"The Notation of Traditional Korean Music: The Relationship between the Korean Writing System and the Jeongganbo Notation System"
The Jeongganbo notation system is the earliest Asian mensural notation with pitch and duration. It was invented in the middle of the 15th century by Sejong (1397-1450), the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), and used first in the historical musical manuscript Sejongsilrokakbo “The Score of the Royal Annals of Sejong”. After, the contemporary Jeonggan notation was newly systematized in the 1970s by Ki-soo Kim (1917-1986).
Today’s Korean script Hangeul, which consists of 14 basic consonants and 10 basic vowels, originates in the indigenous Korean script Hunminjeongeum “The Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People”. Hunminjeongeum signifies both the name of the Korean alphabet that was invented in 1443 by King Sejong, and the title of the book that was published in 1446 containing a manual for the use of this alphabet. In this book, the production principle of the new letters, the explanation of the Initial, Medial and Final Sounds for each word, the letter combinations, and examples of letter usage, are described.
In my dissertation, I study the relationship between the Korean writing system and the Jeongganbo notation system: the various phenomenal rules and properties which characterize the indigenous Korean script Hangeul are reflected in the traditional Korean notation system Jeongganbo.
For example, the production and development principles of the Korean letters are probably related to principles of the geometric signs invented by Ki-soo Kim, which were used in the contemporary Jeonggan notation as musical notes. And the order in which the strokes are drawn during the writing of Korean letters and the arrangement rules (left to right, top to bottom) of the phonetic signs in a syllable are the model for the notation rules of rhythms in a square in Jeonggan notation. The vertical method of writing (top to bottom) of the Korean script before the middle of the 20th century and the arrangement rule (right to left) within the columns furthermore influenced the arrangement rule within the columns in the Jeonggan notation.
In the middle of the 20th century, the writing direction of Korean, under the increasing influence of European cultures and the development of the printing press and typewriter, was changed from vertical to horizontal. It is recently maintained by some Korean musicologists that a new horizontal arrangement of the Jeongganbo notation system would guarantee better readability than the previous vertical arrangement, and furthermore would let the notes be more easily handled and be combined with today’s horizontal method of writing. Therefore, the question of whether the contemporary Jeongganbo notation system should be changed from being based on the model of today’s vertically oriented writing system to being horizontally oriented is an object of ongoing debate.
The goals of my research are: to trace the processes through which the traditional Korean Jeongganbo notation system changed in relation to the Korean writing system, to work out which direct and indirect influence the Korean writing system had on the Jeongganbo notation system, and to consider whether a reform of the Jeongganbo notation system is possible on the basis of the change in the Korean writing system.
|Doctoral Fellow at the DFG Research Training Group “’Notation Iconicity’: On the materiality, perceptibility and operativity of writing” at the Freie Universität Berlin (doctoral adviser: Prof. Dr. Christian Kaden, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
|09/2006 – 08/2008
|Teaching Assistant, Department of Korean Music, College of Music, Seoul National University
|03/2005 – 08/2006
|Research Assistant, Department of Korean Music, College of Music, Seoul National University
|03/2004 – 08/2007
|Master, Department of Korean Music, College of Music, Seoul National University (Major: Composition)
|03/1995 – 02/2002
|Bachelor, Department of Korean Music, College of Arts, Dan-kook University (Major: Instrument Geomungo)


WHEN: November 5th, 5-7PM
WHERE: Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Center (10 Grand Army Plaza)
SIGN-UP: First-come, first-serve at the door. There are only 23 slots to fill – get there early!
THIS MONTH’S FEATURED POET: TBD
*NOTE* – URBAN WORD’S BROOKYN AND UPTOWN OPEN-MIC’S ARE FAMILY EVENTS. AUDIENCES OF ALL AGES ARE
WELCOME – HOWEVER, YOU MUST BE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 10-23 TO PERFORM. PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL OF THE
SPACE AND CENSOR YOUR WORK ACCORDINGLY.


June 2021 is the publication date for a memoir and family history —An Unfinished Revolution: Edna Buckman Kearns and the Struggle for Women’s Rights by Marguerite Kearns. SUNY Press. She is a freelance writer, women’s historian, and former teacher, activist, newspaper reporter and editor. She is working on her second book about her years living and working in Woodstock, NY during the two decades following the 1969 Woodstock Festival.
Marguerite is best known for her advocacy of the “Spirit of 1776” suffrage wagon used for grassroots organizing by her grandmother, Edna Kearns, that is now in the collection of the New York State Museum in Albany, NY. The wagon will be on permanent exhibit after the state museum’s renovation is completed. The wagon was exhibited at the state museum in 2010, 2012, 2017-2018, and 2020. Exhibition information is updated at SuffrageWagon.org
“An Unfinished Revolution” is the story of how a social movement, the early women’s rights movement, impacted four generations in her family.
Marguerite started publishing Suffrage Wagon News Channel in 2009. The web platform focuses on the “Spirit of 1776” suffrage wagon, information about its exhibition at the NYS Museum, in addition to the life of her grandparents—Edna and Wilmer Kearns. She is writing about the wagon and her grandparents’ involvement in the early women’s rights movement in the US.
The web platform, SuffrageCentennials.com, highlights women’s rights 100-year celebrations, events, and related topics in the United States during 2020. It will follow present-day attempts to include the Equal Rights Amendment in the US Constitution. The year 2023 will be the 100th anniversary of the campaign to include the ERA in the US Constitution.
LetsRockTheCradle.com is a public service resource for communicators, journalists, editors, educators, bloggers, any and all interested in the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote after a 70+ year campaign.
InezMilholland.wordpress.com covers news about the US suffrage martyr, Inez Milholland. Marguerite Kearns and Robert R.J. Cooney Jr. were co-chairs of the 100th anniversary of Milholland’s death in 2016 under the sponsorship of the National Women’s History Alliance.


It is banned book week, which I always find strangely fun and interesting because… well, isn’t a banned book such a delicious way of understanding the society in which it is banned?
Some books that have been banned:
1. The Lorax
Banned in 1971 because it was a dangerous piece of political propaganda (oh if we had only listened to the Lorax and the fate of precious Truffula trees).
2. As I Lay Dying
Banned in 1986 because it questioned the existence of God. There are A LOT of books banned for this reason, though I mention this one specifically because it was one of the first Faulkner books I ever read and I devoured it. The book questioned ideas that I had never thought to question. Ah literature, you lovely thing, you.
Do I need to say more? Banned upon publication in 1955 and frequently throughout the last 60 or so years. This one fascinates me because the subject continues to be taboo (rightly) and the fact that it continues to horrify audiences over the many decades says something about our seemingly inherent view of sexuality and children… as in, don’t.
4. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Get this, it has been frequently banned, because, and I quote: “It is a real downer.”
5. The Color Purple
Because it deals with racism, sexuality, and African history… oh, and racism.
6. Along the same lines: Beloved
Because it deals with racism, sexuality, and violence… oh, and racism (got to give it to my American brethren, they are consistent).
7. An oldy: The Canterbury Tales
Because, well, you might have guessed it: sexual innuendos. As humans, apparently the sexy is not cool. Morality and all that. Pshaw.
8, 9, 10. The contemporaries: Twilight; Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone; Fifty Shades of Grey
By no means similar, these more contemporary reads have run into quite the opposition from Americans, mostly in response to the magic; having relations with a vampire; pornography.
*shrugs* What can you do?
Anyway, there are a ton more books that have been banned off and on throughout history; the brilliant thing is that in the United States if it is banned in one place, it is available in another. Freedom to read as we please. This is a very happy thing indeed.
What is your favorite “banned book?”


come along with the Brothers Grimm Little Red Riding Hood went into the forest adventure, and enjoy the most fun night story time!
■ Product Features
1. 5 vivid and interesting stories, let the children enter the richest fairy tale kingdom: Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Frog Prince, Cinderella, Candy House and other 5 familiar Fairytales, lively and beautiful The sound story is matched with the picture book, giving the child the most abundant bedside story time.
2. easy to carry, anywhere can listen to the story: the unique hand shape, cute and easy to carry, you can also adjust the size of the sound, let the children in the house, went out to play, all in the car Can listen, where to go to hear where.
3. Exquisite lovely picture book illustrations, complete with story, visual enjoyment to enrich children: bright, with lovely illustrations of the story situational picture books, large print attach phonetic, to the richest young children The visual enjoyment makes the children happy to read.
4. accompany children to listen to the story together, enjoy happy hour parent-child reading: Parents can accompany children to listen to stories together, to increase children's interest in reading, but also to promote close interaction between parent and child, Enjoy the good times of parent-child reading.
Gray Fairy Tale Music Card*1+Gray Fairy Tale Picture Book*1+AAA(4th)Battery*2
■ Product Specifications
[Windmill] Grimm's Fairy Tale - Good Night Story with Picture Book
Publisher: Windmill Books Publishing Co. Author: Windmill editors appropriate reading age: 3 years old bar code: 4714426204275 size: 20 * 22.5 * 1.7cm page Number: 50 pages Publication time: February 2015


The Brisbane City Library had advised me that there was a book waiting for collection, so on Friday night I set off to collect the book, and I walked across the bridge to Cultural Centre. The music had already started by the time I arrived. I purchased a glass of Chardonay, and found a seat giving me a good view of the stage and the audience, and sat reading my book enjoying the music.
I was shortly after joined by a lady, Jen, who was a school teacher, but was to meet her daughter there later. We chatted, enjoyed the music and the atmosphere.
|The Brisbane River at dusk.|
|The Art Gallery on the Brisbane River|
|Green Jam at QPAC|
|Brisbane by night|


The Technical Crew provides support for all theatre programs at Lake
Forest High School and is open to all students. No experience is
necessary. Students participating in other activities can also join the
crew. Lake Forest High School is proud that all set, lighting, sound and
prop designs are by students, led by the staff Technical Advisors, Ms. Ashmore and Mr. Balonick.
Tech Crew generally meets on Saturdays from 9:30 until 12:00 and again
from 1:00 until 4:00, usually beginning the Saturday following auditions
for a particular show. Exceptions are noted in the schedule
Prior to 1959, LFHS presented two plays a year in what is now the Library, but was the Student Cafeteria and originally the Gym. The control was very advanced for its time, using motorized dimmers from a control panel off stage right. Each homeroom (called a “Session”) got together a skit for a special “Session Stunts” show performed in the evening and almost every student was in the production or helping behind the scenes.
The Raymond Moore Auditorium was opened in 1959. There had not been any “Session Stunts” for a few years and there wasn’t any Tech Crew. Sets were built by the shop class and painted by the Art teacher. Lighting was accomplished by some student volunteers with help from Mr. Glen Naselius, on the faculty of the Goodman Theatre. Mr. Herb Gladding directed all the shows, with technical help from Latin teacher Miss Helen Cory. Most of the sets were flats, purchased from a specialty supplier.
But there was a movie club (ComCinArt) which presented a series of films in the new auditorium with the new (and dusty and hot) carbon arc projector. Most members of the club were Audio Visual Aides, and helped sponsor Mr. Joe Lawlor in the Language Lab and ran films for teachers. Since there was only one arc projector and the films took at least two, often three reels, the group running the club wrote and performed skits during the reel changes, becoming more elaborate each time.
One of these, a satire on rock and roll at the time, was chosen as the finale act of the brand new APT fundraiser, the “Talent Show.” The late Tim Weigel’s (Channel 2 Sports) parents were the first directors, and they got some friends in professional entertainment to be the MC’s of the shows. Acts tried out, much as they do today, and were put together for the performances. The ComCinArt group became the Tech Crew, lending their expertise and experience to the production.
In the early years, LFHS presented operettas in the gym. In 1962, LFHS tried its first book musical: The Boyfriend. English teacher Mr. Russ Hogan directed. Mr. Lester St. John was the chaperone backstage while Physics teacher Mr. Bill Conway supervised the lighting. Mr. Denny Herrmann and the Woods classes helped with the sets. There were about 20 lights and students were on their own to devise sound, set and to create lighting cues. Audio was controlled from a console backstage, and the lighting cues were done by a crew of 9 people using a manual dimming system on the balcony stage right. If there was an error, we had to determine if the cue was wrong or if one or more of the nine people didn’t get it right. Most Lighting Designers at the time wrote cues at home, since having the large group present while setting cues was not possible. And those cues were called by a person sitting on top of the dimmers on the balcony.
By 1966-67, the tradition of a play, a musical and the Talent Show had been firmly established. The position of faculty Technical Director was created and the Tech Crew became a formal organization within the school. Since that time, students have generally designed the sets, props, sound and lighting, and have been responsible for assigning crew positions and managing the group. Each year, more was added to the lighting and sound equipment inventories, and students contributed ideas and enthusiasm.
Mr. Jay Criche directed almost all the productions from 1965 until he became English Department Chair. Mr. Jim Usher followed for one year, with Ms. Jan O’Connor following him, until Mr. Criche returned to direct until he retired. The Technical Director/Advisor from 1966 until 2009 was been Mr. David Miller. Mr. Ben Davidson has assumed the role of Theatre Manager and Crew Advisor. Ms. Stephanie Ashmore has assisted in the Technical areas as well. Ms. O’Connor began the Student Directed One Acts, and other productions have been added over the years. Some shows from both theatres were selected for presentation at Theatre Fest. Ms. Karen Kopriva followed Mr. Criche, with Mr. Tim Haskett, Mr. Joe Pulio, Ms. Barbara Papp, Ms. Kelly MacBlane and Mr. Miller directing as well. Ms. Ariel Siewirth became the first Faculty Liason for the APT Talent Show, as that production became more elaborate. Mr. Brad Balonick serves in that capacity currently. At times, there have been added to the calendar Senior productions, a Junior Project, and Student Directed One Act Plays
In 1971, LFHS opened its West Campus to Frosh and Sophomores. The upstairs lecture room and then the first floor “band room” were pressed into service for dramatic productions, and the Studio Theatre concept was born. Ms. Louise Chapman was the Director and Ms. Barbara Papp was the Technical Director. Low ceilings and limited backstage space provided constant design challenges for the crew. At the same time, PALS, the parent theatre support group, was founded to keep the drama program intact in the face of inflation and belt tightening. PALS has since provided much new equipment for all the theatres as well as scholarships and other funding.
When LFHS moved all students back together in the early 1980’s, thre was a tradition of plays for just Frosh/Soph’s and an expectation of smaller venue productions. So what is now the green room was transformed into a theatre, with a control booth, seating risers and the stage at the West end of the space. Ms. Papp became the Director for the shows there. Lighting was done by using long cables plugged into the RMA lighting and run across the basement hall, up to the RMA through floor pockets, and across the hall to the theatre. The system had to be unplugged each night and restored for the rehearsals and performances. This allowed us to use the new Syntax lighting computer installed in the RMA to replace the aging Hub system of manual dimmers.
In the major renovation of 1990, the Studio Theatre was created, based on concepts formed by Mr. Miller, Ms. Papp and the drama and music directors, based on the experiences of the previous incarnations of the smaller venue.
In 1995, the Raymond Moore Auditorium got a new lighting system as well as new rigging and sound. Much of the older equipment was transferred to the Studio Theatre.
The RMA underwent extensive renovation from December 2000 until September 2001. A large committee of teachers, students, Board members and community members assisted throughout the design and build phases.During this time, the musical for 99-00 (Into the Woods) was built at LFHS and moved and performed at Lake Bluff Central Elementary School. This massive undertaking was a culmination of years of experience in doing technical theatre and was most impressive. Since the space was not ready the next year, Carousel was built and performed at Gorton Community Center, as was that year's Talent Show.
The RMA reopened on September 8, 2001 with a Gala evening. In November of 2002, the RMA was given a Design of Award by the Association of Licensed Architects. The renovation added a balcony, expanded control booths and a large stage lift, in addition to new storage space under the seats, which were actually rebuilt from the original seating. At the end of the 2001-2002 school year, the Studio Theatre was renamed the David Miller Theatre in honor of the long-time Technical Advisor.
Each year, the Tech Crew has provided its services for a variety of productions. For several years, the Tech Crew “float” headed the Homecoming parade with lighting and a very loud sound system! We have done screwball comedies to serious, moving dramas; we built multi-set marvels, as well as interesting unit sets. We use fog and pyrotechniques. We have created our own unique props, from the plants in Little Shop of Horrors to the cows in Into the Woods. In 2010, we rebuilt the Talent Show upstage platform and made a large, motorized turntable for Les Miserables. We have expanded the equipment and can provide experiences with most modern technical effects and practices. Active members of the Tech Crew learn a great deal about Technical Theatre and about working in groups for a common goal.
By David Miller
Revised 8 February 2010


Routine Data Type
MDSplus provides a routine data type for describing an function call to be used as the task portion of an ction data item.
The routine data type is a structure consisting of three fields followed by optional arguments to the method being performed.
The first field is a timeout value specified in seconds. When the routine is being executed and a timeout is specified, a timer is started when the operation is started and if the operation is not completed before the specified timeout, the operation will be aborted abruptly. This field can either be omitted or should contain a value or expression which when evaluated will result in a scalar numeric value.
The next field in the routine data type is the name of an image which contains the routine to be executed. This should contain a value or expression which when evaluated will result in a scalar text value indicating the name of the image or library where the routine can be found (case sensitive on Unix platforms). See the description of the call data type for additional information on how the library is located.
The next field is the routine name to execute. This should conatin a value or expression which when evaluated will result in a scalar text value indicating the name of the routine (case sensitive on Unix and Windows platforms) to be executed.
The following fields represent optional arguments to be passed to the routine. The arguments will be evaluated and converted to native data types before being passed to the routine.
This data type is rarely used since the task part of an action can be also be an expression. The call capabilities built into the expression evaluator provides much more flexibility in specifying how the arguments to the routine are to be passed.
The following table lists some of the functions available for creating and accessing routines:


Reading can be done for both educative and relaxation purposes. It is helpful if such readers can find the content they need over the Internet because this offers them a lot of conveniences when reading since this is an easy way that they can read what they require from any place and at any time of the day. It is also possible to find that e-books can be offered at lower prices in comparison to hardcopy books due to lower production costs. To get the best outcomes, it is necessary that one considers various aspects before choosing an online e-book Library for their use. Among the essential aspects that one needs to consider when choosing such a library others offered below.
It is vital to establish whether it is possible for you to find a range of e-books which you can read from a specific site. When you can find a variety of e-books on such a site it can be possible for you to be satisfied since you can make a selection of what works best for you from the variety that is already available. You cannot only choose what you have known about before, but you also have the chance to select from the wide selection of many kinds of books for your reading.
It is necessary for you to consider the costs at you which you will get the e-books you required to read. How much you will pay for the books is vital because it stands for what expenses you make to have the reading content availed to you. It is essential that you get an online e-book Library that will offer the books at reasonable prices for your maximum satisfaction. Getting sites that offer some of the e-books free of charge can be an additional benefit since you can access reading content without having to pay for them. Sites that offer their books at discounts and those who give loyalty points to provide customers with lower charges for books purchase can also be an attractive alternative since one can enjoy their favorite content at lower expenses.
It is crucial for you to consider the format with which an e-book Library will offer its books. One may enjoy reading books from a particular format on their smartphones or computers, and it is needed that they can get content that can be read in a specific format. One can also explore the option of adjusting their reading applications and devices so that they can be compatible with the format in which they will find the e-books on an online library.
View this website for more info. on different e-books that you may want to read.


We host many group bible studies during the year. Please look at the bulletins for upcoming bible studies.
Below is a link to St Charles Borromeo that will assist individual bible study. This is just a resource that you may find useful.
Bible Study (Saint Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Picayune, Mississippi) – https://www.scborromeo.org/biblestudies.htm
The sources used for these Bible Studies are The Jerome Biblical Commentary, The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, and The Navarre Bible. In addition, they used Church History by Laux (TAN Books), Introduction to the Bible by Laux (TAN Books), A Guide to the Bible by Fuentes (Four Courts Press), and Sharing Our Biblical Story by Russell for background information. They also included quotations from The Faith of the Early Fathers (3 volumes) by Jergens and Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (many volumes) edited by Odum.


Servers and Workstations
In order to cover the information technology necessities of Berkemeyer Attoneys and Counselors, a computer network has been designed based on Windows 2003 Server with several workstations that operate on Windows XP.
The IT tools being used allow a centralized administration of the users and tech resources of the firm. The data is safeguarded by a well designed backup strategy as well as by strict security policies.
Instant Messages and E-Mail
The instant messaging system and electronic mail are of vital importance in the firm’s daily activities. For this reason, the firm works with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, which allows a centralized management of users’ mailboxes, the utilization of public folders, distribution lists, remote access to the mailboxes (OWA), among other advantages. The Exchange Server additionally interacts with GFI products, like Mail Essentials and Mail Security to filter spam, mainly.
Most of the data used by the firm can be accessed by users through the IT systems developed for this purpose. Furthermore, a great number of documents the firm works with are in digital format and stored in a SQL Server 2000 database. The users can access the digital documents through the intranet.
Internet access within the firm is protected by an ISA Server 2006, which acts as a firewall and proxy. Customized rules and filters control the users’ access to the internet.
The servers and the workstations are all fully equipped with McAfee Corporate antivirus. The updates are automated for download and replication to all servers and workstations through a centralized corporate application on a daily basis. The anti-virus solution protects the firm’s computer network against viruses, worms, trojans and other similar attacks.
BERKEMEYER, Attorneys and Counselors, has an extensive library of hard copy text of laws, treatises and other materials. The firm also has had a full-scale computer library since 1995. The computer library contains 5400 volumes, including a collection of laws, documents, legal texts, treatises and magazines covering all subject areas of the law.
The library resources thus include a full collection of all the Paraguayan laws and all necessary commentary as well as many foreign laws, documents and articles.
Our libray resources readily support the diverse work of our staff. Our library contains worldwide legal information, which facilitates our attorneys professional development by enabling them to contribute current legal articles to both local and international publications and to participate at international Conferences.
We maintain an extensive computer library, which allows for any document search to be conducted by either topic or by term or word phrase. After the search is complete, the computer library provides access to the document together with a precise indication of the exact location of the hard copy.
Specifically, the computer library uses WINISIS 1.4 which is a workgroup accessible software.
For more information, please contact us: Services@berke.com.py


I just wanted to stick this quick note in with my other COBOL posts.
Whilst reading the recently published book “The History of the FORTRAN Programming Language”, mention was made of McCracken’s book, “Digital Computer Programming” written in 1957. This was the first book on the subject.
Intrigued, I went looking for “Digital Computer Programming” and found a copy on ebay for a reasonable price. It can be found online here. It was quite an interesting book and illustrated how bare to the bones programming was. Assemblers were still extremely primitive.
I went on to track down his book on FORTRAN, “A Guide to FORTRAN Programming”. Again available on ebay for a reasonable price. While I never wrote much FORTRAN, this version of FORTRAN was extremely close to what I remember the ‘old’ programmers using at my first job. VERY primitive compared to the FORTRAN ’66 I had learned.
His book, “A Guide to COBOL Programming” was more difficult to find, though still reasonably priced. It ended up coming from the UK from a company that was reselling old UK library books.
This book was written in 1963 and was based on the 1961 COBOL standard. I found it quite interesting and was surprised at how close it already was to the 1966/1974 versions I spent many years programming in. Not to dis FORTRAN, but COBOL’61 was so much easier to read/write than those early versions of FORTRAN.
If you are interested in Computer History, I can recommend all of the books mentioned. They give a great insight into what programming was like in the early days.
I’m still trying to get 2 other McCracken Books: “A Guide to IBM 1401 Programming” and (being a big Pascal fan) “A Guide to Algol Programming”. I’ve yet to see the 1401 book anywhere. The only time I found the Algol book, the owner clearly knew its rarity and it was priced accordingly 😦


The culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, with its beginnings in the Mycenaean and Minoan Civilizations, continuing most notably into Classical Greece, the Hellenistic Period, through the influence of the Roman Empire and its Greek Eastern successor the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Empire too had a significant influence on Greek culture, but the Greek War of Independence is credited with revitalizing Greece and giving birth to a single entity of its multi-faceted culture throughout the ages.
Most western philosophical traditions began in ancient Greece in the 6th century BC. The first philosophers are called “Presocratics” which designates that they came before Socrates. The Presocratics were from the western or the eastern colonies of Greece and only fragments of the original writings of the presocratics survive, in some cases merely a single sentence.
A new period of philosophy started with Socrates. Like the Sophists, he rejected entirely the physical speculations in which his predecessors had indulged, and made the thoughts and opinions of people his starting-point. Aspects of Socrates were first united from Plato, who also combined with them many of the principles established by earlier philosophers, and developed the whole of this material into the unity of a comprehensive system.
Aristotle of Stagira, the most important disciple of Plato, shared with his teacher the title of the greatest philosopher of antiquity but while Plato had sought to elucidate and explain things from the supra-sensual standpoint of the forms, his pupil preferred to start from the facts given us by experience. Except from these three most significant Greek philosophers other known schools of Greek philosophy from other founders during ancient times were Stoicism, epicureanism, Skepticism and Neoplatonism.
The timeline of the Greek literature can be separated into three big periods: the ancient, the Byzantine and the modern Greek literature.
At the beginning of Greek literature stand the two monumental works of Homer: the Iliad and the Odyssey. Though dates of composition vary, these works were fixed around 800 BC or after. In the classical period many of the genres of western literature became more prominent. Lyrical poetry, odes, pastorals, elegies, epigrams; dramatic presentations of comedy and tragedy; historiography, rhetorical treatises, philosophical dialectics, and philosophical treatises all arose in this period. The two major lyrical poets were Sappho and Pindar. The Classical era also saw the dawn of drama.
Of the hundreds of tragedies written and performed during the classical age, only a limited number of plays by three authors have survived: those of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The surviving plays by Aristophanes are also a treasure trove of comic presentation, while Herodotus and Thucydides are two of the most influential historians in this period. The greatest prose achievement of the 4th century was in philosophy with the works of the three great philosophers.
Byzantine literature refers to literature of the Byzantine Empire written in Atticizing, Medieval and early Modern Greek, and it is the expression of the intellectual life of the Byzantine Greeks during the Christian Middle Ages.
Modern Greek literature refers to literature written in common Modern Greek, emerging from late Byzantine times in the 11th century AD. The Cretan Renaissance poem Erotokritos is undoubtedly the masterpiece of this period of Greek literature. It is a verse romance written around 1600 by Vitsentzos Kornaros(1553–1613). Later, during the period of Greek enlightenment (Diafotismos), writers such as Adamantios Korais and Rigas Feraios will prepare with their works the Greek Revolution (1821–1830). Many writers, poets and novelists represent contemporary Greek literature.
Greek cuisine is as an example of the healthy Mediterranean diet (Cretan diet). Greek cuisine incorporates fresh ingredients into a variety of local dishes such as moussaka, stifado, Greek Salad and the world famous Souvlaki. Some dishes can be traced back to ancient Greece likes skordalia and pasteli (candy bar with sesame seeds baked with honey). Throughout Greece people often enjoy eating from small dishes such as meze with various dips such as tzatziki, grilled octopus and small fish, feta cheese, dolmades(rice, currants and pine kernels wrapped in vine leaves), various pulses, olives and cheese. Olive oil is added to almost every dish.
Sweet desserts such as galaktoboureko, and drinks such as ouzo, metaxa and a variety of wines including retsina. Greek cuisine differs widely from different parts of the mainland and from island to island. It uses some flavorings more often than other Mediterranean cuisines: oregano, mint, garlic, onion, dill and bay laurel leaves.
Greek vocal music extends far back into Ancient times where mixed-gender choruses performed for entertainment, celebration and spiritual reasons. Instruments during that period included the double-reed aulos and the plucked string instrument, the lyre, especially the special kind called a kithara. Music played an important role in the education system during ancient times. Boys were taught music from the age of six. Later influences from the Roman Empire, Eastern Europe, and the Byzantine Empire changed Greek music.


An essay written on notion of utopia throughout history, philosophy and fiction and how it presents paradoxical ideas in regards to freedom and the tolerance of intolerance. In order for the initial views of the perfect society to function without crime or class discrimination there is required a level of state control that is undoubtably dystopian. The layout of the text follows a strict typographical layout that echoes the rigidity of the first imaginings of utopia, but as the argument unravels the typographic rules begin to blur.
Main texts studied: The Republic by Plato (381BC) Utopia by Thomas More (1516) The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1 by Karl Popper (1945) A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1965) Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach (1975)


So you have Document Sets in your library, and you need to list only them, or you are trying to find one in particular. But when your CAML queries are looking for specific document sets and field values, they turn up nothing.
Well there are two ways around this. The first involves using a query for a folder object type.
<FieldRef Name='FSObjType' />
This looks for folders specifically, but it also seems to help with Document Sets. This one is also well documented.
There is another way I found when I was using a tool that wouldn't let me pick FSObjType as a field because it really isn't a field so much as a Content DB... thing. There is a hidden field called "Level" (internal name "_Level" which you must use in CAML) which appears to indicate the folder level within the library where an item resides.
So if you have a content type derived from Document Set called... ummm... "My Document Sets" for example, and they reside in a library at the root folder, you can find the one you want doing something like this:
this is where you would search for some other criteria, like a name, title, description, whatever
<FieldRef Name='_Level' />
<FieldRef Name='ContentType' />
<Value Type='Text'>My Document Sets</Value>
With the Level field specified it seems to force SharePoint to include folders at the level specified. This will get you around using some other tool or product that won't let you specify FSObjType, but if that tool or product can find hidden fields, Level should be in there.


My Mommy always encourages me to read story books. She tells me that we can get to know a lot of new things through books. I also love to read books especially when they come with beautiful pictures on them. I start imagining so many things when I read a book. There are also times when Mommy reads me stories during bedtime. However, Mommy tells me that reading has a lot of benefits and there are mentioned below.
Reading aids in brain’s exercise – It helps the brain to strengthen its connections and also build new connections.
Reading helps in improving the concentration level – As reading makes the child sit at one place and focus on the book. This way, they will form a habit of reading for a longer span and also focus on things for more.
Reading helps in knowing so much – When you read a book, you get to know so many new things. Reading opens up a whole new horizon where a child gets to learn as well as improve their imagination skills.
Reading helps in increasing vocabulary – When you read books, you automatically improve your vocabulary as you keep learning new words while you read. This eventually helps you in having a better language skill.
Reading is a lot of fun – Reading is a great way to spend time effectively and, in a lot, a positive way.
As I read new books, I also share my books with my friends. And, later we discuss the book, share our opinion about
the characters in the book. This is a lot of fun when I and my friends discuss books. I also borrow books from my friends and they also suggest me new books based on the kind of books I prefer to read. Then there are books which I just read to gain knowledge. I also go to our school library to get new books and read them after school hours or at home during weekends.
I have a lot of books in my house. Here, I am mentioning a few:
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar – by Eric Carle
• The Hunger Games – by Suzanne Collins
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Guide – by J k Rowling
• Charlotte’s Web – by E B White
• Frog and Toad are Friends – by Arnold Lobel
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – by Roald Dahl


Bod was a slightly strange-looking, but much loved children’s character – the colourful animation and very simple storylines had real warmth to them, and the catchy theme tune would then revolve around the inside of your head for the rest of the day.
Originally conceived in 1963 by Michael and Joanne Cole (who were also responsible for Fingerbobs), the fondly remembered television series was based on four books – Bod’s Apple, Bod’s Present, Bod’s Dream and Bod and the Cherry Tree. They were published in the UK in 1966 (they were also released in the United States later on, whilst La Pomme de Gus appeared in France) and all four books were read on Play School during the late 1960s/early 1970s. In 1974 13 five minute cartoons were produced for the BBC, which were then shown from 1975 to 1980 in the Watch With Mother slot. The Coles were instrumental in bringing their creation to the small screen; Michael wrote and produced it whilst the artwork was down to Joanne. Animating and directing the series was David Yates; whose other notable works included the adventures of the loveable Posie, Perkin and Pootle – The Flumps.
Each episode followed the same pattern – cut out animated figures interacted with each other against a single colour background. It was narrated by the sublimely soothing tones of John Le Mesurier, firstly introducing the title character (‘Here comes Bod…’) as he walked towards the camera, before guiding us through one of the 13 charming stories. Bod inhabited his odd little world with his Aunt Flo, Farmer Barleymow, PC Copper and Frank the Postman, all friendly and helpful individuals. It was virtually impossible to gauge how old Bod was meant to be; you would assume he was a child because he was much smaller than the other characters, but if you looked only at his face then he could be any age at all. Each character had its own theme music that played every time they appeared; this was composed by Derek Griffiths (veteran of Play School, Play Away, Heads and Tails, and familiar as the voice of SuperTed) who also arranged the theme tune and the rest of the incidental music.
Both Michael and Joanne Cole were Taoists, and the gentle nature of Bod reflects this; the episodes all have the central premise of peacefulness and living in harmony with your habitat. In Bod and the Cherry Tree Aunt Flo becomes very upset when autumn comes around and the leaves fall off her cherry tree. In come Bod and the others to explain to her that it is all part of the tree’s cycle; the leaves have to fall off to make way for the blossom, and finally the cherries. Once she understands, Aunt Flo is happy again. Two later books were written by two of the Coles’ children – Bod’s Way: The Meaning of Life and Bod’s New Leaf – to explain the concept of Taoism to children. At the end of each story Bod and his friends would turn their backs and walk off into the distance, which was then followed by a voice (Maggie Henderson) presenting a puzzle game; it might be ‘There goes Bod. And here comes….what?’ An everyday object would appear from an unusual angle for you to guess what it was. ‘Bod Snap’ was a great favourite; two cards, each featuring one of the characters, would appear. One would then keep changing and you would be urged to call ‘Snap’ when both cards matched. This level of requested audience interaction was pretty ground-breaking for its time.
Just to further add to the value you were getting with this programme, within the Bod time-slot you would also be treated to Alberto Frog and his Amazing Animal Band. This was an add-on from the BBC, and not actually part of the Coles’ creation, but for most people the two are synonymous. Alberto would be conducting his band (made up of combinations of animals and instruments as diverse as hippos playing tubas, cats playing bassoons, and a zebra on the kettle drums) whilst they played a piece of classical music. There would be a minor problem (such as the animals not playing in time with each other) which Albert would solve, and then he’d reward himself with a milkshake (note: he didn’t reward the orchestra for their beautiful playing, just himself!). More interaction here; as well as some of the animals having a go you were also invited to guess what flavour Alberto was having each time, and there couldn’t have been a child watching who didn’t join in at that point.
Bod has rightfully been included in Channel 4’s ‘100 Greatest Kid’s TV Shows’ and ‘100 Greatest Cartoons’ – and as all 13 episodes are available on DVD the funny, round-headed little fella with the amusingly jaunty walk will continue to quietly and peacefully entertain for the foreseeable future.


Written by Stephen Cox
Summer often affords us some time to read books that we might not normally be free to read. You can reach for the novel that’s been on your night stand for months, that biography you’ve waiting to get lost in or that thick theological tome that you can now browse slowly through. In the extra time we can also explore genres a bit outside our typical fare. It’s a time to stick that additional book in our bag before a trip. Here are a few titles that I am attempting to read this summer:
Serving without Sinking
The Good Book Company
by John Hindley
“Serving without Sinking” is a book by church-planter and first-time author John Hindley. Sometimes I can think about serving God as a chore or even feel guilty when I’m not serving and I’m interested to read what he diagnoses as those rotten motivations that so commonly fuel Christian life and service. I am especially keen to see how he sees Christians can serve Christ with joy instead of resentment, reluctance or burn-out. Also it’s only 128 pages long!
Is God anti-gay?
The Good Book Company
by Sam Allberry
I already own a couple of books by Sam Allberry (“Lifted” on the resurrection and “Connected” on the Holy Spirit) and have found them both excellent – clear, biblical, challenging, engaging. In this short (do you notice a theme to the books I chose?) and simple book, Sam Allberry wants to help Christians understand what God has said about homosexuality, the Bible and same-sex attraction. It’s clearly a topic that is on the social agenda and so I’m hoping his insights and experience will be helpful to me as I engage the world on this subject.
Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
This is my ‘Mount Everest’ for the summer! 300 pages from a Croatian theologian all written in size 10 font! (I think I can. I think I can. I think I can). It was a book recommended by Martin Shadwick at our church weekend away last year.
At a community and personal level, we often don’t get on with others simply because they are different. We can react out of fear and anger to others who are not within our narrow circle of relationships. Volf wants us to see that as Christians we are not only reconciled to God, we are not only ‘learning to live with one another’, but we are encouraged to take the dangerous and costly step of opening ourselves to others, enfolding them in the same embrace with which we have been enfolded by God.
Of course, the best book to read is the Bible. This summer I will be reading through the book of Leviticus in preparation for our upcoming sermon series. Leviticus is one of the least read and least understood parts of Scripture. How many Christians have resolved to read through the entire Bible and made good progress through Genesis and Exodus only to hit a wall and give up when they reach Leviticus? With all those different laws regarding the Old Covenant priesthood and various sacrifices, it can be quite difficult to understand. I’m looking forward to grappling with it.
I have also been reading through the book of Exodus with my kids which has been great. They are enjoying the narrative and I’m marvelling at the amazing works of God through his servant Moses and the miraculous acts he performed to rescue his people (It’s hard not to be drawn to our Saviour in Jesus!).
That’s what I’m reading over the summer. Maybe I’ve encouraged you to add one or two to your own list? Happy reading!


Normal English life in these times was warmly reported by Gilbert White (1720-1793) in his everyday correspondence about nature in the countryside, published as a little book in 1788 called The Natural History of Selborne. It is still in print and is said to have sold more copies than almost any other English language publication except The Bible and Shakespeare. The letters were to his friend the naturalist Thomas Pennant and a Welsh judge Daines Barrington and showed his strong love for the Hampshire countryside and for Selborne in particular.
The essays have an easy conversational style and have come to be some of the most popular writings in the English language. This is because they are so common-place and ordinary while being tasteful and of their time. They talk of the weather, the time of planting and harvesting, and most caringly his observations of bird behaviour, their songs and the timing of their migration.
Although he was devoted to observing nature and recording what many then thought to be the obscure detail of what he saw, he lived away from other naturalists, sharing his ideas only by writing and using guide-books such as John Ray’s floras. But then, as well as being a relaxed and talented writer he became well-known locally for his innovative experiments. To find out whether bees could hear, he shouted at them through a trumpet.
He tried to measure the speed of sound by timing echoes, and he often dissected animals to understand their life style and diet. To check whether cuckoos were structurally adapted to brood in nests of other species he exchanged them with their close relative the nightjar. Unfortunately, all these three series of experiments gave negative results.
From time to time Gilbert White strayed across county boundaries to make comparisons of the environment and the flora and fauna that had become attached to it. In the 1780s he wrote of one such pilgrimage to the “chain of majestic mountains”, now known more modestly as the South Downs, in Sussex.
White wrote to Barrington with very enlightened questioning “was there ever a time when these immense masses of calcarious matter were thrown into fermentation by some adventitious moisture; were raised and leavened in to such shapes by some plastic power; and so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the sky so much above the less animated clay of the wild below”?
White became amused to hear of some of the so-called enlightened scientists being trapped in old traditions, for some still believed in old wives’ tales. Linnaeus, for example, believed that ‘in winter the swallows slept on the bottom of the lake’ and in1767 White responded: “A Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of the fact that he talks in his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swallow’s going under water in the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset. Now it is likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegai, almost as far as the equator.”
Looking back at those times reveals many such explorations of natural history being on the gentler side of the Enlightenment, in contrast to many other attitudes to reform. The hard side was exemplified by attitudes such as David Hume’s cold distrust of human intentions. It was this practice of reducing complex issues to one single issue that characterised this distinctly British, some would say Scottish, outlook on life. A popular little story was told at the time and illustrated the harsher attitude. One night in 1759 Hume (1711-1776) was walking home across the bog left by draining the North Loch for the new Princes Street Gardens.
He slipped and fell into the swamp and couldn’t get up. An old lady found him and recognized him with anger: “David Hume the Atheist!” she called out. Not wishing to give way from her powerful position she offered a bargain: “ye shall na get out o’ that till ye become a Christian yousell; and repeat the Lord’s prayer and the Belief.” Hume immediately agreed and the old lady held out her hand and pulled him up. This was what Hume’s enlightened spirit was about – a cold acceptance of both sides of the situation, followed by the desire to get out of adversity with reasonable seriousness. It was ignoble but it got results.
It was in this spirit that Hume’s Dialogues was published in 1779 emphasising the importance of opposites in a living system. For anything to exist there had to be a situation in which it did not exist, so that any evidence in favour had to be balanced by the evidence against. If the old lady in Princes Street Gardens was against, the members of the Oyster Club were certainly for the use of new ways and values.
The club was popular with artists as well as a few of the new scientists who listened in awe of Robbie Burns’ poems “chiefly in the Scottish dialect.”
Although he didn’t drink whisky, James Hutton (1726-1797) a land-owning farmer and former doctor, did like oysters and so with the chemist Joseph Black and the economist and pin manufacturer Adam Smith, he started an Oyster Club. This met for lunch through the 1780s, and was attended by Edinburgh intellectuals as well as visiting thinkers. These included James Watt and Benjamin Franklin and, meeting in a different tavern every week, since the meetings were often a bit too sought after, they would convene to discuss art, architecture, philosophy, politics, geology and economics, each giving a brief update on their special projects which were “informal and amusing despite their great learning”. Hume was not a true member of the club for he was too set in the age of reason. Instead, the members were more liberal thinkers, good at explaining what had already changed, in contrast to those who were meeting then in Paris who called for changes to happen.
A Scottish landowner James Hutton began to travel around the British Isles a great deal and made observations of the landscape and the few rocks that were exposed by the new industrial excavations. Soon he developed a passion for the science that he realized lay behind these earthly structures and he started to read about some of the work coming out of mainland Europe in the 1770s. As we shall see, twenty years later he used this knowledge to make his own geotheory, well within the tradition of Hume’s empiricism.
Not to be outdone by his fellow Scots in the Oyster Club the right-wing Hume often travelled south to see his friends, and joined Daniel Malthus when Rousseau was in town from Paris. These three were good friends and strong stalwarts of rigid functional living. They got on so well together that their discussions, often in ear-shot of Daniel’s son Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), usually went on to the early hours of the morning. Deeply influenced by what he had heard, the young man became a mathematician at Cambridge, where he followed the trend of his father’s early morning discussions and took holy orders when he was thirty years old. A year later, 1798, he published the first version of his famous essay, Principles of Population, in which he compared the geometric increase of a species’ population with the linear increase of its subsistence.
In that essay he wrote: “evil exists in the world not to create despair, but activity” and he seems to have preached even stronger support for society’s divisions. These were his solutions to the still-unsolved problem he identified, and led many to advocate human population control a century later. Before then, however, the Malthus essay was to have crucial influence on two major scientific figures who became active when Malthus was old, Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin.
More and more, life was being understood as one great machine, in which forward movements of nature and human society were seen to be made at every slight opportunity, rewarding curiosity and neglecting complacency. Economists like Malthus wanted action, Adam Smith wanted division of labour in the factories. Biologists like Linnaeus proposed working classification, the Lunar Men praised working machines and transmutation. These and others agreed that the way to understand living systems was first to work out its order.


Alain was born in 1955 in ‘La Sarthe’ department not far from Normandy where he often came on holiday with his parents. It was his father who first introduced him to this very special and historical area.
He was educated in Nantes University, Brittany and graduated from there in English. Much later he passed a degree in Tourism and became a guide-interpreter. He also lived for one year in Lincoln, England and another year in Limerick, Ireland.
He spent most of his career in National Education teaching English to children aged from eleven to fifteen years old. When he left this profession he did various jobs ranging from a receptionist in a three star hotel to a commercial worker.
It was always his ambition to be a guide so he is very happy to embark on this new adventure with Overlordtour.
He has been interested in the two great Wars ever since childhood. His father told him of how his grandfather cried while he was standing at his gate watching the Germans driving through his village. His grandfather was later gassed during WWI but miraculously managed to survive.
In January 1941 his father, aged nineteen, fled France which had at that point been divided into two zones: the occupied and the free. In the hope of joining General de Gaulle and the Free French Forces in London to continue the fight against Nazi Germany my father and a friend secretly crossed this border to reach Marseilles (a harbor on the Mediterranean Sea).
With the help of fake identity papers they then enrolled at Marseilles in an engineers outfit (the 31st ‘train des equipages’) to serve in the overseas territory of North Africa in the French Army. They always kept in mind the possibility of reaching Great Britain but their journey then took them to Casablanca, Morocco.
After 6 months in Casablanca my father and his childhood friend parted company; later my father was seriously injured and nearly had his leg amputated. He was shipped back to Sicily after the landing of the Allied forces in Italy.
My father’s childhood friend went on to take part in the Landing in the South of France with the French First Army of General de Latte de Tassigny. He went all he way to Berlin.
My father, who was of the quiet sort, never talked a lot about this period. Eventually a book was written by his friend who related his memories in Morocco, France and Germany from 1941 to 1945.


INDEX (last addition December 2018
Ė Lessons in Jeremiah - see my other web site:www.gordonwsimm.net) )
Please note that links to following pages or Back to Index are often at the
bottom of pages.
Articles on Creation and related subjects are now on my other web
site (www.gordonwsimm.net). Note that articles regarding the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit are now contained in Books I, II, III, IV, V & VI on the
subject of "The doctrine of the Trinity and relating teaching".
Titles followed by (x), (z) or (xy) are now available in books for £5. Those
followed by (y) are also available in a book for £2. (see my other web site:


Click on the categories
below to view the links in those categories. It may take up to a few days
for me to approve them. Remember to check all these sites for yourself
before using them in class. Some entries may be interesting for teachers,
but not appropriate for use with students. Thanks!
Build your own Jeopardy game template (not PowerPoint) or use games
others have made.
Quia is a great
way for your students to practice vocabulary and grammar using Flash
games. Lots of free games. With an account, the teacher can easily
make their own activities and keep track of student progress. Try
it for 30 days free.
This site gives you links to some good grammar tutorials from different
colleges. There are also links to Spanish dictionaries, study aids
Books on PowerPoint to read with your classes. The CD-ROM includes
the PowerPoint book, a worksheet packet and a narrated MP4 of the
Great source of reading books in Spanish and French. Mary Sosnowski
is very knowledgeable about her books so whatever your needs are,
she can help you out.
Books, VDs, CDs and more in various languages. Great selection!
y su Ángel
All in Spanish
and acceptable for all classes. Heartwarming story about an orphaned
boy who finds the "Angel" God has sent him.
Venezuela story about five girls from different walks of life who
come together to form a band. Fun story, in Spanish, acceptable for
the Same Moon -- La Misma Luna
Primarily in English, but with some Spanish. Acceptable for all classes.
Warm story of an illegal Mexican mother's attempt to make a better
life int he US for her son.
In English. Classic film with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren as
Spain's Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar and his wife Chimene. Acceptable
for all classes.
DVD version of the TV series from PBS about an Hispanic family i east
LA. Mostly in English, but with some Spanish. Some language and topics
might not be acceptable to some classes.
Based on the true story of Óscar Romero, Archbishop of San
Salvador, who was assassinated on March 24, 1980. Stars Raúl
Julia and Tony Plana. In English, with some Spanish. Some violence.
The El Salvadoran civil war is made real in this intense movie about
11-year-old Chava who is trying to escape being recruited into either
army when he turns 12. Very strong language and violence. Will probably
need a parental permission slip for most high school classes.
In Spanish. Works well for Spanish classes. Funny and enjoyable for
students. Acceptable for all classes.
Jennifer Lopez plays rising star Selena as her story unfolds, culminated
in her death at the hands of one of her fans. In English.
In English. Marta learns that there is more to life than her Quinceañera
party when she discovers the truth about her parents.
Use these core modules to set your students up with new identities,
then use those identities as characters in your class that can be
or do anything. Great fun!
New Spanish t-shirts coming out all the time! From Chalkboard Productions.
By Design T-Shirts
T-shirts by Learning By Design. Good quality, nice designs, in many
languages. (I can't find their website address so if anyone knows
it, please send it to me
so I can link to them.)
here to return to the main LINK page or use
the following links to specific pages.


Quiet Time Tales
“In a busy world, Grandpa Read’s Quiet Time Tales provides the rare opportunity for kids to just sit still, relax and let their imaginations grow with the nourishment of a soothing voice telling an entertaining, educational story. I learned to love books listening to my Dad read to me back in Wequetequock, Connecticut, where I grew up. I highly recommend Grandpa Read and this terrific kids’ series, which I’ve ordered for my little niece.”
– Ruth Buzzi, actress, Golden Globe winner and five-time Emmy Award nominee (including her work on ‘Sesame Street’)
Quiet Time Tales!
“While my show, Hannah Montana (shameless plug), seems to be on almost constantly, there are a few half-hours during the day when they put on something else. I can’t think of a better way for kids to use their downtime than this delightful collection.”
– Steven Peterman, executive producer of “Hannah Montana”


Library for the W3C Markup Validator API in C#.
This library uses the API of the W3 HTML Validator application (http://validator.w3.org/) to validate an HTML document and receive as response if it is valid or not as well as errors and warnings.
W3C Markup Validator library in C # is a free software application from the Other subcategory, part of the Development category.
The app is currently available in English and it was last updated on 2009-05-28. The program can be installed on WinXP, WinVista, Win7 x64, Win7 x32.
W3C Markup Validator library in C # (version 0.1) is available for download from our website.
Just click the green Download button above to start. Until now the program was downloaded 65 times.
We already checked that the download link to be safe, however for your own protection we recommend that you scan the downloaded software with your antivirus.


In this chapter, we present insights from the ongoing research initiative, “Seeds of Good Anthropocenes,” that is at the forefront of approaches for exploring and articulating more positive futures in the Anthropocene.
The chapter is part of the new open access book Urban Planet.
In this chapter we highlight:
The whole book is open access, but the chapter pdf can be accessed here
PECS - Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society
Stockholm Resilience Centre
SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Visiting address: Kräftriket 2
+46 734 60 70 68 email@example.com
WHAT IS PECS
The Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS), is a core project of Future Earth. It aims to integrate research on the stewardship of social–ecological system and the relationships among natural capital, human wellbeing, livelihoods, inequality and poverty.


Library Operations Assistant
Contract Type: Permanent
Salary: JG2:- £15,613 per annum pro rata
Working Pattern: Part Time
Advertised By: North Somerset Council
Post Number: DLPA0218
Job Category: Other
Advert End Date: 13 March 2018
We are looking for a Library Operations Assistant to be based at the Library Distribution Depot in Clevedon. The post holder will join a small team sharing tasks including the routine handling of library stock, its delivery by large van to our library network across the district, and carrying out minor repairs and maintenance work. There is significant manual handling involved in this physically demanding job.
North Somerset Council is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all sections of our community regardless of age, disability, gender, race, religion, belief or sexual orientation. North Somerset Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Want to know more and apply?
For an informal discussion, please contact Sarah Smith on 01934 426657 or Sophia Richards 01275 884276.
Visit www.n-somerset.gov.uk/jobs to download an application pack and apply online.
Anticipated interview date: Tuesday 20 March 2018


Dates and Times - Spring 2024
To be determined, somewhere in the Geology Building
In the past I have used "Weather Maps," 3rd Edition, by Peter Chaston, but the book is hopelessly out of print. I have several copies -- if I have enough for everyone, I will loan them out to you (small deposit may be requested!). If I don't have enough, we'll figure it out on the first day.
Some Early Reading Recommendations
The old reading recommendations, from when I expected everyone to have a copy of Chaston's book, are these: recommended reading for the first three weeks. I hope that most of it will feel like a review to you.
I will update this section when I find some similar content online for you.
- Homeworks, "Labs," Map Assignments, etc.: 45%
- Weather Briefings (2, beginning after spring break): 10%
- Weekly weather forecasts: 10%
- Midterm Exam, last class before Spring Break: 15%
- Final Exam, time and date from the official IU schedule: 20%
For now, here is a tentative list of our course topics to whet your appetite:
- All-Star Soundings
- Winter weather forecasting
- Vorticity advection (link from archive.org; let me know if it breaks)
- Cyclogenesis: Petterssen-Sutcliffe Development
- Cyclogenesis: Quasi-geostrophic Development
- Jet streaks and more jet streaks
- Low-level jet and the thermal wind
- Severe weather forecasting


Paul, and his wife Pat, grew up in Crossville, Tennessee. After Paul served in the U.S. Air Force (1971-1975) he and Pat attended Tennessee Tech University where they each earned a degree in Accounting.
After graduation they relocated to Nashville where each began their accounting careers with local accounting firms. Paul is now the business administrator at Westminster Presbyterian Church and Pat is a CPA with a local accounting firm.
Paul and Pat moved to Brentwood in 1983 because of the homes with large lots. They wanted a place where their children and friends could play ball and enjoy their large back yard. They found that in Brentwood. They have raised three boys in Brentwood and all three attended Lipscomb Elementary, Brentwood Middle School and Brentwood High School. Paul recalls the story about how all three of the boys had the same kindergarten teacher at Lipscomb.
The family is all nearby with the oldest son, his wife and daughters living in Brentwood. The middle son and his wife and son have a home in Spring Hill and the youngest is also here in Brentwood. They all care about Brentwood and say it was a great place to grow up.
Paul has been active in community service since childhood. He has memories of helping his grandfather sell Optimist Club candy. He continued that service while in college and after he arrived here to begin his working career. He has been a Big Buddy, Civitan ball club treasurer and coach, Friends of the Library member, President of Lipscomb PTO, treasurer of the Brentwood High Athletic Club, Chair of the Brentwood Library Board, church Elder of Presbyterian church , a YMCA soccer coach and co-chair of the Williamson County Fair courtesy transit committee. Paul has served twice as President of the Brentwood Morning Rotary Club. He has served on the Brentwood Park Board, Planning Commission and represented the city on the Regional Transit board, the Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Mayor's Caucus of middle Tennessee.
Paul currently serves as Chair of the Williamson County Budget Committee. He is a member of the Parks and Recreation Committee on the county commission. He serves as board chair of the Williamson Covention and Visitors Bureau and represents Brentwood on the Williamson County Library Board and the Buffalo River Regional Library Board.


After a few not so great reading months and lowering my goal, which you can read about here, I’m finally starting to get my reading back on track. To help me get it even more back on track, I have decided to join three readathons. The first readathon is Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, the second is the 24b4Monday Readathon the last weekend in October, the goal is to read 24 hours before Monday, and the final readathon that I signed up for is the *Bookly Fall Readathon in November.
I will be using Twitter for Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon.
*For those of you that don’t know, Bookly is a reading app that tracks your reading.
I found another readathon this weekend on Twitter, and this one is called Zodiacathon. It takes place from March 19th to March 25th. You can find more information here. You can also double, triple, and quadruple up on the challenges and re-reads are allowed.
Here are the challenges from the Zodiacathon profile:
1.) Complete your Lilith challenge
2.) Buddy read with someone who shares your Lilith
3.) Read a book with a mostly black cover
4.) Read a book with dark themes
5.) Read a book with something that scares you
6.) Read a book with a morally grey character
Ideas for books that I can read for the challenges
1.) Complete your Lilith challenge- My Lilith is Virgo which is to read a book with mixed reviews. Now, I take mixed reviews to be an average of no less than three but not four stars on Goodreads. Here are my options:
–Wicked by Gregory Maguire
–Persephone’s Orchard by Molly Ringle
–Again but Better by Christine Riccio
2.) Buddy read with someone who shares your Lilith- I finally found people to buddy read with and we will be reading:
–A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston
3.) Read a book with a mostly black cover. My options for this one are:
–The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
–Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson
–The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
4.) Read a book with dark themes. My options for this challenge are:
–Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
–Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson
–Grimm’s Fairy Tales by The Brothers Grimm
5.) Read a book with something that scares you. My option for this challenge are:
–Small Spaces by Katherine Arden. There is a creepy corn maze in this book, and I avoid corn mazes at all costs for fear of getting stuck in one.
–Dead Voices by Katherine Arden- Being stuck somewhere in the middle of a snowstorm with creepy things happening is definitely something that scares me too.
6.) Read a book with a morally grey character.
-Starflight by Melissa Landers
If you read yesterday’s post, you will notice that I’m participating in a year-long readathon where the focus is to read books that you already own. Every single book that I have listed are books that I own and have yet to read.
I came across this readathon when Hâf from the Library Looter posted about it, and I then went to the original post to find out more information. This readathon is hosted by The Quiet Pond. This readathon takes place over the entire year and the goal is to read as many of your own books as possible. If you remember in my 2020 Goals and Challenges post I mentioned that one of my goals is to read more backlist books, so this readathon is perfect for that goal.
I have 29 unread physical books and 32 unread eBooks. I want to try and read at least one unread of my own books a month whether they are physical books or eBooks. I’m not big on making TBR’s as I’m such a mood reader but here is my Goodreads physical shelf and my Goodreads eBook shelf.
On Thursday, July 11th another round of my number one favorite readathon, The Biannual BIbliothon is happening. This round is bittersweet as it will the final round. I haven’t missed a round of the readathon since I started participating in the summer of 2016! This is part 2 of my summer TBR, and you can read part 1 of my TBR here.
I have listed all the reading challenges, the ones I will be participating in will be in bold magenta. I will, of course, be doubling up on challenges as it is allowed, you just can’t triple up on challenges.
1.) *GROUP BOOK *: AURORA RISING by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman- I will not be reading this book.
2.) Adult Book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho/Go Set A Watchmen by Harper Lee/Wicked by Gregory Maguire/A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini/All The Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy– I will not be reading all of these, but these are some of the options that I have for adult books that I can read.
3.) Graphic Novel: A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel
4.) A Book Based on its Cover: Hidden Girl: The True Story of a Modern-Day Child Slave by Shyima Hall and Lisa Wysocky
5.) Free Choice/ Wild Card Book: I am not picking a book for this challenge, I will read whatever my heart desires.
6.) A Book from an Author You’ve Never Read Before: Ana of California by Andi Teran
7.) Read a Book You Were Really Excited for, but Never Picked Up: Ana of California by Andi Teran
8.) Read a Predicted 5-Star Read: A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel
9.) Read One of the Hosts’ 5-Star Reads: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
I will be doubling up on challenges 3 and 8, and 6 and 7. I will hopefully be reading six books.
I first joined in on the Biannual Bibliothon in the summer of 2016 and I’m very proud to say that I haven’t missed a round of it since. With that being said, I bring you my TBR for the Winter 2019 round.
Challenges I will be doing:
Challenge 1: Read the Group book- Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean
Challenge 2: Read one of the hosts’ 5-star reads- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
*Challenge 3: Read a book that got you into reading- The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Challenge 4: Read an adult genre- The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden
Challenge 5: Combine your favorite genre with your least favorite format or the opposite: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. For this challenge, I will be listening to the audiobook. Read this post if you want to know more about my relationship with audiobooks
Challenge 6: Read a book with a cover you don’t like- 99 Days by Katie Cotugno
Challenge 7: Read a book by an author you’ve never read before- Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean
I will be doubling up on challenges 2 and 5 and challenges 1 and 7.
*Regarding this challenge: Growing up I was always surrounded by books, and for me, there was never one book that got me into reading because I’ve always been a reader. So for this challenge, I went with a book that has significance to my journey as a reader as recommended by LittleRedReader. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is the first fantasy book that I remember reading.
Today, I have my wrap-up of the summer round of the Biannual Bibliothon. You can find my original TBR here.
1. Read the Group book: The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw
2. Choose from someone else’s TBR
3. Try the first chapter of 3 books and pick 1
4. Read a book that has been on your TBR for over a year
5. Read a predicted 5 star read
6. Own voices – different than YOU
7. Read the last book you bought (the last book you acquired)
1. Read the Group Book: The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw
2. Choose from someone else’s TBR: Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles from Emma from emmmabooks TBR
3. Try the first chapter of 3 books and pick 1: The book I chose was The Isle of the Lost by Melissa De La Cruz
4. Read a book that has been on your TBR for over a year: The Isle of the Lost by Melissa De La Cruz
6. Own voices- Different than YOU: Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles
7. Read the last book you bought (the last book you acquired): The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw
I read three books and completed six challenges. The only challenge I did not complete was challenge 5.
Today is day 1 of the Biannual Bibliothon and it also means day 1 of the blog challenges, reading challenges, video challenges, and Bookstagram challenges. Today’s challenge is hosted by Victoria from Latte Night Reviews and the challenge is to list snowy day reads.
Here is my list of snowy day reads:
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
The Mitten by Jan Brett
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Whichwood by Tahereh Mafi
The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexandra Bracken
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
In my honest opinion, no snowy day reading list is complete without classics like The Snowy Day, A Christmas Carol, The Polar Express, and The Mitten!
This past Summer, the Biannual Bibliothon invited bloggers to host challenges on their blogs. I was fortunate to be invited to be a host for the summer round and loved being a host. This time around there are new blog hosts hosting challenges. I will be taking part in some of those challenges, not all of them have been announced yet, but once all have been announced I will update this post. This will also be my fourth round of the Biannual Bibliothon, and it runs from the 20th to the 26th of this month!! You can see what I will be reading here. Without further ado the challenges that I will be doing are going to be in sky blue:
I would love to be able to do all the challenges, but it’s just not possible!!
Day 1 January 20th is hosted by Victoria from Latte Night Reviews and the challenge is to come up with a list of books to read on a snow day.
Day 2 January 21st is hosted by Will Read for Booze and the challenge is to create your own bookish beverage
Day 3 January 22nd is hosted by Jenica from Firewhiskey Reader and the challenge is to describe your favorite winter scene and why I would want to be in it.
Day 4 January 23rd is hosted by Cody Levi from the Bookworm In Me and the challenge is to blog about 10-15 things you want to do during the holidays or winter season with your favorite book characters. It can be anything.
Day 5 January 24th is hosted by Rayna from Reader Rayna and the challenge is to rewrite a scene so that the scene includes some element of magic.
Day 6 January 25th is hosted by Gabi from A Bookish Gal and the challenge is to discuss your most favorite/memorable book from 2017.
Day 7 January 26th
One of my favorite readathons, the Biannual Bibliothon is coming up, it starts on Saturday the 20th and goes until the Friday the 26th. There are reading challenges, blog challenges, bookstagram challenges and youtube challenges. Here are my list of books and their corresponding reading challenges.
1. Read the group book: Otherworld by Jason Segel & Kirsten Miller
2. Read a sequel: A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
3. Read a book you’ve never heard of before: Otherworld by Jason Segel & Kristen Miller. I had never heard of this book until the reading challenge announcement video!
4. Read a book about mental illness: Challenger Deep by Neil Shusterman or A List of Cages by Robin Roe.
5. Read a book that was mentioned in another book/movie/show etc.: Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
6. Read a book under 200 pages: Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
7. Read a backlist title: A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
I will be combining challenges 1 and 3, 2 and 7, 5 and 6.
I am very excited to announce that I am participating in the Biannual Bibliothon, this will be my third round! This is one of my favorite readathons, it’s fun and pushes me out of my comfort zone. There are video challenges, Bookstagram challenges and for the first time ever, bloggers have been invited to host challenges on their own blogs. With that being said, I thought I would compose a post with the list of blog challenges and what I will be reading. This year, the Biannual Bibliothon and BookTubeAThon occur at the same time. I have decided that seeing as the majority of the books I’m reading for the Biannual Bibliothon fit the challenges for BookTubeAThon, that I am going to participate in BookTubeAThon as well. The challenges and my reads for BookTubeAThon are at the bottom of this post.
I am also very excited to announce that I have been invited to be a blogger host for the Biannual Bibliothon and my host day is Thursday the 27th!! I’m going to start with the reading challenges and what I’ll be reading first!
Read the group book: Flame in the Mist by Reneé Ahdieh- I won this book in a giveaway!
Read a book from the favorite genre of one of the hosts: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Book to movie adaptation: Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Banned book: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Throwback-Re-read a book from your childhood: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Book I have seen somewhere other than BookTube: Dead Light March by Daniel José Older
LGBTQIA+: The Wicked and The Divine by Gillen, McKelvie, Wilson, Cowles
Blogging Challenges- Challenges I will be doing are in bold:
Sunday, July 23rd: Nana– Blogger Book Tag
Monday, July 24th: Kassie– Write a book review
Tuesday, July 25th: Dominique– Write a synopsis from the villains perspective
Wednesday, July 26th: Amy– Book you’ve rated three stars or less
Thursday, July 27th: Character connections- This is my host day!!
Friday, July 28th: Mary– 25 Facts about me
Saturday, July 29th: Dylan– Write a letter to a character
BookTubeAThon Challenges and Reads:
1.) Read a book with a person on the cover: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
2.) Read a hyped book: Flame in the Mist by Reneé Ahdieh
3.) Finish a book in one day: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
4.) Read about a character that is very different from you: Dead Light March by Daniel José Older
5.) Finish a book completely outdoors: A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L’Engle
6.) Read a book you bought because of the cover: That Crazy Perfect Someday by Michael Mazza. I borrowed this from the library because of the cover, it is very aesthetically pleasing.
7.) Read seven books: The Wicked and the Divine by Gillen McKelvie and Wilson Cowles


This page is directly linked to the EFL Lesson Ideas wiki, an online space for EFL teachers to share each other’s lesson plans, ideas, and materials.
Try some of the lessons available here and feel free to let us know whether they worked well or not. Also, feel free to add your suggestions and recommendations.
Here’s a list with available material:
The Most Expensive Suite In The World: It includes practice for inference of lexical meaning through context, practice of conditionals and narrative tenses, as well as a writing task (review).
IMPORTANT! This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


TECHNICAL TIPS and GUIDES
In this section we offer tips and advice about all aspects of optics and optical design. We have tried to make the advice unbiased, just presenting technical advice that we hope will be useful.
If you have any particular questions or subjects you’d like addressed, please let us know.
Optical Surfaces has produced a A practical guide to Surface Quality Click here to download…
Optical Surfaces has produced a A practical guide to Off-axis Paraboloid Alignment Procedure Click here to download…
Cleaning protected aluminum coatings More information…


The History of the Guitar
– Joe Gioia
In a talk drawn from his upcoming book, The Guitar and the New World (SUNY Press, 2012), Joe reviews the stages of the evolution of the American acoustic guitar, from its origins in the mythological past to the great folk music scare of the 60s. Highlights include the major developments of intermediate instruments, a look at string theory (ha-ha) with Daniel Bernoulli, and what, if anything, Galileo had to do with it.
Do Toasters Have Human Rights?
– Barbra Barnett
How do we define and ground human rights? Can our existing categories serve as a basis for universal moral norms as humanity moves into an unchartered future? The science fiction cable television series Battlestar Galactica calls into question our basic ethical precepts and is a valuable tool for teaching ethics. By challenging the prevailing assumption that membership in the human species carries moral significance, the show provides a framework for examining basic paradigms for understanding ethics as it has developed in the West. It also offers several avenues for engaging contemporary issues in practical ethics, including whether there are any ethical limitations on the use of political and military power, and arguments for extending rights protection to animals, nature, and other non-human entities.
Barbra Barnett has taught courses on human rights, ethics, philosophy, and religion at The University of Chicago and Elmhurst College. She has a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School and a Ph.D. in Ethics from The University of Chicago. When not watching reruns of Battlestar Galactica, she can be found watching the TLC reality t.v. show “Sister Wives.”
The World of Ketchup
– Jason St. John
Ketchup, as a topic of study, is just shockingly multidisciplinary. In a talk ranging from international studies through linguistics, culinary studies, non-Newtonion fluid dynamics, and pop culture, Jason reveals all that he learned from Wikipedia one slow day at the lab, instead of doing science. He is a local student finishing his dissertation work at one of the nearby National Accelerator Labs (there are two), on something entirely unrelated to condiments. He also sometimes organizes a local event called nerd nite.


We often think about what our children will inherit from those who have gone before them.
But what about the one inheritance that will last forever?
Christian parents have already faced the reality of their own sin, helplessness, and need for a Savior. And, though our young children’s lives often seem simpler than ours, their spiritual predicament is every bit as real. They are never too young to hear God’s good news for them as they face eternity—but as a parent, you may be wondering how to explain it to them in a way they can understand.
Jill Nelson demonstrates that even young children can learn about the gospel—not just in general, but in full detail! In this illustrated guide for parents to read with five- through ten-year-old children, she lays out God’s plan of salvation, starting with his very first designs for creation and moving through what went wrong, how important and hopeless our situation truly is, and what the wonderful news of our Savior’s sacrifice means for us.
Don’t just prepare your children for this life—prepare them for the one that matters most!


- This event has passed.
NAIDOC Week Flag Raising Ceremony – For Our Elders
3 July, 2023 @ 10:00 am AEST
CVGT Employment will be at the Bendigo flag raising ceremony on Monday 3 July to celebrate the start of NAIDOC Week 2023.
Please join us for the celebrations, which include a Dja Dja Wurrung Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony as part of the flag raising ceremony taking place in the Bendigo Library Gardens.
Civic Reception and a light morning tea to follow indoors in the Bendigo Town Hall.
See you there!


HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BLACKBERRY 2022 THREAT REPORT
Learn the top cybersecurity trends of 2021 and use the discussion points to explore the cyber preparedness of your organization.
Seven Top Cybersecurity Trends
The cyber events of 2021 included unprecedented supply chain attacks, assaults on critical infrastructure, and widespread vulnerabilities likely to haunt organizations for years. These events, among others, are detailed in the comprehensive BlackBerry® 2022 Threat Report.
This Highlights version consolidates seven top findings in a short report to help busy security professionals quickly extract value from the major trends and cyber events of 2021 to allocate cybersecurity resources effectively.
Read the report to help your organization prevent cyberattacks and achieve a secure 2022 and beyond.


Jim's political articles that he invites you to read and respond to.
The latest discussions and topics that are being talked about.
Articles about Religion in general or recent religious news.
Check out Jim Reiher's published books.
...and for something a little lighter.
About Jim Reiher
We all know that there are two taboo topics we are not meant to talk about - Religion and Politics. But, they are two of Jim’s most passionate interests. He has been a candidate in various elections between 2004 and 2010, and he was a founding member and the first President of the Casey Multi-faith Network in 2007 (and remains an active member to this day). Jim has a Bachelors of Arts (double major in history) and a Diploma of Education, and also a Masters of Theology (with honors). In recent years he has had a number of journal articles (historical, biblical, and the gender debate) accepted and published after peer review.
This book is now my best example of how scholars go to the most desperate lengths to promote a view. It typifies how one can manipulate evidence and arguments, to promote a position, and the extremes of dogmatism that can be packaged as if it is even-handed research. The scholars who contributed to this volume know that there are many sound arguments that could have been raised against their material, but they do not tease them out with any genuine attempt to weigh the evidence. No, this book is dogmatic theology at its worst. It has an agenda to promote, and it pretends to be studying all the evidence in so doing. There are so many examples of how this particular book argues poorly, ignores evidence, and pushes a predetermined view that it is hard to decide which specific issue to highlight by way of example. But let me settle for their discussion of Junia(s) – the person mentioned in Romans 16:7. It is a manageable length in their book, allowing us to evaluate it in a relatively short article.
‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’
Gordon Fee rightly sums up the major controversy about this passage when he writes: ‘Is the equity, or the oneness, of the three pairs – Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female – to be limited to the justifying work of Christ alone, or does it include other aspects of life in the believing community as well?’ These two key options are clearly at loggerheads: it is either talking about a wide application including both salvation and social relationships, or it is limited to a narrow theological application that restricts itself to our salvation alone. Every reader has to make a decision which ‘school’ they will choose to belong to.
I have put off writing this for a while... but you know what? It needs to be said. The following is a paper I have put together that explains why it is that some of us who call ourselves Christians (Christ followers) actually do support gay marriage. Happy for discussion so long as you actually read it first! :-)
by Jim Reiher
Friends: I have written a book. Maybe it will be published some day soon, maybe it wont. But you know what? I want it to be "out there" and read, so for now... I will put it up here and anyone can read it and (hopefully) enjoy it. It is copyright to me, so no copying... okay....!? ... but hey... why keep it locked away waiting for an insightful publisher to jump at the chance to publish it? That might still happen, but for now... here it is. (I had put up the first few chapters in earlier posts, but here is the whole book in one entry).
It is a different kind of historical fiction. It is not straight chronology of the life and times of Paul. It is, rather, set in prison, when he is 60 years old, and awaiting trial in Rome. It is set at the end of the book of Acts in the New Testament. Paul stays in that prison for 2 years, before he finally has his trial. I have set the story during that time. He is allowed visitors (most of the time) and he entertains old and new friends, and has long conversations with them. They remember stories and talk about everything and anything: theology, morals, ethics, marriage and celebacy... all that and more. In the telling of stories and remembering, we get the life of the Apostle Paul in a patchwork way.
I hope you enjoy it.... :-)
The Sunburnt Circus, (fiction).
"Never put off helping simply because you can't address every issue and every problem. Never put off helping because you can't help everyone who needs it. If everyone just did something, everything would get done. Do your part without regard for those with idle hands."
- Jim Reiher


As a child, I was a voracious reader. I read everything I could get my hands on. By age ten, I’d devoured the Lord of the Rings trilogy and had just begun reading the first Harry Potter book. A child of a single working parent, I read when I was bored, when there were no neighborhood kids to play with, or when it was too cold to play outside.
My strong reading skills have made me very privileged. Most adults in America read at an eighth-grade reading level or below. Another twenty percent read at the fifth-grade level or below. Reading at a young age made me comfortable and confident with literature. I have no problem reading health-care related materials (usually written at the tenth-grade level). I can skim through job applications and descriptions quickly, which makes it easier for me to find and obtain employment. I can research my basic legal rights to understand if one has been broken and I can read well enough to find assistance with almost any need I have.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss
A solid reading foundation is essential to a good life, and it’s important to get your children reading from a young age. As soon as I learned how to talk, my mother began playing books on tape for me whenever we were in the car. This taught me a lot about pronunciation and how to infer a word’s meaning based on context clues.
What else can you do to build your child’s literacy at an early age?
- Talk to your kids. Even if they are too young to understand what you’re saying, have conversations with them. Use big words. Ge them used to hearing your voice, your inflection, and the words you choose.
- As your child gets older, have them tell you bedtime stories! As a nanny, this was one of my favorite things to do. I loved hearing the stories the boys would make up. At first, they found it difficult. Creating stories uses different neural pathways in the brain than listening to stories. Eventually, they got used to it and loved getting creative (and sometimes silly).
- Pick a “word of the day” and spell it out with refrigerator magnets after reviewing the word with your child. One word per day equals seven new words a week that your child is getting to see and practice.
Creating a culture of literacy will encourage your children to pick up books and continue expanding their vocabularies. Creating strong, young readers will build a generation of future readers, who are confident and secure in their ability to navigate books, instructions, and many other things.


The complete orchestral film score by Joshua Stamper for 'Horse & Rider', a Ben Stamper Picture in association with Freedom Firm.
ABOUT THE FILM:
Increasingly, many independent filmmakers and activists are turning their attention to human trafficking, the modern-day slavery that is practiced by nearly every country in the world. 'Horse & Rider: A Journey Towards Freedom' is a non-conventional look into an industry that is growing at exponential rates: selling and buying minors for sex.
Shot on location in India in 2011, this narrative documentary traces the tangled memories of two survivors of child prostitution who have become friends in an aftercare program run by Freedom Firm, an NGO in southern India. There, the two friends study multiple languages, earn money making jewelry and helping local disabled children using horse therapy. Award-winning Director Ben Stamper draws heavily upon monumental cinematography and a lush musical score to explore the complexities of rescuing minors from brothels and their subsequent journey of restoration into a society largely intolerant of women who have been sexually exploited.
'Horse & Rider' is a cinematic pilgrimage from Ooty to Mumbai to Calcutta with riveting firsthand accounts from former victims and family members. The stories hold together through the interweaving of the vibrant shades of India, forming an enigmatic realism that is as captivating as it is sobering. Despite the emotional intensity of the subject matter, this documentary is rich in symbolism that encourages multiple viewings. 'Horse & Rider' is a documentary film that leaves commentary to the audience as it presents the tragic and heroic dimensions of the human condition with an imaginative lyricism and beauty.