How Did Amazon End Up as Literary Enemy No. 1? | Vanity Fair

How Did Amazon End Up as Literary Enemy No. 1? | Vanity Fair: Amazon’s war with publishing giant Hachette over e-book pricing has earned it a black eye in the media, with the likes of Philip Roth, James Patterson, and Stephen Colbert demanding that the online mega-store stand down. How did Amazon—which was once seen as the book industry’s savior—end up as Literary Enemy Number One? And how much of this fight is even about money? Keith Gessen reports.

Announcing the Orthodox Illustration Project – Orthodox Arts Journal

Announcing the Orthodox Illustration Project – Orthodox Arts Journal: In brief, the purpose of the project is to make available online a collection of graphic illustrations of the highest quality. The collection will focus on iconographic drawings and related graphic ornaments stylistically suited to the illumination of printed Orthodox publications. The project will address the needs of Orthodox book designers, graphic artists, and many others, who desire excellent imagery for their publications.

Feast Your Eyes on This Beautiful Linguistic Family Tree | Mental Floss

Feast Your Eyes on This Beautiful Linguistic Family Tree | Mental Floss: When linguists talk about the historical relationship between languages, they use a tree metaphor. An ancient source (say, Indo-European) has various branches (e.g., Romance, Germanic), which themselves have branches (West Germanic, North Germanic), which feed into specific languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian). Lessons on language families are often illustrated with a simple tree diagram that has all the information but lacks imagination. There’s no reason linguistics has to be so visually uninspiring. Minna Sundberg, creator of the webcomic Stand Still. Stay Silent, a story set in a lushly imagined post-apocalyptic Nordic world, has drawn the antidote to the boring linguistic tree diagram.

Help mighty Mason fight for a good life despite Cerebral Palsy | The South African

Help mighty Mason fight for a good life despite Cerebral Palsy | The South African: After 13 years in the UK, Sasha and Blake Buckingham made the tough decision to move home. Their son Mason was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy and they needed help.

Bolivia Is An Example of How Socialism Can 'Work' | Alternet

Bolivia Is An Example of How Socialism Can 'Work' | Alternet: Bolivian President Evo Morales last weekend won re-election by a smashing margin. His eight-year rule has weakened Bolivian property rights, indulged in frequent nationalizations and demonized capitalism. Yet it has also produced Bolivia's best growth rates in several decades, far better than the orthodox and admirable policies pursued in 1985-2003.

Thus Morales' policy of making Bolivian clocks run backwards seems reflected by the apparent successful defiance of theory in his economics. In reality, however, there is a fairly simple explanation, and it is an important lesson for other poor countries.

10 (insane) things I learned about the world reading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” - Salon.com

10 (insane) things I learned about the world reading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” - Salon.com:

Over the past year, I’ve been reading and reviewing Ayn Rand’s massive paean to capitalism, Atlas Shrugged. If you’re not familiar with the novel, it depicts a world where corporate CEOs and one-percenters are the selfless heroes upon which our society depends, and basically everyone else — journalists, legislators, government employees, the poor — are the villains trying to drag the rich down out of spite, when we should be kissing their rings in gratitude that they allow us to exist.

Good article, and a pretty good assessment of Ayn Rand's writing.

Sick of this market-driven world? You should be | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

Sick of this market-driven world? You should be | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian: Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as neoliberalism. The story it tells is that the market can resolve almost all social, economic and political problems. The less the state regulates and taxes us, the better off we will be. Public services should be privatised, public spending should be cut, and business should be freed from social control. In countries such as the UK and the US, this story has shaped our norms and values for around 35 years: since Thatcher and Reagan came to power. It is rapidly colonising the rest of the world.

Neoliberalism has brought out the worst in us

Neoliberalism has brought out the worst in us | Paul Verhaeghe | Comment is free | theguardian.com: Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace. This is a typical symptom of the impotent venting their frustration on the weak – in psychology it’s known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging from performance anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other.

Damaging Our Country from Wars of Choice � CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Damaging Our Country from Wars of Choice � CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names: Here they go again. Another result of Bush’s war in Iraq. Washington has already expended thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of American injuries and illnesses, and over a million Iraqi lives. The achievement: the slaying or capture of Al Qaeda leaders, but with that came the spread of Al Qaeda into a dozen countries and the emergence of a new Al Qaeda on steroids called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) which has nominal control over an area in Syria and Iraq larger than the territory of Great Britain.

Kenneth Hagin Sr.�s Renouncement of Word-Faith Teachings. - Sermon Index

Kenneth Hagin Sr.�s Renouncement of Word-Faith Teachings. - Sermon Index: Charismatic Bible teacher Kenneth Hagin Sr. is considered the father of the so-called prosperity gospel. The folksy, self-trained “Dad Hagin” started a grass-roots movement in Oklahoma that produced a Bible college and a crop of famous preachers including Kenneth Copeland, Jerry Savelle, Charles Capps, Jesse DuPlantis, Creflo Dollar and dozens of others—all of whom teach that Christians who give generously should expect financial rewards on this side of heaven.

Hagin taught that God was not glorified by poverty and that preachers do not have to be poor. But before he died in 2003 and left his Rhema Bible Training Center in the hands of his son, Kenneth Hagin Jr., he summoned many of his colleagues to Tulsa to rebuke them for distorting his message. He was not happy that some of his followers were manipulating the Bible to support what he viewed as greed and selfish indulgence.

The Posts Go Ever On: Guest Post on "War In Heaven" | The Oddest Inkling

The Posts Go Ever On: Guest Post on "War In Heaven" | The Oddest Inkling: War in Heaven, published in early summer, 1930, has, to my way of thinking, gone from a story set in the contemporary world to a classic ‘period piece’ without any loss of vitality. It was drafted, as The Corpse, four years earlier, having been finished in time to be offered to, and rejected by, Faber, by the end of May, 1926. I do not know how much or little The Corpse differs from War in Heaven as we know it. But the Twenties seem to have been a rapidly and even wildly changing literary landscape as far as ‘mystery’ and ‘detective’ stories went. And some facts about literary context at the turn of 1925-26 strike me as interesting.

It's Still Not the End of History - The Atlantic

It's Still Not the End of History - The Atlantic:

Most of us in the West are liberals, whether we admit it or not. We want equal rights for all, reject racial differences, cherish the freedom of worship while preserving the freedom to disagree, and seek an economic order that suits the ambitions of the individual. But there’s a growing sense that liberalism isn’t delivering at home and that it’s not as popular as we think it ought to be in the developing world. The problem is that hubris has blinded its defenders to the crisis consuming liberalism’s identity, leaving them unable or unwilling, to respond to pressing challenges around the world.

Notes from a Common-place Book: Philip Jenkins on the Reformation, both Protestant and Islamic

Notes from a Common-place Book: Philip Jenkins on the Reformation, both Protestant and Islamic:

2017 will mark the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. In The Breaking of Images, noted Baylor scholar and author Philip Jenkins gets a jump on the anticipated flurry of commentary. The occasion of his piece is David Motadel's recent review of "The Politics of Iconoclasm: Religion, Violence and the Culture of Image-Breaking in Christianity and Islam" by James Noye. As Jenkins notes, "the review, and the associated scholarship, raises important questions about how we conceive of the Reformation, how we teach it, and significantly, how we will commemorate the 500th anniversary of the event in 2017."

Dalai Lama's visa still under consideration

In short: Dalai Lama’s visa yet under consideration: SA

New Delhi: Amid reports that South Africa has denied a visa to the Dalai Lama, the African nation’s High Commissioner to India France K Morule on Friday said his visa has not been denied yet and the application is under consideration. Morule said he will be meeting the Dalai Lama’s representatives here tomorrow on further action required to be taken on granting visa to the spiritual leader, who was going to attend the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Cape Town next month.

Putin is under Satan’s influence, says leader of Kiev Orthodox Church | FaithWorld

Putin is under Satan’s influence, says leader of Kiev Orthodox Church | FaithWorld: President Vladimir Putin has fallen under the spell of Satan and faces eternal damnation unless he repents, a top Ukrainian clergyman said in an unusually blunt statement that squarely blamed the Russian leader for the war in Ukraine.

Patriarch Filaret heads the Kiev Patriarchate, a branch of the Orthodox Church that broke away from Moscow in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union and the declaration of an independent Ukraine.

His church, a rival of the Moscow Patriarchate which is closely linked to Putin, strongly supports Ukrainian nationhood and the Kiev government’s struggle to defeat pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Why independent book stores are on the rise again

Independent bookstores rising: They can’t compete with Amazon, and don’t have to.:

The recent news of the opening of an independent bookstore on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was greeted with surprise and delight, since a neighborhood once flush with such stores had become a retail book desert. The opening coincides with the relocation of the Bank Street Bookstore near Columbia University, leading the New York Times to declare, “Print is not dead yet — at least not on the Upper West Side.” Two stores don’t constitute a trend, but they do point to a quiet revival of independent bookselling in the United States.

4 Things You Should Know About Russian Demography That Vanity Fair Won't Tell You - Forbes

4 Things You Should Know About Russian Demography That Vanity Fair Won't Tell You - Forbes: As is so frequently the case when mainstream magazines try to deal with demography, Vanity Fair presents figures selectively and without much context. We’re told that Russian life expectancy is currently 64 for men and 76 for women, and that this is quite poor by international standards, but we’re told very little about how this relates to Russia’s own recent history (hint: it’ a lot better!). I kept waiting for the article to tell its readers that Russia’s population has stopped shrinking, that the total fertility rate is at a more than two decade high, that alcohol poisonings have decreased sharply, and that Russia’s actual demographic performance over the past 10 years has consistently exceeded even the most optimistic official forecasts. It never did.

How the War on Terror Created the World's Most Powerful Terror Group | The Nation

How the War on Terror Created the World's Most Powerful Terror Group | The Nation: There are extraordinary elements in the present US policy in Iraq and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq, the United States is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The US would presumably do the same if ISIS surrounds or attacks Baghdad. But in Syria, Washington’s policy is the exact opposite: there the main opponent of ISIS is the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds in their northern enclaves. Both are under attack from ISIS, which has taken about a third of the country, including most of its oil and gas production facilities.

But US , Western European, Saudi and Arab Gulf policy is to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, which happens to be the policy of ISIS and other jihadis in Syria. If Assad goes, then ISIS will be the beneficiary, since it is either defeating or absorbing the rest of the Syrian armed opposition. There is a pretense in Washington and elsewhere that there exists a “moderate” Syrian opposition being helped by the United States, Qatar, Turkey, and the Saudis. It is, however, weak and getting more so by the day. Soon the new caliphate may stretch from the Iranian border to the Mediterranean and the only force that can possibly stop this from happening is the Syrian army.

Not All Pedophiles Have Mental Disorder, American Psychiatric Association Says In New DSM

Not All Pedophiles Have Mental Disorder, American Psychiatric Association Says In New DSM:

The new manual specifies that in order for an atypical sexual behavior to be classified as a mental condition, a person must:

1. Feel personal distress about their interest, not merely distress resulting from society's disapproval; or

2. have a sexual desire or behavior that involves another person's psychological distress, injury, or death, or a desire for sexual behaviors involving unwilling persons or persons unable to give legal consent.

Does (1) imply that repentance for sexual lust is a mental disorder?

That would have disturbing implications.

Keith Gessen: Why not kill them all?: In Donetsk

Keith Gessen: Why not kill them all?: In Donetsk -- LRB 11 September 2014:

When the Maidan protests started in Kiev late last year, Mishin followed them with increasing anxiety. He watched as young men in masks and the insignia of old Ukrainian fascist movements attacked riot police – some of them from the Donetsk area – with Molotov cocktails. He saw governors in the western provinces pulled out of their offices and roughed up by furious crowds. It seemed that the country was descending into chaos. When he heard a rumour that some of the young men from Maidan were headed for Donetsk, he believed it. After work he started taking the bus to the centre of Donetsk to stand with the protesters who called themselves ‘anti-Maidan’. Some of them waved Russian flags; others held up posters of Stalin. But they all wanted to express their disagreement with what was happening in Kiev.

What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital | The Mind Unleashed

What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital | The Mind Unleashed: What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm. “Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Som. These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.

Why Russians will have it all! | Koshka's Blog

Why Russians will have it all! | Koshka's Blog:

1. Because they don’t give a damn about public opinion of the West about them.

2. Because they have their hand on the energy tap of the world – especially Europe.

3. Because Putin is a better strategist and a poker player than any of his Western counterparts.

Are you Church or Chapel? | The Vaishnava Voice

Are you Church or Chapel? | The Vaishnava Voice:

Vaishnavism has not always been immune from these schisms. The followers of the teachings of the great Ramanujacarya (1017-1137) were united for seven centuries, but then succumbed to conflict over cardinal philosophical points, eventually becoming the Tengalai (Southern School) and the Vadagalai (Northern School) sometime in the 17th or 18th century.

Two Understandings of Death: On the Dormition of the Theotokos

Two Understandings of Death: On the Dormition of the Theotokos: we will notice a profound contradiction between two understandings of death. Blessed repose, dormition, falling asleep – the word “death” is not used in reference to the Theotokos. Incidentally, another word used in ecclesiastical parlance is derived from here: “reposed” – not died or perished, but reposed. We see that there is a different understanding of death. On the one hand, there is the understanding connected with the triumph of the Mother of God; on the other, there is our ordinary understanding of death as a tragic end, as the termination of all things. One feels animal fear, the fear of death, before this tragic end. How greatly this fear of death contradicts the basic value judgments of modern society, a society of consumerism and prosperity! But this very society, imbued with false values, recognizes the impossibility of joining its ideals – those of unlimited consumption and pleasure – with the fact of death.

Our 'Enemies' in Ukraine Speak

Our 'Enemies' in Ukraine Speak: America’s ‘news’ media do not let the victims of Ukraine’s civil war — the people who are dying and being driven out from the southeastern regions of that country by the new Ukrainian Government — speak, and tell their story. Scenes will therefore be posted below from an admittedly overlong amateur video from southeastern Ukraine, in which they have been allowed to tell their story. This is being done here since U.S. ‘news’ media apparently don’t consider it something that you would want to know, and since you should be allowed to judge for yourself whether it is or not, and to judge why it’s not being reported on the ‘news’ sources that our ‘democracy’ offers to ‘inform’ America’s public about public affairs.

The 55 Essential Movies Your Child Must See (Before Turning 13) | PopWatch | EW.com

The 55 Essential Movies Your Child Must See (Before Turning 13) | PopWatch | EW.com: This isn’t a list of the 55 “best” kids movies, nor a compendium of hidden gems. Rather, it’s a survival-guide syllabus of films that we all need to know to be able to speak the same pop-cultural language, listed in order by when they might be best introduced. It starts with a film that is a perfect introduction to the cinematic universe and ends with one that is an ideal capper before graduating into the world of PG-13 and R movies—and the age when kids begin to make their own theater decisions.

The fabulous Alcock boys and how they took South Africa by storm | World news | The Observer

The fabulous Alcock boys and how they took South Africa by storm | World news | The Observer: They grew up in a mud hut, two blond kids regarded by their tribal peers as Zulus. So when the new dawn broke over South Africa, the Alcock brothers took the rainbow nation by storm - Khonya brokering land deals for 200,000 tribesmen, entrepreneur GG bringing the party spirit back to Soweto.

We scam the Indian call centre scammers | TechCentral

We scam the Indian call centre scammers | TechCentral: Regard-van-der-Berg-180At TechCentral, we get called on average at least once a week — sometimes far more often — by a friendly sounding Indian national warning us that our Windows computer is infected with a virus. The call, which originates from a call centre, follows exactly the same script every time. Usually we shrug them off and put the phone down, but this week we thought we’d humour them to find out how they operate.

When survival and accountability collide: Ramaphosa and Jordan's moments of reckoning | Daily Maverick

When survival and accountability collide: Ramaphosa and Jordan's moments of reckoning | Daily Maverick: Just days after a national newspaper exposed his academic qualifications as a lie, Pallo Jordan apologised to the ANC and to South Africa, and stepped down from his public positions. This week, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa finally appeared before the Marikana Commission of Inquiry to explain his role in events preceding the massacre of 34 mineworkers two years ago, an appearance during which 'sorry' seemed to be the hardest word for him. He still remains the most likely candidate to be the next President of South Africa. Jordan, on the other hand, is headed into the political wilderness. What does this mean for the ANC and for South Africa?

Lavrov: Ukraine ready to accept Russia’s humanitarian aid — RT News

Lavrov: Ukraine ready to accept Russia’s humanitarian aid — RT News: The Russian Foreign Ministry has received a note from the Ukrainian government expressing its readiness to accept the Russian humanitarian aid. The news came as Moscow agreed on the Ukrainian presence in the humanitarian convoy.

The arrangements for the humanitarian aid convoy have been completely agreed upon, with all of Kiev’s wishes taken into account, including the route, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters at a press conference in Sochi.

The New Cold War and the Necessity of Patriotic Heresy | The Nation

The New Cold War and the Necessity of Patriotic Heresy | The Nation: The Ukrainian civil war, precipitated by the unlawful change of government in Kiev in February, is already growing into a proxy US-Russian war. The seemingly unthinkable is becoming imaginable: an actual war between NATO, led by the United States, and post-Soviet Russia.

Certainly, we are already in a new cold war, which escalating sanctions will only deepen and institutionalize, one potentially more dangerous than its US-Soviet predecessor the world barely survived.

Stop poking the bear: A secure and prosperous Russia is in our national interest | Elizaphanian

Stop poking the bear: A secure and prosperous Russia is in our national interest | Elizaphanian: The principal driver of this crisis is the United States, seeking to expand the borders of Nato to the edge of Russia. They are seeking to humiliate Russia. This is not a strategy of statecraft but of small boys in a playground.

Elizaphanian | Trying to be a man who pleases God – If the Church of England were to fail, it should be found in my parish." (Keble)

Elizaphanian | Trying to be a man who pleases God – If the Church of England were to fail, it should be found in my parish." (Keble): The principal driver of this crisis is the United States, seeking to expand the borders of Nato to the edge of Russia. They are seeking to humiliate Russia. This is not a strategy of statecraft but of small boys in a playground.

Google and the right to be forgotten | Technology | Technology | Mail & Guardian

Google and the right to be forgotten | Technology | Technology | Mail & Guardian: On May 13, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ), the highest court in the EU, ruled in favour of Costeja González and against Google. González asked the search engine giant to remove some unflattering links from the results that appeared when anyone searched for his name. Google refused, and so he took the company to court.

We can all sympathise with González. When his home was repossessed in 1998, a notice appeared in a local paper and on its website. Most people would want to forget such an unpleasant and embarrassing event as soon as possible. But Google’s results continued to remind the world of the repossession more than a decade later.

With its ruling, the ECJ effectively created a new legal right – the right to be forgotten. Since the ruling, tens of thousands of requests for removals have been pouring into the system that Google built for their handling. But the current solution is both deeply problematic and impractical.

Fragmentation of News and Causes � CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Fragmentation of News and Causes � CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names: In the shadow of neocolonialism, criminal elements within NGOs, religious and otherwise, converge like so many hyenas on the unfortunate victims of the typhoon, for purposes of human trafficking. As in Haiti, soon the women and baby snatchers will be replaced by the likes of Bill Clinton, who will promise investments and reconstruction so long as the country’s assets are liquidated in a fire sale to corporations. More than three and a half years after its earthquake, Haiti is not reconstructed, but rather more demolished than ever before, and it is firmly under the boots of disaster capitalists.

The end of the hipster: how flat caps and beards stopped being so cool

The end of the hipster: how flat caps and beards stopped being so cool | Fashion | The Observer: At some point in the last few years, the hipster changed. Or at least its definition did. What was once an umbrella term for a counter-culture tribe of young creative types in (mostly) New York's Williamsburg and London's Hackney morphed into a pejorative term for people who looked, lived and acted a certain way. The Urban Dictionary defines hipsters as "a subculture of men and women, typically in their 20s and 30s, that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics". In reality, the word is now tantamount to an insult.

Genea-Musings: FindMyPast Acquires Mocavo, Mocavo Provides Free U.S./ Census Indexes

Genea-Musings: FindMyPast Acquires Mocavo, Mocavo Provides Free U.S./ Census Indexes: The Mocavo Genealogy blog post by Mocavo founder Cliff Shaw is at http://blog.mocavo.com/2014/06/new-chapter. The post highlights the announcement, plus provides a link to the U.S. census record indexes that are FREE (and Cliff says they always will be).

The link to search all of the census records is http://www.mocavo.com/1790-1940-United-States-Census/126199, and you can select a specific census from that page.

Genea-Musings: FindMyPast Acquires Mocavo, Mocavo Provides Free U.S./ Census Indexes

Genea-Musings: FindMyPast Acquires Mocavo, Mocavo Provides Free U.S./ Census Indexes: The link to search all of the census records is http://www.mocavo.com/1790-1940-United-States-Census/126199, and you can select a specific census from that page.

Zambia & Rhodesia Genealogy help: Christians of the Copperbelt

Zambia & Rhodesia Genealogy help: Christians of the Copperbelt: Here is a surprising find -- a recent book on the internet archive, in full: Christians of the Copperbelt. For the purposes of this blog, the bonus is that the book has an index including a list of names of people who were influential in the early church on the Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia.

This account by John V. Taylor and Dorothea A. Lehmann was published in 1961 as part of the World Mission Study series. The book is based on an eight and a half month study undertaken in 1958 and particularly at Nchanga Mine in Chingola and in the township of Kansuswa near Mufulira. Although mainly about the Copperbelt, the authors also worked in rural areas elsewhere in the country, including Northern and Luapula Provinces. The authors say that the time they allowed for their work was too little and that suspicion of political motive hampered their success in interviewing local people. Nevertheless, there will be much of interest here to anyone with missionary roots, to help understand the story of the growth of the Christian church in Zambia, particularly at the time of the transition to independence, and to help understand the impacts of urbanisation. Also of interest is the study of Alice Lenshina's Lumpa Church before its bloody clash with UNIP just before independence in 1964.

Ayn Rand-loving CEO destroys his empire - Salon.com

Ayn Rand-loving CEO destroys his empire - Salon.com: The invisible hand waves bye-bye to Eddie Lampert, whose business plan has run Sears into the ground

Flannery O'Connor: Friends Don't Let Friends Read Ayn Rand (1960) - | Open Culture

Flannery O'Connor: Friends Don't Let Friends Read Ayn Rand (1960) - | Open Culture: I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.

Cherie's Place -- Avebury

Cherie's Place -- Avebury: Avebury is a fascinating site that connects to other prominent features in the ancient landscape. What remains of the Avebury Circles is largely reconstructed. In the 1930s Alexander Keiller having purchased the site of Avebury and part of West Kennet Avenue started to excavate the site and in time restore the site to some of its former glory. Where stones had been removed he placed concrete plinths to mark their former position. The outbreak of WWII put a stop to the excavations and restoration. Sadly the excavations have never been resumed.

Facebook email switch continues causing problems - latimes.com

Facebook email switch continues causing problems - latimes.com: After causing a raucous week by changing users' listed email addresses to ones ending in @facebook.com, Facebook's switch is causing yet another embarrassment for the company and problem for many users.

The email switch has gone beyond the walls of Facebook, according to various users, who are saying that the change is affecting the emails listed in their contact books.

Across the Web, people are saying the emails listed for many of their contacts in their address books have been replaced by @facebook.com emails.

Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds - Telegraph

Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds - Telegraph: The researchers say fasting "flips a regenerative switch" which prompts stem cells to create brand new white blood cells, essentially regenerating the entire immune system.

SS songs and antisemitism: the week Golden Dawn turned openly Nazi | World news | The Observer

SS songs and antisemitism: the week Golden Dawn turned openly Nazi | World news | The Observer: Supporters of the far-right party gave Hitler salutes and sang the Horst Wessel song outside parliament last week. Helena Smith reports from Athens on how Golden Dawn has taken on a sinister new tone

14 Google Search Tricks That Make Life A Whole Lot Easier

14 Google Search Tricks That Make Life A Whole Lot Easier

Zuma going full circle – from apartheid telecoms and back

Zuma going full circle – from apartheid telecoms and back: Unbeknownst to many people, Zuma returned to the structure used under the apartheid government, which had a Department of Communications and a Department of Post and Telecommunications.

The cabinet of FW de Klerk, which ran South Africa from 16 August 1989 to 11 May 1994, had Roelf Meyer as minister of communications and Piet Welgemoed as minister of post and telecommunication.

Zuma’s decision to go back to the pre-1994 structure is seen as a mistake by many commentators – and they have a point.

In South Africa, telecommunications services were operated by the South African Post Office until 1991. It therefore made sense to combine telecommunications and postal services into one ministry.

However, Telkom became a public company in 1991, which meant that it started to operate independently from the SA Post Office.

Ten Reasons to Love Uruguayan President Jose Mujica

What did we do to deserve Jacob Zuma?

Isn't this more in line with tbhe spirit of the old ANC? The ANC of Mandela, Tambo and Sisulu?

Ten Reasons to Love Uruguayan President Jose Mujica - FPIF:

President Jose Mujica of Uruguay, a 78-year-old former Marxist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, recently visited the United States to meet with President Obama and speak at a variety of venues. He told Obama that Americans should smoke less and learn more languages. He lectured a roomful of businessmen at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about the benefits of redistributing wealth and raising workers’ salaries. He told students at American University that there are no “just wars.”

Whatever the audience, he spoke extemporaneously and with such brutal honesty that it was hard not to love the guy. Here are 10 reasons you, too, should love President Mujica.

What is a Christmas beetle?

How your etymology and entomology can be confused, depending on where you live.

Confusion in South African English: A Christmas beetle in Gauteng is seen but not heard. A Christmas beetle in KZN is heard but not seen.

Flying peanuts, Christmas beetles, leaf chafers, May beetles / Melolonthinae (Invertebrates) by tony rebelo on 13th January 2012 | iSpot:

which Xmas Beetle? The Cicada, this chappie or something else (the Red Driver Ant, for instance) - Just google "Christmas Beetle South Africa" to get a taste of the discussion and see answerit.news24.com/Question/Are there still Christmas Beetles in South Africa? for an overview of how people dont even talk about the same thing.

My wife insists that what I call a Christmas beetle is a "hardie", but we both agree on the singing of Christmas beetles at Christmas time. We were both born in Durban, but I moved to the Transvaal at the age of seven, and so learnt some Valie ways. I know that the Christmas beetles you hear are really cicadas, but are rarely seen, and when seen they're green. But the Christmas beetles that you see are brown...

Analysis: An Arab spring for South African Jews | Daily Maverick

Analysis: An Arab spring for South African Jews | Daily Maverick: South Africa’s Jewish community is regarded as one of the most conservative in the diaspora, its blinkered support for the Jewish state characterised as an approach of ‘Israel – right or wrong’. But recent developments are recalibrating local Jewish opinion on Israel-Palestine, and posing challenging questions regarding the politics of sovereignty, security and democracy. By REBECCA HODES.

Impact of Social Sciences – How to manage a research library with Zotero

Impact of Social Sciences – How to manage a research library with Zotero: Keeping up to date with research and managing an ever-increasing number of journal articles is skill that must be well-honed by academics. Here, Alex Hope sets out how his workflow has developed using Zotero, Dropbox, Goodreader and his iPad.

Skitt's Skittering Grounds

Skitt's Skittering Grounds: Do YOU realize that the overwhelming majority of people have more than the average number of legs? A staggering fact, isn't it!

The Up-Goer Five Text Editor

The Up-Goer Five Text Editor: Can you explain a hard idea using only the ten hundred most used words? It's not very easy. Type in the box to try it out.

Why a South African Braai beats a US bbq | Peace, Love & Giraffes

Why a South African Braai beats a US bbq | Peace, Love & Giraffes: Trust me. I was skeptical too. When my then boyfriend, now husband tried to explain the beauty of a South African Braai, I’ll be honest, I didn’t really get it. It sounded like a basic barbecue. A gathering of friends and family eating food from the grill. “Our barbecues are great,” I argued. “My dad makes a mean burger.” But whenever we cooked out on the grill, my husband’s face said it all – he longed for his beloved braai.

Analysis: A dam(n) crazy idea | Daily Maverick

Analysis: A dam(n) crazy idea | Daily Maverick: Right now there are 10,000 cubic kilometres of water behind dam walls – five times the volume in the planet’s rivers. The weight is so great it triggers earthquakes, and geophysicists estimate that the redistribution of weight from reservoirs may be having a measurable impact on the speed the earth rotates, the tilt of its axis and the shape of the gravitational field.

Disinformation, Carl Bildt, and Eastern Orthodoxy | David Heith-Stade's blog

Disinformation, Carl Bildt, and Eastern Orthodoxy | David Heith-Stade's blog: I usually don’t write on current political issues, but during the last days there has been a piece of “news” circulating on Russian websites about which Russian, Greek, and Finnish friends have made me aware.

A recent English version of this piece of “news” has the following headline “Carl Bildt thinks that Eastern Orthodoxy is main threat to Western civilization.” (Carl Bildt is the foreign minister of Sweden; therefore, I have been asked about this.)

1959. Extension of University Education Act No 45 - The O'Malley Archives

1959. Extension of University Education Act No 45 - The O'Malley Archives: This act made "it a criminal offence for a non-white student to register at a hitherto open university without the written consent of the Minister of Internal Affairs" (Lapping 1986: 184).

It also "provided for the establishment of a series of new ethnically-based institutions for Blacks, together with separate universities for Coloureds and Indians"

Have We joined Satan’s Side? - A Russian Orthodox Church Website

Have We joined Satan’s Side? - A Russian Orthodox Church Website: In reality, war does not begin when people start shooting at one another. It begins when certain convictions, upsurges in awareness, or news darken people’s reason and they stop seeing what is most important in those near them. They stop understanding that within the person near them – or not near them but, relatively speaking, “on the other side of the barricade” – there is much more to love than to hate.

Something terrible is happening to us now, when we stop seeing in our neighbor that which is most important, profound, and authentic. As a result, Satan is running the show. We are only giving occasions for the demons to rejoice, for their revelry, when, during our Pascha, we say “Christ is Risen!” to someone, but at the same time write terrible things about others on Facebook and rejoice that someone has “knocked off” someone else, and so forth. Hell is triumphant.

Free Family History and Genealogy Records — FamilySearch.org

Free Family History and Genealogy Records — FamilySearch.org



Getting better, though I still miss some of the functionality of the old one, like the ability to download Gedcom files.

The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like - Lindsay Abrams - The Atlantic

The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like - Lindsay Abrams - The Atlantic

7 Ethnic Names with Figurative Meanings

7 Ethnic Names with Figurative Meanings: 7 Ethnic Names with Figurative Meanings
by Mark Nichol

Names of ethnic groups have inspired nonliteral associations, many of them derogatory designations for the “other.” Here are seven such terms based on such names.

Devshirme � Blog Archive � Menstruation And Holy Communion

Devshirme � Blog Archive � Menstruation And Holy Communion: Metropolitan Methodios distributed the writing below to us at our monthly clergy brotherhood meeting this morning. It is from St. Gregory the Great to St. Augustine of Canterbury and is the last word on the “issue” of women receiving communion while menstruating. Some of his language reflects the time in which this was written (6th century) but the bottom line is that a woman’s period should not keep her from receiving communion (no matter what Yiayia may say about it : ).

Logismoi: C.S. Lewis & St Silouan

Logismoi: C.S. Lewis & St Silouan: Third, and most interesting to me and, I presume, my readers, he had a meeting with his spiritual director, the Rt Revd Simon Barrington-Ward, the former (Anglican) Bishop of Coventry and a friend of Lewis at Magdalene College, Cambridge. At this particular meeting, Barrington-Ward was trying to explain ‘what Lewis meant by “wordless prayer”, a significant theme of Letters to Malcolm and one that had occupied much of the first year of my doctoral research.’

Ranks of Angels - Russian Orthodox Church of Three Saints � � � �Храм Трех Святителей�

Ranks of Angels - Russian Orthodox Church of Three Saints � � � �Храм Трех Святителей�: The Celebration of the Sobor [Assemblage] of the Leader of the Heavenly Hosts Michael, and the Other Heavenly Bodiless Hosts was established at the beginning of the IV Century at the local Laodician Council, which occurred several years before the First Ecumenical Council. The Laodician Council by its 35th Canon condemned and renounced as heretical the worship of angels as creators and rulers of the world and it affirmed their proper Orthodox veneration. A feastday was established in November -- the ninth month from March (with which month the year began in ancient times) -- in accordance with the 9 Ranks of Angels. The eighth day of the month was decreed for the intended Sobor [Assemblage] of all the Heavenly Powers -- in conjunction with the Day of the Dread Last - Judgement of God, which the holy fathers called the "Eighth Day" -- since after this age in which the seven days [of Creation] have elapsed will come the "Eighth Day" -- and then "shalt come the Son of Man in His Glory and all the holy Angels together with Him" (Mt 25:31).

10 Tips for Creative Writing Submissions and Getting Published :Writing Forward

10 Tips for Creative Writing Submissions and Getting Published :Writing Forward

Barack Obama, Pro-Life Hero

Barack Obama, Pro-Life Hero | Sexuality/Gender | Religion Dispatches: Writing in the National Catholic Reporter in early August, Nicholas Cafardi made the provocative assertion that between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the president is the more pro-life candidate. A significant part of the Duquesne law professor’s argument is that Obama favors “support for vulnerable pregnant women and alternatives to abortion [which] will make abortions much less likely, since most abortions are economic.” A few weeks later, just thirty-four days before the election, that argument became even stronger.

Who should I vote for for US president?

If I were American, who should I vote for?

Who should you vote for? US Presidency 2012 quiz

Democrat	-9
Libertarian	-9
Republican	-15

You expected: Dem
Your recommendation: Democrat/Libertarian
Click here for more details about these results

Orthodoxy and Creationism: by Deacon Andrew Kuraev | Salt of the Earth

Orthodoxy and Creationism: by Deacon Andrew Kuraev | Salt of the Earth

What's the difference between these two brains? - Telegraph

What's the difference between these two brains? - Telegraph: To neurologists who study the brain, and who have worked out how to interpret the images, the difference between these two brains is both remarkable and shocking. The brain on the right lacks some of the most fundamental areas present in the image on the left. Those deficits make it impossible for that child to develop capacities that the child on the left will have: the child on the right will grow into an adult who is less intelligent, less able to empathise with others, more likely to become addicted to drugs and involved in violent crime than the child on the left. The child on the right is much more likely to be unemployed and to be dependent on welfare, and to develop mental and other serious health problems.

BBC News - Five million paid less than Living Wage, says KPMG

BBC News - Five million paid less than Living Wage, says KPMG: One in five workers in the UK is paid less than required for a basic standard of living, a report has claimed.

Cold caller firm pays out for wasting businessman's time - Telegraph

Cold caller firm pays out for wasting businessman's time - Telegraph: Richard Herman, 53, was so upset with firms phoning him up and trying to sell him goods and services he decided to charge them for the time they took out of his day.

Paperback Writer: NaNoWriMo Ten

Paperback Writer: NaNoWriMo Ten: Kleimo's Random Name Generator -- This generator uses US census data to produce name lists of up to 30 for males, females or both genders. You can also set the obscurity factor from 1 (extremely common names) to 99 (extremely uncommon names.)

Mehdi Hasan: Being Pro-Life Doesn't Make Me Any Less Of A Lefty

Mehdi Hasan: Being Pro-Life Doesn't Make Me Any Less Of A Lefty: What I would like is for my fellow lefties and liberals to try to understand and respect the views of those of us who are pro-life, rather than demonise us as right-wing reactionaries or medieval misogynists.

One of the biggest problems with the abortion debate is that it's asymmetric: the two sides are talking at cross-purposes. The pro-lifers speak about the right to life of the unborn baby; the pro-choicers speak about a woman's right to choose. The moral arguments, as the Scottish philosopher Alasdair Macintyre has said, are "incommensurable".

Another problem is that the debate forces people to choose sides: right against left, religious against secular. Some of us, however, refuse to be sliced and diced in such a simplistic and divisive manner. I consider abortion to be wrong because of, not in spite of, my progressive principles. That I am pro-life does not make me any less of a lefty.

BBC News - Mau Mau struggle for recognition at home and abroad

BBC News - Mau Mau struggle for recognition at home and abroad: From the reaction of the Mau Mau veterans in Kenya, you might have been forgiven for thinking they had won their torture case against the UK government.

Straight from the Heart

Straight from the Heart: Like many Orthodox, I am fascinated by God’s annual gift to His Church of the Holy Fire, which He kindles faithfully in the Church of the Resurrection (or "the Holy Sepulchre") in Jerusalem every Holy Saturday. I first heard of the Holy Fire from reading (of all things) H.V. Morton’s famous travelogue of his visits to the Holy Land, his In the Steps of the Master (first published 1934). It’s fair to say that this English churchman was not impressed. He wrote that he thought it “an extraordinary thing” that “a frenzied ceremony that might have occurred in a grove of Adonis should have taken place at the Tomb of Christ”, wherein “hundreds of simple, but apparently mad, Christians believed that God had sent fire from heaven”. Morton didn’t believe God did send fire from heaven. He wrote, “The crowds have been told time and again that the Holy Fire is a piece of symbolism, but nothing will shake their belief that on this day it descends from heaven into the Tomb of Christ.”

Datablog: deaths after police contact or in police custody | News | guardian.co.uk

Datablog: deaths after police contact or in police custody | News | guardian.co.uk: 1,433 people in England and Wales have died either in police custody or following other police contact since 1990, according to data compiled by Inquest, a charity specialising in the investigation of contentious deaths.

950 deaths took place in custody, 317 following a police pursuit, 112 were the result of a road traffic incident involving a police vehicle and 54 were police shootings.

The highest total was recorded in 2003, when 104 such deaths were recorded. Fourteen of these fell within the operational jurisdiction of the Metropolitan police, of which one was a shooting.

Police Officer Who Shot at Amadou Diallo to Get Gun Back - NYTimes.com

Police Officer Who Shot at Amadou Diallo to Get Gun Back - NYTimes.com: More than 13 years after the police shooting of Amadou Diallo, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has agreed to restore a service weapon to one of the four New York City officers involved, a decision that Mr. Diallo’s mother characterized as a betrayal.

Half of the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong - Reason.com

Half of the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong - Reason.com: Dinosaurs were cold-blooded. Vast increases in the money supply produce inflation. Increased K-12 spending and lower pupil/teacher ratios boosts public school student outcomes. Most of the DNA in the human genome is junk. Saccharin causes cancer and a high fiber diet prevents it. Stars cannot be bigger than 150 solar masses. And by the way, what are the ten most populous cities in the United States?

Map of Individualism (vs Collectivism)

Map of Individualism (vs Collectivism): I believe that individualism is an innate (hence genetic/hereditary) trait of character. It's opposite is collectivism. Please check the thread How individualistic are you ? for a preface. I believe that the individualism-collectivism dichotomy is responsible for many fundamental cultural differences between European countries.

Collectivist and individualist cultures - Psychology Wiki

Collectivist and individualist cultures - Psychology Wiki: Cultures are typically divided into two categories: collectivist and individualist. Individualist cultures, such as those of the United States and Western Europe, emphasize personal achievement at the expense of group goals, resulting in a strong sense of competition. Collectivist cultures, such as those of China, Korea, and Japan, emphasize family and work group goals above individual needs or desires.

Police have shot dead 33 people since 1995 - only two marksmen have ever been named | Mail Online

Police have shot dead 33 people since 1995 - only two marksmen have ever been named | Mail Online: Since 1995 a total of 55 officers have opened fire on and killed members of the public, but in only two cases have their names been revealed.

The figures can be revealed as the inquest into the death of 32-year-old barrister Mark Saunders continues – and the policemen who shot him dead in May 2008 are allowed to remain anonymous while giving evidence.

BBC News - Sainsbury's chief attacks plans to reform Sunday trading

BBC News - Sainsbury's chief attacks plans to reform Sunday trading

Banned | South African History Online

Banned | South African History Online: People banned under Apartheid

Catholic Charismatic Renewal in England - Goodnews online

Catholic Charismatic Renewal in England - Goodnews online: it's packed with news and articles, plus masses of information on what's happening in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

MYSTAGOGY: Is Augustine of Hippo A Father of the Church?

MYSTAGOGY: Is Augustine of Hippo A Father of the Church?: Augustine is indeed Orthodox by intention by his willingness to be corrected. The real problem is that he does not theologize from the vantage point of personal theosis or glorification, but as one who speculates philosophically on the Bible with no real basis in the Patristic tradition. Furthermore, his whole theological method is based on happiness as the destiny of man instead of biblical glorification. His resulting method of analogia entis and analogia fidei is not accepted by any Orthodox Father of the Church. In any case no Orthodox can accept positions of Augustine on which the Father’s of Ecumenical Councils are in agreement "against" him. This website (www.romanity.org) is not concerned with whether Augustine is a saint or a Father of the Church. There is no doubt that he was Orthodox by intention and asked for correction. However, he can not be used in such a way that his opinions may be put on an equal footing with the Fathers of Ecumenical Councils.

Gay. Mormon. Unicorn. | The American Conservative

Gay. Mormon. Unicorn. | The American Conservative: Via reader DeeAnn, here’s an amazing post by a Mormon therapist who comes out as a happily married gay man. Happily married — to a woman.

Research Shows That the Smarter People Are, the More Susceptible They Are to Cognitive Bias : The New Yorker

Research Shows That the Smarter People Are, the More Susceptible They Are to Cognitive Bias : The New Yorker: Here’s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. This answer is both obvious and wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat.)

The Witness

The Witness: JUNE 2, 1972, was a day Cape Town should remember: a peaceful UCT student protest outside St George’s Cathedral was bludgeoned apart by the SA Police (SAP): the first occasion in South Africa where white students had been physically attacked and injured in significant numbers during any political demonstration.

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part I

Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part I: One of the earliest on the Laurel Canyon/Sunset Strip scene is Jim Morrison, the enigmatic lead singer of The Doors. Jim will quickly become one of the most iconic, controversial, critically acclaimed, and influential figures to take up residence in Laurel Canyon. Curiously enough though, the self-proclaimed “Lizard King” has another claim to fame as well, albeit one that none of his numerous chroniclers will feel is of much relevance to his career and possible untimely death: he is the son, as it turns out, of the aforementioned Admiral George Stephen Morrison.

And so it is that, even while the father is actively conspiring to fabricate an incident that will be used to massively accelerate an illegal war, the son is positioning himself to become an icon of the ‘hippie’/anti-war crowd. Nothing unusual about that, I suppose. It is, you know, a small world and all that. And it is not as if Jim Morrison’s story is in any way unique.

Outside the Walls, But Not the Tradition | Emergent Village

Outside the Walls, But Not the Tradition | Emergent Village: But I do have to say, I’m uneasy with one of Halter’s assumptions. And since he’s so adamant about questioning our easy assumptions, I have to mention it here. From the very beginning of Sacrilege, Halter says that he wants to show us the real Jesus—the Jesus who walked in Nazareth, who comes alive when we read the Scriptures aright. He wants to give us Jesus without tradition. The assumptions of American Christendom, (assumptions, I should repeat, that deserve to be questioned) get lumped into a category called “tradition.” But my worry is this: I’m afraid it’s actually a deeply American assumption to think that we can get back to “the real Jesus” without tradition. We love to jump from the New Testament to now. But a plethora of Jesus scholarship has shown us that when we make that leap, we almost always end up creating Jesus in our own image.

Alice Grist: Momma was Gay, Poppa Was a Witch - A Personal Account of Gay Parenting and Gay Marriage

Alice Grist: Momma was Gay, Poppa Was a Witch - A Personal Account of Gay Parenting and Gay Marriage: I was born and initially raised by a handsome stable of heterosexuality. Dad was the local church vicar, Mum his loyal wife. My playground was the extensive vicarage with views of a graveyard. I was a good girl who refused to snack on the body of Christ, even when offered. I knew I wasn't old enough. Life was all sunshine and loveliness.

Then real life struck. Like many children before and after me, my parents divorced. Daddy was to become a 'writer' needing his own space, whilst Mummy moved in with a woman. Life never looked different. My main devastation in all this was that I had to leave my beloved Brownie troop. It didn't occur to me that the lesbian partnership I was about to be raised by was anything less than normal.

The weirdest thing about my childhood was probably when Dad turned his back on the church and became a Pagan High Priest. I was taken aside and point blank informed, "Alice, I'm a Pagan."

Owl of the 80s

Owl of the 80s. Thoughts on 1990s culture.

Deformable Mirror

Deformable Mirror

Is this thing working?

For the last day or so I (haven't been able to post anything on my Blogger blogs. because it keeps telling me "Illegal post time (format is: hh:mm AM/PM)"

But it seems to work OK in this blog.

Since it enters the posting date/time automatically, it must be a fairly new bug in the software.

The Western Confucian: I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

The Western Confucian: I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: "# Sandro Magister on an unenviable position — Christians in the Middle East. Crushed between Islam and Israel.

# 'Somebody eventually had to say it -- and German chancellor Angela Merkel deserves credit for being the one who had the courage to say it out loud,' says Thomas Sowell; 'Multiculturalism has 'utterly failed'' — The Multicultural Cult."

BlogExplosion - Paros Paradise - Greek island life

BlogExplosion - Paros Paradise - Greek island life

How the New Atheists are abusing the truth | spiked

How the New Atheists are abusing the truth | spiked: "Apparently the British state is about to roll out the red carpet for a seriously evil rape facilitator. Pope Benedict XVI is the boss of a church that acts as a ‘patron, protector and financier of child rape’, says one secularist writer. Last week the UK Independent reported that in America, ‘over 10,000 people have come forward to say they were raped as part of this misery-go-round’ overseen by His Holiness and His Lackeys. In Ireland alone, a tiny country of 4.5million people, ‘Thousands were raped in reform schools’, said a British broadsheet headline last year, ramming home the ugly truth of how many kids have been raped by the Catholic Church’s army of paedophile priests.

But how true is this ugly truth? Were 10,000 children in America and thousands more in Ireland really raped by Catholic priests? In a word, no."

Lesley's Blog: Gospel Personality types

Lesley's Blog: Gospel Personality types

Bishop David's Blog: Orthodoxy, a Vicar in Sunderland, and Pentecost

Bishop David's Blog: Orthodoxy, a Vicar in Sunderland, and Pentecost

Srebrenica: The Sacred Lie by Nebojsa Malic -- Antiwar.com

Srebrenica: The Sacred Lie by Nebojsa Malic -- Antiwar.com: "And as the forensic evidence mentioned indicates, a number of them were captured, bound, and shot. This was clearly a war crime, and should be prosecuted as such. But to call it genocide requires stretching the definition of the act beyond recognition."