
You're talking about the way the observer appears to affect the measurement of what's being observed.
Right. There is this beautiful mathematical equation in quantum theory called the Schrödinger equation. It uses something called the wave function to describe the system you are studying—an atom, an electron, whatever—and all the possible ways that system can evolve. The usual perspective of quantum mechanics is that as soon as you measure something, the wave function literally collapses, going from a state that reflects all potential outcomes to a state that reflects only one: the outcome you see at the moment the measurement is done. It seemed crazy to me. I didn't get why you were supposed to use the Schrödinger equation before you measured the atom, but then, while you're measuring it, the equation doesn't apply. So I got up my courage and knocked on the door of one of the most famous physicists in Sweden, a man on the Nobel committee, but he just blew me off. It wasn't until years later that I had this revelation that it wasn't me who didn't get it; it was him!
It is a beautiful moment in the education of a scientist when you realize that these guys in higher positions of power still don't have all of the answers. So you took your questions about the Schrödinger equation and the effect of measurement with you when you left for the United States and your Ph.D. at Berkeley?
That's where it all started for me. I had this friend, Bill Poirier, and we spent hours talking about crazy ideas in physics. He was ribbing me because I argued that any fundamental description of the universe should be simple. To annoy him, I said there could be a whole universe that is nothing more than a dodecahedron, a 12-sided figure the Greeks described 2,500 years ago. Of course, I was just fooling around, but later, when I thought more about it, I got excited about the idea that the universe is really nothing more than a mathematical object. That got me thinking that every mathematical object is, in a sense, its own universe.
Right from the start you tried to get this radical idea of yours published. Were you worried about whether it would affect your career?
I anticipated problems and did not submit until I had accepted a postdoctoral appointment at Princeton University. My first paper got rejected by three journals. Finally I got a good referee report from Annals of Physics, but the editor there rejected the paper as being too speculative.
Wait—that is not supposed to happen. If the referee likes a paper, it usually gets accepted.
That's what I thought. I was fortunate to be friends with John Wheeler, a Princeton theoretical physicist and one of my greatest physics heroes, who recently passed away. When I showed him the rejection letter, he said, "'Extremely speculative'? Bah!" Then he reminded me that some of the original papers on quantum mechanics were also considered extremely speculative. So I wrote an appeal to Annals of Physics and included Wheeler's comments. Finally the editors there published it.
Still, it wasn't your bread and butter. You did your Ph.D. and postdoc in cosmology, a totally different subject.
It's ironic that my cover for these more philosophical interests was cosmology, a field that has often been seen as flaky as well. But cosmology was gradually becoming more respectable because computer technology, space technology, and detector technology had combined to give us an avalanche of great information about the universe.
Let's talk about your effort to understand the measurement problem by positing parallel universes—or, as you call them in aggregate, the multiverse. Can you explain parallel universes?
There are four different levels of multiverse. Three of them have been proposed by other people, and I've added a fourth—the mathematical universe.
What is the multiverse's first level?
The level I multiverse is simply an infinite space. The space is infinite, but it is not infinitely old—it's only 14 billion years old, dating to our Big Bang. That's why we can't see all of space but only part of it—the part from which light has had time to get here so far. Light hasn't had time to get here from everywhere. But if space goes on forever, then there must be other regions like ours—in fact, an infinite number of them. No matter how unlikely it is to have another planet just like Earth, we know that in an infinite universe it is bound to happen again.
You're saying that we must all have doppelgängers somewhere out there due to the mathematics of infinity.
That's pretty crazy, right? But I'm not even asking you to believe in anything weird yet. I'm not even asking you to believe in any kind of crazy new physics. All you need for a level I multiverse is an infinite universe—go far enough out and you will find another Earth with another version of yourself.
So we are just at level I. What's the next level of the multiverse?
Level II emerges if the fundamental equations of physics, the ones that govern the behavior of the universe after the Big Bang, have more than one solution. It's like water, which can be a solid, a liquid, or a gas. In string theory, there may be 10500 kinds or even infinitely many kinds of universes possible. Of course string theory might be wrong, but it's perfectly plausible that whatever you replace it with will also have many solutions.
Why should there be more than one kind of universe coming out of the Big Bang?
Inflationary cosmology, which is our best theory for what happened right after the Big Bang, says that a tiny chunk of space underwent a period of rapid expansion to become our universe. That became our level I multiverse. But other chunks could have inflated too, from other Big Bangs. These would be parallel universes with different kinds of physical laws, different solutions to those equations. This kind of parallel universe is very different from what happens in level I.
Well, in level I, students in different parallel universes might learn a different history from our own, but their physics would still be the same. Students in level II parallel universes learn different history and different physics. They might learn that there are 67 stable elements in the periodic table, not the 80 we have. Or they might learn there are four kinds of quarks rather than the six kinds we have in our world.
Do these level II universes inhabit different dimensions?
No, they share the same space, but we could never communicate with them because we are all being swept away from each other as space expands faster than light can travel.
OK, on to level III.
Level III comes from a radical solution to the measurement problem proposed by a physicist named Hugh Everett back in the 1950s. [Everett left physics after completing his Ph.D. at Princeton because of a lackluster response to his theories.] Everett said that every time a measurement is made, the universe splits off into parallel versions of itself. In one universe you see result A on the measuring device, but in another universe, a parallel version of you reads off result B. After the measurement, there are going to be two of you.
So there are parallel me's in level III as well.
Sure. You are made up of quantum particles, so if they can be in two places at once, so can you. It's a controversial idea, of course, and people love to argue about it, but this "many worlds" interpretation, as it is called, keeps the integrity of the mathematics. In Everett's view, the wave function doesn't collapse, and the Schrödinger equation always holds.
The level I and level II multiverses all exist in the same spatial dimensions as our own. Is this true of level III?
No. The parallel universes of level III exist in an abstract mathematical structure called Hilbert space, which can have infinite spatial dimensions. Each universe is real, but each one exists in different dimensions of this Hilbert space. The parallel universes are like different pages in a book, existing independently, simultaneously, and right next to each other. In a way all these infinite level III universes exist right here, right now.
That brings us to the last level: the level IV multiverse intimately tied up with your mathematical universe, the "crackpot idea" you were once warned against. Perhaps we should start there.
I begin with something more basic. You can call it the external reality hypothesis, which is the assumption that there is a reality out there that is independent of us. I think most physicists would agree with this idea.
The question then becomes, what is the nature of this external reality?
If a reality exists independently of us, it must be free from the language that we use to describe it. There should be no human baggage.
I see where you're heading. Without these descriptors, we're left with only math.
The physicist Eugene Wigner wrote a famous essay in the 1960s called "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences." In that essay he asked why nature is so accurately described by mathematics. The question did not start with him. As far back as Pythagoras in the ancient Greek era, there was the idea that the universe was built on mathematics. In the 17th century Galileo eloquently wrote that nature is a "grand book" that is "written in the language of mathematics." Then, of course, there was the great Greek philosopher Plato, who said the objects of mathematics really exist.
How does your mathematical universe hypothesis fit in?
Well, Galileo and Wigner and lots of other scientists would argue that abstract mathematics "describes" reality. Plato would say that mathematics exists somewhere out there as an ideal reality. I am working in between. I have this sort of crazy-sounding idea that the reason why mathematics is so effective at describing reality is that it is reality. That is the mathematical universe hypothesis: Mathematical things actually exist, and they are actually physical reality.
OK, but what do you mean when you say the universe is mathematics? I don't feel like a bunch of equations. My breakfast seemed pretty solid. Most people will have a hard time accepting that their fundamental existence turns out to be the subject they hated in high school.
For most people, mathematics seems either like a sadistic form of punishment or a bag of tricks for manipulating numbers. But like physics, mathematics has evolved to ask broad questions.These days mathematicians think of their field as the study of "mathematical structures," sets of abstract entities and the relations between them. What has happened in physics is that over the years more complicated and sophisticated mathematical structures have proved to be invaluable.
Can you give a simple example of a mathematical structure?
The integers 1, 2, 3 are a mathematical structure if you include operations like addition, subtraction, and the like. Of course, the integers are pretty simple. The mathematical structure that must be our universe would be complex enough for creatures like us to exist. Some people think string theory is the ultimate theory of the universe, the so-called theory of everything. If that turns out to be true, then string theory will be a mathematical structure complex enough so that self-awareness can exist within it.
But self-awareness includes the feeling of being alive. That seems pretty hard to capture in mathematics.
To understand the concept, you have to distinguish two ways of viewing reality. The first is from the outside, like the overview of a physicist studying its mathematical structure. The second way is the inside view of an observer living in the structure. You can think of a frog living in the landscape as the inside view and a high-flying bird surveying the landscape as the outside view. These two perspectives are connected to each other through time.
In what way does time provide a bridge between the two perspectives?
Well, all mathematical structures are abstract, immutable entities. The integers and their relations to each other, all these things exist outside of time.
Do you mean that there is no such thing as time for these structures?
Yes, from the outside. But you can have time inside some of them. The integers are not a mathematical structure that includes time, but Einstein's beautiful theory of relativity certainly does have parts that correspond to time. Einstein's theory has a four-dimensional mathematical structure called space-time, in which there are three dimensions of space and one dimension of time.
So the mathematical structure that is the theory of relativity has a piece that explicitly describes time or, better yet, is time. But the integers don't have anything similar.
Yes, and the important thing to remember is that Einstein's theory taken as a whole represents the bird's perspective. In relativity all of time already exists. All events, including your entire life, already exist as the mathematical structure called space-time. In space-time, nothing happens or changes because it contains all time at once. From the frog's perspective it appears that time is flowing, but that is just an illusion. The frog looks out and sees the moon in space, orbiting around Earth. But from the bird's perspective, the moon's orbit is a static spiral in space-time.
The frog feels time pass, but from the bird's perspective it's all just one eternal, unalterable mathematical structure.
That is it. If the history of our universe were a movie, the mathematical structure would correspond not to a single frame but to the entire DVD. That explains how change can be an illusion.
Of course, quantum mechanics with its notorious uncertainty principle and its Schrödinger equation will have to be part of the theory of everything.
Right. Things are more complicated than just relativity. If Einstein's theory described all of physics, then all events would be predetermined. But thanks to quantum mechanics, it's more interesting.
But why do some equations describe our universe so perfectly and others not so much?
Stephen Hawking once asked it this way: "What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?" If I am right and the cosmos is just mathematics, then no fire-breathing is required. A mathematical structure doesn't describe a universe, it is a universe. The existence of the level IV multiverse also answers another question that has bothered people for a long time. John Wheeler put it this way: Even if we found equations that describe our universe perfectly, then why these particular equations and not others? The answer is that the other equations govern other, parallel universes, and that our universe has these particular equations because they are just statistically likely, given the distribution of mathematical structures that can support observers like us.
These are pretty broad and sweeping ideas. Are they just philosophical musings, or is there something that can actually be tested?
Well, the hypothesis predicts a lot more to reality than we thought, since every mathematical structure is another universe. Just as our sun is not the center of the galaxy but just another star, so too our universe is just another mathematical structure in a cosmos full of mathematical structures. From that we can make all kinds of predictions.
So instead of exploring just our universe, you look to all possible mathematical structures in this much bigger cosmos.
If the mathematical universe hypothesis is true, then we aren't asking which particular mathematical equations describe all of reality anymore. Instead we have to figure out how to separate the frog's view of the universe—our observations—from the bird's view. Once we distinguish them we can determine whether we have uncovered the true structure of our universe and figure out which corner of the mathematical cosmos is our home.
Max, this is pretty rarefied territory. On a personal level, how do you reconcile this pursuit of ultimate truth with your everyday life?
Sometimes it's quite comical. I will be thinking about the ultimate nature of reality and then my wife says, "Hey, you forgot to take out the trash." The big picture and the little picture just collide.
Your wife is a respected cosmologist herself. Do you ever talk about this over breakfast cereal with your kids?
She makes fun of me for my philosophical "bananas stuff," but we try not to talk about it too much. We have our kids to raise.
Do your theories help with raising your kids, or does that also seem like two different worlds?
The overlap with the kids is great because they ask the same questions I do. I did a presentation about space for my son Alexander's preschool when he was 4. I showed them videos of the moon landing and brought in a rocket. Then one little kid put up his hand and said: "I have a question. Does space end or go on forever?" I was like, "Yeah, that is exactly what I am thinking about now."
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