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CMS Ireland Rory, Denise & Gideon Wilson,2017:cmsireland/blog/thewilsons 2017-03-17T00:00:00Z Rory Wilson,2017-03-17:4876 2017-03-17T00:00:00Z 2017-03-17T00:00:00Z Celebrating Women's Day in Uganda
On the 8th March a group of 48 ladies, (staff from the hospital), met together to celebrate Women’s Day – an official public holiday here in Uganda. Aside from the games, top tips on hair, make-up and fashion, we also had some quality teaching on Biblical Womanhood from Jennie Dangers. It was a thought provoking and affirming day in terms of being a woman.

How would you define what a ‘woman’ is? How do you think the church in your country defines womanhood?

In Uganda you are considered a ‘girl’ until you have married and had a baby, then you are considered a ‘woman’! Jennie is herself a single woman of 38 years, and yet she is still considered a ‘girl’ by Ugandan cultural standards simply because she has not ‘produced’ a child from her own body. Somehow, being married and having children gives you an elevated status in society and even the church. Sadly the church does little to challenge the cultural view of what a ‘woman’ is in Uganda nor does it promote the fact that married or single, we are ‘complete in Jesus’ (Colossians 2:9-10). In the West, we are guilty of similar failings, though we perhaps have our own cultural bias.

In her teaching, Jennie drew our attention to Genesis 2:21-22 and the account of when God created Eve. What I had never noticed before was that God gave the same undivided attention to creating woman as He had man. In fact, he got man out of the way completely by making him fall into a deep sleep, perhaps not just for anaesthetic purposes! I have been blown away just by the thought of that intimacy and sole concentration God gave in creating our sex – we are not just an afterthought for good old Adam.

We were created out of a rib from Adam’s side, and as know, this also reflects our equal worth before God. Different roles, same worth in God’s sight.It says in verse 22 that God made a woman, not a girl, even before she had intimate relations with Adam, before she bore a child. God made a complete and beautiful woman.

In whatever culture we currently live, I believe that many of us are confused about what a godly woman should look like. The voices of social media, tv, movies and magazines are loud, our cultural voice can also be loud and often we don’t take the time to come into line with the God’s truth about how God defines a woman. Jennie shared much more than I can share in this blog but it was so encouraging to be reminded of our worth and responsibility before our God and King.

St Augustine said that ‘Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.’ As a woman or man, our worth, significance, acceptance and completeness come from the Lord, yet often we are trying so hard to please the many other voices around us.

You are God’s workmanship (Eph 2:10); He has fashioned your heart individually (Ps33:15 (NKJV), He has created you to be who you are today…In Christ we are complete today (Col 2:9-10).

Now that is something to rejoice about!
 Rory Wilson,2017-02-24:4840 2017-02-24T00:00:00Z 2017-02-24T00:00:00Z What imprint will you leave behind you?
Last year we took some friends to Queen Elizabeth National Park for a safari trip. We were all pretty excited about it and while Rory went into the UWA office to pay for entry to the park, the rest of us stood around the car stretching our legs. The children were excited to see some large animal prints in the mud beside the car. It was very obvious that it had been an elephant. (Also obvious by other more smelly deposits left on the ground!!) The children followed the big footprints around the corner until they disappeared on the harder ground.

Why do I share this memory? Well I was reminded recently that we all leave a footprint (and I am not talking about our environmental footprint here!) Alison Fletcher (also known as ‘the Fletch’ by some) started off her nine-year service at Kiwoko Hospital as a physio, then as a support manager in the HIV department, not to mention her spiritual impact with our student population. Alison came and stayed with us in early February and was a real breath of fresh air.

We had the privilege to be invited to a surprise party for Alison. The physio and HIV department had arranged a get together to receive their much loved colleague and friend. It was a wonderful evening of fun and games, snacks, sodas (fizzy drinks) and of course cake! The speeches were not long (which is unusual for Uganda) but heartfelt.

The staff, with pride, gave reports on how practices that had been instigated by Alison were still working and being practiced. They expressed their gladness to have her back to visit and the only complaint was that she wasn’t coming back to work here! It was a very warm and ‘feel good’ party to attend.

On another evening we sat around the dinner table with past students whom Alison fellowshipped with, was available to and who are now leaders within the hospital.
 As we prepare to leave Kiwoko and return to life in Northern Ireland, Alison’s visit has been timely in terms of practical advice and encouragement – she survived re-entry to the UK and is still smiling.

But I was really challenged by that night. What kind of trail will I be leaving behind me?

Kiwoko has many people pass through its gates to volunteer and they are remembered by their words and actions, the good and the bad. Sometimes we laugh as we remember the comedians, shake our heads at the people we couldn’t understand for one reason or another and then sigh for the ones who didn’t stay as long as we would have wished.

The fact that Alison was still valued after a five-year absence, her work was still appreciated and the departments still bore the imprint of her influence and efficiency was just such a compliment to everything that she gave of herself during her nine years. While we do not seek man’s praise, it is satisfying to know that God has used us, that we did Him properly when He called us to serve overseas. It is pure joy to see brothers and sisters in Christ grow.

Now in this season of packing and handing over, it is also a time of analysing and evaluating our time here. It would be the highest compliment to revisit Kiwoko someday as Alison has done and see the evidence of our investment in individuals, both professionally and spiritually.

Hopefully we won’t have left unsavoury evidence of our time here as the elephants did at Queen Elizabeth

Look behind you today. Are you leaving a trail or destruction or blazing a trail for God by which others can follow or be encouraged?
 Rory Wilson,2017-01-21:4803 2017-01-21T00:00:00Z 2017-01-21T00:00:00Z Loosening the roots
Over the last couple of years we believe that God has been gently preparing us to return to Ireland, shaking our roots loose before He transplants us in another part of His garden.

Many of you will have heard through the grapevine or via CMSI that we have decided to return to Ireland this year, a little earlier than originally planned. Rory submitted his resignation (effective June) to the Bishop a few weeks ago and so the decision has become a reality, and a chain of events has been started and we begin the complex process of exiting our life in Uganda.

I thought I would answer some of the questions that people have been asking following release of our news.

It has been difficult and emotional informing our friends/family here, knowing that our decision affects them too, and causes them to face change (which the majority of us don’t like) and adjust to the fact that we may not be here in person, to support them on various levels. There is understanding about our desire to support our parents and this fits very well with the cultural norm here where family issues are prioritised. People understand it as a good and proper reason for leaving.

We are experiencing some disappointment as we realise that we will not see some things through to completion. Over the Christmas period we realised that it would be first of many ‘lasts’, next Christmas will have a whole other feel to it!

Amidst all of the emotional upheaval we do have a strong sense of God’s peace that we have made the correct decision and that His timing is perfect (Acts 17:26.) There is no inner conflict or doubt. Surprisingly Gideon has responded positively to the news that we are returning to live in Ireland! We were concerned about his reaction, as he usually can’t wait to get back to Uganda when we are on home leave. God has been working and of course is way ahead of us and our worries!

We also eagerly anticipate a new season ahead with family and friends. After a decade away, it will be wonderful to have quality time without any departure dates looming on the horizon! Rory will look at getting registered for GP work again, and I will remain at home initially until we get Gideon settled into school and get some sort of family routine established.

For all that, life goes on and we continue to carry out our day to day roles. In fact, more than ever, we want to make every day count and to pour into people as much as we can in the short time remaining. The sons and daughters that we mentor /disciple; the future leaders of Kiwoko Hospital that need encouraged and developed etc.

Our theme last year for the 25year celebrations was ‘Thanking God for the past and Trusting Him for the future’ and I truly believe that this is God’s word to us as a family as we move into 2017. God has been so faithful and as gentle as possible in all of His dealings with us. I get excited when I think of how wonderful the last 10 years have been because God always has more for us than we can possibly imagine. Yes there will be challenges but God always has our best interests at heart.

We do ask you to continue to remember us and Kiwoko over the next 5 months of transition.
 Rory Wilson,2016-12-25:4757 2016-12-25T00:00:00Z 2016-12-25T00:00:00Z Still changing lives
A few weekends ago I was in church in rural Karamoja. The service was held in one of the school classrooms. I noted the large crack in the corner of the gable wall. I could see the sky through it.

I have learnt much in my time in Kiwoko. One of the skills developed has been assessing better how serious a crack is. It is one (of the many) skills where Queen’s University School of Medicine had ill-prepared me to be a Medical Director. I chuckled as I saw the crack cross the classroom floor diagonally to the opposite corner where a similar crack rose towards the roof. The church was bisected and an engineer would probably get a little upset. I sang louder and encouraged some more dancing – what a great blog/epitaph if we brought the place down!

I preached on the subject of sin. It was pretty straightforward, but honest. We all sin. It spreads though our lives. Its effects contaminate us. Only Jesus’ grace can cleanse us. We had much discussion following the sermon. A great impromptu question and answer time.

There were about 30 of us sitting on the school desks, and as numbers grew a few ended up on the floor. Finite seats perhaps encourage timekeeping by rewarding those first arrivals. The service, meant to start at 8am, still had new worshippers joining us at midday. Collections were brought to the front and put on the open Bible. The congregation brought about 30 pence in total. Most of these people have no money and survive by subsistence and bartering. A few pieces of maize were brought – but because even the harvest has been poor folk have little to bring in any form.

We were a team from Kiwoko Hospital visiting some Christians and an orphanage in a particularly rural and poor part of Uganda. A source of jokes the rest of Uganda, Karamoja is a bye-word for backward thinking, stubborn attitudes and the dry dusty hot environment. When we took Conor to Entebbe airport on Saturday, the policeman checking the car looked at its unwashed state and joked if I had just come from Karamoja? When I noted that actually, yes, I had, it stimulated some Karamoja discussion – much more interesting than checking the car for non-existent explosives.

But Karamoja also has a hard and non-Christian culture. Cattle stealing and the associated fighting and killing has been a key part of the culture, as is constant drinking of alcohol and antipathy towards education and development. I like the people and their beautiful barren county side, but it is no coincidence that most of the street children in Kampala have come from Karamoja.

The story of Christmas is that God has come to earth to live amongst us. He is not just far off on His holy cloud. I was struck afresh on this trip of the power of the Gospel of Jesus to change lives. It is not just a nice doctrine that we believe to keep us cosy when we consider our mortality. The children we meet in Shalom orphanage all have stories to tell. Most are awful, dreadful stories of how they ended up living on the streets when children should be starting primary school. What hope is there when life has started like that? How do you get out of a spiral of crime, drinking, violence, HIV……

We have been visiting this home over several years and the youngsters are changing. The early days have stories of pitched battles with well aimed stones from slingshots. Now we can sit and chat; play games; laugh; pray. They have hope and faith in their eyes. They can stand proud and try to give me one of their very own pigeons.

Jesus didn’t come to earth to be a cute baby to help sales of Coca Cola. He came to make a way to redeem us from our sin and its consequences. Some of those he met enjoyed his company, but much more than that others were dramatically changed – poor uneducated fishermen spoke to kings, wrote books and died dramatically far from their homes. I am reminded that it is the same today. Many can talk about Jesus and be impressed by him. But for those who allow it, he still has the power to change people dramatically; to redeem dark and dreadful situations; to bring hope into hopeless lives; to be light in the darkness.

What wonderful good news.

Happy Christmas!
 Rory Wilson,2016-12-19:4755 2016-12-19T00:00:00Z 2016-12-19T00:00:00Z Reason to Celebrate
After the 25-year celebrations, it was thought that there would be no money in the bank to have a Kiwoko Hospital Christmas Party, but some last minute contributions freed up some cash for a Christmas Party! Thus, on Friday 16th December, the kitchen cooked a special lunch for all the staff prior to the festivities, then at the end of the party we also received a soda (fizzy drink) and a bun, promptly followed by a piece of cake!

As usual the celebrations were held in the grounds of the Health Training Institute, and a lot of effort went into making the place look seasonal – ribbons, tinsel, Christmas tree and a table of gold wrapped presents!

The mood of the afternoon was mellow and a sense of contentment pervaded the place. The cynics amongst us may attribute this to the post-dinner sleepy phase plus the heat of the afternoon, but I prefer to think that there is at least one other reason why people were happy and content. Staff members were happy to spend time with, not just work colleagues, but with family.

Kiwoko has over 400 staff and nearly 200 students, and I have no doubt that at times there are tensions and irritations within – what family doesn’t? However, no one was in a rush to leave – even though they had already eaten. (In most cases here, once people have eaten it signals the end of a function and people drift off.) On this party afternoon we had more and more people drift in. What an encouragement that people really wanted to spend time and have some fun together.

We had lots of presentations and it was just wonderful to see folk come up and encourage those performing with a sweet or some loose change. Even the less polished of our performers were gently encouraged by the audience with such grace. No one was laughed at or demeaned for their contribution: everyone was appreciated. Friday was about family, not about designations, roles and responsibilities.

This I believe reflects something deeper, something of the ethos of Kiwoko, which was captured by the Guest of Honour Rev Daniel, when he talked about all of us belonging to the body of Christ. Each department plays its part and the hospital is not complete without every department’s contribution.

As Bishop Desmond Tutu once said,

You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.

I was feeling tired on Friday afternoon and actually had intended to show my face briefly at the party and then leave again. I am so grateful that I went, as I was reminded again of all the wonderful people who work in Kiwoko, who belong to the Kiwoko family, daily contributing to the needs of patients and staff depending on their role. I came away invigorated and spurred on, to keep on playing my part, in this wonderful Kiwoko family.
 Rory Wilson,2016-10-26:4674 2016-10-26T00:00:00Z 2016-10-26T00:00:00Z Swimming, praying and eating
The last week was like a spa treatment – a CMS conference, a date with my husband and a chocolate scrub!

We had the opportunity to go to a CMS Africa conference, which included representatives from CMS GB, CMS NZ and of course we were representing the Emerald Isle! Connor joined us and was bemused to experience the full eccentricities of a bunch of mission partners and mission associates in one place.

The venue was a resort on the shore of Lake Victoria, Entebbe. There is something so therapeutic about being beside the water! Gideon thought he had died and gone to heaven, because there was a pool, a bouncy castle and crazy golf all in one place. He exclaimed that he wished we could live there forever! The children’s programme was certainly a hit with Gideon and he learnt a lot about the Fruit of the Spirit, like being patient in a restaurant while waiting for his chips to come is exhibiting one of the Fruit of the Spirit.

We had an opportunity to listen to how God is using people to minister in various places, to learn about CMS strategy for Africa, and much more.

One of the highlights of the conference is being refreshed, the novelty of time spent with old friends, making new ones, sharing life and the challenges that come along with living overseas. One of the big things one misses about Ireland is the freedom to simply meet friends for a coffee and chat. The bonus was, not having to go home after coffee to cook and clean! Canon Benoni (Uncle Ben) led the daily morning bible study on Romans 15:13. His message was thirstily received by one and all.

During the week my husband took me out for a romantic meal while Conor kindly watched Gideon. It isn’t often that we have an opportunity to ‘go out’ as Kiwoko does not boast any romantic hotel locations! It was lovely to have a couple of hours to chat without work pressures or interruptions.

Our friends, hearing that we were in town, invited us out for dinner and for moi a facial with a promo chocolate scrub thrown in! It seemed surreal and the height of wantonness to have your body smeared in what smelt like Belgian chocolate, when receiving a bar of Dairy Milk Chocolate to us is like receiving a lottery win, not to mention the extravagance of using food as a skin treatment!

A refreshing week of rest, fellowship and fun and too much food – in and on the body!!
 Rory Wilson,2016-10-03:4654 2016-10-03T00:00:00Z 2016-10-03T00:00:00Z Kiwoko

As many of you will know Kiwoko Hospital is celebrating our official 25th birthday (from the official opening in 1991) this year and we are ‘thanking God for the past and trusting Him for the future.’ There are various ways that we are celebrating, one of them being that this month we have had the privilege to sit and listen in morning prayers to eye witness accounts of the founding days of Kiwoko Hospital.

Moses Sekidde (manager of Community Health) has led the charge, and has proved to be a very able and methodical story teller. We have heard about the disturbing times of the civil war in the mid-80s that left traumatised people, poverty and little or no education or health services for the people in Nakaseke district. We have heard stories of how Ian Clarke (and his family) the Church and local people worked together to build the hospital, and how they marvelled at the ways in which God met need and brought the right personnel/provisions along at the right time.

It is marvellous to hear that such was their commitment that many staff worked without receiving wages for as long as 2 years, because resources were so limited and the need was so great. In an age where no one will work without getting some kind of an allowance or monetary remuneration it is a challenge to all of us.

The theme of unity and common purpose cannot be missed. Ian Clarke and his family clearly inspired, challenged, disciplined and loved the staff here, but no one organisation, church or individual can claim the glory because first of all it is God’s work but also it was a collected effort, each party playing their part.

I can now even better understand the joy and pride people have in being founder members of Kiwoko Hospital. It was such an exciting time to see development, change and hope in a post war community and most of all God in action, up close and personal!

But it isn’t just a good story, is it?

This is history, fact – a testimony of what God has (and still can) accomplish through an individual or community for good. I don’t quite know how to describe the power of an eye witness account, but it is has a powerful and unmistakably authoritative quality about it, something that grips you and pulls you in. How can anyone argue with someone who says, ‘I was there, I saw it happen,’? I know that we can all remember things a little bit differently with time, but a gathering of ‘historicals’, whose testimonies dovetail! Amazing!

I have also been reminded of the eyewitness accounts in God’s Word, for example the apostle John in 1 John 1:1-2:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of Life – the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness…

As Irish people we are often pretty comfortable grumbling (weather; politics; bad hair day…) but not usually so relaxed to share good news. We weren’t here at the beginning of Kiwoko Hospital, but we are here now and there is plenty of great news that we have been eyewitnesses of – in fact plenty that we have been blessed to have been actively part of.

We haven’t held Jesus’ hands the way St John did on dusty roads in 1st century Palestine, but we all have our own stories of meeting with Him which have a comparable ring of authenticity and encouragement if we would share them with those around us.

We all have our defaults in these matters. Why not consider today resetting your default a bit higher along the grumbling – good news axis.
 Rory Wilson,2016-08-16:4604 2016-08-16T00:00:00Z 2016-08-16T00:00:00Z EKISA 2016
It is the time of year again when we are preparing for Ekisa, a three-day holiday club for local children that aims to share the Gospel and encourage children in their journey of faith. We have a team of 29 staff and students, all eager to make the programme fun and Christ centred. It is hard to believe that it is a year since we had our CMSI team out with us for the very same event in 2015!

On visiting Kiwoko some are struck by how bedraggled and unkempt some of the local children appear in contrast to their million dollar smiles and excited lavish hugs. Many visitors are humbled by this one experience alone as they walk to morning prayers from their room at the training centre. In their free display of acceptance, welcome and affection these little children can challenge a visitor’s sense of justice, thoughts on human rights, sense of propriety, and provoke questions about society’s norms – all before they have spent 24 hours in the country! Barriers and fears begin to crumble in the clumsy yet heart felt embrace of the little children.

Despite the outward appearance, many of our local kids are loved and looked after. However, recently I have been reminded that for a lot of children in this area, life is cruel and harsh. There was a young boy admitted to male ward last month with a fractured femur, due to a beating from his dad. I cannot think of what he was supposed to have done to ‘deserve’ such a severe punsihment. To make matters worse his father discharged him without care, to take him instead for care at the witchdoctor’s. I pray for that little boy because despite facing unbearable pain in the weeks ahead, he will probably also end up with a life- long disability, affecting his future. I wonder how he is now…

Last year, we had an admission of a student who could not move her arms because of nerve damage, due to being beaten repeatedly over the shoulders by her teacher. While these admissions are thankfully not common, their occurrences remind us of what sometimes does go on in the community.

Jesus loves the little children all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white all are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world!

If you serve in some sort of children or young people’s ministry – ‘thank you!’ Keep going, don’t stop. The children of the world need to hear and know Jesus – His love, forgiveness, acceptance and healing, many of them need much healing from living in this broken world. Perhaps you are not in ministry specifically but you have children, nieces, nephews, your children’s friends etc. Pray for them. There is so much potential packed into each unique life, pray that God would unlock it.

Pray for Ekisa, this year being held on the 14th-16th September. Pray that children will laugh, smile and come to know Jesus, that the ministry team will work well together and that God’s presence will be felt by all.
 Rory Wilson,2016-07-21:4600 2016-07-21T00:00:00Z 2016-07-21T00:00:00Z Kiwoko changes
Last week the Archbishop of Uganda, the Rt Rev Stanley Ntagali was making a pastoral visit to Luweero District and joined us for morning prayers at Kiwoko. He praised the staff for the good work and encouraged everyone to keep on administering the compassion and love of Christ as we serve the local community. It was wonderful, but we were also blessed that morning by the words spoken by Sister Justine, our PNO (Principal Nursing Officer) as she reflected on Isaiah 43:18-19…

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

It seems that we are experiencing a season of new beginnings and endings in Kiwoko.

Rory and I had the privilege this week to have two individuals visit our home as they prepare to go off for further nursing studies. It was a bittersweet experience for us as these two people have made valuable contributions to the work and witness of the hospital. We are proud to send such people out from Kiwoko, yet sad that they are leaving. It was with parental pride that we prayed God’s blessing on them and thanked them for all that they have done in service for the Lord in Kiwoko.

It feels like we are going through a touch of empty nest syndrome! I am already looking forward to the school holidays when some of them will come back and work to earn some extra money for their school fees! We can’t live in the past and I know that deep down I don’t want to. I just miss the friendship, camaraderie and fellowship of those who have moved and are moving on.

These individuals represent a measure of staff movement at this time from Kiwoko. We have also said goodbye to staff who have been served here for the last 25 years, for example, Sr Margaret Kadence (deputy PNO) whom many of you will know.

Change can be a challenge to us, not unwelcome necessarily, but certainly it can give us a shake and make us re-evaluate our lives, and when we get our heads around it, we see new opportunities before us for growth and development, both on a personal and professional level.

There is a new batch of young people who have started with Kiwoko Hospital, to fill the gaps left by the latest exodus of staff seeking new knowledge. We have yet to discover their gifts/talents/creativity and needs. I have excitement about seeking out their potential.

The Board have appointed two of our existing nurses, Julius and Vivian, to replace Sr Margaret (quite a compliment to her!) and we look forward to supporting them in their new roles. They are also two of Kiwoko’s best and we have high hopes for their leadership influence.

We are in a new season in Kiwoko,where the parameters of what have been considered ‘normal’ are moving, reflecting the wider cultural changes in Kampala. The majority of staff members do not seem to stay in one place for longer than a few years, rather than commit a lifetime to one place; they are more vocal about political opinions and the girls confidently wear jeans in the village! Most of the accommodation blocks will now sport televisions aerials, and people access the internet for Facebook and WhatsApp.

Despite the changes in personnel and culture, our mission is the same – to trust Jesus for healing and to treat the poor and vulnerable that He sends our way. May God continue to help us to be accessible and relevant to those who need us in this changing world.
 Rory Wilson,2016-05-04:4493 2016-05-04T00:00:00Z 2016-05-04T00:00:00Z Listening
Recently Gideon and I were reading about the Transfiguration at bedtime, and I had one of those moments when part of the reading (Matthew 17:5) jumped out at me…

Listen to Him.

God the Father spoke audibly on two occasions affirming the Son-ship of Christ: His approval of Christ at his baptism and then on this second occasion, He included a command to the terrified disciples – ‘Listen to Him’. It struck me that of all the things that God the Father might have said to them and us; He chose these three words – ‘Listen to Him’.

He didn’t say, ‘Love Him’, ‘Obey Him’ or ‘Follow Him’. God said, ‘Listen to Him’.

Many people will have heard me extol Rory’s wonderful listening skills. Quickly within our marriage I learnt how poor a listener I was in comparison. When I begin to relate something to Rory, he stops what he is doing e.g. closes the laptop or book, turns toward me, concentrates on what I am saying and intentionally listens. I am sorry to say my listening skills in relation to God are not as good as this. Often I am listening on the run or trying to discern God’s voice amongst the other needs clamouring for attention in my head, yet I do desire to hear more from God.

Interestingly, I realise that my listening skills are sharper and I can suddenly find the time, when I am waiting on results, feeling afraid or my sense of security seems threatened. Then I can listen to God very intently and give Him a lot of time to speak. (I am so fickle!)

There are lots of reasons as to why it is important to listen to God but I guess the one I settled on in my meditations is from John 15:15, when Jesus tells us that He calls us friends not servants,

..for everything that I have learned from my Father I have made known to you.’

The Father has expressed Himself through Christ. He has given Him the words of eternal life.

I am convicted and challenged about my lack of good time management in relation to the time that I give the Lord to speak to me.

Usually, as we head back to Uganda to embrace another term I always feel that God gives me a few things to work out in our relationship. So one of my aims this term will be to more actively listen to Him.

Thank you to all our wonderful parishes, prayer groups, friends and family who have listened to us over the last eight weeks as we have shared our testimonies and learning. Special thanks to those who have fed us and listened! It has been such an encouraging visit to Ireland and we thank God that He has placed so many good people around us.

We hope that you will continue to journey with us as we return on the 19th May to take up our duties in Kiwoko again.


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Finish The Nod Base

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Finish the Nod Base

Infiltrate Nod Base

Part of

First Tiberian War

Ostrava, Czech Republic

GDI destroys the major Nod stronghold in Czech Republic, allowing them to conquer the country.

  • GDI soldiers
  • GDI air force
  • Nod soldiers
  • Build up a base
  • Destroy Nod base and all Nod units,
  • Repel the GDI assault.

Previous mission objective not complete. Airfield was to be targeted. New objective: Build up a base and Destroy remaining Nod structures and units. Reinforcements will be provided.
- Mission briefing

Finish The Nod Base is the next mission in the GDI campaign of Command & Conquer if the player destroys the wrong building in the previous mission.

With many of the problems plaguing the GDI communication systems fixed, Colonel Carter contacted Solomon again, this time with no audio/visual interference. Carter admonished Solomon for failing to destroy the correct building in the Nod base during his previous mission, but still placed sufficiant trust in James Solomon's abilities to give him command over the assault on the base which he was now forced to launch.

The Battle

The GDI forces were given an MCV and constructed a field base before beginning their assault. Deprived by the earlier assault of whatever building that James Solomon mistakenly believed was the target the base was conquered by GDI forces.

With the Czech Republic secured GDI forces advanced further south.

Because of the successful destruction of the Nod base, GDI managed to crush all remaining Nod resistance in the Czech Republic and gain control of the country.

Nod forces however as they invaded from the north-east were aided by pro-Nod rebels in Italy. At the same time their conquest of Turkey allowed them to launch an assault on Ukraine which included an amphibious assault on the southern coast faciliated by Nod control of the Black Sea.

Tiberian Dawn Missions

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text:
Reviewing Chapter 4 of Rob Bell's Love Wins

Posting this here per the request of a reader.  The following video focuses on what Rob Bell writes about universalism and hell in Love Wins.  For more info on this subject, I recommend digging through James White's site here:

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Post a Comment


text:
Coffeeshop Physics
by Jim Pivarski

We can get there from here

“Have you heard about this? Opera says neutrinos travel faster than light!”

I was in a conversation at Fermilab yesterday when I first heard about it. “Is that like one of those things where astrophysicists say that quasar jets travel faster than light, but only because they’re leaving out some projection effect?” I said.

“No, this is for real. Except— I think so. I can’t really tell; the article doesn’t say very much.”

I shrugged. I have no nose for news. It was only when my wife asked me about it that I knew it was a big story. She usually hears too much physics from me, so she doesn’t actively seek it out. By that point, it was in all the newspapers, the experimenters made their paper public, and CERN’s director general sent out a general e-mail.

If it’s true that neutrinos travel faster than light, it would be a huge upset. Some may take it to mean that relativity is overturned, Einstein rolls in his grave, and there’s no longer any limitation on the speed of future spaceships: we can get to distant stars in weeks, rather than decades. However, the implications run a lot deeper than that.

Relativity is a fact of life, as much as falling or heat and cold. We may not experience relativity in everyday things, but particle physicists encounter it daily. It’s not a small effect, something that might be a mirage. In fact, in the conversation at Fermilab I was learning about special techniques to measure particles that travel significantly slower than the speed of light: those are the oddballs. If this new observation about neutrinos is true, then it would have to fit into the constant stream of other observations. The new data would have to augment relativity— they can’t overturn it.

Relativity is about rotation. Unlike rotating a picture frame, which mixes one space dimension (the horizontal) with another (the vertical), relativity is about rotations that mix a space dimension with time. Time is a dimension very much like length, width, and height, but with a minus sign in the mathematical expressions that makes a big difference. Distances and time intervals can be measured in the same units: an inch of time is 85 picoseconds, and a minute of length is about 11 million miles. A handy unit to remember is that a foot is one nanosecond.

We can draw time and space in a single plot— I drew an example below. Looking at plots like this is a bit like viewing time on its side. Everything that has any duration, like a human life, becomes a tall, thin strand: we’re about six feet from head to foot, but three quintillion nanoseconds (95 years) from birth to death. If I drew everything on the plot, all of the streaks of stars and spaghetti of intersecting human lives, we wouldn’t be able to see anything, so I just drew one little spaceship. It enters the frame at a constant speed from the bottom, then slows to a stop at the point. The speed of the spaceship is distance-per-time: the steepness of the slope of its path. Speed is an angle.

Plot of space and time, with the path of a spaceship

Relativity is about rotations in space and time, which is to say, changing speed. Whenever you change your speed, you rotate yourself in space and time. This “mixes” space with time: you convert a little bit of what had been time into space, and what had been space into time. To explain what I mean by this mixing, below is an example of a space-space rotation. If we tilt a hanging picture, the picture’s horizontal line becomes partly horizontal and partly vertical. There’s nothing magic about that: it’s just a matter of how one defines horizontal and vertical.

Rotated picture frame

Space-time doesn’t work exactly like that, because if we rotated 180 degrees, we could reverse time! The minus sign in the mathematical expression for space-time rotations changes the picture to the one below. This is what the space-time plot would look like to someone at a different space-time angle, that is to say, a different speed.

Rotated space-time

The time and distance axes slant toward each other, and all paths squish and stretch in between. At an extreme, if we rotate toward the speed of light, the time axis and distance axis get closer and closer to overlapping. Light itself inhabits a strange world in which there is no difference between space and time.

This mixing of space and time is only noticeable at high speeds, close to the speed of light. However, there’s no boundary line: it’s always happening to some small degree. For instance, if you walk toward the Andromeda Galaxy on a Wednesday, then it becomes next Saturday in Andromeda. If you then turn and walk away from it, it becomes last Sunday in Andromeda. Your space-time angle is very small at normal walking speeds, but the axis from here to Andromeda is long enough to easily shift it by a week.

The experiment that seems to show particles moving faster than light is a collaboration between the European Laboratory CERN and the Italian Laboratory of Gran Sasso in the Alps. CERN sends a beam of neutrinos from its accelerator complex in Geneva, Switzerland to Gran Sasso’s underground (technically, under-mountain) laboratory, 450 miles away. Neutrinos pass through miles of rock without even noticing— they interact so weakly that they are effectively ghosts. In Gran Sasso, there is a large neutrino detector called Opera; the reason it is large is to improve the chances of detecting some of the few neutrino interactions. Although the main purpose of the experiment is to study the way that neutrinos of one type change into another, they also measured the time of the neutrinos’ flight and the distance between the labs very precisely in order to determine their speed. There are some alternate theories of neutrino transformation and some theories of quantum gravity that predict that the neutrinos would slow down in various ways. But instead, they observed the neutrinos traveling faster than expected, and faster than light.

There’s nothing in the theory of relativity that forbids faster-than-light particles. Their mass would be an imaginary number (i.e. mass-squared is a negative number), but that’s just strange, not forbidden. For neutrinos in particular, however, we know from previous experiments that they have non-imaginary mass differences. That would have to be reconciled somehow. If imaginary-mass particles exist, then they would never be able to go slower than the speed of light— such things were called tachyons when theorists played with the idea in string theory. The problem with faster-than-light particles is a philosophical one: they can tell us the future.

Taking the Gran Sasso measurement as a case-in-point, Gran Sasso is 2.4 million nanoseconds distant from CERN (450 miles), and they measured the neutrinos arriving 2.4 million minus 60 nanoseconds after they left CERN. These measurements were all made by stationary clocks (with the exception of a satellite, but it was calibrated for Earth-time). From our perspective, the neutrinos appear to be slightly faster than light, but from a different perspective, an observer traveling at relativistic speeds, they would be much faster than light, or even happen in the wrong order: Gran Sasso receives the neutrinos before CERN sends them. This is just what happens when you apply normal relativistic rotations to particles traveling faster than light. For an observer traveling at 99.999999992% of the speed of light, the timing of “CERN-emits” and “Gran Sasso-receives” can be completely reversed, so that “CERN-emits” happens 2.4 million minus 60 nanoseconds after “Gran Sasso-receives.” This is not an incredibly high speed: a proton with 80 TeV of energy (a little more than ten times the LHC’s design energy) would be going that fast. Faster-than-light travel is not a different thing from time-travel— if you have one, you the other.

The same event in four different points of veiw

Now imagine that the high-speed observer can emit neutrinos. As he passes by Gran Sasso, he sends neutrinos to CERN if Gran Sasso received neutrinos from CERN. If CERN gets neutrinos, they choose not to send neutrinos to Gran Sasso. Now neutrinos only get sent around if they don’t get sent around: a paradox!

Box-diagram of the paradox

If this faster-than-light thing stands up to scrutiny, you know this is the first thing we’ll try to do. You just know it is.

So what about that measurement? Can we believe it? There’s a strong temptation to pull something out of the procedure and say, “This part must be wrong; the whole thing is crap,” but after reading their paper and listening to the spokesperson’s presentation and response to questions, I don’t see any obvious faults. They took it very seriously and measured nearly all steps in the chain multiple times in multiple ways. There’s another strong temptation to say, “Gee wiz, time travel!” but that would be jumping way ahead of the facts. It takes time to confirm an observation, to find the same thing emerge in so many different ways that it must be true. I want to believe it or disbelieve it: I hate suspense! The hardest part of science is the ache of uncertainty.

The first caveat in the experiment is that the initial time of each neutrino is not known. When I heard about this experiment, I imagined someone starting a clock at the instant that the neutrino was produced at CERN and someone stopping a clock when it was received in Gran Sasso. Not quite. In order to make large batches of neutrinos (in the hopes that a few will be seen), they are produced in long bursts from the accelerator, about 10 thousand nanoseconds from start to finish. The neutrino that is detected in Gran Sasso might be from the start of the burst, the end of the burst, or anywhere in between. How, then, could they have possibly measured a 60 nanosecond difference in arrival time?

They accumulated a large number of neutrinos (16 thousand) and statistically fitted the distribution. CERN measured the shape of the burst, the Opera detector cataloged the arrival times of all the neutrinos, and the analysis team varied the time-offset between the shape and the observed distribution until they fit. Here’s what that looks like (copied from their paper):

Fitted distribution of neutrino events

The start-time of any one neutrino is unknown, but you can learn what you need to from a distribution of all of them. This is standard practice in particle physics, especially where the uncertainties of quantum mechanics play a role. It looks like a good fit, but the relevant scale is 60 nanoseconds, while the horizontal axis covers 10 thousand nanoseconds. They provide a close-up of the leading and trailing edges, which are the most important parts of the fit:

Close-up of the leading and trailing edges

The other caveat about the measurement is that it could not be performed by a single clock. There must be at least two clocks: one at CERN and the other at Gran Sasso, and they need to be synchronized. But the experiment is in a hard-to-reach location, so a long series of clocks is needed, including a satellite link. Even something as mundane as cabling could ruin the measurement: electronics signals pass through cables close to the speed of light, which is 60 nanoseconds = 60 extra feet of cables. The electronics themselves needed to be carefully calibrated, since signals pass more slowly through computers than wires. The distance also had to be surveyed through all the tunnels that lead down to the underground experiment. The surveying operation was complicated by the fact that they could only close one lane of traffic.

The only way to know if there isn’t an error somewhere in the chain is to cross-check each step carefully. I got the impression from the spokesperson that a lot of different techniques were used to do all of this double-checking, and there were naturally a lot of questions about each part. The number of reviewers has just increased dramatically, but we need to wait to see if someone finds something.

Even though I can’t say that I know the result is wrong, I have a strong suspicion that neutrinos do not travel faster than light. My personal bias is based on the philosophical paradox that would be raised if anything could travel faster than light.

Suppose that closer investigation reveals some error, or that follow-up experiments do not find any faster-than-light neutrinos. This sort of thing has happened before. Would that be a disappointment? I bet most of the excitement over this result is the expectation that it would make a Star Trek future possible: it’s a bummer that stars are so far away, especially the ones with the most interesting aliens. I mean it. Many science fiction universes have some kind of faster-than-light travel for good reason.

But this isn’t necessary. Relativity, the cursed limitation on our space-faring dreams, provides its own escape. While a spacecraft cannot reach a star 20 light-years away in less than 20 years, as measured on Earth, the crew of the spacecraft would enjoy a shorter trip. This is especially true if the spacecraft were accelerating all the way there.

Suppose that a spacecraft accelerates toward its destination at a rate equal to Earth’s gravity: 9.8 meters per seconds-squared is equal to 1.0 light years per years-squared. The craft gradually becomes relativistic during the first half of the trip, turns around half way and slows down during the second half of the trip. The relationship between traveler time and Earth time is exponential: light years take years, but millions of light years take decades. These are all the places we could go:

(light years)
traveller time
Proxima Centaurithe closest star4.23.5
Epsilon Eridanithe closest exosoloar planet (unconfirmed)10.44.9
the Gliese 581 systeman exosoloar planet that may be habitable20.36.07
the Pleiadesthe Seven Sisters40011.7
Gemingathe nearest known pulsar81513.1
Crab nebulait’s beautiful6,50017.1
the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxyare you kidding?25,00019.7
the nearby supernova that exploded in 1987to see the rings168,00023.42
the Andromeda Galaxythe nearest (big) galaxy2.6 million28.7
the Sombrero Galaxyit looks like a hat!29.3 million33.4
Cygnus Athe nearest known quasar600 million39.3

We can get there from here— we can go anywhere in the universe in a lifetime. But we can never come back.


text:
Tuesday, September 28, 2010

10/10: Unearthly Trance, Suma, Racebannon, Lps...

Flier contains all relevant infos, but in summation our first show with the revamped and here-to-stay lineup is on October 10, in our fair burrough of Naptown. We are incredibly pleased to once again be playing with our good friends Unearthly Trance, extended Bloomingtonian brethren Racebannon, and the mighty Suma, crossing the seas from Scandinavia into our wretched country to lay waste to eardrums. This won't be a night to be missed, so don't fuck around and stay at home jacking off to tranny porn. UT will hopefully have their new full-length V for sale, which is simply fucking crushing, and at the top of their recorded output. Conversely, we will have the usual salvo of Cds, Lps, shirts, and patches available.

Speaking of Lps: Seventh Rule are getting low on their copies of When All Became None on the venerable vinyl format. Seeing as this is a one-time pressing of 514 copies, if you covet one follow the link posted before and get one before they are gone. The Cd will remain in print indefinitely, but the vinyl is a one-shot deal. Our copies will NOT be made available for online sale, so this is no online chicanery: if you want one don't fuck around.

As usual: hails for support. Balls available for hater ingestion, inquire about pricing.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Back to the old school...

We just got these bad dudes in the mail from our friend Jeffrey Darkness. They will be available until we run out of them at shows, or you can add $2.00 to any order and get one that way. Send an email for patch-only orders, but be quick, we only have 50 of them.

In other news, things are progressing well with the new line-up. You super-scientifical internet sleuth-types might have read that Tony is no longer with us, and that is correct. To rectify this, Carl is now on guitar duties (along with Garrett), and our friend Chubbz (who plays with Dave in Worldeater, and also did the cover art for When All Became None as well as our "tentacles" shirt design) is behind the battery throne of bone. New incantantions are progressing nicely, and all is well within our rank. Expect more updates as they are available to disclose. Until then, thanks as always for your support. Haters, you know the drill: get to dying already.


text:
Tom Widger

Learning suicide in Sri Lanka, part II: suicide as separation

My last post in this series asked 'What kinds of cognitive and emotional capacities are required to develop in children before they fully appreciate the social and moral implications and conseq...

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Learning suicide in Sri Lanka

Durkheim's sociological study of suicide as a 'social fact' was premised, in part, on the idea that only human beings were known to commit suicide. But ethologists tell us that the ...

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text:
Advisement | Admissions | College of Liberal Arts | SIU Carbondale

Southern Illinois University

student close-up

CoLA Advisement

College of Liberal Arts Advisement Office
Faner Hall, Room 1229 (Use Door "6")
Telephone: (618) 453-3388
Hours: 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Monday - Friday

CoLA Advisement can provide:

  • University and college requirements for all majors and minors
  • Advisement and registration for each term
  • Information about new courses
  • Walk-in help for questions, adds and drops, problem solving
  • A comfortable place to study the catalog and other registration materials
  • Bulletin board with improtant information, deadlines
  • Posters of scheduled events on-campus and locally
  • Lists of interviews and jobs from University Career Servicfes
  • Announcements of extra-curricular activities and intramural sports
  • Information about the Study Abroad Programs
  • Trained front-office workers who can answer questions and help with paperwork
  • "Self-advisement" for those not needing an advisor's help

Useful Resources:

${_SerializerTool.serialize($imageAlt, true)}

Dean's List

This CoLA honor means that a full-time student has attained at least a 3.7 grade point average for the current semester.

Spring 2016 Dean's List


WARC-Truncated: length

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text:
Friday, October 28, 2011

Mo' Mizry from Wisconsin

Honest to God, I am as sick of posting the ongoing shenanigans of Governor Fucktardo as you are of reading them. But I got up this morning to find this posted on my Facebook feed:

(STATE CAPITOL) High schools would be allowed to drop math and English graduation requirements to set up vocational-only diplomas under a bill being backed by Gov. Scott Walker.

The plan in the governor's special session on jobs would let local school boards decide their own curricula and create vocational diplomas that carry the same weight as regular high school degrees. Oshkosh Assembly Republican Michelle Litjens supported the change at a public hearing. She says right now students don't always see a connection between the classes they're taking and the labor market, "And sometimes they're right. For the student who doesn't have the desire to pursue a higher education, who just doesn't want to sit still in an English class anymore, why are they there?"

And I just sat here with my mouth hanging open, unable to fathom the utter fucktardedness of this plan.

I can't imagine a job, besides an unskilled service job, that doesn't require math or writing/communications skills. My brother-in-law, who is a journeyman electrician, does more math on a daily basis than I've ever done in my 40 years on this planet. My OH, who didn't finish college, still needs to do math and write, daily.

My mother, in one of her teacherly incarnations (she was double certified), taught vo-ed in a suburban high school outside of Cleveland in the 70s and early 80s. Besides skills-based classes (typing and stenography), she taught business accounting and business communication. So these students needed both math and writing does jettisoning math and English make for a stronger, educated workforce? What fries my circuits is that this is even an option.

And what if, somewhere down the road, these vo-ed students want to go to college? What if the last time they were "forced" to "sit still in an English class" was in 10th grade? Or 9th? or 8th? We're already forced to remediate a high number of our incoming students, thanks to NCLB, which does nothing to prepare them for college-level work. How are we to remediate 3 or 4 completely missing years of high school instruction? The mind boggles.

Seriously, if you are looking for work (and strangely, we are hiring here in Wisconsin), look elsewhere. Anywhere but here. To quote the nasty maitre'd from Ferris Bueller, "I weep for the future."

Read the full article here.

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

  2. I'm worried that this sets precedent and eventually, as Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation. I will leave. If I have to teach ESL in Germany, I will. Screw this noise.

  3. @Prickly Prof: Well screw you too. If you don't want to read them, don't open them, dumbass.

    @Snarky: I'm with you. I'm in a holding pattern now but my hope is to be out of here within a year.

  4. @Snarky Writer. that's my worry too. The governor of Wisconsin is getting "famous" around the country for this type of stuff. More and more ambitious types--who are NOT friends of public education--are paying attention.

  5. Put a sock in it, Prickly. If this isn't misery, I don't know what is. And this is your future too. A nation of Gammas pushing buttons at Mickey D's is what we'll have.

  6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

  7. @PP: Are you a troll? I think you're a troll. Trolls post shitty little comments on threads they purport to find a) uninteresting or b)not worth their time. Yet here you are, crying to the moderator that you're not being protected. Troll.

    @F&T and TPP: I think that this proposal is part of the ALEC masterplan to get us back to the 19th century: a large, undereducated underclass that will do what it's told, and like it. We're already partway there, if the fucktards in Wisconsin are any indication.

  8. I have to apologize in advance. I have been unaware of any of this Wisconsin stuff going on. I moved from the southwest to the northwest this past year and am not a big fan of the national news.

    My concerns are about the colleges and states I'm in, as I'd think is true for most readers.

    But I can easily skip over Wisconsin story if it's not interesting to me, and so should the rest.

  9. I think our country does focus too much on college prep as the only acceptable way to prepare students for adulthood. Students who will be looking for a full time job within a year after high school should learn skills in high school that will help them do that.

    "But college is the only way for students to get ahead!" I hear. That's true if we've taught them no other skills in high school other than how to get into college. Preparing students for college when they probably won't finish their freshman year isn't helping them.

  10. I'm with Ben on this one. Far too many students are being told that they *need* college. We'd be far better off as a nation if we took academically under performing students out of college prep courses and taught them a trade. If we train HVAC techs in big school these people won't be saddled with $30000 in debt from the local for profit trade school. Not only would these 18 year olds leave high school with a career path but they would also have a chance at a decently paying apprenticeship but with no debt to support.

    I actually think that the idea is a pretty compassionate one. As for those who want to go to college later in life. Well, that's what the college prep curriculum at a community college is for. Some of my more impressive students have been former military CC transfer students. I think it has to do with their level of maturity.

    My HS best friend has just started going back to school. She never would have made it at 18. But she has a 4.0 and is one semester from finishing CC. She is so much better equipped for college now than she was back then.

    As a mathy type I'm not offended in the least if a student is pulled from Algebra II to take a course in carpentry or electrics or what have you. That student will be learning the math he or she will use.

  11. My dad is a retired teacher, and he's on the school board back home. I can't think of many people who are bigger on the value of higher education than my dad, but even he says that cutting the vo-tech courses in favor of universal college-prep was a huge mistake.

  12. I'm all in favour of vocational classes, but I don't think that means English & math should be cut. You could substitute "business communications" and "business math" for English lit and algebra perhaps, but without a basic literacy and numeracy no one, vocational or otherwise, is going to be able to support themselves. There are only so many jobs at McDonald's, and even McDonald's is going to go under when people can no longer afford to eat there.

  13. There is a difference between going to college and having math and English.

    I move in a circle of very educated and not-at-all-colleged folks who work with their hands (electricians, plumbers, bartenders, artists). They all need English to work out their businesses and analyze the world around them. They all use math on a regular basis.

    This isn't like cutting history or music, which has an underlying value but some people can justify moving it off the main page. This is LANGUAGE AND NUMBERS. We all need that regardless of our jobs.

    Fucking Walker.

  14. Please understand that my consternation is not over the return of vo-ed; far from it. Like Academic Monkey, I too have many friends who are in the "trades" and are doing just fine. MY OH is one of them. I have had many students quit and go on to become mechanics, dental hygienists, etc. They're all smart, successful people who didn't need college. They'd have saved tech school tuition had vo-ed still been in place.

    My problem is with the idea promulgated by the fucktards' proposal: that you don't need math or English to be successful. Even the tech schools here require basic math and writing courses of their students.

  15. I'm disturbed by the pigeonholing possibilities.

    Student in a low income area? College isn't for the likes of you, but here, we have these *wonderful* vocational courses.

    As long as it's not used as an excuse to let the quality and availability of instruction to slip even further, and the kids are made aware of and encouraged to pursue the college route, then fine. But my money's on it simply furthering the divide.

  16. Isn't the problem that some people do succeed without much/any training so they feel that no one else needs it either?

    I took a few vo-tech courses in high school and some of the others taking vocational courses probably would have dropped out if they weren't offered. Instead of looking forward to a promising career in the trades, they might have been left with a selection of McJobs to choose from...

  17. I highly suspect that most of the takers wouldn't be tracked in to vo-tech courses. I think that they would choose to take vo-tech over the more traditional, college prep courses. People want to take those courses that they feel they can excel in. No one wants to take courses that they know they will fail.

    The people who will benefit most from the offering of vo-tech courses are those students who are failing in the college prep curriculum.

    Replacing one or two english and math classes isn't going to change literacy and numeracy rates by much at all. So many high school graduates have 8th grade or lower reading and math skills. I really don't think that these students make any leaps or bounds in the last two years of high school. So why not just teach them something they can use? We might even be able to break the Welfare cycle in some families.

  18. I don't know if anybodys mentioned this, but Scott Walker is a college dropout who took his part-time IBM warrantee-selling job experience and began working for the Red Cross in 1990. He then oozed into GOP politics from there.* It's obvious to me the guy knows nothing about education, and yet he's killing public education in Wisconsin because that's one of his party's hidden mandates.

    Fire him....out of a cannon.

    * All that comes from his Wikpedia page, so caveat lector. It also points out the guy has four years of college - if he's got the four years, why didn't he pick up a diploma?

  19. reading n riting is 4 loosers.
    maths are 2.

  20. @Strel:
    He "left" Marquette under a cloud of suspicion for cheating when he ran for President of Student Government. Surprise!

    @Bubba: Let's go have a drink.

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     November 16, 2011

In 2007, the smash hit Happy Feet won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. So, it’s certainly no surprise that writer/director George Miller and some of the voice cast returned for Happy Feet Two. This time around, Erik, the tiny son of master tap dancer Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) and the vocally gifted Gloria (voiced by Pink), runs away and encounters The Mighty Sven (Hank Azaria), the only penguin who can fly. When violent shifts in the glacial landscape of Antarctica threaten the survival of the entire Emperor penguin community, Mumble and Erik must rally all creatures, both great and small, to save them.

During a press conference to promote the film, George Miller talked about collaborating with tap master Savion Glover for the penguin choreography, the importance of following nature and natural history for the film’s story, how despite our differences we can overcome the chaos of the world, what a privilege it was for him to see this voice cast working and recording together, and how he has no idea what the story for Happy Feet 3 could be, at this point. He also talked about his Justice League movie with Common as Green Lantern that never got off the ground, and whether Mad Max: Fury Road will ever actually happen. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

happy-feet-two-movie-posterHow did you collaborate with Savion Glover on the choreography for the penguins?

GEORGE MILLER: Well, the first thing to know is that I can’t sing and I can’t dance, so I had no right to be there. But, we had very, very good choreographers and people who really understand music, with the composer, John Powell, and the three choreographers – Wade Robson, who did the earlier material, Dein Perry, the creator of Tap Dogs, who did all the tapping later on, and Kate Wormald, who is also one of the motion capture performers for Gloria and Erik, and several others. In the center of that was Savion Glover, who came down for a week.

The first thing I had to understand about him is that he’s a percussionist. He’s a classic hoofer. He’s a brilliant percussionist who uses his body for the percussion. I look at it and get dazzled, but I’m told by the musicians that he’s working with such complex rhythms that it’s almost mind-boggling. With a movie like this, you get a lot of wonderful material that you end up not able to use because you’ve essentially got 90 minutes to tell a story, but we would watch him dance for hours. I can tell you, if he’s awake, whatever he’s doing, his feet are tapping. To watch that sort of virtuosity was fantastic. The great privilege in doing this stuff is that the way the universe conspired to make these individuals, they have unique abilities that let them shine. To see that and to sort of have a say in what they would contribute is just very exciting to me and makes me feel a sense of wonder about being a human being. And, Savion Glover is the dance equivalent of that.

happy-feet-two-image-4Why was it important to include the global warming message in the film, and what do you want audiences to take away from this?

MILLER: We tried to follow nature and natural history, as much as possible. All the creatures are designed, pretty strictly, to the anatomy of krill and elephant seals and penguins, and then we take the main characters and exaggerate them a bit. Even the behavior of the ice and snow and wind follows nature. I think that gives the film a lot more authenticity. You can’t tell the story about this world without it being about the environment. It’s the extremes of the planet, clearly. Any subtle change that we have is somehow recorded there, in the ice layers, because it’s fixed. The animals that have died there are 100 years old and they almost look intact because it’s a very, very cold climate. You can go down into the core of snow and ice in Antarctica and find every single volcano that ever happened in history, and every single nuclear accident. These massive icebergs are breaking off in the size of small countries, and they do block off the penguins. There are big shifts in the krill populations and where they are. There is melting on the peninsula, so the penguins are going south. The species are getting more mixed up.

That’s what we tried to indicate in the movie. All of that is there, as part of the background narrative. For me, the guiding premise of the film is the notion that, despite our differences, we can overcome the chaos of the world. All the characters in the film are, in some way, are divided. Every single character is torn apart, and it’s only when they come together that finally they can solve the problem. They can’t even rely on the humans that arrive because they have to save themselves. The time I’m most proud of being a human being is when I see the coming together of people to solve their problems, or to endure the human adventure. All of that’s in the film. I hope people can pick it up.

happy-feet-two-image-1What was it like to bring this cast together and have them actually work together?

MILLER: That was thrilling to me. It’s such a privilege to see guys like that, working together. It was just a wonderful thing. One of the memorable moments for me was when Hank [Azaria] had to do a serious scene, where Sven was basically confessing about himself. Everyone had finished their parts and it was just Hank by himself. And then, suddenly, Robin [Williams] and Elijah [Wood], and others who had gone out for a coffee break, came back into the room. And then, all of the cast came back and stood in front of Hank, without any mics, and just played a crowd. I was just choked up. I thought, “God, this is generosity.” Everyone thinks movie stars are so narcissistic and self-absorbed, but it’s totally the opposite. Their generosity is huge.

How did you go about selecting the songs that you used in the film?

MILLER: It came from a lot of different places. First of all, you’re looking for something that fits the narrative. And then, the penguins and the other creatures are representative of us. John Powell is a composer who is really broad. He does everything from the Shrek movies to the Bourne movies, and he grew up in England playing in a Motown tribute band, and he trained classically because his father was a classical musician. He’s very broad in his knowledge and musical taste. And then, we had Pink, who has three songs. We needed a song for the center of the movie, and she wrote that.

happy-feet-two-image-3I had never heard “Under Pressure” before, but during the recording session, Hank [Azaria] said, “You know that song? It’s like it was written for this.” So, we’ve got that in there. The opera is an aria that I’ve always loved the structure of. It starts so quietly and it ends with such fervor, and I knew we needed to have Erik sing that song. When we were finishing the first Happy Feet, every time we would like a shot, they would push a button and “Rawhide” would play. One day, it came up with a shot of the elephant seals and I said, “Oh, if we ever make another one, it will be the elephant seals singing that.” It comes from everywhere.

Do you have any ideas for a third film yet?

MILLER: If you put a gun to my head and said, “You have to come up with a story for Happy Feet 3,” I’d say shoot me. I would have no idea. I really would have no idea. The stories creep up on you. You just have to allow the stories to come, and then they get in like little ear worms in your head and they won’t go away. If that happens and we’ve got the energy, we’ll do a third one. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. That’s the only way you can do it. It has to be authentic. I really wanted to make this film better than the first one. Otherwise, at my age, what’s the point? You really want to make it better. If something comes up that’s really exciting and I can convey that enthusiasm to other people, then there would be a third one.

happy-feet-two-image-2Your animated films are great, but why haven’t you done any live-action films for awhile?

MILLER: John Lennon said, “Life’s what happens when you make other plans.” Films keep on coming out of my head, and I never know what film I’m going to make next. Common and I were going to work on a Justice League movie together. He was cast as Green Lantern. It was almost greenlit, and then it fell away. I fell in love with the guy and called him up and said, “You can’t play the Green Lantern, but how about playing a penguin?” And that was a whole bunch of complex events, in the middle of a writers’ strike and Australian rebate legislation, which was required to get the film going. It was just a whole complex series of events. It was no one’s particular fault that it happened. We were also due to do Happy Feet. These things are like big super-tankers, to start a pipeline like this, with over 600 or 700 people working on the film with the bleeding-edge of technology, where you’re pushing technology as far as you can. We had to commit to that, so I went on to that.

When did Mad Max fit in there?

MILLER: I was about to do the next Mad Max film, Fury Road. We were all geared up for that, to shoot in the Australian desert, and then unprecedented rains came. What was the wasteland – completely flat, red earth – is now a flower garden. And the big, massive salt flats, where they do world record speed trials, is now full of pelicans and fish. Where the fish came from, I have no idea. So, we’ve lost the wasteland. Luckily, all of these films have been with Warner Bros., so it’s been a very collaborative thing, going from one to the other.

Will Mad Max ever happen?

MILLER: Theoretically, it’s next year. We have 150 big vehicles built. But, to be perfectly honest, [I just finished Happy Feet], and I’m not even there in my head, right now.

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Friday, September 3, 2010

Who Judges?

Which is the best religion?

Is there a judge up there keeping score?

"Whatever makes you more compassionate,

more sensible,

more detached, more loving,

more humanitarian, more responsive,

more ethical.

The religion that will do that for you is the best religion."

Dalai Lama via my pal Bishop Randolph Sykes

"See how nature -

trees, flowers, grass -

grows in silence;

see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...

we need silence to be able to touch souls."

Mother Teresa

"Creativity is contagious.

Pass it on."

-Albert Einstein.

Diamond Head Light, home of the Coast Guard Commandant

"A sensible man will remember

that the eyes may be confused in two ways -

by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light;

and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul."

"There are two kinds of light -

the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures. "

James Thurber

The Land of ALOHA is a little less worthy of the name today.

The head of our local Republican Party sent around a letter to pastors (not Buddhist priests, rabbis, or Muslim clerics, not to mention Shinto, Taoist....well, you get the idea.)

-Anyway, this political operative advised the pastors as to who is and who isn't righteous in the upcoming elections! He urges them to Jesus triumphalism and even topped Keith Olbermann's
Worst Person In The World:

Visit for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I couldn't rest until I crafted one of my Letters To The Editor of a local paper. Here are excerpts from that letter:

Aloha Neighbors;

According to my dictionary, ‘omniscience’ is the capacity to know EVERYTHING. After reading this weeks MIDWEEK, I thought how lucky our community is to have omniscient folks among us right here on Oahu.

But something didn't feel right.

My deeply held faith teaches me that only God is omniscient and omnipotent, and that it is not (hallelujah!) my job to judge my neighbors; just to love them and work with them for our common good.

When we have local officials and ministers who confidently declare certain candidates “unrighteous” and others “righteous;” When some claim our Hawaii for Jesus, rather than respecting the freedom and pluralism that make our Islands unique in the world, Well, I wonder what bible they are smoking.

I call on my neighbors of ALL faiths, those honestly seeking the truth, and those who are agnostic, to join our majority of citizen patriots! Let’s vote for the ones who will play nice with everybody. Isn’t that what you learned in Sunday school (or Buddhist camp, or Synagogue, Mosque, or Temple)?

Respectfully, Cloudia Charters,

Thanks so much for visiting today. Thoughts?


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BK’s Bullets: Video Games Pre-E3

  Six months have passed, and Brent and Jim are back talking Video Games!  Going into E3, what are the state of the new consoles? What do we want to see out of the E3 presentations? What are we expecting to happen, and what do we think should happen?  FIND OUT NOW! Find Jim @jasefat […]

BK’s Bullets: Video Games of the Year 2013

BK’s Bullets is back! Brent Kossina and Jim Efantis talk the new PS4, all of the new consoles, Assassin’s Creed 4, Xbox One, as well as their favorite games of the year! Also, we look back on this last console generation and what games left a lasting impression to this day! As always – we […]

BK’s Bullets: Video Games 02

Brent and his buddy Jim Efantis are back! They talk Assasin’s Creed,   Halo 4, Splinter Cell Blacklist, The Walking Dead Game, and the possibilities for the next generation consoles.  Hope you enjoy, we had a great time recording this! As always – we are sponsored by DCBS! That’s right! Discount Comic Book Service! For […]

BK’s Bullets: Comics and Video Games

Brent is no longer solo as his buddy Jim Efantis joins him on this special edition of BK’s Bullets! Jim is relatively new to comics, so Brent discusses his likes and dislikes with what he has been reading recently.  Jim is also an avid video gamer, so they discuss the new Microsoft Store, upcoming games, […]

BKs Bullets – FCBD 2008

Welcome back to another BK’s Bullets! This time Brent discusses Sea of Red Volume 1 from Image Comics, the Free Broken Trinity Prelude from Top Cow, the free Hellboy Comic from Dark Horse, and the free X-Men comic from Marvel, all offered on Free Comic Book Day 2008. Well all the ones labeled free anyway. […]

BKs Bullets: Alias & Punisher War Journal

Like we promised! A new BKs Bullets! This time Brent goes over The Brian Michael Bendis Alias Series from Marvels MAX imprint, and the recent Punisher War Journal series by Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti. For those who do not know, Brent puts out a segment for Raging Bullets called BKs Bulets, where he reviews […]

BKs Bullets: Invincible

Brand spanking new addition to the Comic Timing Family! Well, sort of. Depends how you look at it really, as technically the Flash episode was released a while back, but hey, technicality on that one. For those who do not know, Brent puts out a segment for Raging Bullets called BKs Bulets, where he reviews […]


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Calling Swansea singers to form a WNO community choir to take part in NTW02- Shelf Life

Let your voice be heard!

Welsh National Opera is looking for over 100 enthusiastic singers to form a community choir to perform in an exciting new performance project, Shelf Life.

The community choir will work alongside Volcano Theatre and National Theatre Wales in a performance project that will take over the evocative domed reading room of Swansea’s Old Library.

Tracing music back to it roots, and exploring the… Continue

Posted on January 4, 2010 at 14:30 — 2 Comments

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At 10:06 on November 6, 2009, Wyeside Arts Centre said…
Hi Sarah - launch went really well! Loved the new programme. Tamzin

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The Best Advice My Mom Ever Gave Me

The Best Advice My Mom Ever Gave Me

I was a freshman in college, and I was crazystupid obsessed with my tan, beautiful, manipulative, bad-boy boyfriend. (Let's call him "Spicoli.)

In my world, Spicoli had zero supporters. My parents, my friends, and even my dog really, really wanted him to fall into a very deep, very fatal ditch, but the more they all told* me what a total loser he was, the more I was convinced that they were just uptight. Clearly, they had ZERO idea what it was like to have fun and be young and adventurous and totally infatuated with someone. Plus, Spicoli and I said "I love you" to each other, and that was huge. (Later, I found out he cheated on me A LOT, so it's probably better to say that I was in "love," and he was in "you're okay, I guess.")

Anyway, New Year's Eve came, and Spicoli invited me to a party. A sleepover party. With no parental supervision. And I was psyched because, you know, sex. SEX. It was about to happen! Maybe? So, you know, woooooo. Or, uh, woooooo? Um. Huh. What? Oh.

My mom totally knew what was up, and she even agreed to let me go to the party, but the catch was that she wanted to talk to me first. I figured it would be a lecture about how evil Spicoli was and how YOU ARE NOT TO SEE THAT BOY AGAIN and all of the parental tropes that John Hughes prepared me for, but what happened instead shocked me.

We actually had a talk—a calm one where we really listened to each other. She asked me about my opinions and thoughts about sex, and talked to me a lot about how my expectations might (or might not) match up with reality. Honestly, she was pretty amazing about making me feel like a normal human for having a million questions ("Is it possible to really be excited but totally terrified and still not 100% sure?" "Do things, uh, hurt?" "If I do it, will people be able to look at me afterwards and just, like, KNOW?") and she was really patient about answering everything. But ultimately, the best piece of advice she gave me—aside from "If you're active, always use protection," was this: "If you're in love—I mean, really, truly in love—then any decision you make will be the right one."

We talked for three or four hours, and it was such a relief to share it all with a smart, understanding person who'd already been there. And a few months later, when Spicoli broke up with me by never calling me back (...), I couldn't have appreciated her advice more. Thanks, Mom.

*Yes—the dog told me, too. Or sort of. He bit Spicoli repeatedly, and I think that counts.

Have you ever had this kind of frank discussion with your mom?

Related post: The Best Advice My Mom Ever Gave Me

Topics: Life, Mother's Day
Tags: dating, mothers, moms, jerks, boys, mother's day

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What to expect on your first open water swimming race

Posted by Cags R under Swimming on 22 February 2013 at 12:00 AM

You swim for fitness, wellbeing and competitive reasons indoors throughout the year, so why is the thought of your first swim out in the open water so scary?

Open Water Swimming: Henley MileOpen water swimming has grown in popularity after being introduced as an Olympic event during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, being arguably the most accessible form of swimming and sometimes providing a greater adrenaline rush. So, if you are looking to get into open water swimming, check out our useful tips to help you get started.

Perhaps the main source of intimidation is the reputation of open water swimming and some of the dangers associated with it. Even the most avid swimmers are used to swim training inside the pool and away from open water, which is one of the reasons why your first open water swim can seem such a daunting experience.

It is important to adjust to the open water style gradually and to not take too much on at once. In recent years the popularity of open water swimming has increased as it’s a tougher challenge to indoor. Here are a few things to bear in mind before dipping into your nearest lake or sea;

  1. Never swim alone: This is very important regarding your personal safety. It is essential to swim with either one or a group of friends just in case of an emergency. Not only must you battle the physical elements (fog, changing currents), but you should also consider the human elements like boats. It is always safer to be around someone if you get into trouble.

  2. Adjust to cold water: When the water you are in is cold (below 66 degrees Fahrenheit) then you should be prepared to wear a wetsuit. Additionally a swim cap and earplug will help to keep your head warm. To begin with it is advisable to stay in the water for between 10 and 20 minutes and then as you become more experienced you can have longer stints in the water.

  3. Navigation: It is easy to swim straight in a pool as you have guided lines under the water. However, it’s all down to you in the open water. One of the most important skills for open water is called Sighting. This is where you lift your head up every 8 strokes to make sure you are staying on course. In addition, it is useful to combine this with your breathing above surface to create some consistency in your open water stroke.

  4. Get Warm: After your swim you should drink some warm fluids and wear layers after you have removed your wetsuit.

Get involved with the Henley Mile:

The good news is there are plenty of events to help get you immersed in open water swimming and Henley Swim events have proved a great initiation to open water swimming in recent years. The Henley Mile, on Sunday 14th July, can be regarded as one of the greatest challenges you could participate in as an open water swimmer, but by following this guide and actively following the tips, participating in this event in the near future is definitely an achievable goal.

Henley Mile Swim

This endurance swim held over the Henley Royal Regatta course along the River Thames, challenges enthusiastic swimmers against the stream on this one mile boomed course, and is perfect for experienced open water swimmers who are looking for their next open water challenge. Wetsuits are optional. The event caters for all ages, with different categories from Junior (14 – 18) Open, Masters and even Traditional, for those who would prefer to swim without a wetsuit.

In addition, their non-competitive Sporting category is ideal for swimming enthusiasts who are looking to take part in their first open water swim, as they will be able to swim the course in their own time, without the pressure of being part of a race.

This family event, which is held throughout the day, also features The Henley Half Mile & Henley Splash (200m) for 8 to 14 year olds, so it’s a great event to bring along family and friends, do your swim, enjoy the stunning race surroundings and have a great day out.

In addition to this event, Henley also offers a number of events to get you started, catering for first time open water swimmers to the most experienced. Please follow the additional links below for more information on this summer’s events.

If you would like to enter the Henley Mile then you can receive 15% off the entry fee using code TRIBEHM if you register before the 28th February

Open water swimming is a great opportunity to raise money for charity:

Take for example the well-known UK celebrity David Walliams (Little Britain, Dinner for Schmucks), who has trained for and taken part in open water swims along the Gibraltar Strait from Spain to Morocco and across the English channel, all in the name of Sports Relief, a well-established UK fundraising effort. Not renowned for his athletic qualities or ability in the water, he is a prime example of how even the most elementary swimmer, with the right training and attitude can tackle the challenge of open water swimming on a larger scale, as well as raise money for a good cause. His efforts have raised well over £2 million for home and overseas aid.

Many charities offer people the chance to complete open water swimming challenges to raise money for them. Charities including Cancer Research, Great Ormond Street Hospital and Water Aid to name just a few.

Open water swim race: the Henley Mile Swim

As you grow in confidence, taking part in long distance events for charity is not only self-fulfilling but also contributes to a worthy cause.

Open water swimming is often feared but its substantial rise to prominence in recent years highlights how much fun and the unique challenge which swimming in open water can provide. Hopefully this trend will continue as more people put on their wetsuits and leave a pool environment behind in favour of the freedom that open water can provide.

Need more inspiration? Why not consider the following useful articles:

  • Encourage

    encouraged this.

    I am afraid to say the whole idea of open water swimming has always intimidated me, even though I am a competent swimmer in the pool.

    Brenda D encouraged this.

    Give it a go Jane! Maybe take a trip to Fraser Island, lovely lakes out there!

    Brenda D and Ashley C encouraged this.

    I don't even get my face wet in the shower, so swimming is not a sport for me!

    Oh how I wish there was the Henly Mile in Ireland!!!!! I'd like to swim taking my time with no race pressure. Thanks Cags!!!!!

    Alan C and Ashley C encouraged this.

    I live in a state that has many lakes and rivers. We grew up swimming in the open (fresh) water. My mom took us to swimming lessons when we were about 3 or 4. We have fond memories of swimming out to the island and back at relatives lake homes. Thanks for posting Cags it really triggered some good memories. We spent a lot of hours swimming.

    Ashley C and Brenda D encouraged this.

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The Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) Approach is how the NDIS is delivering early childhood intervention for children aged 0-6 years. The overall aim of ECEI is to ensure that parents or primary caregivers are able to provide young children who have developmental delay or disabilities with experiences and opportunities that help the children gain and use the functional skills they need to participate meaningfully in the key environments in their lives.

The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) recognises that timely access to best-practice early childhood intervention is vital for children with developmental delay or disability to ensure that they achieve the best possible outcomes throughout their life course. ECEI aims to provide children with the right level of support at the right time for the right length of time.

Working in collaboration with sector experts, evidence-based research has been used to design Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) as a family-centred approach. In their work with families, Early Childhood Partners will use their clinical and specialist expertise in Early Childhood Intervention to understand the child’s developmental delay or disability and the impact on everyday functioning.

Find out more about the ECEI Approach.

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