It's time once again for Turn the Page...Tuesday hosted by Adrienne from Some of a Kind. Pop on over to see what others have been reading this past month.
I have been to a lighthouse in the Carolina's, canoed the mighty Columbia River, danced in the bayou with the Ya-Ya's and spent some time in Alabama with an aging beauty queen. Where has your reading taken you this month?
Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River by Robin Cody
I was a bit aprehensive about reading this book, just because I thought that it may be a bit dry. Instead it was a completely delightful read and really interesting. I loved the way the author eased his way into the actual canoe trip by giving the reader a background of his family and his Dads love of the river. Robin Cody gives a wonderful history of the Columbia river and the dam's that provide the Pacific Northwest with power, as well as colorful accounts of his trip and the characters he meets along the way as he paddles his way from the source of the Columbia River to the mouth where it spills out into the Pacific Ocean. This book is really eye-opening and heart-breaking in many ways; the loss of native life-styles up and down the river as the dam's went in; the change of landscape as these dam's backed up creating reservoirs and leveling age-old falls.
If you have a connection with the Pacific Northwest or a love of rivers and wildlife, I would definately recommend this book.
A couple of my favorite passages from Voyage of a Summer Sun -
"From my mother came a strong sense that it mattered who came before us, and how they did it."
On witnessing a family of geese in spring on the river -
"Adult geese lose their flight feathers soon after the goslings hatch in spring. The adults can't fly until the little guys can, which is nature's way of keeping the family together."
The Language of Sand: A Novel by Ellen Block
This was a very quick read with enjoyable characters and a wonderful setting.
After losing her husband and young son in a tragic fire, Abigail has moved to Chapel Isle off the North Carolina coast as the caretaker for a lighthouse, hoping to connect in someway with the island that her late husband loved as a boy. When she arrives, she finds the lighthouse possibly haunted and quite run-down; the town full of colorful characters and herself changing from the Abigail she has always known into simply Abby.
I found it an enjoyable read, one that kept me turning the pages but left me in the end wishing that there had been more depth to many of the characters and more story behind the haunting of the lighthouse. It did feel as if the last 1/4 of the book was rushed a bit and could have been played out with more depth, but all in all a nice light read.
One of my favorite quotes from The Language of Sand was from a scene where Abigail was unpacking all of her books that she had brought to the island with her:
"As she organized, she allowed herself to read the first few pages of each book, tasting the story or sampling a morsel from a text. It was as if she were bumping into an aquaintance on the street-Abigail couldn't simply pass them by."
Don't forget to pop over to Adrienne's place for more reading fun!


Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you are into philosophical here are some philosophical books from Austria for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
his book, one of the most haunting things that Roth ever composed, was published in 1939, the year the author died. Like Andreas, the hero of the story, Roth drank himself to death in Paris, but this is not an autobiographical confession. It is a secular miracle-tale, in which the vagrant Andreas, after living under bridges, has a series of lucky breaks that lift him briefly onto a different plane of existence. The novella is extraordinarily compressed, dry-eyed and witty, despite its melancholic subject-matter.


Buy a signed copy FLASH!
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FLASH! writing the very short story
Publisher's Weekly: “A particularly valuable ingredient of [Dufresne's] advice is the inclusion of detailed, encouraging, and relatively unique writing prompts. . . . For established and aspiring authors alike . . . this book will be illuminating, instructive, and yes, inspiring.”
Kirkus: “[Dufresne] provides many samples of flash fiction, including graphic ones, by a wide array of writers . . . with some sharp critical analysis, prompts, and exercises along the way. . . . [A] good place to learn how to write some really, really short [stories].”


Let Me Tell You: Tiny Books, Big Ideas
Open call for entry!
Let Me Tell You: Tiny Books, Big Ideas - an exhibition of miniature handmade books - is open to anyone who would like to participate. The final collection of tiny books will be shown at Drop Forge & Tool in Hudson, NY from May 22 to June 25, 2017. The exhibition is co-presented by Drop Forge & Tool and The Creativity Caravan. Opening reception will be May 22 from 6 to 8pm with a reading at 7pm.
Subject: Every one of us is an expert at something and every one of us has something they would like others to know. Now is your chance to share your expertise in a miniature format. Inspired by The Creativity Caravan’s original collection of “How To” books, we encourage participants to submit books on the theme of sharing knowledge.
Possible prompts for content: What is your super power? What do you know? Who taught you what you know? What do you want to offer the world right now? How do you positively impact your family, neighborhood, or the planet? What are the things you love about your community? What would you like others to know about you?
Form: For the purposes of this exhibition, a tiny book is one that is 3 inches or smaller in all dimensions. Any type of book form or book construction qualifies (within the size restriction). Each participant may submit up to 3 books. All submissions will be shown.
Workshops: The Creativity Caravan’s Amy Tingle and Maya Stein will bring their miniature book making expertise to Hudson, NY several times over the next few months to teach community members how to make tiny books including one Monday evening open studio workshop at Drop Forge & Tool on March 27, and one intensive workshop at Drop Forge & Tool on April 23rd and a free public open workshop at the Hudson Area Library on Tuesday, April 25th. (Check the workshop listings on the dropforgeandtool.com for more info and to register.)
Submission Fee: To encourage local participation, there is no submission fee for participants who live in Hudson, NY. For participants who live further afield, there is a small fee of $5 for each book submitted to cover our administrative and display making costs. If the fee is prohibitive, please let us know. We do not want the fee to prevent anyone from participating!
Sales: If participants would like their tiny book to be for sale at the exhibit, please indicate a price. Participants will receive 50% of the sales price if their work is sold. Please mark your work Not For Sale if you do not want to sell it. All unsold work can be picked up at the end of the exhibit.
Sign up through the link below if you want to participate and receive email reminders of workshops and due dates:
HARD & FAST DUE DATE: MAY 15th - All pieces are due. Mailed books must arrive by this date. NEW Mailing Address: Drop Forge & Tool, 10 1/2 Aitken Avenue, Hudson NY 12534. Include book title, price (if selling) and your email address for Paypal payment of any proceeds.
In person drop off: Sunday May 14 between 10am and 4pm or Monday May 15 between 1pm and 5pm at Drop Forge & Tool, 442 Warren St, Hudson NY. If you would like to drop off your book(s) earlier, please contact firstname.lastname@example.org to set up a time.
EXHIBIT DATES: May 22 - June 25, 2017
OPENING READING AND RECEPTION: 6 to 8pm Monday, May 22. Reading at 7! Let us know if you would like to read your own or another's book!
Optional for promotion: By May 10. Email a photo of your piece plus your name, title, dimensions, medium, retail price (suggested retail under $250, and remember the gallery takes 50% commission), and your Instagram handle too!
We would love to see your works in progress! Please tag photos of your works in progress or the final book on Instagram #LMTYtinybooks
The Creativity Caravan , co-founded in 2013 by Amy Tingle and Maya Stein, is a studio, gallery, and imaginarium located in Northern New Jersey. Their mission is to spark, engage, and nourish creativity in communities everywhere. They believe creativity can change lives by building self-confidence, harnessing imagination, helping to practice problem-solving, and bridging differences. Their programs are centered on the joy of discovery and power of collaborative learning. They offer art and writing experiences for kids and adults of all ages and abilities. They have a brand-new studio space located at 28 South Fullerton Avenue in Montclair, NJ, and their vintage caravan, MAUDE (Mobile Art Unit Designed for Everyone) allows them to deliver their programs locally and beyond.
During the spring and summer of 2016, The Creativity Caravan transformed their 1965 Covered Wagon caravan into The Tiny Book Show, a roving bookmobile filled with more than 324 tiny books -- each measuring less than 3 inches -- made by amateur and professional artists and writers from around the world. They stopped in more than 60 locations around the country to display the exhibit, and taught miniature book-making workshops at each exhibit stop. The project route included stops in Hudson, NY in May of 2016, at Basilica Farm & Flea and at the Hudson Area Library. For more information about The Creativity Caravan and The Tiny Book Show go to www.thecreativitycaravan.com


Dennis Ward, Project Manager for the Cemetery Tours, introducing today’s team. Mick Woiwod, Author of 20 books mainly focussed on the local region, Diana Bassett-Smith, long time resident of The Shire and Mike Pelling, Chairman of Trustees of the Cemetery.
View of Rotunda.from outside carpark.
Another beautiful day with a bright blue sky, in amongst the Gum Trees and History, gathering in the Rotunda of the Kangaroo Ground Cemetery.
Dennis spoke briefly of the background of the 2013 Cemetery Tours and the Shire of Nillumbik’s Grant to study the link between the Family History and Community History that can be found in Cemeteries across the Shire and beyond and then turned the group over to Mick Woiwoid.
Mick discussed the early days before the Cemetery. Families were burying there own on there own land. He said that in 1866 Henry Hurst of Allwood,Hurst’s Bridge, who was fatally wounded by Bushranger Robert Bourke, had been tied to a tree on his farm, was buried in what became the family burial plot beside the road on the farm.
The first White burials at Kangaroo Ground were of Children in unmarked graves where the Inglewood Chapel and Reception Centre is now. They are now lost.
David Christmas died 1851-1852 somewhere in Christmas Hills. It wasn’t until Mick decided to write a book about him that the story became clearer and his location of his grave “found”. David’s story is told under the ‘JOSEPH AND RUTH STEVENSON’ story.
Judith Furphy, was 5 years old, when she was the first person buried in the Kangaroo Ground Cemetery in 1851. The fence line of the Cemetery was on the last owned land of the 10 farms of Kangaroo Ground. It was 2 acres of sand. After school there was a procession to the Cemetery. Judith’s story is told under the heading ‘YOUNG JUDITH FURPHY IS LAID TO REST’.
The Kangaroo Ground Cemetery was described in a “Petition to the Governor” deriving from a meeting in the Schoolhouse on Tuesday 24th August 1857 chaired by Rev David Boyd of Panton Hill, with the indomitable School Master Andrew Ross as Secretary. But the list of all Presbyterian Trustees was not acceptable and two Catholic and two ‘Episcopalian’ representatives appointed and proclaimed on 27th August 1858.
The First Trustees were:
Andrew Harkness Presbyterian, Walter Wippell Presbyterian, John Sweeney Catholic, Patrick O’Callaghan Catholic, John Jardine Church of England and Henry Scarce Church of England.
The Rotunda was opened in March 2001 by Peter Basset-Smith, Cemetery Trustee from 1979 to 1994 and Nillumbik Citizen of the Year 2001. This celebrated the 100 years of service to the Cemetery by the Ness and Stevenson Families.
In pre White occupation, the east side of the cemetery, was an aboriginal camp site, for at least 10,000 years. The east side is protected from the prevailing winds so it would be an ideal overnight camp site. Water soaks from the sand and forms a permanent waterhole.
THE PELLING FAMILY
I would like to welcome you officially on be half of the Trust and draw your attention to a couple of Occupational Health and Safety Signs.
William and Ethele Osborne were my Grand-parents.
William Allan Osborne was born in a place called Hollywood, Ulster, Northern Ireland, and was the son of a Clergy Man. He was a violent agnostic atheist later on. He came out here and was appointed Professor of Physiology at Melbourne University in 1903. He became Dean of the Faculty in 1929. He was one of the Founders of Melbourne Rotary in 1921.He was Commonwealth Film Censor, and for 17 years involved with “Information Please” and the tradition is my grandfather helped Barry Jones to ‘Remember’. He escaped Melbourne winters to Magnetic Island. He died in 1967.
Ethele Elizabeth Goodson was born in 1882. She studied Medicine at Melbourne University and married William in 1903. She was a Founding Member of Emily MacPherson Domestic College (now RMIT Management School). In 1928 at Melb Uni she was the representative the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in Hawaii. She was involved in the Catalysts Club which still active and assisted Sydney Myer in developing the Kew Boulevard in the Depression. She died in 1968.
According to records they were both cremated at Springvale and their Ashes Spread. The Family have since decided to have Memorial Plaques here to remember them.
When they were at the University they had a house there and a holiday house in Osborne Road, Warrandyte. So when they retired in 1938 they bought half of the Donaldson’s Property Kangaroo Ground (about 300 acres) and settled there. They called their house the “Hall”.
During their busy careers they had the following children:
AUDREY (Twins) Instrumental in setting up “Potters Cottage”, Warrandyte. They had the “White Cottage”, Heritage Listed house in Osbourne Road, that is worth a look.
JARED (2 children) Lived in “Lowerstoff”, in Osborne Road, Warrandyte. He worked at Kraft Foods and became Managing Director.
YRSA. (No Children) Became Lady Fitz when her husband Surgeon Clive Fitz was Knighted.
CHARIS (4 children) Married Bill Pelling and lived in South Yarra. And this is Charis here.
Charis and Bill moved to part of the “Hall” after I (Michael) was born and called the property “Woodlands”. Charis ran the farm with a Poll Dorset Stud and 1500 Merino Wethers. It is hard to think of now . Charis became an Shire of Eltham Councillor and was the First Woman Shire President. This was an exciting period for Eltham with ‘Real Artists’ and the successfull moving of Shilliglaw Cottage before the Shire Offices were built, and they created Parks and that sort of thing. So the house was full of paintings and artworks.
In 1969 the “Hall” and “Woodlands” were burnt out in ‘spotfires’ and we lost everything.
Bill (my father) had got through Police blockades to try and save us. He became lodged in a fallen tree and left the road and spent 3 hours in a dam with a bull. He had as a consequence a minor face lift afterwards.
The “Hall” was subdivided with some going to Eltham College.
Around this time Neil Douglas rented a weatherboard house at the Bend of Islands, and although it was radical then, created with the help of friends, the Enviromental Residential/ Conservation Zone. (Neil said his house was saved by the native garden).
After the fires Bill and Charis moved to “Cooree Bank” just east of KG Tower.
Bill Died and Charis moved to Yea. They had four children.
*Mike. WHAT DOES MIKE DO? BESIDES BE TRUSTEE Lives at the Bend of Islands.
Marg. Left 40 years ago and has been an Oxord University Research Associate.
NICK Who went to the Vietnam War, suffered PTSD and on return joined the CFA. He represented the CFA and RSL on the Shire of Nillumbik Kangaroo Gound War Memorial and Tower of Rememberance Advisory Committee. He is on the left in the photograph of the Rededication of the Tower in 2001 by Governor John Landy.
He married Anna Brinkotter, another well known family name from the Pioneering Days. Anna also joined the KG War Memorial Advisory Committee after Nicholas passed away.
DEB Operated an Airline at Woolongong, New South Wales and plans to retire to Kangaroo Island, South Australia
Mike, Marg, Nick and Deb all attended Kangaroo Ground State School.
BASSETT-SMITH, STEVENSON AND NESS
JOSEPH AND RUTH STEVENSON
This is a rather remarkable story with links from Robert Louis Stevenson, the tools that made the First Punt over the Yarra and a Lovely Lady from Kangaroo Ground, Diana Basset-Smith (nee Stevenson).
Yes the family is related to Robert Louis Stevenson but this adventure takes place on the other side of the planet.
JOSEPH (1802-1878), had departed Scotland 1832 on board the Wellington bound for Sydney. There, he married Ruth Boyd, the daughter of convict, Alexander Boyd. Soon after, the couple moved to Tasmania where David was born. Joseph, a joiner by trade, worked a year or two in the timber industry there, then crossed the Straits to newly opening Melbourne on the Yarra. At the third Melbourne Land Sale (13 September 1838), Joseph, for just on Ninety Pounds, purchased the half acre allotment on the corner of Swanton and Little Bourke Streets.
At the time, Melbourne was on the verge of the first of its notorious land booms. When James Bowie Kirk (not related to George Kirk) decided upon a Horse Bazaar in Bourke Street, it was Stevenson who built it. When William Watts required a punt built to ferry passengers and goods across the Yarra, again, it was Stevenson who fulfilled the contract. The day the punt was launched it was christened the `Melbourne’ and the splash of river water is said to have mingled with the splash of champagne from the nearby tavern. It was an occasion for celebration; the settlement could at last open wheel-tracks to Westernport.
Stevenson’s Melbourne years appears to have provided the capital for him to purchase the bullocks and equipment he required to launch himself on the land. By 1841 he was on Arthur’s Creek near the present day township of Diamond Creek.
Local tradition has it that the name ‘Diamond Creek’, itself, derives directly from a Stevenson mishap said to have occurred near Gum’s Bridge in which he lost his most valuable bullock – an animal answering to the name of ‘Diamond’. Afterwards, it is said that whenever Stevenson made reference to the stream, he had a habit of alluding to it as ‘the one ‘Diamond’ was in’. In time, the stream, itself, to as far as Haley’s, came to be known as Diamond Creek.
In 1842 Stevenson established a sheep station out past Kangaroo Ground at the junction of Watson and Five Mile Creeks. In need of a shepherd, he rode into Melbourne and hired a man by the name of David Christmas, leaving him to find his own way out to his station in the hills.
David seems to have managed as far as the Kangaroo Grounds, but, in the trackless scrub beyond, somehow managed to become hopelessly lost. After days of aimless wandering, during which time he is said to have eaten his dog, he was rescued after making his way towards the sound of bells which some versions claim he mistook for the bells of St Paul’s. Instead, they hung from the necks of Stevenson’s bullocks. In acknowledgment of his shepherd’s salvation, Stevenson named his run ‘Christmas Hill Station’.
For he was found by Stevenson,
Who for his cattle came,
And from this humble shepherd
These hills have gained their name.
Terry Bates, 1992.
One hundred and fifty years later, 11 October 1992, the people of Christmas Hills gathered to celebrate the event. They unveiled a plaque on a memorial erected above David’s bush grave. Afterwards, to the lilt of the Welsh national air, ‘We’ll Keep a Welcome on the Hillside’, a toast was drank in remembrance of the shepherd’s exploits.
David Christmas was born Cardiganshire, Wales, in 1797. Soon after his marriage to Jane Wall he was convicted of the larceny of gold and silver and transported to Van Diemen’s Land. In 1836, by now a free man, he crossed the Straits to arrive on the Yarra with Melbourne a mere collection of huts, and a European population of under two hundred. Apart from his bush grave and the story of his misadventure in the great Stringy-bark Forest, little else is known of his life in the districts.
In 1847, Stevenson sold his Christmas Hill Station to Henry Dendy and moved to Kangaroo Ground, where, as has already been seen, he purchased seventy-eight acres on the eastern edge of the district’s black soil. There, he built the family home, Bank Head. By the 1860s, the Stevenson had a sizable vineyard on the property’s eastern slopes, said to have produced ‘very light but agreeable wines’ that sold well at Melbourne and overseas markets.
Years later, the Stevensons added a further forty-odd acres to the property with a long road frontage leading down to Watson Creek. It was Stevenson who built Andrew Ross’s house, and who later became a first Trustee of both the Common and the Cemetery; and early member also of the Eltharn Road Board. Stevenson’s selections north of Henley Road.
But back to their eldest son, David, born in Van Diemen’s Land, who selected eighty acres above Fryer’s Gully in Nicholas Lane under Section 31 of the Land Act. David worked his farm for just seven months. On 18 March 1868 he set out from ‘Bank Head’ in search of lost horses following their tracks to as far as the junction of the Yarra with Watsons Creek. In attempting to cross the river by way of a rock-bar (known to present day canoeists as ‘Arthur’s Mistake’), he lost his footing and drowned.
David’s selection was taken over by his younger brother, Robert, who cleared and fenced the property for grazing. In an unfortunate coincidence, sixteen years later, Robert and his wife, Ruth, had the misfortune to lose their own young son, David, drowned in their farm dam.
The Stevenson family eventually selected a number of other properties along the lower reaches of Watsons Creek bringing their total holdings to around 320 acres.
Robert Stevenson married Ruth Sadler; his sister, Jane, married James Mess. Already, a pattern of settlement was beginning to form. By 1870 practically all the Scots of Kangaroo Ground were related; now their offspring were winging their way out from their embryonic oasis into the less fertile surrounds of the Stringy-bark Forest.
Regardless of how one looks at it, the Scots of Kangaroo Ground were unique in the Victorian narrative. Elsewhere around them, was a blend of nationalities, ranging from the African co-discoverer of the Caledonian field to the French and German Hoteliers of Panton Hill through to the English and Irish majorities of the Diamond Valley, and the unloved Chinese who worked so diligently and silently in the gullies of the One Tree Hill Range.
Regardless of the name being Bell, Armstrong, Barr, Donaldson, Harkness, Rogerson, Johnston, Mess, Sadler, Stevenson, Thomson, Ross, McAdam, Andrews or Cameron — all were Scottish, all were Presbyterians. Furthermore, all were in some way related.
There was, of course, the odd Sassenach among them – men such as Henry Scarce and Charles Draper – but they were destined to eventually locate their farms deep out in the stringy-bark rather than at the centre of things. By the time the 1869 Act had ran its course there would be barely a square inch of the district that was not owned, fenced or in some way brought within the European dream.
p103-106 KANGAROO GROUND The Highland Taken, Mick Woiwoid 1994
The Bells rank with the Donaldson as the earliest and most noteworthy settlers of Kangaroo Ground. William Bell, a Scot of the Border Country was born the year Robbie Burns died. In 1817, he married twenty-four year old Agnes Muncaster of Cumberland. Together, the couple raised a family of five; a further three children having died in infancy.
Emigrants boarding for the long journey to Australia. Illustrated London News, 6 July 1850, William and Agnes Bell would, certainly, have heard the call, of Port Phillip agent, Dr Boyter, and anxiously awaited his arrival in Dumfriesshire later that year. Boyter focussed on the ordinary farm worker and country mechanic. The Bell family proved admirably suited. Upon selection, each candidate was required to provide a character reference from his or her employer or minister of religion. After interview and approval, Boyter’s responsibility was to allocate ships, supervise embarkation, and see to the loading of sufficient supplies for the long sea voyage.
The ship chosen for the Bell family was the David Clark. On board when it sailed were 230 fellow Scots: 125 from the Highlands, 94 from the Lowlands. The occupations of the Lowlanders were as follows:
- 17 maidservants 22 married women
- 13 farm labourers 19 children
- 4 dairymaids 2 storekeepers
- 1 carpenter 3 manservants
- 2 blacksmiths 2 tailors
- 1 joiner 2 needlewomen
- 2 shepherds 1 farm overseer
- 3 cartwrights
No sooner had the ship departed port than they were disrupted by drunken skirmishes between the ship’s captain and an unruly Irish element aboard in an otherwise competent Scandinavian crew. A week or so later the ship lay interminably becalmed in the doldrums during which time a craft of sinister appearance hovered within sight for two whole days, steadfastly refusing to identify itself.
Believing it to be a pirate ship, the captain: ordered musket and cutlass to be furbished and issued to the crew and male passengers, and the big cannons were got ready, all the women ordered to remain below deck and there had to stay quaking with fear.
The display of arms and naval pretence eventually effected the desired result, and the foreboding intruder departed.
Among those on board the David Clark were sixteen Scottish emigrants destined to play central roles in the Kangaroo Ground story. They were from among the families of:
- William Bell, farm overseer aged 43, his wife, Agnes, house-servant and dairy-maid aged 46, and their children, John aged 19, Thomas 18, Dinah 17, Jane 10, and 8-year-old, William.
- William Armstrong, shepherd, his wife Mary with seven children of whom one was Simon, aged 17.
- Francis Rogerson, stock farmer, and his sister, Janet, house-maid and dairy-maid, aged 31.
- Thomas Armstrong, shepherd, (unrelated to William and Mary, above), aged 21.
- John Barr, blacksmith, and his wife, Janet.
- John Arthur, gardener, aged 38, his wife, Eliza, and their four children, Elizabeth, John, Robert and Grace.
Surviving records of the voyage of the David Clark indicate that conditions on board gave little real reason for complaint. The ship’s surgeon, Archibald Gilchrist, an ex-Royal Navy man responsible for the health and living conditions of those on board, acquitted himself credibly throughout. Just one death occurred, and one child born: the baby christened ‘Gilchrist’ in recognition of the surgeon’s care.
Even so, conditions on board were in the main Spartan. The below-decks was fitted out in tiers composed of narrow bunks, packed tightly together the length of the vessel. These were mere boxes, barely wide enough nor long enough for comfortable sleep, fixed to posts spanned between deck and deck-head. Alongside each row of bunks were long wooden mess tables. When not in use for meals, these sufficed as the sole, below-deck, recreational space available to passengers who in stormy weather, might be battened down below deck for days on end. At journey’s end, all fittings were dismantled and sold off to make room for the cargo of a return voyage.
Food consisted of mainly ship’s biscuits, salt pork, dried peas, bouli soup, tea and lime juice. Every so often, families would be issued with ingredients to mix into a pudding which, when wrapped in cloth, could be dispatched to the galley on deck and boiled by the cook. As a concession to national diet, ships leaving Scottish ports were provided also with an issue of oatmeal. The Bells are said to have been luckier than most. With them on board was `Lady Emily’, an Ayreshire cow said to have supplied them daily with milk.
Delay caused by becalmment in mid-Atlantic forced the David Clark to stop-over at Rio de Janeiro for reprovisioning. Several days of contrary winds delayed their eventual entry into the city’s spectacular harbour. The visit was to add a further fourteen days to the voyage, due, partly, to the wild Irish component of the crew indulging in a further spree that saw them landed in the cites gaol.
For the passengers ferried ashore each day, Rio was to be remembered as a first taste of an exotic world that was anything but Scottish. One lad, Alexander Menzies, went ashore in full Highland Dress and to his surprise drew such a crowd that he was forced to return to the ship for a change of clothes.
A chance encounter ashore saw the Bell family meet for the first time, Andrew Ross, returning to England, not knowing that a dozen years later, he was to play such a dominant role in their lives at Kangaroo Ground.
To the passengers, Rio was a fabled city of Sugarloaf mountains towering into the clouds; a place where black slaves bearing loads on their heads were hurried through the streets to the crack of an overseer’s whip; a place where exotic fruits – leathers and brandys – and goods of every descriptions could be bought fora song. But most of all, a place where they felt intense passion for the plight of the poor black slaves.
Reprovisioned, the ship left Rio for the long haul across the icy southern ocean, a voyage that would take them deep into the roaring forties below Africa, and onward past remote St Paul’s Island into the calm waters of Port Phillip Bay.
On the 22 September 1839 the David Clark was struck by a storm that lasted a week. Young Alexander Menzies described the seas as ‘like mighty mountains and glens of drifting snow.’ Christina Stewart, another passenger abroad, described the terror of her ordeal:
We were caught in a great storm… which sadly battered and tossed us and almost overwhelmed us in its mountainous waves, the hatches had to be securely closed and only opened at long intervals to admit air. I remained, all the time in my berth with my boy and my brothers in momentary expectation of the ship sinking, supplicating the Almighty to save us…
The David Clark safely reached journeys end and entered Port Phillip Heads on 27 October 1839 after a voyage of 134 days. It anchored in Hobson Bay opposite Williamstown at four in the afternoon. The following day, to the sound of three hearty cheers, a party led by Superintendent Charles La Trobe boarded to hold an Official Enquiry. Seated in the captain’s cabin below decks, he personally interviewed each passenger as to name, age, place of birth, religion, occupation; also as to complaints any might have of their treatment on the voyage. The following day all were landed ashore, by long boat, on Sandridge Beach for a two mile walk along bush tracks to the accommodation provided. This proved to be fifty numbered tents, neatly arranged in three parallel lines along the south bank of the Yarra, opposite the newly established Melbourne settlement.
Already, before leaving ship, the emigrants had been accosted by droves of labour-hungry settlers eager to secure labour for their farms and stations. One to offer employment to twenty young men on board was La Trobe’s own secretary. His offer was for eighteen shillings a week together with rations. None accepted! There would be better offers ashore!
Upon arrival at ‘Canvas Town’ the 230 Scottish emigrants excitedly stored away their sea trunks and other baggage carted up from the beach in the wagons provided by La Trobe. All gazed, wonderingly at the strange collection of rude wooden huts on the opposite shore that was Melbourne Town.
Still, offers of work rolled in. Young women were found to be in great demand and the first to strike bargains. After months at sea in cramped communal quarters they were eager for a room and a bed of their own. Offers of twenty-five to thirty pounds a year and keep, as house servants, were not unusual, yet seemed beyond their wildest dreams. Farm hands were being offered fifty pounds a year with rations!
Excitement rose as shadows lengthened; sulphur-crested cockatoo came in to raucously roost in the ancient gums lining a river painted red by the dying rays of the setting sun. Smoke was soon rising from cooking fires, and for the first time the aroma of food and eucalyptus filled their night air.
The Port Phillip Gazette described the scene later that evening in the following lines:
“The piper struck off with some of his wild national airs, and the greater part of the emigrants danced by moonlight on the grass. After some time passed this way, the whole party, headed by the man of wind and pipes, went off through the bush for about a mile to see a grand corroborie of the blacks; it was singular to hear the blending of our highland music with the deep monotonous chaunt of the Australian aborigine; what must have been their ideas upon seeing those grounds that five years past were tenanted by themselves alone teeming with hundreds of fresh and strange arrivals, it would be highly curious but difficult to divine”.
p39-45 KANGAROO GROUND The Highland Taken, Mick Woiwoid 1994
YOUNG JUDITH FURPHY IS LAID TO REST
The earliest record of what was to become the Kangaroo Ground Cemetery comes from the pen of Andrew Ross, the district’s first schoolmaster and Presbyterian lay preacher. His crisp diary entry of 18 May 1851 reads: ‘First Funeral, Furphy child, I officiate.’ Over the ensuing twenty-five years the long-serving schoolmaster was destined to officiate at scores of other grave-side services — and as deputy registrar of births and deaths after 1858 — he would be required to record for government purposes all who died or were born in surrounding districts.’
In his ‘Reminiscence’ of 2 December 1887,” Andrew Ross elaborates further on his brief diary entry of 18 May 1851: The month of May (1851) was distinguished by three events I must carefully record. The first was the death of an interesting little girl, the daughter of Mr Furphy, who had attended school a fortnight only. The child caught a cold from resting on wet grass at Crow’s Nest. Hearing she was seriously ill, I volunteered to ride to Melbourne for advice and medicine, which I did on Mr Furphy’s horse on the evening of the 15th, returning on next morning. Little Judith only survived another day.
This event led to the selection of a piece of land suitable for a cemetery. One or two interments had occurred on private ground, but no public burying place existed nearer than Melbourne. The case being considered urgent, a general meeting of the settlers took place on the evening of the 17th, probably the first of the kind held in the county, and the first held in the schoolhouse.
The result was the selection of unoccupied crown land at the NE side of the purchased land, which was subsequently granted by Government for a public cemetery. Here, therefore, on the afternoon of Sunday 18th May, 1851, the remains of Judith Furphy were deposited, always to be noted as the first interment. The Rev. P. Gunn had service at the schoolhouse in the morning of that day to a full congregation, but as he had to leave for another engagement the teacher performed at the grave, being the first of a very considerable number whom it devolved upon him to perform this duty on their
being consigned to the last resting-place.
The ‘Interesting little girl’ Ross refers to was the sister of John Furphy, the future maker of the famous Furphy water-cart which at Gallipoli in World War I saw the name `furphy’ enter the Australian idiom with the meaning `rumour’; the sister too of the novelist, Joseph Furphy, who, years later, would write the great Australian novel, Such is Life.
Among the mourners beside Judith’s lonely grave that far-off autumn afternoon would have stood both of these — also Judith’s mother who would return to the spot a year or two later for the burial of her latest child.” The pathos of these early scenes of childhood mortality in Kangaroo Ground was later captured by Judith’s elder broter, Joseph, in the passage: Steve and I strolled out one Sunday, to the little country cemetery … and went on until we stood by two little fresh mounds enclosed in the same picket fence. We glanced at each other, without speaking, and walked away in separate directions.
p18 TREAD SOFTLY YOU TREAD ON DREAMS Kangaroo Grounds Cemetery’s One Hundred and Fifty Years, Mick Woiwoid 2001
ALBERT NORTON JONES
The northern bounds of Kangaroo Ground were settled mainly by diggers from the Watery Gully field. As already seen, miners on a goldfield could apply for an ‘occupation license’ of up to twenty acres to locate a house and cultivation patch with sufficient grazing to boot for, say, a horse and cow. Ultimately, most of the neighbouring Queenstown Parish was pegged out and settled this way.
The first of the rushes to Watery Gully occurred in 1857 when two runaway sailors, more or less in desperation, sank a hole and were fortunate enough to strike gold. News spread rapidly and soon two or three hundred diggers were rushing the place with good results. This rush would later be referred to as the ‘Old Watery Gully Rush’. It was close by to Johnston’s Pretty Hill. A second Watery Gully rush took place, nearby, in 1861.
One of the first on the Watery Gully field was Thomas Jones. In 1863, (perhaps earlier), he opened a general store on land held under an ‘occupation license’. In November 1868, like Cameron and Cleaves, he placed his store and the surrounding twenty-one acres for public auction. His valuation of three hundred and fifty pounds for ‘improvements’ saw everything successfully knocked down in his name. With both Wood’s Point and Queenstown travellers passing through, Jones’s store continued to flourish some years longer.
In 1870, Thomas Jones selected an additional forty-eight acres adjacent to his Store farm on what is now Wattle Glen Road. In his application, he described himself as a farmer and store-keeper. He died in 1879.20 By then he, his sons, Edward and Thomas, together with others of the surname, Jones, had successfully selected sixteen separate, yet contiguous, farmlets of twenty or less acres.
Perhaps the most noteworthy of the family was Albert Norton Jones. He was born the year Thomas died. Albert, like many another small-holder of Watery Gully eventually turned his hand to orcharding. His home, Golden Glen, still stands on the north side of the Wattle Glen Road.
A prime problem of these early orchardists was an absence of income throughout the early years whilst their trees established. Even afterwards, orcharding remained a seasonal affair requiring some alternative sources of income. Albert seems to have bridged the gap as a travelling salesman with the Vacuum Oil Co.
Whatever spare time he had, he devoted to his consuming passion for photography. Whenever the occasion presented, Albert would be there with his camera and tripod to record the event. As to whether he did it entirely for remuneration or simply for the love of it, is unclear — the themes he dealt with seem to suggest the latter.
Not for Albert the stylish indoor shot posed against some decorative backdrop as was the fashion of the day. Not for him the elegant borrowed clothes and the high-minded postures, designed to impress and beguile. Instead, Albert’s aim seemed to have been to capture for posterity his subject’s participation in some everyday event of the period. It involved him setting up with meticulous care his bulky apparatus of camera and tripod with careful consideration as to light and aspect. With all in readiness — each shot carefully focussed and composed – the glass negative would be slid into place to await the exact moment for the removal of the slide that would expose his plate and record that one instant for posterity. Year by year, Albert processed his plates in a dark room beneath his Golden Glen home; year by year he stored them away for possible further use. Slowly, their numbers grew to a thousand or more.
Among his glass negatives were shots of such significant events as the construction of the Hurst’s Bridge Railway Line; farewells to soldiers going off to war, and local footballers preparing for the match; farmers ploughing fields, and orchardists with their new-fangled spray machines; grubby gold miners in work-a-day clothes, and the long forgotten streetscapes of the day. Also, there were carefully composed shots of native birds painstakingly taken from the hides he prepared in his bush surrounds.
In an endeavour to boost income from his sideline, he inserted the following advertisement in the:
A.N. Jones – outdoor photographer of Kangaroo Ground will visit any part of the surrounding districts and is prepared to execute any orders. Homes taken, and family groups a speciality, enlargements made etc.”
When Albert Norton Jones died, his plates lay forgotten, to gather dust and deteriorate.
Eventually, his house and farm was sold by his widow. The purchaser was A.J. (Ned) Spark of Balwyn, who in the process of clearing out the accumulated litter of the years, came across Albert’s dusty boxes of glass stashed in the musty cellar. About to consign the lot to the local tip, Ned investigated further and grasped their potential. Today, as ‘The Spark Collection’, the lifetime work of Albert Jones, carefully catalogued by his descendant, Paul Sly, survives as the most important pictorial record of the district’s life and times.
Albert Norton Jones of “Golden Glen”, Kangaroo Ground with his travelling photographic van. Courtesy of Paul Sly
p142-143 KANGAROO GROUND The Highland Taken, Mick Woiwoid 1994


Please join us for a discussion with Stephen Kinzer, best-selling author of Overthrow and The Brothers, who will be discussing his most recent book, The True Flag: Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire.
Kinzer—an author, academic, and long-time foreign correspondent for The New York Times—transports his readers back to the turn of 20th century to explore the debate about America’s first major foray into foreign adventurism.
His archival investigation reveals an elegant dispute between this country’s elected leaders, business magnates, and academic intelligentsia within the boundaries of the journalistic Fourth Estate. President Theodore Roosevelt, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, and media mogul William Randolph Hearst enthusiastically lobbied for the country to achieve its global destiny by shedding the Monroe Doctrine. Meanwhile, prominent figures such as Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, and Andrew Carnegie urged restraint, shielding the constitutional republic from the ambitions of an American empire.
Their vigorous debate about this country’s role in the world has yet to be matched. Indeed, it echoes in today’s discussion about the durability of Pax Americana and the liberal world order the United States helped establish.
Jonathan Cristol, a World Policy Institute fellow, and William P. Ruger, vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, will contribute their thoughts to what promises to be an informative and engaging conversation with a master chronicler of the American experience.
Stephen Kinzer is the author of The Brothers, Reset, Overthrow, All the Shah’s Men, and other books. An award-winning foreign correspondent, he served as The New York Times’ bureau chief in Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua and as The Boston Globe’s Latin America correspondent. He is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and writes a column on world affairs for The Boston Globe. He lives in Boston.
Jonathan Cristol is a fellow at the World Policy Institute (WPI) in New York City and a senior fellow at Bard College’s Center for Civic Engagement in Annandale, New York. He is the former director of Bard’s Globalization and International Affairs Program, and writes frequently about U.S. foreign policy for outlets including World Policy Journal, CNN, and Mic.
William P. Ruger is the vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. He was previously an associate professor in the political science department at Texas State University. A veteran of the Afghanistan War, Ruger currently serves as an officer in the U.S. Navy (Reserve Component).


This is my master thesis project, a DL reasoner programmed in Java.
This is the pdf document of the thesis, encrypted in Italian ;).
The source code
The following is a link to the latest snapshot of the project. The code is distributed with GPL license, except some source files I took from Pellet project which have an MIT license. This is the project directory taken from Eclipse, so you might have to play a while with configs to make it work properly. Contact me if you have problems and want to run it.
These are the slides I used for my presentation (color and b/w format, easier to print).
Check http://del.icio.us/aittalam/thesis (it's a delicious collection of links, if you have firefox you can use that as a live bookmark!)


Tentang Jurnal Ini
SIGNIFICANT : Journal Of Research And Multidisciplinary (e-ISSN : 2964-9536) is a journal that is published in Juni and Desember. SIGNIFICANT : Journal Of Research And Multidisciplinary seeks Review articles, Case reports and original contributions from all areas of: Social Science and Humanities; Life Sciences; Health Science; Physical, Chemical Science and Engineering. The Journal invites original Research Papers, Review articles, Technical or Case reports and Short communications that are not published or not being considered for publication. This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.


We Encourage To Think Beyond The Story
Without comprehension, children gain no meaning from what they read and are not able to connect ideas within and between sentences. Children who are able to read well don't just say words as they read, instead, they form a picture in their minds that helps to imagine the events as they happen.
LET'S READ, THINK & WRITE
Designed to increase children's awareness and understanding of written text, the 'Read, Think & Write' series encourages children to read faster, more accurately, and with greater comprehension ... essential skills in today's competitive world!
Each book has been carefully levelled to ensure success in your classroom and beyond, by including engaging fiction and non-fiction texts that deal with concepts and experiences that young children can relate to.


Cette série raconte l'histoire de Jaye Tyler (jouée par Caroline Dhavernas), une jeune femme de 24 ans, désabusée et narcissique, diplômée de philosophie mais vendeuse dans une boutique de souvenirs au pied des chutes du Niagara. Sa vie est tout à coup transformée lorsqu'un lion de cire (puis d'autres animaux) se met à lui parler et lui donne des conseils destinés à faire le bien autour d'elle.
The series revolves around the conflicted world of Don Draper , the biggest ad man in the business, and his colleagues at the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Advertising Agency. As Don makes the plays in the boardroom and the bedroom, he struggles to stay a step ahead of the rapidly changing times and the young executives nipping at his heels. The series also depicts authentically the roles of men and women in this era while exploring the true human nature beneath the guise of 1960s traditional family values.
"The Prisoner" tells the story of a man, Six, who wakes up to find himself inexplicably trapped in a mysterious and surreal place, The Village, with no memory of how he arrived. As he frantically explores his new environment, he discovers that Village residents are identified by number, have no memory of any prior existence, and are under constant surveillance. The Village is controlled by one man - the sinister and charismatic Two . Throughout the series, Six and Two are locked in a battle of wits, as Six challenges the oppressive nature of The Village and struggles to learn the truth behind it.
The one-hour drama series Westworld is a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin. Set at the intersection of the near future and the reimagined past, it explores a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged.
Known in Japan as Shingeki no Kyojin, many years ago, the last remnants of humanity were forced to retreat behind the towering walls of a fortified city to escape the massive, man-eating Titans that roamed the land outside their fortress. Only the heroic members of the Scouting Legion dared to stray beyond the safety of the walls – but even those brave warriors seldom returned alive. Those within the city clung to the illusion of a peaceful existence until the day that dream was shattered, and their slim chance at survival was reduced to one horrifying choice: kill – or be devoured!
A remastered version of Dragon Ball Z that adheres more to the manga's story. This version includes newly recorded dialog by the original voice actors, new sound effects, new OP/ED sequences, and a brand new HD video transfer.
After tackling modern times with "The Simpsons" and the future with "Futurama," producer Matt Groening steps into the past with "Disenchantment." The animated fantasy series geared toward adults takes place in the crumbling medieval kingdom of Dreamland. It follows the misadventures of hard-drinking young princess Bean, her feisty elf companion Elfo and personal demon Luci. The oddball trio encounters the likes of ogres, sprites, imps, trolls and human fools along the way. The voice cast features Abbi Jacobson as Bean and includes veteran voiceover artists such as John DiMaggio, Billy West and Maurice LaMarche.
Barry is a dark comedy about a depressed, low-rent hitman from the Midwest. Lonely and dissatisfied in his life, he reluctantly travels to Los Angeles to execute a hit on an aspiring actor. Barry follows his "mark" into an acting class and ends up finding an accepting community in a group of eager hopefuls within the LA theater scene. He wants to start a new life as an actor, but his criminal past won't let him walk away - can he find a way to balance both worlds?
Set in and around the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the fictional story of David Budd, a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch (RaSP) of London's Metropolitan Police Service.
When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague, whose politics stand for everything he despises, Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, is he actually her biggest threat?
Rendell Locke is murdered at the hands of former student Sam Lesser, so his wife Nina is forced to move with her three children Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode from Seattle to Matheson, Massachusetts and take residence in Rendell's family home, the Keyhouse. The children soon discover a number of mysterious keys throughout the house that can be used to unlock various doors in magical ways. However, they become aware of a demonic entity that is also searching for the keys for its own malevolent purposes.


Obviously, practice and looking things up on stackoverflow and github as I encountered problems was incredibly useful. But those resources gave me many piecemeal solutions. The tidy data paradigm and the tidyverse helped me develop a more unified understanding of how I approached data and data analysis.
So here are my recommended resources for getting into that approach, hopefully earlier in your R journey than me:
- R for Data Science - you can read the book for free here or purchase your own copy
- Text Mining with R - this book is about mining text with R but really helped me understand the tidy data approach
- Variance Explained blog - David Robinson, who cowrote the Text Mining book above, writes many wonderful blog posts about using R and the virtues of learning the tidyverse first
- The tidyverse website
- Also, do check out the rstudio section of github for some cool things R-Studio can do to enhance your R experience


I admit that I probably would not have picked this book for myself but when given it as a choice I felt it was the best of the lot presented. Now I wonder how good the other two books may have been given how much I enjoyed this one!
The back cover of the book says that the author, David Brooks, “challenges us, and himself, to rebalance the scales between our “resume virtues” – achieving wealth, fame, and status – and our “eulogy virtues,” those that exist at the core of our being: kindness, bravery, honesty, and faithfulness.” What an interesting concept! I had not thought of them as separate but it makes perfect sense.
David starts off by talking about the two opposing sides of our nature as written by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik in 1965 – Adam I and Adam II. He goes on to suggest that Adam I is the external Adam, the one who works to have that great career, who competes to succeed, who lives in the fast lane. Adam II is the internal Adam, the one that strives to live by a strong moral code and takes the time to cultivate it.
The book itself is not very long, only ten chapters. Each of the middle eight chapters presents a different person who exemplifies or cultivated one particular Adam II character. Self-conquest is shown through the life of Dwight Eisenhower, for instance. We see how his upbringing where ‘thrift was essential, self-discipline a daily lesson’, serves him well in his later career. We also see where his mother, Ida, suggested that he conquer his own soul, which sets the stage for his journey.
I loved this approach David Brooks takes in making his point because not only was it fascinating but so were the eight people he chose to illustrate his message, many of whom were 'strangers' to me. Other than Eisenhower and Saint Augustine, I had never even heard of the rest. They came from all walks of life, modern day and centuries old, men and women. They were diverse, interesting, and their stories highlighted all the ways we travel on that road to developing our character. No spoilers here, you will have to discover them for yourself as I did!
It was fascinating to see how cultural shifts had an impact on the people in this book and just how the those shifts have changed our way of thinking as a society. It is through this look that David shows how we have drowned out our Adam II in favor of the external gratifications. At the end of the last chapter he gives us what he calls a Humility Code to help restore balance, to cultivate the eulogy virtues, and to revive what we have accidentally left behind. Best of all he reminds us that it’s ok to be flawed just like the people he described.
I would absolutely recommend this book. David’s writing style is easy to read though I did find myself looking up words in the dictionary a few times. He tells a story without laying blame or making one feel stupid. In the process it feels uplifting and encouraging without it being a typical self-help book.


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Updated 18 AUGUST 2014
Current Population of the City of Conway: 58,908
Conway’s population was recorded at 58,908, placing it as the seventh most populated city, behind North Little Rock, Jonesboro, Springdale, Fayetteville, Fort Smith and the most populated city, Little Rock. The City of Conway grew 36.5 percent in the last decade, according to census data.
CITY OF CONWAY NOTICE OF NONDISCRIMINATION
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
BEFORE THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF CONWAY, ARKANSAS:
The Conway Civil Service Commission will hold a public hearing to discuss proposed changes to the Civil Service Rules relating to the probationary period for new police officers, promotional requirements for fire fighters. and to update its Civil Service Rules and Regulations to conform with changes in state law.
A public hearing will be held on Tuesday, August 26th, 2014 @12:00 pm in the Multi-purpose room at the Conway Police Department. (1105 Prairie St., Conway, AR 72032).
Interested persons are invited to attend this meeting.
For additional information please contact Lisa Mabry-Williams at 501.450.7087 or by email at email@example.com.
Ward 2 Meeting
Ward 2 Meeting - Alderman Wes Pruitt and Alderwoman Shelley Mehl are hosting a Ward 2 meeting on Wednesday, August 20, 2014 from 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm at the main branch of the Faulkner County Library. This is the annual general information meeting for Ward 2, but we want to share information about the sales tax rededication, street projects, Markham and Pine Street development projects. Representatives from the Planning and Streets departments will also be attending.
Ward 2 is the northeast section of the city of Conway north of Oak Street and east of Salem Road. For any additional information please email firstname.lastname@example.org.
2014 Entry Level Police Officer Exam Set for September 3, 2014.
Click here to read the announcement and requirements.
2014 City of Conway Budget 101.
Click here to go to document.
Map of City Wards
City Council Agenda 08-12-2014
Click above for the latest City Council Meeting Agenda in Acrobat Reader format (5.58M).
City Council Summary 08-12-2014
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City of Conway Municipal Code
The Conway city codes are 300 plus pages. In order to find what you need quickly, please use the Table of Contents at the front of the document, the index at the back of the document, and the search feature available as part of the Acrobat Reader. The document is in Acrobat Reader format. (2.67M)
City Streets Map Book, Aerial Map Book, Map Book Index and more.
Click above for the Conway streets map books and separate 12 page index. The map books are in pdf format and are large files that may take a long time to download depending on the speed of your computer. You can view, print, and search the map books using Adobe Acrobat Reader.
State of Arkansas Sales and Use Tax
City of Conway Online Content Disclaimer:
The internet versions of the City of Conway Code, Council Agendas, Ordinances, and Maps are provided solely for reference and the convenience of having the materials in a computer-readable and searchable format. The print versions, together with any amendments adopted by the Conway City Council subsequent to the most recent update to the print versions, remain the official versions. If any discrepancies exist between the print and Web versions, the print versions, together with any City Council amendments, shall be considered correct.


As with any effort to identify the most influential books in the sustainability area, we had trouble separating the books that follow from the sea of world-class authors. We created sub-sections of sustainability and had students identify the top books in each of those subsections. Each of these books in some way has left a lasting impression on a student of sustainability. Please feel free to suggest additions to the following list:
If you order a book from Amazon.com through the links on this page, a share of the purchase price will be returned to Tom Eggert’s sustainability program and students and will be donated to an organization dedicated to sustainability.
Roots of Sustainability
A Sand County Almanac written by Aldo Leopold serves as one of the cornerstones for modern conservation science, policy, and ethics. First published by Oxford University Press in 1949 – one year after Leopold’s death – it has become a classic in the field equaled in its lasting stature only by Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Working over a twelve-year period, Leopold wrote, re-wrote, and re-wrote again, essays that both informed people of how the natural world worked, and inspired people to take action to ensure the future health of the land and water that sustains all life.
Systems and Sustainability
William McDonough and Michael Braungart co-wrote this design manifesto in 2002. Cradle to Cradle calls for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design. Through case studies of their work, McDonough and Braungart outline their design paradigm and the vision for the ‘Next Industrial Revolution.’ Cradle to Cradle design perceives the safe and productive processes of nature’s ‘biological metabolism’ as a model for developing a ‘technical metabolism’ for industrial materials.
The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, is the long-awaited sequel to Cradle to Cradle, arguably one of the few most influential sustainability books of all time. Drawing on a decade of lessons in putting Cradle to Cradle concepts into practice with businesses, governments, and people around the world, McDonough and Braungart invite us to reimagine everything from doorknobs to the Hoover Dam. In a world that uses design as a tool for positive impact, industry can do better than “do no harm”: it can actively improve everything with which it comes into contact.
The Tipping Point is a book about change. In particular, it’s a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. For example, why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990’s? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? It’s that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.
Simon Levin, Princeton University
Sustainability and Business Classics
“Natural capital” refers to the earth’s natural resources and the ecological systems that provide vital life-support services to society and all living things. Previous industrial revolutions made people vastly more productive when low per-capita output was limiting progress in exploiting a seemingly boundless natural world. Today we face a different pattern of scarcity: abundant people and labor-saving machines, but diminishing natural capital. A classic text, Natural Capitalism describes a future on the verge of a new industrial revolution in which business and environmental interests increasingly overlap, and one where companies can improve their bottom lines, help solve environmental problems—and feel better about what they do—all at the same time.
Business and Sustainability
Business is Beautiful by Jean-Baptiste Danet, Nick Liddell, Lynne Dobney, and Dorothy MacKenzie, examines unique and deeply inspiring cases of business success proving (yet again) the corporate world can be a force for beauty, human greatness and value much more encompassing than what can be captured by the mere measure of profit.
The New Sustainability Advantage by Bob Willard, shows how sustainability strategies can increase revenue, reduce costs, avoid impending risks and enhance brand value, resulting in profit improvements of 51-81% within three to five years for a typical company.
Latinnovating: Green American Jobs and the Latinos Creating Them by Graciela Tiscareno-Sato, delights with its stories of Latino entrepreneurs innovating for sustainability and changing both their own lives and the world for the better, all while building a helpful image of green-mindedness for Latino communities across the country.
The HIP Investor by Paul Herman, is a lucid and data-heavy analysis of ways smart investors can inform themselves about, and benefit from, re-routing their funds towards companies returning human impact AND profit. Herman is uniquely equipped to translate complex sustainability thought leadership into a language the finance world understands.
Layoffs. Failing companies. Collapsing economies. Tainted products. Scarce resources. These are but a few of the seemingly intractable problems that plague the world we live in today. And these problems will only get worse—unless we change how we do business. That calls for the relentless pursuit not of short-term profitability, but of long-term sustainability—and that doesn’t mean “green.” Leading business strategist Adam Werbach pushes sustainability well beyond quaint notions of saving the planet. In Strategy for Sustainability, Werbach redefines the movement to address not just environmental and economic trends, but also social and cultural ones.
Green to Gold explores and explains what every executive must know to manage the environmental challenges facing business and society. It offers cutting-edge strategies and tools to help companies find their way in a world of resource constraints and pressures from all sides. Green to Gold focuses on innovation, execution, and making environmental thinking both a core business strategy and a driver of long-term growth.
Nature and Systems
The Web of Life starts from the conceptual framework presented in The Turning Point, summarizes the mathematics of complexity, and offers a synthesis of recent nonlinear theories of living systems that have dramatically increased our understanding of the key characteristics of life. The book has been published in 14 editions in 10 languages.
The New Economy of Nature brings together Gretchen Daily, one of the world’s leading ecologists, with Katherine Ellison, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, to offer an engaging and informative look at a new “new economy” – one recognizing the economic value of natural systems and the potential profits in protecting them.
Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature – taking advantage of evolution’s 3.8 billion years of R&D since the first bacteria. Science writer and lecturer Janine Benyus names and explains this phenomenon. In her book Biomimicry she takes us into the lab and out in the field with cutting-edge researchers as they stir vats of proteins to unleash their computing power; analyze how electrons zipping around a leaf cell convert sunlight into fuel in trillionths of a second; discover miracle drugs by watching what chimps eat when they’re sick; study the hardy prairie as a model for low-maintenance agriculture; and more.
Humanism and Sustainability
Beautiful and Abundant by Bryan Welch, examines the gap in vision for the future many of us experience and witness in fellow citizens, business leaders and policy makers. To build a beautiful and abundant future, Welch argues powerfully, we have to imagine it boldly, together, first. This book is a compelling sustainability Renaissance attitude guide that will serve you well in times of uncertainty, rapid change and messy, chaotic transitions.
Cultural ecologist Gene Anderson has spent his life exploring the ways in which different groups of native peoples manage the environment. In Ecologies of the Heart he mixes anthropology with ecology and psychology, traditional myth and folklore with informed discussions of conservative efforts in industrial society, to reveal a strikingly new approach to our current environmental crisis.
An accomplished sleight-of-hand magician as well as a gifted philosopher, David Abram has lived and traded magic with indigenous sorcerers on several continents. Starting from the intimate relation between these traditional magicians and the animals, plants, and natural elements that surround them, The Spell of the Sensuous draws us into a remarkable series of investigations regarding the fluid, participatory nature of perception, and the reciprocity between our senses and the sensuous earth. The book unfolds into an exploration of language, and of the power our words have to enhance or to stifle the spontaneous life of the senses. Contrasting the spoken stories of diverse indigenous oral cultures with ways of speaking common to literate civilization, The Spell of the Sensuous reveals the profound impact that the alphabet has had upon the human experiences of time, of space, of earthly place.
Story Wars by Jonah Sachs, has turned into an instant must-have classic on storytelling, a tool vital to the success of any corporate communications campaign in an era of information overload and instant content gratification.


Welcome to Karolinska Institutet!
New student at KI? Follow our guides and checklists to ensure that you get a smooth study start.
Pre-arrival guide for master's and bachelor's students
The Pre-arrival guide helps you plan your journey to Sweden, and ensure a smooth start to your studies at Karolinska Institutet.
Arrival information for exchange students
Here you will find information to help you prepare for your journey to Sweden, such as accommodation, arrival, and residence permits.
Prepare for study start
Arrival days and introduction week
The week before study start, KI will host arrival days and introduction activities for international students. Among other things you will be invited to a welcome ceremony and fair in Aula Medica on Campus Solna on 25 August. We will continuously update the information about introduction activities and as an admitted student you will receive updates through our newsletters.
Checklist once you arrived
Here is a checklist to help you keep track of important preparations once you have arrived in Stockholm to make sure that you are ready to start your studies at KI!
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KI University Library - guide for new students
As a new student, the library is an important part of your introduction to KI, since they support students with IT questions.
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This gives you basic knowledge of how we work with security at KI. The training takes 3-5 minutes.
Your go to page to access resources and information for your studies at KI.
Course and programme websites
All first- and second-cycle courses and programs at KI have a website with information about the education that you can access before you have access to the virtual learning platform Canvas. On the course and programme websites, you will find, for example, contact information, information about registration, and an overview of the schedule.
Get to know KI's two campus areas
What does it look like at campus Flemingsberg?
Join bachelor's student Linnea Wester on a tour around Campus Flemingsberg.
What does it look like at campus Solna?
Join master's student Jie-Hyun Choi on a tour around Campus Solna.
One uni - two campuses
Karolinska Institutet has two campuses: Campus Solna and Campus Flemingsberg


Laidlaw is excited to be hosting one of the world’s leading New Testament scholars and authors in September. More than a million copies of Craig Keener's books are in circulation, the most popular being The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, which provides cultural background on each passage of the New Testament. On Wednesday 25 September, Professor Keener will be giving two public lectures at our Henderson campus. The first in the afternoon on, “Mission of the Church in the 21st Century in the face of Materialism”; the second in the evening on, “Women in Ministry”.
Click on the link to register by Friday 20 September
“Mission of the Church in the 21st Century in the face of Materialism”
12 noon – 3.00 pm
Includes Lunch ($10 per person)
“Women in Ministry”
7.30 pm – 9.00 pm
Paul’s letters stand at the centre of the dispute over women’s role in church ministry, with each side of the dispute championing texts from the Apostle. How do we understand those texts where Paul instructs women to be silent, or the 1 Timothy 2 passage where Paul forbids women to teach or exercise authority over men? Are these texts addressing a specific cultural situation or should they be treated as universal prohibitions?
Craig Keener delved deeply into the world of Paul and wrestled with these thorny texts in his book Paul,Women and Wives: Marriage and Women's Ministry in the Letters of Paul (Hendrikson, 1992).
For more information and to register for one or both of these lectures please click the Register button below:
Please note: For group bookings for the afternoon event, please email Jenny Mackie: [email protected]
About the Speaker
Craig S. Keener (PhD, Duke University) is F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is author of twenty-five books, five of which have won awards in Christianity Today, plus other awards. Craig has also authored roughly 100 academic articles; seven booklets; and more than 150 popular-level articles. He also is the New Testament editor for the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, which won the International Book Award for Christianity and Bible of the year in the Christian Book Awards.
Craig is editor of the Bulletin for Biblical Research, the former program chair for the Institute for Biblical Research; and in 2019 is president-elect of the Evangelical Theological Society. He is coeditor with Michael Bird of the New Covenant Commentary series. Craig is married to Dr Médine Moussounga Keener, who was a refugee in her home country of Congo for eighteen months; her experience and their romance appears in Impossible Love (Chosen, 2016). His blog site is http://www.craigkeener.com/.


Niles Elliot Goldstein uses eight questions found in the Bible to explore the human journey from cradle to grave, confronting such important existential experiences and themes as mortality, responsibility, forbidden knowledge, sin, and the afterlife. By interweaving texts from the Bible, commentaries, philosophy, psychology, and literature with his own experiences, Goldstein also meditates on midlife. This book will appeal to believers and nonbelievers alike and is aimed at anyone who has ever faced a challenge or wondered what life is all about.
Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein, founder and Rabbi Emeritus of The New Shul in New York City, says that most conventional Jewish institutions are out-of-touch and have relied too much on nostalgia, guilt, and fear—none of which resonate with modern Jews. He challenges Jews to adopt the “gonzo” spirit—the rebellious, risk-taking attitude associated with the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson—and to take creative, innovative steps to reshape and revitalize contemporary Judaism.
Here is a book about adventure, raw experience, and facing inner demons. Niles Elliot Goldstein is a young rabbi who sets out to find God in tough and often scary situations: dogsledding above the Arctic Circle, taking the Silk Road into Central Asia without a visa, being chased by a grizzly bear, cruising with DEA agents through the South Bronx, and spending a night in jail in New York City's Tombs.
Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein draws from his own hard-won insights and personal experiences as a congregational rabbi, martial artist, FBI chaplain, and limit-pusher and interweaves them with the teachings of sages, biblical figures, and thinkers of all stripes to help us get beyond our own perceived limitations and face life’s challenges with fearlessness and fortitude.
Rabbi Goldstein explores the concept of the fear of God in the Hasidic intellectual tradition, comparing and contrasting the writings of two of the most important figures in the Jewish mystical movement, Rabbi Dov Baer, The Great Maggid of Mezeritch and Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polonnoye.
Covering a wide array of emotions and states of being—disorientation, panic, loneliness, yearning, anger, determination, surrender and emergence—Goldstein (Gonzo Judaism), founding rabbi of the New Shul in New York City, above all simply reminds readers that we are human.
This outstanding anthology of 13 essays by esteemed leaders of the Reform rabbinate re-examines the role of mitzvot in liberal Judaism as viewed through philosophical, experiential, and practical contexts.
This text addresses issues of Jewish conduct in the exploration of spiritual ethics, based on the thirteenth century Sefer Ma’a lot Hamidot, "Book of Virtues and Values."
These days it is no longer just adolescents who feel that the universe is falling apart. In Lost Souls, Niles Goldstein writes of the chaos and fear so many of us experience in our public and private lives and makes it clear that we are not—nor have we ever been—alone in our angst.
In an era of do-it-yourself spirituality and shopping-mall churches, is there any place for religion in its more traditional, institutional forms? The contributors to this volume, all full-time religious workers mostly in their 30s, share a common belief that traditional religion can be vital and relevant.
"There is nothing so whole as a heart that's been broken."
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotsk


KINERJA LEMBAGA PENGELOLA ZAKAT, INFAK, DAN SEDEKAH DALAM PERSPEKTIF HUKUM ISLAM
The aims of the study is to find out and to analyze the model size performance of the Nurul Hayat foundation based on the Islamic law. Beside that, the study also aims to inform the measurable performance achievements in order to complete the future foundation performance. It is also considered as the evalution of the accountability performance of the Nurul Hayat foundation and as the enhancer of the program and activities performance in future. The type of this study is qualitative, the data of this study are collected byintrviewing the informants and other supporters. The study applies the 2 years data started in 2019 to 2020 by interviewing and documentaring the Union Director, theFinancial Director, and the Empowerment Director. The analysis of this study applies the Miles and Huberman method, with tree steps. First, interviewing the chosen informant. Second, collecting and reducing the data from the interviews. Third, presenting the data in tables, and for the analysis and the discussion are based on the Islamic law persepective. The result of this study shows that the performance model of the Nurul Hayat foundation is maximum or good enough if it is seen from the zakat utilization, and it also appropriate with the Islamic law perspective.
Keywords: zakat, infak, alms, performance, and the Islamic law perspective


Ten Inspiring STEM Books for Students
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) is a unique approach to teaching young students in their formative years. Using this particular method, it’s important to better understand what it takes to help students as they find their path and develop as intellectual beings.
To set them in the right direction, it’s time to look at the top ten inspirational STEM books for students.
Top Ten STEM Books for Students
1) Math-terpieces (Greg Tang)
This wonderful book is a beautiful blend of art and math. The premise is simple enough. You look at each art piece, consider the math problem, and answer it to the best of your ability. Greg Tang has taken his time putting together this tremendous book and it shows through the depth of each math problem and how much it makes the student think.
It opens their mind in a way that’s essential and beneficial.
2) Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist Series (Jim Benton)
This comedic book is an example of educational topics having the opportunity to be fun. Too many people assume STEM books can’t be entertaining when that’s simply not the case!
Jim Benton puts together this fascinating tale with Franny as the lead protagonist. It takes the mad scientist through a journey of fun-filled experiments illustrating the beauty of trying hard and never losing your creativity as a student.
3) The Most Magnificent Thing (Ashley Spires)
This is a STEM book about two characters, a young girl and her dog.
When the girl starts to feel let down by what’s happening around her, it’s the dog that shows up by her side and continues to push her forward. It’s a great look into the world of education and what it means to keep trying as a student. Hardships come up in many different ways and a student should feel comfortable in continuing even when things don’t look easy at first.
While most students won’t have a dog that can do this, they can certainly make use of this inspirational STEM book!
4) How Machines Work: Zoo Break! (David Macaulay)
Sloth and Sengi want to get away from the zoo by any means necessary. This simple requirement takes them through a tremendous selection of experimental solutions. If they don’t get it right, the escape is impossible and that’s what captivates readers. It’s a STEM book that takes you along for the journey and even leaves you investing in their ability to figure things out.
5) Ada Twist, Scientist (Andrea Beaty)
Ada loves trying new things and experimenting as much as she can. It’s the way her brain works and it’s what motivates her. This STEM book is a glance into Ada’s way of living and what her mindset allows her to do from start to finish. As a high-quality book, this is truly inspirational for young students needing a kick in the right direction as they hope to figure things out too.
6) Math Curse (Jon Scieszka)
A young girl is dealing with a math curse where everything she does involves some type of math problem. Even something as simple as getting to school is now requiring a math problem to be solved.
It’s a hilarious journey with many twists and turns along the way.
As a STEM book, it highlights how important math can be even if it remains hidden in the background. Sometimes, the simplest of things involve math even if it’s not as obvious as one would assume.
7) Nick and Tesla Series (Steve Hockensmith)
Science and technology are used in this STEM book to figure out how to manage experimental problems. To do this, Steve Hockensmith makes use of three fascinating characters in the form of Nick, Tesla, and their Uncle Newt. Each character has a fun role to play and it leads readers down a unique path of intrigue.
In terms of inspiration, this is a brilliant STEM book with numerous qualities involving the world of innovation.
8) Super Cool Tech (DK)
Ever thought about understanding what a 3D printing car would look like? What about understanding the concept of bionic suits? Super Cool Tech is just as the name suggests. It offers a unique perspective into the way technology is being formed and the role it has to play in modern society.
It also aims to motivate in the form of future innovations, which may be right around the corner with the help of young, creative minds.
These innovations include artificial intelligence and even teleportation!
9) Secret Coders (Gene Luen Yang)
Hopper and his buddies offer a fun-filled look into the odd occurrences at their school. As they pay attention, the school begins to deal with robotic birds and it’s up to them to put a stop to this.
The interactive graphic novel is a unique element that plays well in illustrating what such realities bring with them. As Hopper and his friends aim to fend off the evil janitor, students can truly recognize what it means to deal with robots and artificial intelligence.
10) Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women (Catherine Thimmish)
From the diaper to underwater lamps, women have become central figures in the world of innovations. This STEM book is an inspiring book for young girls and boys as they look at some of the finest female inventors to have ever lived. Each biography is entertaining, motivating, and insightful.
Students get the opportunity to learn about these individuals and why their contributions changed society for the better. It’s an inspirational read and can get the creative juices flowing for young students.
These STEM books are well-regarded across the world and have become an integral part of the curriculum. It’s important to look at this list and incorporate these into the student’s educational setup. By doing this, they will learn more and truly maximize their potential from an educational perspective.
Please note, these are just some of the inspirational STEM books available to students and there are many more out there to consider!


AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR: "I REMEMBER THE FIRST ONE THERE"
By Frank Milewski
March 15, 2004
The pen of history has written the name of Stanislaw Ryniak on its pages. His claim to fame is
something none of us would ever want.
Before he made the history books there was another pen and another book. It was a German
pen - a Nazi pen. It wrote his name on what was known as the hauptbuch, the official registry
of prisoners who were condemned to Auschwitz.
Stanislaw Ryniak's was the first name there. There were many more after his. You may find it
hard to believe he wasn't Jewish. He was Polish, a Polish Catholic.
read more (pdf document)


American Sailors is an hour long documentary that takes you on board and behind the scenes as four great skippers prepare and race their boats in the longest and oldest freshwater race in the world. In 2008, the Chicago Yacht Club expanded the field to more than 400 boats for the historic 100th running of the magnificent race from Navy Pier in Chicago to beautiful Mackinac Island. See and experience the race as never before aboard:
- Peerless – with first time skipper Brian Torresen
- Souvenir – skippered by school teacher Steve Schiller
- Windquest – the previous year’s overall winner
- Windancer – with John Nedeau Racing in his record 61st MAC
There’s no better seat in the house to see yacht racing for what it really is – a test of skill, teamwork, and technology all at the mercy of the unpredictable breeze.
Peerless – Skipper, Brian Torresen
At age 36, he is one of the most sought after sailboat experts in the Midwest. For over twenty years he’s been the ringer on crews for maxi-skippers from all over the globe. This year he’s going for speed on a lightweight Melges 32.
Windquest – Skipper, Tom Giesler
The boat owned by brothers Dick and Doug Devos, Windquest is the most decorated boat in American fresh water sailing. With 10 years professional sailing experience, Tom knows how to navigate the waters of high emotions that accompany a big race, and he’s ready to try to set another record.
THE SCHOOL TEACHER
Souvenir – Skipper, Steve Schiller
This middle school teacher knows the course, knows his boat, and knows his chances. Crewed by family and friends, Schiller wants what the Souvenir had once before: a division title.
THE OLD GOAT
Windancer – Skipper, John Nedeau
This is John’s 61st running of the race – he’s the longest running skipper by more than ten years. There’s not a story he doesn’t know or a condition he hasn’t met. And he knows the competition. An inspiration to many, this legend isn’t ready to give up anything.


A quick, very brief introduction to UnCodeX.
Subject: Setting Up An UnCodeX
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Credit to El Muerte for making UnCodeX
Notes: Very brief intro to UnCodeX
Video tutorial has gone randomly missing, will re-create and upload soon.
Theres not much of a written version here.
UnCodeX was created by Michiel Hendriks (El Muerte).
Taken directly from UnCodeX's SourceForge page:
UnCodeX analyses UnrealScript code and provides an easy interface to browse through the code, it can also produce a JavaDoc like documentation of the source code.This is also the home for other UnrealEngine productivity tools like the UC PreProcessor.
Acquiring The Software
Setting Up The Software
- When you load it for the first time, or go to Tree -> Settings, on the left there is a Source Paths tab, click it.
- Under Source Paths, Add your UDKDevelopmentSrc path to the list. Hit OK
- Tree -> Rebuild and Analyse Tree
Package tree on the left, class list in the middle, class code on the right.
Really simple, really powerful.
Watch the video for a very brief introduction.


Dedicated: October 21, 1931
Wausau’s G. D. Jones Elementary School, built in 1931 was named in honor of the late Granville Duane Jones, a prominent Wausau lawyer and businessman. He disliked his first and middle name and chose to be addressed by a pair of two initials, G.D. He was a man of contradictions and deep devotion to youth and was given a great deal of credit for the progress in Wausau for the public school system as the area entered the 20th century. G.D. Jones came to represent excellence in education and, for that reason, the school was named in his honor.
The school opened in September 1931 for Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd Grade. In 1932, Grade 3 was added; Grade 4 was added in 1933; and in 1936, Grade 4 & 5 were added. The school at that time also included 7th Grade. During the first six years, only the rooms on the main floor were finished. When the building opened in 1931, the building was heated with slab wood and planks were used for desks. Over the years, the school was renovated and in 1947 was enlarged to the size as pictured above. It served as the District’s Administrative Center on the 2nd floor beginning in 1982 for a number of years.
In the 1990s, the work began to evaluate the need for a new facility. In December 1995, a school bond was passed and construction was underway. The facility you see today is the culmination of all the effort made by a community focused on quality education. The new building was to exemplify the outstanding planning and research that took place before the construction began. The plans incorporated the history of the original G. D. Jones Elementary School. Upon entering the building, the planners chose to provide a bit of nostalgia by displaying memorabilia in showcases, which would celebrate the past, present, and future of education. The heart of the school was to be the Library Media Center, which the committee believed, was a cornerstone for student learning. As such, three stone arches that graced the entrances of the original school found their home along a two-story wall which continues to be a focal point for anyone who enters the library today.


Roxane Gay’s Difficult Women is a collection of 21 short stories featuring women from all walks of life. The book touches on the themes of violence, gender roles, and sexuality, with some stories include elements of magic realism. As I was fresh off of reading Bad Feminist, Gay’s collection of essays detailing her thoughts on modern feminism coupled with social commentary on the portrayal of women in the media and literature, I was excited and eager to jump into Difficult Women. However, after completing the latter, I notice that I much prefer Gay’s writing style for her non-fiction work. Though the fiction stories featured a host of women in different situations, such as a biracial college student who works the pole at night to fund her education, a pair of sisters who leave their home state to escape an unimaginably sexually violent past, a black university professor exploring her new life in Michigan and others, I was put off from the constant repetition of phrases and themes in the book. Phrases such as “flat of her stomach” or themes such as men rubbing their hands over the women’s knuckles or the resurgence of twins in her writing. Although I found each story interesting in their own right, I felt that having them compiled together in a book of short stories took away from the impact each story would have standing alone. Having many of the stories echoing elements of each other would have been better served in one long-form story tackling issues of sex, rape and women’s identities and roles.
Despite this, the book does well as it delves into the minds of the narrators, illuminating those forbidden thoughts and desires women may have yet never spoken of, such as a desire to be beaten, or contempt for a child. The overriding theme, however, is the strength these difficult women possess – the strength to endure pain and loss, the strength to bend the rules, the strength to play along, the strength to ignore. Each female character takes agency of their bodies and exhibits sometimes quiet or sometimes overt strength. Although I do not have a favorite story in the set, I do quite like the longer pieces which do a great job of capturing the grander story and beauty behind seemingly simple existences, such as in North Country, where the life of the new-to-town college professor is catalogued as she bears the cold and isolation of her new home while falling in love.
I read the book over the course of four days, and in hindsight, I think that reading the book all in one go did me a disservice and hindered my ability to appreciate the text for all its worth. I would recommend reading the book leisurely and pausing between each story, allowing space to really absorb each tale, before getting lost in the new cosmos that follows.
Overall, I commend the book for its portrayal of various cross-sections of female life, the detailed imagery and the topics it tackles, but knock off points for the constant repetition. I will also say that many of the deeper meanings in the stories dealing with magic realism, such as Water, All Its Weight and I Am a Knife, were lost on me, which probably contributes to my mediocre rating of the text. However, I do believe it is worth reading as Gay is a prolific writer and offers a unique perspective on women and women’s issues, especially in Trump-era America.


श्री योगेश्वरजी के पुस्तक 'संत समागम' का हिन्दी अनुवाद ।
अनुवादक - प्रा. शशीकांत कोन्ट्राकटर
Hindi translation of Shri Yogeshwarji's book 'Sant Samagam'.
Translator : Prof. Shashikant Contractor


is a science-fiction/horror series
told through two intersecting timelines set between the rapid economic growth of turn-of-the-century China and a bleak, cyber-punk vision of China in the future.
A mysterious Japanese teenager arrives in the rural town of Lushan in 1999, sparking a series of strange events that culminates in a few high school teens suddenly receiving mutations that grant them special powers. As they try to understand their newfound abilities, an unspeakable horror begins to haunt the small town.
Thirty years later, in the now expanded, cyber-punk city, a detective begins to investigate a series of gruesome murders that seem to have some connection to the events of the past. As he journeys deeper into a labyrinth of ritual sacrifice and grotesque mutilation, he begins to uncover a conspiracy two billion years in the making.
Format: 15 min/episode, 16 episodes/season


The Rutter Logo captures the notion of what a rutter is, with some poetic license. Oceanic Rutters are instructions to perform regular long-distance sea voyages. The voyage is represented by the blue line; its shape is somewhat akin to the India Run, with its famous contour around Africa; the two reflected R's, signify the outbound and inbound voyages; the double tt can be assimilated to the "pillars of Hercules". The Rutter Logo was designed by Luís Ribeiro.
On the agenda
Luana Giurgevich: "Refojos de Basto no trajeto do livro científico da rede de bibliotecas monásticas"
V Seminário Internacional de Cabeceiras de Basto "Hora et Labora - Refojos de Basto: Leituras, Textos e Autores Beneditinos"
29-30 July 2021, Cabeceiras de Basto
David Salomoni, José María Moreno Madrid, Nuno Vila-Santa
Conference "La Genesis de la Globalizacion"
22-23 September 2021, online
David Salomoni: "Jesuit Survival Strategies in Transoceanic Voyages,
Sixteenth Century Society Conference
28-31 October 2021, San Diego (USA)
The RUTTER team welcomes students and researchers of any level willing to contribute to the project.
Contact us to get involved
News and events
54th Seminar for Arabian Studies
Juan Acevedo "The 16th-century Portuguese Suma Oriental and the Arab Pilots: A Detailed Comparative Study"
Inês Bénard "The Stars in Sixteenth-Century Nautical Literature: A Comparative Study”
9-11 July 2021
World History Association 2021 Conference
David Salomoni "The New Shape of the World: Geographical Literacy and Jesuit Education in the Early Modern Global World, 16th-17th Centuries"
5-11 July 2021
Desenhando a Porta do Pacífico. Mapas, Cartas e Outras Representações Visuais do Estreito de Magalhães, 1520-1671/Drawing the Gateway to the Pacific. Maps, Charts and Other Visual Representations of the Strait of Magellan, 1520-1671 by Henrique Leitão and José María Moreno Madrid
8 July 2021