Against the Current No. 211, March/April 2021
Transition, Trauma, and Troubled Times
— The Editors
Health Care Inequalities, Racism and Death
— Malik Miah
- Support Kshama Sawant
Detroit Police, Image and Reality
— Dianne Feeley
What About the Shootings?
— Dianne Feeley
Analyzing the 2020 Election: Who Paid? Who Benefits?
— Kim Moody
The First Fourteen Days
— Kim Moody
"No One Is Coming to Save Us"
— Kit Wainer interviews MORE activists Shoshana Brown, Ellen Schweitzer, Mike Stivers & Annie Tan
Puerto Rico's Multi-layered Crisis
— Rafael Bernabe
White Supremacy and Labor's Failure
— Cody R. Melcher interviews Michael Goldfield
- On Socialist Feminism
Second-Wave Feminism: Accomplishments & Lessons
— Nancy Rosenstock
A Socialist Woman's Experience
— Suzanne Weiss
A First-Generation Disability Story
— Brenda Y. Rodriquez
In the Imperial Crosshairs
— David Finkel
The Deadly Metabolic Rift
— Tony Smith
- In Memoriam
Gabe Gabrielsky: A Radical Affirmation
— Promise Li
- Gabe Gabrielsky: A Few Facts
THE RECENT ELECTIONS in Puerto Rico produced some startling results: both a surge in the vote for progressive, including pro-independence, forces and a status plebiscite which has been hailed a “mandate” for statehood. In order to interpret these results, it is best to start with an overview of Puerto Rico’s recent past.
Puerto Rico’s present situation can be described as a multi-layered crisis. Its main features are the chronic problems arising from the colonial and dependent nature of its economy; the crisis of that colonial economy since 2006; the debt crisis, officially recognized in 2015, resulting from the government’s response to that crisis; and the policies imposed by the Federal Oversight and Management Board since 2017.
On top of this, we must add the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Maria in 2017, a series of earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the inadequate government response to these disasters.
A Colonial Economy
Puerto Rico became a colony of the United States in 1898, as a result of the Spanish-American War. Since then Puerto Rico has been burdened with a typical colonial and dependent economy. Its main productive sectors have been controlled by U.S. capital and its market flooded by U.S. imports. Its economy has shifted from one form of overspecialization to another, from the sugar industry before the Second World War, to light manufacturing during the postwar boom and capital-intensive operations (such as pharmaceuticals) since the mid-1970s.
External control has meant that a sizable portion of profits generated on the Island are not reinvested there. At no point has this colonial economy generated enough jobs for the insular labor force: mass unemployment and underemployment (registered as high unemployment rates and low labor participation rates) have been a feature of Puerto Rican society even during the periods of rapid economic expansion, such as the postwar boom.
Mass unemployment tends to depress wages, which have remained the lowest in any U.S. jurisdiction, even after the extension of the federal minimum wage to Puerto Rico in the late 1970s. By the end of the postwar boom — half a century ago — its per capita income had reached half of that of the poorest state (Mississippi). It has remained in that relative position since then.
More than 45% of the population, and more than 55% of children, live under the official poverty line. This makes a large portion of Puerto Rico’s inhabitants eligible for federally-funded welfare programs, which compensate (inadequately) for the failings of dysfunctional colonial economy.
Lack of employment and poverty have also propelled Puerto Ricans to migrate to the United States, which as U.S. citizens they can enter without legal restrictions.(1)
Puerto Rico’s Long Depression
Despite its colonial limits, economic growth in the postwar period, and less spectacularly in the 1990s, resulted in palpable progress in living standards for most Puerto Ricans: health, education, housing conditions, access to drinking water and electricity were considerably improved. Wages in manufacturing and many service operations rose, compared to the meager levels of the formerly dominant agricultural sector.
Such improvements are now far in the past: beginning around 2006 Puerto Rico slid into a crisis that continues to this day. The economy has not grown for the past 15 years. Around 20% of the jobs that existed in 2006 have vanished. More than half of the close to 180,000 better-paid manufacturing jobs that existed in the mid-1990s have vanished as well.
Migration has accelerated since 2010. Puerto Rico’s population has fallen from close to 3.8 million to an estimated 3.1 million today (some estimates go lower). This affects all sectors of its working class, but young people in particular have little hope of economic security — not to speak of a meaningful and satisfying application of their talents and abilities.
The causes of this long depression are varied. Briefly put, Puerto Rico’s official economic policy has centered on three elements: a tax-exemption policy which allowed U.S. capital to operate in an almost tax-free environment; low wages, compared to the United States; and unimpeded access to the U.S. market.
Beginning in 1996, Congress began a ten-year phaseout of the federal tax exemption for U.S. corporations operating in Puerto Rico. This exemption had never generated adequate economic progress for the Island, as we saw, but Congress replaced a faulty incentive with nothing.
At the same time, free trade policies in the Americas and globally granted low-wage areas freer access to the U.S. market, reducing Puerto Rico’s advantages in this regard. The long recession of 2008 dealt another blow from which Puerto Rico’s colonial economy has never recuperated.
Debt Crisis, Austerity and PROMESA
As Puerto Rico’s economy stagnated and shrank, government revenues fell. Successive administrations responded with slight revisions in corporate-tax policies and, above all, increased borrowing and austerity policies. Beginning in 2006 these measures were combined — for example, through the issuing of the new debt known as COFINA — to be paid by increased sales taxes.
This was followed by Law #7 in 2009, which led to mass firings of more than 20,000 public employees. In 2014 Law #66 curtailed benefits, labor rights and collective bargaining in the public sector. This was combined with the reduction of public employment through attrition, and increases in the cost of services (fees and tuition at the University of Puerto Rico, for example), among other measures.
But borrowing also grew at a rapid pace: public debt expanded by 64% from $43 to $73 billion between 2006 and 2014. With a shrinking economy and stagnating government revenue combined with the rapidly growing debt burden, no matter how harsh the austerity policies, it was only a matter of time before Puerto Rico’s government defaulted on its debt payments.
By late June 2015 Governor Alejandro García Padilla officially recognized that Puerto Rico´s public debt was, as he put it, “unpayable” and would have to be renegotiated. To aggravate Puerto Rico’s economic, social and debt crisis, in September 2017 the Island was hit by Hurricane María, killing more than 4,000 and causing material damages estimated at $80 billion.
This was followed by a series of earthquakes in early 2020, which disabled important installations (including an important thermoelectrical plant) and left many homeless. In turn it was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which paralyzed most of Puerto Rico’s economy for several months.
Back in late 2016, after Puerto Rico’s default and recognizing that part of the debt would have to be renegotiated, Congress adopted the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), which created the Federal Oversight and Management Board, better known in the Island as the Control Board, or la Junta, for short.
While recognizing that part of Puerto Rico’s debt would not and could not be paid, it set out to make sure that as much as possible would be paid, at the cost of increased sacrifices by the Puerto Rican people. To achieve this la Junta supervises the adoption and revision of five-year fiscal plans by the government of Puerto Rico and its annual budgets to make sure they fit the objectives fixed by the fiscal-plan. PROMESA, it should be pointed out, provides no funds for Puerto Rico’s economic reconstruction.
To formulate its budget policies la Junta contracted the firm Mckinsey and Company, a global consulting outfit known for ruthless anti-labor policies.
The Junta’s diagnosis of Puerto Rico’s problems can be briefly summarized: the debt crisis is attributed to “big government,” and excessive regulation and labor rights are blamed for economic stagnation. This neoliberal dogma leads to the usual prescriptions of cuts in government spending, privatization and attacks on labor rights and benefits.
Even mainstream economists have pointed out that these policies are socially destructive and counterproductive, since they have what they describe as a deflationary impact, in other words, they prolong the present economic crisis.
A study conducted by Joseph E. Stiglitz and two associates concluded that Puerto Rico’s debt had to be reduced by 80%, if the Island was to pay for its essential services and adopt measures to revive its economy. That figure surely went up as a result of the impact of Hurricane María, earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic.
A considerable part of Puerto Rico’s debt has been bought at a heavy discount by hedge and vulture funds, who now seek payment at face value, which would ensure them extraordinary profits.
There is also ample basis to suspect that a considerable portion of Puerto Rico’s debt is unconstitutional or illegal, which has fueled the demand formulated by labor and other organizations that no agreements be reached and no payments be made until the debt has been fully audited.(2)
Nevertheless, negotiations with Puerto Rico’s creditors, conducted by the Junta on behalf of Puerto Rico under Title III of PROMESA, resulted in an agreement very favorable to the COFINA creditors. The agreement with the holder of general obligation debt (GOs) under discussion at the time of writing also fails to reduce debt to a sustainable level, while imposing new sacrifices on the Puerto Rican people.
Presented as a means of liberating Puerto Rico from PROMESA and the Junta, the agreement will probably result in a new bankruptcy when it proves to be unworkable. Puerto Rico is faced with a dire choice between the agreement favored by the Junta and the even worse terms favored by some bondholders and some of Trump’s recent appointees to the Junta.
The debate and the fight over this agreement, which should be rejected, will be major issue inside and outside the legislature in the early months of 2021.
Fragmented, Discontinuous Resistance
Austerity and the policies of the Junta have not gone unchallenged. Unfortunately, however, resistance has been fragmented and sporadic.
The adoption of Law #7 in 2009 provoked widespread mobilizations and a one-day general strike (paro general or paro nacional) of largely public employees. But the fight was led by two rival coalitions (linked to different sectors of the labor movement), a division which hindered effective action and contributed to the movement’s collapse after the paro general in October 2009.
Law #66 in 2014 also generated strong resistance, above all by public corporation unions. (Public corporations are government-owned entities that have financial autonomy and issue their own debt.).
The movement failed to reverse Law #66, as the government succeeded in falsely portraying the unions as defending their “privileges.” The lack of a united front bringing together union, social and community organizations again weakened the resistance by part of the working class.
Students at the University of Puerto Rico have been at the vanguard of the fight against austerity measures imposed by the Junta and the collaboration of university administrators (through tuition hikes, for example). A prolonged student strike in 2010 won considerable support beyond the university. But other paros and strikes in 2017 and later years failed to generate the same degree of support.
Meanwhile, groups large and small kept up the fight around other issues including women’s rights, environmental struggles, the demand for an audit of Puerto Rico’s debt, and the need to address the needs of those affected by Hurricane Maria and the earthquakes and the pandemic. Vital as these initiatives have been, they were separate and dispersed actions: no coordinating body or common program emerged to bring them together as parts of broad united front.
Then, in July 2019 Puerto Rico was hit by a different kind of hurricane. In a momentous week, former Secretary of Education Julia Keleher, who had presided over the closing of hundreds of schools, was arrested by the FBI and indicted on corruption charges. At the same time, long portions of a shameful Telegram chat between Governor Ricardo Rosselló and his inner circle were made public.
The conversation was full of sexist and homophobic comments. It included vile attacks on political opponents and journalists, and even joking references to the bodies of those who died as a result of Hurricane María or its aftermath. Indignation swept the Island and soon led to protests demanding Rosselló resignations.
The Summer of 2019: Social Explosion
In a few days, pickets grew from a dozen, to hundreds and then thousands of participants. On July 15 close to 30,000 demonstrated in Old San Juan. Daily and nightly protests often concluded in confrontations with the Police, who regularly cleared the streets with massive use of teargas.
On July 17 more than 200,000 marched demanding Rosselló’s resignation. Protests of all sorts (marches, pickets, vigils, roadblocks, etc.) spread across the Island. On July 22 more than 500,000 filled Puerto Rico’s widest highway, the largest gathering of any sort in Puerto Rico’s history.
Close to midnight on July 24, Governor Rosselló announced that he would resign his post as of August 2. It was an exhilarating and invigorating popular victory, truly unforgettable for those who experienced it. For the first time in Puerto Rican history, under Spanish or U.S. colonialism, a ruler had been removed from office through mass mobilization.
The social explosion of the summer of 2019 cannot be attributed merely to Keleher’s arrest or the reaction to the infamous Telegram chat, offensive as it was. It was rather a concentrated expression of the anger and frustration accumulated over a decade of uninterrupted economic crisis, austerity policies and the incapacity of often corrupt politicians to provide alternatives.
Some have described these extraordinary events as a “spontaneous” insurgency, while others argued that they indicate how traditional forms of organization, such as labor unions or political parties, are now obsolete. This is wrong on two counts.
The road to the Summer of 2019 was prepared by dozens of deliberate initiatives by all sorts of activist organizations: feminist groups, environmental campaigns, student organizations, labor unions, LGBTQ coalitions, collectives opposed to the Junta’s policies, socialist organizations, and many others.
People knew what a paro was and how it works, not spontaneously but thanks to many previous struggles and initiatives. The speed with which the call for a one-day paro spread through social media, and was embraced overnight by hundreds of thousands, can only be explained by the fact that years of labor and student actions had familiarized the public with the notion and practice of paros, which they could thus readily understand as a tactic appropriate to the fight for Rossello’s resignation.
Similarly, far from being superfluous, labor unions provided much of the material and personnel required to carry out the largest mobilizations. One cannot gather several hundred thousand persons without deploying sound trucks, route guides, vehicles for the press, portable johns, first aid teams, and speaker platforms, most of which were provided by unions.(3)
Grand as the Summer of 2019 was, its aftermath was marked by the problem of fragmentation. Those who wish to build on that experience now have the challenge of creating some kind of broad coordinating body, capable of attracting labor, feminist, student and environmental organizations, and able to adopt a shared set of demands or program.
Electoral Terrain and Coming Battles
The discontent that exploded in the Summer of 2019 undoubtedly had an impact on the 2020 electoral results. Rosselló in 2016 had won the governorship with 42% of the vote. Close to 20% of those who voted supported forces other than the two historically dominant political parties, the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) and the Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP).
Those new forces included independent candidate for governor Alexandra Lúgaro, who obtained 11% of the votes cast and the Partido del Pueblo Trabajador, which had also participated in the 2012 elections.
In early 2019, on the eve of the Summer of 2019, a group led by Representative Manuel Natal who had abandoned the PPD, independent candidate Alexandra Lúgaro, the Partido del Pueblo Trabajador and labor, feminist and LGBTQ activists joined to create the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana (MVC).
The MVC adopted a clear-cut anti-neoliberal program, committed to the defense of working people, women and the environment and opposition to the PROMESA policies imposed by the Junta. It called for an end to the existing colonial relation but was open to the participation of supporters of different status options, including independence, statehood or some form of sovereign free association.
Five parties participated in the 2020 elections: the PNP and the PPD, the Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP), the MVC and the new rightwing religious-fundamentalist party, Proyecto Dignidad. In the last four elections the PIP had obtained less than three per cent of the vote.
The November 2020 elections registered a new reduction in support for the traditionally dominant parties. PNP candidate Pedro Pierluisi won the governorship with a mere 33.24% of the vote. The PPD, whose gubernatorial candidate received 31.75% of the vote, won majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. But the most salient fact about the elections was the encouraging result for the more progressive forces, the PIP and the MVC.
The MVC and PIP candidates for governor each received 14% of the vote. No pro-independence candidate had received a comparable portion of the vote since the 1950s. The MVC elected four legislators (two representatives and two senators), which again, no “third party” had achieved since the 1950s. The PIP elected one senator and one representative.
The MVC delegation is composed of Afro-Puerto Rican feminist and LGBTQ activist Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, social activist and civil rights lawyer Mariana Nogales, young lawyer José Bernardo Márquez, and the author of this article. The elections were marred by an unprecedented number of irregularities through which the MVC was quite likely deprived of two additional victories: the election of a fifth legislator and of the mayor of San Juan.(4)
MVC and PIP legislators are now in a better position to introduce legislation to audit Puerto Rico’s debt, block the policies of the Junta, reject the proposed agreement with the holders of Puerto Rico’s debt, restore labor rights, revert privatization measures and strengthen women’s rights among other objectives.
Most of these measures, however, have little chance of being adopted unless they are supported by significant mobilizations outside the legislature. This is the main task posed for the coming months: to connect legislative initiatives with an intensified and, hopefully, better coordinated activism by labor, women’s, student, pensioners’, environmental, LGBTQ and other movements.
A Mandate for Statehood?
The “status issue” is at the center of Puerto Rico’s politics. Should Puerto Rico become a state of the United States, an independent republic, or a republic (or sovereign entity) associated with the United States? Those are the options incessantly debated as alternatives to the present colonial status.
The November 2020 elections included a referendum on this issue, which some have hailed as a “mandate” for statehood that liberal and progressive persons and forces in the United States should embrace.
The question posed in the plebiscite was basically “statehood, yes or no.” The referendum was enacted by the legislative majority of the pro-statehood PNP, against the opposition of the PPD and the PIP. Indeed, the objective of the PNP was to obtain a clear mandate for statehood.
The referendum result was 52.52% for and 47.48% against statehood (a difference of 63,000 of 1,248,176 cast). This can hardly be described as a decisive endorsement for statehood. If anything, it reflects a rather evenly divided opinion on this issue.
Put otherwise, in the referendum close to 48% of those voting opposed statehood. This is all the more remarkable since proponents of the Yes vote had ample funding, enabling them to run slick TV ads, for example, while the No campaign had far fewer resources.
Since voter participation in 2020 was 54.72%, statehood’s vote represents 27.8% of the registered voters. As indicated, this was also the election in which the vote for the PIP’s candidate for governor jumped from 2.13% to 14%.
Thus, although statehood has significant support in Puerto Rico, there is no mandate and the issue is far from settled.
Statehood and U.S. Progressives
At first sight, support for statehood for Puerto Rico may seem like a logical position for U.S. progressives. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, federal legislation and presidential decisions apply to them, yet they have no voting representatives in Congress and cannot vote in presidential elections. Statehood thus would be a way of doing justice to this disenfranchised community.
The problem with this reasoning is that it ignores the fact that to escape its present colonial status Puerto Rico has at least two other alternatives besides statehood, namely independence and some form of sovereign free association with the United States. Who then should decide which road Puerto Rico should take?
The only democratic answer is that this is something for the Puerto Rican people to decide. Therefore, U.S. progressives should demand, not statehood, but a fair self-determination process for Puerto Rico.(5)
A more elaborate defense of statehood as a progressive goal points out that Puerto Rico’s colonial status was enabled by the doctrine of non-incorporation formulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 1900s.
In a series of decisions known as the Insular Cases, the doctrine established that the United States could control territories which were possessions but not part of the United States. In contrast with other past or then existing U.S. territories, these were non-incorporated territories.
This policy of non-incorporation was adopted by basically the same Supreme Court which a few years earlier embraced the infamous “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson and thus validated racial segregation across the U.S. South. While Plessy v. Ferguson was revoked in 1954 and official segregation ultimately dismantled, the Insular Cases are still in the books and the colonial relationship that they enabled remains in place.
From this unobjectionable historical account of the links and parallels between racial segregation and colonialism, some conclude that the U.S. Supreme Court should revoke the doctrine of non-incorporation. This would presumably redefine Puerto Rico as not a possession but part of the United States, and thus as a future state.
But this would mean that Puerto Rico’s future would be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court and not the Puerto Rican people. In other words, from the undeniable fact that racial segregation and colonialism were linked historically, it does not follow that the solution of the colonial problem can be imported lock, stock and barrel from the dismantling of segregation.
Despite some problems, a bill recently introduced by representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velázquez is a step in the right direction. Instead of seeking statehood, the bill provides for the election of a Status Assembly that in collaboration with a commission designated by Congress would elaborate non-colonial status options for Puerto Rico.
One of these options would then be presented to the Puerto Rican people in a plebiscite. If it receives majority support, it may be enacted by Congress. As can be appreciated, this leaves the final decision in the hands of Congress and may keep Puerto Ricans voting pointlessly for an option that the former is not willing to enact.
This could be remedied if the bill instead mandated that, after the consultation between the Status Assembly and the Congressional commission, Congress would adopt legislation enunciating the options it is willing to enact. Puerto Rican people would vote to choose between those options.(6)
But even while embracing the demand of self-determination for Puerto Rico, U.S. progressives are entitled to ask why some of us oppose statehood and voted against it on November 3.
Support for statehood in Puerto Rico is based on the calculation that U.S. living standards are significantly higher than living conditions in Puerto Rico. From this, the conclusion is drawn that making Puerto Rico a state would equalize Puerto Rico with the United States.
But there is an evident flaw in this argument. Statehood would perpetuate the conditions that have perpetuated its colonial dependent economy, with all its limits and consequences.
Statehood implies the free flow of goods, money, capital between Puerto Rico and the United States, but these are the conditions under which Puerto Rico has evolved over the past 120 years. They have not led to a leveling of Puerto Rico with its metropolis, nor a minimally coherent or balanced evolution of its economy.
It is true that statehood should lead to an increased inflow of federal funds. But Puerto Rico already receives a significant amount of federal funds. They compensate for the limits of its colonial economy. Increased funding would mean increased compensation, but the conditions making such compensation necessary would remain in place.
What best fits the needs of the Puerto Rican people would be their political organization as an independent republic, capable of determining the economic and social policies best adapted to a socially just and ecologically sound development, in collaboration with other peoples, and in particular, in collaboration with the people of the United States.
U.S. progressives must struggle for such an outcome, while supporters of Puerto Rican independence cannot be indifferent to progressive struggles in the United States.
The struggle for Puerto Rico’s right to self-determination, for independence under just and adequate conditions for its people, and the fight for social change and justice in the United States, are convergent struggles that should jointly be embraced by progressives in the United States and Puerto Rico, including of course Puerto Ricans in the United States.
- For further background about Puerto Rico under U.S. rule see César J. Ayala and Rafael Bernabe, Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History Since 1898 (University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
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- For more background on Puerto Rico’s economic and debt crisis see Rafael Bernabe, “Puerto Rico: Economic Reconstruction, Debt Cancellation and Self-Determination,” International Socialist Review, 111, Winter 2018-19.
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- For a more detailed account of the Summer of 2019 and the ensuing debates see Rafael Bernabe, “The Puerto Rican Summer,” New Politics, XVII: 4 (Winter 2020). https://newpol.org/issue_post/the-puerto-rican-summer/
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- For more on the elections results see Jorge Lefevre Tavárez, “A Reflection on the Puerto Rican Elections,” Democratic Left, November 7, 2020. https://www.dsausa.org/democratic-left/a-reflection-on-the-puerto-rican-elections/
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- For further considerations on this see Rafael Bernabe and Manuel Rodríguez-Banchs, “Solidarity without Erasure: Responding to Trump on Puerto Rico,” Counterpunch, April 9, 2019. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/09/solidarity-without-erasure-responding-to-trump-on-puerto-rico/ and “Open Letter to the NAACP on Puerto Rico,” July 10, 2018, published in several websites including https://solidarity-us.org/puerto_rico_naacp/
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- For a more detailed discussion of this bill see Rafael Bernabe, “On the bill for a ‘Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act of 2020’ by Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velázquez” https://rafaelbernabe.org/proyectoacs/
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March-April 2021, ATC 211


Most shrimp boil recipes include corn and potatoes (and sometimes sausage), plus they make enough to feed an army. But, I was cooking for one (that’d be me) and I just wanted the “flavor.” The simpler, the better.
Recently I acquired this Old Bay mug (don’t ya love finds like that?) and I knew all I wanted to fill it with were shrimp and rice. (I’ll save the corn and potatoes for company dinner.)
In the time it took to cook the rice, the shrimp were prepped, simmered, and done — nothin’ else to do except spoon a dollop of each into my mug and eat!
Simple Shrimp Boil
(adapted from recipe #262 in 365 Ways to Cook Fish & Seafood by Charles Pierce… and Old Bay, of course)
3 sprigs fresh parsley (save some for garnish)
2 bay leaves
2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced in half
2 strips lemon peel
1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
1 Tbsp. Old Bay seasoning
1 cup water
1/2 cup dry white wine (I used Chardonnay)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 lb. large shrimp in the shell, deveined with tails intact
1 cup cooked jasmine rice (prepared per package directions)
1-2 green onions, including tops, thinly sliced
Place parsley, bay leaves, garlic, lemon peel, peppercorns, and Old Bay seasoning in a piece of cheesecloth (hint: I used a coffee filter) and tie with kitchen twine.
Bring water, wine, and salt to a boil in a large saucepan over high heat. Add seasoning “bag”; reduce heat to medium and simmer 5 to 10 minutes.
Add shrimp; cook until pink and just beginning to “bend.” (Beware of cooking them until they curl into an “O” — it stands for overdone!) Drain well and discard seasoning bag.
Serve shrimp atop cooked rice. Garnish with green onions and parsley. Feel free to add a salad or steamed veggies and warm French bread for a complete meal.
FYI, I peeled the shrimp before serving and shared half with my hubby. (They made a flavorful shrimp fettuccine Alfredo, but he ate the evidence!)
‘Twas the least I could do after he constructed this to make my life easier.
Simplicity reigns at the lake. Ahhhhh…
Enjoying shortcuts to happiness,


Waukesha - Woodman's Food Market, which has announced plans to build a grocery store on the vacant Spancrete Industries Inc. site at Highway 164 and E. Main St., will get up to $3.5 million in financial incentives from the city under a package unanimously recommended Monday by the city's Redevelopment Authority.
A proposed tax incremental financing plan states that Woodman's would develop a 243,753-square-foot grocery store and create 219 full- and part-time jobs, adding $15 million to the city's tax base when finished.
A public hearing will be held at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 12 at City Hall before the Plan Commission to seek approval of the proposed tax increment district and project plans. Approval of a Joint Review Board of other government representatives must also be obtained.
The Common Council is expected to act on a rezoning request for the project, changing the land use from industrial to commercial, at its Oct. 4 meeting.
In a letter to Common Council members, Community Development Director Steven Crandell said the tax incremental financing plan will provide incentives for redevelopment of a blighted area.
In justifying the incentives, the plan says that commercial growth in Waukesha has come to a near standstill. In addition, it says that redevelopment of the no-longer used industrial site is much more costly than development on virgin land.
Spancrete Industries, which manufactures large concrete panels, closed its facility on Main St. last November.
Woodman's, a Janesville-based employee-owned retail grocer, would occupy about 19 acres of the 34-acre site, along with a gas station. About a half-dozen out lots of about an acre or two would be developed separately.
The property is adjacent to a Pick 'n Save grocery store.
The tax incremental financing plan lists some extraordinary costs that, if left to Woodman's to pay entirely, would make it unfeasible.
Those include $1 million to $1.2 million for demolition of an existing shuttered Spancrete concrete plane casting facility, $200,000 to $250,000 in city-required architectural upgrade to the Woodman's building, $150,000 to $200,000 in site preparation, $125,000 to $150,000 in environmental testing, $400,000 to $600,000 for off-site infrastructure improvements and $3 million to $4 million in land acquisition costs.
Tax incremental financing allows municipalities to use property taxes generated by new or improved property to pay for the public improvements that attracted the new development. Until the project costs are paid off, up to a maximum of nearly 30 years, the added tax base from the development is not shared with overlying taxing districts, such as the county, school and technical school districts.
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REF NO.: 103
|SUBJECT:||Anthropologist to give public public lecture about Saami ski technology|
|DATE:||Jan. 19, 2004|
Dr. Robert Paine, professor emeritus of Anthropology at Memorial University, will give a public lecture on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2004. The title of his lecture is Slippery Slopes: Saami (Lapp) Skis - a Six Thousand Year Story. The lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in Room A-1043, located in the Arts Administration Building on Memorial University's St. John's campus. This event is sponsored by the Avalon Nordic Ski Club and the Department of Anthropology, Memorial University. Dr. Paine worked for many years as an anthropologist with the Lapp or Saami people of Norway. Skis were essential technology in the reindeer-herding Saami culture. His talk will include reminiscences of his time living with the Saami in the 1950s, when he and his hosts wore reindeer hide moccasins and attached their feet to their skis using thongs.
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Blog: Top 3 debts to pay off before you get aggressive with your mortgage
While many Australians naturally want to see see the end of their home loan term, increasing payments may not be the best idea if you also have other loans.
Although mortgage payments might seem like your biggest outgoing cost, the amount of interest you are paying is likely to be the lowest of all your various loans.
Therefore, it is best to get debts with high interest rates off your back before you tackle the home loan.
Getting rid of high interest loans and debts faster means you'll pay less in the long run, so it is best to pay off credit card debt as well as car and personal loans before tacking extra payments onto the mortgage.
Credit card debt
The average interest rate on a credit card is around 15 per cent. Compare this to the average rate of interest on a fixed rate loan- at say 4 to 5 per cent per annum- and it is easy to see how savings could be in the thousands for some home buyers.
If you can't pay off your credit card before your home loan, it may be worth consolidating your loans so you end up paying off your credit card at the same rate as your home loan.
If you are looking at buying a new car or upgrading the one you have, it might be better to consider a home loan with revolving credit instead of getting a loan to pay for the new vehicle.
This is one way to keep interest rates down because, again, you would only be paying the interest at the same rate as your mortgage.
The downside is it could take longer to pay off the car over the long run, actually costing you in interest rates. It might be best to increase repayments on your car's loan in order to pay it off as soon as possible.
Get some advice from an expert who can work out the best deal for you in these circumstances.
Whether you are getting married or going on holiday, if you get a personal loan, chances are you will be charged a high rate of interest, so you will definitely want to pay it back as soon as you can.
Avoid borrowing from 'loan sharks' because they often charge extremely high interest rates – up to several hundred per cent over a year.
A loan with a revolving credit line might be a better option, but it is worth talking to the experts before you commit yourself.


Mick Hay of Rimfire Resources believes there has never been a better time to look at the huge, and growing, range of agricultural and agribusiness careers.
In the article published in the Rural Weekly, Mr. Hay said; “I talk to schoolkids and tell them we’ve got graduates in this sector graduating with multiple job offers, and that’s quite unlike nearly any other sector out there.
“Our biggest issue as an industry is a lot of people don’t actually know that.
“It’s up to the industry as a whole to talk about and showcase these success stories”.
He said it no longer mattered what your interests were, because there was a good chance there would be an agricultural job to suit.
Please click this link to read the whole article – Rural Weekly article


Just ask Dorothy or Cinderella. I have always loved shoes. I still have the pair of little red sandals that I wore when I was 18 months old. I fondly remember a pair of red suede tie-up oxfords that I wore with white knee socks, a navy pleated skirt, and a bright red cable-knit cardigan when I was in the fifth grade. I loved that outfit. When I taught, I sang the “New Shoes Song” to my students. They would prance into the classroom with their spanking new shoes, point their toes in front of me, and say, “Look, Mrs. Horton!”
I was thinking of all of this as I switched out my winter shoes for my summer shoes the other day. I have a lot of shoes. I did not count them. One of the pairs I came across was my penny loafers, the cordovan Bass Weejuns of my youth. Now, there is a pair of shoes. I have two pair of Weejuns. The other pair of penny loafers is the Palomino color. They are the newest ones, and when I saw them, I HAD to have them.
In 1965, I changed schools. I had lived in Indiana all my life, and moved to North Carolina when my mom married a Marine. Moving from the Midwest to the South was pretty much a huge culture shock. I didn’t understand half of what was said. Single syllable words were stretched out to two or more syllables, like “see it” for sit. The lights were “cut on.” Books were “toted,” and the greeting was, “Hey,” not hi or hello.
The biggest problem for me was shoes, though. My parents’ income was not one to support brand name clothing or shoes. In Indiana, the name didn’t matter; it was just the style that counted. At my new school, it was the total opposite. And I didn’t have the Villager dresses or the Bass loafers that the other girls did. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb. It was hard enough to be the “new girl,” let alone be the incorrectly dressed one.
So, in 1982, seventeen years after the fact, I bought my Bass Weejuns. I know it was 1982, because I stuck new pennies in the loafers. Last summer, while thrift shopping with my sisters, I found the blonde-colored pair. I love those shoes, and wear them often, not just on Throw-back Thursday.
They remind me that I can afford now, what I couldn’t then. Some things have stuck with me a lifetime, and yes, I am a little shallow. Even though it is my perception, cute shoes mean the difference between feeling good and feeling great and fitting in. Hey, maybe it’s not just me. Let’s ask Cinderella and Dorothy and Carrie Bradshaw.


Sometimes in science, it helps to set the bar high. That seems to be the attitude of the MIT Electric Vehicle Team (EVT). By their reckoning, one of the biggest impediments to the average driver adopting an electric vehicle is recharge times. So, having converted a Porsche 914 to electric, their next project is to produce a prototype family car that will achieve 0-60mph in under nine seconds, have a range of 200 miles, and fully recharge in under 11 minutes.
Read the full article: MIT tackles challenge of electric car that recharges in ten minutes flat


Sermon – Sunday, June 30, 2013
Zion Lutheran Church, Hoople, ND
Distractions. They’re everywhere. It’s easy to get distracted. Have you ever been in the middle of reading or working on something and the phone rings? Or you’re thinking about something and you walk into a room and forget what you went in there for? Or have you gone to the store to get something specific and you got distracted by someone or something and got everything but the one thing you needed? That’s why I bring a list, because it’s happened to me. Lists are important because they keep us focused on our intended outcome.
Jesus, however, didn’t need lists. He wasn’t easily distracted. He always knew who He was and where He was going. “He set His face toward Jerusalem.” Jerusalem, the place where He would be betrayed, handed over, mocked, tortured, and killed. He set His face toward the cross. He was headed toward death and yet He did not turn back. He kept going, knowing what fate awaited Him. Why? Because that was the reason He was born. The cross was His purpose. All of creation was on an entire collision course to sin and death and Jesus was going to stop that, for us. Nothing was going to distract Him from saving us. Nothing. He was single-minded in His purpose of following God’s will. We were His number one priority, no distractions. He didn’t take the easy road.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case for us. We are all too easily distracted and we want to take the easy road. When Jesus says to follow me, we – like the person in Luke’s gospel – let distractions get in the way of our purpose. The person in today’s story said he would follow Jesus, but “first let me go and bury my father.” And another person said they would follow Jesus, but “first let me say goodbye to those at home.” These were not strange endeavors they wanted to pursue. These individuals simply wanted to take care of normal parts of life. I think what Jesus was speaking to was their distractions. He was asking them to follow Him and set their faces toward Jerusalem too, but these were probably only one of a list of distractions that would keep them from following Jesus. They said we will follow you, but first, I need to take care of one thing. I think Jesus knew that one thing would lead to another thing and another, and another. There would always be one more, “but first.”
If we’re honest with ourselves, we really aren’t any different. We will follow Jesus, but first I have to take care of my family, but first I need to finish work, but first I need to get through all these sporting events, but first I need to get all my affairs in order, but first…..the list is endless. All these gifts that God has given us – our family, our work, and our recreation – are good, but following Jesus must come first. The First Commandment says, “You are to have no other gods.” Luther’s explanation says this means “we are to fear, love, and trust God above all things.” God must come first. We must love God more than all the rest; otherwise we make them gods instead of the one true God. We must set our face toward Jerusalem. We must set our face toward the cross.
This begins in our baptism. Like Gabriella, in baptism her face is set toward Jerusalem. My face is set toward Jerusalem and so is yours. Baptism is a daily reminder – imprinted not merely on our foreheads, but in our hearts – that we are to look first and foremost to the cross. This is our identity. Gabriella was given a new identity today. She is a beloved child of God, a member now of the body of Christ, a worker with us in the kingdom of God. This is our number one priority. We are called to follow Jesus despite the many distractions that will pull us away. This is why we are baptized into a community of believers, so we can support one another in this journey of faith. It is not an easy journey. It leads to new life, but first, we must be willing to face death.
Just like Jesus, setting our face toward Jerusalem means setting our face toward death. There will be times we will be ridiculed for following Jesus. There will be times we will have to make tough decisions between following what the world says is good and following Jesus’ commandment of love. There will be times, many times, when Gabriella and all of us will be distracted, but we must listen to the call of the Holy Spirit to lead us back to Christ. We cannot be lured into a false illusion of discipleship. It is not easy. There are many who have set his or her face toward Jerusalem. People like Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for 27 years in the fight to stop apartheid in South Africa, people like Rosa Parks, and elderly African American woman, who would not sit in the back of the bus and helped pave the way for freedom and equality, people like Mother Theresa who cared for the despised and outcast in the poverty stricken cities in India. We are not all called to such grand expectations; everyone has his or her own purpose in the kingdom of God.
There are many disciples here in this congregation who set his or her face toward Jerusalem: people who make the choice to teach Sunday School when it would be easier to let someone else do it, people who take the time out of their busy lives to donate and bring food to the Walsh County Food Pantry so people right here in this community will have food to eat, people who take the time to help people in this community who have been suffering from various kinds of flooding even when they have full-time jobs and homes of their own to sustain, young people who stand up to one another when bullying, and prejudice try to take hold, people who make the effort to come to worship and listen to the word of God when it would be easier to be distracted by a variety of other things, people who make the choice not to give up, but persevere despite incredible struggles. Disciples are people who set their faces toward Jerusalem and do not look back. It is not always easy, but the Holy Spirit led us first to Christ through baptism and we have the promise that the Holy Spirit will remain with us always. Like Gabriella, we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.
Why did Jesus keep His face toward Jerusalem, toward the cross? It was not because it was easy. It was not for any reward for Himself. It was for the sake of the world. It was for the sake of you and me. His destiny was the cross. His destiny was love. His destiny was making sure nothing would ever separate us from the love of God. As followers of Jesus, we are commanded to do the same. We are to set our faces toward Jerusalem. We are to set our faces toward the cross, for even though we have been baptized into Jesus’ death, we have also been baptized into His resurrection. Let us hear and act on the words of Jesus, “But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Distractions. They’re everywhere, but so is Jesus. Amen.


Athena’s David Lynch and Jeff Finkelman Discuss Impact Investing in ThinkAdvisor
On February 18, 2016, ThinkAdvisor profiled Athena Capital Advisor’s impact investment strategy in an article that included commentary from David Lynch, President, Managing Partner and Deputy CIO of Athena and Jeff Finkelman, Research Associate, Impact Investing, at the firm.
“The scales are starting to tip… In the early days you had to give up some return if you wanted to do this. Now the scales are at least equally balanced,” David Lynch told Senior Reporter Bernice Napach.
Jeff Finkelman further noted that the walls between philanthropy and impact investing are starting to break down. “As the industry matures, people are starting to see it more as a spectrum rather than separate segments,” he described.
David Lynch oversees all of Athena’s investment management and business functions, with particular focus on integrating strategy across asset classes, prioritizing research initiatives, and addressing client-specific requests. As a member of the Investment Committee, he helps guide Athena’s asset allocation, manager selection and portfolio construction processes. David has been a key contributor to Athena’s business leadership and growth since joining the firm in 2004.
Jeff Finkelman focuses on socially-responsible, ESG and impact investing across all asset classes. Working closely with Athena’s Portfolio Managers, Jeff helps identify and assess investment opportunities that align with client values or which have the potential to generate positive impact in areas of interest to clients.


Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and Frankfurt International Airport are the two main airports that are located near the Rhine valley and offer flights to this place. The tourists from different parts of the world can get to this place by airways.
Attractions of the city
1. Rudesheimer Roseneck Vineyards
|Rudesheimer Roseneck Vineyards|
The Rhine valley is known for its lush green vineyards. You can visit the huge Rudesheimer Roseneck Vineyard whose amazing views can be seen from the hills along the Rhine Valley. It is just a few miles from Switzerland and provides you an opportunity o taste some amazing wine in Germany.
One of the most populous mountains near the Rhine River that catches the attention of the tourists is loreley Rock. The echo produced in this area is amazing and you can try calling out the name of your partner and let the nature repeat it.
3. Bingen am Rhine
|Bingen am Rhine|
Gateway to an amazingly beautiful World Heritage site listed under UNESCO, Bingen am Rhine is full of historical stories. Apart from the historical importance, this place is also known for its Wine growing regions. It is also a perfect place for hiking and cycling.
4. Rheinfels Castle
This castle is located at the hill top and provides an amazing view of St. Goar, a picturesque town in Germany. This historical place is worth a visit and you will really enjoy a guided tour to this place.
|Mosel Hotel Hähn|
The visitors can enjoy a romantic stay in the top notch hotels located in the city. A wide choice for these hotels includes Romantik Hotel Schloss Rheinfels, Hotel Ebertor, Häcker´s Grand Hotel and Mosel Hotel Hähn. There are several other hotels and lodges that offer a perfect stay with a romantic auara to the honeymooners.
Rhine valley is an amazing destination with wonderful natural delights. The stunning landscapes and romantic destinations make this place an outstanding place for honeymooners.


Ben: "Today's story
read by the Becky."
Adam & Hoss: Making themselves
comfortable in their favorite chairs.
Little Joe: Sitting with his feet on the
Title: Home is
the Heart Is
Rated: PG for violence
Summary: Started as a challenge story ("What if Ben had
sons needing medical care at the same time?") this grew into something
has taken me on some interesting journeys where I found new friends and
a beautiful old world. Although there are additional parts in the
this story stands on its own.
Title: The Best
Gift of All
Summary: Ben's birthday, but the boys aren't home.
Summary: Written to
explain a publicity photo I saw -- Hoss and Joe want to compete in the
annual Virginia City Days Shootout, but how will they get Ben and Adam
to complete their team?
Summary: Joe and Hoss
figure out what's been bothering Adam
Rated: PG-13 for violence
Summary: Adam lies near death as Hoss tries to rescue Joe
from the men who attacked his two brothers. Although this is the
first of a 4-part story (the 4th isn't finished yet, though it's
getting closer), this part is a complete story by itself.
Title: Ghosts of
a Christmas Past
Summary: When you've lost
someone you love, you can't help hoping they are still, somehow, with
you -- watching out for you.
Title: One Cold
Summary: A double drabble (story in 100 words) for Susan,
who wondered if Adam ever came home.
Summary: Ben wonders if he's
managed to teach his sons the most important lesson of all.
Title: The Battle
Rated: PG, for violence
Summary: What if Adam fought
in the Civil War? (Not a deathfic -- read at least through his
Title: Fields of
Rated: PG-13 for western
Summary: Shortly after his 16th birthday, Joe has to take
on a man's responsibilities and, in a complete reversal, help his
oldest brother out of a deadly fix.
Summary: A short-short about
the power of the written word.
Summary: What's wrong with Joe?
Or, A Waltz For Hoss
Summary: Adam and Joe help Hoss with a problem.
Title: The Song
Summary: A black man saves Joe's life, but why?
Summary: POW challenge
RETURN TO LIBRARY


Watch Full We're the Millers in HD QualityNow you can see We're the Millers in HD format with duration 110 Min and was released on 2013-08-07 and MPAA rating is 1062.
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- Movie title in your country : We're the Millers
- Year of movie : 2013
- Genres of movie : Comedy, Crime,
- Status of movie : Released
- Release date of movie : 2013-08-07
- Companies of movie : New Line Cinema, BenderSpink, Heyday Films, Newman/Tooley Films, Vincent Newman Entertainment, Slap Happy Productions (II),
- Countries of movie : United States of America,
- Language of movie : English,
- Durationof movie : 110 Min
- Average vote of movie : 6.9
- Youtube ID of movie : IikrJH8P9Dw
- Translation of movie : EN,DE,IT,PL,FR,NL,RU,HU,ES,HE,ZH,SV,PT,SK,FI,DA,UK,TR,EL,CS,BG,TH,NB,RO,
- Actors of movie :Jason Sudeikis (David Clark), Jennifer Aniston (Rose O'Reilly), Will Poulter (Kenny Rossmore), Emma Roberts (Casey Mathis), Ed Helms (Brad Gurdlinger), Nick Offerman (Donny Fitzgerald), Thomas Lennon (Rick Nathanson), Kathryn Hahn (Edie Fitzgerald), Molly C. Quinn (Melissa Fitzgerald), Tomer Sisley (Pablo Chacon), Matthew Willig (One-Eye), Luis Guzmán (Mexican Cop), Mark L. Young (Scottie P.), Ken Marino (Todd - Strip Club Owner), Laura-Leigh (Kymberly), Vickie Eng (Hospital Nurse)
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Director : Rawson Marshall Thurber, Producer : Chris Bender, Producer : Vincent Newman, Producer : Tucker Tooley, Producer : Happy Walters, Producer : Edward Pelle, Screenplay : Bob Fisher, Screenplay : Steve Faber, Screenplay : Sean Anders, Screenplay : John Morris, Story : Bob Fisher, Story : Steve Faber, Original Music Composer : Ludwig Göransson, Original Music Composer : Theodore Shapiro, Director of Photography : Barry Peterson, Editor : Michael L. Sale, Production Design : Clayton Hartley
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Updates at 2012-12-12: Please checkout FlipView for an improved solution.
This short post explains how to handle touch events for the flip animation introduced in our previous post.
The full source codes of the demo application are available at Github:
A pre-built APK file is also present for your Android devices:
Updated at 2012-08-17: Fixed the broken links to the project and the APK file.
The new demo app adds two new features compared to the previous one:
Supports flipping over between two views. FlipCards.java takes screenshots of the front and back views, which are used to construct the textures for the translucent
GLSurfaceView. The flip animation is rendered by four instances of Card. Please refer to the draw(GL10 gl) method for more details.
Flip angle can be controlled by touch events. Angle is calculated according to the relative movement of touches. The logic can be found in the handleTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) method.
The demo app is just a prove of concept. It can be enhanced to be a component for general scenarios:
To support a
Adapteras its data source to load views dynamically and lazily.
To implement similar APIs like
To support other fancy effects that can be implemented in OpenGL ES.
But I’m sorry that I’ll be in a long trip with my family. Both
OpenAphid-Engine will not be updated until I come back. You can still reach me via email if you have any questions.


WF cheer teams unstoppable
The West Fargo High School varsity cheer team is on a roll.
It took home first-place honors in the Medium Varsity Non-Tumbling division during the UCA Spirit of America Competition on Jan. 22. Then, the Packers went to the Valentine's Classic Cheer Competition in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Jan. 30, where it took first place and received the overall Grand Champion award, giving the team a banner and squad jackets.
The UCA Spirit of America Competition was held at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. Varsity cheer members include: Alicia Bates, Gabbie Chase, Amber Cox, Missy Harms, Chelsea Hermanson, Taylor Hintgen, Tuyen Huynh, Danielle Kartes, Morgan Laite, Renae Lisk, Raeya Mickelson, Kayleigh Omang, Brenna Raab, Cheyenne Rust, and McKenzie Schiele. They are coached by Jenni Stewart.
The varsity team will now prepare for the upcoming UPA Nationals in Minneapolis, at the end of February.
The West Fargo junior varsity cheer team took home third place in the Small JV division at the Mall of America, and also placed first at the Valentine's Classic.
Team members include: Gina Anderson, Kelsey Husler, Harly Johnson, Mallory Kuehl, Alyssa Manning, Shelby Pearson, Emily Perala, Tanya Ridder, and Maren Thompson. They are coached by Cassie Voltzke.
The cheer teams will be a part of the opening credits of America's Got Talent this June, as Nick Cannon did his opening in front of them and other cheer teams.


Neogamma disc error
I burned the disc (a Memorex DVD+RDL(Yes i Know)), with Image Burn, at 2,4x speed, but when i put it in my wii it says DVD+R/bad burn/DL problem error 03023a00, and then it says that my drive model is 20081219, and that its to new to read DVD-Rs, which sucks, but i burned it on a DVD+RDL, so it should work. Any ideas?
EDIT: My Serial number comes back with this answer for chipset:
- There is a 50% chance the chipset is GC2-D4 on a smaller drive board.
- And there is also a 25% chance the chipset is GC2R-D2A.
- Lastly, a 25% chance the chipset is Combined GC2-D3 with no drive chip.
Is this bad or normal? will i need to do a modchip or hardmod? my wii is currently softmodded following Guides Bot instructions on this website.
It appears that you wont be able to use backup discs. You should go the usb loading route vs a modchip IMHO. USB loading provides a lot more options.
Ok, i had an external WD 300 GB hard drive, but when i plug it into the left/bottom usb port it doesnt work. Usb Loader GX and Configurable usb loader both detect it but say it's not responding, and the external hard drive's indicator lights show it's not getting any power. A Nintendo Forum moderator told me it could be done but he wasn't allowed to tell me. Can you guys help me out? Is there some kind of powersave setting for the usb ports, as my external hard drive needs continuous power.
Is it one of those drives that has two usb connectors? One for data and the other for power? No external power supply?
no, it just has one usb plug. Here is the model number: WD3200MLZ-00. It needs a power supply from the usb port.
When did you mod your Wii? Using our guide?
yes, using the guide posted by Guides Bots to softmod any wii, and i used letterbomb 4.3 and everything worked out good


|David S. Dickinson was designated the Acting Director, Public Affairs Office, at NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, effective April 1998. He has been Deputy Director of the Public Affairs Office since January 1993.
As Deputy Director of Public Affairs, he helps direct the Center’s educational programs, media services, guest activities and briefings, and the KSC Visitors Center, NASA’s largest public visitor complex.
Dickinson began his NASA career in 1985 as a Personnel Management Specialist at Kennedy Space Center, and was appointed Chief of Training in 1988. He managed all NASA training and development programs at KSC, the Senior Executive Service personnel system and the Drug-Free Workplace Program.
Prior to joining NASA, Dickinson served in agency-level positions with other Federal organizations in Washington, DC:
¨ Director of Personnel, Peace Corps (1982-85)
¨ Director of Congressional Liaison and Public Affairs, Federal Labor Relations Authority (1979-82)
¨ Staff Director of the Labor Relations Task Force, President’s Reorganization Project (1977-79)
¨ Assistant Director for Policy Development, Office of Labor-Management Relations, U.S. Civil Service Commission (1970-77)
During the previous 10 years, he worked as a reporter with Commerce Clearing House and as an editor with The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.
Born in Stoneham, Massachusetts, in 1941, Dickinson graduated from The American University in Washington, DC, in 1967. He has authored numerous articles and has appeared as a university guest lecturer on labor law and Congressional relations. He also has served as a volunteer arbitrator with the Juvenile Alternative Services Program in Brevard County, Florida.
Major professional awards presented to Dickinson include the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Peace Corps Commendation, a White House Letter of Appreciation, the International Personnel Management Association’s Special Service Award, and two consecutive Civil Service Commission Distinguished Service Awards.
Dickinson and his wife, Judith, reside in Merritt Island, Florida.


Since its inception in 1999, Salesforce has become the world’s leading CRM. Users find that the cloud-based app is thoughtfully designed and simple to pick up, yet robust enough for even the largest of enterprises. It’s no wonder Salesforce has built a loyal user base of over 150,000 customers.
One of the best aspects of Salesforce as a CRM is its extensibility. You can easily augment its native features by connecting it to other apps through integration and workflow automation. There are thousands of great apps to choose from in the App Exchange that work with and extend what Salesforce can do, but there’s only one platform where you can do all your integration and workflow automation from a singular place – Workato. With powerful capabilities and seamless interoperability with Salesforce, the Salesforce community was among the first to embrace the platform, and have done some amazing projects since. Here are five innovative stories of how Workato and its customers use automation to dream big with Salesforce.
Create a Slack-Based Deal Desk
The biggest, most persistent problem that Salesforce customers have has nothing to do with Salesforce itself. Rather, the problem is that the sales reps are too busy selling and therefore data collection suffers. Reps should log all their sales activities and updates in Salesforce, like when they do a demo or meet a customer, as well as when something changes like expected deal size, closure date, or competitive info.
But reps are busy selling and never keep their deals updated beyond the big stuff like a new lead coming in and when the lead is closed. That means all the intermediary information which is critical to projecting how the company will perform in the coming months or quarters is poor. This leads to terrible operational visibility into developing sales problems and hinders the ability to go fix them.
At Workato, we also have this problem, so we created a Deal Desk right inside Slack. Using Workato integrations, we created a set of recipes to make it super easy for our sales reps to update even the smallest changes into Salesforce straight from Slack using buttons, drop down lists, and simple commands.
Our Sales Team no longer has to go into Salesforce, navigate through lots of pages and individual records of each deal to make laborious updates. Instead, Slack functions as a centralized Deal Desk. where updating a deal status takes 10 seconds from Slack. Enabling functions from Slack makes a lot of sense – it’s where our sales reps are already chatting with fellow reps and sales managers about prospects, plans, and collaboration.
The first function of our Deal Desk helps increase Salesforce opportunity updates. In order to incentivize our sales team to update their status’ in Salesforce, we created a recipe that sends a notification to Slack every Friday at 12 PM PST. The notification contains a list of the rep’s open opportunities and prompts them to update these opportunities. The updates can be done right in Slack by simply clicking buttons.
To update an opportunity, the rep simply selects which opportunity they want to update from the dropdown list, which triggers the update opportunity flow in Slack. It will ask the rep for stage, probability, plan, and competitor updates – all which can be done by clicking buttons inside of Slack. The rep doesn’t need to wait until this reminder comes on Friday. This flow can also be triggered by using the Salesforce list opportunity command anytime they want to update a lead.
Secure Approvals from Slack
Perhaps the most unique aspect of a Slack Deal Desk run by Workbot is being able to carry out secure approval workflows inside of Slack. When sales deals are being made, there are often price adjustment requests. The number one enterprise collaboration tool uses Workato and Workbot to securely approve price adjustments inside of Slack. A group of managers must approve all of these requests and they wanted to be able to easily approve or reject without logging into Salesforce or flooding their email inboxes with request notifications.
Workbot for Slack was the only bot for the job, as its feature Verified User Access ensures that only the managers who are authorized to approve or reject these requests have the ability to do so. Verified User Access allows you to take actions inside of other apps from Slack (in this case, Salesforce) but requires that you authenticate by signing into your Salesforce account so that it can check if you have clearance.
Use AI to Triage Customer Support Tickets
Many of our customers, for example, use Einstein or IBM Watson to detect customer service (CS) ticket sentiment, which is an important aspect of triaging issues and preventing churn. Imagine receiving a ticket from an important customer who is extremely unhappy. It’s code red and you need to address her issue promptly, but without proper triaging, the ticket may get lost in the deluge of requests the CS team receives every day. A slow response time will only exacerbate the issue and you risk losing an important customer.
Integrating your CRM and your customer service app with IBM Watson is a game changer in this scenario. When the important customer files a ticket in ServiceCloud, for example, Workato will send the message to Watson. Watson analyzes the customer’s message and scores it as “angry.” Workato then moves Watson’s score back into the customer service app and also sends it to Salesforce, so it’s viewable on the customer’s profile.
Next, using Workato, you can set up automatic responses based on the sentiment Watson assigns the ticket. These responses can be conditional actions, such as sending a text message to the CS manager if the Watson analysis reads a customer’s sentiment as angry and they are categorized as a VIP. Or, if Watson reads a happy message, Workato can automatically create a Trello card with the customer’s Twitter handle to let the marketing team know to follow up on social media with the loyal customer. You can even use Workato and Watson to harness personality insights to drive your sales approach—Workato can send a survey for a low “joy” emotion and much more.
Automate Around Human Approvals in Salesforce
When Box, the popular online file sharing and content management service for businesses, started their new Partner Program, they immediately experienced an overwhelming number of applicants. Julien Bassan, the Senior Manager of the Business Development team was suddenly slammed with new partners to onboard, which was a tedious and time-consuming process, involving many back-and-forth conversations. They quickly determined that they needed to integrate Marketo, Salesforce, and Box. But finding a partner onboarding solution that could be implemented quickly — and that could easily keep up with the demand for new partner applications — was a challenge. Box couldn’t wait for an integration that would take a few months to set up. And because their desired workflow would inevitably require modifications, they needed an enterprise-grade platform that was still easy to tweak and required no code.
Box chose Workato, which took their 12-step onboarding process down to only 4. The process begins with a Marketo form to collect new applications; Workato allows them to automatically move the applicant information into Salesforce as accounts, contacts, and opportunities. Bassan can accept or reject an application right from Salesforce by changing its status from pending to “accepted” or “unaccepted”. Changing a lead’s status triggers the next Workato recipe. “When I change their status, it kicks off a follow-up email to the partner via Workato. If they are not accepted, we send an email asking for more information; if they are accepted, then Workato automatically creates a Box folder for the partner and adds the partner as a collaborator. This folder has all the information materials for new partners, and they can also upload their sales collateral,” explains Bassan..@BoxHQ uses Workato to take their 12-step Partner onboarding process down to only 4. Click To Tweet
Previously, it took Box roughly five hours to onboard a new partner because of all the manual data transferring and one-on-one communication. Now they can bring a partner onboard in less than an hour. “The efficiency these two automations are able to drive is really powerful because Workato is such an easy tool to deploy and then modify and expand over time. You can start out with one kind of recipe and as other tools become relevant, you can just modify the recipes to connect further upstream or downstream,” explained Bassan. “The Workato automation enables us to be more efficient with our time so we can more effectively work with all of our partners. We can take care of all the admin work and focus on the important stuff, like go-to-market activities and partner enablement, which is better for us and our partners. It’s been a huge success so far.”
Get Chatter Notifications via Slack with Workbot
Eustace Consulting uses Salesforce internally to track clients and projects from the proposal stage to completion. But Salesforce’s native notifications platform, Chatter, didn’t fit well with the way the company’s employees worked. Every time an employee had a new task or took any action in Salesforce, Chatter would send them an email—a system that employees found less than ideal. “There’s just way too much data for people to keep track of and to accurately figure out what the critical info is. Until you’re using [Chatter], you don’t realize how difficult it is to keep track of everything,” founder Chris Eustace explains. Important information, like when a project was wrapping up or a contract needed renewal, tended to get lost in the deluge of daily Salesforce activity.
Instead of relying on Chatter’s email notifications, Eustace wanted to create a robust notification system within Slack. “We wanted all of our internal communication to happen via Slack, not Chatter or email,” he says.
By customizing Workbot for Slack recipes, Eustace can give every employee their own dedicated “Chatter Notifications” channel in Slack. Now, whenever a team member is assigned a Salesforce task, the employee receives a personal Workbot notification in that channel rather than an email; the assignee of the task can also receive notification when the task status is updated in their Slack channel. Employees can also receive Slack notifications for other events in Salesforce, like when an opportunity close date is nearing completion or when contextual information is needed for an upcoming call related to an opportunity.
Workbot gives Eustace complete control over who, how, and when Slack notifications are administered. He can decide what events in Salesforce should notify only specific people or a specific channel and which should notify the whole team. Eustace says the change has significantly streamlined everyone’s workflows. “As soon as a deal closes, the entire team is notified in Slack,” he says. “Instead of getting emails in your inbox or in Salesforce One—which doesn’t have an internal way to notify you of new emails—we made Slack the means of communication.”
Streamline Data Between Multiple Instances of Salesforce
The Supporting Families Together Association (SFTA) is a statewide association of child care resource agencies and family resources agencies throughout the state of Wisconsin. SFTA helps these agencies by providing program management, organizational development, systems building, and professional development services. Each child care resource agency is independent, but the resource agencies have a few core functions in common including providing referrals for childcare in their areas.
When their legacy tool no longer could meet their needs, SFTA began to work with Bigger Boat Consulting to create a tool for the eight participating child care resource agencies. This tool needed to provide aggregated statewide data to SFTA and bring together information from all 8 agencies. Bigger Boat created a Salesforce system that allows SFTA to manage referrals, providers (including provider listings and tracking providers licensing and pre-licensing status), training, and reporting. Clients could now either call their local agency for a referral or access childcare referrals online with no login necessary.
To keep each agency autonomous but still connected to a central hub, Bigger Boat created one core system and then deployed it to individual Salesforce instances for each agency. This allows the agencies to easily make their own changes and modifications to meet their local needs. However, SFTA also needed to track detailed statistics on referrals and providers so they could report to various funders from this database. This meant integrating with multiple Salesforce instances.
Bigger Boat knew that a key requirement for SFTA, as the statewide organization, was to see aggregated data across all eight local agencies. They chose to use Workato to connect the eight agency Salesforce systems to the statewide system. Workato recipes were built for each primary object that needed to sync, such as Accounts and Referrals. The recipes trigger when records are created or updated, and the appropriate fields and records are synced between the agencies and SFTA. This synchronization has enabled SFTA to have a holistic view of critical data from across the state, while each regional agency sees only its own data in its own instance.
Getting Started with Salesforce Integration
Expanding your Salesforce capabilities doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. Our Intelligent Automation platform is simple to pick up, even if you’re not an IT expert. And we maintain a public repository of over 10,000+ pre-made Salesforce integrations that you can copy, tweak, and re-use.


Bible 2015: 27 August Daily Bible Reading
Context and Comment:
Today’s Bible reading includes Psalm 41. It was written by inspiration while David was ill. When David was ill, many came to visit him, pretending to be friends, but seeking to harm him. They wanted David to die so that Absalom would become king. You can read of this in 2 Samuel 15-18.
Jesus repeated verse 9 just before he died. Our translation is from the Hebrew Bible. This is the Bible that the Jews still use. But 200 years before Jesus came to the earth they made another translation. It was in Greek. This was the Bible Jesus used in John 13:18. That is why the words are not the same. The unkind friend that Jesus had was Judas.
23 Then Job answered,
2 “Even today my complaint is rebellious.
His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.
3 Oh that I knew where I might find him!
That I might come even to his seat!
4 I would set my cause in order before him,
and fill my mouth with arguments.
5 I would know the words which he would answer me,
and understand what he would tell me.
6 Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?
No, but he would listen to me.
7 There the upright might reason with him,
so I should be delivered forever from my judge.
8 “If I go east, he is not there;
if west, I can’t find him;
9 He works to the north, but I can’t see him.
He turns south, but I can’t catch a glimpse of him.
10 But he knows the way that I take.
When he has tried me, I shall come out like gold.
11 My foot has held fast to his steps.
I have kept his way, and not turned aside.
12 I haven’t gone back from the commandment of his lips.
I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
13 But he stands alone, and who can oppose him?
What his soul desires, even that he does.
14 For he performs that which is appointed for me.
Many such things are with him.
15 Therefore I am terrified at his presence.
When I consider, I am afraid of him.
16 For God has made my heart faint.
The Almighty has terrified me.
17 Because I was not cut off before the darkness,
neither did he cover the thick darkness from my face.
24 “Why aren’t times laid up by the Almighty?
Why don’t those who know him see his days?
2 There are people who remove the landmarks.
They violently take away flocks, and feed them.
3 They drive away the donkey of the fatherless,
and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.
4 They turn the needy out of the way.
The poor of the earth all hide themselves.
5 Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert,
they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food.
The wilderness yields them bread for their children.
6 They cut their food in the field.
They glean the vineyard of the wicked.
7 They lie all night naked without clothing,
and have no covering in the cold.
8 They are wet with the showers of the mountains,
and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter.
9 There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast,
and take a pledge of the poor,
10 So that they go around naked without clothing.
Being hungry, they carry the sheaves.
11 They make oil within the walls of these men.
They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.
12 From out of the populous city, men groan.
The soul of the wounded cries out,
yet God doesn’t regard the folly.
13 “These are of those who rebel against the light.
They don’t know its ways,
nor stay in its paths.
14 The murderer rises with the light.
He kills the poor and needy.
In the night he is like a thief.
15 The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight,
saying, ‘No eye shall see me.’
He disguises his face.
16 In the dark they dig through houses.
They shut themselves up in the daytime.
They don’t know the light.
17 For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness,
for they know the terrors of the thick darkness.
18 “They are foam on the surface of the waters.
Their portion is cursed in the earth.
They don’t turn into the way of the vineyards.
19 Drought and heat consume the snow waters,
so does Sheol[a] those who have sinned.
20 The womb shall forget him.
The worm shall feed sweetly on him.
He shall be no more remembered.
Unrighteousness shall be broken as a tree.
21 He devours the barren who don’t bear.
He shows no kindness to the widow.
22 Yet God preserves the mighty by his power.
He rises up who has no assurance of life.
23 God gives them security, and they rest in it.
His eyes are on their ways.
24 They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone.
Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others,
and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain.
25 If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar,
and make my speech worth nothing?”
25 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,
2 “Dominion and fear are with him.
He makes peace in his high places.
3 Can his armies be counted?
On whom does his light not arise?
4 How then can man be just with God?
Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?
5 Behold, even the moon has no brightness,
and the stars are not pure in his sight;
6 How much less man, who is a worm,
the son of man, who is a worm!”
26 Then Job answered,
2 “How have you helped him who is without power!
How have you saved the arm that has no strength!
3 How have you counseled him who has no wisdom,
and plentifully declared sound knowledge!
4 To whom have you uttered words?
Whose spirit came out of you?
5 “The departed spirits tremble,
those beneath the waters and all that live in them.
6 Sheol is naked before God,
and Abaddon has no covering.
7 He stretches out the north over empty space,
and hangs the earth on nothing.
8 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds,
and the cloud is not burst under them.
9 He encloses the face of his throne,
and spreads his cloud on it.
10 He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters,
and to the confines of light and darkness.
11 The pillars of heaven tremble
and are astonished at his rebuke.
12 He stirs up the sea with his power,
and by his understanding he strikes through Rahab.
13 By his Spirit the heavens are garnished.
His hand has pierced the swift serpent.
14 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways.
How small a whisper do we hear of him!
But the thunder of his power who can understand?”
27 Job again took up his parable, and said,
2 “As God lives, who has taken away my right,
the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter.
3 (For the length of my life is still in me,
and the spirit of God is in my nostrils);
4 surely my lips shall not speak unrighteousness,
neither shall my tongue utter deceit.
5 Far be it from me that I should justify you.
Until I die I will not put away my integrity from me.
6 I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go.
My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.
7 “Let my enemy be as the wicked.
Let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous.
8 For what is the hope of the godless, when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?
9 Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him?
10 Will he delight himself in the Almighty,
and call on God at all times?
11 I will teach you about the hand of God.
That which is with the Almighty will I not conceal.
12 Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves;
why then have you become altogether vain?
13 “This is the portion of a wicked man with God,
the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty.
14 If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword.
His offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.
15 Those who remain of him shall be buried in death.
His widows shall make no lamentation.
16 Though he heap up silver as the dust,
and prepare clothing as the clay;
17 he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on,
and the innocent shall divide the silver.
18 He builds his house as the moth,
as a booth which the watchman makes.
19 He lies down rich, but he shall not do so again.
He opens his eyes, and he is not.
20 Terrors overtake him like waters.
A storm steals him away in the night.
21 The east wind carries him away, and he departs.
It sweeps him out of his place.
22 For it hurls at him, and does not spare,
as he flees away from his hand.
23 Men shall clap their hands at him,
and shall hiss him out of his place.
2 Corinthians 1:12-2:11
12 For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you. 13 For we write no other things to you, than what you read or even acknowledge, and I hope you will acknowledge to the end; 14 as also you acknowledged us in part, that we are your boasting, even as you also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus. 15 In this confidence, I was determined to come first to you, that you might have a second benefit; 16 and by you to pass into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and to be sent forward by you on my journey to Judea. 17 When I therefore was thus determined, did I show fickleness? Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be the “Yes, yes” and the “No, no?” 18 But as God is faithful, our word toward you was not “Yes and no.” 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me, Silvanus, and Timothy, was not “Yes and no,” but in him is “Yes.” 20 For however many are the promises of God, in him is the “Yes.” Therefore also through him is the “Amen”, to the glory of God through us.
21 Now he who establishes us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God; 22 who also sealed us, and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts. 23 But I call God for a witness to my soul, that I didn’t come to Corinth to spare you. 24 Not that we control your faith, but are fellow workers with you for your joy. For you stand firm in faith.
2 But I determined this for myself, that I would not come to you again in sorrow. 2 For if I make you sorry, then who will make me glad but he who is made sorry by me? 3 And I wrote this very thing to you, so that, when I came, I wouldn’t have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; having confidence in you all, that my joy would be shared by all of you. 4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be made sorry, but that you might know the love that I have so abundantly for you. 5 But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow, not to me, but in part (that I not press too heavily) to you all. 6 This punishment which was inflicted by the many is sufficient for such a one; 7 so that on the contrary you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his excessive sorrow. 8 Therefore I beg you to confirm your love toward him. 9 For to this end I also wrote, that I might know the proof of you, whether you are obedient in all things. 10 Now I also forgive whomever you forgive anything. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, 11 that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes.
For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David.
41 Blessed is he who considers the poor.
Yahweh will deliver him in the day of evil.
2 Yahweh will preserve him, and keep him alive.
He shall be blessed on the earth,
and he will not surrender him to the will of his enemies.
3 Yahweh will sustain him on his sickbed,
and restore him from his bed of illness.
4 I said, “Yahweh, have mercy on me!
Heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
5 My enemies speak evil against me:
“When will he die, and his name perish?”
6 If he comes to see me, he speaks falsehood.
His heart gathers iniquity to itself.
When he goes abroad, he tells it.
7 All who hate me whisper together against me.
They imagine the worst for me.
8 “An evil disease”, they say, “has afflicted him.
Now that he lies he shall rise up no more.”
9 Yes, my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted,
who ate bread with me,
has lifted up his heel against me.
10 But you, Yahweh, have mercy on me, and raise me up,
that I may repay them.
11 By this I know that you delight in me,
because my enemy doesn’t triumph over me.
12 As for me, you uphold me in my integrity,
and set me in your presence forever.
13 Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel,
from everlasting and to everlasting!
Amen and amen.
5 Thorns and snares are in the path of the wicked:
whoever guards his soul stays from them.
6 Train up a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not depart from it.


“The soul requires duration of time — rich, thick, deep, velvety time — and it thrives on rhythm. Soul can’t be hurried or harried …. We may go through many events in the day and experience nothing because the soul has not had the opportunity to feel them from many different points of view.”
— Robert Sardello
Soul cannot exist when our connections in life remain superficial. An experience of soul requires that we take time to be fully present to the details of our lives.
Explore what happens when you take the time to STOP and PAY ATTENTION. When we choose to slow down and really experience the qualities of our lives, we get a whole new perspective on what living is all about.
“We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.”
— H. G. Wells
“The well of Providence is deep. It’s the buckets we bring to it that are small.”
— Mary Webb
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I have just come across a post by April De Conick of Rice University, A Wild Thought About Scripture, which echoes my own thinking as an ancient historian who recently returned to consider the New Testament, which I last studied ‘properly’ many years ago, with the fresh eye of someone who has been working in other ancient fields.
What struck me most forcefully when I began to work on the New Testament chapters of Band of Angels was how ‘deep and narrow’ the scholarly discussion of the earliest Christian writings can sometimes be. The best New Testament scholars are often immenesly learned in the history of how early Christian texts have been read across the centuries. Of course this is a marvellous virtue. But at the same time, it means that very basic assumptions go undisturbed, and basic questions sometimes go unasked. The whole question of the emergence of ‘orthodoxy’ seems to be one of those questions.
Most New Testament Scholars have known for decades that earliest Christianity was characterized by experiementation and diversity. In the English-speaking world, the 1971 Englsih publication of Walter Bauer’s Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity has offered the ‘go-to footnote’ on that score for decades now.
But many scholars still habitiually think of early Christianity from the perspective of hindsight, looking for signs of the processes of re-ordering which we know will happen. It is actually quite exciting and strange to think of early Christian texts without all that scaffolding, as if they were ‘just another text’ and we had to start from zero in figuring out who the author was and what he or she was trying to say.
Here is how Professor De Conick puts it:
We assume that the orthodox Christian reading of scriptural texts is the author’s intent .. I have come to see that the assumption that the orthodox Christian reading of scriptural texts is the author’s intent is simply wrong. The authors of the New Testament texts were not orthodox. They were not even proto-orthodox. They had their own ideas, many of which were innovative, revolutionary, and wild.
Further down, she makes related but distinct point about the difference between a text when it is first written, and its long journey as a resource for the later communities who will read it and mold it into their own image.
What makes the text orthodox is its interpretation, one that is imposed upon it by later readers who had a stake in how the Christian tradition was unfolding. We simply have inherited this interpretation and consider it authorial….This is not about Gnosticism at the end of the second century that somehow got the interpretation of the texts all wrong. This is about the first century. It is about Palestine and Samaria. It is at the root of the Christian faith.
For my own part, I suspect it is too early to say how the first century will begin to look, if ancient historians can begin to imagine the genuine confusion of the first century, a phase of history when men and women were often faced with visiting miracle workers and had to piece together an idea of how to understand what they had to say, and how to find a place for it in their own mental furniture.
But if it is a disturbing thought, it is also in many ways a happy one. If the first-century people whom history remembers as the early Christians were actually quite uncertain about where the spirit would lead them, this may mean that they are all the more interesting to twenty-first century people, who face their own uncertainties.
this post generated a lively & interesting burst on Twitter, which I thought it would be fun to paste in below
Agreed–much more interesting to understand even “proto-orthodoxy” as a much laster post factum reconstruction.
Yes, ‘proto-orthodoxy’ in some ways even more disturbing than ‘orthodoxy’ – implies pre-ordained development more strongly.
Yes! (It is also a horribly unwieldy turn of phrase.) I often use early catholic (with a small c).
by ‘catholic’ do you mean ‘universalizing’? (Not sure when I think people started doing that – what’s yr view?)
I think it avoids to a certain degree inferring progression while still acknowledging the continuities @drewjakeprof
Right–what if the only thing Paul and John had in common was Eusebius?
Continuity claims can be deceptive. I speak for my grt-grt-grandmother along w/ 500 3rd cousins; who’s right?
It is a similar problem with the term proto-orthodoxy though, right? @drewjakeprof
catholic (‘universal’) & orthodox (‘right’): both are claims around which I’d like to draw a line of some kind.
Very helpful observations. April Deconick often uses Apostolic Xnty, but this is problematic b/c many types… @drewjakeprof
…of Xnty claimed apostolic authority as well. Curious what solution you may have… And you too @drewjakeprof.
I like the quarrelling cousins metaphor, since it makes clear that claims to inheritance are always contested.
I like Brakke’s idea of many Xian identities/communities being continually created & transformed
It’s part of his argument against “proto-orthodoxy” in his book The Gnostics.
The problem is distinguish between a discourse of orthodoxy (among some Xns, by late 100s?) and the+
+ contents of orthodoxy. And we can’t even be sure how widespread discourse of ortho is before 4th cen.+
+cuz of particular ways earlier sources got collated (not just NT, but patres as well) to *look* continuous.
This is why I follow smart people on Twitter 🙂 @kateantiquity
YES! – now say all that in 1 tweet … 🙂
Ha ha! I know–the limitations of the twitter format. We should tweet in Latin.


We've featured plenty of view of the outside of London's Barbican Estate in the past. Now we get a glimpse inside thanks to the Modernist Kitchens Barbican Estate Tea Towel from Things You Can Buy.
The design by Stefi Orazi shows one of the original kitchens from inside the estate which was built in 1960s and 70s and intended to put forward some of the best ideas of Modernist living. In terms of the kitchen, for the Barbican these were small, artificially-lit spaces designed by yacht designers Brooke Marine to be as streamlined as possible.
This tea towel shows the clean lines of the kitchen, printed in four colours. The Cathrineholm kettle is an especially nice touch.
It's yours for £12.
Order it online


I know these times don’t make a great showing for some riders. However, when one competes with oneself I find it significant when a person can gain on themselves.
My park time for my touring bike was usually the best at 1hr 40 minutes. Then I started timing my Trek… this bike really climbs. I did 1hr 32 min then the next try 1 hr 30 min. The final try came out 1 hr 26 min. I thought that is probably the best I can do. My first ride on my Corsa SS came out 1 hr 24 min. That got my attention because I was just learning to shift and get the feel in the curves on this bike. My next run came out 1 hr 22 min. So today I tried again and got 1 hr 18 min !!!! I have a feeling I am going to bond with this bike really well. It is fun. Thanks!