text:
- Baked Goods
- Frozen Traditional Cookies Dough
- Michael Traditional Peanut Chip Cookies Dough 1 Ounce
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Michael Traditional Peanut Chip Cookies Dough 1 Ounce Product ID: OTF479606 Michaels Cookies
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Superior design and engineering power the Aurora’s unparalleled performance. With many of the same features as its sister Echelon Series, the Aurora Series grill delivers cooking versatility, durability and longevity in a beautifully crafted machine.
AURORA 530i GRILL
|Primary Cooking Surface||24” x 22” (528 sq. in.)|
|Warming Rack Surface||24” x 8” (192 sq. in.)|
|Main Burner||60,000 BTUs|
|Back Burners||13,000 BTUs|
|Cut Out Dimensions||25½”w x 23½”d x 12”h|
- Cast stainless steel burners (E-burners)
- All stainless steel cooking grids
- Most BTU’s per square inch. Heats fast and stays hot!
- 16 gauge stainless steel flavor grids
- Advanced Hot Surface Ignition simply push in the control knob, turn up the gas and light the grill
- Built-in Interior Lights
- Integral and removable oven warming rack for light cooking or warming food
- Analog thermometer included or upgrade to digital thermometer with meat probe.
- Optional recessed stainless steel rotisserie back burner and heavy duty rotisserie kit
- Built-in storage rack for rotisserie spit rod
- Extensive line of complementary accessories
|Diamond Sear Cooking Grids||Hot Surface Ignition||Cast Stainless Steel Burners|
|Analog Thermometer||Comfort Touch Knobs||Stainless Steel Backburner|
|Gourmet Face||Optional Magic View Window||Halogen Interior Lights|

domain: design


text:
Whether small press or handling the big print runs, we handle the Publishing tasks!
Looking for international publisher
Hi all, I'm looking for comic publisher for my work, Genesis Revelation.the sample pages of Genesis Revelation can be seen in my album.thxKusumaRead more…
Hi, everybody. Does anybody here publish anything besides comics/ graphic novels? I am working on a novel and may need a publisher soon. Thanks.
Hi brothers and sisters. I am writing from Turkey. We publish a children magazine and use this wonderful tool to share gospel amoung muslim kids. In these days we are redesigning our magazine and changing the content. This year we will focus 6 days of creation and first issue will be about God Created Light. I wonder do you have or your friends any christian comics about light? We have two pages for it! Thank you very much for your help!
Hi Kerry! Post that event in the events area here on the site so folks will know. Email me with the details and I'll find out what I can find. Scott at FrontGateMedia.com. :)
I am the founder of the "NW Christian Comic Alliance" and I will be setting up a table at the "Rose City comic-Con" on September 21st & 22nd
I would love to display any comics, flyers, business cards to promote you work.
Please let me know.
In His Grip
my Book 8 Bit pulp is out through Amazon.
Hello CCAS Publishers!
New to this forum and want to share our FREE comic books!! Our MEGABOOK anthology is over 600 pages of free reading alone! Enjoy!
Pick your favorite distributor. MEGABOOK M2 is on DriveThru, MDC and Balloon'd (soon to be on Graphicly).
Hi! I haven't come in here in quite a while and thought I'd touch base with all of you.
Indie Comics Magazine has been published and offered through Diamond for two years now.
Our goal is to introduce independent comic book creators to the Diamond audience and beyond with 8-page, done-in-one stories, news release program, click through from our website, and video preview.
To receive pro-specific Indie Comics Magazine info beyond the fan info, join the Pro Email List:
You can opt out at any time.
The buy-in details and our numbers are under "Submissions."
Affordable Showcase Ads are explained here.
Themed books work well for us -- Indie Comics Horror #1 is available from September's Previews NOW under Aazurn Publishing -- and a Christian-themed Indie Comics Magazine, or an Indie Comics Christian #1, would be super. I just need to line up 8 creators!
Read through "Submissions," then I'm here for questions!
Gary Scott Beatty
Indie Comics Magazine
Xeric Awarded Writer and Illustrator
Comic Book Coloring and Lettering
1509 Princeton Rd.
Muskegon, MI 49441
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Indie Comics Horror #1 is 48 pages of the best horror from today's independent comic book creators. Six complete stories in this issue. No huge overprint, no digital version, no subscriptions, September's Previews comic book order magazine, under Aazurn Publishing, at your local or online comic shop is the ONLY way readers can get Indie Comics Horror #1! Check out the video preview with music by the appropriately indie Chantron, at http://indiecomicsmagazine.com/
Looking to publish my art in an organic form. Any idea of what a startup costs to get my work out there so I can budget?

domain: literature


text:
Edible gardening continues to be a hot interest in the gardening world. More than 1/3rd of American homes are growing edibles. As this interest in edibles grows, so does the conflict between growing for beauty or growing for eating.
Fortunately, you can have both. Foodscaping or edible landscaping is a way to grow and enjoy vegetables, berries, fruits and herbs without sacrificing the beauty of your yard.
In my book, Foodscaping: Practical & Innovative Ways to Create an Edible Landscape, I highlight the many reasons for growing some of your own food. It’s gone beyond just growing your own food because it’s tastier and safer. It is becoming essential! As the world population grows and climate change wreaks havoc on farmers, we’ll all have to start producing some of our own edibles. If not just to help offset costs and have the knowledge that your produce is safe, but also for our own sense of security. The good news is it’s easy and with my book keeping the yard looking beautiful while growing edibles is possible.
The first step to creating a Foodscape is to think of innovative places to grow your edibles. You have lots of options. You can integrate edibles into plantings around the house, in the flower garden, in the hedgerow, as ground covers, and as vining plants. My book shows that you don’t have to rip out your existing landscape to add food. You can keep what you have, and supplement it with delicious edibles.
Speaking of delicious edibles, I also highlight my favorite edible plants. Plant breeders have done a great job lately breeding edibles for beauty and practicality. Colorful kales, lettuces, eggplants, peppers, and basil share the garden with edible flowers such as calendula, bee balm, daylily, lavender, and roses. Beautiful berry bushes such as currants, elderberry and honey berry share the stage with edible and attractive fruit trees such as cherry, serviceberry and fig.
But instead of just planting more edibles and having more to care for, you can substitute edibles for ornamentals. Here are some examples. Instead of growing burning bushes, try blueberries. Instead of a planting a redbud, try a serviceberry. Instead of growing a privet hedge, try an asparagus hedge. Instead of planting a Virginia creeper vine, try a hardy kiwi.
And the book isn’t just about what, where and how to grow edibles. It’s chocked full of colorful photo examples of these beautiful edibles and garden designs. Foodscaping will inspire you to try to add some edibility to your yard next season.
Click here for a more information on Foodscaping from my website!
Guest Blogger Bio
Charlie Nardozzi is a nationally recognized garden writer, speaker, radio, and television personality. He has worked for more than 25 years bringing expert gardening information to home gardeners through radio, television, talks, tours, on-line, and the printed page. Charlie delights in making gardening information simple, easy, fun and accessible to everyone.
Charlie is also known for his radio shows, TV shows, speaking and writing. He has authored 6 titles including Urban Gardening for Dummies in 2013 and Vegetable Gardening For Dummies, Foodscaping (CSP Press, 2015). His regional books are Northeast Fruit and Vegetable Gardening released in 2012, New England Getting Started Garden Guide released in 2014 and New England Month by Month Gardening, released in 2016.

domain: agronomy


text:
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d)
Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Date of Report (Date of earliest event
reported): January 10, 2018 (January 2, 2018 )
KINGOLD JEWELRY, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified
in its charter)
|(State or other jurisdiction of
||(Commission File Number)
||(IRS Employer Identification No.)|
15 Huangpu Science and Technology Park
Wuhan, Hubei Province, PRC
|(Address of principal executive offices)
Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (011)
86 27 65694977
Check the appropriate box below if the
Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions
(see General Instruction A.2. below):
||Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425) |
||Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12) |
||Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b)) |
||Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c)) |
Indicate by check mark whether the
registrant is an emerging growth company as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act of 1933 (§230.405 of this chapter) or
Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (§240.12b-2 of this chapter).
Emerging growth company ¨
If an emerging growth company, indicate
by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial
accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ¨
||Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement.|
On January 2, 2018,
Wuhan Kingold Jewelry Company Limited (“Wuhan Kingold”), the controlled subsidiary of Kingold Jewelry, Inc.
(the “Company”), entered into a Trust Loan Contract in the amount of no more than RMB 1,500 million (equivalent
to approximately US$ 230 million) with China Minsheng Trust Co., Ltd. The stated purpose of the trust loan (the “Trust Loan”)
is supplementary liquidity needs. The Trust Loan will be issued in installments. Each installment of the Trust Loan has a 24-month term, and the period from issuance date of the first installment to the
expiration date of the last installment shall not exceed 30 months. The Trust Loan bears interest at a fixed annual rate of
9.2%. The Trust Loan is secured by 7,887 kilograms of Au9999 gold, pledged by Wuhan
Kingold. Our CEO Mr. Zhihong Jia also agreed to guarantee the Trust Loan . The repayment of the Trust Loan may be accelerated under
certain conditions, including upon a default of principal or interest payment when due, breach of representations or warranties,
certain cross-defaults, upon the occurrence of certain material events affecting the financial viability of Wuhan Kingold, and
other customary conditions.
An English translation
of the Trust Loan Contract is filed as Exhibit 10.1 hereto. The foregoing summary of the Trust Loan Contract does not purport to
be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to such agreement, which is incorporated by reference herein.
||Creation of a Direct Financial Obligation or an Obligation under an Off-Balance Sheet Arrangement of a Registrant.|
The disclosure contained
in Item 1.01 of this Current Report on Form 8-K is incorporated by reference in its entirety into this Item 2.03.
||Financial Statements and Exhibits.|
Pursuant to the requirements
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the
undersigned hereunto duly authorized.
||KINGOLD JEWELRY, INC.|
||/s/ Zhihong Jia|
||Name: Zhihong Jia|
||Title: Chief Executive Officer|
Date: January 10, 2018

domain: economics


Dual character of magnetism in EuFe2As2: Optical spectroscopic and density-functional calculation study
- Dual character of magnetism in EuFe2As2: Optical spectroscopic and density-functional calculation study
- Moon, SJ; Shin, JH; Parker, D; Choi, WS; Mazin, II; Lee, YS; Kim, JY; Sung, NH; Cho, BK; Khim, SH; Kim, JS; Kim, KH; Noh, TW
- Date Issued
- AMER PHYSICAL SOC
- We investigate the electronic structure of EuFe2As2 using optical spectroscopy and density-functional calculations. At low temperature we observe the evolution of two gaplike features, one having a weak-coupling mean-field behavior and another with strongly nonmean-field behavior. Using band-structure calculations, we identify the former with a spin-Peierls-type partial gap in d(yz) bands and the latter with the transition across the large exchange gap in d(xz)/d(xy) bands. Our results demonstrate that the antiferromagnetism in the ferropnictides is neither fully local nor fully itinerant but contains elements of both.
- Article Type
- PHYSICAL REVIEW B, vol. 81, no. 20, 2010-05-15
- Files in This Item:
Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.


text:
Cupcake bouquets are a fabulous way of combining the look of fresh flowers with delicious cake for that ultimate gift. They are great for any occasion including birthdays, anniversaries, thank you’s, get well, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, new baby to name but a few.
Each bouquet is uniquely designed to your choice of colour scheme and cake flavours. The number of colours and flavours depends upon the size of bouquet you choose. It is possible for you to add further colours and flavours for an additional charge.
Varieties of flowers will vary depending on the size of your bouquet. Eg. A 30 cupcake bouquet will on average have 5 varieties of flower, whereas a 7 cupcake bouquet will have 3 variants of flower.
Unless specifically requested on ordering; flower varieties for each bouquet will be selected for the most complimentary result.
7 Cake Bouquet – £30 White plus 1 additional colour
12 Cake Bouquet – £50 White plus 2 additional colours
19 Cake Bouquet – £70 White plus 3 additional colours
24 Cake Bouquet – £90 White plus 4 additional colours
30 Cake Bouquet – £110 White plus 5 additional colours
Any additional colours are priced at £4.00 per cupcake bouquet
Copyright © From the Hart cake creations 2019. All rights reserved.
FTHCC is fully registered and insured as a food business and has been awarded a 5* hygiene rating

domain: food


text:
My Ántonia Theme of Gender
My Ántonia subverts traditional gender roles, both for women and for men. Set around the turn of the century in the American West, the novel surprisingly features women as its strongest characters and men as its weakest. In My Ántonia we see an apparent reversal of stereotypical gender roles. Women take control of families, earn money, call the shots, and even do field work with the men. The title character, Ántonia, is characterized by strength of both body and of spirit, while the male narrator Jim is both indecisive and weak. This female strength is rewarded in the novel – the strongest of the young women end up as successful, happy adults. Cather does present different life trajectories for these women: some end up in business while others end up as homemakers. The novel seems to take an equally positive view toward both, though this is subject to debate.
Questions About Gender
- In what ways does Ántonia rebel against gender stereotypes in her day and age? Are there are of the stereotypes she does fit?
- Why doesn't Lena want to get married? Does this seem reasonable? Why is it that Ántonia does want to get married?
- Which life is presented as the "right" choice for a woman – Lena's or Ántonia's?
Chew on This
In My Ántonia, the women are the characters of action, while the men are characterized by passivity.
My Ántonia rejects traditional standards of femininity and argues for alternatives.

domain: library


₹ 4,999.00 - ₹ 2,299.00
(as of Sep 20,2020 08:04:33 UTC – Details)
SRICAM WiFi Security Camera makes it easy to watch your kids, elderly parents, or pets wirelessly on your smartphone or tablet–anytime, anywhere. Simply download app to your mobile device and view it within 5 minutes
MOTION DETECTION: Will send you alarm when some motion is detected.
ROTATE CAMERA: Rotate camera horizontally or vertically from anywhere in world thanks to inbuilt rotating motor.
IR Night Vision: See in Dark also with the help of inbuilt IR lens.
2 WAY AUDIO & SD CARD SLOT: Talk to other side of camera with the help of inbuilt microphone & speaker. Record Videos in SD card as it has provision for SD card slot also. It supports upto 128 GB capacity Card.


text:
Exciting new levels become even more beautiful and spectacular. Added new weapons, new enemies and more tactics and action. Supports four languages: English, Russian, German and French. Setting up the balance of the game for players with different goals. If you want to test their strength in the strategy, the game on hard difficulty. If you just want to have fun, then choose easy or medium difficulty level. A wide variety of weapons and landscapes gives great freedom in choosing the tactics of battle. The correct choice of the type of weapon and its location - the key to a successful defense. The use of air strikes and a temporary increase in power tools offers advantages, and will not allow to start missing in the battle....
Downloads: 308+ (for Android)Report app for spam or abuse!
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Android Free
Become the Amazing Spider-Man in this open-world 3D adventure full of crime-fighting

domain: game


Lingoes Dictionaries Software Direct Translations on Screen
Lingoes is a multilingual dictionary and translation software that supports over 80 languages. It translates whole texts, takes the word on the screen, translates the selected text or long text for free, and offers large dictionaries such as a new translation dictionary and translation software.
The application allows users to search for dictionaries and translations between English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Greek, Polish, Arabic, Hebrew, and more than 80 more languages in the quickest way possible.
About Lingoes Dictionaries Software
Lingoes instantaneously recognize and identifies the phrase by simply changing the pointer, navigating to any type of textual material, and hitting the shortcut for an essential shortcut. Lingoes offers all the characteristics of today’s popular business software, as well as the development of cross-language design and dictionary management.
Many dictionaries and synonyms are available for free download on the official website. Lingoes is the finest instrument for learning all types of languages, in our opinion. (The download link is at the bottom of the topic.)
- It has a basic and easy-to-use user interface.
- It supports cross-language translation by translating texts and dictionaries in more than 60 dialects throughout the world.
- These dialects include English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese,
- Dutch, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and others.
- Lingo’s online translation service merges textual content translation engines from around the world, including System, Quick, Mix, Yahoo, Google, and Alta Vista, among others.
- Lingoes Dictionaries Software Direct Translations on Screen
- You may freely select these engines to translate them and compare the various results provided by various engines to assist you in releasing texts in new languages.
- Using Lingoes‘ cursor translation tool, you can translate words anywhere on the screen.
- When you hit the change key, the system recognizes what the cursor has selected and displays the results.
- The Translator Indicator allows the translation of English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other languages.
- Lingo works with translator cursors, dictionaries, and smart translations via ‘Creative Textual content Translation.’
- It will convert up to 23 textual material dialects into indigenous vocabulary based on the term or phrase selected on the display screen by the pointer.
- Lingo provides word functions and textual material texts based on the most recent conversation test engine (TTS), allowing you to rapidly acquire the pronunciation of words, and is great for study and conservation.
- You may effortlessly download and install dictionaries based on your demands, and you can freely configure their plans with open administration.
- We provide numerous free dictionaries in many dialects and topics for consumers to download and use.
- If you don’t have any local dictionaries, you can use the online dictionary service to acquire additional results.
- We also provide an internet encyclopedia, such as Wikipedia, which has 9 dialects and 3,500,000 entries.
- Currency conversion, international dialing rules, an international time converter, transformation scales, weights, and other features are available.
The program’s most recent version supports machines running Windows Vista / 7 / 8 /10/11, 32-bit.
- And there are many more.
- Category: Dictionary Software
Software name: Lingoes
- Version: Latest
- License: Free copy
- File size for Windows 64 – bit: 16.85 MB
- Operating systems: All Microsoft Windows systems
- Languages: Supports more than 80 languages
- Developed company: Lingoes Project
- Official website: lingoes.net
- Download Sakhr Dictionary English-Arabic Latest Free Version
- Bilingual Multilingual Dictionaries Download Free for PC
- Easy Translator Software Download Free for Windows and Mac
- Merriam Webster Dictionary Free Download for Android and iOS
- Download Arabic Russian Dictionary Free for Android
- Dictionary.Net Talking Free Translate 104 Language


text:
Seeking Greater Victoria's 'model' neighbourhoods
Nov 11 2012
Sarah Amyot with a book box on Queens street.Photograph by: Lyle Stafford , Times Colonist
Coming up with a concept for a "model" neighbourhood is one of the goals of an exercise taking place around the region.
The Building Resilient Neighbourhoods Project is based on a schedule of public sessions for residents, businesspeople, representatives from local government, churches and other organizations.
The project began with introductory sessions at the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre's Kinsmen Field-house and the Burnside Gorge Community Centre.
The project is being coordinated by the Community Social Planning Council of Greater Victoria, Transition Victoria and the Fraser Basin Council's Smart Planning for Communities. It has financial support from the Vancouver Foundation.
The workshops are being held to give individuals and groups a chance to come together "and create communities that can thrive in the face of change," said Sarah Amyot of the Community Social Planning Council.
Changes or challenges to be considered can range from global concerns like climate issues and economic uncertainty to more localized matters such as aging infrastructure and housing affordability.
A key part of the process is urging people to look at the big picture and not focus on any one problem, Amyot said. One way neighbourhoods have done that is by creating vibrant street-level communities where residents get to know one another, she said.
Encouraging new neighbourhood leaders is another of the project's goals.
"One of the challenges that some of the formal community associations say they face is an aging leader-ship," Amyot said. "We're trying to foster a new generation of leadership that can contribute to those organizations."
Looking at ways to maximize use of local amenities such as community halls is also on the agenda.
"Fernwood is a really good example of that, where the community association came together and purchased a building."
Amyot said some neighbourhoods have created shared chicken coops and public book boxes where reading material can be borrowed and returned.
"There's an example from McCaskill Street where the neighbours banded together and bought one freezer that they shared," she said. The freezer allows large quantities of food to be bought and shared by the group.
Emergency preparedness is another popular issue, she said, adding that it can be the "hook" to get people moving in the same direction.
Once the workshops are finished, project proponents hope to have funding in place to work with one
"model" neighbourhood in a more direct fashion. This neighbourhood would be involved with the project for eight to 12 months, Amyot said.
Everyone is welcome to attend the workshops:
? Nov. 15, 6: 30-9 p.m. at the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre's Kinsmen Field-house
? Dec. 4 , 6: 30-9 p.m. at the Burnside Gorge Community Centre
? Jan. 17, 6: 30-9 p.m. at the Victoria Native Friendship Centre
Pre-registration is encouraged through resilient-neighbourhoods. eventbrite.ca or communitycouncil.ca.
Contact the Community Social Planning Council at 250-383-6166.
BRIDGES TO TELL WOMEN'S STORIES
Twenty-five years of transforming lives is cause for celebration at Bridges for Women.
The agency, which helps women dealing with abuse or violence, is collecting sub-missions for an anniversary volume to be called Book of 25 Stories. Poems, artwork and photos are welcome.
Just about anyone who has had a connection to Bridges - including graduates, board members, staff and volunteers - is invited to get involved.
The deadline for submissions is Nov. 23. The finished book will be released March 8 at the group's International Women's Day luncheon.
Bridges was created in 1988 with a focus on employment training for women facing difficulties in their lives. Mentoring and long-distance learning are among the other programs offered.
Call 250-385-7410, ext. 23, or send an email to firstname.lastname@example.org
FOOD DRIVE FOR MUSTARD SEED
The community has been stepping up to help the Mustard Seed Food Bank, which has been scrambling recently to deal with a budget crunch.
On Friday, Poets Cove Resort and Spa is joining with Aureus Vacuum Services for a food drive. Non-perishable food donations will be collected at the Mustard Seed (625 Queens Ave.) from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with the most generous contributors eligible for a weekend retreat at Poets Cove or a new vacuum cleaner.
Later in the day, staff from both businesses will prepare a meal at the Mustard Seed for as many as 300 people in need.
TELUS DONATES TO STRONG KIDS
The YMCA-YWCA of Greater Victoria has been given $65,450 by Telus to support the Strong Kids Campaign.
The money, presented during the annual Telus Celebration of Giving - held recently at the Fairmont Empress hotel - will help disadvantaged youth get involved with YMCAYWCA programs and activities. The contribution came via the six-month Phones for Good initiative at Telus, in which the company gave $25 to the cause for every new smartphone customer in the Victoria area.
The Telus Victoria Community Board, one of 11 in place across Canada, will have given $375,000 to local youth charities in 2012.
That total is part of more than $1.1 million being distributed to community programs in Victoria this year.
CHRISTMAS SPIRIT DINNER COMING
Christina Parkhurst is holding a meeting today to get organizing started for the 22nd annual Christmas Spirit Community Dinner.
The dinner will bring together people from all walks of life on Christmas Day for a turkey feast.
Gifts will be given as well.
Today's session is upstairs at the McDonald's at Shelbourne Street and Cedar Hill Cross Road from 2 to 3: 30 p.m.
Contact Christina Parkhurst at 250-472-1040 or email@example.com.
On the web: www. christmasspiritdinner.ca
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domain: news


text:
Going LIVE With One of Country Music’s Biggest Superstars
Conducting a Facebook Live from a tour bus is bound to be a bit tricky, even trickier when it’s one of country music’s biggest superstar’s first time. Our secret weapon? A big ass iPad.
Toby Keith was kicking off his ‘Interstates and Tailgates’ tour in Louisville Kentucky on May 21, 2016 and wanted to give fans a peek behind the scenes with an acoustic preview of a brand new song and a short Q&A session with fans. Since this was before Facebook Live’s program update, notifying fans and collecting questions in advance via Toby’s social platforms was a must.
Prepping your artist for their Facebook live will combat any awkward or long pauses along the way. You have to let them know what they can expect in advance and what you plan on accomplishing during the live stream. Give the artist and their team an outline and order of events in which you’d like the stream to run, in order to help everything run smoothly. Be sure to answer any questions the artist or team may have to put everyone at ease before you hit the “Go Live” button.
Most importantly, it’s essential to create a fun and light atmosphere during a Facebook Live and recognize that this is a time for the artist to connect with their fans on a more personal and powerful level before and even after the stream.
With a list of some of the best questions collected and printed out in LARGE font, the biggest iPad we could find, secure wifi, and a vintage Toby tour shirt in tow, it was time to go live!
Toby’s first Facebook Live was a huge success (with over one million people reached, 215 thousand views, 4.4 thousand comments and 1.9 thousand shares).
The New Facebook Live
Facebook Live has gotten a huge update recently. Now as marketers, we have the tools to schedule a Live in advance, automatically encourage followers to set tune-in reminders, send push notifications once you’re live and much more. Read all about the updates here and look out for these new advances in Toby’s and all of our other clients’ next Facebook Live.

domain: artistic


If you’re a fan of moon observation, it’s lucky for you that spacecraft such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter exist. For about the past five years, the NASA spacecraft has been in orbit around a closest large neighbor, taking images of the surface in high-definition.
To celebrate LRO’s fifth anniversary, NASA is asking members of the public to vote on which of those images (above) is their favorite. This isn’t so much a statement about the scientific data it has collected, NASA said, but more appreciating the images as art.
Voting runs from May 23 to June 6, and the winner will be announced with the full collection’s release on June 18 — the actual official fifth anniversary of the launch. You can find more information about the vote at this page.
By the way, LRO not only takes good pictures of the moon, but also of other spacecraft. You can check out its pictures of LADEE and Chang’e-3 in these past Universe Today articles.
Meanwhile, James Garvin — NASA’s chief scientist of the sciences and exploration directorate — eloquently weighs in below on his favorite images of the moon. His description of Aristarchus is interesting: “Here is Mother Nature’s expression of a gigantic landform made by a cosmic collision.” You can check out the other four below.
While people across North America marvelled at the blood-red moon early this morning, some NASA engineers had a different topic on their minds: making sure the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter would survive the period of extended shadow during the eclipse.
LRO uses solar panels to get energy for its batteries, so for two passes through the Earth’s shadow it would not be able to get any sunlight at all. Tweets on the official account show all as well in the first few hours after the eclipse.
“The spacecraft will be going straight from the moon’s shadow to the Earth’s shadow while it orbits during the eclipse,” stated Noah Petro, LRO’s deputy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a release before the eclipse occurred.
“We’re taking precautions to make sure everything is fine,” Petro added. “We’re turning off the instruments and will monitor the spacecraft every few hours when it’s visible from Earth.”
LRO’s Twitter account asked “Who turned off the heat and lights?” during the eclipse, then reported a happy acquisition of signal after the shadow passed by. “AOS, and sunlight, sweet sunlight! My batteries are charging again before I make another trip to the lunar far side.”
The Earth has a single moon, while Saturn has more than 60, with new moons being discovered all the time. But here’s a question, can a moon have a moon? Can that moon’s moon have its own moon? Can it be moons all the way down?
First, consider that we have a completely subjective idea of what a moon is. The Moon orbits the Earth, and the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way, which orbits within the Local Group, which is a part of the Virgo Supercluster. The motions of objects in the cosmos act like a set of Russian nesting dolls, with things orbiting things, which orbit other things. So maybe a better question is: could any of the moons in the Solar System have moons of their own? Well actually, one does.
Right now, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is happily orbiting around the Moon, photographing the place in high resolution. But humans sent it to the Moon, and just like all the artificial satellites sent there in the past, it’s doomed. No satellite we’ve sent to the Moon has ever orbited for longer than a few years before crashing down into the lunar surface. In theory, you could probably get a satellite to last a few hundred years around the Moon.
But why? How come we can’t make moons for our moon to have a moon of it’s own for all time? It all comes down to gravity and tidal forces. Every object in the Universe is surrounded by an invisible sphere of gravity. Anything within this volume, which astronomers call the “Hill Sphere”, will tend to orbit the object.
So, if you had the Moon out in the middle of space, without any interactions, it could easily have multiple moons orbiting around it. But you get problems when you have these overlapping spheres of influence. The strength of gravity from the Earth tangles with the force of gravity from the Moon.
Although a spacecraft can orbit the Moon for a while, it’s just not stable. The tidal forces will cause the spacecraft’s orbit to decay until it crashes. But further out in the Solar System, there are tiny asteroids with even tinier moons. This is possible because they’re so far away from the Sun. Bring these asteroids closer to the Sun, and someone’s losing a moon.
The object with the largest Hill Sphere in the Solar System is Neptune. Because it’s so far away from the Sun, and it’s so massive, it can truly influence its environment. You could imagine a massive moon distantly orbiting Neptune, and around that moon, there could be a moon of its own. But this doesn’t appear to be the case.
NASA is considering a mission to capture an asteroid and put it into orbit around the Moon. This would be safer than having it orbit the Earth, but still keep it close enough to extract resources. But without any kind of orbital boost, those tidal forces will eventually crash it onto the Moon. So no, in our Solar System, we don’t know of any moons with moons of their own. In fact, we don’t even have a name for them. What would you suggest?
Scientists from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter say that Icarus Crater is one of a kind on the Moon because its central peak rises higher than about half its rim. Most central peaks rise only about halfway to the crater rim. But at just the ring angle and lighting conditions, the shadow this central peak creates on the rolling and jagged crater rim looks like the Star Wars Character Yoda. Interestingly, this crater is located on what some people erroneously call the “Dark Side” of the Moon – what is actually the lunar farside.
Below you can see a closeup of the central peak of Icarus crater rising out of the shadows to greet a new lunar day.
Icarus is located just west of Korolev crater on the lunar farside. The light-colored plains surrounding the craters were deposited during the formation of the Orientale basin, which is located over 1500 km away.
Find out more about these images from LRO and see larger versions at the LROC website.
While NASA’s newest lunar probe was tracking the stars, it also captured the moon! This series of star tracker images shows Earth’s closest large neighbour from a close-up orbit. And as NASA explains, the primary purpose of these star-tracking images from the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) was not the lunar pictures themselves.
This dissolve animation compares the LRO image (geometrically corrected) of LADEE captured on Jan 14, 2014 with a computer-generated and labeled image of LADEE . LRO and LADEE are both NASA science spacecraft currently in orbit around the Moon. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
A pair of NASA spacecraft orbiting Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor just experienced a brief ‘Close Encounter of the Lunar Kind’.
Proof of the rare orbital tryst has now been revealed by NASA in the form of spectacular imagery (see above and below) just released showing NASA’s recently arrived Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) lunar orbiter being photographed by a powerful camera aboard NASA’s five year old Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) – as the two orbiters met for a fleeting moment just two weeks ago.
See above a dissolve animation that compares the LRO image (geometrically corrected) of LADEE captured on Jan. 14, 2014 with a computer-generated and labeled LADEE image.
All this was only made possible by a lot of very precise orbital calculations and a spacecraft ballet of sorts that had to be nearly perfectly choreographed and timed – and spot on to accomplish.
Both sister orbiters were speeding along at over 3600 MPH (1,600 meters per second) while traveling perpendicularly to one another!
The LRO orbiter did a pirouette to precisely point its high resolution narrow angle camera (NAC) while hurtling along in lunar orbit, barely 5.6 miles (9 km) above LADEE.
And it was all over in less than the wink of an eye!
LADEE entered LRO’s Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) field of view for 1.35 milliseconds and a smeared image of LADEE was snapped. LADEE appears in four lines of the LROC image, and is distorted right-to-left.
Both spacecraft are tiny – barely two meters in length.
“Since LROC is a pushbroom imager, it builds up an image one line at a time, thus catching a target as small and fast as LADEE is tricky!” wrote Mark Robinson, LROC principal investigator of Arizona State University.
So the fabulous picture was only possible as a result of close collaboration and extraordinary teamwork between NASA’s LADEE, LRO and LROC camera mission operations teams.
LADEE passed directly beneath the LRO orbit plane a few seconds before LRO crossed the LADEE orbit plane, meaning a straight down LROC image would have just missed LADEE, said NASA.
Therefore, LRO was rolled 34 degrees to the west so the LROC detector (one line) would be precisely oriented to catch LADEE as it passed beneath.
“Despite the blur it is possible to find details of the spacecraft. You can see the engine nozzle, bright solar panel, and perhaps a star tracker camera (especially if you have a correctly oriented schematic diagram of LADEE for comparison),” wrote Robinson in a description.
See the LADEE schematic in the lead image herein.
LADEE was launched Sept. 6, 2013 from NASA Wallops in Virginia on a science mission to investigate the composition and properties of the Moon’s pristine and extremely tenuous atmosphere, or exosphere, and untangle the mysteries of its lofted lunar dust.
Since LADEE is now more than halfway through its roughly 100 day long mission, timing was of the essence before the craft takes a death dive into the moon’s surface.
You can see a full scale model of LADEE at the NASA Wallops visitor center, which offers free admission.
LRO launched Sept. 18, 2009 from Cape Canaveral, Florida to conduct comprehensive investigations of the Moon with seven science instruments and search for potential landing sites for a return by human explorers. It has collected astounding views of the lunar surface, including the manned Apollo landing sites as well as a treasure trove of lunar data.
In addition to NASA’s pair of lunar orbiters, China recently soft landed two probes on the Moon.
So be sure to read my new story detailing how LRO took some stupendous Christmas time 2013 images of China’s maiden lunar lander and rover; Chang’e-3 and Yutu from high above- here.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing LADEE, Chang’e-3, Orion, Orbital Sciences, SpaceX, commercial space, Mars rover and more news.
Chang’e-3 lander and Yutu rover – from Above And Below
Composite view shows China’s Chang’e-3 lander and Yutu rover from Above And Below (orbit and surface) – lander color panorama (top) and orbital view from NASA’s LRO orbiter (bottom). Chang’e-3 lander color panorama shows Yutu rover after it drove down the ramp to the moon’s surface and began driving around the landers right side to the south. Yellow lines connect craters seen in the lander panorama and the LROC image from LRO (taken at a later date after the rover had moved), red lines indicate approximate field of view of the lander panorama. Credit: CNSA/NASA/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo/Mark Robinson
See further composite and panorama views below
Story updated See our Yutu timelapse pano at NASA APOD Feb. 3, 2014: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140203.html[/caption]
China’sChang’e-3 lander and Yutu moon rover have been imaged from above and below – in one of those rare, astounding circumstances when space probes from Earth are exploring an extraterrestrial body both from orbit and the surface. And it’s even more amazing when these otherworldly endeavors just happen to overlap and involve actual work in progress to expand human knowledge of the unknown.
And it’s even rarer, when those images stem from active space probes built by two different countries on Earth.
Well by combining imagery from America’s space agency, NASA, and China’s space agency, CNSA, we are pleased to present some breathtaking views of ‘Chang’e-3 and the Yutu rover from Above and Below.’
Check out our composite mosaic (above) combining the view from the Moon’s orbit snapped by the hi res camera aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) with our new color panoramas from the Moon’s surface, compiling imagery from the landing site of China’s Chang’e-3 lander – with Yutu in transit in mid-Dec. 2013 soon after the successful touchdown.
See below an earlier composite mosaic using the first black and white panorama from the Chang’e-3 Moon lander.
The composite mosaic combines the efforts of Mark Robinson, Principal Investigator for the LRO camera, and the imaging team of Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo.
On Christmas eve, Dec. 24, 2013, NASA’s LRO captured it’s first images of China’s Chang’e-3 lander and Yutu moon rover – barely 10 days after the history making touchdown on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) and just 60 meters east of the rim of a 450 meter diameter impact crater.
LRO was orbiting about 150 kilometers above Chang’e-3 and Yutu when the highest resolution orbital image was taken on 24 December 22:52:49 EST (25 December 03:52:49 UT).
The orbital imagery was taken by the LRO orbiters high resolution Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) – specifically the narrow angle camera (NAC).
See below my pre-launch cleanroom photo of LRO and the LROC cameras and other science instruments.
The Chang’e-3 lander color panorama shows the Yutu rover after it drove down the ramp to the moon’s surface and began driving a significant distance around the landers right side on its journey heading southwards.
Yellow lines connect craters seen in the lander panorama to those seen in the LROC hi res NAC image from LRO, in the composite view.
Robinson identified the lunar craters and determined the field of view on the LROC image.
The LRO image was taken at a later date (on Christmas eve) after the rover had already moved. Red lines on the orbital image indicate the approximate field of view of what is seen in the Chang’e-3 lander panorama.
Although Yutu is only about 150 cm wide – which is the same as the pixel size – it shows up in the NAC images for two reasons.
“The solar panels are very effective at reflecting light so the rover shows up as two bright pixels, and the Sun is setting thus the rover casts a distinct shadow (as does the lander),” says NASA in a statement.
In a historic first for China, the Chang’e-3 spacecraft safely touched down on the Moon at Mare Imbrium near the Bay of Rainbows nearly seven weeks ago on Dec. 14, 2013.
Seven hours later, the piggybacked 140 kg Yutu robot drove off a pair of ramps, onto the Moon and into the history books.
Yutu was about 10 meters away from the 1200 kg stationary lander when the lander panoramic images were taken.
The lander and Yutu were just completing their 1st Lunar Day of explorations when the LROC images were taken, and entered their first period of hibernation soon thereafter on Dec. 25 (Christmas Day) and Dec 26 respectively coinciding with the start of their 1st Lunar Night.
Yutu’s fate will remain unknown until the 3rd Lunar Day starts around Feb. 8 or 9.
So, What’s the terrain like at the Mare Imbrium landing site?
Chang’e-3 landed on a thick deposit of volcanic material.
“A large scale wrinkle ridge (~100 km long, 10 km wide) cuts across the area and was formed as tectonic stress caused the volcanic layers to buckle and break along faults. Wrinkle ridges are common on the Moon, Mercury and Mars,” says Robinson.
“The landing site is on a blue mare (higher titanium) thought to be about 3.0 billion years old.”
Older red mare about from 3.5 billion years is only 10 km to the north, he notes.
You’ve probably never before seen an image like the one above. That’s because it is the first time something like this has ever been created, and it is only possible thanks to two fairly recent NASA missions, the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. We’ve shared previously how two or three times a year, SDO goes through “eclipse season” where it observes the Moon traveling across the Sun, blocking its view.
Now, Scott Wiessinger and Ernie Wright from Goddard Space Flight Center’s Scientific Visualization Studio used SDO and LRO data to create a model of the Moon that exactly matches SDO’s perspective of a lunar transit from October 7, 2010. They had to precisely match up data from the correct time and viewpoint for the two separate spacecraft, and the end result is this breathtaking image of the Sun and the Moon.
“The results look pretty neat,” Wiessinger said via email, “and it’s a great example of everything working: SDO image header data, which contains the spacecraft’s position; our information about lunar libration, elevation maps of the lunar surface, etc. It all lines up very nicely.”
‘Nicely’ is an understatement. How about “freaking awesome!”
And of course, they didn’t just stop there.
Since the data from both spacecraft are at such high resolution, if you zoom in to the LRO image, features of the Moon’s topography are visible, such as mountains and craters. This annotated image shows what all is visible on the Moon. And then there’s the wonderful and completely unique view in the background of SDO’s data of the Sun.
So while the imagery is awesome, this exercise also means that both missions are able to accurately provide images of what’s happening at any given moment in time.
There are some craters on the Moon that never see the light of day. But that doesn’t stop the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from shedding new light on some the darkest mysteries on the lunar surface. With its battery of instruments, LRO has been collecting data so that we can learn more about what we can’t see with our eyes or with optical telescopes. The video provides more details, but by studing the Moon, we’ll improve our understanding of the solar system, bringing new discoveries to light.
This is awesome! It is the first footage of one orbiting robotic spacecraft taken by another orbiting robotic spacecraft at Earth’s moon. “Flow,” one of two satellites making up NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, captured this video of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) as it flew by at a distance of about 20 kilometers (12 miles) on May 3, 2012. LRO is the single bright pixel that moves from top left to bottom right. The Moon’s south polar region is in the background, much of which is in darkness.
This footage was taken by Flow’s “MoonKam” camera, which is an educational camera run by the GRAIL team and Sally Ride Science.


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Ms Arlie Mc Carthy1, Prof Lloyd Peck2, Dr David Aldridge1
1Zoology Department, University Of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Vectors and pathways for marine species moving into the Southern Ocean and Antarctic region are extremely poorly understood, making it difficult to attribute them to certain pathways or mechanisms (i.e. anthropogenic vectors vs natural dispersal mechanisms). Rapid environmental change in the Antarctic region is likely allowing new species to establish that were previously excluded by physiological barriers. Determining likely locations for anthropogenic introductions and the origins and mechanisms of new species’ arrivals has significant management implications (e.g. eradication vs protection, where to monitor etc.). To address this knowledge gap we gathered data from Antarctic managers and public sources on ships that are active in the Southern Ocean across tourism, fishing, research and resupply. We identified frequently visited locations around the region and non-Antarctic ports also visited by the ships.
We estimate there may be approximately 180 vessels and 500+ voyages in Antarctic waters annually, each potentially transporting new species to the region. The tourism, fishing and research sectors show different spatial and temporal activity, likely representing different propagule pressures. The Antarctic Peninsula received the highest traffic, especially from tourism and research. Pathways with the most ships and journeys are between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula. However, many ships also travel to the Arctic and temperate Northern hemisphere ports, including substantial amounts of time in Europe, which could be donor regions for anthropogenic introductions in the Antarctic region. We recommend targeted monitoring of hotspot areas and further quantification of species within pathways to Antarctica (e.g. fouling Antarctic vessels).
Arlie McCarthy’s doctoral research at the University of Cambridge and British Antarctic Survey addresses the potential risks posed by marine non-native species establishing in Antarctica. For at least 15 million years, the Southern Ocean and coastal Antarctica have been largely isolated from nearby temperate ecosystems by physical and physiological barriers that prevent most non-native species from establishing populations. However, warming temperatures and reductions in sea ice caused by climate change, combined with increasing human activity within the Southern Ocean, will lower these barriers. Arlie’s research investigates factors that affect both the transport of non-native species to Antarctic coastlines and the capacity of such species to establish populations, both now and in the future.
In her home town of Melbourne, Australia, Arlie completed a Bachelor of Science (Zoology) and a Diploma in Languages (German) at the University of Melbourne and by final year was taking as many marine biology courses as possible. She then moved to Hobart, Australia, where she completed a Master in Marine and Antarctic Science at the University of Tasmania. As part of her masters, she completed two courses at the University Centre in Svalbard, where she discovered that benthic ecology, marine invertebrates and polar regions are especially interesting.
Arlie is a 2017 John Monash Scholar and her research is funded through a Claire Barnes Studentship from the Zoology Department.

domain: biology


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Many attractions have since closed due to the spread of coronavirus. After Thursday’s announcement that Disney will be temporarily closing all their parks and resorts both Disney World and Disneyland will be donating excess food that would have gone unused due to the unexpected closures. Disney Parks are known for having a long-time commitment to reducing food waste.
Disneyland will donate excess food to Second Harvest Food Bank. The theme park will give excess inventory of dairy, fruit, vegetables, packaged goods and unserved banquet meals to Second Harvest Food Bank, which aims to end hunger in Orange County. Disneyland Resort has operated a food donation program since 2014. Last year, the attraction donated more than 20,000 meals to Second Harvest Food Bank.
In order to help Central Floridians in need during this time, Walt Disney World Resort will donate their excess food inventory like fresh salads, greens and cooked hot items to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, as part of the ongoing Disney Harvest program. Launched in 1991, Disney Harvest collects excess food from locations throughout Walt Disney World, delivering it to feeding programs across Central Florida.


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A Harvard University study shows COVID-19 death rates are significantly higher among Black women than among white men.
Published in the Journal of American Medicine, the study suggests race and economic status are very much factors in survival rates.
The research shows Black women are dying at a rate of more than three times that of white men from COVID-19.
Renewing calls for people of color to take the vaccine.
"This virus is disproportionately affecting us. We are contracting it more, being hospitalized more, and we are dying with it more," Dr. Zanthia Wiley said.
Emory University’s Dr. Wiley is an Association of American Medical Colleges Infectious Disease consultant to the Centers for Disease Control and has studied COVID-19 disparities.
"It breaks my heart to see that the number of vaccines administered so far," Dr. Wiley said. "Black people make up 13% of the U.S. population, however, we've only received about 9% of the vaccines that have been given out. Hispanics make up 18.5% of the U.S. population and have only received about 9% of the current vaccines."
FILE - Stock image of an empty hospital bed. (FOX TV Stations)
Many barriers to getting the vaccine have been removed here in North Texas, as vaccines are now given without appointments, and they are available to any adult who wants it.
Through Meals on Wheels, some who can't get out because of age or illness could have vaccines delivered, once they’re registered, by the Visiting Nurses Association and administered by Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics starts Monday for Dallas residents.
"So you don’t need a doctor, you don’t have to go to the hospital, you don’t have to pay anything. These vaccines are free," Dr. Wiley said.
The protection the vaccine will provide is priceless.
"And not only will that help you, but it will also help your loved ones and our community," Dr. Wiley explained.

domain: sociology


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It's a pretty wild ride when a play that involves a number of harsh invectives against opposing sexes, followed up by a good, old-fashioned group slaughter, ends with this particular lesson. And in The Hilberry's production of Big Love, that wild ride is definitely worth the ups and downs, the backs and forths, the blood and guts that it takes to get there!
Based on Aeschylus's The Suppliant Women (the oldest extant piece of Western dramatic literature), Big Love is the story of fifty sisters (represented in the play by only three: Lydia [Sarah Hawkins Moan], Thyona [Danielle Cochrane] and Olympia [Megan Barbour]) who have just run away from their pre-arranged wedding to their fifty cousins (represented in the play by only three: Nikos [Brent Griffith], Constantine [David Sterritt] and Oed [Brandon Grantz]). Having made their Greek escape, they come upon an Italian estate and a young man named Giuliano [Topher Payne]. The estate, Giuliano informs them, is owned by his uncle Piero [Brandy Joe Plambeck] and Piero's mother Bella [Annie Keris] - and it is to Piero that the women turn in hopes of asylum from their forced marriages. Of course, the men follow, the women are indeed forced to marry, and they make a pact that none of the grooms will live through their wedding night. Ripe subject matter for comedy... right?
Well, it turns out that this millenia-old tragedy is, in fact, fertile ground for laughter in the hands of playwright Charles L. Mee and director Blair Anderson. The contemporary adaptation, which premiered in 2000, puts gender roles on display in all their raw, naked, messy glory - and we can't help but laugh at the absurdity. But the laughter bangs up against the painful truth - as Constantine tells us - and we never really can escape the pain if we are to truly live. Anderson's staging is almost ritualistic, evoking the Greek roots of the play. And though I think he shied away from some of the iconic script elements (alas, I waited all night for a "seductive hostile butt dance" that never came*), and the slaughter lacked the desperate violence that I think it needed, in general, he and movement director Cheryl Turski sculpted emotionally thrilling and thematically illustrative stage pictures and movement pieces that made for a vivid and lively performance. And as for the language - which is poetic and winding and even downright mystifying at times - Anderson and his cast weave in and out of the words with fluidity and wit. The fact is: this is a production in which everyone - director, designers and actors - seem to be really, truly enjoying themselves.
The central six characters are uniformly strong. Sarah Hawkins Moan is powerful and relatable as the conflicted Lydia. Danielle Cochrane is simultaneously formidable and fragile as the militant Thyona. Megan Barbour is a hoot as the materialistic, pin-up girl Olympia. (Truth be told, Barbour steals more than a few scenes with her spot-on comic delivery and her calculated ditziness.) David Sterritt is unsettling and charismatic as the angry and entitled leader of the men, Constantine. He is somehow able to remain likeable to the audience while spewing some of the darkest lines of the play. Brandon Grantz is charming and agile as the retiring Oed. And Brent Griffith as Nikos does a wonderful job humanizing "the enemy," bringing heart and complexity to the men's side of this particular battle. Rounding out the laudable ensemble, the peripheral characters are delightful as well. Topher Payne's Giuliano is wistful and endearing as he battles alongside the women for his own self-actualization. Brandy Joe Plambeck is grounded and cool as the pragmatic Piero, and delightfully alive as Leo (and oh, that shirt!). And while Annie Keris is amusing as the daffy weekender Eleanor, her turn as Bella is simply superb. With razor-sharp comic timing and lyrical sincerity, she deftly navigates Mee's poetry and, when all is said and done, does no less than anchor the show (and oh, the tomatoes!).
The scenic design by Leazah Behrens is effective, giving us a sort of sacred circle that becomes both the classical Greek altar on which the action unfolds, as well as the boxing ring where the grand bout plays out. The projections, created by Sarah Pearline, are sometimes useful, sometimes less so, but pretty much always attractive and interesting. Thomas Schraeder's lighting design does its part to play up the battle of the sexes with dueling beams of pink and blue light fighting it out on the predominantly white costumes. And speaking of which: the costumes by Anne Suchyta are generally a lot of fun. The wedding gowns are lovely, and the individual pieces worn by the brides-to-be do a great job painting their unique characters (though I have to admit, Olympia's costume really didn't seem to fit the actress very well). And the few men who aren't decked out in their wedding tuxes bring just the right interest and flair to the stage (Leo's shiny orange shirt, for example, is burned into my brain!). The sound design by Samuel Byers and original music composed by Bobby DeLisle are evocative and entertaining, supporting the action and movement of the play with cleverness and insight.
Despite what the Hilberry may tell you, Big Love is not exactly a "classic" in the classic sense - and the season is all the better for its inclusion. Big Love is a postmodern explosion of poetry and imagery and sensation and love. It's a story worth seeing, ideas worth hearing, emotions worth feeling... and man, is it just a helluva lot of fun!
Big Love by Charles L. Mee (Director: Blair Anderson; Lydia: Sarah Hawkins Moan; Olympia: Megan Barbour; Thyona: Danielle Cochrane; Bella/Eleanor: Annie Keris; Piero/Leo: Brandy Joe Plambeck; Giuliano: Topher Payne; Constantine: David Sterritt; Oed: Brandon Grantz; and Nikos: Brent Griffith) continues at The Hilberry Theatre through December 7. Tickets range from $12-$30. For more information, visit http://theatre.wayne.edu/ourshows.php or http://hilberry.wordpress.com/.
*In the script there is a stage direction that calls for a "seductive hostile butt dance." This is up there with "Exit, pursued by bear" as one of the greatest stage directions of all time.

domain: entertainment


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domain: health


AI & Machine Learning In Fraud Detection
Fraud is unfortunate—but it happens. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Executives (ACFE), organizations worldwide lose five percent of their annual revenues thanks to fraud, and small businesses are more susceptible than large corporations. Applying this estimate to the 2016 World Gross Product would translate this figure to global fraud losses of approximately $4 trillion.
Consumers, not just companies, are vulnerable to fraud as well. Now that we live in the digital age, people stand to lose more than money—they might lose their information. Fraud detection and prevention techniques exist, of course, but traditional methods are falling short as technology progresses and attacks become more sophisticated.
Caveats of Traditional Fraud Detection Methods
Current approaches to fraud detection and prevention often depend on sets of “rules” that programmers determine on behalf of a business. If a transaction does not follow those rules, the exchange is marked as suspicious. These rules are, obviously, subject to human error and can only account for so much.
Rules often deal in absolutes—yes and no—which means that technological applications relying on them might let a fraudulent transaction slide if it is cleverly executed, or even flag a legitimate transaction as a scam and affect an innocent customer.
Concerns regarding fraud are understandably growing. Javelin Strategy & Research reports that in 2017, fraud affected eight percent more victims compared to the previous year in the United States, bringing the total to approximately 16.7 million individuals.
The organization notes that a consumer’s digital persona influences their level of fraud risk: offline customers, for instance (such as people shopping at brick-and-mortar enterprises) are exposed to less fraud potential, but they suffer higher losses if they are victimized—and it can take as many as forty days or more to detect fraud.
Online customers, on the other hand, are at higher risk, but 78 percent of victims detected fraud within a week of it occurring—though this is detection, not prevention, so they still had to deal with the aftermath. Traditional digital techniques are better than nothing, but their proclivity for false positives makes them frustrating for both risk managers and affected customers.
Likewise, criminals that steal a consumer’s card information and other details might complete what appears to be a perfectly legitimate transaction from a risk manager’s point of view, but was in fact made without the card owner’s consent.
Many banks and payment gateways are still using outdated fraud detection techniques. Criminals are adapting, which means preventive measures need to keep pace at the very least. Are there any emerging technologies that can keep both consumers and businesses safe from attacks? Fortunately, there is—artificial intelligence and machine learning present a viable solution.
What Makes Machine Learning Better Than Traditional Fraud Prevention Methods?
Artificial intelligence might seem like a recent buzzword, but it has actually been around for decades.
While AI, as people imagine it from science fiction movies, implies machines thinking for themselves, modern applications of basic AI are still dependent on human programmers informing it what to data to look for and what to do with it.
Machine learning, however, is a subdivision of AI that is more on par with what non-computer scientists might imagine it to be; in which a machine can analyze changes in data and improvise accordingly—and thus improve its own performance.
“A human analyst or a human reviewer can only look at a handful of signals at a time and make a determination. But there is enough data out there, and that’s really when machine learning comes into play—because it’s literally able to crunch thousands of signals and look at probabilities or fraud. That’s really where the industry is going from a machine learning viewpoint.”
So, in a business context, machine learning technology would be able to identify potentially fraudulent transactions or attacks with a much higher degree of accuracy than humans or previously employed applications.
Non-ML technologies can be, in a way, overexcited about identifying fraud, which is what causes perfectly legitimate transactions to be rejected.
For instance, it is not uncommon for current fraud prevention strategies to flag attempted high-cost purchases, such as when a consumer wishes to buy many big-ticket items from the same retailer. An identity thief would attempt to steal as much as possible at once, right?
It makes sense, but without proper techniques to double-check, the customer who is genuinely trying to make the purchase grows understandably frustrated (and may even take their business elsewhere; in which case, the company is at a loss).
Machine learning algorithms would not simply think big transaction = fraud. Instead, the technology would analyze thousands of pieces of data to discern whether or not the purchase is legitimate, some of which might mean nothing to a human supervisor. The algorithm could search for details regarding the purchaser’s hardware, their behavior, location, requested shipping address, and more.
If the system notices something suspicious, it can either reject the transaction or send it to a human monitor for further investigation.
What Kinds of Machine Learning Fraud Detection Are There?
While the details are more complex, there are essentially two kinds of machine learning: supervised and unsupervised.
The most common form of machine learning, supervised models, entail training an application by presenting it a robust set of transactions that are labeled as legitimate or fraudulent. The model analyzes the differences between them and infers a function so that when presented with new information, it can properly identify a transaction’s status.
The more data the system ingests at the beginning, the more accurate it will be.
Unsupervised machine learning models are not given pre-labeled data. Instead, these applications assess the data set’s overall structure and deem anything that does not fit its derived instruction set or function as an anomaly.
Due to their practice in pinpointing outliers, unsupervised models are helpful for distinguishing previously unseen fraud techniques.
The most effective ML systems blend both supervised and unsupervised models. Non-AI fraud prevention strategies depend on humans extracting known and unknown data patterns, but machine learning automates this process and adapts as new information appears.
How Machine Learning Benefits Fraud Prevention
So, in what ways is machine learning more effective than typical fraud prevention methods?
A person might be able to identify a pattern or two by looking at a data set, but growing customer bases, the number of different payment methods, and technological advances in cyber attacks result in so much information that it all becomes noise.
Machine learning algorithms, however, can handle enormous amounts of data at any given time—and not only that, but true to its name, machine learning systems learn and become more accurate when presented with more information.
Establishing and employing rule-based systems is time-consuming because ad-hoc rules necessitate manual supervision. Needless to say, machines can process large datasets much faster than humans can.
Speed is one of the primary benefits AI presents in fraud detection: dozens or hundreds of transactions may simultaneously occur at any point, but algorithms can identify which ones are potentially fraudulent within microseconds.
It’s more efficient
Machines are also more suited for performing repetitive tasks than humans. AI systems would conduct a majority of the tedious work, and would only pass on particularly tricky cases to human risk analysts for further review.
ML is also arguably less likely to result in false positives due to the sheer amount and diversity of information that it takes into account.
Machine learning is not intended to replace risk analysts any time soon—it simply grants them a powerful tool to make their jobs easier. When businesses equip risk managers with ML, they can dramatically reduce the costs required to train employees on comprehending and managing traditional fraud detection practices.
Why AI Fraud Detection Still Isn’t Perfect
While AI and machine learning present the next step in fraud prevention, they are nevertheless imperfect and have room to be improved upon. Small businesses have fewer customers than large corporations, and thus have smaller data sets to train their supervised applications with.
An insufficient amount of data will not make ML algorithms as accurate as they can be, but small businesses and their customers still deserve just as high-quality security that large corporations enjoy—especially because fraudsters target them more often, and thus smaller enterprises stand to lose more.
Artificially intelligent technology itself is also plagued by what is known as the “black box problem.” An ML application can make predictions and discern fraud from legitimate exchanges rapidly, but it cannot explain why or how it arrived at that conclusion.
This issue is particularly relevant regarding unsupervised machine learning; any AI technology is only as good as the humans who develop it, so it is imperative to be able to review a system’s logic for faults. If a machine learning algorithm’s process is uninspectable, then how are the people it is supposedly benefiting supposed to know if it is working as it should?
A solution to the black box challenge is known as Explainable AI. Previous attempts to make an artificial intelligence chronicle its processes have involved attaching explanation capabilities post-development, but this means that the system can only detail its calculations after making them. In a fraud prevention context, an AI application called Similarity leverages the only known algorithm that concurrently flags fraud while providing explanations.
Fraudulent practices represent a small fraction of an organization’s overall activity, but losses can be high if they are successful, and criminals are developing increasingly clever methods of deception.
Human risk analysts can only differentiate legitimate from fraudulent transactions to a certain extent. Artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, however, can identify fraud at an incalculably faster rate and process tremendous amounts of data at one time.
Explainable AI and machine learning technology is, arguably, the best alternative to traditional fraud prevention techniques thanks to its ability to improve upon its performance and communicate its reasoning transparently. As such AI applications glean more experience, ML will soon become the standard in fraud detection and prevention.


text:
Flooding and High Winds Produce the Most Damage in 2016
[Photo credit: NOAA remote sensing division, 2016. Flooding in Port Vincent, Louisiana]
Flooding and wind damage were the most destructive natural hazards in 2016, according to the Claims Journal. Last year, most hazards were below average, but due mostly in part to Hurricane Matthew, losses due to flooding and high winds were above average.
The Claims Journal says, “At $17 billion, total flood loss in 2016 was six times greater than the overall flood damage experienced in 2015. Five flood-related events last year exceeded $1 billion in losses.”
[Photo credit: NASA, Hurricane Matthew]
The article also states that “Due in large part to the strong winds brought by Hurricane Matthew, the land area impacted by severe winds (>80 mph) was three times greater than in 2015. Almost one-third of the continental U.S. experienced wind events of 60 mph or higher in 2016.”
All other natural hazard claims were at or below average, including tornadoes, wildfires, hail, earthquakes, and winter storms. You can read more specific details on each hazard here: Floods, Damaging Winds Most Destructive Natural Hazards in 2016.
For WeatherNation: Meteorologist Mace Michaels

domain: geography


SOUTHWEST PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Police have charged a man in connection with the murder of his father who was stabbed to death in Southwest Philadelphia.
Eighty-two-year-old Solomon Gethers was found dead Wednesday in his home on the 5700 block of Woodbine Avenue.
Police say he had stab wounds to his face and the back of his head.
The man's 29-year-old son, who also lived in the home, is being charged with murder.
Son charged with murder of 82-year-old father in Overbrook


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We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. Martin Luther King, Jr.
KATIE CAMPBELL- On Friday morning, I got on a plane to go to Paris. How lucky am I that this was not my first, but my second time visiting the city? I had been especially excited for this trip, but in the days immediately before I left much of my enthusiasm was drained. The last few days were tainted with anger, sadness and a longing to be able to comfort everyone who is already feeling the profound effects of this election more strongly than I ever will. I felt guilty that the safety and security of my friends and family are at risk, while I’m in Europe having an incredible study abroad experience that demonstrates just how privileged I am. I can’t imagine the conversations all over the United States this week as parents try to explain to their children what these results mean, marginalized people fear for their lives, and young adults lament their lack of voice in creating a future for America.
To me, the results of this election truly demonstrate the startling consequences of a broken system that no one has been willing to change for the past 300 years just because it hasn’t suited their own agendas, and would be difficult. This result isn’t just about a race between a large, orange man named Donald and a smaller woman named Hillary. This is a clear manifestation of the frustration and dissatisfaction that just over half of our country’s population feels.
Though our unique system of checks and balances ensured that no one person (or group of people) became an “all-powerful” ruler, don’t we think that the climate of the world has changed enough over the past 300 years that the system might need a little updating? If we ecstatically update the software on our phones every time that annoying, little box pops up and quickly jump on board with every new trend we see on Instagram shouldn’t we be able to devote a little bit of our collective brain power to creating a society in which its citizens don’t have to fear that the very tyrants we were founded to escape will regain their power?
In the immediate aftermath of the election, I heard nothing but disbelief and shock. But as our day-to-day lives continued here in Spain, almost as if nothing had happened, I have watched these feelings turn to a grief and sadness that has begun to turn into anger: anger at the inherent, systemic biases in our country; anger as a way to hide our fear of an uncertain future; and, especially from 6000 miles away, anger as a result of not being able to support and comfort our friends and family who need it most.
I’ve been surprised at the emotional outpouring immediately following the election; and how many people I’ve seen openly share his or her story, but finish with “I know it’s not that bad. Someone else has it worse than me.” In my isolated group of (mostly) liberal university students whose identities and backgrounds range from non-white-passing, first-generation Americans to the “typical” upper-middle class, white American almost everyone has asserted this sentiment. Whether a privileged woman says this or someone of a more marginalized group, each time I hear it, it hurts. How can we truly validate the feelings of our peers, and thus support them if we can’t even allow ourselves to feel?
Clearly, I don’t have a good answer to any of these questions. I certainly don’t know the most about the American political system, but what I do know is that recognizing how we are feeling, and using that as an inspiring stimulus or call-to-action is what will allow all of us to overcome this misfortune: together. For those of us who are privileged enough to do so, we absolutely cannot run away to another country (as much as I, for one, would love to stay here in Spain) or retreat into an identity where we know we will not be impacted.
We must initiate an open dialogue to begin to try to understand how the people around us will be affected in the coming months, and learn what we can do to support them. We must challenge the status quo to show that this blatant acceptance of bigotry, misogyny, and injustice does not correspond with the principles upon which America was founded and continues to exist. We must engage with our leaders to prove that the youth of America demand a safe, secure, strong country for our own future, and more importantly that of future generations.

domain: politics


text: My daughters both volunteered at ARF and they knew I was looking for a dog. The volunteers at ARF were so kind and helpful. We adopted Abigail from ARF when she was only 6 months old and was the perfect fit for our home. Abigail is now a senior and still brings so much joy to our lives. After our cat died, he left such a void in our hearts and we we wanted another. Arden was left in a carrier outside ARF. The kind people there gave him food, love and a warm place to stay. We adopted him at a year old and he is also now a senior and the most lovable cat. He gives hugs and sandpaper kisses all the time. Love both them with all of our hearts. Grateful to the people at ARF so much.

domain: pet


text:
One of the Chinese accused of illegally possessing game trophies has been arraigned in court and charged with selling food under poor sanitary conditions.
Shangli Yan (pictured) was yesterday charged with preparing for sale 65kg of red meat, 65kg of uncleaned fish, raw chicken, pork and crab fish, 95kg of assorted white and red meat in poor sanitary conditions and without certification from public health office.
Yan also faced a second count of selling food in poor hygienic conditions at her Aberdare Court house on the Kayawe road in Kilimani area, Nairobi.
She was charged with preparing five cartons of canned fish for sale in unhygienic condition.
Yan denied the two counts.
Opposing Yan's release on bond, State prosecutor Kennedy Panyako further applied for the exhibits to be destroyed after the court had seen the same and documented the evidence.
The court heard that a stench emanating from the house of the accused prompted her neighbours to alert authorities.
Defence lawyers led by Assa Nyakundi and David Ayuo told the court police stormed Yan's house and seized meat from freezers, and in the process, created a false picture that his client was selling dog meat.
“It is totally wrong to create this kind of a picture,” Mr Nyakundi told the court .
Milimani Principal Magistrate Kennedy Cheruiyot allowed Yan to collect her personal effects from her car that had been impounded by the police.
She was also allowed to view the meat in question before it could be destroyed.
Her bail application will be heard on January 14.
Earlier, Yan and three others had been arraigned in another Milimani court where police's plea to hold them for five days as they completed investigations into suspected possession of wildlife trophies were granted.
Yesterday, the court visited the scene where the suspects were arrested.

domain: law


This virtual collection invites students into an engaging exploration of the Civil Rights Movement.
Presenting the fascinating history of the top American music act of the 1970s - brother and sister duo Richard and Karen Carpenter. Monday, December 11 at 8:30 pm
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If you can’t afford to head to Highclere castle, the real location where "Downton Abbey" is filmed, like George Clooney recently did - take heart. You can experience the beauty and grandeur of the...


Nokia Corporation (ADR)(NYSE:NOK) shares surged on Monday after an analyst predicted that the phone company would benefit from a jury verdict against Samsung Electronics in a patents dispute with Apple.
On Aug. 24, a federal court in San Jose had ruled that Samsung infringed on Apple's patents and copied the designs of its iPhones and iPads. It rejected Samsung’s counterclaims of having its wireless technologies patents being infringed on by Apple and awarded the latter more than a billion dollars in damages by the Korean handset electronics giant.
The verdict will have significant effect for Samsung, which now has to go back to the drawing board for a re-look at the designs of its Galaxy range of devices, which were at the core of the dispute.
This could give Nokia some breathing space in which to gain some headway with its Windows-based smartphones it plans to launch in the first week of September.
Nokia's position as the world's number one seller of mobile phones was taken over by Samsung in the first quarter of 2012, when Samsung overtook it with its smartphone range.
Can NOK $5 Soon? Find Out Here
The Finnish handset maker has been fighting competition not only from Samsung but also from Apple, which with its superior quality designs and innovative features has set new benchmarks in the market.
After junking its in-house Symbian operating software, Nokia has decided to partner with Microsoft. However sales of the Windows-based phones have been slower off the mark than anticipated.
The new range of Lumia, expected to be unveiled on September 5, will be running on the new Windows 8 operating software and the companies - Nokia and Microsoft - have big expectations from this launch.
In a research note published on Monday, Wunderlich Securities' analyst Matthew Robison said that the $1 billion verdict and possible punitive damages could slow or postpone Android innovation. Any damage to Android favors Nokia's smartphone business, he wrote.
Robison also assumes that smartphone features that were central in Apple's successful patent claims against Samsung will not be contested by Apple on Windows Phone products, noting that Apple and Microsoft have reached agreements on some patents.
"We believe this implies a significant positive shift in application developer sentiment toward Windows Phone," Robison wrote.
Shares of NOK ended higher by 5.52% to $3.25 on Monday.


text:
Find a designer and make friends with them now. Don’t even finish this just do it and then come back and finish reading.
I’ve always known the power of good design. I’ve never been able to pull it off myself but I’ve always known how important it is. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet quite a few talented art directors, designers, illustrators and such. I even married an art director.
You don’t have to go that far if you don’t want to, but definitely get to know a designer because their work can make your work better.
I’m not just talking about cover design here. You’ve read a kabillion blogs about the importance of cover design. I’m talking about everything else: blog page, webpage, facebook header, Twitter, your email background and more.
The more is becoming even more important. We want word of our books to spread and, despite what we word monkeys would like to believe, pictures are going to be shared more than words. This is where a great designer is essential.
A great designer can take your words and turn them into something more than text. My friend and awesome designer Crystal did these for me. I’ve had requests to turn them into posters and t-shirts, and I almost certainly will, but first they go out on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter with the hopes that everyone shares her design and is intrigued by the words enough to check out the book.
Find a designer. Treat them well. Call them awesome. They’ll do great things for you.

domain: design


text:
Ask a Question
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What types of grass use the most (or least) amount of water?
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In Utah, the most commonly-used type of grass is Kentucky bluegrass. Unfortunately, it also uses more water than any other turfgrass species. Other options that will do well in Utah's climate but use less water are Tall fescue, the fine leaf fescues, Buffalograss, Blue grama, and Crested wheatgrass. Tall fescue uses from 10 to 30% less water than Kentucky bluegrass and fine leaf fescues use slightly less than that. Buffalograss and Blue grama grass use approximately 50% less water than Kentucky bluegrass. Crested wheatgrass can actually survive without any supplemental irrigation once it's established.
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Other Questions In This Topic
- I want to revamp my lawn area plant more drought tolerant plants. Is there a way I can adjust my sprinklers to work with my new landscape - without digging the system up or hiring a professional?
- The governor's initiative says that I shouldn't water between 10AM and 6 PM. Won't I have disease problems if I irrigate at night?
- If I don't have enough water to fully irrigate all of my crop land should I try to spread the water across all of the acreage, or irrigate fewer acres with closer to full irrigation?
- I am going to Hydroseed this weekend and need to know how much to water so that it germinates correctly.
- Can I use laundry water to water plants and lawn instead of just sending it into the sewer?
- Would Zoysia grass be a good alternative to the bluegrass?
- I have noticed quite a few brown areas in lawns in the Salt Lake area, including my own.
- How deep should perennials, annuals, and lawn be watered?


text:
The Thirteenth Husband
by Greer Macallister
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Pub Date Aug 06 2024 | Archive Date Aug 13 2024
Sourcebooks | Landmark
From the acclaimed author of The Arctic Fury
Based on a real woman from history, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets The Haunting of Hill House in this fictional tell-all narrated by the glamorous Aimee Crocker, revealing everything from her mischievous days in German finishing school to dinners with Hawaiian royalty to lavish Astor parties in Manhattan. But behind Aimee’s public notoriety, there’s private pain.
When Aimee is ten years old, as the night dips into the witching hour, the Woman in White appears to her. Minutes later, Aimee’s father is dead—and Aimee inherits a fortune. But the Woman in White never really leaves Aimee, appearing as a sinister specter before every tragedy in her life. Despite Aimee’s wealth, her cross-continental travels, and her increasingly shocking progression through husbands, Aimee is haunted by the unidentifiable Woman’s mysterious motivations.
Tearing through millions of dollars, four continents, and a hearty collection of husbands, real-life heiress Aimee Crocker blazed an unbelievable trail of public scandal, private tragedy, and the kind of strong independent woman the 1880s had never seen. Her life was stranger than fiction and brighter than the stars, and she whirled through her days as if she was being chased by something larger than herself. Greer Macallister brilliantly takes us into her world and spins a tale that you won't soon forget.

domain: literature


text:
On March 18, a 14-year-old girl in Rockville, Maryland was attacked at her high school by, allegedly, two older male students aged 17 and 18, who raped her. It is a horrible and tragic case, and it is one that happens far too often in the United States.
In fact, there are more than 321,000 victims of rape over the age of 12 every year in this country. An average of 15 percent of those victims are of middle and high school age. It is an epidemic that feminist groups and others on the political left have pointed in public forums to as a real and devastating problem since the 1970s, for which they have often been criticized by conservatives on the political right.
Yet, this particular case has created a battle cry for right-wing voters. The topic even went trending on Twitter after President Trump’s White House press secretary Sean Spicer was asked about it during a press briefing.
If I hear "Oh, I can't even imagine the horror" re: this rape, & yet they support open borders- they're getting decked. #RockvilleRape
— Greg (@Gregonimo) March 22, 2017
— Axel McClane (@AxelMcClane) March 22, 2017
— #2A #ResistGlobalism (@NicRattlehead78) March 22, 2017
— TrumpGirl4Life ⭐⭐⭐ (@girl4_trump) March 22, 2017
In case anyone was thinking that folks on the political right were finally beginning to grasp the very real issue of rape and its devastating impact, that isn’t what’s happening here. The teenage boys who raped this poor young girl happened to be undocumented immigrants who attended her same high school.
Now, suddenly, Trump’s voters are deeply concerned about rape, but only rape committed by undocumented immigrants. There’s no outcry for sexual violence prevention laws or education, just a whole lot of loud support for President Trump’s campaign rhetoric around border walls and “bad hombres.”
Let’s be totally clear here: liberals and feminists are not somehow okay with rape as long as the perpetrator is an immigrant. No one is excusing this particular instance of rape because we also support treating undocumented immigrants like human beings.
We simply know that rape is not, nor has it ever been, an immigration problem. It is a social problem that affects people of all genders, all races, and all nationalities. Period.
Politicizing the assault of a young girl to make a point about undocumented immigrants does not help anyone. It makes no point about the absolute outrage of rape; in fact, it ignores the impact of rape in an even more infuriating way than not addressing it at all or endlessly criticizing the anti-rape efforts as hysterical and nothing more than an attempt to “victimize women.”
Demonizing brown people is not the answer here. What is needed, what has always been needed and fought for by those of us who have been trying to raise awareness around it for decades, are real efforts to educate the community on the culture of rape in our own country, questions about the underwhelming funding for rape crisis programs so necessary in every community, and conversations about what rape is, what its effects are, and the best ways to address it.
Those of us who have always supported those efforts would be happy to welcome the political right to the table to discuss real answers.
What we cannot do is continue to pretend that rape is a crime that only certain types of people commit. We cannot politicize this tragedy to support our own political goals. That does not help the 14-year-old girl who was raped in Rockville, Maryland, and it won’t help or protect other 14-year-olds, or anyone else, from becoming victims.
If this rape angers people, good. It should. All instances of rape and sexual assault should outrage everyone.
Now, finally, let’s talk about it.
Featured image via Daily Mail


After logging time as a member of the Blacks and Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, singer/guitarist and only occasional songwriter Nora O'Connor is ready for the spotlight. Although at nine tracks and just over a half an hour, her debut is short enough to be considered an EP, there is enough evidence in its abbreviated playing time to prove she's a serious and talented frontperson in the roots/country genre. Her emotional voice is light and airy but reveals a dusky jazzy undertone similar to combination of Norah Jones, Rickie Lee Jones, and Lori Carson, the latter of whom she covers on the beautiful yet sad closing, "Down Here." While the material is a smorgasbord of country, folk, honky tonk, and pop -- sometimes most of the above as on the bouncy opener, "My Backyard" -- it's far less insurgent than many of the acts on the Bloodshot label. Bird's sad violin and Kelly Hogan's lovely harmony vocals add a melancholy depth to Jim Mathis' "The Bottoms," and her fleet touch works wonders on the cover of Stevie Nicks' rather obscure "That's Alright." Certainly her stirring version of this track should drive listeners back to the original (from Fleetwood Mac's Mirage album). The same holds true for her moody, noir jazz rendition of the Kitty Wells weeper "Love Letters." Bandmember Matt Weber contributes his jaunty "OK With Me," and adds sassy twang guitar. Information about individual personnel on each tune is missing, but the band perfectly augments each cut, neither overplaying nor laying back. Sweet yet with a tangy aftertaste, O'Connor's album is a subtly sparking gem, frustrating only in its length, and well worth searching out for Americana folk, country, and roots lovers. ~ Hal Horowitz
Uncut (p.154) - 4 stars out of 5 - "A brace of impressive originals are whispers of classic honky-tonk, but she truly shines on covers..."
Down Beat (p.88) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[S]he uses her melodic generosity and sharp phrasing to give each song an exceptionally pretty finish."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.110) - 4 stars out of 5 - "O'Connor re-emerges with a solo calling card that is almost startling in its assured delivery and freshness....O'Connor shines brightly from start to finish."