#Barclay must suffer in every continuity

[lumpofwhump]

The Scavenger and the Forgotten 6: The Children of Io

Content warning: Minor character death, cult dynamics, bad caretaker

Continued from here.

--

"Look, ammo is what I've got," Clee insisted with a frustrated gesture. "Do you want it, or would you prefer to keep your stupid safe straw?"

The lean, sharp-eyed Girn on the other side of this negotiation scoffed. "Bullets for a KAM-5? The only guys using those right now would shoot me dead on sight. Meanwhile, it looks like Grampy here could use some stupid clean water from my stupid safe straw." She pointed to Radu, and smirked as the old genmod shrunk still further in on himself upon being noticed. "It's ten in coin or nothing."

"Coin?! Who the fuck carries coin anymore?"

"The two of you, from the looks of it," the other Girn said, sounding as calm as Clee did irritable. "Your friend's got some nice clothes. New ones, even. Can't buy those with bullets."

Clee groaned, tired of arguing with this smug bitch already. Up until a few minutes ago, this had been her first day in a week with no headaches. "Six," she conceded, all but tossing two pieces of metal currency at the woman.

She caught it easily, and inspected it closely before nodding with satisfaction. "Looks like the half-a-kriv can be halfway honest. Makes enough sense."

"Go to hell," Clee shot back.

The other woman smirked. "Which one?"

She was about to suggest Chemoghlu - the lady didn't seem like she'd hold up all that well being stuck swimming upstream through a river of scalding-hot shit in the midst of a stampede of angry deimels for all eternity - when Radu urgently tapped her on the shoulder.

"Yeah, fine, let's get going," she grumbled, managing not to snap at him even as her shoulders tensed. She snatched the water filtration straw from the other Girn's hand and turned around, her eyes settling on a group of five approached humans. Or humanoids, at least.

Clee felt a pit in her stomach seeing their hodgepodge armor, made up of lab protective gear patched together to fit people much bigger than its original owners. Of all the genmod factions she'd considered bringing Radu to, the fanatics calling themselves the Children of Io had been dead last on her list.

The guy in front, though… he wasn't from the labs, at not least as a subject. He barely looked genmod at all. He did look like he needed a good punch to the face, though.

Apparently the other woman agreed. "Shit, this guy again," she muttered, clamping her hand tightly over the coins she was holding.

He gave the group of them an unpleasant smirk as his four much more formidable friends raised weapons as varied as their armor at the group. "I thought we had this talk already… Izhekna, was it?" he said, eyes on the Girn vendor. "Just because you turned informant doesn't mean you can go back to selling us in our own territory." He gestured toward Radu.

"I-I wasn't -- the Hiukree here and her lab… her f-friend, they were robbing me!" Izhekna pleaded in thickly-accented Ganymedean, her eyes darting between Clee and the apparent leader of this squad.

"Nice try," the man said casually, ignoring Clee as she sputtered to defend herself against the accusation, right before one of the soldiers fired a shot directly into Izhekna's head. The older woman collapsed to the ground with hardly a sound, while Radu yelped and jumped back, his clothes now coated in blood.

Clee was equally blood spattered, but too stunned to react as two of the soldiers approached until their hands closed around her arms. She pulled and thrashed at her captors, jabbing one of them hard enough with the water filtration straw that they audibly hissed in pain. The same soldier pried the device out from between her fingers, not particularly gently, and threw it to the ground.

"Oh, are you fucking kidding me?!" Clee raged as this entire errand became worse than pointless.

As the straw hit the ground, though, Radu snapped to attention. "Clee!" he shouted. "Let go of Clee, she --"

"You don't have to worry about her anymore," one of the armored figures told him gently. "We won't let her hurt you."

"No, she helps me! I-I need her," Radu insisted.

"You know her?" The apparent leader groaned and squeezed the bridge of his nose. The arrogant bastard was unarmored, Clee now realized. "Well. this just turned into a giant mess," he said, sounding very put-upon by this situation. "Look, we're gonna take you both back to base and get things sorted out there, got it?"

"Doesn't look like we've got much of a choice," Clee pointed out. "Any way you can let me walk on my own here?"

He studied her for a minute without reply. There was a flash of something, maybe recognition, in his eyes, and he shook his head quickly. "Nah," he said, and started off back in the direction they'd come from.

The second pair of soldiers didn't put hands on Radu, but stood between him and Clee despite his attempts to push past them as they walked. The still-recovering older genmod was at a clear disadvantage against their much stronger, uninjured captors. At a certain point, he struggled to even minimally keep up with the group, and reluctantly accepted an offered hand from one of the two soldiers in front of him.

Twenty minutes later, they stopped just outside a single-story concrete building, miraculously all but completely intact. The plaque outside the gate was faded and rusted, and Clee could just barely make out some of the letters: R D OPM NT C NTE 8.

Before she could try to decipher it with her only tenuous grasp of written Ganymedean, though, she heard voices from above. A handful of sentries called out greetings, and the armed soldiers behind her waved.

"And look, he made it back," one of the watchers said in an amused voice, pointing to the unarmored man leading them. "'Ey Mira, you're taking over cleaning duty tonight, it looks like."

"Whatever," Clee could hear as they reached the gate. "You know I'm just gonna make him do it anyways."

One of the two soldiers pulling Clee along laughed along with the sentries. Meanwhile, their leader clenched his hands into fists with a low growl, his knuckles going nearly white.

No, not a leader, Clee realized. A human shield.

"So what's the Girn for?" Mira called down to her comrades, wrinkling her nose a bit.

The person to her left thumbed back at Radu. "Our new friend here wouldn't come without her."

"Huh," Mira said, raising an eyebrow. "Well, bring 'em in." With that, the group of them entered a walled-off sally port, which had traces of the same medical smell that had permeated Satellite Office 83.

"I'll search her," the apparent third captive of their group volunteered with a nod to Clee, a bit too eagerly, as the last of the four soldiers locked the door behind them.

One of her two escorts scoffed. "What, so you can take whatever she's got on her?"

"Can't be anything too valuable," the other said, raising an eyebrow at Clee. "'Sides. It's almost lunch. If we don't have to waste rations on this dipshit, so much the better." He turned to loom over the much smaller man in front of him. "Anything we find on you that hasn't made it into inventory, and the Commander'll be sending whatever bits of you are left to the GSH in a box."

He of the Punchable Face let out an undignified whimper and reflexively raised his hands. "Okay, I get the point!" he snapped with wounded pride, only earning himself a laugh.

The soldiers let go of Clee, finally, and headed for the door in front of them.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up and fed," the soldier that Radu was now outright leaning on for support tried to coax him.

As they passed, though, Radu grasped Clee's hand tightly. "Clee, though," he said, he said almost pleadingly. "I need -- what are you going to do with her?!"

"She'll still be here when we're done," they replied, a bit exasperated. "We'll get this sorted out, and who knows, maybe she can join us."

Clee guessed that the chances of that were pretty low. She forced a crooked smile at Radu, though, and squeezed his hand briefly before pulling away. "Hey, see you soon, alright?"

The soldiers seemed to relax more at this display than Radu did. He nodded glumly, slumping and letting himself be escorted through the door into the base. He looked over his shoulder with a last worried glance back at her before one of the soldiers closed and locked the door behind them.

"What did you to get him so attached?" the remaining human asked after a beat, echoing her own thoughts. "And what kind of a name is Clee, anyways?"

"It's my name," she snapped. "What's yours, anyways? Or should I just call you Dipshit like they do?"

The man scowled. Up close, his gritted teeth only were only slightly better than Radu's, and his narrowed eyes were mismatched, one brown and one green. "'Sir' would be fine," he informed her, taking hold of her roughly as he started to rummage through her pockets.

"Pffft," Clee responded, leading him to tighten his grip, his uneven nails digging into her skin. "Not even your own guys like you that much."

"They're not 'my guys,'" he fumed. "They're just a bunch of…!" He stopped short, looking quickly back toward the door. "Anyways. What've you got on you? Let's see… bullets? Meh," he said, stuffing them into his pockets all the same. "Some coin, that's a bit better, and… hel-lo, what's this?" He slid the pack of lycadone vials out of her coat pocket just as she remembered they were there.

"Hey, give those --!" she demanded, struggling and grabbing for them, only to be cut off a grating laugh of triumph from Sir Dipshit as he read the label.

"Oh MAN," he said, holding them just out of her reach with a gleam in his eyes. "You really made my day, you know that? Do you even know what this is?"

"It was my ticket offworld," Clee snapped. "What's it to you, a pat on the head? You heard them, they're not gonna let you keep it."

He shot her a glare, which she met with a smirk of her own. "You should maybe stick to worrying about your own problems," he shot back. "Like what'll happen when they find out you were gonna ditch the old guy."

"What do you --"

"'My ticket offworld,' wasn't that what you just said?" he said mockingly, with another unpleasant buck-toothed smile. "I'll let them figure that part out for themselves, though. I owe you one." He nodded to the vials in his hand, still frustratingly out of reach.

"Look," Clee said sharply in a low voice. "You don't want to be here any more than I do. We split the stuff, and we both get out of here." She regretted the words as she spoke them at the thought of spending any more time under the insufferable human, but she figured she could steal the already twice-over ill-gotten gains back soon enough. "And Radu… he'll be safer here. They'll know what to do for him."

The expression on her captor's face made her even less certain than she'd already felt. He shook his head and went on with his search, finding no further treasure to his obvious disappointment. "Let's go," he growled and edged her forward, driving a sharp foot driven down into the back of her heel. She let out a squeal of discomfort, and looked back indignantly at the human, who flashed her a nasty smile in response.

He pushed her through the door into the repurposed compound. She nearly gagged at the smell of what could be only described as that of death itself. She heard her escort swallow behind her, apparently no more inured to it than she was. He recovered enough to pull her collection of coins and bullets out of his pocket and hold them out for inspection, as well as inevitable confiscation. "And she would've had more if we hadn't caught her when we did," he said. "She was about to sell the other one off in exchange for passage to Earth."

"Not what we heard from him, Fletcher," a man lounging in a chair behind a long bolted-down metal table said in a bored tone, disregarding Clee's loud objections.

She immediately stopped short in her protests upon hearing his voice, one that she and every other resident of Ganymede had heard countless times over the vids throughout the dome. It took only a quick look to confirm it. He had light brown skin framed by pitch-black hair that seemed at odds with his strikingly pale grey eyes. Even sitting down he was a slight man, but had an aura of power about him that more than made up for it.

"'Oh, but we killed all the body doubles!'" the clone of Governor Jas Knossos said mockingly, echoing Clee's thoughts, before giving a casual shrug. "Is it really so surprising that they missed a few?" He gave her a smile that was not at all reassuring when coupled with his piercing stare. "So, Clee, if I remember right. Maybe you could help me figure out where things stand. Both of my sources at this point are hardly reliable." His gaze shifted over toward the human, taking on a look of contempt.

Clee swallowed. Double or not, speaking to someone with this voice, and worse still this face, was not something she'd ever expected to happen. "I-I was planning to bring Radu here anyways," she lied. The clone's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, suggesting that he saw through this, but she pushed forward into safer territory. "I had another way offworld anyways. Too bad this guy stole it." She thumbed at Fletcher.

"It'd have to be more than a few coins, then," the clone said, raising his eyebrows in interest but then pinning Fletcher with a sharp gaze.

"Try twenty four sealed vials of lycadone," Clee responded. "I can imagine that'd be pretty useful to you all."

Fletcher only laughed. "Search me, then," he said, arms spread out. "Just take me to a private room first if you're going to be thorough with it, will you?"

"That won't be necessary," the clone said. "Search their route here," he ordered the people behind him with only the slightest tilt of his head in their direction. Two of them nodded and passed by Clee and Fletcher, with one giving the latter an abrupt shove to the shoulder. He hissed in pain and tensed as if he'd been hit there before none too far back.

"Okay, I'm curious," Clee said after a long awkward silence that was making Fletcher visibly uncomfortable. "How'd you get this bunch, of all people, to follow the same guy who put them in the labs?"

Her captor chortled. "I'm not exactly 'the same guy' as the Lunan Exile. I grew up in the labs like everyone else here did."

The last person standing behind him, a woman with a distant expression who could have easily been his twin, spoke up. "Commander Alexei led us out of that place, and he leads us on to Io. He'll leave not a single genmod behind."

Clee tried not to grimace at the monotone recitation of the apparent party line. "And what about the rest of us?" she ventured.

"It depends," Alexei responded. "When it comes to you personally, what were you really about to do with your captive?"

"His name's Radu, and he's not my captive," Clee couldn't help but snap despite Alexei's narrowed eyes. "If it hadn't been for me, he'd be back in --"

"We found it," called out one of Alexei's guards as they returned. "Turns out he'd gotten his hands on a whole number of things." The guard spilled out the contents of a small box onto the bolted-down table. Coins, the lycadone, and worse still for Fletcher, a IET-12 plasma arc weapon.

Fletcher went pale.

"I'd ask what you were thinking of doing with these," Alexei said, not even looking up at him, "But I can't see you actually coming up with a plan." He turned his gaze in the vague direction of his guards. "I'm sure the GSH would be interested in having this one," he said. "And her… she can help around here until we can find out who'll pay a ransom for her."

Good luck with that, Clee thought bitterly. "Help out how?" she demanded as one of the guards took hold of her.

"Like I said. That'll depend on what we can find out about you and Radu," Alexei said.

The woman standing behind them stared blankly at the group of them as the guards turned Clee and Fletcher roughly away and marched them off further into the complex.

--

For his part, Radu wouldn't have noticed any of this even if he'd been able to hear it. He leaned into the wrinkled hand of someone he thought he'd never see again as she slowly ran a comb through his mess of hair with the other. Her appearance was different from what he remembered - red hair, she was supposed to have red hair - but he would've recognized that touch anywhere.

"Now let's look at the rest of you," the woman said in a reassuring voice, reaching around him to lift a hand covered in scabs that suddenly stiffened in fear. "Radu...! How did this happen? It looks like we'll have to relearn how to handle that, then, won't we?"

Radu's blood ran cold.

--

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[lethiwebhengu]

BLOG 3 PSYCHOSOCIAL BLOCK

 Therapeutic Use of Self Experiences During Fieldwork

"If it's meant to be, it will be." My roommate recently made a comment on how well I fit into the career I'm seeking. In general, I am a lively person who sympathizes with others and is good at maintaining discussions. The therapeutic use of self is defined as "a therapist's planned use of his or her personality and perceptions as a part of the therapeutic process" (Punwar & Peloquin, 2000). Because I am skilled at maintaining conversation, initiating conversations, and getting to know clients better, this allows me to establish a solid connection with the client, learn more about their personal history, and begin treatment planning with them. Taylor (2008) introduced the Intentional Relationship model, which classifies the six therapeutic modalities (or types).

According to the Intentional Relationship Model, six therapeutic modes characterize client–therapist interactions in occupational therapy: advocating, collaborating, empathizing, encouraging, instructing, and problem solving.

According to UCA (2023), "the role of advocacy for occupational therapists is to share the distinct value of occupational therapy, speak out to achieve reform in healthcare policies, and assist patients in receiving needed services when obstacles arise." I recall having a cervical spinal cord injury client whom I had to push for in order to get pillows for him since he was experiencing neck pains and stiffness. As there were a limited number of pillows available at the hospital, I had to use my charm to persuade the nurses to make a decision for him. According to Barclay. L (2015), enabling participation in meaningful community activities must be at the forefront of occupational therapy intervention, both at an individual client level and through advocacy and policy involvement, to improve the quality of life of people with SCI living in the community. It was my obligation as an OT to "open more doors" in order to improve the client's function. As he was in the mechanical engineering field, I should have contacted his work supervisors to arrange for another job task for him to complete. I could have also added leisure exploration (yes, in physical) to help him deal with his depression. The client could only move his neck from side to side and would look at the roof all day, making intervention sessions difficult to complete. We were gradually losing him to depression. A referral to a psychologist might also be beneficial.

 Collaborating is what I normally do with clients who have intellectual insight on their conditions. It is an act of helping the client meet their own goals. This my favorite mode, although I haven't had much opportunity to utilize it in this psychosocial block. The therapist sticks to client’s principles & involves them in all decisions (client-centred practice) (Nicholar. B, 2016). This once off matriculant client I had who had a stroke and became hemiplegic would always say that her one wish is to return to school. Together we would work together and draft a plan of how we would train and prepare her for a school environment. Unfortunately, a few days before my block ended, she passed away although she was recovering quite well.

I am currently working with an elderly woman who suffers from tangentiality. She says everything that comes to mind. She had gotten into a verbal altercation with one of her friends at the institution a few weeks ago, which made her quite upset. Whenever I spoke with her, she would return to this subject, even after I had addressed it. It irritated her. I sympathized with her and assured her that it was only a minor disagreement and that she and her friend would be good friends again. The therapist makes every attempt to completely comprehend the client's experience. (Nicholar.B.2016)

Using high 5s has been one way to encourage the client to continue with their task and to lift up their self-esteem. It is a trick my midterms client taught me. She loves high 5s. it’s a polite way of saying “good job, well done”. It was one way I use my encouraging mode during sessions while still keeping things professional. It also helps to maintain rapport with the clients as it is a friendly act.

Overall, that is how I have learnt to use my modes, while problem solving and instructing remains the main modes for my sessions.

Therapeutic use of self is a strength once you discover the beauty of your personality.

References

Barclay. L (2015). Facilitators and barriers to social and community participation following spinal cord injury.

UCA (2023). Advocating for Occupational Therapy.

Punwar& Peloquin. (2000). Occupational Therapy: principles and practice

Taylor. (2008) The intentional relationship

Nicholar B. (2016) Therapeutic use of self.

[religioused]

The Emmaus Heart

by Gary Simpson

Luke 24:36-48 CEV

While Jesus' disciples were talking about what had happened, Jesus appeared and greeted them.

37 They were frightened and terrified because they thought they were seeing a ghost.  But Jesus said, “Why are you so frightened? Why do you doubt? Look at my hands and my feet and see who I am! Touch me and find out for yourselves. Ghosts don't have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

40 After Jesus said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. The disciples were so glad and amazed that they could not believe it. Jesus then asked them, “Do you have something to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish. He took it and ate it as they watched.

44 Jesus said to them, “While I was still with you, I told you that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Books of the Prophets, and in the Psalms had to happen.”  Then he helped them understand the Scriptures. He told them: The Scriptures say that the Messiah must suffer, then three days later he will rise from death. They also say that all people of every nation must be told in my name to turn to God, in order to be forgiven. So beginning in Jerusalem, you must tell everything that has happened.

Reflection:

This interesting passage is sandwiched between Luke’s account of Jesus' resurrection and Jesus appearing to the disciples on the Emmaus Road, and Jesus' ascension.  I will briefly review the Emmaus Road encounter.  Jesus joins two disciples.  Using the Torah and the writings of the prophets (Moses and the prophets), Jesus explains to the disciples the real role the promised Messiah. Our pandemic experience might feel to some people very much like the Emmaus Road.    We are so consumed with the loss that we experienced during the pandemic that we do not realize that the Spirit of the Risen Christ is walking with us on the road of loss, that we are not alone in this difficult time.

John Giel is currently serving as the Chancellor for Canonical Affairs and the Vicor General for the Diocese of Orlando.(1)  He gave a sermon broadcast on Catholic Television for Central Florida.  In his sermon he indicates that the Road to Emmaus is located in our hearts.

“The Road to Emmaus is that time when we have the hardest time believing. The Road to Emmaus is when we have . . . difficult moments and we say, ’I'm out of here.’”  He observes we are more likely to feel this way when life is not going the way we expect it to go.(2)

This encounter in the room is probably recorded in Luke's Gospel, because it helps establish the reality of the resurrection, the need for the cross, the urgency of the task Jesus was giving His followers, and the power of God. (3)

Jesus was crucified and died.  Jesus' followers were overcome with fear, anger, and grief.  They were having a hard time believing.  They could neither comprehend Jesus’ Messianic role nor the fact that Jesus was alive.  Those in the room may have been just searching for proof, for something that could comfort them.  Jesus supplied the proof they needed.  Then Jesus taught them from the Scriptures, showing them that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.  Jesus also explains that through Him, the Messiah, comes forgiveness.(4)  He helped shift their theology.

Many people are spiritually uncertain and troubled.  They live in fear of an angry, harsh, judgmental God. On an intellectual level, they get the fact that God is loving, but, like the disciples on the Emmaus Road, fear keeps them from recognizing the presence of God’s Kingdom when it is right beside them.  Not recognizing and comprehending the Kingdom is a theme that continues in the room. Because the hearts of those in the room were on the Emmaus Road, I titled this reflection “The Emmaus Road Heart.”

The Emmaus Road Heart is seen when Christians want other people to prove they are Christians unless they act, walk, talk, and worship in a specific way.  So we put people to the test.

My Grade 12 year was spent in a religious boarding academy.  Then I progressed to a Christian college.  The expectations of how Christian young people were supposed to act were really something.

• No long hair.  And this was during the late 1970s and the early 1980s.  Almost all young males were wearing long hair.  Our hair could not touch the collar of our shirts or cover our earlobes.

• No jeans or t-shirts.  We could wear jeans and t-shirts at the gym, in the dorm, or when we were working on a job.  The rest of the time, the male students had to wear button-up shirts and either dress pants or corduroy pants.

• No ripped or torn clothing.

• No makeup and jewelry.

• Females could expect to have their dress length measured.

• When I was in Grade 12, we were expected to attend 11 devotions a week in our dorms, 4 church services, and a chapel assembly every week.  

That was a grand total of 16 religious services a week. Things were slightly better when I was in college because we were only expected to attend 6 devotions a week in our dorms and the 4 church services and a chapel assembly.  For college, we were down to only 11 religious services a week.

• Radios, stereos, and TVs were not allowed in the academy.  At college level, radios and stereos were allowed as long as they were played so quietly that nobody could hear them outside of your room.  No rock, no Christian rock, and nothing with a strong base beat was allowed.

Zooming forward a few years.  I noticed a Christian boarding school that had the following standards of behavior for their students:

• No reading science fiction.

• Minimum length dresses.

• Pants cannot be too tight or too loose.  Pants are not to have holes.

• Underwear is not to be seen.

• No hats or dark sunglasses in buildings.

• No bandanas can be worn around your head.

• No clothing with messages about alcohol, tobacco, sex, and occultism.

• No tank tops or sleeveless tops.

These rules are largely cultural, but they were used to define Christian behavior.  Cultural elements of Christianity can pose a problem in our understanding of the Kingdom of God.  Some of the rules defining Christian behavior, defining the expression of God at this Christian academy feel dated.  They seem fixed in time about two generations ago.

Will Willimon is a professor at Duke Divinity School.(5) He makes the point that Jesus is “a body in motion,” seemingly to be ahead of the disciples.  He observes that there is something about humanity that is “uncomfortable about the risen Christ in motion.”  Will Willimon continues, “We want to fix Christ, we want to stabilize, to take his presence and define it and confine it.”(6)  And I believe that we have confined Christ to doctrine, to specific expressions of the Christian life.  We confined Christ to the point where we struggle to see Christ working in the lives of women, of non-binary people, LGBT+ people, and in the lives of people with olive, brown, or black skin.

The risen Christ is too big, too loving, too expansive to fit into our White male, European sense of Christ.  We should expect expansiveness from the Risen Christ – after all, Jesus was a brown skinned Jewish radical.  As wonderful as the ancient creeds, the new creeds, and the old doctrine of the church are, the risen Christ is bigger than all of those things. Christ is big enough to work through those who we find unsettling, because of their race, ethnicity, socio-economic class, religion, ability, gender, gender expression, political affiliation, occupation, and sexuality.

Christ is telling us that it is time to unbolt the pews we've been sitting on, that is time for us to grab a light folding chair and to follow the Risen Christ.  Our Christ, the Risen One, is walking through closed doors, going into rooms full of people hungry to be with a community filled with hope and with God’s love.  The Risen Christ is prepared to bring those who are in rooms closed by the fear and hurt of the Emmaus Road Heart to McDougall United Church.  Christ is bringing them to us and is inviting us to keep up as He moves in Emmaus Road Hearts.

Notes

(1) “Staff Very Rev. John C. Giel.”  Holy Family Catholic Community.  n.d., 11 April 2021. <https://holyfamilyorlando.com/staff/john-c-giel/>.

(2)“CCTN Homily-Third Sunday of Easter (05/08/11).” Catholic Television for Central Florida YouTube Channel.  n.d., 11 April 2021. <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=swMqVH9T240>.   

(3) William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible:  The Gospel of Luke.  Kindle ed. (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), e-book.

(4) Barclay (2001), e-book.

(5) “Will Willimon.”  Wikipedia.  09 April 2012, 12 April 2012.

<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Willimon>.

(6) Will Willimon.  “May 4, 2014 – Third Sunday of Easter.”  Duke Memorial UMC.  13 May 2014, 12 April 2021.  <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RfJhnwuaWMw>. 

[processthings]

Anxiolytic

I

Every time I step outside my apartment, I have to read fifty people’s minds. I became practiced in the art out of necessity, fear of—

Once, I attended a radical self defense training course at a feminist bookstore in the lower east side. They pushed all the bookshelves off to the side. I learned how to break someone’s nose and run away.

These streets are so much safer now, said the guy at Patsy’s Pizzeria on Dean St about the effect Barclays Center had had on the neighborhood. He said, there used to be prostitutes, prostitutes everywhere!

A year later, a friend of mine suffered greatly at the hands of a random stranger just a block away. She said, having witnesses is a bluff. They’ll just pass you by on a misinterpretation of the scene.

See, it takes a lot of mind reading skill to come to a conclusion like that. The potion sellers are well versed in it. We must be, as a means of self-defense.

I myself can never quite tell sometimes whether some asshole who stares at me on the train or almost walks into me on an empty sidewalk, wants to fuck me, or kill me, or both.

I’m prepared to drop his ass to the ground. I have to believe that, so I can leave my apartment and continue on with my life.

II

They say guilt is a powerful motivator, but fear is paralysis, stuck to the couch, hour after hour, surfing the channels, scrolling the feed, an illusion of motion so convincing that it wears and exhausts. All before we get out the door.

Barely able to get up each morning, barely able to get to work on time, barely able to fall asleep at night. Two sides of the same coin are rage directed at the self and fear of the future. Still we must push on, or perish.

Sometimes it pays to get away from it all. We seek a secret trap door that will lead us away to worlds untold. We want to be entirely consumed by the experience of absence. To drive ourselves straight into the ground, to vanish into the ether, into zero, into null.

Beyond emptiness, a lapse in existence is the ultimate isolation. It is available in pill, smoke, or blotter form, if you can find it. These experiences are reported by the US Government to be dissociative and antisocial at, frankly, disturbing rates, so they have outlawed all but some of the most addictive and unhealthy varieties of nonexistence. After all, if everyone went away, who would be left?

III

Today I sprang out of bed with an energy that has become increasingly rare but I think is finally coming back to me now—

I decided to lose some weight again. This time, I will be more gentle and yet just as serious about it.

Through some lighter dieting and heavier exercise, I’ll get lean and fit. The cold winter wind will slash my face as I bomb down the bridge on my way to work.

The jury is out on whether it’s internalized shame or just that I can’t sleep at night, that has been causing me to slowly lose that stable grip on life.

A good restful vacation and three microdoses later, I’m back. For real. I will draw that strength once again.

After hitting a nadir, I am once again on the rise. I am the one who knows. Watch me. Let me show you.

I will not fit in. I will stand out. They will envy me. They will wonder how the fuck I did it, and one day, so will I.

[merchantservices35-blog]

Internet Merchant Services: Showing the Advantages of Online Transactions

doctor merchant servicesfind more info

Most people use the internet almost everyday and customers know the benefits of online transactions. Most industries nowadays depend on the functions of credit card services. Major financial institutions continuously offer business owners a remedy to help their customers settle obligations in different ways. Merchants are finding several methods to help clients who are suffering from payment delays because amounts were posted late on the billing system. These delays are common problems met by proprietors and are often beyond their control.

Services over the internet can be reliable as long as the authentication process is secure. The system does not allow unauthorized users to access private information related to financial transactions. Credit card merchant services partner with larger banks to support clients in facing the challenges in every transaction. Buying and selling of products on the web have grown by a huge percentage. It is necessary that financial firms must provide more instruments that will serve as a development for future online transactions.

Accepting payments online is not a difficult task to do since debit and credit cards can be processed over the internet. Some payment portals that users may consider are Paypal, Barclays Merchant Services and Google Checkout. These payment services may only differ in the way payments are accepted. Other online transactions only accept check payments which can have a processing time of seven to ten business days. The good thing about internet transactions that accept credit card payments is the timeframe. Processing time is usually within 24 hours, but it may still depend on the bank due to the internal policies of that particular bank.

Rates:

Most people know that credit card merchant services coordinate with companies that provide card services to clients. It is important to consider rates that can affect our business and services. Manual transactions have obviously larger processing fees, but the interest rates and late charges can be the same with newer methods. If customers decide to switch to making transactions on the web, it should allow for a smooth process. At least users can save more on processing fees. The possibility exists that late fees can be avoided since online transactions are faster, as the transfer of card information is simpler. Customers need to remember that rates can also be different depending on the merchant site.find more info doctor merchant services

Support:

Errors can happen in any system and it is critical to find out what accounts were affected. The sites of credit card merchant services usually have a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page that can assist new visitors. FAQ pages can answer basic questions that have relevance to their online transactions. However, if users prefer to communicate via phone, some services are not available 24 hours. It will be easier to send an email to inform the administrator that failed transactions must be recovered in real time. Servers are well-maintained to both sustain and improve the quality of processing transactions.

[michaelh44posts-blog]

A Pathway into the First Team

A massive concern for supporters of the English game and clubs across England is the continuous decline in young players breaking into first team squads within the Barclays Premier League. The financial benefits to a club is the fundamental aim now for the owners and the chairmen of the clubs in England, which as a result is hurting the development and progression of players looking to break out of academy football to regular first team opportunities and cementing a place within the first team.

The percentage of the players playing in the top tier of English football that qualify to play for the England national team is declining further and further, in 2017 marca reported that 64% of players playing in the Premier League were not eligible for England, compare that to Spain where less than half of the players in the league are foreign, somewhere along the way the English clubs have lost that focus and the progression to get academy players into their first team squads. theguardian report that at the start of this season the figure for minutes that English players were involved has dropped even further, which understandably the National team manager Gareth Southgate has expressed his concerns over.

The fundamental values of the clubs must be the main contributor for the lack of talent progressing into the first teams. When we consider the investment that Manchester City and Sheikh Mansour have put into the youth team set-up from the bottom up, there has to be an issue when considering that the Man City squads in recent years has rarely featured any of these players, with the exception of the early rounds in the domestic cup. Chelsea would be the club that have invested a great deal of money and time with their youth set-up and gained their respective success at these levels, but have we seen any of these players emerge in the first team at Chelsea? The last player to make a success out of breaking into the Chelsea first team from the youth system was former captain and now Aston Villa assistant manager John Terry. We have seen a vast amount of these Chelsea youngsters sent out on loan either abroad or the lower divisions in England, and a progression into the first team looking almost impossible. Every club is guilty of this same procedure, trying to expose these prospects to first team football, but are they really ensuring that these players are exposed to first team football? Are they monitoring a players progress and thinking of how they can get these young stars into the first team plans? Why are the parent clubs not recalling players who are playing youth team football for the club that they are sent?

The English FA have invested money and resources into the National set-up, this could not have been any clearer than the recent semi-final defeat they suffered in the World Cup in Russia. With the personnel involved in the structure of the National Teams there is obviously a philosophy in place of how they want the teams to play, what they expect from the players when on international duty and the improvement that was made to St George’s park, when it comes to international duty. The success of the England International youth teams in 2017 showed just how far this has developed, with the Under 17 side winning the World Cup in India after there runners up position in the European Championships to the under 20 team winning the World Cup in South Korea, we have seen that the talent is available in England, and with the right nurturing and development they can be a huge success at whichever club they represent.

The issue starts with at the very bottom of the English game, and the lack of funding and money that Grassroots has invested. This is extremely concerning especially considering the high proportion of money now that English game does receive, which allows us to question why exactly these issues are not fully investigated. Why is 1 in 3 pitches in grassroots football deemed to be ‘inadequate’ reported by the telegraph,  and why is the former FA chairman David Bernstein claiming that grassroots football has been ‘neglected’ reported again by the telegraph. If the FA can not improve on this area, we will see more and more clubs in the Premier League look abroad even more to fill places within each respective academy, another trend which is significantly on the rise.

The emergence of Jadon Sancho this season at Borussia Dortmund has highlighted the issue that our clubs in England do not progress the youngsters into first team squads at an early age enough. Many could argue that Phil Foden is involved within the Manchester City team, but is he playing enough minutes? If he had made the move that Sancho made could he also now be representing the senior England team and making a real impact on the biggest stages? We see Foden in the less pressure games, or for 15-20 minutes with substitute appearances, this is a player who set alight the under 17 tournament for England, if he played for another team in England perhaps outside the top six with the exception of Tottenham, he would be a regular in their first eleven, despite his young age.

Ademola Lookman who spend the second half of last season on loan at RB Leipzig gained the benefit of first team football, in a foreign country, he looks a difference maker and with Everton fans calling for the exciting winger to start more games, we can expect to see Marco Silva include him within the first team, and not always from the bench. The whole transfer saga surrounding Callum Hudson-Odoi at Chelsea is one of great interest, the interest from Bayern Munich is strong and a move that would certainly benefit the exciting wide forward. Should he make the move to the Bundesliga you would have to think that surely these clubs would make a move to try and encourage the mangers to include players within the starting eleven more often, or could the FA step in and try and ensure that these highly promising and exciting players are not looking to leave England constantly to other European clubs in search for regualr first team football.

There are other examples of young English players leaving high profile academies in search of first team football, some successful and some who are still looking to make a breakthrough. One name who could be next to emerge is former Chelsea prodigy and England under 17 World Cup winner Jonathan Panzo. Having left for Ligue 1 in the summer for AS Monaco, the left back or left sided defender has made his first start for the Monaco first team in a cup game for Thierry Henry’s team. He is gaining experience through the clubs very high profile youth set-up and is expected to be a part of the first team squad at the Ligue 1 relegation threatened side.

What can be done to ensure that there is a pathway for these young players to gain regular first team football? The FA have introduced the cap on the amount of foreign players that can be included with the squad that is registered for the league, however this has still not encouraged managers more to include the young players on a regular basis. Could the FA move towards the Pep Guardiola philosophy of a higher level of competition for the under 23 team as reported by manchestereveningnews .

This would be a real plus if the FA and the clubs could make this work. Not replicating exactly the La Liga model of the B teams, but how about trying to emerge the B teams where they can qualify to competitive leagues? Could they even make this in a European competition for the clubs, this would almost certainly see a decline in these players getting loaned to other clubs for absolutely no gain to the player or the parent club.

Another possibility could be for the Premier League clubs to affiliate with other English clubs in the lower divisions, and not just other European and Worldwide clubs. This would be a benefit to both the lower league club and the parent club, financially especially for the feeder team and for the parent club they get the opportunity to monitor and see a player’s development at the feeder club. This would certainly have its questions as the players would be playing at a lower level, but when we consider players such as Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Harry Maguire and John Stones to name a few the benefits of playing at these levels can be extremely rewarding.

The Football Association need to invest money into the Grassroots football across England, ensuring top facilities, upgrading pitches and have the best available coaches on offer to ensure that we are getting the young footballers into academies and progressing them in life, there is a real need to investigate what is happening at this level of the pyramid in the English game, and the hope is that this is carried out.

[calacuspr]

Calacus Weekly Hit & Miss – Elise Christie & Mark Clattenburg

Every week we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the previous week.

HIT - ELISE CHRISTIE

October is Mental Health Month in the UK and over the past year, sport has been at the forefront of making it acceptable to discuss emotional wellbeing.

Scottish speed skater Elise Christie is one of the latest to share raw emotions, and recently opened up about a rape ordeal she endured many years ago and the effect it has had on her mental health in the years since.

Along with her struggles with self-harm and medicating, Christie has also previously been open about taking breaks from social media, having often been the victim of online trolls.

Christie, a triple world champion, was expected to win medals in both 2014 and 2018, but crashes and disqualifications meant she was known for her disappointments far more than her successes.

Trolling even made her consider giving up on her beloved sport altogether after the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 and revealed last year how she almost took her own life in 2018. She began to see a psychologist due to the intense mental suffering that the online abuse and bullying caused. 

She explained: "For me it was a big step to even talk about the assault in the first place. I’ve always talked about the fact that I want to help people. There are so many women who have gone through or who might be going through this same situation right now and won’t speak up either.

"I just constantly felt like a medal winning machine for a while, like a robot. I wish I hadn’t got to the point where I felt so undervalued as a human being. That came from a lot of things. Sport was a part of it, how I was handled and the fact that my well-being was never a top priority.

"I was always doubting myself. Part of it was the fact that the mental health side was so new in sport. I didn’t even understand it myself yet."

Christie’s brave decision to re-live her traumas comes at a time when women’s safety is a prominent topic of conversation.

Not only have the revelations about Sarah Everard’s horrific murder recently come to light, but the response to the news has sparked major debate about the current state of women’s safety.

The conversation has shown no signs of slowing down since the initial explosion of social media posts in March, with many either relating to the London Metropolitan Police’s mishandling of the case, the heavy tone of victim blaming that has appeared rife throughout the past few months, or simply encouraging men to take positive action.

Christie, like many other high profile figures, has realised that with the voice and the platform that her sporting career has afforded her, she has the power to start these open, honest and often uncomfortable conversations.

Sharing her story will undoubtedly encourage other women, in sport and beyond, to do the same.

During the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer, Simone Biles also used her platform to open a conversation about mental health within sports, after she withdrew from the team gymnastics final. Biles, like Christie, advocates putting mental health above anything else, even including the Olympic Games, particularly after the abuse she suffered at the hands of former team USA doctor, Larry Nassar that continue to affect her.

If one thing can be taken from the horrific ordeals Christie and Biles have faced, it’s that mental health must be taken more seriously in sports. Whilst sport and exercise is often considered to be a massive benefit to mental health, it’s no surprise that the pressures of high level competition can add additional challenges.

Thankfully, due to the bravery of sports people like Christie, mental health welfare is quickly becoming a priority for so many people.

Christie acknowledges the effect her mental health has had on her sport performance as she prepares for the next Winter Olympic Games which take place in Beijing next year.

Whilst still hopeful about the 2022 Games, she says that the competition is no longer about winning for her.

For Christie on a personal level, the real victory is being able to set an example for other women who are struggling - and help them to see that turning your life around is possible.

She added: “It won’t just be about medalling. I also want to be the girl who helped others turn their lives around and the girl who has turned her life around and has come back. That’s why I try to set that example."

MISS – MARK CLATTENBURG

Women’s football has enjoyed a long-overdue resurgence in recent years.

Barclays bank announced that they would become the title sponsor of the Women’s Super League while this year Sky Sports and the BBC announced a landmark deal which will see over 60 games broadcast over the course of the season.

This comes soon after the hugely successful 2019 Women’s World Cup which saw a significant growth in participation at all levels as England reached the semi-finals.

We have even seen a female referee, Stephanie Frappart, make history as the first female to referee a men's UEFA Champions League match, the game between Juventus and Dynamo Kiev in Turin.

But former referee Mark Clattenburg has set back gender equality in football by a few decades by suggesting that female referees must choose between their career and pregnancy.

Speaking on talkSPORT radio, Clattenburg said: “We always had a [female] assistant referee in the Premier League, Sian Massey[-Ellis], and we now have a woman refereeing in the Football League, Rebecca Welch, so women are starting to develop in the men's game.

"If you look at UEFA, for example, the French woman refereed the Super Cup final, so UEFA are getting more and more women.

"The problem with women is, and certainly in refereeing in football, they have a difficult pathway if they get pregnant during their refereeing career - it can stop them a long way. So they have to make this choice: do they want to be pregnant or do they want to be referees?

"They also have to pass the men's fitness tests and a lot of women struggle with the men's fitness tests; because, if you want to be in the men's game, you have to meet that criteria.

"If they pass all this and then choose the right path, I believe that women should be involved in the men's game as well as women being involved in the women's game. When you look at the Women's Super League, for example, there have been some high-profile mistakes. Why not bring in the best referees if you have the best leagues?

"Certainly, when you have a baby, you're out nine or 10 months and then you'll take another six months to recover from your body, so therefore it's nearly two years. And to pass that men's fitness test is very, very demanding."

Women in Football CEO Jane Purdon was quick to condemn Clattenburg’s remarks, stating: “Mark says "the problem with women" is having to choose between carrying a child and their refereeing career, and that being pregnant "can cost you two or three years of your life.

"Women in all professions face challenges in balancing work and family. So do many men - but for men this is never seen as a problem, and men are never expected to choose between the two.

"In fact, many women in elite sport are in a position to resume their sporting careers quickly after giving birth. Others take more time out - by choice or by necessity. Neither of these scenarios is a "problem". The real problem is assumptions about female biology, and gender roles in childcare, which are lazy, outdated or plain false."

Clattenburg is on a charm offensive at the moment, opening the curtain to the mysterious world of football refereeing and dishing the dirt on many of his former officiating colleagues.

He had a fantastic career, taking charge of the 2012 Olympic Games men's final; the 2016 FA Cup final; the 2016 UEFA Champions League final as well as the final of EURO 2016 in France.

He’s no stranger to controversy, though, having been sacked as a referee and then reinstated after what amounted to an eight-month ban after "issues relating to his private business affairs.”

He was then accused of racially abusing Jon Obi Mikel during Chelsea’s 3-2 defeat against Manchester United in 2012, a claim he was later cleared of.

He was also dropped from the Premier League roster after breaking protocol to go and watch Ed Sheeran in concert, with rules dictating that officials must travel to and from the ground together to ensure ther integrity and security.

He admitted speaking to manager Neil Warnock on his car phone, again in contravention of officiating rules and claimed in his book that he was investigated for suspected match-fixing after buying an expensive car and on the field, famously missed Pedro Mendes’ ‘ghost goal’.

Clattenburg shocked the footballing world when at the peak of his success, he quit the Premier League for a lucrative advisory role in Saudi Arabia.

His book tour was supposed to set the record straight and revise opinions amongst fans who might have considered Clattenburg arrogant or a lose cannon.

Sadly, his latest comments play into lazy stereotypes that society and sport have sought to expunge but one wonders if he will do the right thing and apologise.

[oh-styles]

Hello! Once you get this you have to answer with 5 things you like about yourself, publicly, then send this on to 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is super cool!) :D Now, go brag about yourself bc you're amazing 💙💙💙

Hang in there boys, I sure know how to ramble. 

1. I love my devotion for writing and photography. I’ve been writing for, what will be, 11 years this year, and I’ve progressed as a writer an incredulous amount – from the age of 12 to now – and I’ve sent my poetry to some of my favorite poets – the ones who are alive, at least – and to me, that’s a large step. Getting feedback, which wasn’t what I sought out to do, even helped me continue my path with writing, and photography itself is just a passion that I’ve loved for years, but I’m just now taking more seriously. I want to be a published author someday, and I hate saying it because I feel like the only thing I’ll hear is, “Well, that’s not very realistic, isn’t it?” Or, “You just aren’t good enough for that yet,” so I don’t vocalize that far too often, but I’ve read some published YA books where the writing is do blasé and transparent, so I think, well, if they can do that, then I most certainly can.

2. I love my sense of adventure. I was 20 when I packed my bags and hopped on an overnight Greyhound to New York, where a little over a year later I would end up moving. People ask me all the time why I would do something like that, and my answer is always the same, “Why not?” I’m not very spontaneous in the sense where I don’t think things through, but going out and experiencing something so incredible as moving to NYC at such a young age was just something I needed to do at the time, for myself. I am selfish with my decisions, when I know it’ll better me as a person, and it did. Most people I encounter tell me, “You’re so brave, I could never do that,” and I didn’t feel brave at all. Moving 700 miles away from everything I have ever known, to a city of 8 million was just me being me.

3. I like my complicated mind. I’ve been faced with the choice lately, after years and years of struggling and letting this weight barrel down on me, that if I don’t let myself get better, I won’t make it to the new year, or I won’t make it to see my next birthday, or Christmas. My mind has been sick for a very long time, and I’ve come to the acceptance that it might as well be sick for the rest of my life, but I can’t let that dictate my happiness. I began recovery last August, after I told myself, “Well, you’re either going to get help or die suffering,” and during this recovery process, I documented every meal I ate throughout the day, how many hours I slept, and everything in my life that caused me distressed and an imperiling amount of anguish. During this, I would separate everything from the things I can change, and the things I can’t. It’s been many months since, and I’m still figuring everything out, and I have my days where I can’t move, or think, and I start to think the illness has won, but I’m still here, so I must be stronger than I look.

4. I like the way I capture the world. I take in the small details, like the man on the N train who looked like he never washed his hair and I always caught him reading comic books, or Rosa from my Atlantic-Barclays station, who I always waited for our train with, or how I didn’t recognize Flava Flav the first time he waved at me at work and I completely blew him off. I love the way I remember every detail of Sam from our first kiss to our last. I love how I remember the feeling of his fast-paced love running circles in my heart, and how quick he passed through my life like a small town. I love how I printed his lips deep in my heart, and maybe archaeologists will find the fossil someday.

5. I love how I’m a bitch. In this world, women don’t have time to play nice all the time and let men step all over them like a fucking rug. We are powerful beings, with large lungs and iron fists. I don’t let anyone tell me I can’t do something, and god forbid let a man dictate that. I’m not nice when I need to be. I’ve been touched without my permission, I’ve been controlled and constantly told what to do, and I’ve reached a point where I stand up for myself now, with much desired confidence, and people will see that in a woman and say she’s being a bitch. Well, I’ll be the best damn bitch I can be.

[ericfruits]

The New Winners and Losers in Investment Banking

Updated April 15, 2018 5:32 a.m. ET

New technology, more transparency and fresh regulations are deepening the divide between winners and losers among global investment banks. The winners are big or small, and generally American; the losers are European banks that are stuck in the middle.

Winning may only be relative for banks like Goldman Sachs because the biggest pressures are on trading with financial clients like asset managers and hedge funds. Losers like Deutsche Bank face the same problems, but are weighed down by a dreadful combination of higher costs, weaker home markets and less ability to quickly respond.

The competitive advantage is moving increasingly to the top-three banks in each business and to the smaller, nimbler players who escape big-bank regulation or aren’t weighed down by outdated IT. The second tier of big banks are being squeezed on revenues and hurt by growing transparency, which erodes their advantages over small players.

The likely winners are U.S. banks. JPMorgan alone is a top-three bank by revenues in every business line. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley make the cut in equities trading and deal advice; Bank of America and Citigroup are there in debt-related businesses. The squeezed middle includes Barclays , Credit Suisse and Deutsche.

The transparency trend is squashing differences between buying and selling prices, a major source of past bank revenues. It is also further destroying their power to generate and sell market information. Asset managers under pressure from passive funds are suffering from fee transparency, too, and pressing their banks for better pricing.

Price transparency has been squeezing equities revenues for years, but the crucial point is the trend isn’t only continuing, but also spreading to every area of traditional investment banking, including bond and derivatives trading, research and even M&A.

The backdrop even for the winners is tough: As much as $20 billion in global revenues will be lost from equities and debt trading over the next few years, according to research by Morgan Stanley and Oliver Wyman.

In Europe, the so-called Mifid rules are making it bite harder, turning more trading electronic and increasing the pricing data that will become widely available. It is also forcing banks to charge separately for equity research, a service where banks used to have a big advantage because they had more information and supposedly gave it away for free. In truth clients paid for it in higher trading costs.

These trends help nimble and tech-savvy competitors, which in the past had less information and market access. That is good for nonbank market makers like Citadel Securities, independent research houses, or boutique merger-and-acquisition advisers, such as Evercore. These firms enjoy lower regulatory and capital costs and can also pay star bankers or traders a greater share of revenues.

At the other end, efficiency is all. With revenues harder to come by, scale matters because only the very biggest can afford all the high fixed costs banks must pay, while investing enough in technology to keep pace with the structural changes.

Goldman and Deutsche are refocusing on corporate clients—and a big part of that is shedding costs from an institutional fixed-income business makes less sense. For Goldman this is easier due to it its leading position advising on deals and trading equities.

Deutsche doesn’t have Goldman’s big stream of U.S. profits or another business that can fund technology investment or quickly pay the costs of quitting unprofitable products. Deutsche’s path is clear, it should be the biggest bank for financing and advising European companies—but it faces a long, painful path to shed much of the costly people and offices it won’t need when it gets there.

Write to Paul J. Davies at paul.davies@wsj.com

Appeared in the April 16, 2018, print edition as 'A Divide Widens in Investment Banking.'

https://ift.tt/2H1WzmF

[revmolly]

Resist+Surrender

Rev. Molly Baskette ~ First Church Berkeley UCC

“Resist+Surrender” Matthew 4:1-11

Sunday, March 5, 2017 ~ Lent I

If there’s one thing the Temptation story teaches us, it’s that Jesus likes to do things the hard way. From the very beginning of his ministry, at least when it comes to his own comfort and survival, he doesn’t take any magical shortcuts. This forty days in the wilderness are his Jedi training--a time of testing and strengthening before the 3 years of ministry that will take him to prix fixe dinners at Chez Panisse with the 1%, but also have him sleeping rough, healing lepers and ultimately dying on a cross. He needs to be ready for anything.

We call this story the Temptation, but it’s not so much a tempting as a testing. Scottish theologian William Barclay said “temptation is not meant to make us sin, it is meant to enable us to conquer sin. It is not meant to make us bad, it is meant to make us good. It is not meant to weaken us, it is meant to make us emerge stronger and finer and purer from the ordeal. Temptation is not the penalty of being human, it is the glory of being human--the test which comes to every human whom God wishes to use.

“So we must think of this whole incident, not as the temptation of Jesus, but as his testing.”

One of the most exciting things about this story is that God is entirely absent, but Satan is there. It’s enough to make me wonder if Satan isn’t actually God’s stand-in--a subcontractor if you will--God’s flunky in making Jesus, into Jesus.

I also wonder--what if Jesus hadn’t passed the test? Would God have moved on to another human, a century or twenty later? Tried again, maybe with a woman next time?

But Jesus did pass the test. The test was to see if he would trivialize the power God gave him by using it for parlor tricks, to turn stones to bread or save his own neck, or if he would go cheap for that power by making himself President of the World, which might seem like a really good idea if you are supposed to be the people’s Savior, but might have unintended consequences.

Let’s be clear, Satan wasn’t offering Jesus bad things. He wasn’t trying to get Jesus to kill for him, steal or lie. Satan was offering him good things. But context matters.

The word of the moment is Resistance. It is the rallying cry for those who believe many of the decisions made by the current regime in power are antithetical to common decency and common sense--and for progressive Christians, they are also opposite to the mandate Jesus gave us. Satan means opposer, and while many of us might hesitate to call any individual person evil, there is a sense that as a whole, this regime is in thrall, actively and passively, to Satanic forces that deny God’s love for all human beings and exploit God’s Creation. For the last few months we have been crying Resistance, but also trying to sort out for ourselves: what do we resist? And to what do we surrender? What is God and what is the opposite of God, and what is my role in it all?

And that is where the question of Jesus’ testing becomes so important, because when he might have grabbed all the power all at once and fixed the world’s problems, presumably, he left power on the table. He did it the hard way, and now, as a consequence, his work is still not done. It is still unfolding. What does all this mean?

The question of what to resist and what to surrender to is the question of every human heart. So many riptides and cross-currents of fear, desire and anger (another form of fear) move through each of us at a core level. We may not even be aware, most of the time, what really motivates us to do and say and think the things we do. And in that mix, there is also God’s movement, God’s desires, God’s will.

We each have our own way of sorting out God’s will from our will. Some of us, like me, find some alone space, get very quiet, and listen. Others, like my husband, use Excel spreadsheets. I was talking to a parishioner recently and she said she thinks that by now God must want her to stand on her own two feet and stop consulting Him all the time. I am curious about this--I don’t want to dismiss any idea that asks us to grow up continually--but I also believe that God is *always* going to know better than I am what I should do, because God sees the whole landscape, without my fear and desire filters muddying the view. That’s what makes God God.

The whole question of God’s will versus our will is about interrogating our desires so we know when to resist, and when to surrender, to choose the right good thing in every decision. It’s a spiritual tug of war. And those who are willing to stay in the game, even if we grow weary, will also grow strong. And if the story is true: before our strength runs out, Satan will scram, and angels will show up.

Thursday did not go how I planned. I planned to meet Doug Lawrence for coffee to talk about God and politics, then go furniture shopping with Kit and Rachel so we’d have a place to sit in our new post-fire offices in Durant House, then have a staff meeting where we would finally and completely work out all the details of everything Church. Forever. And ever. Amen.

Instead, on Thursday at 3pm, I found myself on one side of a suspension footbridge over a distinctly Harry Potter-esque abyss between jagged black rocks, the not-so-Pacific Ocean boiling hundreds of feet below me. On the other side of the footbridge lay 14 5th graders, a glorious vintage lighthouse, and beyond it, eternity.

I was there because the day before, I’d waved my daughter Carmen off on her first ever overnight school trip, to nature camp in the wilderness, with four epipens in hand. But later that evening, in the middle of Ash Wednesday service, I got multiple texts and phone calls from her teacher saying there were only three epipens left, and they were now on their way to the ER. All this transpired as I was saying from dust you came and to dust you shall return while I smeared ashes on the heads of the likes of young Mateo and wise Helen Wadman.

When I got to Marin, Carmen was shaken but OK. This was her 9th or 12th such near-death experience. Mostly she was devastated that she would have to go home and miss the rest of the trip. So I cancelled everything, brought her back to camp, and trailed the class that day to make sure she didn’t have a breakthrough allergic reaction. That’s how I came to be on the edge of a footbridge. She’d faced her death the night before, and today I was facing mine.

One of the gifts of being a cancer survivor is that it puts other fears in perspective, so you are able to do things like saunter across suspension footbridges in earthquake country when you are afraid of heights. Another gift of survivorship is you reserve the right not to do obviously foolish and wanton things, like crossing suspension footbridges in earthquake country. Even if on the other side lies your heart’s other half, and light, light, light.

The other week I preached about conflict, and I was wrong about something. I said that conflict is difference plus tension. I think that is right. But I said that in order to eliminate conflict, we can eliminate difference, or we can eliminate tension. I think that’s right, too, actually.

Where I was wrong was in the assumption that it’s always a good idea to eliminate tension. After all, tension is dynamic. Tension is what literally helps our bodies move, as muscles flex and relax. Tension is what makes any good story worth its salt. And tension is what holds a suspension bridge in place, so we can go from here to there/eternity.

Lent is the time when we enter the wilderness that Jesus sat in for 40 days, hot and hungry and suffering. It is the time when we dig deeper, look into our shadow, interrogate our desires and fears, and risk failure. It is a time we introduce an intentional tension into our lives because we are trying to strengthen our spiritualq muscles. We know life will have trouble of its own, so we don’t normally go looking for it, especially in the form of giving up caffeine or sugar. We know we will fail enough at God’s best hopes for us, so why would we set ourselves to a further test, like taking on a new prayer or social justice practice, in which we will surely fail to get an A?

We do it because it is preparation for the greater challenges that will come from all of God’s Opposers in life, those within us and those without. We do it because tension in our souls, like muscles, a suspension bridge, or a good story, is absolutely necessary to a healthy and strong spiritual life. Tension is what allows us to cross every abyss and move toward the light. Without it, we’re trapped and static. A Christianity without tension, without testing, is a flabby Christianity. It is, to quote James Baldwin speaking of white America and its often false Christianity, “fat and sleek and safe and dead.”

And that’s the real reason Jesus didn’t surrender to Satan’s offer to be President of the World. Where would be the dynamic tension in that?

In case you are wondering, I never did cross that bridge. But there are 36 days to go....

#Lent #Temptation #THISisChristian

[rjhamster]

The Berean - James 1:2-4 NASB   (2) Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, (3) knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. (4) And let endurance have {its} perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. New American Standard Bible 1. Trials should produce growth. Just as we prune a shrub or tree to force it to grow into a more perfect form, so God does with us. William Barclay makes an excellent comment on this: . . . these tests or trials are not meant to make us fall, they are meant to make us soar. They are not meant to defeat us; they are meant to be defeated. They are not meant to make us weaker; they are meant to make us stronger. Therefore we should not bemoan them; we should rejoice in them. Notice that trials should produce growth, rather than that they will produce it. Sometimes, we just do not learn the lesson; we fail; we regress; we sink into self-pity. This leads me to another lesson learned. 2. The fruit we produce depends on our outlook. This does not imply that anger and depression are not normal human emotions. They are. With any trial, you wonder why. You evaluate your actions, your mistakes, your sins. You repent, fast, and pray. You cry out to God with more emotion than you knew you possessed. If you are normal, you have moments of anger, perhaps even doubt. Here is where we can produce fruit or destroy it. With God's help, we must forcibly evict these carnal thoughts from our minds. We cannot allow seeds of doubt to germinate, and if they do, they cannot be allowed to grow. We must look forward and deal with the situation. Paul writes: . . . we know for certain that He who raised the Lord Jesus from death shall also raise us with Jesus. We shall all stand together before Him. All this is indeed working out for your benefit, for as more grace is given to more and more people so will the thanksgiving to the glory of God be increased. This is the reason why we never lose heart. The outward man does indeed suffer wear and tear, but every day the inward man receives fresh strength. These little troubles (which are really so transitory) are winning for us a permanent, glorious and solid reward out of all proportion to our pain. (II Corinthians 4:14-17, Phillips) So it is good advice that we not resent our trials or bemoan our fate or the state in which we find ourselves. As James says, "Count it all joy," which brings us to the next lesson. 3. Joy comes after, not before, the trial—and often not during it. No sane person sits around, wishing he had a trial. That is absurd. No one is ecstatic to find himself encompassed in pain. Only when you have faced your troubles and started to fight can you begin to see even a glimmer of a positive result at its conclusion. James' advice is to count or consider our trials joyfully. The Phillips' version continues, "Realise that they come to test your faith and to produce endurance" (James 1:3). These words reflect a passage of time. Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus endured the cross "for the joy that was set before Him." He thought nothing of the pain and shame because of the joy He knew would follow His suffering. Joy came afterward. Verse 11 says, "Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Here is convincing proof that joy is primarily post-trial. Yet even this joy is not the ecstatic, "Hallelujah!" kind of joy. Chara means "cheerfulness" or "calm delight." God's Spirit does not produce in us a gloating, "I did it!" kind of emotion, but a cheerful peace of mind, an awareness that we survived and grew. We feel a kind of satisfaction that God has pruned us so that we might become more like him. This process helps us to appreciate our lives more, and to be more thankful, understanding, and sympathetic to the plight of others. A lady with a long-term illness once wrote to us about her trials. As she came slowly out of her personal struggle, she passed on to us several things that we found to be true. One line she wrote is very true: "I never realized how wonderful it is to be able to do ordinary things until I couldn't do them." She had "never realized." Yet now, because of her trial, she counted or considered her situation and found joy in a simple act. By sharing this with us, she gave us hope and encouragement. We saw this new perspective as positive. This is fruit borne through testing. It is God's refining process at work. He is removing impurities. As hard as it seemed, after giving them much prayer and thought, we found that each trial was specific to us. It was what we needed to make us more like God. We did not see this initially, but through perseverance and growth, it became clear. This is why we are happy that God has chosen us to suffer whatever trials He may allow. As James goes on to write: Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him" (James 1:12). — Mike Ford

[riotactquotes]

Great Britain, The Parliamentary Debates, 1817

Page 859: Mr. Wynn, as he had not been a member of the secret committee, had had no opportunity of knowing the nature of the evidence on which they had founded the report; but from reading that report, he had no hesitation in believing that the danger extended to a much greater length than was generally thought. How the lord mayor could have searched through the contents of the sealed bag, and have known the evidence that the members had before them was to him a mystery. The report did not state this societies to be prevalent over every part of the kingdom, but over a very great part. He could not do otherwise than give his confidence to those who framed the report; as it was not possible, nor would it have been justifiable for them to give the evidence. He would not, however, page himself to give his support to the whole of these measures, particularly to this that applied to reading rooms and libraries, which he thought went farther than anything that was ever in the contemplation of any man before. The hon. gentleman advert to the nature of the Riot Act, which was as old as almost any law in existence. It made the hundred liable to the damage committed by rioters; but it had been decided that damages could not be recovered unless it was proved that it was the intent of the rioters to destroy the House. In the riot on the 2nd of December, one person had his house entered and robbed of property to the amount of 1,000l., and he could gain no redress whatever. He therefore suggested, whether it would not be advisable to extend redress in cases of riots of all descriptions.

Page 931: Mr. Gurney rose and said, he must again call the attention of the House to these atrocious clauses. That their being found in the Riot Act of George 1st, was no ground at all for introducing them in this; the preamble of that act stating it as made against “rebellious riots, and tumults,” the preamble to the present bill “that such meetings had been used to the danger and disturbance of the public peace.” That, indeed, all the riot acts in which capital punishment had been awarded, went on the ground of outrage carried to a length approximating to rebellion.  

Page 932: That these laws had slept from the accession of James 1st to the 1st George 1st, when the Riot Act, of which the enactments are so strangely grafted into this bill, was passed on occasion of the great tumults on the impeachments of Oxford and Ormond. ….. The Attorney General wished to remind the House of the object of the bill, and more particularly the clause in question. That object was to prevent the meeting of tumultuous assemblies, and to disperse them if thy should have met. The hon. gentleman who spoke last, was afraid that the clause was of a nature to excite discontent against the legislature; but the had been a long experience of a law of a similar description, and that experience had demonstrated that no such effect was to be apprehended. The clause would operate as a preventive, and it therefore was not likely that the actual infliction of the punishment it enacted would ever take place. There had been no instance of any punishment under the act similar to the present bill, which passed at a former crisis, nor under the Riot Act. The apprehension of punishment had prevented the offense: but how could it be expected that seditious meetings could be dispersed, if, after an hour’s notice given by a magistrate, it should still be necessary to enter into parlance with the multitude? It was necessary to have a definite penalty specified, in order that the parties might know what would be the consequence of their continuing longer together; and the severity of the punishment would be a security against the violation of the law.

Page 933: Sir James Mackintosh considered the argument of the hon. and learned gentleman as one of a very singular kind. He had insisted on the necessity of punishing persons offending against the law, as if his hon. friend who had opposed the clause, had maintained that there should be no punishment. To agree to enact that persons persisting to remain together after notice to disperse was given, should be an offense, and yet to say that no punishment should be inflicted on the offenders, was an absurdity of which his hon. friend certainly never was guilty. The question was, whether the punishment of death was the proper punishment for the offense. The hon. and learned gentleman had state, that there had been no instances of punishment under the similar clauses in the Riot Act, and the act of 1795, which he believed was the fact; but if there had been no cases of punishment, the inference was, that there had been no occurrence of the offense. The multiplication of unnecessary statutes, and the enactment of penalties too severe in proportion to the offense, only tended to weaken and degrade the authority of the law. The order of the magistrate to disperse, it was supposed might be disobeyed. That disobedience would either bring the parties offending within the Riot Act, or it would not. If it brought them within it, then this clause was useless; for what necessity could there be for loading the statute book with sanguinary enactments? if it did not bring the parties within the Riot Act, then this bill went farther than that Act, by punishing a less offense with equal severity. He would ask the committee whether they were prepared to enact a law more severe than the most sanguinary of the criminal code of this or of any other country, namely, the Riot Act? — a law which nothing could excuse but the peculiarly difficult circumstances of the period in which it was passed. He must again ask, of what use the clause could be if it enacted nothing more than was already enacted by the Riot Act? and unless he received a satisfactory answer, he would propose to leave out the words, “shall suffer death without benefit of clergy,’ in order to substitute the punishment of transportation for not less than seven and not more than fourteen years.

Page 934: The Solicitor General saw no reason for the amendment suggest by the hon. gentleman. Many laws were enacted merely with a view to the prevention of crimes, and it was therefore very inconsistent to contend that such laws were useless because no punishments had been inflicted under them. That circumstance rather proud that they had answered the purpose for which they were enacted. On this principle it might be said, that the Riot Act was unnecessary; for he did not recollect one instance of the trial of any persons for not dispersing within an hour after proclamation under the Riot Act had been made; and yet no statute had been of greater advantage to the country than that act. The hon. gentleman had observed that the clause either came within the Riot Act, or did more than that act. It certainly did do more than the Riot Act in the way of preventing disorder. According to the Riot Act, persons must not only be assembled, but must be assembled riotously and tumultuously. The object of the present bill was to prevent assembling at all except under the sanction of lawful functionaries, as he might call the magistrates, who were to superintend such meetings; and the clause in question gave to magistrates authority to disperse meetings so assembled, though there might be no actual riot or tumult. As the object of the bill was to prevent riot, it must be regarded as wise and proper to put the offense contemplated in the clause on the same footing as resistance to a proclamation under the Riot Act. The House, too, would bear in mind that this bill was not proposed to be permanent, like the Riot Act, but to be passed to remedy a temporary evil. The offense was not one for which any reasonable excuse could be offered. It was not one committed on a sudden impulse of passion or inadvertently.

Page 935: Mr. Barclay wished to know whether it was meant to assert, that when proclamation had been made under the Riot Act, it had always happened that the persons assembled dispersed in due time, and returned to their homes? For his part, he believed the contrary was very frequently the case. There having been no punishment under the law was no proof the offense had not occurred. In his opinion the severity of the punishment had prevented prosecutions. He trusted that his hon. and learned friend would propose the attention which he had suggested in the shape of an amendment.

Page 936: A pickpocket might be considered a deliberate offender. His stealing was certainly a deliberate act. If, therefore, the deliberate manner in which the persons remained together was to be considered a sufficient ground to justify the infliction of death, there was no saying how far that punishment might be awarded. Between the Riot Act and the one now before the committee there was no comparison. The Riot Act supposed those against whom it was directed, were violating the public tranquility and committing outrage. The one now before the committee subjected those who did not disperse in hone hour after proclamation, to the same dreadful punishment as if they had been guilty of the most aggravated crimes. It was a matter of no moment, whether they were peaceable or not; it did not avail them anything to have conducted themselves in an orderly manner, for the punishment was the same. Viewing, then, the subject in this most serious light, he hoped his hon. friend would move the amendment he had already suggested.

Sir J.C. Hippisley said, it was now a century since the Riot Act had passed, and it had proved of the greatest advantage. He had recently had personal experience of its utility. In the course of last week he had felt it to be his duty to read the Riot Act to an assembly which, though not actually riotous and tumultuous at the time, had riotous objects in view. Had the act been less penal, he was convinced he should not have had sufficient influence to cause the dispersion of that assembly. He was perfectly confident, that it was only by his stating to the people the high penalties to which they would expose themselves if they continued together, that he prevailed on them to separate. If the punishment under the Riot Act had been transportation, he certainly should not have succeeded. With regard to the difference between the present measure and the Riot Act, the important difference with regard to the number allowed to continue together had not been noticed. Under the Riot Act the number was twelve, but by the bill now under consideration it was fifty. He would vote for the higher penalty, as he considered it necessary for the peace of the country.

Page 937: Mr. Wynn decidedly thought the act would be of no avail unless the punishment of death was the consequence to those who violated it. Not to disperse after the proclamation was read, was an act of the highest rebellion, and certainly entitled those who were guilty of it to the severest penalties of the law. The very circumstance of no case having ever occurred under the Riot Act, where death had been inflicted, showed the excellent effects that the dread of that punishment had on the mind. Convinced that those who should violate this act were guilty of direct and open rebellion, he did not by any means conceive the punishment disproportionate to the offense, and should therefore give it his support. Every circumstance connected with the present times justified its being the case, and led him to think it indispensably necessary.

Sir James Mackintosh agreed with his hon. friend, that such a punishment could only be justified on the ground of its being applied to rebellion; but he contended that the offense was not one of that description. When the punishment of death was inflicted under the Riot Act, it was for actual violence and resistance; but here it was proposed to enact the same punishment for the mere non-compliance with the order of a magistrate. A century ago, it had been thought fit to punish resistance to a magistrate with death; but he called upon any hon. gentleman to show any instance in which the law of England had made noncompliance with the order of a magistrate an offense punishable with death. He now moved, that the words “shall suffer death as in case of felony, without benefit of clergy,” should be left out, and the words, “shall suffer transportation for the term of 7 years,” inserted in their stead.

Lord Castlereagh said, that many gentlemen had appeared disposed to seize upon the present opportunity to discuss the abstract questions of crimes and punishments, but into that branch of the subject he should not enter. With regard to the Riot Act, he was of opinion that there was not on the statute book a law which had been more advantageous to the country. The question was not whether the principal of the Riot Act was applied to the present bill, but whether there was a necessity for the measure. There was this difference between the two laws, that the Riot Act was applicable to tumult which had commenced, or was intended: whereas the present bill was intended, not merely to stop the incipient but apprehended riot. An hon. baronet had stated to the House, that he had dispersed persons because he knew they had assembled for a riotous purpose.

Page 938: The operation of the Riot Act was not, therefore, merely confined to actual riot. He would contend, that whenever resistance should be made to the order of a magistrate under this act, there would be such an opposition to the law as constituted rebellion, and he would ask, whether it was more prudent, by mitigating the penalty, to invite the people to make resistance, or to arm the magistrates with that precautionary authority which would enable them to preserve the peace? if the two laws, the Riot Act and the present bill, were allowed to go into concurrent operation with different penalties, the result of that operation would be the greatest inconsistencies. Suppose in the same field one magistrate should order the people to disperse, under pain of transportation, and in another part of the same field the Riot Act should be read, it would be impossible for the persons assembled to know to which penalty thy were exposing themselves. He could conceive nothing worse than to leave any doubt on this subject, and therefore thought that the House ought to be guided by the principle of the Riot Act. He was confident that the amendment would not be adopted unless it was determined that there should be a complete doubt raised as to the situation in which persons assembled in opposition to the act should stand.

Mr. John Smith said, he was not quite old enough to remember the riots of 1780, but he should like to know if the Riot Act was found useful either then, or in 1793, when Dr. Priestley’s house was burnt down. In 1780, as he was informed, the Riot Act was read many times without effect. He could not help thinking, that with men of common sense the apprehension of the penalty of transportation, which they knew would certainly be enforced, would go as far to deter them from disobedience to the law, as the threat of a higher punishment, which they might hope would not be inflicted on them. In the course of his experience he had always found, that when death was the punishment for slight offenses the difficulty of prosecution was almost insuperable.

Page 944: Lord Castlereagh argued, that the clause did not give the magistrate a greater power than he had at present. By the existing law a magistrate, if he heard seditious words, might order the person uttering them into custody. If the meeting at which they were uttered exhibited any tumultuous disposition, he might read the Riot Act, and order them to disperse. Did the committee mean to circumscribe the existing power of the magistrate? They must choose between leaving the magistrate his ordinary jurisdiction, or making these meetings sanctified places, in which treason and sedition might be vented with impunity.  

Page 1100: But it was because this act pointed out too clearly what magistrates were encouraged to do, that he must altogether refuse it his support; for although persons assembled together above the number of twelve had been under former acts liable to severe punishment if they failed to disperse on a momentary summons, yet he could not esteem that any foundation on which the present measure could rest with property. It had been said on a former occasion, that this act was copied from the Riot Act, and the Riot Act had been held up as an established and constitutional law. It was possible that act might have produced good effects, thought his was exceedingly doubtful; but the present act did not in any way proceed on the Riot Act, for that was directed against those who had been already criminal — who, after an actual breach of the peace, were still riotously assembled. That was an offense for which they might have been legally indicted before the act passed. He desired not to be understood as making an attack on the Riot Act. The solicitor-general had state, that that act had been found exceedingly useful, inasmuch as no person had ever been executed under it. indeed, it might be considered to have had excellent effects, if it had ever prevented riots; but since that act, and as if in defiance of it, w had seen the most dangerous riots that ver had existed since the time of Charles 1st, and in which the act had been altogether inefficient. In the year 1780, the Riot Act was not even read — not from any apathy on the part of the magistrates, but bucks the riots were so formidable that it had been vain to attempt the reading, and even the terror of the act was absolutely null.  

Page 1101: Indeed, for the most part, people never knew whether the act was read or not, the reader being inaudible in the tumult, whenever the reading was rendered necessary; so that any established signal which could speak to the eyes would be in all cases more effectual. Again, the riots at Birmingham, in 1793, lasted a fortnight or three weeks in defiance of the Riot Act, and with unrestrained control The reason, therefore, given by the solicitor-general, to show that the act had been useful, namely, that no person had been executed under it, was altogether fallacious: for the hon. and learned gentleman meant to infer from thence, that the act had succeeded in preventing or dispersing meetings in time, and to obviate the occurrence of violence and the consequent necessity of punishment, which had notoriously not been the case. But, at all vents, that act was no authority for inflicting so severe and cruel a punishment on parties engaged in popular assemblies as was now proposed. Besides, the penalties inflicted by the Riot Act were worse than nugatory; for we knew that unless juries were constituted very differently from what they were at present and ferocious prosecutors arose such as never had existed, the punishments menaced would never be carried into execution. As far as the Spenceans were concerned, the bill was all in vain.

Page 1104: The true ground on which the bill before the House was to be justified, he took to be this, that it left the people free to express their sentiments on all public affairs in a constitutional way. he would put it to all who heard him, if after the passing of this act, there would be anything to prevent the people from expressing their opinions in a regular way on all topics connected with politics, as freely as ever? Those meetings called in a constitutional manner by the proper constituted authorities, would be wholly untouched by this bill. This could not be denied, and indeed this very circumstance had ben made a matter of charge against his noble friend. It had been asked, since such a measure was resort to at all, why were meetings like those tow hiccup h had just alluded, to be left untouched? The answer was plain and obvious — because they were known to the constitution. Such meetings would be as free as ever from restraint. They would of course be subject to the interference of the magistrates in the event of any disturbance taking place. They would be subject to the Riot Act, and to the common law of the land; but they would not be affected by this bill. But it was said, where was the necessity for this bill? The meetings held all over the country, it was asserted, had not led to public disorders.

Page 1108: It was said, that the report cast an unfounded imputation on the conduct of the people generally, and that those that sought a constitutional reform, were confounded with those who wish for a revolution. The report, however, while it called for a measure like that now before the House, had described the great majority of the people to be sound, though ti had to lament, that many had been seduced to lend themselves to favor the views of designing men. Out of doors it was generally felt, that the course now taken by parliament, was for the benefit of the people; and public confidence had revived since the Houses had met, and adopted those amusers to afford them protection, which the loyal and well-dispose had a right to expect. But it had been said, that the provisions for dispersing rioters, contained in the bill, were too strong for the occasion. The terrors of this severity, it was found by experience, had produced the most salutary effects, and the Riot Act had had the merit of making it unnecessary to institute any prosecutions under it. The hon. and learned gentleman had argued against the Riot Act from its supposed inefficiency in 1780. Unfortunately, at that period, (principally through the remissness of the magistrates of the city), popular tumults rose to a great height; the mob destroyed the Catholic chapels, and committed many other outrages, and it was found impossible to read the Riot Act; at least it must be felt, when the whole of the streets, leading from that House to Guildhall, were filled with people, as many could remember was the case; that to read the Riot Act at Westminster, unless it could be heard at Guildhall, would be useless. This, however, was no argument against its efficacy; and the principles of the bill now before the House, were the same as those of the Riot Act, though the circumstances contemplate, as likely to call for their application, might be different.

Page 1211: Lord Holland thought that the penalty of death was by far too heavy a punishment to be inflicted under the circumstances described in the bill. This part of the clause was, he was aware, copied from the Riot Act; but it should be recollected, that to constitute the offense described in that act, there must be, on the part of the persons assembled, some riotous acts. Under the present bill, there was no such qualification, as, for anything that appeared on the face of it, persons merely remaining on the ground where the meeting was held, to the number of twelve or more, perhaps conversing about it, or ignorant of the law, might be subjected to the punishment of death. Considering this as by far too heavy a penalty for such an offense, he should move to substitute a lesser punishment.

Page 1213: Lord Holland was perfectly aware that the act by which the penalty was incurred, was the not dispersing, when command; but he repeated, that the punishment was infinitely too severe for the mere act of peaceably remaining. In the case of the Riot Act, the penalty was incurred, not by the mere act of remaining, but by that of remaining riotously and tumultuously. He thought the punishment of death too severe for any of the offenses described in these clauses; but here it was glaringly disproportionate to the crime. It was not analogous to the punishments imposed in other cases. A smuggler unarmed might, without incurring this penalty, do acts which, if done by an armed smuggler would render him liable to this punishment.

The Lord Chancellor said, there was a distinction certainly between an unlawful assembly an a riotous or routous assembly; but under the present circumstances, the punishment of death ought to be here retained.

The amendment was negatived.

Page 1229: The meeting at Spa fields, whatever might have been the intentions of those who assembled it, became very soon of that description; and nobody surely could be heard to say that it might not have been immediately dispersed by the magistrates, whose duty it was to be present. it was not at all necessary that there should be acts of violence to justify the putting the Riot Act in force; it was enough if, in the judgment of the magistrate, it was dangerously tumultuous; or if it had even an obvious tendency to ordinary riot, which the law place in his judgment also, he had powers already which the bill before them did not propose to add to, and which no possible law could strengthen.

Page 1230: The Riot Act seemed scarcely indeed to be consistent with a free constitution. It was passed in an unsettled state of the government, at least in well justified apprehension; but it had continued permanent in the best of times, because parliament and the courts of justice were always at hand to correct any abuses of it; and it was a great instrument of safety, not only in times of public danger, but to protect even the multitude themselves from the consequences of disorders into which they may be innocently and inadvertently led, by designing and mischievous men. All such evils the existing laws were also sufficiently expensive to reach, and strong enough to punish. The existence, therefore, of the Riot Act was in itself an unanswerable objection to the present bill; because it provided for the exercise of very power which ought to be left to the discretion of the magistrate; and to extend it farther appeared to him to be a violation of every principle of a free government.

Page 1260: All the house knew the means that were employed to evade the law; the whole country knew that stings might take place under the ruling demagogue of the day, in which the people might be told that parliament were carless of their prayers, and were determined to refuse redress; that the executive had determined on their ruin; and, in short, in which their passions might be excited, so as to carry them beyond their own control, into acts of tumult and riot. When they had been hurried by seditious and inflammatory harangues to breaches of the peace, the Riot Act might then be read and the multitude dispersed; or if they refused to disperse, the might be punished. This was the law as it at present stood. Was this law sufficient to meet the exigency of the times? Was it better to punish after a breach of the peace had happened, than to prevent the peace from being broken? Was it better to allow outrages to be committed, that they might be punished, than to guard against their commission, and save the vengeance of the law? But then, said his noble friends, one of them in particular, “why allow such power to one magistrate as this bill invests him with?” When they made this objection, they forgot the powers of the law as it at present stood. Could not one magistrate read the Riot Act? could not one magistrate commit on his own responsibility? How foolish, therefore, was it to permit one magistrate to order the military to fire upon the multitude who refused to disperse, and to deny his competence to order a simple dispersion.

Page 1263: Though the laws, as they stood, were, in his view, competent to the preservation of the public peace, he would not have objected to such clauses in the bill as those by which such meetings as that of Spa-fields might be prevented; but when he was asked to give such powers to a single magistrate, as those with which the present bill would invest him, he could not consent to the demand. His noble friend had made a mistake in comparing the powers of the magistrate under the Riot Act, and under this bill. In the Riot Act his duty was clear, because the nature of the assemblage could not be doubted; but under the present bill, there was no overt acted required. The meeting was legally assembled, and was to be dispersed upon his discretionary view of the doctrines promulgated, or his opinion that they tended to bring into hatred and contempt the government. He could not, therefore, give his consent to the bill. He could not concur in an observation that had fallen from the noble earl opposite, that because we had reduced the army, and were at peace, there was greater danger than in war; and that, consequently, this measure was necessary to come in aid of a military force. If this argument was useful for anything, it tended to show, that in reducing the army, we had violated the constitution, and that a standing force was the only safeguard of our freedom.

[torentialtribute]

Anne and James Keothavong on their journey from a Hackney council block to the elite level of tennis

Anne and James Keothavong are laughing about it now, but they can still remember the reaction they received in the past as they would turn around

& I will never forget how many thousands and adventures we had in that car, says James. & # 39; It wasn't the nicest vehicle, but it took us from A to B and that's all we needed. We knew that we were different and the condescending glances we received have just encouraged us. & # 39;

Those trips through the country in the old banger were part of a much longer, remarkable journey, a journey she took from the top floor of a council building in Hackney to the top table of which is still generally seen as a sport of a country club.

<img id = "i-8efb08c97b0e8f5e" src = "https://dailym.ai/2WXewds 21 / 15098776-7168547-image-a-64_1561147359888.jpg "height =" 356 "width =" 634 "alt =" James and Anne Keothavong have made an incredible journey to get to the top of tennis James and Anne Keothavong have an incredible journey made to reach the top of tennis

] The brothers and sisters grew up in a Hackney council estate and still laugh at those early memories "

The brothers and sisters grew up in a Hackney council estate and still laughing at those early memories

The Keothavongs may have been different, but then they eventually reach a different effect for v part of their contemporaries. Anne would become British No 1 and the rarity of a British top 50 player, now the successful captain of the GB Fed Cup team.

James is one of the best known referees, whose resumes are in the seat for six Grand Slam singles finals including the Wimbledon championship match between Kevin Anderson and Novak Djokovic last year.

Theirs is a modern British success story, although there are similar ones replicated throughout the world in tennis.

Anne and James – who have two other high-performing brothers and sisters who work in finance and marketing – are the children of Somsak and Vathana, who took different routes to the United Kingdom from the former Laotian colony, who in suffered heavy civil wars in the 1960s and 1970s.

They met through the little Laotian

When he first came to England in the mid-1970s, he watched Wimbledon on TV and was adamant. go see & # 39 ;, James says.

& # 39; He just fell in love with the game, had it never played before. In particular, I fell in love with Chris Evert, like a lot of men in the day and I decided that if I ever had children, I would like to involve them in tennis. & # 39; A selection from the family album of the brothers and sisters as budding tennis players "

from the family album of the brothers and sisters as budding tennis players"

A selection from the family album of the brothers and sisters as budding tennis players

] James is a respected umpire and Anne is at the top of the Women's Cup Fed Cup captain "

James is a respected referee and Anne is at the top of it ladies game the Fed Cup captain

The marital home was in Hackney – hardly a serving and volley far from where Anne led the GB team against Kaz. Akhstan to Fed Cup promotion to World Group level in April – and the money was tight.

& # 39; I was initially dragged because James started playing on short tennis courts & # 39 ;, Anne remembers. & # 39; We played where we could. We went to an indoor payment and play center in Islington and sometimes Highbury Fields, but we played more than anywhere else at Hackney Downs.

& # 39; Because we didn't have much money, we would share an hour of lessons a week. Dad had several jobs and worked in Hamley & # 39; s Toy Shop, Amnesty International, in the accounts at Barclays. There were times when he was not working, and looking back there must have been an enormous amount of pressure on him to take care of us.

& # 39; My parents could not speak English at the beginning and started from the bottom of the rocks, living on the top floor of an apartment building with four children.

& # 39; What I clearly remember is that our parents say we do this because we want you to live a better life than we do. I enjoy talking about it now more than when I was playing. We went to a school in the city center, many children did not have many opportunities.

& # 39; We were lucky that we came from a close-knit family. My parents made sure we did the work, although I was sometimes angry about the way I had to work or play tennis all the time. & # 39; Speaking with Sportsmail, the Keothavong siblings can remember money as children tight "

Sportsmail can remind Keothavong siblings that money as children was tight"

Speaking to Sportsmail Keothavong brothers and sisters can remember that money is tight like children

<img id = " i-36fc873025418ba1 "src =" https://dailym.ai/2N2yT9m "height =" 423 "width =" 634 "alt =" James and Anne have always been close by and can remember having shared tennis lessons as children "class =" blkBorder img-

James and Anne have always been close and can have a close relationship with each other .. remember sharing tennis lessons as children

It didn't last l ang before they entered the Middlese x county system, and the long journeys began to rank events across the country.

& # 39; We met some lovely people but some also looked down on us & # 39 ;, James recalls.

& # 39; I personally think it was more our background than our race. They were going to have lunch in the club restaurant while we were sitting in the car with the lunch our mother had prepared for us after she had taken off that morning instead of staying in a hotel.

& We would eat rice and stir-fry in the car instead of paying for an overpriced jas potato.

Anne was now winning events and was marketed as having an unusual potential, but not only for that: & # 39; I was very aware I was of a minority, & # 39; says they. & # 39; There were not many other high-level players who were not white or middle class. There were a few nice girls and some not so nice. Part of it was not very friendly, but that may be teenage girls for you. The most important thing was that I loved the game. "

Her most important rival was the deceased Elena Baltacha, daughter of the former Ipswich football player Sergei, who also made the top 50 in the world:" I played a lot of Junior Final against Bally, we went on a journey . Her mother Olga was very much the driving force, it requires that level of dedication from a parent to really help a young player in the ranks.

James, now 37, made it into the top 10 of the national under 16, but realized that he was unable to make it as a player and a different calling followed.

[rechtshandige] <img id = "i-73ad83eb062826d0" src = "https://dailym.ai/2uS4u1n /1s/2019/06/21/21/15098802-7168547-image-a-85_1561148260980.jpg "height =" 423 "width =" 634 "alt =" <img id = "i-73ad83eb062826d0" src = "https: //i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/06/21/21/15098802-7168547-image-a-85_1561148260980.jpg "height =" 423 "width =" 634 "alt =" <img id = " i-73ad83eb062826d0 "src =" https://dailym.ai/2X1crCb "height =" 423 "width =" 634 "alt =" Anne (right) rose to fame as an I was 16 when I first worked as a line judge at Wimbledon, while Anne continued to play "class =" blkBorder "

He was 16 when he first worked on a Wimbledon as a line judge while Anne kept playing

& I was 16 when I was my first Wimbledon in 1999 as a judge. The LTA and the All England Club had set up an initiative to look for younger eyes as line officials. I have been lucky enough to endure the recruitment process and have been selected – I have worked every Wimbledon since then.

& # 39; It was a struggle at first, but I wanted to see the world and luckily I made rapid progress and finally reached my

I also got a degree in sports management and have not been since then only a full house of Wimbledon final, but also some of the biggest matches on the tour.

Anne would have a 13-year professional career that saw him reach her No. 48 world and she was named Fed Cup Captain at the end of 2016.

The two are very comfortable in each other's company, that is just as well, their paths still cross regularly, as they did

& It takes a special person to make it, there is no chance that Anne would have made it without her personality, tenacity, desire to prove to people that they were wrong, & James says. & # 39; So many people didn't think she had a chance, but she did it. I look at Anne and it was her fight that took her to where she was. & # 39;

] James rose rapidly the rankings and has been moved to six Grand Slam finals "

James quickly rose through the rankings and went to referee six Grand Slam finals

& # "That's the best thing you've ever said about me," she replied, "background to make it in the game?"

There are many more emerging players of our background than 25 years ago compared to now & # 39 ;, says his sister.

& # 39; But it is the old situation that tennis is very affordable to play in the beginning, and then it becomes expensive if you want to get better and progress.

& We are proud as we are, and now we have two children of our own for whom you are even more grateful. To be British. It is an added bonus that our parents are from Laos and we have that culture too.

& # 39; When I talk to the players at Fed Cup, I tell them that this country has given us a chance, it has given my parents a chance for a better life, I am very proud to his

<img id = "i-eaeda693915cd75f" src = "https://dailym.ai/2N1rlne .jpg "height =" 423 "width =" 634 "alt =" Anne enjoyed a professional career of 13 years but now the Fed Cup Captain of Team GB (

<img id = "i-eaeda693915cd75f" src = " https://dailym.ai/2X1cs9d "height =" 423 "width =" 634 "alt =" Anne enjoyed the 13-year professional career, but now Fed Cup Captain-captain (right) "class =" blkBorder img-share "of Team GB

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[superjournalslibrary-blog]

How to Suffer Loss for Christ

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, Philippians 3:8

You must accept to lose everything for Jesus Christ just as Paul did. Paul suffered by losing many things. When you do not lose you will not gain. The twelve disciples of Jesus had lost everything because they followed Jesus. They had left all! They had lost their professions, their families and their friends to follow Jesus. This was a great personal loss to them. You cannot follow Jesus unless you are ready to lose something.

Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, WE HAVE LEFT ALL, and have followed thee. Mark 10:28

Your ministry is limited by what you keep. If you carry certain things while you run, you will not run fast enough. God is expecting us to leave things behind and follow Him. We may have to leave our sleep, our friendships, our televisions, our careers and our jobs to follow Jesus.

You Must Lose Your Money

Going into the ministry involves losing some money. You will lose financially when you step into the ministry. Many pastors do not realise that they will also have to give their money to the ministry. Every minister must invest personally into the ministry. Of course, you cannot do that if your money is not distinct from the church’s money.

It is important that your personal possessions are distinct from the property of the church. If this distinction is not clear, you lose the blessing of giving. You have nothing to give because all you have is church property. And how can you give the church what belongs to it?

You Must Lose Your Comforts and Well-Being

Without sacrificing your leisure time to be with the Lord, there will be no real fruit. Many ministers have time for everything else but the Lord. There is time for TV, useless socializing, computers, business and sports but there is no time for personal fellowship with the Lord. Your ministry is a reflection of your personal time with the Lord.

There are many things in the ministry, which may take away your comforts. If you are not prepared to sacrifice the little things of life, you may never amount to much in the ministry.

Insisting on certain comforts on this earth can easily be the reason for your inability to move forward in ministry. You should “set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). When your heart is set on things above, you will not be so fussy about things on this earth.

One night, I was standing by the Pacific Ocean in a foreign country. In front of me were several large expensive yachts belonging to millionaires. I turned to the Christians who were walking with me and said, “I would like to have my yacht in Heaven.” One of them laughed at me and said, “Oh no, I want to have mine here.” This little conversation reflects two schools of thought in Christendom today. Most Christians want to have their comforts here, while a few want them in Heaven.

I do not drive the car that I would really like to drive. In fact, I have never driven the car I would really like to drive. I do know cars are the nicest and the best but I do what I do for the sake of the ministry.

But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me: for it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void. 1 Corinthians 9:15

I do not live in the best house or in the best area of my city. I do know where these “best areas” and “best houses” are. I do know that there are many better places than where I live. I am also aware that my church can afford to provide these things for me.

But I am content with what the Lord has given me. In fact, I think I am super blessed. I do not intend to join the struggle to impress people about what I have and where I live. I hope to have the best mansions in Heaven.

You Must Lose Your Family

Your family will make many sacrifices because of the ministry. You will have to give up time and pleasure with your family so that you can do the work of God. In Luke 14, the young man refused to attend the dinner because he had “married a wife”.

And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. Luke 14:20

Many people do not fulfil God’s will because they try to please their wives. The Bible teaches us to love our wives. But the Bible teaches us to love God first.

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26

Jesus talks about hating your mother, your father, your wife, your children, your brethren, your sisters and even your own life in order to be a disciple. If you have to do that to qualify as a disciple, how much more would you have to do that as a Christian leader?

You Must Lose Your Safety and Security

Jesus sacrificed the safety of Heaven to dwell amongst a group of perverted, depraved and wicked people. We must follow His example if we are to bear fruit.

Walking with the Lord will lead you into many dangers, toils and snares. Every journey you make will put you at risk. If your self-preservation is more important than obeying God, you are not likely to sacrifice your safety and security. Being in full-time ministry means you must sacrifice your security. It is much more secure to work for Barclays Bank than it is to work for a Pentecostal church led by a twenty-eight-year-old pastor.

I was once invited to Colombia to minister. I was uncertain as to whether I should go or not. I called a pastor in America to ask whether he knew if Colombia was a safe place to go to. He told me he would find out and call me back.

He called me a couple of days later and said, “Brother, it is a very dangerous place. I don’t think you should venture there.” He continued, “I talked to a Catholic nun who told me to advice you not to step in Colombia. She told me of a Catholic bishop who had been shot in cold blood while serving mass.” “Are you serious!” I exclaimed. “Yes,” he replied. “It is very dangerous.”

Then, I had some further information. I was told about another pastor who had been shot while getting into his car after church. It became clear to me that pastors were being targeted in Colombia. I also remembered a renowned pastor who had almost died in a drive-by shooting incident in Bogotá. Of course, I decided I would not set foot in Colombia.

However, as I flew down to another country in South America, I had a dream in which the Lord spoke to me. He rebuked me sharply and told me that He was ashamed of me because I was trying to preserve myself. He reminded me that if He removed His protection from me for just five minutes, I would perish instantly. When I woke up, I was frightened and decided to go to Colombia. I needed no further coaxing to take me to Colombia.

Dear friend, I cannot begin to describe the extent of the power of God that was present in those meetings in Colombia. I saw the greatest miracles in my life, including the raising of the dead.

If you are not prepared to lose your security, you will never gain the security of God.

I invited a man of God who lived in one of the richest countries in the world to preach in Ghana, West Africa. His first question was, “Is it safe?” “I would be able to come only if it is safe and there are guarantees for my health, safety and security”.

Wow, I thought to myself. “How difficult it is to work with people who love themselves and their lives on this earth more than anything else?” But this is typical of Christians who have grown used to the comforts of the modern safety-conscious version of Christianity! That was not Jesus’ version of Christianity.

by Dag Heward-Mills

[cryptocurrencymember]

Does Global Trade Need A Global Currency?

A virtual currency like Bitcoin could open up an array of new markets, while speeding the worldwide exchange of goods.

Rimas Kapeskas | UPS

Rimas Kapeskas

Our world is getting smaller, flatter and more connected every day.

The rise of e-commerce has empowered consumers and changed the landscape for buying and selling goods, while transforming the worldwide economy.

This omnipresent demand for goods, regardless of the market, will soon get even more intense.

However, the current payment, clearing and settlement systems are major bottlenecks to the flow of global trade. They are inefficient, have long settlement times and high-cost fees and exchange rates.

Today’s technologies have enhanced the global exchange of information about goods and bolstered transportation networks moving items across borders. People around the globe have access to virtual marketplaces that feel borderless.

But consumers are still stuck in the credit card age of payments for those transactions. Sure, credit cards have been around for 65-plus years. But they are ripe for a technological leap.

Breaking down barriers

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“ A unified, global currency is the ideal solution, as it would simplify cross-border transactions.”

If you’ve ever traveled abroad, you know that converting cash or using your credit card is often a hassle.

Calculating fair exchange rates and the fees involved is like trying to solve a math problem without knowing the variables.

In the world of global e-commerce, it’s the same problem.

Rules and regulations, as well as currency, vary by country. Unfortunately, not all merchants are capable of managing that level of complexity online.

If someone living outside the United States doesn’t have an American bank account and credit card, it’s nearly impossible to complete an online purchase from a U.S. retailer.

Put simply, a number of barriers can get in the way of buying what you want once you cross borders, even online.

A unified, global currency is the ideal solution, as it would simplify cross-border transactions.

But as recent events have proven, even regional currencies like the Euro struggle to keep national economies in order and are far from perfect in handling the complexities of a global economy.

[Also on Longitudes: Technology: Disruption and Debate]

A virtual hope

Technologies are advancing, even if governments struggle to keep pace. These platforms are fostering a globally accepted exchange mechanism, which would not require a unified monetary system.

This is where virtual currency could come into play. Digital money can be sent across borders without going through multiple intermediaries and currency swaps.

If recognized, its value is the same regardless of where you do business, eliminating friction points and facilitating the faster flow of goods.

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“ How we handle, store and exchange currency will continue to evolve.”

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper,

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

, outlining the details of a payment system that would allow individuals to send and receive payments without intermediary financial institutions. This was the birth of Bitcoin.

It was not the first virtual currency but the first application of a new block-chain encryption technology.

While Bitcoin has suffered from a fair share of controversy and volatility in its nascent stages, the block-chain technology has created numerous possibilities for improving money transfers and simplifying payment processes – and revolutionizing many other industries.

More than 100,000 businesses already accept Bitcoin, including large companies like Microsoft, Home Depot, Dell, CVS, Expedia and Amazon.

Startup companies are tapping into hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital investments.

Leading financial institutions and technology leaders like Barclays, Citigroup, the New York Stock Exchange and IBM are also making investments in the technology.

Many of your transactions today are already virtual and happening online.

It is no surprise, then, that currency will become easier, cheaper and more secure. Our whole concept of money and how it gets exchanged is going to change as we become increasingly digitized.

How we handle, store and exchange currency will continue to evolve – it’s just a matter of at what speed and where we will see it next.

[Also on Longitudes: The Digital Economy, Trade Agreements and the 99 Percent]

Opening up trade

For global e-commerce to thrive, the movement of goods, funds and information must be both secure and seamless. Digital currency would allow consumers and businesses of all sizes and in all places to participate.

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“ Virtual currency seems like a logical next step that could bring markets closer together and facilitate faster trade.”

The fastest growth globally will likely be in the emerging markets of Africa, the Middle East and other areas of the world that have been traditionally less developed.

Vast populations in these communities are getting better access to technology and to capital, allowing them to easily exchange money, goods and services.

Mobile payment companies like M-Pesa are giving millions of people access to the formal financial system, stimulating business and reducing crime in otherwise largely cash-based societies.

From our vantage point, the driving force globally is that all companies and consumers can easily do business with one another.

In other words, it doesn’t matter where those goods are coming from – UPS can provide the transportation solutions to ensure speedy delivery.

We just need the technical and regulatory advances that will allow global financial transactions to happen.

Virtual currency seems like a logical next step, one that could bring markets closer together and facilitate faster trade.

Usually, the advances that stand the test of time are the ones that most effectively eliminate barriers and make commerce easier – perhaps that’s why global trade is so ready for a global exchange system that enables seamless transactions.

Rimas Kapeskas

is the Managing Director of the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund.

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Reprinted with permission of Longitudes, the UPS blog devoted to the trends shaping the global economy.

[loudfastpunkrock]

http://punk-lyrics.com/listing/oi-polloi-lyrics-apartheid-stinx/

apartheid system fascist state when you buy south african goods this is the system you perpetuate this system based on fear this system based on hate this system which together we can and must annihilate go! yeeeeeeeaaaahhgg!!! a bullet-ridden corpse lies on the dusty track his only crime was that his skin was black we think apartheid stinx those who dare to speak out and question the laws end their lives creaming behind police station doors don’t buy apartheid don’t buy apartheid the apartheid system cannot be reformed – it must be totally destroyed. for this to happen, however, the south african regime must be isolated and starved of the external financial support that enables it to continue its vile existence. consequently, throughout the whole world, thousands are crying out for sanctions to be imposed against these evil racist slime – but here in britain the government does nothing – and is that really so surprising? for how can we expect thatcher’s tories (who are renowned for putting profit before people) to take effective action when, every year, they receive millions of pounds into the party coffers from companies who invest in apartheid – companies like rowntree mackintosh, outspan, shell, b.p., i.c.i., cape, barclays bank, del monte, john west, rio tinto zinc, marconi, tescos – and the list goes on. these are the people whose money keeps botha’s government in power, the people who finance a vicious, oppressive regime that humiliates, degrades, tortures, and murders people simply on the basis of skin colour. while those who rule uis refuse to act against this obscenity, we can and will take action against those businesses which, concerning themselves only with profit maximisation and completely regardless of the human suffering involved, continue to finance apartheid – let’s hit them where it hurts – boycott the scum!! a brick flies through the window of a branch of barclays bank maybe someone thought their financing of apartheid stank