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You Couldn’t Make This Up

Is it still the pandemic ? Yep it is. Get out of bed and and try to find my vitamin C. Fail but spot the Vics Vapour rub. Put some under my nose. I’m not in need of vapour rub but the scent makes me feel safe, as if my mom put it there. Go back to bed. Thought hubby was asleep but he’s reading. He reads/sleeps/ reads all night. Don’t look at my phone. Don’t look at my phone. Don’t look at my phone.

Decide I need a to-do list. Fall back to sleep preparing a mental one. Wait to hear adult son making coffee. Adult son is finally sleeping in (or lying in bed making a mental to-do list.) I wonder if point number one for him is to remind himself to not isolate with parents at family cottage in the future. Make the coffee myself.

Eat toast and peanut butter. Watch grown daughter – also likely wondering how we all decided isolation as a partial family group at our lakehouse was a good idea – watch her preparing totally healthy yogurt and fruit and nuts for breakfast. Add honey to my coffee and eat 12 blueberries. Wander out to the deserted beach to talk to my dad in his senior’s residence. He has dementia and I’ve already decided it’s morally ok in this situation to be less than honest with him about how long this forced separation might go on.

Adult daughter is already yakking away to her sister on not deserted beach. Try to take photo of six beautiful geese taking flight in unison from the lake.
We hear a man’s voice and wave at our neighbour – also talking to someone on his phone on this decidedly ‘not’ deserted beach. Follow daughter, who is talking to her big sister, home. Phone my own big sister. Talk about what we always talk about – pandemic or not – how to make our elderly dad happy. Phone my other sister – she is out walking too. Lots of walking. Talk more about dad – who is beyond miserable but can still give us a chuckle with his wry (the guy invented wry) humour. Return to find husband having loud work phone calls in his new kitchen office. None of us have talked on the phone this much in forever. Like since texting was invented.

Decide I can contribute to cooking, though adult kids have taken over the kitchen. We are running low on many (ok I’m lying) a few items. Argue with husband and adult son whether it is necessary to make trip to grocery store yet. Husband wants boat gas – he has a strong need to social distance in a dingy in the middle of the lake. We offer to get the gas with other items.

Daughter and I drive to town – store has new rules posted (everyone has new rules) only one member of family allowed in. Keep your distance. No reuseable bags. (Hah – I figured they were germ infested – feel better for consistently forgetting mine). Daughter says she’ll risk the grocery shopping. She’s the original germ-aphob. I’m ok with that.

We need some healthcare items (don’t ask) from the pharmacy across the road. I put on my gloves and wait for the only customer to exit and cautiously go in. Grab the goods and spot the hair colour kits – eureka!! My hair has been my hairdresser’s responsibility for years. Which one of the ageless beauties on the boxes do I hope to resemble? I pick the happiest looking one. The clerk tells me how safe and clean the store is, holding up the cleaner and reading from the label the zillion types of bacteria it will destroy. It’s the sort of nasty germ killer I wouldn’t want in my house. I ask if I can buy some – for my house. (No way José. It’s for store use only.)

The clerk confirms that there has been a run on hair colour. She tells me everyone says there will be a lot of babies born in nine months. She thinks there will be a lot of divorces. My credit card ‘tap’ doesn’t work. I have to key in my payment card which makes me exit the store feeling paranoid. I get in my car, touching the steering wheel with possibly (unlikely) contaminated gloves. Damn. Put hand sanitizer on an old Kleenex from before the virus time which would have been too yucky to use in that other life. I wipe off the steering wheel. Take off gloves. Decide to wipe off my favourite little leather wallet. Shit. Hand sanitizer isn’t the freind of the dye on my wallet. Wipe off bank card. Daughter gets in the car as I’m trying to decide if I should get out and wipe off the outside car door handle? I’ve become a crazy person. I try for a laugh from my daughter with the story of my sanitizing. She gives me a half grin and I realize she loves that it is socially ok to wear protective gear now. We drive home talking about how dating just got really messed up and much trickier. We wonder if the dating ap Bumble will add a new category for your dates germ awareness level. At home we wash our hands to an off key duet of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star . We unpack the groceries quickly so the survivalist son and husband won’t realize we felt we needed these chocolate chips and feta cheese to survive. (Honestly commenters/trolls – these were not the items that sent us out into the germy world.) We haven’t seen the bearded man’s video of how to clean groceries yet.

My small yoga group is doing Zoom yoga. I can only get the audio. Our amazing and zen instructor offers to be very descriptive so I can follow without the visual. Turns out that I’m not an auditory learner – I find myself twisted like a pretzel in positions defying downward dog. Big yoga fail.

We drift into the far corners of the house or property, the younger generation distancing themselves further with ear buds on. But then usually around four o’clock we find ourselves together again – shaking our heads at this strange life. We cook clam linguini and gather for dinner. We talk about the virus news we’ve seen all day on our phones. Talk about movies. Talk about movies about viruses.Hubby falls asleep rewatching The Lord of the Rings. I feel the need to watch You’ve Got Mail. Instead I watch the bearded man’s video about how meticulously I should have cleaned and unpacked my groceries. Damn.

Go to bed early – fall asleep making that darn to-do list. Decide that I’m-going to plant seeds in little jars in the house. I Decide this will become a movement along with all the bread making that must be going on. Fall asleep wondering how I will look as a redhead?

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Audioquest DragonFly USB Digital Audio Converter and Headphone Amp Review

In the portable world of digital music, it seems that most people are happy with whatever setup they have – whether it’s a laptop, iPod or smart phone. Ironically, the most expensive device from this list also has the worst audio output: your computer. That laptop or desktop (iMAC, for instance) computer has about the cheapest soundcard available. And on that cheap soundcard sits an even cheaper digital audio converter or DAC, which is a necessary component to translate all those ones and zeros into an analog signal that you can physically hear through speakers or headphones. However, if your primary source of music is a computer, you can bypass the cheap internal DAC with a portable, external DAC. These DACs come in many different sizes, configurations and prices. Recently however, DACs have become smaller and easier to setup and use. It took Audioquest – an audio cable company – to raise the bar both in portability and audio quality with the DragonFly USB DAC + Preamp + Headphone Amp.

Before we get to the DragonFly’s pros and cons, permit me to explain what a DAC is and why you may need one.

Let’s assume you are not happy with how your music sounds and have two to three hundred bucks to improve the situation. How do you spend your money? That’s easy.  If you’re still using those free buds that came with your iDevice, spend the money on a good pair of headphones, earphones, or desktop speakers. Any of those will give you more bang for your buck. But know this: after you’ve become accustomed to those headphones or speakers over time, your ears will become more discerning and you may begin to desire even more from your music. If so, then it’s time to consider getting an external DAC.

DACs go from the incredibly inexpensive – but very limited – HiFiMAN Express HM-101 all the way to desktop units costing thousands of dollars. And yet, they all basically do the same thing. As I said, even though soundcards in PCs, iPods and CD players already convert digital to analog, dedicated DACs do it better, sometimes much better and that results in improved audio quality. Incidentally, CD players, iPods and Smart phones usually have decent DACs, especially when compared to the computer versions. This review deals with computer use only.

Let’s begin with iTunes as an example of a music player app. A song directly ripped (transferred) in a CD’s native format (AIFF) into iTunes is a 16 bit/44 khz file. This simply means that for most people, this is more than decent audio that sounds great. However, this results in huge file sizes, so most music – using iTunes – is ripped in Apple Lossless (ALAC) or MP3 formats, which is a compressed format, meaning smaller-sized files that take up much less space on your hard drive. More space means more room for more songs. Here’s where it gets tricky: In order to compress a music file, information (some of it audible) is thrown away. This data trimming compromises the quality of the audio, but it’s seldom an issue when using free ear buds or laptop DACs because they don’t sound great no matter how good the source is.

If you may have purchased many songs and albums from iTunes. Those files are 256 kbps – kilobits per second. That may sound like a lot, but CDs are 1,411 kbps. This means that there is more than 5 times the amount of musical data on a CD than a song purchased through iTunes. It’s simple math. With decent speakers or headphones, you hear more detail in uncompressed music ripped from CDs. Once again, with a typical PC or laptop DAC outputting your music, you probably can’t hear the difference between a CD track and the lower resolution iTunes version.

A good DAC has one single purpose: To make sure you hear as much detail as possible from any music file, compressed or uncompressed.

Excuse my grossly over-simplified explanation, but I thought is was important to lay some ground work. Plus, The Gadgeteer is about gadgets and not audiophile jargon. So I’ll stop here. HDtracks, Computer Audiophile and are all excellent sources for making sense of the sometimes confusing world of digital audio. However, if you must know the geeky specs, here they are:

  • Plays All Music Files: MP3 up to 24-bit/192kHz
  • Drives headphones directly
  • Variable output drives powered speakers or power amp
  • Fixed output feeds preamp or AV receiver
  • 64-position (computer-controlled) analog volume control
  • Asynchronous Class 1 USB data transfer
  • Direct-coupled circuitry DAC chip through the analog volume control and analog output section
  • Isolated Dual Master Clocks enable all sample rates to be ideally processed without conversion or rounding errors
  • Output voltage: 2vrms
  • Minimum driven impedance (headphones, electronic input): 12 ohms
  • Maximum headphone driver output power: 125mW @ 32 ohms
  • Analog Audio – Frequency Response:
  • DC – 22 kHz (44.1kHz sample rate)
  • DC – 24 kHz (48kHz sample rate)
  • DC – 44 kHz (88.2kHz sample rate)
  • DC – 48 kHz (96kHz sample rate)

By now, you may have determined that a DAC could be a solution to any musical shortcomings from your computer.

Until Audioquest came out with the DragonFly, portable DACs were no smaller than a deck of cards and required cumbersome wiring from either a power or USB cord. The people at Audioquest came up with a unique solution: They made a DAC that looks, acts and is the same size as a thumb drive. Not only that, but the DragonFly is one of the best portable DACs available, period. And it also includes a headphone amp!

Before I go on a gush-fest, let’s deal with what I do not like about the DragonFly. If you have an iMac or use the USB ports on a monitor, the DragonFly is almost hidden because those ports are located at the back of the monitor. That’s not a huge problem, but it makes the headphone port a bit awkward to use, since it sticks straight out  and away from you. Audioquest was kind enough to supply a (very) short and flexible USB extension – called the DragonTail – so the DragonFly would hang down, making it much easier to connect and disconnect the mini plug. Also, the removable USB cap can easily be misplaced or lost. Well, that’s about it.

The DragonFly feels solid in construction. It is hard plastic encased in a non-slip rubberized coating. A lot of engineering went into the design and it shows. How Audioquest managed to fit all the necessary stuff into a thumb drive-sized DAC is amazing. There is a USB plug on one end and a headphone port at the opposite end. No on/off button and no volume knob are present. There is a lighted DragonFly window that displays different colors to tell you the sample rate of any particular song that’s playing: 44.1kHz (CD quality) – Green; 48kHz – Blue; 88.2kHz – Amber; 96kHz – Magenta (the higher the number, the better quality file). This is simplicity at its best.

The only accessory included is a stitched leather pocket-pouch with a dragonfly embossed into the leather. The DragonFly fits perfectly and will not accidentally fall out. I keep it in my backpack since it’s so small and weighs almost nothing. All you have to do is take the cap off, plug it into a USB port, and you’re ready.

Whether on a Mac or Windows PC, there is some initial setup to help the DragonFly perform at its best. It will work with iTunes and just about all the current music players available. If you use a player that can handle different sample rates on the fly – some require manual switching – that’s even better.

The DragonFly – or any other USB DAC – will not give you an OMG moment with your music. In the beginning, you should notice a modest improvement in audio quality. There will be more detail in the music – especially apparent in songs you know intimately. There will be a sharper aural focus with less muddiness in the sound. Bass will appear cleaner, as well. But none of this will make you slap your forehead wondering what took you so long to get it. The magic comes later. Use the DragonFly for a month or two; then disconnect it and listen to your music. You will be astounded how flat and dull it sounds. You may even hear the distortion that was always present but you never noticed before.

One of my favorite albums for testing DACs and headphones is “Sacred Treasures I – Choral Masterworks from Russia”. The sheer beauty and clarity of the a cappella choral singing will raise the hairs on your skin. But it will also buzz like a chainsaw on cheap equipment. The DragonFly cuts through the buzz and delivers what was recorded. It was only limited by the specs of the CD recording. Of course, good speakers and headphones will always sound better with or without the DragonFly, but the little DAC will unleash the speaker’s potential.

The Audioquest DragonFly can’t compete with higher-end DACs that can handle sampling rates in the stratosphere, with prices to match. That’s not its purpose. The DragonFly was designed to make music sound better without getting in the way. Maybe that’s why it has deservedly ended up on many “Best Of” lists. The Audioquest DragonFly is a game-changer.

Support The Gadgeteer: The Gadgeteer’s main sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links in articles like this one. Even though we may receive compensation, we always give our honest opinions about our experiences with each product.

Product Information

Price:$250 US
  • Improves audio quality
  • Works with headphones, earphones, speakers
  • Includes headphone amp
  • Solid construction
  • Extremely easy to set up
  • Much smaller than others and more portable
  • Expensive
  • USB cap easy to lose
  • Additional DragonTail cord almost a necessity if using USB port on iMac or monitor

14 thoughts on “Audioquest DragonFly USB Digital Audio Converter and Headphone Amp Review”

  1. Gadgeteer Comment Policy - Please read before commenting
  2. Hi! Forgive me if I’m being ignorant. I thought Apple stopped selling music coded with lossy AAC years ago. Hasn’t Apple lossless, aka ALAC been the standard ever since? Apple has made it easy to upgrade existing purchased music to the new lossless and DRM-free standard via iTunes Store for a reasonable price, which I did long ago.

    That doesn’t do anything about the DAC in any device, of course, but my understanding is that there is no qualitative difference between AIFF and ALAC other than file size, which is significantly smaller with ALAC.

  3. Do you know the best way to get uncompressed WAV or lossless compressed FLAC music from my computer to my SPDIF input on my receiver?

  4. @Brian No, Apple doesn’t sell lossless music. The upgrade you are remembering was a bitrate bump from 128 kbps to 256, but they didn’t change the codec. These days everything on iTunes (including the matched songs in iCloud) is 256 kbps but it’s still AAC all the way.

  5. Ah, right you are, Rob! My memory doesn’t always serve me right. The Apple Lossless Audio Codec can be used when ripping CDs onto the computer, and is, according to what I just now found on the Web, playable on iDevices and such, as well as the computer.

    I guess it’s basically a question of storage size versus quallity for the user. I suspect, but do not know, that greedy record companies that finally agreed to let Apple sell DRM-free music via iTunes would not agree to the sale of CD-quality music. They’d be too self-protective, I imagine, and to full of it, as the idiom goes.

  6. Bill Henderson

    Brian, Rob, Rainer,
    I appreciate the input. It’s great info and our readers learn a great deal from all the responses.
    Regarding the DragonFly DAC review, I mostly listened to music files ripped over many years from CD. Since hard drive space has become much cheaper, I currently rip files exclusively in Apple Lossless.

  7. Rainer, if you have a digital out on your computer, you can probably connect it to your S/PDIF input on your receiver. I’m on a 2011 iMac, and I simply connected an optical cable from the digital output on the back to my Boston Acoustics 5.1 amplifier. Works like a charm. I used the same optical cable that I had between this amplifier and my old DVD player.

    Here’s a link to a discussion that might prove useful to you:

  8. So I have a set of Klipsch s4 earbuds that I use for non travel use. I use a set of philips over the ear hooks for running about with my phone because I am rough on cables and don’t want to destroy my $80 (when I bought them) buds.

    What I’m wondering is are the klipsch good enough for the dragonfly.

  9. Bill Henderson

    The Klipsch S4 were one of my first earphones, and I loved them.
    What is your sound source… laptop, iMac, iPod…?
    That will help determine how useful the DragonFly will be.

    Bill H.

  10. I am very interested in the Audioquest Dragonfly but I have also read fine reviews on Meridian’s Explorer and Director models. Can you tell me what the differences are (briefly)? Also, can I use any of these devices with my iPod Touch or only my computer (a MacBook Pro)? Thanks, in advance.

  11. Skip T.
    I have not heard either Meridian model, unfortunately. As you probably know, both are more expensive than the Dragonfly … and larger, also.
    I use the Dragonfly every day at my office. It’s just so easy to carry around.

    It won’t work with an iPod or Touch. They do not have USB ports.
    V-Moda makes an amp/DAC that works with iPod and laptop: the Vamp Versa. It’s quite expensive, though.

  12. This thing is a gimmick. If you’re seriously interested in good portable audio get a HiFi M8. It is both amp and DAC, and has its own battery. It even has a Lightning capable port so you can bypass the DAC on your iOS devices.

  13. Majik,
    The DragonFly DAC is not made for portable audio. It is for desktop or laptop use and not smartphone or DAP. In no way is it a gimmick. The audio improvement is well worth the cost, especially with an iMac.

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The Magpie

Finding shiny things in the Christian tradition since 2016

The Magpie Chirps

This site collects the best insights I've come across in my reading of the great works of Christian spirituality from across the millenia and today

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What is CBTE?

What is competency-based theological education anyway?

Maclaren on anxiety

Your anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows; but it empties today of its strength. - Alexander Maclaren, Sermon "Anxious Care"

Dyson on the importance of idleness

I am fooling around not doing anything, which probably means that this is a creative period, although of course you don’t know until afterward. I think that it is very important to be idle…. People who keep themselves busy all... Continue Reading →

The Twelve Traditions

Learning about how to run a faith community from the 12 Step movement.

Running a church like a business

I don't know whether the church should be run like a business or not, but I know it shouldn't be run like a bad business.

Spener on What’s Wrong with the Church and How to Fix It

Jacob Spener explains what was wrong with the church in his time and how to fix it.

A 17th Century nun on aging

Lord, You know better than I know myself that I am growing older and will someday be old. Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion. Release me from... Continue Reading →

Rolheiser on Stages of Discipleship

Ronald Rolhesier describes the three phases of discipleship throughout our lives.

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What we can learn from three episodes when the Church faced sickness.

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Basket Ball

NBL: Chris Omanye In Limelight As Warriors Face Wounded KIU Titans

Featured Image: Chris (white) against Pemba Warriors in Mukono. Courtesy photo

Wednesday, May 1
*JKL Lady Dolphins Vs KIU Rangers, 3:30 PM
*KCCA Men Vs UCU Canons, 5:30 PM
*KIU Titans Vs Warriors, 7:30 PM

YMCA is the place to be this Wednesday as the National Basketball League returns with three interesting ties, action starting as early as 3:30 PM, with Ladies entering for free.

Focus will mainly be on Chris Omanye as Warriors face wounded KIU Titans in what promises to be a league cracker.

The guard joined Warriors at the start of the season after his contract at KIU Titans expired, ending his stay at the Kansaga-based side that had lasted for about six years.

Chris in Warriors colours

However, since his departure, less has gone right for the Titans who have lost two of their three opening fixture. After obliterating Kampala University, KIU have fallen to Betway Power and City Oilers.

The bond between KIU’s top players, Denis Balungu, Michael Bwanga and Sudi Ulanga, looks all but broken, and many have already alleged that the side, 2017 finalists must be missing the departed guard already.

Chris, as mostly known in the basketball circles, is expected to come with a point to prove especially as it was reported that Club President Nasser Sserunjogi did not do enough to persuade the player renew his contract.

Chris on the line as Sudi Ulanga stares in the background. Monitor

However, recent history suggest that Chris and Warriors will have to double their efforts – Warriors has lost to KIU in the last five games.

KIU beat up on Warriors 82-60 and 76-47 in the 2018 regular season. In 2017, KIU recovered from game one loss to win three consecutively against Warriors in semifinals best of five playoffs to reach the finals.

Warriors who lost Syrus Kiviiri to Power at the start of the season, has so far not found any obstacle, and this must be courtesy of their good additions. Beside Chris, the side also added Jonathan Kambala and Michael Buzangu, the latter returning at the club.

Warriors beat Kampala University 85-45 before easing past KCCA Men 75-61 to record a 100% perfect start. However, they face stern tests as they have Betway Power too, on Friday!

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Watch series The Americans full online free » Best site to watch Movies free and TV series online is CipFlix » 123Movies.

The Americans

Watch The Americans Full Series Online. Set during the Cold War period in the 1980s, The Americans is the story of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, two Soviet KGB officers posing as an American married couple in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and their neighbor, Stan Beeman, an FBI Counterintelligence agent.

TV Status: Ended

Duration: 48,45,60 min

TMDb: 7.8


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Yearly Archive 1st August 2013

Abingdon Collection goes from Strength to Strength - The Abingdon Collection

Abingdon Collection goes from Strength to Strength

This has been the best year yet for visitors to THE ABINGDON COLLECTION, with collectors, enthusiasts and tourists arriving almost every day.

The kind remarks now being made on TripAdvisor have encouraged visitors to come along and make a day of it, particularly if they are visiting the Ulster American Folk Park.

The collection is beginning to receive some very good national publicity and we have recently seen visitors coming from America, Australia, Canada and the Continent.

Irish visitors still make up the majority of our numbers and Cancer Research UK are really benefiting from the generous donations freely given.

So if you want a day out with a difference give us a call and get an experience which is unique and also has a free history lesson included.

Nick Murray – An Appreciation

Omagh lost one of it’s true characters last week with the untimely death of Nick Murray. Nick was originally from England but will always be remembered for his contribution to the life of Omagh.

When classic car enthusiasts talk of local legends then Nick was always mentioned and in his own way, he created a mini industry and reputation for classic car restoration in the West of the Province. He was a talented engineer but also an authority on old vehicles and used his knowledge to rebuild some of the best ‘nut and bolt restorations’ in the North.

With friends he would scour the Country in the 6O’s and 70’s buying abandoned old military vehicles and wrecks, bringing them home to Jail Square and then bringing them back to life. He will be best remembered in Omagh for driving around in old American Military vehicles including Jeeps and a very rare Dodge command car and he was ahead of his time in recognising the value of saving these historical vehicles.

For twenty years he drove the countryside in his beloved 1953 black MGTD and would never miss a local classic car show. With his late wife Kathy, he drove through the towns and countryside raising a smile from the public particularly with their loving dog Ben sitting on Kathy’s knee and looking over the door of the car.

When Kathy recently died, a light went out in Nick’s eyes but they are now together again. Nick Murray is remembered by many as a gifted artist, a talented mechanic and restorer and a true friend. The classic cars he leaves behind are a lasting true legacy of his life’s work and will stand the test of time.

He restored cars for many local and distant collectors, gave advice to many, helped many and made lasting friendships throughout the world of classic cars. If you wanted to know anything about MG’s you had to see Nick Murray and he was always there to help.

The thoughts of all his friends are with his two beloved daughters at this sad time but his memory will live on in the quality of the restorations he completed over the last 50 years and when people ask ‘who restored that car for you?’, the answer will often be…

‘Nick Murray of Omagh built it’

‘Wow, he did a fantastic job.’

From Philip Faithfull and all his friends and colleagues.


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Wolff Tobias

Love Stories (Everyman Pocket Classics)

I think there’s something pretty crass about themed collections of stories. Surely the subject matter is the least interesting aspect of a piece of fiction? At the same time, however, it can be interesting to observe how tried (and tired) themes are dealt with by different writers. And there is also the analytical aspect, of seeing one person’s choices on the subject, feeling or feigning outrage at the omissions, and perhaps discovering new voices. Here, the reliable Everyman’s Library follow their recent Christmas Stories and Ghost Stories collections with the widest and riskiest theme of all: Love Stories.

Like Christmas Stories, Love Stories is edited by Diana Secker Tesdell, and it doesn’t hurt that it is a handsome volume, a solid little hardback with fully sewn cloth binding and a ribbon bookmark. The contents, for the most part, are equally impressive, and hardly any are traditional ‘love stories’ in the soppy sense of the term.

Tesdell is unafraid to challenge the reader, so the second story in the collection (after a short overture by Maupassant, ‘Clair de Lune’) is Italo Calvino’s ‘Blood, Sea’ from t-zero, the second of his Cosmicomics collections. Calvino admirers will recognise that book as one of his most rigorous, narrated by the immortal being Qwfwq and containing fictions based on scientific suppositions, and ‘Blood, Sea’ is filled with ideas, long sentences, characters who are not really characters, and intellectual delight. At the other end of the difficulty scale is Roald Dahl’s ‘Mr Botibol’, one of his underrated adult stories (though not one of his best), about a lonely man who “resembled, to an extraordinary degree, an asparagus” and who finds some sort of happiness in imagination and music.

Among recent favourites on this blog, I was delighted to see the inclusion of Tobias Wolff’s ‘Lady’s Dream’ (one of his best very short stories), and Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘A Temporary Matter’, which was praised by readers here last year when I wrote about Lahiri’s new collection, and which I was eager to read as a result. With its unsentimental detail and neatly surprising ending which stops short of tricksiness, it did not disappoint.

This lack of sentimentality is a welcome recurring theme. One of the stories, Dorothy Parker’s ‘Here We Are’, indeed is so non-slushy that it also features in Penguin Classics’ own Valentine money-spinner, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, which is themed around ‘love quarrels’. Parker’s story, of a recently married couple’s conversation as they go on honeymoon, is one of the highlights of the book, with its laconic expressiveness (“there was a silence with things going on in it”), wordplay (“‘Well, I’m not so sure I’m not sorry I didn’t,’ she said”) and blithe cynicism:

‘Everything was so mixed up, I sort of don’t know where I am, or what it’s all about. Getting back from the church, and then all those people, and then changing all my clothes, and then everybody throwing things, and all. Goodness, I don’t see how people do it every day.’

‘Do what?’ he said.

‘Get married,’ she said. ‘When you think of all the people, all over the world, getting married just as if it was nothing. Chinese people and everybody, just as if it wasn’t anything.’

Parker is one of a handful of names in the book whom I’d always meant to read but never had. Another, more prominent, was Lorrie Moore, whose stories are regularly cited (along with the likes of William Trevor, who also features here, and Alice Munro, who doesn’t) as being examples of the best of the art. Her story ‘Terrific Mother’ is the longest here at 44 pages, and makes it obvious why she’s so highly regarded. Her style is for sentence-by-sentence detail, with black wit (“Yes, I can see us growing old together,” she said, squeezing his hand. “In the next few weeks, in fact”), or some surprising expression in almost every paragraph. ‘Terrific Mother’ is about a woman who accidentally killed one of her friend’s children, and now is struggling to re-enter life (“You don’t understand,” she said. “Normal life is no longer possible for me. I’ve stepped off all the normal paths and am living in the bushes. I’m a bushwoman now”). There are times when this relentless artificial brilliance risks the story looking more like a Swarovski crystal than a diamond, but there is no denying Moore’s facility, and for me a purchase of her recently published Collected Stories can’t be far off. (Then again, even after one story I could see why Adam Mars-Jones Observed that Moore’s relentless humour is “closer to a compulsion than a talent.”)

Another revelation was Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘Dead Mabelle’, about a man obsessed with a movie star.

She had an unusual way with her, qualities overlapped strangely; in that black-and-white world of abstractions she alone moved in a blur. Each movement, in unexpected relation to the movements preceding it, outraged a preconception. William sat with an angry, disordered feeling as though she were a rising flood and his mind bulrushes. She had a slow, almost diffident precision of movement; she got up, sat down, put out a hand, smiled, with a sparklingly mournful air of finality, as though she were committing herself, and every time William wanted to rise in his seat and say, ‘Don’t, don’t – not before all these people!’

When she dies, he finds he has “no power of being.” The story also has a lovely ending, an essential quality for a short story, you might have thought, but surprisingly rare still. So step further up my to-be-read pile, Bowen’s novel The Death of the Heart.

It’s not just about revisiting old friends, or discovering new delights (the book is like a mail order catalogue in that sense). A collection like this is also an opportunity to cement one’s prejudices, as against T.C. Boyle (glib and forced), D.H. Lawrence (super-sincere and utterly humourless) and William Trevor (just… not that great). In addition, the story ‘Bluebeard’s Egg’ enabled me to affirm my lifelong indifference to the works of Margaret Atwood.

This volume, clearly intended for the Valentine gift market, is one I shall be keeping for myself. One niggle is the lack of biographical detail of the authors. While it’s true that most don’t require this – Fitzgerald, Marquez, Katherine Mansfield, Ali Smith even – I would have liked to be ‘reminded’ about Colette, and to know more (ie anything) about Yasunari Kawabata, whose story ‘Immortality’ is the shortest and one of the most striking here. Perhaps we’re not supposed to seek such detail, and to take the tales on trust. Love is blind.

Tobias Wolff: Our Story Begins

Straight into a shortlist of one for best book of the year and worst cover design of the decade is Tobias Wolff’s volume of new and selected stories, Our Story Begins. (Seriously, what is it with that cover? To give an already under-read writer like Wolff such an offputting design reminds me a little of the Lee and Herring joke about a poorly-rated TV show, which was “so popular they had to keep moving it around in the schedules to give other programmes a chance.”) If you believe me about the book of the year thing – and I mean it – and are new to Wolff, then it may well be that on completing this volume you will feel the urge to read everything Wolff has written. With many authors – I’m experiencing it with Philip Roth – this is a task as daunting as it is exciting. Wolff, ‘fortunately’, has kept his output down: in 63 years he’s published one novel, two memoirs and three collections of stories. All are essential; but some (Old School; This Boy’s Life) are more essential than others.

Of course if you read this edition, you’ll have a good range of Wolff’s story output anyway, but I recommend the full collections to fill the gaps. Our Story Begins is heavily weighted in favour of his later work, with only nine stories from his first two collections, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs and Back in the World (in the UK these are published in one volume, as The Stories of Tobias Wolff). Fortunately it includes one of his most famous stories, ‘Hunters in the Snow’, which exhibits the best of early Wolff in 16 pages:

Frank reached out and laid his hand on Tub’s arm. “Tub, have you ever been really in love?”

“Well -”

“I mean really in love.” He squeezed Tub’s wrist. “With your whole being.”

“I don’t know. When you put it like that, I don’t know.”

“You haven’t then. Nothing against you, but you’d know it if you had.” Frank let go of Tub’s arm. “This isn’t just some bit of fluff I’m talking about.”

“Who is she, Frank?”

Frank paused. He looked into his empty cup. “Roxanne Brewer.”

“Cliff Brewer’s kid? The babysitter?”

“You can’t just put people into categories like that, Tub. That’s why the whole system is wrong. And that’s why this country is going to hell in a rowboat.”

“But she can’t be more than -” Tub shook his head.

“Fifteen. She’ll be sixteen in May.” Frank smiled. “May fourth, three twenty-seven p.m. Hell, Tub, a hundred years ago she’d have been an old maid by that age. Juliet was only thirteen.”

“Juliet? Juliet Miller? Jesus, Frank, she doesn’t even have breasts. She doesn’t even wear a top to her bathing suit. She’s still collecting frogs.”

“Not Juliet Miller. The real Juliet. Tub, don’t you realise how you’re dividing people up into categories? He’s an executive, she’s a secretary, he’s a truck driver, she’s fifteen years old. Tub, this so-called babysitter, this so-called fifteen-year-old has more in her little finger than most of us have in our entire bodies. I can tell you this little lady is something special.”

Tub nodded. “I know the kids like her.”

This is Wolff at his showiest, able and unashamed to entertain with diverting oddities and clever dialogue several times a page. Most of his stories are told in the third person, which enables Wolff to act as omniscient narrator and put in witticisms (a college which “looked so much like a college that moviemakers sometimes used it as a set”) and insights which wouldn’t necessarily occur to his everyman characters. This could be a weakness if Wolff’s integrity toward his creations weren’t so complete, and the people in his stories so full-blooded. He can sum up elements of their characters with exceptional economy, as in the passage above, where Frank’s knowledge of the very time of day when Roxanne Brewer turns 16 expresses him both as a parental figure and a plan-ahead predator. In another story, ‘Soldier’s Joy’, we get a twinge of pity, a cringe of embarrassment and a smile when we learn of the character Hooper that “he was no great lover, as the women he went with usually got around to telling him.”

Soldiers feature regularly in Wolff’s stories, as do boys from broken homes: Wolff has recorded his own experiences of these situations in This Boy’s Life (1989) and In Pharaoh’s Army (1994). His soldiers are usually in the army by necessity; his fatherless boys feel ambivalence toward their struggling mothers. The two lives are combined in ‘The Other Miller’ when a soldier has a stroke of luck (of one sort or another) and is sent on home leave for bereavement: “Miller knows what happened. There’s another Miller in the battalion with the same initials he’s got, “W.P.,” and this Miller is the one whose mother has died. The army screws up their mail all the time, and now they’ve screwed this up.” This Miller, anyway, isn’t on speaking terms with his mother, as he “wants her to understand that her son is not a man to turn the other cheek” after she remarried, to Miller’s high school biology teacher. Miller joined the army to spite her: “she was right too. The army was just as bad as she thought, and worse. … Miller hated every minute of it, but there was a pleasure in his hatred because his mother must know how unhappy he was.” In a dozen pages, Wolff tracks through this rather eccentric scenario to close in beautifully on the truth at the heart of it.

Miller leans back against the seat and closes his eyes, but his effort to trick himself into somnolence fails; behind his eyelids he is wide awake and fidgety with gloom, probing against his will for what he is afraid to find, until, with no surprise at all, he finds it. A simple truth. His mother is also going to die. Just like him. And there’s no telling when. Miller cannot count on her to be there to come home to, and receive his pardon, when he finally decides she has suffered enough.

This ability to extract piercing honesty from outlandish, attention-catching settings is a speciality of Wolff’s: in ‘Mortals’, where a man complains that his obituary has been published when he’s not dead yet; or in the new story ‘Her Dog’, where Wolff risks extreme silliness by having a man imagine a conversation with his dog – with her dog – but gets to the heart of a relationship in a way that standard issue knockabout stuff between man and woman would struggle to. Elsewhere, the first new story, ‘That Room’ is only four pages long but has a stretch of prose near the end which takes off in an entirely unexpected direction, rather rich and strange, which seems unlike anything Wolff has done before. He seems to be stretching himself.

The rather better US cover for Our Story Begins

The rather better US cover for Our Story Begins

As with any selection of stories, there will be quibbles for every reader familiar with Wolff. (Readers new to him will be delighted by an embarrassment of riches.) For my part, given Wolff’s preference for the stories in his 1996 collection The Night in Question (12 of its 15 are here), I wish he’d included one I vividly remember from reading it a decade ago, ‘The Life of the Body’. The only way through that is to read all the books again anyway: no hardship. It’s a reviewer’s cliché to say it, but there really is more brains, heart and soul in one story by Tobias Wolff – in one page – than some of this year’s Booker longlisters manage in their entire length. The only other criticism is that the book isn’t twice as long, and that we have only ten new stories from Wolff to show for the five years since the publication of his last book, Old School (2003). Like Joe in ‘Deep Kiss’, the last new story in the book and a highlight of this exceptional collection, I feel “itchy with thirst and deeply satisfied all at once.”


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This 2007 Newsstand Photo Is an Archive of a Tabloid Moment

Illustration for article titled This 2007 Newsstand Photo Is an Archive of a Tabloid Moment
Image: AP

Let’s take a quick peek at yesterday’s news, shall we? Specifically, this batch of celebrity magazines from Wednesday, October 24, 2007, which—by some horrifying circumstance—was almost a full 13 years ago.

Celebrity news was a completely different business. Instagram hadn’t been invented; there was no ecosystem for famous people to perform charming relatability. Influencers were years off, and Keeping Up With the Kardashians had premiered just 10 days before. This website was just a few months old. Might as well be a different media universe! I spy:

  • A baby Suri Cruise, who is now 14 years old.
  • “Angelina’s LIES!” and a grim-looking Jennifer Aniston, instantly carbon-dating this as part of the Brangelina/supercouple era of tabloid culture
  • Half a cover shrieking about CELLULITE!
  • pre-McConaissance Matthew McConaughey, who was between Failure to Launch and Fool’s Gold
  • Four separate brunette Britneys
  • One tiny Julia Roberts

A proper time capsule!

Senior Editor, Attic Haunter, Jezebel

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Dear Badger,

Recently Nicola Sturgeon controversially announced that she would be pushing for a second referendum on Scottish independence, as the United Kingdom as a whole is on the verge of leaving The European Union.

I can see where both sides are coming from in this debate. Many Scots clearly feel that Westminster does a poor job of representing their interests, and in my opinion it would make a lot of sense for them to manage their affairs themselves. Indeed, most Brexiteers who last June were calling for “take back control” also seem to be unequivocally anti-Scottish Independence, which is quite baffling to me. Why should one country have the right to self-determination and not another? However once Article 50 is invoked there will be complex negotiations that will shape this country for a generation, and it’s very important that we get that right. Arguably the absolute last thing we need right now is another referendum, and yet more uncertainty.

There is a possible solution that I think would in the long-term be best for both sides: proper federalism. The British system is very centralised around Westminster, but it’s possible to travel across the US from California to North Carolina, and encounter totally different policy landscapes. Other countries such as Switzerland and Germany operate with a federal structure too, and there are lots of advantages to it. The more locally focused government is, the more accountable and representative it is. Those that know best what the policy priorities for Scotland should be are Scottish people themselves, not those in South East England. It also allows for some experimentation, as different areas can try out ideas on a smaller scale, and then learn and borrow ideas from each other.

So how could this work? Westminster ideally would only be responsible for foreign affairs, defence and the economy, which as a bonus means you could cut the number of MPs! Meanwhile issues like education, the NHS, transport etc. would be devolved to the regions. So if voters in Scotland wished to raise taxes to fund an increase in health spending then they would be able to do so. Conversely, if voters in The West Country wanted low taxes and low spending, they could do that too. The current archaic system doesn’t allow for this.

This is a situation that I think most Scots, and indeed most Welsh, Irish and English people, would be happy with. If we want to save the United Kingdom that we all know and love, as well as give those who feel disenfranchised more control over their lives, federalism would be a great way to do that.

Fraser Coppin

Categories: News

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Boat Insurance

How Boat Insurance Helps

Good boat insurance is a crucial type of financial protection to obtain for the purposes of owning and operating a marine vessel. Be it a large yacht or a small sailboat, a speedboat or a fishing sport vessel, an insurance plan is important to purchase to protect both you and your investment. In many cities and states, it is mandated to carry prior to cruising on the water.

Boat insurance not only extends important financial shielding for your boat, but also liability protection for what legal problems can befall one if a passenger is injured on his or her boat, and more. If a lawsuit is brought against the boat owner, the liability coverage would pay all or most of the medical bills as well as legal costs of the injured party.

Also, if the boat is damaged when off the water, stolen, vandalized, or destroyed or damaged in an accident on the water, the policyholder can also be well protected with the proper coverage.

Supplemental components to a policy can be purchased too. What are called “riders” ensure that a boat owner has more protection for various perils and accidents that are not necessarily covered with a standard policy. It’s also wise to choose the proper level of coverage so as to avoid to having to pay out-of-pocket for any losses.

Big Benefits

There is a myriad of benefits to carrying a good boat insurance policy. Any losses are so much easier and less costly to deal with, (often fully covered), if anything happens to the vessel, those on it (or not if, for instance, there is a crash on a dock causing property damage or injury). Not carrying a policy means a boat owner would be obligated to pay for all repairs and medical costs out-of-pocket which, of course, could result in financial ruin.

There is good news in the fact that filing a claim is a non-complicated process. The insurance provider simply validates your claim (if it is legitimate) and then pays out for any covered damages or losses, (after you pay the agreed-upon deductible).

Boat owners are greatly benefited in reviewing insurance coverage details so as to ensure that their investment (and bank account) are fully protected.


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Posted Job
11 months ago

Motorcycle Rider

The ideal candidate must have a valid class A drivers’ license, grade 12 certificate, at least 2 years of previous work experience, 3 traceable referees.

Description of Duties

  • Ride and deliver/collect items as directed.
  • Drive Office Vehicle for official purposes.
  • Maintain a high level of professionalism with clients.
  • Ensure items are delivered in good condition.
  • Maintain the motorbike in a presentable clean state.
  • Ensure compliance with proper traffic rules governing road usage.
  • Ensure paramount safety of motorbike and official items at all times.
  • Perform any other duty that may be assigned from time to time by the manager.

  • At Least 2 years of riding/driving experience within Lusaka.
  • Must be 25 years of age and above.
  • Must have good conduct.
  • Fluent in English , Nyanja, and Bemba
  • Have the ability to read and follow maps and guides, plan and learn routes
  • Have a mature attitude
  • Be friendly and presentable
  • Basic knowledge of motorcycle maintenance is useful but not required.

How to Apply

To apply for this job email your details to the email below:

Email applications to

Run a business in Zambia?

Online Business Essentials – Everything you need to market your business online
Ecommerce – Everything you need to start an online store and sell online
Branded Website – Everything you need to launch a business website

About us

Find suppliers for whatever you need in Zambia
Each supplier page has all the information you need to choose the best option for you — contact details, directions, opening times, photos, prices, products, services, special offers and more.
Our mission
Provide useful information about businesses in Zambia
Empower Zambian businesses to market themselves online
Share our beloved country and continent with the world
© 2020 Infobwana Ltd. All rights reserved


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File - Needle - Triangular

File - Needle - Triangular

Regular price £10.50 (inc. VAT)

Stella Bianca are an Italian tool manufacturer that make excellent quality files. These are the same files that we use on The Bicycle Academy frame building courses. Each file features a pre installed wooden handle. Available to purchase separately or as part of our curated file sets.

In stock items will ship within 2 days, if an item is out of stock then please contact for availability.

See our Shipping and Fulfilment page for details.


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Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths – Proverbs 3: 5-6

We are Bill and Gina Brick; a Christian couple that have been moved by the Holy Spirit to begin actively serving those in other nations. We have both participated in short-term compassionate service projects and mission work through our local churches and various secular and Christian organizations. With limited formal training to be long-term missionaries but a strong desire to serve in whatever capacity the Lord sees fit for us using our combined life skills, gifts, education, and on-going walk with the Lord. Six years ago we freed ourselves to become available to the Lord’s direction in our lives for full or part-time service to His children throughout the world. We sold all our personal possessions to eliminate all debt and to establish savings that will help sustain us in a life of providing the gospel message including health and human services.

We were actively involved in our local church. (The Rock Community Church – Anaheim Hills, CA) Our church is a relatively small and growing church which is currently limited to assisting in support of short-term mission trips. We appreciate the prayerful love and support they are showing us as we pursue this new season of spiritual growth and service to the disadvantaged and spiritually needy. We have been urged to open our plans to our friends, family, church family, and others so that they might share in blessings and joy of serving as the Hands and Feet of our Lord.

We are seeking your prayers to strengthen and embolden us in our on-going efforts.

For the past 5 years we have been living in Boquete Panama. We live in a small home in a local Panamanian neighborhood just 2 miles from the center of town. Our neighborhood is called Barriada Las Flores and consists of 30-50 families. All Spanish speaking and predominantly very low income. We have a lovely park that we have successfully gotten renovated during our time here. This park is where we began our Children’s Ministry along with another missionary family. We have 10-30 children attend our park activities each week. Much like a VBS (Vacation Bible School) we teach bible stories and scriptures, do related arts and crafts, play games, and provide snacks and occasional meals. As members of the community for over five years we are able to interact more and more with the parents and other family members as well. We provide first aid care and infection prevention, along providing medication in emergency situations for families in need. In 2015 we began Saturday field trips for the children and some including parents or other adult family members. Visits to local gardens, shopping center, or restaurants, all first time experiences for most. We partnered with a local church for the 4th year to assist them in a formal week-long VBS with over 100 children. We are able to take several of our children to this event and on graduation night parents attended as well. Very exciting to have them participate and a big change from how they interacted with their children when we first moved to their neighborhood. God has softened their hearts to Him and to their own children. Each year some of our local parents and children accept Jesus Christ as their savior at the end of the VBS.

We continue to seek opportunities to serve in this neighborhood as well as the greater community. We have partnered with a missionary couple to assist in several outreaches to various communities this coming year. We have also taught English to those interested as an additional outreach. We have a retirement community of foreigners such as ourselves who are aging and we are finding more in need of care and compassion services as well as assistance with various other life needs, assistance with computers, phones, etc. When you ask the Lord to open your eyes to the needs around you, you will be amazed at all there is to be done in your own backyard.

During our first trip home to California in almost two years; in December of 2016 we were able to see family and friends and were able to be partnered with Emmanuel Ministries, a 501c3 non-profit ministry that was established three decades ago to support independent ministries and missionaries. This amazing connection will allow those folks who desire to financially support our efforts to get a formal document for tax deductions. Emmanuel Ministries will be donating all their efforts/overhead, etc as part of their ministry meaning there will be no deductions from your contributions. 100% will be sent directly to us in support of our work in Panama and surrounding areas.

Here are directions for providing financial contributions through Emmanuel Ministries:

Write check out to Emmanuel Ministries

PUT: BRICKS on the Memo Line.

Address for mailing is

Care of Kimberly Ten Pas Bell

18536 Pueblo Circle
Huntington Beach, Ca 92646

Direct Deposit through your banks:

You can set up monthly donations on your bank.

Bank information is Mountain America. (PUT Emmanuel Ministries/Bricks on the MEMO line)

Routing number:  324079555

Account number: 10293114

Address to set up on direct deposit:  (If your bank doesn’t use the routing number)

Mountain America Credit Union

PO Box 9001

West Jordan, UT   84084

Once again we want to thank all who have provided prayers and financial support of our on-going efforts to serve. We would love to hear from you. Your support is very important to our personal physical and spiritual strength.

Gina email – ginarosebrick@gmail.com Bill email – billbrick@gmail.com

Bringing love, laughter and hope to God’s children in Central America and beyond.

~The Bricks~

On a path of obedience to God

2 Corinthians 10:5

20 responses to “About

  1. Love you both and waiting to see what you’re able to accomplish. God Bless You Both!
    Erin and Bruce

  2. Your light shines bright. We all see God’s hand at work in your lives and can’t wait to be apart of the support team for your mission.

  3. Praise God for your awesome baptism today. It was such a blessing and we were so glad to be part of it. Love you both so much!!

  4. What a Blessing it is to see true obedience.May God Bless You Guys.Love You Guys.Your Brother in Christ, Art

  5. The Travel Channel featured a show on Cambodia this morning, and I thought of both of you. Hope your last remaining preparations are going well. Only a few days to go before your flight. How exciting! Good luck to you both. I can’t wait for your posts from Cambodia. Hugs & blessings!

    • Thanks Jen. Nice To Hear From You. We Are Doing Great. Most Plans Are Complete. Need To Pack And Get rid Of More Stuff. County Showed Me A No Longer Working For The County But Not “Retired”. A Bit Of A Problem As They Didn’t Send Me Insurance Docs Or Process My Retirement Pay…. Getting Fixed But A But Close To Our Leave Date!

  6. Hey Bill and Gina,

    May God shine His light upon your path and guide you to fertile fields for His Glory!

    God Bless,

  7. Travel mercies and God’s protection as you start your mission serving with His children. We will keep you in prayers during your journey.

  8. Bill&Gina, my thoughts and prayers are with on your adventure to press on as to what the Holy Spirit has for you. Be safe and I hope to see you both whenever you care to return to us.

    • Hey Jen, Merry Christmas! I haven’t been keeping up with posts on the blog, as you can see…. Do regular updates on FB in case you want to find us… 🙂 we have been in Vuetnam for a month and heading back to Cambodia in a week. Stopped for Christmas and New Years at a beach called Mui Ne. Thinking of going to Ecuador in February. How are things? Doing work with the County? All the best, Bill and Gina

      • Nice to hear you’re having so much fun traveling. (Sorry I haven’t check out your FB page, but after my identity was stolen a few years back, I decided not to use FB anymore. Thanks for the invite though.) Spending Christmas at Mui Ne must have been amazing! You’ve seen so many wonderful places. Ecuador sounds like a fascinating place to visit. I hear they have really cool wildlife — birds in particular. I finished the project with the county in the summer but still pop in now and then to do some cataloging. I’m starting a new internship this Spring. Glad you’re doing so well. Hope you have a wonderful Happy New Year!

  9. Hello Bill and Gina,
    Great to see you smiling after the hardships you endured on the Camino.
    May the Lord help you to help others in the coming year.
    Jean-Michel and Marie-Pierre “The Frenchies” on the Camino

    • Thank you for the kind words and encouragement. I am sorry for such a delayed reply. Gina and I are loving Panama and have many opportunities to serve. I was very ill the beginning of 2015 and had to take it easy much of the year. I got the clearance to return to regular activities the end of 2015 and am working on that this year. I intend to do more consistent updates to this blog going forward. God bless. Bill and Gina

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Articles on white students

Displaying all articles

Suzi Ailes, right, and Kris Smith study schoolwork for SusQ-Cyber Charter School in their home in Milton, Pennsylvania. AP Photos/ George Widman

What cyber charter schools are and why their growth should worry us

What Betsy DeVos, an advocate of school-choice initiatives and President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for education secretary, as well as the rest of us need to know about cyber charter schools.
Students for Fair Admissions filed suit against Harvard College on behalf of a Chinese-American applicant. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

After Fisher: affirmative action and Asian-American students

Here's why disagreement about affirmative action will not end any time soon. Coming up next is a lawsuit brought by Asian-Americans challenging Harvard's race-conscious policy.
What does the progress of black students look like? Jason Reed/Reuters

Are all black students falling behind?

Statistics on black student graduation rates don't reveal the complete picture: at highly selective colleges and universities, black student graduation rates range from 88 percent to 96 percent.
Why aren’t enough black students identified for gifted programs? Howard County Library System

Why do fewer black students get identified as gifted?

Two students -- one black and one white -- with the same math and reading achievement could have very different likelihoods of being identified as gifted.

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Maastricht underground

Maastricht is a city located in south east of the Netherlands. Some of the main attractions of Maastricht includes Christmas market, the university, man-made caves and river Meuse (dutch: Maas). In the valleys of river meuse is mount saint Peter, which is rich in limestone, an excellent building material. From about 1000 years, the mountain was used by miners for excavating this limestone. Digging of mountain by miners led to unique caves or tunnel system, which was originally about 200km and has now reached to only 80km. Maastricht has two such underground caves in the hills of mount Saint Peter, namely, North caves and Zonneberg caves. These man-made caves were used as refuge during world war II. It provided shelter to nearly 50,000 people during that time.

Our experience:
The caves are easily accessible by bicycle, car or boat. Several guided tours are offered at the beginning of the tunnel in different languages. One can also visit 18th century Saint peters fortress built on the mountain. We visited Zonneberg cave during autumn. It was very dark inside and the only available light in cave was a lantern from the guide. The caves had charcoal drawings on the walls by artists and visitors from the past. The temperature within the cave is always ~10 degree celsius, irrespective of the weather outside.

Several compartments were done within the caves by people who took shelter during the world war II. For instance a bakery and chappel is still visible in the caves.

Most interesting drawing on the walls of cave, was of a sea reptile, Mosasaur. These reptiles are extinct group and the first fossil was discovered in Maastricht near Maas river.

Man-made caves in Maastricht is a unique destination for people interested in adventure and history.

Posted by

Namitha is an Indian expat living in Belgium. She is a biotechnology freelance writer and Bollywood dance instrutor in Belgium. She also enjoys writing fiction short stories, poems and other guest blogs. Strongly feels writing is a best way to express your thoughts.


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Why should you seal your crawl space?

One of the longest debates with crawl spaces is whether to vent or seal a crawl space. Vented crawl spaces worked great until the invention of air conditioning. When a family cools their home to 70° during the summer and the air outside is 85° with a humidity, it creates condensation on floor joist, insulation, pipes, and ducts. No amount of ventilation will solve the problem at this point. This constant condensation during the summer months causes wood rot, mold, and attracts all types of insects and rodents.

The common symptoms of a crawl space moisture problem are:

  • Mold or moisture damage in your crawl space or living area
  • Musty odors in your living area
  • Condensation on insulation or pipes
  • Buckled hardwood floors
  • High humidity in your house
  • Insect infestations

Sealing your crawl space creates a clean conditioned space under your home and provides the following benefits:

  • Improves air quality throughout the home
  • Saves you money by keeping heating and cooling cost down
  • Reduces mold and wood decay on floor joist
  • Reduces buckling of hardwood floors
  • Creates warmer floors in the winter
  • Reduces pest and termite pressure

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Michelle Bachmann Has Released Her Own Budget

Somebody has had a sniff of fame and she wants it all.

Rep. Michele Bachmann released her own spending plan for the country on Monday, as she gears up for her unofficial rebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union address.

The Minnesota Republican's proposal calls for eliminating the Department of Education and repealing signature Democratic legislation like the Dodd-Frank Act and a food safety bill. It would shift more transportation costs to states by reducing funds for the federal highway program.

Genius. Keep her out front for the GOP. It's almost as good as Palin.


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Under Armour’s Q2 hit softer than expected

  When is a loss not that bad a loss? In the case of Under Armour, its second quarter results – which would have looked calamitous under normal economic conditions – actually looked pretty decent in the context of an economy ravaged by a pandemic. The Baltimore-based sports apparel and footwear company Friday reported a loss of $182.9 ...

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Tag: life

10 Outrageous Celebrity Owned Private Jets

These days, cars and houses aren’t the status symbol they used to be. Any plain one-hit wonder celeb or stupid reality show star can get a Bentley, but you know you really made it when you’ve got your own airplane. Oh yes, private jets, the ultimate symbol of wealth. But still very few can actually say “let’s just take my plane”. Ever wonder who really has that jet money? You may be able to guess a few of the obvious but you may be surprised by one funny guy’s very serious aircraft. So, we compiled a list of the elite that are lucky enough to not only travel the world as they please but travel the world in the privacy of their own plane. Here’s the specs on ten celebrity owned jets.


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Flash Fiction: Erased

I met master a year after he lost his wife. He needed a friend. I became that friend. Night and day, I would look after my master, making sure he never took to the bottle again. We shared the most wonderful bond – eating together, going on walks. I would listen to him pouring his heart out and he would laugh at my woofs and wags.

One day, he was gone. They buried him. I will guard his grave and when I am gone, I want them to bury me here as well.

I won’t let our bond be erased.

Word Count: 100

Written for Sunday Photo Fiction 27 May 2018 and Masters of Writing Week 6

Happy Reading! 🙂

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in ,

Standing at the Precipice of a Financial Collapse: Time for a 21st Century Pecora Commission

Originally published on Strategic Culture

As Republican and democrat politicians hold emergency meetings to decide how to avoid a meltdown of Wall Street, the smell of hyperinflation looms in the air as much today as it did in Germany during the opening months of 1922. This week, markets were propped up by a record breaking offering of $1.5 Trillion in liquidity injections over the coming months (added to the $9 trillion already injected over the past six months), and rather than deal with the real reasons for this oncoming financial collapse, the media has brainwashed the west that everything would have been just fine, “if only coronavirus had not become a pandemic”.

But what is really being bailed out here exactly and why? Is this money actually making it to the real economy? Is it being invested to rebuild America’s farms, businesses and industry?

The reality is that the only thing being saved are the “Too Big to Fail” banks that are sitting atop a $1.5 quadrillion of derivatives bomb. Of the most bankrupt of America’s speculators are JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, whose derivatives exposure hit $48 trillion, $47 trillion and $42 trillion respectively in recent years.

It is my contention that Trump is genuine in his desire to “drain the swamp” and rebuild America’s lost industrial base. I also genuinely believe that Trump wishes to establish positive relations with Russia, China and other sovereign nation states which has drawn the ire of the international deep state. However Trump’s potentially fatal blind spot appears to be his tendency to believe the lie that Wall Street’s well-being is somehow indicative of America’s well-being.

If Trump is intelligent, (and his previous calls for Glass-Steagall’s restoration, and American System practices imply that he knows a thing or two), then rather than bailing out Wall Street by unleashing more gasoline onto the fire, it were better that he took the lessons of 1933 and established a new Pecora Commission for 2020.

What was the Pecora Commission?

Many are aware of the economic meltdown of October 24,1929 that ushered in four years of depression onto America (and much of the western world). However not many people are aware of the intense fight that was launched by patriots in both parties against the Wall Street/deep state parasite of that age which prevented both a fascist coup against the newly elected Franklin Roosevelt while also crippling Wall Street’s command of American life. In spite of whitewashing revisionist history books that contaminated the past 70 years, America’s recovery from the depression never occurred without a life or death struggle and this struggle was made possible, in large measure by the courageous work of an Italian lawyer from New York. This man’s name was Ferdinand Pecora.

By 1932, when Senators Peter Norbeck (R-SD) and George Norris (R-NB) spearheaded the establishment of the U.S. Committee on Banking and Currency, the American economy was on life support and the people were so desperate that a fascist dictatorship in America would have been welcomed with open arms if only bread could be put on the table. Unemployment had reached 25%, while over 40% of banks had gone bankrupt and 25% of the population had lost their savings. Thousands of tent cities called ‘Hoovervilles’ were spread across the USA and over 50% of America’s industrial capacity had shut down. Thousands of farms had been foreclosed and the engines of American industry had grinded to a screeching halt.

Across the ocean, the fascist regimes of Germany, Italy and Spain were growing more powerful by the day fed by injections of hundreds of millions of dollars of capital by London and Wall Street bankers. Notable among these pro-fascist financiers was none other than Bush family patriarch Prescott, who provided millions in loans to Hitler’s bankrupt Nazi party in 1932 (and continued doing business with the party through 1942- having only stopped after being found guilty for “trading with the enemy”).

The Committee on Banking and Currency was a relatively impotent body when it began in 1932, but when Senator Norbeck called in Ferdinand Pecora to lead it in April 1932, everything began to change. A first generation Italian-American, Pecora was forced to quit high school after his father was injured in order to support his family. Years later, the young man found work as a clerk in a law firm, and managed to work his way through law school, passing the bar in 1911. His unimpeachable reputation earned him the animosity of powerful NY financiers who ensured that his successes in prosecuting brokers never resulted in attaining Attorney General, where he made a name for himself shutting down over 100 illegal brokerage houses that speculated on fraudulent securities during the depression.

Within days of accepting the Washington job as Chief Council of Norbeck’s committee (for the meager salary of $250/month), Pecora was granted broad subpoena powers to audit banks and drag the most powerful men in America to testify in the committee’s hearings.

In his first two weeks, Pecora made headlines by auditing the books of major Wall Street banks and pulled in pro-fascist National City President Charles Mitchell (then preparing to advise Benito Mussolini) to testify. Within days, Mitchell’s team of expensive defense attorneys could do nothing but watch in despair as the powerful financier admitted to short selling his own bank’s stocks during the depression, scamming depositors with purchases of Cuban junk debt and avoiding taxes for years. Mitchell was forced to resign in shame followed days later by NY Stock Exchange Chair Dick Whitney- who left the court in handcuffs.

This crackdown on Wall Street’s abuses were highly publicized and put the spotlight on the criminal schemes used to gamble with savings and commercial bank deposits on securities and futures markets which led to the orchestrated collapse of the bubble economy in 1929 (ironically much of the bubble built up during the “easy-money days” of the “roaring 20s” was centered in the housing market). Pecora’s crackdown also set the tone for the incoming Roosevelt administration.

Unlike the previous 1911 Pujo Commission led by Senator Charles Lindberg Sr. which also exposed Wall Street’s abuses of power, the Pecora Commission was supported by a President who actually cared about the Constitution and amplified Pecora’s powers even further. When FDR was told that supporting Pecora’s exposures of financial crimes would hurt the economy, the President famously responded with “they should have thought of that when they did the things that are being exposed now.” FDR followed up that warning by encouraging the attorney to take on John Pierpont Morgan Jr.

Rather than controlling an American institution as many believed 70 years ago and today, J.P. Morgan Jr. was actually running an operation that had earlier been created in the mid-19th century as part of a British infiltration of America. As historian John Hoefle pointed out in a 2009 EIR study:

“The House of Morgan was, in truth, a British operation from its inception. It began life as George Peabody & Co., a bank founded in London in 1851 by American George Peabody. A few years later, another American, Junius S. Morgan, joined the firm, and upon Peabody’s death the firm became J.S. Morgan & Co. Junius Morgan brought in his son, J. Pierpont Morgan, to head the New York office of J.S. Morgan, and the New York office became J.P. Morgan & Co. From its original role in helping the British gain control of American railroads, the Morgan bank became a leading force in the oligarchy’s war against the American System, using the deep pockets of its imperial masters to become a powerhouse in not only finance but steel, automobiles, railroads, electricity generation, and other industries.”

By 1933, the House of Morgan grew into a multi-headed hydra controlling utilities, holding companies, banks and countless other subsidiaries.

Senator George Norris showcasing a chart of Wall Street power

When J.P. Morgan jr. was called to testify, the banker carried a midget on his lap in mockery of the “circus of the commission”. As the questions began however, the arrogant banker was caught off guard by Pecora’s proof of Morgan’s secret “preferred clients lists” of politicians whom the banker owned and who received stock offerings at discount rates. Named among the thousands of traitors on this list, Pecora revealed former president Calvin Coolidge, Coolidge’s Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon (a Schacht-Hitler supporter from the start), financier Bernard Baruch, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts and Democratic Party controller John Jacob Raskob. Raskob was not only a major speculator but was also the leader of the American Liberty League which tried repeatedly to overthrow FDR between 1933-1939 and worked to ally America with axis powers from 1939-1941.

Morgan’s god-like ego was brought down to the level of mortals when the flustered banker was only able to answer “I can’t remember” repeatedly when asked if he had paid taxes over the past 5 years. As it turned out, by the end of the trial, it was revealed that NONE of the subsidiaries of the House of Morgan paid any taxes during the entire period of the depression, and were caught gambling with depositors assets from commercial accounts. These revelations didn’t sit well with a population dying of starvation across the streets of America.

Similar displays of corruption were made of the heads of Kohn Loeb, Chase Bank, Brown Brothers Harriman and others.

Faced with these revelations, The Nation magazine famously reported “If you steel $25, you’re a thief. If you steal $250 000, you’re an embezzler. If you steal $2.5 million, you’re a financier.”

Pecora’s ally Sen. Burton Wheeler said “the best way to restore confidence in our banks is to take these crooked presidents out of the banks and treat them the same as we treated Al Capone.”

FDR Drains the Swamp

With the light cast firmly upon the dark shadows where vile creatures like J.P. Morgan and other financial gremlins reside, the population was finally able to start making sense of what injustices befell them during the years of post-1929 despair. While not every banker went to prison as Wheeler or Pecora would have liked, examples were made of dozens who did and many more whose careers were shamefully ended. Most importantly however, this exposure gave Franklin Roosevelt the support needed to drain the swamp and impose sweeping reforms upon the banks.

In the first hundred days, FDR was able to:

1) Impose Glass-Steagall banking separation (forcing Wall Street banks to break up their functions and preventing speculators from gambling with productive assets)

2) Create the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that protected citizens’ savings from future crises

3) Create the Securities Exchange Commission to provide oversight to Wall Street’s activities and on whose body Pecora was appointed commissioner in 1934.

4) Unleash broad credit through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which acted as a national bank bypassing the private Federal Reserve, channeling $33 billion to the real economy by 1945 (more than all private commercial banks combined)

5) Impose protective tariffs on agriculture, metals and industrial goods to stop dumping of cheap products in America and rebuild America’s physical economy

6) Create vast public works, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, Grand Coulee dams, Hoover dams, St Laurence development and countless other projects, hospitals, schools, bridges, roads and rail under the New Deal that acted in many ways then as China’s Belt and Road Initiative has in our modern age. Unfortunately, Roosevelt died before this new form of political economy could be internationalized abroad in the post-war years as an anti-colonial program.

A beautiful outline of FDR’s struggle is showcased in the 2008 film ‘1932: Speak not of Parties but of Universal Principles’.

Subverting a Fascist Coup Then and Now

Ferdinand Pecora’s Commission shaped the dynamics of America so intensely by its simple power of speaking the truth, that efforts to run a fascist coup against FDR using a general named Smedley Butler also came undone before it could succeed. Butler played along with Wall Street’s plans for some months before deciding to publicly blow the whistle in congress. Butler exposed the intension to use him as a “puppet dictator” leading thousands of American legionnaires in a storming of the White House displacing FDR.

It is often forgotten today, but in the early days of the 1920s-1930s, the Legion was modeled on Mussolini’s fascist squadristi and even its leader Alvin Owsley made explicit in 1921 saying:

“If need be the American Legion is ready to protect the institutions of this country and its ideals, in the same way as the Fascists have treated the destructive forces threatening Italy. Don’t forget that the Fascists are for today’s Italy what the American Legion is for the United States.”

Butler’s startling revelations amplified FDR’s popular support and inoculated much of the population from the fake news pouring out of Wall Street propaganda agencies spread across the media.

In 1939, Pecora wrote a book called Wall Street Under Oath: The Story of our Modern Money Changers’ where the attorney prophetically said:

“Under the surface of the governmental regulation of the securities market, the same forces that produced the riotous speculative excesses of the ‘wild bull market’ of 1929 still give evidence of their existence and influence. Though repressed for the present, it cannot be doubted that, given a suitable opportunity, they would spring back to their pernicious activity.”

Pecora went onto deliver one more warning which current generations should take seriously “Had there been full disclosure of what has been done in furtherance of these schemes, they could not long have survived the fierce light of publicity and criticism. Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the bankers’ stoutest allies.”

Today’s oncoming economic meltdown can only be prevented if the lessons of 1933 are taken seriously and patriots who actually care about their nations and people stop legitimizing the casino economy of fictitious capital, derivatives, debt slavery and anti-humanism that has become so commonplace across the governing strata of the technocratic and banking elite today trying to control the world. This elite, just like the financiers of the 1920s, doesn’t care ultimately for money as an end but sees it merely as a means for imposing fascist forms of governance onto the world population. In the same way that FDR’s Wall Street/London enemies sought a world government under Nazi enforcers then, today’s heirs to that anti-human legacy are driven by a religious-like commitment to “manage” a new collapse of world civilization under a Green New Deal and World Government.

So why accept that dystopic future when a brighter one is offered us by the Multipolar alliance today led by Russia and China?

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation and can be reached at [email protected]

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Dee Cee
March 17, 2020

Matthew: Thank you for writing this excellent article! I’m sharing it with some folks who will be interested in this history.

March 17, 2020

I already want stock from the 2 trillion we just gave all those irresponsible jew bankers the past week. If we don’t get options we should beat it out of those evil devil derivative spawns!

March 17, 2020

Is there any way to get this article, or the cliff notes to Trump.? Maybe via Rudy?

Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg
Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg
March 17, 2020

While Wall Street and The City (but mostly German industrialists intent on disciplining labor) lavished support on fascistic movements, they discovered in time they had conjured up a demon that threatened to break out of their magick circle. The discussions between Hitler and Molotov in 1940 were probably the most pivotal moment since Poland broke the Ottoman siege of Vienna. Had Hitler taken up Soviet offers, the Rhodes-Milner Roundtable’s carefully laid plans would have turned to bitter ash within days. But his slavophobia and spastic antisemitism, mixed with love for Rome and the romance of the British Empire doomed Germany… Read more »

COVID-19 pandemic creates panic and “cancel-everything” culture

China’s Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus Originate in the US?


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The best HIKE IN camping near
Hillsboro , MISSOURI

73 Reviews7 Campgrounds

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Most Recent Hillsboro Camping Reviews
Good fall spot

Well kept up place, good spacing between sites. I didn’t get a chance to go on any trails but there were a couple that looked good, including the Ozark Trail.

Great For Adventuring

Whether you’re at one of the 25+ lakes in area, one of many beautiful trails, the mysterious WWII bunkers or the scenic roadways, Weldon Spring offers many an escape in the middle of town. Popular amongst marijuana users as the area is so big and close to the large sub-urban area nearby. It’s clean and a great spot for a group or individuals any time of the year.

Fun weekend

Great access to river. Stayed on the family side and had a great time. Staff super helpful and upbeat, everyone looked like they wanted to ACTUALLY be there. Would definitely go back.

Clean and well maintained

We have visited this campground multiple times and stayed in multiple sites.  We tried a new location this time (#25) and really enjoyed it.  It was located by itself and was truely car camping with a parking spot at the site itself.  #24 is slightly smaller, but has the same benefits.  #26-28 are located just up the hill and would be great for multiple families camping together.  All 5 of these sites have 2 hammock stands and are located close to a pit toilet that is clean and well maintained.  No water pump that I could find for this location.

Previously we have stayed in W4 and W6 which required hauling the gear from the parking lot into the "primative" location.  These were nice, but all in one large clearing with no privacy.  They were also a bit of a walk to the bathrooms.

I would also recommend site #20.  It was grouped with others, but at the end of a row.  It would also require hauling gear in from a parking lot, but might be worth it for the shade and seclusion.  It is also close to the lake.

Nice but pricey

Very pricey, as soon as we pulled into the campground we were bombarded by workers asking us if we went in and paid yet.

NOT family friendly with young children!

The first thing that bothered me the most was the constant giant burning pile of garbage in the campground! And ALL the dumpsters were overflowing with garbage. Our campsite was so narrow you could touch the other RV from under your awning. Our firepit was next to their sewer line. The campsite was so unlevel my 1 year old couldnt even stand outside the camper without falling. There was NO room to play at all outside the camper on the family side. The family beach was really nice but all the dogs kept trying to pee on all our stuff. That was annoying. No playground and the the roads are loose gravel so my 3 year old couldnt ride her bike. We ended up staying only 1 night when I booked 3. I would personally never go there again. Also they CHARGE for WIFI!

Best campsite in Missouri!

This place is awesome! It was our second overnight backpacking trip we did! We started on beautiful pickle creek trail which is rock scramble right beside a awesome clear water creek bumbling over big rocks! Then we hit whispering pines trail and stayed at campsite 5! It is about 5-6 miles in. Perfect campsite a creek on each side with waterfalls on each one!! We finished the trail the next day right at 12 miles! Be sure to arrive early as the parking lots and campsites fill up fast!! Absolutely stunning trail for Missouri!!

Beautiful views for Missouri

We stayed in Klondike Park Campground in May. The views are spectacular with some sandy shores of a small pond in the middle of the campground and some great trails. Augusta is a nice place away from St. Louis and a short drive down 94. One caution… there were tons of ticks… i mean like we found 6 when we got home.

The park has a few different areas for camping. We stayed at campsite 25 which is a really big campsite surrounded by trees. Some of the other campsites are pretty packed together. There was a bathhouse, but it wasn’t really close to our campsite. Still dont think there was water available. As far as amenities, the bathroom was clean, but there’s basically no water so you’ll need to bring your own. Same with campfire wood. We had cell phone service at our campsite so if you’re curious about that, now you know.

There’s also 6 cabins you can rent, but they fill up pretty fast so if you’re going to do that, you need to plan ahead. Plenty of well groomed trails and bike paths, it’s well worth the trip.

Great for small children

Spent the weekend there with my family. We stayed in the “family” section. Positives: quiet time starting at 11:00 pm, we didn’t hear cursing, loud music, or anything else that disturbs little ones once they go to sleep, close to the river, clean restroom and shower house, shaded camping spots, clean grounds. Negatives: Nothing to report.

Enthusiasts rejoice!

Are you a person who enjoys the outdoors more than the couch? Do you thrive in medium/tough hikes where the possible main cause of death is by "neck chaffing due to skin stickyness?" Do fetid sauna-temperatured bathrooms and nightly raccoon raids tickle your camping funny bone? Then this location is for you!

We are looking at 12 first, honor, come first served sites, with 2 larger special use ones.

The flora is rich and thick, with good shade on all sites. The drawback is the amount of poison ivy, so be careful.

Trash hooks are provided for all campsites but you'll need to take the trash out when you leave, as there's no collection. FURTHERMORE, many of the hooks are 4x4 posts which raccoons can easily climb, so you'll need to be proactive and put it all in your car. No bears, in my experience, are in the area so that should not be a big deal. Also, don’t forget to put all the food in the car as well as the little pests will tear through anything that is left behind-they’ve once stole one of my Olights, leaving only the butt and the battery behind.

Great for tent as well as hammocks. I've done both and, by far, the second it the way to go. Make sure that the site is free from the possibility of deadfalls, which happens all over. The dept of conservation does a good job cutting the dangerous trees but, sometimes, sh*t happens… Good fire rings with grates, as well as picnic tables are provided.

Fauna is everywhere! This is a great base for you to go out birding. I've found animals from Luna Moths to Copperheads in the surrounding areas. There is a very small pond in between all the sites. The noise at night is ABSOLUTELY deafening-I Love it! If this was the 60's and frogs were musicians, the place should be named Woodstock.

There's "drinkable" water on site but I would boil it, filter, and have it blessed before consuming it, if I were you…although that will not improve the taste of your instant coffee, sorry.

Temperatures are often manageable, especially at night as the place tends to fluctuate within 20 degrees between midday and 10pm- it's quite nice.

Mosquitoes are a nonsense that can be easily avoided by you not being a dummy and, 1. not camping next to the pond, 2. applying repellent.

This is one of my favorite sites in Missouri. Even if all sites are to be taken you'd still feel that there is enough space between you and the sucker next door. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for my next post,"Mina Sauk Spigot."


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The best WALK IN camping near

76 Reviews13 Campgrounds

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Most Recent Holden Camping Reviews
Nothing shy of memory

The caretakers here are the sweetest people. Taking my 2 and 6 year old on their first camping experience we chose this place and they told us as we checked in that they wanted their 1st camping trip to be awesome…loaded us up with some complimentary firewood…let us pick out our tent plot, and directed us toward the bathrooms and drinking water….and that's where the good part of the review ends. We had to change plots 2 times bc as we unloaded our gear and attempted to set up camp we were welcomed and not left unpested by snakes of all sizes and large insects…it was dark when we managed to lay my already sleeping children down in the tent…the night air was clouded with mosquitoes but the moon was full and the stars were amazing. Coyotes could be heard in the distance…we thought…until around 3 am when we were startled awake by what appeared to be large dogs without leash, collar, or owner licking our tent. Circling our tent….The morning daylight couldn't come fast enough…The bathrooms were dirty and infested with various insects and covered in cobwebs…a short walk to the waters edge sent us home w 2 children covered in chigger and mosquito bites …extremely disappointing.

Cute, Small Quiet

We camped the last weekend in September picking a late reservation where kayaks were available for our first tent test run were our main goals, which the site met. Kayaking was wildly available, due to the small lake and difficult launch, we can see why, but still very enjoyable. Site was very sizable for our tent, as most are suitable for campers. Lots of even ground, with decent distance. Facilities could do with some updates, but there were a number of bathrooms on site, spaced so no site seemed far, including the vault toilet and a lot of people masking up while going into bathrooms as well, which was appreciated. Current host was super nice and helpful to first timers. The tiny market has a number of random items, including a collapsible fork which was the only thing we hadn't overpacked, and wasn't overpriced. Fire pits on our site were adjustable, making grilling food easier to control.

Very clean and welcoming

My family stayed several nights here and loved the entire time. The sites were nice and well maintained. The restrooms were clean, stocked and nice to use. The staff was great and very helpful and we absolutely loved the whole experience.

Out in the country

Nice campground run by the corp of engineers. Camp sites are far apart with plenty of shade trees. They only have one shower house for about 150 sites, but plenty of restrooms. Nice level area great for bike riding. They only have one hiking trail but it was well marked. Cell service is hard to get and air tv only gets public broadcasting stations

Great sty

Chill, low key environment. Management super friendly and amenities (bathrooms, showers) kept clean. Great spot for family.

Crammed in a tent camping field...

Let's Share COVID and a campfire song. When we booked a tent site in the KOA we didn't expect much but assumed it would work for the night while driving across the USA.  Upon arrival we were a little put off by being stuck with several other tents in a field and noticed we were expected to share our fire ring with the tent next door… this was not ok with us and we left promptly and snagged a nice spot in the nearby Blue Springs Recreation Area. Traveling during summer 2020 has been interesting and to expect strangers to share a fire ring and be crammed very close during a pandemic is not only careless but not fun. UGH

Great Campground

Very clean and nice campground. Steps from the lake. Staff was friendly.

Great family campground

This is a great family campground!!! It’s not nearly as busy as the state park which is awesome!!

Definitely would come back

Very nice campground. Electric hook ups only, no water, no sewers (and we are good with that) Lots of shade. Most spots seem level. The handicapped spots are paved!!! Very quiet. The only drawback is the bathhouse. Needs a good scrub and a working exhaust fan.

Great Family Camping

Nice spacious spots, lake views, friendly campers. Great Hosts! Clean and well maintained. Our favorite spot for camping at Truman Lake. Close to boat launch. Great fishing, lake is accessible from many sites.