On April 23, 2010 Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law SB1070. From that moment on, Arizona and the rest of the country solidified its hard swing to the right. The Arizona law provided a corner stone to the national Tea Party movement and an all-encompassing anti-immigrant mood.
In 2010 Arizona was a model for anti-immigrant
For the longest time, when Christians have thought about political engagement, they have often begun the discussion with the question: what is the biblical role of government? This is not a completely irrelevant question, but it does seem to start in the wrong place and ultimately get things backwards. Before one can answer questions about the place of government, it is necessary to consider how it is that God has created us to live together. Before we begin to formulate public policies and institutions, we should consider what those policies and institutions are supposed to accomplish.
From Scripture and from the writings of the Christian tradition, from the early church until the present, there is a wealth of material from which to get a picture of the shared life God intends for creation. It is, to put it most succinctly, a life characterized by relationships of mutual inter-dependence — neither dependence nor
Happy Tuesday everyone, here’s my Top 5 for April 26, 2011 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
* Victory for the players, they can go back to work today. A Minnesota federal judge has lifted the NFL lockout. The owners are appealing.
* In the NBA playoffs, Memphis has put San Antonio on the brink, leading three games to one.
* In the NHL playoffs, San Jose has ousted
Things can get lost in translation when cuisines pop up outside of their homeland, which explains the universal disappointment in America when Spotted Dicks hit the table. Successfully translating Southern food for NYC: Gravy.
Generously portioned out over 6,000sqft, this Southern eatery’s airy columned dining area evokes an art gallery with its handblown hanging orb lights and colorful, Sol Lewitt-steez’d suede wall, while the front bar & lounge is loaded with brightly upholstered hickory furniture that’s been custom built to withstand generous portions of you.
read full news from www.huffingtonpost.com
Jamie Beck & Kevin Burg have been making quite a splash this year with their “cinemagraph” technique, combining still photography and video to “unfreeze” a photo in time. The results are stunning, and show that there was more potential in the old animated .gif format than had yet been realized.
We caught up with Jamie and Kevin, who let us in on their process.
Turnstyle: Animated .gifs have long been the territory of goofy forum signatures and internet memes, what caused you to take the idea of animated photographs up to the level of art?
Jamie & Kevin: We wanted to tell more of a story than a single still frame photograph, but didn’t want the high maintenance aspect of a video. In preparation for Fashion Week we were trying to figure out a way to show more about what it was like being there, so cinemagraphs were born out of a need to tell a story in a fast digital age.
The basis for these is always a still photograph which is why they maintain the artistic approach and visual style of Jamie’s still photography. What we strive to capture is the moments before and after a photograph is taken.
TS: Why “cinemagraph”?
J&K: There’s a cinematic quality to them in both the way it captures a moment as well as the coming together of still imagery and moving
“Body by Jake” Steinfeld — the first and still most prominent television ‘personal trainer’ (and an old friend) — always says that everything starts and stops with an individual’s ‘core’. Jake obviously means that part of the body — your ‘gut’ — from which most other strength emanates.
Unfortunately, in “Presidency by Obama”, Mr. Obama often neglects his core — his core values and his core supporters — and he seems to have lost that ‘gut feel’ that so wonderfully defined his campaign for the presidency just three short years ago. It is also patently apparent that the 2012 election is already a major driver of his proposals and priorities.
Having looked at polling numbers and conducted a number of focus groups, President Obama and his team seemingly have decided that his electoral future is in the hands of those whose highest priority for the nation is significantly cutting the
“Do not make the mistake of thinking you are a powerless individual in a vast world,” writes Tai Situ Rinpoche in our book “The Way Ahead.” “Know that you are armed with three great powers. You have the power of the body — the source of all action; the power of speech — the source of all expression; and the power of the mind — the source of all thought.”
Effectively, whether we are aware of it or not, everything we think, say and do has an effect on everyone and everything else. This means that our thoughts and actions can lead to chaos and destruction as easily as they can to healing and friendship. It also means that we have enormous resources available to us at all times.
Our actions, obviously, have the most direct impact on
By Leah Zerbe, an online editor at Rodale.com.
I lived a pretty dysfunctional farm life growing up. The fields were filled with corn or soy commodity crops, not delicious, nourishing people food. My late grandfather’s pigsty and chicken coop were long-abandoned and falling apart, and no one particularly cared to fix them up. The farm was livestock-less, gardenless, and for all intents and purposes, we were living like your run-of-the-mill suburban family who just happened to be plopped onto a 65-acre chunk of
US house prices fell for the eighth month in a row in February and are nearing lows reached during the 2009 recession, a survey has said.
The Case Shiller housing index, which is compiled by rating agency Standard & Poor's, was down 3.3% from a year ago.
"There is very little, if any, good news about housing," said David Blitzer, S&P's index committee
The allure of the internet and the demands of work have many of us spending inordinate amounts of time hunched over our desks and staring at computer monitors. Add stress to the equation, and the outcome is likely to be complaints of neck or back pain, headaches, jaw pain or repetitive stress injuries (such as carpal tunnel syndrome). Here are some simple steps you can take to launch a preemptive strike and prevent the computer from winning.
1. Sit
In 2001 Elodie Gossuin lived every woman’s nightmare. No, she didn’t find out that the love of her life was cheating on her. Nor did she find out that she was losing her job.
She did find out, however, that someone was going to great lengths to convince the world that she was really a
If you’re received a serious medical diagnosis, you should consider seeing another physician for a second opinion. Not because you shouldn’t trust your first doctor, but because you need to become as informed on your illness as possible and different points of view can help you in considering your options for treatment.
The following are seven considerations you should always keep in mind when getting a second medical opinion:
1. Is there agreement?
The obvious and key question to begin with is “Does the second doctor agree with the first diagnosis and the implications of it?” If not, you should consider getting yet a 3rd opinion and even a consultation at a University hospital or academic center.
The U.S. financial crisis is picking up speed. As the once mighty US dollar continues to sink, gold just hit $1,513 an ounce. World financial markets and investors are taking
Most of us were taught that creativity comes from the thoughts and emotions of the mind. However, the greatest singers, dancers, painters, writers and filmmakers recognize that the most original, and even transformative, ideas actually come from the core of our being, which is accessed through an “open-mind consciousness.”
In ancient traditions, open-mind consciousness was considered to be a spiritual awakening, the great enlightenment that dissolves the darkness of confusion and fear and ushers in peace, happiness, clarity and contentment. Today the notion that there’s one formulaic way to achieve this spiritual awakening and creative vibrancy has been blown apart. You don’t have to run off to a monastery or practice meditation for 30 years before attaining a
Can a cute but combative couple find love, peace and happiness on the long and winding — and sometimes lonely –road?
Such is the mixed metaphorical conundrum facing The Submarines, a pretty fair pair of performers who combine techno techniques with doses of cosmic karma to deliver a sophisticated, intelligent form of pop rock. If the Ting Tings dare to reinvent themselves as an Aimee Mann/Michael Penn redux, they’ll make The Submarines stand up and sneer. Like that’ll ever happen.
The husband-and-wife team of John Dragonetti and Blake Hazard, this East Coast/West Coast walking/talking/singing/stinging contradiction, corner the market among dueling indie
From the Buddhist point of view, there is always a relationship between cause and effect — this notion is expressed in various teachings about karma. As we interact with the world, we plant various seeds that will ripen and grow either right away, soon enough, or some time in the future.
If we look at nature, small seeds can have big results — for example the tiny acorn, given the right causes and conditions, can produce the mighty oak tree. In a similar way, in the world of human interaction, small seeds can sometimes come together to produce large-scale results.
This is why, if we want to create a good world for ourselves and others, attention to detail can sometimes trump having a huge
Ford has unveiled its strongest first quarter profits for 13 years, helped by increasing demand for more fuel-efficient
Former US President Jimmy Carter has arrived in the North Korean capital Pyongyang as part of a push to resolve the stand-off over the country's nuclear programme.
Mr Carter is taking part in a three-day visit by former world leaders from a group known as the Elders.
They hope to meet North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il.
The group includes former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari and former Irish President Mary Robinson.
As he left for Pyongyang, Mr Carter said that the group also hoped to meet Kim Jong-il's son and heir-apparent Kim Jong-un, according to
Tibetans in exile have elected a new political leader. A formal announcement is due to be made on Wednesday, but it's expected that the winner will be Lobsang Sangay, a 42-year-old academic with chiselled features who has spent the past 15 years at Harvard University.
Following elections in March, Mr Sangay emerged as the surprise front-runner to become Kalon Tripa – a position often referred to as "prime minister" of a "Tibetan government-in-exile" headed by the Dalai Lama.
But the new Kalon Tripa is expected to have to shoulder much of the authority previously borne by the Dalai Lama, who, at the age of 75, has announced he is to give up his political role.
He will have to lead a global movement that campaigns for Tibetan rights and freedoms under Chinese rule. He'll also manage the ramshackle "government-in-exile" that sits on a dusty hillside in northern India, in the town of Dharamsala.
But his "government" has neither country nor international recognition. And the exiled Tibetans appear to have elected a man who has almost no experience of his homeland, and none of government.
Refugee family
Lobsang Sangay was born in 1968, in India. "India is my second home. I have never been to my first home," he says, meaning Tibet, that vast tract of territory controlled by China since it sent in troops in 1950.
Lobsang Sangay says he has cultivated contacts in China and is ready to lead
His father – a monk who saw his monastery in eastern Tibet destroyed by the Chinese military, according to Mr Sangay – fled Tibet in 1959, at the same time as the Dalai Lama. His mother left the same year, aged 17. The two met as refugees in India, and settled in a village called Lamahatta, near Darjeeling.
Mr Sangay's father ran a small business. The family kept chickens and cows, one of which was sold for 500 rupees to fund the young Lobsang's school
At least five people have been killed in the US state of Arkansas as storms and tornadoes careered up a swathe of the central United States.
Three died as flood waters swept their cars off the road in the state's north-west, while two people died in a small town, possibly hit by a tornado.
Meanwhile in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 17,000 residents are hoping a levee holds and prevents major flooding.
Storms have pummelled states across the region for weeks and more rain is due.
More than a dozen tornadoes were reported in Texas and Arkansas on Monday night.
In eastern Texas, damage was reported in the largely rural Houston County but the extent was unclear because much of the area was without power, the Associated Press quoted Fire Marshal David Lamb as
Next month, Barack Obama will visit an Irish village where his great-great-great-great grandfather made shoes. He is thought to be the 22nd US president to have or claim Irish family, and most recent presidents have visited the country. Why?
A small village of fewer than 300 residents in County Offaly is about to welcome its most famous son.
Moneygall is gearing up for Obamamania on 23 or 24 May, when the president returns to the spot where in 1850 his ancestor Falmouth Kearney, son of shoemaker Joseph, packed his bags and headed off to the US.
Mr Obama's Irish connection, on his mother Ann Durham's side, was unearthed in 2007 and the president announced the visit on St Patrick's Day this year.
Ever since President John F Kennedy was mobbed by crowds in Dungannon, County Wexford, in 1963, nearly every president has beaten the same path across the Atlantic, often in an effort to seek out the ancestral home.
From bogs to prairies
Ireland is the only country, apart perhaps from neighbours Mexico and Canada, so favoured. So how did this small island become such a magnet for leaders from the world's most powerful country?
"It's very simple, Catholic votes," says John Robert Greene, historian and author of dozens of books about US presidents.
"There's not a huge love of Irish tradition, with the possible exception of JFK and Ronald Reagan, not a huge love of Irish culture, with the possible exception of JFK, Reagan and Bill Clinton, but there's a huge love for Catholic votes and particularly Irish Catholic votes.
"That's why there is a pilgrimage every four years and that's why Obama is going."
This will play beautifully in the Rust Belt, former steelmaking cities like Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit, says Mr Greene. Also in New York City and in parts of Massachusetts. And it guarantees exposure in the Catholic newspapers, which aren't traditional Obama supporters because of his stance on abortion.
"I doubt he really wants to be photographed in a cottage like The Quiet Man, but he will," he says, referring to the 1952 film in which John Wayne returns to Ireland to reclaim his family farm in
This post is an updated and much altered version of an article I wrote in 1990 for the art journal Contemporanea, the now-defunct Italian publication covering contemporary art. On the occasion of the destruction of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ in Avignon, France this week, I thought it time to revise some of its arguments for the larger public. My hope is to shed light on the psychological, sociological, and aesthetic processes employed in the controversial icon as well as to explain why artists like Serrano employ the imagery and metaphoric charge of such natural bio-products as urine, blood, semen, menses, and feces in their art.
In 1989, the year I wrote the original version of this article, art critics were still talking and writing a good deal about “postmodernism.” Among the numerous reasons we were persuaded in the 1980s to attach the prefix “post” to the modernist movements in art that had come to define twentieth-century culture in the West was the singular presumption that art’s power to offend and shock had significantly
Source:Associated Press
__________________________________________________________________________
DENVER — The spark plugs energized the Denver Nuggets.Ty Lawson scored a career playoff-high 27 points and fellow speedy point guard Raymond Felton hit four clutch free throws in the final 23 seconds to help Denver beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 104-101 on Monday night as the Nuggets avoided a first-round sweep.The series resumes Wednesday night with Game 5 in Oklahoma City.”This is the biggest game of my life,” Lawson said. “I just wanted to come out and just play strong.”The Nuggets still face a huge challenge in trying to become the first NBA team ever to overcome a 3-0 series deficit, but they finally found a formula for beating their nemesis, and Lawson was front and center.”He was great in the pick and roll,” Kevin Durant said. “He made some tough shots. Ty’s a great scorer. He can do a lot in that pick and roll.”Danilo Gallinari (18 points) and J.R. Smith (15) also hit clutch shots down the stretch for Denver, which had lost five straight times to Oklahoma City this month before finally figuring out All-Stars Durant and Russell Westbrook and their amazing supporting cast.”J.R., he had a bunch of big 3s, Gallo started knocking down 3s,” Lawson said. “When they do that, it stretches the court, so it’s easier for me to attack. When they knock down shots, they make me a lot better.”In denying the Thunder their first playoff series win since moving from Seattle in 2008, the Nuggets went to the hoop better than they had all series, spread the court better and relied on the smooth touch of Gallinari, who totaled just 13 points in the previous two games but finished with 18 Monday night to counter Durant’s 31 points and Westbrook’s 30 points — on 30 shots.For the first time all series, nobody really stepped up to help the Thunder’s All-Star duo.The Nuggets also started doing something they hadn’t been able to since trading away All-Star Carmelo Anthony along with Chauncey Billups: hit their free throws — at least enough of them.Despite shooting just 31 of 44 from the stripe, the Nuggets sank eight straight during one key stretch in the fourth quarter as they grabbed control and then sank 6 of 8 in the final 23 seconds.”That’s been our Achilles’ heel this whole series,” said Lawson, who sank all nine of his foul shots. “I’m comfortable. I’ve played in big games, so I embrace the opportunity.”Felton’s pair of free throws with 23 seconds left gave Denver a 100-96 lead and snapped Oklahoma City’s 9-1 run. Westbrook’s layup made it a two-point game again and Felton was fouled again, this time missing one of two shots, leaving the Nuggets ahead 101-98 with 15 seconds left.Westbrook misfired a 26-footer with 8 seconds left, and Lawson sank two free throws for a seemingly safe 103-98 lead, but Durant swished a 3-pointer with 4 seconds left, making it a two-point game again.After a timeout, Felton was fouled with 3.5 seconds remaining and missed his first free throw before sinking his second.Westbrook’s desperation 3-pointer was off-target.”We kept fighting,” Durant said. “That’s one thing we can take out of this. We kept fighting. We were down nine with a minute and a-half left, cut it down to two and it was a free-throw game from there. Those guys make some big shots.”Finally.The Nuggets are hitting just 69 percent of their free throws in this series.But Lawson got to the line nine times thanks to heeding the admonition of coach George Karl to attack the hoop early and often to create his own scoring opportunities instead of trying to get everyone else going.”He got a lot of free throw attempts,” Thunder coach Scott Brooks said.That was a byproduct of his stepped-up aggression.”We have to get Ty and Raymond as many minutes in the game, attacking their defense, accept they’re going to block some shots,” Karl said. “Their interior defense is going to make some good plays, but that’s who we are. Ty was pretty special in that area.”With all the Thunder’s bigs, Lawson said the Nuggets’ challenge was setting screens higher, “so I have a chance to run at them.”Relying on teamwork and a heavy dose of pick-and-roll offense, the Nuggets went 18-7 following their blockbuster trade of Anthony and Billups to the New York Knicks.The Nuggets won a playoff game without Anthony for the first time since May 19, 1994, against Utah. They also gained a measure of pride in doing one better than Melo, whose Knicks were swept by Boston in the first round out East.Oklahoma City went nearly four minutes spanning the third and fourth quarters without scoring and the Nuggets built a 78-69 lead. But they couldn’t shake the Thunder, who weren’t done until Westbrook’s shot bounced off the rim as the buzzer sounded.”I think we showed great spirit at the end,” Kendrick Perkins said.For once, it was the Nuggets who survived a furious finish and they hope they’ve found something they can take to Oklahoma City, too.”We probably found confidence,” Lawson said, “because everybody was counting us out.”Game notes The Nuggets were last swept out of the playoffs by the Lakers in 2008. … Thunder F Serge Ibaka finished with 13 points and 14 rebounds for his second straight double-double.
Copyright by STATS LLC and The
Links:Full news story
Source:espn.go.com
The US has warned its citizens to leave Syria and ordered a partial evacuation of its Damascus embassy, following widespread violence and a government crackdown.
The State Department said some non-essential embassy staff and all dependants would be leaving.
Earlier, the US said it was considering targeted sanctions against Syria.
Meanwhile the Syrian government said in a statement troops sent to quell unrest had "restored tranquillity".
The statement, carried by the official news agency, said the government had sent troops to several cities on the request of citizens who were worried about "armed extremists".
“Start QuoteLet Obama come and take Syria, let Israel come and take Syria, let the Jews come – anything is better than Bashar Assad”
End QuoteDeraa residentArrests were made and those people would be processed through the courts, it added.
The BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones, in neighbouring Lebanon, says communication with Syria is virtually impossible, but the government does seem to be in control.
On Monday witnesses said the army had advanced into the southern city of Deraa, using tanks to support
Dear partners, if you are interested in advertising on our site, you can contact us by e-mail address: 