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experiential learning

Hacking (Our) Community

Screenshot of course website with partial text of a student's artist statement

This semester, I'm teaching 'Rhetoric of Hacking', an intermediate writing/composition class. The course title is something of a vexed topic; it was chosen to comply with the usual pattern of writing course names at UT, but it started off as 'Hacking Rhetoric', a name designed to imply that we would not just be discussing rhetoric about hacking, but also hacking rhetoric itself, transforming our own work and that of other people.

Can I Take Your Picture? Reading Susan Sontag’s "On Photography" and the Rhetoric of Photographing Strangers

students posing in front of UT tower

Coupling a reading with a hands-on lesson plan like the one that I am about to share can be tricky, and I wouldn't advocate using this particular pedagogical strategy for all texts, but Susan Sontag’s On Photography (1977) seems to work well as part of an experiential lesson plan because peering into the lives of others through photographs on social media sites is what the overwhelming majority of college students spend their time doing already.

Field Trips in the College Classroom

Large family memorial in rear with individual gravestone in front.

I can remember taking only one field trip after I left the K-12 system. Between three universities in my undergraduate and graduate career, only one lone little undergrad geology course featured an off-site learning experience as a standard part of the curriculum. Therefore, when I realized that I had the chance to take my own RHE 309K students on a field trip, I jumped at the opportunity.

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All materials posted to this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. We invite you to use and remix these materials, but please give credit where credit is due. In addition, we encourage you to comment on your experiments with and adaptations of these plans so that others may benefit from your experiences.

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Terry Gross v. Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has had a rough time in interviews since her book — Hard Choices — came out this week. So seeing NPR’s Terry Gross on the schedule might’ve seemed like a home game. It wasn’t.

The two sparred today ( entire program here) when Gross asked Hillary Clinton to explain her change in position on same-sex marriage, after Gross opened her line of questioning with the innuendo that it was only for political reasons.

  1. Listen Terry Gross, Hillary Clinton spar over same-sex marriage support

    June 12, 2014

This is basically what her answer was.

“I changed my mind for the same reason lots of people changed their minds on this issue, which is what allowed same-sex marriage to become legal in places like Minnesota. Society changes. I change and while I realize people think it’s a weakness for politicians to change their minds on an issue, that’s how society moves ahead.”

But that wasn’t her actual answer because Clinton — a lawyer — makes life hard for herself by overanswering questions.

Gross’ somewhat clumsy follow-up — have you evolved or have the American people evolved? — was plainly weird. And her dismissal of the fact that Americans feel much differently about same-sex marriage now than they did in the ’90s, seemed design to bait the likely presidential candidate. Only 27 percent of those surveyed by Gallup in the mid-’90s thought that gay marriages should be recognized.

“The vast majority of Americans were just waking up to this issue,” Clinton said. “It has been an extraordinarily fast change in political terms and we should celebrate that instead of plowing old ground.”

Good answer, to which Gross replied, “I’m pretty sure you didn’t answer my question.”

“I said I was an American. Of course we all evolved,” Clinton said.

“So you’re saying your opinion changed?”

“Somebody is always first, Terry, and thank goodness they are. But that doesn’t mean that people who join later… are any less committed. You could not be having the sweep of marriage equality across this country if nobody changed their mind,” Clinton said.

“So that’s one for… you changed your mind?”

(forehead slap)

At that point we were off and running and the “Clinton snaps at interviewer” headlines were written.

Called out by Clinton, Gross walked back her questioning, saying what she really meant to ask was whether Clinton always believed in same-sex marriage but didn’t support it because it wasn’t politically feasible to do so?

That would’ve been a good question for Gross, normally a very precise interviewer, to actually ask. No matter. Few of the critics discussing the exchange are bothering to notice that it was precipitated by a really badly presented question.

“So what’s it like when you’re in office and you have to do all these political calculations to not be able to support something like gay marriage, that you actually believe in. Obviously you feel very committed to human rights and you obviously put gay rights as part of human rights but in doing the calculus you decided you couldn’t support it. Correct me if I’m reading it wrong.”

Beyond that, the interview carries a significant message: Politicians in the coming elections — especially Democrats — are going to have to answer for their past positions on same-sex marriage, the same way politicians of days-gone-by had to answer for their views on race and segregation.

In politics, it won’t be enough that you feel differently on this issue now — something that might’ve been celebrated around here a year or so ago. You’ll now be held accountable that you ever felt differently on the issue of same-sex marriage.

Related: Wis. clerks could face charges over gay marriage licenses (Minnesota Public Radio News).

  • Gary F

    Hillary has had a tough week. The mainstream media has been covering her for years tossing her underhand softball pitches. They actually asked her a tough question. OMG.

    Are they toughening her up for 2016 or are they trying to take her down so to get the Democratic bench warmed up?

    Benghazi, Bergdahl, Iraq, are really going to weigh her down. Add the age factor, and possible Heath issues, and she is not that strong a candidate.

    Maybe they are doing the Dem Party a favor by weeding her out?

  • Jack

    Won’t listen to this interview – in my 30+ years of being a public radio listener, Terry Gross is one host that I can’t listen to.

    I prefer my presidential candidates to be younger and I’m not that old. I have yet to see a good candidate raised by any of the parties.

  • Bethjock

    I was really disappointed in this short segment of the interview. Terry wasn’t hearing the answer that Clinton was giving her, or didn’t want to accept it. I think many people have evolved in how they see gay rights as more people stopped hiding the fact they are gay. Once you find that your family member, or school mate or co-worker is a gay person it’s difficult to demonize them because they seem so normal. Which of course they are.

  • John O.

    Ms. Gross has exhibited the same habit that has afflicted other journalists (mostly on the broadcasting side) with overinflated egos: she wants to BE the news as much as she wants to REPORT the news.

    I would think, however, that while her handling of the Clinton interview may have generated some short-term buzz, I would seriously question whether she will get another chance to interview her down the road–regardless of whether she runs or not. The Clintons are always going to find their way into the news cycle.

  • MrE85

    • Gary F

      You still sticking with the YouTube video lie?

  • Cubana Loca

    This reporter tried to play a big game of Gotcha and it didn’t work. I almost couldn’t finish listening to it because the reporter was so doggedly and incorrectly stating things that Clinton clearly did not say. Her position changed, and she clearly said so. What’s the big damn deal.

    • joetron2030

      Terry Gross is not a “reporter” by any stretch. And that’s coming from someone who’s generally a fan of the program.

  • John Peschken

    Terry Gross’ refusal to accept a straight answer was annoying. At least it wasn’t the far more usual problem of a (usually non-NPR) reporter easily accepting a non-answer and obliviously moving on to the next question on their list.

  • Nicholas Kraemer

    I think the real pitty is that Terry Gross did not ask a follow up question to this statement from Hillary Clinton: “No, I don’t think you are trying to clarify. I think you’re trying to say that I used to be opposed, and now I’m in favor, and I did it for political reasons, and that’s just flat wrong.” I would have liked Terry to ask this: “If you weren’t opposed to gay marriage for political reasons, why were you opposed to it?”

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French and German Team System Web Access have shipped

On Thursday I announced that the Japanese version of Team System Web Access (TSWA) was available.  Today, I have the pleasure of announcing that both the German and French versions are now available.  I know these two are going to be quite popular because we had several customers contact us asking for permission to localize it themselves.  Now we got an official localized version of both.  The remaining localized releases are on their way.


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F# Job: Senior Developer (F# / Functional Programming), London

Regular readers of my blog will know that I occasionally post links to F# jobs as a courtesy to the F# community. Here's a job description that got sent to me a coupd of weeks ago, through a recruiting agency. Please contact Joseph.Williams@ITHR.com to apply for this position.

Job Description:Senior Developer (F# / Functional Programming)

Powering over 14,000 trading screens and 50+ marketplaces worldwide, thsi company is the leading provider of real-time trading software for Brokers, Traders and Exchanges. With 99.999% uptime and able to deliver thousands of TPS with millisecond latency, our technology underpins circa 85% of European energy and 60% of emissions trades. Over the past 12-months, the company has grown significantly. We are delivering further growth in 2011 and are producing new products that need to maintain extremely high standard of quality and performance.

Function:  Production

The Production function owns the development, quality and delivery of  high-quality software products.

Role Profile

We're currently looking for a great senior developer to join one of our production teams. Day to day you will be responsible for designing and developing software products using agile principles. As the senior developer on a project you will be expected to help motivate and mentor the team while remaining hands-on.

•             Lead end-to-end development of software products that are robust, maintainable and extensible

•             Ensure the development team finds the right technical solutions

•             Produce high quality code with automated tests

•             Promote wider adoption and appropriate use of functional programming techniques

•             Mentor staff across the organisation

Skills & Experience

•             Substantial software development experience

•             Practical, real world experience of a functional programming language (F#, Clojure, Scala, Haskell, Erlang, OCaml, ML, Miranda, Ruby etc...); gained in a commercial environment. Proven track record in releasing production quality software

•             Excellent Object Oriented Analysis/Design skills

•             Expert level knowledge of .Net and C# (.Net 3.5 as a minimum)

•             Excellent communication skills and the ability to discuss technical issues in plain English, both with colleagues and potentially with clients

•             Experience in writing and maintaining high performance, concurrent software

•             Knowledge of common design patterns and their applicability

•             F#

•             Experience of building low latency, scalable trading applications

•             Experience of working within an Agile environment (Scrum, XP, Pair programming)

•             Knowledge of Test Driven Development and Behaviour Driven Development

•             Experience in some of the following technologies (WPF, WCF, Silverlight, Rx, Linq, TPL)

•             Knowledge of OTC or cleared commodity markets

Job Fit & Personal Characteristics

•             An approachable engineer who is keen to share knowledge

•             Someone who takes responsibility for the tasks at hand

•             Someone who has a passion for developing great software

•             A confident communicator with the ability to manage upwards

•             Always learning more in order to become a better engineer

•             A self starter who thrives in small, agile teams, and is committed to delivering within agreed timescales

Comments (1)

  1. Sounds like its a job at Trayport.

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Anna Patterson is the Queen of the geeks, at least fro me 🙂 On the side,    while pregnant, she wrote a search engine    for the Internet Archive which clocks in at 150,000 lines of plain POSIX    C code for the indexer and 50,000 lines for the server side, with some neat    features like automatic personalization. Wow.

We taped her presentation at the Future    Salon last Friday, but the sound didn’t get recorded, so you have to make    do with eye witness reports like this one. Anna’s search engine datamines the    corpus before indexing, which leads to a higher level of knowledge per page and    enables new features like: automatic content organizing, trend analysis, and    personalized search.

The personalized search you can try for yourself. Put “Alexa” in    the recall engine.    You will see that some of the results are not worksafe, so don’t click these.    Next search for Brewster    Kahle the founder of the Internet Archive who also created and designed    the Alexa    navigation service, which got bought by    If you now search for “Alexa” again, the results are tailored towards    your previous interests, all of the first page hits are about the Alexa search    engine. It’s a bit eerie at first, but the results will convince you, and of    course you can always clear your search history.

It is all still in beta, and needs some fine tuning. For example if you search    for “SAP”    (make sure that you capitalize it, otherwise you don’t get any software related    results.) under the people category in the right hand column you don’t find    Hasso Plattner. If you you do it the other way round and search for “Hasso    Plattner“, the top result under Topics is “SAP’s”. I don’t    know why there is an “SAP’s”, but no plain “SAP” connection    to Hasso Plattner.

Overall very interesting concepts and results that you can check out today.    I am convinced this is not the last time we hear from Anna Paterson and her    search engine. Here are her quick    overview slides.

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Some of the BSP examples coming with the Testdrive need HTTPS to run. The application “HTMLB_samples” is  one of them. Also Peter White asked SAP NetWeaver Application Server: Configuring SSL/SSF on MiniWAS. Here a short how to guide to get HTTPS running.

  • SAP NetWeaver Testdrive SR1 on Linux up and running
  • You can logon via SAP GUI to the application Server
  • SAP Cryptolib downloaded from -> Download -> SAP Cryptographic Software

Unpack and install SAP Cryptolib

Copy the SAP Cryptolib to your Linux box and do the next commands as User nw4adm:

mkdir /tmp/sap-crypto
cd /tmp/sap-crypto
SAPCAR -vxf [your-path]/sap-crypto-lib.CAR
cd linux-glibc2.2.2
cp * /usr/sap/NW4/SYS/exe/run

Now shutdown your Application Server as User nw4adm with the Command:

stopsap R3 nw4host

Now Edit the File /sapmnt/home/nw4adm/.cshrc and add this line at the end of the file:

setenv SECUDIR /usr/sap/NW4/DVEBMGS00/sec

Logout from the user nw4adm and login again. Now the environment variable SECUDIR must been set. Now edit   the instance profile file “/usr/sap/NW4/SYS/profile/NW4_DVEBMGS00_nw4host” and add this lines:

DIR_EXECUTABLE = /usr/sap/NW4/SYS/exe/run
sec/libsapsecu = /usr/sap/NW4/SYS/exe/run/
ssf/ssfapi_lib = /usr/sap/NW4/SYS/exe/run/
ssf/name = SAPSECULIB
snc/gssapi_lib = /usr/sap/NW4/SYS/exe/run/
sec/rsakeylengthdefault = 2048
icm/server_port_1 = PROT=HTTPS,PORT=8443
icm/HTTPS/verify_client = 0

Now you can start your application server again with:

startsap R3 nw4host

Create Certificate

Logon to your SAP System via SAP GUI and start Transaction STRUSTSSO2

click right on the SSL-Server and choose “create” now you can enter Org. and Comp. like:

Press enter to save the settings. Press enter to close this screen:

When you have a Service Marketplace Account, then you can get a test certificate from -> SSL Test Server   Certificates. Export the Certificate Request by clicking on the “Create Certificate Request” button. Copy   the Request into the clipboard and paste it into the Text field on the Service Marketplace. Choose server   type “SAP Web Application Server 6.20 and newer”. Copy the returned certificate and import it via the   “Import Cert. Response”.

Finally go to the download Area of the SAP Trust Center and import the “ Test CA Certificate”   into your Certificate store.

Start SSL Server

If the SSL Server is not already running try to start it via SMICM:

  • Click on Services (Shift + F1)
  • Choose the Line “HTTPS”
  • Choose Service -> Activate

Test your settings with

netstat -an | grep 8443

It should return something like:

tcp        0      0  *              LISTEN

Start BSP Application which needs HTTPS

SE80, open the BSP-Application “HTMLB_samples” and run the test by pressing F8.

More detailed information about the SSL Configuration of the Web AS can be found in the Help at “Configuring the SAP Web AS for Supporting SSL”.

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  1. Satish Arram
    Hi Greg,

    That is wonderful artical. However, when I tried to activate HTTPS in SMICM T-Code, I am getting Operation failed (rc=1) error. HTTP is activated and I can use http: in Internet Explorer. I have added the HTTPS port in Instance profile as well. Could you please assist me with this?

    Thanks in Advance.

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  • Directors Accused Of Siphoning Millions From US Fidelis

    We’ve seen our share of Ponzi schemes and illegal activity in the bankruptcy world over the past few years — businessmen who’ve drained their companies of millions in the name of fancy cars and big homes. But we must admit, we’ve never heard of anyone being accused of using stolen funds to purchase a non-alcoholic Christian nightclub before.

    According to a new lawsuit filed in the case of US Fidelis, a one-time marketer of vehicle-service contracts, that’s exactly what two directors opted to spend the company’s cash on: a Wentzville, Mo., establishment called Club Exodus.

    At first glance, the story detailed in the lawsuit seems familiar. The company is accusing brothers Darain and Cory Atkinson, who served as its president and vice president, of siphoning $101 million from US Fidelis for their own personal gain. But, according to the lawsuit, the Atkinsons upped the stakes, with both the strange (Club Exodus) and the super-sized (Darain Atkinson’s main residence.)

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In China, What Workers Want

A new report from the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin (available for download here) takes an in-depth look at how China’s workers movement developed in 2007 and 2008, years which saw the introduction of new legislation intended to protect workers, including a new labor contract law, and a corresponding increase in employees’ awareness of their rights, along with an economic slowdown that threatens jobs.

Government figures show that the number of labor arbitration cases nearly doubled from 2007 to 2008, from 350,000 to 693,000. A senior official from China’s Supreme People’s Court said 2008 saw a 95% increase in labor disputes in the courts, though detailed figures haven’t been released. Meanwhile, reports of worker unrest, protests and strikes have become a regular feature of the news from China.

And what are workers fighting for? In the recent unrest at a toy factory in southern China, which was apparently the spark for deadly riots 2,800 miles away in Urumqi, a rumor that Uighur workers had raped Han women may have kindled existing tensions among Han workers who felt that they were being pushed out by Uighurs who were willing to work for lower pay.

In its report, China Labour Bulletin analyzed 100 reported incidents of protests by workers that it said represented the broader labor situation, and identified several basic causes noted below:

Rights protection: More than a third of the protests involved a clear violation of the workers’ rights, such as non-payment of wages, social security contributions or severance pay.

Improved conditions: Another third of the protests went beyond basic rights protection and involved demands for better contract terms, including higher pay, shorter hours or more generous benefits. In some cases, workers fought back against changes proposed by employers who didn’t first seek their consent. (Some changes to working conditions require employee consent, though in practice employers sometimes act unilaterally.)

Financial difficulties on the employer’s side: Twelve out of the 100 protests were triggered by sudden factory closures and/or the owners’ disappearance. When this happens, workers often feel they have little recourse but to protest publicly and hope that the attention prompts local authorities to settle the matter. In another 14 cases, workers protested in response to measures taken by the management to save money, such as pay cuts, replacing existing employees with new, less expensive workers, or refusing to pay severance.

And in the vast majority of cases, the protests were peaceful. According to the report, only five of the 100 cases resulted in property damage or physical clashes between workers and managers, and those involved long-simmering resentments among workers.

–Sky Canaves

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  • Poll on Guns: Checks Get Strong Support But …

    Americans strongly support universal background checks on people seeking to purchase guns, even though about half believe it could eventually lead to a federal effort to confiscate those guns, a new poll found.

    The survey by Quinnipiac University found that by a 91%-8% margin, respondents said they favor universal background checks for gun buyers. At the same time, 48% said they believe such checks could  result in the government trying to confiscate those weapons. Among gun owners, 53% said background checks would lead to the government taking their guns away.

    Whether to include a requirement for universal background checks has emerged as a stumbling block as the Senate tries to craft a gun-control bill following the December shooting at an elementary school in  Newtown, Conn. Most Democrats want such a provision while Republicans oppose it…

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Blue Rock Station Diaries

Jay, the writer

Blue Rock Station Diary                                                                March 1, 2012

62 F indoors                 44 F outdoors

The sun is shining again this morning.  What’s the world coming to – it’s Ohio, after all?  Even though it’s a little chilly in the house, that bright light in the window is going to heat the walls of the living room for an afternoon temperature indoors in the ‘70’s.  It must be April.

Last night when I went up to shut up the chickens the bull frogs were singing in the pond that refuses to hold water for more than five minutes.  They sounded so happy.  I could just picture them forming a little circle (this is what they do) and then calling out to each other. After lots of vocalizing one swims towards the center, then the singing stops for a second of two.  Who knows what it all means because the frog then swims back to his place and the singing resumes.

Yesterday (the leap year day) I finally went over to the east field to start cutting down saplings so I can create a willow field.  It was so warm that I had to strip down to my t-shirt and bib overalls.  The wind was fierce but it was a wonderful afternoon of working physically hard, with the dogs and I enjoying the work.  Today I hope to plant all of the curly willows Bill Johnson gave me.  After that there are more pussy willows to plant, and then the paw paws I ordered will arrive.  I think this year will be a record for planting trees – around 200 or more if I don’t wear out before I finish my task.

There’s a lot to think about in spring.  The buildings always look so ratty and in need of little repairs – that’s on the list of first tasks to complete when it dries up a bit.  First I worry if the goats are pregnant – it’s impossible to know until they start showing.  Then I worry that they are pregnant.

Getting the raised beds weeded is next on the list, and where to plant everything.  Jay didn’t want me to raise turkeys this year so now I am thinking about how to keep pigs down in the woods, and the design for all of the fencing that will be built this spring.  Where we will get all of the time to do these things, plus finish the book?

Part of the reason (this is my excuse anyway) that I feel a bit anxious about the long list of things to do is that I believe we have to get them down now.  MY PREDICTION:  the summer is going to be so darn hot we’ll have to get up at dawn to work, and then rest until dusk.  We’ll be like the factory farmers at night mowing hay with their spotlights in the field, trying to work in the dark to escape the heat.

Please don’t think this is about complaining (except in regards to the prediction of excessive summer heat).  As a dedicated goal setter, there could be nothing more encouraging then to create a long list of activities month-by-month.

But at the end of the day, when I look around to see who is going to help complete this ever-growing list I have to be realistic that the main assister is sitting across the room from me, writing his little heart out.  He gets religiously gets up at 5 AM every morning to write about all those thoughts that run through his head.  After WHEN THE BIOMAS HITS THE WIND TURBINE is completed (end of March), there will be the revision for the GREEN TECHNOLOGY book.  And then the GIVIING THANKS FOR NOTHING book to be ready by December.  All of this requires either that he writes and I edit, or I write and he edits.

The solution?  It will all come down to whatever makes the most noise to be completed…the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  The loud voices of producing food (there’s only so many months of warmth), visitors, family obligations, friend time, caring for livestock, repairing buildings, teaching, and writing make for a full life.  It will be rewarding to look back over 2012 to see how it all shook down.

Blue Rock Station Diaries February 28, 2012

Blue Rock Station Diary                                                                February 28, 2012

24 F outdoors              66 F indoors

In the night, as I listened to the noises of the house, I was thinking about how much everything in life is about to change.  And those changes are going to be at every single level in our lives.

 ImageFirst day of school 2010:  Jay, Miss America, Annie

The most fundamental change will be that we aren’t parents of a child anymore.  Our Miss America is going off into the world this year.  On most days I am fine with the concept of her growing up, but on some days I wonder how my role as nobody’s mother will play out in my own grown-up life.

New chicks, new baby goats, and more adventures with the critters that live here with us.  Spring is such a rich time for new life.  There will be goats and roosters that get sent away, and new ones with new names that will add richness to the barnyard.  This is the time of year that makes me the most anxious, and the most deliriously content.

Next will be the changes as the season’s rotate.  The spring will bring a new roof, solar generated electricity, and new interns.  No more leaks in the roof – I can predict that for the future – whoopee!  No more electric grid unless we want to partake.  The new faces we’ll see will bring young energy and passion for the life we lead.  While I can’t know what experiences we’ll share, I know that I am quite hopeful that the summer will be a good one.

We’ll make new friends, and make time for the old ones.  Lots of new visitors will arrive for workshops and tours.  Out of those groups there will be one or two that we will connect with, and find opportunities to share time.  Jay’s birthday and Miss America’s high school graduation (she will have completed her freshman year of college and doesn’t plan on attending the graduation ceremony) will be big events with a grand weekend planned of celebrating life and our journey together with old and dear friends.  I’m thinking about a trip to Blannerhassett Island on the ferry, a grand Victorian picnic, and lots of story telling.

A new house – as the year grows older we’ll be talking a lot more (and dreaming) of the new place we hope to build – a “nest” for ourselves so that the Earthship can become more of an office and guest house.  The idea has been growing for a while, along with the new pond, which has now become a plan to fix the old one.  I’m dreaming of a building the size of our current living room and kitchen with a deck that looks out over the tiny pond, and the forest below it.  This will be a place to sleep, to read, to sip tea, and to contemplate.

There are more books to be written before the year is over.  We’re under contract to re-vamp the green technology book, and WHEN THE BIOMASS HITS THE WIND TURBINE will be out in print soon.  Before December we’ll have the GIVING THANKS FOR NOTHING book written and hot off of the press in time for another January of using no resources.  We hope that lots of folks will sign up to join us in some form or fashion.

Then there is the new routine we’ll begin to establish to visit Miss America wherever she plants herself.  Our four-day getaway in August is still hanging in the balance until we know more about her summer location.

A new president – given the choices, I hope there isn’t a different president.  This one just needs to be able to point more powerful folks in a better direction with a new plan, and a new message.

 ImageThe new raised beds just waiting for the April workshop.

As spring unfolds it is clear that the Happiness Factor is high at Blue Rock Station, and the workload is heavy.  I don’t plan to get ahead of myself though by pushing this day away.  It’s just good to look into the future and see that there is hope and opportunity.

Dear Best Friend;

Blue Rock Station Diary                                                  February 23, 2012

66 F indoors                 41 F outdoors

Dear Kati (my darling Hungarian best friend);

ImageChristmas caroler and Kati in Cambridge OH – Kati has a great sense of humor and a fine intellect, as you can see from this silly photo.

Life is so darn full – getting ready for the goats to have baby kids.  Just returned from speaking at the OEFFA conference.  Cutting willows every day until my arms wear out.  Cooking good food and enjoying myself immensely – Lots of interns applying but right now I’ve only accepted four – all women.  That should be interesting.

Jay and I are going off to Marietta this weekend for a weekend special at The Lafayette Hotel that overlooks the Ohio River.  We decided to have a getaway because we’ve been steadily busy – he gets up at 5 AM to write, and I’ve been working full out with such great weather.  On top of all of that I’m editing the book in the evenings so we’re justifying our time away as a bit of a retreat (marketing strategy for the new book) and then off to a great meal and the comedy show.

After THANKS FOR NOTHING MONTH in January I was officially weaned from the radio, and I’m still not listening to it so Jay occasionally (not to overload me) fills me in on some of the politics – nothing good except that it IS official that Obama is a dictator that promotes anti-Christian sentiment.  I was glad to learn that because now I can at least rest easier to know the Obama will be winning the next election.

The latest thing on Facebook is that the Girl Scouts promote homosexuality.  Honest to heaven, what’s next?  This is why I don’t want to hear the news.  If the world is going to hell in a giant explosion I want to know that I lived this day to the fullest and I couldn’t do that if I thought you, and everyone else I love was going to die today.  So I am doing what I can to make the world a better place without being told the latest bullshit from the mainstream media.

Life’s so full of normal worries these days that I could pinch myself.  During our time in Europe, when we were struggling to hang onto our Miss America, we dreamed of a day when all we had to worry about were things like annual repairs to the buildings, too many intern applicants and her gap year before she returns to college.

ImageTaken at our 30th anniversary, here we are looking good – Kati has a great fashion sense…I admire her greatly for many reasons.

My biggest worries are not our health, or how to pay the bills but if I’ve done everything right so the goats will have an easy kidding, and how many chicks to order, or how to keep the two yellow roosters from mating with the hens I want to collect eggs from for hatching.

It all brings me back to the HAPPINESS FACTOR and how truly wealthy I am.  Yesterday, after trimming the rose bush (I call it Aunt LaVerla – it’s over 200 years old) so I can start some slips from it, I walked down the lane with the dogs chasing each other, and Carolyn Cat running beside me.  It struck me hard that life is good because I can savor those very moments…I’m not seeking anything else but the company of two happy dogs and an adorable cat.  My world is really amazing, and I get to be in it every single day.  I’m going to savor every moment.

I miss you…bisous…. Annie

Hope for the future… February 15, 2012

As I prepare for my appearance at a statewide conference I have taken myself down memory lane by gathering in all of the photos from our time with interns at Blue Rock Station.  Looking at those photos is like an emotional roller coaster – lots of ups, lots of leveling out and only an occasional dip down.  They are an inspiring lot.

With the middle of February glaring back at me I have begun to receive quite a few intern requests.  Most of them are from women, which is not unusual.  All of them are from young folks looking for a chance to learn in a way they have failed to experience in a formal education system.

Our way of teaching is to assume that the learning comes from both sides so we have skill-building afternoons where interns teach all of us things that they know.  We also have cooking class once a week.

We use the Happiness Factor Model that I developed as the structure for our time with interns.  They arrive with high expectations – ours are equally high and remain that way so that we are always reaching forward to find what we need.

The goal is to create a sense of security so they will push themselves to learn new things.  We want them to feel safe to make mistakes and to be creative.  There is a sense of community and family because we cook and eat together, plus share the workload on projects.  Everything is up front with lots of talking through ideas, creating time lines, and evaluating progress – both physically and psychologically.  All of this creates friendships – often lasting beyond their experience here, and a sense of wholeness and health.  No wonder it is a challenge for all of us when it is time for them to go back out into the world.

And what do we get in return…inspiration from their ideas, their energy, their questioning, their knowledge, their nurturing…and so much more.  Truly I believe we would not still have the energy to do what we do without the interns that have walked through the gate to give us a small part of their lives.

Here’s the story in photos:

ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageEach of these amazing folks in the photos, and many more have left their mark on us and Blue Rock Station.  If you know someone who would like an opportunity to experience sustainable living with us please pass this along, and don’t forget to press the “like” button.

THANKS FOR NOTHING MONTH                                  January 26, 2012            7:20 AM

65 F indoors                 37 F outdoors

Rain, rain, rain

Meaningful work…Annie mucking out stalls and Jay, the breakfast chef 2012

January has been a time of reminding me that life cannot feel secure unless those around us are safe as well.  Safety comes in many forms – healthy food, affordable health care, adequate energy for heating, a safe place to live, and meaningful work at a living wage.  I would also add good friends and strong relationships with others.

A huge part of being happy in life is rooted in our personal values and a sense of security.  And values and a sense of security are rooted in feeling free to make decisions.  It seems like we use the excuse that we don’t have time to do anything else, when it really amounts to the fact that we don’t know “how” to make more meaningful decisions about how we use our time.

Turning off the TV or the computer at a regular time and giving the gift of time for reading, playing games, or just sitting around the table talking is a big step towards a higher HAPPINESS FACTOR.  This is such a simple thing to do; yet we hesitate because technology is an easy way to spend our energy.  Creating a quieter environment actually takes less energy, and, as we’ve found this month, gives back energy.

Another idea is to step out into society to volunteer, or just fill in when needed.  It often feels like we have so little control over what happens in our world, but volunteering to help others (and not just at Christmas) is a terrific way to replace consuming habits, and fill up that space with a sense of being worthwhile…an exchange of something besides money for making the community around us safer in every way.

My freedom to choose is so much more then just a bumper sticker.  This month has made it clear to me that I can choose to step away from the world for a period of time so that I can decide what is important to me at a deeper level, or I can learn new skills or even new things about myself.  I am more determined then ever to fight for my right to have this kind of freedom from technology, from consuming, from commercialism or the opinions of others.

This month, as I’ve thought more about what it takes to be content, I can see that a big part of my HAPPINESS FACTOR came from working for the rights of other abused women, and by going to places I’d been told to never go, or that I’d never be welcomed into.  Prisons, halls of great power in far off places, on trains across foreign unfriendly lands, and finally building a house out of trash.

My journey from those experiences, and now from taking time this month to be on vacation from the world, only led me back to the place my grandparents had shown me – a simple life.  At this point there is just no going back to the old me, or the one that my culture demanded.  Even though I know this, I need to be reminded that there are ways to live my life without consuming, without shopping, without wasting things and taking away from the future.  After all I am an American, filled with her ideals and dictates.

Please don’t think I have all of the answers.  I’m trying to find my way, the same as lots of folks.  But I do want to find and hang on to the energy that is at the heart of feeling secure, and free to be a happy human being.  The ultimate foundation for living a life rooted in THE HAPPINESS FACTOR.

Jay Warmke, Chris Lofromento, Deb LoFromento, Annie Warmke, Chris Luers, Karrissa Hahn enjoying a Chinese New Year feast 2012

THANKS FOR NOTHING MONTH                      January 22, 2012                      7:30 AM

27F outdoors                           65F indoors

If food is the heart of sustainable living, then friendship is the soul…

The table was all dressed up in red for the Chinese New Year luncheon.

Our small gathering of friends braved the icy road to bring fruit and avocados (for later), a chicken dish, a noodle dish (for a long life), freshly made bread, and lots of good moods.  Jay and I had prepared shrimp spring rolls, and a rice dish.  The teapot was steeping with a Jasmine blooming tea flower.

There were decorations of Yen (Chinese play money), tissues (in Chinese packaging), paper cuts (beautiful little designs delicately cut out by hand), chopsticks (cheaters for Chris Luers, who is a novice at eating this way), and a big red sash in gold letters that ran down the red and gold table covering.  I have no idea what the letters say, but since my friend, Ginger Swank sent it to me last year from China, I’m pretending that it wishes us all a happy and prosperous year to come.

Carolyn joining in as part of the Chinese New Year decorations

The conversation was wild and intelligent.  After about two hours we might have solved many of the world’s problems, but it didn’t matter because we were laughing and agreeing with each other at almost every idea.

After we finished our broth (the official signal of the end of the food) Jay read us our Chinese horoscopes.  Karissa Hahn and I are rabbits.  There is nothing in the definition of a “rabbit” that fits either of us, which only added to the delight of the horoscopes.  When Jay said we are submissive we couldn’t stop laughing and protesting at the same time.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Chris Luers and Deb Lofromento think there might be some truth in their horoscopes.  But Chris Lofromento was full of jokes about his reading.  Strangely Jay’s was relatively accurate so we were all sure he wrote his own just to be “smart”.  He vehemently denied any responsibility.

By the end of our time together the dogs were jumping at me to get my Carharts on so the evening chores could commence.  They can tell time, even when they can’t see the clock.

After everyone left and I was alone with the critters doing my routine at the barn I was thinking about the energy of friendship.  Friends, at least in Jay’s and my life, are people who have taught us things.  They bring hugs, and love, and their opinions to share.  They create souvenirs – memories, and these souvenirs sustain us when they are not around, or in times of trouble or need.

My best friend since my childhood is still connected to my life.  We’ve taken to having a bit of a holiday together annually.  To have time with her goodness is like a drink of fresh cool water.  Our history carries us through things – when I’m at my saddest and have no words, she is at the other end of the phone telling me the truth, or giving me nourishment.  How could I live my life without her – just knowing she is my friend gives me energy.

And at last, there are friends here in this place we love so much.  They are like a cool breeze that floats into the room and leaves nothing untouched.  Their friendship lends courage and goodness to my life.  We hold birthday swaps (one this Saturday), and share food, politics, and life.

Beyond them there are friends around the US that have been in our lives for a long time.  They have been through good times and hard times with us.  They show up in times of trouble or to celebrate life with us, and we miss them every day.

And beyond them are our friends in far off places.  We stay in touch, and sometimes we even get to work on projects together, or actually see each other face-to-face.

A while ago I read that people who have long-term friendships live happier, longer lives.  If that is true, then my wish to live to be at least, I repeat, at least, 94 years old will come true.

In spite of being opinionated, loud, passionate, and not normally knowing my place in this world (not like a rabbit at all), I’ve managed to achieve one of the big goals of my life – friends.  For sure I am going to live a long healthy life even though I did not eat any of those delicious-looking Chinese noodles.

Cinnamon Raisin Toast

Scrambled Eggs

Potato Cakes

Shrimp and Rice leftovers

It was love at…

Image It was love at first sight over 30 years ago  Photo by Keith Bowers

THANKS FOR NOTHING MONTH                                  January 21, 2012            7:00 AM

65 F indoors (burr)   21 F outdoors

Ice, ice, ice

Yesterday the ZANESVILLE TIMES RECORDER sent out a reporter, Holly Richards, and a photographer, Trevor Jones to talk about our THANKS FOR NOTHING month.  Their visit was a time of re-hashing what I’ve been mulling around in my head these past few days.

I keep getting asked what this month really means to me, and how much money has been saved?  Right now I’m working through, as much as possible with one third of the month to go, what I think.  As for saving money, that’s never been my focus.

At this point I have finally accepted that I have not found any type of reward in making money – in fact I have said from the beginning of my adult years that I do what I do because it is valuable to me, and I would do these things if there was no money for me.

In fact some of my work has been unpaid because I did not want to be manipulated by people with money – I wanted the freedom to make the right decisions without finances being held over my head.  Fortunately I had the luxury of Jay being my benefactor during those times so that I had the freedom to do what was needed.  Not having debt gave us that autonomy.

But today I realize that all of the things I’ve cared about – social justice, relationship-building, creating community, re-using things, raising/rescuing animals, raising/rescuing children, saving things for tomorrow’s re-use and so much more – are what has made my life such a challenge, and such a joy.

Nans Thomassey (my French counter part in this month’s experiment) is right when he says that the focus on cash and money makes a barrier between people.  I am grateful to him for saying it again and again until I could make that concept make sense to me.

ImageNans Thomassey (holding the mug) & Guillaume CHARROIN making crepes at Blue Rock Station

When Jay and I met with the reporter I wanted to be able to talk about all of the things I’ve been thinking about, but in a way that she could “hear” me.  I told Jay that I don’t want to sound like I’m fucking crazy.  He said, “Well, then don’t talk.”

After some thought I decided that I would talk about taking a vacation from spending any kind of energy related to money or electricity or petrol.  Most folks take a vacation from their work.  I don’t need a vacation – I love my life.  But my soul has always needed vacations from the world of finance, and this month has been just such a vacation.

During this month’s financial vacation I realize that whatever I do from this point on has to be more rooted in trading things, inviting people to share, and pushing myself to learn more about how to have a simpler life.  The models of simplicity I need do not surround me in this culture.  I’ve also decided that I want to take a trip to work on a project somewhere – some place where people struggle with the daily issues of having enough water and food.

Most of the important lessons I’ve learned in my adulthood have been from making myself really uncomfortable –spending time organizing women in prison, hanging out with Muslim women, writing tracts for prostitutes, living with immigrant women, and visiting people who live in poverty in other countries (where I did not speak the language).  Every one of those experiences re-wrote something inside of me.

What is the next step?  I’m not really sure yet, but for now I’m thinking of today’s gathering of friends.  Each of them has had a part in some way in our THANKS FOR NOTHING month.  They’ve lent support, brought food, offered levity.  I’m going to savor our moments together as we celebrate the Chinese New Year.

A variety of Chinese food surrounded by decorations that were sent to us by our wonderful friend Ginger Swank when she taught in China


text:
Thursday, July 31, 2014

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Lori Otto, Author of Lost & Found

So, today on But What Are They Eating? we are going to change things up a bit:
But What Aren’t They Eating?
In my Emi Lost & Found series, there is one thing that the heroine Emi absolutely will not eat: chocolate.
You’re probably thinking, “Is she really a woman?  Is she even human?” The answer is yes to both questions.
In the three main novels, it’s mentioned on a few occasions that she doesn’t like or want chocolate.  It’s offered a couple times, but the reader never really knows the reason behind her distaste.
On a side note, here’s a little tidbit about my series.  The three novels that make up the bulk of this contemporary (yet atypical) romance series – Lost and Found, Time Stands Still, and Never Look Back – were released in the spring of 2011.  After readers finished them, one of the most common questions I got from people was about the chocolate.
A little over a year later, I got this crazy idea to write a prequel and release it in chapters on my website.  In Not Today, But Someday, everyone finally discovered Emi’s reason for avoiding the delectable treat.
First of all, it’s not an allergy.  When Emi was younger, on what she thought was her first date, she indulged in Raisinettes after the boy who took her to the movies dropped her off at the theater with his step-sister and continued on–by himself–to an arcade.
Later in the book, sixteen-year-old Emi has run away from her mother’s apartment, and has begged her new friend, Nate, to let her stay at his house for the night.  Confronted by his mom, Emi opens up about her own:
“She’s leaving my dad,” Emi says.  “I honestly don’t know how to deal with this.”  She takes a bite of the apple and chews it slowly, tracing the marble pattern of the countertop.
“I’m sure it’s not easy, Emily.”  Mom leans on her elbows on the island, attentive to Emi.  “Sometimes it helps to talk about it.”
I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.  “Mom–”
“He cheated on her.  I caught him,” Emi continues.  I look at her, biting my lip, allowing her to speak.  “He took his mistress to this restaurant.  I was there with some friends, and this woman’s laughter rose above the noise of the entire place,” she says evenly.  I can tell that emotions lie just beneath the surface, but I admire her strength as she continues.  “I watched her for a few minutes, thinking it was sweet how her date was feeding her fruit dipped in chocolate.  They had a fondue pot between them.  He held a cherry up by its stem, covered with chocolate, and fed it to her.  The chocolate dripped down her chin, and he stopped her from wiping it off with her napkin.  I was entranced.  It seemed so intimate.  I was imagining that being me someday.  I even nudged my friends and got their attention, showing them what I was watching.  And then her date leaned in and licked the chocolate from her face, eventually meeting her lips with his.  He kissed her for a long time, and one of my friends said, ‘That looks like your dad.’”
Mom has a distinct frown on her face, and she puts her hand on Emi’s arm.  Chocolate.
It’s all in her head, essentially.  No amount of craving for something she once liked will make her set aside the association of chocolate with her father’s infidelity.
Well, there are two cravings in my series that do, but… well, you should read the books to find out what they are!
The prequel, Not Today, But Someday, is no longer on my website, but it is offered for free for your Kindle, Nook or iPad.  It is also part of the four-book Complete Emi Lost & Found series!  And if you read these and like them, there is a spin-off series available, as well.

Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Lori!

You can contact Lori here:

And find her books here:                                         iTunes                                         Barnes & Noble

Friday, July 25, 2014

FOODFIC: Frozen - Melissa de la Cruz & Michael Johnston

The dystopia created by Cruz and Johnston is pretty much what the title implies – a bleak world of cold and ice, insufferable to all but the heat-elite of the RSA (Remaining States of America). You could even say the second social tier is comprised of hooved quadrupeds – the few remaining cattle who are nurtured in expensive temperature-controlled stables. The cows probably [live] better lives than most people, in fact.

Since clearly very few people are eating beef, the only meat available to the common folk consists of whale, walrus, or reindeer. Those who can’t stomach that are left with processed junk like pizza squeezers and Thanksgiving in a can. Like I said, bleak. And perhaps blech as well. ;) Either or both ways, the availability of food provides a great platform for revealing the inner-workings of the characters.

You see, we first meet Ryan Wesson as he is turning down a steak dinner. Or, more precisely, turning down a job offer he can’t stomach. He actually lets the food be sent back to the kitchen, knowing he’s in turn sending himself and his crew back to the food lines. But even in desperate times, he has an ethical fiber that he can’t shed, despite knowing he’d be warmer (and fuller) without it. Yes, he’s in the mercenary business, but his ex-military moral compass forces him to use his skills for protection and rescue. No, a contract to murder for hire is too much.

Now, in drastic contrast to Wes is the proposer of the next job he DOES accept – a girl who needs help getting out of the country ASAP... and who Wes instantly pegs as a liar and a thief.

Still, he agrees to take her to the “Blue” – a perhaps mythical realm where the sun still shines and the water still flows clear and blue, as does the sky – partially because he needs the money and the work doesn’t harm anyone, but equally because he finds Nat so intriguing.

And when Nat finds out mid-venture that Wes first needs her help to get his ship back – as in, he has a ship, he just doesn’t have it right now – she in turn finds herself falling for this Jack Sparrowish-rogue.

Will they make it to the Blue – if it even exists? And what will they eat when the get there? Good thing it looks like there’ll be another installment to this saga, as my hunger for answers was only partly satisfied. ;)

Thursday, July 17, 2014

FOODFIC: Welcome Serina Hartwell, Author of Hidden

I first dreamt up the Hidden Saga many years ago, while at the bottom of my garden. It was a hot sunny day in the middle of August and I had a thirst that I just couldn’t quench. As I reminisce, I recall heading down with a glass of fresh orange and sitting for the longest time, just thinking, watching the water condensate around my glass and run down onto the table. Water – That was the only thing that I was sure of when I first made the decision that I really had something worth pursuing in Hidden. I had no idea where my story would take me, but it led me along a path that I’m still walking along and the elements became a focal point in Bronte and Bayer’s world.

When any writer decides to write, they have to start somewhere and that can be both scary and exhilarating all at the same time. With the first stroke of the keys, a new writer might have an idea of what they are going to put in their story, but it is very rare that a writer will wake up with a full book in their head, ready to go for their first attempt. When I started the only thing I knew was that I wanted to write a about a family with small children, who were inseparable and would grow up together, so I created Bronte and then Riley, who are best friends in Hidden.

Deciding to create a saga meant that I had to find ways to grow friendships, resolve woes and conflicts, while indicating that my characters had solid family backgrounds. One device I chose was to use food as the means of conveying this to my readers. Without considering its true attributes, food is often used as a means of building bridges, impressing those around us, or that special person in your life. It brings families and friends together, it builds friendships and representatives one’s status. Food is used in all manner of ways in daily life that we take for granted and I wanted to capitalize on that aspect in Hidden.

There aren’t many scenes in Hidden where I use food, but all the scenes I use it in are important, often spelling key moments or significant points in the storyline. I use freshly baked soft muffins and hot chocolate with marshmallows, when Riley goes to visit Bronte in hospital after her accident. I used the food to convey to my audience, not only that they are young, but that there needed to be an application of comfort applied to the visit. This is the sort of thing that we all like, but as teenagers, we tend to see them as too childish to order, and shy away from them. However a caring grandmother would make them to aid a granddaughter’s recovery and help sooth pain. Comfort food screams volumes to my audience that my characters are in need of some TLC. I also have Riley order a hot chocolate when he visits the café with his mother and receives bad news about Bronte. The comfort of the hot chocolate with its decadent luxury is there to soften the blow.

I use this device again later on, when Bronte leaves the hospital and is visited by her friends. Mrs Salvador bakes a cake with Bronte before her friends come round, this is to show how close she is to her grandmother. A shared activity of this nature immediately conjures up a whole host of imagery. My audience can draw upon this to gain an appreciation of the bond between Mrs Salvador and her granddaughter, therefore picking up the caring aspects conveyed by the scene, without me having to go into any detail.

When Bronte returns home from hospital, I throw a family get together with a huge welcome home meal. The size of the meal is there to represent the depth of feeling that her family has for her. Their measure of guilt thrown in there, is to compensate for the fact that they almost lost her in her accident and is characterised by the food put on the table to spoil her. I drew from my own childhood with this. I recall going to visit my grandmother, who lived in the next town. We didn’t drive, so immediately a visit to her house became an event with a degree of formality. I used to love the bus ride there and the fact that she always made a huge Sunday roast dinner with all the trimmings. That was back in the days when I used to eat meat and her roast beef and Yorkshire puddings were to die for, even if I did push the meat around my plate.

My grandmother always made Yorkshire puddings a little different to everyone else I know. They are usually huge crown shaped batters that almost climb out of the tin, but she made them so that they were flat, filling the tin that they were poured into. They still clambered out of the tin, but the walls made it the container needed for the meal. They were the size of dinner plates.

A Yorkshire pudding isn’t sweet despite what its name implies, unless it is made that way. It was meant to be a savoury batter that families used to make the food on the table at meal time go further. They were traditionally made for lower class families, whose incomes didn’t stretch very far, but once tasted, it doesn’t matter what your background, you’ll always want them on your table.

My grandmother used to take pride in telling me about how my dad and my uncles would have one each and how it had become a family tradition. Putting them on the plates, she would fill them with the rest of the dinner then pour gravy over everything. The trick was to eat them without the gravy pouring off your plate, not an easy task when you’re young. I could never get through a whole one back then and brought this memory with me to draw upon when writing Hidden – Book 1 of the Hidden Saga.

Ps. did you know that Trapped - Book 2, is coming soon?

Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Serina!

You can find Serina here:

Friday, July 11, 2014

FOODFIC: Dorothy Must Die - Danielle Paige

Her name may still be Dorothy Gayle, but she is nothing like the girl you remember from that first journey to Oz.

She’s still wearing her trademark blue-and-white checks, but she’s traded in the farm-girl cotton for silk and chiffon in a style somewhere between haute couture and French hooker. Mm-hmm.

Oh, and she’s wicked now, too. Not in title, of course, as the official wicked witch collective is still around, but as defined by her nasty behavior. And speaking of titles, she’s given herself a bold one: Princess Dorothy of Oz, second only to Ozma, who for all intents and purposes is only (thanks again to Dorothy and her usurping of all magic in the realm) a shell of a person. Really this means Dorothy is now running the show, along with her trusty companions who have also all changed equally for the worse.

The Tin Woodsman now commands the army – human soldiers who’ve been mechanically and creepily modified much like himself – and doles out punishments like flesh-melting bubbles. The Lion rules the forest and also has a paw in penalizing those who’ve “wronged” Dorothy; when a guard merely looks at the princess, the “criminal” is charged with a wandering eye, which the Lion quickly flicks out with one crooked claw and swallows whole. And the Scarecrow’s the worst of all with his Moreau-like experiments on the citizens of Oz, as well as his draining of others’ brain fluid to inject into his own newly acquired organ.

See? Oz is almost unrecognizable.

But this is where the heroine – Amy from Kansas – comes in. Coincidentally (or not) a tornado also delivers her to Oz, where she can perhaps undo the damage wreaked by her fellow Midwestern predecessor. Before she can even acclimate to her new surroundings, she’s tasked to REMOVE the Tin Woodsman’s heart, STEAL the Scarecrow’s brain, TAKE the Lion’s courage, and finally KILL Dorothy herself. A tall order for a girl who was just yesterday struggling to survive high school!

To accomplish this mission, Amy is magically transformed by the wicked witches into Astrid the maid so that she may infiltrate the palace. Like the other servants, she is treated like a slave – working to the point of exhaustion and “lucky” to get a 15-minute break to snack on stale muffin bottoms, which are actually a rare treat for workers.

So, even though Amy initially had trouble reconciling the horror stories she was hearing with the storybook heroine she knew, and she had NO intention of ever murdering anyone, it’s not long before she recognizes that Dorothy has become a magic- (and muffin top-) hoarding fascist. And when some of Amy’s new Ozian friends fall victim to the ruby-shod tyrant, Amy’s unwanted assignment turns into a vendetta of her own.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Gilda Evans, Author of Girl Talk

Most of my audience knows me as an author and speaker, but few are familiar with my poetry.
My poetry is as diverse as my other writings – the meter, subject matter and innate rhythms vary greatly. The one I’ve chosen to share now is one of my earlier poems. It is freeform with a distinctly feminine subject.  It was inspired on a rather lonely, rainy day several years ago while I was contemplating the view from my window. I felt a most interesting swirl of emotions, that encompassed isolation, peace, sadness, hope and wonder all rolled into a kaleidoscope of feeling that came out on paper in the form you are about to read.

In particular, for the purpose of Shelley's blog I'd like to say that certain foods will inspire me to write. Which ones often depends on the mood of the day.  In this particular case, it was a hot cup of coffee with my favorite creamer, coupled with a fresh, warm buttermilk biscuit and jam.  Feeding my body certain things that make me smile helps me write with passion and from the heart.  And through my writing I feed my soul as well.  Perhaps that's this writer's personal meaning of "soul food"!

I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to receiving any comments you'd like to share. My sincere thanks to Shelley Workinger for allowing me the privilege being a guest on her blog!

The sound of the rain pounds against the beating
of my heavy heart.
Would that it could be lightened…
By a soft, sweet voice,
a tender word,
a hand extended.
I watch the water meet the earth under a gloomy sky.
It matches the mood.
A tear rolls down my cheek
as I look up and notice the droplets
clinging to the needles of the pine,
and perched high in the branches of the weeping willow,
glistening like diamonds for the taking.
As if in answer to my plea, the wind gently moves the boughs
as a hoot owl sounds its acknowledgment.
One by one, the droplets fall
offering to me something precious,
something right there within my grasp
if I will only reach for it.
I am uplifted.
Nature beckons, and I feel the Mother’s hand
caress my chin.
“Do not be sad, daughter,” she says.
“I am here. I will guide you.
My jewels will adorn you. And
our hearts will be forever as one.
Rejoice. For when you are with me,
all is possible.”

Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Gilda!

GILDA EVANS started her first business while in college at the age of 20, which she sold at a profit when she was 24.  Winning her first poetry contest at the tender age of 9 and her first essay contest at 10, writing and speaking have always been natural forms of expression for her.

Her first business was followed by two years of teaching lighting design at the prestigious Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles.  The long and winding road then led Gilda to begin her stint as a television writer/producer/director, working for such venues as CBS, HBO, Showtime and Warner Brothers.  It was during this time that she also met and married her children’s father.  Twelve plus years and three Emmy and Ace award nominations later, Gilda left the TV industry to devote herself to her family.

Unfortunately, the happily ever after was not to be back then, and after a fourteen year marriage she found herself going through a divorce.  It was at that point she decided to reinvent herself and her career.  Her myriad of experiences comes to the forefront in GIRL TALK…a book series twenty years in the making whose time has finally come.  As Gilda likes to say, “I have a PhD in relationships from the school of life!” She is also working on a YA novel series, THE ALTERNATES.

Connect with Gilda here: Pinterest


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How Life Begins: The Science of Life in the Womb

Front Cover
Times Books, 1996 - Science - 290 pages
0 Reviews
In How Life Begins, science journalist Chris Vaughan provides you with a fascinating glimpse of fetal development through the advancement of medical technology and interviews with leading researchers. He goes beyond the usual information in books for expectant parents. For those of you who want to know more than how fast the fetus is growing, when it will start to move, and how much more weight Mommy is going to gain, here is a month-by-month guide to what your new baby is seeing, hearing, dreaming about, and how it's accomplishing the miracle of preparing to be human. As Chris Vaughan says in his prologue, "Life in the womb is a journey that we have all taken but forgotten, a period that links our present to the whole history of life on earth, a time that shapes our lives and perceptions into adulthood". What this book is about, and what scientists are discovering, was penned in a prescient phrase by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "The history of man for the nine months preceding his birth would probably be far more interesting, and contain events of greater moment, than all the three score and ten years that follow it". How Life Begins focuses on the experience of the embryo and fetus, and provides an entertaining and informative guide to the long and fascinating journey from single cell to plump and bright-eyed baby.

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HOW LIFE BEGINS: The Science of Life in the Womb

User Review  - Jane Doe - Kirkus

A ``little peep at the hidden world of life in the womb'' is how its author modestly describes this delightful, informative work. For Vaughan, formerly a writer at the National Institutes of Health ... Read full review

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Russian Funding of American Environmental Groups Alleged

Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and Randy Weber (R-Texas), chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, have sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin requesting an investigation into what appears to be a concerted effort by Russia to funnel millions of dollars through various nonprofit groups to influence the U.S. energy market. Specifically, the congressmen point to evidence Russia is funding anti-fossil fuel and anti-hydraulic fracturing groups in order to bolster its own energy sector dominance.
Russia Map

“This scheme allows money originating from foreign countries like Russia to funnel through Bermuda-based shell companies to environmental groups in the United States with the aim of disrupting the U.S. energy industry,” the letter alleges.

Further, “entities connected to the Russian government are using a shell company registered in Bermuda, Klein Ltd., to funnel tens of millions of dollars to a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) private foundation, the Sea Change Foundation. This money appears to move in the form of anonymous donations.”

The letter asserts Sea Change passes money in the form of grants to organizations such as the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, and others. The purpose of the circuitous exchange of foreign funds is to shield the source of the money. “It is easy to see the benefit to Russia and Gazprom that would result from a reduction in the U.S. level of drilling and fracking—a position advocated by numerous environmental groups in the U.S. Gazprom and the Russian government have infiltrated U.S. organizations at home and attempted to sway public opinion and thereby government opinion,” the letter alleges.

Outlined is that San Francisco-based Sea Change’s IRS Form 990 shows Klein contributed $23 million in 2010 and 2011, an amount representing 49% of total contributions it received in that period. “Klein’s contributions to Sea Change are not by chance. Sea Change’s founder and president, Nat Simons, is appropriately positioned to give the Russian funds to environmental groups that push back on U.S. domestic fracking and gas advancements. Nat Simons has said the mission of Sea Change is to facilitate the transfer of money and advance a shift away from carbon-based energy,” the letter maintains.

It adds that the strategy of Sea Change is to apply domestic political pressure using its deep pockets—with most of its funding coming from Russia. Sea Change pro- vides funding grants to well-known environmental activist groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. and many similar organizations. From 2010 to 2011, Sea Change contributed more than $20 million “in an attempt to suppress the U.S. domestic oil and gas industry using funding from a foreign entity that intentionally conceals its funding sources.”

(Published in the Weekly Propane Newsetter, August 28. 2017. For pricing updates, news and analysis not found elsewhere subscribe at


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I Had A Base in Africa: Nick Turse on the U.S. Military and AFRICOM

W.J. Astore

In the movie Out of Africa, Meryl Streep (playing Karen Blixen, who used the pen name of Isak Dinesen) wistfully intones, “I had a farm in Africa.” It’s a considerable understatement given her character’s ambition and energy and drive.  Rather than out of Africa, the U.S. military’s new motto is Into Africa, and like those cocky European colonialists of old, the military has plenty of ambition and energy and drive.  So notes Nick Turse in his latest book, “Tomorrow’s Battlefield: US Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa.”  Turse, the prize-winning author of “Kill Anything that Moves,” a searing examination of America’s war against Vietnam, turns his sharp eye to yet another misguided U.S. military adventure, this time within and across the continent of Africa.  What he finds is disturbing.

The U.S. Army likes to talk about BLUF, or giving the bottom line up front, and Turse has a doozy on America’s militarized designs on Africa:

Over the course of the Obama presidency, American efforts on the [African] continent have become ever more militarized in terms of troops and bases, missions and money.  And yet from Libya to the Gulf of Guinea, Mali to this camp in South Sudan, the results have been dismal.  Countless military exercises, counterterrorism operations, humanitarian projects, and training missions, backed by billions of dollars of taxpayer money, have all evaporated in the face of coups, civil wars, human rights abuses, terror attacks, and poorly coordinated aid efforts.  The human toll is incalculable.  And there appears to be no end in sight.” (184)

A grim BLUF indeed.  Perhaps that explains why the U.S. military is so reluctant to give Turse any information, even seemingly innocuous data such as the number of bases the U.S. has in Africa.  Turse, who happily has a sense of humor, recounts tedious and frustrating battles with military public affairs officers as the latter employ various delaying tactics to stymie him.  Indeed, if the U.S. military was as effective at winning wars as it is at fighting reporters, we might truly have a military that’s second to none.  Turse perseveres through all this, relying on public sources, freedom of information requests, interviews, and other creative means to tease out the numerous ways AFRICOM is seeking to penetrate the continent.

(As an aside, it’s worth noting that reporters who pay fawning tribute to U.S. efforts in Africa are happily accommodated by military public affairs.  Turse, an old-school investigative reporter who’s not into fawning, gets stonewalled, his reward for having integrity.)

Though AFRICOM is eager to deny or minimize its “footprint” in Africa to Turse, the story is different when the military talks among themselves.  Turse begins by cleverly recounting a military change of command ceremony he attended in Germany in 2013.  At that ceremony, speaking freely to one another, U.S. military commanders were not reticent at all.  One military commander obsequiously praised his boss in these words: “General Linder has been saying, ‘Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, today.’ And, sir, I couldn’t agree more.  This new battlefield is custom made for SOC [the Special Operations community], and we’ll thrive in it.  It’s exactly where we need to be today and I expect we’ll be for some time in the future.” (3)

Sir, I couldn’t agree more that Africa is already becoming a battlefield for U.S. special ops, now and in the future.  And it’s “custom made” for us — we’re going to thrive there!  Mark those words, America.  We’ve heard their like before in the jungles of Vietnam in the early 1960s, when America’s fledgling special ops community boasted then that Vietnam was tailor made for the counterinsurgency skills of U.S. elite warriors.  We were going to thrive there too.  And look where that got us!

Turse’s knowledge of Vietnam makes him sensitive to the perils of mission creep in Africa, the problems of winning hearts and minds in cultures poorly understand by American troops, the dilemma of overthrowing less-than-tractable leaders (long ago, Diem in South Vietnam; more recently, Gaddafi in Libya) and the chaos that often results when the “bad man” is gone, the proliferation of U.S. weaponry that often accelerates regional violence, and so on.  Rather than give an honest accounting of these difficulties, the U.S. military often prefers simply to declare victory, or at least to take credit for success, however partial or fleeting.  Indeed, as Turse tartly observes, when it comes to Africa and America’s military missions there, “it’s so much easier to claim success than to achieve it.” (168)

For anyone interested in the U.S. military and especially AFRICOM, Turse’s honest, no-BS account makes for cautionary reading.  It should be required reading for all U.S. military personnel assigned to Africa, who deserve to read honest criticism while being exposed to critical thinking.  It’s a helluva lot better than hearing “I couldn’t agree more, sir.”  And perhaps it’ll save the U.S. military from having to intone, tragically this time, “I had a base in Africa.”

2 thoughts on “I Had A Base in Africa: Nick Turse on the U.S. Military and AFRICOM

  1. There are a number of things I have scant aptitude for. I have learned this the hard way — if there are 24 wrong ways to do some things, I get them right no sooner than my twenty-fifth try. The number is higher if I forget what I tried on some of the attempts that failed. The USA is well into its seventh decade of nearly universal foreign policy failure. I am unsure of the total number of futile attempts scattered across the globe in this process. I harbor little hope of relief as a result of reality intruding into the policy design sphere any time soon. I suspect if my country gets something right in the near future it will most likely be more a result of serendipitous shithouse luck than as the result of a sensible and well-executed plan.

  2. In the absence of the “menace” of “The International Communist Conspiracy,” how can the US administration(s) today justify this activity? It is simply a blatant attempt to maintain and enlarge economic spheres of influence; if penetration by capital of multi-national corporations fails to get the job done, send the Marines! During the anti-colonial struggles in Africa that started late 1950s/early ’60s China made itself a friend to the liberation movements. Looks like the US is a tad late in trying to offset that influence. With capitalism bogged down in the developed world–the US is not that much less morbid than Europe, despite all the forced happy talk about state of the economy here–Africa is now seen as The Final Frontier for exploitation. O’ lucky, lucky “benighted” peoples!

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Explore BrainMass

Questions with Cost Budgeting

Assignment #2

Emma Harrison is the Director of Student Advising for Kingston State University. She has 20 Student Advisors working for her who handle approximately 4,000 student complaints and problems per month. Each Student Advisor earns a monthly salary of $2,000, including benefits. The number of student issues varies each month, and in the past year has been as low as 2,750 per month and as high as 4,200 per month. Emma has been complaining that 20 Advisors is not enough to handle the level of student issues and that the problem will get worse as enrollment is expected to increase. In a recent study conducted by Emma, she found that it takes a well-trained Student Advisor approximately one hour to handle a student issue. This time varies, of course, depending upon the severity of the student issue. While Kingston State University realizes that 20 Student Advisors is not enough when student issues number 4,200 per month; however, during months when student issues total only 2,750, 20 Student Advisors can adequately handle the student issues. The Administration, therefore, concludes that 20 Student Advisors is adequate for the current enrollment and will not agree to hire additional Student Advisors until enrollment numbers increase by at least 10%. Assume that each Student Advisor works an 8-hour day that includes two 15-minute breaks. Further, assume that each month has 22 working days. In the most recent month, June, the Student Advisors handled 3,950 student issues.

Emma has asked you to review this situation to help her make the case to hire additional Student Advisors.

In a memo to Emma, discuss the following (1-2 pages plus references):
1. The type of SBU Kingston State University appears to consider the Student Advising department.
2. If Kingston State University uses the discretionary-cost method to implement cost SBU's, what is the budgeted cost for Student Advising for June?
3. If Kingston State University uses the engineered-cost method to implement cost SBU's, what is the budgeted cost for Student Advising for June?
4. Provide an argument for Emma to hire additional Student Advisors.

Solution Preview

Dear Student,

Thank you for using BM.
Below are my answers.

Anna Liza Gaspar

DATE: [Date]
TO: Emma Harrison
Student Advising Department
Kingston State University
FROM: [Name]
SUBJECT: Cost Management of Kingston State University's Student Advising Department

It appears that the Kingston State University views the Student Advising Department as a purely cost responsibility center in terms of the different classifications of strategic business units. Therefore, the Student Advising Department needs to quantify the benefits it provides to the University. Several ways to do this are:
1. Calculate the cost of outsourcing the Student Advising Department to the cost of operating it in ...

Solution Summary

This solution answers questions about cost budgeting


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Explore BrainMass

Management Accounting (Winter Games Case Study)

Winter Games manufactures a competitive line of skis and sells its skis to retailers at a price of $225 per pair. Based on an annual volume of 5,000 pairs, the cost per pair is $185:

Direct labor ($75 per pair) $375,000
Direct material ($60 per pair $300,000
Fixed* $100,000
Variable ($0.40 per direct labor dollar $150,000 $250,000

Total costs $925,000
Annual Volume (pairs) / 5,000

Cost per pair $ 185

*composed of depreciation, property taxes, charitable contributions, insurance, and so on.

Sports Palace, a discount sporting goods store, currently purchases 500 pairs of skis from Winter Games. Sports Palace has asked to purchase 1,000 pairs of skis under a private brand label, at a price of $200 per pair. The skis would be identical to those normally sold for $225.

Winter Games believes that if it accepts the order, Sports Palace will cancel its usual order to 500 pairs. These sales cannot be recouped elsewhere. If this special order is accepted, the direct labor hours for the additional 500 skis would have to be compensated at overtime rates (at 1.5 times the base rate). Analysis shows that variable overhead varies with total direct labor dollars at the rate of $0.40 per direct labor dollar.

Should Winter Games accept the special order from Sports Palace?

Solution Preview

** Please see the attached file for the complete solution response **

per unit total
Direct labor ($75 per pair) $75 $375,000
Direct material ($60 per pair $60 $300,000
Fixed* $20 ...

Solution Summary

This solution provides a complete computation of the given accounting problem in Excel.


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10 Daily Deal Mistakes and Costs for Businesses to Avoid

10 Daily Mistakes and Costs for Businesses to Avoid

The Top 10 Hidden Costs of Daily Deals

If you are thinking about holding a daily deal on Groupon or a similar site, think again. Many businesses have been terrorized after creating these discount deals and have quickly learned that they are not worth it in the long run. Here are 10 hidden costs of daily deals that prove why you should never consider them.

1. Redemption Times
20% of customers who purchase daily deals will redeem their deals within a month. This rush of customers will rush your staff, annoy your regular customers, and disappoint your new customers. Afterwards, when the coupon is about to expire, you will see the same results all over again. Due to this rush, Groupon recommends their merchants to add an extra phone line, a separate email address, a full-time employee to deal with online discussion boards, five times the website capacity, and 10 times the inventory.

2. Dealing with Old Customers
Groupon doesn’t target its deals to new customers, meaning that you will be giving your discounts to customers that would have been willing to spend the full price. In fact, according to a survey, it was found that 69% of daily deal buyers are not new customers.

3. Labor
Daily deals involve a lot of time going through lists. It takes an extra 3 minutes to accept and verify a Groupon, meaning that if you sell 2000 deals, 6000 minutes or 100 hours of employee labor will be spent on verification, and not on giving a positive and memorable customer experience.

4. Harsh Ratings
On average, a Groupon customer that rates a merchant on Yelp will give a rating that is nearly one star lower than non-Groupon customers. The effects of this reputation damage results in 8% of lost revenue for each star lost, according to Harvard Business School.

5. Staff Training
Groupon gives you a list of 11 steps you need to cover with your staff before running a daily deal. These steps involve placing your staff on group discussion boards and spending more time over the phone, which can result in losing time that can be better spent dealing with customers and giving them the optimum experience.

6. Pushing Loyal Customers
Groupon customers often push aside your already loyal customers by taking up their seats. This results in the frustration of your existing customers and will cause you to lose their business as well.

7. Low Tips
Discounts on meals encourage lower tip rates. On average, a daily deal buyer will give 9% of their effective tip.

8. Cheating
Merchants that hold Groupons are either unaware or too busy of the fact that customers can easily print and reuse copies of their coupons. In fact, there are a number of websites that have been created to inform people on how to cheat a Groupon.

9. Lost SEO Reputation
Even after your daily deal is over, your Groupon will continue to haunt your searches. Every time someone Googles your business, your Groupon page will be placed in clear view.

10. Daily Deal Eternity
Groupons never expire, meaning that the deals you have created today can come back to bite you five years from now as well.

Daily deals can bring problems to your business that you previously would not have even imagined. They require more work and time, and can cause you to drive your loyal customers away.

Here are the secret tactics I used to build my website traffic to over 2 million monthly visitors and grow my email list to over 100,000 subscribers:
9 Secrets to Increasing Website Visitors and Email Subscribers


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The Walking Dead Guide to Marketing Your Business

Here is the key information to remember from this infographic…

1) Know your surroundings.
One of the greatest lessons learned from AMC’s original series the Walking Dead for marketers is to know your surroundings. Within the Walking Dead universe, zombies are everywhere. That means that risk and danger lurks around every possible corner. The same is true when it comes marketing. If you are unaware of the marketing and advertising landscape around you, then you will provide a considerable amount of risk to your clients However, by taking the time to better understand the world in which you do business, you will be better prepared if you do meet danger.

2) The right team makes all the difference.
The Walking Dead is comprised of a group of survivors. One reason for their success is that each survivor has their own set of unique skills that make them invaluable to the wider group. Just as leading a bunch of survivors means making use of their skills, so to does managing employees working on a marketing challenge. By identifying skills, mindsets and habits beneficial to the task at hand, you can increase the chances that your own group will succeed at their task.

3) Take chances.
There are a number of times during the Walking Dead when individuals take chances. These chances are very dangerous, but offer a good payoff if they succeed. Knowing the nature of risk, and what you may gain by taking a chance is central to being an effective marketer. Risks are sometimes necessary, and offer an excellent opportunity to learn more about what you are doing in the field.

4) Timing is everything.
The survivors in the Walking Dead have to plan everything they do. From simply finding food to creating plans of escape, the survivors only have limited time to help ensure their own survival. Just like in the Walking Dead, knowing when to make a call to action and act is invaluable. Targeting the maximum audience with the most conservative of costs is possible when planned and acted on at the right time.

5) Have a plan.
More then anything else, having a plan helped to keep the members of the Walking Dead alive. While it may not have always worked, it provided a way for individuals in the group to meet up and communicate when terrible things happen. Marketing is no different. By having a plan, and considering your options, you prepare yourself for a variety of possible situations. Ranging from success to failure, your preparation now will give you a road map when your entire world suddenly turns upside down.

Here are the secret tactics I used to build my website traffic to over 2 million monthly visitors and grow my email list to over 100,000 subscribers:
9 Secrets to Increasing Website Visitors and Email Subscribers


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Go Time

My all-time favorite game is called Go.

Go is a strategy game. Two players take turns making moves on the board. It originated in China around 2,500 years ago, which makes Go quite possibly the oldest game in the world still played in its original form. Coincidentally, it was invented around the same time as Buddhism, although in a different place (Buddhism was in India).

The closest Western equivalent to Go would be chess, but they’re not really all that similar. For starters, as you can see, the board is a lot bigger (although smaller versions exist to allow for quicker games). Also, instead of moving pieces around, you start with an empty board and take turns placing pieces. Once placed, a stone doesn’t move, unless it’s removed by capture. It’s all about territory, about making good shape and surrounding your opponent.

If chess is a battle, Go is a war.

Go is the reification of the phrase “easy to learn, hard to master.” The rules are profoundly simple and can be picked up in a matter of minutes, but learning to win takes a lifetime. In my opinion, there’s a primal elegance to Go, as if someone had taken the pristine beauty of logic and converted it directly into a game.

As you can tell, I’ve fallen in love.

I discovered Go in high school and played it with my friend Pat. Since then, I’ve rekindled my interest sporadically, usually for a few weeks or months at a time. The problem has always been finding opponents – there just aren’t that many people in my part of the country who are very excited about Go. (Yeah, you can play online, and I have, but it’s not quite the same.)

But just last week, two of my friends got back into the game as well, and we’ve started up a weekly, very informal, three-player “tournament.” We’re all about the same strength, so we learn from each other (and mock each other) constantly. It’s a hell of a lot of fun. It’s forcing me to improve quickly, because if I don’t practice, how am I going to dominate next week?

Life is good.

By the way, if you’re interested in learning more, you’ll find that googling “Go” isn’t the best way to find results. The Korean term is “baduk,” and searching for that is generally more effective. You can also start at the Beginner’s Page of Sensei’s Library, a dedicated Go wiki.

What’s your favorite game?

9 responses to “Go Time

  1. I am a fluffy liberal storyteller at heart, so my favourite games are roleplaying games; winning is both about maximising achievement of personal goals and not zero sum.

  2. I feel like kind of a jerk mentioning this, but . . .
    According to a book on China that I am currently reading by Henry Kissinger on the history of China, Go is Japanese. The Chinese version is wei qi (Pronounced Way Chee (As in Cheese)) Sorry if it is rude mentioning this, but I thought you might be interested in knowing.

  3. TORM is to play. There is no other option.

  4. We had a set, but I never learned to play properly. We used to play a much simpler game sort of like connect four (but connect 5). Anyway, I love board/card games with themes, but still I’ve been meaning to learn how to play Go. Sounds like a good Christmas gift for hubby (and me).

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Handmade Bespoke Kitchens, Storage & Furniture

Bristol Fine Furniture was founded by cabinet maker Sean Burrows to provide Bristol with a locally based kitchen and cabinet maker prepared to undertake all types of bespoke furniture commissions including:

Handmade Bespoke Kitchens

Bespoke Furniture

Fitted Furniture

Free Standing Furniture

Storage Solutions

Wardrobes and Bedroom Furniture

Whole House Projects

Furniture Design Consultation

Celebration of Craftsmanship & Design

We are delighted to announce that we will be exhibiting at the CCD show in cheltenham August 2015


text:
Monday, May 10, 2010

Rapid City Protest March: Sheriff Deputy Killed Lakota Youth

Shooting protest march planned
A march to protest the shooting death of Christopher J. Capps of Rapid City, an Oglala Lakota, has been scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 1, in Rapid City.
Capps was shot to death on May 2 by Pennington County Sheriff’s deputy Dave Olson in an open field behind Sunnyside Mobile Home Community, just north of Rapid City.
In addition, the march will protest the inadequate news coverage of the mainstream media in Rapid City, according to James Swan of Rapid City. Sponsored by the United Urban Warrior Society, the march will begin at Mother Butler Center and follow a route to the Rapid City Journal, then with turnaround back up 5th Avenue to the school district administration building before returning to Mother Butler Center.
The protest is expected to end with a community feed at 6 p.m. at Mother Butler Center, according to Swan, who said that in addition to protesters, the sponsor invites drum groups, honor guards and flag carriers.
Swan is encouraging donations of cash and food for the march and the feed.
Those planning to participate can contact Swan at: or at (605) 381-8612. Here is a mailing address for condolence's and donations for the feed:
James Swan, P.O. Box 14, Rapid City S.D. 57709-0014, or bring a dish, your friends and signs. We need some drum groups and Honor guards (Native). We want to invite some speakers as well. Call me if you have questions, message phone # 605-791-0746 my cell : 605-381-8612
Thanks each and everyone for your help.
James (Magaska) Swan

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Kindergarten Wisdom

This poster is a father and son collaboration. All elements are hand drawn by Koen (age 6) with a Sharpie marker at the dining room table.

I came across this cute li’l piece of work and was wondering the change that would break through if all the kids channel their creativity positively. In the coming decade Pakistan would be the only Asian country with the highest youth population. Now this can make us or break us.

It’s time we really start preparing our kids for the greater good instead of letting them loose in the rat-race. Revive, reform, revamp their up-bringing (according to the Quran and Sunnah)- rather than going along with the flow today. 🙂

If you agree, spread the thought!

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2 thoughts on “Kindergarten Wisdom

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