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Wednesday, 20 February 2013

BFF Fat Loss Challenge - Lose Weight with GLOW™ IGNITE 2.0

This is going to be repetitive for those of you who have not read my earlier posts this year about wanting to be fit, healthy (and of course, eh hem, sexy) for 2013 and beyond.

I was a nice 53kg for the past few years, though it's not exactly what my ideal weight is. I dream about the day when I finally get a slim, svelte body I can confidently show off on the beach without the jiggly bits. Then sometime late last year, I got into a pretty blissful stage of my life where I was happy, well-fed, and only cared about doing my own thing and snuggling with either the bf, or the dog. And when I weighed myself in on the January 5th of this year, I was upset to find that I have gained a total of close to 6 kg to become a hefty 58.7kg.

That was almost as fat as me when I burst into the entertainment scene in Project Superstar in 2005, totally unprepared for widescreen tv, and kinda chubby.

True, they say muscle is heavier than fats, but I seriously think that apart from the baby fat I have lost on my face over the years (and then put some back on), everywhere else is just fat. I haven't exercised in almost 6 months before my wake-up call which was the discovery of my new weight, for goodness sake.

Explains for the January resolution starting with health and fitness? Alright yes, I want to be sexy too alright? I've never been a sex bomb, never seen myself as one anyway. But for something in my mid-late twenties, I think I don't wanna be the "cute" girl anymore. Chubby is cute too. Bleah.

So I have been exercising with a personal trainer since mid January. And coincidentally, Cheryl sent me a text out of the blue.

Whoahoh~~~ All the help I need! I'm already exercising, but if it's a healthy no-harm's-going-to-be-done pill that will help me shed those extra kilos I gained eating too many xiaolongbaos, I'M IN!!!!!!

So she hooked me up with GLOW™, the people behind this programme which they call the BFF Challenge. How apt! 2 best pals wanting to lose weight together! It's actually called Berry Fruity Fatloss Challenge, and I think it ties up with the BFF theme very well. Weight loss is better motivated when you have the support of friends right?

I fixed an appointment with Rachel, the nutritionist in charge of the programme, and after understanding the requirements and the product, GLOW™ IGNITE 2.0, I took little time in confirming my participation in the challenge. As long as the product is good and it's useful for me, I'll do it. Plus, I'll get to share my experience with you guys. ;)

So what is GLOW™ IGNITE 2.0
I have to try really hard not to chuckle each time I read 2.0 cos it somehow reminds me of Justin Bieber 2.0. Lol~

If you are someone who, like me, enjoys scourging the supermarket and regular drugstore shelves just to look-see, you would have seen GLOW™ around since last year. The people at GLOW™ claims this:

"(We) advocate deep scientific research, heavy product testing, reliable sourcing and quality assurance done on each and every ingredient that makes up a GLOW™ capsule. Our belief in targeting safe weight management with a synergistic, whole body approach translates to everything we do, the brand ambassadors we choose, even to the staff we employ."

My key thing in fitness this year is to do it the healthy way, thus my exercise regime. And if the makers of this pill advocates doing it the right, healthy way too, I think we're on the same track.

GLOW™ IGNITE 2.0 is basically a more potent formula than the very first version of GLOW™, which already sold thousands of bottles here and is the NUMBER ONE BEST SELLER IN AMERICA. GLOW™ was sold out in Singapore last year!!!!

I think that's quite a feat to achieve, and if something doesn't work, I doubt it will do well. GLOW™ did a Blogger challenge sometime last year and a few bloggers, Daphne and William, actually did lose a healthy amount of weight while on the programme.

What's in it?

It's key ingredient is raspberry ketones, the thing in red raspberries that gives it its smell, and increases the body's metabolism by increasing the level of 2 hormones - norepinephrine and adiponectin. Microbiology students should be familiar with these. Those of you not, you can read about it here.

Dr Oz speaks about Raspberry Ketones in his talkshow:

90 pounds of raspberry ketones is about 41kg. What GLOW™ does is compact 41kg of raspberries into 100g of raspberry ketone extract that is in each capsule.

What is also in the same capsule is this thing called Svetol®. You know when people say they need coffee in the mornings to wake them up and that you should drink coffee (no sugar) if you want to lose weight? I just learnt that it's not the caffeine in coffee that does the magic.

*thunder and lightning strikes*

Yeah, nope it's not caffeine. It's this thing called chlorogenic acid which is also present in coffee. Svetol® uses a method of extraction of cholorogenic acid in a well-balanced composition to give you the fat-burning and waking up effect, minus the stimulants and side effects (I tend to get the runs after coffee, good only if I've been constipated for a few days.)

If you're unfamiliar with Dr. Oz, it is an American talk show with a whole medical unit of full-time in-house researchers, medical producers and physicians. This unit works every day with Dr. Oz and the producers of the show in making the show. Basically they evaluate and then approve all the products that appear on the show. Pretty impressive! And I would say they should be legit. =)

I think they have aired on Channel 5 too. Not too sure when though.

I think watching these videos are easier for your understanding than if you were to read my writings about all the scientific terms. So here goes...

(If you want to watch everything in between - parts 2,3,4, you can find them here)

Amongst the ingredients in GLOW™ are Svetol® with 45% chlorogenic acids, and GCA®! Woots! Though the dosage is 300mg instead of 400mg, I think the rest of the ingredients boost up its efficacy further than if it's just pure 400mg of Svetol®. And if you can lose weight without doing anything different other than taking the capsule 30 minutes before your meal, wouldn't it be nice?

Apple cider is known to help in weight loss, so is green tea, acai and grapefruit. (You can read about all of them here.) Combined, I think this makes a pretty potent formula.

Also, this is a full vegetable capsule, which is an improved version of the first GLOW™ capsule made of gelatin. If I understand correctly, Muslims can't really take gelatin. This means the 2.0 version can be taken by Muslims, vegetarians, and the lactose-intolerant (cos there's no dairy).

So after having exercised with my own personal trainer for 2 weeks, this was me at the beginning of my GLOW™ BFF Challenge:

Weighing in at 56.1kg, with a BMI of 21.6 (I'm working towards 19), body fat % of 30% (O.O) and a muscle mass of 24.5%. I once heard someone say losing weight is a woman's lifetime career. I don't have a terrible lot to lose I guess, cos skinny is not sexy, but I think I don't mind 4-5kg. That's going to be a little challenging though, with CNY AND Valentine's Day in February. (I think I fared well other than the fact that I forgot to bring it out sometimes.)

Picture credit: Cheryl Tay
Me & Cheryl at the beginning of the challenge. I look super auntie OMG~~~
How to tell if I've put on weight - my face isn't quite as oval/sharp, and I start looking aunty-ish. Lol~ Yes you'll argue and say my face is sharp already, but if you compare my other pictures (pre-weight-gain) you will get what I mean.

My very own box of GLOW™ for me to take in February. Very useful as I think this is a very dangerous month with too much food. Lol.

How did I feel while on GLOW™ IGNITE 2.0?
I thought I felt fuller faster, and I didn't have any urge to snack AT ALL in between meals. Food just didn't seem to be able to tempt me as much, which was good. I had a couple of bak kwas and pineapple tarts for CNY, but I think overall there wasn't any compulsive urge to snack. I would walk to the snack table, look, and not get interested in anything. Felt weird at first, but gradually I stopped walking to the table. Lol.

I do feel more energetic, apart from this week when I'm having my period plus I've caught a little cold. Double whammy, but I think I generally feel good though. I feel kinda guilty that I haven't been able to join the group exercise sessions with the other bloggers due to CNY busy week and me and my bf's sudden decision to fly me over to Shanghai for Vday. But trust me, I have been exercising. Not in the way you're thinking (okay not just....), but like hiking and going to the gym...stuff like that.

Less than 2 weeks to end of challenge. I'm actually kinda nervous and excited. I didn't do too much changes to my diet because I generally don't eat a lot of fried/oily stuff. But I haven't really been curbing myself whenever I crave anything, though that doesn't happen much. If I still lose weight, I'd really have to credit this little pill.

And me and Cheryl agreed that should we manage to achieve our target weight (not necessarily in February though, as our target is set kinda high), we will do a girly trip to Darwin! Let's make that happen baby~

Till my next update!

For a list of common questions and answers, please refer to the FAQ page on the GLOW™website. I have to declare once again that I am not paid to do this write-up and suggest that you consult your doctor should you be unsure if you can start on a weight-loss campaign.

Sunday, 17 February 2013

CNY Refresher (Lou Hei and Symbolism)

I've been away in Moganshan (somewhere in Zhejiang) the last few days and so much has happened I need to update all of you. Am editing pictures and trying not to get distracted by Youtube videos and Whatsapp beeps so that my blog can be regular again. Lol.

Yesterday was Ren Ri (in CNY terms it means mankind's birthday) and today is the birthday of grains. Lol. I remembered writing in 2010, as well as 2011, about how to lou hei and say whatever when each item was added. I decided not to repeat myself this time and link you up to my previous post here.

I hope you will find the post useful, because even if I myself remembered what to say when last year, I forget each time a year has passed. Lol. I'm sure many of you still have many more Lou Heis to go. I'm in Shanghai where they don't do Lou Hei, and I'm completely missing out, but it's okay. Part of my heart is at home. =D

I did, however, try to go out there and find mee sua as it's also a tradition to eat mee sua during your birthday and yesterday was everyone's birthday. The only mee sua I found was at this Taiwanese restaurant called Charmant.

I ordered this first, but it looked nothing like mee sua. I think in China they call thin Ramen mee sua (cos it's written mee sua on the menu) So I decided to just go with Oyster Mee sua which would at least taste better...

Nothing like mee sua homecooked by mummy, nor the Oyster Mee Sua in Taiwan, but hey, I got my mee sua for ren ri! =D

I hope Valentine's Day has been sweet for many of you singles as well as couples. Who says love can only be celebrated by lovers? ;)

With friends like these, love is pretty abundant for me. ^.^

Lou Hei Refresher - Here

Lots of Love,

Sunday, 10 February 2013

Happy Chinese New Year!!! - Of Ang Pows & Spring Cleaning, Especially the Latter.

For the sake of my non-Chinese-literate, or those who can't really read Chinese well, that was me wishing everyone a very happy lunar new year, and that life this year (and beyond, of course) will be smooth-sailing and safe.

Chinese New Year is THE biggest event for most Chinese families, especially here in Singapore. I haven't really lived anywhere else so I can't speak for my counterparts in other countries, but I can definitely say CNY supercedes any other event for the Chinese here. Yes, even Christmas, though we feel it the Christmas spirit here too, just not as strong.

Christmas is something the younger generation celebrates. Ask my Ah Gong and Ah Ma to sit down and sing carols and eat turkey and prepare gifts...stuff like that? Nah~ Usually for Xmas we are the ones preparing, and we invite them and they just come and eat.

For CNY? Whoa~ They go all out with the food preparation, the kuehs, the steamboat (or what, as I learnt earlier this morning from my very angmor-pai bf, the westerners know better as "hotpot), buying loads of abalone, new year fish which I never knew the name to, the "guay ji" (melon seeds), love letters (spring rolls), pineapple tarts, and how can we forget this...bak kwa~

Ang Pow Giving 101
Oh and days (sometimes even weeks) before the main event, the folks would make a trip to the bank to get notes for ang-pow-packing. So they can do the proper categorizing of which ang pows to pack for who - the $4-ones for the not-so-close-whoever's-children, the $10 for the slightly more familiar kids, the $20 for the close relatives and close friends' children, the $60/80/$100/more for the grandchild/daughter/son/someone who means so much more. Basically the amount increases with the importance of said recipient. And of course it depends on financial ability of the ang pow giver.

Being Chinese though, we care about this thing known as "face", or what is better known as pride. Even if a family is not doing too well, most people wouldn't want other people to know about their plight and give a minimum $4 or more. (Or $6 if they find 4 an unlucky number because it sounds like "die" in Chinese.) So far I've never received a $2 ang pow. Those are really rare. At least to me.

Spring Cleaning
The last few days have been really crazy. Mum has been decorating the house and the corridor with flowers and those Chinese New Year things. She's probably made at least 20 trips to the florist (do we still call them florist if they span across acres?) to pick the flowers, and she ordered the bak kwa weeks ago for collection last week. Talk about being prepared. Lol. Just look at her effort -

She made these from just flower stalks, 4 green sponge balls (for sticking the flowers in), and red cloth. I love how she, amidst running a business, can find the time to balance her social life, parents, children, housework, and make extra time to liven up the CNY atmosphere with decorations. 贊！
(It looked so grand that some people actually thought there was a wedding happening. Lol!)

Spring cleaning is a tradition for chinese new year. It's our way of getting rid of the old to welcome the new. It's the time we throw away junk that prevents us from moving forward. It starts from the house, though I recommend a good spring cleaning from the inside. It doesn't just include your health, if you have any emotional excess baggage, throw them out too. Delete your ex's phone number. Throw away or delete all old photos, letters, anything that prevents you from moving forward. Trust me, it will be hard (just like throwing things out from your room), but it bloody works. *winks*

I'll touch on that another time, and start on something everything can relate to - your room. In this case, my room.

My room. Oh yes my room. Let's have a tour how it looked like prior to spring cleaning. There was a reason why I decided for February's Resolutions to revolve around organizing. Scroll on...

 A huge mess upon entering. I got very stressed each time I enter my room, and that was when I knew I needed to do something. I have been taking care of my health, but if I didn't do something about my environment my health won't be too good either. The bedroom is for replenishing the soul.

That...was pure junk for my soul.

And behind the door....

I need to find a way to organize bags. I swap bags almost on a daily basis, and it's quite troublesome to keep them away after I use one.

I built this shelf thinking that I would love to display stuff on it. Bleah...turned out to be a dumping ground for boxes. In no particular order.

The thing about huge horizontal space is everything tends to land there.
I didn't even want to look at the shelf on the side...

Even Alton feels sian. Lol. Cos he always has to find a way to maneuver my room. You'll see what I mean later...

 The bedside table, and the book I'm currently on - The Happiness Project. I owe my monthly resolutions to the author of this book. Thank you Gretchen!!!

This aisle is basically unpassable. Which means Alton can't rest here, but he tried so very often to squeeze under the bed from here. Lol~!

After Spring-Cleaning
The shelves on top have been rearranged, though I'm not completely satisfied with it yet.
For now, that will do.

Before                                                    After

I haven't quite found a way to deal with the bags yet, but that will come, and I promise a room tour when that happens. =)

I've rearranged my bookshelf such that the books are arranged by category.

 The left side where I'm at the most needs some more work though I have yet to figure out what. But all in all, this is a huge improvement from before, no?

I am so proud can???!!!! And I feel goooood~~~~

All my perfumes, cow banks, and a photo frame of my and my sister. Within the left drawer are my candles, and the right one my facial mask sheets. The boxes on the left which look like books hold various items which I will talk about another time.

 Beside the drawer is this. It's sort of like a nice place for the yummy-smelling candles and assorted pretty stuff.

 The work desk which still needs a little bit of work. I have yet to find a home for every single thing/document. The best part about organizing is allocating a very specific place for specific items so you know exactly how to tell your Mum over the phone that the spare camera battery is "on the second shelf by the desk in the black box marked Gadgets".

Even my wardrobe door is clean. The only thing hanging out is what I'm going to wear later for visiting.

My floor beside the bed. *so so so so proud*

Inner calm. Ah~~~ *breathes* ^.^

I hope you have spring-cleaned your home, or at least your room, for Chinese New Year. If you haven't for 2013 yet, just try it. I GUARANTEE that nothing will give you more satisfaction and immediate gratification than clearing out 2 huge bags of rubbish. Just try it with your medicine cabinet or makeup dresser/pouch/area. It's super shiok lor!

I'm setting aside 15 - 30 minutes every night before I sleep to put things away back to their homes. That will help to keep everything organized. Being really neat is not my forte, nor did I grow up that way. I grew up being used to what I call "organized chaos", but cleaning up and seeing empty spaces pop up really makes me feel so good every time, I kind of enjoy cleaning up and organizing now.

Keyword: Be ruthless. If it hasn't served you in the last 1-2 years, dump it. Hello? If you don't see yourself going anywhere with the person you're dating, will you continue the relationship? 长痛不如短痛, let it go. So that something, or someone, more suitable (notice I didn't say "better") has a chance to enter your life. ;)

Saturday, 2 February 2013

Review: Little Nonya Cookies

Chinese New Year is upon us in 8 days!!!! Have you done your CNY shopping? I don't just mean your  clothes, but CNY goodies to welcome the lovely guests who will be visiting you. No????!?!?!

Don't panic don't panic~~~ I'm here to save the day!!! *macam* Lol!

If you are afraid of the crowd that will be at Chinatown these few days leading up to CNY, you probably wouldn't want to head there for your CNY goodies...

Especially if you drive... (trust me, I was just there LAST WEEK on a weekday to help my mum collect Bak Kwa, and the carpark queue was almost 45 minutes along the carpark swirly thing to get to a carpark floor. No joke.)

Don't fret. You can still get your CNY goodies. Of course, you can tom pang your friend who's going there to help you get your stuff, but that's not what I'm suggesting. Really, you 好意思 ask people to help you buy and shove and push their way through the Chinatown crowd while trying to get their own things too meh?

You can get them at malls! Duh~ Lol! Okay that wasn't a very smart suggestion, but hey, there are SO MANY stalls and brands selling CNY goodies, which one do you choose?

I was sent a bag of goodies from Little Nonya Cookies as I have a friend who works there. Thanks Serene and boss!

 Pretty little boxes! These are cookies! Packed nicely in a box, I think they're very apt as gifts. (Hint: to the gf/bf's parents, mother-in-laws, business partners...etc)

I have never really been a fan of almond until recent years, but this Lucky Almond was so fragrant that I had to stop myself from taking more than 1 each time. I loved the fact that it was so crumbly and I could taste the almond bits when the whole thing disintegrates in my mouth. Yum!

As for the other bottle of cookies, I have to say, this is going to be my worst enemy during the month of February when I'm on my diet.

Happy Kueh Bangkit.

My favorite-st. If there's ever such a word. Oh. My. Goodness. I don't really eat this thing during CNY, but this particular one melts in your mouth the moment you put it in. It's so fresh, so creamy, so delicious, yet so light, that I could never stop at one. #IknowIknow
I wonder why it's called Happy Kueh will be so happily eating this that you won't know how many you've had till it's too late. Lol~

It's not even CNY yet, and already 1/3 the bottle is gone. *control*

I would give their cookies 2 thumbs up, considering I only tried 2 and liked them both. They have 16 different types of cookies to choose from so take your pick! The full range can be viewed at

Love letters. Ever since I knew they were called love letters, I've always wondered why. Did people really use egg and flour to write love notes to their special someone and then bake them? Doesn't make sense to me because after that there was no way to open it up to read without the whole thing crumbling. I couldn't really find the actual history behind it, so please enlighten me if you know!

Whatever the reason behind the name, this is a must-have snack during CNY.

 The original one for those who like it safe. I love the light texture of this classic. Not too hard nor too crumbly that it crumbles before you actually reach your mouth, this one was just right. And you can faintly taste the egg as you chew. Fully handmade and charcoal toasted, if you want your ah ma to have the taste of "those days", this should be it! =D

 The Durian King Roll.
For the durian lovers, you are in for a treat. Once you open the tin, you will be able to smell the aroma~
Thicker than the original, this love letter is made with real durian flesh blended into the dough so you're getting the real deal.

My favourite egg roll/love letter - The Charcoal Gold Roll.

 Activated charcoal is known for its ability to filter toxins out of the human body. When toxins and impurities interact with charcoal, they form a very tight molecular bond and thus would be unable to escape. Charcoal is also known for its ability to bind to chlorine, bacteria and viruses! Based on certain studies that you would be able to get off the internet, the daily use of charcoal reduces the toxicity in the human body by 60%. Now you know why, when you have an upset stomach and a bad case of diarrhoea, doctors prescribe this to you.

Now you know why it's my favorite? Yup, because it detoxes, is a lighter and healthier choice, and still tastes pretty good. ;)

Of course, this one still beats everything else as my favorite-st. Lol.

Want them? They are having a bundle sale! Get any 4 bottles at $60, 5 bottles at $72, and 6 bottles at $84!
P.S. Due to over demand, you are only entitled to 1 bottle of Happy Kueh Bangkit per bundle deal. You can still get them at ala carte prices though! For more info, check out Little Nonya Cookies here.

You can get these cookies (and try them!) at the following places:

1)   Takashimaya Event Hall – Takashimaya Square
     391A, Orchard Road, Basement 2, Ngee Ann City Tower A, Singapore 238 873
     17th January 2013 – 08th February 2013

2) Raffles X’change – Event Space
    Raffles Place MRT Station, Basement 1
    21st January 2013 – 08th February 2013

3)  Bugis Junction
     200, Victoria Street, Level 1, Bugis Junction, Singapore 188 021
     21st January 2013 – 08th February 2013

4)  Parkway Parade – Event Space
     80, Marine Parade Road, Basement 1, Parkway Parade, Singapore 449 269
     21st January 2013 – 08th February 2013

5)  Century Square - Event Space
     2, Tampines Central 5, Level 1, Century Square, Singapore 529 509
     25th January 2013 – 07th February 2013

I'm gonna be away for the next 2 days on Sister's Island so expect lots of pictures when I return! Muah!


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Victoria Kayne was the Teen Look Magazine's fashion editor and the fashion show hostess.

Season 2

2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06
2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12
2x13 2x14 2x15 2x16 2x17 2x18
2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22

Season 2

Victoria Kayne is introduced as a former supermodel and the fashion editor of Teen Look Magazine. She feels threatened by Raven's body confidence when she models for the fashion show. When Teen Look selects Raven as one of the contest finalists, she is overjoyed--until she sees a copy of the magazine, and discovers that Teen Look has digitally constricted her figure into an inhumanly narrow shape. Raven is shocked and horrified. "How can they do this to me?" she asks. "It is me, I mean, that's my face, and that's my dress, but that is not my body!" When Raven talks to Victoria about her figure, Kayne responds. "My dear, we love your design. We just . . . don't love you wearing it." and that she doesn't have "The Look". She then tells Raven Emayshia will model her dress in the show next week.

After Raven gets some encouragement, during the Teen Look Magazine's Fashion Show, hosted by Victoria Kayne herself, she interrupts Emayshia coming out in the dress she designed. Kayne advises Raven to get off stage but Raven refuses, and gets into a dance off with Emayshia, which she thinks Raven is good herself and winning the accolades of the audience. After it's over, Victoria shouts that Raven's ruining the show and says again Raven doesn't have "The Look". Raven goes on to tell Kayne that no one looks like "the look" and everyone comes in all shapes and sizes. After telling Kayne "Put that'' in your magazine", both Raven and the Emayshia booty-bump Victoria Kayne, sending her sailing into her cover billboard, destroying "the look," once and for all. She is never seen again after this, except during on of Ravens flashback visions.

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TSA Worker Kiana Scott Clark Arrested For Conspiring To Smuggle Marijuana

TSA Uniform

Kiana Scott Clark, a Transportation Security Administration worker at the Oakland International Airport has been indicted for allegedly conspiring to smuggle marijuana through the airport, federal prosecutors said.

The indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday, also charges 28-year-old Kiana Scott Clark of San Mateo with conspiring to defraud the United States by obstructing, impeding, and interfering with the TSA’s aviation security functions, U.S. Attorney’s officials said.

According to the indictment, Clark allegedly used her position as a TSA officer to facilitate the smuggling of drugs into and through the Oakland airport for delivery throughout the U.S.

Prosecutors said that when Clark’s co-conspirators had carry-on baggage containing controlled substances, she operated the X-ray machine at the TSA security checkpoint and permitted her co-conspirators to clear the checkpoint without the required screening of their baggage for explosives, incendiaries, weapons and other security threats.

Clark’s criminal conduct is alleged to have taken place from September 2013 through October 2015 and to have involved more than 100 kilograms of marijuana.

Clark was arrested on Wednesday, made her initial appearance in federal court in Oakland on Thursday and was scheduled to return to court Friday.

She currently is being held in custody pending arraignment and appointment of counsel.

Prosecutors said Clark is charged with two counts of conspiring to defraud the U.S. obstructing, impeding, and interfering with the TSA and two counts of conspiring to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances.

If Clark is convicted, she could face a maximum sentence of up to 55 years in federal prison and up to $5.7 million in fines.

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The Chiurazzi Law Group - Partner

Wayne M. Chiurazzi

Wayne M. Chiurazzi

is a 1991 graduate of the Duquesne University School of Law, and has been actively practicing law in the Western Pennsylvania area for the past 18 years . He is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Allegheny County Bar Association, the Florida Bar Association, and the Western Pennsylvania Bar Association for which he also sits on the Board of Governors. He is active in such groups as ACHIEVA (formerly ARC Allegheny). He serves on the board of The Family Trust—an organization that provides financial and estate planning for individuals with disabilities and their families.

He has also been elected to the board of ARC-Washington—also benefiting individuals with disabilities. His practice concentrates in all aspects of litigation for plaintiffs and defendants, commercial law, estates and trusts, small business formation, labor law, workers’ compensation, social security disability, collection matters, criminal law, construction litigation, and estate administration. He is admitted in all state and federal courts in Pennsylvania, the state of Florida and the United States Supreme Court. He has lectured for the Allegheny County Bar Association. He is also a Commissioner in Collier Township.

Mr. Chiurazzi was elected to and is a member of the prestigious Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County* which at any time only comprises 250 active fellows; entry is invite-only and is based strongly on both professional aptitude and ethics.

*For more information on the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County, visit


text:
Now THIS is flatware…

If you’ve ever packed for a hike, camping trip, or other activity in which saving precious space is paramount, you know how difficult it can be.  Behold Fozzils ThinkFLAT!  Part origami, part tableware, each item–be it bowl, cup, spoon or otherwise–can hold hot liquid without leaking, but can be collapsed completely flat.  Made from durable and recyclable polypropylene, these items are lightweight and washable.  Available in a wide range of shapes, colors, sets and prices–see the Fozzils site for additional info.

More stories from The Gadgeteer

4 comments… add one
  • Gabe August 19, 2009, 12:03 pm

    Looks like an updated version of the Orikaso fold-flat line which offered versions with plastic snaps, or alternately a set that more akin to origami.

    Hmm, the Orikaso site seems defunct.
    Here’s an older review (2006)

    and a reference to the snap equipped set (2005)…

  • Mark Adkins August 21, 2009, 11:45 pm

    I’ve got a couple chunks of the Orikaso stuff- like the mug I carry in my gear bag along with my titanium spork. Nice stuff! Easy enough to use and clean, tough, and takes almost no room.

  • Andy Jacobs August 25, 2009, 11:11 am

    Mark Adkins – Do you actually carry it around with you as part of your daily gear, or is this more for hiking, etc?

  • lyall djm April 2, 2012, 2:10 am

    orikaso is easier to clean than fozzils (around clips) and orikaso does not rely on snaps that don’t work in very cold weather so it depends on how lazy you are about assembly, I prefer the bigger bowl original orikaso + no leaks at the clips but remember both are not great at insulating hot food so careful holding or especially on your lap, ouch!

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Weight Loss Progress Pictures

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

I've been Tagged

I was tagged by Josie, and apparently what I am supposed to do is post the fourth picture in the fourth album on our computer. So drum roll please...........................

This is Connor at 4. We had gone to the park with the Rinehart family and he was being his goofy self. :)
So there ya go. I tag....Jaime, Lisa Dawn, Annissa, Melody and Nancy

Monday, November 17, 2008

Race for the Cure Photos

Waiting for TGIFriday's to open

Look at all those people!

I know, a month late- but here they are. :)

We only brought Jayme's camera with us- so I had to wait for them to be loaded.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

My thoughts....

Other than my recent kid speak, I haven't mentioned the election here. I have my reasons too, mostly being I was so conflicted about the whole thing. I did not like either one of the candidates, I felt there was certainly someone better qualified and better for America. I've been cynical and apathetic and then passionate. So rather than post my craziness for the world to see, I just kept it to myself. However, now the election is over, the country has spoken and history has been made.

How do I feel about our new president-elect? Honestly, the jury is still out. There are several of his policies I do not agree with, and others that I think might not be so bad. Do I believe every negative thing that has been written about him? No, I don't. Do I believe that as a result of the election we are facing darker than dark days? I don't think so. This country's days are already dark. We made them that ourselves. We've had democratic presidents before, and we survived. We've had Republican presidents before, and we survived. I could be wrong, but there is no sense in spending my days and nights fretting over what may or may not happen. I'm secure in who I am in my Creator and who I am as a person I don't have to fear.

Our job now is to respect and pray for the man who has a very tough job ahead of him. In light of the economic issues, the war as well as everything else, the president-elect's job is less than enviable.

As a side/finishing note, there was a small part of me that was proud that I could tell my children this morning that the country elected its first black president. Yes, I know there are people who voted for him simply based on that fact alone, but when I think back to how things used to be and I see the world my kids are growing up in, where it doesn't matter to them that they have friends from every walk of life, every skin color, every ethnic background. I have tried to create a world for my kids where a person is just a person. Not a white person, not a black person, just a person. All men, created equal.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Impending Election....

So with the upcoming election, the kids school had a mock election last week. We were discussing it tonight, and I thought I would share our conversation with you. :)

Connor: "I voted for John McCain"
Mom: "Oh really? Well why did you vote for him?"
Connor: "Because he likes Mexican food, and so do I, so he must be cool"
Mom: "Uh-huh" insert stifled laughter here "Sadie, who did you vote for"
Sadie: "Barack Obama"
Mom: "Ok, why did you vote for him?:
Sadie: "Because we were running late, and I was running out of time, so I just picked on"

Ahhhh, the future of our country. ;)


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Wednesday, 5 August 2009

Marx's Ecology - John Bellamy Foster

A great many analysts, including some self styled eco-socialists, are prepared to acknowledge that Marx had profound insights into the environmental problem, but nonetheless argue that these insights were marginal to his work, that he never freed himself from 'Prometheanism' (a term usually meant to refer to an extreme commitment to industrialisation at any cost), and that he did not leave a significant ecological legacy that carried forward into later socialist thought or that had any relation to the subsequent development of ecology.3 In a recent discussion in the journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism a number of authors argued that Marx could not have contributed anything of fundamental relevance to the development of ecological thought, since he wrote in the 19th century, before the nuclear age and before the appearance of PCBs, CFCs and DDT--and because he never used the word 'ecology' in his writings. Any discussion of his work in terms of ecology was therefore a case of taking 120 years of ecological thinking since Marx's death and laying it 'at Marx's feet'.4

My own view of the history of ecological thought and its relation to socialism is different. In this, as in other areas, I think we need to beware of falling into what Edward Thompson called 'the enormous condescension of posterity'.5 More specifically, we need to recognise that Marx and Engels, along with other early socialist thinkers, like Proudhon (in What is Property?) and Morris, had the advantage of living in a time when the transition from feudalism to capitalism was still taking place or had occurred in recent memory. Hence the questions that they raised about capitalist society and even about the relation between society and nature were often more fundamental than what characterises social and ecological thought, even on the left, today. It is true that technology has changed, introducing massive new threats to the biosphere, undreamed of in earlier times. But, paradoxically, capitalism's antagonistic relation to the environment, which lies at the core of our current crisis, was in some ways more apparent to 19th and early 20th century socialists than it is to the majority of today's green thinkers. This reflects the fact that it is not technology that is the primary issue, but rather the nature and logic of capitalism as a specific mode of production. Socialists have contributed in fundamental ways at all stages in the development of the modern ecological critique. Uncovering this unknown legacy is a vital part of the overall endeavour to develop an ecological materialist analysis capable of addressing the devastating environmental conditions that face us today.

I first became acutely aware of the singular depth of Marx's ecological insights through a study of the Liebig-Marx connection. In 1862 the great German chemist Justus von Liebig published the seventh edition of his pioneering scientific work, Organic Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology (first published in 1840). The 1862 edition contained a new, lengthy and, to the British, scandalous introduction. Building upon arguments that he had been developing in the late 1850s, Liebig declared the intensive, or 'high farming', methods of British agriculture to be a 'robbery system', opposed to rational agriculture.6 They necessitated the transportation over long distances of food and fibre from the country to the city--with no provision for the recirculation of social nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which ended up contributing to urban waste and pollution in the form of human and animal wastes. Whole countries were robbed in this way of the nutrients of their soil. For Liebig this was part of a larger British imperial policy of robbing the soil resources (including bones) of other countries. 'Great Britain', he declared:

...deprives all countries of the conditions of their fertility. It has raked up the battlefields of Leipsic, Waterloo and the Crimea; it has consumed the bones of many generations accumulated in the catacombs of Sicily; and now annually destroys the food for a future generation of three millions and a half of people. Like a vampire it hangs on the breast of Europe, and even the world, sucking its lifeblood without any real necessity or permanent gain for itself.7

The population in Britain was able to maintain healthy bones and greater physical proportions, he argued, by robbing the rest of Europe of their soil nutrients, including skeletal remains, which would otherwise have gone into nurturing their own soils, allowing their populations to reach the same physical stature as the English.

'Robbery', Liebig suggested, 'improves the art of robbery.' The degradation of the soil led to a greater concentration of agriculture among a small number of proprietors who adopted intensive methods. But none of this altered the long term decline in soil productivity. England was able to maintain its industrialised capitalist agriculture, by importing guano (bird droppings) from Peru as well as bones from Europe. Guano imports increased from 1,700 tons in 1841 to 220,000 tons only six years later.

What was needed in order to keep this spoliation system going, Liebig declared, was the discovery of 'beds of manure or guano...of about the extent of English coalfields'. But existing sources were drying up without additional sources being found. By the early 1860s North America was importing more guano than all of Europe put together. 'In the last ten years,' he wrote, 'British and American ships have searched through all the seas, and there is no small island, no coast, which has escaped their enquiries after guano. To live in the hope of the discovery of new beds of guano would be absolute folly.'

In essence, rural areas and whole nations were exporting the fertility of their land: 'Every country must become impoverished by the continual exportation of corn, and also by the needless waste of the accumulated products of the transformation of matter by the town populations.'

All of this pointed to 'the law of restitution' as the main principle of a rational agriculture. The minerals taken from the earth had to be returned to the earth. 'The farmer' had to 'restore to his land as much as he had taken from it', if not more.

The British agricultural establishment, needless to say, did not take kindly to Liebig's message, with its denunciation of British high farming. Liebig's British publisher, rather than immediately translating the 1862 German edition as in the case of previous editions, destroyed the only copy in its possession. When this final edition of Liebig's great work was finally translated into English it was in an abridged form under a different title (The Natural Laws of Husbandry) and without Liebig's lengthy introduction. Hence, the English-speaking world was left in ignorance of the extent of Liebig's critique of industrialised capitalist agriculture.

Nevertheless, the importance of Liebig's critique did not escape the attention of one major figure residing in London at the time. Karl Marx, who was then completing the first volume of Capital, was deeply affected by Liebig's critique. In 1866 he wrote to Engels, 'I had to plough through the new agricultural chemistry in Germany, in particular Liebig and Schönbein, which is more important for this matter than all of the economists put together.' Indeed, 'To have developed from the point of view of natural science the negative, ie destructive side of modern agriculture,' Marx noted in volume one of Capital, 'is one of Liebig's immortal merits'.8

Marx's two main discussions of modern agriculture both end with an analysis of 'the destructive side of modern agriculture'. In these passages Marx makes a number of crucial points: (1) capitalism has created an 'irreparable rift' in the 'metabolic interaction' between human beings and the earth, the everlasting nature-imposed conditions of production; (2) this demanded the 'systematic restoration' of that necessary metabolic relation as 'a regulative law of social production'; (3) nevertheless the growth under capitalism of large-scale agriculture and long distance trade only intensifies and extends the metabolic rift; (4) the wastage of soil nutrients is mirrored in the pollution and waste in the towns--'In London,' he wrote, 'they can find no better use for the excretion of four and a half million human beings than to contaminate the Thames with it at heavy expense'; (5) large-scale industry and large-scale mechanised agriculture work together in this destructive process, with 'industry and commerce supplying agriculture with the means of exhausting the soil'; (6) all of this is an expression of the antagonistic relation between town and country under capitalism; (7) a rational agriculture, which needs either small independent farmers producing on their own, or the action of the associated producers, is impossible under modern capitalist conditions; and (8) existing conditions demand a rational regulation of the metabolic relation between human beings and the earth, pointing beyond capitalist society to socialism and communism.9

Marx's concept of the metabolic rift is the core element of this ecological critique. The human labour process itself is defined in Capital as 'the universal condition for the metabolic interaction between man and nature, the everlasting nature-imposed condition of human existence'.10 It follows that the rift in this metabolism means nothing less than the undermining of the 'everlasting nature-imposed condition of human existence'. Further there is the question of the sustainability of the earth--ie the extent to which it is to be passed on to future generations in a condition equal or better than in the present. As Marx wrote:

From the standpoint of a higher socio-economic formation, the private property of particular individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as private property of one man in other men. Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations as boni patres familias [good heads of the household].11

The issue of sustainability, for Marx, went beyond what capitalist society, with its constant intensification and enlargement of the metabolic rift between human beings and the earth, could address. Capitalism, he observed, 'creates the material conditions for a new and higher synthesis, a union of agriculture and industry on the basis of the forms that have developed during the period of their antagonistic isolation'. Yet in order to achieve this 'higher synthesis', he argued, it would be necessary for the associated producers in the new society to 'govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way'--a requirement that raised fundamental and continuing challenges for post-revolutionary society.12

In analysing the metabolic rift Marx and Engels did not stop with the soil nutrient cycle, or the town-country relation. They addressed at various points in their work such issues as deforestation, desertification, climate change, the elimination of deer from the forests, the commodification of species, pollution, industrial wastes, toxic contamination, recycling, the exhaustion of coal mines, disease, overpopulation and the evolution (and co-evolution) of species.

After having the power and coherence of Marx's analysis of the metabolic rift impressed on me in this way, I began to wonder how deeply embedded such ecological conceptions were in Marx's thought as a whole. What was there in Marx's background that could explain how he was able to incorporate natural-scientific observations into his analysis so effectively? How did this relate to the concept of the alienation of nature, which along with the alienation of labour was such a pronounced feature of his early work? Most of all, I began to wonder whether the secret to Marx's ecology was to be found in his materialism. Could it be that this materialism was not adequately viewed simply in terms of a materialist conception of human history, but also had to be seen in terms of natural history and the dialectical relation between the two? Or to put it somewhat differently, was Marx's materialist conception of history inseparable from what Engels had termed the 'materialist conception of nature'?13 Had Marx employed his dialectical method in the analysis of both?

The search for an answer to these questions took me on a long intellectual journey through Marx's works, and the historical-intellectual context in which they were written, which eventually became Marx's Ecology. Let me mention just a few highlights of the story I uncovered--since I do not have the time to explore it all in detail here, and because part of my purpose here is to add additional strands to the story. My account differs from most present-day accounts of Marx's development in that it highlights the formative significance of Marx's doctoral thesis on Epicurus, the greatest of the ancient materialists, and goes on to situate Marx and Engels' lifelong engagement with developments in the natural sciences. This includes Marx and Engels' opposition to the natural theology tradition, particularly as manifested by Malthus, their treatment of Liebig's work on nutrient cycling and its relation to the metabolic rift, and finally their creative encounter with Darwin, co-evolution, and what has been called 'the revolution in ethnological time' following the discovery of the first prehistoric human remains.14

In most interpretations of Marx's development his early thought is seen as largely a response to Hegel, mediated by Feuerbach. Without denying Hegel's significance I argue that Marx's formative phase is much more complex than is usually pictured. Along with German idealism Marx was struggling early on with ancient materialist natural philosophy and its relation to the 17th century scientific revolution, and the 18th century Enlightenment. In all of this Epicurus loomed very large. For Kant, 'Epicurus can be called the foremost philosopher of sensibility,' just as Plato was the foremost philosopher 'of the intellectual'. Epicurus, Hegel claimed, was 'the inventor of empiric natural science'. For Marx himself Epicurus was the 'the greatest figure of the Greek Enlightenment'.15

For Marx, Epicurus represented, most importantly, a non-reductionist, non-deterministic materialism, and articulated a philosophy of human freedom. In Epicurus could be found a materialist conception of nature that rejected all teleology and all religious conceptions of natural and social existence. In studying Epicurus's natural philosophy Marx was addressing a view that had had a powerful influence on the development of European science and modern naturalist-materialist philosophies, and one that had at the same time profoundly influenced the development of European social thought. In the Epicurean materialist worldview knowledge of the world started with the senses. The two primary theses of Epicurus's natural philosophy make up what we today call the principle of conservation: nothing comes from nothing, and nothing being destroyed is reduced to nothing. For Epicureans there was no scale of nature, no sharp, unbridgeable gaps between human beings and other animals. Knowledge of Epicurus provides a way of understanding Marx's deep materialism in the area of natural philosophy. His study of ancient and early modern materialism brought Marx inside the struggle over the scientific understanding of the natural world in ways that influenced all of his thought and was deeply ecological in its significance, since it focused on evolution and emergence, and made nature not god the starting point. Moreover, Marx's dialectical encounter with Hegel has to be understood in terms of the struggle that Marx was carrying on simultaneously regarding the nature of materialist philosophy and science.

Darwin had similar roots in natural philosophy, linked to the anti-teleological tradition extending back to Epicurus, which had found its modern exponent in Bacon. We now know, as a result of the publication of Darwin's notebooks, that the reason that he waited so long--20 years--before making public his theory on species transmutation was due to the fact that his theory had strong materialist roots, and thus raised the issue of heresy in Victorian England. Darwin's view went against all teleological explanations, such as those of the natural theology tradition. He presented an account of the evolution of species that was dependent on no supernatural forces, no miraculous agencies of any kind, but simply on nature's own workings.

Marx and Engels greeted Darwin's theory immediately as 'the death of teleology', and Marx described it as 'the basis in natural science for our views'.16 Not only did they study Darwin intensely, they were also drawn into the debates concerning human evolution that followed immediately on Darwin's work, as a result of the discovery of the first prehistoric human remains. Neanderthal remains had been found in France in 1856, but it was the discovery of prehistoric remains that were quickly accepted as such in England in Brixham Cave in 1859, the same year that Darwin published his The Origin of Species, that generated the revolution in ethnological time, erasing forever within science the biblical chronology for human history/prehistory. Suddenly it became clear that the human species (or hominid species) had existed in all probability for a million years or longer, not simply a few thousand. (Today it is believed that hominid species have existed for around 7 million years.)

Many major works, mostly by Darwinians, emerged in just a few years to address this new reality, and Marx and Engels studied them with great intensity. Among the works that they scrutinised were Charles Lyell's Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Thomas Huxley's Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), John Lubbock's Prehistoric Times (1865), Darwin's Descent of Man (1871), along with a host of other works in the ethnological realm, including Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society (1881).

Out of their studies came a thesis on the role of labour in human evolution that was to prove fundamental. Inspired by the ancient Greek meaning for organ (organon)--or tool, which expressed the idea that organs were essentially the 'grown-on' tools of animals, Marx referred to such organs as 'natural technology', which could be compared in certain respects to human technology. A similar approach was evident in Darwin, and Marx was thus able to use Darwin's comparison of the development of specialised organs in plants and animals to that of specialised tools (in chapter 5 of The Origin of Species on 'Laws of Variation') to help explain his own conception of the development of natural and human technology. The evolution of natural technology, Marx argued, rooting his analysis in The Origin of Species, was a reflection of the fact that animals and plants were able to pass on through inheritance organs that had been developed through natural selection in a process that might be called '"accumulation" through inheritance'. Indeed, the driving force of evolution for Darwin, in Marx's interpretation, was 'the gradually accumulated [naturally selected] inventions of living things'.17

In this conception, human beings were to be distinguished from animals in that they more effectively utilised tools, which became extensions of their bodies. Tools, and through them the wider realm of nature, as Marx said early on in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, became the 'inorganic body of man'. Or as he was to observe in Capital, 'thus nature becomes one of the organs of his [man's] activity, which he annexes to his own bodily organs, adding stature to himself in spite of the Bible'.18

Engels was to develop this argument further in his pathbreaking work, 'The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man' (written in 1876, published posthumously in 1896). According to Engels' analysis--which derived from his materialist philosophy, but which was also influenced by views voiced by Ernst Haeckel a few years before--when the primates, who constituted the ancestors of human beings, descended from the trees, erect posture developed first (prior to the evolution of the human brain), freeing the hands for tool-making. In this way:

...the hand became free and could henceforth attain ever greater dexterity and skill, and the greater flexibility thus acquired was inherited and increased from generation to generation. Thus the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the product of labour.19

As a result early humans (hominids) were able to alter their relation to their local environment, radically improving their adaptability. Those who were most ingenious in making and using tools were most likely to survive, which means that the evolutionary process exerted selective pressures toward the enlargement of the brain and the development of language (necessary for the social processes of labour and tool-making), leading eventually to the rise of modern humans. Thus the human brain, like the hand, in Engels' view, evolved through a complex, interactive set of relations, now referred to by evolutionary biologists as 'gene-culture co-evolution'. All scientific explanations of the evolution of the human brain, Stephen Jay Gould has argued, have thus far been theories of gene-culture co-evolution, and 'the best 19th century case for gene-culture co-evolution was made by Frederick Engels'.20

All of this points to the fact that Marx and Engels had a profound grasp of ecological and evolutionary problems, as manifested in the natural science of their day, and were able to make important contributions to our understanding of how society and nature interact. If orthodoxy in Marxism, as Lukács taught, relates primarily to method, then we can attribute these insights to a very powerful method, but one which, insofar as it encompasses both a materialist conception of natural history and of human (ie social) history, has not been fully investigated by subsequent commentators. Behind Marx and Engels' insights in this area lay an uncompromising materialism, which embraced such concepts as emergence and contingency, and which was dialectical to the core.

Engels' Dialectics of Nature is known to incorporate numerous ecological insights. But it is frequently contended that Marxism after Marx and Engels either missed out on the development of ecological thought altogether or was anti-ecological and that there were no important Marxian contributions to the study of nature after Engels until the Frankfurt School and Alfred Schmidt's The Concept of Nature in Marx, first published in 1962.21 This position, however, is wrong. There were in fact numerous Marxist contributions to the analysis of the nature-society relation, and socialists played a very large role in the development of ecology, particularly in its formative stages. The influence of Marx and Engels' ideas in this respect was not confined to the 19th century.

But it is not just a question of the direct inheritance of certain propositions with respect to nature-ecology. Marx and also Engels employed a materialist conception of nature, which was not at all foreign to the major revolutions in science of their day (as evident in Darwin's theory), and which they combined with a dialectic of emergence and contingency. A very large part of this was reflected in both socialist and scientific thought in the immediately succeeding generations. Among the socialists who incorporated naturalistic and ecological conceptions into their thinking, after Marx and up through the 1940s, we can include such figures as William Morris, Henry Salt, August Bebel, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, V I Lenin, Nikolai Bukharin, V I Vernadsky, N I Vavilov, Alexander Oparin, Christopher Caudwell, Hyman Levy, Lancelot Hogben, J D Bernal, Benjamin Farrington, J B S Haldane and Joseph Needham--and in the more Fabian tradition, but not unconnected to Marx and Marxism, Ray Lankester and Arthur Tansley. Bukharin employed Marx's concept of the metabolism of nature and society in his writings, and situated human beings in the biosphere. 'Human beings,' he wrote:

...are both products of nature and part of it; they have a biological basis when their social existence is excluded from account (it cannot be abolished!); if they are themselves the summits of nature and its products, and if they live within nature (however much they may be divided off from it by particular social and historical conditions of life and by the so called 'artistic environment'), then what is surprising in the fact that human beings share in the rhythm of nature and its cycles?22

Kautsky in his The Agrarian Question, following Liebig and Marx, addressed the problem of the soil nutrient cycle, raised the question of the fertiliser treadmill, and even referred to the dangers of the intensive application of pesticides--all in 1899! Luxemburg addressed ecological problems in her letters, discussing the disappearance of songbirds through the destruction of their habitat. Lenin promoted both conservation and ecology in the Soviet Union, and demonstrated an awareness of the degradation of soil fertility and the breaking of the soil nutrient cycle under capitalist agriculture--the Liebig-Marx problem. The Soviet Union in the 1920s had the most developed ecological science in the world. Vernadsky had introduced the concept of the biosphere in a dialectical framework of analysis that reaches down to the most advanced ecology of our day. Vavilov used the historical materialist method to map out the centres of the origin of agriculture and the banks of germ plasm throughout the globe, now known as the Vavilov areas. Oparin, simultaneously with Haldane in Britain, developed the first and still to this day most influential explanation for the origin of life on earth based on Vernadsky's biosphere concept--a theory that was to have an important impact on Rachel Carson's concept of ecology.23

Yet this early Marxist ecological thought, or rather the traditions that sustained it, largely died out. Ecology within Marxism suffered something of a double death. In the East in the 1930s Stalinism literally purged the more ecological elements within the Soviet leadership and scientific community--not arbitrarily so since it was in these circles that some of the resistance to primitive socialist accumulation was to be found. Bukharin was executed. Vavilov died of malnutrition in a prison cell in 1943. At the same time in the West, Marxism took an often extreme, avidly anti-positivistic form. The dialectic was seen as inapplicable to nature--a view often associated with Lukács, though we now know that Lukács's position was somewhat more ambiguous. This affected most of Western Marxism, which tended to see Marxism increasingly in terms of a human history severed for the most part from nature. Nature was relegated to the province of natural science, which was seen as properly positivistic within its own realm. In Lukács, Gramsci and Korsch, marking the Western Marxist revolt of the 1920s, nature was increasingly conspicuous in its absence. Nature entered into the Frankfurt School's critique of the Enlightenment, but the nature under consideration was almost always human nature (reflecting the concern with psychology), and rarely so called 'external nature'. There was no materialist conception of nature. Hence genuine ecological insights were rare.

If an unbroken continuity is to be found in the development of socialist nature-science discussions and ecological thought, its path has to be traced primarily in Britain, where a continuous commitment to a materialist dialectic in the analysis of natural history was maintained. A strong tradition in Britain linked science, Darwin, Marx and dialectics. Although some of the negative features of this tradition, which has been referred to as a 'Baconian strand in Marxism', are well known, its more positive ecological insights have never been fully grasped.24

Any account of the ecology of British Marxism in this period has to highlight Caudwell, who, though he died at the age of 29 behind a machine-gun on a hill in Spain, left an indelible intellectual legacy. His Heredity and Development, perhaps the most important of his science-related works, was suppressed by the Communist Party in Britain due to the Lysenkoist controversy (he was anti-Lysenkoist) and so was not published until 1986.25 But it contains an impressive attempt to develop an ecological dialectic. Haldane, Levy, Hogben, Needham, Bernal and Farrington--as previously noted--all developed ecological notions (though Bernal's legacy is the most contradictory in this respect). All indicated profound respect not only for Marx and Darwin but also for Epicurus, who was seen as the original source of the materialist conception of nature. The influence of these thinkers carries down to the present day in the work of later biological and ecological scientists, such as Steven Rose in Britain, and Richard Lewontin, Richard Levins and the late Stephen Jay Gould in the US.

I want to concentrate here on two figures who are less well known, more Fabian than Marxist, but clearly socialists--namely Ray Lankester and Arthur Tansley. Ray Lankester taught at University College, London, and Tansley was his student there. Lankester was Huxley's protégé and was considered the greatest Darwinian scientist of his generation. He was the most famous adamantly materialist biologist of his day in Britain. When he was a boy Darwin had carried him on his shoulders. Lankester was also a young friend of Karl Marx and a socialist, though not himself a Marxist. He was a frequent guest at Marx's household in the last few years of Marx's life. Marx and his daughter Eleanor also visited Lankester at his residence in London. Marx and Lankester had in common, above all, their materialism. Marx was interested in Lankester's research into degeneration--the notion that evolution did not necessarily simply go forward--and made an attempt to get Lankester's work published in Russian. Lankester wrote to Marx that he was absorbing 'your great work on Capital...with the greatest pleasure and profit'. Lankester was to become one of the most ecologically concerned thinkers of his time. He wrote some of the most powerful essays that have ever been written on species extinction due to human causes, and discussed the pollution of London and other ecological issues with an urgency that is not found again until the late 20th century.26

Arthur Tansley was the foremost plant ecologist in Britain of his generation, one of the greatest ecologists of all time, and the originator of the concept of ecosystem. He was to become the first president of the British Ecological Society. Tansley was deeply influenced by Lankester, along with the botanist Francis Wall Oliver, in his years at University College, London. Like Lankester, Tansley was a Fabian socialist and an uncompromising materialist. And like Lankester, who wrote a scathing criticism of Henri Bergson's concept of vitalism or the élan vital, Tansley was to directly challenge attempts to conceive evolutionary ecology in anti-materialist, teleological terms.27

In the 1920s and 1930s a major split occurred in ecology. In the US Frederic Clements and others developed the important concept of ecological succession (successive stages in the development of plant 'communities' in a particular region culminating in a 'climax' or mature stage linked to certain dominant species). But in a much more controversial move, Clements and his followers extended this analysis to a concept of super-organism meant to account for the process of succession. This ecological approach inspired other innovations in ecological theory in Edinburgh and South Africa. South African ecological thinkers, led by Jan Christian Smuts, introduced a concept of 'holism' in the ecological realm, most notably in Smuts' book Holism and Evolution (1926), which was to lead to modern conceptions of deep ecology. Smuts, who was usually referred to as General Smuts because of his military role in the Boer War (he fought on the side of the Boers), was one of the principal figures in the construction of the apartheid system. How much Smuts himself contributed directly to the development of apartheid may be disputed. But he was a strong advocate of the territorial segregation of the races and what he called 'the grand white racial aristocracy'. He is perhaps best remembered worldwide as the South African general who arrested Gandhi. Smuts was South African minister of defence from 1910 to 1919, and prime minister and minister of native affairs from 1919 to 1924. He was sometimes seen as a figure soaked in blood. When the Native Labour Union demanded political power and freedom of speech Smuts crushed it with violence, killing 68 people in Port Elizabeth alone. When black Jews refused to work on Passover Smuts sent in the police, and 200 were killed on his orders. When certain black tribal populations in Bondelwaart refused to pay their dog tax Smuts sent in planes and bombed them into submission. Not surprisingly, Smuts' ecological holism was also a form of ecological racism, since it was a holism that contained natural-ecological divisions along racial lines.

The legendary opponent of Smuts' holistic philosophy, in the great 'Nature of Life' debate that took place at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meetings in South Africa in 1929, was the British Marxist biologist Lancelot Hogben (who had a position at the University of Cape Town at that time). Hogben not only debated Smuts--opposing his materialism to Smuts' holism, and attacking Smuts for his racist eugenics--but also hid black rebels fleeing the racist state in a secret compartment in his basement. Another major opponent of Smuts was the British Marxist mathematician Hyman Levy, who, in his The Universe of Science, developed a critique of Smuts' holism along similar lines to those of Hogben.28

In 1935 Tansley found himself increasingly at odds with anti-materialist conceptions of ecology that were then gaining influence, and entered the lists against ecological idealism. Tansley wrote an article for the journal Ecology entitled 'The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms' that declared war on Clements, Smuts and Smuts' leading follower in South African ecology, John Phillips. In one fell swoop Tansley attacked the teleological notions that ecological succession was always progressive and developmental, always leading to a climax; that vegetation could be seen as constituting a super-organism; that there was such a thing as a biotic 'community' (with members), encompassing both plants and animals; that 'organismic philosophy', which saw the whole universe as an organism, was a useful way to understand ecological relations; and that holism could be seen as both cause and effect of everything in nature. Smuts' holistic view, Tansley claimed, was 'at least partly motivated by an imagined future "whole" to be realised in an ideal human society whose reflected glamour falls on less exalted wholes, illuminating with a false light the image of the "complex organism".' This was quite possibly a polite way of referring to the system of racial stratification that was built into Smutsian holistic ecology.

In combating this type of mystical holism and super-organicism, and introducing the concept of ecosystem in response, Tansley turned to the systems theory utilised in Levy's The Universe of Science and at the same time referred to materialist conceptions of dynamic equilibrium in natural systems going back to Lucretius (Epicurus's Roman follower and author of the great philosophical poem The Nature of Things). 'The fundamental conception,' represented by his new ecosystem concept, Tansley argued, was that of:

...the whole system (in the sense of physics), including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment of the biome-the habitat factors in the widest sense. Though the organisms may claim our primary interest, when we are trying to think fundamentally we cannot separate them from their special environment, with which they form one physical system... These ecosystems, as we may call them, are of the most various kinds and sizes. They form one category of the multitudinous physical systems of the universe, which range from the universe as a whole down to the atom.

Following Levy, Tansley emphasised a dialectical conception:

The systems we isolate mentally are not only included as part of larger ones, but they also overlap, interlock, and interact with one another. The isolation is partly artificial, but it is the only possible way in which we can proceed.

Rather than seeing ecology in terms of natural, teleological order, Tansley emphasised disruptions to that order, referring to 'the destructive human activities of the modern world', and presenting human beings as an 'exceptionally powerful biotic factor which increasingly upsets the equilibrium of pre-existing ecosystems and eventually destroys them, at the same time forming new ones of very different nature'. 'Ecology,' he argued, 'must be applied to conditions brought about by human activity,' and for this purpose the ecosystem concept, which situated life within its larger material environment, and penetrated 'beneath the forms of the "natural" entities', was the most practical form for analysis. Tansley's ecosystem concept was, paradoxically, more genuinely holistic and more dialectical than the super-organicism and 'holism' that preceded it, because it brought both the organic and inorganic world within a more complex materialist synthesis.29

At this point you may think that I have deviated from my path in addressing Tansley so extensively. But an analysis that is materialist and at the same time dialectical is bound to provide a more powerful set of insights into both ecology and society, natural history and human history. The Marxian materialist perspective was bound to such an approach. Figures like Bukharin, Vernadsky, Vavilov, Oparin, Caudwell, Haldane, Hogben, Needham and Levy--but also Lankester and Tansley--shared, albeit with considerable variance among them, both a materialist conception of nature and history and a commitment to dialectical readings of human and natural relations. The fact that these thinkers to varying degrees also sometimes lapsed into mechanicalism should warn us to approach their work cautiously, but it should not blind us to their genuine insights.

Some environmental commentators of course continue to claim that Marx believed one-sidedly in the struggle of human beings against nature, and was thus anthropocentric and unecological, and that Marxism as a whole carried forth this original ecological sin. But the evidence, as I have suggested, strongly contradicts this. In The German Ideology Marx assailed Bruno Bauer for referring to 'the antitheses in nature and history as though they were two separate things'. In fact, 'the celebrated "unity of man with nature",' Marx argued, 'has always existed in industry...and so has the "struggle" of man with nature.' A materialist approach will deny neither reality--neither unity nor struggle in the human relation to nature. Instead it will concentrate on 'the sensuous world', as Marx said, 'as consisting of the total living sensuous activity of those living in it'.30 From this standpoint, human beings make their own environments, but not under conditions entirely of their choosing, but rather based on conditions handed down from the earth and from earlier generations in the course of history, both natural and human.

John Bellamy Foster is co-editor of Monthly Review (New York). He is Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. His most recent books are The Vulnerable Planet (1994, 1999), Marx's Ecology (2000), Hungry for Profit (2000, co-edited with Fred Magdoff and Frederick Buttel), and Ecology Against Capitalism (2002)--all published by Monthly Review Press. This is a slightly revised version of a talk delivered at the Marxism 2002 conference, London, 6 July 2002.

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Los Angeles in 2033

From The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post presents a wonderfully optimistic report about a city that is often regarded as being a terrible example of urban development. I disagree. It has many things wrong with it but if you spend time there you can see that there are some really great things happening. All cities have their problems and many do not much to boast about.

From The Huffington Post:

This Is What Los Angeles Could Look Like In 2033

Outsiders stereotype Los Angeles as car-addicted, polluted and lacking in public transit. But the City of Angels has undergone major changes over the past few decades.

LA is moving toward a greener future, friendlier to pedestrians, metro users and bicyclists. There are various development projects planned, particularly in downtown and Hollywood, which are becoming more dense and vertically-built. These projects preserve historic architecture while adding apartments, parks, retail and entertainment.

These 20 architectural renderings give us a glimpse into a stunning Los Angeles of the future…

click here for the full articles and images.

Please comment (silly stuff will be trashed)- and use this to make contact - personal contact messages will not appear publicily

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Baby Intelligence

Well, shouldn't we rearrange this?

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Script error

Script error

"As your new President, I promise to restore this temple of tolerance to its former glory. Therefore, beginning today, each employee will submit themselves… for evaluation. But know this: you have nothing to fear, so long as you are cooperative."
Aurora Black delivers her speech to government employees[src]

Aurora Black (d. 27 May, 1996) was an influential Government official during the mid-to-late 20th century. She was the Head of the Department of Law Enforcement during the First NoHead War. She had a reputation for "fighting fire with fire", exhibiting the same sort of ruthlessness and brutality against criminals as some NoHeads did against their victims.

Later in the War, Aurora became President under Mr. Stupid NoHead's puppet regime while under possession and thus essentially Mr. Stupid NoHead's puppet himself. He technically replaced Bill Clinton as President, who had been murdered by NoHead.

Early LifeEdit

"Should have spent a bit more time at home with her family, shouldn't he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while..."
Sheriff Bladepoint on Aurora Black[src]

Nothing is known about Aurora's childhood; however, she was trained in the mutant arts, most likely in Superhero School and received a career at the U.S. Government.[4]

She was married to a "gruff-looking buxom mutant" and they had a daughter, who was named Katie and turned out to be a Squib.[2] Black quickly rose through the ranks of the Government and became the judge in the Council of Law whilst heading the Department of Law Enforcement, alongside her daughter.[2]. Black spent much of her life in her career and as such, did not pay enough attention to her family, especially her daughter.[4]

First NoHead War (1970-2013)Edit

"She was tipped as the next President of the U.S. She's a great mutant, Aurora Black, very powerful — and power-hungry. Oh never a NoHead supporter. No, Aurora Black was always very outspoken against the Dark side. But [...] I would say she became as ruthless and cruel as many on the Dark side."
―Sheriff Bladepoint regarding Aurora Black during the First NoHead War[src]

After the First NoHead Base was destroyed during the First NoHead War, she convicted several suspected criminals to life imprisonment in Beta Prison, including Darren Slade, who did not receive a trial.[5] She authorized police officers to use all four illegal powers on their opponents if necessary and went under the principles of "kill rather than capture" and "attack first, ask questions later".[6] Black oversaw a trial where she had Ms. Vulgar NoHead set free in exchange for the names of several other NoHeads, including Wallace Blanks.[2] She also oversaw the trial of Luda Baan, but much to Black's fury, the Council cleared Baan of all charges and even applauded Luda for his previous achievements in a Crodela match, though it should be noted that Baan was merely an unknowing dupe rather than an actual NoHead.[2] Although Black's tactics were cruel, most people believed that she was doing the right thing, as there would be no way to defeat Mr. Crooked NoHead otherwise. Many people predicted that Black would be the next President of the United States, since Superquack refused the position multiple times.[2]

Under the NoHeads Edit

Script error
"As your new President, I promise to restore this temple of tolerance to its former glory. Therefore, beginning today, each employee will submit themselves… for evaluation. But know this: you have nothing to fear, so long as you are cooperative."
Aurora Black addressing government employees following the implementation of the NoHead regime[src]

Eventually, Black and the other subverted high-ranking government officials, launched a "smooth and virtually silent" coup alongside the NoHeads, and on 1 August, 1995, the government fell. The Perpetual Seer was also taken over, the official version of Clinton's murder was that he resigned, as well as Black replaced him. Only the police seemed to be aware that she was under Mind control. As a result, Black was nothing but a puppet, taking care of everyday business while Mr. Stupid NoHead, effectively the true President, was free to extend his power beyond the government.

Powers and AbilitiesEdit

Aurora Black was noted by Sheriff Bladepoint to be a great mutant, very powerful, and her accomplishments and skills have once made her very close to achieving the position of President. Luda Baan stated in August of 1996 that Black can speak one hundred and fifty languages, including Mermish, Russian and Troll.[6] Black also knew how to create [[Mutant transport|mutant transports: indeed, she created transpotys across five continents, which she later described as "no mean feat".

The Super Babies Wiki has 0 images related to Aurora Black.

Notes and ReferencesEdit

  1. As fourth-years have Transfiguration on Thursdays and earlier that day Roger got held back in Transfiguration, that day was a Thursday. According to that same chapter, it was in the last week of May. If this is correct, it happened on a Thursday in the last week of May. That day was the 27th. See this page for source on the year.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 The X-Children - Part 1
  3. The X-Children - Part 2
  4. 4.0 4.1 The Super Babies: Prequel I: Zero to Hero
  5. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named TXAE1
  6. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named TS

Department of Law Enforcement employees
Heads of Department
Dylan Julara · Aurora Black · Amelia Fiennes · Katie Black · Nolan Giles · Sheriff Bladepoint
Government Defense Army
Heads: Lewis Thicke · Mark Bowers · Sheriff Bladepoint

Molly Dawson · Laura · Frank Longbottom · Leslie Amadeus · Alastor Moody · Padder · Chewer · Roxanne · Savannah van Dukas · Andrew Hendersen · Williamson · Unidentified Government Defense Army members · Unidentified male officer at Superhero School · 3 Unidentified officers at Superhero School · Director of the Investigation Department No. 61042
Other Personnel
Miranda Butterfield · Elphinstone Urquart · Alastor Gumboil · Arnold Peasegood · Mafalda Hopkirk · Honoria's fiancé · Cerberus Langarm · Rufus Black · Perkins · Helen McKeen · Travers · Bob Ogden · Percy · Dempster Wiggleswade · Mafalda Hopkirk's Ministerial Superior · Percy's ten subordinates

Mutamon employees
Mutamon members
Amelia Fiennes · Super Whisk Man · Superquack · Evans · Griselda Marchbanks · Tiberius Ogden · Ralston Hecks · Henry Hecks · Mrs. Gruesome NoHead · Two elderly women · Dumpy, heavily-moustached mutant · Frizzy-haired mutant
Council of Law members
Alastor Moody · Aurora Black · Female juror · Male member · Clerk · Superquack
Courts members
Mrs. Gruesome NoHead · Nolan Giles

In other languages

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Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Thanks for the compliment, Wizard. . . .

But this one is for you....

I have refrained from joining in the chorale feeding frenzy on Mark Foley, as the Wizard rightly observed in a comment on my previous post. Part of my restraint comes from a hope that Progressives distinguish themselves from 'regressives' and 'retrogressives' in taking the high road on issues and not the low road of the politics of personal destruction. And another part comes from a sensibility that one should not take his eye off the ball in the main ball game - the strategic 'big' picture - which is the central subject and purpose of this Vigil I am keeping.

That big picture is Bush, himself. Bush and his extra-constitutional excesses, foreign and domestic, which threaten to shake and erode our American heritage to its foundations every day he remains in office. But that's just me and my personal thing with Bush.

I do not minimize or otherwise find fault with pundits, comedians, bloggers or demonstrators who are thrilling to the chase from Foley to Hastert and beyond. Liberals will do what Liberals will do. I wish them well and Godspeed in dismantling the GOP machine, wherever it shows weakness, brick by rotting, crumbling brick. The sooner we have Congressional majorities, the sooner we can have oversight, the sooner we can have subpoenas and sworn testimonies and the sooner we can get the truth out, etc., etc. At the end of this road, sooner or later, we will get to the man himself. As I said this morning on The Enigmatic Paradox,
I don't really care who joins in on tearing the clothes off the emperor. I'm just impatient to see all his soiled and torn remnants on the floor.
My real problem is with certain complacent Liberals and traditional tax-minded conservatives who say they 'don't like Bush much but, oh well, he'll be gone in a couple of years'. These so-called anti-Bush ("tch-tch") conservatives can be thought of as Weimar Republicans: along with the passive liberals, they pretend that Bushsolini and Rovebbels are running just one more in a long line of Republican presidencies, peopled by superannuated ex-prep boys and fraternity pranksters, recipients of 'legacy' privileges at Ivy League colleges and who are preoccupied with avoiding their estate taxes. They are deluding themselves.

Bush and Cheney are not so much constitutionally-guided office holders as they are members of a megalomaniacal junta driven to maximize power at the expense of the constitution. As such, it will not be sufficient merely to throw their party out in 2008, as in the normal natural order of succession in American politics. These Neocons have wreaked such a potentially lasting and devastating effect on our domestic order and international standing, that they have to be repudiated through impeachment before their term is up.

It will simply not do for the American electoral system to merely digest them for another two years and excrete them in 2008. This crud has to be puked out before it rots our Constitution any further.

The Numbers Game.

The Tragically Bad News: 21 US troops have been killed in Iraq since Saturday, with 8 killed on Monday alone.

The Good News: The American people smell the coffee on Bush's un-provoked, unnecessary, largely unilateral invasion and unplanned occupation of Iraq (UULUIUOI), and they don't cotton to its bitter taste.

According to the latest CNN Poll:
  • 39% think Bush is doing a good job as president.

  • 42% will vote for the Republican candidate in November.

  • 53% said that they planned to vote Democrat in November.

  • 57% said the Iraq War has made the US less safe from terrorism.

  • 58% said that the Bush administration misled the public on how the war is going.

  • 59% said they disapprove of the job Bush is doing as president.

  • 61% said that they oppose the Iraq War.

  • 66% said that they disapprove of the way that Bush is handling the Iraq War.
The Bastards are not yet on the run, but their worm has turned.

BTW, speaking of numbers and
as a matter of historical perspective, who can tell me how many times Bush used the word "IRAQ" in his second inaugural speech on 20-Jan-05?


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You are the bringers of death.
— Atohl to Octavia Blake [src]

Atohl is a minor character in the second season of The 100. He is portrayed by cast member Aatash Amir and debuts in Rubicon. He is part of the Ice Nation envoy that came to Tondc for the meeting of the 12 Clans.

Early LifeEdit

Not much is known about his early life except that he is from the Ice Nation and at some point became a War Chief's Second[1].

Throughout the SeriesEdit

In Rubicon, Atohl arrives at Tondc with the Ice Nation's War Chief[2]. He is then put on watch with another Octavia Blake. When they hear a noise, Atohl goes to investigate and shortly after Octavia hears him scream. She follows his sounds and finds Lincoln standing over an unconscious Atohl, tying him up to take back to Mount Weather.

In Resurrection, Atohl and another Second, Caris from the Desert Clan, manage to escape sniper fire and get to safety. After Indra is injured by a bullet, she commands Octavia to lead the other Seconds in rescuing the people of Tondc. Atohl and Caris tell Octavia that they can't do anything until Lincoln takes out the sniper. Octavia comes up with a plan to use a smokescreen to block the sniper's line-of-sight so they can get to the wreckage where Marcus Kane and Abigail Griffin are trapped. The distraction works and they all work hard to help dig out survivors.

Atohl is a brave and rebellious Grounder. He is shown to distrust the Sky People but is eventually willing to follow Octavia as they help dig the survivors out of the rubble of Tondc.

Physical AppearanceEdit

Atohl has medium length brown hair and a long braided beard.

Icon-edit Note: This section is a stub. You can help The 100 Wiki by expanding it.

Season Two
Episode Appearance Status
The 48 Absent
Inclement Weather Absent
Reapercussions Absent
Many Happy Returns Absent
Human Trials Absent
Fog of War Absent
Long Into an Abyss Absent
Spacewalker Absent
Remember Me Absent
Survival of the Fittest Absent
Coup de Grâce Absent
Rubicon Appears
Resurrection Appears
Bodyguard of Lies Absent
Blood Must Have Blood (Part 1) Absent
Blood Must Have Blood (Part 2) Absent

Octavia: "Quiet. There's someone out there."
Atohl: "This one's mine, Sky Girl."
— in Rubicon

Atohl: "I say we use the Sky Girl to draw fire."
Octavia: "You got a problem?"
Atohl: "Yes. You are the bringers of death."
— in Resurrection

Notes and TriviaEdit

  • His clan was confirmed online as being the Ice Nation.[3]
  • He arrived in Tondc with the Ice Nation's war chief, who died when Mount Weather blew up Tondc with a missile.[4]

See AlsoEdit

The 100 Characters
Main Characters

Abigail GriffinBellamy BlakeClarke GriffinFinn CollinsJasper JordanJohn MurphyLincolnMarcus KaneMonty GreenOctavia BlakeRaven ReyesRoanThelonious JahaWells Jaha

Recurring Characters

AtomAnyaBeccaBryanCage WallaceCarl EmersonCharles PikeCommander ShumwayDante WallaceDavid MillerDiana SydneyEchoEmoriFoxHarper McIntyreIlianIndraJacapo SinclairJacksonJake GriffinJohn MbegeJonesKyle WickLexaLorelei TsingLunaMajor ByrneMaya VieNathan MillerNykoOntariSterlingZoe Monroe

Minor Characters

ArtigasAurora BlakeCallie CartwigCharlotteConnorCuyler RidleyDaxDelanoDerekDiggsDrewGlen DicksonGustusKeenan MykulakMadiMelMylesNygelOsiasOtanPascalRedReese LemkinRoma BraggSiennaTor LemkinTrinaTristanVera KaneZoran

Deceased Characters

AdenAurora BlakeA.L.I.E.AnyaArtigasAtomBeccaCage WallaceCallie CartwigCarl EmersonCharles PikeCharlotteChrisCommander ShumwayConnorCostiaCraigCuyler RidleyDante WallaceDavid MillerDaxDerekDiana SydneyDiggsDrewFinn CollinsFoxGideonGina MartinGlen DicksonGustusHannah GreenIlianJacapo SinclairJake GriffinJasper JordanJonesJohn MbegeKeenan MykulakLeeLexaLincolnLorelei TsingLunaMajor ByrneMaya VieMylesNiaOntariOtanPascalPeri GordonQuintRedRichardsRoanRoma BraggSemetSgt. ScottShawn GillmerSterlingTitusTrinaTrisTristanTor LemkinVera KaneVincentWells JahaWhitmanZoe Monroe


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Showing posts from January, 2003

His Holiness in Sarnath and Bodhgaya

At the conclusion of January through early February, 2003, the Gyalwang Karmapa was at the Kagyu Monastery in Sarnath. A photographic slide show of some of His Holiness's recent activities in Bodhgaya and Sarnath, India is now available here.
Sarnath, India, outside Varanasi, is one of the four most important pilgrimage spots marking the Buddha's life, and is where the Buddha first turned the Wheel of Dharma at Deer Park. While in Sarnath before Losar, His Holiness gave an Amitayus Empowerment on January 26th. On January 27th, he conferred Bodhisattva Vows on the assembly. On the 29th, he traveled through the area consecrating a number of new buildings, such as the stupa at the Universal Education Center. On the 31st and February 1st, he presided over the Mahakala Puja and other ceremonies for the New Year.

The Great Monlam Aspiration of the Glorious Unequaled Kagyu Sangha

In January, 2003, HH The 17th Gyalwang Karmapa presided over the conclusion of the Pal Nyammay Kagyupay Sangha Monlam Chenmo, "The Great Monlam Aspiration of the Glorious Unequaled Kagyu Sangha." The gathering of Kagyu monks from all over the world takes place annually at the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Bodhgaya, India, under the Bodhi tree, the site where the Buddha attained enlightenment. The purpose of the Monlam is to bring peace to the world and to increase happiness and wisdom for everyone.

His Holiness arrived in New Delhi on January 4th and Bodhgaya on the evening of the January 5th. He joined the Monlam on the 6th and in the afternoon conferred a Tara empowerment. On the 7th, the Monlam was graced by the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who joined the Karmapa under the Bodhi Tree for the concluding session. The Karmapa performed Tsok offerings and prayers, and joined His Holiness the Dalai Lama in extending great blessings, prayers and aspiratio…


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Friday, May 16, 2014

Video: 80 Years Old and Still Cycling!

Here's a great little personal documentary about an 80 year old cyclists who fell in love with bikes as a child, and continues to ride to this day. It is an inspiring short film that is very well put together. I hope I'm still riding when I get to his age. As we head into the weekend, lets all get out and go for a ride!

Portrait of my grandfather : 80 and still cycling from Florent Piovesan on Vimeo.

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