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Do you read Orion magazine?

If you don’t, you should. I got to hear editor-in-chief Chip Blake describe how Orion came to be: it was founded by people who thought that the “conversation [around the environment] in the 1970’s was too dominated by science and policy” and sought a more humane, if you will, approach. The magazine features excellent writing and art – it’s a forum for nature writing, but its nature writing suggests that nature is, well, everything. Their current issue has a piece by Sandra Steingraber, one of the most inspiring authors I know. Steingraber once described herself as “a two-way translator between the public and scientific community,” and that’s exactly the sort of writing we need more of today.

(I want to be her. But I can’t, for many reasons including but not limited to, I did not develop bladder cancer in my early 20s because of the environmental factors in my hometown. If I could be her without having to go through the cancer thing, that would be cool. Unfortunately I’m also not as good at writing, or as smart. I met her once and had to refrain from saying, “I want to do exactly what you do!” because, well, that would have been pretty awkward.)

But back to Orion.

They have an annual workshop for nature writers and lo and behold, it is held at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. It’s called the Wildbranch Writing Workshop, after a stream in nearby Wolcott.

Even if my writing was good enough to get selected for a prestigious workshop like this (not a chance), it’s far too expensive for me to attend. Which all seems a little cruel, me living right next to it. But at the very least, each year that faculty give public readings, and I was not going to miss those for anything (and in fact had to disobey Pepa’s orders to do a trail running race that evening).

And so there I was, sitting in a row with a few other young women, all of us wearing colorful woven scarves (I silently reprimanded myself for being so stereotypically… something), listening to Blake tell us about the philosophy of Orion. As he introduced Scott Russell Sanders, a well-dressed woman in nice bright red cutout shoes slid in next to me and my heart skipped a beat: it was Janisse Ray.

Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. Sitting next to me. As we both scribbled down something that Sanders said about manifestos, she tapped my arm and asked me what the rest of the sentence had been. That was my brush with greatness for the week and I childishly hoped that some of her awesomeness would rub off on me.

Sanders was a great reader, extremely charismatic, and would be perfect at an environmental rally of some sort. He read “For The Children”, a piece from one of his books. It had some great language in it but I have to say it was not what I had come there for. I’m not sure what I had come for, but this was too heavy, a bit, with its constant mentioning of the consequences of our daily actions.

Then Ray did her reading. This, I realized, was what I came for. Ray is funny and has a great presence. She finds the humor even in tough situations. The first piece she read was from the book she’s working on right now, and was about a neighbor whose family had, in the 1800s, developed its own variety of corn by combining three others. They still plant it, and had offered to share some seeds with Ray. Lucky her! “If you haven’t heard about seeds, they are disappearing like every damn other thing,” Ray read. But here, as ever, she was hopeful where some people couldn’t be: “There is no despair in a seed.”

The second piece was a bit from her journal about attempting to capture and domesticate a swarm of bees. I loved everything about it, from the humorous conversations with her husband, replicated in Ray’s southern drawl, to the claim that “working with the bees was like working with bread dough.” I loved her language, her descriptions, everything about it. Of course, I do have a soft spot for bees.

David Gessner finished up the evening. And he’d had a few drinks. He first read from the beginning of his book Sick of Nature:

I am sick of nature. Sick of trees, sick of birds, sick of the ocean. It’s been almost four years now, four years of sitting quietly in my study and sipping tea and contemplating the migratory patterns of the semipalmated plover. Four years of writing essays praised as “quiet” by quiet magazines. Four years of having neighborhood children ask their fathers why the man down the street comes to the post office dressed in his pajamas (“Doesn’t he work, Daddy?”) or having those same fathers wonder why, when the man actually does dress, he dons the eccentric costume of an English bird watcher, complete with binoculars. Four years of being constrained by the gentle straightjacket of genre; that is, four years of writing about the world without being able to say the word “shit.” (While talking a lot of scat.) And let’s not forget four years of being the official “nature guy” among my circle of friends. Of going on walks and having them pick up every leaf and newt and turd and asking “what’s this?” and, when I (defenseless unless armed with my field guides and even then a bumbler) admit I don’t know, having to shrug and watch the sinking disappointment in their eyes.

It’s a great piece.

He then read “Letter to an Apprentice”, which should have the subtitle “Beginning is terrifying business.” It is full of advice for those of us who are beginning to write. It made me think, for sure. But it was kind of too long.

And then it was over, and I went home, dreams of writing in my mind, but tired. Too tired to write anything. So many times I have told myself that if I just write for an hour before bed, I could get a lot of writing in. But I never can. My days are too full. It’s too much.

Someday. In the meantime, I got to enjoy listening to some fabulous authors read from their work.

Ski Incline!

Ida and I on the Tahoe Rim Trail.

For the last ten days, the Craftsbury Green Racing Project has been holding a training camp at Lake Tahoe. Why? People keep asking me if we’re chasing snow. Nope. The main goal of the camp is to get some altitude training in – ideally, we’d be skiing at altitude, but doing dryland at altitude is the next best thing. Tickets were cheap and we have a free place to stay in Incline Village, so things are working out well.

We’ve had many beautiful, sunny, warm workouts – exactly what one would expect in California. This makes it all the more surprising when things turn nasty.

Last night, Hannah and I sat in the hot tub as tiny snowflakes fell all around us. It had been cold all day, but at least sunny, and we merrily imagined snow piling up on the neighboring golf course. After all, there had to be some place we could dig up skis, even if they were kind of clunky.

In the morning, we faced reality. Not much snow had accumulated on the ground, but the roads were covered in a layer of black ice and snow had piled up on the shoulders, swept there by the passing cars. Motivation for our two-hour rollerski was low. Perhaps nonexistent. I crawled back into bed after breakfast, and thought over and over about how tired I was. Maybe I should just take a day off…

But no. I correctly recognized that while I was tired – the last week has been big on volume – I mostly was just being a wuss. I strapped on my skate boots, my warmest spandex, several layers on top, and actual ski gloves. We hit the streets.

I almost immediately found that I couldn’t skate on large sections of the road. My skis slipped out as I kicked, leaving me unbalanced and, mostly, frustrated. We double-poled the iciest sections, and even then, it took concentration to keep our skis upright and moving in a straight line. The challenge did have its benefits: before I knew it, twenty minutes had passed. I didn’t have time to complain about the sub-freezing temperatures or how tired I had been. I was just out there, skiing.

We tried to ski up the pass, but after half an hour, gave up. It was just too icy. Instead, we skied through residential neighborhoods along the lake. Adapt and overcome, as Ruff would say….

The tabs open in my browser are getting quite numerous, so here’s a link dump of, as Ollie says (hi Ollie) “things Chelsea has read and wants you to read.”

– One of my cabinmates from the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, when I was working on my thesis, is headed to Copehagen for the climate negotiations! Here’s a little bit about what she has to say. Go Ellie!!

– On energy: Obama can give a darn good speech. But, as climate legislation keeps getting bumped back and as Copenhagen looms, what’s his vision? Come on, buddy…

– On the other hand, apparently doing simple things like changing lightbulbs could actually make a big difference. So everyone, do the 17 things this Science article suggests.

– Closer to home, a Vermont program offering incentives for sustainable energy installments is inundated with applications. Hope all those things get built!

– I suspect that Meatless Mondays would have a similar reception on our team as it did in the Baltimore School System. We may try to sneak it past the boys somehow anyway.

– And finally: “Why Sleepyheads Forget.” We are definitely sleepyheads. Except Ida and Lauren, who wake up early.

This article is about some really cool research calculating Amazonian forest biomass from planes. Sign me up!

“Green” and 350

Today we hiked/ran from Squaw Valley to Donner Pass. Beautiful!

Today we hiked/ran from Squaw Valley to Donner Pass. Beautiful!

When people ask me what it means to be a green ski team, I sometimes struggle to answer. We haven’t changed the world (yet). But we’ve done a few things, we’ve tried to do a few more things, and we organized the Team 350 Challenge.

The idea of the challenge was to get people to think. Our earth’s atmosphere currently has 387 parts per million of carbon dioxide floating around in it. In order to avoid catastrophic environmental effects – which, more than just wrecking the “environment”, which a lot of people don’t really care about, would wreck people’s lives – this level should drop below 350 parts per million. One of these catastrophes is that there would be no snow, and we’d be out of luck for skiing.

We challenged our community, along with the rowing community, to cumulatively train 350 million meters over the course of a month. While our goal was to get as many people signed on as possible, and to log as many meters as we could, I imagined that if 1,000 people each logged 350 thousand meters (350 kilometers), we’d reach our goal. That’s not much more than 10 kilometers per day. There is quite a large number of athletes out there who train that much or more.

While the Team 350 Challenge doesn’t include any specific action to lower the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, each person that signs onto the challenge is aware of the issue. If we could get athletes to think about climate change as they logged their meters online, surely we could make a difference, or at least a statement.

As I write this, nearly 1,500 people have taken up the challenge. Among the names on the honor boards are Green Mountain Valley School coach Justin Beckwith and his team; NCAA All-Americans Rosie Brennan, Susan Dunklee, and Caitlin Patterson; and, of course, all the members of our team. Nearly 100 athletes have completed 350 kilometers of training.

Regardless of the fact that we will not reach our goal, we have reached out to a significant number of people. And this ties back into our goal, into my answer to the first question, into what makes us a “green” racing team. Although acting is undeniably better than thinking, at the very least, our goal is to raise awareness about sustainability issues.

Tim sometimes refers to “the hypocrisy of being a green ski racer.” We will never be a zero-waste, zero-emissions team. It’s not possible. You can’t walk to every race on your own two feet. You can’t train at altitude in Vermont – hence we’re in Lake Tahoe right now.

But we can do as much as we can make sure we are not wasting resources unnecessarily, and to make sure that our competitors are aware of their own effect on the environment. We can do our workouts from our house whenever possible instead of driving somewhere. We can eat as much local food as possible. We can write letters to our legislators and politicians and try to make sure that the Copenhagen negotiations are fruitful.

There is a lot of buzz around 350 right now. We hope that you’re paying attention to what so many people are saying – thanks Andrew Gardner, thanks Steinbock, thanks Sara Renner, thanks to so many others – and we hope you continue to think about it for the rest of the year, too.

Training notes: Autumn in Vermont

Pepa has been in Bulgaria for the last two weeks. Ida, Hannah, Tim, and Lauren have been in Lake Placid for the last week. The rest of us have just tried to hold down the fort.

Training without Pepa is bizarre – I never thought I would say that, because I am proud of the fact that for the last three summers I trained almost entirely by myself. I also just enjoy being alone – there are training days where I like to ski along chatting, but there are also days when it is a relief to be able to use that time to think your own thoughts and be inside your own head. When some of my teammates expressed dismay that we would have to train without Pepa, I basically told them to grow up.

But, really, I miss Pepa. Now there’s nobody to tell us “Good morning, my sleeping beauties,” and nobody to make sure my technique is good when I’m skiing. Some days it was hard to motivate ourselves to go train. It’s especially hard when it’s gray, rainy, and less than 50 degrees out. Those days are toughness training. On one such day, I decided to run our negative-split workout instead of rollerskiing. Ollie decided he was sick, and Matt didn’t decide anything. Instead, he sat around in his training clothes in a perpetual state of indecision about whether to go rollerski, and at the end of the day said, “I blew it. I really need Pepa to come back”.

One of the amazing things about Vermont is that each town seems to have its own weather system. This morning, we started rollerskiing in sunny East Craftsbury. By the time we got over Johnson’s Hill, it was hailing, which wasn’t so bad since it didn’t get us wet. In Greensboro the hail turned to a cold rain. Ida and I, soaked and freezing, turned around to go get jackets and gloves; coming back over Johnson’s Hill it was snowing, but in East Craftsbury it was still sunny. We put our jackets on anyway.

On a less cheerful note, I have developed tendonitis in my elbow. It’s from rollerskiing. It first appeared after our 5-hour classic ski a few weeks ago. I’ve been liberally applying some Bulgarian anti-inflammatory gel, and I thought it was getting better; this turned out to be because I took a break from training, and now that I have skied four days in a row, it’s back with a vengeance. It’s in my left elbow, and Lauren’s theory is that the roads are crowned so the inside pole is planted slightly above the outside pole every time you stride. I am hoping I can make it to ski season without it getting much worse, and that snow will provide a nice low-impact cushion. Until then, I hope to avoid 5-hour rollerskis…

Yesterday morning’s rollerski also left me pretty wet. My boots were literally full of water, to the extent that I could pour it out of them (note: I need to make fenders for my rollerskis). Then in the afternoon, when it was beautiful and sunny, we had BKL practice. I really didn’t want to put my feet back into my soaking-wet boots, so instead I broke out my brand-new pair of Salomon S-Labs, which I had been saving up for when we got on snow. When I went to put them on, I looked in the left boot and saw…. fluff. A mouse house. Apparently nothing is safe from the mice. Luckily, they hadn’t chewed up the boot at all, and also luckily, there weren’t any actual mice in the boot. I was still bitter though.


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The original story of the film

Into The Camp film embodies the story of the kids in the camp and it varies in time and setting.

The original title of the story “ The Kid Goes Back To The Camp” reveals clearly the example of the hero/the kid who was chosen by Ghassanto be a witness on the development of the Palestinian issue in a moment of it’sdeterioration while the Palestinians were suffering from the deprivation, misery, homelessness and poverty in the refugee camps.

GhassanKanafani chose this kid as part of his book to show peoplethat crises and wars rob the kids of their basic right to live their childhood and puts them in the shoes of adults.

What makes this film emotionally strong is the presence of a kid who believes in a cause and encourages the viewer to understand the hidden meanings of it and try to think about solutions for it.

يجسد فلم إلى المخيم  قصة الأطفال  داخل  المخيم  ويتنوع في  التفاصيل  بين  الزمان والمكان

 . وعنوان القصة الأصلي ” الصغير يذهب إلى الجحيم ” يكشف بجلاء عن نموذج البطل / الطفل الذي اختاره غسان ليكون شاهدا على تطور القضية الفلسطينية في لحظة من لحظات انحسارها , وهو الزمن الذي ذاق فيه الإنسان الفلسطيني الحرمان والبؤس والتشرد والفقر في المخيمات.

إن اختيار الطفل بطلا لهذه القصة يندرج ضمن مشروع قصصي اختــــاره غسان كنفاني عن قصد ونسب دور البطولة فيه للطفل

الإقرار بأن الأزمات والنكبات والحروب تسلب حق الطفل في طفولتـــــــه , وتفرض عليه تحمل مسؤولية الكبار

ما يُكسب الفلم قوته وجاذبيته, هو وجود بطل يحمل قضية ويدعو المشاهد لفك رموزها والتفكير في حلولها.

In To The Camp.

Presentation of the project:

We have a beautiful, powerful and timeless story to tell and you can help us bring it to screen!

Through a community based project involving first time actors, Ihab Ghafri and his team are working on a short film adaptation of “The Child Goes to the Camp”, a novella by Ghassan Kanafani.
This story, written by one of the most prominent Palestinian authors and journalists, decades ago, will be the base to telling the story of a refugee kid in the camp of Askar, Nablus, in occupied Palestine in 2018.

What’s the idea behind this project?

We are a team of passionate young Palestinians committed to creating a short fiction film that is first and foremost a community based film project.

For us, the process by which the film is made is equally important to the end product itself. By using crowdfunding we aim to create a film that is authentically Palestinian, completely independent and intentionally community-driven.
That is why we are relying on a Palestinian writer-director, Ehab Ghafri, an entirely Palestinian technical crew, and first-time actors selected from the refugee camp in which the film takes place: Askar refugee camp,Nablus.
Through the years, each member of the crew has individually gathered  significant experience working with kids all over Palestine through art therapy and community lead projects, mostly in the field of theater. Building  on this priceless experience, we want to use the same creative energy to produce a film that will bring people together in each stage of film making from the development of the project, to the shooting on set and finally to the public screening of the final product.

In addition to providing workshops for aspiring actors from the community, hiring locally, and including community input on the creative direction of the film, we will attempt to show the realities of life in some of the world’s oldest refugee camps.

Lastly, all “making of the movie” materials will be made available for future Palestinian filmmakers to learn from and build upon similar experiences and processes. We want this film to be  one of many films developed, produced and distributed in the future by using the same community building resources.

One of our main goals will be creating a toolkit, that will go through all the steps of film making and can be reused by marginalized communities elsewhere in and even outside of Palestine.

We envision this toolkit being using by aspiring and emerging filmmakers that want to tell stories but don’t have the resources to do it in a traditional way. By going successfully going through this process we want to open new paths for film making. We are enabling ourselves to tell our own stories in our own way.

Our dream is that one day a Palestinian or Syrian filmmaker, in one of the camps of Lebanon for instance, will create his own community based film project relying on our “making of the movie” and using our toolkit.

What’s the story of “The Child Goes to the Camp” about?

This film aims to tell one of Kanafani’s lesser-known short stories: “The Child Goes to the Camp”. The story is still relevant today despite being written by the author decades ago, in exile, so close but yet so far of from Palestine.

In 2018, we feel the need to bring this story to the big screen because it is a powerful one, that is at once very palestinian and will without a doubt resonate with audiences around the world because it is very universal at its core.

Due to the forced exile of 1948, Palestine is home to some of the world’s oldest refugee camps. To be a Palestinian refugee is to have a complicated sense of identity that has been passed  down from generation to generation since the start of the Nakba, 70 years ago.

Not only is the refugee-status linked to a social belonging, it is also a place-based one. Being a refugee in your own country means having all parts of your life impacted by the ongoing conflict and having limited opportunities compared to the rest of the world. The refugee camps designed to protect the life of the refugees have ended up turning into places of isolation and exclusion.

The tale focuses on a young underprivileged boy and his extended family in the Askar refugee camp in Nablus. It follows him as he tackles growing up with conflicting identities and priorities. In this coming of age story, our protagonist has the difficult task to of  balancing his own desires with the inescapable daily necessities and emergencies. We focus on the inherent physical limitations to life in the refugee camp and to life as a child to be small in size and power in a constricted environment and yet have enormous responsibilities.

Our hero is struggling to find belonging within the confines of the camp  What happens when  individual aspirations, hopes and dreams come at the expense of the idea of a greater Palestine? How do you shape your world as a child when you are entangled in a situation bigger than yourself: the loss of the homeland, the occupation and the daily struggle to breathe, eat and stay alive?

This is a story as much about the complexity of identity as it is about the experience of childhood. It is a story about a story, told through a series of lenses that helps illustrate the complexity of the Palestinian refugee situation: the permanence of a state and status that was supposed to be temporary. It is a story about our past and it is a story about our present.  It is a story that is Palestinian and yet a universal one.

Meet the team behind the project:

Ehab Ghafri wrote the script based on Ghassan Kanafani’s story and will direct the short film. He is leading a team of passionate emerging talents that are working on the ground to make this project a reality.

Ehab received his B.S. in psychology and worked as an art therapist for years with a focus on women, young adults and children. He worked on many cinema, TV and theater productions all over Palestine. After being an actor for many years, he returned to school to study lighting and film making.

Islam Sirafy will serve as a drama coach for our first-time actors in this film.

A theater director who studied at Baghdad University in Iraq, Islam moved to Palestine during the Iraq War in xxx to study sociology and theater.  He incorporates both in his approach to theater and teaching. He has worked for various associations as a drama teacher, story teller, and social worker. In 2007, he formed a theater group at Al Najah  University in Nablus.

Khaled Tabone will contribute to the workshops for first-time actors and will also be part of the cast of this short film.

Khaled is a rapper and actor who has been in multiple productions and concert performances, including the film “Junction 48”.

We are committed to making a beautiful film that will hopefully go on to be seen on screens big and small, all around the world.

Your contribution will help in the development and production of the film:

Complete the development of the script based on the book

– Continue our pre-production work

– Equipment Rentals/Materials

– Compensation for highly skilled sound and light technicians

– Workshops in the community

– Training for youth and aspiring artists/technicians in Palestine that will join the team

– Post-production costs

We want this movie to travel because we believe that the singular story it tells needs to be seen by a wide audience. Your thoughtful generosity will also help us distribute this film to the widest possible audience in and out of Palestine:

– Create and edit the“Making of the film” material

– Create and print the promotional material

– Festival submission fees

– Organizing screenings

– DVDs of the film

As with any film production there are challenges and risks in bringing the project all the way to fruition. You may have already backed crowdfunded projects that didn’t deliver… so how can you trust that we will deliver?

  • We are a passionate team that is more than 100% committed to making this a success. A success that everyone involved can be part of, from the Askar community, to the backers of the project and the communities where the film will end up being screened.

  • The team involved with this project has already started to work in Askar Refugee Camp and know very well the challenges of bringing such a project to life in occupied Palestine. We have being planning for the past months in order to create a strong foundation to start production in the best conditions possible.

  • We are an experienced group of people who will endeavor to make this project happen despite any potential difficulty and setback. The funds we are gathering here will make this process easier and faster, and for that we are extremely thankful.

While every donation, even the smallest, can make a real difference, we realize that not everyone can contribute financially. That doesn’t mean that you can’t still be a huge part in  making this film come to life: you can still help us by raising the profile of our campaign BY SHARING IT!

Please share this page as widely as possible, with your family and friends on Facebook, Twitter and on any other network you belong to.

For updates, you can sign up for our mailing list. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Every little bit counts and can make a huge difference with such a project! Thank you for your trust. Your contribution is truly appreciated and our team is so grateful for your support in making this film.

€10- Shukran!

  1. a special thanks on the films website
  2. regular updates on the making of the film

€50 – Shukran!

  1. A special thanks on the films website
  2. regular updates on the making of the film
  3. An online viewing of the film when.

€75 – Shukran!

  1. A special thanks on the films website
  2. regular updates on the making of the film
  3. An online viewing of the film when.
  4. a digital HD download of the film(when the film has finished its festival run)

€100 – Shukran!

    1. A special thanks on the films website
    2. regular updates on the making of the film
    3. An online viewing of the film when.
    4. a digital HD download of the film(when the film has finished its festival run)
    5. a personalized digital album with set photos and stills from the film

€150 and more – Shukran!

    1. A special thanks on the films website
    2. regular updates on the making of the film
    3. An online viewing of the film when.
    4. a digital HD download of the film(when the film has finished its festival run)
    5. a personalized digital album with set photos and stills from the film
    6. The “making of the film”

The link for our project to fund


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On Becoming a Birder

20160115_114140My six-year-old’s painting of a yellow-bellied sapsucker. My six-year-old loves birds, and because of that, it’s become an interest for the whole family. We watch them, identify them, draw them and paint them. It’s a great project!

Note: This column was published in the Barrow Journal on February 3, 2016.

I’ve always liked birds, but it wasn’t until my youngest son became enamored with them that I started to pay more attention to them. Children have a way of making the world new and exciting for you, and what’s more, they teach you how to relax, if you let them. Birding is not only infectious, it takes you away from all your troubles.

Now everyone in my house is a “birder,” and for me, I think this hobby will outlast my son’s interest in it. But you never know – he may never lose interest in the birds either. Birds are some of the most beautiful and interesting creatures to watch, and I’ve learned that we get quite a variety of birds in our wooded subdivision.

Some of the most familiar birds I already knew the names of – cardinals, bluebirds, blue jays, tufted titmice, and Carolina wrens. Carolina wrens are small brown birds, but they aren’t like the sparrows you might find in the grocery store parking lot. They are a reddish brown, and whenever I hear birdsong in the morning, it’s usually a wren signaling to the other birds right outside my window.

When I hear the wren, I know it’s time to get the binoculars. On more than one occasion, if a wren is outside, other birds soon follow. Cardinals might appear in the tree, and as the male watches, the female will fly to the ground to forage on seeds in my flower garden. The tufted titmice might arrive to forage on the ground too.

These are birds that we see here year-round, but lately I’ve seen some winter visitors too. My whole family was thrilled to find a pair of golden-crowned kinglets in the yard one day because that’s one of my six-year-old’s favorite birds. He thinks it’s so cute that when we came across its picture in our bird app, he wanted to have a picture of it on his bedroom wall.

The male golden-crowned kinglet has a bright yellow and orange stripe on the top of its head. The female looks exactly the same except her stripe is yellow minus the orange. It’s a very small bird, almost as small as a chickadee, and it never stops moving, so it’s hard to spot without binoculars.

We also spotted what we think is a pine warbler. It doesn’t come through our yard often, but when it does, it gives us a welcome splash of color because its feathers are a beautiful greenish-yellow. The phoebe is much more plain with its brown and pale white feathers, but it’s still an elegant bird. It gets its name from the sound it makes: “FEE-bee!”

Very occasionally, we get to spy woodpeckers. We’ve seen downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, and once, long ago, a pileated woodpecker, which is very big and gorgeous. Most recently we’ve discovered that a yellow-bellied sapsucker has claimed one of the trees in our backyard as a regular feeding station.

Larger birds do travel through our area, but we rarely see them in our yard. Once when I woke up my eldest son in the morning, we looked out his window to see a red-tailed hawk sitting in a nearby tree! My husband has taken our dogs outside during the night and heard owls, and once he heard something large take off from the ground in our backyard, but it was too dark to see much.

There was one night my husband heard a pair of owls, and he quickly woke up my eldest son. They stood on the back deck for several minutes and listened as two great horned owls spoke to each other from either side of the woods.

We so easily forget that the wilderness is right in our backyard. We’re lucky to glimpse the flash of a wing or hear their elusive calls, but as my sons have taught me, if I take just a few minutes each day to pay attention, I am always delighted by what I find.

If you like watching birds, you might enjoy participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count, a citizen science project which asks you to count the birds you see for just 15 minutes over the weekend of February 12-15th. (It starts today!)

I would love to hear your thoughts, and I sure do appreciate folks who take the time to say 'thank you.' I can't always respond to every comment, but I read and appreciate every one. You do not need to leave a name or e-mail, but unless you have left a message before, I will have to approve it before you see it here.

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MQSA Made Easy Manual

Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) Manual

I am a new MQSA inspector and a fellow inspector had a copy of MQSA Made Easy. I definitely need something to help make it a little easier.

The “Phantom” Inspector

I believe this manual will make a great addition to the quality assurance sections of Breast Imaging Departments. I will recommend this manual to all of our graduating fellows who are entering practices where they will serve as part of the Breast Imaging Division.

Robyn Birdwell, MD, Department of Radiology, Stanford University, School of Medicine

MQSA Made Easy is an appropriate title for an important resource… It is a must for every mammography department.

Robert Hurwitz, MD – 20 mammography units, Southern California

Bonnie authored and distributes the highly acclaimed manual “MQSA Made Easy, Understanding and Implementing the Facility-Based Final Regulations”, which is regarded as a must-have for all mammography facilities. She self publishes to allow for timely and updates as new significant changes are made to the requirements.

Updating to the latest edition? Indicate original ordering company/individual with
new order and receive
a $10 discount.

Multiple orders?
Call 619-895-8184 for pricing

Updated 2018 version + new EQUIP mandate.
Including ALL available 2D (FFDM) and 3D (DBT) MQSA Information

Cost – $95 + 5 S&H
(S&H = Shipping and Handling)
Manual will be sent USPS Priority Mail with delivery confirmation

PAYMENT – We do not accept credit cards for payment
Make checks out to Bonnie Rush, RT(R)(M)(QM)

  • Include in order:
    Ship to address
    Billing address if different
    Phone number
    Contact person

Purchase orders accepted

To order with invoice for payment

Prepaid orders send to:
Bonnie Rush, RT(R)(M)(QM)
666 Upas St., #1004, San Diego, CA 92103

Book review for: MQSA Made Easy, Understanding and Implementing the Facility-Based Final Regulations 11th Edition, February 2008 by Bonnie Rush, RT(R)(M)(QM)

MQSA Made Easy delivers as the title indicates. This comprehensive manual takes the sting out of implementing the regulations formulated by the Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA).

Click here to read the entire review.

Services BIS offers for regulatory issues include:

  • CE programs – in-house or thru local and state societies and radiology organizations
    • Ask how your technologists could obtain free CE’s
  • Accreditation, certification and/or MQSA Inspections
    • Mock MQSA inspections
  • Clinical image review prior to submission for accreditation
    • On-site or by mail
  • Quality control and quality assurance process development, implementation and/or troubleshooting
I have attended two of your MQSA seminars. I have humbly accepted the title of MQSA maven. However, it was made possible by your precise and accurate information. Now my “Bible” is MQSA Made Easy.

Peggy Ruiz Marquez, RT(R)(CV)(M)

“I attended your MQSA and ACR…seminar. I also purchased your book. …we have a pretty tough inspector …He congratulated me on having ZERO ‘non-compliance items’.

Laurel Mahar, RT(R)(M)

I firmly believe that following your hints was the key to a perfect inspection.

Laurel Mahar, RT(R)(M)

MQSA and ACR Lectures

6 Hours – MQSA Made Easy – The Complete Story

2-3 Hours – MQSA Updat

3-4 Hours – W/inspection Criteria

1-5 Hours – Avoiding the Most Common Inspection Violations

1-2 Hours – Passing the Inspection w/Ease

1.5 Hour – MQSA vs. ACR

Bonnie Rush is wonderful and I always leave her seminars with so much information and motivation for ways to improve.

L. DeHaan, RT,(R)(M)

I ordered the new edition of MQSA Made Easy by Bonnie Rush, and I
can’t recommend it highly enough!
I have used her prior one, and it has never failed me, but this includes
DBT and EQUIP regulations. It is extremely organized and reads like a
recipe.  Thanks so much Bonnie for making the MQSA so much more
easily understood.

Amy Watters, Scripps San Diego.

Bonnie Rush is an excellent speaker and her humor a delight. I really felt I leaned techniques
that I can use in my daily practice.

Linda Califano, RT(R)(M)


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Mandy Eve-Barnett's Official Blog

Inspiration for Writers & Building A Community ©

Upcoming Writing Events- Add Yours for your Location…

December 18, 2017

I have searched the adverts and events pages and alas have found no events locally for me to share. I attended one event last Saturday, which was my publishers last event of this year. (I will be reporting on Wednesday on this event).

So please if you do have an event you would like to share please do.

In the meantime a Merry Christmas to all my followers and a spectacular writing year in 2018!

Merry Christmas

I will post my 2018 schedule at the end of December but a gentle reminder that I am looking for authors and writers to interview, promote and link to during the year. So if you have a book launch, a signing/event, would like to be interviewed then please contact me through the form via the Media Kit page on this blog.

I’m looking forward to getting to know you and your writing in 2018.

Upcoming Writing Events- Add Yours for your Location…

December 11, 2017

This week I will be attending my writing group’s Xmas Party. This event is always fun with members relaying new stories or poems and a Secret Santa. Each year we marvel at the diversity of the potluck items. There never seems to be duplicates. I began my Xmas themed story but alas have not quite finished it…will have to hurry!

This year’s WFSC Christmas Party will be held at Social Grounds Coffeehouse, where the proprietors are committed to supporting local non-profits and local artisans. Coffee and snacks will be available for purchase at the coffeehouse but everyone will b ing a potluck item, a gift worth $10 suitable for a writer, and a Christmas themed story or poem to share.

Does your local writing group hold a Xmas party too?

Then on Saturday another all day event with my publisher, Dream Write Publishing. Unlike last Saturday’s event it is in a venue we know well. Looking forward to the crowds and Christmas cheer.

agora craft

December 16, 2017 Christmas Craft/vendor Show  Time: 9:00–17:00  Agora, 401 Festival Lane, Sherwood Park, Alberta

What Christmas themed events are you attending in your area?

Upcoming Writing Events- Add Yours for your Location…

December 4, 2017

Although this week is usually my writing group’s sharing meeting, I will be attending another event, namely Canada 150 for 150 Volunteer Challenge. This event is a special celebration of volunteers in this 150th year of Canada. Each volunteer had to enter at least 150 hours in the year (easy for some – I have all my hours through the Writers Foundation and the Arts & Culture Council!) We will be presented with a special pin at Gallery 501,  120, 501 Festival Ave, Sherwood Park, AB T8A 4X3 on Tuesday 5th December at 7 pm.

My next event will be – DEC 9  10:00 – 4:00 pm Artists 4 Altruism Market and Fundraiser  Four Points By Sheraton Edmonton South,  7230 Argyll Road, Edmonton, Alberta T6C 4A6. I will be attending with my publisher, Dream Write Publishing. This will be the second (or third) time we have participated in this event.

Other events:

DEC FINAL 3-2-1 Indie Slam Qualifier and Open Mic  19:00 – 21:00 pm The Nook Cafe 10153 97 street, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 0L4

 DEC 7  Writers’ Guild of Alberta Holiday Party (YEG) The Almanac  10351-82 ave, Edmonton, Alberta T6E 1Z9 – I am hoping to attend this one.

Why not add your local event in the comments? Share the promotion.

Writing Hub -Books, Writing, Tips & more…

November 29, 2017

My only update is I broke the 25K mark on my new #YA novella – new total 25,684.

There will be a major disruption to my writing this week as I move home. This move has been a long time coming but finally I will have a small house to call my own in the place I have come to love since immigrating from England. In a perfect world I would have loved to have built a tiny house – an obsession of mine, however my new home is a smaller house with everything on the first floor (no more basement laundry – hurray) and a in-law basement suite for guests. It is close to my library, amenities and an easier commute to work.

For the last few weeks I have lain awake at night virtually moving furniture and pictures and visualizing what my new space will look like. The de-cluttering has been cathartic and a lot has made its way to the thrift store. Why do we hoard stuff? It’s not until we have to move it all that we realize it has sat on a shelf or been hidden in a cupboard forever. I admit I have been ruthless and feel lighter for it.

This is a new era for me and I am looking forward to it.

How did you cope with moving and how did it effect your writing?

This article was quite interesting. I could not move that often though!

Books:  There has been some rather steamy paragraphs in this sequel, surprising but welcome as it propels the main characters forward in their relationship.

Pawn of the Phoenix

Writing Tips:

When freelancing communication is key between you and your client. Be open about any potential or known delays that might extend the project timeline. If your client is fully aware you can come to an agreement and adjust the deadline. Do not hide – be open – an informed client is a happy client.

Freelance Project key points:

  1. Agree on the project price before work begins.
  2. Set realistic deadlines – do not promise what is not achievable.
  3. Establish exactly what your client requires of you and the project outline.
  4. Anticipate push back – do not demean a client’s ideas, discuss them and find common ground.
  5. Ensure you have frequent communication with your client.
  6. Be ready to hand off work in a timely manner.
  7. Be willing to teach a client on how freelancing works and your particular skill set in regards to the project.

What freelance rules do you abide to?

Upcoming Writing Events- Add Yours for your Location…

November 27, 2017

I am moving home this week so will not be partaking in events for obvious reasons. Although, I am sad not to join in the Christmas story reading at Christmas in the Heartland this year, it has been wonderful the last several years I have attended. My writing group, Writers Foundation of Strathcona County resides at a historical house, Bremner House for the day. A day of arts and heritage activities, vintage tractors, aboriginal and Métis traditions, music and more. 1-4 pm 53452, Range Road 225 Sherwood Park.

Freehand Double Book Launch with Alison Watt and Daniel Griffin

2 roads

27 November  19:00 – 21:00 Audreys Books Ltd.

10702 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 3J5

3-2-1 Indie Slam Qualifier and Open Mic

28 November at 19:00–21:00

The Nook Cafe

10153 97street, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 0L4

The Power of Social Media

2 December 13:30 – 15:00

Join Kathleen Smith, Paula Simons and Marty Chan on Saturday, Dec. 2 for a discussion around the Power of Social Media. The trio will discuss how they’ve managed tough situations and issues using social media, and if the social sphere helps or hurts in these situations.

What events do you have on your calendar?
Blog at


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UH-MAZING Zucchini-Mushroom Tofu Quiche

I’ve been dying to try making a vegan quiche forever, but hadn’t come across what looked like the perfect recipe until a couple of weeks ago. This is an adapted version of a Susan Voisin (of FatFreeVegan.com fame) recipe. If you haven’t heard of this blog, get yourself over there ASAP because Ms. Voisin is some kind of WFPB genius when it comes to creating recipes. I adapted the recipe because I wanted a greater vegetable-to-tofu ratio, I have tons of zucchini in my garden (and no asparagus), and I just had plain old regular tofu (not silken).

This recipe makes two very pretty little vegan quiches that I’m planning to serve to company this weekend!

Zucchini-Mushroom Vegan Quiche

Step One: Blend until completely smooth in Vitamix….

  • 1 package extra-firm tofu
  • 3/4 cup almond milk
  • 2 TBS nutritional yeast
  • 1 TBS vegetable broth powder
  • 1 TBS cornstarch
  • 1 tsp tahini
  • 1/2 tsp onion powder
  • 1/4 tsp turmeric
  • tsp salt

Add a handful of fresh herbs and pulse for a few minutes…

  • fresh basil, oregano, chives, rosemary

Step Two: Saute for a few minutes in a bit of vegetable broth…

  • 1/2 cup shallots or onions, finely chopped
  • 2 cups chopped zucchini
  • 2 cups sliced mushrooms
  • cloves garlic, minced

Step Three: Mix together and press into the bottom of two quiche pans, lightly sprayed with oil…..

  • 2 cups cooked brown rice
  • 3 TBS of the above mixture from the Vitamix
  • 1 TBS vegan parmesan
  • freshly ground pepper to taste

BAKE the crusts at 350 for eight minutes.

Step Four: First, sprinkle some Chewy Vegan Bacon Bits over the crusts. Next, divide the vegetables from step two between the two quiche dishes and pour the mixture from step one into the two quiche pans.

Step Five: Slice and press into the mixture….

  • 10 grape tomatoes

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes….

And serve topped with this smoky vegan cheddar sauce….and a side of delicious vegan potato salad!!

This is a perfect lunch for company on a hot summer day!

One thought on “UH-MAZING Zucchini-Mushroom Tofu Quiche

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The simple secret of discipline: Avoid tempting situations

We are often told that discipline is the answer to our problems. With a little more discipline, we can achieve our goals and avoid temptations. Just try a little bit harder, have a little bit more willpower, have a little more self control. But that’s not how it works.

We grossly overestimate the contribution of willpower. Willpower is not a constant; it may be strong at one moment and then wane when we’re tired or stressed. If we leave our actions up to willpower, we will at some point disappoint ourselves.

I often hear the assumption that disciplined people have more willpower and somehow have the superhuman ability to stick to their values or priorities. I don’t think that’s true and, if anything, it only contributes a tiny bit to what discipline actually is.

In reality, disciplined people know themselves and know when their willpower fails. If they are tired, they will spend a long time on social media, unable to look away. If they go to a fast food restaurant, they will end up ordering fast food. They are aware of their tendencies and don’t leave it up to willpower to make the choice they consider “better” or “right.”

By choosing the situation you place yourself in, you choose the possible actions.
Photo by Tyler Lastovich from Pexels

Disciplined people often avoid putting themselves in tempting situations. They know that the only way to resist is to avoid the setting altogether, so they avoid the tempting situation. If they want to spend less time on social media, they use a website blocker. If they want to eat less fast food, they go to restaurants that don’t serve fast food. It’s so much easier to avoid an unwanted action if the immediate environment prevents it.

I’m not saying that you should always avoid tempting situations. It all comes back to the mindful choice: if you consciously and purposefully choose to do something, by all means, go ahead. Just don’t let the situation decide for you.

When you want to avoid an action and you know your willpower may fail, it is so much easier to avoid the tempting situation altogether. This is the secret that disciplined people know.

Not all tempting actions lend themselves to simple solutions. But if you identify such a solution, then make sure you implement it. It will save you lots of frustration over inevitable lapses in willpower.

What kinds of tempting activities do you avoid? What actions would you like to prevent? Let me know by commenting below or on FacebookTwitter, or LinkedIn.


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Thinking through practice from 2014

Looking back on my work this year has been really interesting. Although it has changed and grown substantially over the last 12 months, I wanted to identify the ideas and elements that have remained constant throughout the work. I felt that it might be too easy to head off in a new direction that was not inline with where I want the core of my practice to be and think that taking time to reflect on where I’ve been will be give me a solid foundation to continue working.

The main materials I have worked with have been paper, wax, metal, wood.

Paper was (and still is) of interest to me for its structural possibilities. The nature of paper, books, writing etc isn’t a driving force in why I would use it, the appeal for me is in the way the material can be manipulated and structured. I enjoy the fact that it can be floppy or rigid, patterned or stark, folded or curved.

Wax has a number of material and symbolic attributes that I’m keen to pursue. It’s texture, malleability, smell, ability to be carved and cast, it’s ability to be melted or frozen – in a material sense these attributes give me a lot to work with. Symbolically beeswax is, of course, associated with bees and bees have a whole raft of symbolism around them! Immediately I think of hexagons and the number 6 due to their hexagonal cone structures. With my love of geometry anything that involves shapes and numbers immediately gets my attention. (The ‘Honeycomb Conjecture” (first recorded c.36BC) states that a regular hexagonal grid is the best way to divide a surface into regions of equal area with the least total perimeter.)
Wax is also traditionally used for candles: heat and light, for sealing important documents: secrecy, and for lost wax casting, which leads me to metals.

Metals were part of my June work and are something I have wanted to work with more. I incorporated copper into my September works and copper is a metal that is of particular interest to me, I think because of it’s colour, malleability and ability to develop verdigris. The links between metal and wax are in the casting process. The wax is carved, then when the molten metal is poured it causes the wax to evaporate entirely leaving one material in the place of another. In order to make more of the item, the new metal must be moulded and wax effigies made in its place which are each lost once again to every metal that is made. There is something in that process of wax, heat, metal – solid, liquid, solid – the creation of multiples from singles through complete loss of the original that speaks to me. Maybe there is some type of alchemical process going on there.

I used natural wood in my September works along with charcoal and resin; all three materials are natural products of trees. On reflection it is the charcoal and resin that interest me the most as materials to continue working with. Charcoal because of it’s mark-making possibilities, it’s heat-producing properties and it’s ritual component. Resin due to it’s ability to move between states of stickiness and brittleness, it’s ability to release incredible scent when combined with the heat of charcoal.

Looking back through my April, June and September works I have pulled out some concepts that are manifest in all three.

There are also ideas around transformation, reactions, alchemy and potentiality which have been working through my mind and my research. These are ideas I have discussed with supervisors and colleagues.

There is an idea around ‘containment’ and ‘hiding/revealing’.
In the April work the unfolding piece had hidden messages, within moving objects, within containers (magical)
In the June work the reacted metals were held within glass containers (scientific) and the large objects were containers in that they had holes that allowed the viewer to peer inside them.
In the September work there was the ritual captured inside the glass box (ritualistic) and the dodecahedron that had popped open spilling it’s guts on the floor.
Concepts of hiding and revealing, secrets whether dangerous or benign, interior and exterior spaces are things I want to pursue further.

Although it hasn’t been as blatantly obvious in the last 12 months practice, I’m still curious about exploring ‘thresholds’. Contemporary works and ideas that I have looked at that in some way work with ideas around thresholds keep me coming back, so I know that there is fodder there for my practice.

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Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Last night I watched the Werner Herzog documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” showcasing the Chauvet Cave paintings. The paintings are from 2 periods between around 35,000 and 28,000 years ago and have been buried within the cave for over 20,000 years, untouched by the outside world and, as such, they are amazingly well preserved; incredible in their detail and beauty.

I found this film deeply moving. Imagining the people who painted the walls, I kept thinking about what they saw, how they saw it and what their lives were like. The paintings had so much animation and vibrancy! Comparing them to later ancient art from the area and further afield it would almost seem that this fluidity was lost for quite some time. Thinking about Egyptian and Near Eastern art from 25,000 years later and looking at the stylisation of form, it’s comparatively rigid poses don’t have the movement of the Chauvet animals (although obviously just as beautiful). These artists understood not just movement but also perspective and the fact that you can ‘stack’ objects behind each other to create a group.

I love these rhinos – who knew there were wooly rhinos in southern France! I think the way they overlap is gorgeous as it allows you to see that there are a whole heard of them, that they are milling around and that they aren’t even all facing in the same direction. The rhino at the back shows a technique that the artist’s have used with other animals drawings within the cave. The multiple lines around the body and the horn indicate that it is moving, tossing it’s head, maybe charging. As soon as I saw this I thought of the Futurists! Duchamp’s ‘Nude Descending a Staircase‘ popped into my head immediately. Or Natalia Goncharova’s ‘Cyclist’.

This herd of horses is one of the most stunning pieces of art in the cave. Archeologists believe that all the horses were painted by one person, with the lowest horse, with it’s mouth open in a whinny, the last to be completed. I really love the shading that gives the animals some weight and volume and they way each animal seems like an individual with distinct features.

I can’t stop looking at this rush of lions. They appear to be running, leaping, pouncing after the aurochs. The aurochs on the top left looks like it is screaming in fear as it tries to escape the onslaught. The technique that the artists have used of scraping back the cave wall to expose the whiter stone underneath has allowed them to create a bright surface for the black medium and has added to the movement with the underlying scraping strokes.

As well as animals, further into the cave there were also drawings that appeared to be large renderings of insects and butterflies. This interested me a great deal; the large animals are obviously very important to the artists as either food or predators, but insects don’t generally fit into either of those categories. That made me wonder whether the artist painted the insects purely because they thought the insects were interesting or beautiful. They would have been painted from memory, which means that the artist must have spent time observing the insects for no other reason than that they wanted to understand them.

I thought about the paintings in this film all day, trying to imagine those people from 30,000 years ago and what they were thinking about as they made them.

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Costa Rica, Day Six: August 20

We first went to the next door beach of Playa Ocotal and took some pictures, then drove around the small town of Coco Bay and the beach. We did get out a little and walked around the boardwalk.

Nothing exciting. We were saving up or energy for the Arenal Volcano tomorrow.

2014-08-20 10.09.23

Playa Ocotal looking towards “our” place. I believe that this is the bay we have in our view from the terrace.

2014-08-20 10.09.28

2014-08-20 10.39.41

Playa Del Coco boardwalk

2014-08-20 10.59.28

We thought this ladder in the middle of the road was a bit odd…

2014-08-20 11.06.54

2014-08-20 11.07.10

2014-08-20 12.00.54

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Trump fixer Michael Cohen pleads guilty and promptly gets roasted for his crimes

Let Twitter justice reign.
Let Twitter justice reign.
Image: don emmert/AFP/Getty Images

Remember back in 2015 when Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen joked about sending Hillary Clinton to prison?

It's funny how things change. It now appears that Cohen, not Clinton, will be the one headed to prison. On Tuesday, Cohen reached a plea deal in the Southern District of New York, pleading guilty on charges that include campaign finance violations from his time working on the campaign of President Donald Trump.

According to the Associated Press, Cohen could spend between four and five years in jail.

Between news that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of tax fraud and Cohen's plea, news fiends' attention was divided on Tuesday. Still, the internet found time to craft some five-star memes, GIFS, and tweets about Trump's right-hand man.

It's all so deeply satisfying.

America, I hope you get some sleep tonight. We've got a long panic-inducing news cycle ahead of us.

WATCH: Cool off with this watermelon keg

Uploads%252fvideo uploaders%252fdistribution thumb%252fimage%252f86439%252f75285413 4c5f 497e b42e 3b39486a2e15.jpg%252foriginal.jpg?signature=dydzkxzcix oufiubsl2wvcpecu=&source=https%3a%2f%2fblueprint api production.s3.amazonaws


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Mason Company - Trusted Animal Housing Solutions

Dog Shelter Grants
View Gallery
Short-Term Holding

Short-Term Holding

Many pets only need to be held comfortably and securely for a few hours until owners pick them up after a visit to their veterinarian or groomer.

Mason designs and manufactures a variety of short-term holding solutions that are attractive, durable and created with innovative disease prevention features.

  • Creating a Stress-Free, Fear-Reducing Boarding Environment


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Look at the following definition.

Definition. Let $\kappa$ be an infinite cardinal. A theory $T$ is called $\kappa$-stable if for all model $M\models T$ and all $A\subset M$ with $|A|\leq \kappa$ we have $|S_n^M(A)|\leq \kappa$. A theory $T$ is called stable if it is $\kappa$-stable for some infinite cardinal $\kappa$.

I am beginner in model theory and so my questions might be stupid. When you read a basic textbook in math you see that the algebraic , analysis, geometric, topological and .... definitions/concepts are natural. For example algebraic concepts, group, ring, field, module, Galois theory and ... have a clear natural roots. Also the notion of continuity in analysis is a natural (in my sense!) concept. The idea behind topology is also natural. But the model theoretic notions are usually not concrete for me at all! For example one of the main portions in model theory is stability theory (which is a part of Shelah classification) in which you need to count the number of types. I would like to know: where is the idea of stability (counting the number of types) come from?

Any reference would be appreciated.

  • 6
    $\begingroup$ Hmm, can you define "natural" here differently from "I have already spent the effort to figure out how it works"? $\endgroup$ – Henning Makholm Aug 12 '18 at 15:01
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, I cannot define “natural”. But don’t you agree that a field, for instance, comes naturally from arithmetic? $\endgroup$ – Lajos Aug 12 '18 at 15:52
  • $\begingroup$ There is a bunch of model-theoretic notions (including stability, NIP and SOP) which are basically equivalent to functional analytic properties of certain function spaces. For example, stability is basically the same as weak sequential compactness. This is evidence that it is a very natural notion (apart from the fact that it is immensely useful in model theory, of course). $\endgroup$ – tomasz Aug 13 '18 at 18:24
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ By the way, I think stability is much easier to understand locally. A formula is stable if and only if it does not code arbitrarily large linear orders. This is much easier to digest than counting types. In fact, if you don't care about the number of models, then counting types is mostly useful to prove stability (because it is a simple criterion which may be easy to check), and otherwise rather uninteresting. $\endgroup$ – tomasz Aug 13 '18 at 18:31

I recommend this survey of Chernikov as a source.

Stability, in my opinion, should be thought of in the context of the overall classification program$^1$ - in particular, the idea is to look for a "tameness" property which will hopefully imply that a given theory has "few" models (so that we have a hope of classifying them). That is, stability is (initially at least) a tool with an intended application. Remember its original appearance, after all: Morley introduced it to show that (for countable complete theories) categoricity in one uncountable cardinal implies categoricity in every uncountable cardinal, or more broadly that categoricity in a single uncountable cardinal is an incredibly powerful tameness property.

The key point, then, is to connect stability more generally with the number of models - or more simply, to understand why "more types = more models." I think a good first example to consider here is $\mathbb{C}$ versus $\mathbb{R}$ as fields. The former's theory is very simple: an algebraically closed field is classified completely by its characteristic and its transcendence degree, and in particular the theory of algebraically closed fields of characteristic zero is uncountably categorical. By contrast, the latter's theory is very complicated, at least in the sense of counting models: it's easy to show that there are for example continuum many non-isomorphic countable real closed fields. Playing around with this example, it's not hard to see that what's going on is that $\mathbb{C}$ has "few types" while $\mathbb{R}$ has "many types," and this gives us the idea to try to connect the number of types and the number of models more generally. (It also suggests more specifically a connection between instability and definable orderings, and indeed this turns out to hold in a very strong sense: see Definition 2.9 and following in the paper linked above.)

$^1$Of course, to a certain extent this just pushes the question back: why, or to what extent, is the classification program natural? In my opinion, the question of when a (first-order axiomatizable) class of structures admits a "reasonable classification" is an extremely natural one, motivated by examples on each side - e.g. uncountable dense linear orders without endpoints are extremely complicated even though their theory is very simple, while algebraically closed fields are easily classified by characteristic and transcendence degree - and the reflexive desire to find a "common thread" uniting the tame, or the wild, theories.

  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Let me add a pointer to Morley's paper, which, as you said, started the study of model-theoretic stability: ams.org/journals/tran/1965-114-02/S0002-9947-1965-0175782-0/… $\endgroup$ – Andreas Blass Aug 12 '18 at 20:39
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    $\begingroup$ To avoid a little confusion, it might be worth mentioning, in connection with Morley's paper, that what he calls "totally transcendental" is what's now called "$\omega$-stable". $\endgroup$ – Andreas Blass Aug 12 '18 at 20:40
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    $\begingroup$ I think the OP is right that the notion of stability does not arise as "naturally" is one might hope. The introduction of the general notion of stability (beyond the specific case of $\omega$-stability) and variants like superstability, and the realization of their relevance to classification problems was a very significant achievement by Shelah. The "novelty" has worn off by now, and stability is second-nature to any model theorist, but it was originally a major discovery. $\endgroup$ – Andreas Blass Aug 12 '18 at 20:49
  • $\begingroup$ @AndreasBlass I agree, and this was part of the spirit of my first paragraph: that stability shouldn't be thought of as a totally natural idea on its own (at least, initially) but rather something which emerged to address a particular problem. $\endgroup$ – Noah Schweber Aug 12 '18 at 20:53

I'd like to argue that the counting types definition of stability is actually very "natural".

At the most basic level, model theory is about the semantics of first-order formulas, i.e. definable sets in models. Since first-order logic is built on classical propositional logic, there are Boolean algebras everywhere. In particular, if you fix a particular variable context $x_1,\dots,x_n$ and a subset $A$ of a model $M$, you get the Boolean algebra $B_n(A)$ of subsets of $M^n$ which are definable with parameters from $A$.

Now Stone duality associates to any Boolean algebra $B$ its Stone space of ultrafilters $S(B)$, and I take it as "natural" in the theory of Boolean algeabras to study $B$ in terms of $S(B)$, using tools from point-set topology. But forgetting about topology for now, there is an obvious, very coarse, invariant you can assign to $B$, namely the cardinality of $S(B)$.

If $B$ is the Boolean algebra $B_n(A)$, then $S(B)$ is the space $S_n(A)$ of complete types over $A$, and the invariant above is the number of complete types over $A$.

Reintroducing topology, another invariant that can be assigned to a Stone space is its Cantor-Bendixson rank. In fact, one is led "naturally" from counting types to the Cantor-Bendixson rank by the theorem that if $B$ is a countable Boolean algebra, then $|S(B)|<2^{\aleph_0}$ if and only if $|S(B)| = \aleph_0$ if and only if $S(B)$ is a scattered space, meaning that the Cantor-Bendixson process terminates at the empty set at some countable ordinal stage. And thinking about the Cantor-Bendixson rank for various Boolean algebras of definable sets gives rise to various ranks in stability theory (Morley rank, local ranks, etc.).

That's not to say that introducing counting types and ranks into model theory was an obvious thing to do - these things look "natural" with the benefit of hindsight. But the same could be said for any of the examples of "natural" definitions in your question, most of which took many years and many iterations to get exactly right.

On the other hand, Shelah and the other model theorists who worked on stability theory in its early years had many other great insights which seem much less "natural" to me, or at least more surprising, and which were crucial to the development of stability theory: the equivalence of instability with the order property, the notion of definability of types, the tool of forking independence, etc.

Just to add on one point to why the classification program is natural:

One can interpret the model theorist's approach to studying a structure $M$ as assigning to $M$ its ``logical invariances'' which is just a fancy way to refer to the theory $T$ of $M$.

It is therefore natural trying to understand how powerful these logical invariances are, that is, how far is $T$ from characterizing its models up to isomorphism completely.

It turn out by Löwenheim–Skolem theorem that the only case where $T$ has absolute power is absolutely boring: $T$ has a single finite model up to isomorphism. So the first non-boring situation where $T$ is powerful is when $T$ has few models in certain infinite cardinality. Stability is a slightly different expression of the idea that $T$ is powerful. Here $T$ has few types over a small parameter sets instead of few models. As Noah pointed out, these two notions of power are closely related.

The primary insight of Morley and later Shelah, in my opinion, is the following: When $T$ is powerful in a certain way, this is due to the fact that models of $T$ are equipped with some kind of special algebraic features (dimension, indepence relation,...) and do not encode complicated combinatorial patte

From this point of view, one can see the various definitions of stability as equating being powerful (having few types) with having algebraic features (local notion of dimension, independent relation with special properties) and with non encoding complicated combinatorial patterns (in this case an ordering). One can also think of Morley Theorem as a corollary of this phenomenon: These features persist through other cardinality which leads to the theory also has few models in other cardinality as well.

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Jesus, Capitalism & the Common Good

I recall during the last presidential campaign that Barack Obama took quite a bit of criticism for suggesting in the midst of the unfolding economic crisis that the wealthier members of our society had a greater responsibility to the less privileged among us.  He even went so far as to suggest that in some sense there needed to be a redistribution of wealth in America if we were to provide a certain level of safety to the most vulnerable.

My interest in raising this is not to open a debate about Mr. Obama’s policies, but I remember very well that as he was taking a fair amount of criticism for these remarks, with some people accusing him of being a socialist and others simply outraged that a candidate for the American presidency would even dare to speak of redistributing wealth, I could not help but think to myself that this was exactly the kind of thing that Jesus was talking about in the Gospels.  All that stuff about loving your neighbor as yourself, taking care of the poor, giving people who asked you for your coat more of your clothing than they had asked for, the suggestion that we should sell what we have and give it to the poor, the parable about the rich man and Lazarus the beggar – these are all teachings about redistributing one’s own wealth so that the more vulnerable in society would be protected and provided for.   It seems clear to me that if we were to classify Jesus’ views according to today’s political definitions, he would probably fit into the category of “socialist” more easily than any other.

This is an uncomfortable realization for Americans with our commitment to capitalist market economics, a system which has been an integral part of the spectacular achievements of our society over the last 200 years.    We fancy ourselves to be, after all, a nation founded on Christian principles.  Yet, the fundamental principle that lies at the heart of Christian spirituality and the fundamental principle that lies at the heart of capitalism are difficult to reconcile.  At the heart of Christianity lies the principle of “other-centeredness”.   The teaching of Jesus asks us to let go of our own egos, to dethrone ourselves as the center of our own universes, and instead center our lives in God, who calls us to compassionate service to our fellow human beings whom we are to see as manifesting Christ to us.  In other words, our lives are not about ourselves; they are about God and about the human community – the beloved community.   We admire people like Mother Theresa, who embody this way of living so completely, and we recognize in their lives a deeper call coming to us from Christ that in our own way we should seek to embody this way of living, even if our own practice does not rise to the level of sainthood.

The central principle of capitalism is completely different, in that is seeks not the diminishment of the ego and the dethronement of the self from the center of things, but quite the opposite.  The success of market capitalism depends on economic participants who, instead of living other-centered lives, live self-centeredly, pursuing their own self-interest in order to acquire wealth.  Concern for the other actors in the economy becomes a function of self-interest rather than the response to a deeply perceived, transcendent call from beyond ourselves.  People are ultimately defined according to their capacity to consume, and consumption becomes an obligation upon which continuing economic prosperity depends.  The beloved community of Jesus is replaced with the community of consumers.

The truth is that Americans have not been entirely comfortable with pure capitalism.   We have come to see the need to modify that economic philosophy in order to provide some minimal level of care for the less privileged among us.  In a purely capitalist system, we would not have things like Social Security and Medicare.   We have come to the conclusion that there is something to the idea of the common good, and so we have set up structures to provide for the common good, while at the same time trying to leave room from that entrepreneurial spirit that allows individuals to achieve the kind of success that capitalism promises, and that has been the motivating factor in so much of our social and technological advancement.

In our current economic and political climate, we seem to be having a harder time discerning what the common good is.  Most of us are a bit irritated with those among us who seemed to embrace capitalism a little too much, enriching themselves but creating a dangerous and ultimately unsustainable economic dynamic.  At the same time, we are not very willing to look at how we ourselves were willing to take advantage of easy credit offerings and adjustable mortgages in order to obtain a standard of living that, in the end, we could not sustain.  Moral questions about regulating the financial system to try to keep us from getting carried away by greed again and about expanding the social safety net to include a basic good like health care have us tied up in a kind of political gridlock, which in part has to do with an inability to determine what the common good should look like at this moment in history.

If we who are followers of Jesus allow our commitment to Christ to encounter our commitment to capitalism as we grope toward some new definition of the common good, it seems to me a new question arises which is not currently much in evidence in our public discourse:  what are we willing to sacrifice for the sake of someone else?    It is an other-centered question, which moves us out of the center of the picture.   It is a question that asks us to think about what we really need in order to live a good life that is a blessing both to ourselves and others.   It is a question that asks us to examine our lives and wonder at what point we have enough.   It is a question that wants us to look at what we want in terms of material success and ask ourselves if all of our wants are really appropriate.  It is a question that asks us to recognize that our welfare is linked to the welfare of others, and that none of us is an island unto ourselves.  It is the question that lies behind Jesus’ invitation (command?) to take up our crosses and follow him.  The cross is a symbol of what we are willing to sacrifice for others, and at the same time, it is a symbol of a new and more profound life that emerges out of that very act of sacrifice.

One of my favorite passages in the New Testament comes from St. Paul, who advised his readers of the importance of working out their own salvation in “fear and trembling.”    I think that working out our own salvation means recognizing that our own personal salvation is linked to the rest of the human community.   Once we have worked out that connection, the fear and trembling come because we understand that something is being asked of us.   We are being asked to give up something – perhaps even something very dear to us – for the sake of others.  It is not easy, it is not comfortable, but it is, according to Jesus, the path to the new and authentic life that lies on the other side of the cross.

One thought on “Jesus, Capitalism & the Common Good

  1. A Slightly Different Perspective…

    Capitalism may be defined as the putting to risk ones time or resources (Capital) in order to provide goods or services to others at a price which is greater than the cost. The difference between the price and the cost is the profit, that is, the money that the one who is putting his or her time or resources at risk uses to live on, themselves. This Capitalism is the system that supplanted the barter-system in prehistoric times, and has been the foundation of an ever-increasing standard of living for much of the world ever since. Christ himself seems to recognize this system, without criticism, in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16), and again in the Parable of the Tenants (Mark 12:1-12), where the owners of these vineyards put-up the capital, hired labor to work the vineyard for a share of the income, and expected to be provided a portion of the vineyard’s production as a profit on his capital. Nowhere in the Gospels can be found any indication that Jesus disapproved of one putting up ones capital, hiring workers to do labor, and then reaping a reward for the use of this capital.

    The rewards of capitalism have always depended upon the capitalist’s prudent application of his or her time or resources in providing those goods and services which those who purchase such goods or services (Consumers) are willing and able to pay for. The capitalist must also provide a better value to the consumer than his or her competition, in terms of better goods or services, or a lower price, or both. Otherwise, the capitalist soon finds him or herself out of business.

    Ultimately, the consumer decides the fate of the capitalist. After all, purchasing is a decision for the consumer, alone. He or she may buy from whomever he or she sees fit.

    It must be noted that the capitalist system is thwarted when competition is minimal or non-existent, such as may be the case with American health insurance, or the banking industry for example. In those cases, it is in the common interest of the citizens, as well as thwarted capitalists, to restore the competitive balance or otherwise assure consumers of having sufficient choice. In other words, our common Government must intervene.

    Capitalism, as a system, is unrelated to the generosity of the capitalist. After all, one may do with his or her own resources as one pleases. Whether capitalist, laborer, socialist, communist, or by whatever other label, ones own conscience and personal commitment to help those without resources will ultimately guide ones own actions.

    It seems that our Lord was giving us just that message. Our individual, personal decisions to reach-out to those in need seems to be the important lesson from Christ. Christ did not advocate our attempting to convert our personal responsibility to a collective responsibility, that is, He did not suggest we simply give a portion of our wealth to Rome, in hopes that Rome would look out for the poor. Christ certainly seemed to recognize the need for dealing with the common good through government, however, as when he says “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).

    Christ does not seem to address the relief of those in need in terms of using the force of law; He seems to be telling us to make those sacrifices, personally, and not necessarily collectively, in order to provide such relief. After all, in the end, He will judge us based upon what we as individual human beings have done, not what our government has done, nor how we voted in an election.

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Bin Laden, Jesus and Me

‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also….

‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.”  ‘But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.’

— Matthew 5:38-39, 44-45

As I watched the news last night following President Obama’s announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden, and saw people gathering outside the White House and in other places to celebrate the news, I must admit that I did not feel joy.  Nor did I feel sadness.  The truth is, I wasn’t sure what to feel.

Certainly, I am not sorry that Osama bin Laden is no longer in the world.  I remember 9/11 very well, sitting in the office of the church I was serving at the time and watching the horror of that day unfold, seeing the many people who came to the church that day to pray, and gathering for a special service that evening.  He was someone whose twisted mind, and twisting of Islam, gave birth to incredible violence and death that destroyed thousands of lives, and who got others to carry out his plans for him.  He was unquestionably a man who did evil.

However, I also don’t think it’s appropriate for Christian people to rejoice in and celebrate the death of any human being, no matter how many terrible things that person did.  As I write these words, I realize that such a position is not likely to be a popular one.  And it would be easier just to give in to feelings of nationalism and the feeling of satisfaction that comes when we feel we have avenged ourselves and join the crowds around the country who have welcomed bin Laden’s demise with such joy.  Yet, as a follower of Jesus, I am always having to contend with his teaching, and that includes the teaching quoted above from Matthew’s Gospel.

Jesus viewed the idea of an “enemy” very differently than most people of his time or, indeed, of our time.  To Jesus, to define another as one’s enemy created a spiritual problem for the one who created the definition.  In the particular passage from Matthew with which I began, Jesus is seeking to subvert the traditional tribal code, so much a part of his world, that mandated that if someone did something to you then you should respond in kind:  “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  That tribal mentality was responsible for a great deal of violence in the ancient world, and Jesus teaches that this is not the way things are to be among his followers.  He proposes the revolutionary idea that we end the cycle of violence by refusing to follow the tribal code and, instead, greet our enemies and their actions with love and compassion.  The reality is that by doing so, the enemy will eventually cease to be the enemy and become the neighbor, and then the possibility of transformation presents itself.

Some people have suggested that Jesus’ teaching is really about interpersonal relationships, and shouldn’t be applied to the kinds of extreme violence committed by the particularly ruthless.  What would have happened, for example, if we had applied Jesus’ teaching rigorously during World War II?  Should we really have responded to Hitler in love?  It may well be that Jesus meant this teaching to be about the day to day challenges of our personal lives.  Yet, Jesus was acquainted with state-sponsored violence, a common feature of life in the Roman Empire.  He knew what it was to come face to face with powerful forces.

And Jesus was doing more than teaching a theory.  He lived what he taught, all the way to the cross.

So, where does all of this leave me?  It leaves me unsettled and uncomfortable – Jesus is good at unsettling and discomfiting.   As imperfect as I am in my efforts to follow Jesus, I cannot simply cast aside his commitment in word and action to non-violence.  Nor can I cast aside the suffering and death which Osama bin Laden inflicted on so many.  As these two realities live side by side in my mind and my heart, I guess I am struck by the brokenness of our world:  the brokenness which led bin Laden  and his followers down his terrible path and, in turn, leads our nation down a path of counter-violence.  All of it must surely break the heart of God.

In the end, I am left with more questions than answers.  The one thing I am sure of is that the demise of bin Laden is not a cause of joy or celebration.  It is a moment to remember the suffering and death of which he was the agent, to pray for those who have suffered and died on his account, and to work toward a world that is less broken.  It is a moment for rededicating ourselves to the cause of peace and to the courageous hope of a world that is free of the hatred that so infected bin Laden and, as a result, has infected the hearts of so many others.

When Jesus reminds us that the sun and rain enable the lives of both the righteous and the unrighteous, he is reminding us that God’s community is not a particular people or nation.  Rather, God’s community is the entire human family.  And to realize this deeply is to realize that we are called to something higher than tribal or national sentiment.  We are called to realize that whatever our nation, we are all a part of God’s human family, and that in the end our highest, noblest calling is to serve all of humanity.

Has bin Laden’s death served the human family?  I don’t know.  But I think no act of violence, however rooted in justice it may be, brings joy to the heart of God.  I think God dreams for us to find a better way.  That’s a tremendous challenge sometimes.  But it’s a dream that I don’t think we who seek to be faithful can dare to surrender.

5 thoughts on “Bin Laden, Jesus and Me

  1. My thoughts exactly. (Truthfully, my thoughts if they were expanded, and better articulated.) How can we, as Christians, cheer the death of any unredeemed person? Jesus died for him as well.

  2. It is difficult NOT to celebrate when the embodiment of such evil, pain and suffering of many thousands is sent out of this mortal world. While the Lord may not rejoice in the death of this murderer, He must weep even so much more for bin Laden’s countless victims.

    If, indeed, our highest, noblest calling is to serve all of humanity, then such service may all too often mean the stopping of a Hitler, Pol Pot, or a bin Laden. The preservation of God’s highest creation- human life- sadly sometimes means the hastening of a particular person’s day of judgement.

  3. Many of us who have served in the military have wrestled with the tension between “Thou shalt not kill” and our military duty. Some of us have negotiated those troubled waters by serving in the Medical Department or the Chaplains Corps, with the primary focus on serving and supporting the troops. I believe praying for those who have been affected by Bin Ladin’s violence is the best course of action, at least for me. This blog was beautifully and courageously written.

  4. Matthew, thanks for this essay. I’ve been saying the same thing all day. While I applaud holding bin Laden accountable, I am uneasy about the celebrations. They strike me as barbaric. He was an evil person. The focus needs to be in remembering those who were lost and those who grieve. I assure you some wounds were re-opened last night.

  5. Thank you for this post. I also felt no joy with the news of violence and revenge, and in fact the celebration of it made me feel more sad for our world. So far I’m convinced that violence and revenge are incompatible with the teachings and life of Jesus, and therefore they have no place in the Christian life or in our commitments. Nationalism pulls us powerfully toward idolatry. The church I attended as a child actually celebrates the Fourth of July more than Easter. I hope we can cultivate a Christian community where the renunciation of violence for the sake of Christ does not have to be lonely, but is shared and celebrated.

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