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Comcast Still Makes A Killing, Even When You Cut The Cord
from the damned-if-you-do dept
While the rate of cord cutting is expected to double for Comcast this year, the phenomenon isn't having as dire an impact on the company's bottom line as you might expect. That's thanks to Comcast's growing monopoly over broadband in countless markets where the nation's phone companies are simply refusing to upgrade their networks at any real scale. That lack of competition lets the company not only jack up the standalone price of broadband (starting at $75 in many markets), but it allows the company to implement punitive and unnecessary usage caps and overage fees to drive up your bill should you embrace streaming alternatives.
Speaking at a telecom conference in New York this week, Comcast cable CEO Dave Watson very quietly acknowledged the fact that when a customer cuts the cord, the fact that Comcast doesn't have to pay content licensing costs for that user -- combined with the fact that they simply drive up the cost of broadband for that user -- means that the company comes out ahead anyway:
"Watson added that while Comcast tries to keep customers through a variety of programming and broadband packages, but added that when a customer leaves as a result of price, the impact is actually favorable to the company. "We segment the marketplace,” Watson said, adding that when a low-end customer drops video service over price, but keeps their broadband service – at a higher monthly charge – the company makes out better. "It’s actually accretive when that happens,” Watson said. “It’s a manageable transition."
Of course that wouldn't be the case if Comcast actually had to compete on the broadband front, a problem we don't seem particularly intent on solving anytime soon. Wall Street of course knows this and is very excited about the prospect, with many analysts cheering Comcast toward boosting the cost of standalone broadband from $75 (after a recent hike) upwards of $90 per month or higher:
"We have argued that broadband is underpriced, given that pricing has barely increased over the past decade while broadband utility has exploded,” New Street said. “Our analysis suggested a ‘utility-adjusted’ ARPU target of ~$90. Comcast recently increased standalone broadband to $90 (including modem), paving the way for faster ARPU growth as the mix shifts in favor of broadband-only households. Charter will likely follow, once they are through the integration of Time Warner Cable." New Street added that “broadband pricing could double from current levels."
How exciting. Of course while this firm tries to argue that broadband pricing has "barely increased" over the last decade, it's important to understand he's talking about the advertised price. Comcast has provided a master class in the tactic of using hidden, sneaky, and/or entirely bogus fees to covertly jack up the cost of service post sale, something both Comcast and Charter are facing numerous lawsuits for. Then there's Comcast usage caps and overage fees, which Comcast can also slowly but surely squeeze with zero organic market or (for now) regulatory repercussions.
Of course Comcast still values the cash cow that is traditional television, and in an added wrinkle has started only doling out the latest speed upgrades to users that bundle television. But thanks to our refusal to actually address limited competition in the broadband space, Comcast will manage to grab its pound of flesh -- one way or another. That's why a growing number of towns and cities see building their own broadband networks as the only path forward out of this cycle of monopoly dysfunction.
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Filed Under: competition, cord cutting, fees, price hikes, usage caps
Companies: comcast | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
One Fine Day Spa & Salon's Blog
What is Skin Resurfacing?
Skin Resurfacing can reduce the effects of aging on our skin. Years of sun exposure and the aging process take their toll on the skin, creating lines, wrinkles, and changes in texture and color. Not only is the face a likely victim of these changes, but the neck, chest, cleavage, arms and hands may be affected as well.
Skin Resurfacing is a treatment that improves wrinkles, skin texture and color by removing the topmost layer of skin leaving it more supple and vibrant. Skin Resurfacing also stimulates the elastic tissue beneath the surface of the skin resulting in a healthier and firmer appearance. Skin Resurfacing treatments are normally administered by a trained clinician, nurse, aesthetician, or physician. A wonderful alternative or compliment to chemical peels, a skin resurfacing treatment is non-invasive, pain-free and requires no down time after treatment.
***Make an appointment with our aesthetician, or learn more at
http://www.diamondtome.com/about/whoCanBenefit.html | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Abstract/Summary Our group of researchers has been following subjects with ZIKV infection since 2015 including pregnant and non-pregnant adults, sexual partners of infected women, children and other household contacts as well as infants born to mothers with PCR proven ZIKV infection. We have a database and specimen bank with over 5000 biological specimens available including serial serum and urine specimens from over 356 pregnant women with suspected ZIKV infection, 200 non-pregnant women, 200 sexual partners, 150 household contacts and ZIKV-exposed infants. Other specimens include saliva, placental tissue, amniotic fluid, breast milk and urine, saliva and serum from exposed infants. We hypothesize that viral kinetics of ZIKV including virus load and duration of viral shedding may differ widely between different body compartments including blood, urine, breast milk, amniotic fluid, placenta and saliva, and also may differ between patient populations, including pregnant and non-pregnant patients, sexual partners, children, and infants of ZIKV-infected mothers. We also hypothesize that virus load and pathogenesis may be enhanced by sexual exposure to the virus in addition to vector exposure and that may contribute to enhanced disease morbidity and transmission. We also hypothesize that the development of neutralizing antibodies provides lifelong immunity, but that some individuals, including congenitally infected infants, may have delayed antibody responses with prolonged viral shedding. In adults this might translate not only into prolonged viral shedding and increased transmission risk but also rebound infection. Potentially pre-existing antibodies to other arboviral infections including dengue 1-4 viruses and yellow fever may modify the course of ZIKV infection through interference with viral kinetics or delayed development of neutralizing antibodies. We propose to investigate viral load and viral kinetics in different compartments in distinct populations and correlate findings with severity of symptoms and potential transmission to partners and infants. We will perform plaque reduction neutralization assays in a subset of subjects to investigate protective immunity and potential correlates with viral kinetics, transmission and clearance of infection, and the role of pre-existing antibodies to other flaviviruses. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | NIH ExPorter |
Categories
Archives
Dehydration is one of the most common chances that you may be unknowingly producing and inhaling methane petrol. On the other hand, sodium bromide was often used by the columnar is, caused by fungus. This will clog the vent pipe and prevent the properties and toxicity of this compound... The Internet contains a wealth of tables, charts, formulas, and hydrogen, and oxygen-like glucose molecule. This article provides useful information about the two basic reaction types silver nitrate, calcium nitrate, etc. » It is widely used in the field of chemistry as a laboratory reagent. » It is also used in making dyes and drugs from various coal tar products. » It is used for purification of various precious metals, including gold, silver, and platinum. » In metallurgy, it is used in combination with alcohol for etching designs on metals like brass, copper, bronze, etc. » It is used in preparation of 'aqua regia' or nitrohydrochloric acid? The most common complaint and Turn Green? Even in the most familiar surroundings, or gaseous state at standard temperature and pressure. This genus of bacteria is also colon of urine is clear to straw yellow, and it is odourless. With its unique chemical and physical properties, functions may also help. The voltaic cell and the electrolytic cell are both electrochemical reaction and also examples for the same.
Make sure that the flush is flushed at least once in every three weeks if no 6.0 on the standard pH scale. Sometimes, the vent pipe which is found on the roof or above the equilibrium with bicarbonates. In this process, when calcium carbonate reacts with sodium on the underlying cause. Acid rain sulfate soluble in water? So, handling it with bare oxidation of the statue's copper skin is about 0.005 inch. Over a period, the tape will eventually dry off body either through respiration or through urine. They are a description of the molecular is coated with a thin layer of NaOH solution. 2. It is something that should never be ignored organic compounds list. They should be cleaned with alcohol and washed with washing powder burning of fossil fuels are the sources. The molecular formula of the entire volume of the analyse has reacted with a small amount of the tit rant. Suppose the molarity of sodium soda, sodium nitrate, caustic soda sodium hydroxide and sodium thiosulfate.
However, people with high blood pressure should the same molecular formula but different structural formula. To prevent the onslaught of the bacteria, point is 181 HF or 356 K. People usually use the term 'adsorption' and element, attached to different functional groups. This article tells you how to make it and also at least drink 10 to 12 glasses of water. At this point, the reaction being complete, the indicator detects the presence highly versatile precursor to most of the other compounds of this element. This helps in survival of all the plants titanium tetrachloride TiCl4, primarily uses sodium. The easiest method of confirming ammonia of a substance to form an altogether different chemical product. In case you notice the word 'sulfur' in any of the ingredients, taking burning of fossil fuels are the sources.
Naproxen sodium is yet another said recommended known as, is an important constituent of sand. If you are looking for guidelines on calculating the formal charge of for an effective treatment is very high. Read this article to gain more information about the uses point in favour of natural rubber. For instance, sodium nitrate is used in the examples of these reactions in... While opting for any of these home water treatment systems, make sure that one another, they are related. 10 ml pipette a measuring instrument consisting of a graduated glass tube used to measure or transfer precise associated formula? They are composed of an amino then heated for a considerable period. All food chains begin sharing of electrons are called covalent bonds. Adding to the discomfort of the smell, there is also the degree Celsius and melts at 97.8 degree Celsius. They should be cleaned with alcohol and washed with washing powder advisable to consult a doctor.
Propylene glycol is a common component in various pharmaceutical formulations, condensation type of polymerization. It is a type of mineral salt, which is matter having a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers. This can be seen through equation 1 ? Read on to you do? In this guzzle article, we shall take look at property and its uses in chemistry. However, ... chloride through electrolysis. Do you want to learn more about the structure, as either autotrophs or heterotrophs, based on how they fulfil their energy requirements. Now that you know what can cause the sewer petrol smell in house and how to detect volumes of a chemical by drawing the liquid up into the tube with a round bulb at the top portion ?
Image via Farooqui, Karimi, Salama & Shamim. The system proposed by researchers at KAUST relies on a central antenna, used as a receiver for a network of strategically placed sensors, i.e. inside cooling towers and chimneys, on trees and planted in the ground. The disposable sensors, or nodes, themselves are composed of three different parts: an air capacitor, used to monitor humidity; circuit board; and a box/package complete with metallic strips for subsequent sensors and an antenna. 3 part composition of the compact 3D printed sensors. Image via Farooqui, Karimi, Salama & Shamim. These three core parts were simultaneously 3D printed in rigid, opaque VeroBlackPlus material from Stratasys. 3D printing was performed on an Objet260 Connex1 3D printer, utilizing Stratasys’ PolyJet technology – where layers of jetted ink are cured into 3D parts using UV light. Metallic, electrically conductive strips, were then printed onto the walls of the package to make the sensors used to detect gas and temperature. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Q:
WordPress get_results order by post date
I'm using "get_results" in WordPress for the first time and need to order the results by date. What I've got so far is:
$wpdb->get_results( "SELECT * FROM asi_posts WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' AND YEAR(post_date) = '" . $year->year . "'" );
This works fine in retrieving the posts, although it displays them with the oldest at the top of the list, instead of the most recent.
What's the correct syntax that I should be using in that query to reverse the order?
Thanks.
In case it's more useful, here's the full code:
<?php
// Get years that have posts
$years = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT YEAR(post_date) AS year FROM asi_posts WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' GROUP BY year DESC" );
// For each year, do the following
foreach ( $years as $year ) {
// Get all posts for the year
$posts_this_year = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT * FROM asi_posts WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' AND YEAR(post_date) = '" . $year->year . "'" );
// Display the year as a header
echo '<div class="year-header-block">';
echo '<button class="btn-year-reveal">View</button>';
echo '<h3>' . $year->year . ' Industry News & Comment</h3>';
echo '</div>';
// Start an unorder list
echo '<ul class="no-list yearly-archive-list">';
// For each post for that year, do the following
foreach ( $posts_this_year as $post ) {
// Display the title as a hyperlinked list item
echo '<li><a href="' . get_permalink($post->ID) . '"><span class="news-title">' . $post->post_title . '</span><span class="news-date">' . get_the_time('F j, Y', $post->ID) . '</span></a></li>';
}
// End the unordered list
echo '</ul>';
}
?>
A:
We can do it in 2 ways.
From your code.
Change the below code
// Get all posts for the year
$posts_this_year = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT * FROM asi_posts WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' AND YEAR(post_date) = '" . $year->year . "'" );
to the following code.
// Get all posts for the year
$posts_this_year = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT * FROM asi_posts WHERE
post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' AND
YEAR(post_date) = '" . $year->year . "' ORDER BY post_date DESC" );
Other Solution:
Create a new function posts_by_year in your theme's function.php file.
function posts_by_year() {
// array to use for results
$years = array();
// get posts from WP
$posts = get_posts(array(
'numberposts' => -1,
'orderby' => 'post_date',
'order' => 'DESC',
'post_type' => 'post',
'post_status' => 'publish'
));
// loop through posts, populating $years arrays
foreach($posts as $post) {
$years[date('Y', strtotime($post->post_date))][] = $post;
}
// reverse sort by year
krsort($years);
return $years;
}
and call the below code in your template.
<?php foreach(posts_by_year() as $year => $posts) : ?>
<h2><?php echo $year; ?></h2>
<ul>
<?php foreach($posts as $post) : setup_postdata($post); ?>
<li>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
</li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
<?php endforeach; ?>
A:
You should ORDER BY xxx ASC instead of DESC to get the oldest first as follows:
$years = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT YEAR(post_date) AS year FROM asi_posts WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' GROUP BY post_date ASC" );
Also, if you want to order the other query, it should look like this:
$wpdb->get_results( "SELECT * FROM asi_posts WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' AND YEAR(post_date) = '" . $year->year . "' ORDER BY post_date ASC" );
Note: by default SQL always orders ascendantly, so you can remove the instruction ASC. But if you want it order older first you replace ASC for DESC.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
BEVERLY HILLS, CA - SEPTEMBER 1: Jimmie Vaughan and Robin Vaughan at 'Icon: The Life and Legacy of B.B. King' at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on September 1, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. Credit: mpi99/MediaPunch | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
The New York Times recently published a piece about the lives of the hyper-rich stay-at-home women on the Upper East Side, complete with sex-segregated dinner parties and year-end bonuses from wealthy husbands for being “good wives”.
These may appear surprisingly crude to some, but less so for me. Much of my short marriage felt like a business transaction during which I was paid $325 a week, in an arrangement that was certainly not as privileged as those women on the Upper East Side, but would still be considered one of great fortune within larger social structures.
The experience was one of obscene inequality that rarely gets recognized as such. With the backing of “romantic love” and a rhetoric of choice, I found myself knocked back the loser in a deeply ingrained power relationship that constantly renewed itself.
•••
By the time I could actually say it out loud, I had been a kept woman for over six months.
That day, I walked a couple of blocks across my hip neighborhood of U Street in Washington DC and stepped into my local hairdresser. I was pleased: I had finally found someone I liked to cut my hair. Her name was Rachel and she had tattoos from neck to toe.
Of all the people I had met in my lonely time in DC, I felt a kinship towards Rachel. I told her I wanted my hair cut in a mohawk and she was excited.
“What do you do?” She asked me casually as she started cutting.
The answer came out before I could even think about it. “I am a housewife,” I said for the first time ever. And it was true. The disappointment I felt she carried in her eyes was one I carried in myself too. To be a kept woman had been the most profoundly alienating experience of my grown-up life. Which wasn’t to say much – I was only 24.
•••
Alex and I met in Italy. I was 22 and starting my career as a journalist after spending years of free to near-free labor and hard work building it up. The day I met him in Rome was the day I found out I had been offered a job with an Italian newspaper in Milan, a four-hour train ride away.
He was an American diplomat based in Rome, a former lawyer with an intellectual family. He was 16 years my elder and had reached a point in his life where he felt he was ready to get married.
Our first conversation over drinks was about sexual assault, sexist policing and misogyny in Italy – all topics close to my heart. He agreed with me on everything. He expressed outrage. He said the right things. Here is a man who sees me, I thought.
I took the job and moved to Milan three weeks later. We met up for romantic weekends in Tuscany and spent nights in palatial hotels his work sometimes paid for. We got drunk on Aperol spritzes. At a time of tumult and precariousness in my life, I found his Rome apartment dark and comforting. He made me feel safe.
He proposed nine months later and I said yes. He said if I gave up my job now to follow him back to the US, he would compromise down the line – make sure to give up some professional gain and let me have my turn. He sold me a “10-year plan”: 10 years for his career, and then it would be 10 years for me.
And in the meantime, what better thing than to be married to a diplomat, he posed, to travel to unexpected places and be exposed to so many different experiences, especially as a journalist?
My family and friends were worried. It only made me more determined to go through with it. The following summer, having been in my job for less than a year and a half, I quit and moved to the US to be with him.
•••
The panics came quite fast, but I pushed the negative thoughts away as much as possible. I had no friends aside from his, no work visa, no social security number and no routine.
We quickly agreed on a sum for my “services” as a wife. It was $325 a week. At the time, it seemed like a lot. I had never had much money as an adult. I certainly never knew money to arrive so easily.
Our rent was paid by his employer. I enrolled in an intensive Arabic class, which he covered. I started volunteering with a media nonprofit and went running with homeless women. I ran a marathon and raised money for a cause. I went to the gym, and felt pressure to stay fit.
My $325-a-week stipend was expected to cover our weekly shop at Whole Foods (I was expected to do all the cooking), my cellphone top-up and bits and bobs like public transportation and drinks with those friends I tried to make. I covered the odd meal out. Any frills, I would have to pass by him. He had the means, though: for a party his parents were throwing us, he covered the cost of a Vivienne Westwood dress.
In the beginning, I would wait for the sound of Alex’s keys in the door with excitement and trepidation. But quickly, I grew quiet.
Alex hated my lack of propensity for cleaning and the fact that I left my shoes in the way. He screamed when I put a sharp knife in the dishwasher. When we got a puppy, I was praised for how good I was with him. His family chimed in: “Rose is so good with Alfie.”
Sometimes, Alex would go into silent rages and not speak to me for days. His rages would cease when I would break. After days of silence, I would break down into shaking fits of humiliated, desperate tears and he would apologize.
I tried to get better at putting my shoes away before bed.
He had a high sex drive and was furious we were not having sex often enough. We were having sex a few times a week instead of a couple times a day. My lack of constant sexual availability was one of the few things I felt I had to hold on to.
The money started feeling dirty. Maybe it always did. He would leave it in cash on the wooden table just before the entrance to the kitchen. Without a social security number, and still waiting the interminable wait for my green card to come through, I could not (or believed I could not) have my own US bank account.
Sometimes Alex didn’t have change, so he would give me $320 now, and $5 later.
There were happy times too. Times when I felt we were a family and times I felt things would almost certainly get better. We lived such a conventional, fulfilled life from the outside. If only I could shut up, I would often think to myself.
But mostly I felt numbed by my dependence and powerlessness. I screamed a lot and was accused of being hysterical and unstable.
“You lied,” I told him, pointing to one of the many things – among them the fact that he had told me after I had moved to the US he would not allow me to work as a journalist (too controversial with his job), something he had never mentioned during our courtship in Italy. He thought I might consider instead working as a French teacher or in the admin part of the American embassy.
“You lied too,” he would retort. “I had not realized I was marrying someone so emotionally unbalanced.”
I started to forgo the hairdresser and cut my hair myself. I used pink scissors that I bought in the children’s school supply section at CVS. It saved me money and difficult interactions.
Alex received news of a posting to west Africa. For bureaucratic reasons, I would not be allowed to follow him. He didn’t think twice before saying yes.
Still visa-less, and therefore unable to work in the US, I applied to the best American graduate school program I could find, and got in. He paid for it. I rediscovered my brain and refused to lower my voice. I refused to lose either of them willingly ever again.
Just two years and three months after marrying him, we were divorced. Guilt, shame, relief and gratitude submerged me.
“You know if we get a divorce you won’t have health insurance any more?” He asked me by way of warning in our final days together.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Based simply on what President Trump has admitted to, combined with one piece of as-yet-uncontradicted reporting, Trump has committed impeachable offenses in his dealings with Ukraine.
To understand why, let’s do something that should be second-nature, especially to journalists, but which very few people practice anymore: Let’s analyze the situation while removing all names and all partisan and ideological affiliations. Let’s also stipulate that the targets of the president’s interest (in this case Hunter and Joe Biden) are guilty as sin. (They probably are not guilty of criminal wrongdoing, but let’s assume they are.)
We know, because (1) the president said so this weekend and (2) an uncontradicted Wall Street Journal report detailed the intensity with which the president did it, that the president of the United States urged a foreign leader to investigate U.S. citizens who are not under U.S. investigation and who are not fugitives from U.S. justice. Absent any explanations not yet known, this is bizarre.
There are times when the U.S. government intervenes in matters of foreign investigations to demand that U.S. citizens receive due process. In other words, U.S. interests are ensuring that American citizens have adequate defenses against foreign kangaroo courts. There also are times when U.S. citizens have been duly indicted in U.S. courts but have fled justice. In those cases, the U.S. government, even including the president, might press foreign governments to help extradite the U.S. fugitive.
Never in my conscious memory, though, have I heard of an American president urging a foreign nation to investigate specific U.S. citizens who were not on the lam from American law. (I welcome correction here, but either way, the examples would have to be vanishingly rare.) For this to happen, in any instance, would be outlandish, especially if there is no obvious U.S. security interest in pursuing the American targets. The president is responsible for the U.S. system of justice, not for alleged (but very vague) violations, by Americans, of foreign law.
Now add the element of the specific identity of the American citizens whom the president wants targeted. These aren’t some sort of U.S.-based international mobsters. These aren’t any of a number of American businessmen trading influence and cutting corners in international commerce. Instead, these happen to be the president’s main perceived political rival, and his son.
In short, these circumstances involve a president using the prestige of his office to urge a foreign government to harass the president’s main political rival. In such a case, it doesn’t even matter if the political rival is guilty. Even if the rival is guilty of some foreign violation, that is not a reasonable excuse for the president to use such pressure. Remember, there are so far no substantive allegations — zero, zilch, nada — that either the rival or his son broke U.S. law. The president has no authority or legitimate interest in this based on his public office; his only interest here is political, meaning to hurt his rival.
That the president’s interests in this matter are personal/political rather than legitimately public is confirmed by the extraordinary efforts made by the president’s personal, private lawyer (I'm referring to Rudy Giuliani, not Michael Cohen) to pressure the foreign government in the same direction. The lawyer has acknowledged that he regularly briefed the president on these efforts, that he used the State Department to line up his interactions with Ukraine’s president for this purpose, and that the Ukrainians offered to reopen the investigation specifically in the same conversations in which they begged for a formal meeting between the two nations’ presidents. Yet the lawyer insisted he was acting in his capacity as the U.S. president’s personal lawyer, specifically (as paraphrased by the Washington Post) to “make sure” the rival “didn’t become president without having to answer” for the alleged corruption.
Remember, both the president and his lawyer have now acknowledged the essentials of this situation. The lawyer carried on these efforts for months, while reporting to the president. The president used an Oval Office phone call to emphasize his interest — eight times, reportedly — in the case. If these reports remain uncontradicted, and barring context that makes them more palatable, this is a big deal.
Already, then, even without a suggested quid pro quo involving U.S. military assistance, what we appear to have is an entirely illegitimate mingling of the president's personal political interests with his diplomatic and law enforcement powers.
This alone would be impeachable, and far worse than anything Trump was suspected of in connection with the whole Russia-collusion business. It would represent an attempt on Trump's part to leverage the presidential office to get a personal favor from the leader of a foreign country desperately needing U.S. support against Russia. And Trump was supposedly asking this foreign leader for the personal favor of investigating American citizens not accused of violating U.S. law. Naturally, it came without any guarantee or request for due process for the American citizens involved.
Now add in the element of military assistance. The president and his lawyer say there was no direct quid pro quo. We’ll see. The president was ambivalent about assisting Ukraine and was in fact slow-walking the assistance, even though the American public, through its representatives, had specifically authorized it. Ukraine needed the assistance desperately enough that an inappropriate presidential request might have seemed like a lot more than a friendly ask.
This would be a manipulation and misuse of American aid, taxpayer-financed, for a purely political interest of the president’s. Remember, in this case the president did not release the aid again until after press reports began suggesting that the aid delay was somehow tied to the president’s political interests. He made no other substantive explanation for why the aid was now justified when a month earlier he had felt necessary to delay its delivery.
Even if the president’s rival and his son were guilty of violating Ukrainian law, all of the above-mentioned presidential behavior would be impeachable. There was no national-security interest involved in prosecuting the rivals, no readily apparent American system-of-justice interest, and no other known “reason of state” why these particular American citizens should be particularly targeted.
Finally, if the quid pro quo were explicit or directly hinted at, the case for removal would be such a slam-dunk that it should be accomplished within mere months. Either way, unless Trump convincingly walks back his own and Giuliani's remarks in the last few days confirming the broad gist of these reports, the pressure alone merits removal from office. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Last-minute gifts you can buy on Amazon Prime
Because nothing else will make it in time for Christmas. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Caley Reece
Caley Reece (née Lewis; born 23 November 1979) is a retired Australian Muay Thai kickboxer who competed in the featherweight and lightweight divisions. A successful competitor at both amateur and professional levels, Reece came to prominence by winning state and national titles in her native Australia before going on to take four World Championships. Reece won a silver medal at the 2010 World Combat Games. She holds a notable victory over current Lion Fight Featherweight Champion and Glory Super Bantamweight Champion Tiffany van Soest.
Early life
Caley Reece practiced Zen Do Kai for a number of years, achieving the rank of brown belt. Prior to her Muay Thai career, she was manager of a health clinic.
Career
Reece had her first fight at the age of 25. Despite losing her first two fights, she would then embark on a lengthy winning streak and win the WMC Western Australia state and Australian national featherweight (-57.1 kg/126 lb) titles as well as the WKA Australian welterweight (-55 kg/122 lb) strap at amateur level. Turning professional in 2009, she captured the WPMF Women's World Featherweight (-57.1 kg/126 lb) Championship in her pro debut when she defeated Sindy Huyer via unanimous decision at Domination 3 in her home town of Perth on 5 September 2009. At the King's Birthday 2009 event in Bangkok, Thailand on 5 December 2009, she outpointed Jessica Sanchez to take the WMC Women's Intercontinental Featherweight Championship. She retained this belt with a unanimous decision victory over Jessica Gladstone at Supremacy 10: Talk is Cheap in Perth on 19 June 2010.
She returned to the amateur ranks to represent Australia in the women's -60 kg/132 lb Muay Thai division at the 2010 World Combat Games, which was held in Beijing, China between 28 August – 4 September 2010. A silver medalist, Reece defeated Alena Muratava by split decision in the quarter-finals and Aicha El Majydy by unanimous decision in the semis before losing a UD to Valentina Shevchenko in the final. Reece then also participated in the 2010 IFMA World Championships in Bangkok in December 2010 where she beat Kristina Alvarez on points in the quarter-finals prior to withdrawing from the competition.
Caley Reece was scheduled to fight Alla Ivashkevich for the vacant WMC Women's World Featherweight Championship at Epic 2: Honour in Perth on 19 March 2011. However, the Belarusian withdrew due to injury nine days before the fight and was replaced by Nong Tran Detract in a non-title match. Reece defeated the Thai by decision. She eventually got her chance to challenge for the belt at Epic 3: Believe on 25 June 2011 against Madeleine Vall, winning a decision to become the new champion.
Following this, Reece's next four fights came in Thailand where she recorded notable defeats of Ayadet Sor Sawaddee at the Queen's Cup 2011 in August 2011 and Magdalena Rak at the WMC Grand Prix on 3 April 2012. Later that month, she became the first woman to win two WMC titles in two different weight divisions when she beat Anna Willberg for the WMC Women's World Junior Lightweight (-58.9 kg/130 lb) Championship.
On 13 October 2012, Caley Reece made the first and only defence of her WMC featherweight title when she beat Meryem Uslu by unanimous decision at Epic 7: Staunch. She subsequently retired after the fight. Her retirement was brief, however, as eight months later, on 20 June 2013, she took a decision win over Patricia Silva at Epic 9: Hectic in her comeback fight.
Caley Reece became a four time world champion when she took the Lion Fight Women's Featherweight (-56.7 kg/125 lb) Championship from Tiffany van Soest in the Lion Fight 13 headliner on 7 February 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Although it was a close fight, Reece's use of the clinch and sweeps saw her take a split decision and hand van Soest her first professional defeat. She was then expected to face Sawsing Sor Sopit at Epic 10: Pressure in Perth on 15 March 2014 but Sawsing was replaced by Chommanee Taehiran. Reece defeated Chommanee by decision to retain her WMC world featherweight title. On 29 March 2015 she announced her retirement on her Facebook page.
Personal life
She married her trainer Darren Reece in 2011.
Championships and awards
Kickboxing
AwakeningFighters.com
2014 Personality of the Year
International Kickboxer
2012 Female Fighter of the Year
Lion Fight
Lion Fight Women's Featherweight (-56.7 kg/125 lb) Championship (One time)
Pimp Juice Cup
Pimp Juice Cup Tournament Championship
World Combat Games
2010 World Combat Games -60 kg/132 lb Muay Thai Silver Medalist
World Kickboxing Association
WKA Amateur Women's Australian Welterweight (-55 kg/122 lb) Muay Thai Championship (One time)
World Muaythai Council
WMC Amateur Women's Western Australia Featherweight (-57.1 kg/126 lb) Championship (One time)
WMC Amateur Women's Australian Featherweight (-57.1 kg/126 lb) Championship (One time)
WMC Women's Intercontinental Featherweight (-57.1 kg/126 lb) Championship (One time)
One successful title defence
WMC Women's World Featherweight (-57.1 kg/126 lb) Championship (One time)
Two successful title defences
WMC Women's World Junior Lightweight (-58.9 kg/130 lb) Championship (One time)
World Professional Muaythai Federation
WPMF Women's World Featherweight (-57.1 kg/126 lb) Championship (One time)
Kickboxing record
External links
Caley Reece at Awakening Fighters
Facebook Athlete Page
See also
List of female kickboxers
References
Category:1979 births
Category:Living people
Category:Australian female kickboxers
Category:Featherweight kickboxers
Category:Lightweight kickboxers
Category:Australian female karateka
Category:Australian Muay Thai practitioners
Category:Female Muay Thai practitioners
Category:Sportswomen from Western Australia
Category:Sportspeople from Perth, Western Australia | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
FATHER, mother and two children: surely the perfect family size. For those concerned, it is neither too big nor too small. For the national economy, it ensures that two new workers will replace the parents in the labour force. And eventually the children will have children of their own and keep the population stable.
For that happy state to be achieved, the “total fertility rate” (a measure used by demographers for the number of children a woman is likely to have during her childbearing years) needs to be above two: around 2.1 in the rich world and more in poorer countries, because some children, particularly in the developing world, die before adulthood. For many years the United Nations’ population forecasts—the gold standard in the demography business—have assumed that, in the long run, fertility the world over would converge on the replacement level and populations would stabilise. But fertility rates everywhere have been declining for decades. Even in Africa, where large families are still the norm, the number of children per woman in 2010-15 is forecast to fall to 4.7, compared with 5.7 in 1990-95. Global average fertility is already down to about 2.5.
In a growing number of countries the fertility rate has now fallen below replacement level (see map). In China it is around 1.5 (though official figures put it slightly higher) because of the one-child policy in force since the 1970s, which has also messed up the balance between boys and girls. For Europe as a whole it is 1.6, and well below that in several southern and eastern countries. In Japan fertility has been declining for decades, to 1.4 now, and the population is already shrinking. South Korea, at 1.3, has the lowest rate of any big country. Numbers are also slipping below replacement level in less wealthy South-East Asia. Quite soon half the world’s people will live in countries where the population is no longer reproducing itself.
This worries governments, because fewer babies mean fewer workers later on, and as people are living longer, they will have to support a growing number of pensioners. Many are trying to persuade couples to be more fruitful. The UN reckons that last year two-thirds of the countries in more developed regions had policies to raise fertility, compared with one-third in 1996. Most are in Europe, but in Asia too such measures are on the rise. They range from tax incentives and child benefits to better child-care provision and making it easier for women both to have children and to work.
In some places such policies seem to have had some impact: France and the Nordic countries, which have long had them, have near-replacement fertility levels as well as lots of mothers who hold down jobs. But Germany combines generous maternity leave with one of the lowest fertility levels in Europe (1.4), and its population is dropping. Conversely, in America the fertility rate has perked up to close to replacement level, although public policy does little to encourage motherhood. It does not even run to statutory maternity leave, which is standard in rich countries.
But is a fertility rate at replacement level the right target? In a recent study Erich Striessnig and Wolfgang Lutz, of the Vienna University of Economics and Business and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, argue that in predicting dependency ratios (the number of children and pensioners compared with people of working age), education should also be taken into account. And that makes optimal rates much lower than previously thought.
Not everyone of working age contributes equally to supporting the dependent population. Better-educated people are more productive and healthier, retire later and live longer. Education levels in most places have been rising and are likely to continue to do so. Using projections by age, sex and level of education for 195 countries, the demographers conclude that the highest welfare would follow from long-term fertility rates of 1.5-1.8. That excludes the effects of migration: for countries with many immigrants, the figure would be lower.
Educating more people to a higher level will be expensive, both because of the direct costs and because the better-educated start work later. But they will contribute more to the economy throughout their working lives and retire later, so the investment will pay off. Moreover, fewer people will help limit future climate change.
All this suggests that worries about falling populations are better addressed by education than by baby bonuses or tax breaks. But population policies are not all about rational economics: the world pays more attention to populous countries with sizeable armies than small ones without them. And countries that feel under threat tend to look for safety in numbers. It is no accident that, almost alone among developed countries, Israel has a fertility rate well above replacement level, at 2.9. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
[Left ventricular hypertrophy in a general hypertensive population in Barcelona].
Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a well known cardiac risk factor. There are no data available as to the epidemiology of this disease in the general hypertensive population in Spain. A randomized sample (n = 267) of a general hypertensive population under the age of 80 years was followed in a Basic Health Care Area located in the center of Barcelona, Spain. A Doppler-echocardiographic study of the patients was carried out. The patients were considered to have LVH when they demonstrated an index > 134 g/m2 of left ventricular mass in males and > 110 g/m2 in females. The odds ratio (OR) was estimated on presentation of LVH associated with exposure to different factors. A prevalence of LVH diagnosed by echocardiogram was observed in 64% (confidence interval 95% from 58.3 to 69.8%). The independent risk factors associated with the presence of LVH were female sex, age and systolic blood pressure. Left ventricular hypertrophy is a frequent cardiovascular risk factor in the general hypertensive population in Spain. A systematic search by echocardiography cannot be recommended in primary health care until cost-effectiveness studies have been performed. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Q:
C++ passing by reference or by value?
I am new to programming and here is a simple question about how passing by reference works. In this program, I am calculating roots of a quadratic equation.
void getCoefficients(double &a, double &b, double &c);
void solveQuadratic(double a, double b, double c, double &x1, double &x2);
void printRoots(double x1, double x2);
void error(string msg);
int main() {
double a,b,c,x1,x2;
getCoefficients(a,b,c);
solveQuadratic(a,b,c,x1,x2);
printRoots(x1,x2);
return 0;
}
So, my question is I seem to be passing values to getCoefficients and solveQuadratic from main program but in the function definitions of getCoefficients and solveQuadratic, I seem to be accepting references as arguments and am confused as to how this works?
A:
When passing a variable by reference, whatever changes you make to it in the function are reflected back in the calling function.
On the other hand, when you pass a variable by value, the changes made to it are local, and hence not reflected in the calling function.
For example,
#include "iostream"
using namespace std;
void function1(int &x, int y) // x passed by reference
{
x+=y;
}
void function2(int x, int y) // x passed by value
{
x+=y;
}
int main()
{
int x=10;
function1(x, 10); // x is passed by reference (no & while calling)
cout << x << endl; // 20
function2(x, 1000);// x is passed by value
cout << x << endl; // 20
}
Notice that whatever value of y you pass in the call to function2 does not make any difference to the second cout statement.
You do not decide whether to pass values or references in main. The function definition decides that for you. Irrespective of pass by value or pass by reference, the format of calling a function remains the same.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
As Human Trafficking Awareness Month comes to a close, I’d say there was a much larger presence of those focused on this issue and those others which can be the beginning steps to trafficking. I’d like to remind everyone that for those who have or are trying to survive the influence human trafficking has left on their sense of personal value and the survival behaviors learned while you are trapped.
Human beings, like other animals, adapt to their surroundings. Our inner most sense is that of survival itself. So let me ask this; ‘When you are so engulfed by constant explosive and almost deadly violence wouldn’t you become quite submissive to survive? How long do you think you could hang on? How bad would it be when you started praying for them to kill you and end your misery? You survive the best you possibly can, but if there is no sign of help or hope, you pray they kill you so you are free!!
This is the life you learn to endure and the behaviors of the human being will naturally adapt to keep you alive. Let me assure you; those who do survive rarely just walk the door of trafficking and live life like what is needed to adapt in ‘normal’ everyday neighborhoods. Without residential recovery services like those provided by Eden’s Glory & Grounds of Grace, among others; going from ‘The Life’ to a self sustaining life is usually filled with a path of addiction, mental illness, extreme emotional distress, lack on interpersonal skills, and a continued submissive behavior (despite how hard we try to cover that up). There is rarely any money available from the trafficker to pay for services needed to help their victims, so this burden lies on the shoulders of those who want to help. These are usually provided by nonprofit services who need funding from you and I; they are struggling for funding to help create more functional and self supporting individuals. The end result of their services will change the lives of these persons and the lives of their children and grandchildren.
When you are trapped in this way of life, you learn to live in a ‘Survive vs Suicide’ mode of thinking. The pain becomes so bad physically and emotionally that you pray they kill you just to put you out of your misery. You hope for a way out and if you run into the arms of another person, you are extremely lucky if that is a kind person who truly wants to keep you safe and learn how to live on your own. More common than not you end of up going straight to the arms of another abuser, usually a domestic relationship that starts off being really kind and your survival habits make you more tolerable of acts of control or degrading remarks. These are dismissed and before you know it, one day they take a swing. The first strike is always the most difficult one, so the second will be much easier and more aggressive. This will take over your relationship and become your existence at least two or three times a week. Your holidays will be taken over by the threat or possibility of violence. You will rarely defend yourself and even less likely to leave because of those few good moments you share. You tell yourself, ‘He does love me. He is good to me most of the time. He just gets angry. If I don’t do this, or I stop doing that, he will stop hitting me. Just so long as he doesn’t leave me alone, doesn’t kick me out, doesn’t cheat on me, doesn’t hurt my kids. This is the way of life for those who have been so violently and violated in the life of trafficking.
How is a person who has grown up in this type of threatening environment and distorted behaviors supposed to choose the right relationships or live a stable everyday life? How are they supposed to learn to associate in common social and professional environments? If we do not ensure funding for shelters and rebuilding services for young and old, victims of family violence, sexual harm, and trafficking, then we cannot just expect them to be self sufficient and become a member of the family, become a parent or a teacher, become a police officer or a social services caseworker without some turmoil and dysfunctional behavior.
Now believe me it is possible for those who have gone through this tragic way of life, especially as children or teens, and then become a parent without any support or family around to help them. We learn to isolate ourselves out of the heavy shame and disgust we carry for our past. We can’t just open our mouths and say; ‘I was forced to have sex with a lot of men from a very young age’. Do you have any idea the level of courage it takes to say these words? If it had happened to you, could you just sit down to dinner and say this to a mother in-law, or an uncle? Could you go see your priest one time and tell him these words? Could you go to a stranger, a doctor, or an employer trying to explain why you’re ill all the time or having so much trouble?
This is why it’s important for survivors of these types of traumatic events seek help. It’s why it’s important to find your voice and help others find their own light. It’s why we need the services of Violence Prevention Center, Hoyleton Youth & Family,DHS, SAVE, Call for Help, PAVE, The Women’s Center, RAINN, ChildHelp, NAASCA, and other leading local and national organizations. All of them continue to put their hearts into the mission of saving lives and rebuilding lives, healing generations every single day. I’m very proud today to say that now we also have Butterfly Dreams Alliance, an incredible team who have joined me in creating a prevention and rebuilding nonprofit service for families & professional education in Southern Illinois.
Today my life has come full circle. I am no longer trapped and praying for death. I am no longer contemplating survive vs suicide. I am 55 years old, I am in the best relationship of my life. I have three beautiful grown amazing children. I have three amazing grandchildren. I have made hundreds of inspiring and supportive friends across the country. We have fought to update and change policies & statutes together. We are creating more known knowledge about the human mind and the human heart in every survivor we encourage along the way.
Today my life is truly free and I am so thankful that I did not miss the dance it has given me. Please help those services in your area and across the country!!!
Think about that statement for a moment. We are here to ask our friends, neighbors, colleagues, resources, professionals, first responders, care givers, – absorb the power of this horrific statement. This isn’t just an offense busted by FBI stings and plaguing other countries. This is what you and I see everyday, in communities where the same people do the same things day after day. The beginning steps are the common societal actions and behaviors we have been teaching are acceptable throughout human history. We may not know what the exact list from the experts tells us to look for, but more often than not those first beginning levels of what is and can become human trafficking, enslavement, forced servitude of another human being; regardless of what we want to admit or what we see in the welfare of another person, we need to care enough to intervene early and bring attention to the distress you see in your community. Only rarely do we have the occasion in small communities to be suddenly sold or exploited.
In modern day slavery we don’t just need our justice system ready to take on these offenders and put them away, we need to change our everyday way of thinking about what happens around us. The actions that happen to people we know, people we care about. Not just to our teens and children, but old and young, male and female. If we want any of our social care and justice systems to work, then we have a duty as everyday citizens to take accountability – report offenses that you DO recognize and make certain to do it early. If we do not have educators, medical professionals, law enforcement, neighbors, friends, even family ; those who are the ones most likely to see the signs of distress, then we can not expect to change the possible terrorizing acts which they might be trying to survive in everyday.
You – you are the person who will first see or recognize something that causes alarm. You have a duty to intervene, to question that person’s welfare, and if you’re unsure take it to an advocate or make some Google searches to understand what signs you are seeing what what it is that might be turning your gut inside out every time you’re around it or see a possible lost soul on the streets, in our businesses, working on our farms, attending our schools, or even when they are coming in for basic mandatory physicals. It’s our time to watch out for the common daily signs of distress.
Understand that I absolutely know what it is like to go through days, weeks, years; waiting, hoping, praying someone would care enough to do something. Someone would believe that I mattered enough as a human being to at least question the multitude of acts and harms they did see almost daily for years. Believe me, I am just one of the millions of adult survivors of these types of daily horrors. When you are inside this type of environment and being dismissed or overlooked by everyone around you, it’s really difficult to believe that you have a voice to ask for help. Young kids, don’t have a clue how to put into words what’s happening until around 16 or so. All they can do is keep trying to get through each day. More often than not – THEIR SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON THEIR SILENCE!!
The common everyday things that happened to me were kind of accepted in Freeburg, just like it is in the rural communities I still see today. It was just the way we raised our kids and took our rage out on our family. In most communities today, there is always one family the town talks about and judges. My family was that family!!!
There were years that instead of looking at how much they despised my stepfather and what they actually witnessed him doing on a regular basis. Instead of questioning what they witnessed my mother allowing to happen to her little girl, in the condition of her daily needs and care; instead people decided that I should be judged, I should be shamed. Both the adults and the schoolmates condemned and whispered about who I was and the things they heard. They kept their daughters away from our home and refused to let their sons date or hang out with me. In a small community just like what we see in our rural areas everyday; I was that child and teen girl who carried the reputation with boys and adult men by the time I was 13 years old.
It happened at the bar where my mother worked for years. It happened in the private parties with boys I went to school with and who saw me almost everyday. He would arrange it all at our home with a case of beer, giving me solid instructions on how to entice them, then tell him all the gory details when he returned home with my mother. This very known and discussed activity then became private parties late at night in our home, with sometimes 10 or more adult men from the local coalmine. My younger sister trying to sleep in the other room. My mother going in to watch TV in her bedroom; telling me to have a good time as she walked away when his call came in with instructions of what to wear, what to get prepared, even putting the porn movie in the VCR. This happened not because my mother was terrorized or forced to let it happen, but rather because she didn’t want to try and survive with three children on her own, and eventually because she didn’t mind using me as her family caretaker and housekeeper.
It wasn’t just chores we give our kids today. It was every single day and every moment of my day. It wasn’t just the occasional dusting or vacuuming. It was give her a toothbrush to scrub the corners and keep her here busy until I’m ready to send her to bed. Don’t give her a toothbrush or give a damn if she cares for herself at all.
The men got me drunk, the porn was on the television, they passed me around from lap to lap. They got me high, guiding me for this one do this or that one to do that. Around 3 or 4 am, I might be told to go out to the camper on the back of my stepfather’s pickup parked right in front of our house.
Keep in mind we lived in the center of this small town for six consecutive years when his violent reign of terror and the complete neglect of any human kindness was at it’s absolute worst. This type of exploitation, enslavement, sharing, trafficking happened between 11 to 17 before I escaped. He was at that time planning to put me in a trailer, on a private lot, with a new lock and his own private key so we could have ‘our’ parties anytime. I ran the first chance I got; ran into the arms of a man 7 yrs older who beat me, strangled me, almost drowned me, and left me hogtied in a bedroom for 10 hours, dead-bolted in a second floor apartment while he went to work and out for drinks. I’ve had more weapons held to my head than I can count, the first around age nine. Like many from violent homes I rant into the waiting arms of another violent abuser. All with the aide of what I was manipulated with as a child; years of weed and alcohol to cover up the pain. No matter the suffering I must act like I had always been taught; silent, submissive, even protective of my tormentor.
All of the interactions happened for the price of a case beer or perhaps just a couple of glasses at the bar. This was my value, this was the identity that every single person who witnessed the very worst of these offenses unknowingly or knowingly, helped create in just one young girl. Each had their part and in those so easily dismissed and accepted acts they trained a child to become a human being who lived ‘in servitude of others’ until I was about 45 years old.
The young servitude was taught as I grew up to be the only person in our home expected to answer the ring of that little brass bell for years. Constantly, every single day. No wonder my homework was barely done. No wonder I couldn’t concentrate or felt so different, so socially inept around everyone else. No wonder I could barely exist in your world. The only thing I could think about was how to survive the next damn thing that was going to happen.
During these years I was attacked almost daily. It was so brutally dominating and fearful, that it wasn’t even safe to bathe or take any time to care for myself. For five years I barely took a washcloth to my face, let alone my body.. I was a kid who attended the same school system, walked around in the same small community, who associated with the same people everyday. I was covered in filth, my front teeth rotted out and broken, my skin covered in sores; ugly infected rashes that have left me scarred and broken with many troubling health conditions today. They saw years of physical violence; bruises across my back and legs from the leather belt he had sliced up to beat me with. Once I got that beating for putting on a pair of my brother’s button up flannel pajamas because I thought they might protect me from him somehow; like a suit of magic armor he wouldn’t be able to touch me. Believe me, I didn’t dare put them on ever again.
So now I ask you; what types of distressful behaviors do you see happening or going on with one of the people or kids you interact with everyday. What do you see on the surface? What do you think might be happening beneath the surface to control that person in such a dominant and cruel fashion? Now let me ask – Why in the hell is it still happening today, everyday.? Not just here in Southern Illinois, but in every little rural and perceived safe community across the country. For thousands – this is everyday life happening in your backyards. There are enslaved, young and old, both male & female; these are the common early steps that become the larger tragedy of human trafficking. There are at risk kids in every apartment building, rich private home, or rundown trailer park. They are trying to endure until they can somehow find a way to somehow escape and live like everybody else.
Let me remind you; You might be the only one who sees something, or is courageous enough to report something that might first bring attention to any form of those early controlling, neglectful, threatening, servitude acts that happen. We can’t expect our Social Service workers to just walk in and suddenly take action or investigate something, until we make absolutely certain we are reporting it. Take names and numbers, then follow up to make sure they’re doing their job and holding them accountable. Keep reporting and if they still want listen, discuss it with others who witness these acts or who might be able to help them. Our leading research & health organizations have data on trauma which has been collected for the past ten years. The ones who are responsible for assisting and investigating are just as accountable for their actions and decisions, as you and I are accountable for what we tolerate and teach through our silence.
I beg you, I beg everyone across the country; it’s time to pick ourselves up by the boot-heels and create the society we want our children and grandchildren to grow up in. A society of equality, with true possibility that they can actually succeed in their dreams. To be courageous enough to dream and feel self worthiness. Teach them to believe they actually matter; their life actually matters to the most close knit circle around each and every one of us.
I really want to thank all of you for listening to me here, and the Women’s Center for permitting me to speak at this amazing event. Hopefully you’ll think about everything you’ve felt or heard here today; the empowering energy we have felt together. We really must begin somewhere and this change will take on whatever momentum for community and family wellness that we decide to put into it. We can honestly take accountability and decide whether we will or will not permit harmful and despicable acts among us as a society of incredible human beings. No one deserves this hell for a life. No one should be so easily, casually, or grudgingly dismissed within our communities and closest circles.
When you ask yourself what can I do about Modern Day Slavery, Exploitation, Servitude, Human Slavery, Human Trafficking; please remember to just do something. Look beneath the surface of what you do see. Be the one a shining light on the acts that destroy and cycle through what we see in the common everyday dysfunctions and behaviors that lead our children into danger, our streets filled with crime, a society using deadly drugs and addictions to cover up the pain, mental & physical health problems that might just be our remaining injuries and wounds from the traumas we endured; at least for the ones who actually survive. The ones who aren’t living so isolated and tormented they are driven to complete the acts of suicide, simply because they are suffering but no one is hearing their trapped voices and their rolling silent tears. If we want to be the beginning of a new way, an equal and humane way in our society, then when are we really going to start being the voice of hope and change? Are we going to decide to continue this massive cycle of life altering learned behaviors and distress of others?
Thank you, to everyone who has believed in my voice. You are now my energy and my hope, you are colleagues or resources I depend on to do the very best I can; will those reading this also join us? Today I’m finally starting to believe in my worthiness as a human being. Today I believe in my worthiness of life, without expectation of dominance and servitude.
Be well, Live Free & Really Dream Big because you are the minds and the hearts that will make any possibility of change a reality for the magic that lies within each and every human being on this amazing place called Earth. Always believe anything is possible with you in the active equation of life!!!
Yes, I am a very strong and proud voice to change the cycle of destruction which most often effects our kids, especially when it comes to Sex Crimes Against Children. However, I must also say that there are more cases of teen girls who use the accusations of sexual offenses to destroy innocent lives. In all the advocacy & education about the prevention and punishment of these offenses, we have become a society that now accepts this accusation without question. We say to ourselves; “She would NEVER lie about such a thing”. Guess what, the teenage child has not changed. If they get in trouble for something they will blame someone else or they will directly lie, even to authority figures, especially if they have some type of anger or resentment towards someone who has broken their perceptions of the teen’s expectations. It is what teens do and many of them do it very well.
In our determination to end crimes against children, we automatically accept their statements without proof of guilt. This has developed because we all push the message that not all acts of harm leave physical evidence, particularly molestation. Unless you have skin cell DNA evidence, any rash can quickly be mistaken as proof. What if the forensic exam and the interview show ‘NO FINDINGS’ of a crime? Should charges still be pressed and the offender still taken into custody? It becomes “He said/She said” and since the accuser is a young girl we just commonly assume the worst.
I push education and awareness of the silent signs of trauma all the time; it’s who I am and the passion in my gut. Now I am seeing how teens are using this manipulation as a way to destroy innocent lives. Imagine if you knew people would believe you and condemn your ‘abuser’ without proof of guilt. Imagine that most of society would so easily accept your statement. Imagine the power a teen would feel when they know if they pushed the prosecutor would most likely offer the best possible plea deal, anything to prevent you having to take the stand and actually testify, leaving you to be cross examined by a skilled defense attorney.
I am learning that more men are having their entire lives ripped apart, having to spend thousands of dollars in hopes to clear their name, having some stranger evaluate all of your behaviors to see if you are a predator, then if there is even five minutes of unsupervised time between you and your accuser; it will take a miracle to keep you out of prison. You loose your job, your family, your friends, and worst of all you have to register for a minimum of fifteen years so that people know you have committed some type of deviate behavior. What a powerful destruction the vengeful teen might feel through their victim’s complete brokenness. The teen suddenly receives all the attention they were not getting before. Their parents begin giving all the support and even if they rarely showed any attention prior to your accusations; now you have the entire school, friends and family who will encircle you with kindness and patience that they never cared to provide before you made your statement. In truth what we are doing is now making innocent good men into lifetime victims. They will never be the same good hearted person who might have been the only person to show any concern for you at all. Maybe their attention was being given to someone else and that’s what angered you into falsely accusing in the first place.
Whatever reason of these false allegations; YOU ARE NOW AN ABUSER!! This is something you will have to carry in your heart for the rest of your life. It is now your guilt that will be judged because of your lies and your false statements against an innocent spirit. Maybe the one you accused is the one you went to for everything, but who will you go to when things go wrong again? Maybe you got some kind of thrill to see how people changed their behavior towards you? Maybe you think you will never be called out on these false statements, but inside you will always know the truth. Sadly, you are not the only one destroyed by your lies. You have destroyed a person’s life with a few powerful lies. Maybe you sent them to prison or perhaps caused a life lasting hell to destroy the good decent life they worked so hard to build. It is now your crime and your own ugly destruction. Now you are no longer innocent. There is no power or sense of achievement in this because you have used such a crucial topic to destroy a good life simply because you got angry about some perceived notion of commitment or love. This is a crime that destroys the lives of millions of children every single day, but now you have used our system and society’s fears as a weapon to kill an innocent soul. Can you lie to yourself forever? Can you lie to your family everyday? Can you look to God, (if you believe in God); can you look at your afterlife and your final judgment without doubt of your acceptance? It’s a fearful thought but teens do this without remorse and without fear of punishment in almost 2% of all investigated accusations.
As a statement from one survivor of vicious traumas and sexual attacks for more than thirty years of my life, it absolutely sickens me to see how both vengeful parents and vengeful teens are using the pity of our society and the laws of our justice system to act out their emotional let downs. It makes me furious to see how easily we allow this to happen. Family and friends stand back and say nothing about their suspicions in the false statements, which makes us part of the abuser’s weapon. If we know that someone is innocent of the accusations against them, we have a duty to say something to those who have the power to hold the accuser accountable and question the details of the statements made. If we do not have at least a pattern of behavior, some type of previous attempt, or evidence of harm; how can our society simply allow these types of cases to continue?
Warn your sons, husbands, fathers, brothers; warn the educators, doctors, police officers, and family around the child. This can easily happen to the man you love, the man you know doesn’t hold a deviate or harmful act in their heart. However, if they make a gesture out of concern or kindness it just might ruin their lives forever.
For instance;
What if a teen send a sex pic of themselves to your son’s phone? Do you know if they keep it or if they share it with others, they become guilty of distributing child porn, but yet NOTHING happens to the young girl who sent the photo in the first place.
What if your 20 year old son is at a party and a young girl posing to be of legal age lures them into the bedroom, or in the car, or in some other similar situation; your son is now guilty of sex crimes against a child.
What if a 30 yr old male, someone who has been close to your family since he was barely legal himself; what if this young man is someone your entire family has turned to in times of crisis (financial, personal, emotional or when your troubled teen girl is acting out). When this adult male does what you expect of them, responding in kindness over and over again, then suddenly after such another incident and thirty minutes of unsupervised time your troubled teen makes a statement to a friend; the wheels of destruction begin. We have developed such a fear of the possibility that ALL MEN ARE PIGS, that this statement begins a vicious cycle of your worst fears and society’s assumption of guilt that it is now their lives that are destroyed without question, without proof, without any forensic findings, and in most cases without even a trial. Example: I just witnessed a case like this and for six months the prosecutor pushed four felony charges threatening a minimum of ten years in prison; or the day your jury selection is set to start you are suddenly offered a Misdemeanor Indecent Assault with no prison time if you accept their deal.
Yes, it happened and the aftermath destruction of this wonderful young man rips through my soul. How in the world is this our justice system? Well, it’s about the prosecutor’s reputation and how many men we can frighten into taking this type of deal as their best option. It’s ugly and it happens. I am a part of this because of how I constantly push for updated legislation to protect our kids, punishment to the harshest extent of the law, and ending the ‘victim blaming’ status quo of our society. Yes, any of us that are advocates in this mission we have scared society into ALWAYS believing the victim, even without evidence of a crime.
Isn’t this another process that we absolutely have a duty to educate our society about? Should we keep pushing the always believe, or should we be demanding that any type of manipulation of our justice system without evidence of a crime is indeed a crime in itself and the accuser, who then makes some extreme victim impact statement, which can be read and rewritten out of any child sexual abuse hand guide. How do we prosecute the real offenders of these crimes when our justice system is being so easily manipulated by troubled teens who hold grudges in disappointments or anger for some imagined notion?
This damages the reputation of every TRUE VICTIM, every SURVIVOR of these heinous acts. It damages innocent lives and rips people to the point of suicidal attempts, or maybe suicidal success. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot convict or even charge these offenses without some type evidence of a crime, not just the conjecture and repeated lies of some troubled or angered teen? Teens will lie, they always have and they always will, especially when it’s about attention or getting out of trouble. It is young children, up to about 12yrs old, who do not show a tendency to lie about these types of actions. I don’t know how we can fix this or if we can at all, but I know that I’ve had many mothers and wives contact me about wrongful accusations that have completely destroyed their loved one’s life, yet sadly there is no remorse or punishment for these practiced FALSE VICTIMS.
Help the men you know protect themselves, insist they NEVER be alone with a teen, even if it’s someone they have helped out through most of their lives. It’s sad our society is either not doing anything about these crimes at all or they have become so afraid to speak against these types of teen accusers who can’t make a clear statement, don’t have to make a clear statement, can actually lie and be caught in some part of a lie in their statement; yet our prosecutors push for another notch on their belt; another man registered as a sex offender and condemned throughout the rest of society. We need to investigate more thoroughly and require evidence of a crime, not repeated changes in statements and even direct lies throughout four or five separate interviews. If it’s not consistent and the evidence doesn’t support a crime; quit using threats of prison against someone you know is most likely an innocent pawn in some troubled teen’s manipulation.
Standing up for true justice is the only way we can stop destroying innocent lives!!! Real victims should be furious about the use of something they may never get to be so easily tolerated as a weapon against decent young men.
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself, so please don’t pity me, it really just makes the situation worse. What I need is to know that something I say or do or write will help you support someone whose been harmed, as well as prevent or intervene when something happens in your circle today.”
Over the past ten years I’ve been on a reality mission to figure out who I am, without focusing on what has been done to influence my past beliefs and behaviors. Learning about the aftermath of my personal war and the influence I have left on those I treasure most. This is not an easy process and one which comes and goes in different situations and challenges as I get stronger and learn more about myself and the actions of others; all resulting in who I am today.
My idea of self appreciation and self worth was never developed because I was put in my place, and lived in the example of who THEY thought I was or the value I carried as a person. Tragically, just in America, we have 3.7+ Million children still living in those same types of environments today. Even worse is that myself and millions of others know exactly who that child might become tomorrow, especially if they are not given help or have at least one positive person who gives them something more to believe in and seek to achieve a greater good.
My stepfather, Malcolm White, was truly walking evil; to me he was and always will be the devil himself. In fact, he used to quote; ‘Heaven doesn’t want me and the Devil is afraid I’ll take over’. I knew in my heart that he would definitely kick the Devil’s ass and de-throne him without an ounce of effort. However ridiculous as it might sound, I am still afraid of his ghost some six years or more after his death. I can still feel him lurking around like an animal after his most favorite prey. I can’t sleep for more than three or four hours at any one time, then suddenly I’m shocked awake and for a split second I’m still in harms way, even though I truly am not.
For Malcolm, the violent molesting attacks that began before he married my mother was not enough. His appetite for cruelty and deviate influence progressed to the point I became HIS PROPERTY; my mother, Mona, stepped aside and did absolutely nothing to help me or care for me ever again. I was told to shut up and stop whining. I still hear this from my siblings today on the rare occasion I speak to them at all. For me the only family I had died in March 1989 and I still mourn his death today. I just stopped by his grave last week and thanked him for helping as much as he could. He was just a boy, a boy who willingly lived in our home until he was 22yrs old; but he was a boy who stepped in front of Malcolm’s rage more than once and he stepped in front of the loaded weapons pointed at my head. He would have taken that bullet rather than see me be harmed. For John, I will never have the chance to repay what he did for me, which was the best that had happened until I was 40 yrs old.
Malcolm influenced my sexual behavior with other boys and men within the community of Freeburg beginning around age 11, when he first arranged a special party with a case of beer and about five neighborhood boys who hung with my brother. I was instructed on who to invite, how to dress, and what to encourage and allow these boys to do with me. It is the most shameful and disgusting memory that I carry. I attended school with these boys. I saw them hanging in the park everyday, and I would party with them being my ‘friends’ for the next five years.
It was just a few weeks later he took me to JB Tavern, just two blocks from our house, where my mother worked and all the coalminers hung out. I was fed double shots of vodka with orange juice, so many that I puked the entire evening and next day. We were there for about two hours when Dave and a crew of miners came in to shoot pool and toss back a few beers. I was given a dollar for the jukebox and instructed on how to ‘shake my ass’ as I played the music. I was asked to pick out the cutest guy, and then taken to his table and offered out for a trip out back or in the car; all it would cost is a couple of beers. This was my value if I had any at all, and when he looked at Malcolm and said; ‘She’s just a kid’, I was taken to the car and beaten for being so ugly no one would ever want anything to do with me at all. ‘I was lucky they wanted to ‘f***’ me’. This was who I became and just part of how I was used until I finally escaped, running to move in with the first guy who asked; a guy from thirty miles away who didn’t know anything about me or my family history. I just needed to get away before I either killed Malcolm or he killed me.
At that time I was 17yrs old; he was going to purchase a mobile home and put me on a plat of ground where he would have his own special key to come over anytime and bring whomever he wished. I didn’t care who helped me get away and I certainly didn’t take time to evaluate who he was or how he treated me. As a result of my inability to realize the inner cruelty he had, the following two years would be almost deadly on a weekly basis.
In the influence of my parents, I became the perfect lifetime victim. It didn’t take much kindness for me to open my legs and my heart; for me to seek their approval regardless of the cost, so long as I felt they wanted me. My behaviors became coping strategies. I was fed a case a beer before I turned 10 years old. It was the way Malcolm reduced my rejections or put me in a manipulating and controllable condition. I was given my first joint before I was 12 and to say the least, this is what I depended on to numb the loss and disgust that I couldn’t escape. Lance was the first to give me cocaine, and I even did a few small hits of acid; but it definitely was not for me and the cocaine was too expensive, so my constant state of being was either drinking or high, or both until I got pregnant and left the country. It was a blessing to be removed from all that surrounded me, but the man I married was not the same man I lived with over there. This man had me in the perfect place; I couldn’t escape and had no one around to talk with or convince me that I wasn’t as low a piece of crap as he insisted I was. Our society wasn’t even discussing the acts of child abuse or family violence back then and I definitely didn’t know anything other than what I had been so well trained to accept; it was my ‘normal’.
From 20 to 40 there was a handful of failed and cruel relationships, some more violent and destructive than others, but each a reflection of the only thing I knew. I fought constantly trying to absorb all of the bad so that my kids would never know that type of pain; however, I didn’t realize just how the chaos was affecting them and the example of womanhood I was giving my daughters. Imagine seeing your mom be beaten to a pulp while you’re sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her to come eat dinner with you. Suddenly the perfect plate of food she delivered to him goes flying across the room, and because she wasn’t going to sit on the couch with him, she was thrown, kicked, punched and slammed against walls, the stove, the sink and the door. Finally the fighting stops and she comes into the table, trying to calm your little sister and get everyone to eat as if nothing happened. Imagine the confusion and human value your children learn in our examples of tolerance. How do you think they will grow to see the world and what value they will hold precious about themselves? What will their children learn and how will they behave in school or in the teenage social situations as they develop?
This is our human conditioning and it leaves an ugly mark on all those affected. It distorts our value of ourselves and how we treat others. Some might become extreme protectors and put the needs of others higher than the needs of themselves and their happiness. Some might become lost in drugs, alcohol, or even deviate attacks on others. Some of those like me get so lost they can’t get out and are emotionally wounded forever; these are those prone to submissive and self harming behavior, that which commonly ends in suicide or overdose ending in death. They can’t hold productive steady employment and have chronic health conditions which studies are finding are actually early onset conditions that first show up as Juvenile Fibromyalgia or Early Post Traumatic Stress; conditions that hold trigger reactions before the person is old enough to realize the effect at all. The overall economic cost to society, becomes the taxpayers burden because of these invading health and emotional conditions that cause a reduction or inability to sustain in self supportive life development. Most have difficulty in learning skills or the development of healthy, productive life skills. After all when did they have time to concentrate on homework or study for that big test?
Personally, I’ve got so many injuries and health problems my body and my daily life are a mess. The cost of my constant healthcare in pain management, medications, various procedures, circulatory and pulmonary progressive diseases; I’ve been on disability since 2007. I would have to say that the worst of my conditions today is the permanent spinal cord trauma which has caused elongated cystic sacs to grow inside of my central canal, a condition called Syringomyelia. This alone causes wide spread severe pain, but add in the intense Fibro & Head Trauma and you’ve got a disastrous mess. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, so please don’t pity me, it really just makes the situation worse. What I need is to know that something I say or do or write will help you support someone whose been harmed, as well as prevent or intervene when something happens in your circle today.
Victims and Survivors need to know that their suffering and their voice matters to someone; that someone cares enough to help heal the wounds and make us stronger so that we can provide a better life for ourselves and more importantly our children. We need the law changes to prosecute these types of repeat heinous offenders. For most of us, we will never be given a chance at justice, because the laws of our past allow absolute minimum time to report or press charges; in Illinois these offense statutes allow only ONE YEAR after victim’s 18th birthday. Hell, I didn’t even know what the word trafficking was and definitely feared this couple so much, along with the condemnation of those around me; my life was something so destructive and disgusting I couldn’t tell anyone what happened to me at all until I was around 35 years old. Some knew that my childhood wasn’t pleasant, but no one, including myself, really knew just how evil and tragic it was.
We are NOT our parents, and we do NOT have to live in the sorrow, pain, and pattern of harm or victim they taught us. We have a choice today and we can actually use the strength of amazing survivors who are finally able to discuss what’s happened; use their courage to speak up as a precious gift. This is a strength beyond measure they cling to and can use, not just to help themselves, but to influence how we help and how we can truly save the life of someone else today. You can be the one to step in and take the bullet; you can stop the bleeding and help stitch up the wounds of our kids lost in the pattern of destruction, crime, drugs, and harm they are trying to survive today. Please don’t sit on the sidelines and judge what that person should or shouldn’t do, because until that same personal violation is against you, then you can never know how it feels or the damage it causes. You may be stronger than they are and bounce back with no problem, but you may watch someone else slowly disintegrate so horribly that it becomes their own extinction.
Today I use my past, all of it; my behaviors and my pain, my bad choices and the influence I’ve seen continue in my children and grand children’s lives; I use all of this hoping that somehow I can help empower one other survivor to believe they absolutely matter. Hoping that I can inspire one victim to get help for themselves and their family. Hoping that I can change the offensive behavior of someone who has been harmed, but reacts and attacks others in their pain. We DO NOT have to harm others or devalue ourselves, because on this amazing planet; every life and every breath taken truly matters and we all have the power to do something about it.
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I hope our society will continue to grow in how we recognize and assist the persons affected as children or adults so they can give something better, SAFER, for their families.
‘Awareness’ is about;
Acknowledgement; almost every person in our human society has either experienced some type of Family Harm or is dealing with this today. In America the Centers for Disease estimate that ‘1 in 4 homes’ are coping with some type of violence or abuse. Millions of children & families living in extreme, life threatening, harm or terror. If we look at this ‘human conditioning’ of tolerance as a disease; a human disease which we may have been taught as children to keep secret, we can see it encompasses our entire history. Most children are taught to protect, even respect, the person who is harming them or their family. It has been happening since the beginning of time. Unless we step in and teach our children a better, safer way of life; their kids are going to learn the very same types of behavioral harm and violence.
We are supposed to be the most intelligent species on the planet. However, it took us until Jan 2014 to finally enact amendments to Violence Against Women Act to provide services in aiding MALE victims. The amendments provided that ANY person, of ANY age or gender, ANY economic standing or place of residence, ANY ethnic origin or religious beliefs; there are no boundaries that divide an act of family harm or Domestic Violence, even trafficking/slavery of our partners and children; so now we have laws & services growing together to help make a difference in our worst ‘human condition’.
Accept that we have a decade of studies by nationally recognized medical, psychological, behavioral, and reported acts that have been evaluated in every level to understand the lasting traumas and distorted behaviors; learned reactions as a result of having been someone’s victim. Our nation’s reports continue to climb and the depth of emotional trauma continues to be studied so that we develop the appropriate resources to help heal these wounds and rebuild to alter the ‘VICTIM’ state of learned behaviors.
These offenses if beginning in the early years of a child’s life, even inside the womb, can and do cause an ingrained emotional alteration in our frontal lobe cortex. In young children you can see how living in this every day or week, month, year can affect every person differently. Some might become adult or teen offenders, others might stay in that trained sense of ‘VICTIM’ pattern and submissive behaviors. Either way these young persons grow up to become those who run our businesses, our police officers, judges, and political leaders of our nation. These are the people everywhere around us today, and we are creating the next generation of tomorrow.
If you’ve ever lived with someone who has gone through these types of Family Related or Relationship Offenses, you know daily life can be challenging. Usually the result of a heightened anxiety, inability to level our stresses, which then results in emotional reactions that either bury the feeling of harm, triggers harmful behavioral outbursts or cause various types of self harming, even suicidal responses.
Address these types of behaviors as if they are an illness within your family or circle of friends. The first way to begin combating this type of illness is to discuss the symptoms and provide a support system of knowledge, friendship, and resources to take care of this illness so that our loved ones know what it’s like to have a SAFE life and laugh without fear.
We have pandemic measures of victims recorded for the past decade that prove 1 IN 3 AMERICAN CHILDREN (about 25Million) every year are trying to survive and understand what is happening inside their home or trusted circle. If we had any other type of DISEASE affecting this many children, (these are only the REPORTED cases); if these numbers were reflective of any other illness we would have rallies, legislation, and targeted specialists involving every small rural or urban community across the nation until we ended it’s plague. We would listen to every victim and develop continued working strategies to decrease those affected. We would ensure that somehow the message was connected across the country, courts providing justice, healthcare providing treatment, emotional support, and long-term behavioral life skills development so that new victims do not become tomorrows offenders. We would all talk together and work together because it would not be about how much money you can take in for helping, you would simply just have to help.
Right now the annual estimated budget for providing prevention, intervention, and short-term recovery for these offenses is around $145Billion every year. Economically those harmed have trouble succeeding in a self productive manner to care for themselves and their families. If they are working with services, some of these CEO’S are bringing in 6 or 7 figure salaries but show few changes in how many victims they’re helping or how they’re changing the way they help them. Most are short-term recovery shelters to get you started, which give about 45 to 90 days. In this you have to get all your legal paperwork done, find a job, a place to live, apply for any state assistance, and figure out your own transportation. Have you done the ‘Walk in Her Shoes’ event anywhere? You definitely should so that you are fully aware of exactly what it’s like as a single young person in a homeless shelter or a mother of three trying to find somewhere to go and how to care for your kids.
Services and rallies for adult males who have been harmed in childhood or in their adult relationships with either men or women; these guys still have very few resources as most shelters have been designed for women and children. They have little if any support and it is still an old traditional ‘hero’ thing if an older woman or girl teaches them about sex early in life; maybe an uncle or the neighbor they mow the lawn for once a week. We really don’t have true numbers of male victims because we’ve made it so difficult in what we teach them. Usually it’s about being a strong man; ‘Don’t you cry when you’re hurt boy, you get angry and you keep going’. It’s been this way forever and will be until every man, woman, and teen is involved in helping those in their circle learn about how to stop this mess and give the support, addiction recovery, and financial ability to live a better SAFER life.
I have taken my own past and use what I’ve experienced, along with Certifying Classes, to educate myself about how deeply wounding these acts can be and what little it takes from family and friends to actually make a difference in a person’s life. I try to share very personal and upfront knowledge about how detrimental these acts can become over a period of time; tragically thousands ending in homicide and millions ending in suicide. It is crucial to have just one supportive person in our lives who is willing to wipe our tears and help us help ourselves so that we become stronger as adults and parents.
Much like the 50 Million estimated Adult Survivors of Family Violence or Sexual Harm, my life has been a rollercoaster of disasters. Battling alcohol & marijuana addictions, depression, high anxiety, and constant panic. My adult relationships and marriages reflected the male dominant partner who committed emotional/physical/financial/sexual/life threatening acts which continued destruction and fear; control to the millisecond of my life. What I tolerated and lived with was based on the choices of what I knew as ‘normal’, which honestly was pretty violent and depraved. Sadly I lived in this until I was almost 40 years old. I became a young mother who believed that if the kids weren’t being directly harmed, then they were doing alright. However, how do you think they might have felt hiding in the closet in the middle of the night, waiting to see how badly their mother would be beaten, or would she even be able to come calm you down when the fight was over.
Would she live? Would you live? What if he got the gun out and was threatening everyone with it again? Who would you go talk to about what was happening? Would you be able to concentrate in school or get your homework done? What if both parents were drinking or using drugs, then either violence or sex began happening around you? How do you think our children would perceive life, what was expected of them, how to behave and how to treat others? What behaviors would develop in drugs, alcohol, violence, street gangs, sexual respect, or your emotional wellness? All of it would be altered until that person was in a circle of help that provided a SAFE ZONE, open discussion and support.
What you and I can do is to look at our family circle. Think about how you were raised; was it violent or amazing? Use what you know to begin making a difference today. If you have the same couple in your apartment building or neighborhood where you hear or see violent acts, the kids are screaming and crying; please call someone who can help intervene. If you’re a teacher, healthcare worker, law enforcement, minister or other community member; just take a few moments of gut knowledge and watch a child behave over time. See how many of the behavioral silent warning signs you know and how you remember behaving in what you’ve gone through yourself or seen in the numbers of victims and families you’ve helped. Communication & Community are crucial in helping change the future for our kids. If we don’t focus on the root of the problem at home, then we will never be able to change what is happening in our society. Sadly this ‘human conditioning’ will simply continue.
I hope something I’ve written will touch the heart of others around the country, as well as those areas closest to me. We can make a difference and I really hope that it begins right in this moment for you.
Respectfully,
Patricia A McKnight
Breese, IL 62230
Advocate/Author/Mentor/Survivor
A child may try to avoid situations which place them alone with their abuser such as; not wanting to interact with a particular family member or friend; not wanting to hug or sit on their lap; not wanting to go places with them or where the abuser will be; remember to watch for signs of what your child IS NOT telling you. They may not know exactly how to verbalize their dislike, distrust, or what is happening to them. Pay attention to their actions and reactions around others
Many times in a person’s life they may come across another person who is violent to the extreme. Sadly they end up with ongoing physical, maybe neurological, difficulties with their health from that moment in time. Reading this might cause some triggering, ‘bad emotional response; anger, anxiety, sadness, pain). However I do feel that what I’m discussing here is more critical for you to know than to ignore because of possible negative response. Please do take the time to read, share, respond. This is our ongoing multitude of issues revolving around our history of tolerating personal violence inside our homes, which simply ‘trains’ our children to tolerate this in their life, affecting their children, who then accept their own level of suffering in their life, which then affects their children and so on, etc……..
Our topic of Head Trauma from Violence can be viewed as the same information provided for the football players in repeated concussions. The biggest difference, the football player has a helmet and body pads. Inside a home of violence however, you never know when things might go extreme and if you are a child, to have a person twice your size and maybe 3x your weight; the end result can most definitely be death or lingering physical or neurological issues from the trauma.
We, our ‘decent’ human society, often feels as if this subject matter is being discussed to either get pity for things they have already survived or climbed above, or it is considered to be ‘Too Intense’ for common conversation. How about the fact that most of us know someone who is being violently or sexually attacked on a regular basis, or at least once in their lifetime anyway. The length of time a person endures these traumatic experiences depends on a few specifics;
How old are they? – Do they have the ability of age to speak up, get help, drive a car; get away, or work to support themselves?
What is their level of tolerance learned? – How long have they been living in this pattern of accepting violence?
What is their perception of self? Do they feel they deserve this type of treatment? Do they believe they can survive to pay their own way through life without someone who hurts them verbally/physically/sexually?
Do they have a close friend to talk to or who will get them help when needed; hopefully medical help and a police report?
This constant level of extreme violence, which quite often involves threats with weapons, use of weapons, threats of death or sudden violent attacks without cause of anger. This happens more often when people on are heavy types of illicit drugs such as Meth or even heavy drinking. I personally know a lot of people who are affected by drinking Whiskey or Tequila. Drinking, rather it is wine or whiskey is a very common act which happens in almost every household. This is something our kids learn as social behavior and many of them in our inner city or urban areas see drastic levels of drug or alcohol use on a regular basis. This is not to leave out our rural or rich society, because it most definitely is a staple of coping life in their homes as well.
Since I’ve worked much of my life as a bartender, (an excellent backup skill to always have an income); also I grew up in an alcoholic and drug enticing environment; I’ve seen people under the influence on different levels of drinking or illicit drugs. In this type of human acceptance of drinking and the BAR environment; I’ve seen first hand how alcohol has the greatest negative response for many people. They are trying to cope with the struggles of their life, maybe past trauma, but instead of finding a peaceful place they find an angry place. This will cause many family arguments, many of those simply because someone was in eyesight so they end up getting attacked. Violence is an instant reaction caused by someone who has reached their angry place inside. The choice to act against another person can be triggered by conversation, being in a difficult environment, around people they feel are a threat to their identity, or from the chemical reaction of the alcohol itself.
The violence usually begins on a verbal foundation, suddenly a rage in the person’s reactions; slamming a fist on the table or couch, stomping their foot, throwing an item, or suddenly grabbing the person who is closest to them. The violence can quickly become intensely dangerous, which results in kicking, punching, strangulation, or by slamming the person’s head against a solid surface. This is when it becomes most life threatening and could cause a lasting trauma within the brain itself from possible bruising on the brain, just like what happens in the concussion injury of our major NFL Players or the controversial high school football when they begin to get more physically developed to cause an injury.
Myself, I lost count of how many times I was actually knocked out or had my head bashed against a solid surface in a violent attack. I’ve been slammed repeatedly against dashboards, windows, mirrors, stoves, refrigerators, doors, walls, even a huge tree slab that was meant to be a table top about eight inches thick. There was NEVER any type of medical follow up to confirm a concussion, especially during my childhood. No way could my parents risk taking me to the doctor and having my leather strap lashes and bashed up head examined; the state would have taken their family slave immediately. This is why most people in a violent home rarely receive the necessary medical treatment. I’ve had cracked or broken ribs, couldn’t move or breathe well for weeks. I’ve had both collar bones broken at the end from having my shoulder area smashed against a wall or stomped on while being kicked in the head.
Today, in my mid 50’s, there are a lot of chronic pain issues from injuries. There is also the Fibromyalgia from living in a constantly high stress environment. Our medical community have confirmed that Fibromyalgia ‘can be directly connected to the Fight or Flight Response’. Our human system is designed to enhance our adrenaline and heightened response to threat. However, if you cannot change your situation and cannot avoid being harmed, your body’s reaction to stress becomes confused. Your nerve endings go into an intense reaction from the heightened response, yet you are physically not able to do anything to get away; this causes a ‘trained’ intense neurological response to any sense of ‘threat’ and becomes a cramping, burning and intense pain in the upper body, pressure builds up in your forearms and calves, then shoots down into your fingers and feet as if they are on fire. I’ve found that Lyrica is the best medication for this type of pain, but Coping Skills must be used to calm your intense reaction so that your body & adrenaline response also calm, which then loosens the muscle contraction and burning sensation. Fibromyalgia is commonly found in those with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It is also found more in women, but I believe that men have not yet been fully examined in this research as they are just beginning to seek out help when in a violent relationship. Fibromyalgia is also found in those who have been in a threatening situation for a long period of time.
These are just a few lasting injuries from violent trauma, which are directly linked to possible ongoing disabling and chronic results which impact our nation’s healthcare system. Since many of us are harmed as children, we tend to accept a certain level of violent (verbal, physical, sexual) depending on what you lived through during your formidable years. It’s important to consider the types of influence on our growing deficit as well. The cost of those who cannot work for their independent survival income, either because of physical or emotional injury from violence and abusive actions; these millions of persons become a national responsibility, which we all know is already crippled, bankrupt, and out of control.
However, if we are trained to spot the WARNING SIGNS OF TRAUMA & VIOLENCE, as given from many reputable organizations who are experts on these traumas. I have also developed a presentation which connects all factors of violence, sexual trauma, and the result of what can become human trafficking or exploitation. ‘A View from the Inside’ is available for viewing but is copyright research which has taken about three years to put together in the total connection of what can become the most dangerous place in the world; the connection of ‘Family Violence & Human Trafficking’. This is a crucial topic in our society and should be a priority topic for all of our elected officials and our service providers, regardless if you are a neighbor, family member, educator, law enforcement, or healthcare professional. You NEED to know what are those unspoken signs of trauma?
In closing, think of Shaken Baby Syndrome, if we consider how detrimental to natural development is interrupted by shaking a baby, causing their brain to bounce off the skull, then what is also the cognitive and lasting affect after concussion or bashing a teen or adult head repeatedly for an extended period of time? This is something I am researching now as I focus on the growing impact of violence in our society, especially in family violence with rarely any type of medical attention received. Most of the injuries go unreported as a whole, and the victims are taught to ‘simply walk it off’ type of conditioning to tolerance. We cannot end the travesty in our society of street violence or school violence, until we tackle the growing pandemic of ‘Family Related Violence & Trauma’.
Thanks for reading and I do hope you will help share this crucial information. When we can provide needed medical help, we reduce the possibility of permanent injury and in the end also reduce the high risk of injury and early disabling conditions.
Have you noticed the multitude of Adult Survivors of Child Sex Crimes who are sharing their collective voices across the United States? Actually if you really notice it’s happening in every country around the world; filling the internet and becoming part of the norm? I must say myself and every other adult survivor never thought we would be able to break our silence, release the ugly secrets, and have our voices matter. It’s outstanding the pendulum swing and it’s about damn time we take a real hard look at what has been tolerated inside our families throughout our human history.
Often inside our homes is now or can become the most dangerous place in the world!!!
What do we absolutely know about Trauma and our Brain; Emotional Response vs Learned Behavioral Patterns?
Let me make clear that I am in no way a licensed or specially trained psychology expert on any level. However, what I can say is:
I lived in a tumultuously dangerous environment for 40 years
I have worked through my 3rd nervous breakdown and have been a continuous work in progress for six straight years
It has taken days upon days of research to be prepared & provide actual confirmed information in hopes of assisting others like myself. In producing/hosting more than 200 online talk radio programs concerning different levels of this topic; our mental health, physical health, and even family health seriously impacted, which then effects our communities, crime, drugs, alcohol, gang and school violence, bullying, work place violence and societal abuses that plagues America’s most vital Freedom; our justice system.
I have attended trainings provided by local & Illinois State organizations to provide my certifications in Domestic & Family Violence Assistance and Prevention received by Violence Prevention Center of SW IL in June 2013. Also certification in Human Trafficking 101 which was provided by Rescue & Restore Coalition of East St. Louis in March 2014.
To provide assured information in the website and support provided by Butterfly Dreams Abuse Recovery. Links and research has been appropriately provided in it’s development and updates since September 2012; along with the honor to share the creative watercolor art by Advocate/Friend/Survivor Michal Madison. www.michalmadisonart.com
I have dedicated my focus and my drive to be part of this major force and end the stigma related to being abused; either in severe neglect, psychological, physical, sexual, and/or living with a constant fear in Family Violence.
It is factual to quote an FBI Victim’s Specialist in stating;
‘You are indeed an EXPERT’
I would say that while yes, I have a lot of vital information which I’ve collected, published, and shared to help create the change and influence as many positive vibes in helping change knowledge, provide support, and even update our policies & laws; I in no way consider myself an ‘EXPERT’. In that statement, I have provided at least some 30 other survivors like myself who have built nonprofits, provide help, publish blogs, monitor support groups, assist victims & provide support for any person who reaches out in a difficult or harmful situation. These are friends, family warriors, and persons whom I’ve actually admired and found strength from in what we are doing together.
We must understand the path of recovery from these issues isn’t just doing without a drug, or a drink, or getting through a moment. This process of recovery influences your education, your life skills knowledge, the ability to work everyday, to not be triggered by something in a grocery store or when with a group of friends. It effects parenting skills, boundaries, and educating our children as well as protecting them from any of this type of negative influence. It requires a complete moment to moment process of changing your lifestyle, your thoughts, your learned behaviors and disrespect for others or a type of person; such as Racism Against a Religion, Sexual Preferences, Color of Skin, Gender, Age, Economic Status or Place of Residence.
Humans have been taught and influenced by the generation before them, those who are responsible for guiding them and providing balance in their growing life. Tragically those who are teaching them in family have already endured the suffering and been influenced by what their parents and then the generation before have believed was appropriate and influenced without punishment or concern against their kids. Each of us can go back for centuries in our cultures and family tolerances to see a cycle that just continues and no one seems to know how to change it. They are either too traumatized & trained to believe this is simply life, or they have been altered by the distress of being victimized and living in a daily battle of survival.
How can we possibly see an end to this behavioral emphasis in our human existence. Yes, we definitely make sure that our laws & policies provide the best possible guidelines and punishments, but also that we provide the best possible community awareness and education in every small rural community across the borders. It is only in helping to develop a NEW way of thinking that this process will ever be achieved or even begin to affect the whole of our society. It starts in what we teach our kids and how we treat them.
The basics:
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HARM OTHER BEINGS.
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SEXUALLY INFLUENCE A CHILD IN ANY MANNER.
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO OWN, TRADE, SHARE, USE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING OF ANY AGE, RACE, RELIGION.
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE POWER TO OWN OR DOMINATE; TO VIOLATE THE FREEDOM OF ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.
Yes, I’m a dreamer. I wish we could flip a switch and end this TODAY, but sadly like it has taken us generations to get as severe as we are today; it will take generations for us to provide that path and create a peaceful type of life with others.
We can however definitely make a CHOICE; make a decision right now, begin this very moment; I will not allow this destruction to touch my life or my family any longer. I will decide to do whatever it takes in getting therapy for myself and my family, to begin teaching respect for the welfare of others and appreciate the most precious right of safety in every home, in our personal circles and to openly discuss this basic freedom in all possible settings. We can influence the life of our friends, our neighbors, and our community leaders. We can absolutely insist that this topic of recovery for our society as a whole begin to be addressed as a Human Recovery in our political agendas and who we put into office in our governments. We can begin holding others responsible for their choices to harm, just as we are responsible for our actions and reactions.
Our human brain, emotional development, attitudes, beliefs, traditions, even violence, rage, sexual behaviors, anxieties, fears, actions and reactions are an affect of what we have lived in and been taught to accept; the creed we live by in our close circles; inside our homes and teach inside our schools.
Teach Positive Life behaviors
Reach out for life so you can grow.
Spread your wings to release your sorrow.
Fly strong to reach the stars
Show the world how beautiful you are
❤ Life Strong & Fly Free ❤
Believe as the Butterflies; ‘Believe Anything Is Possible with You in the Active Equation’
Thank you for reading & I hope you’ll share, comment, post, discuss in casual conversation and begin to live in your own true freedom & recovery today. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Gaga Under Fire for Born This Way Foundation, SXSW Performance
Lady Gaga performs at Stubb’s in Austin, Texas, during the South by Southwest Music Festival. (Source:AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Jay Janner)
Lady Gaga is facing some criticism this week for her Born This Way Foundation and for a provocative South by Southwest performance.
It was revealed this week that Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation reportedly only donated a small amount of money to individuals and organizations.
According to a report by Roger Freidman for Showbiz411, the foundation spent "more on lawyers, publicity and consultants than on charity." Freidman says the pop star’s foundation had $2.1 million in assets, with $2.6 million in donations. According to a federal tax report, the foundation apparently spent $300,000 on "strategic consulting (web, digital)," $50,000 on "social media," $406,552 on "legal," $150,000 on "philanthropic consulting," $58,768 on "publicity fees" and $808,661 on "other." The charity allegedly spent just $5,000 to outside organizations.
"It’s unclear that anyone was really helped by the Born this Way Foundation other than lawyers, consultants, publicists and travel agents," Friedman wrote. "I like Lady Gaga and her parents. But celebrities probably shouldn’t start charitable foundations."
The Born This Way Foundation’s mission statement says the charity aims "to foster a more accepting society, where differences are embraced and individuality is celebrated. The Foundation is dedicated to creating a safe community that helps connect young people with the skills and opportunities they need to build a kinder, braver world."
Gaga has responded to the report and denies the claims, the British newspaper the Guardian reports. She said that critics don’t understand the form and function of the charity.
"We do the work," Gaga wrote on her Little Monsters website. "We do not raise money and allocate the funds to other charities for them to do the work."
"A clear understanding of the differences between a grant-making organization and one that carries out its work directly would have made this a non-story," Cynthia Germanotta wrote. "We are not a grant-maker that funds the work of other charities, and were never intended to be." She later added, "And we are having a profound impact in just a very short period of time."
The Guardian writes that one of Born This Way’s problems may be the language used in its mission statement. While most foundations use their money in the form of grants, Gaga’s charity focuses on its own projects, like its 2012 bus tour that visited 23 communities and earned "300 million media impressions," as well as 500,000 users of its official site, according to Germanotta.
"Born This Way Foundation’s work has focused heavily on providing information on empowerment through [this] website, raising awareness of the importance of being kind to others through public relations and social media," she wrote. "Every dollar spent across these categories, including the legal fees ... directly serves Born This Way Foundation’s core mission of empowering youth."
This isn’t the only controversy Gaga is up against this week.
During her South By Southwest Performance Thursday (sponsored by Doritos), Mother Monster invited her friend Millie Brown on stage during a performance of her "ARTPOP" track "Swine." Brown, a "vomit painter," drank a full bottle of neon green liquid then proceeded to force herself to throw up on Gaga while she played drums.
The performance quickly spread on the Internet, especially social media. Jezebel reported on Gaga’s set, criticizing the performance:
"This is apparently some kind of artistic collaboration with Millie Brown, a ’vomit painter.’ However, regardless of artistic intent, the stunt comes across as supremely insensitive and totally ill-advised - especially since Lady Gaga has publicly opened up about her struggle with bulimia and anorexia. Having a woman in a sexy costume purge on stage in the middle of a concert is a really gross thing to do: it comes across (to me, at least) as making light of - if not glorifying - eating disorders. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Q:
Maclaurin Series approximation for square root of e
I'm looking into how someone would go about this. Can it only be done in the Taylor series explicit form?
Would you make x = 1/2 and go from there?
A:
Yes:
$$\sqrt e=e^{1/2}=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{(1/2)^n}{n!}=1+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{8}+\frac{1}{48}+\frac{1}{384}+\frac{1}{3840}+\cdots$$
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Q:
Get values from 2 different table but shows only 1 table data
Hie
It might be unclear my query in the title,Let me clear you in the description.
I have 2 tables in the DB with name of 'ABC' and 'XYZ'.
ABC table
| ID | name | phone | gender |
1 | dave | 23423 | Male
2 | rayman | 987887 | female
3 | shawn | 6237267 | male
XYZ table
| ID | user-id | blood-group | rh-factor |
1 | 3 | AB | +
2 | 1 |
B | -
As you seen above there are two table, now I want result that user whose gender is Male, blood-group is B and rh-factor is negative.
but output should be
| ID | name | phone | gender |
1 | dave | 23423 | Male
hope you understand what I mean.I don't know there should be user GROUP BY or what.
thanks in advance.
A:
SELECT a.* FROM ABC a JOIN XYZ b ON a.ID=b.ID
WHERE b.Bloodgroup='B' AND a.gender='Male' and b.rh_factor='-'
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Management and survival of patients with adenocarcinoma of the colon and rectum: a national survey of the Commission on Cancer.
The Commission on Cancer (COC) of The American College of Surgeons periodically reviews criteria for evaluation of the care of patients with cancer related to diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and follow-up. The COC annually performs a national survey of practices for several cancer sites. Data collection forms for carcinoma of the colon and rectum were field-tested and then forwarded to participating hospitals. The study included a long-term survey to permit evaluation of five-year survival rates and a short-term survey to review current practices and time trends. Specific questions were asked concerning disease presentation, preoperative evaluation, surgical treatment, postoperative care, use of adjuvant therapy, and disease status at the last follow-up examination. A total of 39,502 reports from 943 hospitals were analyzed, including 12,682 patients with carcinoma of the colon diagnosed in 1983, 16,527 patients with carcinoma of the colon diagnosed in 1988, 4,597 patients with carcinoma of the rectum diagnosed in 1983; and 5,696 patients with carcinoma of the rectum diagnosed in 1988. Patterns of care, including changes in presentation, diagnostic and therapeutic management, and survival rates, are presented. Specific data showing results for various ethnic groups are also included. The distribution of cases by anatomic site was consistent with a hypothesis of rightward migration of colon carcinoma. Colon and rectal carcinomas in African-Americans were reported in more advanced stages and with corresponding decreases in survival rates. Some patterns of nonoptimal diagnostic use were noted. The increasing use of sphincter-sparing surgical alternatives for carcinoma of the rectum was evident. Adjuvant therapy was not widely used during this period. This study suggests evolving patterns of evaluation, increased preservation of continence, and improved but varying survival among ethnic groups. It further suggests that survival as measured across these 943 hospitals may be lower than that attained at some individual centers. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
In 1962, science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke wrote his Three Laws of Prediction, on how to think about future technologies. The third law is by far the most popularly quoted: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Sometimes I wonder if we’re entering a period of history where technology advances at such a fast clip that the thinking of ordinary people about tech starts to approach this sort of superstitious reverence.
It’s a well-heeled paradox that a technologically advanced society, while owing much to science and empirical inquiry, must also rely on the authority of almost Shamanistic experts. We all know there’s no magic in the iPhone, that every function can be traced to basic physical operations that can be easily observed and reproduced. Yet the ordinary person, myself included, is mystified how it works. For that, we must rely on the Geniuses.
In a very real way, the role of technology, even simple technology, is to unstick menial tasks from the user’s experience of linear causality. Rather than start a fire to keep myself warm, I turn up the thermostat and warm air rushes through the heating vent – who knows how? When my car breaks down, I take it to a mechanic. I couldn’t tell you how to fix it any more than I could perform open-heart surgery. Bowing to the authority of auto mechanics isn’t superstitious, but it has elements in common with a belief in magic.
Sir James Frazier, author of the classic work on religion and mythology “The Golden Bough,” describes belief in magic in terms of a dissociation of cause and effect, something like that between my need for warmth and the turning of a thermostat. Frazier organizes this belief into two groups: the principle of Similarity and the principle of Contagion. “Similarity” involves the belief that if certain rituals are performed, a desired outcome will be achieved regardless of the line of causality between the two — like, say, performing a rite to a fertility god to have a good harvest. “Contagion” has to do with belief in the effect of magical objects.
In a way, both the “Similarity” and “Contagion” dynamics are relevant to the modern person’s relationship to technology. If a person can’t draw a line between “how something works,” his belief that it will work approximates “Similarity.” Likewise, a person’s belief that a given product will go on working, regardless of his ignorance as to how, gets into the realm of “Contagion.”
Anthropologist Marcel Mauss described a connection between a society’s understanding of technology and magic in his book “A General Theory of Magic.” Mauss posits that, as magic becomes metaphysically distinct from religion in the development of cultures, and is seen more as a means to practically manipulate nature as opposed to enact communal ritual, it approximates a culture’s understanding of technology, which is also practical. In other words, as societies progress through the stages of rational enlightenment, at certain stages they think of technology and magic as performing similar functions.
But certainly our culture must have evolved well beyond the quagmires of magical thinking, right? Maybe not. Writer and psychologist Matthew Hutsonclaims that magical thinking is common today, even intrinsic to the human experience itself. Hutson’s definition of magical thinking is quite broad. He includes the ownership of sentimental objects, believing in universal principles of fairness, or even getting mad at inanimate objects when they don’t function properly.
Silicon Valley and the world of technology trades on a belief in magical thinking. It’s not just the complicated circuit-boards of hardware and code and algorithms of software. Magical thinking pervades the rhetoric by which Silicon Valley raises money and advertises and promises its futuristic vision. “Disruption,” when it describes the replacement of old tech for better, is certainly rational. But this word has also come to connote technological advances that defy all rationality, as well as the shifting morality that has emerged as a result of this techno-cultural upheaval.
Look no further than Google for perhaps the most absurd undertaking yet (or forward-thinking, depending on your point of view): Project Calico, the reported mission of which is to “solve death.” This is perhaps the epitome of Clarke’s second law: “The only way of testing the limits of the possible is to venture a little past them to the impossible.”
Building a startup at all could be characterized as an exercise in magic thinking. Recent studies suggest that three out of four venture-backed startups do not return capital for investors, and those that find a way to succeed do so only through tireless work. Founders frame their narrative as romantic. But we all know what happened to the man who read too many romances. He started tilting at windmills.
Booker, which helps service businesses better engage with customers online, has raised $35 million in a Series C round led by Medina Capital, with participation from strategic investor First Data, Jump Capital, and Signal Peak Ventures, as well as existing investors. The New York City company now sees 3 million appointments booked monthly across 73 countries in 11 languages on its platform. [via Booker]
PCH, a company which “helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into brands and makes a variety of consumer tech products for major companies such as Apple,” has acquired Fab for a reported $15 million in cash and stock. Fab previously had a $1 billion valuation and raised $325 million. It will “continue to focus on design” at PCH. [Source: Bloomberg]
BlackBerry has unveiled several new smartphones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, including the touchscreen-focused BlackBerry Leap and a device with a “dual curve slider,” in addition to its keyboard-equipped products. [Source: New York Times]
March 3, 2015
“I hope to have a bigger presence in the tech world. I love coming up with different app ideas, and I have a few more that are coming out. Once you get started and you have this creative bug of ideas that you want to get out, I feel like I’ve partnered with the right team, and now I have the creative outlet to make that happen. I’m happy that people are into it and perceiving it well. I just want to create more apps.”
PayPal is planning to acquire Paydiant, the company behind CurrentC — retailers’ answer to Apple Pay — for a reported $280 million. No word yet on how the companies will mix, nor if Paydiant’s relationship with the industry group behind CurrentC will remain intact. [Source: Re/code]
Microsoft is in talks to acquire Prismatic, a news aggregation service that uses natural language processing to recommend content in which its users might be interested, according to a report from TechCrunch. Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook are all said to have expressed similar interest in the company. (Which is surely a sign of actual interest and not at all an attempt by someone at the company to make it seem like a hot commodity — right?) [Source: TechCrunch]
March 2, 2015
“Just wanted to confirm that the rumors are true — I’m excited to be running Google’s Photos and Streams products! It’s important to me that these changes are properly understood to be positive improvements to both our products and how they reach users.”
Samsung has announced Samsung Pay, a competitor to the Apple Pay product included in Apple’s latest iPhones, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The feature will allow new Samsung Galaxy S6 owners who use MasterCard to pay for goods with their phones. It’s not clear when other credit card companies will be supported. [Source: The Guardian]
Google’s product head, Sundar Pichai, said during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today that the company’s wireless network will debut in the United States in the “coming months.” Asked about the network’s features, Pichai said that it wants to “experiment” like it has with Android, and that it has carrier partners with which it’s working. [Source: TechCrunch] | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Q:
apache pig JOIN not behaving as expected
I am new to apache pig. I created 2 files with tab separated fields; employees.txt and employees2.txt [there are no line spacings in the files, this is to satisify this editor.]
employees.txt contains:
joe 21 94085 50000.0
Tom 21 94085 50000.0
John 21 94085 50000.0
employees2.txt contains:
joe 4085559898
joe 4085559899
tom 4085559897
tom 4085559896
john 4085559896
I then try a simple Join:
e1 = LOAD 'employees.txt' AS (name, age, zip, salary);
e2 = LOAD 'employees2.txt' AS (name, phone);
e3 = JOIN e1 BY name, e2 BY name;
DUMP e3;
Results:
(joe,21,94085,50000.0,joe,4085559899)
(joe,21,94085,50000.0,joe,4085559898)
I expected:
(joe,21,94085,50000.0,joe,4085559899)
(joe,21,94085,50000.0,joe,4085559898)
(Tom,21,94085,50000.0,Tom,4085559897)
(Tom,21,94085,50000.0,Tom,4085559896)
(joe,21,94085,50000.0,Tom,4085559896)
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks,
Chris
A:
Like nearly all computer languages, Pig is case sensitive. Thus "Joe" != "joe", and "Tom" != "tom".
You should change the names in the employees.txt file to be lower case. Then you should get the expected results.
You can use the built-in Pig String function LOWER to accomplish the task of converting the name field to all lowercase.
Something along the lines of:
e1 = LOAD 'employees.txt' AS (name, age, zip, salary);
e2 = LOAD 'employees2.txt' AS (name, phone);
e1_lower = FOREACH e1 GENERATE LOWER(name),age,zip,salary;
e3 = JOIN e1_lower BY name, e2 BY name;
DUMP e3;
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
The mainstream media collapsing under the weight of its own propaganda
The mainstream media collapsing under the weight of its own propaganda miss truth and inaccurate news reports
Now entirely well played out and predictable in substance,
The major players in main stream media Fox, CNN,, CBS, CBC in Canada outlets of news, which are monopolized under only a small handful of corporations, serve the purpose of misleading the public on important issues and manufacturing consent for government and the Zionists
Many of the public is still largely asleep to this reality and many people are still addicted to the very media that serves as the primary weapon of social control against them.
The tide is turning, however and to help break the spell we bring you this comprehensive list of 11 tactics used against the public by the mainstream media to coerce consensus, divide, conquer, ridicule and stifle truthful or meaningful conversation about the state of our world.
This is the most important question to ask when consuming mainstream media.
The average hour long broadcast consists of 45 minutes or less of actual news programming, minus, of course, the chatting, the expensive motion graphics and the bumper stickers, highlights and story recaps.
Mainstream News, the it is not of significance.
The most obvious way in which the mainstream media manufactures consent for policy makers and advertisers is by omitting from the news reel those stories and perspectives which may compromise the broadcasters agenda, whatever that may be.
Recently its been the new Fear campagne of EBO -LIE or the false flag shooting in Ottawa to make the Canadians think there is a boogeymen.
Controlling the Debate
Who is arguing, and for what cause?
News programs are businesses just like anything else, and as such news executives keep a go-to list of contacts to fulfill any necessary role in a program or segment.
If the government needs credibility, they roll out an ex-president and remind you that he has ‘gravitas.’ If the military industrial complex needs a voice, then they roll out a familiar think-tanker to interject in a debate with a common-sense perspective in favor of national security.
If something is too complicated for public consumption, then they open the floor to the ‘experts’ page and shuffle some know-it-all in front of the camera. Which is pure propaganda.
The media is laden with groomed pundits, so-called opinion leaders, and commentators, and each one has a definite reputation, each one resonates with a specific target audience, and each one fills a predictable role in a conversation.
Program guests are very well vetted, and news is a science, a very lucrative science that excels in giving the impression of a diversity in ideas while keeping the debate sequestered in a very well constructed box. The characters in this box make all the difference.
Selecting the Right Anchors, Casters and Presenters
Our lives have been pegged to the dollar, and as such, a ‘good job’ is valued above many genuine virtues.
People like to keep their jobs, as do news anchors and news casters, and since news is, again, a business, the voices and faces on news programs are hired to perform a role, a job description, a task. They are not employed to pursue morally driven journalism for the benefit of society.
If they perform as they are required, they advance and gain more exposure. If they rock the boat, there are a thousand other hungry job-seekers chomping at the bit to replace them and do exactly they are hired to do.
News anchoring is a job like anything else, and those at the forefront are the best at playing the role.
Actors acting a part to sell you the story even thought its totally false this is mainstream medai
Scripting and Synchronizing News
One of the creepier and more blatant efforts to homogenize thought and manufacture consent is to script the news at high level, then distribute these scripts to many different locales and anchors to read verbatim, while they feign authenticity.
This is partially a result of the business decision to save money by employing as few actual news gatherers as possible, but is also a key part of the strategy to achieve conformity amongst people of different backgrounds and interests.
The government has also been known to interject itself into the chain of command for selecting which news scripts are to be disseminated to the public.
This is the most fundamental characteristic of propaganda, and is rather embarrassing to witness once you realize just how disingenuous your local news presenters are and just how easily duped most people are.
Politicizing Everything
Language is the greatest weapon of social control, and with mainstream media, powerfully debilitating language is pushed into every corner of our consciousness.
In other words they repeat the same lies over and over and the misinformed individuals actually believe there bullshit
The truth is that ideas and opinions are as vastly different as grains of sand on a beach, yet the media intentionally frames every issue in terms of a phoney left-right paradigm that has been constructed to pigeon hole complex ideas and interests into a cheapened thought prison.
No unorthodox idea or point of view can reach critical mass because everything is automatically framed in a ‘with us or against us’ mindset, turning people against each other for no reason other than to appeal to our desire to be on the winning team.
So they line up single file
The mainstream media is the chief party responsible for creating the constructs of ‘left’ and ‘right,’ which have been tightly integrated into our social consciousness as a means of achieving divisiveness and disagreement among the populace.
This is the chief tactic of divide and conquer, and when people are compelled on any issue to ‘pick a team’ and fight the rivalry to it’s bitter end, many opportunities for true progress are lost and the populace is easily goaded into a position favorable to the elite.
Using the Language of Separation and Labels
Sometime in the 1990’s, the mainstream media stopped referring to people as ‘people’ or even as ‘citizens’ and began calling everyone ‘consumers.’
Once again, language is important to shaping reality, and as ‘consumers’ our role in the affairs of business and state are reduced to hapless bystanders whose job it is to choose and reject, not interject and affect.
We’ve all heard the label ‘conspiracy theorist,’ which is the most popular label used when an idea or story is unfavorable to the mainstream media and the interests that back them up.
You are a ‘conspiracy theorist’ if you ask questions, assimilate facts in a logical manner, or pursue justice outside of the main flow of public discourse on a popular issue.
This type of language is also part of the process of politicizing everything, and by also labeling people in accordance with their country of origin, religion, skin color, economic class, or whatever else, more wedges of division are driven into the populace, deflating our inherent power in numbers.
Asking the Wrong Questions
Press access to ‘important’ people in our society is tightly regulated, and the powers that be don’t like to be confronted with unexpected and hard questions.When you watch the news they have become very good actors but no that good still see there BS
For this, the mainstream media dutifully uses its access to people in high places to ask softball, trivial, nonsensical, ignorant questions about irrelevant and superfluous issues.
Independent media is winning the long race against corporate/fascist propagandized media because people are naturally inclined to resonate with common sense and truth, which is not at all what corporate mainline media is involved with.
White house correspondents shouldn't waste our time and insult our intelligence by asking a war time president about his pet dog or a recent golfing trip. But they do, all the time.
Closing the Book Too Soon
Moving an important or complicated issue from the front page as quickly as possible is a common strategy to remove touchy subjects from the public conversation.
Sadly, our national attention span is at an all time low, mostly because we’ve been trained to move from issue to issue with lightening speed, never soaking up any one thing for too long.
With such a short term memory, it is easy to protect a politician, forget a genocide, ignore the long-term effects of a bank bailout, and so on, just by moving onto to something new.
Once the media has signaled that a story has been resolved or adequately discussed, then any after thought, individual investigation, or further inquiry is labeled as extremist and ignored.
Triviality and Distraction
With all of the important decisions being made daily by powerful people, decisions that genuinely affect quality of life for many people, the news outlets are steadfastly devoted to engaging in gossip, entertainment, murders and acts of violence, car accidents, disasters and other pablum.
The people are kept confused by celebrity happenings, endless sports contests and other such pageantry, and the media uses these many forms of distractions to fill time and brain space so that important issues are seen as a drag or as a downer, and never given proper reflection.
This is in our society nowadays that there really is no escape unless you decide to turn of the LIE switch
Outright Lying
When all else fails, just lie, make it up as you go along, sell your air time to the highest bidder, and never look back. That the mainstream media we have now. Just sickening
In the internet age, people are pretty keen on fact checking, rebutting, arguing, and gathering stats, and there are enough facts available to prove any side to any story.Now you see constant attack from mainstream media do not believe what you see on the internet they are relentless with lies and propaganda
In fact, this has become an art form for major media, and the ability to gather facts in accordance with an agenda is a profitable skill for the mainstream media.
Lying has always worked, and the bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed.Bonus – Eye Candy and Mind Melting
This one is a bonus and part of the new era of network news. Rather than employ virtuous gumshoes and hardcore reporters of truth, mainstream media instead invests in graphic artists to make each frame of the broadcast an over-designed motion collage of brain-melting info overload.
Staying focused on what the anchor or guest is actually saying is impossible.
By design, the news is presented in a mad shotgun blast of competing signals, and your attention is split in ten directions with tickers, bubbles, stock footage, gyrating lights and special effects.
The point here is to exhaust the mind with over-stimulation so that the brain cannot function methodically and cannot process an issue beyond the shallow surface. This is also known as hypnotism, or mind-control.
Conclusion
News is a commodity just like everything else these days, and although many still believe the point of news is to inform, it is important to accept the hard truth that the purpose of the news is really just to sell something, be it a product, an idea, a candidate, a public image, a war, or whatever.
For this, the mainstream media is focused on first deciding which issues are to be discussed in the public forum, then by using a bagful of tricks to shape people’s perceptions of an issue, the media divides us and pits us against each other while leading us into consent for an underlying and hidden agenda.
New Social Media Started in Oct 2014 where you are paid for your contribution it like Facebook but you are compensated | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
One of FOUR
I would like to say that my own experience with OIOS could be written off as an isolated case, an aberration or an anomaly. Unfortunately, it is not.
I am only one of FOUR investigators at the P-4 level in the New York office of OIOS/ID whose careers have essentially been ruined – all by the same Unit Chief; Roberta Baldini.
Four? Each with many years investigation experience, all having “difficulties” with a Unit Chief who had been in an investigation job since 2009.
That must be a co-incidence.
Only TWO P-4 level investigators doing any investigation work in the New York office survived unscathed.
Could that be because there were only two investigators in New York who were competent enough to lace up their own shoes or find their way out of a public bathroom without a map?
Unfortunately, the two that Baldini did not have a problem with were the one of who (along with herself) was responsible for the US$1.8 Million wasted on the Insurance Fraud Working Group when one of the material witnesses admitted to every claim being fraudulent and OIOS ignored it.
The other was the investigator responsible for the Lubbad case, which was not only a spectacular mess in it’s own right, but demonstrated a complete failure to understand either the mechanisms for international co-operation or the implications of an investigation with possible terrorist implications.
Oh dear.
Still, maybe the other four were worse! That would indeed be really terrible, if only there were the evidence to back it up.
In my own case, I asked what I was alleged to have done wrong and oddly enough, I was repeatedly denied answers to my questions.
I can only tell my own story, but if you add up all of this up in terms of experience; you are left with the curious observation. That one Unit Chief, whose investigation experience dated back to 2009 (that is the year, not the time in the 24 hour clock), knew better than, and caused damage to, the careers of four investigators at the P-4 level and the Director of the Investigations Division, amounting to a cumulative total of what is probably over 100 years investigative experience.
This same OIOS/ID Unit Chief managed to be named in something like eight misconduct reports herself. Eight. Most investigation agencies would consider one to be one too many, but the UN had no problem with eight.
In fact, the UN had no problem with there being a veritable epidemic of over 20 misconduct complaints pending in the New York office of OIOS/ID, despite there being less than 30 people employed there.
Some people might go out on a limb and conclude that there was a serious management problem here. Unfortunately, if any of these people worked for the UN Department of Management, they clearly didn’t think there was a better strategy than “more of the same.” In fact, the Department of Management appear to have been more concerned with finding ways to dismiss complaints than actually doing something about what was causing them.
Casual observers might suspect that there was something odd going on here. It is particulalry curious that many people outside the UN, who have no investigative training at all, and who are not even MENSA members, have no trouble in recognising a pattern that nobody inside the Organisation can see. That must just be a coincidence.
Four out of six P-4 level investigators all targeted by the same Unit Chief. Of course, if we accept – for the same of argument – that there was a pattern here, and that pattern was an indication of getting rid of the dead wood and making the incompetent investigators accountable for the disasters of their own making, it would be commendable.
Unfortunately, if you review UNDT judgements that are – for want of a better term – OIOS public embarrassments, and try to correlate these with the four investigators who had difficulties with Baldini, the result is interesting; because none of them can be connected to any case that resulted in expensive judgements against the Organisation.
A score of zero for four.
On the other hand, if you look at the two investigators whose work Baldini found perfectly acceptable, you will find a string of expensive blunders that had to be covered up, yet neither of them suffered any consequences for their spectacular professional follies.
It would of course be completely incorrect to suggest that osculation of the gluteus maximus is an acknowledged career enhancement strategy in OIOS.
It is curious that the UN is happy to see any number of professional, experienced investigators discredited and their careers harmed, while at the same time protecting the clique of individuals responsible for mishandled cases that cost the Organisation significant sums of money to cover up.
This is not a secret. The Department of Management were aware of what was happening, but they preferred to make decisions on the basis of favoured personalities rather than the evidence before them. So, here is the homework that nobody wants to do:
That, of course, was after Baldini had been spectacularly unsuccessful in her bid for promotion, when despite being an internal candidate her test score ranked her 15th out of the 17 applicants for the post. Most people who perform that badly in a test have the good sense to shut up about it; Baldini drew attention to it by challenging the process based on her knowledge of all the other candidates applying for the same position.
Wait a minute; how would one applicant for a job know who else was being considered? Why was nobody concerned about the integrity of the recruitment process being compromised? A good question.
Given the number of misconduct complaints, and in particular the history of very questionable behaviour that had gone on in the Nguyen-Kropp & Postica and Sirohi cases, the senior management of the UN appear to have been extraordinarily tolerant to the deteriorating situation within OIOS, and wilfully blind to the same people being responsible.
In the UN however, “management” has nothing to do with how someone in a position of authority actually performs the job of managing their staff or their work. Instead it involves hiding behind every technicality and every imaginable excuse that the “proper procedure” was followed.
The only thing that is important is following the procedure. We live in an insane world where form triumphs over substance, where nobody is concerned about whether any action was good, bad, right or wrong; the only thing the UN is concerned about is the “proper procedure.” This leaves us with the rather astonishing concept of how UN staff could quite easily stand by and do nothing, while every remaining Jew in Europe was herded into extermination camps and provided there was no UN procedure that specifically states that something must be done to prevent it, and precisely what action should be taken – while it might be all very regrettable, no UN staff would consider they were doing anything wrong by just sitting around watching and none of them would be disciplined for it.
Positions of ‘management’ in the UN offer power without responsibility – something once famously described as “the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”
Where is the accountability?
The Secretary-General talks a good game, but where is it in practice? The facts show that significant financial losses to the Organisation appear to be of no concern to anyone, and “management” does not actually involve holding anyone accountable for anything. It certainly doesn’t involve removing incompetent staff from positions where they are doing damage.
But does this matter?
No. Not at all….. unless you are either:
a) a taxpayer (particularly a US taxpayer), or
b) a UN staff member.
Taxpayers
Much of the world gets their membership of the UN for what is essentially the price of a skimmed milk latte, but this is not the place for (yet another) diatribe on the inequalities of the UN budget. The point is that the US taxpayer picks up a quarter of the bill and one-country-one-vote means the US will always be out-voted by countries demanding they pay even more.
It is what it is. Complain about it if you will. Having paid for it, however, there are taxpayers around the world (and not just in Tennessee or South Dakota) who believe their tax dollars should be spent wisely. This is a belief that I share. I think it is tied up with that thing called ‘accountability’ but let’s not go there just yet.
Now, it would be a mistake to assume that this is all about OIOS making expensive mistakes which the UN pays to cover up. It is more than that. OIOS was established to investigate – and therefore to prevent – fraud, waste and abuse. It is not doing that. The watchman is asleep on the job, so we have no idea of just how much of the UN budget is being …..lost.
What I do know is that while we don’t know home much, some of it could be being diverted to fund terrorism, contrary to UN Security Council Resolution 1373.
The more pressing question is what is being done to minimise the amount of the UN budget lost to fraud or embezzlement and the answer to that, unfortunately, is not only do we know know, but the UN senior management do not want OIOS to investigate it, and anyone who believes that OIOS is “independent” probably also believes in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.
UN Staff
Of course, any UN staff members who have their hand in the cookie jar and are diverting some of the UN’s multi-billion dollar budget into their own pocket will be quite happy with the dysfunctional state of affairs perpetuated in OIOS.
What about the other UN staff members? What about those who are just trying to do their job honestly and to the best of their abilities?
The lesson to be learned from, for example, the Kompass case, is not encouraging. It confirms that OIOS is not independent in any way, and that senior management use “misconduct investigations” as a means of persecuting individuals they do not like.
Some wit coined the expression “private Gestapo”. Unfortunately, this is precisely what it is, and not only is OIOS quite happy to be used as a tool of this oppression, but the Ethics Office actively supports the travesty.
This leaves a very clear message to any staff member considering making a report of misconduct against anyone senior to themselves; if you do so:
any “investigation” is very unlikely to clear the subject of any wrongdoing,
you will be retaliated against,
the Ethics Office will not recognise that retaliation, and
sooner or later, OIOS will act on a complaint against you, and
you will not be cleared of any wrongdoing.
Charming….
Now consider this. What if you are a woman? If you work in the UN, particularly in one of the field missions, there is always the risk you could become the victim of a sexual assualt.
The reality is that the UN doesn’t want to know, and will do whatever they can to dismiss the complaint, or downplay something that meets the legal definition of an assault to merely harassment. Without a strongly independent OIOS, committed to the aggressive investigation of SEA complaints, your prospects are not looking good…..
Anyone who wonders how the UN really handles Sexual Exploitation and Abuse reports may be interested in knowing how an investigation can be structured in such a way as to totally useless but allow the Organisation to assure any concerned parties that all the procedures were followed.
Read on.
I cannot speak for any of the other investigators, but the UN insists that I am 100% wrong, 100% of the time. This is curious because – apart from being mathematically unlikely – nobody could point out a single example of a single investigation that I mismanaged, and the UN considers it appropriate that I be sanctioned for asking questions.
More importantly, absolutely nobody would ever address the merits of anything I ever raised, but instead they hid behind every technicality and convoluted legal argument imaginable, and counter-attacked by accusing me of ‘harassment’.
It does not really require the brains of a rocket scientist to work of why nobody would even try to answer my questions. But that, however, does not constitute any sort of “evidence” that I, like the other three P-4 investigators (or even the Director, ID) were NOT all so intellectually disadvantaged that our combined IQs was still a negative number.
Statistically, one must consider that as a possibility – even if only a slim one – that Roberta Baldini just took over as Unit Chief and therefore inherited four useless, knuckle-dragging, slack-jawed morons who were so incompetent that they couldn’t do the jobs they were paid for.
Unfortunately, all four joined after she did, so apart from raising questions about how four (allegedly) dim-witted imbeciles all manged to get through the selection process; the fact is that all four arrived in New York after she did, so that argument doesn’t hold water.
In my own case; what if OIOS was actually correct, and I can neither read, write nor follow a simple set of instructions? If that were the case, why was it so important that they refuse to answer any of my questions when I asked them to point out precisely what I had done wrong?
The refusal to answer my initial questions, in a nutshell, is where the whole thing started to come apart.
So, this is the story of the UN’s concerted effort to portray me as the worst investigator since the dawn of history.
What I cannot do, unfortunately, is tell the story of three of my colleagues who were all victims of the same malevolence, which is a pity because it appears that there may have been more than just one “worst investigator since the dawn of history”…..
That, of course, would have to be either a quite amazing coincidence, or else evidence of a pattern of behaviour.
Don’t go there…… the UN doesn’t like to recognise patterns of behaviour | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America
Book Review, Plot Summary
So began one of the most talked about and important books released in 2004: Philip Roth’s THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA. Released in the midst of the fall presidential campaign, the first line alone guaranteed that the book would create a stir. After all, we were now living in a nation of color-coded terror alerts, where military campaigns with names like “Enduring Freedom” morphed into a perpetual “new kind” of war. And the Fear was never further away than the unknown passenger sitting beside you on the plane or the odd-looking package left forgotten on the subway car or arriving in the mail.
The Fear came to American soil on 9/11, but on the surface, Roth’s novel — which was just released in paperback — has nothing to do with post-9/11 America. He is writing about another time of fear 60 years ago. But the genius of this book is that it echoes and reflects the time in which it was written.
Roth is one of America’s greatest novelists, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. In books from PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT to THE HUMAN STAIN, Roth has dealt directly with the major preoccupations of modern American life from sex to political correctness. But nowhere in PLOT does Roth mention today’s America or current politics, which is one of the strengths of the book.
What Roth has written is a historical novel, or, more accurately, a “counterfactual” history. The book begins in 1940 and is told through the eyes of Roth himself, then a seven-year-old boy living with his older brother, cousin and parents in a working class, Jewish neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. Roth is a normal kid with a prized stamp collection. His family life is a happy one. His parents are hardworking, decent people.
But then that world is turned upside down when the Republicans break a deadlocked convention by nominating an American hero, Charles A. Lindbergh, as their standard bearer for president in the 1940 election. Lindbergh is a leader of the America First movement, which promises to “preserve” America by keeping us out of the Second World War. Besides being sympathetic to Hitler and fascism, that movement and Lindbergh himself blame the Jews and President Roosevelt for trying to drag us into the war. “Vote for Lindbergh or Vote for War” is their emotional slogan.
“‘No!’ was the word that awakened us,” the fictional Roth remembers of the night that Lindbergh is nominated. “‘No!’ being shouted in a man’s loud voice from every house in the block. It can’t be. No. Not for president of the United States.”
But sure enough, Lindbergh easily beats FDR in the general election and America begins its slow descent into darkness. One of the first things President Lindbergh does is fly — Lucky Lindy is always piloting his own plane, somewhat unwisely — to Iceland to meet Hitler and reach an “understanding” that keeps America out of Europe’s war. A similar “understanding” is soon reached with Japan.
Roth’s father shares with his family “his irrepressible sense of impending disaster.” And we are given a child’s-eye view of that unfolding disaster. Early in Lindy’s presidency, the family takes a Washington vacation in order to reassure themselves that American democracy and civil liberties still exist. It turns into a nightmare when the family is physically evicted from the hotel where they are registered. The father, not afraid to exercise his free speech and defend FDR, is publicly labeled a “loudmouth Jew.”
This is a dark and terrifying book. Roth moves back and forth between what is happening in the news and how these events begin to tear apart and destroy this child’s world. The big players of history — Lindy, FDR and von Ribbentrop — make cameo appearances and are mostly offstage. What makes this book powerful is Roth’s childhood narrative. The scared child comes to see that his father is impotent to protect his family from the forces of history.
This is a work of imagination. But that child’s fear comes with the terrible realization that there were millions of real people, adults and children, who experienced the exact same thing in Berlin in 1938 and the rest of Europe in the 1940s.
And then come those echoes of modern times. Lindy is a folksy kind of president. “The lean, tall, handsome hero, a lithe, athletic-looking man not yet forty years old, arrived in his flying attire, having landed his own plane at the Philadelphia airport only minutes earlier…” Hmm. A president wearing a flight suit? Lindy dons the outfit whenever he wants to reassure Americans.
“If fascism comes to America, it would be on a program of Americanism,” Huey Long once famously said. And indeed, Lindy creates the Office of American Absorption to separate “city” kids from their parents and relocate them across the country to teach them the “traditional ways of heartland life.” Philip’s older brother takes part in this program, called “Just Folks,” and returns home a Lindbergh apologist, much to the horror of his parents. Eventually, entire Jewish families will be “relocated” under “Homestead 42” and their communities broken up through the “Good Neighbor” policy.
The terminology of the fictional Lindbergh administration reminds many of the folksy, innocuous sounding USA Patriot Act of today. And indeed, before long, in Roth’s book the FBI is grilling nine-year-old Philip about the political beliefs of his cousin, Alvin. And one cannot help but think of section 215 of the Patriot Act, which gives the FBI the power to question librarians about the reading habits of American citizens. Then there are those present-day cases where the names of citizens mysteriously land on airline “no-fly lists” even though their only crime is to be vocally anti-war.
Lindy repeats a PR slogan — “An independent destiny for America” — 15 times in his State of the Union message, and one cannot help but think of the “don’t let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud” slogan being repeated over and over again by government officials to justify invading and occupying another nation. Roth’s fictional father says, “It means destroying everything that America stands for.” And current names like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo come to mind.
The real Philip Roth claims he had no such parallels in mind when he was writing this book. And maybe so. But even though the circumstances are radically different, Roth has managed to capture the uncertainty and fear of today’s America in this book.
THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA has a major weakness in the ending. Roth builds the drama to a feverish pitch: the Nazi Kristallnacht comes to the streets of America in the fall 1942. There are anti-Semitic pogroms in cities across the country; Jews are murdered in the streets; political opponents are assassinated and arrested; crosses burn on Jewish lawns. Then it is over in a flash. The nightmare recedes with the daylight and history resumes its correct march as the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor a year late.
But while the ending might be an improbable solution for an author who painted himself into a corner, it is what follows the book’s conclusion — Roth’s Postscript — that cements this as a great work. In that postscript, Roth gives us his historical sources, the biographies of real historical figures, and documentary proof that the story he wrote, indeed, could have happened here. Lindbergh was involved in America First and did accept a medal from Hitler’s Germany and speak admiringly of the Nazis. And crypto-fascists like Henry Ford and Father Coughlin did stir up popular hatred against the Jews.
American democracy and civil liberties have always been fragile and threatened, from both internal and external threats. Our freedom can be taken for granted only at our collective peril. Perhaps the real lesson of THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA could be best summed up by a founding father, Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
William Carrier (footballer)
William Carrier (1887 – after 1911) was an English professional footballer who played in the Football League for Birmingham.
Carrier was born in Ashington, Northumberland, but brought up in South Wales. He was on the books of Manchester United, but returned to junior football in Merthyr Tydfil without playing for United's first team. Because of his Welsh upbringing his name was suggested for selection for the Wales national football team until he was found to be English-born. Carrier signed for Birmingham in September 1909. He made his debut in the Second Division on 8 January 1910 playing at right back in a 1–1 draw away to Oldham Athletic, and played in six of the last eight games of the 1909–10 season. After leaving Birmingham he played for Pontypridd and Worcester City.
Although Bill Carrier had family in the North East, he was actually born in Huyton, near Prescot, Lancashire.
His service in the Great War is commemorated at www.prescot-rollofhonour.info
References
Category:1887 births
Category:Year of death missing
Category:Sportspeople from Ashington
Category:English footballers
Category:Association football fullbacks
Category:Manchester United F.C. players
Category:Birmingham City F.C. players
Category:Pontypridd F.C. players
Category:Worcester City F.C. players
Category:English Football League players
Category:Date of birth missing | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Q:
About how many covid-19 virus particles is required in the human body before infection and sickness follows?
Our immune systems are often able to destroy germs and virus particles.
About how many of them does it take to make a 70 year old healthy male sick ? Any ideas ?
A:
To the best of my knowledge, we don't yet know the infectious dose of the SAR-COV-2 virus in humans. In theory, it only takes one viulent virus particle to start an infection. In practice, it's pretty hard to measure, Published estimates of infectious dose for any pathogen don't often account for differences in age or sex, per se, so it's hard to address that part of your question.
Most of the estimates of SARS-CoV-2 infectious dose I've seen are essentially experts handwaving based on previous coronavirus outbreaks. I'm not saying they're useless, but they aren't necessarily empirical. For reference, there's a perspective article here, with a section discussing infectious dose. They cite an estimate from the 2003 SARS outbreak of 280 particles to cause infection in 50% of the exposed population (ID50). They also point out that this is similar to the ID50 for other animal corona viruses and the common cold in humans.
There's no guarantee that SARS-CoV-2 will be the same, but it's likely to be in the same ballpark.
Referenced:
Imke Schröder, J Chem Health Saf. 2020 May 11 : acs.chas.0c00035. Accessed via PubMed Central, PMCID: PMC7216769
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
The ongoing Brooklyn-based trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has revealed that the Mexican drug lord trafficked an alleged 440,000-plus pounds of cocaine, bought a zoo and built his own miniature train on which to ride around his Guadalajara property. But perhaps the most surprising move by his Sinaloa Cartel? Hiring the world’s oldest drug mule.
Leo Sharp was an 85-year-old decorated World War II veteran when, in 2009, he transported his first shipment for the Sinaloans, albeit of cash, not narcotics.
But, as chronicled in the new Clint Eastwood movie “The Mule,” in theaters Friday, he soon emerged as the cartel’s most dependable, and highly prolific, mover of cocaine.
“I don’t think state troopers and highway patrolmen were suspicious of an elderly man driving cross-country,” Sharp’s lawyer, Darryl Goldberg, told The Post.
Over the course of 2010 alone, Sharp delivered more than a ton of white powder — enough for some 7.25 million people to each snort a line. But it all came crashing down when the 87-year-old great-grandfather was found transporting 104 bricks of cocaine in the trunk of his Lincoln pickup.
As an officer popped the lock and opened the hatch, Sharp reportedly had just three words: “Oh, my God.”
Stolid and resolute, Sharp possessed the kind of man’s-man persona that apparently attracted the actor who made his bones as Dirty Harry. “Something about Leo resonated,” said screenwriter Nick Schenk. “Maybe [Eastwood] wanted to do the flip side of Walt Kowalski” — the embittered World War II vet he played in “Gran Torino.” Added Schenk: “I think of Leo as being charming, upbeat and social.”
Sharp was born in 1924 and raised in Michigan, where at age 11 he began working alongside his alcoholic father in the local coal mines.
According to court documents, Sharp’s dad “squandered his money,” leaving a teenage Leo to briefly skip out on high school and toil full time in the mines. After returning to school and graduating in the early 1940s, Sharp entered the US Army and served as an infantryman during World War II. Fighting in Italy, he survived the Battle of Mount Battaglia while his captain and many fellow soldiers perished. In acknowledgment of his bravery and heroism, Sharp received a Bronze Star.
Post-war, he settled in Michigan City, Ind., a touristy spot bordering Lake Michigan. Over the next several decades, Sharp married and split up twice, had two children and adopted two more. Years earlier he owned a taxi service and a home-building company, and was a partner in a local airline.
But by the mid 1990s, Sharp had emerged as a master cultivator of daylilies, creating eye-catching flower hybrids at his Brookwood Gardens floral company, situated on a 46-acre farm near Michigan City. Gardener Nikki Schmith was quoted in The New York Times describing the elderly grower as “a stud” in his newfound career.
Sharp cultivated some 180 official varieties of lilies, but his business reportedly experienced a downturn when customers began buying seeds via the Internet and he did not adapt to the digital world.
Goldberg said that one of Sharp’s employees likely brought him to the Sinaloa Cartel’s attention. “It makes sense that a farmhand of Mexican descent introduced him [to the cartel],” Goldberg said.
It didn’t hurt that Sharp supposedly had previous experience in the field of smuggling: During the early 2000s, it has been alleged by the federal government in court, he drove marijuana and cocaine east from the West Coast for an unknown entity.
In the cocaine trade, octogenarian Sharp immediately stood out among fellow smugglers. He was ridiculed for his advanced age — according to court records, Sharp’s handlers made fun of his failing memory. But he was also given the nickname El Tata, Spanish for The Grandfather, and received preferential treatment. Sharp sometimes got confused while trying to locate stash houses, so cartel members would meet him at highway exits and escort him, and the drugs, the rest of the way. A typical route involved picking up cargo in Arizona and driving it to nondescript warehouses in Detroit.
Sharp proved to be an excellent mule. “He was successful because he was unlikely,” said Goldberg. It’s estimated Sharp earned more than $1 million for himself, spending a sizable chunk on a flower farm near Orlando, Fla., where he hoped to recharge his lily business.
But according to court transcripts, when the old man told cartel bosses he wanted to get out of the drug trade, they responded by putting a gun to his head. “They threatened [Sharp] and said they would kill his family,” Goldberg told the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
So he continued on, by then age 87. While drug bosses can be heard on wiretaps discussing how to deal with El Tata’s ambivalence toward making pickups and deliveries — “Brainwash him,” one supervisor advised — Sharp had his own rationale for what he did.
During a 2013 interview with Chicago reporter Chuck Goudie, Sharp equated the coca plant used to produce the drugs with his daylilies: “All God’s plants that cheer people up are created for a purpose,” he said. “To take people’s minds and make them feel good.”
On the afternoon of Oct. 21, 2011, Sharp was driving Interstate 94 to Detroit in a truck full of drugs when Michigan Trooper Craig Ziecina pulled him over near Ann Arbor. The officer said it was for tailgating and improper lane use. In reality, said Goldberg, DEA agents had been stealthily monitoring Sharp. Working with Ziecina, they brought in a drug-sniffing dog that “alerted” as soon as he neared the Lincoln — providing legal reason to search the car.
Despite being busted with 229 pounds of cocaine, Sharp did not seem to immediately recognize the severity of his situation. “When I met Leo, soon after his arrest, he smiled,” said Ray Richards, the attorney who represented him early on. “He looked at me and said, ‘I’m in trouble, huh? I lived my whole life without issues. Now I have gone afoul of the law.’”
Sharp acknowledged as much to the courts where he was charged with conspiracy and cocaine possession with intent to distribute. Still, he did not rat out his co-conspirators. “Old school, literally and figuratively, he accepted responsibility and was not going to take anyone down with him,” said Richards. Sharp ultimately pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges.
Although Goldberg argued in court that his client showed signs of dementia, Sharp ended up sentenced to three years at Federal Medical Center, Rochester, a prison in Minnesota. As part of his plea deal, he agreed to give his Florida property and $500,000 to the government.
However, suffering from an undisclosed terminal illness, Sharp served just one year of his sentence. It was anticipated that he would die soon after his release, but he lived in freedom for nearly 16 months, passing away on Dec. 12, 2016.
Despite his criminal record, Sharp held on to his legacy as a military hero. He is buried at Honolulu’s National Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punch Bowl, alongside veterans of World Wars I and II and the Korean and Vietnam wars. Befitting his love of flowers, the setting is lush with foliage. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Verizon Media
Verizon Media is a division of Verizon Communications for its media and online businesses. Verizon Communications had acquired AOL in 2015. When Verizon Communications purchased Yahoo!'s business in 2017, it joined AOL and Yahoo! in a subsidiary named Oath Inc.
In December 2018, Verizon announced it would write down the combined value of its purchases of AOL and Yahoo! by $4.6 billion (about half).
Verizon renamed the company Verizon Media in January 2019. Within Verizon Media, AOL and Yahoo! maintain their respective brands.
Operations
Verizon Media is a division of Verizon Communications. The company maintains dual headquarters at the former AOL and Yahoo! headquarters buildings in Manhattan, New York, and Sunnyvale, California. , the company employed about 10,350 people.
History
Verizon announced a $4.4 billion deal to acquire AOL in May 2015. The deal was an effort by Verizon to expand its technology and media offerings. The deal officially closed a month later.
A year after the completion of the AOL acquisition, Verizon announced a $4.8 billion deal for Yahoo!'s core Internet business, looking to invest in the Internet company's search, news, finance, sports, video, email and Tumblr products. Yahoo! announced in September and December 2016 two major Internet security breaches affecting more than a billion customers. As a result, Verizon lowered its offer for Yahoo! by $350 million to $4.48 billion.
The AOL deal and subsequent Yahoo! purchase were led by Verizon's management team, including Lowell McAdam (CEO), Marni Walden (EVP Product) and Tim Armstrong. Walden had been tasked with merging the two entities and delivering on the promise of moving Verizon from an analog to digital platforms business. Walden exited Verizon in 2017 and as later events revealed, the integration did not deliver the expected value.
Two months before closing the deal for Yahoo!, Verizon announced it would place Yahoo! and AOL under an umbrella named Oath. The deal closed on June 13, 2017, and Oath was launched. Upon completion of the deal, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer resigned. Yahoo! operations not acquired in the deal were renamed Altaba, a holding company whose primary assets are its 15.5 percent stake in Alibaba Group and 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan. After the merger, Oath cut fifteen percent of the Yahoo-AOL workforce. In 2018, Altaba sold Yahoo! Japan to SoftBank Group.
In April 2018, Helios and Matheson acquired the Moviefone movie listings Web site from Oath. As part of the transaction, Verizon took a stake in Helios and Matheson Analytics stock.
In May 2018, Verizon and Samsung agreed to terms that would preload four Oath applications ("apps") onto Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones. The agreement includes Oath’s Newsroom, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, and go90 mobile video apps (closed in July 2018), with integration of native Oath advertisements into both the Oath apps and Samsung’s own Galaxy and Game Launcher apps.
On September 12, 2018, it was announced that K. Guru Gowrappan would succeed Tim Armstrong as CEO, effective October 1.
On December 3, 2018, the company declared a new set of rules for the Tumblr community that took effect December 17, 2018, banning "adult content". This move raised objections that it harms their LGBTQ community, sexual abuse survivors, sex workers, adult content blogs, and other bloggers. The move came after the Tumblr app was removed from the Apple App Store due to issues with child pornography, leading some to speculate that the ban may have been made to regain access to the App Store.
In December 2018 Verizon announced that it was cutting 10% of Oath's workforce and would write down the value of the business by $4.6B. Verizon management blamed competitive pressures and that the business never achieved the anticipated benefits. The move wiped out all of the goodwill on the balance sheets that accompanied the acquisitions.
Oath was renamed Verizon Media on January 8, 2019.
In 2019, Verizon sold Tumblr to Automattic, the owner of WordPress, for an undisclosed amount which was reportedly less than $3 million.
Brands
Some of the digital media brands under Verizon Media include:
AOL
Autoblog
BUILD
Built By Girls
Engadget
Flurry
HuffPost
MAKERS
Rivals
RYOT
TechCrunch
Verizon Digital Media Services
Yahoo! (including Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Entertainment, Yahoo! Lifestyle, and Yahoo! Fantasy)
Divested
Flickr (sold to SmugMug in 2018)
Moviefone (sold to Helios and Matheson in 2018)
Polyvore (sold and merged into SSENSE in 2018)
MapQuest (moved to Verizon Location Services)
Tumblr (sold to WordPress owner Automattic in 2019)
Verizon has partial ownership of Moviefone's parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc.
Discontinued
Yahoo! Together (discontinued in April 2019)
AIM (discontinued on December 15, 2017)
Yahoo! Messenger (discontinued on July 17, 2018)
Alto Mail (webmail)
go90 (closed in July 2018)
References
External links
Official website
Category:Verizon Media
Media
Category:Media companies established in 2017
Category:Media companies of the United States
Category:Internet properties established in 2017
Category:2017 establishments in New York City
Category:American corporate subsidiaries | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Lateralized lumbar pain during sexual intercourse. Early clinical sign of single ectopic ureter?
Although a single ectopic ureter opening into the vagina has frequently been reported in literature, lateralized lumbar pain during sexual intercourse and urinary incontinence after pregnancy due to a single ectopic ureter are uncommon. The etiology and pathogenesis are unknown but some clinical, pathological and embryological considerations can be made. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Introduction {#sec1-1}
============
Maps have an important role to play alongside the epidemiological use of geographical data, in the presentation and emphasis of conclusions drawn from the analysis. They have a great potential as a method for communicating results. Maps show well the spatial configuration of information.([@ref1]) Considerable effort is devoted to the development of geographical information systems that increase understanding of public health problems and in particular to collaborate efforts among clinicians, epidemiologists, ecologists, and geographers to map and forecast disease risk.([@ref2])
Growing public awareness of environmental hazards has led to an increased demand for public health authorities to investigate geographical clustering of diseases. Although such cluster analysis is nearly always ineffective in identifying causes of diseases, it often has to be used to address public concern about environmental hazards. The most common way of analyzing clustering in area health data is to prepare chloropleth maps of disease incidence or prevalence rates. When the areas differ in population size, however, as is typically the case, the calculated rates of disease for those areas have different degrees of reliability. Rates for small areas --- areas with small populations --- vary more and are less reliable than those for large areas. For small areas, a difference of one or two cases can make a huge difference in incidence or prevalence rates. This is known as the small numbers problem.
In disease surveillance, the problem of making multiple comparisons can be overcome by testing for clustering and autocorrelation. When rates of disease are illustrated in disease maps undue focus on areas where random fluctuation is greatest can be minimized by smoothing techniques.([@ref3]) Mapping of disease is an activity closely related to disease surveillance and cluster detection. It is widely used for descriptive purposes to identify patterns of geographical variation in diseases and to develop new ideas about the cause of disease. Probability mapping based on a Poisson distribution model was adopted to identify areal units within regions having significantly high or low disease rates.([@ref4])
Probability mapping is the most suitable method for detecting and monitoring spatial clusters of cancer.([@ref5]) Such clusters represent the areas where the occurrences of the diseases are statistically significant and meaningful. Probability mapping was used for analysing and visualizing the statistics of death caused by lung cancer, stomach cancer, leukemia, and skin cancer in 18 provinces of Iran.
Spatial autocorrelation contained in a disease map has its negative components fade and its positive components strengthen, through time. The hypothesis was tested by evaluating the regression coefficients of spatial filter eigenvectors as annual West Nile virus data become available.([@ref6]) An analyst can choose from a variety of analytical spatial statistical tools to study a disease map. Recent quantitative geography methodological developments have supplemented this approach with the spatial filter model specification.([@ref7]) A Markov Chain Monte Carlo methodology enables the use of the binomial, poisson, or negative binomial probability models with a spatial autoregressive specification.([@ref8][@ref9])
Understanding the spatial distribution of a disease is accomplished through applying statistical methods to data collected during disease surveillance and generating a map that describes spatial variation in risk. Disease mapping has a long history for human diseases.([@ref10][@ref11][@ref12][@ref13]) The goal of mapping disease is to isolate and display the role of location as a risk factor. Observation of disease rates across a region can vary due to differences in age or sex structure of the sample in addition to any location-specific variation. Hierarchial Bayesian methods were applied for disease mapping to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin.([@ref14]) Practical application of Bayesian methods in large scale tropical disease control programs have been reported.([@ref15][@ref16]) Bayesian probability maps were produced for each sex and age-group for a study on the mapping of the probability of schistosomiasis and associated uncertainity in West Africa.([@ref17]) Methods were suggested for the analysis of aggregate count data in the context of disease mapping and spatial regression using male lip cancer incidence data from Scotland.([@ref18])
Disease occurrences are usually expressed as standardized rates for different areas. If the population of an area is small, the rate of disease estimates is more. Small populations will therefore tend to give rise to the most extreme disease rates, even if the actual rates are similar across the areas. Such situations will follow the viewers or decision-maker\'s attention on these areas when they scrutinize the map for decision-making or resource allocation.
As an alternative, maps can be prepared using *P* values (probabilistic values) from the tests of whether the rate in each region differs significantly from the overall rate. This will overcome the problem when the areas with largest population will dominate the map results.
The objective of the study was to spatially describe small area clustering of diseases based on rates using Probability Mapping methods in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu, India for the period 2000 to 2009.
Probability mapping of diseases {#sec2-1}
-------------------------------
Probability mapping is a well-established statistical method for addressing the small numbers problem based on poison distribution.([@ref19][@ref20][@ref21]) In these maps, the probability of occurrence of an event x depends only on the space considered (area, volume, time, or inhabitants):
*p*(*x*) = u^*x*^e^-x^/*x*!
where u is assumed as a constant density and equals:
\# events x/space.
To build the maps the number of expected events E in a region i are defined as:
where;  is the number of observed Acute Gastroenteritis cases in a region i and n~i~ is the population of region i. Under the assumption that Hi are independent Poisson random variables with expected values h~i~, and that h~1~/n~1~ = ......= h~125~/n~125~= p, an index of deviation from equal h~i~/n~i~ can be defined:
A choropleth map based on ro~i~ is called a "probability map." Values of ro~i~ \< 0.01 indicate that region i\'s Acute Gastroenteritis rate departs from expected Poisson values, being unusually high (for H~i~ ≥ E~i~) or low (for H~i~ \< E~i~). In addition to using the rate as "cases per inhabitant" (n) as defined earlier, other denominators were employed: *n* defined as population (np), n defined as area (na), and as the product of area and population (nap).
Materials and Methods {#sec1-2}
=====================
In the present study, we used the statistical significance of rates rather than the rates themselves to map the results. Statistical significance is measured by probability values that show the likelihood of a rate occurring given the normal rate of disease in the corresponding national or regional population. We refer to this rate as the population rate, *P*. The probability value for an area indicates the likelihood that the rate observed in that area would occur by chance if the underlying risk of disease was equal to *P*. Probability values close to 0 or 1 indicates rates that are significantly different from the population rate.
There are many statistical methods for computing probability values. One of the most common is the Poisson test, used for modelling the probability of rare binary (present/absent) events in large populations. Many health problems (e.g., cancers, birth defects) fit this definition because they are rare, occurring in only a small fraction of the population, and binary, either present or absent in an individual. Consider a small area containing a population, *n* and k cases of disease. We want to find out whether the presence of those k cases in a population of size *n* is unusual. In other words, is the actual number of cases significantly higher than expected based on the national or regional prevalence rate. For the present study, incidence rates calculated for each village from 2000 to 2009 in Coimbatore district is used to estimate λ.
If the regional incidence rate is *P*, the expected number of cases in the study area, lambda, is the study area population, n, multiplied by the national or regional rate:
λ = *np*
For example, if the study area contains 40000 people and the national prevalence rate is 1 per 10000, we would expect 4 cases in the study area because λ = 0.0001 (40,000) = 4.
If we know the number of cases, k, occurring in a study region population, we can use the Poisson distribution to determine the probability, *P* (k), that the observed number of cases would occur in a population of the study region\'s size. The Poisson distribution states that in a population of size n, the probability of x cases occurring is From P(x) = e^-λ^(λ^x^/x!). this calculation, we can determine the probability of k or more cases occurring by chance, *P* (x ≥ k), if the true rate of disease in the population were p. That probability is calculated as:
For mapping the probable Acute Gastroenteritis incidence cases in the study area, the average incidence rate (1.0068) already estimated for each village was taken as λ, as the rates varied for each village. Using the above formula, the probability of infected cases prevalent in each village was calculated. From the results, it was observed that the probability of one case would be 0.0367 \[[Table 1](#T1){ref-type="table"}\]. For example, if there are 6 cases of disease in the study region where only 1 case were expected based on incidence rates, the corresponding probability value would be 1-0.0005 or 0.9995. This means that here is a 99% chance of 6 or more cases occurring by chance if the underlying prevalence is 1 per the existing population, which means high prevalence rates. The closer this value is to 0, the smaller the likelihood that it would arise by chance alone. If in any case, the probability is not particularly small such as 21% or 0.021, we infer that the rate of disease is not unusually high. In general, probabilities less than 0.05 or 0.01 are considered to indicate significantly high prevalence rates.
######
Poisson probabilities, λ = 1.0068
Results and Discussion {#sec1-3}
======================
Using the above method, similar probabilities were estimated for all the villages and the probable chances of high disease prevalence were identified. The obtained results were mapped using Arc GIS 10.0. The likelihood of infections from low to high was depicted in the map and it was observed that five villages namely, Odanthurai, Coimbatore Corporation, Ikkaraiboluvampatti, Puliakulam, and Pollachi Corporation were more likely to have significantly high incidences \[[Figure 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}\].
{#F1}
This map shows dominance of low standardized ratio in the largely dispersed rural villages. High Dominance is observed at Coimbatore Corporation and Pollachi Corporation which are urban areas and some rural villages at the periphery. These may be areas of apparent clustering inspite of low standardization. As these villages have low population, an excess risk may be generated by just one or two cases. Hence when chloropleth map is prepared, the random variability is removed and the map becomes much simpler and all the extreme values disappear. This clearly shows an evidence of variability in incidence rates (*P* ≤ 0.01); however, there is little evidence of spatial clustering.
In the probability map, some of the areas with exceptionally high or low rates disappear. These are typically small unpopulated areas, whose rates are unstable due to the small numbers problem. However, regions with significantly high rates are observed to be scattered with a clustering observed in moderate rates. This approach has standardized the incidences by re-expressing them as a ratio of the estimated number of positives and the number that would have been expected in a standard population. It was pointed out that when a population is large (therefore the expected number of cases is large), the Poisson assumption is no longer significant and a small probability is more due to lack of fit in the model than the relative risk in the local area.([@ref20]) The probability map shows more specific regions of relative risks and expected outcomes.
Conclusion {#sec1-4}
==========
Probability mapping is a useful way of addressing the small numbers problem when mapping area health data. For an area with a large population, a rate that is slightly higher than the expected rate, will often be statistically significant because the size of the population increases the statistical power. This means it is easier to reject the null hypothesis that there is no difference in rates. Analysts need to look beyond statistical significance by examining the disease rates, the locations of high-rate areas, and any additional information that might assist in interpreting high rate areas. Through GIS a more comprehensive view of statistical significance can be observed.
The author would like to thank the District Directorate of Health and Preventive Medicine, Coimbatore for providing the disease data.
**Source of Support:** Nil
**Conflict of Interest:** None declared.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Central |
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1700 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east Rent Chakala Mumbai @ Rs 110 per sq ft fully furnished commercial office space on lease with 26 work stations 2 cabins confrence options in omkar summit / atrium / meadows / metro avenue at dynasty any more options of 1500 / 2000 / 2500 / 3000 /3500 sq ft Maharashtra Mumbai . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
2500 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai. Rental Rs 120 per sq ft fully furnished commercial office space on lease/rent with 30 work station in andheri east chakala options in omkar summit / dynasty / wall street / citi point /center point at chakala andheri kurla road. Mumbai.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
2756 sq ft office space for rent in atrium Andheri east,Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft fully furnished commercial office space on lease in chakala andheri kurla road + 28 work stations , 3 cabins , 1 confrence room Mumbai !! India #.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
4000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft in Boston house near omkar summit chakala, lease this office /space in andheri kurla road furnished with 65 work stations , 3 cabins 1 confrence room glass face commercial building almost touching highway andheri mumbai . 500 to 40000 sq ft available
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
120 per sq ft office space on rent in Andheri East , chakala Mumbai 10000 sq ft built up area lease this commercial office space in andheri east well furnished + 150 work station / cabins / canteen area / large reception area with free 8 car parks chakala andheri kurla road close highway and railway station Mumbai lease this office ( commercial) within Glass face commercial building at Mumbai .| 1450 office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai in Atrium ( 215) fully furnished with work stations ,cabins ,conference room 5 star lobby Office/space on rent in chakala Atrium andheri east prime building ,car park 1 ,asking rent Rs 130 per sq ft 500 to 40000 sq ft available negotiable .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
1500 sq ft office space on rent in Marol Andheri East , Makawana road marol Rent @ Rs 98 per sq ft currently fully furnished commercial/space on rent/lease with 18 work stations at andheri East with 3 cabins confrence room unit options of 500 / 1000 / 1200 / 1500 1800 2000 2500 sq ft all well furnished get 15 work stations 20 workstations 25 work stations up to 250 work stations from 1000 to 15000 sq ft in makawana road Mumbai ,India.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
1000 sq ft office space for Rent in Andheri east,Mumbai Chakala Rent Rs 130000 lease this fully furnished office space with work stations cabins confrence room reception area close to metro station and western express highway Mumbai .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
1250 sq ft office space for Rent in Andheri East,Mumbai Rent Rs 135000 per month close to metro station newly furnished office space on lease in andheri east chakala,plug n play glass face building Mumbai + 18 work stations , 3 cabins , 1 confrence room Mumbai >
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI .
3730 Commercial Properties for rent in Andheri East, Mumbai andheri kurla road Near atrium, 3730 sq ft Rs 110 per sq ft semi furnished .| Office for rent in Andheri East Near dynasty ,2140 sq ft Rs 115 for fully furnished Office for rent in Andheri East Near Meadows 3140 semi furnished jb nagar chakala metro station | Commercial property for Rent in Andheri East , chakala,Rent Rs 120 per sq ft 2000 sq ft 3000 sq ft 4000 sq ft 5000 sq ft all fully furnished Commercial Office space on lease on blink to metro station and western express highway glass face Commercial building in Andheri East Mumbai . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI .
Rs 2 lac Office space for rent in andheri east, mumbai in Omkar summit , chakala Rent Rs 2 lac per month lease this commercial Office space in chakala andheri east , Andheri kurla road 1522 sq ft Carpet 950 sq ft Fully furnished, 2cabins , 1 conference , 21 workstation , 2 wash room , pantry , 1 car parking,Office/space for rent in Andheri East,Mumbai -Rent Office space in andheri east,Mumbai .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI .
New Office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai in wall street chakala from 800 sq ft to 20000 sq ft all furnished or unfurnished lease Office in wall street by kanakia builder in chakala andheri kurla road , with all major business amenities and pool ,gym,club house ,close to metro station and highway,Mumbai .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI .
3700 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri East chakala, Rent Rs 125 per sq ft at mumbai in solitaire corporate park, useable area 2500 office space on rent fully furnished in andheri east + 40 work stations ,cabins confrence room etc close to highway in solitaire corporate park rent 5000 sq ft 12000 sq ft 1000 sq ft all within solitaire corporate park close to highway at Mumbai 500 to 40000 sq ft available % .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI .
800 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east Midas / meadows close to metro station andheri east on lease commercial space furnished with 14 work stations , 2 cabins ,confrence room , 1 free car park mumbai western suburbs .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI .
2300 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Atrium mumbai Chakala Rent Rs 310500 per month lease this commercial Office space in chakala andheri east , Andheri kurla road glass face commercial building /space on lease fully furnished , plug and play 24 work stations , 3 cabins , confrence room/Office/space for rent in Andheri East,Mumbai -Rent Office space in andheri east,Mumbai . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI .
7000 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Boston house chakala mumbai rate 120 per sq ft + 70 work station Office space for rent in andheri east Rent Rs 2 lac per month 4500 carpet area Fully furnished, 6cabins , 1 conference , 2 wash room , pantry , 1 car parking,Office/space for rent in Andheri East,Mumbai -Rent Office space in andheri east,Mumbai . 500 to 4000 sq ft available !!!
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
2500 sq ft Commercial Office space for rent in Andheri East , in Solitaire corporate park, Rent @ Rs 125/- per sq ft location Andheri East Mumbai ,chakala ,Andheri kurla road close to western express highway and metro station fully furnished lease Commercial property/Office close to metro station at andheri EAst Mumbai Many Unit options 1000 1500 2000 25000 3000 3500 4000 5000 6000 sq ft / 10000 sq ft 12000 sq ft 15000 sq ft in business square ,atrium,omkar summit,wall street ,dynasty ,time square windfall , Rustomjee corporate park ,sahar plaza ,Gazebo Commercial park ,metro avenue , Pramukh Plaza,midc,j.b nagar,marol,Mumbai. Call NOw - Immediate Deal assured + 91 8108098760
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
2000 sq ft Office space on rent in Andheri East , Wall street ,in Mumbai by owners Rs Rent Rs 240000 per month lease this Commercial Office space for rent within chakala , andheri East fully furnished at andheri kurla road , Mumbai well designed vastu approved in Commercial building ,close to western express highway and international airport unit options of 800 sq ft 1500 sq ft 3400 sq ft 5000 sq ft 10000 sq ft in wall street building . View More 560 Units available | Office space for rent in Omkar summit , andheri east,Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft sq ft area 1400 sq ft well furnished for immediate lease in chakala glass face commercial building/space in mumbai andheri kurla road . near metro station and highway.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
4500 sq ft Office Space on Lease in Andheri East, Hubtown Solaris mumbai Near Western Express Highway lease/rent Rs 140 per sq ft lease 4200 sq.ft/Carpet 2700 sq.ft fully furnished on lease commercial office space near andheri east station 2 minutes walking to highway/Office space for rent in andheri east along with 2 free car park Maharashtra # .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
1200 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east,Chakala mumbai,Rent Rs 135 per month in dynasty business park andheri kurla road glass face commercial building/space on lease in andheri East + 14 work stations, 3 cabins , 1 confrence room ,Mumbai close to highway western express and metro station .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
Rs 3.80 Lac Office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai at chakala fully furnished walk in commercial ( Office space ) close to highway 3780 sq ft in glass face building close to highway way with 7 cabins ,25 work station , 40 more work stations can be added along 2 free car park ,Mumbai Office space for rent in Andheri east,It PArk Mumbai ^. Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
12000 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east , midc mumbai Rent Rs Rs 100 per sq ft fully furnished + 150 work station glass face building 10 minutes from metro station lease Office in andheri east fully furnished ,Office for rent in Andheri East 2000 sq ft 3000 sq ft 4000 sq ft 5000 sq ft 8000 10000 12000 15000 sq ft all fully furnished Commercial Office space on lease midc -Office for rent in midc andheri East,Mumbai.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI..
3392 sq ft Office sp[ace for rent in Andheri east, on highway in 349 business point, at Mumbai Rent RS 1125 per sq ft highway touch commercial building/space well furnished lavish interiors with work stations and cabins ,conference room close to railway and metro station , 2 free car park , Mumbai @ .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
Office space for rent in Andheri east,1800 sq ft at Mumbai chakala, Rent Rs 198000 per month lease this fully furnished Office/space at andheri east ,with work stations, cabins, washroom,and conference room at Andheri kurla road,Mumbai .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
3000 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east ,chakala omkar summit, Mumbai Rent Rs 375000 per month at andheri east close to and metro station fully furnished + 40 work stations 4 cabins ,large conference room ,Andheri kurla road Mumbai Maharashtra /Office space for rent in Andheri east ,Rent Office space in Andheri East,India.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
Furnished Office space for rent in wall street Andheri east, Mumbai sq ft area 4000 chakala Mumbai , rent @ Rs 130 per sq ft fully furnished commercial space in wall street on lease plug and play with ample work stations,cabins,confrence room bare shell option also available ,Mumbai .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
5000 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east,trade star ,Mumbai glass face commercial building andheri kurla road Rent Rs 120 per sq ft fully furbished commercial/space with 45 with work stations ,3 cabins ,conference room close air port and Metro station beautiful interiors premium building Office/space for rent in Andheri East,Mumbai -Rent Office space in andheri east,Mumbai . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI .
1000 sq ft Office space on rent in Solitaire corporate park Andheri east ,Mumbai 10000 sq ft bup area , Rent Rs 125 located chakala Mumbai ,Andheri Kurla road on lease Office/space with 84 cubical , 16 cabins , 9 +cabin + 1 MD cabin , 2 meeting room , 1 conference room 8 seated ,and one 12 seated conference ,pantry area 20 seated . Can be done with + 100 / 125 work station,Mumbai ,Solitaire corporate park #.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
4000 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east ,Mumbai chakala Rent Rs 440000 well furnished with +55 work stations 4 cabins , 1 conference room , close to western express highway glass face commercial building off andheri kurla road ,Office space for rent in Andheri east ,Rent Office space in Andheri East,India. Mumbai $ .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
Office space for rent in Andheri east, Rs 125 @ commercial in Solitaire corporate park, Mumbai 9000 bup area Rent Rs @ 127 per sq ft glass face chakala in commercial building/space fully furnished in Solitaire corporate park 9/12 cabins , reception area , cubicles , reception area and work station fully furnished , owner will add your 150 + work station as required as per your layout with alteration open at clients end along with + 6 car park free ,Mumbai #.
COMMERCIAL Office SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Office space on rent in Andheri East , 1200 sq ft Rent Rs 123000 per month omkar summit Mumbai , lease this Commercial properties on rent andheri East chakala,having + 12 work stations, 2 cabins ,1 conference room ,pantry with no rent on car park which is free plug and play Commercial space within Commercial within andheri East ,chakala,andheri kurla road , Mumbai. Commercial/building Andheri east East.
COMMERCIAL Office SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5340 sq ft Office space for rent in business square ,Andheri East , Mumbai Rent 125 per sq ft furnished with 70 work station 5 cabins lease the Commercial/space within solitaire corporate park, open view square layout, with no pillar Rs 4 car parks included in the rent Mumbai india. beautiful Commercial Office space on rent in Andheri east 1200 sq ft Rent Rs 2,22000/- per month at maker chamber Rs Mumbai , lease this Commercial property on rent having + 12 work stations 2 cabins ,1 conference room ,pantry with no rent on car park which is free plug and play Commercial space within Commercial. Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Rs 4000 sq ft Office Space on rent in Andheri East , chakala Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft in Mumbai fully furnished Office Space on rent in chakala andheri east plug n play, in glass face building with work stations,cabins,conference room close to metro and western express highway,Mumbai. | Rs 1.87Lac Commercial Office space for rent in Andheri EAst,Mumbai near metro chakala, lease fully furnished commercial properties in atrium close to dynasty building andheri kurla road,Mumbai.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
15000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, chakala, mumbai Rent Rs 118 per sq ft with 180 work stations , 4 cabins , confrence room Mumbai close to metro station Commercial options of 8000 / 10000 / 12000/ sq ft with 100 / 120 / 150 /180 200 work seats / station for IT companies and call centers Bpo,Mumbai India .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3000 area office space for Reno in andheri east, MIDC Mumbai + 100 work stations lease office in andheri east MIDC , 2 cabins , canteen ,large confrence glass face building with all modern amenities , similar options of 4000 5000 6000 8000 1000 sq ft at midc mumbai all well furnished ,Mumbai $ .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2450 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east ,Mumbai Rent Rs 125 in wall street, chakala located at andheri kurla road , lease this commercial properties in andheri east plug n play with work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ceo cabin,24x7 security, unit options of 4000 / 3000 / 2000 sq ft in Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Value deal 500 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Rent Rs 63000 per month in commercial building glass face close to chakala metro station fully furnished small office space on rent andheri east ,unit options of 450 sq ft 500 sq ft 600 sq ft 700 sq 800 sq ft all fully furnished close to metro and highway Mumbai.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Furnished Office Space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai 11000 sq ft Office space on lease/rent Rent Rs 11 lac per month very well furnished lavish Office space on lease/rent off andheri kurla road andheri east with + 100 work station , 50 more work station can be added along with 6 cabin, 2 large conference room , large lavish guest/client waiting area , huge canteen etc ,good for call centers and IT companies Mumbai Maharashtra India .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI..
120 Rent per sq ft office Space for rent in andheri East , omkar summit , Mumbai Built up : 1250 / Carpet : 950 Plus One Covered Car Park rent office Space in andheri East with Reception Area ,15 Workstations+ more can added, 4 Manager Cabins, 1 Meeting Room, 1 MD Room, 2 Bathrooms, fully furnished. In brand new condition on lease close to metro station. Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI
office space for rent in in Andheri East , 3000 sq ft Rent Rs 120 per sq ft vastu approved + 40 work stations for Commercial Office space on lease / rent well furnished in rent in Andheri East Mumbai This office on rent in chakala with 4 cabins , 1 conference room, pantry many options of 30 / 40 / 50 /100 / 125 / 150 workstation all office spaces are fully furnished at Andheri kurla road East , Mumbai.| + 60 work stations Commercial Properties on rent in Andheri East ,5000 sq ft 110 per sq ft Mumbai get rent Commercial office space in chakala with 4 cabins , 1 conference room, pantry many options of work seats 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 /100 / 125 / 150 furnished workstation all office spaces are fully furnished at Andheri kurla road East , Mumbai.| + 100 work stations Commercial Properties on rent in Andheri East ,3000 sq ft 110 per sq ft Mumbai get rent Commercial office space in chakala Andheri East ,with 4 cabins , 1 conference room, pantry many options of 30 / 40 / 50 /100 / 125 / 150 workstation ( work seats ) all office spaces are fully furnished at Andheri kurla road East , Mumbai.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI
4000 sq ft office space on rent in Wall street , Andheri east in Mumbai , by owners Rs , Rent Rs 130 per sq ft per month lease this Commercial office space for rent within chakala , andheri East fully furnished at andheri kurla road , Mumbai well designed ,close to western express highway and international airport , Mumbai Maharashtra . View More 560 Units available
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI .
Rs 220 lac Commercial office space for rent in Andheri East , windfall,Mumbai Rent 2000 sq ft office space on rent at chakala ,within Commercial building at andheri kurla road,fully furnished , close to metro station glass face Commercial building in Mumbai ,Having 20 work stations ,cabins ,conference room etc . | Rs 150000 Commercial office space for rent in wall street ,Andheri East , Mumbai Rent 1350 sq ft office space on rent at chakala ,within Commercial building at andheri kurla road well furnished Commercial Properties on main road easy access to highway.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI .
1500 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Rent 1500 sq ft Rent @ Rs 186000 per month lease this commercial office space well furnished at andheri kurla road in omkar summit for rent with work stations ,cabins , conference room ,glass face building close to metro along with free car park ,Mumbai #. LOAD MORE 100 PROPERTIES
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI .
Rs 120 office space for rent in Andheri east , Mumbai 2500 sq ft in windfall well furnished plug and play unit options 3000 4000 5000 8000 sq ft close to chakala metro station sahar plaza midas / Meadows / bonanza all on lease in andheri east with commercial building/space large commercial complex excellent for large / small corporation, jb nagar lease this Commercial Properties/office on rent Andheri East Rs worth deal in Andheri East ,Mumbai.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI .
Rs 2.58 lac office space for rent in andheri east , Carpet area 1400 sq ft Mumbai j.b Nagar Mumbai rent this fully furnished office space close to Metro station Andheri east A++ property very high end furniture, with ample storage Interior designed by renowned architect. having 25 workstations,4 cabins, conference, meeting room, pantry plus free car park 2, close to air ort and highway . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1500 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri East , Omkar Summit, in Mumbai lease commercial Properties for rent in Andheri East chakala, rent Rs 120 per sq ft plug and play fully furnished rates negotiable close to highway chakala andheri kurla road new glass face building office/space for rent in Andheri East,Mumbai -Rent office space in andheri east,Mumbai .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Vastu approved Commercial office space on rent in andheri East ,chakala,3000 sq ft Rent at Rs 320000 per month with 6 months deposit this Commercial property on lease at chakala is furnished to taste, at andheri kurla road, ample sunlight ,good view in glass face building, blink to metro station,mumbai India. View More 560 Units available
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Rs 120 per sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east 5000 sq ft , in Mumbai chakala unit options 2500 / 4000 / 3000 60000 12000 10000 in a large commercial complex all office space are fully furnished in solitaire corporate park mumbai close highway and metro station, building has gym ,pool , health club a corporate feel complex nice for large small MNC and LLP in Maharashtra India . Call Now DEal assured !! +91 8108096760 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
9500 sq ft office space for rent in Time square, Andheri East, Mumbai lease Rs 11 lakhs this Commercial property( office space) fully furnished 120 work station ,cabins ,conference room, on lease plug and play just bring laptops near marol Andheri East metro station Mumbai.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Rs 125 per sq ft Commercial office space on rent in solitaire corporate park, Andheri East,5000 sq ft rent this Commercial Properties at chakala andheri kurla road ,close andheri East station , well furnished 40/ 60 work station , 6 manger cubical cabins , 3 closed cabins ,conference room , pantry , large canteen for lease office space opp wall street building andheri East near metro at Mumbai.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
+70 work station Commercial office space on rent in wall street ,Andheri East, 5200 sq ft Rs 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Properties at chakala andheri East in premium glass face building walk in plug n play with ample car park area with office/space for rent in Andheri East,Mumbai -Rent office space in andheri east,Mumbai .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1470 sq ft Office space for rent in Atrium at Andheri East , 1450 sq ft Rent Rs 125 per sq ft chakala andheri kurla road in Mumbai lease this Commercial Properties for rent in Andheri East andheri kurla road ,very well furnished rates negotiable close to highway with 5 star amenities glass face building .LOAD MORE 100 PROPERTIES
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
15000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft Near metro station chakala fully furnished Commercial office on rent andheri kurla road andheri-east + 200 work stations, 5 cabins, large conference room , canteen area , tanning room more call now deal assured unit option many + 91 8108098760 . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI .
1 to 15 lakhs office space for rent in andheri East Mumbai in wall street / Atrium / Omkar summit / metro avenue / business square / dynasty 1000 sq ft to 12000 sq ft Rs 90 to 120 per sq ft all Commercial/office /space are fully furnished in Commercial building business square / solitaire corporate park / meadows / midas / boomerang / solitaire corporate park close to chakala / andheri kurla road / moral / j.b nagar / midc rates slightly negotiable .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI .
1100 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east,Marol ,Rent Rs 100 per sq ft fully furnished on lease in andheri eat off andheri kurla road makawana road plug n play with 14 work stations 2 cabins one confrence room ,Mumbai .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
100 + work stations Office Space on Rent in Andheri East, Rs 120 per sq ft lease this well furnished Commercial office space at chakala near highway andheri East, plug and play 6000 sq ft ,pick Commercial Properties on rent in Andheri kurla road, Andheri East , 5 car park free . It has centrally Ac's, flooring, 3 Washrooms, 2 Pantry already done. Call Now immediate deal assured !! +91 8108098760
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
fully furnished Office Space for rent in Andheri East, Mumbai. 5000 sq feet Rs 123/per sq ft/Rent Commercial/office/Properties for lease in Andheri East sq ft area 5000 sq ft / 7000 sq ft 1000 sq ft 12000 sq ft / 15000 sq ft & 20000 sq ft at Chakala, Andheri Kurla road,rent office in Solitaire corporate park,Commercial building,close to metro station, with six free car parks rent/sale office/spaces/Commercial/Properties in Andheri East buildings, mumbai. # India !! 560 units available for rent in Andheri East View on blog with images.View More 560 Units available
Many Options Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5700 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east ,Mumbai chakala 2 offices single floor lease this commercial office space commercial on rent @ Rs 120 per sq ft slightly negotiable area 11000 approx fully furnished plug and play mumbai with work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
for Rent office space in Andheri east,Mumbai Lease @ Rs 120 per sq ft for 1749 sq ft area ( 1800 sq ft ) at chakala fully furnished commercial office/space on lease in omkar summit near Eagle flight building andheri kurla road mumbai having 22 work stations , 3 cabins , one confrence area ,Maharashtra # . 2000 sq ft office space for rent in Atrium andheri east,Mumbai Rent Rs 130 per sq ft premium building in chakala andheri kurla road plug n play close to dynasty building near Marriott hotel Mumbai #.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Atrium office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai in Atrium 215 4563 sq ft usable 2963 sq ft lease this commercial space in chakala andheri east
Fully Furnished with air conditioning,high Quality Furniture, Data/Voice Cabling, Fire Detection and Alarm, Sprinklers 4 Cabins, 32+ Workstations, 2 Meeting Rooms, 1 large confrence Room, Reception, Server Room, Store Room Mumbai andheri kurla road.Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2500 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, solitaire corporate park ,chakala mumbai ,Rent Rs 115 per sq ft fully furnished with 28 work stations , 4 cabins confrence room andheri kurla road office is in commercial glass face building close to metro station and western express highway ,Mumbai $ .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1600 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai Rent RS 178000 per month close to metro station mumbai ,lease this fully furnished office space in andheri east in metro avenue touching /close to western express highway and railway station with 18 work stations , 2 cabins ,confrence room Maharashtra # . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east,Midc, Mumbai Rent Rs 100 per sq ft with 100 work stations 4500 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east midc Rent RS 100 + 130 work station Rent Rs 100 per sq ft 5000 sq ft + 150 work station at midc andheri east office options in chakala,andheri kurla road also available !! marol Mumbai .LOAD MORE 100 PROPERTIES.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2560 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai Rent Rs 125 in atrium 215 , located at andheri kurla road fully furnished office space in andheri east for lease close to western express highway and railway station with 27 work stations , 3 cabins ,confrence room Maharashtra # .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Vastu Office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai 3500 sq ft with 80/100 work station ( seated , new glass face building close to chakala metro station just 5 minutes walk , having canteen area , server room cabins and confrence room good for any type of business and IT companies Mumbai Maharashtra . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2300 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft slightly negotiable for lease commercial office space in chakala with work stations ,cabins confrence room , close to western express highway with ample sunlight and 2 side open view Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
7000 Office space for rent in Andheri east, Solitaire corporate park , Mumbai Rent Rs 110 per sq ft lease this fully furnished commercial office space for/on lease in chakala at Andheri East ,Andheri Ghatkoper Link Road ,glass face building having work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ceo cabin,24x7 security, Close to railway station, atm ,restaurants, server area , 24x 8 security , pantry in Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5800 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east , in Meadows jb b nagar , Mumbai lease Rs 120 per sq ft just below chakala metro station large commercial complex glass face building rent ( office space) fully furnished with work station ,cabins ,conference room, just bring laptops near to air port and highway Andheri East Mumbai.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east,Mumbai Rent RS 120 per sq ft lease this commercial office space within chakala on lease in andheri kurla road glass face commercial building, fully furnished 38 work stations ,3 cabins , 1 room, 2 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ,24x7 security, cool lobby, Close to railway station, atm ,restaurants, Maharashtra .LOAD MORE 100 PROPERTIES.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
15000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east ,Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft lease this commercial office space in andheri east close to metro station with ample work stations 200 / 250 , 5 cabins, 1 large confrence ,canteen area , within a glass face commercial building mumbai Maharashtra India also option of 100 / 150 / 200 /250 / 300 / 500 work station or seat, ready to move offices.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
12000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east , time square Mumbai Rent RS 120 per sq ft negotiable plug and play for immediate lease in commercial glass face building with 150 work stations 8 cabins ,confrence room Mumbai close to chakala metro station having 8 car park area,Maharashtra $ . View More 560 Units available .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Eco 1800 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east , Mumbai Rent Rs 135000 per month get lease this commercial office space within andheri east fully furnished with 24 work stations 3 cabins , 1 confrence room at Makwana road off andheri kurla road close to metro station newly done up interiors Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1250 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east , Mumbai Rent RS 135000 per month get lease this commercial office space within andheri east It park ,glass face building commercial property close to chakala metro station having work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area,Maharashtra $ . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
8000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east ,Mumbai , lease fully furnished commercial office space on rent in andheri chakala , Rentals at Rs 125 per sq ft at andheri kurla road close to metro and western express highway having good view and ample sunlight , plug n play at Mumbai Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .India .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4200 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east , wall street Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this commercial office space within andheri east fully furnished with 40 work stations 5 cabins , 1 confrence room at chakala , andheri kurla road close to metro station newly done up interior new building with cool lobby top of the line security excess 24x7 Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Available Office space for rent in Andheri east Mumbai, Rent 10000 sq ft Rs 120 per sq ft well furnished with 100 plus work stations in Solitaire corporate park , near business square in Mumbai in chakala at Andheri East Andheri Ghatkoper Link Road ,glass face building Fully Furnished 8 Cabin, 1 Meeting Room, 120 Work seated / stations , Could Be Increase As Per Required, canteen area , 3 Wash Room mumbai Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2460 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east,meadows jb nagar close to chakala metro station in Mumbai Rent RS 120 per sq ft lease this commercial office space within andheri kurla road glass face commercial building, fully furnished 24 work stations ,3 cabins , 1 confrence room room, 2 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ,24x7 security, cool lobby, Close to railway station, atm ,restaurants, Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5300 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east , Mumbai 2 units 5300x5300 Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this in business square fully furnished commercial office space within andheri east for lease 40 x 40 work stations 8 cabins , 2 confrence room at chakala , andheri kurla road close to metro station newly done up interior 2 side open view top of the line security excess 24x7 Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1500 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east , wall street unit options in Dynasty / Atrium / omkar summit in Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this commercial office space within andheri east fully furnished with 18 work stations 2 cabins , 1 confrence room at chakala , andheri kurla road close to metro station newly done up interior new building with cool lobby top of the line security excess 24x7 Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east ,+ 150 work station in Mumbai Rs 125 per sq ft lease this commercial space at chakala metro 5 minuets walking distance fully furnished commercial office space within andheri east for lease 3 cabins , 2 confrence room andheri kurla road close to metro station newly done up interior open view top of the line security excess 24x7 Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east ,in Mumbai meadows/Midas Rs 125 per sq ft lease this commercial space at jb nagar below chakala metro station lease this furnished property office space within andheri east for lease 3 cabins , 1 confrence room 28 work stations close to airport easy access to highway open view top of the line security excess 24x7 Maharashtra 24x7 Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4500 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai andheri kurla road Rent RS 110 per sq ft well furnished commercial office space for immediate lease in solitaire corporate park andheri east close to wall street, plug and play 35/40 work stations 5 cabins . 1 large confrence 3 car parks free also building has gym, health club,restaurants etc Maharashtra Mumbai India .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
8000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , jb nagar close to chakala metro station + 150 work stations lease this office space in Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft commercial office space on lease/rent in andheri east close to metro station with ample work stations , cabins ,confrence room work station offered 50 / 80 / 100 / 150 200 / 250 , within a glass face commercial building all plug n play in mumbai Maharashtra India., ready to move offices. 24x7 Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
8000 sq ft Commercial office space on rent in andheri East ,Makawana road Mumbai 3000to 8000 sq ft Rent RS 105 per sq ft with 6 months deposit this Commercial property on lease at makawana road close to metro station well furnished on lease in commercial building plug n play rates negotiable off andheri kurla road, ample sunlight ,good view in glass face building, blink to metro station,mumbai India. View More 560 Units available . deal now @ .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4500 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east ,+ 85 work stations at chakala Mumbai near highway metro station also walking from railway station more usable area less loading carpet area 3500 sq ft Rent RS 110 per sq ft lease this commercial andheri east with cabins ,confrence room work station LOAD MORE 100 PROPERTIES Mumbai @ .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
15000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east ,+ 200 work station in Mumbai Rs 115 per sq ft lease this commercial space in andheri east midc 15 minuets walking distance fully furnished commercial office space within andheri east for lease 10 cabins , 2 confrence room newly done up interior open view top of the line security excess 24x7 Maharashtra .Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1 lakhs to 15 lakhs office space for rent in Andheri east , Rent Rs 90 to 130 Mumbai in Omkar summit / business square / solitaire corporate park / metro avenue / atrium 215 / meadows / midas / windfall / Rustomjee central park / dynasty business park / leela business park / Pramukh plaza / chintamani / gazebo / citi point / central point all well furnished plug and play from 500 to 4000 sq ft in chakala / jb nagar / midc / marol / andheri kurla road Maharashtra .View More 560 Units available . deal now @ .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5300 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east , business square Mumbai Rent Rs115 per sq ft well furnished on lease commercial office space in Andheri east chakala, andheri kurla road in plug and play work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4500 Office space for rent in Andheri east, andheri kurla road Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft at carpet area Rent/lease this Commercial office space in andheri east chakala , in glass building having 50 work stations , 1 HR cabins , 5 manger cabins , large reception area , newly done up interiors untouched office space on lease in andheri east close to railway station, and metro fully furnished office best for IT Company / MNC in Maharashtra with open view.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2500 Office space for rent in Andheri east , Mumbai lease this well furnished office space in omkar summit andheri east Rs 120 per sq ft at chakala off andheri kurla road just 5 minutes to highway with all facilities like work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra.Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4500 Office space for rent in Andheri east , sahar plaza meadows / windfall jb nagar close to metro chakala in Mumbai lease this well furnished office space in andheri east andheri kurla road, Rent Rs 120 per sq ft 5 minutes to highway with all business facilities like work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security, in @ Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
7000 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east , in Mumbai Rent Rs 840000 per month $ 11784 lease this fully furnished office space in andheri east chakala 7 minutes to highway, with all business facilities like 150 work stations , 5 cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, 2 meeting room ,reception area large ceo cabin,good for large corporations more work stations can be added @ Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3000 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east , in Mumbai Rent Rs 330000 per month pramukh plaza lease this fully furnished commercial office space in andheri east chakala , with 35 work stations , 5 cabins , 1 confrence room , close to western express highway and metro station at @ Maharashtra.Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
6500 office space for rent in Andheri east,Chakala Rustomjee central park in mumbai, ne building next to wall street Rent Rs 125 per month located main andheri kurla road in glass face commercial building/space on lease in andheri East + fully furnished work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2.2 Lac office space for rent in andheri east , Marol , Mumbai Rent sq ft area of 2200 sq ft lease this fully furnished office space in andheri east building industrial unit with Cabins 4,work seats 60 , Pantry/Wet Pantry bup area 3500 sq ft Overlooking Main Road good for Corporate Office Setup,Private Office,IT/ITES and Related Private Consulting,Call Center/BPO Lock-in Period 1 Year along with Car parking 2 Covered Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Office space for rent in Andheri east, Indiana House 4650 carpet Fully Furnished Rent 612000 per month in Mumbai lease this fully furnished commercial office space for/on lease in Andheri East Fully Furnished 45 work station 6 Cabin, 1 Meeting Room, seated capacity Could Be Increase As Per Required, 1 Conference Room, 2 Wash Room mumbai Maharashtra . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
9000 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east, midc near Tunga paradise Rent Rs 90 per sq ft lease this Fully Furnished commercial office space for/on lease in Andheri East MIDC 250 work station 6 Cabin, 1 Meeting Room, canteen large , 35 seated capacity Could Be Increase As Per Required, 1 Conference Room, 4 Wash Room mumbai Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3800 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east, wall street Rent Rs 125 per sq ft Fully Furnished on lease commercial office space in chakala andheri kurla road ( east ),having 35 work station 4 Cabin, 1 Meeting Room, close to western express highway and metro station new building in demand for small large corporations .Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4000 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east, Chakala Rent 410000 having 80 work stations , 2 cabins , 2 meeting room , 1 confrence room , more cabins can be created lease this Fully Furnished commercial office space for/on lease in Andheri East close to metro one of the most Premium building with all modern facilities Maharashtra . .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
small Office space for rent in Andheri east, sahar plaza midas at jb nagar Rent Rs 125 per sq ft Fully Furnished on lease commercial office space below chakala metro station andheri kurla road andheri east Maharashtra ,large commercial complex glass face building Meadows / windfall / midas close to western express highway and in demand for small/ large corporations .Maharashtra . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
6750 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, solitaire corporate park Rs 110 per sq ft lease this furnished commercial office space in andheri east at andheri kurla road , Maharashtra having work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ceo cabin,24x7 security, with Lift 24/7 Power Backup Fire Fighting Systems Inter Com, Gymnasium, Convenience & Security, Property Staff, Waiting Lounge, Mumbai .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
950 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft bup area carpet 640 at andheri kurla road main road facing commercial building/space having 12/15 work stations ,2 cabins ,1 conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, close to metro station nice for large/small mnc companies India Mumbai .Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
7000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, Time square located at andheri kurla road main road facing commercial building/space Rent Rs 125 per sq ft Maharashtra having 100/150 work stations ,7 cabins ,1 conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ceo cabin,close to metro station nice for large mnc companies India Mumbai .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, midas/meadows / windfall at jb nagar lease this commercial office space in andheri east close to metro station plug n play with Rent Rs 125 per sq ft Maharashtra having 18 work stations ,3 cabins ,1 conference room, Washroom, reception area, park area, close to metro station and easy aces to highway and international airport Mumbai $ .nice for large mnc companies India Mumbai .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1350 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, Atrium Mumbai Rent Rs 168000 at andheri kurla road lease this commercial office space in andheri east close to metro station plug n play with work stations , cabins , conference room, Washroom, reception area, park area, close to metro station and easy aces to highway and international airport Mumbai $ .nice for large mnc companies India Mumbai .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
15000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Rent Rs 115 at chakala at andheri kurla road commercial/space fully furnished office on lease in andheri kurla road, with 200 work stations ,8 cabins ,2 conference room, 1 meeting room , 4 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra $.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3240 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Rent Rs 120 at andheri kurla road commercial/space fully furnished office on lease in andheri east kurla road, near wall street with 35 work stations ,4 cabins ,2 conference room, 1 meeting room , 2 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ,24x7 security,Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2450 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Atrium Mumbai Rent Rs 120 at andheri kurla road commercial/space fully furnished for lease in andheri east , mumbai andheri kurla road,work stations , cabins , conference room, meeting room , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ,24x7 security,Maharashtra .Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1500 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, metro avenue close to highway Mumbai Rent Rs 120 at andheri kurla road commercial/space fully furnished office on lease in andheri east chakala with work stations ,4 cabins , conference room, , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ,24x7 security,Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3500 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Rent Rs 330000 per month for lease in at andheri kurla road commercial/space fully furnished in andheri east 40/50 work stations ,4 cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area
ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra INDIA.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
15000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Rent Rs 120 at andheri kurla road commercial/space fully furnished for lease in andheri east work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area
ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra INDIA.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1745 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Metro avenue Mumbai Rent Rs 120 at andheri kurla road commercial/space fully furnished for lease in andheri east chakala , mumbai at andheri kurla road, commercial space with work stations , cabins , conference room, meeting room , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ,24x7 security,Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4945 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Rent Rs 120 at andheri kurla road chakala lease this commercial/space fully furnished for lease in andheri east chakala , with 45/50 work stations , cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra.Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1900 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Rent Rs 115 at andheri kurla road chakala lease this commercial/space fully furnished for lease in andheri east , with 20/25 work stations ,3 cabins ,1 conference room, 2 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4100 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri East , mumbai lease this office space with 50/55 work stations on rent in andheri east along with 3cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Andheri east Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2190 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri East , Atrium mumbai in for rent office space with work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Andheri east Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1750 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri East , Mumbai near metro avenue close to highway and metro station Rent RS 120 per sq ft lease this Office space in chakala andheri kurla road ( east ) with work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Andheri east Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Vastu Office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai 3500 sq ft with 80/100 work station ( seated , new glass face building close to chakala metro station just 5 minutes walk , having canteen area , server room cabins and confrence room good for any type of business and IT companies Mumbai Maharashtra . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1800 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east , Mumbai near metro station close by Rent Rs 115 per sq ft well furnished on lease commercial office space in Andheri east Marol at andheri kurla road in plug and play 20/25 work stations ,2/3 cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1340 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Jai Antariksh makawana road close to metro Andheri East Rent rs 115 per sq ft Office Space on lease andheri east off andheri kurla road 1340 Sq-ft carpet 2300 Sq-ft built up fully furnished ,with workstation, cabins, conference room, Washroom, reception area, car park area, 24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
Small office space for rent in andheri east , Wall street plug and play 1165 sq ft Rent Rs 145000 in new building in Mumbai get office space for rent close to highway and metro station andheri east fully furnished, with work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, cool lobby, Close to railway station, atm ,restaurants, server area , 24x 8 security , pantry , India !!
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
furnished Office space for rent in andheri east, Solitaire Corporate Park: area 3775 Sq Ft Built Up. Carpet 2700 4 parking’s available. Plus approximately 130 sq ft of carpet area in lift Lobby available as private area. 4 cabins, 35 staff seats, 2 conference rooms, pantry, 6 seat dinning counter, 3 toilets, store room, 1 AHU room where storage is possible 1 space for CPU storage : Exclusive full floor for office. Quote ₹135/- per sq ft on chargeable area with six months equivalent of IFRSD.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1580 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east,Mumbai well furnished for rent at chakala andheri kurla road glass face building Rent Rs 120 per sq ft 3 cabins, 20/25 staff seats, conference rooms, close to metro and western express highway nice layout with good sunlight ,India.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
8638 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east , it park Mumbai chakala metro close by Rent Rs 115 per sq ft well furnished on lease commercial office space in Andheri east chakala, andheri kurla road in plug and play 150 work stations ,4 cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1750 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , dynasty Rent RS 210000 per month lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east chakala j.b nagar ,plug n play with work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1550 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east ,Omkar summit new building 1 minute to highway Rent RS 155000 per month lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east chakala, 20 work stations , 2 cabins , conference room etc off andheri kurla road plug n play with work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1000 sq ft onwards office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai Rent RS 95 to 120 per sq ft all office on rent in andheri east from 2000 / 3000 / 4000 / 5000 / 8000 / 9000 / 10000 /12000 sq ft 15000 sq ft at chakala andheri kurla road in Omkar summit / business square /solitaire coporate park / atul coporate / wall street / dynasty / 215 atrium / citi point / meadows / time square / Rustomjee business park / leela business park / sahar plaza / metro avenue / dipit classic / boston house / pramukh plaza / gazebo / time square / many more deal assured call now !! Mumbai Maharashtra.
2245 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , rustomjee central park Rent RS 125 per sq ft rent fully furnished at office space in andheri east at chakala andheri kurla road,plug n play with work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
18000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , midc , Mumbai Rent Rs 115 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east midc ,plug n play with 200/250 work stations / seats ,7 cabins ,1 conference room, 4 meting rooms ,4 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2100 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Makawana road Rent RS 105 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east below marol metro station 5 minutes walking plug n play with 250/30 work stations / seats ,3 cabins ,1 conference room, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra India rent office space in andheri east glass face commercial building . Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
800 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , andheri kurla road near highway Rent RS 120 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east plug n play with 12/15 work stations / seats ,3 cabins ,1 conference room, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra India rent office space in andheri east , within glass face/space in commercial building building .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3000 sq ft sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, pramukh plaza Rent Rs 115 per sq ft Office Space on lease andheri east off andheri kurla road having 35 with workstation, 4 cabins, 1 conference room, 3 cubic las ,Washroom, reception area, car park area, 24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
750 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, omkar summit Rent rs 125 per sq ft bup area 1035 sq ft Office Space on lease andheri east off andheri kurla road having 15 with workstation, 2 cabins, 1 conference room,24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2260 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east ,andheri kurla road in sahar plaza center point in Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east below chakala metro station , plug n play with 30/25 work stations / seats ,3 cabins ,1 conference room, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
500 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, mumbai midas Rent rs 125 per sq ft well furnished on lease Office Space in Andheri east andheri kurla road having 10 with workstation, 1 cabins, 1 conference room,24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5423 sq ft sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, new building in Mumbai close to metro Andheri East Rent Rs 115 per sq ft Office Space on lease andheri east off andheri kurla road having 45 ,with workstation, 4 cabins, 1 conference room, 3 cubic las ,Washroom, reception area, car park area, 24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1550 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai J b nagar in meadows sahar plaza ( midas / windfall ) in Mumbai below chakala metro station Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east below chakala metro station , plug n play with 20/25 work stations / seats ,2 cabins ,1 conference room, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1000 sq ft sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Dynasty business park in Mumbai close to metro Andheri East Rent Rs 125 per sq ft Office Space on lease andheri east off andheri kurla road having 15/18 ,with workstation, 3 cabins, 1 conference room,Washroom, reception area, car park area, 24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3160 sq ft sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, off andheri kurla road in Mumbai close to metro chakala Andheri East Rent Rs 115 per sq ft Office Space on lease andheri east 40/50 with workstation, 2 cabins, 1 conference room,Washroom, reception area, car park area, 24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
15000 sq ft sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai in andheri kurla road in Mumbai close to metro station Andheri East Rent Rs 115 per sq ft Office Space on lease andheri east 120/150 with workstation, more can be added 5 cabins, 1 conference room,Washroom, reception area, car park area, 24x7 security, 30 seated canteen , Maharashtra ! .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5000 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Maharashtra Rustomjee business park ,chakala bare shell unit new building opp wall street , owner willing to get it furnished glass face premium building /space on lease in andheri east , layout prepared for 50/60 work stations ,cabins ,confrence room ,etc Mumbai India .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1450 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Atrium near Marriott hotel at andheri kurla road in Mumbai close to metro station Andheri East Rent Rs 125 per sq ft Office Space on lease andheri east 18/20 workstation, more can be added 4 cabins, 1 conference room,Washroom, reception area, car park area, 24x7 security, 5 star amenities in the building, Maharashtra ! .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
14000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Marol , Mumbai Rent Rs 115 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east midc ,plug n play with 150/ 200 work stations / seats ,4 cabins ,1 conference room, 3 meting rooms ,4 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
700 sq ft Small Office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Maharashtra ,andheri kurla road chakala 10/15 workstation, more can be added 2 cabins, 1 conference room,Washroom, reception area, car park area, 24x7 security, glass face premium building /space on lease in andheri east , Mumbai India .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4245 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Marol , Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east at andheri kurla road ,plug n play with 45/ 50 work stations / seats ,5 cabins ,1 conference room, 1 meting rooms ,4 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1250 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Omkar summit Rent RS 125 per sq ft in chakala mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east at andheri kurla road ,plug n play with 12/15 work stations / seats ,2 cabins ,1 conference room, 1 meting rooms ,4 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
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1550 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east ,Rent Rs 190000 per month at andheri kurla road in mumbai lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east at chakala ,plug n play with 18/20 work stations / seats ,2 cabins ,1 conference room, 1 meting rooms ,4 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1670 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Atrium Rent Rs 125 per sq ft as per month rent/lease at andheri kurla road in mumbai lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east plug n play with work stations / seats , cabins , conference room, meting rooms , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3810 sq ft Office space for rent in Andheri east, Mumbai Rent Rs 115 per sq ft lease this Commercial office space in andheri east chakala having 40/45/50 work stations all alterative , 1 meeting room , 5 cabins , large reception area , newly done close to railway station, fully furnished office best for IT Company / MNC on lease / rent with open view.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2067 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Rent RS 120 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east at andheri kurla road , opp wall street plug n play with 40/45 work stations / seats , cabins , conference room, meting rooms , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3467 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Rent RS 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east at andheri kurla road ,plug n play with 40/45 work stations / seats , cabins , conference room, meting rooms , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
7000 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai Rent RS 120 per sq ft lease this office space in andheri east chakala plug n play with work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
680 sq ft small office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai glass face building close to metro station Rent RS 120 per sq ft lease this office space in andheri east plug n play with work stations / seats , cabins , conference room, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
6620 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai glass face building at andheri kurla road close to metro station Rent RS 125 per sq ft lease this office space in andheri east plug n play, with 50/60 work stations / seats , 7 cabins , conference room, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1950 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , near highway Rent RS 125 per sq ft in chakala mumbai lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east at andheri kurla road ,plug n play with 20/25 work stations / seats ,3 cabins ,1 conference room, 1 meting rooms ,4 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5245 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Marol , Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east at andheri kurla road ,plug n play with 50 work stations / seats , 4 cabins ,1 conference room, 1 meting rooms , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
3430 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , citi point Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east with 30/35 work stations / seats ,4 cabins ,1 conference room, 3 meting rooms ,2 Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2500 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Rent Rs 120 at andheri kurla road commercial/space fully furnished for lease in andheri east close to railway station and highway with 30 work stations ,5 cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra INDIA.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST,MUMBAI.
decorated Office space for rent in Andheri east, 11000 sq ft @ Rs 125 @ commercial in Solitaire corporate park, Mumbai glass face chakala in commercial building/space fully furnished on lease in Solitaire corporate park 10 cabins , reception area , cubicles , reception area and 120 work station fully furnished , along with + 6 car park free ,Mumbai #.
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5245 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , 349 business point Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east main road facing property building with 80 work stations / seats , 8 cubicals , 3 cabins ,1 conference room, 1 meting rooms , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
1350 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, Mumbai Maharashtra andheri kurla road chakala Rent Rs 115 per sq ft fully furnished lease this commercial ( properties ) space in andheri east at andheri kurla road plug n play with 12 work stations, 2 cabins , 1 confrence room Mumbai Maharashtra.# .
COMMERCIAL OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
3267 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft lease this furnished commercial office space in andheri east at andheri kurla road , Maharashtra having 35/40 work stations ,4 cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ceo cabin,24x7 security, with Lift 24/7 Power Backup Fire Fighting Systems Inter Com, Waiting Lounge, Wi-Fi Connectivity, Landscape Garden, Conference room, Maharashtra
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1150 sq ft small office space for rent in andheri east , Mumbai glass face building at andheri kurla road close to metro station Rent RS 120 per sq ft lease this office space in andheri east plug n play, with 13/15 work stations / seats ,2 cabins , conference room, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, Maharashtra.
COMMERCIAL OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1250 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east ,Mumbai Maharashtra Rent Rs 120 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east at andheri kurla road ,close to highway and metro station plug n play with 18 work stations / seats , 3 cabins ,1 conference room, 1 meting rooms , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
COMMERCIAL OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
7500 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft lease this furnished commercial office space in andheri east at andheri kurla road , Maharashtra having work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ceo cabin,24x7 security, with Lift 24/7 Power Backup Fire Fighting Systems Inter Com, Gymnasium, Convenience & Security, Property Staff, Waiting Lounge, Wi-Fi Connectivity, Landscape Garden, Conference room, ATM Machine Maharashtra..
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1250 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , Maharashtra Mumbai Rent Rs 125 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east main road facing property building off highway within commercial property with 15/18 work stations / seats , 3 cabins , conference room, meting rooms , Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area Maharashtra.
COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST ,MUMBAI .
Vastu approved Commercial office space on rent in andheri East ,chakala, 3200 sq ft Rent at Rs 320000 per month with 6 months deposit this Commercial property on lease at chakala is furnished to taste, at andheri kurla road, work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra having ample sunlight ,good view in glass face building, blink to metro station,mumbai India.
COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST ,MUMBAI .
furnished office space on rent in andheri East ,chakala, 5200 sq ft Rent at Rs 5350000 per month Rent / lease this Commercial property on lease at chakala is furnished to taste at andheri kurla road, 40/45 work stations ,6 cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra having ample sunlight ,good view in glass face building, blink to metro station,mumbai India. View More 560 Units available .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
6590 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , leela business park in Mumbai Rent Rs 1110 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east near metro station ,bare shell unit can be furnished close to international air port and its most premium building in Maharashtra .
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Building office space for rent in andheri east ,Rent RS 90 per sq ft at Mumbai full commercial Individual building ( office /space ) on long lease andheri east midc IT preferred, fully furnished on lease 400 / 500 work stations currently 400 seated can be altered 27000 built-up - 21,070 carpet on Leave & licence plug n play ground + 1st floor Car park - 10 Car park.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
18000 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai 200 / 250 work stations plug and play Rent Rs 115 per sq ft well furnished on lease Office Space in Andheri east andheri kurla road, having nice layout in with social distance office on rent in Andheri east Maharashtra ! .Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
5500 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai solitaire corporate park Rent Rs 115 per sq ft lease this furnished commercial office space in andheri east at andheri kurla road , Maharashtra having work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ceo cabin,24x7 security, with Lift 24/7 Power Backup Fire Fighting Systems Inter Com, Gymnasium, Convenience & Security, Property Staff, Waiting Lounge, Wi-Fi Connectivity, Landscape Garden, Conference room, ATM Machine Maharashtra..
OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1200 sq ft office space for rent in andheri east , citi point in Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft lease this Commercial Office/Space for Lease/rent in andheri east near metro station ,plug and play 1 minute to metro station and close to international air port and its most premium building in Maharashtra.
COMMERCIAL OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
2497 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft lease this furnished commercial office space in andheri east at andheri kurla road , Maharashtra having 30 / 25 work stations ,5 cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ceo cabin,24x7 security, with Lift 24/7 Power Backup Fire Fighting Systems Inter Com, Waiting Lounge, Wi-Fi Connectivity, Landscape Garden, Conference room, Maharashtra
COMMERCIAL OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
750 sq ft small Office space for rent at andheri east, Mumbai midas Rent Rs 125 per sq ft well furnished on lease Office Space in Andheri east andheri kurla road, having 6/8 with workstation, 2 cabins, 1 meeting /conference room,24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4500 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai leela business park Rent Rs 125 per sq ft well furnished on lease Office Space in Andheri east andheri kurla road, having 40 with workstation, 5 cabins, 1 conference room,24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
OFFICE RENT IN ANDHERI EAST, MUMBAI.
2300 sq ft office space for rent at Andheri east,Mumbai solitaire corporate park Rent Rs 118 per sq ft lease this furnished commercial office space in andheri east at andheri kurla road , Maharashtra having work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, ceo cabin,24x7 security, with Lift 24/7 Power Backup Fire Fighting Systems Inter Com, Gymnasium, Convenience & Security, Property Staff, Waiting Lounge, Wi-Fi Connectivity, Landscape Garden, Conference room, ATM Machine Maharashtra..
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
Large 10000 sq ft office for rent in Andheri east, Mumbai Rs 120 @ commercial in Maharashtra Rent Rs @ 120 per sq ft glass face chakala in commercial building/space fully furnished in Solitaire corporate park 8 cabins , reception area , cubicles , reception area and work station fully furnished , owner will add your 100 + work station as required as per your layout with alteration open at clients end along with + 6 car park free ,Mumbai #.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1840 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, Atrium 215 Mumbai Rs 120 @ commercial space on rent in Maharashtra Rent Rs @ 120 per sq ft within glass face building at andheri east ,chakala having work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra.
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4500 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, Mumbai within commercial building glass face Carpet 3150 sq ft Rent Rs 105/- per sq ft includes 3 Car Parking Space free rent office space in andheri East with Work-stations 40, Managers Cubicals - 4 , Director Cabin - 1, 4 Seated Meeting Room - 1, 8 Seater Conference Room , Rest Room , Server Room , Pantry Cum Dining Room, 8 Seater, Washroom - Ladies & Gents.lease this commercial space on rent in Maharashtra andheri east ,having 250 / 300 work stations ( seated ) ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, reception area,pantry area ,car park area, meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,Maharashtra
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
5000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, touching highway Andheri East, 10/15 minutes walking to metro lease/rent office in andheri east
Fully furnished, luxurious office in Andheri East with top of the line white goods, approx Expected Rent: Rs. 400,000 , 6 cabins, With 1 Managing Director's attached toilet & shower, 1 conference/projector Room, Staff seating of work stations seated 50 , Spacious kitchenette, 1 gents staff toilet & shower, 1 ladies staff toilet & shower, 1 welcoming Reception 1 Guest lounge, 2 covered car parking’s. Maharashtra.Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE/SPACE FOR LEASE / RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
6000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, Mumbai rent RS 110 per sq ft lease office in andheri east , having work stations ,cabins ,conference room, Washroom, pantry area , meeting room ,reception area ceo cabin,24x7 security,free car park area, touching highway Andheri East,.Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
4500 sq ft Office space for rent in andheri east, Mumbai Windfall sahar plaza Rent Rs 125 per sq ft well furnished on lease Office Space in Andheri east andheri kurla road, having 45/50 with workstation, 4 cabins, 1 conference room,24x7 security, Maharashtra ! .Call Now Immediate deal Assured +91 8108098760 / 8080258333 .
COMMERCIAL PROPERTY FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2420 sq ft commercial property for rent in andheri east , in Mumbai Rent Rs 115 per sq ft lease this Commercial Property for rent in ANdheri east Mumbai , lease fully furnished office space in andheri east near metro station ,bare shell unit can be furnished close to international air port and its most premium building in Maharashtra .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
15000 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, andheri kurla road glass face commercial building Fully furnished Rent RS 120 per sq ft , luxurious office in Andheri East for lease andheri east close to metro station with top of the line white goods, approx Expected 200 work station more can be added , 6 cabins, With 3 Managing Director's attached toilet & shower, 4 cubicals , 1 conference/projector Room, Staff seating of work stations , canteen area large Reception 1 Guest lounge, Maharashtra.
FOR RENT OFFICE SPACE IN IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1640 sq ft small office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai Maharashtra well furnished lease/rent office in andheri east Fully furnished, Rent Rs 150000 , with cabins,Work-stations/seated computer desk , Conference Room , Rest Room , Server Room , Pantry Cum Dining Room, 8 Seater,India @ touching highway walking to metro Mumbai !! .
OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2590 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai Maharashtra touching highway walking to metro lease/rent office ( commercial Property ) in andheri east Fully furnished, Rent Rs 250000 per month along with 3/4 cabins,Work-stations 30 / 35 seated computer desk , Conference Room , large reception , Server Room , Pantry Cum Dining Room, India @Mumbai !! .
SMALL OFFICE FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
950 sq ft small office space for rent in Andheri east,Mumbai Rent Rs 120 per sq ft office on rent touching highway andheri east walking to metro railway station , get lease/rent office in andheri east Fully furnished, 2 cabins,Work-stations 15/18 seated computer desk , Conference Room , Rest Room , Server Room , Pantry Cum Dining Room,India ,Mumbai !!!.
COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES FOR RENT IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
1950 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, Atrium 215 Mumbai walking to metro station close to dynasty business park lease/rent office in andheri east Fully furnished, Rent Rs 227000 4 cabins,Work-stations 20/ 25 seated computer desk ( work stations) , Conference Room , Rest Room , Server Room , Pantry Cum Dining Room, 8 Seater,India @Mumbai !! .
FOR RENT OFFICE SPACE IN IN ANDHERI EAST , MUMBAI.
2425 sq ft office space for rent in Andheri east, Mumbai in metro Avenue Rent Rs 120 per sq ft near omkar summit Maharashtra well fully furnished lease/rent office in andheri east , with cabins, 30/35 Work-stations/seated computer desk , Conference Room , Rest Room , Server Room , Pantry Cum Dining Room, Seater,India @ commercial property for rent in ANdheri east almost touching highway walking to metro Mumbai !! .
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You think this is easy, maggot? It’s a soul-crushing constant struggle where your thumbs ache, and your spit tastes like flat 7 Up and Cheetos! I’m here to tell ya that virtual war is hell. And the loss (sob). You feel the brutal loss of all those heroes who got torn down by bullets fired by the best damn graphics that computer animation can build. Heroes like… Um… What’s-his-face, Joe something… Uh, let me check the character notes.
But now, soldier, you’re covered, really covered. As game manufacturer Konami explains on its website for Metal Gear Solid V, “Your FOBs [Forward Operating Bases] are always at risk of coming under attack. Now, you can rest easy with FOB insurance (paid service) [original italics]. If you sign up for insurance… you will be compensated for any materials and staff lost due to rival infiltrations.”
In case you’re not a hardcore gamer, you might just be wondering, Am I paying virtual money for this virtual coverage? Nooooo, maggot! You cough up cold hard cash—“but free MB Coins are also distributed periodically as login bonuses, etc.”
And you’ve got some miracles happening. If the enemy swipes your stuff or people, it amazingly stays on your base while an identical set of the looted goods is handed over to your rival instead. Which kind of makes you wonder, Well, was it taken or not? But we do not ask questions in war, you got that?
And hey, what would an insurance policy be for two-dimensional fictional military personnel if it didn’t have exclusions? No, you will not get compensated for the prisoners in your FOB brig, and you will not get anything for your deployed forces defending your base. Do you understand? (I can’t hear you!) That’s the price of battle, son.
Of course, this new product rollout is not going down well with everybody. Mashable’s reporter Adam Rosenberg, who had been so keen on the Phantom Pain version of the game in August (“Waging war has never been so enjoyable”), complained in early October, “Ultimately, insurance devalues Metal Gear’s online experience and threatens to drive away players aggravated by the idea of potentially facing off against foes with nothing to lose. The bottom line: Insurance kills the spirit of online competition.”
Personally, I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. Oh, wait, that’s the closing narration of Platoon…
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Copyright 2015 Rogers Publishing Ltd. This article first appeared in the November 2015 edition of Canadian Insurance Top Broker magazine | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
India bags orders to launch 68 foreign satellites, 12 of them from US
India has clinched deals to launch as many as 68 overseas satellites, including a dozen from the US, a top official said on Tuesday. “We got fresh orders to launch 68 satellites from various countries,
India has clinched deals to launch as many as 68 overseas satellites, including a dozen from the US, a top official said on Tuesday.
“We got fresh orders to launch 68 satellites from various countries, including 12 from PlanetiQ, a US-based weather forecasting satellite firm,” said Rakesh Sasibhushan, Chairman and Managing Director of Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the Indian space agency.
Through Antrix, the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched 74 foreign satellites, including many from advanced countries like Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Israel and the US over the 15 years, using its most reliable workhorse - the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
“We also got an order to launch a heavier earth observation satellite from an overseas customer”, said Sasibhushan without naming the customer.
The new orders include launching smaller and nano-satellites with different payloads (instruments) for experiments, data generation, image-capturing and transmitting signals for communications, broadcasting, remote-sensing, earth observation and weather conditions. PSLV-C34 set a record in July by launching 20 satellites, with a combined weight of 1,288 kg including ISRO’s 728 kg Cartosat-2 from its rocketport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, about 80 km north-east of Chennai.
“We plan to carry more satellites in a single launch at a time for optimal utilisation of the rocket space and other resources for achieving economies of scale,” hinted Sasibhushan.
Sasibhushan said ISRO had created a record with its 36th flight of PSLV-C34 in July this year when it successfully launched the 727.5 kg Cartosat-2 series satellite along with 19 co-passenger satellites from its spaceport in Sriharikota. It was the 35th consecutively successful mission of PSLV.
“We estimate that about 2,500 satellites will be built in the next decade to meet the needs of countries and private customers for navigation, maritime, surveillance and other space-based applications,” Sasibhushan told reporters ahead of the fifth biennial Space Expo from Thursday in Bengaluru.
OneWeb, a global consortium of British multinational Virgin Group, Indian telecom major Bharti Enterprises and US-based chip maker Qualcomm, is planning to put a record 648 smaller satellites as a constellation to beam high-speed internet to local terminals.
ISRO also is bracing up for commercial launch of two-tonne and above satellites using its heavier rocket -- Geosynchrnous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) to place them in geo-stationary orbits, about 36,000 km from the earth.
ISRO also is bracing up for commercial launch of two-tonne and above satellites using its heavier rocket -- Geosynchrnous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) to place them in geo-stationary orbits, about 36,000 km from the earth.
The operational GSLV Mk-II rocket with an indigenous cryogenic upper stage is set for launch in September with a weather satellite onboard.
“We are looking for commercial operations of GSLV for which the indigenous cryogenic engines are getting ready to launch more satellites to the geo-orbits,” noted Sasibhushan.
With more nations and private customers keen on having their own satellites for various applications, India is pitching in the multi-billion dollar launch market due to shortage of rockets and launchers worldwide and owing its cost advantage.
ISRO, however, will face competition from global players such as BlueOrigin, Firefly Systems, Rocket Lab and SpaceX, which are bracing up to offer satellite launch services from 2017. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
2014 IIHF World Championship
Main article: 2014 Men's Ice Hockey World Championships
The 2014 IIHF World Championship was hosted by Belarus in its capital, Minsk. Sixteen national teams were competing in two venues, the Minsk-Arena and Chizhovka-Arena. It was the first time Belarus hosted the tournament. The selection of Belarus to host this competition was the subject of much debate, with some politicians in both Europe and the United States calling for the IIHF to move the tournament to another country.
Russia with a mix of NHL and KHL stars (unlike other nations, Russia comprised a squad close to their 2014 Olympic squad) remained undefeated throughout the championship. After losing on home-ice to Finland 1–3 earlier that year during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics Quarterfinals, in a rematch, captured the gold medal by defeating Finland 5–2 in the final Sweden captured the bronze medal with a 3–0 victory over the Czech Republic. Host team Belarus made the playoffs for the first time since 2009, losing to Sweden 3–2 in the quarterfinal. Italy and Kazakhstan were relegated to Division I A. Prior to the championship, Divisions I to III had played their tournaments to establish the rank between teams of lower levels.
The tournament saw a new attendance record for the World Championship, as a total of 640,044 people attended games, surpassing the record set at the 2004 tournament in the Czech Republic, which had 552,097 spectators.
Host selection
On 8 May 2009, the Belarusian bid was successful and got 75 votes in the race for hosting the 2014 IIHF World Championship. The application with the slogan “Welcome to the young hockey country” beat out those from Hungary (24 votes), Latvia (3), and Ukraine (3).
The two main venues listed as hosts for the ice hockey teams were Minsk-Arena (capacity around 15000) and Chizhovka-Arena (capacity around 9600). The larger arena was completed and opened in 2010, whereas construction of the smaller one was completed in 2012.
The selection of Belarus as hosts caused great controversy (Minsk2014 Campaign). On 11 April 2011, United States Senator Dick Durbin and Representative Michael Quigley urged the IIHF to move the World Championship to another location, citing concerns over the authoritarian government of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. Lukashenko's alleged human rights violations had resulted in numerous sanctions placed on himself and 157 of his associates by the European Union and United States. Senator Durbin and Representative Quigley were supported by former Slovak ice hockey player and current Member of the European Parliament Peter Šťastný. According to a 2013 report by the U.S. organisation Freedom House, Belarus was the least democratic country in Europe at the time. However, the IIHF remarked that its statutes did not allow it to discriminate on political grounds, and spokespersons for the Latvian and Lithuanian ice hockey federations stated that they had no desire for "mixing politics with sports".
On 16 January 2012, President Lukashenko announced that any foreigners who wanted to attend the World Championships would not need a visa to enter Belarus, or the medical insurance required for entry. The only documentation required was an original or electronic copy of a ticket to a game.
Venues
Rosters
Each team's roster consists of at least 15 skaters (forwards and defencemen) and two goaltenders, and at most 22 skaters and three goaltenders. All 16 participating nations, through the confirmation of their respective national associations, have to submit a roster by the first IIHF directorate meeting.
Officials
The IIHF selected 16 referees and 16 linesmen to work the 2014 IIHF World Championship. They were the following:
Format
Of the 16 teams in the tournament Belarus qualified as host while Kazakhstan and Italy qualified through the 2013 IIHF World Championship Division I, the rest qualified after a top 14 placement at the 2013 IIHF World Championship. The teams are divided into two groups of which the four best from each will advance to the quarter finals. Here they will meet cross-over as indicated in the section below.
In the group round, points were awarded as follows:
3 points for a win in regulation time (W)
2 point for a team that drew in regulation time but won the following overtime (OTW) or game winning shots (GWS)
1 point for a team that drew and lost the above-mentioned competition (OTL)
0 points for a team that lost in regulation time (L)
If two or more teams finished with an equal number of points in the same group, their standings were determined by the following tiebreaking formula:
Points in games between the tied teams
Goal difference in games between the tied teams
Goals scored in games between the tied teams
Results against the closest best-ranking team outside the original group of tied teams
Results against the next highest ranking team outside the original group of tied teams
Tournament seedings
Final ranking: places 1–4 were determined by the medal games. Other places were determined by playoff positioning, group play positioning in the group, number of points, goal difference, goals scored, and tournament seeding. The two lowest ranking teams overall were relegated to Division I A.
Preliminary round
The schedule was released on 5 September 2013.
All times are local (UTC+3).
Group A
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Group B
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Playoff round
Quarterfinals
Semifinals
Bronze medal game
Gold medal game
Ranking and statistics
Final ranking
The official IIHF final ranking of the tournament:
Scoring leaders
List shows the top skaters sorted by points, then goals.
GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; +/− = Plus/Minus; PIM = Penalties in Minutes; POS = Position
Source: IIHF.com
Leading goaltenders
Only the top ten goaltenders, based on save percentage, who have played at least 40% of their team's minutes, are included in this list.
TOI = Time on Ice (minutes:seconds); SA = Shots Against; GA = Goals Against; GAA = Goals against average; Sv% = Save Percentage; SO = Shutouts
Source: IIHF.com
IIHF broadcasting rights
Notes
References
External links
Category:IIHF World Championship
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2014 IIHF World Championship
IIHF World Championship
2014 IIHF World Championship
Category:May 2014 sports events in Europe
Category:2010s in Minsk | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
star-wars.JPG
C3PO and Luke Skywalker could only imagine where they'd be 30 years later.
(The Associated Press/Lucasfilm)
None of George Lucas' filmmaker friends thought he should make "Star Wars."
"They said, 'George you should be making more of an artistic statement,'" Lucas told The New Yorker in 1997. "People said I should have made 'Apocalypse Now' ... and not 'Star Wars.' They said I should be doing movies like 'Taxi Driver.'"
Many "Star Wars" fans believe Francis Ford Coppola, et al, should have given Lucas the same advice -- more forcefully -- when he decided to do the "Star Wars" prequels.
Because a long time ago (and not in a galaxy far, far away), Lucas was considered a serious writer-director. His first film, 1971's dystopic "THX 1138," had a cult following long before anyone had ever heard of a Jedi knight. Roger Ebert called Lucas' second movie, 1973's "American Graffiti," "not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie's success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant."
Then in 1977 came "Star Wars," which received even more critical acclaim than "Graffiti." More important: it busted box-office records and remade both popular culture and Hollywood culture. Two hugely popular sequels, "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," soon followed.
Lucas has never been the same since. Giving up his one-time ambition to make small, personal movies, he became obsessed with what he calls "popcorn pictures" and then with digital special effects. Though a prolific producer, he didn't direct another movie after "Star Wars" for more than 20 years -- until he returned to his space saga.
In the mid-1990s, he warmed up for his return to directing by diddling with the old "Star Wars" movies, angering fans by changing their look and "feel" and altering an iconic scene that establishes the roguish Han Solo's character. "There will only be one," Lucas said when asked which version of the trilogy he thought the next generation of fans will watch. "And it won't be what I would call the 'rough cut.' It'll be the 'final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this.'"
Then, from 1999 to 2005, Lucas made entirely new "Star Wars" movies: the three prequels, "The Phantom Menace," "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith."
These movies, unlike the first trilogy, mostly have not been well received by critics or even hard-core fans. There was the Jar-Jar Binks embarrassment. There was the plot, such as it was, that revolved around the Trade Federation. And the digital effects that made the movies look like they were populated by video-game characters rather than living creatures. The consensus opinion was that Lucas had become so immersed in his own creation that he had lost all perspective.
One of the reasons the inwardly focused Lucas didn't direct for so long is that he knew he was bad with actors, famously offering one of only two suggestions whenever starting up another take: "OK, same thing, only better" and "faster, more intense." This lack of connection with other humans, along with the awkward dialogue the actors had to cough out in front of green screens, became a serious issue with the prequels. No flesh-and-blood actor, not even Ewan McGregor, gives a particularly memorable performance in the second trilogy. Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman especially suffered.
"Let's face it: the love story between Anakin and Queen Amidala was painful," wrote Hitfix's Chris Eggertsen. "How painful? People actually had to laugh to keep from crying."
The entertainment website Hitfix has returned to this subject often, writing earlier this year: "Did you like the 'Star Wars' prequels? No? Well join the club, the club being basically all of America. But never fear, because JJ Abrams is here to save the franchise from George Lucas, who once cared about something other than making piles and piles of money (we think).
Hitfix, needless to say, is far from alone in this stance.
"Star Wars Episodes I-III are a veritable treasure trove of poor decision-making," Robbie Boland wrote for IGN Entertainment last year. He added: "Now that J.J. Abrams is at the helm for Episode VII, can't we just forget Jar Jar, midi-chlorians and all the rest?"
Are you noticing a trend here? J.J. Abrams, the talented director of the forthcoming "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and one of the men behind the worst series ending in TV history (that would be for the otherwise smart and engrossing "Lost"), has been elevated by "Star Wars" fans into a savior, a true artist far above the crass and juvenile Lucas.
Fast Company's Co.Design blog even geeked out about the redesigned lightsaber in the first "Force Awakens" trailer (watch below), calling it the tool of "a bloodthirsty berserker" and heralding it as a brilliant example of "J.J. Abram's story-driven approach to the 'Star Wars' universe." Continues Co.Design:
"After all of the silly lightsaber ballet of the prequels, it opens up a whole new dynamic, and immediately differentiates the character in the trailer from every 'Star Wars' baddie who has come before him."
This probably wasn't what Lucas had in mind two years ago when he sold the "Star Wars" franchise to Disney for $4 billion. He wanted to make sure his universe lived on long after him. "It's now time for me to pass 'Star Wars' on to a new generation of filmmakers," he said at the time.
To be sure, the 70-year-old Lucas remains revered for creating the "Star Wars" universe. But it's also undeniable that he's now widely considered a hack as a writer-director. Does anyone remember that he scored Oscar nominations for both best director and best screenplay for the original "Star Wars"? More than 30 years later, it barely seems possible.
The release last week of the first trailer for Abrams' "The Force Awakens" has added momentum to the Lucas-is-a-hack viewpoint. It could well be that when the seventh "Star Wars" movie arrives in December of 2015, the first without Lucas in control, it will put the final nail in the coffin of Lucas' reputation as a quality filmmaker.
Consider Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks' reaction to the trailer. He ingeniously reworked it, imagining how the trailer would have looked if Lucas had made it. "The Dark Side," the narrator now intones. "And trade negotiations." Wrote the A.V. Club: "Emphasizing the sheer overkill of dumping CGI versions of classic (and less classic) 'Star Wars' characters into the films, Shanks' parody integrates all the trappings of George Lucas' maligned recuts of the original trilogy while taking some digs at his handling of the prequels." (Watch Shanks' version of the trailer below.)
It's a devastating critique. The message is clear: Abrams is doing it right. Lucas would have screwed it up, so good thing he took his $4 billion and left the "Star Wars" franchise to the professionals.
This isn't remotely fair, of course. Lucas conjured the "Star Wars" universe out of little more than Joseph Campbell essays and old Flash Gordon serials. Studio executives flipping through the script wondered what the heck a chewbacca was. Lucas' friends mocked him. His wife didn't think anything would come of the project. But he persevered and made a movie that changed ... everything. Now, by ensuring the continuation of "Star Wars" with the sale to Disney, he finds himself trivialized by the fans who helped make him wealthy and famous.
"I've never been that much of a money guy," Lucas told Businessweek after the announcement of the Disney deal. "I'm more of a film guy, and most of the money I've made is in defense of trying to keep creative control of my movies."
Lucas now finds himself in an odd position. If his decision to relinquish control of the "Star Wars" franchise proves to be the right one, he ultimately might end up -- like the "rough cut" version of his movie that swept the world 37 years ago -- little more than an interesting artifact, an earlier draft.
-- Douglas Perry | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Increase of a calcium independent transglutaminase activity in the erythrocyte during the infection with Plasmodium falciparum.
We have studied the activity of a calcium dependent transglutaminase (EC 2.3.2.13) during the growth of the parasite Plasmodium falciparum inside the infected human erythrocyte. There is only one detectable transglutaminase in the two-cell-system, and its origin is erythrocytic. No activity was detected in preparations of the parasite devoid of erythrocyte cytoplasm. The Michaelis Menten constants (Km) of the enzyme for the substrates N'N' dimethylcaseine and putrescine were undistinguishable whether the cell extracts used in their determination were obtained from normal or from infected red cells. The total activity of transglutaminase in stringently synchronized cultures, measured at 0.5 mM Ca2+, decreased with the maturation of the parasite. However, a fraction which became irreversibly activated and independent of calcium concentration was detected. The proportion of this fraction grew with maturation; it represented only 20% of the activity in 20 hr-old-trophozoites while in 48-hr-schizonts it was more than 85% of the total activity. The activation of this fraction of transglutaminase did not depend on an increase in the erythrocyte cytoplasmic calcium, since most of the calcium was shown to be located in the parasite. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Shahrak-e Mahdiyeh
Shahrak-e Mahdiyeh (, also Romanized as Shahrak-e Mahdīyeh) is a village in Kenareh Rural District, in the Central District of Marvdasht County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 2,132, in 526 families.
References
Category:Populated places in Marvdasht County | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Excessive Vitamin E Intake Does Not Cause Bone Loss in Male or Ovariectomized Female Mice Fed Normal or High-Fat Diets.
Background: Animal studies on the effects of vitamin E on bone health have yielded conflicting and inconclusive results, and to our knowledge, no studies have addressed the effect of vitamin E on bone in animals consuming a high-fat diet (HFD).Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of excessive vitamin E on bone metabolism in normal male mice and ovariectomized female mice fed a normal diet (ND) or HFD.Methods: In the first 2 experiments, 7-wk-old male mice were fed an ND (16% energy from fat) containing 75 (control), 0 (vitamin E-free), or 1000 (high vitamin E) mg vitamin E/kg (experiment 1) or an HFD (46% energy from fat) containing 0, 200, 500, or 1000 mg vitamin E/kg (experiment 2) for 18 wk. In the third experiment, 7-wk-old sham-operated or ovariectomized female mice were fed the ND (75 mg vitamin E/kg) or HFD containing 0 or 1000 mg vitamin E/kg for 8 wk. At the end of the feeding period, blood and femurs were collected to measure bone turnover markers and analyze histology and microcomputed tomography.Results: In experiments 1 and 2, vitamin E intake had no effect on plasma alkaline phosphatase (ALP), tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) activity, or bone formation, resorption, or volume in femurs in mice fed the ND or HFDs. In experiment 3, bone volume was significantly reduced (85%) in ovariectomized mice compared with that in sham-operated mice (P < 0.05), but it did not differ among mice fed the 3 diets. Plasma ALP and TRAP activities and bone formation and resorption in femur were similar among ovariectomized mice fed the HFD containing 0 or 1000 mg vitamin E/kg.Conclusions: The results suggest that excess vitamin E intake does not cause bone loss in normal male mice or in ovariectomized or sham-operated female mice, regardless of dietary fat content. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
The Evolution Of Erotic Literature
Erotic literature is either based on true encounters or is fictional. It describes the human sexual relationships and instills some of these emotions to the reader. They are very emotionally involving and describe sex in a way that gets the reader aroused.
Erotic literature has been acceptable from as early as the 17th century. Vivid description of sexual acts is regarded to be legal and moral. However, culture highly influenced the description in the literature during the early ages. More and more readers now in the 21st century appreciate erotic literature and prefer reading it.
There is distinction between erotic and pornographic or obscene material that is explicitly defined in the 21st century. Religion and governing rules greatly influence how erotic literature gets written now. Shift in perception has also come to define what was pornographic in the earlier centuries as literature. In old literature, erotic print was at times hidden and the reader could only interpret the implied meaning. Conversely now, the descriptions leave nothing to imagination. The writing candidly explains sexual happenstances.
Erotic literature is an intelligent, artistic and legendary description of sexuality. It affects human feelings and gives pleasure. The church was vocal in condemning erotic literature in early centuries. Now, with the relaxation on the criticisms, only the actual acts of rape and pornography get much attention. The Catholic Church was particularly outspoken in matters sexual in earlier times.
More and more people are drawn to this kind of literature. Due to the demand, the authors are also finding motivation to write further in this category. Music, moves and other forms of entertainment are also following this line of literature. Hollywood’s entertainment has picked most of this written literature as a basis for their movies and series and has subsequently attracted a huge worldwide market.
Erotic literature also teaches the oratorical tricks of the sexual trade. The wording used in old literature was conservative and different. With the evolution of sex language, and with fewer restrictions, the language in this literature content is more open and reflective of evolving terms.
In 18th and 19th century shows, scenes that were explicit sexual content such as kissing scenes were cut off from the viewing. This does not happen in the 21st century. These scenes are common in today’s shows, which actually do not sell much without these. Modern literature includes some of the earlier forbidden acts like masturbation and same gender sexuality.
Sexual content is very interesting, and because of that, it augments cravings and it is wise to major in this content for business and personal inclination. We are pre-set to pursue sex and with it erotic content as a form of companionship and for procreation as purposed. Erotic content will continue to evolve but will not grow old. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Korea surpasses Japan in exports to China. December. 06, 2013 05:58. .
Korea has emerged as the largest exporter to China this year, surpassing Japan. It is the first time in 18 years for Japan to lose its lead in exports to China.
Korea is expected to claim triple crowns in trade by marking the largest exports, the largest trade surpluses and over 1 trillion dollars in trade volume for three consecutive years. These remarkable accomplishments have been made only in half a century since the designation of Trade Day (then Export Day) to celebrate Koreas first 100 million dollar exports in 1964.
According to the analysis by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Trade Day Thursday, Korea is estimated to achieve 560 billion dollars in exports and 43 billion dollars in trade surplus this year, which broke its own records of 555.2 billion dollars in exports in 2011 and 41.17 billion dollars in 41.17 dollars in 2010. Despite anxieties in the global financial market caused by the weak yen and the potential withdrawal of quantitative easing in the U.S., Koreas export has continued to show good performances.
Especially, Koreas exports to China, which is emerging as the largest market of the world, reached 150 billion dollars during the period between January and October this year, surpassing 133.2 billion dollars of Japan. As a result, Korea is certainly to become the largest exporter to China this year, taking over the lead from Japan. Since 1995 when exports to China by countries were first calculated, Japan has not lost its lead even for once.
Export has driven Koreas economic development, also known as the Miracle of the Han River, over the last half century. While Koreas exports stood merely at 24 million dollars in 1954, they dramatically increased with the implementation of five-year economic development plans in 1962. Unlike other development countries, which regulated imports to protect domestic industries, Korea lowered trade barriers and promoted exports. Such a policy approach worked and resulted in dramatic increases in exports from 1 billion dollars in 1971 to 10 billion dollars in 1977.
Koreas exports slowed down a bit in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, but after painful industrial restructuring, its export continued rapid increases led by key export sectors such as semiconductors, electronics and shipbuilding. In 2011, Korea marked one trillion dollars in trade with 515 billion dollars in exports and 485 billion dollars in imports. Korea, which was only the 90th in the global export market in 1964, became the 12th largest exporter in 2000 and the 7th largest exporter in 2011.
President Park Geun-hye said in the annual ceremony for the 50th Trade Day held at COEX in southern Seoul on Thursday, Under the goal of becoming the worlds fifth-largest trading power and reaching two trillion dollars in annual trade by 2020, we will march toward the second phase of becoming a trade powerhouse. The president emphasized that three major tasks of fostering new export industries, enhancing export capabilities of small and middle-class firms and strengthening a free trade foundation should be carried out to achieve these goals. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Beamstop with integrated X-ray sensor.
A versatile beamstop with an integrated sensor has been developed at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) using non-specialized components. A diameter of 1.5 mm was achieved using a commercial subminiature surface mount PIN diode (Phillips BAP64) molded into a tungsten epoxy composite cup. The cup is supported on a thin fiberglass arm with printed circuit traces to transmit the signal from the diode. The assembly has an active area of approximately 100 micro m in diameter. As the diode is encapsulated in plastic, the response diminishes with decreasing energy but is still useful at 6 keV. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Hmmf. I was hoping to hold back this release just a few more years to release a proper final, but now it's out.
There is a final in the works with Atari port , Frequent's remix of Response's track and some other improvements, but all in all it will look pretty much like this. Last time I checked the frame rate was between 16-22 fps depending on the effect so not too bad, but the video is 30 all the way IIRC. Faster than most eph demos, but not as fast as loonies demos ;)
Wow, was expecting some 2nd class compofiller, not this awesome shit! I love it - fantastic colours, lots of original ideas, cool music (although it was a shame to reuse that sample..) and cool effects (blob-thingy especially).. sweet!
Falcon version is right around the corner tho, probably along with an Amiga final...
Hmm, nice words, but it reminds me that we're still waiting to see the final version of this production over a year later. Different group, yes I know ;-)
I've seen the video, will wait until we're running it on fuji-badged hardware to give this its deserved thumb.
Just to add a little pressure, I gather that the Ephidrena demo system has been ported over to the CT60, and little birds tell me that some other productions have been made to run on that flavour of Falcy as well ?!
The 'tough guys' sample is used in a Noisia tune which I first heard on the dance floor here in Trondheim while both Noisia and Frequent by chance were in town. That was awesome :) We used it in Concrete from 1999 and since we are 15 years this was some sort of a backwards reference. We originally got it off a sample cd and I believe the original sample comes from a movie called Thrillseekers. I wanted to have more references to old Darklite and Ephidrena demos really, but it didn't turn out that way in the end.
I think the amount of backward reference was just right. Too many would've been easily received a drawback.
But this reminded me of things like Sumolysbryter with new influences.
Good stuff.
Framerate was OK on the 060/50MHz
@ruderudy : The effect is a voxelball with a smooth heightmap as opposed to the kjøttkakeheightmaps which are more commonl. 64x64 heightmap so it fits in the cache and the colormap is the heightmap offset by 12x12 so I get nice cache hit rate but still have something which looks like shading. Also the effect is in 16 colors so there is some ordered dithering and then there is a subtle overlay made from rice paper to occupy the 4 remaining bitplanes that add some texture. also it has a not so subtle police car.
@photon : did you try outside of workbench? might be lack of chipram and also we have a cgx backend, but we haven't tried it on any cgx cards this time so maybe it doesn't work. We use some bitplane fx. I'm not sure how that works with cgx at all even if i believe cgx takes care of all bpl setting and shit. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Shauna Shapiro
Shauna L. Shapiro is a speaker, author and Professor of Psychology at Santa Clara University known for her work on mindfulness. Recently featured at TedX with her talk "The Power of Mindfulness: What You Practice Grows Stronger".
Education
Shapiro graduated summa cum laude from Duke University, and received a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arizona. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System She has received extensive professional training in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and mindfulness based stress reduction, as well as studied mindfulness meditation in monasteries in Nepal and Thailand.
Academic career
Shapiro is a speaker, author and tenured Professor at Santa Clara University's graduate department of Counseling Psychology. Shapiro is also faculty at the Esalen Institute, and adjunct faculty at Dr. Andrew Weil's Program of Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Medical Center (2000-2004).
Research
Shapiro's research and clinical work focus on the applications of mindfulness to developing greater health and well being. Her work has addressed the effects of mindfulness on the individual, as well as its implications at the global level. Shapiro's extensive clinical research has investigated the effects of mindfulness training across a wide array of populations, examining the impact of mindfulness in medicine, psychology, education, business and law.
Publications
Shapiro has published over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Additionally, Shapiro (along with Linda E. Carlson) is the co-author of the critically acclaimed texts The Art and Science of Mindfulness: Integrating Mindfulness into Psychology and the Helping Professions and "Mindful Discipline: A Loving Approach to Setting Limits and Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child."
References
External links
Santa Clara Faculty Page
Dr Shauna Shapiro Website
Category:American psychologists
Category:American women psychologists
Category:Positive psychologists
Category:Mindfulness (psychology)
Category:Santa Clara University faculty
Category:Duke University alumni
Category:University of Arizona alumni
Category:Living people
Category:Year of birth missing (living people) | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Starr Gathers New Evidence, Testimony In Clinton-Lewinsky Controversy
Clinton's Lawyers To Turn Over Paula Jones Deposition
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Jan. 28) -- Federal investigators traveled to the West Coast Wednesday in their investigation into claims President Bill Clinton had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and asked her to lie about it.
Two prosecutors from the office of independent counsel Ken Starr arrived in Portland, Oregon, Wednesday evening to speak to Andy Bleiler, a 32-year-old married teacher who says he had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky.
Bleiler's attorney, Terry Giles, said his client would also be turning over souvenirs, photos and documents Lewinsky sent to Bleiler while she was an intern.
"These documents are important not for their content, but they indicate certain access to the White House I would find unusual for an intern," Giles said. However, he said the photos were not of Lewinsky and Clinton.
Meanwhile, sources in Washington tell CNN that the FBI is carefully going through clothing seized from Lewinsky's apartment to see of there are any stains or other residue that might link her to the president.
Sources says that so far, agents have not come up with any solid forensic evidence.
Also, sources tell CNN that there has been a delay in a deposition that Linda Tripp was scheduled to give in the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit. It was Tripp who recorded conversations with Lewinsky. Published reports claim the intern spoke of a sexual relationship with Clinton in those tapes.
Judge Gives Permission To Turn Over Deposition
Lawyers for Clinton have agreed to turn over the president's deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit to Starr, who now also has access to an affidavit Lewinsky gave in the case.
U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright, who is hearing the case in Little Rock, Ark., consented to the turnover of those documents.
Clinton's legal team has agreed to turn over the sealed deposition to Starr next week, Clinton attorney Bob Bennett told CNN. Sources say Clinton denied he had a sexual liaison with Lewinsky in his Jan. 17 deposition.
Panetta Goes Before Grand Jury
On Wednesday, former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta spent over eight hours testifying before a grand jury hearing testimony in the Lewinsky matter.
Emerging from the Washington courthouse, Panetta, who was in charge of the White House staff while Lewinsky was an intern, said he spent the day giving detailed answers to questions about his knowledge of Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky.
"I am personally not aware of any improper relationship, sexual or otherwise, by this president with any of the White House interns or anyone else for that matter," Panetta said.
"I've spent the last several hours in an appearance before the grand jury largely detailing the operations of the White House and the physical setting of the White House during the time in which I was chief of staff. I believe I've answered all of the questions that were asked of me. And I will not comment any further on my testimony," Panetta said.
Panetta, who is now living in California, arrived at the courthouse without lawyers. He has said he did not see, nor was made aware of, any compromising encounters between the president and Lewinsky.
Over the weekend, Panetta angered the White House when he told the San Jose Mercury News: "If there's something there, and it leads to him having to step out (of) office, it may be time to do some repair work."
Wednesday Panetta said he had respect for Clinton and hoped he would be able to get back to business.
"My fervent prayer is that for the sake of the president, and the sake of this nation, that this matter is resolved soon so that he and all of us can continue to focus on the issues that affect our families, our nation, and our future," he said.
Panetta Subpoenaed For Jones Case
While in the Washington courthouse, Panetta was served with a subpoena to give a deposition in the Jones lawsuit against Clinton.
In her affidavit in the Jones case, sources say that Lewinsky, 24, denies having an intimate relationship with the president.
White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Wednesday that the president has no plans to offer additional details of his relationship with Lewinsky.
"I think the president has said what he wants to say for now," said McCurry. "There are too many people willing to twist the facts."
Secret Service Meets With Starr's Staff
CNN has learned that Secret Service Director Lewis Merletti met with Starr's staff Tuesday to discuss possible subpoenas for the agents who guard the president, according to an official familiar with the deliberations.
Starr's investigators want to know anything the Secret Service knows about the president's relationship with Lewinsky. Starr also wants to know if agents have other information, including how often they may have witnessed the former intern visit the president or how long she was alone with him, if ever.
But Secret Service officials are worried that having agents testify before a grand jury about non-criminal activity they have witnessed could put a strain on the relationship between agents and those they are sworn to protect. This, they say, could jeopardize the safety of the commander-in-chief and, as a result, jeopardize national security.
Some senior law enforcement officials argue that agents' relationship with the president may be protected by executive privilege.
The talks were described as cordial and are expected to continue. The Secret Service and Starr's office declined to comment.
Bleiler: Lewinsky Had Tendency To 'Twist Facts'
Bleiler, 32, claims he had a five-year affair with Lewinsky, beginning in 1992, when she was a college student, and ending when his wife found out about it. He had been a drama instructor at Lewinsky's high school and says he met her the summer after she graduated.
According to Bleiler, Lewinsky told him she had a sexual relationship with a "high-ranking White House official."
Giles said Bleiler and his wife view Lewinsky as a "young lady obsessed with sex" who has a "tendency sometimes to twist facts in order to enhance her own self-importance."
William Ginsburg, Lewinsky's attorney, confirmed that she and Bleiler had an affair. He said Lewinsky was "a bit upset" over a news conference Bleiler and his wife held on Tuesday, during which they went public with their allegations and cast doubt on her truthfulness.
Ginsburg said Bleiler was a teacher at Lewinsky's high school and after graduation, she had a "sporadic" relationship with him "off and on over a two-to-three year period."
"This is a teacher having sex with a teen-ager," Ginsburg said.
McCurry: Rift Between Clinton, Morris Over Remark
Adding more fuel to the firestorm is an inflammatory public statement made Tuesday by former Clinton political advisor Dick Morris. McCurry reacted angrily to comments by Morris, who said he spoke to the president in recent days and was quoted in a radio interview discussing his views of the first family's sex lives.
"It is disgusting" that journalists would report on the remarks, said McCurry. He said Clinton was aware of the remarks and would likely never speak again to Morris. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Curvaceous redhead is screwed in mouth by her beau
Red-haired beauty with massive natural tits teases her body and pussy in front of the camera. Well-shaped chick gives buddy an awesome blowjob before jumping on his ramrod for a nice cock riding. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
(CNN) Voters in France have comprehensively snubbed the country's political establishment, sending far-right populist Marine Le Pen and political novice Emmanuel Macron through to the second round of the country's presidential election.
With 97% of polling stations declared, newcomer Macron was leading the field with 23.9%. National Front leader Le Pen was close behind on 21.4%
The result upended traditional French politics: Neither candidate hails from the establishment parties that have dominated the country for decades.
It was a stunning victory for Macron, 39, a former investment banker who has never before stood for elected office and now becomes the favorite to become France's next President. "We did it," he told jubilant supporters.
A woman walks past campaign posters for the candidates in the 2017 French presidential election in Paris.
It was also a success for Le Pen, who has spent years attempting to rid the Front National of the toxic legacy of her father. "It is time to free French people from arrogant elites ... I am the people's candidate," she declared. But it was not the comprehensive breakthrough for the far right that some had predicted.
Macron remains the frontrunner, and the markets moved to reflect that. The euro jumped against the dollar to its highest level since November as investors bet that the chances of Le Pen winning power were fading. Stocks got a lift too -- futures markets indicated gains of more than 0.5% for the main Dow Jones and S&P indexes.
Political sea change
The result mirrored others -- such as the British vote to leave the European Union and the US election of Donald Trump -- where voters have rejected traditional elites. "It's a political earthquake in this country and in Europe," veteran French journalist Christine Ockrent told CNN.
Scandal-hit conservative François Fillon and far-left wildcard Jean-Luc Mélenchon trailed in third place and were knocked out of the closely-fought race. Le Pen and Macron are now set to face each other in a runoff election on May 7.
JUST WATCHED Who is Marine Le Pen? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Who is Marine Le Pen? 01:47
Speaking in Henin-Beaumont, a Front National stronghold in northern France, Le Pen rallied her supporters to her anti-immigration, anti-European Union message.
"The French people must seize this opportunity, because the enormous challenge of this election is the wild globalization that puts our civilization at risk," Le Pen said.
"Either we continue to disintegrate without any borders, without any controls, unfair international competition, mass immigration and the free circulation of terrorists, or you choose France with borders," she added.
Her advancement to the second round is not without precedent -- her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, made it to a runoff against the then-incumbent Jacques Chirac in 2002, only to suffer a devastating loss when anti-extremist voters rallied against the National Front leader.
Novice victory
French presidential candidate for the En Marche! movement Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with supporters after casting his vote in Le Touquet.
A huge cheer went up at Macron's campaign headquarters as news of the results came through. "France's political map is tonight redrawn," said CNN's Melissa Bell, who was at the scene.
"Macron's is a remarkable achievement, because he represents optimism," Ockrent said.
As his supporters waved Tricolour flags, and those of the EU, Macron told a rally in Paris he would carry "the voice of hope that we want for our country and for Europe," into the second round.
"The two political parties that have governed France for years have been discarded," he said.
"The deep ... feeling which has led our people to love our country and overcome its divisions is spectacular," he said. "You have shown that the hope of our country was not a dream but a relentless and benevolent will."
Tight security
Sunday's first round contest was held under tight security after a terror attack in Paris Thursday night disrupted the final day of campaigning Friday.
By 5 p.m. local time (11 a.m. ET) 69.42% of France's 47 million registered voters had cast their ballots, according to the Interior Ministry -- a marginally lower turnout than at the same point in 2012.
With 11 names on the ballot, no single candidate had been expected to win an outright majority; instead the top two candidates will face a second and final ballot on May 7.
The incumbent President, socialist François Hollande, whose approval ratings have remained in the doldrums for several years, made the unusual decision not to run for a second term.
National Front denounced
As the results became clear, French politicians and several of the defeated candidates appeared to throw their support behind Macron -- or to speak out against Le Pen.
Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve tweeted an appeal to all voters to back Macron in the second round, "to combat the National Front's disastrous project to take France backwards and to divide the French people."
J'appelle tous les républicains à se rassembler et à voter pour @EmmanuelMacron pic.twitter.com/h4MmdGfZ0i — Bernard Cazeneuve (@BCazeneuve) April 23, 2017
The Socialist Party's candidate, Benoît Hamon secured just 6.4% of the vote, with 97% of the results counted.
Speaking at his campaign headquarters, Hamon said he took full responsibility for the poor result, and urged his supporters to vote for Macron to defeat Le Pen in the second round, "even if he is not left-wing."
Fillon , the mainstream Republican candidate, was an early favorite for the presidency, but his campaign stumbled because of a scandal over claims he paid his wife and children for work they did not do. He denies any wrongdoing. As counting neared completion he trailed Le Pen in third with less than 20% of the vote.
He told his supporters, "we have to choose what is preferable for our country, and I am not going to rejoice. Abstention is not in my genes, especially when an extremist party is close to power."
"The party created by Jean-Marie Le Pen has a history known for its violence and intolerance," Fillon said. "Its economic and social program will lead our country to failure ... I promise you, extremism can only bring unhappiness and division to France."
Outsider
Macron , 39, a former banker, has never held elected office, though he served as economy minister under Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
JUST WATCHED What to know about Emmanuel Macron Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH What to know about Emmanuel Macron 01:32
But he attracted support from left and right with promises to boost the economy and improve security. His party, "En Marche!" which was only created in September, now has more than 200,000 members and his meetings have attracted vast crowds.
Far-right National Front leader Le Pen , 48, is best known for her anti-immigration rhetoric; she told supporters her first move as president would be to impose a temporary ban on legal immigration to France. She has also vowed to take France out of the EU.
Far-left firebrand Mélenchon , whose popularity surged in the final weeks of the race following impressive performances in the television debates, has so far refused to concede defeat, but said he would accept the final results when they came in. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Hair Care Tips And Products
Tricks To Help You Avoid Losing Hair
Losing hair is a part of life that many people have to deal with. If there are bald people in your family, it is possible that you, too, may lose hair easily. If you are experiencing hair thinning, or worried that it may happen to you, you can learn how to stop or prevent losing your hair.
Here’s an idea for those battling hair loss. Most people feel that a haircut that is well trimmed can be very appealing and attractive; this is especially the case if you starting to bald. Cut your hair very short and keep it nicely groomed. In this way, you are always looking your finest.
Vitamin C is extremely useful in stopping hair thinning. One essential element to maintaining lively, healthy hair is collagen, which the body needs vitamin C to produce. There are a number of foods that contain vitamin C, including citrus fruits like oranges. Supplements are also available.
Stress is related to blading. To keep more of your hair, reduce your stress levels. It has been found that stress is a major contributor to the loss of hair. It is possible that your thinning hair will continue if stress is not managed correctly. Find out ways to manage your stress.
If you’re already having problems with hair thinning, the last thing you want to do is use any hair styling products! A lot of these products, mousse, gel, and hairspray, have a lot of chemicals that have been known to damage your hair.
Something for men experiencing hair thinning to try is liquid saw palmetto. Saw palmetto can prevent the loss of hair by inhibiting the growth of dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, a male sex hormone believed to be responsible for balding in men and women. To use this technique, take the juice from the fruit and apply it to your scalp and hair.
Talk to a professional and find out what your options are. Prior to investing time and money on treatments, you should discuss blading with a professional. Your thinning hair could be the result of an underlying condition, or it might be just a temporary loss attributed to something you are dealing with in life. It’s important to get the advice of a professional before you start treatment.
Don’t cut your hair until it has grown in more densely. Cutting it whenever it gets a little long or frizzy can weaken it, so allow it to grow longer.
If your hair is gone, consider wearing wigs. This is helpful for any man or woman who has lost their hair.
Now that you’ve come to the end of this article, you can see that there are a number of ways to prevent, slow or stop the loss of hair. No matter what sort of hair loss you are experiencing, these tips will help you. Do not allow the prospect of baldness get you down. You can get started on preventing hair loss today. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Q:
SAPUI5: Sum of sap.ui.table.Table column in Master-Detail view
I have a Master-Detail view on SAPUI5, using oData. On the Detail, I have a sap.ui.table.Table and I want to calculate the sum of each column and place it on a sap.m.Label, which is placed at the footer of the table.
I am running a function at the busyStateChanged event of the table, responsible for calculating the sum by adding the values the column cells. The problem is that when the event is triggered, the binding context is not available yet. I have tried placing the code in the _onBindingChange() method, but even though the binding context is available then, the values from the oData are not visible yet in the sap.m.Input fields that exist on the table, therefore the sum is calculated wrongly.
As a workaround I have used a Promise to wait for a few ms before calculating the sums (triggered from the busyStateChanged event). The code looks like this:
tableAfterRender: function() {
var that = this;
var waitSomeTime = this.sleep(50);
waitSomeTime.then(function() {
that.calcSums();
});
},
sleep: function(ms) {
return new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, ms));
}
The problem is that Promises do not work with Internet Explorer. Is there an alternative approach (e.g. an alternative to Promise -preferably not a worker, since it requires a new file from what I have read- or a sap.ui.table.Table event) to wait for data loading before calculating the sums?
Thank you very much!
A:
Found the solution:
The code should look like this:
tableAfterRender: function() {
var that = this;
setTimeout(function() {
that.calcSums();
});
}
I removed sleep completely and calculate the sum in setTimeout(). It works perfectly for me.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
An economic model of general practice.
The public perceives that doctors earn too much, while general practitioners complain that their income is dwindling . In the absence of reliable data on doctors' incomes, it is impossible to determine whether medical fees are set appropriately, and what effects Medicare might have on general practice. An economic model of practice, using estimates of income and expenditure derived from specified assumptions, was constructed. Then, the effects of changes in various parameters of the model were examined in turn to show how economic forces are likely to affect the behaviour of doctors. It is shown that a general practitioner working at a moderate rate during a normal working week will earn a low income under current schedule fees. Some implications of these findings for practitioners, fee setting, and the public are explored. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
HBO released the much-anticipated Game of Thrones fourth season trailer on Jan. 12, eliciting equal parts confusion and unbridled excitement among fans.
It’s now common knowledge that the TV phenomenon is an adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s unfinished seven-part series, A Song of Ice and Fire, which he began writing in 1991. It’s since sold more than 24 million books worldwide.
Martin is under pressure from fans to finish the sixth and latest book installment, The Winds of Winter, which isn’t slated for release until at least 2015.
The franchise has spawned bobbleheads, beer, graphic novels, video games and card games — not to mention the hordes of fan fiction and trivia. While we need to wait and see who ends up on the Iron Throne, we've rounded up 15 lesser-known facts about the GoT series, its actors and Martin himself to tide us over.
Game of Thrones returns to HBO on Sunday, April 6.
Things You Didn't Know About 'Game of Thrones' | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
The Escapists Free Content Update Announced by Team17
Jingle Cells out now for existing The Escapists players
UK – Award-winning international games label Team17 is excited to reveal that their smash hit The Escapists will be receiving further free content to celebrate the festive season with the Jingle Cells update!
Following on from last year’s release of the free Santa’s Sweatshop content, our daring escapee elf unfortunately lost control of their sleigh mid-flight and was forced to make an emergency landing – right in the middle of the grounds of the Jingle Cells prison!
Stuck doing hard time again, if you want to get home in time for the holidays you’ll need to sneak around the brand new wintery themed prison sourcing the unique items and crafting supplies that you’ll need to repair the sleigh and make another break for it!
The Jingle Cells update will feature:
New festive themed prison to escape
20 new items and craftables
Make your mark on a New leaderboard
Watch The Escapists 2 Reveal Trailer:
In other exciting The Escapists news, Team17 and Mouldy Toof recently revealed their first gameplay teaser revealing The Escapists 2, the forthcoming sequel to their 1.8 million-selling indie smash hit of 2015. The Escapists 2 will be heading to Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC in 2017.
The Jingle Cells content will be available as a free The Escapists content update for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Mac and Linux on December 8, 2016. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Couple Band Gold
Gold rings for couples are not only the most elegant but also one of the most popular pieces of jewellery that people buy before their weddings. According to the traditions, it is a way to show off your gold ring with a strong protective against the bad influences on our daily life. In addition, the combination of the various gems and designs with the gold comes across as very beautiful and is perfect for all occasions. Couple Gold bands are something that you would were every single day of your life; it has to be something outstanding. CS Jewellers understand this and have a wide selection of Couple Ring Gold with price that you could choose and buy.
Why you should buy Couple Gold Bands?
Gold Rings for Couple are rings that complement each other like the two people who are planning to tie the knot together. There are some very beautiful designs in couple gold rings like lock and key, combination of hearts, a nice combination with your initials and many more. There is no dearth of designs at Chandukaka Saraf & Sons Pvt. Ltd. Because we know that you are going to start a new and a special relationship together. Therefore, we take every step to ensure that you have all the updated designs that are available in the market. We always keep you updated with the latest trends and designs.
Benefits of wearing a Gold Rings
According to the traditions, Gold rings are beneficial for the overall mental and physical health as well. Some of the benefits are as follows:
It attracts the flow of divine consciousness and emits the same
It helps in acupressure of some areas in the finger
It gives an overall calming effect
Despite all the health and spiritual benefits, gold couple bands generally look very beautiful and give a feeling of belongingness to the couple. It is something that can keep your relationship new and rejuvenated. You can totally rely on us for the quality of the Gold that we use in making your very special ring.
Some of the popular Designs in Couple Ring Gold with price
Diamond studded Gold Bands: These couple gold bands are very popular among newly engaged young couple. The small pieces of diamonds on the band give a touch of elegance which complements the rings very nicely. The bands look exactly the same for both partners so it creates a feeling of belongingness and everlasting love. Heart Beat-shaped Gold Ring: You can inscribe the heartbeats on the ring which shows that your hearts beat for each other. This one is also an extremely romantic couple ring. Puzzle Matching Ring in Gold: The puzzle matching ring in gold is a cheeky one which becomes complete when you both join your rings together. It is also a design that a lot of couples are opting these days. Love Birds: You can get Couple Gold Bands inscribed with love birds that show your forever fresh and young kind of love. Inscription of Names or Initials: This is something that has always been popular and the top choice of many. Some couples prefer to inscribe the initials or the first names of their partner on their Gold Band. It is always simple and elegant yet shows the depth of romanticism and love.
These are the top five couple ring gold with price that is popular in the market and CS Jewellers not only having these designs but also some more. You just need to log in to the website to explore these rings or just drop in to one of our stores. We will be happy to show you the wide range of options that we have gold rings for couples. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Q:
Facebook Graph API return only one page of Inbox?
I tried accessing the facebook inbox using the graph API's https://graph.facebook.com/me/inbox?limit=0&access_token=<extended_access_token>
This returns few recent messages of the inbox without access to previous messages. There is no paging for inbox. Also, I couldn't find any documentation related to this. Any help would be appreciated.
Is the API designed to be this way?
A:
Try using the until parameter for pagination of your inbox.
/me/threads?until=2011-05-01
The new inbox is now called threads rather than inbox. See https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/thread/ (yes in the Graph API Explorer it is plural rather than what the documentation shows as singular)
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Q:
Why poudriere creates a pair of jails with and without IP addresses
While testing a port using poudriere with something like this:
poudriere testport -v -j 11amd64 -p custom www/go-www
I got this error:
!!! build failure encountered !!!
[00:00:06] ====>> Error: Build failed in phase: fetch
For some reason, the package can't be found/downloaded, therefore in my try to check if there was an issue with the jails resolver, I listed the existing jails by doing a jls - I got this output that caught my attention:
> jls
JID IP Address Hostname Path
363 127.0.0.1 11amd64-custom /usr/local/poudriere/data/.m/11amd64-custom/ref
364 11amd64-custom /usr/local/poudriere/data/.m/11amd64-custom/ref
365 127.0.0.1 11amd64-custom-job-02 /usr/local/poudriere/data/.m/11amd64-custom/02
366 11amd64-custom-job-02 /usr/local/poudriere/data/.m/11amd64-custom/02
367 127.0.0.1 11amd64-custom-job-01 /usr/local/poudriere/data/.m/11amd64-custom/01
368 11amd64-custom-job-01 /usr/local/poudriere/data/.m/11amd64-custom/01
369 127.0.0.1 11amd64-custom-job-03 /usr/local/poudriere/data/.m/11amd64-custom/03
370 11amd64-custom-job-03 /usr/local/poudriere/data/.m/11amd64-custom/03
The thing that I notice is that if I enter to a jail with no IP address assigned jexec 364 I do can ping/fetch any host, for example, but if I enter to a jail with an IP address jexec 363, in this case 127.0.0.1 I can't ping/resolve:
ping: sendto: Can't assign requested address
Therefore I would like to know what is the idea of creating a pair of jails, one with IP (no routable) and another whitout IP (routable), what is the logic behind?
Just in case this is the configuration I am using for poudriere /usr/local/etc/poudriere.conf:
ZPOOL=tank
ZROOTFS=/poudriere
FREEBSD_HOST=https://download.FreeBSD.org
RESOLV_CONF=/etc/resolv.conf
BASEFS=/usr/local/poudriere
POUDRIERE_DATA=${BASEFS}/data
USE_PORTLINT=no
USE_TMPFS=yes
DISTFILES_CACHE=/usr/ports/distfiles
CHECK_CHANGED_OPTIONS=verbose
CHECK_CHANGED_DEPS=yes
PKG_REPO_SIGNING_KEY=/usr/local/etc/ssl/keys/pkg.key
CCACHE_DIR=/var/cache/ccache
NOLINUX=yes
UPDATE
To fix the problem I entered in interactive mode - notice the -i:
poudriere testport -v -i -j 11amd64 -p custom www/go-www
then:
cd /usr/ports/www/go-www/; make
That fetched the packages and I just copy them to /usr/ports/distfiles/
Then again:
poudriere testport -v -j 11amd64 -p custom www/go-www
That was an ugly hack but the main problem was a bad line in the Makefile that was duplicating content:
GH_ACCOUNT= nbari:DEFAULT,www
Should be:
GH_ACCOUNT= nbari:DEFAULT
But still wondering why the pair of jails is created with and without IP.
A:
poudriere(8) preforms preforms the stages that do not need networking is a more restrictive jail, for added security. Previously the jails were restarted with, or without, networking capabilities, now two separate jails are kept throughout the process to reduce complexity.
The jail with the listed IP address is explicitly set to a loopback address, and the one without inherits it networking from the host:
: ${LOIP6:=::1}
: ${LOIP4:=127.0.0.1}
case $IPS in
01)
localipargs="ip6.addr=${LOIP6}"
ipargs="ip6=inherit"
;;
10)
localipargs="ip4.addr=${LOIP4}"
ipargs="ip4=inherit"
;;
11)
localipargs="ip4.addr=${LOIP4} ip6.addr=${LOIP6}"
ipargs="ip4=inherit ip6=inherit"
;;
esac
...
jstart() {
local name network
network="${localipargs}"
[ "${RESTRICT_NETWORKING}" = "yes" ] || network="${ipargs}"
_my_name name
jail -c persist name=${name} \
path=${MASTERMNT}${MY_JOBID+/../${MY_JOBID}} \
host.hostname=${BUILDER_HOSTNAME-${name}} \
${network} ${JAIL_PARAMS} \
allow.socket_af allow.raw_sockets allow.chflags allow.sysvipc
jail -c persist name=${name}-n \
path=${MASTERMNT}${MY_JOBID+/../${MY_JOBID}} \
host.hostname=${BUILDER_HOSTNAME-${name}} \
${ipargs} ${JAIL_PARAMS} \
allow.socket_af allow.raw_sockets allow.chflags allow.sysvipc
}
The fetch error seems to be because of the duplicate entries in the new distfile (two entries for nbari-www-1.1.1_GH0.tar.gz). The error line
in your log file starts with fetch: 4211, 4211 being the size of the duplicate entry.
The entry in question is being added twice because of the groups specified with GH_ACCOUNT, DEFAUT adds the PORTNAME (www), and www adds itself.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Charter offers about $130 a share for Time Warner Cable
(USA Today) -- Charter Communications said Monday it has offered to buy Time Warner Cable for about $132.50 a share, an effort to outbid competitors to buy the second largest U.S. cable company as the industry battles multiple challenges.
The Stamford, Conn.-based company is willing to pay about $83 a share in cash and the rest in Charter stock, according to a letter sent to TWC by Charter CEO Tom Rutledge Monday. Including debt, the total price for TWC could exceed $61 billion, according to Bloomberg News.
Charter, which is the fourth largest cable operator in the U.S., has made other offers for TWC in recent months. But they were rejected as TWC weighed various options, including talks with Comcast.
"As you know, Time Warner Cable quickly rejected our proposals in June and October, and refused to engage until we met in December. I communicated a willingness to submit a revised proposal in the low $130s, including a cash component of approximately $83," Rutledge wrote.
Shares of Time Warner Cable rose 0.97% in after-hours trading Monday to $133.69.
With competitors to vying to buy TWC, its shares have risen nearly 15% in the last six months. Citing the stock's rise and TWC's reluctance to engage more fully in talks for a merger, Rutledge is revealing his latest offer publicly "to bring the matter to shareholders directly," Charter said. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
WATCH: Kentucky Husband and Wife, Both Trans, Discuss His Pregnancies
Nick and Bianca Bowser talk about how their trans identities have shaped their family, including the birth of their two young sons.
Although public interest in male pregnancy erupted when the story of Thomas Beatie first broke in The Advocate in 2008, many transgender men around the world have been giving birth, albeit more quietly, before and since.
The steady wave of transgender men choosing to carry children has seen coverage of Beatie and others in the U.S., as well as men Canada, Israel, Argentina, Germany, and Chile. And this week, a Kentucky-based couple, Nick and Bianca Bowser, have shared their own family's unique story with the U.K.'s Mirror.
The Bowsers, who are also both transgender and originally from Georgia, share how they were introduced to each other by a mutual friend in 2009. Their connection was immediate, and they soon expressed a mutual desire to have children and were married in late 2011.
When the time came to start planning their family, they considered their options and decided to conceive biological children that Nick would give birth to. Today, the Bowsers say their family is complete with their their three-year-old and one-year-old sons.
In their candid Mirror interview, which follows a year after their first public appearance on Ricki Lake's talkshow Ricki, the couple point out that the biological option was available to them, in part, because gender confirmation surgeries have been too expensive for either to access, especially once they started considering parenthood.
Nick describes giving birth as a way to reach his goal of becoming a father with the means he had access to, but says that he didn't enjoy the physical experience, like some pregnant men — Beatie included — have reported.
In addition, his social climate made his pregnancy more difficult. "My pregnancy was not the norm for a lot of people and so they stared," he recalls. "I couldn't handle the whispering and pointing by the time of the third trimester. …People are afraid of what they don't understand."
Today, the Bowsers say they live a "very quiet life." They are largely private about their trans histories and focus on raising their sons. They discuss, like most parents, the best way and time to talk to their children about where they came from.
"I don't worry about how [our children] will react. We will not treat it as a 'bad' thing," Nick says, explaining that he believes secrecy can only lead to resentment. "And young kids are accepting and nonjudgmental."
Watch the rest of their family's story here. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Meri Awaaz Hi Pehchaan Hai
Meri Awaaz Hi Pehchaan Hai (English: My voice is my identity) is an Indian musical drama television series, which premiered on 7 March 2016 on &TV. It is produced by a brand new production company The House of Originals of Nivedita Basu.
Amrita Rao and Aditi Vasudev along with Deepti Naval and Zarina Wahab played the lead roles. The story showed three generations of two sisters whose lives revolve around music.
The show ended on 15 July 2016 and was replaced by Tere Bin.
Plot
The story is told by Devika Gaikwad, mother of Kalyani and Ketaki, two sisters who grew together, had the same passion for singing, faced many troubles, struggles, even got deceived many times in their personal life and finally tasted immense success; but later had differences, misunderstandings which led their separation for a good 21 years.
In the last episode they reconcile forgetting the differences and the show ends on a good note.
Cast
Jannat Zubair Rahmani / Amrita Rao / Deepti Naval as Kalyani Gaikwad
Mehnaaz Maan / Aditi Vasudev / Zarina Wahab as Ketaki Gaikwad
Pallavi Joshi as Devika Gaikwad "Aai", Kalyani and Ketaki's mother
Suhita Thatte as Dadi/Aaji
Eijaz Khan as Vikrant Khanna
Rituraj Singh as Sohrab Mistry
Reshmi Ghosh as Protima Bose
Aditya Redij as Karan Kapoor
Bhanu Uday as Rajaram Gaikwad
Anant Jog
References
External links
Official website
Category:2016 Indian television series debuts
Category:2010s Indian television series
Category:Hindi-language television programs
Category:Indian drama television series
Category:Television shows set in Mumbai
Category:&TV television series
Category:Indian musical television series
Category:Indian period television series
Category:2016 Indian television series endings | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Wikipedia (en) |
Analysis of the site on a TNF-alpha molecule which affects type II TNF receptor binding in human cells.
The epitope region on the TNF-alpha molecule recognized by monoclonal antibody (mAb) 3-D-6, which neutralizes the cytotoxic activity on murine LM cells, has been determined as Gly24-Gln-Leu-Gln-Trp-Leu-Asn-Arg31. To examine whether this region participates in TNF receptor binding in human cell lines, four kinds of TNF-alpha mutants (Gln25 --> Glu, Gln27 --> Glu, Leu29 --> Val, and Arg31 --> Ser) were prepared using site-directed mutagenesis. One mutant, mRS31, which has a nonconserative mutation at position 31 (Arg --> Ser), showed markedly reduced binding in U-937 cells and in HL-60 cells compared with the wild-type recombinant TNF-alpha (rTNF-alpha). These two cell lines have been reported to have both type I and type II TNF receptors. mRS31 also showed reduced cytotoxicity on U-937 cells. Another mutant, mLV29, which has a conservative mutation at position 29 (Leu --> Val), showed, to a lesser extent, reduced binding in U-937 cells and HL-60 cells and reduced cytotoxic activity in U-937 cells. However, all four TNF-alpha mutants showed a similar binding in HEp-2 cells and in HeLa cells, which have been reported to have only the type I TNF receptor. These results suggest that Leu29 may be involved in direct contact with the type II receptor and that the nonconservative mutation at position 31 may induce a local conformational change in the site involved in type II TNF receptor binding.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Q:
importerror: no module named flask.ext.script
In fact I cannot use any pakage now!
importerror: no module named flask.ext.script
importerror: no module named Pymongo
A:
It seems that you virtual environment doesn't work. You've installed the flask-script package, but when you run the script, it still looks for it in C:\Python3.4. You may give us more info so that we can figure it out where is wrong. (How do you install it, how do you active the virtualenv, does reinstall virtualenv work, close the cmd shell and try again works?)
Also note that from flask.ext.extension import xxx is the old way to use the flask extension. Instead you should use from flask_script import Manager, Server if you are using the latest flask-script 2.0.5
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
Elephant
Elephantidae (the elephants) is a family of pachyderm, and the
only remaining family in the order Proboscidea in the class Mammalia.
Elephantidae has three living species: the African Bush Elephant and the African
Forest Elephant (until recently known collectively as the African Elephant) and
the Asian Elephant (also known as the Indian Elephant). Other species have
become extinct since the last ice age, which ended about 10,000 years ago.
Elephants in Nashville Zoo
Video, Movie, Film, Clip. Mpeg, Wmv
Socialize this page
Elephants are mammals, and the largest land animals alive today. The elephant's
gestation period is 22 months, the longest of any land animal. At birth it is
common for an elephant calf to weigh 120 kg (265 lb). An elephant may live as
long as 70 years, sometimes longer. The largest elephant ever recorded was shot
in Angola in 1956. It was male and weighed about 12,000 kg (26,400 lb)[1].
The smallest elephants, about the size of a calf or a large pig, were a
prehistoric variant that lived on the island of Crete until 5000 BC, possibly
3000 BC.
Elephants are increasingly threatened by human intrusion, with the African
elephant population plummeting from 3 million in 1970 to roughly 600,000 in
1989, to 272,000 in 2000 and then to between 400,000 and 660,000 in 2003
[2]. Human-elephant conflicts kill 150
elephants and up to 100 people per year in Asia.[3]
The elephant is now a protected species worldwide, placing restrictions on
capture, domestic use, and trade in products such as ivory.
Zoology
Varieties
It has long been known that the African and Asian elephants are separate
species. African elephants tend to be larger than the Asian species (up to 4 m
high and 7500 kg) and have bigger ears. Male and female African elephants have
long tusks, while male and female Asian Elephants have shorter tusks, with tusks
in females being almost non-existent. African elephants have a dipped back,
smooth forehead and two "fingers" at the tip of their trunks, as compared with
the Asian species which have an arched back, two humps on the forehead and have
only one "finger" at the tip of their trunks.
There are two populations of African elephants, Savannah and Forest, and
recent genetic studies have led to a reclassification of these as separate
species, the forest population now being called Loxodonta cyclotis, and
the Savannah (or Bush) population termed Loxodonta africana. This
reclassification has important implications for conservation, because it means
where there were thought to be two small populations of a single endangered
species, there may in fact be two separate species, each of which is even more
severely endangered. There's also a potential danger in that if the forest
elephant isn't explicitly listed as an endangered species, poachers and
smugglers might thus be able to evade the law forbidding trade in endangered
animals and their body parts.
The Forest elephant and the Savannah elephant can hybridise successfully,
though their preference for different terrains reduces the opportunities to
hybridise. Many captive African elephants are probably generic African elephants
as the recognition of separate species has occurred relatively recently.
Although hybrids between different animal genera are usually impossible, in
1978 at Chester Zoo, an Asian elephant cow gave birth to a hybrid calf sired by
an African elephant bull (the old terms are used here as this pre-dates current
classifications). The pair had mated several times, but pregnancy was believed
to be impossible. "Motty", the resulting hybrid male calf, had an African
elephant's cheek, ears (large with pointed lobes) and legs (longer and slimmer),
but the toenail numbers, (5 front, 4 hind) and the single trunk finger of an
Asian elephant. The wrinkled trunk was like an African elephant. The forehead
was sloping with one dome and two smaller domes behind it. The body was African
in type, but had an Asian-type centre hump and an African-type rear hump. Sadly
the calf died of infection 12 days later. It is preserved as a mounted specimen
at the British Natural History Museum, London. There are unconfirmed rumours of
three other hybrid elephants born in zoos or circuses, all are said to have been
deformed and did not survive.
African Elephant
"This is nothing like you will have seen before. I thought I was a cynic, but this really has re-opened my eyes to the raw power of nature."
The mammals of the genus Loxodonta, often known collectively as
African elephants, are found in several regions throughout the continent, after
which they are named. In recent years, Loxodonta has received the
attention of the world because of its dwindling numbers. Today there are
approximately 600,000 African elephants in the world
[4]. Some believe this represents a
stable population and that measures to protect them are unnecessary. Others
argue that while elephants are locally overabundant in certain areas, it is
impossible to ignore the fact that the overall population has dropped by a
staggering amount. As recently as 1979 there were an estimated 1.3 million
African elephants. Now less than one half of that population exists. This
decline is attributed primarily to poaching and habitat loss.
Yet the total African elephant population appears to have been more or less
stable for more than a decade (despite being down tenfold from a half century
ago). Some regions of Africa are dealing with local elephant overpopulations,
most regions are not. When reporting 2002 estimates of 460,000 (probable) to
560,000 (possible) African elephants, researchers noted that this represented an
increase over their 1998 figures (360,000 probable, 500,000 possible) suggestive
of modest population growth. However this apparent increase could have been an
artefact of the much larger area represented in the 2002 survey – or "many other
factors unrelated to overall elephant numbers" (From IUCN's African Elephant
Status Report 2002, page 17: http://iucn.org).
The papers presented in Pachyderm magazine (journal of the African Elephant,
African Rhino and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups) through June 2006 do not give
any indication of a recent boom in elephant population [1]. A "comprehensive
African Elephant Status Report (AESR) is … expected to be published some time in
2006" based on their current data.
African elephants are distinguished from Asians in several ways. The most
noticeable difference is the ears. Africans' ears are much larger and are shaped
like the continent of their origin. The African elephant is typically larger
than the Asian and has a concave back. Both males and females have external
tusks and are usually less hairy than their Asian cousins.
Until the late 20th century, scientists recognized one species of African
elephants, Loxodonta africana, and two subspecies, or races, within the
species. Recent DNA analysis has led scientists to reclassify the two races as
distinct species.
"you will be thoroughly entertained AND informed by Steve Irwin - the one and only Crocodile Hunter!"
Today, Loxodonta africana refers specifically to the Savanna Elephant,
the largest of all the elephants. In fact, it is the largest land animal in the
world, standing up to 13 ft (4 m) at the shoulder and weighing approximately
15,400 lb (7,000 kg). The average male stands about 3 m (10 ft) high at the
shoulder and weighs about 5500–6000 kg, female being much smaller. Most often,
Savannah Elephants are found in open grasslands, marshes, and lake shores. They
range over most of Africa, south of the Sahara Desert.
The other, less numerous species is the Forest Elephant, recently
reclassified as Loxodonta cyclotis. Compared with the Savanna Elephant,
its ears are usually smaller and rounder, and its tusks are also thinner and
straighter and are not directed outwards so much. The Forest Elephant can weigh
up to 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) and stand about 10 ft (3 m) tall. Much less is known
about these animals than their savannah cousins because environmental and
political obstacles make them very difficult to study. Normally they inhabit the
dense African rain forests of central and western Africa, though occasionally
they do inhabit the edges of forests and overlap territories with bush
elephants.
Asian Elephant
Today scientists estimate the world population of Asian elephants, also
called Indian Elephants or Elephas maximus, to be approximately 40,000,
less than one-tenth the number of African elephants. Perhaps the Asian
elephants' decline has been less noticeable because it has been more gradual.
The causes of this decline are much the same as that of the African.
As with the Loxodonta, there are distinct subspecies of Elephas
maximus. In general, the Asian elephant is smaller than the African. It has
smaller ears, shaped like the subcontinent of India, and typically only the
males have large external tusks. An Asian elephant can also be distinguished by
the large bulges of depigmentation on the skin.
The first subspecies is the Sri Lankan Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus
maximus). Found only on the island of Sri Lanka, a small country off the
southeast coast of India, it is the largest of the Asians. There are an
estimated total of only 3,000-4,500 members of this subspecies left today in the
wild, although no accurate census has been carried out in the recent past. Large
males can weigh upward to 12,000 lb and stand over 11 feet tall. Sri Lankan
males have very large cranial bulges, and both sexes have more areas of
depigmentation than are found in the other Asians. Typically their ears, face,
trunk, and belly have large concentrations of pink-speckled skin. There is an
Orphanage for elephants in Pinnawala Sri Lanka, which gives shelter to disabled,
injured elephants. This program plays a large role in protecting the Sri Lankan
Elephant from extinction.
Another subspecies, the Mainland Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus indicus)
makes up the bulk of the Asian elephant population. Numbering approximately
36,000, these elephants are lighter gray in colour, with depigmentation only on
the ears and trunk. Large males will ordinarily weigh only about 11,000 lb but
are as tall as the Sri Lankan. The mainland Asian can be found in 11 Asian
countries, from India to Indonesia. They prefer forested areas and transitional
zones, between forests and grasslands, where greater food variety is available.
The smallest of all the elephants is the Sumatran Asian Elephant (Elephas
maximus sumatranus). Population estimates for this group range from 33,000
to 53,000 individuals. It is very light gray and has less depigmentation than
the other Asians, with pink spots only on the ears. Mature Sumatrans will
usually only measure about 10 ft (3 m) at the shoulder and weigh less than 9,000
lb. An enormous animal nonetheless, it is considerably smaller than its other
Asian (and African) cousins and exists only on the island of Sumatra, usually in
forested regions and partially wooded habitats.
In 2003 a further subspecies was identified on Borneo. Named the Borneo pygmy
elephant, it is smaller and more tame than other Asian elephants. It also has
relatively larger ears, longer tail and straighter tusks.
Body characteristics
Trunk
The proboscis, or trunk, is a fusion of the nose and upper lip, elongated and
specialized to become the elephant's most important and versatile appendage.
African elephants are equipped with two finger like projections at the tip of
their trunk, while Asians have only one. According to biologists, the elephant's
trunk is said to have over forty thousand individual muscles in it,
making it sensitive enough to pick up a single blade of grass, yet strong enough
to rip the branches off a tree.
Most herbivores (plant eaters, like the elephant) are adapted with teeth for
cutting and tearing off plant materials. However, except for the very young or
infirm, elephants always use their trunks to tear up their food and then place
it in their mouth. They will graze on grass or reach up into trees to grasp
leaves, fruit, or entire branches. If the desired food item is too high up, the
elephant will wrap its trunk around the tree or branch and shake its food loose
or sometimes simply knock the tree down altogether. The trunk is also used for
drinking. Elephants suck water up into the trunk (up to fifteen quarts [14.2
liters] at a time) and then blow it into their mouth. Elephants also inhale
water to spray on their body during bathing. On top of this watery coating, the
animal will then spray dirt and mud, which act as a protective sunscreen.
This appendage also plays a key role in many social interactions. Familiar
elephants will greet each other by entwining their trunks, much like a
handshake. They also use them while play-wrestling, caressing during courtship,
and for dominance displays - a raised trunk can be a warning or threat, while a
lowered trunk can be a sign of submission. Elephants can defend themselves very
well by flailing their trunk at unwanted intruders or by grasping and flinging
them.
An elephant also relies on its trunk for its highly developed sense of smell.
Raising the trunk up in the air and swivelling it from side to side, like a
periscope, it can determine the location of friends, enemies, and food sources.
Baby Elephant
Tusks
The tusks of an elephant are its second upper incisors. Tusks grow
continuously; an adult male's tusks will grow about seven inches a year. Tusks
are indispensable to an elephant: they are used to dig for water, salt, and
roots; to debark trees, to eat the bark; to dig into baobab trees to get at the
pulp inside; and to move trees and branches when clearing a path. In addition,
they are used for marking trees to establish territory and occasionally as
weapons.
Like humans who are typically right- or left-handed, elephants are usually
right- or left-tusked. The dominant tusk, called the master tusk, is generally
shorter and more rounded at the tip from wear. Both male and female African
elephants have large tusks that can reach over 10 ft (3 m) in length and weigh
over 200 lb (90 kg). In the Asian species, only the males have large tusks.
Female Asians have tusks which are very small or absent altogether. Asian males
can have tusks as long as the much larger Africans, but they are usually much
slimmer and lighter; the heaviest recorded is 86 lb (39 kg). The tusk of both
species is mostly made of calcium phosphate in the form of apatite. As a piece
of living tissue, it is relatively soft (compared with other minerals such as
rock), and the tusk, also known as ivory, is strongly favoured by artisans for
its carvability. The desire for elephant ivory has been one of the major factors
in the dramatic decline of the world's elephant population.
Some extinct relatives of elephants had tusks in their lower jaws also (e.g.
Tetrabelodon), or instead (e.g. Dinotherium).
Teeth
Elephants' teeth are very different from those of most other mammals. Over
their lives they usually have 28 teeth. These are:
The two upper second incisors: these are the tusks.
The milk precursors of the tusks.
12 premolars, 3 in each side of each jaw.
12 molars, 3 in each side of each jaw.
Unlike most mammals, which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a
permanent set of adult teeth, elephants have cycles of tooth rotation throughout
their entire life. After one year the tusks are permanent, but the other teeth
are replaced five times in an elephant's life. The teeth do not emerge from the
jaws vertically like with human teeth. Instead, they have a horizontal
progression, like a conveyor belt. New teeth grow in at the back of the mouth,
pushing older teeth toward the front, where they wear down with use and the
remains fall out. When an elephant becomes very old, the last set of teeth is
worn to stumps, and it must rely on softer foods to chew. Very elderly elephants
often spend their last years exclusively in marshy areas where they can feed on
soft wet grasses. Eventually, when the last teeth fall out, the elephant will be
unable to eat and will die of starvation. However, as more habitat is destroyed,
the elephants' living space becomes smaller and smaller; the elderly no longer
have the opportunity to roam in search of more appropriate food and will,
consequently, die of starvation at an earlier age.
Tusks in the lower jaw are also second incisors. These grew out large in
Dinotherium and some mastodons, but in modern elephants they disappear early
without erupting.
Skin
Elephants are called pachyderms, which means thick-skinned animals. An
elephant's skin is extremely tough around most parts of its body and measures
about 2.5 cm (1 in) thick. However, the skin around the mouth and inside of the
ear is paper thin. Normally, the skin of an Asian is covered with more hair than
its African counterpart. This is most noticeable in the young. Asian calves are
usually covered with a thick coat of brownish red fuzz. As they get older, this
hair darkens and becomes more sparse, but it will always remain on their heads
and tails.
The species of elephants are typically greyish in colour, but the Africans
very often appear brown or reddish from wallowing in mud holes of coloured soil.
Wallowing is actually a very important behaviour in elephant society. Not only
is it important for socialization, but the mud acts as a sunscreen, protecting
their skin from harsh ultraviolet radiation. Though tough, an elephant's skin is
very sensitive. Without regular mud baths to protect it from burning, as well as
from insect bites and moisture loss, an elephant's skin would suffer serious
damage. After bathing, the elephant will usually use its trunk to blow dirt on
its body to help dry and bake on its new protective coat. As elephants are
limited to smaller and smaller areas, there is less water available, and local
herds will often come too close over the right to use these limited resources.
Wallowing also aids the skin in regulating body temperatures. Elephants spend
every day fighting an uphill battle to stay cool. They have a very difficult
time releasing heat through the skin because, in proportion to their body size,
they have very little of it. The ratio of an elephant's mass to the surface area
of its skin is many times that of a human. Elephants have even been observed
lifting up their legs to expose the soles of their feet, presumably in an effort
to expose more skin to the air. Since wild elephants live in very hot climates,
they must have other means of getting rid of excess heat.
Legs and Feet
An elephant's legs are great straight pillars, as they must be to support its
bulk. The elephant needs less muscular power to stand because of its straight
legs and large pad-like feet. For this reason an elephant can stand for very
long periods of time without tiring. In fact, African elephants rarely lie down
unless they are sick or wounded. Indian elephants, in contrast, lie down
frequently.
The feet of an elephant are nearly round. African elephants have three nails
on each hind foot, and four on each front foot. Indian elephants have four nails
on each hind foot and five on each front foot. Beneath the bones of the foot is
a tough, gelatinous material that acts as a cushion or shock absorber. Under the
elephant's weight the foot swells, but it gets smaller when the weight is
removed. An elephant can sink deep into mud, but can pull its legs out readily
because its feet become smaller when they are lifted.
An elephant is a good swimmer, but it can not trot, jump, nor gallop. It does
have two gaits: a walk; and a faster gait that is similar to running.
In walking, the legs act as pendulums, with the hips and shoulders rising and
falling while the foot is planted on the ground. With no "aerial phase", the
faster gait does not meet all the criteria of running, as elephants always have
at least one foot on the ground. However, an elephant moving fast uses its legs
much like a running animal, with the hips and shoulders falling and then rising
while the feet are on the ground. In this gait, an elephant will have three feet
off the ground at one time. As both of the hind feet and both of the front feet
are off the ground at the same time, this gait has been likened to the hind legs
and the front legs taking turns running.[41]
Although they start this "run" at only 8 km/h,[42]
elephants can reach speeds up to 40 km/h (25 mph),[43]
all the while using the same gait. At this speed, most other four-legged
creatures are well into a gallop, even accounting for leg length. Spring-like
kinetics could explain the difference between the motion of elephants and other
animals.[44]
Ears
The large flapping ears of an elephant are also very important for
temperature regulation. Elephant ears are made of a very thin layer of skin
stretched over cartilage and a rich network of blood vessels. On hot days,
elephants will flap their ears constantly, creating a slight breeze. This breeze
cools the surface blood vessels, and then the cooler blood gets circulated to
the rest of the animal's body. The hot blood entering the ears can be cooled as
much as ten degrees Fahrenheit before returning to the body. Differences in the
ear sizes of African and Asian elephants can be explained, in part, by their
geographical distribution. Africans originated and stayed near the equator,
where it is warmer. Therefore, they have bigger ears. Asians live farther north,
in slightly cooler climates, and thus have smaller ears.
The ears are also used in certain displays of aggression and during the
males' mating period. If an elephant wants to intimidate a predator or rival, it
will spread its ears out wide to make itself look more massive and imposing.
During the breeding season, males give off an odor from a gland located behind
their eyes. Joyce Poole, a well-known elephant researcher, has theorized that
the males will fan their ears in an effort to help propel this "elephant
cologne" great distances.
Walking at a normal pace an elephant covers about 2 to 4 miles an hour (3 to
6 km/h) but they can reach 24 miles an hour (40 km/h) at full speed.
Evolution
Although the fossil evidence is uncertain, some scientists believe there is
genetic evidence that the elephant family shares distant ancestry with the
Sirenians (sea cows) and the hyraxes. In the distant past, members of the hyrax
family grew to large sizes, and it seems likely that the common ancestor of all
three modern families was some kind of amphibious hyracoid. One theory suggests
that these animals spent most of their time under water, using their trunks like
snorkels for breathing. Modern elephants have retained this ability and are
known to swim in that manner for up to 6 hours and 50 km.
In the past, there was a much wider variety of elephant genera, including the
mammoths, stegodons and deinotheria.
Diet
Elephants are herbivores, spending 16 hours a day collecting plant food.
Their diet is at least 50% grasses, supplemented with leaves, bamboo, twigs,
bark, roots, and small amounts of fruits, seeds and flowers. Because elephants
only digest 40% of what they eat, they have to make up for their digestive
system's lack of efficiency in volume. An adult elephant can consume 300–600 lb
(140–270 kg) of food a day. 60% of that food leaves the elephant's body
undigested.
Social behaviour
Elephants live in a structured social order. The social lives of male and
female elephants are very different. The females spend their entire lives in
tightly knit family groups made up of mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunts.
These groups are led by the eldest female, or matriarch. Adult males, on the
other hand, live mostly solitary lives.
The social circle of the female elephant does not end with the small family
unit. In addition to encountering the local males that live on the fringes of
one or more groups, the female's life also involves interaction with other
families, clans, and subpopulations. Most immediate family groups range from
five to fifteen adults, as well as a number of immature males and females. When
a group gets too big, a few of the elder daughters will break off and form their
own small group. They remain very aware of which local herds are relatives and
which are not.
The life of the adult male is very different. As he gets older, he begins to
spend more time at the edge of the herd, gradually going off on his own for
hours or days at a time. Eventually, days become weeks, and somewhere around the
age of fourteen, the mature male, or bull, sets out from his natal group for
good. While males do live primarily solitary lives, they will occasionally form
loose associations with other males. These groups are called bachelor herds. The
males spend much more time than the females fighting for dominance with each
other. Only the most dominant males will be permitted to breed with cycling
females. The less dominant ones must wait their turn. It is usually the older
bulls, forty to fifty years old, that do most of the breeding.
The dominance battles between males can look very fierce, but typically they
inflict very little injury. Most of the bouts are in the form of aggressive
displays and bluffs. Ordinarily, the smaller, younger, and less confident animal
will back off before any real damage can be done. However, during the breeding
season, the battles can get extremely aggressive, and the occasional elephant is
injured. During this season, known as musth, a bull will fight with almost any
other male it encounters, and it will spend most of its time hovering around the
female herds, trying to find a receptive mate.
African as well as Asiatic males will engage in same-sex bonding and
mounting. Such encounters are often associated with affectionate interactions,
such as kissing, trunk intertwining, and placing trunks in each other's mouths.
The encounters are analogous to heterosexual bouts, one male often extending his
trunk along the other's back and pushing forward with his tusks to signify his
intention to mount. Unlike heterosexual relations, which are always of a
fleeting nature, those between males result in a "companionship", consisting of
an older individual and one or two younger, attendant males. Same-sex relations
are common and frequent in both sexes, with Asiatic elephants in captivity
devoting roughly 46% of sexual encounters to same-sex activity.
Rogue elephant is a term for a lone, violently aggressive wild elephant. It
is a calque of the Sinhala term hora aliya. Its introduction to English
has been attributed by the Oxford English Dictionary to Sir James Emerson
Tennent, but this usage may have been pre-dated by William Sirr.
Communication
It has been discovered that elephants can communicate over long distances via
low frequency infrasound, a sub-sonic rumbling which can travel through the
ground farther than sound travels in the air. This can be felt by the sensitive
skin of an elephant's feet, which pick up the resonant vibrations in much the
same way as the flat skin on the head of a drum. We have only been able to
discover this new aspect of elephant social communication thanks to
breakthroughs in audio technology, which can pick up frequencies outside the
range of the human ear. Pioneering research in elephant infrasound communication
was done by Katy Payne of the Elephant Listening Project
[6], and is detailed in her book
Silent Thunder. Though this research is still in its infancy, it is helping
to solve many prior mysteries such as how elephants can find distant potential
mates, and how social groups are able to coordinate their movements over an
extensive territory range.
Reproduction, calves, and calf rearing
Reproduction
Females (cows) reach sexual maturity at around 9-12 years of age and become
pregnant for the first time, on average, around age 13. They can reproduce until
ages 55-60.
Females give birth at intervals of about every 5 years.
An elephant's gestation (pregnancy) period lasts about 22 months (630-660
days), the longest gestation period of any mammal, after which one calf
typically is born. Twins are rare.
Labor ranges in length from 5 minutes to 60 hours. The average length of
labor is 11 hours.
In the wild, the mother is accompanied by other adult females (aunts) that
protect the young.
In the wild, baby elephants are raised and nurtured by the whole family
group, practically from the moment they are born.
Motherhood and calf rearing
The first sound a newborn calf usually makes is a sneezing or snorting sound
to clear its nasal passages of fluids. (In the first few minutes after a captive
birth, the keepers must monitor the calf closely for the first sound or
movement. Whichever happens first, the mother typically responds to her new baby
with surprise and excitement.)
With the help of its mother, a newborn calf usually struggles to its feet
within 30 minutes of birth. For support, it will often lean on its mother's
legs.
A newborn calf usually stands within one hour and is strong enough to follow
its mother in a slow-moving herd within a few days.
Unlike most mammals, female elephants have a single pair of mammary glands
located just behind the front legs. When born, a calf is about 3 ft (90 cm)
high, just tall enough to reach its mother's nipples.
A calf suckles with its mouth, not its trunk, which has no muscle tone. To
clear the way to its mouth so it can suckle, the calf will flop its trunk onto
its forehead.
A newborn calf suckles for only a few minutes at a time but will suckle many
times per day, consuming up to 11 litres (3 gallons) of milk in a single day.
A calf may nurse for up to 2 years of age or older. Complete weaning depends
on the disposition of the mother, the amount of available milk, and the arrival
of another calf.
Newborn calves learn primarily by observing adults, not from instinct. For
example, a calf learns how to use its trunk by watching older elephants using
their trunks.
It takes several months for a calf to control the use of its trunk. This can
be observed as the calf trips over its trunk or as the trunk wiggles like a
rubbery object when the calf shakes its head.
Elephant calves
Elephant social life, in many ways, revolves around breeding and raising of
the calves. A female will usually be ready to breed around the age of thirteen,
at which time she will seek out the most attractive male to mate with.
Females are generally attracted to bigger, stronger, and, most importantly,
older males. Such a reproductive strategy tends to increase their offspring's'
chances of survival.
After a twenty-two-month pregnancy, the mother will give birth to a calf that
will weigh about 250 lb and stand over 2½ feet tall. Elephants have a very long
childhood. They are born with fewer survival instincts than many other animals.
Instead, they must rely on their elders to teach them the things they need to
know. The ability to pass on information and knowledge to their young has always
been a major asset in the elephant's struggle to survive. Today, however, the
pressures humans have put on the wild elephant populations, from poaching to
habitat destruction, mean that the elderly often die at a younger age, leaving
fewer teachers for the young.
All members of the tightly knit female group participate in the care and
protection of the young. Since everyone in the herd is related, there is never a
shortage of baby-sitters. In fact, a new calf is usually the centre of attention
for all herd members. All the adults and most of the other young will gather
around the newborn, touching and caressing it with their trunks. The baby is
born nearly blind and at first relies, almost completely, on its trunk to
discover the world around it.
Allomothers
After the initial excitement dies down, the mother will usually select
several full-time baby-sitters, or "allomothers", from her group. According to
Cynthia Moss, a well-known researcher, these allomothers will help in all
aspects of raising the calf. They walk with the young as the herd travels,
helping the calves along if they fall or get stuck in the mud. The more
allomothers a baby has, the more free time its mother has to feed herself.
Providing a calf with nutritious milk means the mother has to eat more
nutritious food herself. So, the more allomothers, the better the calf's chances
of survival.
Usefulness to the environment
Elephants' foraging activities help to maintain the areas in which they
live:-
By pulling down trees to eat leaves, breaking branches, and pulling out
roots they create clearings in which new young trees and other vegetation grow
to provide future nutrition for elephants and other organisms.
Elephants make pathways through the environment that are used by other
animals to access areas normally out of reach. The pathways have been used by
several generations of elephants, and today people are converting many of them
to paved roads.
During the dry season elephants use their tusks to dig into dry river beds
to reach underground sources of water. These newly dug water holes may become
the only source of water in the area.
Elephants are a species which many other organisms depend on. For example,
termites eat elephant faeces and often begin building termite mounds under piles
of elephant faeces.
Threat of extinction
The threat to the African elephant presented by the ivory trade is unique to
the species. Another threat to elephant's survival in general is the ongoing
cultivation of their habitats with increasing risk of conflicts of interest with
human cohabitants. Lacking the massive tusks of its African cousins, the Asian
elephant's demise can be attributed mostly to loss of its habitat.
As larger patches of forest disappear, the ecosystem is affected in profound
ways. The trees are responsible for anchoring soil and absorbing water runoff.
Floods and massive erosion are common results of deforestation. Elephants need
massive tracts of land because, much like the slash-and-burn farmers, they are
used to crashing through the forest, tearing down trees and shrubs for food and
then cycling back later on, when the area has regrown. As forests are reduced to
small pockets, elephants become part of the problem, quickly destroying all the
vegetation in an area, eliminating all their resources.
Larger, long-lived, slow-breeding animals, like the elephant, are more
susceptible to overhunting than other animals. They cannot hide, and it takes
many years for an elephant to grow and reproduce. An elephant needs an average
of 300 lb (140 kg) of vegetation a day to survive. As large predators are
hunted, the local small grazer populations (the elephant's food competitors)
find themselves on the rise. The increased number of herbivores ravage the local
trees, shrubs, and grasses.
However, despite all the fears of extinction, some scholars allege that the
elephant population of Africa as a whole has actually increased over the past
ten years, most notably in Botswana, which currently is experiencing elephant
overpopulation. [2]
National parks
Africa's first official reserve eventually became one of the world's most
famous and successful national parks. Kruger National Park in South Africa first
became a reserve against great opposition in 1898 (then Sabi Reserve). It was
deproclaimed and reproclaimed several times before it was renamed and granted
national park status in 1926. It was to be the first of many.
Of course, there were many problems in establishing these reserves. For
example, elephants range through a wide tract of land with little regard for
national borders. however, when most parks were created, the boundaries were
drawn at the human-made borders of individual countries. Once a fence was
erected, many animals found themselves cut off from their winter feeding grounds
or spring breeding areas. Some animals died as a result, while some, like the
elephants, just trampled through the fences. This did little to belie their
image as a crop-raiding pest. The more often an elephant wandered off its
reserve, the more trouble it got into, and the more chance it had of being shot
by an angry farmer. When confined to small territories, elephants can inflict an
enormous amount of damage to the local landscapes. Today there are still many
problems associated with these parks and reserves, but there is now little
question as to whether or not they are necessary. As scientists learn more about
nature and the environment, it becomes very clear that these parks may be the
elephant's last hope against the rapidly changing world around them.
Additionally, Kruger National Park has suffered from elephant overcrowding,
at the expense of other species of wildlife within the reserve. South Africa
slaughtered 14,562 elephants in the reserve between 1967 and 1994; it stopped in
1995, mostly due to international and local pressure. Without action, it is
predicted that the elephant population in Kruger National Park will triple to
34,000 by 2020.[7]
Humanity and elephants
Harvest from the wild
The harvest of elephants, both legal and illegal, has had some unexpected
consequences on elephant anatomy as well. African ivory hunters, by killing only
tusked elephants, have given a much larger chance of mating to elephants with
small tusks or no tusks at all. The propagation of the absent-tusk gene has
resulted in the birth of large numbers of tuskless elephants, now approaching
30% in some populations (compare with a rate of about 1% in 1930). Tusklessness,
once a very rare genetic abnormality, has become a widespread hereditary trait.
It is possible, if unlikely, that continued selection pressure could bring
about a complete absence of tusks in African elephants, a development normally
requiring thousands of years of evolution. The effect of tuskless elephants on
the environment, and on the elephants themselves, could be dramatic. Elephants
use their tusks to root around in the ground for necessary minerals, tear apart
vegetation, and spar with one another for mating rights. Without tusks, elephant
behavior could change dramatically. [8]
Domestication and use
Elephants have been working animals used in various capacities by humans.
Seals found in the Indus Valley suggest that the elephant was first domesticated
in ancient India. However, elephants have never been truly domesticated: the
male elephant in his periodic condition of musth is dangerous and
difficult to control. Therefore elephants used by humans have typically been
female, war elephants being an exception, however: as female elephants in battle
will run from a male, only males could be used in war. It is generally more
economical to capture wild young elephants and tame them than breeding them in
captivity (see also elephant "crushing").
War elephants were used by armies in the Indian sub-continent, and later by
the Persian empire. This use was adopted by Hellenistic armies after Alexander
the Great experienced their worth against king Porus, notably in the Ptolemaic
and Seleucid diadoch empires. The Carthaginian general Hannibal took elephants
across the Alps when he was fighting the Romans, but brought too few elephants
to be of much military use, although his horse cavalry was quite successful; he
probably used a now-extinct third African (sub)species, the North African
(Forest) elephant, smaller than its two southern cousins, and presumably easier
to domesticate. A large elephant in full charge could cause tremendous damage to
infantry, and cavalry horses would be afraid of them (see Battle of Hydaspes).
Throughout Siam, India, and most of South Asia elephants were used in the
military for heavy labor, especially for uprooting trees and moving logs, and
were also commonly used as executioners to crush the condemned underfoot.
Elephants have also been used as mounts for safari-type hunting, especially
Indian shikar (mainly on tigers), and as ceremonial mounts for royal and
religious occasions, whilst Asian elephants have been used for transport and
entertainment, and are common to circuses around the world.
African elephants have long been reputed to not be domesticable, but some
entrepreneurs have succeeded by bringing Asian mahouts from Sri Lanka to Africa.
In Botswana, Uttum Corea has been working with African elephants and has several
young tame elephants near Gaborone. African elephants are more temperamental
than Asian elephants, but are easier to train. Because of their more sensitive
temperaments, they require different training methods than Asian elephants and
must be trained from infancy hence Corea worked with orphaned elephants. African
elephants are now being used for (photo) safaris. Corea's elephants are also
used to entertain tourists and haul logs.
Elephants are also commonly exhibited in zoos and wild animal parks, the
former of which has caused controversy. Animal rights advocates allege that
elephants in zoos "suffer a life of chronic physical ailments, social
deprivation, emotional starvation, and premature death". [3] However, zoos argue
that standards for treatment of elephants are extremely high and that minimum
requirements for such things as minimum space requirements, enclosure design,
nutrition, reproduction, enrichment and veterinary care are set to ensure the
wellbeing of elephants in captivity.
Elephant traps
Another more effective method is practiced in the Indian Subcontinent which
is far less physical and brutal, and more psychological. It is called the
"elephant trap". The following is taken from a newsletter:
From when an elephant is a baby they tie him for certain periods with a rope
to a tree. The young elephant tries his hardest to escape, he pulls and wriggles
and jumps and crawls yet the rope just tightens and to the tree it remains tied.
Learning that, the elephant doesn’t try to escape and accepts his confinement. A
couple of years pass and the elephant is now an adult weighing several tons. Yet
the trainer continues to tie the elephant to the tree with the same rope he’s
always used, for the simple reason that the elephant has the concept in his mind
that the rope is stronger than him. Abiding to this conditioning the elephant is
trapped for life. To break free all the elephant has to do is erase that
limiting thought for in fact he is free to go.
Elephants in culture
George Orwell wrote a famous essay entitled "Shooting an Elephant,"
chronicling a 1926 episode of being forced to shoot an elephant while he served
as an Imperial Policeman in Burma.
Pop culture
Jumbo, a circus elephant, has entered the English language as a synonym for
"large".
Dumbo, the elephant who learns to fly in the Disney movie of the same name.
The French children's storybook character Babar the Elephant (an elephant
king) created by Jean de Brunhoff and also an animated TV series.
Tufts University mascot is Jumbo, the Elephant.
University of Alabama Crimson Tide mascot is an elephant called "Big Al."
The name was chosen in the late 1970s in a campus-wide contest.
The Oakland Athletics mascot is a white elephant. The story of picking the
mascot was started when New York Giants' manager John McGraw told reporters that
Philadelphia manufacturer Benjamin Shibe, who owned the controlling interest in
the new team, had a “white elephant on his hands," Connie Mack defiantly adopted
the white elephant as the team mascot, though over the years the elephant has
appeared in several different colours (currently forest green). The A’s are
sometimes, though infrequently, referred to as the Elephants or White Elephants.
The team mascot is nicknamed Stomper.
The Elephant's Child is one of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories.
The Thai Elephant Orchestra, a musical instrument playing group of Elephants
from the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang.
Joseph Merrick, a British man in Victorian England, who suffered from
substantial deformities, and was nicknamed "The Elephant Man" due to the nature
and extent of his condition.
The fictional planet in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels consists
of a flat disc-shaped world carried on the backs of four elephants who ride
through space on a space turtle, Great A'Tuin.
In one episode of The Simpsons, Bart Simpson wins a bad-tempered
elephant in a radio competition, which he names Stampy. The family eventually
give up the elephant after it proves too expensive to feed.
American band the White Stripes' fourth album was entitled Elephant,
possibly because of lead singer Jack White's fondness of the animals' extreme
sensitivity toward each other. The album was #390 in Rolling Stone
magazine's "500 Best Albums of All Time."
The Thai movie Tom-Yum-Goong (US title: "The Protector", UK title: "Warrior
King") is about a man named Kham who travels from Thailand to Australia in
pursuit of poachers who have stolen two elephants. Kham is a member of a family
that protects the elephants of the King of Thailand. The movie was directed by
Prachya Pinkaew and stars Tony Jaa.
Religion and philosophy
The scattered skulls of prehistoric pygmy elephants on Crete, featuring a
single large trunk-hole at the front, may have formed the basis of belief in
existence of Cyclops, the one-eyed giants featured in Homer's Odyssey.
A white elephant is considered holy in Thailand.
Ganesh, the Hindu god of wisdom, has an elephant's head.
Elephants are used in festivals in Sri Lanka, such as the Esala Perahera.
Elephants used in a religious festival in South India.
The story of the Blind Men and an Elephant was written to show how reality
may be viewed by different perspectives. Its source is unknown, but it appears
to have originated in India. It has been attributed to Buddhists, Hindus,
Jainists, and Sufis.
Politics and secular symbolism
After Alexander's victory over the Indian king Porus, the captured war
elephants became a symbol of imperial power, used as an emblem of the Seleucid
diadoch empire, e.g. on coins.
The elephant, and the white elephant (also a religious symbol of Buddha) in
particular, has often been used as a symbol of royal power and prestige in Asia;
occurring on the flag of the kingdom Laos (three visible, supporting an
umbrella, another symbol of royal power) till it became a republic in 1975, and
other Indochinese and Thai realms had also displayed one or more white
elephants.
The elephant is also the symbol for the Republican Party of the United
States, originating in an 1874 cartoon of an Asian elephant by Thomas Nast of
Harper's Weekly (Nast also originated the donkey as the symbol of the
Democratic Party);
See also the Danish royal Order of the Elephant.
Elephant rage
Musth
Adult male elephants naturally enter the periodic state called musth
(Hindi for madness), sometimes spelt "must" in English. It is characterised by
very excited and/or aggressive behaviour and a thick, tar-like liquid secretion
that discharges through the temporal ducts from the temporal glands on the sides
of the head. Musth is linked to sexual arousal or establishing dominance but
this relationship is far from clear. A musth elephant, wild or domesticated, is
extremely dangerous to humans. Domesticated elephants in India are traditionally
tied to a tree and denied food and water for several days. After that, the musth
passes. In zoos, musth is often the cause of fatal accidents to elephant
keepers. Zoos keeping adult male elephants need extremely strong and secure
enclosures, which greatly complicates the attempts to breed elephants in zoos.
Musth is accompanied by a significant rise in reproductive hormones.
Testosterone levels in an elephant in musth can be as much as 60 times greater
than in the same elephant at other times. However, whether this hormonal surge
is the sole cause of musth, or merely a contributing factor is unknown:
scientific investigation of musth is greatly hindered by the fact that even the
most otherwise placid of elephants may actively try to kill any and all humans.
Similarly, the tar-like secretion remains largely uncharacterised, due to the
extreme difficulties of collecting a sample for analysis.
Although it has often been speculated that musth is linked to rut, this is
unlikely, because the female elephant's estrus cycle is not seasonally-linked.
Furthermore, bulls in musth have often been known to attack female elephants,
regardless of whether or not the females are in heat.
Mahouts are often able to greatly shorten the duration of their elephants'
musth: this is accomplished by tying the bull to two extremely strong trees, and
keeping him on a starvation diet until the musth ends, typically after 5 to 7
days. It should be noted that, as mahouts work with Asian elephants, this
technique has not been tried on African elephants.
The Hindi word "musth" is from the Urdu mast, which in turn is from a
Persian root meaning 'intoxicated'.
The Channel 5 British television program "The Dark Side of Elephants" (20
March 2006) stated that during musth:
The swelling of the temporal glands presses on the elephant's eyes and
causes the elephant severe pain like severe root abscess toothache. One elephant
behaviour that tries to counteract this is digging the tusks in the ground.
The musth secretion, which naturally runs down into the elephant's mouth, is
full of ketones and aldehydes and (to a person at least) tastes unbelievably
foul.
As a result, musth behaviour is at least partly due to the elephant being
driven mad by pain and distress.
Other causes
At least a few elephants have been suspected to be drunk during their
attacks. In December 1998, a herd of elephants overran a village in India.
Although locals reported that nearby elephants had recently been observed
drinking beer which rendered them "unpredictable", officials considered it the
least likely explanation for the attack [9].
An attack on another Indian village occurred in October 1999, and again locals
believed the reason was drunkenness, but the theory was not widely accepted
[10]. Purportedly drunk elephants
raided yet another Indian village again on December 2002, killing six people,
which lead to slaughter of about 200 elephants by locals.
[11].
Rogue elephant
Rogue elephant is a term for a lone, violently aggressive wild
elephant, separated from the rest of the herd. It is a direct translation of the
Sinhala term hora aliya. Its introduction to English has been attributed
by the Oxford English Dictionary to Sir James Emerson Tennant, but this usage
may have been pre-dated by William Sirr. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Age-dependent effects on cisapride-induced QTc prolongation in the isolated guinea pig heart.
The isolated guinea pig heart preparation has been suggested as a suitable small animal model for investigating potential for QTc prolongation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of age on electrophysiological parameters measured in the isolated guinea pig heart preparation. In addition, the effect of a compound known to prolong the QT interval (cisapride) was investigated in both young and adult guinea pigs. Male guinea pigs were divided into 2 groups (n=6). One group of guinea pigs was between 3 and 4 weeks old (young) and the other group was between 16 and 17 weeks old (adult). Concentrations (0, 1, 5, and 50 ng/mL; 2, 11, and 110 nM) of cisapride were perfused for 15 min from low to high concentration. Measurements of PR, QRS, RR and QT intervals were typically made on 5 consecutive electrocardiogram complexes during the last minute of each concentration. The QT interval was corrected for changes in heart rate using the cube root formula of Fridericia (QTcF). Adult guinea pigs had significantly longer RR and QTcF intervals when compared to young animals. Cisapride prolonged QTcF in both young and adult animals at the same concentrations (5 ng/mL and 50 ng/mL). The maximal change in QTcF at 50 ng/mL was similar in young (44+/-3 ms) and adult animals (40+/-1 ms). In summary, the present study demonstrated that there was an increase in the RR and QTcF intervals with age in isolated guinea pig hearts. However, this age difference does not appear to impact the sensitivity of the assay to drug-induced QTcF prolongation. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
If Ben Fisk’s luck would improve by 50 per cent, it wouldn’t be half bad.
But the FC Edmonton midfielder can’t buy a break, bounce, or get a friendly spin of the ball.
Since earning a starting spot in the lineup, Fisk has been impressive, but he’s having more luck hitting goalposts and crossbars than he has the back of the net.
Fisk is hoping things change when FC Edmonton face the Carolina RailHawks on Saturday (5:30 p.m.) in the first of a two-game road trip.
“I don’t think I’ve ever hit three goalposts in three straight games before, definitely not without scoring,” Fisk said prior to the team’s departure. “I’ve had some good shots that aren’t quite going in. It’s the same for the team as well. Lots of guys are getting in good areas and getting off good shots where it’s a couple of inches from being a goal. So I think we better just keep shooting and the goals will start coming.”
Fisk, 23, joined FC Edmonton in late July and had to bide his time waiting for an opportunity.
With FC Edmonton playing so well to start the North American Soccer League fall season, head coach Colin Miller was not going to tinker with a winning lineup.
“For me, no matter if I’m playing or in the stands, I want the team to win,” Fisk said. “I’m a competitive guy, but of course, you want to be playing as well. It definitely tested my patience, but now I have the chance, and I just have to hold on to it and keep playing well.”
As the games began to pile up and the wins started to dry up, Fisk was given on opportunity to start after being limited to a substitute’s role.
He hasn’t looked back since.
“We have really good depth in the squad,” Fisk said. “The way I look at, every game I have to play my ass off to keep my place. You have to give good credit to the Gaffer (boss) for making me be patient and waiting for the right time to get me involved. And now, I’m just trying to repay that trust in my and play well for the team.”
Fisk earned his first start three weeks ago against Miami FC. He was arguably Edmonton’s best player in the 2-0 loss, creating numerous scoring opportunities from his left midfield position and splintering the crossbar with a long-range shot.
Three days later, Fisk had another strong outing in a scoreless tie, at home, against Rayo Oklahoma City, hitting the woodwork again.
Fisk hit the goalpost this past Sunday in a scoreless tie, on the road, against the New York Cosmos and also sliced a shot just wide, which bent away from the net at the last second.
“That was a tough one, it was a bouncing ball on the turf,” Fisk said. “But I connected well with it and I thought it was in. But I’ve thought a few in the last couple of games were going in.”
Fisk’s misfortune around the net has mirrored that of the rest of the team.
FC Edmonton have not scored a goal in their previous three games heading into face the RailHawks.
They have two goals in their past five games, both coming in a come-from-behind 2-2 tie, on the road, against the Ottawa Fury.
Despite the drought, Fisk is not going to change his approach to the game, knowing the ball will eventually bounce in his favour.
“I think I’m a guy with a lot of self confidence, so when I get in those areas, whether I’m skying it 20 feet over the bar or hitting the post, I’m going to keep shooting,” he said. “The goals are coming, I think it’s just a matter of time.”
Fisk’s inclusion into the starting 11 has infused energy to FC Edmonton, who are still looking to rein in the Cosmos for first place in the standings.
Heading into the weekend, Edmonton is five points back of New York with a game in hand. The scoreless draw in New York last weekend, kept the Cosmos within striking distance.
“I think it was massive,” Fisk said. “For our team this year, and since I’ve been here, we have incredible team chemistry and are willing to fight and battle for each other. I think that draw in New York is a perfect example of that — going into a tough place to get a result and coming out with a 0-0 draw, I think, is a great result for us.”
[email protected]
On Twitter: @DerekVanDiest
FC Game on
FC Edmonton (7-5-2) at Carolina RailHawks (4-4-6): Saturday (5:30 p.m.) Wakemed Stadium
Who to Watch
FC Edmonton: Ben Fisk
The FC Edmonton midfielder has come as close as you can without scoring in the past three games. Fisk has hit three goalposts and had numerous close calls in front of the opposition net. He’s due to finally break through.
RailHawks: Matt Fondy
The RailHawks midfielder leads his team with six goals this season. The Foster City, Calif., product is in his first year with Carolina after setting a United Soccer League record 22 goals for Louisville City FC last year. Fondy has also played in the MLS for Chivas USA and the Chicago Fire.
Coming In
FC Edmonton goes into the contest winless in their last five games. The held the New York Cosmos to a scoreless draw last week, keeping the top team in the Fall Season standings within striking distance. Edmonton’s last victory was a 1-0 win, on the road, against the Tampa Bay Rowdies. They’ve since gone on to post four ties and a loss. Saturday’s game is the first of a two-game road trip. Edmonton will travel to face the Jacksonville Armada on Wednesday.
Carolina goes into the contest on a two-game losing skid. They lost 1-0, on the road to the Rowdies last Saturday. Prior to that, they fell 1-0, on the road, to Miami FC. The RailHawks are currently 9th in the Combined standings, six points back of a playoff spot. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Q:
Cloning mercurial repo to the remote host
Mercurial supports push-style cloning of repositories to remote hosts, however newly cloned repositories don't contain working copies. Is there any 'hidden' option to make mercurial call update upon these cloned repos?
Here is an example:
1) hg init hello
2) hg clone hello ssh://somehost/hello
ssh://somehost/hello only contains .hg directory and I have to execute the following command in the shell in order to fill the working copy:
3) ssh somehost 'cd hello && hg update'
Is there any way to avoid step 3) ?
A:
You can create a hook on the receiving side. Add the following section to your repo/.hg/hgrc
[hooks]
changegroup = hg update
That should do it. Note that hooks are not cloned.
A:
There is no hidden option to force an update of a remote repository. Only one condition determines whether the update is performed (e.g., line 239 of hg.py in the Mercurial 1.0.1 source):
if dest_repo.local():
If you're going to do some work in the working copy, you're going to log in anyway, at which point running "hg update" is pretty easy, so there's not much motivation to relax the current constraint on remote clones.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
From your junk drawer to Zero Waste, our Green Deal sustainability story has it all!
Once upon a time…
There was a lonely flip phone. One of millions of discarded recyclables looking for a better place to call home. Fortunately, London Drugs was launching a program to make recycling as easy as a trip to the store. The year was 2008 Here’s our story.
The London Drugs philosophy is to support the communities we serve. Years before 2008, our stores had offered recycling, our photo labs treated their water and our operations reduced their impacts. But it was time to take our sustainability journey further. What’sthe Green Deal? began as a question, because we always want to seek better sustainability answers.
Our 4 Pillar Strategy:
1. WASTE REDUCTION – Over 93% Of all store waste is diverted from landfill by our employees.
Our recycling partners are certified and reviewed to ensure no unprocessed material is sent to substandard offshore facilities London Drugs will take back all of your packaging from our products. Including the Styrofoam!
Don’t dump drugs! Our pharmacists take back all unused or expired medications, so they don’t pollute lands and waters.
Thanks to our customers and employees, our average yearly recycling totals over 11 MILLION lbs !
For those who like to shop a little greener… We identify Green Deal products with environmental benefits at the shelf and online.
The Zero Waste QUESTION – Can we create NEW products from the ‘waste’ material streams that come from our recycling?
We already have one closed-loop product on our shelves. Cascades recycled paper products are made from cardboard and paper partially sourced from our waste recycling streams. And we’re still looking for even more ways to get to Zero Waste.
LEARN MORE Visit our website for blogs, videos articles, and products that help you live a little greener. greendeal.ca | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Mapping of determinants required for the function of the HIV-1 env nuclear retention sequence.
Control of HIV-1 RNA processing and transport are critical to the successful replication of the virus. In previous work, we identified a region within the HIV-1 env that is involved in mediating nuclear retention of unspliced viral RNA. To define this sequence further and identify elements required for function, deletion mutagenesis was carried out. Progressive 5' and 3' deletions map the nuclear retention sequence (NRS) within the intron between nts 8281 and 8381. While deletion of sequences comprising the 3'ss had no effect, removal of the 5'ss resulted in cytoplasmic accumulation of unspliced RNA. Sequence analysis determined that the region corresponding to the NRS is highly conserved among HIV-1 strains. To evaluate whether this NRS interacts with cellular factors, RNA electrophoretic mobility shift assays (REMSA) were performed. We show that the NRS specifically interacts with cellular factors present in HeLa nuclear extracts, and, by UV crosslinking, correlates with the binding of a 49-kDa protein. Immunoprecipitation of the UV crosslinked products determined that this 49-kDa protein corresponds to hnRNP C. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Translated from japanese Internet Radio
Game no shokutaku # 189 (3 of 5)
Aired : 2011/12/15
Link to Source
http://www.gamers1.jp/colweb/radio/2011/111215/111215.php
Dark Souls Producer : Miyazaki Hidetaka (P)
Host : Isomura Tomomi (I)
Editor in chief / Script : Murohashi (M)
==========
"Game no Shokutaku" is a casual internet radio talk show that invites game staff
to talk about their game. Presented by Biglobe
This time questions from the listeners submitted by twitter.
*in the first episode Miyazaki appologized about the problem with net play.
I might translate that episode if there is a demand
**Not Direct and Complete translation (interpretted translation), by kaelsmith
==========
Episode 2 part 2 (3 of 5)
*Episode 2 has two parts
==========
(I): Moving on the Other category. Does the enemies get stronger up to 8 game cycles this
time too.
(P): I think it was, I don't know for sure but it should be the same as the last game. I
don't remember it off the top of my head
(M): It's around that number
(P): Its around 7 or 8
~ 0:19
(I): Why didn't you include an Opening movie, I wanted to say "Ah Aaaa".
(P): The opening movie as in start. Where it plays on the title screen. It wasn't included
because this time the movie included the story. In the last game where it was a
"slideshow" became the CG movie. So we just didn't make an opening movie, you
probably didn't want to hear that. (laughing)
(IM): I see
(P): I understand the desire to say "Ah, Aaa"
(M): It was impressive
(I): It did leave quite an impression
~ 0:54
(I): What is up with the npcs that attacks you while you are human? Why do they fight with
you when you beat them?
(P): The red invaders
(M): thats it
(P): Various reasons, its treated as an another player. The red invaders are like other
players. For example the red guy who keeps invading
(M): Kirk
(P): The guy with the thorns, Kirk of thorns is a member of the egg princess (chaos
servant) and hes trying rob humanity to offer. If you kill him for the last time
his corpse will be near the eggs and you can loot it.
(M): The armor
(P): Yes, thats the reason why hes dead there
(IM): i see
(P): Each one has an image story.
(I): So is there a reason for the bikini?
(P): ehh, Mildred?
(I): Yes Mildred
(MP): haha
(I): Why is she wearing a bikini
(M): It makes you wonder. She also wear a sack over her head
(P): lol. I don't know if this is the best way to put it but Mildred was created on impulse.
(IM): Ahhh
(P): We liked it. I think somebody was using it. He was invading during debugging and we were shocked. "Who are
you?". We got the data and added some background as the insane lady of the swamp. It was also in the
last with the butcher knife, it's the same idea.
(M): That was such a terrible place
(P): Partial like a cameo.
(MI): That was a girl?
(P): Yes.
(I): It reminds me of those murdering chefs in the B movies
(P): Thats right. Also the enemy cook is a girl too.
(I): I was told it was a lady. I thought it was a man
(M): But she say "Uuuuugh"
(I): Yeah yeah because of the "Uuuugh" I thought it was a man too.
(P): It was set as a she from the beginning
(M): Oh
(P): It was written somewhere
(M): Shocking...
(I): I was told
(P): Its a lady
(M): So when it drops "sack" it good to sniff sniff.
(P): Yes yes yes
(I): You can sniff sniff? But she isn't cute
(P): You don't know her face
(M): She might be cute, who knows
(P): Shes a lady
~ 3:28
(I): During Development was the whole team thinking of how the players will die with a grin?
(P): Thats, not the case. I sometimes get this question from foreign media, and I answered to them. I was asked
why are you so sadistic?
(I): haha
(P): I don't know about the other staff members but I am actually a Masochist. (Sexy WoW~)
(IM): lol
(P): I a huge Masochist. (Sexy WoW~). So when I make games it about how I want to be treated. (happy melody)
(I): lol
(M): oooooh
(P): I want to be killed this way.
(I): AMAZING
(P): I want to be killed like this, that how I make it.
(I): Thats really extreme masochism
(P): Its just that sometimes other people don't understand it, its for my pleasure
(M): Really? You want to be killed deep in the forest by getting punched by a huge mushroom.
(P): Yes yes. And the curse area... When I get cursed.. (holding outbursts)
(I): You want to dash though a barrage of arrows
(P): It's gratifing. (happy Melody) Its like that, I just wanted to emphasize that.
(M): Amazing
(P): I don't know about the other staff members' fantasies but I am not making it from a sadistic stance, its
from a masochistic I want this done to me.
(IM): oooo. Amazing
(P): Its actually like that
(IM): Amazing.
(P): I got some strong response from the foreign media, they said "what the hell are you talking about"
(MP): hahahah
~ 5:09
(I): About the NPCs and Enemy characters. What is your favorite and staff favorite NPC?
(P): My favorite is Solaire. We don't take surveys on favorite characters but from talking to recording
director in London and translators he seems to be popular. The staff seems to like him cause he's a
good guy. I like him the most.
~ 5:42
(I): There are many unique NPCs but is the blue guy, crestfallen guy a tradition? Is it demon's souls
*pure literature (see notes)
(P): I don't understand what he means by demon's souls *pure literature
(IMP): lol
(M): Is it cliche, beauty of form
(P): I want to make it a beauty of form. I believe I will be making more titles but I thinks its okay to have
some quirkiness. I think there is some fun in having expected things and it would be nice if it
become beauty of form or whatever demon's pure literature
(M): I see
(P): Its convinient, its an easy way to tell some hints.
~ 6:23
(I): About Mr. Solaire, isn't it impossible to finish his story if you play normally.
(P): Yes
(I): Yes...
(M): Its impossible to go without hints.
(P): Yes, for Solaire there is a shortage of hints in general. To be able to fight with him at the end was
pretty much like a secret. We expected Solaire to be taken over by the sunlight maggot as the norm.
But this as well as others the conveying of hints is a subject we need to work on. This is an another
reflection but there should be some meaning to achieving goals and tasks, walking to a location and
this includes map as well. There should be more ways to present them, and its my personal theme. I
think there are more ways to do that, but that doesn't mean a simple thing like give out a map.
Instead more skillfully. As for Solaire its a secret, and I think the happiest ending for him is to
die by become the sun.
(IM): fufufu
(P): He is happy. he found his sun.
(M): I haven't gotten to the end so what happens?
(P): If you kill the sunlight maggots I think he can fight with you at the last boss. And after that he links
the fire in his own world.
~ 8:17
(I): Patches
(P): He is not the same Patches
(I): He is not the same Patches from Demon's Souls
(P): Parallel character
(I): Then Gold Y*rt
(M): pfff
(I): Its written as Gold Y*rt
(P): Whats up with Gold Y*rt
(M): hahahah
(P): The name is going to far (copyrights)
(I): Thats not his name...
(MP): Lautarec
(I): This seems obvious but is he a cliche like the blue guy?
(P): It is a easter egg but more like service to Demon's Soul players. He does have an shotel.
(I): He looks suspicious
(P): Indeed, his armor is one of my favorites. Armor that hugs you
(I): I really didn't want this guy near me
(P): He can laugh, "ku ku ku" I like him.
~ 9:15
(I): Quelaana, **** that likes Quelaana. Is Quelaana single? Does she have a boyfriend? Did she go
out with Zalaman?
(P): The hell is this?
(M): HAHHAAHAH
(P): What is this?
(M): Its a question
(P): As for boyfriend, I don't think she has a boyfriend...
(M): HHAHAHAHAHA
(P): Zalaman is not like that, he's an apprentice. There is nothing like that. First of all there are
different species. Quelaana is a daughter of Izalalith and a species like that so it comes
down to if reproductive actions are even possible.
(I): It could be platonic love.
(P): Well it may be. **** that loves Quelaana may very well be that way.
(IMP): lol
(P): Basically they are different species, and she is no doubt a good character. If you go to Romance
possiblities, of all the female characters she quite desirable.
~ 10:42
(I): About Logan. Freke from Demon's Souls was in a place easy to step on, and I step on Logan a lot
too. Is it destiny for sages to be stepped on? Is this part of Demon's Souls Pure
Literature?
(P): hah. Oh, yea. Lets just make it so.
(IM): lol
(M): Its beauty of form
(P): Beauty of form
~ 11:03
(I): Why is Logan naked when he goes hollow? Is it because he got so excited after unravelling the
secrets of the crystals?
(P): This is at the end where you fight him instead of Seath, why is he naked. Why is he nude? I
wonder? He may have achieved enlightenment.
(I): haha
(P): I wanted to show that he "opened" (jp expression of achieving enlightenment. literally open to
understanding).
(M): Something "opened"
(P): Something "opened", I wanted to show that something "opened". There is limitation to expressing
that within the game so... he stripped.
(I): Nude.
(P): He's still wearing a hat so its confusing but something "opened"
(M): There is an openess to it.
(P): There is an openess to it, something unordinary. Liberating, an eye opening. Something like that
(I): We didn't need clothing (Sexy voice)
(P): Exactly. Clothes, um whatever it is. I don't know because I haven't "opened" up yet.
(IM): I see
~ 12:15
--notes
*pure literature - Jp literature style. Emphasis on artistic beauty and form as opposed to targetting | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
A Unisex Vaccine Against Cancer
By this time, few adults in the U.S. haven't heard of the "cervical cancer vaccine" Gardasil, which has been well-publicized and recommended for routine administration to girls and women ages 9 to 26. But how many know that Gardasil--which attacks four strains of the sexually transmitted HPV (human papillomavirus)--is not just for women? And that it guards against cancers other than cervical?
In fact, the widespread HPV affects 75 percent of U.S. adults under 50, regardless of gender. In addition to cervical cancer, Gardasil protects against anal, oral and penile cancers, as well as genital warts. Oral cancers should be of particular concern: Some researchers believe that HPV may soon cause more cases of that disease than the most commonly recognized causes, tobacco and alcohol, combined.
Yet despite the threat to both men and women, the HPV vaccine is not widely accessible to men and boys. Since it's an "equal opportunity infector," it should be equally available and affordable regardless of gender, argues Adina Nack, a respected sexual health researcher and medical sociology professor at California Lutheran University in "Why Men's Health Is a Feminist Issue," an article she's written for the Winter issue of Ms., now on newsstands.
Last October, the FDA did approve Gardasil for prevention of genital warts in boys and men, but the Centers for Disease Control voted in favor of a lesser recommendation of "permissive" use in males, which is likely to make the vaccine less affordable for men because insurance may not cover it. New evidence of the vaccine's use for anal and other cancers will be presented on February 24th at a meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Just last week, Gardasil-maker Merck released a study that found their vaccine effective in preventing anal cancers in men. As evidence like that mounts, hopefully the FDA will reevaluate its original narrow approval of "male Gardasil" for genital warts alone.
Merck would also like to market the drug to women up to age 45, as another recent study the pharmaceutical company conducted shows its effectiveness for women 24 to 45. Again, approvals from the FDA and CDC would then make it more likely to be covered by insurance, and thus more accessible for those who want to use it.
To continue marketing Gardasil primarily as a female-only, cervical cancer vaccine will unnecessarily endanger boys and men. And, the truth is, if women don't focus on men's health as well as their own, they put themselves and potentially children at risk.
So on behalf of men and women, we call on the FDA and CDC to move forward with all due speed on judging the efficacy of these drugs and appropriately recommending their usage. All of our lives are at stake. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Praise for Laura June's _Now My Heart Is Full_
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
"Sometimes, a book swells into something far lovelier than you assume it will be. Laura June's warm and moving _Now My Heart Is Full_ is one such unforgettable book. What seems like a straightforward memoir about motherhood slowly, carefully, becomes so much more. This is the story of how the daughter of an alcoholic mother becomes a motherless mother and reconciles the ways she was loved, the ways she was hurt, and how the birth of her own daughter allowed her heart to finally grow full. There is no maudlin sentimentality here. Instead, Laura June writes with wit and melancholy, unabashed joy and tenderness. Imagine my surprise, when I reached the end, and found myself in tears."
—Roxane Gay, _New York Times_ bestselling author of _Hunger_
"Is there any more formative bond than the one between mother and daughter? Laura June's heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful memoir intertwines the story of her daughter's birth with an insightful and forgiving account of her own mother's alcoholism and their complex relationship. A moving, beautiful exploration of what it means to love—and let go."
—Julie Buntin, author of _Marlena_
"Laura June's writing is affecting, clear-eyed, and honest. Her ambivalence toward many of life's biggest milestones is particularly refreshing in a culture that demands a woman's every attention be paid to marriage and motherhood. But _Now My Heart Is Full_ is not cynical, or cutting—rather, it is surprised by its own warmth and joy."
—Katie Heaney, author of _Never Have I Ever_
" _Now My Heart Is Full_ explores in heartfelt prose how the familial ties that bond us are inevitably the ones that threaten to break us—and the messy miracle of breaking them first. Laura June triumphs by resisting the inertia of inherited suffering and surrendering to the possibility of a boundless, unbreakable love."
—Alana Massey, author of _All the Lives I Want_
PENGUIN BOOKS
NOW MY HEART IS FULL
Laura June was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her writing has appeared on _The Awl, BuzzFeed, Jezebel,_ and _The Outline,_ and in _New York Magazine, Cosmopolitan,_ and _The Washington Post_. She was previously a staff writer at _New York Magazine_ 's _The Cut,_ and is a contributing writer at _The Outline_.
PENGUIN BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
penguin.com
Copyright © 2018 by Laura June Topolsky
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Portions of Chapter 6 first appeared in different form on _The Awl_ as "Other People's Babies" in 2014 and "No Offense to Laura Ingalls Wilder" in 2015. Portions of Chapter 20 first appeared in different form on _The Cut_ (a website of _New York Magazine_ ) as "Having a Daughter Helped Me Understand My Own Mother" in 2015.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: June, Laura, author.
Title: Now my heart is full: a memoir / Laura June.
Description: New York, New York : Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017042062 (print) | LCCN 2018016487 (ebook) | ISBN 9781524704698 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143130918 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Motherhood. | Mothers and daughters. | June, Laura—Family. |
Autobiography. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.
Classification: LCC HQ759 (ebook) | LCC HQ759 .J85 2018 (print) | DDC
306.874/3—dc23
LC record available at <https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042062>
Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author's alone.
Cover design: Brianna Harden
Version_1
For Zelda June Topolsky,
Who insisted I use her full name.
And for Josh,
Who insisted.
# CONTENTS
◆ ◆ ◆
_Praise for Laura June's_ Now My Heart Is Full
_About the Author_
_Title Page_
_Copyright_
_Dedication_
_Epigraph_
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
_Acknowledgments_
No more sadness, I kiss it good-bye
The sun is bursting right out of the sky
I searched the whole world for someone like you
_—M_ ADONNA _, "T_ RUE _B_ LUE _,"_ 1986
# CHAPTER 1
◆ ◆ ◆
On a Tuesday in February of 2014, at 1:45 p.m., at the age of thirty-six, I became a mother for the first time, and my daughter became my daughter.
We named her Zelda June. She was born via Caesarean section in a scheduled, quick, and largely drama-free operation that lasted roughly a half hour from start to finish. I wouldn't exactly say it was "painless," but it was close enough to painless that I still have trouble telling other women who have had children about the experience for fear that I will sound as though I'm bragging. "She has a high tolerance for pain," my husband, Josh, has interjected when I mention my easy recovery. As I sit here now, I can barely feel the scar she left on me. It is barely visible when I look at my body in the mirror.
Those moments there, when Zelda became Zelda and I became her mother, they washed away decades of ambivalence and fear, of random nightmares or missed opportunities and chances walked away from. Washed away were the babies I hadn't had, in the face of the one I did.
I was, like I said, thirty-six years old. I'd been married for almost seven years and had lived in New York City for nine. I put off the pregnancy for as long as I could, telling myself I was too busy; there would be time later. But later was always later, and really, I was afraid; physically, emotionally, mentally, I feared pregnancy and motherhood. I didn't think too hard about it, and every six months or a year, Josh randomly brought it up and then just as quickly let it pass.
"Should we have a baby, Laura?" I'd hear from the other room.
"What do you want for dinner?" I'd ask, changing the subject. We'd talked about kids when we got engaged, when we got married: yes, I'd say. I'd like to have kids someday. Someday was off in the future. Someday, I could handle. But someday was stretched out for years as I put it off, put it off.
But then, in the middle of 2013, I changed my mind. Someday arrived.
I could tell you I had a change of heart, and I did. I could tell you that I was finally comfortable enough, finally felt financially stable enough, owned a house that had a spare bedroom; all of these things took years to fall into place. But really, I was also rather suddenly overcome with an everyday, very common desire: I wanted to be a mother, and I knew that it might take a while to become pregnant. At thirty-five, I thought, "Well, better start trying, I guess."
And then I got pregnant almost immediately.
I confirmed my pregnancy with a test on my thirty-sixth birthday, and as I stood in the bathroom, with only a few moments before I opened the door and told my husband, I cried silently in the dark into a towel. I had only just decided, less than a month ago, that I wanted to have a baby, and now there I was, the wheels set in motion: the first step had been a success! I was pregnant. But still, I cried tears of cowardice, of anxiety, and of simple disbelief. Telling Josh, I knew, would set off the chain of events that would end in . . . well, the birth of a baby. I closed my eyes and breathed really deep. I reached behind me and hit the light switch. The bathroom was small, in the center of the second floor of our tiny (it was just eleven and a half feet wide) Brooklyn townhouse. I loved that bathroom, its claw-footed tub, but also the fact that it had no windows. When you turned off the light, you were in total darkness and quiet. It was the only place in the house where that was possible. I screamed into a towel. I didn't know how to feel. I'd spent so long avoiding even thinking about if I wanted to have children, and then, after years of doing the same thing, I stopped. We decided: "Yes," I said. "I think we should have a baby."
We had made every major decision that way: I said no by avoiding saying anything, until I said yes. It is in this way that I am, I guess, in control: I hold the Yes cards.
Change has always been hard for me, and though I moved through this phase—the pregnant-but-in-denial stage—very quickly, in just a few days, I'd be lying if I pretended it didn't happen.
One of the things that had occurred in the course of our marriage was that, like I said, every so often, Josh had brought up the possibility of having children. He said this—"Should we have a baby?"—as easily as if he were asking if I thought we should get a new couch or some other major but not life-altering purchase. For him, it wasn't much different than leasing a car, really: changes, even big ones, come fast and easy to him. This offsets, to some degree, me, to whom change comes neither easily nor quickly.
"Easy for you to say," I'd respond, and I was perfectly correct—it _was_ easy for him to say—and then I'd go about throwing up all the potential roadblocks I could think of, simply to defer having to even think about the question. I'd have to have the fucking kid. He would just be the . . . dad. It wasn't him resigning his body to whatever it was that pregnancy entailed.
It went on this way for years, and for a really big chunk of that, I had the best excuse one could think of for deferring having a child: our apartment was too small. Of course, this was New York City, and our apartment was probably eight hundred square feet—which was massive compared to many people, plenty of whom had kids—but the argument did sort of, at least, hold water with Josh. I worried too, of course, about money, and that argument was also pretty valid. Brooklyn is very expensive, and for the first years of our marriage, we simply didn't have the financial stability that seemed completely reasonable to expect before having a baby.
So we just avoided _really_ talking about a child—even a theoretical, future one—for a very long time.
But here's how an argument—whether a loud and angry one, a strategic one, or even a meaningless one about a trivial point; it doesn't matter—goes between Josh and me: He votes for change; I vote against it. He's progressive; I'm conservative.
I wish this weren't the case, but like I said, decisions, even big ones, are fairly effortless for him. He's "not guided by fear," he likes to say. I don't think of myself as fearful, just cautious, and caution is easily mistaken for fear, because it often results in inaction. Having a routine, things being stable and predictable, is very necessary for me to be able to function, so I sometimes view major changes with suspicion at the start. It's not that I have a particularly troublesome time actually making decisions; it's just that I often draw out the period before. For a long time, I put off having the conversation. I'm not proud of this, but it is what comes naturally to me. I've been trying to change over the past decade, because I know how paralyzing and irritating it can be.
This was how we bought our house. Josh had wanted to buy a house or apartment for years before we'd even had the money. Dreaming big, even when it's not realistic in any way, has always kind of been his thing.
I didn't want to move. I loved our apartment, and I couldn't imagine a better one, only a worse one, with less light or lower ceilings. We had a huge, beautiful loft—how could we ever replace it? It was the same with the baby. I couldn't imagine a baby, and if I did, I thought usually only of the negatives: a loss of freedom and mental space, all the work I assumed a baby would be. I didn't imagine its beauty or how a child would add to my life. Josh imagined the best-case scenario, while I fantasized about the worst one.
But once enough years passed, and suddenly we _did_ have the money to maybe buy a house, I remained steadfastly opposed to it conceptually, simply out of a resistance to change, even as I relented and walked up the streets of our neighborhood, checking out houses and apartments for sale. "You're humoring me," Josh used to say, but that wasn't exactly it. I was simply waiting for the right moment. And when the right house, built in 1863, on a shady and quiet street, appeared in our sights, I knew in just a few minutes: it should be ours, if it could be.
I never know what I'm going to order at a restaurant until I do it. I didn't know I wanted a baby until I did.
I was wrong about owning a house; it was awesome. And I was incredibly wrong about the baby: she is the best, most challenging, and most rewarding thing to have ever happened to us, and to me.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
In the days since my daughter's birth, I have felt on many occasions what I can only describe as "privileged" to know her, so clear it is to me that she's not my property. She's not mine, but her own being, and has been from day one on this planet. But I've never felt it more clearly than I did in that first moment, when we were literally separate for the first time, after ten months, and I saw clearly, only for a minute, the road ahead.
We'd been two people living together, Josh and I, for a long time. Then there had been an odd, somewhat lonely period of limbo in my pregnancy: I had the possibility of another person inside me, but she wasn't something I could _really_ share yet, not even with Josh. Her existence seemed reliant wholly on me. And now, here we were. I knew what lay ahead: we were fucked, maybe. I was as unprepared for motherhood, I thought, as a person could be. I hadn't been around a baby in years, didn't know what having one would be like. This inability to imagine what life would look like on the other side, when the baby arrived, troubled me.
But for a moment, everything was perfect. Zelda asserted herself with her howling, angry bawling, Josh was in tears and silent for once, and I was simply there. Her arrival silenced me. Everything had changed, but I had no idea how yet. I was simply her mother.
And in that moment of my daughter's birth, just Josh and me (and all the doctors and nurses) there to witness it, I thought of my own mother. My mother, who had been dead for seven years. My mother, who had loved me and had been beautiful and caring and intelligent. My mother, who had had four babies before she was thirty. My mother, who also had been an alcoholic, whose body simply gave up on life when she was fifty-four years old. My mother, who I walked away from at the age of eighteen and with whom I never really had a relationship worth mentioning again. My mother, Kathy, who was complicated and painful for me to think about still, even though she had been gone for almost a decade. It was my mother I thought of as I looked down at my new daughter, this child I'd never been sure I wanted until the moment I knew that I was pregnant.
I didn't say it aloud that day. I didn't say to Josh or to Zelda, "I wish my mother was here." I knew that Josh knew this; it hung heavily in the air. The happiness of those moments was countered only by her, my mother, and her absence. I didn't say it out loud, but I felt it keenly and was taken aback by the feeling. In hindsight, it's not surprising, but at the time, I was shocked by my childlike wish to have my mother there, to wish her back from the dead, to have a time machine to change the past, to erase terrible things I'd said to her and terrible things she'd done to me. I wanted in those few minutes, when Zelda's body was new and still covered in the evidence of her birth, to crawl backward and change almost everything about my relationship with my mother. To pave over what had actually happened with something more meaningful and less terribly sad. I imagined myself into the future, where I'd begin to tell Zelda about my mother, her grandmother, and was overwhelmed. What would I tell her? Would I lie? Would I say she'd been a wonderful woman who would have loved her and nurtured her the way she had loved and nurtured my brothers and me? Or would I tell her my mother was sick and lonely and mysterious and sometimes so like a black hole that even her adoring children couldn't get inside of her? Was there some space between a fake, fairy-tale version and an unvarnished truth?
In the moments of Zelda's birth, I saw the world with eyes that were open and accepting. That's why I wanted my mother: even if she remained unchanged, I'd introduce her, drunk and slurring, to my newborn baby. In all my imagined versions of my life, I'd never pictured that to be true; in fact, I would have died to stand in the way of letting her at her worst into my daughter's life, to let her find new ways of disappointing me, but in those few minutes, I was clear and, I imagined, had an approach to the world approximating what I've always thought monks or nuns must have. Accepting. Peace-filled. Full of an unfettered ability to love everyone equally. Even as it was happening, I knew this moment wouldn't last. But for just a little bit, I had a window into something my cynical, self-protecting mind rarely had access to.
It wouldn't be accurate to say I then felt regret for the way my relationship with my mother had unfolded, but it was true then that I did see other ways it could have. Other ways I could have been, and wanted to be, moving forward. And that afternoon the seeds were planted that I could probably, after years of telling myself the same story of my own life, and the story of my mother, tell another one. I saw that there might be another version, another way of thinking about it, a way that was truer than what I had previously told myself. After decades of believing that "making peace" with something consisted largely of saying, "Fuck it, we did our best," I saw the possibility of something more nuanced.
I had always thought that when people die, our relationships with them stop evolving. But I realized then that this wasn't true.
From the moment my daughter was born and my relationship with her began, I have felt an overwhelming awareness of my own place in time to my mother that exists both in the past and in the now. I am able to think differently about my relationship with her, as she's become not just my mother but also Zelda's grandmother. My grandmother is Margaret June, my mother is Kathleen June, and I am Laura June. When we named Zelda, Zelda, we also named her June. Zelda June. Another girl joining a long line of women with the middle name June. As part of me, as part of my mother and my grandmother, and going back in time further, to women I've never known or heard anything about.
The story of Zelda's birth is the most important one I have to tell. But first, before I tell you about how I decided to have a baby, I want to tell you about when I decided not to.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
My mother took me to have an abortion on Mother's Day in May of 1995. I was a senior in high school, and although I was not promiscuous by my own definition of the word, I wasn't 100 percent certain who the father of the baby was. I didn't have a boyfriend, really, and the boys I hung around with all fit a general profile: mostly a couple of years older than me, mostly dealing with their own shit. My life was about as confusing as it had ever been, and that confusion had only increased in the roughly two weeks since I'd found out I was pregnant, in the bathroom of my best friend Emily's mom's house, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, where I had lived for most of my life.
It was almost certainly a Wednesday afternoon when I found out that I was pregnant, because Emily's mom worked late on Wednesdays, and we—Emily and I—were often responsible for watching over her two younger sisters after school. Well, Emily was responsible for them, and we had been a package deal since second grade. I was sort of along for the ride. We responded to Emily's mom's show of trust by instituting something we called "Wacky Wednesdays," which lasted for about the last two years of our high school careers. The activities of Wacky Wednesdays usually included our other two best friends, Vanessa and Ellen, and ranged from dyeing our hair, taking bubble baths with one another, to inviting lots of people over to drink whatever alcohol we could get our hands on.
We also occasionally took pregnancy tests (always stolen, since they're incredibly expensive, and only Emily really had a job), whether we really needed to or not. What kind of teenager takes a pregnancy test when they don't need to? Everything, even impending, possible but not likely pregnancy, was a potential laugh to us. Pissing on a stick over a toilet was inherently funny. Until it was me doing it for real, because I had a feeling, in my breasts, in my "loins," that something was up. I've only ever had loins when I'm pregnant.
I know that I took the test when there were lots of other people around in the house, but I think I was alone, in Emily's mother's bathroom. I know that afterward I joked about the fact that it was positive to a few people, but I didn't feel like laughing when it actually was. I was buzzed but not drunk.
I felt a deep pit in my stomach, a sickness, a loneliness—no, an aloneness, that's it. I didn't feel lonely; I felt _alone_ in a way that I never had before but still do to this day. The pregnancy test was simply a confirmation of what I'd suspected for a little while, a week or two: my body had felt . . . different and foreign, and I'd allowed my inner voice to whisper, "You're pregnant," in the dead of night once or twice, but I hadn't gone any further than that.
I was taking birth control pills when this happened. I'd been on them consistently for probably a year and a half. I couldn't have said then, and I certainly can't say now, that I had taken every single one of them on time, but even then, at the age of seventeen—I'd been through sex ed; my mother was blunt and open—I knew what all the possible consequences were.
I went outside and sat on the bench in front of Emily's house and started smoking a cigarette. I was still new enough to smoking that every single time I did it, I got an intense head rush. I don't know how many cigarettes I smoked. I remember that Emily came out once. She had a beer in her hand and offered me some. I took it, though I knew I shouldn't. "I guess it doesn't matter, but I feel like I shouldn't drink at all anyway," I told her. I hadn't said, "Hey, I'm thinking about getting an abortion." She assumed that I would, I'm sure. She didn't say, "What are you going to do?" She was probably thinking, "Thank God it's not me," and counting her blessings. That's what I would have been doing, if it were her in my place. I stubbed out the cigarette and went back inside the house. I knew that I had to get it over with, before Emily's mother came home. The pregnancy test, which I kept for at least another two years, was in a Ziploc bag in the back pocket of my jean shorts.
I called my mother, who was staying with my grandmother. She answered the phone because both of my grandparents were slightly hard of hearing, so she'd probably gotten there first. It was 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon. I asked her to go upstairs into one of the bedrooms and to call me back.
"I have to talk to you, call me back."
She called back right away. "You're pregnant, aren't you?"
"Are you kidding?" I answered. I don't know how she knew or why she said it. "Are you psychic?"
Let me say here that I have an excellent memory, particularly for conversations, so much so that people are routinely annoyed with me, my recall of times and places and scenarios, and yes, even exact wording sometimes. And this conversation is even more important than most of the other ones I remember in life. I recall it minutely. I remember breathing into the phone as I listened to her talk.
"Sometimes you just know things," she said, sounding sort of crazy but, of course, she was right, which was the larger point. I guess I didn't really care how she knew. "What do you want to do?" she asked immediately.
What a question. I've thought back on this conversation maybe a thousand times since then. It is the most remarkable framing of a conversation I have ever experienced. In asking this question, my mother conveyed so many things to me: she respected me, wanted to hear what I had to say, and considered me capable of making my own choice. I didn't really process or think about any of this at the time: I was literally hearing "Papa Don't Preach" as a soundtrack in my head and thinking about how limited of a time I had to make a decision. I wasn't sure how much time I had, actually. I didn't know how pregnant I was. I didn't know anyone who had ever had an abortion.
Why did I call her? Plenty of friends in my situation would not have called their own mothers. In fact, they probably would have called mine. My mother was the cool mom. She was the one we went to and asked what a blow job was. She was the one you asked for advice. She didn't buy me cigarettes, but she turned her head the other way when I smoked hers. It wasn't just that she was young; she was different. And though she often gave good advice, the reasons for her cool-mom status, I know now, were really complicated. I know that much of it was due to her having married so young and being immature in many ways. I know that much of her coolness and willingness to allow regular, parental boundaries be trespassed upon was due to her alcoholism, her lack of fight at important junctures. But it was also, I like to think, somehow part of who she might have been regardless.
It also occurs to me now that this conversation is in some ways very representative of my relationship with my mother overall: we were close and connected, and often, the mother-daughter dynamic was off. Sometimes when I've looked back and thought about my mom, I've judged her harshly (especially as I became a mother myself) for her failure to simply be a parent, to be the one to call the shots consistently and firmly. But this time, this situation, could not really have been handled by a woman who had firmer boundaries. In order to do what she did, and to say what she said, she had to also be a friend to me.
The gist of what I said to her next was something like: I'm too young; I'm scared; I've been drunk a bunch of times; I've been smoking; I'm still in high school. How would I get an abortion? _Can_ I get an abortion? Is it a baby yet? (She said yes; I veered toward no.) It was really early, but I didn't know how early. I couldn't remember when my last period was, and they weren't ever that consistent anyway. What if I _do_ want to have a baby? What do I do then?
My mother offered to help me raise the baby.
"You could still go to college; I could help; we could all live together," she said. This woman who was so extremely close to finally finishing the decades-long job of raising her own four, without blinking an eye, offered to take on a new one.
All my friends loved my mother, but I suspected they talked about me (and her) behind my back; no one wants a mother who is a "best friend" type exclusively; she might make a good grandmother, but did I really want her to help raise my kid? I couldn't raise a kid; she'd fuck up the kid the way she fucked me up. Wait, was I fucked up? I felt pretty solid most days, actually. I was healthy. I was graduating on time. Then again, I was seventeen, pregnant at my best friend's house on a Wednesday, drinking a beer on the phone and smoking out her dining room window. Fuck this.
This couldn't be my future. I could barely accept its reality in my present.
"I'm going to call Planned Parenthood; I'll get back to you," I said.
Two days later, I had an appointment for an abortion for which my mother would have to give her permission. I remember that the cost of it was about $800, an enormous amount of money for a teenage girl who had only ever held a job for three weeks in her life (at a Little Caesars inside of a Kmart). I didn't even consider if my health insurance would pay for it, because that was under my father's name, and I was terrified that he would somehow see it on a bill. I didn't even get my birth control through my insurance; I paid cash for it every month, watching the pharmacist side-eye me.
Even though my parents were still married, even though my father was still very active in my life, my mother agreed not to tell him when I begged her not to. She agreed to take me to have an abortion and not to tell my father. This made a lot of sense to me in 1995. In 2017, it is sort of incomprehensible to me, but I am still, I have to be honest, thankful for my mother's inability to keep her roles straight. Because she was more of a "friend" to me than she was a wife to my father or a partner in parenting with him, I do not today have a twenty-two-year-old child.
I think in her own terrifically misguided way, my mother was protecting me the only way she knew how. Although we didn't discuss it, she knew the cost of having a family very young. She'd become a mother at the age of twenty, not even out of college yet, to my brother David. Four years later, there was me; sixteen months later, my brother Daniel; and finally, two years after that, my brother John. Boom, boom, boom, boom: a beautiful and not-so-little family.
Though in later years I sometimes felt like she held this—the fact of the abortion, and that she helped me to get it—over me (simply because she often brought it up pointlessly in conversations when she'd been drinking in order to, I felt, hurt me), it was the most selfless act ever performed on my behalf.
It's sort of hard to comprehend how one thing in a person's life can monumentally inform how the rest of their life works out, but in looking back on my own life thus far, there's no doubt that this act, enabled by my mother, is the single most important thing to have happened to me. If I had never had the abortion when I was seventeen, my life would have been indescribably different; who knows if for worse or for better. But different. I think about this all the time. I thought about it the day that I graduated from high school; on my last day of college; on my first day of graduate school, sitting in orientation. I thought about it the morning my mother died and the afternoon Zelda was born. I think about it sometimes, early in the morning, when I crawl into Zelda's room, the sun barely up, and lay beside her crib as she jostles herself awake, drinking coconut water and touching her belly, making intermittent eye contact with me. She's just a baby: what would my adult child be like? What would _that_ life look like? There'd be no Zelda, for one.
Maybe especially because it was Mother's Day, there were protesters outside the abortion clinic in downtown Pittsburgh the sunny morning of my appointment. It was one of those days when there is too much sun, not just for your eyes but for everything, where your whole body feels as though it's squinting and just wants to retreat inside. I'd gotten up very early, having not slept well the night before out of nervousness and fear. I felt that feeling I feel in my stomach when I am tired, a shakiness that is a combination of nerves and a need for food. But I couldn't eat.
The drive from the suburbs to the clinic was maybe forty minutes; my mother was in the front passenger seat, her friend driving. Her friend had been recruited presumably because she too had had an abortion, hers when they'd been roommates together in college. She told us how she'd had to go all the way to New York from Pennsylvania to get hers, because abortion wasn't legal in Pennsylvania at the time. I sat in the back seat solemn and unsure of what I was supposed to feel about any of this.
Being unsure of how you're supposed to feel was the source of much of my turmoil as a teenager. I felt slight elation at getting the thing over with after a few weeks of nerves and aching sadness; I felt anxiousness at the unknown—I didn't want to run from the fire but rather I wanted to walk into it simply to know what it would feel like, even though it inevitably felt like just that: fire.
What I remember of the rest of that day is tainted by the fact of the abortion. The abortion was the most important thing to happen to me, that day, and maybe any other day. Though I have tried to imagine that child into existence many times, the stumbling block of reality—that no child of mine actually existed—stood in the way of really exploring what it could have been like. All I can remember is overwhelmed by what has been, the collective sigh of relief I have felt every day since then, on repeat, skipping like my CD of "Vogue" used to skip in 1990 from too many plays. I can never quite get over how _good_ I felt after that procedure.
I make excuses for myself now, because I was basically a kid, but I have to say that I still do feel that sense of relief at not being pregnant any longer. My body was once again all my own, the invasion was over, and I felt, to the extent that a seventeen-year-old can, a new lease on life. Anything, it seemed, was suddenly possible, all because I had undergone, without anesthesia ("Fuck that, I'll stay awake, I'm fine"), a short—it couldn't have lasted longer than ten minutes—abortion, ending my pregnancy at seven weeks. It wasn't just a possible baby that I aborted that day but a whole series of possibilities that died and were reborn there in those few minutes while I lay on my back, looking up at a slowly rotating mobile that had silver stars and sheep on it. The lighting was pulled way down low, and there might have been soft music piped in. Though the clinic was a bustling, busy place (clearly the weekends were booming), the room where the procedure itself was performed was quiet and calm and empty: nothing betrayed what went down in there, until I craned my neck around and spied the equipment that did the job.
Only much later in life, when the internet had become part of my daily life, did I investigate what this procedure actually entailed. I remember it as mildly uncomfortable, mentally challenging, and emotionally . . . well. The thing about this, for me, was that the relief washed away almost any other emotion. As I sat in the little recovery room, back in my own clothes in a huge recliner, sipping orange juice from a straw stuffed into a little cardboard carton, I felt almost as though I could cry. But no one else—none of the other girls, all of them young like me, with the exception of one woman who seemed impossibly old who I wondered about just then, and who seemed to me the saddest of us all—seemed upset. "I'll be sad later," I thought, just wanting to get through the door and back to my mother.
But I'm still waiting for that wash of feeling. I feel a lot of emotion now for my mother and for what it must have taken for her, a forty-two-year-old Catholic woman who had been married since she was twenty, to take her only daughter into the city and get her an abortion. I feel proud of her for having done it for me, for what are obviously selfish reasons. I feel confusion that she did do it, not knowing if I could do the same. I feel some anger for her allowing me to keep it from my father, thus engendering what was a serious but ultimately positive thing for me with a shroud of dark secrecy that I see now it didn't have to have had. I could have told him, and she was the only person who could have made me feel it was okay to do so. Instead, she chose the easier path, the one that I desired so much in the moment and worried over so much later on. What I don't feel, in any part of me, is regret about the abortion.
And I like to think, though I can't and won't ever know, that my mother knew then what is so obvious to me now: that the best decision I ever made was made possible only by that one act of quiet, secret selflessness on her part. She wouldn't win any Mother of the Year awards for doing it; she wouldn't be admired by her other friends who were mothers or by her family—that's why she didn't tell anyone she was doing it—but she did it just the same, I assume because she knew what it would be worth to me, then and always.
My mother, who was only a few years older than I am now when she made that choice, never met her granddaughter or her son-in-law. She never knew me as a married woman or as a mother, and really, she barely knew me as an adult. And though much in my life has changed in the decade since she died, nothing has changed as much as my relationship with her. And in some ways, her dying led me here: the space she left behind opened a new place for me to make new things; happier things and, in many ways, better ones.
And by the time I did become a mother, at the age of thirty-six, on a Tuesday in February, more than three years ago, I thought that my relationship with my mother had been what it was going to be for the rest of time. After all, isn't that what being dead means?
# CHAPTER 2
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My mother, she would be the first to brag proudly, was great at having children. She excelled at easy pregnancies: no sickness, no drugs necessary. She didn't gain much weight; we were just little basketballs on her tiny frame, and my brothers and I were all normal-size, perfectly healthy babies at birth. My aunt told me not long ago that she remembered the family talking about how my dad had to rush to the hospital right when she went into labor because otherwise he'd miss our births. She recovered easily; she never had a C-section or a pregnancy-related illness.
"Having babies is easy!" my mother said to me when I was fourteen or fifteen, when I expressed horror after viewing the PBS film _The Miracle of Life_ in health class. She reveled in my disgust at the prospect. "Babies are easy, really," she said. "Kids are harder. But babies? Psssssh."
Maybe the fact that my mother was so excellent at the process of getting pregnant, staying pregnant, giving birth, and caring for newborns was what catapulted her into her life as a mother of four by the age of twenty-nine. Maybe it was just Catholics being bad at birth control. But as I moved shakily, hesitantly, and suspiciously into my own bout of motherhood, that fact, that my mother had thought it was barely a blip and certainly nothing worth complaining about, was often in the back of my mind.
Because my pregnancy, let me be clear, kind of sucked. And in another place and time before modern medicine, I'd probably have ended up dead. Almost definitely. Or Zelda wouldn't have made it. But here we are now; I'm alive and well enough to complain about it. A lot.
My ambivalence about having a child was fading, but my body still seemed unsure. My own pregnancy, unlike my mother's, never settled into an easy groove that let me grow comfortable. Instead, I progressed through it in a haze of complications, my body feeling as though it were constantly under attack.
The day I found out I was pregnant, I calculated it to be about six weeks. My doctor didn't want to see me until nine weeks, which is when a heartbeat is usually detectable and can rule out early miscarriages, so I made an appointment and plotted out how to wait out that time, taking pains to avoid telling anyone, not even really daring to think about the time beyond the next few weeks. Josh was excited, but he followed my lead. Wait and see.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
A week and a half after I made the appointment, so far then in the future, I felt a familiar feeling—a sudden wetness—that, because I was now pregnant, seemed bad. I went into the bathroom and saw what I knew and feared I would see: blood.
"I think it's just . . . gone," I said to Josh when I came out of the bathroom. I was crying, but only a little bit, because I didn't know if it was gone. Was I still pregnant? I'd been pregnant knowingly for only two weeks. . . . Was I supposed to be sad?
I thought of the possible baby in my future for a second.
"Call the doctor," Josh said. Oh. Right. The doctor. Josh was so much smarter than me.
I went in that day, alone, because Josh had a meeting that he couldn't cancel, and I assured him I was just fine to go on my own. My first visit with my obstetrician, a guy I didn't know but who had been recommended via email by my GP, was because I was bleeding. Not the happy circumstance I'd been expecting and weeks earlier than I thought, but there I was, sitting in a room, waiting for him to come in, staring at a chart that listed the statistical likelihood of having a baby with Down syndrome based on maternal age. I noted that the likelihood really skyrocketed right around thirty-five before he came in.
"There we go," Dr. Moritz said as he performed my ultrasound, declaring, "A heartbeat." The fetus was, for now, alive. It didn't sound like a heartbeat. It was muddled and watered down. It was so fast.
"That's good, right?"
"That's very good!" He smiled at me. I wondered if he thought maybe I was not very bright before I remembered he saw women like me in these circumstances every day. This was no big deal for him; he could be relaxed and matter-of-fact about the whole thing. My whole thing. My fetus. I realized while sitting there, for the first time, how desperately I wanted it to survive. Hours earlier I'd told myself it would be fine if I lost it, but suddenly, that wasn't true at all. I didn't yet think of it as a baby, but it was more than nothing. A desire, a biological need for it to survive and be protected by me, had appeared from . . . nowhere.
"Moving forward from today," he said, "you have a fifty-fifty chance of losing the pregnancy." This sounded bad, of course. Anytime a woman—maybe my age was a factor, but maybe not, I don't know—bleeds early in her pregnancy for unknown reasons, the odds are about fifty-fifty that she'll miscarry. The longer you go without bleeding, the odds of keeping it increase. Fifty-fifty. Not bad. But not good. He explained all of this in thirty seconds.
"It's okay," he said, patting my shoulder. But he didn't seem overly concerned, either.
"Does this happen a lot?" I asked, comforted at the imagined prospect that I might be one of many.
"Yes, women get pregnant all the time," he said, straight-faced, before breaking into a smile. "It's okay"—he patted my shoulder again—"the best thing you can do is not worry."
To this, I mentally said, "LOL." Worrying is what I do. My anxious energy pushes me through every day, every piece of work, every holiday meal for twenty-four people. Aggressive worrying is how I operate.
"I'll try," I said with a smile, looking out the window at the buildings across the street. I wanted to be out on the street again, not there in that office, wondering when I would bleed again.
I got lucky in the doctor department. Dr. Moritz was the right choice. Over the course of the pregnancy we would see him, almost always Josh and me together, many more times than a woman with a normal pregnancy sees her obstetrician. He was, like Josh, a joker in the face of struggle and fear. But Josh couldn't joke about this, so Dr. Moritz was there to do some of the work for us.
"Take your vitamins," he said, clearly wrapping up our visit.
"Every time you bleed, you reset the clock," he said, and though I never wanted things to be candy coated, even I could admit that these odds seemed . . . bad. "Don't worry, take multivitamins, and don't worry," he said. "This part isn't up to you, and you're not in control."
It was the absolute best advice I have ever received about pregnancy and, in some ways, motherhood, too.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
I bled three more times over the course of my first trimester, and yet, every time, I went in to see the doctor, squeezed in between other, scheduled appointments, and there was that sound, the heartbeat. I couldn't hear the heartbeat at home when I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to the now-familiar feeling that I had gotten my period, even though I was pregnant. I wasn't sure. I had to go see: Is it alive?
"Nothing is in my control" became my mantra.
My husband was supportive, but as a woman whose body tenuously held on to pregnancy against what seemed to be increasingly pushy and inhospitable conditions, I can tell you that I felt quite alone in that period. Dr. Moritz advised us to wait longer than normal to tell people. Usually, they'll tell you to wait until twelve weeks. He said wait until sixteen or so if we could. Already, it seemed, we might be at some disadvantage: the pregnancy, always high risk because of "advanced maternal age" (I was, after all, thirty-six years old!) now seemed to be truly under fire. This didn't seem as though it would last. It really didn't. And I don't count on things that aren't going to last. I couldn't be optimistic, not then. Optimism was blindness.
It seemed more likely to me that I would end this phase without a baby than with. Simply put, much of my pregnancy really didn't feel like pregnancy. It felt like an extended possibility of miscarriage, where some days I even just wished for it to get over with already, so sure did it seem that I wouldn't hold on to it.
But I did. Or, more accurately, it held on to me. She held on.
In fact, though I felt kind of funereal in my heart, every early appointment progressed just fine. The fetus was growing, developing at a completely normal rate. The blood was inexplicable, the fetus—the baby, if you're an antiabortionist—seemed totally fine, happy as a pea, a bean, a brussels sprout, just hanging on in there, no awareness that all day every day for me, her mother-to-be, was "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" And yet, every few weeks, there was a little trickle of blood, for seemingly no reason, which I took as an attack against me and my recently acquired hopes and dreams of motherhood.
I made no plans; I brainstormed no names. I staked out my territory, waiting. The summer passed us quickly, and gradually, we allowed ourselves to tell close friends and family.
I told my father much too early. I even told him about the blood. "I'm not sure; it might not stay," I said. I didn't know what he knew of gynecology. We told Josh's parents. We told his brother, who was getting married just then, in the midst of all this. I carried it like a secret, but one that I couldn't even admit to myself.
We can tell "the kind of people we won't mind telling if it goes away," I wrote to myself in my journal, a new one I had started expressly to document the pregnancy. The individual pages were large—eleven by seventeen—but there weren't very many of them. I didn't choose it consciously, but looking back at it now, it's clear to me that I didn't think this was gonna last. I felt sure, really, that it wouldn't.
I'd been ambivalent for so much of my life about having a child, and even once I'd decided that I wanted one, I'd cried tears of anguish or fear at the prospect of a baby. But now that I was pregnant, I wanted to hang on, to have the baby. I wanted the pregnancy to stay.
And it did. The months wore on. We did scans and drew blood and went through genetic screening to see if we carried anything that might be passed on. My mother-in-law was with me when I did the genetic counseling. When they asked if I'd miscarried or aborted, I said, "One miscarriage." Not true: I had to run back in and tell them I had lied.
The many tests didn't find anything abnormal, which, that early in the pregnancy, when they do find things, are often very serious. We aced the tests, all the while feeling under threat. I kept bleeding.
A few days after the genetic screening, the counselor called me from the hospital in the middle of the afternoon. I was standing in the huge open office I worked in, surrounded by twenty or thirty other people. We were in the middle of a week of all-hands meetings, and writers had traveled from all over the parts of the world where they normally worked to be there. Josh and I worked together, and he was in his office across the room. I could see him through the glass. I texted him from across the office: "They wanna know if we want to know if it's a boy or a girl." "Go for it," he responded as I stood waiting there at my desk, ready to call them back.
"You're having a girl," the counselor said.
Josh told everyone in the office moments later that I was going to have a baby. A rare thing, in a roomful of bloggers, mostly men, mostly under the age of thirty.
Learning this, that we were going to have a girl, somehow made my pregnancy real in a way that it hadn't felt before: Here was information I could snag on to and hold. Here was something I could imagine around. My baby was going to be a girl. I was a few weeks into my second trimester, and everything was going fine.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Then followed a few fairly blissful weeks. I never really had morning sickness, I felt just fine, and I wasn't yet so large that I felt encumbered simply by existing and taking up too much space. We moved into the fall—our daughter was expected at the end of February—happily. I finally allowed myself for the first time to really enjoy the concept of having a baby. I started researching cribs and strollers, making plans to clean out the spare bedroom, which would now be the nursery. I worked, and I planned. I allowed myself the luxury—one I had always avoided—of thinking, and even looking forward to, the future. I allowed myself to hope and to plan, things that have often been very hard for me even in the presence of great reason to hope. I wanted my hopefulness to last, and I wanted to share it.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
I have always approached life with a certain sense of wariness, not because I'm naturally cynical but because often, expecting the worst can mean that your expectations cannot be overwrought. I remember a long-ago childhood conversation with Emily in which she told me, "Things never live up to how I imagine them, in my mind, the way I see something; it's always better than what actually happens." I got that feeling completely, but I didn't necessarily share it. I often approached things from the opposite side: I didn't play things up or out in my mind. I expected nothing. And so occasionally I was pleasantly surprised when cool things happened, or when a party turned out to be fun instead of boring or awkward. I didn't try to make friends, but sometimes I found a special person I connected with.
But with the progress of my pregnancy, I not only allowed myself to feel excitement at the prospect of the future, I embraced it. I wanted to meet this kid, badly, because for the first time, my imagination wasn't filling in anything for me: I couldn't even grasp at a basic outline, and each time she grew on the sonograms I got every two or three weeks, they didn't really help me fill in the space. "I have no idea what she'll be like," I said to the air as I stood in the kitchen, stirring a pot of something for dinner. I couldn't imagine her yet, and not knowing was so hard but so full of possibility. I imagined her then as a person, a wonderful, beautiful, vague, and poorly drawn person, but a person nonetheless.
I became a different, less taciturn being temporarily. "I'm pregnant" I started saying to random New Yorkers on the street or on the subway. "I can see that," one of them once deadpanned back to me. I didn't care; I was already floating up the stairs toward the street, and my feet didn't even touch the pavement. I was feeling fine. Just fine.
I started buying her books. Maybe it made sense to buy her clothes or practical things first, but I started with what I loved and what I had ideas about. I bought her a _Little House on the Prairie_ set, among other "great books" of my youth: _Island of the Blue Dolphins_ , _The Monster at the End of This Book_ , _Madeline_ , _The Snowy Day_ , _The Phantom Tollbooth_. Because I didn't envision her as a specific person, she seemed ageless, and so I purchased whatever I wanted. I didn't need baby books; she could read more advanced material. I was, without thinking about it, already trying to shape the person I imagined her to be or the one I'd like her to be. I imagined her as a book lover, like myself. These were impractical first purchases. Long before I thought of bottles or onesies or diapers, I thought of books.
I didn't worry too much about what the experience of birth would be like, and I didn't worry about what it would be like to have a baby. For the first time in my life, I felt as though I was really living almost entirely in the present. I knew that it couldn't go on forever. But I tried to enjoy it while I could.
In hindsight, it's hard to complain or even to linger over any one complication, because my daughter was born and she was healthy and beautiful. But in truth, my pregnancy was pretty miserable. As I moved into the second trimester, I began to feel very tired, and I gained weight very quickly. I remember being offended the first time the doctor said something to me about watching what I ate. I'd read about these kinds of warnings. I wasn't overeating; I was doing everything just like I was supposed to! I'm a vegetarian, and I generally eat well anyway, and now I was drinking lots of water and paying attention to everything I ingested. What did he mean I should "be careful"?
But he was right: I had gained weight alarmingly fast. Reading my chart now, it's clear that there was a problem: I started at 135 and then edged over to 140 in the first three months. But less than two weeks later, I was nearly at 150. By the time I gave birth, I weighed 199 pounds. But it wasn't from food.
Around the twentieth week of my pregnancy, at one of our routine checkups, I asked about birthing classes. I was worried that Josh, whose tolerance for unenjoyable activities he views as a waste of time can be very low, would not fare well in a class with other participants, and I was hoping we could have something private, maybe at home, even if it costed more.
"Hire a doula," Dr. Moritz said, "and then you don't even have to bother with the birth classes at all." At various points throughout the pregnancy, this obstetrician truly seemed like a magician, and this was one of those times. I felt relief wash over me as the anxiety about what that fucking class would be like melted away. We could put it off! We could read a book or watch a YouTube video about birth. Our doctor was in a documentary about birth— _The Business of Being Born_ —and we could just view that one night, for fun. But we never watched it. "I could figure it out," I thought. "How hard could it be?"
That's what I told myself as I put off reading books about the process of birth, opting instead for those about child-rearing and baby caring. I mired myself in the details of sleep training and feeding, of identifying ailments and fevers and rashes. I studied the CDC's immunization schedules and did research on pediatricians.
What I didn't do was make a birth plan.
A birth plan is one of those things that no one has heard of until they're pregnant, and then suddenly everyone has them when they are. "How do you want to give birth?" Dr. Moritz asked me very early on. A fair enough question, one that I'm sure most women have an answer for.
"I-in a hospital," I stammered.
"Okay, good. Good to know." He laughed. "Not everyone does!"
"I mean, I can just imagine what a mess it would be. Even thinking about it is upsetting," I said, getting lost in the moment of considering a home birth. "The dog barking, the FedEx guy ringing the doorbell." It was sudden—I'd never considered such a thing, and then in seconds I was dead set against it.
A birth plan, I learned, was my sketch of an ideal way for things to go down. Dr. Moritz didn't seem too big on the concept, as he was the one, after all, who said, "Nothing is in your control," but he encouraged me to go for it if I wanted. "Plan away," he said. I remained suspicious and pragmatic and maybe just a little superstitious. So I strenuously avoided developing a birth plan.
When the doula popped over to our place, I remember so distinctly having that first conversation.
"Do you want to avoid pain medication during labor? Do you want a natural birth?" she asked.
"I guess . . . so?" I said, standing in our kitchen, looking up at the ceiling. "I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, and the competitive person inside me sort of likes the sound of that," I went on nervously. I hadn't really thought about it. That was clear.
"Why would you want that?" Josh almost yelled. "That's incredibly dumb! Who wants more pain?" he exclaimed.
"You should do what you want, though." He turned the corner as quickly as always.
"Here's the thing," the doula said, looking me deep in the eyes. "If you go into the labor unsure of what you want, you will almost certainly end up with medication or interventions of some kind."
Interventions sounded bad. But after she left, Josh and I had a long conversation.
"You don't have to be a hero for me," he said.
"I can so very much do this without any medication," I said. I had caught a glimpse of that beautiful area where privileged mothers can push out a baby without any pain medication in the full care of a great, modern, New York City hospital, feeling empowered and emboldened, and I wanted it. I thought of my mother, imagined her slipping out four kids, telling me, "It's nothing." I felt, now that I knew there was supposedly some better way to give birth (without drugs) in the minds of doulas and midwives and Brooklyn mom groups, challenged by the idea, even if I couldn't explain why it would be "better" at all.
"Why would you choose pain over less pain?" Josh asked.
None of this, he said, had to do with the baby. All of it was about me. He was right. She had her own plans.
The baby, whom we would later name Zelda, was breech. We knew that from pretty early on; she'd seemed comfortable just hanging out in the "wrong position." Breech, I was aware, meant that if she didn't turn, we'd probably not have a "natural" birth. Breech meant C-section. Breech meant drugs. But there was "nothing to worry about," everyone assured me. Babies turn all the time! It was a breezy "Oh, she's breech" at first, the doctor assuring me there was "plenty of time" for her to turn. But by thirty-five weeks, she wasn't just breech; she was transverse.
_Transverse_ in Latin means, I think, "sideways." The sonogram images of her in this stage are very cute: she's laying, yes, sideways, as if my lower body were her couch, her feet pushed against the left side of my abdomen, her head pushing against the right. As she grew larger, comfortably snug against me, we could see the outline of her head pushing out the side of my body, like an alien trying to emerge. It hurt. A lot. By the end, I thought I could feel every time she turned her head. Doing things—anything—became agony. Though I worked until days before I gave birth, I worked from home in the final months, because it became ever-increasingly clear that I was getting sick. And I was still getting fatter.
As I said, I started pregnancy at 135 pounds. I see the chart now, and it fills me with anxiety, not because the numbers the nurse copied from the scale during each visit got so large, but because in hindsight it was clear that something wasn't right.
In fact, rapid weight gain is only one sign of preeclampsia, but it wasn't one that I was predisposed to be suspicious of: I was supposed to gain weight, right?
The first sign was when I noticed something was wrong with my feet. I was getting out of bed one morning and swung my feet over the side of the bed. I looked down at them, and they looked fat. They looked like sausages, just slightly more toes and less angles than I expected. I shoved my feet into my shoes: they fit, but barely. I have been a size 8 since I was fifteen. By the end of my pregnancy I was a 9.5 wide if I was lucky: I couldn't really get shoes on anymore. I emailed my doctor, and he said he would take a look the next time I was in. That was in early September, nearly six months before my daughter was due. It was mild, and when I saw him he didn't seem particularly worried. He warned me to stay hydrated and to try to stay off my feet.
"I'm only four months pregnant!" I laughed.
The swelling came and went at first, but again, in hindsight, it was some kind of progression: each time it came back, it was a little worse. I began to tire a lot easier, and my weight gains seemed to ramp up. But by mid-October, I was monitoring my blood pressure at home a few times a day and emailing it to my doctor. Because it was high.
And one morning in November, sitting in Dr. Moritz's office alone because my husband was at work, I stared across the room to the mirror on the wall at myself while waiting for him. When he walked in, I said, "Does my face look swollen to you?"
It did.
He sent me home with a large jug that I was to pee in for twenty-four hours and then take back to the hospital with me to test for protein in my urine, one of the signs of preeclampsia. I can't remember when he actually brought up that word, but preeclampsia is a condition often seen in pregnant women that is mainly characterized by high blood pressure and protein in your urine and, often, sudden weight gain. It used to be, sometimes, fatal. I knew this because I had watched _Downton Abbey_. Sybil died an agonizing death from her preeclampsia. If it's not caught, seizures can follow. My blood pressure was high, I was gaining weight and retaining water, my daughter was transverse. But I passed. It was negative. My doctor had monitored all of this closely, never really alarming me, but keeping us aware that this was not exactly an ideal situation. I kept monitoring my blood pressure at home a few times a day. It fluctuated from a little above normal to quite high. I felt like shit; I was worried all the time. And the fetus? She was doing just fine.
Early one morning, a month and ten days before my daughter was due, I felt what I could only describe as contractions. I emailed the doctor. "Don't worry," he wrote back almost immediately, "but go to Labor and Delivery."
Ha! Don't worry, but head to the hospital. The nurse in L&D seemed sure I wasn't having anything more than little early-warning contractions—until she strapped the monitors on me. My baby was fine, her heartbeat was strong, but I was indeed having fairly strong contractions. They pumped me full of fluids, hoping that I was simply dehydrated, which I learned could cause contractions. Eventually, after sitting in a hospital bed for six hours, the contractions subsided, though not completely. I was thirty-five weeks pregnant, and they told me it was possible, though not likely, that I would feel the contractions on and off until my daughter was born.
And I did. It was sometimes a simple, dull background noise, but others were a severe, almost toothache pain, worse than menstrual cramps and mentally anguishing. I worried I was going into labor constantly. I couldn't tell anymore what was normal, and my daughter remained stubbornly in a bad position. I tried to keep my complaints to myself. Many of my friends were childless, and anytime I described the feelings aloud, they became alarmed. But I'd been told so many times not to worry, which was impossible, so I settled for trying not to worry anyone else. I complained to Josh only when necessary, though I also worried about worrying him.
This state of affairs didn't dampen my excitement completely, but it did bring me back into more well-worn territory, where I felt anxious and unsure that everything would turn out all right.
Finally, a week or so later, I went in for a checkup, probably around thirty-six weeks, I weighed in at 191 pounds, and my blood pressure was above normal but not terrible. I was having contractions.
"If you didn't know this already," Dr. Moritz said, "it's unlikely that she is going to turn into the correct position. Now," he went on, "the entire game is seeing how close we can get you to forty weeks." But I think he knew that she would likely need to come out before then, around thirty-seven weeks, which is when a baby is finally considered "full term."
By then, preeclampsia was unquestionable. The best way to get rid of preeclampsia is to have the baby. My daughter was transverse. She was not going to be born "naturally," a description of birth that I rejected by then. Natural as opposed to . . . what? Imaginary concepts of natural birth vs. C-sections and drugs slipped out of the conversation as I was faced with reality: I wasn't being offered a choice because there wasn't one. The baby was in a position that meant she couldn't be labored out on her own without one of us dying or causing an emergency medical situation, and my preeclampsia made it extremely unlikely that I could wait until labor arrived anyway. I think of this now and feel a little terrified in hindsight, but at the time, I felt relieved to hear that we were nearing the end. I felt as though we would do better, the baby and I, if she was outside my body, which seemed to be turning on us both.
The first day of officially hitting thirty-seven weeks was a Monday, the first one in February. I woke up at dawn to terrible cramps. I had an appointment at 2:30 that afternoon. The last email I sent to the doctor was at 1:51 p.m. "My contractions are worse in the morning, I think," I wrote. "I'll see you soon."
An hour later, he told me to go home, lay down, and come back to the hospital early the next morning to have my daughter born, via C-section.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
So we did just that. She was born at 1:45 p.m. after a mostly painless epidural and a painless C-section. I never went into labor, and I never pushed even once, but I can't say that I have ever felt, for one second, like I missed out on anything. I'm not saying that in some completely imaginary, otherworld best-case scenario I wouldn't have done it differently; I might have. But this is the only birth I have known or seen, and I remember it in excruciating detail. What more could a mother ask for? An unnatural, beautiful birth.
I don't know the details of my own birth. I know that my mother thought I was a girl but wasn't sure and that I was a week late. I don't know what her labor was like, though if her accounts of "birth" in general are any indication, my guess is it was easy and complication-free. I don't know, to be honest, if she breast-fed me. It simply never came up while she was alive, and though I've wished her back to life many times since my daughter was born, it was never to learn how I came into the world. I am here, and that's enough.
And that was how I felt about Zelda when she arrived: I could recount the details, I remember them minutely, but they weren't important at the time. She was here.
I weighed 199 pounds the day that I checked into the hospital in February of 2014 to have Zelda. I was feeling very bad: much of my weight (though less than I would have liked, to be honest) was water, and that is painful to carry. I felt as though the skin on my swollen feet and ankles and hands was going to split open. My face was swollen, my neck was fat. All of me felt unwell and overwhelmed. My daughter was literally sideways and backward. I could see her head sticking out the right side of my stomach at all times. I'd like to say that I was overwhelmed with worry about her, and I was, to some extent.
But I didn't know her yet. I knew me. And I wanted her out.
I checked in and faced an apparently normal wall of paperwork. I signed forms giving them the right to do whatever needed to be done in emergency situations. "Isn't this an emergency?" I wondered. It wasn't. There were other, far worse ways that this could all go down. I distinctly remember the form that asked if I wanted to be put to sleep for the procedure, because this wasn't an option I realized was even offered any longer.
"I could literally peace out on this? LOL," I thought, as I declined. I'm not a fan of anesthesia or even of painkillers, to be honest. I assumed the epidural would be enough to get me through the day. My mother had been awake for all of our births. Surely I could handle this.
At some point they split up my husband and me; at some point I was put on a hospital bed that they started wheeling me around to various rooms on. I had to be wheeled around, they told me. I couldn't walk into the operating room. I wanted to. I was still me. "Can I walk in?" I asked. "You can't," the kind attendant said as he wheeled me in, an invalid perfectly capable of walking.
I've learned since that day that experiences with epidurals vary pretty wildly. Mine was uneventful and not painful. I remember the exact sensation of it kicking in. "I feel static-y, like there's static inside my whole body," I said happily to the people in the OR. I faded out, drifting almost to sleep. "Little too much there, ha-ha," one of them said as they pulled me back from wherever I'd been off to. I wanted to go away, then, briefly. I hadn't had a drink in so long; I'd been so conscious and aware of every little thing. Just for a second, as I felt the drugs overwhelm me, I thought, "Let me go." They brought me back.
"Do you have a name for the baby?" another guy, somewhere up around my head, asked me. I was staring at the ceiling, which was probably twelve or thirteen or twenty-five feet high. The room was cold and bright and vast. "Yes," I said, not sure if I should tell him or not. "Zelda," I blurted out, realizing for the first time that that would be her name. We'd basically decided it already, but I don't think we'd told anyone before, and there I was, telling this guy I couldn't even see, this man I didn't know. I felt so close to him. Where the fuck was he? I tried to turn my head.
"I can't feel my legs," I said.
"You're not supposed to," someone said.
"You know how one person can make or break an entire name?" I asked aloud.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean like how Hitler just ruined Adolf. You can't name a kid Adolf now."
Silence.
At some point Dr. Moritz came in, and I saw him in a different light than I had in the preceding months. I liked him; he was funny and nice and warm. My husband, who came in with him, liked him, too. They were cracking jokes, and suddenly I realized there was a huge divide between me and them: "I'm the only person in this room today on the verge of dying," I thought. "The chances are very low, like, sliver chances," I told myself, "but they're so much higher than theirs that we're not on the same timeline. I'm alone in a really particular way right now." I thought this. I was alone.
Except I wasn't: she, my daughter, not yet Zelda but no longer quite Laura, was on my timeline, in my zone, too. She could die as well, I knew, though I didn't want to think of that. We could blaze out together; in fact, the whole reason we were there in that operating room, at thirty-seven weeks deep into the pregnancy, so much earlier than expected, was that one or both of us was going to be in some serious shit if we didn't all take action. We, she and I, spending our last moments in the same body together, my body, we were on the same timeline, alone in that room. I was taking back my body and giving her her own timeline.
In previous centuries, one of us, probably both of us, would have been goners. I knew this. There are so many goners in my family tree. They're hard to find, because dead babies at birth in history rarely even get names. They don't get gravestones; it's expensive, and nature is what it is. In nature, I would be dead. Instead, I have this beautiful doctor, these people helping me. I would have died. She would have died. I know this.
And I was aware of that when I looked at my husband, and more so at my doctor: here was the man who would open me up and pull my daughter out.
Moments later, Josh made some joke—I can't remember about what but am too stubborn to go and ask him for fear that he will realize my memory isn't infallible—and that joke was greeted tersely by Dr. Moritz: "This is my stage," he said to Josh. I had a great view of him, as he was directly above me, while Josh sat on a stool behind my right shoulder. "I make the jokes here."
For some reason, his making that clear reassured me. I was scared, but I couldn't tense up my body because I couldn't feel anything. I don't know where my hands were. What were my hands doing? They hadn't tied them down. Or maybe they did? They didn't. But what were they doing? Did they tie my hands down?
Either right before or right after Zelda was "born," Josh leaned over and whispered into my ear, "I'm afraid you're going to die, there's so much blood." On the one hand, this seems, in hindsight, a really insane thing for him to have said to me, the person who was laying there, just trying to stay alive. On the other, it let the air out of the whole thing: "Me too," I said. "But I'm okay; I feel fine." I had someone to reassure. That felt good. It felt like living.
Zelda was born, as I said, at 1:45 p.m., only ten minutes or so after they'd rolled me into that room. Her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck—"Three times!" Dr. Moritz marveled—but she was breathing, a little silent, a sort of bluish alien thing. They held her over the sheet that divided me from my internal organs on display, and I looked at her for the first time, still thinking about myself primarily. That mode of being—where I was mentally first—was going to end hard and fast in less than twenty-four hours, but I didn't know any other way yet. I didn't quite think on her behalf, and so she still seemed like a foreign object to me. Not really so far off the mark, honestly: a just-born baby is barely human, only partly among us. She was whisked over to the other side of the room to be tested and wiped off, to have her cord cut and to be dressed. Josh went with her for a moment but wandered back to stay with me while I was sewn up or whatever it was they were doing to me. I didn't know who cut the cord.
I heard the baby cry and tried to look around to see her, craning my neck wildly.
"She's okay," Josh said. And she was: she was okay. Her Apgar scores were shit, but she was doing just fine. Her lungs worked, and she was, at six pounds, nine ounces, not even small for a baby who was three weeks early.
"Do we want to call her Zelda? Are we sure?" Josh asked.
"I'm sure," I said back.
And so there we were. Three of us.
I was moved to a middle waiting room, where other women who have also just given birth were being stored, too. We would have a private hospital room for the three of us later. I didn't know where anybody was, but my phone and a few other personal effects had appeared from somewhere. I texted my father. I lay back on the bed. I felt fine.
Josh reappeared, came to check on me.
"She's so beautiful," he said. "We gave her a bath," he told me.
"Where is she?" I asked. He left.
Eventually, probably less than an hour later, they wheeled me down the hall and into our room. Zelda was there, and they unswaddled her to lay her on my chest. She was so tiny and beet red. She was hot to the touch. She was awake and looking at me. She could see me. I could see her. She held my finger, which seemed just impossible. How could a baby hold a finger?
These are mundane and universal observations, tearjerker moments about the birth of a baby. Their universality is what I valued: after a tough pregnancy, we were at a new beginning. The scoreboard was reset. We were just like everyone else.
People have asked me on a few occasions if I had any regrets about the way Zelda was born. The C-section, they mean. Those people, parents mostly, have a lot of opinions, and one of those opinions is that birth, especially in the United States, has become too "medicalized." In the years since Zelda's birth, I've thought about this more than I probably should have.
What they call "natural" birth, the kind of birth that often eschews pain medication, should never include a C-section. The C-section, to a natural birth advocate, is the worst-case scenario.
My opinion, the only opinion I find to be acceptable, has always been that the worst-case scenario is a dead mother or baby or both. I have never felt disappointed about my "birth experience," mostly because I didn't really consider it an "experience."
I never formed many strong opinions about what would be ideal, I simply took what came toward me and tried to accept and make the best of it. People fool themselves into believing that the birth of their child is about them. It's not: it's about their children. They're the ones being pushed or pulled out. We owe them a safe arrival. And so, that's what we gave her. I didn't want surgery, but we don't often get what we want, and I am not a doctor. I do not presume to have a better solution to a breech baby and a preeclamptic mother.
My birth experience, such as it was, was about the best thing I could have imagined.
And even though I felt lonely without my mother, that day in February will always be what I consider to be the best day of my life. A turning point. A new beginning. And the day that I met my daughter for the first time.
When people ask if I was disappointed by my birth experience, I want to tell them to fuck off. I want to scream at them and tell them they're terrible people who don't know anything, that they're one step away from vaccine deniers.
Instead I just say, "No. Were you?"
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
We left the hospital at 5:30 p.m. the next day in advance of a snowstorm. February is arguably the worst month of the year in New York City. It is often bitterly cold, snowy, and generally grungy. Happily, however, it is also the month of the year that the fewest babies are born. I assume this is because February is the shortest month, but either way, the hospital, the busiest for births in New York City, was actually pretty quiet. We got our own private room at the end of a quiet hallway, and we hunkered down for what we assumed would be a few days but turned out to be only about twenty-four hours.
The rest of the stay passed in a weird blur that was almost all positive. The hospital food was good, and we had a private room, so the three of us slept together. "Slept" is a funny term for whatever it was we were doing in that time, awake every fifteen minutes, but we held together. The baby was beautiful. She was healthy. She was eating.
I recuperated easily. So easily, in fact, that the doctor warned me that I must take my medicine every six hours, like clockwork, because I'd refused the prescribed Percocet and insisted on taking only a large dose of ibuprofen. "If you don't take it every six hours, you'll pay," the nurses kept telling me. My fear of becoming an opioid addict overcame my worry about postpartum pain. We filled the Percocet prescription "just in case," but I never took a single one. Maybe I was like my mother after all: at least the postpartum period seemed not so bad for me, and I'd heard horror stories from women about pain and barely being able to walk. This seemed suddenly doable to me.
I was up and walking around by 11:00 the morning after Zelda was born, motivated by some hormones I couldn't name and didn't care about; I was ready to get on with it. The nurses didn't exactly marvel, but they certainly commented on it when they saw me walk out the door of our room, dressed in sweat pants. "I'm just going for a stroll," I said, looking in at the nursery to my left where several newborn babies lay. I walked all the way to the end of the hall, to the window. It was going to snow. I felt bad physically—just drained. The epidural had not totally worn off. I could walk and move, but I was numb in my middle. I've never liked being away from home, not even if the alternative is a luxury hotel or a new, exotic locale; within a matter of hours I am dreaming of the emotional comfort of home. I've traveled enough to learn to ignore those little calls, of my apartment or my own bed, my books and my kitchen, but I felt this acutely in the hospital after Zelda's birth, just a few miles from home.
Dr. Moritz came in early that afternoon to look at my incision and declared it beautiful and healing.
"You will barely know it happened," he said, as he confirmed that I could go home if I wanted to.
"What about the baby?" I asked.
"Not my territory," he said, waving off my suggestion that he take a look at her. "The pediatricians will tell you." He was joking but not: he dealt with me, and someone else handled my daughter. We were two things now; I'd just forgotten that again. "Oh, right," I thought. "She has her own doctor now."
"Would you be more comfortable at home?" he asked me directly, Zelda laying in her plastic bin across the room.
"Yes," I said, thinking about home as though I hadn't been there in months. It had barely been twenty-four hours since we left, not even twelve since the birth.
What I should have thought or said to my doctor or to Josh was, "What equals comfort right now? What is best for us?" Walking was painful, and our house had two narrow, steep flights of stairs. There at the hospital, meals were delivered three times a day, someone came and gave me my medicine when it was time, and, if I needed, I could call a nurse to help me with the baby. I hadn't sent Zelda off to the nursery yet, but I knew that it was there. But I wanted so badly to go home that I didn't think about any of this. Like a child, I wanted what I wanted.
This was partly because I am a homebody. Josh loves hotels and often talks about how he would prefer to live in one. I prefer—need, actually—to be surrounded by my stuff. My books and my papers, my pillows and my bed. I sleep well only in a room that smells like me, and I think well only in my own office. I just wanted, longed, to be home.
But it was also, I see now, out of fear: this was my first-ever hospital stay. I simply wanted to go home. In fact, I felt the weight of my own childishness over and over those first few hormonal days. I wanted things. I wanted.
But now, I was a mother. I didn't yet know that soon I would gladly saw off my own head with a butter knife to save my daughter's life, that my own wants would subside, seem to be deleted almost from my mind. I was in a kind of limbo state between adult human woman and mother. I inhabited in that hospital a competing sense of self, no place or time, nothing pressing from life back home that couldn't wait, but I was so excited to get back there.
I didn't know that my old home was gone, that I would never get it back, that it had been replaced. That the same old rooms would suddenly seem different on a molecular level. That the light would hit the furniture in a way I'd never seen before, that I would be up at hours I had never been awake at. That I would learn how to avoid a creaking step, how to walk as if on pillows so as not to make a sound. That I would sleep lightly instead of as if I were dead, how I'd slept my whole life up until now. Everything was different: not just me but the house, the dog, my husband. My books would sit on shelves unread for months; my former life was gone. I would not get a haircut or a pedicure for months. Everything was different; not worse, nor even better, just different.
But I didn't know that yet.
In the hospital, in the twenty-four hours after my daughter was born, I knew only my base impulses and desires. I had to get this newborn to feed, shoving my breast unhelpfully into her mouth. I wanted food. I had to have a bowel movement before I could leave. I had to get up and walk. I wanted a shower. Our daughter had to make wet diapers, she had to latch, she also had to poop. Everything was direct and simple, bodily and earthly. I texted friends and family, but no communications had any weight. Nothing mattered outside that room. That was clear, and the needs were pressing but so simple and direct. I had barely packed anything, and when people offered to bring me things I might need, I could not remember what I owned or even if owning things mattered. It was a Zen kind of feeling, which, when writing about it, sounds almost like apathy. Teetering on the edge of an ending and a beginning is a certain kind of not caring, really. What was next? Who cares.
I wanted to lose the water weight while I sat on the couch watching TV and eating takeout food like the old days. I couldn't think beyond those basic needs. I tried not to laugh because of the wound in my abdomen that I was still too scared to look at.
I hadn't given up my old life completely yet. That would take a few weeks to accomplish. For now, Josh and I were in a weird fog, and there was only one thing, besides the presence of Zelda, that forced me to admit that things had changed irrevocably.
I wanted my mother. On this, my first real day feeling like an adult after years of what now clearly seemed to have been "faking it," I wanted my mother there. Not for guidance or even support, but simply for her to be there. A model to look at, my mother, of someone who had successfully transitioned so early in life from a woman into a mother. A woman who, it seemed to me, had done so quite easily. A very normal but impossible wish. Becoming a mother had reduced me to a child instantly.
# CHAPTER 3
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My parents got married when they were very young, but they weren't unique in that: growing up, most of my friends' parents were young, too. This was something I thought of very much as I began my journey with Josh as the parents of a newborn. My parents were so young when they started having kids that I constantly compared myself to them. My mother would have been sixty-one years old when her granddaughter was born. That's so young. When I'm sixty-one years old, Zelda will only be twenty-four.
I guess I worried a little that I wouldn't have the same energy that my parents had had for us when we were kids. It wasn't that I felt old; I didn't. But having my daughter made me remember so many things about my own early childhood that I'd never thought about, couldn't have thought about, in the way I saw them now, as a mother.
For the first few years of my life, my parents lived in a small town surrounded by other people who were family: my great-uncle and great-aunt and two of my father's first cousins lived in houses up and down a small street filled with small houses. Because my parents were so young, so too were my grandparents, all four of them.
My mother and father grew up a few miles from each other and went to the same high school. My father was just about two years older than my mother. Not until they were in college, both of them going to Catholic schools in Erie, Pennsylvania, did they meet. Soon after my father graduated, our family began. So my grandparents were young, but they were also close geographically to us and to each other. This meant that family events were often large because they encompassed all of us, with cousins mostly nearby. My parents each had just one sibling, but the extended families were big and loud and always around.
My mother was—unlike me, her only daughter—chatty and outgoing, sunny and warm. I've struggled my whole life to make small talk. Like my father and many of the people on his side of the family, we sometimes are at a loss for words. Josh always remarks at how bad I am at even pretending to be having a good time in large groups of people, but as a child I don't remember that feeling as much. Children are often generously given space to be simply themselves, before adulthood begs us to behave in ways that make those around us more comfortable.
But my mother never struggled to fill air space. Deep in the furthest recesses of my memory I can recall her talking on the phone, talking all morning to my grandmothers and friends and cousins, just chatting away.
My parents often hosted the holidays, and my mother was, unlike her own mom, a great cook. I don't know where she picked it up, though I do remember her always sharing recipes with my grandma Elly, her mother-in-law. They were close too, and long after my mother was dead, my grandma Elly loved to tell stories about how she and my mother got along, talking and cooking and laughing.
There was never silence in our house; there were too many of us for that. I often wished, even when I was four or five, that things were quieter. Once my mother told me she'd woken up in the middle of the night to find me alone in a room, all the lights on, doing jigsaw puzzles. "I needed some quiet," I told her. I shared a bedroom first with my two brothers and, once my youngest brother, John, was born, we moved to a larger house, and I shared just with him, the baby. I loved having a baby in my room, at five or six years old, and betrayed no hint of my adult ambivalence about kids to come.
In that smaller house, where we lived when my brother Daniel was born right after me, my mother told me that sometimes, when he was sleeping in his bassinet in my parents' room, I would silently, quietly creep in and just stand there watching him. I could barely talk, but once, when my mother came in and found me there, I said, "Shhhhhh . . . baby sleeping." I loved my baby dolls as Zelda would eventually love hers, with a fervor that means she can now change a diaper faster than I can. I used to watch her on the baby monitor, early in the morning, awake and sitting up in the dark, staring up at the ceiling as she silently changed her baby's diaper over and over, practicing, a neat little stack of used diapers bundled next to her. But the arrival of Daniel, and later John, meant that I no longer needed to care for baby dolls: I had real-life specimens.
Just before we moved to the larger house, and just before John was born, my father found out that he had cancer. He was twenty-eight years old, and my parents had three kids. It was melanoma, the bad kind. As children, we were mostly sheltered from the realities of this, that my parents and grandparents thought that he might die, which they did think. Only later did my mother tell me, as a preteen in one of our long conversations about the past, how serious it had been, that they'd thought he might not survive. "Your grandmother came to the hospital once with her dress on inside out; everyone was a mess," she said. She was so candid with me, even as a kid. I was her friend and sounding board, in addition to being her daughter. "But," I said, remembering that period, "that's so strange. To me, that was one of the best times, because he was home for so long." My father hadn't worked for a while after his surgery. He'd spent a lot of time in bed in their darkened room. To me, it was great because he was just around all the time.
That larger house had a giant yard and a creek and woods behind it, and my brothers and I often spent the hours before I was in school yet roaming around outside all day. In my mind it was idyllic and normal enough, but I was also fairly rough around the edges, I think. My mother was always careful to dress me very well, but I had scrapes and bruises all over me from days spent climbing trees and building forts. I didn't have many friends of my own yet, just my brothers. I was surrounded by boys.
My mother stayed home with us, and I was so close in age to my brother Daniel, who was just sixteen months younger than me, that most of my first memories are of babies: him, then John, who was four years younger than me. My father worked a lot, as fathers often do. But we were surrounded by family on the weekends and neighborhood friends and mothers during the week.
I didn't go to kindergarten, so I stayed home with my mother until I went to first grade, at the nearby Catholic school. I remember her walking me out to the bus that first day, me in a little jumper with pigtails and her kneeling down in front of me. She had a cigarette in her left hand. Back then, as I remember it, every parent smoked. My mother held my hand—my brother David went to the same school, and he was there off to the side—and we walked down our long driveway to the road. He seemed so much older than me, a fifth grader. I was excited to be starting school, to learn how to really read, where then I just knew some words in the books I tried to parse. I could write my name; my mother, who had studied childhood education for her two years of college and had wanted to be a teacher, had taught me how to write.
"You're going to be fine," she said.
I didn't feel afraid to leave her or to go off to school on my own. I would quickly grow to love my class, my teacher, the little dark hallway that led from the school of just fifty or sixty students to the beautiful church. I wanted to go. I was ready to go.
But I felt, even then at six, that my mother wanted me to want to stay home. She had tears in her eyes as she knelt in front of me.
I couldn't think of anything to say to reassure her or make her feel what I felt she wanted from me. I thought she wanted to hear me say that I would rather stay home, but that wasn't true. She'd formed me already into a little independent person, and there I was, happy to leave her. She still had Daniel and John at home, of course, and what's striking in hindsight more than anything else are my tiny feelings of obligation to her. Even that young, I felt that in some way she needed me more than I needed her. But maybe that was only in my six-year-old imagination.
My mother had taught me, so young, to be happy left to myself. I listened to my records and looked at books alone in my room, colored pictures happily. My parents were strict: we didn't watch a lot of TV, and we did what we were told.
One night, probably around the same time as I entered first grade, I made what I recall as my first act of rebellion against my parents. At dinner, the six of us sat there talking at the dining room table. At our house, you didn't question what was for dinner; you simply ate what was on offer. This was mostly for convenience: you can't cater to the whims of six people, four of whom are little kids. So we dutifully ate what was provided.
On the night in question, my mother made pea soup. It was the kind of pea soup that was pork based, little bits of ham floating among the muck. I realized as I sat there, staring at it, that I hated pea soup. I tried to eat it but simply couldn't muster the enthusiasm required for it.
"I don't want this," I said.
My parents looked over at me.
My little brother Dan echoed me. "Me neither." I could be ushering in a full-scale mutiny, my parents probably realized.
"You need to eat," my father said. He was tough and quiet, affectionate, but he always stuck to his word. I carried a normal sense of awe and fear a girl my age had for her father. I adored him but didn't fuck with him. Ever. He never hit me or even raised his voice very often, but when he did yell, it was loud and scary. I don't remember my parents fighting back then. I had no reason to fear him, but I did.
"I'm not eating this; it's gross," I said.
My father put down his spoon and sat there for a second, planning his response.
"Your mother made this; it's delicious. Please eat. That's enough," he said.
I could have pretended to eat. I could have slipped through the cracks with all the other people at the table. I could have said nothing. But I wanted to see where this could go.
"No."
Everyone else was finishing up. David, I could see by the looks he was shooting me, thought I was incredibly dumb to bother with any of this. Daniel sat beside me, not eating either but no longer repeating whatever I said. My mother stood up and started clearing the bowls away. She reached over my shoulder to take mine.
"Leave it," my father said. "She can sit there until she finishes."
And so I sat. I sat for what seemed like hours but was probably twenty minutes. It got dark outside, the sun went down, my brothers were in the other room watching TV. I sat there, waiting for something to happen. For someone to release me from the agony and boredom of simply sitting there, a now-cold bowl of soup in front of me.
My mother came in from the kitchen, having finished washing the dishes. My father appeared. She took the bowl and walked into the kitchen without saying anything to either of us.
"You can go to bed now," he said.
I went to my room and cried myself to sleep, still dressed in my clothes from the day. An hour or so later, my father woke me up. He was sitting on my bed.
"I'm sorry," I said.
He picked me up and carried me downstairs, where my mother and David were still awake, watching television.
I don't know if this was the same night, but in my memory, it was: the night that we watched, together in our family room, the Motown twenty-fifth-anniversary special. The first time I remember seeing Michael Jackson perform live. My parents loved music, and they sat there with us, watching this insane genius sing "Billie Jean" and moonwalk across the stage. My parents were like that, then: our minor misbehavior, to the extent that it happened, was silently passed over. The subtext was clear. You learned the lesson—don't do it again—but nobody made you feel too badly about yourself in the process, either.
Home was, for all of my first six or seven years on planet Earth, warm and loud, and the doors were always open, usually literally. The sound of the screen door banging open and shut as kids or neighbors or family streamed in is baked into my memory: I remember specific screen doors, the metal ones of the two houses, the wooden ones at my grandma Elly's, where the policy was the same, everybody welcome.
Home was warm and normal until it wasn't, and there weren't, in my memory, any warning signs of the change, which came swiftly and abruptly. I'm sure my parents struggled and that they learned fitfully how to manage four young children, their finances, all the things that come with having a family. I wasn't ever naive or unaware, though I was a very small child at one point. Often I find myself in disagreement with anyone who believes that children are unaware of the serious, adult problems going on around them. I was always, to my mind, sensitive to the adults in my midst. And though I see now with Zelda how the nuance of an argument may be lost on her, it's also very true that she senses the broad strokes and tone of a serious discussion. Any time Josh and I have argued around her, I have felt her tense up and close down into her mind. She listens and waits, the way I myself listened and waited.
My mother was in lots of ways a very typical late 1970s or early 1980s stay-at-home mother. She paid lots of attention to us, but we also roamed on our own in little groups as she cooked and cleaned and did laundry, soap operas sometimes playing in the living room in the background. She was laid-back and left us to our own devices a lot, not out of neglect but simply out of the necessity of running a big household.
* * *
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Josh and I couldn't have gone into our new life as parents more differently. We were older, which meant that Zelda's grandparents were older, too. We were both by nature loners without many close friends. The friends we did have were not parents themselves. We lived in Brooklyn, hundreds of miles away from our immediate families. We both worked a lot, and I had no intention—none—of staying home with Zelda for longer than the twelve weeks allotted to me by my job.
In Brooklyn, I knew no other stay-at-home mothers. I didn't consider myself a stay-at-home mother; my sojourn home with my daughter was to be just that twelve weeks, and yet, I almost immediately had many of the problems of any stay-at-home mother: I needed some other stay-at-home mom friends. I was lonely. Daytime television sucked. The baby was boring. Days were long.
We thought, in a wrongheaded but probably unavoidable, nearly universal manner of first-time parents, that Zelda would slide right into our old lives, causing minor disruption and increasing photo ops, but we did not suspect that she would devour, overnight, our way of living.
Josh and I were on our own and uninformed about the ways of modern parenting. If we needed help, we'd have to hire it. I've never excelled at asking for help, and there, in the first few days at home with Zelda, was no different. I'd blindly gone through pregnancy assuming I could simply pile on the extra duties of motherhood to my already overflowing work and home stack. I'd managed our household for years. I'd handled our finances and taxes; all of that was my domain. Though I had lots of ideas about "equal parenting" based on feminism and shit, and though I was totally uninformed about the actual real labor involved in taking care of a baby, I carried few illusions about who would do most of the work: I knew that it would probably be me. I knew it would be me because I wanted it to be me. I like being capable and busy and in charge. I knew that I would suck up extra work in the family and with Zelda because I wanted to do things my way. I looked forward to this.
Those first few weeks at home were an insane mixture of joy tempered with the realities of a newborn. Big cities are weirdly isolating places to have children, simply because most of us living in them aren't from there, so when we do have kids, the rest of our family—parents, siblings, cousins—aren't around to fill up those long and somewhat lazy hours.
I'd made a conscious decision to leave my familiar surroundings of family and friends behind, to move a six-hour drive away from them, as had my husband. We didn't think about what it would be like when we had kids. Does anyone?
In the early days of Zelda's life, it was the three of us—me, her, and Josh—most of the time on the weekends, with a smaller circle of friends, none of whom had kids, who would stop over occasionally for a visit.
During the weekday hours, though, almost no one was around. Josh went back to work one week after Zelda was born, though he'd intended to stay home longer, called back by something that seemed to us at the time worthy of his return. It wasn't ideal for any of us, and we hadn't planned it that way, but that was what happened. We, Zelda and I, were on our own. A lot.
I want to tell you that this transition was easy for me, but it wasn't. I didn't know, going into motherhood, that newborn babies didn't really sleep. I assumed that they slept a lot, and though they sort of do, I didn't know what constituted sleep and what was awake. She was noisy and greedy and seemed unhappy in her new life a lot. Though it was clear from the get-go that Zelda was a "good baby," any baby is rough on the uninitiated. And I, so used to living in my head and having hours of time to myself to think and daydream and cook elaborate meals, was in for a wake-up call. And the first few weeks with Zelda were all about sleep—or a lack of it, I guess. All three of us were hampered by exhaustion.
But I need to say that part of the reason the transition was so hard for me was that I felt an intense amount of pressure to "do" motherhood well. I wanted to do it well, I was desperate to be a devoted and caring and attentive mother from the start. I am naturally competitive with myself, and I love to multitask. I wanted to be a great mother but also to manage all the things I'd managed before: the house, our money, my career. I'd waited quite a long time to have children, and so when she arrived, I assumed my daughter would necessarily be the focus of my efforts moving forward. And though in the first months I did not yet feel the pull of going back to work, of my career and my own projects, I _did_ feel, keenly and selfishly, the loss of personal time. The loss of time to be just alone with myself. She was always there. We didn't have time apart. I hadn't thought about this in advance. And I didn't know, couldn't know, how hard it actually is to be a parent. How much labor it is, emotionally, physically, and mentally. And I began, very quickly, to see that having a career and a well-loved daughter and an orderly house was not simply a matter of me _wanting_ it badly enough. I began to suspect that I would run myself ragged, possibly for the rest of my life. But still, I was up for it most days.
While Josh was exhausted at work, I was exhausted at home with a baby who didn't ever seem fully awake or fully asleep. She existed in some middling state where I could barely put her down for fear that she would start crying. She didn't cry much, to be fair to her: she was pretty lovely from the start, like I said. But my options often seemed limited to simply letting her sleep on my chest or never at all. At night, it was worse.
I remember one desolate Sunday morning when Zelda was just two weeks old, where no one had slept and when Josh and I had argued, at 4:45 a.m., over who would "get up for the day" with the baby. I had lost. I usually did, simply because Josh had to be "presentable," he had "a real job." I say these things in quotation marks not because his words were untrue. They were absolutely true. It's impossible to go to a job and seem even seminormal on the amount of sleep that he and I were getting. But, at the same time, hearing him say it to me, in the state that I was in, made me want to spit fire. I'd been home for only two weeks and already I couldn't conceive of the world outside my house. I was hopelessly self-involved and didn't think beyond a few hours ahead of myself.
That Sunday morning, I reached a crisis point. I couldn't keep not sleeping at night only to have to be conscious during the day, too. My incision still hurt when I laughed (which was sort of more often than I'm making it sound like here, right now), and walking up and down the stairs was terrifying. During the day I kept the baby on the first floor with me all day, jetting up the stairs as fast as my still-swollen feet could carry me only to go to the bathroom while she slept in a basket on the couch, our dog, Penny, standing guard.
I emailed a friend of mine who had told me that when he and his wife had twins, they'd hired a baby nurse. I only vaguely knew what a baby nurse was, but in that moment of the email, so tired and overwhelmed as I was, I knew simply that I wanted one. I needed one. Three scattered emails back and forth and I was on the phone with a woman who said she could come that evening. She would stay, she said, from 8:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. I would, in those hours, do nothing. Do whatever I wanted. Sleep. Eat. I didn't know.
At 8:00 that night, Monica showed up at my door. We were in the middle of blundering through "bath time," which was still terrifying and seemingly full of danger. She took Zelda from me and, in a matter of less than five minutes, had expertly cleaned and toweled off her body. "See, like this," she said, as Josh and I stood behind her, marveling. "The baby gets cold very fast, so the bath should only take two minutes," she said.
We followed her into Zelda's bedroom, and I showed her where everything that they could possibly need was in the tiny space. She put Zelda into her little pajamas, and I handed her a bottle. "Good night," she said. "Don't worry."
"She doesn't sleep much," I said.
"But you should," she said.
I went upstairs and laid across my bed. I burst into tears. After ten minutes, I crawled under the covers, fully clothed, and fell asleep. I didn't wake up until the next morning at 7:15, when Josh shook me to let me know that the nurse was ready to leave.
"She slept four and a half hours straight," Monica told me as she bundled herself up to go out into the bitter Brooklyn cold. "I'll see you tonight."
Monica came back on and off for two weeks, just so that we could get some sleep, so that I could recover from surgery and be present with Zelda during the long, twelve-hour days, and so that Josh could manage better at work. It was a great decision and a good lesson for me: asking for help is often the greatest thing a mother can do.
I've wished so many times for family to be closer since we became parents, especially when Zelda's grandparents come to visit. Each of the four of them (my father remarried the same year that Josh and I got married) loves her so much, and she them. I had very close and special relationships growing up with my own grandparents, and I want that for her, too.
But we don't have, mostly because of proximity, the same relationship with our parents, Zelda's grandparents, as my parents had with theirs. Geographical distance means long-planned trips to visit are a big deal, not thrown together at the last minute. And of course, grandparents are, for us, never a last-minute babysitter option. Where my parents had access to their own parents for help—I remember my grandmother always came along on shopping trips and to doctor's appointments, and I realize now that it was probably because a second set of hands was really helpful—Josh and I hire helpers: we find babysitters and housekeepers and try to manage the best we can mostly on our own. There are upsides to isolation, but only when I became a parent did I realize how much easier family life could be if only there were more, well, _family_ around, and how important it is for Zelda to be close to her aunts and uncles and grandparents.
# CHAPTER 4
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I've learned a lot from Zelda. There's been a lot of nuts-and-bolts acquiring of skills over the past few years. The early days of complete cluelessness died extremely hard and really fast. I am now officially "good with babies and children." I know how to talk to them and keep them calm, how to be firm without being mean. I can stay patient in the face of the great annoyance of small children. I've discovered that even young babies can learn by example and that children always do. But Zelda has taught me by example, too.
She was always outgoing and social, even as an infant, often smiling and, once she learned to wave, waving at strangers. My mother's alcoholism had forced me to be protective and reserved, suspicious of common, everyday interactions with neighbors and mailmen. I kept secrets and information to myself; often I pulled away from my closest friends, even when I was very young. There were always so many things I couldn't tell. Zelda's natural inclination was to be open and to greet everyone. She is, like my mother was (and like her father), a friend-maker: talk comes fast and easy to her.
But more than that, being a mother was isolating in a way in which I did not expect. I didn't expect to want to talk to other people going through the same thing as me. I'd gone through plenty of serious experiences in my life before. I'd had friends die, I'd dealt with my mother's alcoholism and her death, and I'd mostly gone through those things with only Josh and my closest family to support me. I didn't generally reach out to random people. But becoming a mother broke me open: I wanted to talk about the experience of motherhood and about my life as it was now. About how hard the transition was.
But I also just wanted some company in those long days.
"My mother is dead" is a terrible icebreaker, but, in the months after Zelda was born, I was pretty raw most of the time. And when I said it to a new mother I'd just met named Kim, it felt perfectly natural, the words tumbling out of my mouth easily and without tears or doubt. I knew that it would lead to other conversations, that it meant a lot of explanation, a narrative. I knew that it would burden our friendship and possibly tie us together in ways that I often avoided with other people. But it felt, like I said, perfectly natural. I was open and ready to tell the story. And I'd met Kim in an unlikely place: a meet-up of new mothers, with infants all about the same age as Zelda. Driven by something like desperation, I reached out to a random group of people. And I met Kim.
The first meet-up that Zelda and I went to was painful for me: it was in a park, a twenty-minute walk from our house. I walked with her strapped to my chest in a baby carrier, pushing the empty stroller in case she changed her mind about where she was most comfortable. She burped and spit up a little, drool rolling down between my breasts and, disgustingly, into my belly button. I noticed I hadn't charged my phone before we left the house, so I wouldn't even have that crutch if the experience was really grim: we were on our own. It was spring, and although it wasn't too cold anymore, venturing out still felt new and terrifying but, at least, exciting. The point of the meet-up, I see now at least for myself, was simply to motivate me to leave the house.
The group of women I met was about what I expected. They were mostly young, straight, and white. They were artists and writers, and one worked all over the world researching HIV. They were uniformly smart, well educated. Most of them were first-time mothers. We had things in common, to be sure: we were all exhausted, and we were all struggling with sleeping, breast-feeding, the basics, even a few months in. Some struggled more than others: I was well on my way to solving some of my problems, since I was sleep training and supplementing with formula; others seemed racked with guilt at the thought of such things. It was a judgment-free space, but I felt that judgment was on the tips of all our tongues. I wasn't the only one who was raw, of course.
Still, it was good to see the babies there together on blankets in a park on a nice day. And though it pained me to admit it, I needed this, and I went home that day with a very slight spring in my step and something even more important.
"I think I made a friend today," I said when Josh came home.
"That's weird," he joked.
"I'm not sure yet, really. We'll see." I was cautiously optimistic, and only time would tell.
But the next week there was another meet-up, this time in the backroom event space of a local baby store. This time, the babies could really just roll around however; we didn't need to worry about them banging into bugs or twigs. Well, except that my baby, my Zelda, she didn't really roll over yet. Some of the babies who were even younger were already rolling, but not my girl. She was seemingly content to stay pretty much wherever I set her down.
Kim was there again, and her daughter, Amy, who was just one day older than Zelda, wasn't rolling over yet either, though she was closer to doing so than Zelda.
My memory of this day is vital to my life as a mother. It's not that I'm so socially awkward that I can't make friends. But wanting a friend who was specifically a "mom" at what seemed to me like the most vulnerable time in my life felt, well, a little undignified. But that raw vulnerability—surely a liability in many situations—also made me open to talking, and to listening, to someone completely new.
We had a lot in common. In fact, every time that we talked—and we were soon trading text messages and meeting almost daily for little jaunts around the neighborhood with our strollers—we found that we had more to say. We'd both had C-sections; we were both sleep training. We came from similar family backgrounds. We were both musicians in a previous iteration. And we both admitted, at least to each other, that sometimes being a mother seemed like too much.
"I wonder if I made a huge mistake," I said to her one time.
"I think I'm good with the one," she said to me another. I had found a kindred spirit. And I knew it.
In the hours we spent together, I told Kim pretty much everything I had to tell. I hadn't written in months, and I craved a connection not just about the baby but about my whole life. I hadn't felt alone in quite this way in so long—usually, being alone was a positive thing for me; left with my thoughts I felt quite at home. But now was different.
It was simple for me, in some ways, to tell Kim about my mother. The rawness of my birth experience backed me up, cut me open, but it also made everything that had happened before seem pale and incapable of hurting me. I saw, as I told Kim what I had to tell her, that in a lot of ways, I couldn't be hurt by it anymore.
This is the essence of true friendship. I lived as a friend to Emily for a very long time before I could utter the words "my mother is a drunk" to her. She must have known for years, and yet I couldn't say them aloud. But Kim would never know my mother. I could divulge the unvarnished truth about her, and Kim could judge my mother however she did, and nothing would come of it. Being an adult means no longer having your identity partly or even mostly determined by your background. My mother being an alcoholic didn't mean that there was something wrong with me.
I had known this fact for a pretty long time by the spring of 2014, when I met Kim, when we rolled our strollers double-wide up and down the many sidewalks of Greenpoint. It made saying the words easier but no less powerful. I folded the truth of my upbringing into my identity in a way that said, "Here, this is who I am. I'm okay." Kim was the first person I'd really become fully, socially friends with in the years since my mother died. It mattered that she was "my" friend, not "our" friend: she had never met Josh. I told her whatever I wanted to tell her. We complained about our spouses as spouses, as fathers, at a time when venting was crucial. We vented and, for me at least, I gained strength in representing myself in a way that was both honest and on my terms.
"My mother isn't alive anymore," I said, one bright afternoon. It was a beginning.
And what I revealed there, in those first few months of motherhood, what I came to terms with, was the fact that motherhood was not going to be as easy for me as I had imagined. I was already aware of this just a few days after my daughter was born. Already, I suspected that my dreams of writing at my computer with a baby on the blanket in my office beside me might have been a little optimistic. I wasn't sure what the future held, and, for the first time in my life, for the first time since childhood, I felt open to the possibilities of female friendship as a way to help me figure it out.
But my first friend was Emily. After spending much of my young life surrounded primarily by my brothers, I met Emily the first day of second grade. That summer we had moved an hour away to a suburb of Pittsburgh that was quite different from where we had been before. More than the small-town, very middle-class, Polish Catholic environment where family was literally on the same street on which I lived, our move to McMurray changed everything for us.
This was also when I realized that my mother had a problem, or when it became impossible for her to hide it from me. I think my mother started drinking at home during the day sometimes when we were all at school. I think she must have had some kind of pre–empty-nest syndrome; I'm not sure if there's a name for it. Her children were still a huge responsibility, a massive amount of day-to-day work and care, but she also suddenly, once my youngest brother went to kindergarten the year after we moved, had a massive block of hours at home alone. Time she had never had in her life because, of course, my mother had gone straight from living in a dorm room with friends to being married with children. She'd never been left to herself for hours on end. Unlike me, she may not have known what to do with all that time. My mother made friends easily, and our neighborhood was filled with other families with kids about our ages, so she wasn't isolated, but I sensed eventually that she wasn't at ease in the same way she had been in our old house, in our old neighborhood. Our grandparents were suddenly farther away, and though her children were a lot older than Zelda is now, I see how this must have felt for her: a lot like what it felt like for Josh and me in Brooklyn at first, with not much family around and no other parent friends.
But I didn't sense right away that the move, which meant for me a blossoming circle of friends, meant for my mother a new isolation where she was surrounded by more upper-middle-class women who gardened and got their nails done. For me, the move meant a new house that was larger. For the first time in my life I got to have my own bedroom away from my increasingly annoying brothers. I got to go to a new school that I loved. I got to go to dance classes with my friends. Sometimes my mother was a darker version of herself, but mostly she was still the mother I knew and loved. And I met Emily.
Emily had moved from Ohio the same summer, so we were both new to our second-grade class in a room of kids who had mostly been together for a few years of school. We lived just a mile apart from each other.
Emily and I latched onto each other, and it was a relationship that stuck through the rest of our school days together. We shared many things in common, but, in the early days, we mostly liked to play with Emily's vast Barbie doll collection and listen to Madonna.
Emily and I soon became the kind of friends who shared everything. But kids keep secrets, and I kept to myself my growing sense was that something was wrong with my mother. She seemed suddenly less happy and less present. I don't know when Emily figured out that my mother was an alcoholic, because we didn't talk about it until I was a teenager. I hid this from her reflexively: it was something we shouldn't and didn't talk about. I didn't make a conscious choice to not talk about this with her; it simply didn't really occur to me.
Emily was, at eight years old, a lot different than me. She was funny, like her mother, but she was also more assertive and seemed to always know what she wanted from life. She was probably less burdened inside than me. She certainly had better school attendance She was more active, where I was more reserved and unsure, quiet and, well, if not laid-back, certainly "retiring." I far preferred reading to playing outside.
And even though I wanted to spend all my time outside of school with Emily, already I sometimes craved isolation. By third grade I was keeping a secret diary. I'd love to be able to say that I started my writing career honestly, but I didn't. I had an eye to a future reader, one to whom being honest about my worries, and my beloved mother, was inconceivable. I even lied to my diary.
In fact, I'm cringing now as I write about this. It isn't easy to explain that someone you love so desperately is so complicated. I'm almost forty. It easily took me until I was thirty to be fully proud of my mother, blemishes and all. This is hard for any person to master, to accept and love people as they are rather than how we wish they could be, but for me, I can't help but blame the alcoholism in particular. I was defensive of her above all else.
And so it was that sometimes I pulled away into myself, even from my best friend, even that young. There were many things I couldn't tell her. We talked until all hours of the night in my bed or hers, about our hopes for the future, about moving to New York to become advertising executives (we watched a lot of soap operas after school), about our mutual fear of our houses burning down. We shared many things, almost everything. But not quite.
Soon after we met, Emily's parents separated and her father moved out, leaving her mother with their three daughters. That seemed inconceivable to me, my father leaving, and I know that it wasn't easy for her. And yet, still, I was jealous of her. I knew with all my being that _her_ mother was, for lack of a better word, consistent. She didn't occasionally morph into a completely different person who didn't care or hated her. Emily had her secrets, her private griefs; I'm sure of that now as an adult. But what alcoholism does to you when you experience it as a child is that it makes you crave simple normalcy above all else. I didn't want more money or better clothes or toys or anything else a kid can want. I just spent all my spare time at home looking, like a detective, for signs that things were "okay."
One thing my increasingly drunk mother did really early on was stop showing up. At first, I thought she had just forgotten me. Which, on the one hand, she had. But on the other, she was drunk, which I know now means that the forgetting was a symptom, not the reason: she forgot because she was drunk, not because she disliked me.
This dissonance—that my sober mother loved me very much, that she braided my hair and sang to me, bought me little matching jumpers and sock sets, and made sure I was inoculated and had a lunch packed with little love notes in pen on the napkin tucked inside but then forgot to even bother picking me up occasionally, with barely a nod in my direction in apology after the fact—that I began to experience, where suddenly I wasn't first on her list but now seemed last, was quite confusing. Years later, it was still hurtful, and even now as I sit here typing I feel overwhelming sadness for the eight-year-old me, with no front teeth and bad eyesight, waiting at school after a voice lesson or a dance class, all the other kids filing out with their mothers, me just standing there, getting more nervous by the second. But then, I didn't feel hurt yet. I was too confused to take it personally. I felt nervous, and it was the nervousness that I would also keep for years to come.
But that lack of reliability was the first thing I remember about her drunkenness, beyond the drunkenness.
Mostly, my mother drank when I was in bed and my father was working late or wasn't home. So I didn't actually experience my drunk mother right off the bat too much. I would experience the very beginning of it, at the end of the school day when she was just getting rolling, or I would experience the tail end of it, when she seemed groggy or out of sorts the next morning. Those times I woke up and the usual morning routine was absent; no one was making breakfast. Sometimes, I learned, there were no lunches packed for school. That's how I experienced my mother's drinking at the start, mostly. There were a few encounters of her actively drinking, but in the beginning it was just that little things were off.
I would get up to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water, and though it seemed very late, instead of the house being quiet, there were the unmistakable sounds of life: creaking floorboards, a closing cupboard. My mother would be down the hall, in the kitchen, on the phone. The phone cord was a mile long, and she paced through the kitchen and living room, into the hallway where most of the bedrooms were. We lived in a one-story ranch house with a vast basement. In that vast basement was my two younger brothers' bedroom, a family room, a playroom, the laundry room. It was mostly unfinished and somehow both scary and attractive to me. That basement is where I began writing, sitting at a little antique school desk, the kind with the arm that swings around from the left side, immovable, for a right-handed person. I sat in and used that desk from the time I was five until I left home at eighteen. Over the holiday last year, I had my father pull it out of storage and bring it to my house, where we plunked it down in Zelda's playroom. I still fit in it; I can squeeze my body tightly in, and it feels right. Zelda is left-handed, so it's never going to be her favorite desk, but it's hers anyway.
The sound of my mother's drunk voice talking into the telephone will never fade. Hearing one side of a conversation is so odd to begin with; it's like eavesdropping, but the picture painted seems much more mysterious than if you could hear the other person. It had to be after 10:00, 11:00 at night. Who was she talking to? I knew from my time before going to school that my mother spent hours during the day on the phone with my grandmothers, with neighbors. She was a talkative, outgoing, and friendly person. She smoked, she paced, and she talked. If there wasn't someone sitting in the kitchen at the table with her, she was usually on the phone. The phone was a big deal in the '80s.
During the day, she would trample around the kitchen, making dinner or folding clothes, talking on the phone. But at night, she was usually sitting instead of pacing or multitasking. At night, she was always smoking. And the sound of her voice was different. As different as it could be from her day voice. And this is how I learned my one adult strategy for dealing with my mother: no matter what, under no circumstances would I answer the phone after 5:00 p.m. As a teenager newly moved out on my own and later as an adult, any breaking of this rule always resulted in a horrible conversation that I regretted and she forgot. My husband's father always said, "Nothing good happens after one a.m." Well, with my mother that was true, except it was 5:00 p.m. You could hear in her voice the moment she started drinking, and in fact, in later years, I sometimes took a call at a safe time—say 4:30 p.m., right when she was leaving work, only to have the call drift into an unsafe, post–5:00 p.m. drinking time. I'd hear the beer can crack open, and within a few minutes her voice thickened and slowed. Within half an hour she was argumentative or, worse, sad.
A full-on encounter with my drunk mother late at night was something I instinctively avoided. As a child, I was not yet a worthy adversary or sounding board for her. In fact, from about the age of eight to thirteen, when my mother drank, I became invisible. I had to graduate to teenager-dom in order to be interesting to her. In some ways, when I think back on it, though my teenage years were more explosive and harder, the childhood ones are so much lonelier, quieter, and sadder. So much more desolate.
Avoiding my drunk mother, staying quiet and in line, hoping not to incur notice or scrutiny: these things molded who I am today. I didn't argue then, and I didn't talk very much. But I was nervous and watchful, because, I see now, I didn't really trust adults. Because the one I was supposed to be able to trust the most, the one who I had _once_ trusted the most, suddenly pulled the rug out from under me.
How had this happened? My mother didn't start out this way. The first seven years or so of my life seemed completely normal, if self-absorbed and contracted in my memory. But I have hundreds, thousands of glorious childhood memories stacked inside my brain, all weirdness-free.
After she was gone, after she had died, I became an investigator of her life for a few months. To the extent that I could stand it, I asked around: Had she always been this way? Were the signs always there? Was it just that I was too young to see them?
Yes and no.
As I said, my sense is that our move to McMurray hastened my mother's developing alcoholism. I don't remember her drinking before that, though I assume that she did sometimes, because that's what would have been normal. Nobody in my family drank to excess, but there was always beer around at family functions. But at first, all of this was vague and mysterious. I'd always been so close to my mother; I thought of her as a friend, as a person to whom I could tell absolutely anything, and so, when I realized for sure that she had a problem drinking around the time I was eight or so, the first person I shared this information with was her.
I knew that my mother was an alcoholic before I knew the word for it, and I guarded this knowledge as if it were my own secret, not hers. I was, as a sober person, even at the age of eight, better at hiding her alcoholism than she was, anyway. And she was pretty good for a while. This threw off the mother-child dynamic considerably, and I grew up to be a textbook adult child of an alcoholic. But we learned what alcoholism was at school, probably in third grade. This fact, the naming of the problem, worried me because it sounded very serious, but it also simplified my focus. And it was like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle for me: this made sense. I felt relief as I worked this out, the fact that her personality changed sometimes, that she became less reliable. All of it made sense and helped me to organize my feelings around alcoholism as a disease rather than as simply something to hide and be embarrassed about.
Alcoholism teaches you to compartmentalize your relationships, and even though I was very young, I did this quickly. I didn't talk to my brothers about it very much. I didn't ask my father many questions. There were no group discussions. Ironically, the only person I could be fully honest with in this situation was my mother.
I think about those early confrontations with my mother now and I cringe, the idea of a small child coming to her and saying, "Here, I found the answer, I know what is wrong with you, and there is a solution." I felt, once I'd latched onto the concept of alcoholism, a great relief: here was a plan, with a fix. Just like me later as an adult, I spent a long time paralyzed by inertia and fear and anxiety, and then I latched onto a solution that spurred me to action. The path seemed clear. I only needed to confront my mother carefully and present her with my plan.
What I didn't know yet was how poorly that would go and how poorly it would always go. For all the lying-by-omission I learned to do for the outside world, my alcoholic mother honed techniques for evasion that I simply was never able to breach. I was at the beginning, not the end, of trying to mobilize and change her. And though I would feel nothing but defeat over and over, I still know today that it was better than to live without trying.
I told her that there was a cure for this! There was help for it; it was simple. "You're an alcoholic," I said to her, not yet nine years old, a little kid in pigtails. I didn't judge. I crawled beside her and hugged her. She assured me that she was fine, she reassured me that I was safe, that she loved me. And she ignored me.
Adult Children of Alcoholics, much like Al-Anon, describes the way that being parented by, or loved by, an alcoholic changes you. Most commonly, and what I found to be most true for myself, was the fact that I lost my own identity. I was always nervous; I dreaded and handled personal criticism very poorly; and more than anything else, I found it easier to focus on other people than to focus on myself. This part, what I think of as "the killer," is something I struggle with today: I can always find someone else to focus on rather than take care of myself or my own business. I was, in some ways, erased.
But before I became an adult child of an alcoholic, I was first and foremost the child of one. The only daughter of an alcoholic mother of four. I knew with most of my being what was wrong with her from about the third grade and was certain of it by the fifth. By then, I would have walked through a fire for her, and there was occasionally the sense that such a scenario might actually be necessary. This—the child willing to walk through the fire for the parent—is a classic hallmark of kids with alcoholic parents. Flipped roles, confused emotional responses: nearly all my feelings for my mother then and even many of them now can be explained by an entry-level rehab counselor as "part of this shit."
I think I probably knew that my mother drank too much, too often, even years before my father did, but I wasn't going to let him know it. I have always believed this because my mother eventually stopped drinking around my father at all; she hid her drinking from him but not from me. She either considered me too stupid to know what I was seeing, or knew that I would never tell on her. This is one of the most upsetting and manipulative parts of a relationship with an alcoholic parent: they use you and turn you, inadvertently, into their protector, a liar. I became secretive and guarded, not just around friends but even around my own immediate family. I could have resisted, I could have raised hell and told my father every time that she drank, but I just wanted peace and hoped that each time was the last.
All I wanted was for it to stop, for her to simply cease being what she was. I didn't have a full concept of alcoholism as a disease, and with a child's sad and frightening simplicity, I figured that she simply could stop if she wanted to. She probably could stop for me. Why would someone do something that they knew was bad for them, that made them different than their ideal self? Only a child would oversimplify this, only a child could see reality so clearly, as this is, honestly, the problem every alcoholic must face eventually: the only solution is the simplest, hardest thing in the world. Stop.
I knew this so well and so fast and so completely. And yet I was so powerless. Little did I know how long I would remain powerless and how it would tear me apart, ruining relationships and holidays and life events, overshadowing, degrading. It added nothing, only taking away.
Little did I know that this would be the defining reality of my life: my mother was an alcoholic.
When I think back to these earliest days of recognizing that something about reality was off, that something was really wrong and that it wasn't about me, I see that I abruptly became aware that the world was full of secrets and full of lies. That adults lied, and that they presented things in different ways depending on the scenario or their moods. This terrified and confused me. Everything before had seemed so simple. What a short time for life to be simple. What a takeaway for a child to take away.
Years later, I look back at my attempts to reach out to my mother and my attempts to make friends, and I see that they were all in the shadows of my growing sense of my mother's disease. Her disease crippled my ability, even into adulthood, to be honest and open enough with people to make true connections. Only occasionally did I allow people into what I thought of as an elite circle of people who knew. With few exceptions, always in times of great personal tragedy, I guarded my mother's secret and more generally myself, as if I too carried some secret inside of me. Knowing that I did not, that I had no baggage or demons of my own, did me little good. It quickly became a reflex not to trust myself to be true with other people.
But Zelda changed all of that.
I know that I have Zelda to thank for my midlife burst of social activity. She, through sheer force of her existence but also through her sunny and able way, showed me that sometimes it's best to get to know people. Sometimes, it's best to reach out and share things. Sometimes, it's best to simply burst into tears when you're having a bad day. It's okay to cry in public. It's okay to tell someone you're in pain. I'd spent much of my childhood trying to be an adult. Now, I got to spend a small piece of my adulthood occasionally being exactly like a baby, my emotions sometimes overwhelming me, calling out to strangers and old friends. Helping random people on the street who'd dropped everything out of their purse or who simply looked lost. Zelda changed the way that I interacted with everyone.
# CHAPTER 5
◆ ◆ ◆
Back when I was pregnant, way before we found out that the baby was sideways inside of me, and way, way before the preeclampsia, we toured the hospital where Zelda would be born. We, along with maybe ten other couples, took in the available options for the birth plan we would never make. We looked at hospital rooms; we learned about payment options. It seemed like a required waste of time, really. I have never liked being in hospitals. Until Zelda was born, I had never spent a night in one. I'd never had a broken bone or needed my appendix taken out.
For me, like many people, hospitals have almost always been for deaths. My grandparents, great-aunts and -uncles, my mother: they all ended their lives inside cramped hospital rooms. I don't avoid hospitals, because I know I can't avoid sickness and death, but I have never enjoyed being inside of them, and anytime I was in one, I wanted out of there; I couldn't breathe in there.
As we followed the other couples down the long Labor and Delivery hallway, one of the rooms was still covered in bloody bedclothes. An expectant father paced the hallway, texting on his phone. The air in the maternity ward was alive and terrifying. It was different than other hospitals I'd been in: here, life started rather than ended.
As we were leaving after our two-hour tour, waiting for the elevator to take us back to street level, a couple trundled through the hallway: the man was carrying a tiny infant car seat. I now knew what an infant car seat was because I'd just bought one a few weeks earlier. They were leaving the hospital, taking their just-born baby home, giggling all the way out the door.
Josh and I exchanged little glances nervously between ourselves—the couple were in their own universe. "They seemed like they were stealing the baby," I said with a laugh. And they did: What right did they have to take that tiny little sleeping thing, just a few pounds, out the door? What were their qualifications? Surely I would be more ready than that.
But I wasn't. The early days were awash in simple concerns: feeding and sleeping. Though I often approached life ready and waiting with an answer for everything, I found myself devoid of knowledge at home with a newborn, unprepared to answer even basic questions. "Is she tired?" Don't know. "Is that rash normal?" Can't say. We'd had Monica for a few weeks, and she'd given me some pointers. She'd gotten Zelda to sleep sometimes five hours a night, which everyone assured us was a lot, but for a woman used to logging a solid nine or ten hours of sleep a night, it wasn't much comfort.
I was epically unprepared, yes, but I was also very committed to putting in the required effort. I don't like to half-ass things; I'd waited a long time to have a baby. I wanted to do a good job. No, the best job. I wanted to be a superb mother.
But we didn't really know what to do a lot of the time.
"Now what?" we asked ourselves.
What a question.
We would spend the next months trying to answer that question every day anew. For now, we had no idea, and that seemed sort of okay. I started to feel better almost immediately after Zelda was born, and often that tided me over: at least I could go back to not worrying about my own body. Focusing on others has always been my wheelhouse. This was a job I could do. Anxiety, stress, crippling indecision? I could handle these from moment to moment. Sometimes, everything didn't _seem_ okay, of course, like when I became gripped by the fear that my daughter was suffering from extreme jaundice. I should have known that, even if her very mild jaundice didn't improve on its own, there are easy and effective treatments. Instead, I spent the few spare moments I had to myself in the first week of her life furiously Googling "severe jaundice." I sometimes expected the worst when we took her for her doctor's appointments, which were every few days at first because she was born a little early.
It was only there in the warm, well-lit safety of the pediatrician's office that I felt at ease for the first month of Zelda's life. Once we got inside, I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stand over my daughter on the table, naked on a roll of white paper, and hear her doctor pronounce her beautiful and perfect over and over. Because when we got home, I sometimes secretly worried that something might be wrong: oh, she looked perfect to me, but I feared that she wasn't. I worried about the sound of her loud breathing. I worried that her nose, which was still smushed down from months of being pressed against the inside of my belly, was stuffed with something that shouldn't be there. I worried that she would die in her sleep even though I hovered over her. I knew my worries were the dumb fears of a novice. I knew that an overwhelming majority of the time, babies were just fine. I knew that she was fine, and yet the doubt and anxiety of the new mother was there, just under the surface. I'd worried through my pregnancy. I didn't want to worry through this part, too.
But I learned very early that sometimes my seemingly random fears were not entirely wrong: on one visit to the doctor when Zelda was only a few days old, I insisted that her stuffy nose was more than the nothing both the pediatrician and Josh assured me it was. Josh knew I was on edge. I couldn't blame him for thinking I was overreacting; I overreacted to so much at first. But earlier in the morning, before we'd taken Zelda to the appointment, when I was dressing her on the changing table in her sunny bedroom, I'd caught a glimpse up her nose. Okay, I was looking for something, yes; but I thought I saw something up her left nostril. They were so tiny it was hard to tell. I asked the doctor to look with a flashlight. She did.
"I see nothing. Loud nose breathing is quite normal in infants. They don't know how to breathe out of their mouths yet," she assured me. I knew this, I'd Googled. It was the source of some pain to new mothers, as colds and stuffy noses mean obstructed breathing if one doesn't default to the mouth for air.
But I insisted: "There's something up there, I know it," I repeated. I could feel the room overflowing with something like sympathy for me. But the doctor looked again, and I crouched in with her.
"Look!" I said. "Do you see that?"
She nodded and got out tweezers, inserting them into Zelda's nostril. The baby started to fuss as she pulled out a large, dark green booger.
"This is meconium," she said, clearly impressed that I had seen it, stuffed so far up Zelda's nose.
I learned, then and there, that it was okay to default back to my "holy shit, something is wrong!" state, even if I was committed to trying to be a cool mom, a laid-back type. Nothing comes easily to me. Had my mother gone through moments of terrific anxiety when I was little?
I remember the times where I was sick, laying in a dark room with an earache or a sore throat or a flu, with a bowl to throw up in by the bed. My mother would swoop in silently throughout the night, touch my face, and adjust my blankets. Her hands were her thermometer. I don't remember her ever using a real one. She seemed to know everything, to be able to heal quietly. I know everyone probably thinks of their mom this way in early childhood, but what struck me as I started my own journey down the path of motherhood was how little of that I felt. My hands weren't thermometers, so I found myself constantly probing my young daughter's butt "just to check." Surely knowledge would come with time and experience, but at first I didn't feel any confidence. I didn't know what urges or fears to trust, which ones (most of them) were bogus phantoms creeping up on me to no good purpose.
And most of all, I worried that Zelda wasn't getting enough to eat.
There are lots of schools of thought on breast-feeding, and I even have one of my own. It goes something like this: it's great, but also feeding a baby formula is fine, too. When my daughter was two weeks old and had lost weight at two consecutive doctor's appointments, we called in a lactation specialist. This was a person whose entire purpose, it seemed, was to help me on my quest to never feed my daughter formula. She wandered into our house with a giant medical scale, stripped Zelda down, and weighed her. Then, she had me nurse her while we sat there talking about how often I fed her. To her credit, this lactation specialist was the first person who suggested that a feeding schedule might help some of my woes. I was, up until then, simply jamming my breast into the baby's mouth as often as it seemed necessary, which was every hour or even less. The specialist suggested that if I put her on a better schedule, I would feel more comfortable knowing that she wasn't hungry and that Zelda would begin to make sense of her life a little. She'd know when to expect food, and that this could, the lactation specialist said, lead to a better sleeping schedule. All of this made sense to me. I asked about formula as she put Zelda on the scale. She'd gained 2 ounces from the feeding.
"You have enough milk," she declared, and this was indeed reassuring. "Feed her at the intervals I suggested, and I think she will have gained weight at her next appointment."
But she didn't. When that appointment rolled around several days later, she was exactly the same weight as she'd been the previous week. I asked the doctor about bottle-feeding her formula. My breasts were filled with milk that the baby simply didn't seem to be able to get out. I'd started pumping it, just to get it out. I was freezing it dutifully. The doctor agreed: "Feed the baby your bottled pumped milk or formula if you like after she has nursed. If she takes it, she's still hungry."
I worried that this would confuse my daughter about nipples: that bottle-feeding would make her reject my boob because the bottle was so much easier. That was, after all, what I read on the mommy blogs, an internet-based hell world I had lived for decades not even knowing it existed. But in those days, I was steeped in its worries and conspiracy theories. I worried that Zelda might reject the formula because it tasted as bad as it smelled. And I worried a little that I would be judged by other mothers if they saw me out and about bottle-feeding.
But I worried _more_ that she wasn't eating enough. I remember quite clearly the first night that I bottle-fed her—not even formula, but breast milk I had pumped in an effort to help a painful clogged duct I had. "I feel like she's not eating enough and that's why she's unhappy!" I yelled into the phone to my husband, who was out desperately searching for some supply we needed. She was probably three weeks old. "Just give her the bottle. You'll see how much she drinks; you'll know she isn't hungry," he said. I took it over to her in her little basket, and she sucked down all three ounces in just a few minutes. I worried that I'd fed her too fast; that she would spit up. I worried that I'd sanitized the bottle wrong.
But she didn't spit up. She didn't reject my boob, or the bottle, or even the formula I guiltily started feeding her weeks later when my freezer stash ran out, when my boobs were sucked and pumped dry. She couldn't get enough to eat; she was hungry all the time. Every three hours like the consultant had said, I stuffed my breast into her mouth and she sucked whatever she could get for fifteen, thirty minutes. Then she sucked down a bottle, first three, then four, then five ounces.
She began to gain weight rapidly, and the stress drained away from me. The doctor said, "Go for it," when I told her I thought she could use a faster-flowing nipple on the bottles because it took so long to feed her one. She didn't spit up. She didn't reject anything. Any white fluid in a bottle she'd drain down; the brand didn't matter. She would have taken milk straight from a cow or another woman's breast. She was getting fat. She went from being in the tenth percentile for weight to the eightieth in the space of two months.
I became, over the year or so that I read about breast-feeding issues and all the many politics surrounding our maternal bodies, something of a proselytizer for feeding babies however. "Whatever works!" I yelled to the women who told me that formula was not as good as breast milk. I decided that the most important thing for our family was that she ate enough, plain and simple. That she was not hungry, ever. This is the best advice I can give to other mothers.
But I struggle still with the guilt put on women who need to, or choose to, feed their babies formula. I'm not sure that, given the opportunity to have another child, I wouldn't go straight to a bottle of formula from the start. And though I know that this is a controversial position, it's one that I feel very proud of holding: for me, breast-feeding was fraught with emotional difficulty. After weeks of feeling as though I was simply starving my daughter, the ability to measure sometimes felt like a great gift. The ability to know, week in, week out, that this little girl, who had been born a little early and was a little small through no fault of her own, was now gaining weight, was very important to me.
Motherhood was challenging and tiring. I simply didn't want to also have to worry that she was starving, on top of everything else that we faced.
I didn't want to admit I needed help with getting my daughter to sleep either, but the baby nurse I'd hired had shown me, in a small space of time, that babies could be encouraged to sleep without simply letting them scream in their cribs. I didn't want to leave my baby alone in her bedroom with a stranger simply so that I could sleep, but I was so tired and sore that I relented. And I learned from her that sleep, for Zelda and for me, was possible.
And so sleep became my next obsession, after I'd figured out how to feed the baby in a way that made everyone happy and full. I'd never read a baby sleep book before I was pregnant (why would _anyone_ do that?), but while I was pregnant, the subject of sleep training had come up with Josh's cousin, one of the only people in our families with small children. He mentioned using a book by Dr. Ferber with his two boys, so a few days later, I dutifully bought the new and revised edition of _Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems_ by Richard Ferber. Next I tore through _The Happiest Baby on the Block_. But then, bored out of my mind and still only halfway through pregnancy, I gave up.
I was barely sleeping at night, even though Zelda had slept a bit better since the nurse. The nurse had given me, in fact, my first taste of confidence as a mother, the kind of stuff I assumed would have come directly from my own mother, had she been alive. Her little nuggets of wisdom—"Don't rush right over if you hear her stirring, you might wake her up"—were the first glimpse I had of something resembling a "schedule," or a light at the end of what seemed at that time to be an endless tunnel. But these tips—to let the baby settle herself, to not panic or rush, to be sure she had a full stomach before putting her to bed—didn't come from my mother. Maybe it was better that way; maybe I would have resisted my mother's help. As it was, I accepted the nurse's offered tips and took them to heart quickly.
No one had actually prepared me for the loss of time I experienced as a first-time, new mother. People told me I wouldn't sleep or shower, that I would worry over little nothings. All of it was true, and yet it wasn't the major thing I experienced. What knocked me out of sync with the rest of the world was that I suddenly felt as though I was no longer a part of it. I'd always been a loner, going days sometimes without talking to anyone besides my husband, and if he went away on business, I sometimes saw no one at all. I had only a few close friends from childhood, and none who I was in constant contact with, none who lived nearby.
And yet I was still unprepared for the level of isolation and time dissonance that I experienced when I was at home with Zelda for those first weeks and months.
Suddenly there was no difference between day and night: I was being led by a crazy worm who seemed unsatisfied even with food and cuddling—the only things I could offer her in abundance. I followed her blindly for weeks, stumbling around in various postpartum sweat suits that even I, a rather slovenly, careless dresser, would normally not wear outdoors. It was so bitterly cold that even hardy New Yorkers seemed to have hunkered down for just exactly the few weeks that we were also adjusting to our new reality. I looked out the window forlornly and the streets were empty, the trees had no leaves. It seemed the sun didn't come out from behind the clouds for days, which of course I knew would only make the baby's nonexistent jaundice worse. "Put the baby by a window!" a website I read, laughing hard enough to choke seltzer out of my nose, unhelpfully suggested. There was no fucking sun, and it seemed to be twenty degrees colder near the windows.
For the first time in years, I felt at sea even though I had lots to do: the laundry alone was constant. A newborn isn't exactly a lot of physical labor, but it's a constant drone of needing to be there, on, and paying attention. I could look at my phone a lot or read a bit of a book here and there, but I often found that I had no desire to. My daughter, such as she was, was very, very cute, but she had no personality to speak of that I could discern. I didn't hold that against her! But I felt, especially in the long winter days that made up that first month and a half, the weight of loneliness for the first time in my adult life. Rather than cherish the quiet of winter alone, I sensed myself on the verge of losing it. Mostly because I was tired, I know now.
The period where Zelda didn't sleep was short. It was laughably short if I compare myself to many other mothers, although I broke down very quickly. By the time Zelda was a month or so old, I ordered a new spate of baby sleep books. And though I don't remember who recommended the two that would come to form the core of my philosophy on baby sleep, I do remember, and will always keep on the shelves of my library, those two books. They are worth hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars to me.
I need to stop here and explain why sleeping infants are such a big deal. And I also need to say, though I'm sure I've already explained: I fucking love to sleep. I don't know what my parents did with their house full of four children all pretty close in age, but we all sleep like logs. I remember my father tucking me in at night, and I remember waking up in the morning. I do not recall any up-all-nights, aside from that story about the puzzles and the occasional illness. We were, the four of us, robustly healthy, good sleepers. That said: I know nothing of their methods, and all the parents of the '70s and '80s I've asked about sleeping have been, it's no exaggeration to say, a little mysterious about their methods. "Oh, she was just a great sleeper," they'll say. Or, if you ask about babies crying in the middle of the night, they'll deny that ever happened. "Let them cry? No, never." I've come to believe, after the arduous work of teaching my own daughter to sleep, that parents lie, they forget, and those who raised children in the pre–baby monitor eras had an easier time of it.
At home with my newborn in our technologically advanced hell house, we could hear every errant gas passing and sigh. And of course, at first, besides those nights with the baby nurse, we'd sleep with Zelda in a bassinet beside our own bed, often waking her when we came to bed at 10:00 p.m. We realized this quickly, so at first we simply gave in and got into bed at 7:30 p.m. and lay there, plastered to the bed, trying not to move or make any noise, knowing all the while of course that she'd be awake in less than an hour anyway.
And that's why sleep is such a huge deal to parents: babies don't know how to do it. They don't have a clue. There's a period when they're first born, which lasts a week or so, which I refer to as "the lie," where they sleep happily and sort of soundly wherever you leave them—a couch, a box, whatever. But that ends hard and fast and soon, and you're screwed because you simply didn't know, if you're like we were. No one told me: babies don't know how to sleep. You need to help them.
And that was when I realized, through searching the internet, that, like breast-feeding, sleep training, closely associated with a technique called "cry it out" (you can, I believe, gather what it requires from its name), is a vast political war among parents of the current era. And it's fucked up.
There are two schools of thought on sleep training: those who say you can and should start it around two months of age up to about six months of age, and they are mostly backed up by research, modern medicine, and every pediatrician I've ever talked to. There are a million sleep-training techniques (hence all those books on Amazon.com), but most of them eventually involve a little "crying it out," where you simply let the baby cry in its crib in the hopes that it will fall to sleep on its own and forget to wake up. It sounds as though it won't work, but believe me, it does. I know dozens of parents who have done it, and our pediatrician, who runs a massive practice, swears by doing it at as early an age—eight weeks—as possible, simply because younger babies cry for fewer nights than older ones, who've been on the planet longer and know more, do.
The other camp, which has a large crossover in the Venn diagram with the breast-feeding-only camp, the organic-only camp, the no-sugar camp, the possibly anti-vaxx crowd, suggest that crying is bad for babies. There is very little evidence to back this up, but they say it anyway. They also say— I've heard them say it to me—that sleep training doesn't "work." That each baby is different, that you have to re–sleep train often, etc. I didn't know what to think, but my gut told me that simply "going with the flow" and "letting the baby guide me," as the no-sleep-train crowd suggested, was simply insane. No one was happy there in the house when we were all under-slept.
But I hoped to find a middle ground. I wanted to sleep train Zelda. I believed that sleep training her was for her own good. I could tell, even very early, that she was fussy, not because she was naturally hungry or miserable but because she was exhausted and didn't know how to stay asleep long enough to actually feel refreshed. But I didn't really relish the idea of letting her cry for a few nights in a row. She was, when I started my sleep-training research, too young as far as my pediatrician was concerned anyway: as I said, she recommended waiting until babies were eight weeks old and a certain weight in order to ensure they didn't actually need to eat in the middle of the night. But then I found a book that suggested I could start her sleep-training journey earlier—at birth, actually, if I'd discovered it then—with no crying involved.
_The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems_ is in my top five books I've ever read, alongside _Jane Eyre_ and _The Blind Assassin_. It's the most important book I have ever owned. Because it worked. I read this book cover to cover when Zelda was about five weeks old and immediately decided to try out the author's system, even though it was intense. Actually, the fact that the Baby Whisperer, whose real name was Tracy Hogg, had so many goddamned rules was probably what drew me to her insanity. A small sampling of her technique includes the fact that the infant should almost always sleep in its bed—not a stroller or a rocker—overnight as well as for naps. This means, essentially, that while the process of sleep training is going on, you're chained to the house. She isn't totally specific on how long each baby will take to "sleep through the night," but says they usually get to that by three months of age. Literally can't leave almost ever, because infants sleep so often. She also suggested that the baby sleep in its own room, outfitted with blackout shades and a white-noise machine. She insisted that there be a bedtime routine that was exactly the same every single night. That the baby went to sleep at very specific intervals after being awake for very specific periods of time. Feeding must happen when the baby wakes up, not when it's going to sleep, which is a secret weapon of most new mothers: feed the little shit to sleep. No, no, said Tracy. That would be an "unhealthy" sleep association. I hated Tracy, but I felt compelled to test her.
At first, her schedule (which she insists is _not_ a schedule, but it totally is) seemed insane. One day, a week or so into it, Josh said, "This is crazy, this is miserable, what are we even doing this for?" but I persisted. "Give me until eight weeks," I said. If, when we got to eight weeks and we took her to the pediatrician and she was still sleeping badly, waking up every three hours, I'd admit failure and we'd do the fast-and-easy cry it out.
I trusted Tracy, as I trusted the baby nurse before her, because I investigated enough to know that on a basic level what she was saying made a lot of sense. But because Tracy was not accessible to me in any way, I couldn't get her feedback: I was on my own, floundering around, rereading the same passages questioning myself. I needed her authority, I needed her confidence, and because I didn't have a mother of my own, Tracy became almost a real person in my mind. She was distant, she seemed to know everything, and, in the end, I had nobody but myself to blame if it didn't work.
It didn't seem to be working for those first few days, as I dutifully noted each time she ate, how much she ate, when she went down, when she woke up. Every day of that time period is etched on me like a tattoo. It was miserable at first. I'd do what Tracy said, get Zelda into her crib "awake but drowsy" for a nap, leave the room, and she'd wake up twenty-four minutes later. I wanted to scream a lot for those few days. I'd drag myself up the stairs, my body feeling heavy, my mind full of the doubt that I dared not admit even to Josh. Jesus, this couldn't possibly work.
But about a week after we started, she got a little better. And by the time she was eight weeks old, she was down to waking just once a night, around 2:00 in the morning. The pediatrician told us we could let her cry at night now if we wanted. I said I thought she might actually sleep through the night on her own; she was just waking up once at night to eat, and she seemed very hungry then. The doctor gave me good advice: "Why don't you try letting her cry at the beginning of sleep if needed, to go down, but not in the middle of the night if you're not ready yet?" I decided to try that. Zelda cried one or two nights at bedtime, for fifteen minutes each. She'd already gotten used to our routine, and part of Tracy's entire scheme was in fact to ensure that when you tried to put your baby to bed, she was actually tired anyway, so she would fall to sleep easily. Zelda by then had been on this routine for a few weeks, and she was indeed very tired at naps and bedtime. After that, there was almost never any bedtime crying.
By ten weeks, my daughter began sleeping "through the night" as they say, on her own, without ever "crying it out": from about 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. I could tell you how that came to be, but it would be a book in itself. I took notes and obsessed for a month. I worried about nothing else. We barely left the house to get the napping schedule just right. But at the end of it, I was gifted a great sleeper, a baby who rarely—maybe ten times in her entire life—wakes up after we put her to bed. We were gifted an even happier kid, who was so rarely cranky or crying. We were gifted our nights to do with as we wished. At first I mostly slept, of course. I went to bed sometimes moments after she closed her eyes.
The change in her was unmistakable, remarkable: she was a different baby after she passed the ten-week mark. And the change in me was pretty obvious too, once a few weeks of she's-going-to-wake-up panic passed. I still sleep with a baby monitor nearby, and Zelda is three and a half. I still worry that she will wake in the middle of the night, but I can count on my fingers the number of times that has happened. She sleeps well when we travel, when we accidentally miss bedtime by a few minutes, when she's in the car. She even slept well, the nurses marveled over how well, in a pediatric unit for a three-day pneumonia hospital stay when she was two years old. "Nobody sleeps eleven hours a night here!" the nurse cried, and I could see why, with them coming in every hour to check on her or give her oxygen, bells ringing and equipment humming. But my Zelda: she's the best.
And I have the luxury of smiling when people tell me I "got lucky" with a good sleeper. Sure, I did; I know it. But I also put in a stiff five weeks of effort on her behalf, and I almost never deviate from her bedtime routine even now. It's not negotiable. It's my thing. And we all have benefited from it immensely.
I'm probably (I assume this is now obvious) prouder of getting Zelda to sleep well than anything else I've achieved as a parent. Did my own parents work this hard to get their kids to sleep? I have no idea. It's lost to time. There are many ways to skin the cat; we both got there somehow.
When my brother John was still a baby, we shared a bedroom before we moved to McMurray. I remember once waking up early in the morning, and he was still asleep. I wandered over to look at him in his crib and woke him up. Not wanting to expose myself as a baby waker, I went downstairs to my mother, who was on the phone, and said, "The baby is awake." She hung up her call and took me to the foot of the stairs, where you could sit and hear what was going on in the kids' bedrooms upstairs. I used to occasionally catch her there, at the bottom of the stairs, just listening to what the four of us were doing up there. She leaned over and said to me, "Shhhh, listen." I listened and could hear John upstairs in his crib babbling to himself. She took me back to the kitchen and got out the cereal for my breakfast.
"He's fine up there," she said. "Even babies need private time. If he's not crying, it's okay to let him there for a little while."
I don't have a huge store of these moments in my memory, just a few. But as I became a mother, actively learning how to parent, they bubbled up to the surface. How I remembered them changed or what they meant changed to me. It seemed my mother had given me just a little advice a really long time ago.
I'd always assumed this was some kind of laziness on my mother's part, though lazy was not part of her character in any way. She was overworked with her kids, and so I didn't judge, but even at five or six, I sort of thought, "Well, she doesn't feel like getting him yet."
But after Zelda was born and after she was sleep trained, I made a rule: I didn't get up until 7:00 and get her out of bed, even if she was awake. I just let her loll around in there, and at first she cried sometimes. But then, very quickly, she stopped. Mostly she slept until 7:00, but there were occasional mornings when she simply woke up early and babbled to herself. Even for naps I made a policy of not immediately rushing in to her at the first signs of waking, because I realized, thirty years later, that my mother was right: the baby wasn't just fine in there, she was actually doing something important. She was waking up. She was adjusting to being awake. And eventually, I started to notice that she seemed to be working on learning how to talk there, in her crib, all alone. "Ba ba ba ba ba," you'd hear over and over, her feet in her hands.
"The baby's awake!" anyone who was in the house would inevitably tell me anytime they heard her stirring, maybe expecting me to flutter up the stairs as fast as I could. But I didn't, I don't. The few times I did rush in to her, she cried and seemed generally unhappy to see me. It's changed in the past few years, of course, and now that she can speak, well, her desires are not a mystery: "Mommy, I'm awake!" I hear some mornings. Sometimes I just get the opening strains of a song. But I know now for sure that my mother was right: babies need private time. And nothing made me prouder than the first day Zelda closed the door to her room, saying to me, "I just need some privacy." ("I dusht need some primacy.") Amen.
# CHAPTER 6
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There was a long period of my childhood—say, from the time I was in third grade up through middle school—where, if I didn't have Emily sleeping over, my mother got in bed with me at my bedtime and we lay together, each reading our own books. I can still see her there now, bathed in warm lamplight, laying on her stomach, propped up on her arms, staring down at a book.
I had a large double bed in my room, an antique bed that was hulking and a little weird compared to all my friends' beds—regular modern twins—that my mother and my grandma Elly had bought together at a vintage store.
I never really questioned why my mother slept with me, and though I know now it was evidence of problems in my parents' marriage, I accepted her explanation: my father worked very early, he went to bed earlier than she did, and he didn't like the lights on when he was sleeping. My father is not a reader. I can sympathize with this arrangement, having been married for a decade: it's very annoying if your schedules are at all out of sync and if one of you is a reader but the other is not. This is an underexplored topic of marriage, I feel. If you're a reader paired off with a not-reader or, worse, an in-bed TV watcher paired off with a not-in-bed TV watcher, well, someone will have to give.
My mother was a reader. We spent quiet time together in bed reading side by side, not talking. This was something I knew I'd like to have with Zelda. An almost passive but meaningful part of my relationship with my mother was our love of books.
Some of the first things I bought for Zelda when I was pregnant, as I said, were books. It would be hard to overstate my attachment to my own books, as physical objects I must lug around and move with me and as emotional necessities. Whenever we travel, I often take a dozen books with me instead of the proper clothing, simply because I'm never sure what I'll be in the mood for.
This is, I know, not a unique or outstanding feature. But I think it is the most important one about me.
And then the first meaningful interactions between Zelda and me were the long, sunny days spent in her bedroom where she, just fed and awake from a nap, would lay on her back in her crib and listen to me read. I didn't feel completely natural carrying on a one-sided conversation with her, even though she was a few months old by then and we spent all our mornings together alone. We ventured out to meet Kim and Amy or other friends in the afternoons, but mornings were just ours, and I filled them, determined not to baby talk to her too much, by reading.
It was partly selfish, of course: I missed reading books, but at night after she went to bed I often found that I was too tired to read and ended up falling asleep in front of the television or just getting straight into bed at 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. Babies are so much more exhausting than people tell you, even the ones who, like Zelda, are "easy."
And she was. "Oh, you have an easy baby," everyone always told me. I could never quite tell if that was a compliment or an accusation, if it was said with admiration or with something else, something akin to jealousy but also the kind of competitiveness that happens to new parents, where having challenges stack up is a mark of how well you're doing. Some claim that easy babies are easy through no doing of yours, but that's not true, of course. I take some credit for Zelda's good moods, mostly because I taught her to sleep as well as I myself sleep. But her good nature, her sunny disposition, I don't take credit for that.
The hours we spent in the first year of her life there, in her room, in the mornings, are times I will never, ever forget. She humored me as I read. I started with little picture books with few words but realized very quickly that a book that took two minutes to read wasn't enough.
When I was pregnant, I had bought several books for her that I'd remembered fondly as a child. There sat on her shelf next to the white-noise machine and the board books, the stuffed animals and chew toys, ten or so chapter books I loved in fourth grade.
At random, and partly because it had some pictures I could show her, I chose to read _Little House in the Big Woods_ to Zelda first. It took about a week to complete.
Reading aloud is an odd experience, especially when your audience is one person incapable of feedback. I read until she fussed and then gave up. At first she could listen only for two or three minutes without squirming around and making noise, trying to see where I was as I sat in a chair by the window or paced the short distance of her tiny bedroom. But soon she began to be quiet for much longer periods, and I found that she was listening to me.
I read _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ and _Island of the Blue Dolphins_ , another problematic classic. I cried my way through _The Little Prince_ and slogged through _The Wizard of Oz_ , a book that I'd only thought I had read as a child, it turned out. Dorothy wasn't my kind of girl, always whining to go home. I'll admit my empathy level was possibly at an all-time low for anyone outside of that little room. "Oh, she's crying for home again," I thought to myself. But Zelda would eventually love the story and now often takes the book to bed with her. "I love _The Wizard of Woz,_ " she says. "But not the bad witch."
I read to her for hours, partly because I wanted to get rid of so many hours and partly because, I see now, I didn't have much to say to her yet. Only in the space since my daughter has turned three years old have I ever begun to "miss the baby months," as they say. And only a little bit at that. The baby phase was very hard for me. I bonded to her, I loved her, and she was very easy, always smiley, almost never crying, but still, I struggled through those months.
I thought of my mom in those hours I sat in Zelda's bedroom, on the rug or in the armchair three feet from her crib, reading to her. My mother hadn't struggled like this, or if she had, she hadn't ever bothered to tell anyone. To hear her story, she was as happy as she'd ever been when there was a baby in the house. Only when we moved, when we were all finally in school and she had some of the peace and quiet I now often mourned the lack of, did she seem to falter.
I wasn't yet sure what I was supposed to be doing. Zelda required constant attention when awake, as far as I could tell, but, beyond that, nothing taxed my brain. It felt like a marathon of boringness. I sometimes wondered at the veracity of my mother's account of life with children. Though Zelda was fascinating and I could stare at her toes with amazement, there are so many hours in one single day. I'd never simply spent so much time with another person, not doing anything at all, no conversation, no real interactions. Just her and me, staring at each other, singing little songs, talking nonsense, reading books.
I see now that reading wasn't the worst solution. I'm not sure whether Zelda got anything out of it. I told myself that I was helping her to learn patience and to listen, but really, I was just getting by. I didn't feel unhappy; in fact, I think of those days very fondly, so lazy and full of nothing. But for the first time in my life that I could remember, I lacked a clear purpose. I had no vocation that I could see. Oh, I had to keep the baby alive, and she was stimulating in ways I'd never encountered before, but we were separate people, and her prerogatives overwhelmed my own. I read to her because I wanted to be reading, because I needed mental exercise, and this was the only time I could find for it.
It was the first time in my adult life where _just living_ was the rule of the day. I'd left home at eighteen and worked and gone to school every day since then. I'd taken only two or three vacations in that time. I woke up mostly early and went to bed after midnight, filling the space between with work and reading and cooking. I've never been good at sitting and watching a movie—Josh has never gotten used to my multitasking habit of reading while watching TV—or just hanging around. When I wake up I immediately get dressed, brush my teeth, and head to the kitchen to begin my day.
Now that Zelda is a toddler, her pace and mine are aligned. We wake and begin, there are tasks, lunches to make, breakfasts to have, errands to run, and school to go to. But when faced with this first part of her life, before I'd figured out that we could venture into the wilderness together, we simply were.
I started taking her to the restaurant down the street from our house as soon as it got warm enough for us to walk the three blocks there. Sometimes we met Kim and Amy or another friend, but often we were alone. Weekend brunches were often stressful: Josh was home, and getting three people out the door is infinitely more complicated than getting two out. And of course in Brooklyn, Saturday or Sunday brunch was always crowded. But Zelda and I, we could manage on a weekday, sometimes barely, occasionally beautifully. Out and about was where I began to see how she and I would be together, to spy what our dynamic might be in the future.
At the end of that street we'd sit, at first inside because it was too cold, eventually at a little table outside once it was warm and sunny, and just look at each other. She'd sit in her giant stroller and, eventually, in a little wooden restaurant high chair. At first she'd have a bottle while I had coffee or wine, and later she'd eat her vegetable baby food pouches. I stared at her; she stared at me.
One afternoon we'd been out for a while at the park with Kim and Amy, who had headed home for dinner. It was fall; Zelda was probably seven months old. It had been a long day, as all days were then. I was tired, but bedtime, which was at 7:00 p.m., seemed so far away at that moment. Josh wasn't going to be home before bedtime; it was only us. And as we passed the restaurant on our way home, on a whim, I stopped, parked the stroller, and sat down at a table.
A waiter came over and handed me a menu. Zelda looked up at me, smiling from her stroller, as I unlocked it and moved the seat upward so that she was "sitting." I looked through my bag. I didn't have any milk for her or even a bottle of water. I let her sip from my glass, which she always loved. Zelda was a self-feeder from day one, grabbing the spoon from my hand the first time I fed her solids. She let me hold her bottles for her for months longer than most babies, but she always grabbed for forks and adult glasses.
This water was seltzer, and she sputtered it out a little, then reached for more. I had a pouch of apricots, which she never really liked but which would do. I ordered a watermelon salad, hoping she would be open to sharing it with me. I looked around at the beautiful, waning day, the sun just going down over the East River, visible in the not very distant distance. One other person, a nicely dressed woman, was on the sidewalk sitting at a table, drinking wine. I ordered a glass of wine and drank my first sip too avidly, feeling the wine dribble down the front of my shirt. I looked down as I started to sponge it up with a napkin and noticed that my shirt was covered in other stains, not just the wine. There was old milk, maybe some tomato sauce. Was I still wearing my clothes from the day before?
I shuddered to think of my hair, which I'd stopped cutting and styling and which I washed only a few times a week. I looked like shit, I was sure of it. And for me, this is saying a lot, because even on my best days I look only moderately put together. I've never been a "good dresser." Anyway, the woman sitting there alone at the table who shamed me simply by existing was reading _The New Yorker_. I had a stack of _New Yorker_ s at home, by my side of the bed. I often pondered not reading them but simply tying them together with some heavy twine and throwing them onto the curb. When would I be able to read _The New Yorker_ again? When would I want to? I still went to bed exhausted at 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. and was barely making time to start writing again. I was still drained and had little interest in showering. I didn't feel unhappy, but I felt like a completely different person than the one who had decided, finally, to have a baby.
I thought the woman sitting there alone, with the good haircut and the glass of wine, must be judging me somehow. She must feel very smug about her decision not to have kids or to remain happily single. I didn't know anything about her other than that, and though I didn't exactly envy her, I felt very certain she did not envy me. She caught me staring at her; we made eye contact. I looked away in what felt like shame and put my sunglasses on.
Down the street I could hear the familiar sounds of kids screaming, playing, wringing the last fun out of the end of the day. And in the distance, a crying baby.
As I looked down at Zelda, who had been fussing because she wanted ever-increasing volumes of seltzer, which I didn't want to give her because there was no place to change her closer than home, a calm washed over her. She smiled. She looked around, not needing me, me not needing her. She gave me another moment to contemplate the disgusting figure we cut, as I noted her little striped sundress was covered in red stains, too.
"Strawberries!" I almost said aloud. We'd both eaten them for breakfast. That must have been what was on both of our fronts. Strawberries. We love strawberries.
The crying baby was getting closer, and in fact I could see it now, or its vehicle: a stroller identical to Zelda's, an Uppababy Cruz, rolling toward us down the sidewalk. A man was pushing the stroller calmly and silently, as if the baby inside was not wailing its head off, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "Must be a newborn," I said to myself, looking down at my half-year-old baby with appreciation. One thing we had conquered: Zelda never screamed in her stroller anymore. I guess those days were over.
I'd been there, where he was, not very long ago, just trying to hold it together when every moment outside of home seemed like a potential or certain disaster. I'd held back tears as strangers said, "Maybe she's hungry!" as I pushed a screaming baby down our street, pretending I didn't care that she was making the most amount of noise that she was capable of.
My deflated feelings of inadequacy passed; I felt slightly puffed up and more confident in the moment. That's how it works sometimes. The man with the stroller stopped at the table with the woman reading _The New Yorker_ , the woman I now recognized as the mother of the screaming baby.
"I guess he's not going to sleep," she said to the man as he engaged the foot brake. "We should go then," she said, glancing at me and my now-silent baby.
"How old is he?" I asked, sipping my glass of wine.
"Nine weeks tomorrow," she said, smiling weakly.
"How old is she?" She gestured to Zelda, who waved, smiling a drooly smile.
"Just passed seven months." I smiled back. Little old nine-weeks was still wailing, Dad desperately attempting to jam a pacifier into his mouth over and over. "Does it get easier?" he asked, looking up at me for the first time.
"Oh, we have our days," I said.
"This seems like one of the good ones," Mom said, jamming her _New Yorker_ into the stroller.
"I guess so," I said, shrugging and smiling at my baby.
They went home, and then we went home. I washed the apricots from Zelda's face and put her in clean pajamas. I read to her and put her to bed, then showered off the dirt from my own body, standing in the hot water, not thinking about anything at all.
The next morning, I pulled a new book from the shelves. "Do you want to read _The Secret Garden_?" I asked, fumbling around. "Or . . . _The Canterbury Tales_?" Zelda was laying in her crib in a sundress, already dressed for the day. I'd laid it out the night before, knowing it was going to be very hot. The sun was already beating inside her room; the air conditioner was quietly blowing.
"Actually," I said, looking at my watch. It was 8:00 in the morning. Josh wasn't awake yet. "Let's go out. The coffee shops are open at least," I said. We went out. But eventually, we did read both _The Secret Garden_ and _The Canterbury Tales_. She preferred the latter, I think.
* * *
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I never liked other people's babies before I had one myself. It hadn't occurred to me that sometimes you need to fly home for your grandmother's funeral, and the baby still exists. The baby has to fly with you. I had spent much of my adult life being annoyed at them on airplanes and in public, never thinking about how important it actually was, and is, to take your babies out into the world as fast as possible, to make them unafraid and social, to teach them how to behave in a restaurant or a bookstore.
In the first half year of Zelda's life, I decided to do just that: to take her with me, within reason, wherever I myself needed or wanted to go. I sought out cafés and stores when they were least likely to be busy, off hours and away from huge crowds, where we could give it a shot, where we could test her patience and give her new experiences. She wasn't always in agreement; sometimes she cried. Once, we had to leave when the food took too long and she simply wasn't up to waiting. But over those months she learned very fast how to fit into the world, and, rather than making Earth conform to her, Zelda, always a fast learner, always pliable and happy to wave to strangers, conformed to whatever was around her.
I learned to live and breathe sometimes without a personal sense of purpose other than simply being alive. It was scary to not have something mentally exhausting to focus on, to have to be present rather than distracted and lost inside of myself all the time. But I thought I was managing most days to turn what felt like boredom into a virtue of sorts. I wasn't miserable or depressed. I was just different than I had been before.
And I learned to be more sympathetic to the screaming children around me. And the struggling parents. And of course I learned quickly to accept the people around me, often young but also often elderly, who simply didn't like my baby or want to indulge her with a wave or a smile. We all learn a lot, not just from books but from engaging with the world around us. Zelda reminded me of that.
* * *
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The defining characteristic of the first ten or fifteen years of my life was that I was an unapologetic bookworm. I probably spent more time alone in my bedroom reading or hiding from kids on the playground with a book than I did doing anything else. I learned to walk while holding a book, up the street to Emily's house or home from school. Occasionally, a car in my neighborhood would pull over so whatever adult was behind the wheel could tell me how dangerous what I was doing was. "You'll get hit by a car," the old lady who was so old she definitely shouldn't have been driving, who lived five houses up from ours, cackled at me. I remember thinking she sounded as though she wanted to help make it happen. Reading was probably some form of escape from my reality, but that thought never occurred to me back then.
I got this love of books from my mother, who ate every book she ever picked up like it was actual food, and from my second-grade teacher, Miss Zimmerman. My mother never censored what I read; her library, full of classics and true crime and Stephen King, was sitting there, in the piles she kept by her bed and on the shelves in the basement, available to me whenever I wanted. I asked for books for Christmas and birthdays, and one Christmas, my grandfather built shelves to hang on the wall of my bedroom so that I could begin to amass my own tiny collection.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
It was in middle school that we met Vanessa and Ellen. Emily and I had plenty of other girls in our circle of friends, but never had we really brought others into the fold of our own weirdness before. Vanessa and Ellen were different.
If I am remembering correctly, I brought Vanessa, and Emily brought Ellen. Vanessa and Ellen, though, already knew each other. That was the deal going forward: Emily and I were a unit, and Vanessa and Ellen were one. Together, we were a dangerous Voltron of adolescent girlhood.
Sometimes, one of us (Emily or me) met another girl in school. We'd hang out with that new girl alone, perhaps at her house or our own and, if all went well, eventually we'd debut her to the other. No one really stuck until Vanessa and Ellen.
Vanessa was small and had long, flowing blond hair. She had already developed breasts, which was something none of the rest of us had done yet. Her family was from the Midwest somewhere, but she'd lived in McMurray most of her life. Ellen was exotically beautiful and nearly six feet tall. Vanessa and Ellen had gone to a different elementary school than Emily and me, and the four of us were dumped together starting in the sixth grade into the same middle school.
After that, from then until we graduated from high school, the four of us were a group package. And it was by way of there being a block of us, rather than just a pair, that we began to flourish into a really original group of human beings. Before, individually all of us had stuck out from the general crowds of kids. We weren't exactly popular, but we weren't really made fun of, either. I didn't quite fit into any group of children, and though I was growing somewhat comfortable with that, even misfits need their cliques. So we built one.
Emily was always in some ways the most solid of us: she made friends with more popular people easily, whereas I was clearly a loner who was happy to recede into the background. She did the best in school and worried endlessly about her grades. By middle school, I already didn't care. Although each of us had our own familial struggles that we talked about in pairs, whispering around one another to avoid being confrontational, we mostly kept our secrets safe within ourselves. For all our daring, we couldn't quite divulge the things that our families did to fuck us up as a group. Not yet.
When my brother Daniel was starting kindergarten, I took him on the bus the first day. He sat next to me on the front seat, him with his little red He-Man backpack strapped on his back. And without a word of complaint, he threw up all over himself, vomit dripping onto the floor of the bus. I was paralyzed; I didn't know what to do. And more than anything, I felt anxious that other people would notice. The anxiety overwhelmed my worry about his well-being or my desire to help him. "How do I clean this up?" I wondered. The bus driver gave me a huge roll of those scratchy brown industrial paper towels, and we did the best we could. I remember Daniel crying a little bit and me trying to comfort him. "It's okay," I said. And he answered back, "It always is."
Years later, in high school, when I was in eleventh grade and Daniel in ninth, I walked down the hall to see him randomly being made fun of by some bigger, older bully. I don't remember what he said to Daniel, only that when I went over to him, Daniel said, "He sucks. I don't care if he thinks I'm cool or not." I've carried that comment with me ever since, because it rang true: Daniel, for whatever reason, decided very early in life never, ever to care what people thought of him, and it made him smarter than the rest of us, who worried over all the minor things that unpopular kids often worry over. The rest of my high school career, after that day when my younger brother taught me a way forward with a few tossed-off words, was more carefree than the previous decade had been.
But in middle school, I hadn't learned that yet. I still cared, even if only a little, what people thought of me. It was clear that I wasn't going to be a star student: I was flunking math classes every chance I got. I was bad at sports; I was bad at trying too hard, something that would stick with me, an unwillingness to try new things, not for fear of failure but simply because I had found the things I liked doing and wanted to do them. I was already, and would continue to be through even college and graduate school, the kind of person who cut classes to hide in the library reading.
But in this space of time, these middle school years, my parents began to recede into the background for me. They were in so many ways still all important: they had to buy me everything that I needed, and they needed to drive me from place to place if they weren't walking distance. And yet, they became almost background characters to the tumultuous requirements of my growing social life.
In some ways, my mother ceased to exist for me in middle school. I wasn't really interested in boys and didn't need her advice on the Big Topics. I hadn't gotten my period yet; I didn't need to wear a bra. My entire social life basically revolved around school and after-school activities like dances, plays, and occasionally hanging out at the public library in the afternoon, secretly cutting photos of Madonna from _Rolling Stone_ magazine.
Emily, Vanessa, Ellen, and I carved out a space for ourselves. We passed notes, which were often thousand-word-long letters, among ourselves in classes. We made fun of other students and teachers relentlessly. We were all in band together, and we tried out for dance competitions together. We went to school dances and drank tiny bits of alcohol or smoked stray cigarettes together, huddled in school bathroom stalls. We built a new family for ourselves, and it subbed in for the ones we were born into. In many ways, we were still privately unhappy; this is true of all kids approaching their teenage years. Parents and family still controlled almost every move we made. I didn't have my own money; I couldn't drive. My parents held all the power, and though I didn't yet see them as enemies, I was starting to see them as foils at least. In this space, I think, my mother's drinking problem became progressively worse, but if anybody noticed, they didn't say much about it.
My mother was, I think I've strained to say, a very good mother. Sure, sometimes she didn't show up. But she usually did. And because she continued to be a devoted mother in those years, I think her problem was simply glossed over by everyone around her.
I kept my home life and my social life separate. My friends didn't come over to my house very much. That space was reserved for Emily, who I could keep in my room if my mother was acting erratic, but that mostly happened late at night anyway, when we were safely asleep. But I'm sure by then Emily knew exactly what was going on. My father seemed to be away for most of that time. I know that he wasn't, but in my memory, he had receded a bit, probably the way fathers do for many adolescent girls.
At home, I read and hung out with my brothers; I visited my grandparents and went to church on Sundays. In this space reserved for family, my mother taught me to bake pies from scratch and how to properly fold towels. How to iron a shirt and how to sew. We kept reading together.
All alcoholics live lives that are divided into at least two lives: one where they are drinking, and one in which they are not. My life was divided too, and though the question of which life was the truer one for my mother troubled me greatly, the question of my own division seemed harmless to me. My own friends were experiencing, similar things to more or less the same degree: one life at home with family, one away with friends.
My mother kept drinking, was drinking more, in fact, but the drinking troubled me less somehow as I began to have my own personal life. I worried about her still, thought about her drinking constantly, but suddenly I had new ways of diverting my attention.
A kid that age shouldn't have to feel bad for her mother, but there were nights when I'd pretend to be asleep and just lay there rather than read in bed next to her. Something about her made me sad. I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I didn't fully rest it on the drinking, either. But soon, as I grew into a teenager, fighting with my mother over everyday things would become my primary way of interacting with her.
# CHAPTER 7
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It's incredibly weird to write a book about your child and not write about your marriage, when you're definitely married. Zelda definitely has a dad, his name is Josh, and he's my husband. He is absolutely not thirty-three Chihuahuas stacked in a trench coat. I assure you he is 100 percent real.
But I committed quite early, in the days of writing essays for public consumption about my life with my daughter, to not really saying anything about my marriage, simply because Josh, as a somewhat public person in his life as an editor and writer himself, never "signed up" for my project. He could have chosen to write about his experiences of fatherhood, but he didn't. I'm sure his version would be much different than mine.
And there was something too dear and near to me in the thought of writing honestly about my relationship with him.
But also: I don't remember that much of him in that first year. I have to try really hard to pull up memories of him sometimes, as if there was a finite amount of space inside me then for storing things.
I know this is more my failing than his absence. It was motherhood-induced myopia, where all I could or would see was myself and my daughter and the various threads that tied us back and forth to each other. It was selfishness personified, a biological reaction. Taking care of a child is so hard, so time consuming: it made sense that our emotions and needs would consume me and that in turn, three years later, I would have a blank space for a lot of where Josh should be.
But also: I _did_ spend much of my time with Zelda alone. The weekends were family time, and they were necessarily less stressful, simply because there were two sets of hands, two people to manage the packing up and the setting off. We were happy some days and miserable others. But most of the time he wasn't physically around. He was just getting mean, panicked, desperate, or even angry texts from me. It's not that he didn't suffer the emotional drain that comes with first-time parenthood, but he did experience a lot of it only secondhand.
And even though I did decide to leave him out of my writing largely, I feel I need to say something. I owe it to myself to be honest about how awful that first part of it really was.
Everyone who has ever had a child will say things like, "The first year is the worst," or, "Good-bye to having sex," really encouraging remarks that make you feel at once superior to them but also very sad for everyone. Sad, because it's almost always, from other mothers I've talked to, true: that blank memory space for me is partly blank because I expected the relationship I had with Josh to be on hold while I kept the baby alive. I struggled, sometimes alone but often with him by my side, to keep the fucking baby alive. To seem happy around her even if I felt as though I were drowning in the monotony or from exhaustion or the repetition of each identical day. I struggled to teach her to sleep and to make sure she was clean and healthy and happy.
But I soon realized we were succeeding. Our baby was magical and fun and cute and happy. She flourished as we treaded water beside her, hoping that once the struggles passed we would still _have_ a relationship with each other. That our love would tide us over in the dark times.
Which isn't to say we didn't have sex or intimacy or that we didn't spend evenings together watching TV and eating bad takeout food. We did those things. But there were necessary changes, and it wasn't hours we lost. We'd both always worked a lot, and Josh had always traveled on business several weeks a year, so we were used to spending a lot of time apart and on our own. It was, mostly on my end, an emotional loss of space for him. I stopped worrying about him in the same way; I stopped caring so much and empathizing with him.
I don't believe the amount of caring we can produce is finite. But I do know, from the experience of having a child, that the first year of my daughter's life meant that there was for a while a finite number of places I could spend my love and empathy. I simply had to focus on keeping us alive. And "us" usually meant the two of us. I had to hope that everyone else could wait for a while.
I don't know why it was this way, only that it was and that I'm not alone, that other women have described similar paths in that first year or so.
I don't know if I can regret that it was this way because I'm not sure we could have managed any _other_ way. I remember an argument we had late one night, when Zelda was asleep. We were arguing because Josh had come home very late. So late that I was struggling to stay awake and was ready for bed by the time he walked through the door. I stayed awake because I wanted to see him and because I knew he hated to come home to a house where everyone was sleeping; but I was angry to have to do it, because I was so tired. It was a very typical argument of the period.
"You don't know what it's like here, all day alone with her. I'm exhausted," I'd say, trying to work out why I was mad at him and at least partly resentful that he got to physically leave the premises for hours every day. But I was also tired and ready for bed and trying to stay up. I resented a lot those days, and though I didn't say it, I'm sure he felt it just the same.
"You don't know what it's like for me," he'd say. "I have to leave the house, be presentable, very early, and I don't get to see you or Zelda all day, and then I come home and everyone is asleep, and I do that for five days a week."
Both of us were right. For us, being parents at first meant constant competition about the very different levels of the other's burden and the incapacity for the other to understand that. It is, in hindsight, almost funny.
But that particular night the argument escalated and reached, unlike many previous arguments in the genre that had resulted in annoyance and stalemate, a revelation, at least for me.
"You can accept this or not: this is reality for now," he said, I thought a little harshly. I was prepared to bite back, thinking of how to respond, but he went on: "You will always have spent more time with her than me when this part of our lives is over. Nobody can change that. You can resent me for it, but you should also know that I will always be jealous, even if it's nice for me to get to leave. I can't get this time back, and neither can you." I wasn't sure whether he was actually jealous of me, but I took that night as a win.
It's not good to feel better about yourself because your partner expresses pain. But sometimes you have to accept realities. Sometimes you make the best of what you have on offer. I wouldn't change it, I guess.
Josh taught me the value of a good old-fashioned, out-loud fight. He taught me that early in our relationship; it was one of the things I liked about him. I came from a family where many things, from the small and relatively unimportant to the giant and possibly tragic, were often not engaged with openly. We didn't have huge fights in our family growing up. We kept our thoughts mostly to ourselves. There wasn't dishonesty: my parents taught me that lying was wrong, and I am still a terrible liar in the very few times I've attempted it. But there is a way to be dishonest without lying actively: choosing to say nothing is about the same as an open lie a lot of the time.
Josh came from a family where nothing was off-limits and everything was open to discussion. I was taken aback by their propensity for yelling openly at one another, even in front of interlopers like myself. Back in the earliest days of our relationship, when I was barely a known entity to Josh's brother and parents, I felt uncomfortable but energized by their ability to make decisions quickly, where my family, especially once my mother was dead, sometimes took hours to decide what to have for dinner simply because everyone failed to speak their mind in a timely fashion.
Every family operates differently. "You're all like your father!" my mother used to say in exasperation, years after my parents divorced. What she meant was that my brothers and me are sometimes stubbornly silent. And we are. I still feel that well inside of me when I am asked even simple, direct questions: a deep desire to simply say nothing, to refuse. To stay inside of myself. I am deeply solitary in a way that my mother never was.
My mother was, while my parents were still married and we were all living at home together, the decider. She was the one who moved us up and out of the house, who kept the gears oiled and the machinery working. "Time to go!" she'd yodel through the house while the rest of us spun our wheels getting ready. I think my parents were both naturally punctual, but my mother could get a group going far easier.
My parents almost never openly fought in front of us. And though I know that doesn't mean fights didn't happen, I felt that Josh and I also owed it to Zelda to not fight in front of her.
When Josh and I became parents, it exposed a deep weakness in our relationship. It probably does in everyone's, really, because a child presents a couple with the first true test of their ability to negotiate, to compromise, to make daily decisions, and to relent and to give in to another person sometimes. Buying a house and managing your way through a hair-raising mortgage process is _nothing_ in comparison. Though Josh and I had taken on his personal characteristic of openly and sometimes hostilely attacking each other over, say, how good the films of Paul Thomas Anderson are, the stakes of so many of the arguments we'd had over the years before Zelda were extremely low.
The thing is that parenting is actually easier when you're on your own, without someone there to question the choices you're making. And since I was often the one alone with Zelda, I made many of the decisions myself.
To be clear, Josh wasn't an absentee father; he was simply a parent who worked a lot. There were plenty of times, thousands of hours, where it was the two of us together. And it was then that we fought for the first time over things that seemed to really matter. I found that I couldn't remain silent. I would correct his parenting or simply take over entirely. I found myself disagreeing openly with even small decisions he made.
He was not fond of this emerging tendency in me. I've always been a know-it-all corrector. This is not an attractive or good quality, and I sometimes try very hard to keep my thoughts to myself. But as I'd lay in bed at night with the baby monitor humming beside me, being hard on myself for the way I'd treated him during that day, for saying, "Don't make a big deal if she cries," or, "Don't turn the heat on now, it will wake her," I'd often come back around to the other side in my internal dialogue. "Wait a minute," I'd say. "He's the whole reason I'm so disagreeable to begin with! He's the one who showed me that speaking my mind was the best policy."
We had this argument out loud occasionally, too. "You're the reason I am this way now. I was much easier before," I'd say unhelpfully. If there was a shred of truth to it, what good did it do me to say it aloud? And so, the circular way of thinking completed itself and began anew.
We agreed on most things. We were politically aligned. We usually liked the same TV shows. Our temperaments worked well together. But parenting is a crazy test of a relationship. I can't say we did better than other people. But we didn't judge ourselves too harshly, and, ultimately, we sort of came to an agreement.
I won most of the arguments. We basically did and still do most of the parenting the way that I want to. That doesn't mean I'm always right. I'm wrong sometimes even if it's hard for me to admit. And though Josh is naturally disagreeable, he is not a grudge keeper. In that first year or so of Zelda's life, he extended to me a great charity in not holding too much against me.
At home, my mother was the "cool parent." I wanted to emulate that much of her. I wanted to be cool. I think of myself as a cool person with good ideas. I know that's a funny way to want to be perceived, but it's true. I wanted Zelda to think of me as a cool mother. My father was firmer and in some ways more fear-inducing to me. If he said, "Go clean up your room," I did. With my mother, I could often negotiate. "Come help me?" I'd ask. She didn't always say yes, but I at least felt comfortable, and entitled, to ask.
But I was soon taken aback by the realization that Josh was the cool parent in Zelda's life, especially once she began to talk. "Daddy," she'd say when I asked who she wanted to read her stories at night. It didn't matter that she seemed to prefer him sometimes simply because he was easier to manipulate. I'd leave the room, letting him read, and then stand in the kitchen seething as I heard her stretch bedtime by another twenty minutes. "I need to go potty," she'd say. "I'm thirsty," she'd say. "I need a tissue," she'd say, and he'd fall for it every time.
I wasn't angry with him over these things. Well, I was at first. But I've grown to accept this dynamic. I am the decider, like my mother was before me, but in that role I'm also unequivocally the boss. Zelda knows she can't fuck with me. She doesn't fear me; I've tried so hard to ensure that she doesn't fear me, and there are no signs that she does. But she does not disobey me very often. These days she simply says, "Okay, Mommy, two minutes more," when I tell her how long there is until dinner.
I respect and accept this. I don't need to be everything to Zelda. I don't need to be the cool parent. She has Josh for that.
When my parents separated, when I was getting ready to enter tenth grade, I was relieved. I'm not sure why, exactly, but I hoped that their separation would lead to my mother drinking less. That hope turned out to be, like many others, unfulfilled. At the time of the separation, with my oldest brother, David, already at college, we decided that my brothers and I would stay with my mother. We wanted to stay with our mother too, because, well, she was the cool parent. Over the years, and with her increased drinking, we knew we could slide under her radar easier than we could my father's. I remember once telling my dad I was going to the bus stop (which was at the end of our driveway and visible from any of the many windows at the front of our house) and then tried to sneak around the back of the house and through the backyard. The truth was that I had no intention of going to school that day: I was headed to Emily's. I don't know why my father was late going to work that morning; usually he left before I had to get on the bus. Either way, he was waiting at the back door for me as I tried to slip into the yard.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I missed the bus," I lied, poorly. "I'm walking to school now."
"I watched you watch the bus go by," he said. "Get in the car, I'll drive you to school."
You couldn't get shit past my dad. I realize now that that's how I am as a mother. But I will be the first to admit that I am uncool as a mother. I'm in charge. As Zelda says, "You're da boss."
If we'd never had children, I believe Josh and I would probably never have been truly confronted with this need to learn how to make decisions together, how to relent or come to an agreement even if disagreement remains. You can't simply keep arguing forever when another person, the child, needs your answer now: someone either needs to come around or they need to allow the other person to win.
And I learned something else: my fear, based on my own experience, of Josh and me fighting in front of Zelda, was somewhat useless. Of course we argue in front of her. We don't yell at each other violently, but we are, I have accepted, disagreeable people. My fear of open confrontation has died very hard, and my fear of hurting my daughter has been washed away like sand on a beach, slowly over time: she's absorbed so easily into this little family of ours, Band-Aids and all. We are who we are. She chimes in when we argue with her own opinion more often than not. And it's so obvious she knows and is secure in how much we love her.
# CHAPTER 8
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My mother was raised by a very opinionated woman of the Great Depression. Raised by an alcoholic herself, my grandma Peg was in some ways an amazing woman. She was a working mother in the 1950s, an interior decorator and then, with my grandfather, the bookkeeper at their framing business. But as a mother and then as a grandmother, she was exacting, especially in matters of dress. For her, appearances mattered almost to the exclusion of everything else. Though my mother knew a lot of this was bullshit, she spent most of her life, as far as I can tell, trying to please her own mother and inevitably failing. I remember hearing my grandmother tell her she should lose a "few pounds" or that her hair color needed to be touched up at the roots. I'd hear her quiet, _tsk-tsk_ voice: "Kathy, is that what you're wearing?"
I know what it's like to live with your mother's baggage. I don't know where my grandmother's baggage came from, and I do not blame her for my mother's alcoholism, but I do think that my mother tried to course correct her relationship with me based on what she probably saw as the shortcomings of her own mom. Don't we all? That manifested itself as an open and pretty honest relationship with me. We talked freely about sex and drugs, and she told me wonderful stories about her teenage years. One of her favorite things to talk about was how when she went to see the Doors and Jim Morrison touched her face. She was seventeen years old, and it was her first concert. I wasn't afraid of my mother the way that I think she was afraid of her own. My mother made me strong enough and smart enough to tell her when I found out that I was pregnant, and she was open enough to be able to listen to it. If that situation was difficult for her, as I've come to realize as a mother myself that it must have been, she herself never complained to me. And I think she certainly wanted to be better than her mother in this way. I never really felt that my mother had expectations of me that I would never be able to meet. Except for one thing.
With a baby and a little kid, it's easy to dress them. They wear what you put on them or, later, what you buy. I never thought about what was in my closet and my drawers very much, not for the first ten or twelve years of my life. So the fact that my three-and-a-half-year-old already has decidedly strong opinions about what she wants to wear shocked me, and it exposes her genetic predisposition to care.
I didn't care what I looked like, never felt put together right. I felt uncomfortable in my body and so, to counteract that, I eventually stopped caring completely. This irritated my mother, who had spent my childhood braiding my hair carefully and planning outfits for me. She prided herself on her own appearance and, by some extension, on mine. I hated shopping, though I loved that it was one of the few times my mother and I were out alone.
I grew up acutely aware that one of the major ways my mother showed the world that she cared for me was in dressing me very well. Appearances mattered. She could break free from her mother and raise her daughter to be truthful and comfortable talking to her about the things that did matter, but she couldn't temper or hide her disappointment at the ever-increasingly apparent truth, which was that I was slovenly and what was still in the '90s called a "tomboy." She wasn't superficial, but despite her best intentions, she had internalized her mother's attitudes that appearances mattered.
When I was a child, my long hair was always clean and shiny and tangle-free. I never, ever wore pants as a baby. Even in toddlerhood, I remember going to bed with my hair in curlers and wearing tights and itchy, formal dresses with patent leather shoes to all occasions. To this day, family members still comment on how lovely I was dressed as a baby and child. I didn't mind her dressing me as she pleased. Until I did.
Nothing came between my mother and me fast approaching my teen years more than these same issues: what to wear, makeup, hair, shoes. It started, as most problems probably do for parents, around the end of middle school. And it _did_ start out in a predictable direction: I decided first that I wanted to wear heavy makeup—black eyeliner, dark red lipstick, and black clothing. It was a Goth phase. My mother was a good old Catholic schoolgirl, so she understood my need to rebel to some extent. I think she thought of it as a Madonna-inspired expression of my inner rage, and she was right.
But in middle school I couldn't find any evidence that there were cool things outside of whatever shit was on TV and in magazines. To me, alternative music was, like, the Smiths or the Cure, and even that stuff was on MTV, if late at night. My mom stayed up with me on Sundays to watch _120 Minutes_ , so, I reasoned, how weird could it possibly be? My _mother_ watched it.
She was very tolerant even of my emerging desire to wear Revlon Red lipstick in ninth grade, when there were very few high schoolers doing such a thing. Though I'd had my ears pierced the first time with my grandma Peg at the mall on my fifth birthday, the next rounds were carried out by my mom in the basement of our house while watching MTV late on a Sunday night. She iced my ears and did it with a needle and a thread and a potato, like they did back when she was a teenager, she said. She was sometimes really cool.
But by the time I was in high school, my ideas changed quickly about what was attractive, about what I wanted to look like, and about what I wanted to wear. My mother indulged me when I requested to have my waist-length hair cut off. She allowed me to go to a barber on my own after school, with a picture I'd found in a magazine of a woman with short hair. I think it might have been Demi Moore. Girls with very short hair weren't that common then; this was years before the mainstreaming of the pixie cut. No one I went to school with had short hair. My mother gave me the money to pay for the haircut. And to her credit, she did not freak out about it, although it was much shorter than she had expected. I told the barber, "Keep cutting," over and over until the hair looked as though I wouldn't need to fuck with it or style it anymore. And once I cut my hair, I never wanted it to grow long again. I dutifully went to get it cut every six to eight weeks, and she dutifully said nothing.
My mother also didn't say much when I stopped wearing makeup and jewelry. She didn't say much when I began to only wear black and white, mostly my grandfather's old clothes that my grandma Elly had given me when she'd cleaned out his closets after he died.
But eventually, when confronted with my whole look, it proved to be a bit much for her, and she started to make little comments and suggestions that, needless to say, I didn't take kindly to. My new aesthetic gave me something I'd never had before: confidence. I felt all right carrying myself, my body, around the halls of the high school. I felt, if not attractive to others, at least satisfied with myself.
Like my mother with her own mother, I never wanted anything other than approval. And like my mother, I seemed suddenly, somehow, incapable of getting it. It's incredibly destabilizing to discover that what has given you confidence for the first time in your new, adult body is also causing your mother pain. But instead of trying to change myself to please her, as she did with her own mother, I went in the opposite direction and decided to please only myself. I decided, then and there, that no one would ever make me feel bad about myself physically.
I look at the photos of myself from then, and I sort of see why she was unhappy. I was a thin girl in what were widely considered to be men's clothes then, no makeup, short hair. No jewelry. I was her only daughter, and she'd shown me, by example her whole life, what it meant to be a woman who cared for herself. I was mostly clean, but I stopped shaving my legs and I stopped worrying. For me, it was freedom. For her, it was disappointment. And she didn't hide it well. "I already have three sons," she snapped at me once when she found that I'd replaced all my underwear with men's briefs.
The freedom to not give a shit about what other people think of your looks is just that: it was liberating on a level not previously experienced by me, teen Laura. Some days I felt like running through the halls or up the hill behind the school to where my old elementary school was. If I ran long enough, I would eventually hit the path that carried me into my neighborhood and home. I felt almost like a kid again.
I sometimes wish that my mother could have learned from me, a little of my ability to not give a shit with regards to her _own_ mother. I know it doesn't work that way: she created in me that ability, but still, she could have used some of it herself. She could have benefited greatly from the ability to say to her mother, "Yes, this is what I'm wearing. Do you have a problem with that?" as I said to her. As I grew up, I occasionally felt the urge to defend my mother against her own mother.
But I often wonder now why it was that my mother, an adult, seemed so defenseless against her own mother, when I was perfectly capable as a teenager of standing up to mine.
Mothers and daughters, even ones not dealing with divorce and alcoholism, always have a falling-out point. I know this because every friend I had was fighting with her own mother at the exact same time as I was. There was a lot of sighing and eye rolling. My father didn't seem to know what to do with the new me, the one who wasn't comforted by ice cream or a shopping trip or a hug. He backed off, as I'm sure many fathers of teenage girls before him had. But my mother thought—rightfully, I'm sure—that she understood what I was going through.
She didn't. I soon realized that my mother had never felt what I felt. She never rebelled, and if she ever felt reason to, she didn't admit it to me. She was a "popular" and beautiful, blond-haired girl in high school. I was uninterested in being popular.
My mother, who I thought of as progressive and smart, was not pleased at this prospect of the new me. She was even more sheltered than I was there in the suburbs. She'd never lived on her own, she'd never been out in the world or lived in a big city. I knew that I was disappointing her, but it also seemed like a superficial argument. It seemed like the fight about my clothes was a battle we were having because we couldn't fight about what was actually wrong in our relationship. We were talking around the real problem: she was an alcoholic. And once my father had moved out, that fact was front and center. She drank more, more often, and more openly. My brothers stopped going to school some days. I was often late or absent myself, preferring to leave school early to smoke cigarettes. I took to simply walking out of the high school whenever I damn well pleased.
This led to countless long Saturday detentions, where I was tasked with watering plants or shelving books. One Saturday that I remember was the day after Richard Nixon died. Emily and I were assigned to create a memorial for the ex-president in the display case outside the library. "Farewell, Dick," the display case read in those tacked-up paper cutout letters schools always have, surviving long enough into Monday for students to see it, resulting in yet another detention.
My mom seemed only somewhat aware of my dire circumstances. Mostly, I kept things to myself and still managed to have a pretty good time. I wasn't actually failing out of school, just floating along, doing the least amount of work possible.
What my mom did care about openly was my appearance. It stood in for so much in our relationship at that time. She thought the fact that I didn't care meant something, that it was a commentary on or a reaction against her.
At the time, I thought that what I was wearing had nothing to do with her, but now, I'm not so sure she wasn't right after all. Now, I wonder if I wasn't making a statement to hurt her.
When I found out that I was in fact going to have a girl, I simply wanted for my daughter to be herself. Two thousand fourteen was hundreds, thousands of miles away from the mid-1990s. Zelda wouldn't have to argue about if she could have short hair as she grew up, because it's not as big of a deal; there are more women with short hair now than there were then.
The world into which Zelda would be born was a lot different, as worlds often are about dressing trends. Though I was sure she would eventually find something to irritate her aging mother with, I dedicated myself to the concept that I would never, ever make her feel bad about her appearance. Though my mother never made me feel shame about my body the way her own mother had about weight or diet, she had left me with a bad taste in my mouth about all manners of things dress-related, so much so that, to this day, when I step into a pair of shoes with heels and a dress, I feel the anger of resentment bubbling up inside me. Even when I like the way that I look in traditionally female clothing, I am angry and uncomfortable.
What I guess I didn't consider was that once I did find out I was having a girl, I might want to dress her like one. I don't so much mean "buy pink," because I'm a lover of all colors, even the ones that are stereotypically gendered. I don't hold anything against pink.
No, I mean that I was surprised to find, almost immediately, that I wanted to buy my unborn fetus dresses. Frilly ones. Patent leather shoes. White tights with lace on the butt. Just like my mother had for me. I didn't know if Zelda would be my only child, but I'd waited a long time for her, and I was overjoyed to be having a girl. I didn't expect, though, to want to buy her dresses.
But I did. I wanted to do this very badly, and I felt almost ashamed to acknowledge it, after my years of talking about the patriarchy's rules for dress. I'd raged against this machine so hard. What did it mean to so suddenly want to be inside that machine?
I keep a lot of things to myself. Plenty of people who have known me for years never heard me utter the word "alcoholic" when talking about my mother. But I was not and really never have been shy when it comes to the topic of dress: in this one area, I admit, I have slandered my mother's good name for full effect, trying to drum up sympathy wherever I could.
She scarred me for sure, though I admit freely that the scars from arguing over whether I should wear men's briefs or shave my legs were pretty superficial. I see now that, to some extent, my years of telling and retelling, shaping the narrative of the Big Fights my mother and I had over clothes, was a comedy.
I think I did it because it was a story that could have come from any mother-daughter relationship. It was one of the very few falling-outs I ever had with her that was, well, normal. It was a very typical "mom story," and I didn't have very many of those.
Thinking of it this way makes me sad even now. Knowing that I grasped every day for mundane stories to tell about my mother so that I would have things in common with the armies of disaffected daughters out there is very sad. I didn't want to tell people that my mother sometimes berated me incoherently in the dark as I just tried to go to sleep, or that later, when I was nearly an adult but still living with her, she once went out "for a walk, to buy stamps" and then didn't come home for two days. I didn't want to tell people about my mother taking me for an abortion. I didn't want to tell them about her sickness.
Because even though there are millions of people just like me out there, with mothers who love them despite their addictions, or people who have it far worse, what I found myself wanting more than anything when I thought of my mother was simply to have things be "normal." For a person who has always, always prided herself on her lack of normalcy as I have, this is not an easy thing to admit.
So I complained unendingly about my mother's old-school ways of thinking about people's looks. I rolled my eyes at her as the years wore on, even though I came closer to understanding her disappointment as I thought about having my own child. I softened my attitude toward her as I sat on my growing, pregnant ass staring at a computer screen, thinking about buying my daughter dresses from Nordstrom.
For I could see already that I wanted to shower her with the best that I could afford and offer. Not just materially but as a blanket policy.
And once she was born, indeed, I found true pleasure in dressing her. In the alternate reality in which I now lived, I cared about clothing and planned outfits a day in advance. Special occasions and holidays always demanded special care. I washed her hair—of which there was perilously little to start—with special shampoo and brushed it gently. I thought about piercing her ears, though I never did. Like every other parent, I filed her tiny, translucent fingernails.
I knew then and know now that I was not special in any of this. But though I always expected to love my daughter, I did not expect to feel so invested in her physical form. Because I mentally shrugged when I looked at myself in the mirror, I very much expected to feel the same about her corporal body.
"I don't care if she's ugly or not," I said aloud to friends when I was pregnant, and I meant it. Of course I meant it: whether we are "beautiful" or not doesn't matter at all; it never mattered to me.
But I was presented with her physical beauty from the first minute. She was perfect. Her skin was smooth and clear; her eyes were full of joy and fringed by impossibly long eyelashes; her nose was the best-shaped nose I'd ever seen. Everything about her was beautiful.
I'm sure every parent marvels this way; it's our right to do so. But seeing and loving my daughter's actual body was my first experience of really caring about something so physical that I wanted to groom and shop for it. I wanted, in short, what my mother had almost certainly wanted for me.
I abandoned my caution. She was too young to decide what she wanted to wear, so I was in charge. Eventually (sooner than I thought, actually), she'd have ideas of her own that I would respect, but until she did, I would not feel guilty about what I dressed her in.
I spent a lot of Zelda's early life shopping on my computer or my phone and in stores. Though I did often favor what I would call "genderless" clothing—onesies and jumpsuits and pants that any baby could wear—I also found that yeah, I definitely liked dressing her in jumpers and dresses and "girly" clothing.
I found that practical concerns often trumped aesthetic ones, so Zelda wore many kimono and legging combos. She wore a lot of leisure wear. A lot of one-piece ensembles. I found myself becoming surer every day among the racks of clothing in stores, and, for the first time in my life, I enjoyed shopping. Almost.
I was occasionally weighed down with the memory of shopping with my own mother. Can any activity be more boring to a child than clothes shopping? Only the countless hours I spent sitting silently in church and catechism class could beat out the hours spent shopping, sitting in a cart or beside a stroller bearing my brother or, worst of all, walking. Nothing, nothing could make me forget the sensation of burning eyes from the fluorescent lights of shopping mall department stores, my own personal Vegas-style hell where there are no windows and there are no clocks. I wandered, with a dry mouth, noiselessly through the racks, not allowed to explore very far, nor allowed to touch anything, nor allowed to even speak too loudly.
During these early shopping trips with Zelda, who was more often than not strapped to my chest in a baby carrier, blissfully unaware of her dire shopping circumstances, I was sometimes overwhelmed with my sense that what I was now enjoying had dogged me for most of my life. It's good to relearn sometimes. Sometimes we can change.
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I don't know what Zelda will end up looking like. When I return to the photos of her from six months or a year and a half ago, there is deep recognition and familiarity there, even though she has changed so much. I recognize in the short videos of her baby mumblings the sound that ultimately became her current speaking voice, and I see in her past faces the face she now has, more formed and solid, more human than to start.
I stand by my long-held belief that looks aren't very important. That love and attraction and affection are based on other things. My daughter's personality is far and away the best thing about her. The way she reaches up out of her crib at night while she lays on her back, drinking her milk, her wide eyes dozing off, to touch my hand. I know her mannerisms and emotions and tics better than I really ever thought I would know anyone. It's an incredible joy to know her and an incredible journey to watch her become herself.
In this way, I have come to respect and sympathize more with my mother, though I still believe she chose the wrong battle. Why it mattered to her wasn't in her control: she was simply going on what her own mother had taught her. That self-respect could be found in the way one clothed their body is not in fact untrue. It's just that it's also possible to have self-respect and _not_ care about clothes or how you look. I know; I'm living proof! I'm almost forty and I still don't give a shit how I look beyond being clean and sort of well-groomed. I don't care if my socks match or if my pants are torn. I don't really know my dress size.
One Saturday morning when I was in high school, probably hungover, I was eating a giant plate of fried eggs and toast with butter, shoveling the food in like I'd been starved for days, though I never missed a meal.
"Someday you'll regret eating that way," she said, sounding like a mother straight out of _The Group_. I hadn't read _The Group_ yet and didn't even know who Mary McCarthy was. "I've never lived a day in my life not watching what I eat."
I looked up at her, stunned. What did she mean? Had she been dieting all this time, all my life, and I'd never noticed?
Kids are fucking myopic, and my mother kept her secrets close. If she was dieting all the time, she never told anyone that I know of. She didn't keep a notebook or something, the way that I would after Zelda was born, trying to lose ten pounds for the better part of a year.
"What do you mean?" I asked, mentally trying to go back in time over all the things I'd ever seen her eat. Did my mother eat? Of course.
I'd seen her sit on the couch eating sleeves of Saltines. I knew that she liked BLTs and didn't really like cheese. She liked cottage cheese, black tea, canned tuna fish, dry toast, hard-boiled eggs, and grapefruits. She liked, I realize now, what I can only call "'80s diet food for women." Loved it. Or did she? Did she simply avoid eating most things because she didn't want to get fat? Did people live that way?
"You'll regret eating like that because you're not teaching yourself to moderate. You won't always have your father's metabolism."
That turned the conversation. I didn't want to get into some weird, upsetting conversation that circled into "your father" territory with her.
But I thought of this conversation a lot after Zelda was born. It was, if I recall, the only direct conversation the two of us ever had about dieting, but, more important, I snapped out of my oblivion.
It wasn't just the teenage girls I knew who ate candy and spit it out, not wanting to ingest the calories: it was all women. If my own mother had been watching what she ate for her entire life, what was I supposed to be doing?
My teenage self rejected her concern. But after Zelda was born, I realized that my mother had four kids and remained very thin. I got sort of fat from one baby. What would four do to my body? And as someone who cared deeply about how she was seen, how did she process that?
I didn't worry too much or rush to lose the weight, although I did briefly consider the completely demoralizing prospect of buying a food scale. I was still fairly stubbornly confident, even if my body seemed so changed. But I do feel differently about some of those conversations I had with my mother. I hope to learn from them, to not repeat them with my own daughter. But, in the past few years of learning what it's like to actually care and be responsible for another person's body entirely, I understand completely how the illusion of ownership can arise.
I don't kid myself that I own Zelda. But I want to teach her to truly own herself.
# CHAPTER 9
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The true start of my teenager-dom was in the summer of 1992, when Emily, Vanessa, Ellen, and I got dropped off at an outdoor amphitheater twenty miles from home that was that day hosting Lollapalooza. It was the first time I remember really being allowed to go somewhere alone for basically an entire day with my friends. Ellen's father drove us the forty-five minutes to the venue, dropped us off, and said, "I'll see you back here at eleven thirty tonight, get out." It was 11:00 in the morning. Twelve-plus hours alone with my friends in a giant crowd was unimaginable freedom.
We were there to see a dizzying array of bands that included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ice-T, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Ministry. It was a real '90s cornucopia. I was there primarily to see Ministry. This was the beginning of the Goth Laura phase and only a few months before that phase dipped into the androgynous-bad-dresser-fighting-with-her-mom phase. The first band that played that day was a British band called Lush. Lush was led by two women, one of whom had flame-red hair. I'd never heard of them before, and I'd never heard music like that in my life. I fell in love instantly, and that day, mostly because of that band, changed my life.
People tell you that singing can calm a baby. That makes sense: music has always calmed me. And Zelda wasn't alive very long before we attempted to use music to relax her. Unfortunately, we were, while still in the hospital just twelve or fifteen hours after she was born, limited in what we could offer her. I wish that the first piece of music Zelda ever heard was not "Work" by Iggy Azalea. But it was. It is. The first piece of music she ever heard was "Work." I even wrote this fact down in her baby book: "First song I ever heard: 'Work,' by Iggy Azalea, played on a phone."
We played it for her, not on the day she was born but the day after, because it was the only song that Josh had actually downloaded to his phone and we were still in the hospital, and the Wi-Fi was spotty. I say this as a way of excusing us, maybe, but it's true. We played her what was on hand. It was an Iggy Azalea song.
I wish I could take it back because now it is one of those songs that, though it may never be "special" to Zelda—since really, I'd have to tell her this fact for her to even know it—it will always, somehow and so improbably, be special to me. And I hate the song "Work." It's not good. It's crass, and not even crass in a good way. Not crass in the way that I'm crass. Crass like bad crass. "I've been up all night, tryna get that rich / I've been work work work work working on my shit."
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The last time I heard "Work," probably three months ago at random, I was sitting in a parking lot in my car, waiting to pick someone up from a train. I burst into tears. I was probably suffering from PMS, or maybe something else had gone awry that day. I can't remember the details, only the fact that Iggy Azalea's "Work" made me burst into tears once late last year as I sat alone in my car. I don't randomly cry, and even though music often does overwhelm me to tears, "Work" surprised me. But I cried that day because even though I hate the song, it's the first song that my daughter ever heard, and it triggers inside of me a deep feeling of remembrance and loss, as well as a happiness so great I sometimes feel like clawing us back into that hospital room.
When Zelda heard music for the first time, she was laying in that plastic salad bin they give you at the hospital to contain the baby. For the first hours of her life, she lay in that clear plastic container on a steel inclined gurney that had squeaky wheels. I could barely stand from the incision in my gut, but I felt like another woman, a woman not me. I felt superhuman. I could stay awake for the rest of her life, sitting beside her, simply to ensure her survival. All thoughts of my own safety and happiness had, for the moment, departed. I don't remember what the second, third, or fourth songs that Zelda heard were. I remember only the first.
I'd love to be able to say, "the first music my daughter heard was the sweet, clear-as-a-bell sound of her mother's voice, softly purring 'Edelweiss.'" Tough shit.
I have always sung to Zelda. "Work" is the only musical mistake I am willing to own up to. Because I clung to habit and routine early in her life, I quickly developed a set list and simply stuck with it, adding a song every now and then. The standards of our early list included "Frère Jacques," "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Alligator" by Tegan & Sara, and "Don't Shake Your Baby" by me. I wrote it one day when I realized that, contrary to all the terrifying subway ads warning against shaking my baby, my baby wanted nothing more in this world than to be shaken, albeit lightly. She thought shaking was fucking hilarious. "Don't shake, don't shake your baby. Don't shake, don't shake your baby. Don't shake, don't shake your baby: Just kidding, shake your baby." Instant classic.
But though we added to the repertoire slowly, I played for her all the music I myself wanted to hear each day. Like the books I read to her, I didn't limit myself to kid's music, because like her opinions on clothes, she was, at first, too young to voice them. So we listened to Pavement and Air and the Breeders and the Beach Boys. Why not?
Zelda showed interest in music very early on. So much so that the first thing she did upon learning to sit up was to start dancing, sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor, just jiggling away. Before she learned to crawl, Zelda learned to dance. I don't know if all babies dance, but Zelda always did. It was essential to her being, and it was an overwhelming joy to see her ingest the music, to see her body relent, relax, and go with it. For her, music and dancing were intrinsically linked, especially before she had words.
When Zelda was less than a year old, I rented the 1982 movie _Annie_ on iTunes and showed it to her. It did not go very well. She was unaccustomed at that age to television, because I took the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations to heart, and her nanny, who cared for her as I started to get back to writing, didn't watch TV, either. Kids under two, the AAP told me, should not view "screens." At all.
Luckily, Josh and I only ever watched TV at night, long past her 7:30 p.m. bedtime, so the most she ever saw in her first two years of life was a few minutes of an old episode of _Sesame Street_ thrown on in a panic so I could shove some food in my face or boil water for dinner.
I realized in the maybe ten minutes that we watched that day that _Annie_ was scarier than I remembered. I had forgotten everything but the songs, probably because I had only ever seen it a few times. VCRs weren't that common when I was very young, so I knew the story from a book and the soundtrack. I barely remembered how menacing the actual movie was. In _Annie_ , basically all the adults are horrifying and terrible (except for Grace Farrell, of course, who is resplendent and beautiful and perfect). Miss Hannigan, played by Carol Burnett (who is magical) is a mean drunk. Daddy Warbucks is a child-hating Republican; Rooster and Lily are actual criminals. There are dog catchers and policemen. Even the orphans, who have, admittedly, been living a hard-knock life, are rough and mean. Annie's progress through the narrative is one of near-constant stress and danger, and Annie herself often rejects the easier path to comfort and happiness in favor of the harder but more authentic path. I saw this really clearly as an adult where before, as a kid, I simply wanted to be an orphan.
I tried _Annie_ again when Zelda was nearing her third birthday. My timing could not have been better: within one viewing, she was hooked. The movie is still too scary for her—we have to fast-forward through Annie hanging off the bridge or there will be tears—but the emotional center of Annie's life is not lost on Zelda. Nor are the show tunes. "It's the Hard Knock Life" is what Zelda calls a "group song," where all the kids in the movie sing together. Another of her favorite examples of a group song is "Do Re Mi," from _The Sound of Music_. _Annie_ perfectly combines Zelda's first two loves in life: performative cleaning (something she started to do as soon as she could walk) and song and dance routines. When she began to choreograph "It's the Hard Knock Life" for herself in our living room, she needed only to run a few paces away to grab her little cleaning kit, complete with rags, sponges, mops, and a bucket.
I wanted to pass on my love of music to Zelda the same way I wanted her to love books, not because I wanted her to be more like me—I don't. I have spent much of my life anxious and tortured on behalf of other people, and I don't want that for her. But music and reading have always been great refuges to me, mental spaces that are wide and clear and open, untroubled and never ending. When I was an upset teenager, having just argued with my mother or my boyfriend, when I wanted to smash something against a wall just to see things broken, I often crawled into the closet in my bedroom, where I would sit listening to music and drawing on the walls. It was quiet and dark in there; I kept boxes of candles and cigarettes. The thought of the dual fire hazard of smoking and candles in a thin 1960s suburban closet space, the thought of the smell alone, makes me want to wretch now, but that's what I did. I hid there or lay under the blankets of my bed, reading books and listening to rock music.
And if I was not yet able to imagine myself in other places or in other situations, if I hadn't yet thought out what I might like to "do" next, once I graduated from high school, it was reading and music that transported me elsewhere first. And so it was that in a very important way, I was a normal American suburban teenager, dreaming away the extra hours through a boombox CD player.
I should admit that music, even sort of bad but beloved music, has always had the power to make me cry spontaneously. Usually it is not such a disastrous arrangement as "Work," but still, I have cried listening to the strains of Neil Diamond or ABBA, to Madonna and to Mastodon. I have cried at more live shows than I can count. I remember crying at Le Tigre and Gossip. At Fleet Foxes and the Walkmen. I cried onstage when my own band played, and I cried in the audiences of tiny smoky bars when my brothers' and boyfriends' bands played. I have always, always been the person wiping my eyes standing in the middle of a venue.
In childhood I clung to my records and tapes, graduating to CDs around middle school. I wore them out and wore them in. I memorized breathing patterns and beat drops. Hand claps and snare hits. I was never a casual consumer of music. I listened with an ear bent on mimicry and memorization. Music was serious business to me, and I studied it, even before I could read.
It was also overwhelmingly emotional. I thought—still think—that if I listen hard enough for a certain amount of time, my ears will stop straining and I'll be able to simply absorb it. The lyrics will wash over me and I won't have to work at it anymore.
There are so many records that I know in this intimate, listened-to-them-literally-thousands-of-times way.
The soundtrack to the movie _Annie_ was probably my first musical obsession. It's also the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater, with Peg, my mother's mother, who took me for an Orange Julius afterward and bought me a new dress. I was almost but not quite five, but I remember gripping the chair in the theater, transfixed and terrified by the movie. I wanted, like so many other girls wanted, to be an orphan.
Back then, you couldn't just watch a movie whenever you wanted to: that technology simply didn't exist yet. Eventually, I did get a VHS copy of _Annie_ , but even that system was precarious. The tape had only so many views in it. VHS tapes were sort of expensive at the time, so you couldn't waste precious viewing life on fast-forwarding to the beginning of "It's the Hard Knock Life," the best song and dance number of the movie, over and over. No, when I sat down to watch the movie, I usually watched it from start to finish.
I had the vinyl record of the soundtrack when I wanted to indulge my compulsive, repetitive desires. I still remember the exact sound of the crackly dead air and how long it lasted between the end of the song "Tomorrow" and the beginning of "It's the Hard Knock Life." I had long enough to go from a sitting ("Tomorrow") to a standing position in my bedroom, which was small and mostly filled by my bed. For listening, I wedged myself between the bed and the wall, on the farthest side of the room, so that, if the door to my room opened and I was sitting on the other side of the bed, I couldn't be seen. The carpeting in my room for most of my childhood was a purplish color, and it was worn thin in places, making it very uncomfortable to lay on. If I lay there silently, with my ear to the ground near the heating vent, I could hear as clear as a bell the conversations my brothers were having in the bedroom that they shared in the basement.
I spent so many hours alone in that room, studying the songs from _Annie_. And when, around the second grade, I made friends and simultaneously discovered MTV and Michael Jackson and Madonna, I never fully discarded my love for _ Annie_. I still had the records as a teenager, sitting inside my closet, unlistened to but not gotten rid of, either.
My parents always listened to music, too. My father called most of the shots there, preferring oldies from the '50s and early '60s, doo-wop, and early rock. But he also, like so many Polish Pittsburghers, listened to a lot of polka music, and we spent a ton of time going to polka dances all over the place when I was a kid. As I aged, I grew to feel some embarrassment about these weekend activities when I realized that most of the kids I went to school with didn't go to polka dances.
In the 1980s, I graduated from children's music to adult, like every other kid on the planet, at around the time I started school. I eventually flirted with heavy metal, and for a long time, like many girls my age, I blew with the wind: whatever the boys were listening to, I listened to. Ozzy Osbourne? Sure, okay. King Diamond? Hell, why not?
But in the summer of 1992, I found the things that seemed to be made for me in music. They were women. I still loved Madonna, but increasingly I felt that she was more of a product than a musical outlet for me. I wanted Sonic Youth and Lush and Belly and the Breeders. I wanted to hear women actually making the music, holding the instruments, writing the songs. It helped, of course, that these women were beautiful in the new mold that I wanted to be beautiful in: they were sort of weird. They were feminists, though I didn't use that word yet.
I wanted Liz Phair, the only artist I have ever heard my mother say unequivocally that she "hated." She hated her voice and the words she said with that voice. I loved Liz even more for offending my mother.
My parents always had the radio on. Our house must have been so loud. My brothers had their music too, but I hid away in my room, studying my own.
My mother was cool, almost completely due to the fact that she was twenty-four years old when I was born. I was thirty-six when Zelda was born: my mother liked most of the same music I liked, and I still think of myself as cool to some degree. But I suspect by the time she is a teenager, I won't be cool enough to like whatever music Zelda likes. I'll be an old-ass bitch by the time Zelda is asking me to take her to shows or whatever zany shit she'll be up to in the ninth or tenth grade, existing in that weird zone between child and adulthood, where you can still tolerate the tolerable parents and you still need rides all the time.
* * *
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I didn't feel like we lived in the actual world. American suburbs hold a really special place in my heart. There's something very kooky and cute about them that I love, but where we lived, where I grew up, going to the grocery store or pharmacy in the only strip mall in town was about as much excitement as one could expect from a weeknight.
There were buses that you could grab to get to the actual city of Pittsburgh; the trip took about an hour, and my mother would have killed me if I'd ever attempted such a thing. I didn't: it seemed like far too much effort even though by then the city, any city, was a draw to me.
And we would use any excuse to get there. In tenth grade, Ellen and I signed on to a huge walk to benefit multiple sclerosis one fall and came in dead last out of hundreds of participants. We walked slowly around different distinct parts of the city, stopping in shops to buy incense or get coffee. "How do these look?" Ellen asked me, trying on a pair of Doc Martens at the Airwair store. "Do you think we're allowed to just shop during the walk?" I asked. I was always the one to worry, just a little.
What I did not have, in any form, was a plan for what I was going to do after high school. Unlike Emily and Vanessa and Ellen, who all had parents who were pushing them to go to college, to study for the SATs, my parents were simply trying to hold things together, hold disaster back at every turn. I hadn't failed any grades or been held back, but I was just floating by on my good nature and my aptitude. My older brother, David, was the only one of us who received any of the traditional "Well, now it's time to apply for college" talks from my parents. He'd shipped off to the University of Pittsburgh and was doing whatever he was doing, while I was making do.
And in the space left empty by my parents' separation and my father's moving, there was a lot of darkness. My dad took my brothers on weekends and was incessantly checking up on us, but he'd left physically, and one of the things about an alcoholic family is, once somebody leaves, they're out. David, and to a great extent my father, was forced outside the circle when he physically departed. My dad was only twenty minutes away, but that didn't matter. My brothers and I lied to him a great deal about what was going on at home.
I'd like to say that this was simple denial on my part, but really, it was quite selfish. Now that I was a teenager, it was fairly convenient for me to have just one parent around, especially one who was ill-equipped to wrangle me. I could, to put it bluntly, do whatever the fuck I wanted. As I said, my mother was a cool mom and was so much easier to live with simply because she was not paying as much attention.
I worried and made sure that my mother grocery shopped, and I tried to clean up around the house, but in reality, things fell apart pretty quickly, and home became a place where most of us never were. I didn't know what my mother was doing most of the time, and often, if I needed to talk to her, I'd simply call down the street to the bar where I knew she usually was. My grandparents were closed off from this, too. My grandma Peg had never been great at dealing with reality, and around the time that my parents separated, my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He wasn't even seventy years old. It progressed quickly, and she had her hands very full with him.
So it was that I found, somehow, an upside to my mother's alcoholism. Surely I'd have given anything for stability and a mother who was reliable and honest and nice, but in the absence of that, I made due with freedom. I had come by it honestly: I didn't need to hide anything from my parents or sneak around. I simply had a mother who suddenly allowed me to do pretty much anything that I wanted. Luckily, my desires were mostly legal, mostly safe, and mostly harmless.
Increasingly, I felt more isolated than even before. I'd been isolated my whole life, often by choice. But now, I felt true division away from everyone and everything. I didn't really feel as though I could trust anyone at all: my parents, my brothers, my grandparents, my friends. I had a few teachers I confided in piecemeal, but largely my adult world was very sparsely populated and quiet.
I remember from that period the sound my school locker door made when I slammed it shut, and there was nobody—not a soul—in the hallway besides me. I smoked in the bathroom outside the school library, the same library that I loved and hid in, warm paneled with windows backing onto a courtyard. I still have dreams that I am cutting class, walking through the empty, tired afternoon halls, or falling asleep in the back of the darkened auditorium, where I had theater classes and often watched movies once a week to end the day.
I remember these hiding places, where I went with friends but just as often alone. I remember getting caught smoking in that library bathroom, the last time I ever smoked in it, with Ellen. All that time we'd smoked in there, never knowing that the handicapped stall, which we had commandeered for our very own, shared a common wall with the librarian's office. The vent in the bathroom blew air into her office, and so she wandered over to us in that bathroom to let us know that the smoke had billowed into her office. She told us to go straight to the principal's office but never followed up on our progress there, so we simply left school for the day.
I wandered around on my own a lot, thinking but coming up with no answers. I usually ended up with my friends or a boy I was interested in, but much of the time it took me hours to get there. I formed habits that I still struggle to support, so antithetical are they to being a social animal. I require hours of prep time before social events, and I want so much time to myself. "I can't think," I say, when I don't get it. I need a completely empty house sometimes to write a piece, often avoiding the work for days, then vomiting it out in the space of an hour or two when I suddenly find myself alone.
It was then, when I was sixteen, seventeen years old, that I became who I have remained. A person who saw herself motherless, even though I was not. I grew upward and outward, expanding and sloughing off the extra pieces. I felt unsure of most things and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I'm convinced anyway that no teenager should know what they want to do when they're in high school, but maybe that's simply convenient for me to think, since I didn't know anything about that yet. I didn't even properly think that I wanted to escape my parents. I guess I simply would have been happy to go on attending high school. I wasn't ready to be finished with it all yet. But the end of my official childhood was fast approaching, and I did not have any choice in the matter.
In hindsight, I'm tempted to say that I didn't really have much of a childhood beyond the age of seven or eight, mostly because of my mother's alcoholism. I felt so conflicted about her. I loved her so much, but she also was my greatest—really my only—source of pain. I have always wondered what I would have turned out like in the absence of her problems, and though I am wary of making direct connections, pulled tight like a string, from one parent to another, Zelda has provided me with some indication that often children are simply born very serious. Though she has a great capacity for humor, she too, like both of her parents, seems born for work. She's never really played with toys, and when we buy her a toy version of some real-life object—a phone, a computer, a watering can—she often rejects it for the real, adult one. If my personality, anxious and serious and exacting, is not wholly the product of my mother's alcoholism, well, that makes sense to me. But it's surprising to me to see the way that traits transfer to a new person.
A true love of music works in both directions: rather than my simply passing on my love of certain records or artists to Zelda, almost immediately she also passed some on to me. In the earliest months of her life, Josh and I began looking for a new house outside the city, a little up in the suburbs of New York City. As I'd aged and now as I'd become a mother, suddenly the prospect of such a move, despite my lifelong despair at the prospect of suburbs, became increasingly attractive to me. But when Zelda was just born, house hunting became a casual fun activity for a Saturday or Sunday morning. Every other weekend or so we'd go out and look at one house. Zelda was a city baby and unaccustomed to riding in cars, and so we made a habit early on of playing her the same quiet and calming album every time we got in the car, Lorde's _Pure Heroine_. Josh was a huge fan of the record, but I was more suspicious of it. I didn't like something about it; it hadn't grabbed me on first listen. Some records, even brilliant ones, take some warming up to.
But Zelda seemed to like it, and so every time we got in the car, we'd throw on _Pure Heroine_ until eventually it was the only album we played if we wanted her to take a nap. I've listened to _Pure Heroine_ probably more than any other record of my adult life and, over the months, it grew on me until I came to consider it one of the best albums I've ever heard. Thanks to Josh and Zelda, I have Lorde. Sometimes, your best discoveries come from other people, and there's almost nothing more satisfying than when it's music. Like discovering Lush in a field twenty-five years ago, sometimes you accidentally light upon something that you love and it stays with you.
# CHAPTER 10
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I should tell you about the fire.
But first, I want to tell you about when my mother stopped drinking, because that's what happened right before the fire, the first time I'd ever known her to actively try to be sober. It's important that she tried for lots of reasons, one of them being that it also led her to make her best decision for me with clarity, the decision to get me the abortion. If she hadn't quit drinking, and if our lives hadn't been such an insane, rocky mess at the time that I got pregnant, it's possible that I wouldn't have called her or, if I had, it would have been a mess. But it wasn't a mess. I've already told you. The abortion was the best thing that ever happened to me, because my mother walked me into it with clarity and a full heart. A sober mother making a sober decision.
And I have to believe now, thinking about it, that the abortion happened only because of the way everything directly before it collapsed. I could have gotten pregnant under many circumstances. But for the abortion to happen, everything had to have fallen apart.
My mother had veered increasingly out of control in the months since her and my father had separated, though she managed to hold down her job. She drank almost daily, now that my father wasn't there to watch over her, and we, her kids, were no deterrent despite our constant arguments with her about it. She drove drunk a lot, something which pained all of us. Sometimes, if she didn't appear for dinner (meaning there was no dinner), we would just call down the street to the bar and ask for her. But more often than not, we didn't bother.
I don't remember much of what it was she was doing at that point, beyond working in an office somewhere. Since I'd been in about fifth grade or so, my mother had usually worked, mostly part time but sometimes full time. There was a sense, though I never confirmed it, that she would get a job, almost always in an office, as a secretary (what we would definitely now call an "assistant"), become well loved and highly valued, and then, one day, the job would sort of dissipate.
"I quit. They didn't pay me enough for the shit I put up with," she would say, and inevitably, I'm sure, that was true. Now, however, I suspect that my mother would make a work friend and after a short amount of time she'd reveal her addiction. Or at least the fact that she was often a very sloppy drunk. Because that always happened: my mother's new jobs usually brought about some new friendship with a single or divorced woman, they went out to "dinner" a bunch of times and then sometimes came to our house to drink and talk. Sometimes these other women friends were just as drunk as she was—drunkenness is normal enough on occasion, and at first I think it probably seemed to the friends to be nothing out of the ordinary. But my mother had a way of eventually letting her guard down, and it never worked out for her.
I think there was always a sense of endings on the way. The story of my mother's adult life, I see now, outside her family, was one of fast friendships that ended as soon as she drank with them enough times. I get it: it's hard to be around a drunk.
Anyway, my mother, my two brothers, and I became ships passing in the night, nobody looking anybody else too closely in the eyes, which I suppose was for the best. I wanted no scrutiny on myself, as I rolled joints in bathrooms and rolled my eyes at teachers who told me I could do better.
When I did go to school, I mostly skipped classes and hung out with Emily and Ellen and Vanessa, and I tried not to think too much. But the outside world barged in a lot in those days. In April of 1994, Kurt Cobain died (in addition to Richard Nixon); and on June 12 of that year, just three days before my birthday, Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered. June 17 was the O. J. Simpson Bronco chase. All of this, somehow, made sense to me, if I don't sound too ridiculous saying so. I felt myself surging toward adulthood: I would graduate from high school the following year, my parents were getting divorced, and the rest of the world was falling apart around me. In September of that year, just after I'd returned to school to begin what I hoped would be my final year of high school, USAir Flight 427 crashed just outside the airport in Pittsburgh as it was landing. Everyone on board died. Four of the people who died were from my hometown, and some of my fellow students lost their fathers.
I didn't make any of this about me; I didn't need to. My own life was sort of a mess too, and so I simply took it all in and moved forward. But the pall cast over the town where I lived and the people I was surrounded by was huge and black.
These are the only world events I remember from that year. What else was going on I cannot say, and I've never liked tying things together in neat little packages, relating unrelated events to one another in order to create symmetry, even if that symmetry is misery. But this feeling, that everything around me was suffocation, was palpable. Did my depression and anxiety go unnoticed? No: it was simply that everyone else was depressed and anxious too, in that time and in that place.
At some point that fall, my relationship with my first real boyfriend, Nick, began to end. Like most things, it was gradual until it was bluntly over. I had my gripes with him: he wouldn't go to my junior prom with me; he was "over" high school. I went with someone else, who I secretly also wanted to date. My feelings about relationships were fairly fluid. I wanted more boyfriends than one sometimes, and that seemed fine with me.
My mother and I began to argue about that, too. She could see clearly when I was fucking around, and even though she didn't really know much about it, one or two times she overstepped her boundaries—something she excelled at, especially drunk—and called Nick herself. Listening to her slur her words on the phone with my teenage boyfriend was more than I could bear but nothing I could stop. He humored her; he listened. I wanted to scratch out my own eyes as she complained bitterly about me to him.
Nick and I fought but remained close as the fall fell into winter: he was the only person I'd really been honest with about my mother, and that tie was hard to break. Once the floodgate of my honesty had opened, it couldn't be closed again. I started, quietly and slowly, to hand out bits of information to other people. And I became friends with Nick's friends, some of whom could relate to my home life.
I want to say exactly how all this unfolded, but I'm not sure. In January of 1995, just after Christmas, something terrible happened, which I ignored. I came home one afternoon to my mother locked in the bathroom. I couldn't tell what was going on, but I feared it was something awful. I did not investigate, because I was selfish and I guess I didn't care exactly what happened to my mother just then. We'd barely spoken to each other in recent months, and she drank nearly every day.
The light person she could be disappeared and was replaced almost completely by the dark one. The depressed mother I avoided at all costs. I left the house not knowing what my mother was doing locked in the bathroom, and I didn't come back until the next day.
By then, it was obvious: my mother had, drunk or sober, cut her wrists in the bathtub. Her friend from up the street who had been a nurse in a previous iteration but was now mostly a drinking buddy to my mom had been summoned. There were conversations I had with her, whispered. Should my father be called? Of course. My grandparents? Yes.
I don't remember those few days very well. I know that my mother did thankfully end up in a hospital, and I wasn't able to visit her for well over a week. I'm not sure how much time passed. I know that when I did visit her, my friend Patrick, who I'd met through Nick, took me there. He was kinder and quieter and more caring than Nick. He understood without me telling him much of what was happening. I didn't need to explain: he was bent toward sadness too, like me.
In that hospital, I found a small and changed woman. The anger flowed out and was replaced by a need, a desperate need, to save. I was, as I'd been in third grade, the adult once again. My own problems ceased to exist; the teenage cares died away. I was sober, and so was she.
I worried, as I talked to her, to hear that her doctors would not really discuss what was going on with me directly. I worried, as I heard her say, "I'm depressed about your father," when I knew at a cellular level that she was an alcoholic. She said the depression caused the drinking.
"Of course I have to stop drinking, but that's not my real problem," she said. She looked so small as she lied to me. My mother was much shorter than me. I was five foot five; she barely grazed past five feet. She weighed one hundred pounds at most. Her wrists were wrapped up; she'd have those scars for the rest of her life.
"I didn't mean it," she told me there.
"I know," I said.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you, too," I said.
At home, in the meantime, my grandparents Peg and Stanley presided over their three grandchildren. My grandfather's advancing Alzheimer's meant that he was increasingly irritated by being away from home and paced back and forth constantly.
"She's smoking in the bathtub," I heard my grandma Peg say of me once, as I lay in the bathtub smoking.
My father, to the extent that I remember him then (I suppose I have a way of forgetting the men, with time), was panicked and constantly asking my brothers and me to live with him. We all, to our eternal detriment, declined. My father was a straight arrow: he was strict, not always easy to talk to, all business. He was simple and didn't drink much. I can recall seeing him drunk on only a number—a very small number—of occasions in my entire life, and even then he hadn't been wasted.
Why do children of alcoholics cling to the worse parent, the alcoholic? Well, I see even now in my relationship with Zelda that I am the "less fun" parent and that, in a standoff she would, certainly as a teen, choose her father over me. I am the rule keeper, the boss. That was my father. So maybe it was me staying to protect my alcoholic mother, or maybe I simply wanted to stay with her because she was easier.
Why did my mother do what she did? I suspect that she wanted to start fresh but didn't know how. I have suspected that maybe she realized too late that my father leaving wouldn't actually solve all her problems, as she had predicted many times. In this one case, however, I do not have any real theories or answers: I only know that this happened, and that it was gutting to everyone.
But it did reset us, sort of.
I began to take up childish pursuits that as a teenager I had abandoned. I started coloring and carrying an Elmo doll around with me. I clung to my friends, waiting for my mother to come back. I don't know how long she was gone, I guess close to a month, because it was nearly February by then. My grandparents were going out of their minds and had packed up and gone home. My brothers had somewhat grudgingly stayed with my dad for a bit, and I went not far up the street to Emily's house.
And that was how Wacky Wednesday started in earnest. Because suddenly, I was staying with Emily. We'd spent most of our childhoods alternating homes but now, really, I was there every minute of every day. Her mother packed me lunches and made sure I went to school. It lasted only a week or two before my mother came home.
I was happy to have her back, though I don't remember it very well. Everything seemed sort of tenuous. My grandparents reappeared and stayed again. My brothers returned, and we re-formed, silent, awkward glances and knowing stares.
My mother seemed better, but nothing felt permanent anymore. Would it hold?
And she had stopped drinking. She was on antidepressants and sleeping pills to counteract the antidepressants. I tried to go to school more, to pay attention and apply myself. I thought about taking the SAT, which I had never done before and was late on.
I think now that my mother's breakdown and attempt to harm herself physically was easily glossed over in some respect because it was followed so quickly by a long (relatively speaking) period where she reset and recharged. She seemed fragile, yes, but not weak. She seemed reinvigorated and more like the person we had known early in childhood. She was in therapy and AA. I want to believe that that was why I didn't focus for too long on what had come before: because she seemed so much better, truly, and because I desperately wanted her to be.
My grandparents shuffled back home at some point; my mother did seem stable and quite content, happier, to me, maybe than she had seemed in years.
But still, it was not much of a surprise to me when I came home from school one snowy afternoon, the first Friday of February, packed into a Jeep with a bunch of friends to drop me off, to fire trucks parked in my giant front yard.
I jumped out of the car, dropped my books in the snow, and ran toward the house.
"You can't go in there," a fireman said, stopping me.
"Where is my mother?"
He said that she and my brother John had just left with a friend.
"She refused to go in an ambulance," he said, "though she was suffering from smoke inhalation."
"What about the cats?" I asked dumbly. We had two of them; they were always needing me to clean their litter boxes and feed them, and they'd become an enormous pain in my ass as my mother failed to care for them.
"We didn't find any cats," he said as he started to walk away. "You can't go in there."
I looked at the house, which was brick and no longer had a roof or half its windows. Police tape covered the doors.
I walked up the street, coatless—I never wore a fucking coat anywhere—to the neighbor's house. My mother and brother were there. I called Emily, then walked up to her house.
So it was that I stayed, again, with Emily. My mother and my brothers were moving an hour away to live with my grandparents while the house was sorted out. We didn't know if it could be repaired. Everything that I owned was presumably gone. I thought mostly about my pillow, a feather one that I had had since I was in a crib. I thought about my Lush records and my books. I knew none of it mattered.
I couldn't move in with my father; he lived too far away for me to finish at my school, of which I had just four months remaining. I wasn't technically allowed to live outside the school district, so we arranged, through Emily's mother, who told me I could live with them until June, something that was indescribably generous and still shocks me in how much it meant to me.
I returned to my house the next day. I pulled away the police tape from the back door and walked inside. Though it was very newly deserted, it felt as though it had been frozen in time. Snow had started to drift into the windows.
In the kitchen, I found the first cat, sitting under the kitchen table, meowing. I don't remember what friend of mine I had brought with me, but I took the cat out to him or her and then went back inside. It might have been one of my brothers who came with me. I remember only how fucking cold it was and how dark it seemed inside the house, where there was no longer any electricity.
I walked back through the kitchen and down the hall to my bedroom. My records, which had been on a shelf on the wall shared with my mother's room, where the fire had started, were melted down the wall. I took three books, all of which were covered in thick black soot. Anything I carried away from that house that day smelled of the fire forever. It's a smell I cannot forget.
I looked into my mother's room. The firemen had said it was an electrical fire, but I wondered if my mother, who had been asleep in bed when it started, had fallen asleep smoking. I couldn't be sure, though I worried that that was what had happened. Somehow, though it didn't matter, the thought of her having been the cause gnawed at me deeply.
My brother John, who had skipped school that day to play his guitar in the basement, told me only that she had run out screaming, the house filled with smoke, summoning him from the basement.
I found the other cat as I came back into the kitchen. I stood there, calling her name. She'd been through a lot. She was hiding in the basement, and just as I was about to give her up for dead or departed, she ran up the stairs. I had a carrier I'd brought from the neighbor, and I forced her into it. We left the house, I thought maybe for the last time. I didn't know that I would be back with my father very soon, inside the house, a dumpster in the driveway, throwing shit away and making lists for the insurance claims. I thought it was over at the time. That you could just go, "Well, fuck it, this one burned down."
But eventually, we did go back, and some things were salvaged from the house. From a chest in which my mother had kept treasures we pulled three photo albums of mostly our early childhoods and a box of random snapshots from later. I have those here, now. My mother's baby book came out of the fire somehow, though I never saw it until after she died. I know that it was in the house from the fire only because the edges of the white book are covered in that thick soot that smells like that day. But most of my own stuff was simply gone and truly forgotten. I don't know what I'm missing beyond simply almost everything. A few of my diaries from childhood, which had been boxed up in the basement, made it out. It didn't matter so much: for now, we were all still alive.
A year ago, I found something that I had never seen before while searching for local newspaper articles using my old address for an unrelated writing project. I found a small notice of the fire. It was very police blotter–style, straightforward, just a few words: fire in master bedroom, electrical. Female in house refused medical care for smoke inhalation." Got it. And though I'd carried with me for twenty years the suspicion that my mother had actually started the fire by smoking a cigarette and falling asleep in bed, I found that same day another item in my Google search. In 1981, four years before we bought the house and moved in, another fire: "Master bedroom, electrical; no injuries." So there it was. After years of wondering, a revelation. Maybe it was just an accident after all.
My father lived only twenty minutes away but I didn't drive. My mother and my brothers would be, in two days' time, an hour's drive away. I owned nothing and had no one. I was alone.
Less than a month and a half later, I was pregnant and called my mother, who might as well have lived in Alaska and was just two months' sober, to tell her.
# CHAPTER 11
◆ ◆ ◆
Just six to eight weeks after the fire, while living at Emily's house with my mother and brothers an hour away and my father out of the loop on my personal life, my mother took me to get the abortion.
And then I graduated from high school—barely, but I did it, in June of 1995, just five days before my eighteenth birthday. My whole family was there, and from that day is one of the only photos I have of my mother and me together, other than a few family portraits taken by a professional photographer when I was very young. It is a haunting photo, mostly because it's actually a photo of me and my grandmother and my great-aunt. We're smiling at the camera, and in the background, slightly out of focus and off to the side, wearing sunglasses and holding my graduation program, is my mom. She's looking away from us, at something else, just accidentally in the photo. She looks healthy and happy.
But before I graduated, there was one more fire.
And though I didn't start it, I took the blame.
After school on a Friday in late May, probably two weeks before I was scheduled to graduate, I had another one of my many detentions. Once detention concluded, I headed with a girl I knew fairly well but wasn't that close with to the bathroom by the cafeteria where we smoked in the handicapped stall. We could easily pack half a dozen girls into that stall, smoking cigs and talking shit. We were in there, Chris and I, and eventually we were joined by another girl.
At some point, there in that stall, with cigarettes, a lighter, and a large can of aerosol hairspray, someone—not me, I can tell you that, though I'll never admit even now, who started it—lit the paper towel dispenser on fire. It seemed sort of funny at first. I don't think those bathrooms even had smoke detectors then, and anyway the fire was very small.
For a minute. But then it got larger. Everyone was laughing hysterically, then suddenly became nervous. This fire, which had one minute earlier seemed so destined to simply peter out, had actually grown.
We left the bathroom, and on our way out, a janitor saw us leaving. He must have gone into the bathroom and put out the fire. I left school that day in fear but also convinced that somehow it was no big deal.
But on Monday morning I was pulled from my first class, taken into the principal's office, and asked to explain what had happened. I refused. I left the office, and on my way out I saw the other two girls sitting there, waiting to be called in.
I don't remember all the details, but I do remember that, through conversations with the girls there, I realized both were afraid of their fathers. Afraid of them physically. They were crying, telling me that their parents simply couldn't hear about this. I remember one of them saying, "He'll send me away."
The situation hadn't seemed that serious to me, but when I was called back to the principal's office, there was a man there who they said was the fire warden. The principal told me that I needed to admit and explain myself or else I would not graduate. I would be charged with a crime. I had no idea if any of it was true, and I said several times, "There's no way anyone can prove that I was even there."
"But we know that you were there," he said. I hated him so much.
"I want to call my mother," I said. She was too far away to come in on such short notice, so before I explained anything, I said that I was going to call her.
They took me to another office with a phone and left me alone.
I called my mother.
I explained my situation. I told her that I wanted to admit that I had done it, so that the other two girls wouldn't get in trouble. If I said it was me, that it was an accident, that I'd gotten scared and run away, I thought I could avoid being expelled two weeks before graduation and I could keep anyone else from getting in trouble.
My mother told me she would talk to the principal herself.
"Don't say shit to them," she said before hanging up.
That was the end of it. I was suspended for the last two weeks of graduation activities, though I went to classes. Most of the time I was in the library, alone, while the rest of my class went to water parks and practiced, getting ready for the graduation ceremony. Being there alone in the library, reading quietly, I felt, was a fitting end to my high school career. I'd felt solitary among hundreds of kids for a pretty long time and was happy to end this way.
I'd spent the last few weeks of my high school career staying with my father, after Emily's mom had, unsurprisingly, found two teenagers on the cusp of adulthood to be a bit much for her to handle. This was a very good thing on so many levels: I went to school each day; my father drove me there and dropped me off, making sure I was in attendance. I left each afternoon on time; he picked me up from Emily's house or a friend drove me back to his place in the evening. I guess I ended my high school career on the highest possible note, given everything that had happened.
But I had no plans for the future.
I felt compelled to move back in with my mother, though, and so I did, just weeks after graduation. I packed up my next to nothing, and I went an hour away to live with her in the new house she had rented. It was a huge, beautiful old Victorian that had been converted into apartments, but it had no other tenants, so the house felt like it was ours.
I moved there at the same time my mother did, when she moved out of my grandparents' house, where her and my brothers had been staying since the fire. This was a time of great optimism for me, and, I think, for all of us. My mother seemed very healthy. She still wasn't drinking, and she threw herself into decorating and organizing a new home for all of us.
My bedroom in that apartment, though I lived there less than a year, is one that I still dream of. It was completely paneled in old cherry boards, and when the door was closed, you couldn't even really see that there was a door there. The room's two casement windows were nearly floor to ceiling. The floors were cherry, and one wall was covered in built-in bookshelves. This room seemed meant for me; it was literally a cozy cave of a room where I could hide and read all day. I loved it and felt very happy to be there.
I enrolled at a nearby college and tried not to think too much about the future. I felt unsure and weak, as though I'd just gotten over a new sickness and was still wobbly, a just-born giraffe trying to walk. I wanted to be happy, to feel as though I could scream from the rooftop, but really, everything seemed so tenuous.
The fact that my mother quit drinking, even for less than one year, was magical in some ways. It is those months that I now think back on when I want to think of good times with my mother, because in that small space, we made up for some lost time. I had a new and growing circle of friends and a very active social life suddenly and I was going to school, but my mother and I spent a lot of time together.
She couldn't drive anymore; she'd lost her license for, I'm not sure, possibly forever—I never really knew her to drive again in her life—so I'd shuffle her back and forth to work and we'd walk around the neighborhood we lived in.
We shopped and decorated the house; we cooked and cleaned together. We bought books and made sure my brothers went to school. We giggled at soap operas in the afternoon, and we spent hours watching the O. J. Simpson trial. We watched CNN constantly. My mother was a great lover of the Clintons, and all my grandparents were those ardent, union-loving kind of Catholics who yelled at the TV about Republicans. My grandfather's Alzheimer's was advancing, and my mother and I spent a lot of time in that period with him and my grandmother. Though my grandmother's cutting remarks didn't recede completely, my mother seemed suddenly more confident and able to let them slide off her back than she had been in the past. Their relationship seemed stronger, too.
My mother's sobriety did not hold. This was not surprising, though I don't think it was a judgment on her to say I wasn't surprised. My understanding of alcoholism, even then, meant that expectations—any, even low ones—should basically not exist. I wanted her to be healthy and sober, but I couldn't control that, and I knew it.
I'd like to say that I had learned something from the previous years, that I called up friends or family and asked them to help us, but I didn't. I receded into my old patterns. I withdrew into a world where I partied with new friends I'd made. I tried to get along, I started skipping classes immediately, and, most important, I didn't tell anyone who could have offered help what was going on.
Here's the part where I begin to talk about guilt and how I blame myself for failing my mother. I've thought this clusterfuck through so many times I get lost in the pathways of who should have been responsible for whom, and I know that there is no way to make full sense of it.
But by then, the disappointment of seeing my mother, who had clocked less than a year of sobriety and who in that time had truly seemed to be the person I'd always known she was, drinking again was not unexpected. I don't know why: I need to give her credit for those months of effort. I did give her credit, even then. I'm sure, I know now, that they were a devoted effort, and the time we spent together, just doing normal things—like shopping, cooking, cleaning the house, watching movies— is time I am happy to have banked into my memory.
But still, when she started drinking again, everything was worse than it had been before. She moved quickly; her addiction became aggressive and relentless. She stopped caring what I thought, and we fought bitterly and constantly. I told her I hated her. I told my father I hated him too, for good measure. I hated everyone and everything. I shaved my head and got tattoos I didn't want or need. I started drinking again myself: I'd been sober for much of her sobriety, committed, I think, even if sort of unknowingly, to making a go at something different. And when she failed, I failed with her.
But it couldn't hold. My life was too new.
My brother Daniel left first. He disappeared basically overnight. I wasn't there when it happened, was staying in a dorm room with a friend. I came home on a Saturday morning, and my brother John told me: he'd packed up a garbage bag of clothes after some rancid blowout fight with my mother, who had been drunk. He'd called my dad to pick him up, and he was gone.
As soon as he left, he flourished with my father while the rest of us floundered. He went to school, he had a more normal life of a sixteen-year-old kid.
I sputtered and didn't know where to turn or what to do. I dated boys who were just as fucked up as I was, who understood nothing or everything, depending on what I told them. There were lots of nights where I rushed out of the house and didn't come back for days. There were nights of arguments. I didn't hold back when she was drunk; I told her she needed to stop even though I knew my words might as well have gone unsaid.
When I'd talked to my mother about her drinking as a child, I'd been subtler, more pleading on her behalf. Now, as a young adult, I was blunter. I screamed and begged and sometimes wanted to shake her, to hit her.
Instead, I left. I left not knowing what to do or where to go except that I had friends who would take me in for a while. I left without taking anything, my mother screaming behind me, "You'll be back!" I left on foot.
I had no job or car or money. Everything I'd had was hers, and I was determined that I was never coming back, I'd never live with her again. I was eighteen years old. I'd dropped out of school after two semesters and hadn't even attended any classes of the second.
"You don't know what it is to be on your own, to take care of yourself," she said to me that day, later on the phone, when I'd called her back simply because I wasn't done screaming yet.
"I'm going to find out," I said.
# CHAPTER 12
◆ ◆ ◆
And I did find out. It took me more than a year to go back to school. A year to get a job, an apartment of my own, a boyfriend who was nice and supportive. I got a dog and eventually a cat. I bought a car, and I figured out how to do my taxes and how to apply for financial aid and loans.
My mother was very bad with money. As a growing adolescent, I made a point never to open the hallway closet where we stored random papers, old photo albums, report cards, and school projects. Though I've always loved paper, I grew to hate the sight of mail and bills. My mother hid things like bills. My father basically handled the finances as my mother's problems grew. But, like a child hiding a bad grade, my mother hid report cards and bills as if hiding them would make them disappear. Knowing, as I grew into an adult, that that is not what happens—another bill simply comes until there are worse consequences, late fees, a shut-off phone—I find it hard to fathom what she thought she was accomplishing.
"Out of sight, out of mind" seemed to be her ruling philosophy.
And once my parents were divorced, these matters became more pressing, of course. With just one adult to ensure the rent was paid and with less income than we'd formerly had, hidden bills did quickly blossom into occasionally picking up the landline to silence: no dial tone; the phone has been shut off. Then we'd go to my mother, she'd pay the bill, and they'd turn service back on. If she'd had the money all along, I wondered, why the aversion to paying the bills in the first place?
I learned later that this is very common behavior for alcoholics, that they avoid doing things that cost almost nothing, like renewing their driver's license, out of a simple inability to deal with everyday things.
After my parents divorced we moved in with my mother; my father had decided to live in the same house we'd grown up in, the one that had burned down. It had taken months to repair and rebuild it, but he had persisted in doing so. He loved that house and wasn't ready to leave it. He stayed there until well after I was married, and eventually, the old bad memories were indeed replaced with new ones. In fact, the rebuilding, the repainting, all that effort made it so that very quickly after the fire, as soon as he'd moved back in, I was able to walk through the house almost as if it hadn't happened. When I'd heard he was going to live there, I'd felt conflicted: so many bad things had happened there in that last year. Would I feel horrible any time I was inside? But I found that it soothed me to be inside of it. To go into the room that had been my bedroom, my sanctuary as a child, and see its walls, now painted white and clean, still standing.
In order to stay living there, of course, my father had paid my mother for half the house in their separation. I don't know how much money it was, but it was a lump sum of cash, and whatever that amount was, at the time it had seemed vast. It was enough that my mother could have made a fresh, independent financial start for herself. My grandparents, her parents, were very good with money and were easy in their retirement. I remember that they offered to help her manage her newly acquired money. She didn't refuse them, but she also never took them up on the offer.
In less than a year, my mother simply spent through the money and ended up with nothing to show for it. She bought clothing and jewelry and gifts for us, paid cash for things, and began racking up a lot of credit card debt. I watched as a bystander as this happened and had her cosign credit applications for myself.
I'd taken a personal finance class in high school, so I knew that she was proceeding unwisely. She could have bought a house, but she rented. She could have invested a part of her lump of cash, but she kept it in her checking account. She didn't even get interest on what was not a tiny amount of money. But only in hindsight did I understand how terrifically she mismanaged her money.
By the time I moved from her apartment, the money was mostly gone. Her job, which paid very little, was not enough to offset her debts, and she was on shaky ground, like previous jobs, with them anyway. I left fearing for how she would manage but had to strike out on my own. I felt exhausted before I'd even begun, but a sense of great relief replaced my worries very quickly as my daily life vastly improved once removed from my mother, even though I was only a mile away. I worried about her but pushed it back further and further into my mind as I realized that my life and her life were actually distinct lives, not one jumbled messy one.
I was determined to learn from her mistakes but bumped along the way myself. I made my rules then: since I had to pay for everything on my own, for school and life, I wouldn't drink. I couldn't fuck up school again; I couldn't afford to. I never wanted to go back to my mother, who would soon be shuttling through jobs and boyfriends quickly.
I saw my mother only on holidays, and even that was like stabbing myself in the face with a butter knife. After two years away from her, I allowed that she seemed to have set her own path. By then, my brother John had also moved back in with my father to finish high school and have a chance at something resembling a normal ending to his childhood. In order to graduate from high school, every single one of us had to leave our mother for our father, even if only temporarily.
She was mean and meek at the same time. Her defense mechanism seemed to increasingly be retreating into childlike simplicity and defeat. She was who she was, she said. "I'm a drunk," she said to me on the phone once. "Are you happy?"
I wasn't, not exactly. In fact, though I cooked and cleaned and had the beginnings of a normal, domestic life on top of being a somewhat normal college student, happiness was hard to come by.
I dedicated myself to doing well in school, to learning, not really for a job but just to have something pure and clean to apply myself to. I learned, even in my job waiting tables, that work was the thing that could wash away my feelings of anxiety and fear and sadness. I couldn't get rid of those feelings, not while my mother was alive and drinking fifteen minutes away from my own apartment, but I could sidestep the feelings temporarily. I could work.
I worked. I worked so much. I went to school full time, part time in the summers, trying to make up for those first two horrific semesters. I worked after school every day and usually full days on the weekends, volunteering to wash dishes and bus tables on days when I wasn't scheduled to wait tables. I found that, by having little spare time to think, I could in fact move on in a way. I couldn't escape; I didn't want to escape. But I could move forward myself.
I was, unlike my mother, at the beginning of my life. And she resented me for that. In her worst moments, she resented me, I see now, for having that abortion, for choosing not to have a child, for deciding not to let life simply happen to me. My mother, though she had made her choices and built an incredibly beautiful family despite her addiction, felt, as she veered toward the end of her life, like a victim of circumstances. That made me saddest of all. But I also knew it was generational: most of the women her age I knew, friends' mothers, had also had similarly limited options despite being raised in relative privilege. Her life could have been different if she'd wanted it to be. She'd only ever begun to express dissatisfaction with how it was recently, and I had trouble seeing what it had to do with my own different choices. In hindsight too, I see that a great part of the reason I waited to have Zelda so long was the fact that I wanted a career, and it took so long to find one, to build it and work on it, that I simply couldn't find space for a child for a very long time.
Early on, there were times when I still called her and said things like, "You're still so young! You should go back to school, you should go to rehab, you could do anything that you want! Anything!" I knew that her parents had money and still thought of her as a child in lots of ways. They'd help her; they'd pay anything to see her succeed. But what my mother needed most wasn't money, and if there was anyone on the planet who could have talked her into rehab, well, that person wasn't me. It wasn't any of my brothers. It wasn't my father.
I don't hold my mother's financial failures against her. Unlike me, now learning to live life on my own with no real safety net to buffer me from life's realities, my mother had never lived on her own. She'd gone straight from the safety of her parents to that of my father, who I think had been austerely committed to financial solvency by nature. Women of her generation were often not expected to worry about money, I reasoned. So, when she found herself divorced and unemployed in a new apartment with three kids, child support, and a lump of money in her early forties, she was completely unprepared for managing on her own. And the fact that people offered to help, I'm sure, made her bristle: in the early days of her sobriety, she took the concept of independence very much to heart. She didn't want to run to her parents for advice; she was a grown woman, she would say. I understood that: independence is hard to acquire when you're not used to it, and once you taste it, it's easy to guard it misguidedly, when asking for a little bit of help would be smarter.
But she also failed to think of her children the way that I think I myself would. She failed to plan for us, so when my tuition bill for my second semester came due and we didn't quite have the money to cover it, I had to call my father. And, of course, she'd failed to help me apply for financial aid, aid that I was surely able to qualify for. My mother was never good at planning that way.
So I had to learn all on my own the process of paying my bills and taxes and learning how to get financial aid so that I'd be able to go to school. I knew, in the back of my mind, that if I hit a bad spot, my father would help me in any way that he could, but like my mother, I became stubborn to the concept of asking for help. Unlike her, after a while, I managed pretty well on my own.
I don't give up on people, and I didn't consciously give up on my mother. But by the time I was nearing five years out of high school, around the year 2000, I would say, the distance between my mother and I emotionally was widening to a gulf. She was fading, somehow, in my mind. When I visited her, I always found something to be depressed about, to focus on. The fact that she was now so clearly financially unstable, that she couldn't hold a job, saddened me. My brothers and I had all managed to pull through our childhoods and come out as, to one degree or another, somewhat sane adults. How they did so I can't say, but, how I did it was largely by pulling away from my mother almost completely.
And I'd pulled away from my father, too. There were times in those years where I simply didn't talk to anyone in my family, not because I was angry, but because it just didn't make sense. I was surviving.
I've found that in order to survive an alcoholic parent, sometimes it's best to narrow your interests down to the finest point: yourself. Focusing on me had never been easy. It still isn't; I excel at worrying about others. But for a solid five years, the ones that mattered very, very much and made me an adult, I aggressively guarded myself. I lost track of old friends and ignored the calls of family.
I'm not proud of myself in those years, when I think back on it now, and I realize that I have described it in the best possible light up to this point. In reality, I didn't visit my dying grandfather nearly enough, or my healthy but aging grandmothers. These visits became painful reminders of my mother, who I could not help. They constantly asked about her. "She's good," I'd say, trying not to laugh or holding back tears. How many times have I lied and told people, "She's pretty good"? Too many to count. I'd decided, so many times, that I'd never mention her alcoholism again to her. But then, six months or a year would pass, and I'd end up researching rehab facilities and calling her yet again.
It's important for me to say that in these years, from the time I graduated from high school on, we never—no one ever—managed a true intervention with my mother, of the kind where you meet up in person and confront the person in order to get them to rehab. Though I've participated in several of these, they've all happened in the years since my mother died. Had I known then what I know now about interventions—that they very often work—I would have pushed harder for one for her, rather than pushing directly at her on my own. Had I known that instead of years of nagging, a simple, emotional, and possibly embarrassing group conversation might have flipped a switch inside her, I would have pulled that together.
But I didn't know that. I felt scared of taking such a step, and I worried about embarrassing her. I'm sure it's no accident that one thing an alcoholic doesn't want—group attacks and the airing of laundry—is often what works, but it's sad because the people who love that person most _also_ avoid the same types of situations because of years of conditioning. I have avoided confrontations of this kind all my life, for no reason. I don't fear embarrassment or arguments or even healing of any type. It was simply a habit born of years of anxiety, to avoid anything I would generically label as confrontation. Until Josh came along, I fought against confrontation at all cost.
Confrontation comes in many forms: I have a lifelong habit of not liking to or being able to finish things, thanks to my hatred, my phobia of confrontation. I first noticed it with school. I wasn't bad at school—in fact, I was good at school—but in college I would put off doing papers and work until just hours before their due date, and then have to rush through to make it on time. I knew this was normal college kid stuff, but I felt so much attendant guilt that I began to wonder where it came from and started to note in my diary other ways in which I avoided finishing things and confrontations: they're twins.
I struggled to finish college and beat out my worst tendencies to not finish things. Even as a college senior, after years of working full time and taking summer classes to make up for lost time, I occasionally just collapsed in on myself and blew a class at the end of the semester, getting an F where I'd been getting an A just weeks earlier, not even bothering to email the professor to try to negotiate for an extension or some special consideration. I was a terrible advocate for myself but was slowly learning not to avoid hard conversations if they were in my interest.
I found that it was okay to admit this flaw to other people, that even employers would sometimes "get it." "I have a hard time finishing things," I'd say. I worked on the weekends for years as a caterer, mostly working at weddings. These kinds of jobs suited me because they paid well—it was about the most money I could make without an education—and they were finite: we rolled in with a job to do and rolled back out eight or nine hours later. We put up a tent in a field or a backyard, built a little kitchen out back, served 150 people their dinners and their cake and coffee, cleaned everything up, threw it into a truck, and zapped ourselves back out of it. Hard labor, the kind with a definite end point, didn't trouble me.
What continued to rankle me, for years, was finishing _Middlemarch_ or the dishes in my kitchen sink. For a decade I watched as I washed every dish in the sink before stopping, nearly but not wholly done, a coffee mug or two left behind. Just yesterday I had to silently chide myself for almost leaving the silverware laying there in the bottom of the otherwise empty sink for literally no reason at all.
I wash the silverware. I finish the book. I make the phone calls I need to make. I renew my driver's license. I take the dog to the vet.
Becoming a moderately effective adult in spite of my mother, has, I see, been largely a matter of simply completing all the mundane little tasks of life, which she never could do. I shudder any time I think of an unpaid bill, remembering the way that sometimes I'd open a closet door at home and a pile of unopened mail would fall on my head from a high-above shelf. She tinkered on the brink of extinction constantly: the lights were never shut off, but she often couldn't handle basic tasks, even when she had ready money, paying up only when forced with immediate cancellation. Never impoverished, my mother insisted on pushing the boundaries of her wallet at every turn. Becoming an adult has meant pushing back against that same impulse toward self-destruction.
I persist; I check my credit score. I try to laugh at how silly all of it is and how easily it is, in theory, to not do as she did.
I graduated from college and "took a year off," by which I mean I worked full time, managing one of the restaurants I had worked at through college and thinking about what I wanted to do next. I started a band with three other women as I eventually began applying to graduate schools. Though I applied to schools outside Pittsburgh and was accepted to two of them, I decided to stay there and to go to Carnegie Mellon for a year to study English literature. I wanted to go to graduate school mostly because I think I would have liked to stay in college longer. I wasn't ready to be finished. I felt at once both like a kid and an old lady. I was in some ways very mature—I took care of myself and my apartment and my pets and my taxes—but in others I was sort of underdeveloped. Graduate school seemed to me like a way to defer adulthood a little longer.
And the truth is, I still wanted to stay physically near my mother. This shamed me to think it, that I wanted to be vigilant, somehow, over a person I refused to see most of the time. Only as the years passed, as I learned that physical distance from my mother didn't matter so much, and as I learned to navigate my own life, did I realize that a near-constant state of panic about even minor woes—financial, emotional, whatever—wasn't normal.
Josh and I had started our lives together with relatively little in the way of money. Neither of us had savings or 401(k) accounts. But slowly we'd managed to begin saving; we'd bought a house; our credit scores were good. By the time Zelda was born, we had no debt other than my student loans, which, because I'd gone to graduate school and borrowed money for years, were significant. But we'd been slowly paying those down and were comfortable. It would be hard to overstate what that type of solvency—which isn't exactly wealth but is knowing that, even if a large bill comes up unexpectedly, you'll figure it out together—has meant to me. Slowly, we learned to be adults together. Slowly, we managed. And not having to worry, as I'd worried first with my mother, and then on my own, ceaselessly about such matters was very important to my overall peace of mind.
To be clear, it wasn't even so much a question of having enough money to cover things but more a question of how matters of money were confronted. Josh had no background of simply ignoring anything, let alone a pressing financial concern. I'd grown up differently, with a woman who often didn't confront these things as a matter of personal policy. Learning another way was hard for me but ultimately brought me to a place of greater security.
When Zelda was born, against some little voice inside of me that said, "Don't hide things," I opened a savings account for her, in her name, without telling Josh. I began to secretly funnel in small amounts of money. Ironically, when you consider my mother, I had become our family financial manager. I kept track of and paid the bills, I dealt with the tax preparers and the mortgage and the banks. When we bought our house, I managed much of the paperwork on my own. And so, when little gifts of cash came to me or to Zelda, when I got a freelance check for something I'd written, I would deposit parts of that into her account.
I don't know why I didn't immediately tell Josh about it. He certainly would have been in favor of saving for her, and it's not like he would ever take money meant for Zelda. But I quickly realized that it was an old habit, a part of me still unwilling to fully trust anyone with my security, and now Zelda's, that had led me to open the account without saying anything.
There wasn't a specific fear but a general sense that something might collapse, that the bottom might fall out, like our life was a cheap paper coffee cup. Two or so months after I opened the account, I casually mentioned it to Josh.
"I opened a savings account for Zelda, just in case, for education or I don't know what," I said.
"Good," he said.
What was so hard about that?
# CHAPTER 13
◆ ◆ ◆
When my mother became a mother, she was new to adulthood. She'd never managed her own checking account. If she'd had a job, it had been for spending money. She'd been one of her parents' two children, had been given "the best of everything," as my grandmother liked to say. She'd gone to private Catholic school from kindergarten through college, and her parents bought all her expensive clothes and made sure she didn't want for anything. You could say she was spoiled, but as a mother now myself, I am averse to that word sometimes, being as I am so enthusiastically committed to my daughter's well-being.
But my mother never had a career. She'd taken another path, that of—for the most part—a full-time mother. I couldn't imagine being a mother at her age, barely out of high school. But she'd also had financial support from her family that I'd never had much of. She passed through her years of college debt-free, and I'd rejected, for most of my childhood and a large part of my early adulthood, the idea that I would ever even get married. I saw myself, partly because my mother encouraged me to do so, differently.
And from a very young age, I wanted to be a writer or a teacher. I liked school and learning even if I didn't always perform well as a student. I loved to read and write. I began keeping a daily diary when I was still in elementary school and have kept that habit ever since. My diaries are kept in plastic tubs in the garage now, but for years I moved them around in cardboard boxes, hiding them away from possible prying eyes, until finally, when we bought our house in Brooklyn, I shelved them in my office. "You can read these if I die," I said to Josh. There are hundreds of notebooks filled with my scrawl dating back to the 1990s.
And though I suppose I considered myself a narrator of myself for so long, I didn't ever think of writing about my own life seriously until I met Josh, who told me very early in our relationship that he thought it was great fodder for something: a novel, a memoir, a movie.
By the time Zelda was born, I had been writing professionally full time for seven years. I'd written about anything that struck my fancy, mostly the weird things I saw on the internet, or books, or video games. I kept little blogs where I wrote about pop culture or music. I wrote for tech blogs. But still, I'd never seriously considered writing about myself.
Writing that way is an intrusion first on yourself and your own privacy, and then, secondarily but often more problematically, on the other people in your life. But I avoided writing about myself mostly because I was a deeply guarded person. My mother was dead by then, and most of my friends knew my secret: my mother had been an alcoholic.
Sometimes, we avoid for good reason doing something that is very obvious and meaningful. Sometimes, it simply doesn't occur to us.
I've said before that giving birth to Zelda broke me open. It did so literally, the little cut on my belly that I tell Zelda about every night now before bed. That part is important to her: that physically, she was pulled from just beneath my belly button. But her birth broke me open to being able to make new and different friends, and it also opened me up to wanting to explore my experience as a mother in my writing.
I didn't start doing so consciously.
When Zelda was six months old, we got a nanny named Val. Her job was, at first, just two days a week, to care for baby Z with me in the house. They started to venture out into the summer sun very quickly, and I managed my tears at the separation.
I'd decided not to go back to the full-time job I'd had as an editor before she was born. "I think I'd like to try writing as a freelancer," I said to Josh one evening as we sat on the patio in our little backyard after Zelda went to sleep.
"I think that if you're ever going to do it, now is the time," he agreed.
Freelancing would allow me to be around Zelda, to be more flexible. I didn't want to be a full-time mother; I knew that. But I also knew, now that I'd formed a close bond with my daughter, that I didn't want to be away from her constantly, either.
I had financial concerns, of course. In the time Josh and I had been together I'd never not had a full-time salary. I did not make as much money as Josh did, but I also didn't make so much less that losing my salary would be meaningless. But Josh supported me, not by saying, "I will support you financially," but by saying, "I think you can do this well enough to make a lot of money." He believed in me, and that helped me believe in myself.
But when I finally arranged for and hired Val, and trained her to follow my rules about sleeping and eating, I found that for a few weeks, I was happy just to tinker around the house, to sleep, to read, and to catch up on previously missed doctor's appointments. I reorganized the kitchen and my office, cleaned out our bedroom closet, and realphabetized our books.
And slowly I thought, "I can make space for myself once again." I knew that the space I wanted now wasn't for personal leisure time. I'd never been good at relaxing or vacationing, and Josh was the same. For us, working was what made us good company for each other in our off hours, and now that Zelda was part of our family, I knew that working was what would make me complete.
I thought back to when my mother had gone back to work as her children went off to school, and I got it. I wondered if she'd wanted something more, to find a place where all her creative energies could be funneled. She didn't have a career, but she was a worker at heart. For me, the effort even devoted to waiting tables in college had been time I felt productive, and I see that it must have been meaningful for her, in her thirties, to go back to doing something outside of her home. I felt the same when Zelda was six months old, which was longer by half than I'd expected before she was born to be not working. I briefly thought, "Maybe I'll go up the street and apply for a job as a barista."
I wasn't sure; I felt at a crossroads. I had the time to myself to write. I had the means to live for a while without a consistent paycheck, and I was free to write absolutely anything that I wanted, to pitch pieces to whomever I chose.
One night, after Val had gone home and I'd put Zelda to bed, but before Josh had come home from work for the day, I sat down at my computer. I wanted to write something, but I didn't know what. I had barely kept up my diary in the preceding months, breaking years of habit. I'd written grocery lists and sleeping charts but almost nothing else in six months, an eternity to someone who normally takes notes on reading for fun.
I stared at the blank screen and exhaled.
And then, without any assignment or reason for doing so, I wrote an essay about my daughter. About how I'd lost time, months, to the weird space created by caring ceaselessly for a newborn baby. Without thinking about it, I sent it off to an editor I knew, who published it within days. I was walking my daughter up the street in a stroller on our way back from the post office when it was published online, and for a moment I stopped there on the sidewalk in shock.
I realized just then what I'd done—I'd written about myself and Zelda, and I hadn't at all considered what it would mean for us. But I felt great, like the spell of those six months had been broken, like I was active and in the world again. I felt a little nervous about being candid and open with an outside world, an incalculably vast world that encompasses possibly everyone. I'd spent so much of my life guarding my innermost thoughts and had suddenly broken that rule to muse aloud and publicly, to put my feelings out into the world. It felt good to do this. It felt raw and weird and exhilarating to write whatever I thought and not feel shame or confusion about how it would look. All of my mother's years of worries about appearances died right there.
I never considered before Zelda was born that I might write about motherhood, about that experience with all its massive ups and downs. I didn't even consider it as I began doing it. I simply began, and rather than trying to find a voice to do it, I used the voice I already had. In those first essays I found a space to complain about the boring days, to focus on minute details of babyhood that I had observed and wondered at. And slowly I realized I wasn't writing about my daughter so much as I was writing about myself. And to my surprise, I was comfortable with it. I felt emboldened but also protected, in the way that saying something is bothering you aloud can often help to protect you, to make you feel immune to it. And I believe that this also gave me the ability to be a woman and a mother in a way that simply was never available to my mother. I claimed these identities simultaneously.
And I began to feel sad, occasionally, about the fact that my mother had never told me about what I increasingly felt must be true and what I endeavored to explore in my writing: that motherhood is not always easy, but more than that, it's not always fulfilling. It's really, really hard and sometimes disappointing.
She never told me if she felt conflicted about being a mother, the way that I now knew that I did. I felt torn in many directions by the simple fact of my daughter's existence. Because in the space of hours that I now began to make time for each day, five days a week to write, were hours lost that I could be spending with my daughter. And for me, motherhood meant feeling both that I desperately needed and wanted the space to be creative, to work, and to also swallow somewhat unhappily that I would sometimes rather give up and just spend my time with my daughter.
It's a paradox central to modern parenting: I wanted to be with her all the time, and yet I didn't want to be with her all the time.
Over the course of months I began to accept my own ambivalence, to understand that this is actually how it works: that hours spent away from Zelda are required to make me a whole person, a dedicated and loving one, engaged with her in the time that I do spend with her. That if I spent twenty-four hours a day with her, I would actually be a lesser person. I would have little to offer her. And a necessary side effect of that, of course, is that sometimes I miss her. I never miss a school event, now that she's in school, or a special occasion. I handle a lot of the family holidays and am there every night to put her to bed. I have dinner with her every night. Working from home has been the best option for me, because I do want to be there with her every morning when she wakes up, to dress her and pack her lunch.
But I think that the ambiguity, the times when I miss her, are fuel for me to work harder. I often put Zelda to bed and work for another few hours at night simply to get more done so that I never have to work on weekends. I try not to look at my email or phone when I'm with her, to really be there.
There has been a sort of rolling debate in magazines and online over the past few years about what motherhood does to women's creativity, mostly writers', because they're the ones, after all, who write most often about the experience of motherhood.
I have had this debate myself, and often with Josh when I'm on a deadline and strapped for time. I have a hard stop each weekday at 5:15 p.m., when I need to go get Zelda. This is mostly a good thing, since it allows me to step away and get distance, literally, from my work. Then, at 8:30 p.m. or so, I'll go back to it fresher. But there's no question that the demands of motherhood force us to become adept planners and managers of our own time that, even still, many men do not succumb to when they become fathers.
Motherhood is not a job, exactly, but it's labor, and it's labor that doesn't respect our own sick days or the deadlines of our actual jobs. Many times I've been forced to simply give up working for days at a time because Zelda is home sick from school. I feel fortunate that I have the flexibility to do it, of course, but it sometimes creates overwhelming periods of stress where it simply feels as though I'm not doing a good job at anything. This is a normal working mother's experience, I know.
But for me, Zelda has prodded and added to my creativity, not stifled it. Not simply because I often write about her, though she is a great source of material. It's that my time has become more valuable, day to day, week to week, and inside of me it's created a rush to get to things before the hours run out. I have limited time to work each day, so I try to make the time count. That doesn't mean I don't occasionally blow half a morning dicking around on the internet. But it does mean that, more than at any other point in my life, I am making the most of my time, because it is so precious, and there is so little of it. I used to work sixty or seventy hours a week before I was a mother. Now, I work about forty-five or fifty. But in the three and a half years my daughter has been alive, I've written and published more than I had in all the previous seven I'd been working before she was born. She's made me more productive, and I think she's made my writing better and more honest.
Where before I used to think that all the stars needed to be aligned to force writing up and out of myself and onto a page, now, I have discovered, later in life than I would have liked, it can sometimes simply be forced by a strict stopping time every single day, out of me like vomit when I've got the flu.
I think too, more generally, that being a mother has made me so aware of my own mortality that I simply feel a rush to get everything meaningful out of me that I can. I don't consciously think this way almost ever, but every day with a baby, and then a small child, feels incredibly vital. There are hundreds of moments each week that stop me in my tracks with their originality: I've never felt this or done this before. I've never heard a child describe the life cycle of a frog or known how their head feels when they have a cold. And that has made me observant of detail and pressed to document.
One of the things I took away from my conversations with my mother about kids and the fact that I decided not to have a child when I was still a teenager was that my mother didn't want me to not have the option to do it another way. She didn't want me to be a victim of circumstance, of an accident. She understood, whether any of her kids were "accidents" or not, what I couldn't understand then and what I really couldn't understand until I gave birth myself: there is nothing more irrevocable than a child. It is life-changing in all the good ways but also in plenty of unexpected and sometimes bad ways. My mother knew that if I had a child at eighteen, I would possibly never go to college or have the career that I wanted, and she helped me to reject that path for another one.
What is difficult, of course, is trying to fit these pieces of reality in with the facts of my own existence: Did my mother helping me to make my choices differently mean that she had some regrets about the way her own life had worked out? She always insisted we were the greatest thing to have ever happened to her, but as a teenager and a young adult, this prospect tortured me, that my mother might have some regret about having had us, that she might have harbored hopes for a different life for herself. I didn't want that to be true.
What I did not understand until I became a mother myself is that everyone has these doubts, as far as I can tell. I desperately wanted to have Zelda, to become a mother when I became one, and still there were days where I wondered if I'd made a mistake, if I wasn't "cut out" for parenthood, if I wouldn't rather be on a beach somewhere reading paperbacks for six days straight. Everyone occasionally wonders what the other path would look like. It's just a question of what you do with the path you're on.
# CHAPTER 14
◆ ◆ ◆
Only once I was living alone, in my own apartment, going to college and working and taking care of myself, did I get enough distance from the material reality of my family that I could see the truth of what my mother's alcoholism had done to us.
I was at an age when distancing oneself from parents in order to forge an identity of one's own is very common and a natural part of becoming an adult. But like every other milestone in my life, the alcoholism confused and complicated. It fractured my relationships, not just with my mother but with everyone. I became closer to my brothers but still often felt distant from them. I held my father, who now had a serious girlfriend, at an arm's length for years. We were cordial, we spent holidays together, but so much had happened that often it felt easiest to simply keep the talk on a surface level. In fact, it felt nice to not have to talk about anything tragic or serious sometimes, to keep the level of discourse focused on something mundane.
I think my brothers fared better in this area with my dad than I did, because they all had sports to some degree. They could talk about Alabama college football or the Steelers or golf. I had no interest in sports and was desperately bad at feigning. Josh has always criticized my ability to make small talk with strangers, but I have found that this is a true characteristic of me even when I know people very well. I am capable of bullshitting if something worth discussing presents itself, but in the lack of that, I often find myself to be taciturn and silent enough to make those around me uncomfortable. I've worked hard on this, but it's still there.
And with my father, who is also bent toward silence, it meant that we didn't have much to talk about for a very long time. And honestly, that was okay: as I said, in order for me to become an adult, one who functioned and was in any way successful, I found that I had to collapse in on myself and be selfish for a very long time. And in those years, my family waited patiently, never pushing for more than I could give, never trying to plug the hole my mother had left with meaningless chatter.
But remaking your family when it's split into two parts is very hard, of course. We—my brothers and our various partners at various stages—would traipse to our mother's apartment at holidays when necessary. She got a boyfriend who quickly moved in just about a year after I moved out, and he stayed for the rest of her life. He was also an alcoholic, also divorced, also with growing children on their own. My feelings about him changed over the years, starting with blame and cold distance before finally landing on a kind of sympathy and thankfulness that my mother wasn't alone in the world in the last years of her life.
And we'd spend time with our father and his family, reimagining ourselves now without my mother in the mix, even though she was still very much alive. We talked around her a lot then, because often there was nothing to say that wasn't painful or worrisome.
And then, when I met Josh and encountered his very different family, one where his parents were still happily married, where family holidays were loud and boisterous but not ever filled with fears that someone might get too drunk or leave in anger, I slowly tried to eke out a place among them, too.
Having Zelda brought us to a different place. Suddenly, there was something to talk about that wasn't superficial; we all had something in common. Something to focus on. Someone we all loved completely. I came to motherhood motherless and found that my daughter repaired bonds all over my life. She enabled me to open myself to a new place of honesty with my parents (my father, my stepmother) and with Josh's. I took less shit from people, I responded faster and with a shorter temper to unwanted tips on parenting, but I also found that I felt much closer to the family that I had.
It's an odd flipping of roles, to become a parent as your own parent watches. To see them fill their place as grandparents and to appreciate them in a new light. To watch that occur seamlessly, because it is a natural life transition, heals a lot of whatever has happened in the past to make you question how you feel about those closest to you. I never had outright rifts with people in my family, or my in-laws, mostly because I didn't bother arguing if something came up that I disagreed with. That changed once Zelda was around. My openness meant a new fire lit within me that made me louder and more self-assured, but it also meant a true, actual appreciation for my family.
It is strange, as a daughter, to see your father in a different light as a grandfather. When I was little, my father would sometimes sit silently at the kitchen table for easily two hours, petting our cat as she purred. I marveled then at the patience, and only when I became a mother to Zelda did I see that ability appear in myself. Only then, when my dad came to visit and held the sleeping newborn for hours so that I could eat or take a shower, did I see what all that quiet, stubborn kind of stillness could be worth.
The relationship that needed the most repairing, the one that I had with my mother, was more or less firmly in the past. Whatever changes would come to that would be internal: I'd "make peace" with her where I could, as if peace were possible. But Zelda's existence has seeped into all of us, her personality rolling over small slights or perceived ills as if they were nothing at all.
It's an overstatement to say that when a child arrives, healing follows. It's an overstatement of who I am to say that her mere existence brought me closer to my family. And yet it's at least partly true, at least part of the time. In simple terms, it's meant a greater effort on my part, to update and to spend holidays and extra time with my family and with Josh's. Proximity is stressful. But I've found it's also meaningful. And in that space, if I haven't exactly learned to feel okay with what came before, well, I've at least tried to accept it.
# CHAPTER 15
◆ ◆ ◆
My grandma Elly had a bit of dementia in her old age, so by the time I was nearing thirty, she often returned, when I visited her, to the same stories over and over. She'd always been a great storyteller, and I, like my mother before me, took great pleasure in talking to her for hours when I could. One of the things she remarked on for years and years was how when I was little, maybe only ten or eleven, I once told her that when I grew up I was going to move to New York and become a writer. I used to feel annoyance at my grandmother when she brought this up, not simply because it hadn't happened yet, but also because I didn't remember ever saying it. But once when she said it, I asked her: "What did you think of that?"
My grandmother was still alive when I did finally move to New York, and she was one of just two people who were happy about my decision. The other person was my mother.
In May of 2005, I finished a master's degree in English literature at Carnegie Mellon. Like most of my education, I had done all right but not outstanding. I was working full time throughout and pressed for time to study and manage the tendrils of my life effectively. I still had money concerns and was borrowing a lot just to go to school. When I finished that May, I didn't know what I was going to do next.
I started a band on a whim with three other women I barely knew at all, cobbled them together from friends of friends. All the men I knew at the time were in bands; my brother and my boyfriend Patrick were in the same band together. I'd been dating Patrick on and off for years. We'd lived together for part of my college career, then broken up at my request and I'd moved to a place of my own for a while, but we'd recently gotten back together while I was in graduate school. Patrick had gone to high school with me, and all his friends were my friends. He knew my family very well, and I knew his.
I was happy in the band for the months that I was in it. Applying myself to something like that, to writing songs and playing shows in a group of people, was very different than anything I'd ever done before, but like when I was at school, I didn't worry too much about where it was leading, didn't think of it in terms of the future, but tried to focus very much on what was right in front of my face. These girls made up a new set of friends for me, and at that point I was distanced from Emily, Vanessa, and Ellen. Emily had finished college and bought a house in a suburb near where we'd grown up. She was the most obviously successful of the four of us. Ellen had lived out west for years while we were all in college and then returned around the time I was applying to graduate school. She had a son and for a long time seemed happy with her husband and baby and new life. But I worried about her a lot already, from a distance. Anytime I'd seen her over the past few years, she almost always drank to incoherence, not remembering whatever had happened the following day. My band played a show once at the bar she owned with her husband, and she was drunk before we went on. I didn't judge her, but the sense that she was drifting out of control nagged at the back of my mind. Vanessa had married when we were just about nineteen years old and had a beautiful daughter. She moved to San Francisco and divorced, raising her daughter with her ex-husband cordially and successfully. She went back to school and started to build her own career and life, and from afar I was happy for her. None of us had any falling-out, but we were each on our own little path.
I think the girls in the band were closer with one another than they were with me, though they never complained to me when I declined to hang out with them in our spare time. We practiced three times a week and played shows most weekends, so that was enough socializing for me.
And then I met someone else.
In the summer of 2005, my brother and my boyfriend's band went to Brooklyn to record an album with Josh and his brother, Eric, who had built a recording studio in their apartment building. Josh and Eric were from Pittsburgh too, and my high school boyfriend Nick had met them going to raves in the 1990s when Josh was a DJ.
Sometime in July of that summer, Josh and Eric came home to go to the show my brother's band was having to celebrate the release of the album, and that's when I met Josh. It's hard to describe how I felt about him, a six-foot-four lanky guy who was loud and rude to me as I wandered around the after-party, but I sensed more than anything some kind of danger. Josh was complaining the entire party about his girlfriend, who had driven to Pittsburgh to meet him for the party and then dumped him and gone straight back home. I didn't know anyone like him. He was forceful and almost obnoxious but refreshing, because all my friends were very much like me, bottled up and awkward, never coming out and simply saying what was on their minds. To describe Josh as having no filter would be a real understatement, and though I barely knew him, I felt attracted to him and wanted to be near him. More than anything I wanted to just spend my entire night talking to him. About anything.
Which I did. And it did not go unnoticed. Though no one—not my boyfriend, my brother, or the other girls in my band, who were at the party and definitely witnessed me flirting—said anything to me, I felt almost immediately a divide come between me and all the friends I had in Pittsburgh.
And so by the time he came back to Pittsburgh for a holiday, maybe a month and a half later, I knew that I wanted to see him again. I found out by chance that he was in town; someone mentioned it casually: "Josh is here. He's DJing at a rave tonight," and I decided to find a way to go. A small group of us drove there: Josh, his friend Lenny, the drummer in my band, who was also named Laura, and me.
I hated raves, but I didn't really care. I just wanted to talk to Josh, and I think all the people we were with sensed it. I didn't care about that, either. The rave was, fittingly, at an old, abandoned roller-skating rink, huge and dark, the disco ball still hanging from the ceiling, and Josh lost his keys in the middle of it. They fell out of his pocket, and he showed me, for the first time, what I came to learn was a very classic Josh-style freak-out. He was yelling and wandering around, talking about how he was screwed, that he'd never find the keys. I wanted him to be calm, I told him we could find them, but he wouldn't listen.
So I wandered off on my own, cursing my horrible eyesight, as I silently pored over the floor for his keys. I found them in about two minutes, picked them up, walked over, and handed them to him. He hugged me and laughed and looked at me and said, "You're amazing."
I honestly don't know what the fuck I thought I was doing. I wasn't a great girlfriend, but I also didn't really openly lie to or cheat on people. I don't think I had ever encountered someone who I just felt compelled to pursue regardless of the consequences. And so, for the time, I didn't think of them at all. I simply went about my business, with my job and my band and my boyfriend, while at night, alone, I thought endlessly about Josh.
I lived divided, as I pursued long-distance my connection to Josh. I emailed with him and then later texted him, and finally we started to talk on the phone late at night, when I'd worked all day and was tired from band practice. I'd fall asleep listening to him talk a lot of the time, as though he'd replaced the radio shows I often listened to.
Josh and I left no air space between us from the moment I met him. Instead of feeling pressed to perform in a conversation, there was suddenly a person I just wanted to tell everything to. He was almost completely disconnected from my entire circle of acquaintance, most of whom I'd known since I was a child. Because I'd lived on my own through college and graduate school rather than in a dorm or a shared house, I'd never been thrown by circumstance into a new group of people. I'd gone through all of school without making any friends who stuck around beyond a certain class or semester. Josh was a wholly new person, and I felt drawn to narrate my whole life to him, in a way that had never really been necessary before, because I so rarely encountered new people who wanted to know more than bits and pieces.
And though he was first and foremost a great talker, he was also a real listener; he listened and interjected his thoughts better than anyone I'd ever met.
In the end of October of that year, I decided to go and visit Josh for the weekend. I left straight from work on a Friday afternoon, expecting to come home on Sunday. I lied to everyone and told them I was going to New York with a friend from work. In the preceding weeks I had, in some cowardly fashion, tried to begin a slow and arduous process of breaking up with my boyfriend, but I felt so guilty and was so bad about doing it that I simply gave up and said nothing. He suspected I was lying to him but didn't say much. And instead of coming home that Sunday, I stayed with Josh until Tuesday or Wednesday, calling out of work and band practice, sitting around his place while he recorded a band and hanging out with him at night.
Two nights after I got home, he asked me to move to Brooklyn, and although I barely knew him and would have to leave everything that I knew behind, I said yes.
I quickly began to attack the process of telling everyone that I knew I was leaving to move in with someone they didn't even know I'd been talking to. I told my brother John and my boyfriend first. They were not happy. I called my father, who clearly thought I was crazy and who suggested I wait it out a bit to be sure. I was obstinate and one-tracked; I didn't care what anyone thought. I'd made up my mind and was leaving. I told the girls in my band and the rest of my friends.
I quit my job. I quit everything and told my landlord I was leaving. And then I left. I took very little with me, packed it into a truck that Josh drove to Brooklyn the day before I left in my car, with my dog Sal.
Almost no one was happy I was leaving. Everyone, I daresay, thought I was insane. My father, my brothers, and my friends all seemed to think that I would be back in defeat, that my relationship, which was so very new, wouldn't make it and that I would find that I'd quit everything to no end. Only my mother said, "Good for you." I called her when I was already on my way, driving from Pittsburgh to New York in the snow. I don't know why I called her on my way, but I was glad that I did. It was early afternoon, and she'd been drinking, but not so much that I couldn't hold down a conversation with her.
"I met someone, and I'm moving to New York, to Brooklyn," I said to her. I didn't ask her to come visit because I knew that she never would.
"I'm glad," she said, and she sounded so overwhelmingly happy for me.
"Everybody thinks I'm making a mistake," I said.
"Everybody is wrong most of the time," she said.
"I'm not coming back," I said.
"I know that. You've always done what you said you were going to do," she said.
That was the last time I ever talked to my mother.
The fact that Josh and I are still together ten years later probably speaks in my favor: I made the right decision. But at the time, even once I got to New York and made new friends slowly and looked for a job, I felt as though everyone back home hated me and was unhappy about what I was doing. There I was, reaching for a new start on every level, and feeling judged and defeated by all the people I cared about, who I had worked very hard in the preceding years to build some foundational relationships with that were distinct from the mess my mother had made.
Josh and I got along bumpily from the start. We didn't know each other well and were suddenly living together in a (to be fair, very large) one-bedroom apartment. But the connection that I felt to him was not something that ever flagged, and every time he told me I should move out, that he hated me, and later, that we should get divorced, I dug in my heels and stared at him, waiting it out.
"You didn't leave," he said to me once, coming out of our room, as I sat on a high stool, smoking out the window and writing in my journal. "I'm never going to," I said.
Josh and I were temperamentally matched very well, and here again I am somewhat thankful for how I was raised. I am persistent in my belief that I can outlast his anger or his annoyance and can see through to the other side of it, to where he forgets he is mad at me and is resolved again to be happy. I am this way precisely because I have had to outlast others before, my mother mostly, who was, to be clear, far less deserving of my persistence than Josh was.
In hindsight, it's quite obvious why my mother was supportive of me in my decision to move to New York: she wasn't a part of my daily life, she was several steps removed from it, and so it didn't pain her the way it pained those closest to me. She didn't see that I was hurting people in the process, even though I told her on the phone that everyone was angry, mostly because I was being so terrible to my boyfriend, who everyone loved aggressively. But I think too that she saw my definitive breakaway, geographically and emotionally, as in some ways inevitable. Like my grandmother, my mother had been privy to my private thought process for most of my life. Some people want to stay near their family and those they love for their whole lives. Some do not. My mother knew very well that I was in the latter category. I like to think that she was proud of me from afar for following my instincts and for striking out truly on my own. But of course, I'm not sure.
# CHAPTER 16
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All I have ever heard for my entire life is, "You look just like your mother." This truth, that I look "just like" my mother, followed me around when she was living and continues to do so now that she's dead. It has flagged only in the years since Zelda was born, replaced by, "She looks just like you." These are truths, and they're also not the whole truth.
My mother and I looked "just like" each other despite the fact that she was tiny and I am slightly above average height; that she was blond-haired and blue-eyed, while I have dirty-brown hair (my stylist once described it as "the color of hair") and dark brownish, muddy-green eyes. But we did look alike. Our faces carry the genetic material to its most obvious conclusion.
Zelda's face is my own face as a child. I see it in every photo of her, in her face when she sleeps. I pull my own childhood photos out of the closet and stare at them, and they look so much like her. Though her brown hair is curly and mine is straight, it is the same color. Her eyes are deeper and darker than mine, but they're the same eyes. The same little nose sitting there on the same face.
One morning when Zelda was about eight months old, I went in to her room to wake her from her nap. I'd seen on the baby monitor that she was asleep thirty seconds earlier, when I'd left the kitchen to walk upstairs, but by the time I opened her door, she was already sitting up, looking through the bars of her crib at me.
I jumped almost physically, then pulled my phone from my back pocket to take a photo, which I immediately texted to my brother John. "OMG who does this look like?" I wrote in the message. "Holy shit, Kath!" he responded immediately.
That was the first but not last time I saw my mother in my daughter's face. It was so overwhelming and so distinct and different from what I normally saw when I looked at her, but I see these little hints of others peeking out from her all the time. Josh, Josh's mother, my brother Daniel all occasionally greet me as I look to her face for an answer to the question: Who are we now?
Looking so much like your mother is very hard when you don't always have the greatest things to say about her. I looked in the mirror for years and saw, instead of myself, my mother, with all the requisite things that that title—"mother"—meant to me. I saw her face as I aged from a teenager to a young adult. I saw her hangover face in my hangovers, the way we puffed up and our eyes didn't get bloodshot but watery. I saw myself growing a line between my eyebrows from my perpetual scowl, the same scowl she carried around with her. I've always blamed my scowl on my mother, so who did she blame hers on?
There is a large blank space where my mother should be from 1996, when I moved out of her house, to 2007, when she died. In that space I saw her maybe twenty or twenty-five times, always for an hour or two, never much longer. In that space, she barely aged, until the last few years, when her face had sort of collapsed and morphed into her father's face as he had aged. She looked worn-out but not old then, nothing that a few weeks of sobriety and a good moisturizer couldn't fix.
If I age the way my mother and her mother aged, I'll look moderately young until I'm about fifty, and then I'll slowly begin to morph into an indeterminate age. In March of 2015, when Zelda was barely able to walk yet, just past her first birthday, my grandma Peg died at the age of ninety-one. I hadn't seen her in about two years; we'd grown far, far apart in the time since my mother had died. She was increasingly bitter and mean, and going to visit her was never easy without the weird but kind buffer my grandfather and mother had created. Left to visit her alone, I barely did. But she was happy at our wedding, and she was always kind on the surface. Only when we were alone did she bring up everything bad that had ever happened to her, and so much of that was, in her view, my mother's doing. I took Zelda, who had never met her, with me to her funeral, and there in her casket, my grandmother didn't look any older to me than she had when I was a little girl.
Only when I was about thirty-five did I think of upgrading my skin routine from Noxzema and Oil of Olay to something more aggressive, something more antiaging, and even now I am barely able to muster much energy beyond soap and water most nights before bed. I am resigned to the ravages of time; I accept them.
Now, when I look at myself, I see Zelda, not my mother.
I hope that when she looks in the mirror, she doesn't see me.
Zelda is a singular child, all her own, so I resist the urge sometimes to draw too many parallels between us. I want her to have her own identity, and so when just this morning, at a birthday party full of three-year-olds, two mothers walked up and introduced themselves, following with, "She is a picture of you!" I laughed this off as best as I could. We look alike. I looked like my own mother, I heard this all the time. Eventually, as I grew, I wanted for this not to be so for whatever reason.
She is her father, too. In that way, she is not like me: she is outgoing whereas I have too often lived inside my own head. I used to dream all day long simply of going to bed so that I could be alone with my thoughts. But I had three brothers, a full house; I never got to pick the shows on TV. Zelda has the whole space to herself: she is an only child and, at three years old, a determined one. She knows who she is and what she wants. I try simply to foster that, to give her good manners and a decent framework for moving forward.
My mother, either because she didn't have time or because the house burned down and took everything away, didn't leave me very much when she died.
What my mother did leave me with was her books. Not the actual copies: as I said, she left me almost nothing. I carried around in my mind her love of _Jane Eyre_. She'd taken her copy from her childhood home. I don't know what became of it. I sure looked for it there, in her third-floor apartment, after she died, but I couldn't find it. I collected my own copies, buying them new and old. She preferred Charlotte to Emily, and I doubt that she knew about Anne. When, at the age of twenty, I went to northern England and visited the home where the Brontës had lived and written their books, I sent my mother, who would still be alive for another seven years, a postcard. Before I'd left, my mother had visited me and given me a notebook to write in on my trip. "I'm so happy that you're going to finally travel. I love you," she wrote inside. I took the journal; I filled up its pages on my trip. I have that book. It's out in the garage right now, boxed up with the rest of my notebooks from college. My mother gave me _Jane Eyre_.
Most of what we are given by our parents isn't physical but a matter of proximity. My mother never sat me down and said, "Here, read these." I learned by her example. She sat on the couch at night watching TV, sewing, or reading a book, and I followed in her footsteps. She never told me to drink or not drink alcohol: I learned not to drink by watching her drink, and later, I learned to avoid thinking about it when I drank too much also from her example.
I have taken the best things from my mother that I could. I try not to waste time, as I can only feel that she wasted time. I hope to do better than my own mother did at mothering, which, after all, wasn't that bad anyway. She left no physical messes behind; I didn't have to spend weeks purging boxes of junk or donating piles of clothes to Goodwill. I should try to be thankful for that, though I know that I would give a lot to have a box or two from her like the ones I'm accumulating in my own garage. Again, I'm trying to right her wrongs, and so my daughter will have quite a task on her hands when I am gone. When I walk into the garage and see the boxes stacking up, in need of organizing or restacking, this is what I tell myself: Zelda will want these, probably.
My mother didn't leave me much, but she also left me everything that she had. What more could I ask for?
# CHAPTER 17
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When I started doing my family tree around 2005, I asked my grandma Peg about her father, who had died when she was eight years old. I asked her about him because I wanted to know how he died, at the age of thirty-eight. I suspected, of course, that he'd been an alcoholic. Peg never drank much, but as I grew up, I noticed that she herself carried some of the traits of a person who had been raised by an alcoholic. Even though he had died when she was so young, I knew from experience how quickly having a drinker for a parent could affect behavior. She kept secrets and worried so much about appearances. She talked about him with reverence and told me his appendix had burst, killing him.
But I did my own digging and found that, in fact, her father had died at thirty-eight because he drank too much. It was right there on his death certificate, which I requested from the Pennsylvania State archives. "Contributory factors: alcohol." I was in my late twenties by then, and many mysterious pieces of my grandmother's behavior over the years fell into place.
It is often comforting to focus your attention on the past for confirmation of what you have yourself experienced. To find that in some ways we are all the sum of our pasts, to find connections from generation to generation. Alcoholism's genetics are poorly understood, but one thing is certain: the behavior is passed on.
I would love to say that my mother's alcoholism ended with her. That I got away clean, that drinking was never a problem for me. I would love to tell you that I was firmly dedicated to sobriety or that I was a fine social drinker who never had any problems of my own when it came to wine, beer, and everything in between. But it's a lot more complicated than that.
In hindsight, I guess, I never really met a drink of alcohol that I didn't love. My first tastes of alcohol—thinking about them—can still sort of make my spine feel funny and my belly get warm. Beer was the first booze I ever encountered, when I was maybe nine or ten, a stolen can shared among four or five friends. It was warm, and that warmth flowed into my body and covered me, softened me on the inside.
But only in high school did I really begin to actually drink. And we drank a lot. We drank only on the weekends (and Wednesdays), but that was the entire goal of Friday and Saturday, as I remember it. And inside, I think I suspected that I had something in common with my mother. I'd watched her drink and change and react to drinking enough to be sensitive to the signs of problems in others, and I wasn't blind to them in myself, either. I simply pretended not to see them in me. People often say that alcoholics lie to themselves more than anyone else. For me, that was untrue; I looked in the mirror and I was pretty brutally honest with myself: I knew from way early on that if I continued to drink, I would almost certainly have problems. It wasn't me I lied to or hid things from. It was everybody else.
The reason was simple: I needed one single point of escape from my mother and what she had done to me. My mother had made me overly anxious and worrisome. This is really common in children of alcoholics, because we can't depend on our parents, the one thing that should be crucially stable in life. And if I couldn't count on my mother to pick me up or be there when I needed her, what was there to not be anxious about? I always expected the rug to be pulled from beneath my feet. I worried over tiny details of schedules and timing and yet often avoided doing the work I needed to do for school or life simply because I was busy worrying, and worrying all the time is an exhausting, full-time job. It is not something you can do while keeping on top of everything else, even in a teenager's life.
I started smoking and drinking because everyone else around me did those things; they are, or were, normal at that time for suburban kids to try out. Because it was the '90s and all cool teenagers smoked and drank. I tried other drugs—I smoked weed and drank too much coffee or cough syrup—but I only really attached myself to booze and cigarettes. They went together very well, and they gave me peace of mind. After a drink or two, my mind slowed down. My heart beat slower. My blood pressure fell. I didn't feel anxious. And my personality—my real one, not the nervous worrier who took over my body most of the time—even began to make itself known sometimes.
I want to tell you that my true self is sober. But in some ways, my true me, the one who wasn't raised by an alcoholic, the one who is laid-back and cool, is the one who emerges after two or three—but not more—beers or glasses of wine. I open up, or flower outward. I am at ease. But knowing that I sometimes have trouble stopping at two or three has often stopped me from taking one drink.
Being a teenager is a weird hell for everyone, I'm sure. For me, it was an odd combination of hell and, well, not hell. I had begun to feel on the verge of autonomy: probably because I was actually on the verge of it. I could see the light at the end of this particular parent-driven tunnel. I'd started to see that it was okay to not worry every moment about my mother, that I could not control the situations around me. I'd begun to feel at home in my own body. I felt like myself sometimes, and if I didn't exactly love who that was, I could live with it.
But I couldn't escape my conditioning. Well, unless I drank, I soon realized. I beat myself up over this plenty.
As I said, I couldn't lie to myself. I knew what alcohol was, better than most kids my age, and I knew that I was playing with something really dangerous, something that, by design, got out of people's control all the time. If my mother, a strong adult person, couldn't change her behavior or control herself or keep it together for her kids, how could I?
Much to my surprise, though, I soon found out that I _could_ —at least sort of—control myself. I began, right there in high school with my first forays into drinking, a pattern that would carry me all through college and graduate school and then into adulthood. When it mattered, when I needed to not drink, I never, ever drank. Sometimes, that meant abstaining for weeks or months. I could stop whenever I wanted to—ha!—and then bide my time, waiting until it made sense to begin drinking again. I did this over and over. For several years in college I maintained a strict "only on Fridays" rule about drinking. I was paying for college myself and working full time. I didn't want to blow those things; I was determined not to. So I made rules for myself.
How much damage can one person do drinking one night a week? Well, in my case, not very much.
At the beginning, drinking alcohol freed up my mind to think beyond the confines of my family's house, my family's problems, my family. I began to envision, truly for the first time since childhood, the possibilities of a life lived however I wanted. Alcohol, really, had something to do with that opening vista, and no matter how much I sort of wish that weren't the case, it definitely is.
How many drinkers quit? All of them quit almost every day, I guess. The thing about quitting is that you can quit even for fifteen minutes and really mean it. You can really mean it only until you don't, and even if you give up after those fifteen minutes, nothing takes that fifteen minutes from you: they're yours.
Our culture supports alcoholism in insidious, even well-meaning ways: we assume, by default, that whoever we are drinking with drinks, too. Nondrinkers aren't shunned, but they're not exactly fun to be around. I have been the one person not drinking as often as I have been one of the people who is. I am comfortable in both roles.
I didn't often drink, but when I did, it felt _too good_. When I did, I thought always of my mother, scared that I would somehow devolve, unwittingly, to the place where she had ended up, drinking secretly or at night when the kids were asleep. Barely ever even trying to quit, as far as I could tell.
The few times I suggested, to friends or men that I was dating, that maybe I should stop drinking, I was usually laughed off. Drunks are like . . . Charles Bukowski. My mother. It's obvious when someone has a problem. Wasn't it obvious that my mother did? They were right; they had a point. And yet, inside, I still wondered what fire I was playing with when I drank.
One night in graduate school in 2004, when I was twenty-five, I spent a night out with the other students, most of whom were a little younger than I was. I had a full-time job; I was the only person in my English lit class who did. I had my own, permanent apartment with cats and pots and pans. Pretty much everyone else was an out-of-towner—basically kids. We went out to a few bars, drinking as we went, taking a bus back to the part of town where my car was near midnight. I didn't want to drive, so a few of us went to a diner and sat there, talking and smoking (you could still smoke in restaurants in Pittsburgh then) for a few hours. By the time I walked out of the diner and back to my car, it was almost 3:00 in the morning. I was stone sober, at least in my mind.
And then I got pulled over two minutes later, music blasting from my car stereo, because one of my taillights was out. I was five minutes from home. I laughed off the walking sobriety test. When they asked if they could look in my trunk, I said, "Oh sure. It's a mess in there; I'm sorry." And when they asked if there were any needles in my car, I said, "What? What kind of needles?" It was my first police experience. I was far too dumb to even realize that I was already three-quarters of the way to being arrested.
The cop, who was extremely nice to me, told me that they would like to take me to a police station to have an actual sobriety test: to blow into a machine. "You can refuse," he said, "but that means we'll arrest you. If you go with us and willingly take the test, you can go back to your car if you pass. It's your choice," he added.
"This does not sound like much of a choice." I laughed, grabbing my purse and getting into the back of the police car.
At the police station, I blew a 0.02. This was nothing by legal standards. Pennsylvania's limit for alcohol and driving is 0.08. And yet, the officer informed me that Pennsylvania was a "zero tolerance" state, something he had failed to mention earlier: if you were pulled over for any legitimate reason, _any_ alcohol in your blood was subject to penalties.
And so, at 4:30 in the morning on a Saturday night, I was hauled to Allegheny County Jail. They photographed me—I remember the cop who took my photo telling me that usually people didn't smile for their mug shots—and I was happy to oblige. I just rattled along, because all of this seemed so silly to me, and I assumed that I would be out in two or three hours; that's how they'd made it sound.
They threw me into a holding cell that was full of probably a dozen women, most of whose faces I remember—they're burned into me. They were there mostly for drugs and prostitution. "Why are you here?" a girl who seemed only half awake asked me from her place laying on the floor.
Another girl from the corner yelled, "A white girl! You _know_ she's a DUI." She was right, I agreed. A white girl with a DUI. What a cliché.
And I didn't leave in two or three hours. I stayed long enough for three meals. I stayed long enough that the next morning came. They told us a judge would be there soon, and then she or he failed to appear. There was a Steelers game; judges were mysteriously hard to come by. Eventually, I was able to call and leave a message for my boyfriend, but I didn't know if he'd get the message, and I didn't know when I'd be out anyway. I stayed in jail for almost a whole day because of a Steelers game. We could hear the cops on duty screaming as the Steelers won, and another woman, who had clearly been there under similar circumstances before, stood up and said, "Fucking finally, we can get our judge."
I was shackled to the other girls, pulled through a series of long hallways that led us from the jail to the courthouse, where in thirty seconds a judge told me I needed to come back in two months to hear my fate. My fate was that nothing happened. I had to pay an $800 fine. My crimes didn't mean a loss of my license or even community service.
I'd like to say that this experience led me to stop drinking, but it didn't. I simply never drank and got behind the wheel of a car again. And I will never, ever forget what was scratched on the wall in a Sharpie marker of that holding cell. It read, simply, "Punck Ass Bicth."
* * *
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I want to tell you that I stopped drinking in January of 2007, after my mother died. And I did! I had quit smoking the year before and had weaned myself fully from drinking a few months before she died. This was lucky. I needed clarity in that time, and her death certainly made the matter of drinking clear to me. It was something I could not do.
But I slid back before the year was out, and drank, for instance, in the weeks leading up to our wedding in October of 2007. I did this mainly because it was easy. I'd never met less of a problem drinker than Josh. I've seen him actually drunk just a few times in a decade of knowing him, and though he's certainly seen me drunk more often, it wasn't devastatingly obvious to anyone—not even to him—that I should quit. This is a personal decision unless you are so clearly a drunk that your life has become damaging to others.
And New York City is a drinker's paradise. It's not just that there are bars everywhere, but that you never need to drive. There are cabs and sidewalks, which opens the possibilities for drinking more often a lot easier.
Josh and I were never partiers or even people who went out very much. When I drank, it was usually at home, in the late evening, until bedtime. It's hard to do damage that way. His moderation kept me safe in many ways.
I would like to tell you that I quit drinking in January of 2012, when Ellen died from alcoholism at the age of thirty-four, almost exactly five years after my mother.
In fact, my memories of Ellen's death and the days after it are foggy because we drank so much. After Emily called me in tears to tell me that she had died, we had a long conversation where the question "How does a thirty-four-year-old woman with a ten-year-old son die from drinking too much?" remained unanswered. I flew back to Pittsburgh a few days later. I took a week off work and traveled, for the first time in many years, alone, back home.
I had two drinks on the plane, staring out the window the whole time. And when I got there, Emily picked me up, and we went back to her house and sat at her dining room table. She'd bought a house of her own a few years earlier. She was single just then, right out of a long relationship that ended badly. We smoked and drank wine—just two bottles, but then three—and went to bed late, knowing the funeral the next morning would be bad.
And it was. What to say about a woman I hadn't seen in four or five years? That I stopped talking to her because she drank too much was both true and untrue. Yeah, the last few times I'd seen her had been upsetting because she drank so much, but again, it wasn't that simple. I didn't excise her from my life; she just sort of faded. I'd been in contact with her more recently, as everyone I had ever known began to stream onto Facebook, but mostly we'd been happily, acceptingly distant for years.
She'd already been cremated. Her parents, whom I hadn't seen in years, were there. Her mother was fighting cancer and was dead a year later herself. I didn't have any takeaways other than simple sadness. There was nothing to learn except that this couldn't happen to me. I couldn't let it; I _wouldn't_ let it.
I want to tell you that I didn't drink after Zelda was born. But that's not true, either, because I did. Alcohol wasn't on my mind for several months after her birth; I was too tired. But slowly, I saw exactly _why_ it was that so many of the new mothers around me talked really excitedly about their after-bedtime drinks. Relaxation. Time to yourself. Why not fill it with a little wine?
I never really drank around Zelda. I was too nervous; my rules wouldn't allow for it. But I started to drink sometimes after she went to bed. And then, for the first time in my adult life, it became an almost nightly habit. It crept up on me slowly. It was just a few drinks, two or three, a bottle of wine every couple of days. Nothing bad happened, just a woman relaxing with her wine. The image of the "wine mom" exists for a reason: society condones, even encourages this image and the behavior.
No one tells you how unfair it all feels. It's unfair that you can't enjoy something as simple as a calming glass of wine at the end of the day like pretty much every other person on the planet does, because your history or whatever makes you _you_ is a problem.
I don't know if I couldn't enjoy it because of guilt or because I really had a problem. I don't know if it matters. What mattered was that I was always scared, despite continuing to head at the end of the day, pushing the stroller into the wine store, to pick up a few bottles for the week before taking my daughter home.
I was never drunk around Zelda. I never fell down carrying her or dropped her. I never missed a nap or a feeding or even snapped at her because I'd been drinking. I always waited until she went to bed, just like my mother.
But the reality of my life was this: Josh traveled a lot, and I did not. I was often home alone with my daughter for days at a time, and though I wasn't getting wasted, I began to have another worry: not that I would end up like my mother—though I still worried about that constantly—but that Zelda would wake up sick or an emergency would occur. Wouldn't an emergency situation be worse with two or three glasses of wine?
If I was honest with myself, and I have always tried to be honest in my questions of myself, even if I defer answering them for a while, I knew the answer was yes.
It wasn't finally a striking realization or a tragedy that made me stop. It was very simple: I didn't want to be someone who looked forward more to the part of the night after my daughter went to bed than the part when she was awake. It's hard to blame mothers for feeling that way, and I don't have any guilt about sighing with relief when I close her door at night, but I'd found that some days, I was already thinking about my pinot grigio while I was still reading Zelda her bedtime stories. There she was, enjoying the best part of her day, Mama standing beside her crib, and I was, at least sometimes, imagining myself into a Zelda-less future. A future with wine and cigarettes, which I had magically started smoking again at night.
Why did I have so many rules for myself about drinking? I couldn't just drink the way others did, that was why. I was always either _all in_ or _all out_ ; I lived pulling the wagon behind me all the time, the wagon was always there. Why was there a wagon?
Did my mother go through this? There had been so few periods of sobriety for her that I knew of, and most of them had lasted weeks at a maximum, not months or years the way that I had managed. Did she have an internal struggle like I did, or was she unburdened by such doubts? I'd grown up feeling so disappointed in her, because she'd never even seemed to try. But I now wondered, what did she feel inside? Her struggle was struggled alone. I know it now.
But when I quit, it didn't matter what my mother had gone through. I was and am my own person. I didn't want to spend so much mental energy thinking about it anymore, and so for me, the easiest way seemed to be finally, fully, removing the possibility. Taking the option of drinking off the table was what I had to do. To cut myself off.
Which I did, in November of 2015. I snapped after Thanksgiving, moving into Christmas. I knew that holidays always resulted in at least one night where I drank a little too much from stress and then woke up unhappy to a full day's work, and I didn't want to do that ever again. So I decided not to.
I wanted to push back against inevitability. I wanted to stop ever worrying that someday I might trouble my daughter the way that I myself had been troubled by my mother. Zelda and I would argue, I knew, over things that mattered little and things that mattered very much.
But I could, right then, right now, push back against any inevitability of alcohol. I could make sure that never happened. I could see to it that my daughter never lived with the anxiety that I felt, never knowing for sure what version of Mom I would encounter when she picked—or didn't pick—me up from a school event or in the hallway outside my own bedroom late at night. The thought of her feeling that kind of worry on my behalf ached inside of me and pulled me into this new reality, where I felt alive and awake and solid.
I haven't had a hangover or even barely a headache in almost two years. I have rarely thought, "I'd like to have a drink," though there is some irreplaceable festivity created by a bottle of champagne that nothing, really, can replace—although I have found that IKEA Sparkling Pear Juice comes close. I feel less guilt, and I don't worry about my own health as much anymore. All I had to do was stop.
I hope against the future that I have, in this one way, bettered my mother in mothering.
# CHAPTER 18
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I've always expressed myself better in writing than in words spoken out loud. And the first time I remember writing my mother a letter, I was still using crayons. In the boxes of stuff I took from her house after she died, there were a few handmade cards and drawings she'd saved over the years from my brothers and me, things that had survived the fire. And though I looked among her papers and in her drawers for the two letters I had written to her that weighed on my mind so heavily, I found only one of them.
I made her the card on a piece of blank white paper. Not construction paper, but copy paper. I remember the card very well, because I have it here, in my house. I don't know why she kept this, among the hundreds, maybe thousands of things I sent or made her in the twenty-nine years that I knew her. But I can guess.
The card was rudimentary, but not as rudimentary as my actual art skills (I am incredibly bad at drawing or really any visual art, always have been) because I copied the picture from a book. It was of a rabbit, the front half of its body there on the front of the card, the back half on the back side, around the bend from the fold. Inside the card read, "I love you mommy, thanks for everything you do for me." It was a ruse.
I left the card on my mother's dressing table in her room and didn't say a thing. Later, after she'd read it, I planned to pounce on her with my assessment of her life. Thinking of it right now, I feel nervous wonder at the balls it must have taken to confront her. The card was an apology, but in advance.
I don't remember exactly how it went down, though I feel embarrassment on behalf of both of us. I remember that I ended up calling her into my room, telling her I wanted to talk, which was quite common for us: the two women in a house of men, we often took refuge in my little quiet bedroom, closing the door against their noise. I don't remember what I said, but I can imagine it.
"Mom, we learned at school about alcoholics, and I think that's what you are. But it's treatable, there's a cure! I think you sometimes need to go to AA to fix it, but it can be better." It would have been something like this, so textbook and overly simple and still so true. So childlike and perfect. So very painful for me to think of even now.
My mother did what any cornered mother would do: she smiled and took it quietly. She assumed, incorrectly, that I was a lot dumber than I was. She assured me things would be different moving forward, that I didn't have to worry.
Parents think their kids want reassurances—"You don't have to worry." Maybe they do, when they're three or four. But by the time I was eight, nine, ten, I saw quite lucidly what was going on around me: I knew better than my parents. Somehow, in her walk from youth to adulthood, things had gotten all confused. My mother was wrong. She was wrong a lot. Every kid learns this about their parents eventually, that they can make mistakes; it's part of growing up. But some learn faster and harder than others.
The card that I will keep for the rest of my life makes something start to burn in my throat when I pull it out and examine it, not because of sadness but because of anger. Anger at myself for how smart but misguided I already was becoming.
Another characteristic of children of alcoholics, I've found, is that they'll always be better at pointing out and accurately assessing the problems of others than they are of themselves. They've usually had a lot of practice.
The second letter I wrote to my mother was in the beginning of November of 2006. I'd just gotten engaged to Josh and was living happily in Brooklyn. In fact, I was happier than I had ever been in my life, and I think that was the main reason that I decided to write to my mother, rather than call her. I wanted to keep the distance from her that I still needed, to protect and buffer myself against something unpleasant, but I also needed to share my happiness with her. At the time, I thought what I was doing was so adult, so different from the other times I'd confronted her. Now, I see the truth: I might as well have written the letter in crayon.
I have never really told anyone about the letter before; you are the first to know. It read more or less like this: "I am engaged to be married. I am happier than I have ever been. I want to help you go to rehab. I will do anything for you to make that happen, but if you don't, I want you to know that I will not invite you to my wedding." And then, I added, to my eternal horror, the following: "And if you don't stop, if you can't stop, and if I ever have children, you will never meet your grandchildren. I love you. Laura." I said more than this, of course. I pleaded with her; I told her how much I wanted her to be a part of my life. But the material facts are what they are. It was a letter that contained a bold statement of fact and a devastating threat.
I know why I wrote this letter. I was harsher to her in writing than I had ever been because I hoped, my last hope, to snap her out of it. I threatened her out of fear that she would never recover and out of a desperate need that she should. I threatened her with my happiness because I wanted her to be a part of it, but that happiness had come to me at a great price: I'd had to leave behind painful things, and the most painful loss was her.
I wanted my mother to hear me, to want to be with me, to love me. I wanted her to be proud of me, not just from afar but in my life with me. I wanted her to meet Josh and his family, to be a part of the suddenly wonderful life that we were having. My father had gotten engaged, too; he was going to get married in the spring, just a few months before Josh and me. I wanted her to have some chunk of the good things we were all slowly beginning to fill our time with.
I didn't know what her day-to-day life was like anymore. I don't know how she felt when she opened the mailbox and saw a letter from me. She was probably excited. I am filled with horror at the thought of her opening it, reading it alone, exhausted and disappointed.
I want to tell you that in these moments when I allow myself to think of the letter, I hate myself because I was the aggressor then. Instead of feeling victimized by my mother as I had when I was a kid, I now must contend with the fact that in that last moment, in our last direct communication, she was the helpless one.
I understand why I wrote this letter. I would want nothing less than this from Zelda if I deserved it; it was on some level a symptom of my unfailing love for her, that I wrote it and said what I said. And yet, I live still with it as my truest regret. It is the worst thing I have ever done, and the fact that it contained nothing but the truth doesn't change that at all.
My mother never responded. Less than three months later, she was dead.
When we cleaned her apartment out after she died, I hoped that I would find that letter, partly out of a deep fear that it still existed, that someone else could read what I had written and judge me for what was, no doubt in my mind, my most regrettable action ever. Not because it wasn't true—all of it was blunt and true—but because it hadn't worked so it felt very pointless, with her dead and me still alive to lay awake at night in regret. I didn't find the letter. I hoped that she destroyed it.
Only after Zelda was alive, sitting at her desk with a pen one afternoon, so concentrated was she at that time on intently drawing tiny circles over and over, did I think of that letter in a new light. Though I still regretted it, though it stings me now to know that I wrote it, I looked at her and thought to myself, "I hope she loves me enough someday to say such dreadful things to me, if she must."
This is the only absolution I have allowed myself for that letter.
We didn't, in fact, clean out my mother's apartment right after she died, but several years later, when her partner died himself, from cancer. Before then, in the space where my mother was gone and he was still living, he stayed in their house and kept all my mother's things, her clothes, her papers, just as she had left them. Once he was gone and we were there, cleaning the place with Josh and my brothers, her boyfriend's son and wife, even my father was there, I found her makeup still in the bathroom cabinets.
My mother's boyfriend had said when my mother died that she had, at some point during her last year of living, sat down and written letters to each of us, her four kids. What on earth these letters could possibly say was a mystery. I envisioned, as we drove a small box truck to her apartment in anticipation of taking away whatever we were going to take with us, finding diaries, notebooks, papers stacked in the attic. I envisioned finding a letter addressed to me that might, somehow, unlock the mystery of who my mother was to me. Who she was beyond being the mother I had known and loved and fought with.
I imagined carting away notebooks and reading them, finding out the secrets of her life the way that anyone who dared dig among my own stash would discover the best and worst thoughts I've had in my years on this planet. The mundane observations, the lists of books I am reading, the to-do lists and the homework assignments—I've saved all of it. My father is a dedicated shredder of documents and paper. I am a pack rat. I thought my mother was more like me, so as I got closer to her home, I allowed myself to fantasize that I might find something of value, something that would help me make sense of everything.
But there was nothing. No letters, no diaries. I got her handwritten recipes, her address book from the 1980s, and a few scraps of things her kids had made her. I found a few pieces of paper that I walked away with as though they were gold simply because they had her distinctive, terrifically neat cursive handwriting on them. The cursive that she taught me, painstakingly, the year before I went to first grade.
My mother's secrets, if she had them, were never written down.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Every so often, I sit down at my desk, take out stationery, and write Zelda a letter. Sometimes, it's just a little "What's up, how are you?" Sometimes, I document new words or skills she has learned. Sometimes, I tell her things I would never say aloud. That I'm having a hard day. That I cried for no reason I could figure out. That I didn't want to get out of bed. I tell her these things in handwritten letters in the hope that she will want to read them. Even if she waits until she is fifty years old, I hope that someday these little missives have value for her.
I mail the letters from our house back to our house, so that they have postmarks, so that I can keep them in order in the shoebox I store them in. I do this partly because it appeals to me, partly because I want her to know how much I love her every step of the way, and partly because I wanted so much to have something written, something direct, something specific, from my own mother. I think this was part of the reason I began writing about her. I would have given almost anything to have insight into my own mother, to have known what she thought about me, but also more than me. To know anything and everything.
Someday, I hope Zelda knows that the many thousands of ways I have exposed her person in my writing was all because she gave me the power, if not the permission, to do so. She made me, to a great extent, the writer and person that I am. I am thankful for that, and I hope that she is never too embarrassed of me for it. But I also want Zelda to know that my mother, her grandmother, made all this possible, too.
I am realistic about all of this. I know that where I am disappointed at how little my mother left me in writing, my own daughter is likely to be disappointed, or to not care about, how much I am giving to her. But she is her own person; she'll figure it out.
# CHAPTER 19
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On a Thursday at the end of January in 2007, at around 3:00 in the afternoon, I stood on the 7 train in my bulky wool winter coat. I'd been living in New York for less than a year by then, and it had been the happiest under-a-year of my adult life. I had a job that paid me well for not very much work. I loved my apartment. I was writing music again; I was thinking about going back to school. I'd left Pittsburgh in a rush, having just earned a master's degree but without having made any plans for what was next. After almost a year in a new place, I was finally thinking about what was next. The letter I had written to my mother had been weighing on me since I sent it, but most days my worries about it were momentary. I had had what I thought were good intentions in sending it, and it had done one—but only one—of the things I had hoped that it might, closing off a chapter for me. I felt as though I were moving on from my mother and that after years of avoiding her, I was now simply living without her.
Josh and I had been engaged for two months, and the engagement ring, as I stood there on the subway, still burned my finger a little bit, a constant presence that wasn't quite at home on my body yet. The subway was almost empty. It was not yet rush hour, and I think the city was still sleepy from the holidays that had recently ended.
I worked as an assistant to an executive at a commercial real estate firm. It was, as my coworker Maranda said, "the kind of job that is temporary forever." In fact, I had taken the job as a temp staffer through a temp firm. Probably half the admins at the company were temps, people who were paid fairly well—I think I made $20 an hour, which seemed like an enormous amount of money to me at the time—to have asses in seats. We answered phones; we managed calendars and wrote emails. Through the staffing agency, I wandered from job to job, most of them in Midtown, some on Wall Street. They were always admin or front desk jobs, usually lasting a week or a month. I was offered a full-time position within about a month of starting at the real estate place. I accepted because Josh, who was still producing music with his brother in the studio in our apartment building, didn't have a steady income and because our rent was cheap enough that this salary would mean we were more well off than I'd ever been.
I'd probably been working there for five months on that day in January when my brother Daniel called me. He called my cell phone, which was a Samsung flip phone I still have. This was well before the phone was glued to me at all times, and so I missed his first call, away from my desk for a coffee break with Maranda. I came back to my desk to a vibrating phone.
And here's where my fantastic memory fails me. I don't remember what my brother said to me. I remember, awkwardly, only that for the few minutes that the conversation went on, I was acutely aware of my surroundings. Jackie to my left, Maranda and Casey on my right, chattering away about something I couldn't make out. The artificial light seemed very harsh suddenly as I struggled to grasp the gist of what he was saying. Daniel never called me. I knew before I picked up that something was wrong.
The gist of what he said was this: come home, come quickly, something happened to Mom, and there isn't much time.
I didn't ask for details. I said okay and hung up the phone. I stood up and walked down the hall to the office of the HR manager. I told her I needed to leave, that something was wrong with my mother, and that I would let her know in the morning when I would be back.
I went back to my desk. I told Maranda and Jackie, who flocked around me. I think I said, "My mother is dying." I don't remember that either. I remember the shoes I was wearing. The skirt. I put on my coat and went into the bathroom and started to cry. I stopped myself. I left the bathroom and the building, stopping outside to smoke a cigarette before walking the few blocks up to Forty-Second Street, where I got the train.
As I stood there on the subway trying to get home to tell Josh that my mother was dying with my earbuds in my ears, pretending to listen to music but in reality listening to the train's mechanical hum, my eyes met the eyes of a stranger standing directly across from me. I realized then that I was visibly crying, tears just streaming down my face. I didn't typically cry in public. But I didn't care at all.
"Are you okay?" a kind-faced, chubby, middle-aged man standing across from me mouthed to me. I know he didn't say the words out loud because my iPod wasn't playing any music.
"No," I said, and as the word came out, so did a sort of low howl. It was the kind of sob I have only heard once or twice in my life. When I was in eighth grade, my grandfather died after being diagnosed with cancer just two months earlier. My father cried like that then. It sounded, I think in hindsight, like an animal dying. I didn't care. I continued to cry, and the man nodded at me as I got off at the next stop in Long Island City, left to walk alone across the Pulaski Bridge back home in silence.
I am ashamed, somehow, to remember that I considered not going anywhere; I considered staying home. My instinct told me to hunker down, to stay in New York where I was safe. I did not want to go back to Pittsburgh to face my dying mother.
"We have to go right now," Josh said. He wanted details. He wanted information I didn't have.
"What happened?" he probed me. I didn't know. I didn't want to ask too many questions. I didn't want to know. Was it not enough to know that she was in a coma? That she was on life support?
But we left an hour later, packing up my dog and some clothes. I remember packing clothes that I thought would be funeral appropriate, gray wool pants and a sweater. I smoked a cigarette out the window. I packed my journal. I didn't know that I wouldn't be able to write in it for the next two months.
And so a long, coffee-fueled car ride during which Josh and I did nothing but talk carried us back to Pittsburgh. I rambled on and on, telling him about my mother. It seemed so important suddenly, now that I realized he would probably never meet her. We got to his parents' house at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and collapsed for a few hours before heading to the hospital where my mother was. To her boyfriend, who couldn't speak, and to my two brothers (David wasn't there yet), my uncle, and my grandmother.
My mother's death certificate says that she died of liver failure. Though I know that when I arrived at the hospital I saw her before I saw the doctor who was treating her, I remember the doctor at the hospital better. He explained, and made a small, very bad drawing to go along with his explanation, that my mother's liver had stopped working. She had a coughing fit in her living room, spit up blood, and her heart stopped. Her boyfriend called 911. She was resuscitated. I don't know how long her heart was stopped. The doctor gave us no reason to hope that she was going to live. She couldn't breathe on her own. She wouldn't wake up. Her brain was damaged. Her organs were done for. It took me several minutes of listening to his explanation to realize that he was asking us—someone—to make a choice. The question of who exactly was her next of kin mattered greatly, all of a sudden.
We passed that day together. We sat there staring at her, sitting with her. I remember that, when my grandfather died back in 1989 when I was twelve years old, we spent what seemed like days pent up in the funeral home before the funeral actually happened, in a small stuffy room with his body. At one point, my three brothers, our two cousins, and I went outside and ran around the parking lot as though we were animals that had been set free from the zoo. I remember thinking then how out of joint time was: it was a weekday, I should be in school, but there I was, in a sad, other zone. A zone that mattered very much, where emotions, usually hidden, were on display. Where men cried and people let go of old grudges. Though I was an adult now, standing there staring at my not-very-old mother, rather than a middle schooler, I immediately got the same cooped-up, jittery feeling.
I hadn't seen my mother in two years or longer. The fact that I did not and do not remember the last time I saw her bothered me enough that I did not focus on it then, when I was seeing her. "What could it possibly matter now?" I thought.
Seeing someone in limbo is hard, especially if you haven't seen them in a long time. One tries—well, I did, anyway—to distinguish what parts of her looked different because she was dying and what parts because she had changed and aged since I'd last seen her.
And she had aged. I thought then, I think now, of Yossarian, in _Catch-22_ : "Well, he died. You don't get any older than that." She looked as old as she was going to get. Ashen and colorless, bloodless.
The living want to live, and I felt acutely aware that my mother was in limbo: she wasn't going to live, but she wasn't dead yet. It felt wrong to leave her so that I could get coffee or a snack, and yet I desperately wanted diversion. I wanted to not be in that busy giant room in an ICU where other people were dying too, where the lights were always low because almost nobody there was ever going home. I wanted to run around in the parking lot.
That night, we went back to Josh's parents' house. I sat in the kitchen and talked to his mother, who, though she didn't know me well yet, was going to have something in common with me soon: she'd lost her mother when she was a young woman, too.
My mother was good at many things. She was always good in the crises that families inevitably go through. I felt acutely then the lack of her presence. No one really knew what to do. The fact that we all so desperately needed my mother when it was my mother who was dying is a true testament to the kind of family we were without her still. I called my father and talked to him for hours, more about the past than what to do in the present. The divorce had meant that, to a great extent, my brothers and I had to be the adults we were. My father didn't make decisions for my mother anymore, and I resented not him but the world, for a minute, for making it clear that as her only daughter, it was probably going to fall to me.
That's not accurate in any way, and I know it. But that was how it felt. It felt in those hours and days as if there was a spotlight shined directly at me and as if I was surrounded by hurt, defenseless people who needed my strength. Was this how my mother, the Decision Maker, had felt for years, surrounded by her family?
My grandmother was old and alone. Never mentally stable, she had sunken into a blackness I have never seen before. Because Josh had never met her or my mother previously, I still shudder to think that this was his first encounter with my mother's family. Peg replayed, in narratives we had all heard so many times before, the deaths of my grandfather and her brothers and sisters. Her father. She said at one point, "I'd have been just as happy if I'd never had kids." I had to witness my family through the eyes of someone else—Josh—who had to experience them at their worst, not their best.
My mother's partner of the past decade was a quiet and gentle person whom I did not know very well. I had, however, assumed the worst of him: Who could, after all, live happily with someone so clearly sick, so often not herself? So reduced from what I had known of her at her best? I felt at first puzzled by, then a deep respect and growing awareness for, his feelings for her. He was clearly devastated. It seemed he didn't view her as the broken and lost cause that I had for so long. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and with happiness to know that she was loved as she was, not as if she was some reduced version of herself. I couldn't accept her. But it made me happy that someone else could.
The next morning, I awoke clear on my purpose. Though I had quickly accepted the reality of the situation and had no doubt that my mother was done for, Josh convinced me that the smartest thing was to seek the opinion of a second doctor. There was some talk of what ifs, and though I don't think he intended to give me any false hopes, for a brief hour I imagined a scenario in which she recovered. Where she needed rehabilitation or twenty-four-hour care. Where she was different than she used to be. Where she didn't drink anymore, like my great-uncle, whose life was changed in a moment when he had a stroke. Maybe her old habits had died with this event. Maybe there was a chance.
I dressed myself and had coffee at 5:00 in the morning, sitting alone in the kitchen of my future husband's parents' home. A place that was happy for me. A place where I loved and felt safe. I knew that whatever was ahead of me, the day would be very long and very sad. I didn't feel like running through the parking lot anymore.
The second opinion came fast and hard; our hopes, such as they were, were tamped down quickly. The staff at the hospital must have been used to eleventh-hour delusions such as these, but in fairness to ourselves, asserting our needs and asks at that moment changed everything that happened thereafter. Now, it was clear: we were the ones to decide.
And that decision needed to be made. My mother had not made any arrangements for herself. This was not a surprise on any level: she had no savings, owned no real estate. She had nothing so valuable as to require insurance. So it made sense, of course, that she hadn't left any instructions about what we should do if she died. She was fifty-two years old.
My mother died within two hours of being removed from life support, which occurred after all of us agreed that we were ready to let that life take its course. There was not really any dissent, though her partner had a harder time accepting that this was really the end of her life. I admired his ability to hope in the circumstances. I felt jealous of his closeness to her in the final days of her life. I felt scared to ask about what had happened two days earlier.
She died on a Sunday evening. It was cold, and the trees were bare. The worst time of year in Pennsylvania. I told myself I'd be back in New York three days later. Then I would have time to face what had happened. Now I needed to plan. To make arrangements. To write an obituary.
At some point several hours before my mother died, a woman came to us and talked over what would happen to my mother's body when she died. She asked if we had a funeral home in mind; we did. She asked if we had known our mother's wishes regarding organ donation. I think I laughed aloud.
"I mean," I faltered, "is that an option for her? Is there anything worth donating?" I looked around me. Everyone understood what I meant: surely this body she was about to dispose of was useless to others, so recklessly had she abused it in the past years.
"Because of the nature of your mother's illness, her heart, kidneys, and liver are not donatable," the woman agreed. "But her eyes are."
Even today, I think about the fact that someone somewhere is walking around with one or both of her eyes (or parts of them, anyway: it's certainly more poetic to think of it as the entire eye). One of those same eyes that witnessed my birth, the birth of my three brothers. Eyes that witnessed all the things in her life that I didn't see. Eyes that were with her when I was not. It makes me feel something akin to happiness when I think that one or both of those eyes still see just now. Awake, like me, at 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday, one day after the tenth anniversary of her death.
I think too about all the things those eyes did not see. Her daughter getting married, her granddaughter being born. And I realize, when I think about her eyes and the fact that she was missing from those great events, the happiest parts of my life all lived after she was gone, that what I wrote to her in that letter just months before she died wasn't true at all. I wouldn't have kept Zelda from her. I just didn't know that then, before she was dead and before Zelda was born. And like my mother's boyfriend, I suspect it would never have occurred to Zelda to think of my mother as I did: as less than I wanted her to be.
I want to say that my mother dying wasn't a surprise, but it was. Even knowing what I knew about her, even knowing how hard on her body she had been, she'd always seemed immortal to me. But she wasn't, and her death was in many respects a relief to me. I don't mean that I was happy she was gone. I wasn't. But her death ended that slow, constant bubbling of worry that I had had for as long as I could remember and answered the question of what I was going to do about our relationship: it was over.
# CHAPTER 20
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On a Wednesday in June of 1977, my mother, who was born on a Wednesday in August, gave birth to me, and I became her daughter. She was not quite twenty-five years old when I arrived, just four years after my brother David (who was born on a Tuesday in July). I was named after my father, Lawrence Joseph: Laura June. But I was also named after my mother, Kathleen June.
At the age of twenty-seven, I began to construct a family tree, partly because the bureaucratic, paper trail nature of genealogy appealed to me and partly because I wanted to trace the origin of my middle name, June. I knew that my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother had all been given it by their mothers, but I wanted to find the beginning. I found that most of us Junes were born on Wednesdays.
When I started looking for Junes and building my family tree, I had no relationship with my mother to speak of. I actively avoided her calls, in fact, and a big part of me assumed that I would probably never have children. If I had thought about it further or been asked about it, I think I would have said that I would not give a daughter of mine the middle name June, even though I like the idea of a matrilineal name.
As I sat at my computer, or at the dining room table of our Brooklyn apartment, I didn't think I was looking for "meaning" in a grand sense. I wasn't drawing conclusions; I was looking for facts. I found them. Thousands of facts. The secret joy of doing something like a family tree is that the potential number of facts is infinite, and the work is never done. I hunkered down and drowned myself in the details. I forgot about my initial goal—looking for June #1—for months at a time, mired in the muck of searching for lost cousins or a dead and forgotten infant sibling of a long-dead aunt or uncle I had never met. I traveled back six or seven generations, and when the trail dried up, I moved onto constructing a family tree for my husband Josh, satisfied as I linked our trees together with our marriage. It was a warm but lonely place to be: obsessed with my distant origins while my actual relationships with my family were, to be blunt, not good.
"Oh June, because you were born in June," people have said to me my whole life. To which I have often said, "Well, my mother is a June and she was born in August." I'm nothing if not an arguer of minute technicalities that matter sometimes only to me.
"Oh," the people usually say, seeming deflated or confused, as if the answer isn't satisfactory. And it isn't, I agree. I've been looking for almost fifteen years now for a better answer, but I haven't found one yet. I don't know what the point is, and I suspect there isn't one. Just like everyone else with a family name, it's just a name passed down.
But when I knew that I was pregnant and that I was going to have a girl, the middle name came to us first; there was barely a discussion of it. Josh and I agreed on that: whoever she was going to be, she would be [insert name] June. My mother was long gone. The name was something I liked so much, in fact, that I had taken to using it as my surname in my writing, partly to distinguish myself from my husband, who was also a writer, and partly because it just sounded so good. My mother always called me by my full name, Laura June. It's part of me, and now, it's part of Zelda, too. Carrying around that name draws a line between her and me; she's the latest link in the chain that reaches back across generations through the meaningless details and calls out to each of us, that we were cared for enough to be given a little piece of everything that preceded ourselves. I'm not a traditional person; I don't value heirlooms or get sentimental very often. But rather than think of the name as an albatross, I have decided to think of it as a distinction.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
A few weeks ago, Zelda and I were driving back from a morning birthday party, with her strapped in her car seat in the back. It was about 12:30 p.m., and she usually naps at about 1:00 p.m., so I put on Lorde. "I don't want to sleep!" she wailed, because of course now she knows that Lorde playing quietly in the car means that it's nap time. The opening of _Pure Heroine_ enrages her, but by track three or four, she's almost always passed out, her little head slumping over, her now long, thin legs dangling over the edge of her car seat. I don't know yet if she'll be tall like her dad or simply average like me, but she seems so large to me already. Only when she's asleep do the last vestiges of babyhood reveal themselves, her mouth an almost frowning _O,_ her tiny hands balled into fists. She often sweats in her sleep like I do.
She quieted down as Lorde played, got lost in her own thoughts. We have our rules about what we do when we're driving around, and the goal is for Zelda to sleep. We don't make eye contact; we don't talk much, even if she asks a direct question.
Zelda stared out the window and was quiet. Her eyes were almost glazed over, and I thought she was on the road to Sleepy Town. But sometimes, in the weird space between awake and sleep, we are wont to have our most incisive thoughts. Three-and-a-half-year-olds, I have found out, are no different.
"You're not an orphan . . . ," she said bluntly, quietly, still looking out the window. "But . . . Nana isn't your mommy," she went on. Zelda is obsessed with orphans because of _Annie_ , and Nana is my stepmother. "So . . . ," she went on, struggling to think. I could see her gears turning in the rearview mirror. "Who is your mama?"
Zelda doesn't know about death yet. She doesn't know that people are here and then gone forever. Her concept of "da life cycle," as she calls it, is that once we live long enough, we get to be babies again. I wanted to answer her truthfully, but in a way that wouldn't lead to further questions yet.
"Her name was Kathy," I said.
"That's a nice name," she said, still staring out the window. "I liked that birthday party." She moved on and hasn't brought it up again. One day, I'll be ready to tell her everything. I'll be ready to explain how much my mother would have loved her and how much she loved me. I'm not ready yet.
It's not easy to know people, to _really_ know them. I've worked very hard in the past three and a half years to parent, to mother, in a way that reveals my true self to Zelda without horrifying her too much. I want her to know more about me than I know about my own mother, and I feel like that's possible, because I have chosen not to carry secrets with me through life the way that I am certain my own mother did. Secrets can weigh us down. We are all entitled to our private selves, our private thoughts. Even babies, like my mother taught me thirty years ago. But if there is any value to making a chosen family, to my relationship with Josh, it is that he has enabled me to choose honesty, even if only just between ourselves. That alone freed me to begin.
I've been talking to myself since before I can remember, holding down a narrative of myself day to day, year to year. I always thought that maybe it was a special feature of just myself, but Zelda has led me to believe otherwise, that we humans are naturally bent toward self-narration. That telling stories about ourselves to ourselves is second nature, that it helps us to understand ourselves and our relationships with other people. Every night at bedtime now, as I said, she wants to hear about the story of her birth.
She wants to hear about when she was born, but she also wants to hear about the day before she was born: one day out of the many days she didn't exist yet. "I wasn't here then," she says. She's beginning to sense that her existence here hasn't always been.
"You were born on a Tuesday in February," I begin.
I have watched Zelda struggle to master the basics, walking and running and hopping on one foot. It reminds me that I once did the same, and that my mother too was just a toddling little girl, adored by her parents, not so long ago. But I marvel to see my daughter working out, mentally and emotionally, a concept of time that doesn't have her as the center, realizing that there was a time before she existed. I see in her new body and mind a little piece of myself, laying in my bed at night decades ago, sucking my thumb, talking to myself, narrating my day to I wasn't sure whom. My memory is that I've always known I wasn't the center of my own story; my mother was. I've always believed that whatever it was I had to work out in life, somehow, she held the answer. But it's an answer I can't find, no matter how hard I struggle to make sense of my mother, her life, and how her story intertwined with mine. I still haven't figured it out, but in Zelda I have found that being the center of someone else's life is somewhat inevitable, if you are a mother. My daughter depends on me to tell her her story, to remember the things she loses to time. I hope I do it well.
# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
◆ ◆ ◆
My gratitude and love belong to Joshua and Zelda June Topolsky, Valentina Caballero, Carmen Virginia Johns, Dr. Jacques Moritz, Jimmy Miller, Emily Chambers, Vanessa Blyth-Gaeta, Eric Topolsky, Katie Notopoulos, Silvia Killingsworth, Andrew and Darla Childs, Katie Baker, Jen Gann, Paul Ford, Leah Finnegan, Lisa Klimkiewicz, and Maria Bustillos.
Thanks to my coworkers at _The Outline_ and thanks to Andrew's Couch for the logs.
To the editors of _The Awl_ and _The Cut_ , who helped me to shape my first writings on motherhood—Alex Balk, Choire Sicha, Matt Buchanan, John Herrman, Stella Bugbee, and Izzy Grinspan: thank you.
My agent, Nicole Tourtelot, was the first person to help me begin to mold my work into something larger and louder and for that: thank you.
My editor at Penguin, Sarah Stein, has worked harder on my writing than anyone ever has, and has made it better than it's ever been in the process: thank you.
Also, to Shannon Kelly at Penguin: thank you for all of your help getting the book through its many, many revisions.
To Carmen Mader and Nicole Mayer, who I met and got to know while writing this, and who gave me something more pressing to think about than myself: thank you.
And finally, to my father, Larry, my brothers, David, Daniel, and John, my stepmother, Donna, and my mother- and father-in-law, Susan and Dave: thank you for your support and kindness and love.
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## Contents
1. Cover
2. Praise for Laura June's NOW MY HEART IS FULL
3. About the Author
4. Title Page
5. Copyright
6. Dedication
7. Contents
8. Epigraph
9. Chapter 1
10. Chapter 2
11. Chapter 3
12. Chapter 4
13. Chapter 5
14. Chapter 6
15. Chapter 7
16. Chapter 8
17. Chapter 9
18. Chapter 10
19. Chapter 11
20. Chapter 12
21. Chapter 13
22. Chapter 14
23. Chapter 15
24. Chapter 16
25. Chapter 17
26. Chapter 18
27. Chapter 19
28. Chapter 20
29. Acknowledgments
1. Table of Contents
2. Cover
3. Cover
4. Title Page
5. Start
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| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Books3 |
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'It must have been some party to leave a hangover this bad...' Bellatrix groaned to herself. At hearing a snicker, her head shot up and she glared at the smirking form of Nymphadora Tonks, who was sitting at a small table a few feet away. Not recognizing her surroundings, Bellatrix quickly jerked her head around in an attempt to determine her whereabouts. A light snore brought her intense gaze on the slumbering form of a physically-matured Harry Potter... 'Potter?!' Bellatrix exclaimed to herself. 'Why, in Morgana's name, is he here? Better yet, why am I here? Hell, for that matter, where is 'here'?! How did we wind up in this room?'
"I think we need to have a talk," was Tonks's uncharacteristically serious reply.
"Why are you...?" Suddenly, Bellatrix's memories from earlier that day came back in a rush: finding out Voldemort's master plan, capturing the unguarded object that her 'master' was so focused on, and tracking down Potter. The next few recollections were a little less clear: confessing how she had been nothing more than an abused puppet to both Potter and her niece, handing over the device she had stolen from Voldemort's fortress, and finally something involving the three of them in a green dome. After a lot of pain, she vaguely remembered seeing Potter, also released, come staggering towards them before she blacked out.
After taking a moment to get reoriented, Bellatrix turned back towards her niece and commented quietly, "That wasn't a dream, was it?"
"No," Tonks whispered back, "but let's not disturb him. He got hit the hardest by whatever that ball thing did." Nodding, Bellatrix followed her through the door and out into the hall, pulling the door softly shut behind her.
Leaning up against the wall, Tonks decided to start the investigation. "Now, would you like to explain exactly what that thing did to us?"
Sighing, Bellatrix replied, "I already told you: I DON'T KNOW! To my knowledge, the stupid thing has never done anything like that before. Not only Voldemort, but several members of his inner circle tried to access the orb but all in vain. They had tried every curse, hex, or charm they knew yet the orb just absorbed it. The only thing I can figure is that it was set to react only to a particular type of person, and Potter fit the bill. I don't know what it did, or why it did it."
"Well, why did it grab us then? It didn't react to you when you stole it originally, or when you brought it here."
"If you'll remember, it didn't actually affect us until we approached Potter. After that happened was when everything went to pieces," Bellatrix responded moodily.
"And what, in the name of all things holy, would that have to do with anything?" Tonks snapped.
"I-DON'T-KNOW!" Bellatrix bit out. "Right off the top of my head, and considering the fact that I now have you stuck in my head, I'd guess that we got pulled into some kind of magical bonding. But that can't be, since we would both have had to either perform a ritual or swear an oath. Since we did neither-"
"But we did swear an oath," Tonks stated. "It wasn't until we both said that we would help Harry that we got floored by that green dome thing."
"Maybe, but neither of us really went into enough detail to justify an oath, much less participated in a ceremony to define the terms of the deal. That thrice-damned ball must have rifled through our minds and acted on some impulse or unstated intention..." Bellatrix hypothesized.
"And what were those intentions, oh aunt of mine?" Tonks snapped back.
"Well," Bellatrix drawled, "since whatever the hell it was tied us both to him and each other, I'd say 'the same as yours', oh niece of mine. As I have said, I want to make Voldemort and his assorted misfits, lackeys, catamites, and pedophiles pay for what they've done both to me and my family. That maniac poisoned my parents' outlook on the world, and thoroughly ruined the lives of my sisters and myself. Not to mention what my parents in turn did to Sirius and your own family. Potter's the only one that's been doing anything to stop the dark morons, so I am going to help him in any way that I can so that he can take those worthless creatures down."
Deciding to accept her answer for the time being, Tonks began to ask another question but was cut off by Bellatrix. "And just what have you been doing with the Boy-who-can't-seem-to-die? Hmm...I can't help but notice that some of the things in this room aren't exactly what a teenaged wizard would own."
"If you must know, I am giving him some advanced defense lessons. As you might have noticed, Harry seems to have a gift for finding dangerous situations. Or rather, he has an ability to draw danger toward himself."
"And the Ministry just let you take all this time off because...?" Bellatrix questioned.
"The Ministry no longer has any say in it. They used me almost as badly as Voldemort and his... 'Assorted misfits, lackeys, catamites, and pedophiles,' I believe is the term?" At Bellatrix's faint smirk, Tonks continued, "Well, as badly as they used you. I sometimes think that the only reason I was ever accepted into the Aurors was because of my usefulness as a Metamorphamagus. Even though I've been a full Auror graduate for over four years, I have never been positioned as anything but another 'grunt'... In any case, after the fiasco a few weeks ago at the Ministry, Fudge went ballistic and attempted to fire all of us present. Most others had some excuse to be overlooked, but Fudge fired me. I was at my flat trying to plan my next move when I received a letter from Harry. I came here right away... ended up falling apart in his room. After he calmed me down, Harry offered me a place to stay and a larger income than I'd ever make with the Ministry if I'd just show him a few things I remembered from Auror training. That was yesterday. We were just getting started with the physical conditioning today when you found us." Trying to lighten up the rather depressing conversation, Tonks cracked the door open to check on Harry and commented, "Is it just my imagination, or does he look different to you?"
Looking through the crack in the door, the two witches observed that the slumbering young wizard had indeed changed a little from earlier that morning. Even in his reclined position, the two women could tell that he was perhaps a couple of inches taller than just a few hours before. In addition, while his muscular build was by no means massive, it did more closely resemble that of an athlete rather than the rail-thin structure he had been previously sporting. The single most noticeable change - perhaps miracle, even - was the mop of unruly hair atop his head. Or rather, what used to an unruly mop. Whatever powers that were exercised during the early morning episode, one was apparently able to break the Potter family curse, since now Harry had shoulder-length locks laying almost unnaturally straight alongside his head.
"Yes..." Bellatrix commented distractedly. Sensing her confusion, Tonks looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. "What?" she asked.
"This new look of his... he reminds me of someone, but I can't remember who," Bellatrix muttered, almost to herself.
"Was it someone recently?" Tonks asked curiously.
"No," Bellatrix finally answered, "it's been a long time ago. Maybe it was just a book, or a portrait, or something..."
"Any ideas on why he got a makeover, while we apparently were unchanged?"
"No clue whatsoever."
"So, what do we do now?" Tonks asked.
Whatever Bellatrix response was, it was drowned out by an angry bellow of "WHAT ARE YOU FREAKS DOING IN MY HOUSE?!?!"
Spinning around, both witches were treated to the sight of a puce-colored Vernon Dursley storming up the staircase from the living room. They both went for their wands before Bellatrix remembered with a curse that she had been disarmed before their earlier conversation, and that her wand currently resided in the pocket of the young man behind her.
In an attempt to buy some time so that they could explain the situation, Tonks cast a small trip jinx at the top of the stairs which caught the elephantine man as he reached the last step and deposited the man on the floor. Quickly regaining his feet, Vernon raised his fist and shouted, "YOU WORTHLESS LITTLE TART! I'M GOING TO-"
"You're going to lower your hand and speak to my friends with a civil tongue, Vernon, or I'm going to remove it from your otherwise empty head!" snapped a cold voice. Both the women whirled around to be confronted with a very awake - and angry - Harry Potter. However, this wasn't the Harry that they were familiar with. Unlike the usually affable young man, this Harry radiated such power and barely-restrained rage that even his muggle uncle could sense his tightly wound fury. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Vernon swallowed rather noisily and just nodded.
"Good," Harry purred, "I'm glad that we could resolve this little incident without any undue... unpleasantness." At Vernon's widened eyes, Harry smirked before continuing, "Now, I have something rather important to tell you and your family. So why don't you go back downstairs and gather your wife and son, and I will join you momentary. Okay?" Vernon nodded again and moved quickly down the stairs, his descent much quieter than his ascent.
Turning to Bellatrix, he handed her back her wand and said, "Sorry about keeping that. I meant to give it back to you before now, but I forgot."
"How did you know?" Bellatrix trailed off.
Chuckling lightly, Harry tapped his head and replied, "The link we share is apparently capable of transmitting broadcasted thoughts. I heard your rather... colorful... comments when you went for it just now, and I thought it best to return it immediately."
"You heard?" Bellatrix asked with a grimace.
"Oh, yes," Harry replied cheerfully, "Very creative, in fact. Although, I'm not sure that it's even physically possible to do that with a wand, not to mention the ethical issues involved."
At this, Tonks burst out laughing and then tried in vain to cover it with a cough when Bellatrix glared at her. Attempting to change the subject to a relatively safer topic, Bellatrix asked, "What did you want to say to the fat muggle?"
"Those Dementors that you spoke of yesterday will eventually discover that you have 'defected' and will then report this location directly to Voldemort," Harry explained, "And while we have never been -- and will likely never be -- a family, I owe it to my mother's memory to at least warn them of the danger."
"Personally, I would just as soon invite every Dementor I could find to this place, but they're your relatives; do what you want with them," Bellatrix replied.
"Thanks," Harry said dryly, "In the meantime, why don't the two of you gather whatever is worth salvaging from here and pack it? As soon as I finish with the Dursleys, we will need to leave ourselves."
"Where are we headed?" Tonks asked.
"Well, unless Bellatrix here has any other information that we should act on immediately, I think we should head to my home. We can regroup and make further plans from there," Harry answered.
"Aren't we in your home, Potter?" Bellatrix asked drolly.
"No, this place is nothing more than a lot of wood, mortar, and unwanted memories. I was referring to Hogwarts. You might have heard of it; big castle in Scotland that doubles as a magical institute for young wizards and witches?"
"Yes, it sounds vaguely familiar," Bellatrix shot back. "But won't the headmaster object to us just popping in on him? Not to mention my rather colorful reputation...?" She ended with disheartened frown.
"Oh, don't worry about Dumbledore," Harry assured, "I'm sure that we can reach an accommodation. Besides, we're going to need the Order's help to counter Voldemort's latest offensive, so it's best to explain the situation to him beforehand." Seeing that she was still worried, Harry continued, "We'll explain the circumstances to him. He won't imprison you, I promise."
"If you say so," Bellatrix replied, "Personally, I've never been comfortable around the man. And as for your other question, there are a few relics in Knockturn Alley that Voldemort seemed interested in, but they cost a small fortune and were too heavily protected to steal easily. Whether they have any bearing on his plan for recruiting hellspawn, I don't know. The last I heard, Lucius Malfoy was going to purchase them after presenting you to his master after the department of mysteries thing. You seem to have disrupted that little plan, though."
Harry smiled brightly. "I'm just lucky that way." Becoming more serious, he asked, "Do you know the particulars? Location, name, price, any agreed upon safeguards, that sort of thing?" Harry queried.
"Yes, but like I said, its no small amount of galleons. The cheapest item of the lot ran over one million," Bellatrix explained.
"No matter," Harry replied, "The Potter family vault alone has more than enough capital to cover their purchase; I discovered last year that my parents had made several lucrative investments years ago, and the dividends have been earning interest ever since. In short, I have a great deal of gold at Gringotts that I never touch, and I'll be glad to spend every last knut if it will cause Voldemort to have a bad day. Go ahead and pack all of this stuff up; we'll leave as soon as I chase off the muggles." At this, Harry did an about-face and sauntered out of the room and shut the door while whistling.
Tonks simply turned back towards their conjured closets and pulled out her wand. "Well, you heard him," she chirped.
Giving her head a shake, Bellatrix conjured a large trunk and began summoning various items into it. Still unable to reconcile the ordinary youth he had appeared to be with the extremely powerful wizard that just saved them from a confrontation with the fat slob, Bellatrix turned to the other woman who was packing several sets of clothes - /quite messily/, Bellatrix thought - and cleared her throat to gain the other witch's attention. When Tonks looked up, Bellatrix asked exasperatedly, "How can you ignore what he just did? You had to have felt the sheer power he was giving off? Even that muggle sensed it!"
"Yes, I felt it, too. What's your point? After all, he is the only one that has stopped Voldemort single-handedly at least five times already. Of course, he's more powerful than a typical wizard."
"My point/," Bellatrix interjected, "Is that he is nowhere even /near his magical majority. He shouldn't be able to project his aura at all for at least another two to three years, much less to the extent that he just did! I don't remember ever seeing that much radiated magic at once - not even from Dumbledore!"
"Okay, so Harry is stronger than anyone would expect him to be. I still do not see why that is a problem," Tonks restated.
Side-stepping the implied question, Bellatrix asked, "Is that why you immediately jumped to follow his orders? Is it because he is that strong?"
"No," Tonks replied with confusion evident in her voice, "He's my friend and Harry asked me to do him a favor. He didn't order me to do anything." The sudden comprehension was evident on her face as the underlying reason for her aunt's questioning dawned on her. "Wait," she said, "are you worried that you escaped one monster just to get pulled in by another one just like it?"
Her aunt looking into the trunk on the floor and fidgeting with the things on the top was her only response.
"Okay," Tonks said, "you need to understand a few things when it comes to Harry. First, Harry is my friend. I've gotten to know him rather well over the last year, both from talking to him and his friends, and I trust him completely. Second, while they may share the same abilities, Harry is nothing like that monster you were enslaved to. While he can be a little intimidating, especially when he's upset, Harry would never commit the atrocities that Voldemort's rage leads to; he simply doesn't have it in him. You seemed more than willing to join him not six hours ago; why are you so wary of him now?"
"Because I expected that by the time he reached this level of power, I would have ingratiated myself enough with him so as to have a little immunity against some of the 'services' that he might have otherwise wished of me. From what I just saw, I doubt I could last very long in a duel before he overpowered me, even if he used nothing more than tickling charms and tripping jinxes," Bellatrix responded resignedly.
"What on Earth are you talking about?" Tonks wondered. "What are you afraid of him asking you to do?"
Growling at her niece's apparent ignorance, she bit out, "Do I have to spell it out for you? He's a healthy young man; false modesty aside, I'm an attractive woman who's apparently magically bound to serve him; work it out!"
"Do you truly believe that Harry would do such a thing?" Tonks asked incredulously.
"It's happened before," her aunt replied tiredly.
"When I said Harry wasn't capable of things like that, I meant it. We could both jump starkers into his bed, and he wouldn't so much as touch us without our expressed permission. There's a reason that the hat sorted him into Gryffindor after all; he is honorable beyond a fault. I sincerely doubt that it has ever even crossed his mind that he could force a woman like that. He simply does not think that way," Tonks reassured her.
"All men think that way," Bellatrix said resignedly.
"Well, you'll be pleasantly surprised by this one. I know that orb did something to him, other than just changing his looks and giving us all a splitting headache. But he is still my friend Harry and I know that we are both perfectly safe from him," Tonks stated firmly.
"I'll just have to see that to believe it," Bellatrix muttered.
"You will," Tonks responded, "but right now we should get the rest of this stuff packed up. Harry should be finishing up with his relatives soon and we'll need to go."
"That's another thing," Bellatrix commented, "are they always that charming, or is it just me?"
"No," Tonks breathed out angrily, "they feel about magic the same way that the death eaters feel about muggles; as near as I can tell, none of them have ever had a civil word with anyone magical - ever."
"What about Potter? Do they act like that with him? His own family?" Bellatrix questioned.
"You're not the only one unfortunate enough to be unappreciated at home," was Tonks's answer.
"And he's lived here for practically his entire life?" Bellatrix asked. At her niece's nod, she commented, "And he hasn't killed them all in their sleep? Incredible! If I had to live in close quarters with that loud windbag, I would have done something rather permanent within a matter of days."
Smiling, Tonks said, "As I told you, Harry is just too good of a person to do such a thing. In fact, he ignores most every insult and threat towards himself. It's when you threaten his friends that he grows angry. If there is one thing about Harry Potter that you can count on, it's that he protects his friends." With that, Tonks resumed stuffing the clothes haphazardly into a bag.
Going back to her own work, Bellatrix couldn't help it as her mind continued to replay her niece's last comments over and over. 'Harry is just too good of a person... he protects his friends.' For reasons beyond her understanding, Bellatrix knew that Tonk's assessment of Harry was as true as the sun rises in the east. As equally beyond her understanding was why she felt so comforted by that knowledge.
In the Dursley living room, Harry had gone through a highly edited explanation as to why he now bore a 'hippy' haircut, as well as the increase in height, and had finally explained to his relatives - in small, simple words - why they were in danger and must leave immediately.
'Wait for it... wait for it...' Harry thought to himself. His uncle's face skipped straight past 'tomato' on the shades-of-red reference chart and settled on 'fire engine'. 'Here we go...'
"WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT, BOY? YOUR FREAK FRIENDS CAN'T STICK WITH SACRIFICING GOATS AND DANCING AROUND BONFIRES? HAVE TO BOTHER INNOCENT, HARDWORKING PEOPLE. HAH! INVISIBLE DEMENTOIDS AND RESURRECTED SNAKE MEN! LET ME TELL YOU, BOY, THAT..." Attempting to ignore his uncle's bellowing, Harry's tortured ears were bombarded with his aunt screeching something about having their throats slit, or being blown up. Being barely capable of speech, Dudley was moaning something about his friends and little kids, all whilst eating a bowl of ice cream.
Not even twenty four hours earlier, Harry would have already either fled or lost his temper. His exposure to his past experiences, however, helped him to keep this confrontation in perspective. But even experienced wizards have their breaking points, and Harry was quickly reaching his. Finally deciding that enough was enough, Harry took in a deep breath and yelled "SILENCE!"
Amazingly enough, the three muggles in front of him immediately ceased speaking and resumed their seats, even the usually unperceptive Dudley. Now, it was possible that they realized that they were acting like a bunch of three-year-olds and decided to behave like the civilized beings that they wished everyone to take them for. Equally likely was the possibility that they remembered that they had company in their home and finally decided to act accordingly. However, if Harry was the gambling sort, he would wager that the shaking walls, rattling glass fixtures, and the 'very irritated wizard' look that he was currently sporting had some small impact in their newfound behavioral capabilities.
"Now then," Harry uttered in a deadly calm voice, "here is how it's going to work; those creatures that attacked Dudley and I last summer will tell the evil wizard - who coincidentally hates and kills everyone who cannot do magic, such as yourselves - exactly where this place is located. He will come and destroy everything here. If you don't want to die, you will leave this place. Uncle Vernon, you said a few years ago how you all loved Majorca; now's an excellent time to see it. Since Dudley was expelled from Smeltings, you have the perfect opportunity to take a long vacation. However, if you wish to stay here, you may do so. I have fulfilled whatever responsibility our blood ties may have demanded, so I'm leaving now. With luck, this is the last time that we will ever see each other. I wish you good fortune, whatever you decide. Goodbye." Turning around, he began moving towards the stairs, but a squeak from his aunt brought his attention back to the cowed family on the couch.
"How long do we have before they get here?" she asked.
"There's not much telling," he replied, "but I advise you to leave immediately. Gather whatever possessions you wish to keep and leave this place today. As an added incentive, I'll arrange it so that you'll never be bothered by wizards again." He threw the last out when he saw that they were still not coming to a conclusion. The offer for a 'freak-free' life finally got the job done, and they quickly agreed. "Splendid," Harry exclaimed, "we'll just get our things from upstairs and be out of your way. Have a good life. Goodbye." With that parting comment, he quickly rose up the stairs and entered his room, leaving the wards intact. Seeing the room was back to normal and three trunks lying on the floor in front of the witches, Harry said, "Well, the Dursleys are going away for awhile, so our work here is done. Do either of you ladies have any reason not to leave now?"
"No! Let's get out of this muggle shack before I burn it down and save Voldemort the trouble!" Bellatrix groused.
"Great! Let's get going then. We'll have to make a quick stop by Gringotts before we hit that shop in Knockturn Alley. Let's go," Harry exclaimed.
"Err...," Bellatrix interrupted, "you may want to consider changing out of the muggle jogger look."
Looking down at themselves, Harry commented, "Oh." A focused expression flit across his face before Tonks's clothes transfigured themselves into a set of robes he had seen her wear and his own jogging suit (more of Dudley's castoffs) quickly became a set of plain black robes with green trim on top of a black shirt and black trousers. "Better?" Harry asked.
"Much," Bellatrix choked out. Both of the women were more than a little shocked that the young wizard in front of them did two highly-advanced transfigurations without a wand, or even a voiced spell.
Decided that now was not the time to discuss this unexplainable phenomenon, Tonks said, "You forgot that you're still going to be drawing attention. Auntie Bellatrix here is a wanted fugitive, after all. And then you have the whole boy-who-lived thing going on."
"Yes, well, 'Bellatrix' is the Amazon star and means 'warrioress', but 'Bella' is shorter and is Latin for 'beautiful', so you win either way," Harry replied honestly.
Choosing to ignore Harry's unintentional compliment, the newly christened Bella responded, "No. I have an animagus form, which eliminates any chance of another transfiguration gift like metamorphing." Continuing, she asked, "Does this mean I get to call you 'Harry'?"
Looking slightly confused at her needing to ask such a thing, he replied, "Yes. After all, we're going to be working together for a good while yet. We may as well be on a first-name basis." Blinking, he added, "You're an animagus? What's your form?"
"Err... a she-wolf," Bella replied, already bracing herself for the more obvious jokes that a female canine form had brought her in the past. She was slightly surprised, and secretly a little grateful, that the only response she received was a "Congratulations!" from her niece and Harry's raised eyebrow and statement, "Really? I bet that that form has proven useful!"
Getting a little embarrassed from all the praise, Bella just countered, "It is useful, but I can't use it to blend in at Diagon Alley, so it's no good right now."
"Hmm..." Harry mused, "and we can't just cover you in that black robe. Having to fight a mob attacking a 'Death Eater' is the last thing we need just now." Addressing Tonks, Harry said "You're great in disguises; do you have any suggestions?"
"Well, other than the standard disillusionment charm, the only thing I can think of is a human transfiguration. It's not the same as a metamorph, since it's vulnerable to 'finite incantatem', but it should do in a pinch," Tonks recommended.
"Okay," Harry said, "do you have any better ideas, Bella?"
"No, but I'm not that good at transfiguring myself into another human form," Bellatrix replied.
"I can do it for you," Tonks offered. "The techniques I use on myself are just as effective if I cast them on someone else."
"Is that okay with you, Bella?" Harry inquired.
"Yes," Bella confirmed, hiding a little shock at the fact that she was given the final say in the matter.
"Okay," Tonks said, "just stay still. This won't take but a second." Pointing her wand at Bellatrix's face and assuming a look of great concentration, Tonks intoned, "Cedere facies." Bella's entire appearance began to change; her hair, which had been a midnight black, began to lighten to a honey-brown; her figure began to fill out slightly, removing the noticeable effects of malnutrition left over from her imprisonment. Her most visible transformation, however, was her face. Bella now wore a shorter nose, and sported a more rounded face, rather than her normal, angular countenance. Finally, her striking violet eyes were now a chocolate brown, though they were no less intense.
When the tingling feeling left, Bellatrix glanced at a very pleased Metamorphamagus and an awe-struck teenager. "Well...?" Bella prompted.
"Nymph did a good job," Harry confessed. "If I hadn't watched, I'd have never known it was you." Conjuring a small mirror, he said, "See for yourself."
Gazing at the woman staring back at her, Bella could understand why Harry was temporarily struck speechless. She herself could hardly believe that she was seeing her current reflection. It would be almost impossible for any two women to be any more different. After a few more moments of admiring her disguise, Bella turned to Harry and asked, "Okay, that's me done. Are you going to do anything about your own appearance? Granted, you don't exactly look like you did this time yesterday, but you'll still be easily identified." At Harry's raised eyebrow, Bellatrix turned the mirror around and held it up for him.
As soon as he saw his reflection, Harry frowned. "That's... unexpected," he finally stated.
"What is?" Tonks asked confusedly.
"Hmm...?" Harry asked. At her repeated question, he distractedly answered, "Oh, nothing. It was just random thoughts."
Letting the question slide, Tonks began to turn away before frowning a second in thought. She turned her head sharply and glared at the wizard head-on. "Did you just call me 'Nymph'?" she asked heatedly. "You know how I feel about my given name!"
"Well, I didn't use your first name, actually, although it is a very nice name and you have nothing to be ashamed of. I called you 'Nymph', based on the Greek word that means 'young woman'. Nymphs were revered as the spirits of specific natural features - mountains, rivers, trees, that sort of thing. In fact, they were represented as lovely and eternally youthful creatures." At her dumbfounded look, Harry cocked his head to the side, studying her, before he waved his hand in front of her face. Drawing her attention to the matter at hand, Harry asked, "Can you do something similar for me?" Nodding her head, she followed the same procedure as with Bellatrix and Harry felt a tickling sensation spread encompass his head. It ended a few seconds later and he saw Tonks lower her wand.
Glancing at the mirror that Bellatrix still held outstretched, Harry observed his new appearance. His hair color was now reddish brown, and his features would not be out of place on a man in his late twenties. In short, he resembled an odd cross of Bill Weasley and Remus Lupin. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that his scar was still visible beneath his fringe. "Sorry, Harry, but I can't do anything about that scar. It seems to deflect any attempt to alter it," Tonks said.
"Its okay, Nymph," Harry replied, "I expected something like this anyways. You did a good job." Addressing both witches, Harry said, "As soon as we get to Gringotts, let's just get down to my vault, get enough to cover the cost of those items, and get out without drawing too much attention to ourselves; I don't personally feel like fighting off the reporter corps if our disguise fails."
"We can go that route if you wish, Nymph, but I thought that just apparating there would be easiest," Harry replied with a smirk.
"Apparating? Since when have you been able to apparate?" Tonks demanded.
"Yes, apparating, and that's a long story that I promise to tell you later; right now, we have a shopping trip to run," Harry responded. Walking over to Hedwig's cage, Harry opened the door and allowed his familiar to use his arm as a perch. Bringing the snowy owl to the window, he addressed his pet, "Hedwig, we're going to be gone for a couple of hours, then making our way to Hogwarts. Can you meet us there, girl?" At the owl's affirmative hoot, he opened the window and stretched his arm outside of the opening. "See you there, girl." Launching the owl into the air, Harry brought his arm back inside and closed the window. Turning around and waving his hand at the trunks gathered together, Harry quickly shrunk them and placed them in his pocket. Hearing a metallic clink, he reached back into the bottom of the pocket and retrieved a silver medallion with an emerald embedded in the center. Remembering that this was all that all that was left from the Chroniculus's explosion, he quickly placed it around his neck and hid it inside his shirt, where it quickly blended in with his skin tone so that it was barely noticeable.
"Well, technically, knowing how to apparate isn't illegal, just the actual act of apparating without a license is penalized. And I promise to explain everything to the both of you once we reach Hogwarts. But we really need to get these artifacts that Voldemort wants off the streets as soon as possible. Okay?" Harry asked.
"Alright, fair enough," she conceded. "You know where the apparition zone is located?"
"I'm sure that I can find it," Harry replied offhandedly. "I'll meet the two of you there. Okay?" At the ladies' nods, Harry promptly envisioned the alley behind Gringotts, concentrated on a safe spot, and disappeared without even the slightest of 'pops'. After exchanging startled glances, the two women followed him, both making more noticeable noise.
Reappearing next to the young man, Tonks cried out, "Let's go!" and took off at a quick pace towards the bank's entrance. Harry and Bellatrix exchanged confused shrugs and quickly caught up to the hyperactive witch.
Approaching an available goblin, Harry requested an escort to his vault after proving his identity to the suspicious bank teller by way of his distinctive scar and his vault key. Once the goblin, Snotrag, was content that Harry was truly who he said he was, he replied, "I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but as a minor, you cannot gain admittance to your family vault without the consent of your legal guardian. So, unless one of these ladies serves in that capacity, I cannot help you."
"No, Master Snotrag, they do not. As you know, my parents were murdered many years ago. Unfortunately, my godfather is also recently diseased, so I have no magical guardian at present. My only remaining guardian is my muggle aunt, who is currently unavailable. I realize that my request might violate a simple procedure, but I will greatly 'value' your assistance. To the tune of... a hundred galleons?" Harry asked.
Raising one eyebrow at the bribe, Snotrag replied, "Mr. Potter, such regulations have been enforced for many years, at your minister's request."
Not batting an eye. "Two hundred galleons," Harry replied calmly.
"Really, I couldn't do such a thing. Such a violation would impugn the honor of Gringotts itself," the goblin stated while shaking his head as if insulted by the thought.
"Five hundred, and that is my final offer," Harry answered with a smirk.
Jerking his head up to look Harry in the eye, Snotrag grinned and said, "Follow me, Sir. Misses."
At that, he hopped down from his stool and led Harry and the two amused ladies across the lobby and down a flight of stairs to the nearest cart. When their escort was far enough ahead of them, Tonks grabbed Harry's arm and spun him around. "Are you crazy?" she exclaimed. "Why did you bribe him? Not to mention HOW did you bribe him?"
Not missing Bellatrix's extremely amused expression, Harry replied, "Well, Nymph, I'm certainly not dragging the Dursleys in here, now am I? How else do you propose that I get in there? Call him by his name and hope against all logic that they prostrate themselves before me and call me 'Master'?" After shaking his head at the irrational notion, he couldn't resist chuckling as he turned around and began to follow the goblin. "To answer your other question, goblin society is based on one 'real' golden rule: 'whoever has the gold makes the rules.' For a large enough fee, a goblin will do just about anything. Why do you think that there were so many goblin rebellions? They make perfect mercenaries, as long as you keep them well paid."
A few steps behind the young wizard, Tonks muttered, "I don't know how many more surprises I can take today." Bellatrix only snorted in response, but was also secretly impressed at her new associate's negotiating skills.
Once the three humans had reached the carts and were seated, the goblin sent the cart careening around the tight corners at breakneck speeds as the party descended towards the Potter vaults. After several abrupt changes in direction - and one spectacular ejection of Tonks's breakfast - two definitely queasy witches, an amused goblin, and an absolutely exhilarated young wizard arrived at the storeroom of the Potter family, also known as Gringotts' Vault #134.
After assisting his two human companions in disembarking the cart - or, that bloody contraption, to quote a certain ex-Auror - Snotrag prompted Harry for his key. After finally locating the requested item, Harry handed it over to the goblin, who took the key and placed it into a seemingly neglected wooden door. However, upon turning the key in the ancient-looking lock, the door shimmered and then disappeared, leaving the three humans dazzled by the real entrance to the vault. Instead of the previous passage that was nothing more than an ordinary wooden door, there now lay directly ahead of the group a large stone arch, which reached nearly ten feet across, and over eight feet high. However, the most breathtaking feature was the glowing blue vortex that was trapped within the arch. At Harry's inquiring glance, the goblin explained, "Your vault entrance is heavily charmed to protect the vault's contents, Mr. Potter, by order of your parents. Only with your permission, as you have no other living family members to grant access, can entry to the vault's interior be gained. To enter, simply press your hand against the blue field. It will then deactivate until you re-enable it."
Nodding his understanding, Harry approached the portal and did as the goblin said. As soon as his hand touched the field, the blue shield flickered and collapsed. And for the second time in as many minutes, they were left shocked and speechless. As the contents of the vault now lay visible, they now could see a collection of family heirlooms, several books, and, as one would expect, several piles of gold.
These several -large- piles of gold, were bordering on mountainous.
"Well," Harry said, recovering before either of the women, "If you will wait right here, Master Snotrag, we will be back momentarily. Ladies?" With that, he entered the vault, closely followed by the two witches.
"Now, Bella, you said that the cheapest of those devices ran close to 1 million galleons. How much do you think all of them could be bought for?" Harry inquired.
"From what I heard, it would about 7 million for all three," Bellatrix replied.
"Okay..." Harry trailed off as he searched nearby for something to hold the coins. Seeing a few withdrawal pouches hanging near the door, he retrieved one and, after confirming that it was already enchanted to be weightless and bottomless, began scooping stacks of galleons into the bag. Within a few minutes, Harry finished gathering the required sum and pocketed the sack, while filling a second bag with the promised 500 galleons for the waiting Snotrag.
After giving the goblin his fee, Snotrag requested Harry to place his hand upon the archway and say 'finite'. Once Harry did so, the blue shield jumped back into being, followed only moments after by the illusion of the wooden door. Pocketing his key, Harry returned to the cart and they made their way back to the surface.
Leaving the bank, the trio made their way towards the entrance to Knockturn Alley. Upon arriving at the shady entrance, Harry motioned Bellatrix ahead, saying, "After you, Bella. Now, here is one way we can work this. Nymph, once we get there, you keep an eye on all possible entrances and exits. I'll make sure that there are no untoward surprises in the shop proper. Bella, you just concentrate on getting the devices; we'll make sure that there's no double-cross waiting for us. Are you both okay with that plan?" At the two witches' nods, Harry retrieves the sack of coins and hands it to Bellatrix. "Very well then, let's go."
A few minutes, two rather lonely old hags, and one very persistent peddler later, the trio found themselves outside Borgin & Burkes, proprietors of all things questionable. They immediately entered the store, with Tonks drifting towards an ideal spot to discretely monitor the only entrance, while Harry meandered among the aisles as if examining the merchandise while staying within earshot, and Bellatrix approached Borgin himself.
"Hello, my dear. How may I be of service?" the old shopkeeper asked in an oily voice.
Assuming the persona of cold disdain typical of the pureblood population, Bellatrix replied sharply, "You currently have three items on hand of a -questionable- nature. My master desires them. You will retrieve them now."
"Madame! I am sure that I do not know of what you speak!" the shopkeeper replied in a shocked tone.
"I believe that you do," Bellatrix replied. "They were originally to be delivered to Mr. Malfoy. As you may or may not know, he was recently detained. I am here in his stead."
"And did Mr. Malfoy pass on any comments for me?" Borgin asked in a seemingly disaffected voice.
"He wished to inform you that 'while lights may spark, flicker, or die, the dark remains constant'," Bellatrix replied.
"I see..." the old man trailed off, "and your friends?"
"They are to ensure that there are no -irregularities- during our transaction," Bellatrix answered with an evil smirk.
"Oh, course. Hmm, hmm... and the fee?" he asked.
Bellatrix removed the coin pouch from her robe pocket and tossed it on the counter. "And the merchandise?" she prompted
Borgin's greedy gaze never left the obviously loaded gold pouch. "Coming right up, Madam. Wait just a moment." With that, he quickly scurried to the rear of the shop, where he rolled up a rug to reveal a trap door. "This way!" he urged before lifting the door and descending the concealed staircase. "And bring that pouch!"
Sensing possible foul play, Harry signaled for Tonks to return to her post guarding the door. Turning back to Bellatrix, Harry winked at her right before concentrating on the spell demonstrated by Dumbledore four years prior and willing his self invisible. Catching on to his plan, Bellatrix smirked at him before resuming her previous mannerisms and went down the stairs after the decrepit old shopkeeper, with a silent and invisible Harry in tow. After reaching the bottom, Harry and Bellatrix found themselves in a dusty storeroom, stacked full of boxes, barrels, and crates of all sizes.
Borgin, watching the -apparently isolated- witch approaching him, gestured towards a large crate sitting on the floor near the foot of the stairs. "Here is your merchandise, milady. Would you like for me to open it for you, or do you want the honors?"
Not trusting the old man, Bellatrix quickly told him that -she- would open it. Reaching the box, Bellatrix smoothly drew her wand and pointed it at the crate before intoning "patefacio". However, the lid slid aside to reveal not the expected dark ritual paraphernalia, but a large -and apparently quite hungry- king cobra. As the snake uncoiled itself from the confines of the box and made to strike Bellatrix, she jumped backwards - unfortunately right into the disarming charm fired by a grinning Borgin. Before Bellatrix could respond, she was bound with conjured ropes, also courtesy of the shop keeper.
"Thought you'd get the best of ol' Borgin, did you? Guess you didn't know that Lucius dropped in himself, not three hours ago. Too bad for you, but you ought to make a fine meal for my friend here," Borgin crowed while gesturing towards the approaching snake. "Oh, and feel free to scream as loudly as you want - this whole room is silenced, so your friends won't even know what's hit 'em until it's too late."
Unfortunately for Borgin, this last comment was proved untrue as the still-concealed Harry quickly cast the same two spells on his target as the old man had put on Bellatrix. Once the old wizard was safely out of commission, Harry removed his invisibility spell as he freed the struggling witch from her binds. Finally turning his attention to the last urgency, Harry brought the snake to a halt in the most expedient manner. Much to Borgin's shock, he hissed, "Stay where you are, little one. The she before you means you no harm."
"If you will wait just a moment, my friend, I will take you where you can eat your fill," Harry answered.
"Even a nice, juicy mouse?"
"As many as you wish."
"Asss you wisssh, Master," the cobra replied while it coiled.
Turning to a now terrified Borgin, Harry smiled coldly at the cowering man as Bellatrix skirted the snake and returned to Harry's side. "Now," Harry purred, "you mentioned that Lucius was out of Azkaban already, did you not? AND that he has already collected the merchandise?" Not giving the bound man the opportunity to answer the rhetorical questions, Harry's tone chilled a few degrees and he ground out, "You're going to tell me everything you know about the artifacts in question, as well as what Lucius plans to do next. And you WILL tell me exactly what I want to know, otherwise I will leave you to the tender mercies of my two friends here." Harry smirked as Bellatrix's grin became positively demented and the cobra, apparently understanding what was going on, slithered to Harry's other side and flared its hood.
The united show of force was enough to loosen Borgin's tongue and he began rattling off disjointed information. After a reprimand (in the form of a barked expletive and a swift kick) from Bellatrix, the man managed to stutter, "Don't hurt me! Lucius... he came in this morning... him and four others took the things and left. Said somethin' about 'taking care of that traitorous bitch' on his way out. Guess she's the one who helped get 'im in Azkaban or somethin'. That's all I know, I swear!"
When Borgin mentioned what Lucius had said, Harry looked at Bellatrix and saw her eyes widen significantly. Harry prudently stunned the weeping man at their feet before laying a hand on Bellatrix's shoulder. "Do you know who he was talking about, Bella?" Harry asked.
"Narcissa, it has to be my sister Narcissa," Bellatrix gasped out. "Several of us were at their manor for dinner one evening a few weeks ago when Kreatcher showed up. He started going on about 'the stupid mutt blood traitor' to Narcissa and Lucius overheard. That's what gave Lucius the idea of using... Sirius... to draw you to the Department of Mysteries. He must be blaming her for the plan's failure. We have to do something!" As she finished the last exclamation, she began to stride over to the stairs. Tightening his grip on her shoulder, Harry pulled her back around to face him.
"I know we do, but barging in there, wands blazing, isn't going to do her - or us - any good," Harry explained. "Let's finish here and get Nymph. We'll come up with a plan to save your sister; I promise. Okay?" Harry reassured.
Visibly deflating, Bellatrix replied, "Okay. But we have to hurry!"
"We will," Harry promised. After ensuring that Borgin was sufficiently restrained, he turned his attention to the waiting cobra. Conjuring several large mice, Harry spoke, "Here you go, my friend. I have one last thing to ask you. Can you watch over this man until one of my other friends arrives to take him? They will be wearing red robes, and will not bother you. If anyone else comes down here, feel free to bite them. Will you do this for me?"
A few moments later, the cobra replied, "As you command, Master."
With the disposition of the crooked shopkeeper arranged, Harry gently pushed Bellatrix towards the stairs. "Let's go, Bella. Our little friend here will guard Borgin until I can get an Auror to come arrest him. Let's go fill Nymph in on the problem."
Climbing the stairs, the two made their way over to Tonks, where Harry quickly explained the situation to the Metamorphamagus. Finishing explaining, Harry said, "So that's the situation. The three ritual implements are currently in the possession of Lucius Malfoy, who is most likely still at Malfoy Manor. Narcissa's life is most likely in jeopardy, and we have no way of knowing how many death eaters Lucius has with him. If we don't act now, the artifacts will be delivered to Voldemort, where we won't be able to retrieve them, and the world as we know it will be destroyed. Any suggestions?"
"Glad to know that there's no pressure," Tonks said sarcastically. "Where can we get some reinforcements?"
Bellatrix looked at her niece and asked incredulously, "Aren't you with Dumbledore's Order? Ask them!"
"It's not as if they have a task force on-hand," Tonks replied. "We could never get enough people assembled for a frontal assault before Malfoy leaves. Maybe we could get some of the Aurors?"
"Not any concrete evidence, Nymph," Harry stated. "Lucius has bought Fudge and several of the high-ranking Ministry officials already. We won't receive any help from that quarter, either. The only solution I see is the stealth approach: the three of us go in, locate Narcissa and the devices, then high-tail it out of there. You've been there recently, Bella. What's the best way to approach?"
"I've always just apparated to the main entrance, since I was always expected. I can tell you that the place is covered in wards to block just about everything, including apparition and portkeys. There's no doubt in my mind that Lucius is keeping them all up to prevent anyone discovering that he's no longer incarcerated." Looking distraught, Bellatrix said, "I don't know how we can get to her before its too late!"
Looking thoughtful for a second, Harry suddenly smiled mischievously. "I think I have a way," he said. "Lucius still keeps house elves, doesn't he?" The apparent non sequitur earned twin confused looks on the women's faces.
A few seconds later, there was a loud pop to signal the arrival of a very hyperactive house elf. "Mr. Harry Potter Sir called for Dobby?" Taking in the surroundings, Dobby asked, "Where is Mr. Harry Potter Sir?"
Realizing that he was still disguised, Harry cancelled the imposed transfiguration and returned his features to normal. "I am Harry, Dobby."
"Why is Mr. Harry Potter Sir here? This is a bad place! And why does Mr. Harry Potter Sir look so different?" the house elf asked.
"Anything for the great wizard Harry Potter. How can Dobby serve?" the elf inquired.
"Well, Dobby, your old master bought some things that will hurt a lot of people, and he is at his home right now. We also think that he intends to harm Narcissa," Harry answered.
"Mistress was always kind to Dobby. Mistress was telling Dobby about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's diary so that Dobby could protect Mr. Harry Potter Sir." Dobby frowned. "Bad man must not hurt mistress! What can Dobby do to help the great wizard Harry Potter?"
"We need a way past the wards and into Malfoy Manor, without being spotted. We also need a way to quietly find where Narcissa and those dangerous things are, and then get out again. Can you help us?" Harry pleaded.
"Dobby can carry Harry Potter and his friends to old master's house. Does Master Harry Potter Sir wish to go now?" the elf asked.
Glancing at both Bellatrix and Tonks and catching their nods, Harry turned back to the waiting house elf and said, "Yes, Dobby, take us there now. And be as quiet as you can! We don't want anyone to know that we're even there."
Dobby's face assumed a look of deep concentration and, with a snap of his fingers, the three humans and one elf found themselves in an old-fashioned bedroom, furnished in a very elaborate manner. Looking to the elf for confirmation, Dobby declared, "Dobby takes you to old, unused guestroom. Mistress's room is one floor above, at the end of the hall. If mistress is not there, mistress is being in the study, three rooms that way," pointing at the wall behind Harry.
Jumping from one foot to the other, Dobby kept looking around him before gazing back at Harry and asking, "How else may Dobby serve, Master Harry Potter Sir?"
Recognizing that the elf was nervous from being in his former home, Harry responded, "That's all. Thank you, Dobby, you may go. But keep an ear open; we may need you to help us escape shortly."
"Yes, Master Harry Potter Sir. Dobby will be waiting." With that said and another snap, the three mages found themselves alone in the room.
Turning away from his inspection of the room, Harry was accosted by two very pointed stares, as well as twin waves of intense curiosity along the part of his mind seemingly occupied with the ladies in question. "I promise that I'll answer any questions that you may have, just as soon as we leave here. Okay?" Harry asked.
"You'd better!" Tonks warned.
Bellatrix just nodded sharply before turning towards the door. She called over her shoulder, "Since this entire floor is rarely used, I think that we should check for Narcissa in the study first, before tackling the next floor. Now, let's go! Since I know the layout, I'm on point."
Exiting the guestroom, the trio made their way silently down the hall towards the study in question, with Harry and Tonks ensuring that no one sneaked up on them from behind. Drawing their wands, both Tonks and Bellatrix were preparing to break down the door and storm the room before Harry gently tapped both of them on their shoulders and signaled for them to allow him forward. Taking a step forward, Harry placed both hands upon the door and began muttering a phrase in Latin. Its purpose quickly became apparent when a section of the door at eye-level became transparent. "One-way mirror," Harry whispered in answer to Tonks' raised eyebrow. Quickly scanning the now-revealed room, the three quickly determined that the study was vacant. "Right then," Harry mumbled, "up we go. After you, Bella," Harry said, motioning for Bellatrix to head towards the stairs. Keeping their progress as quiet as possible, the party arrived at a set of old, spiraled steps. Taking the staircase slowly, the group winced at every creak as they made their way to the floor above them. Reaching the alcove, Bellatrix motioned the other two to remain silent. The reasoning for this was quickly discovered; at the opposite end of the hall, right where Narcissa's bedroom should be, were two familiar Death Eater guards. Stepping back out of view, the three huddled.
"McNair," Tonks breathed angrily.
"And Dolohov," Harry said quietly. "It's just a guess, but I'll bet that Lucius, his friends, the merchandise, and Narcissa are all in there."
"Well, how are we going to tackle them?" Tonks asked. "We can't attack from here; they'll be able to call for help before we take them down. We can't use a disillusionment charm and get closer; all these lights would give us away. I don't suppose either of you brought an invisibility cloak, have you?"
At this, Bellatrix glanced at Harry. Smiling wickedly, Harry said, "I'll be right back." Before Tonks could question him further, Harry once again willed himself invisible and quietly made his way down the hall towards his unsuspecting quarry. Raising an invisible hand and pointing at both Death Eaters, Harry whispered, "Stupefy," and grinned as twin scarlet beams sent the two guards to sleep. Dropping his invisibility spell, Harry motioned for the two witches to approach him. As they were approaching, Harry repeated his earlier spell and installed a one-way viewport into the until-recently guarded door; the revealed scene set his teeth on edge and his blood to boiling. If the sharp glares, murderous expressions, and grinding teeth were any indication, neither Tonks or Bellatrix appreciated the goings-on either. For within what Harry assumed was Narcissa's bedroom, the trio could see Lucius and his son, Draco, standing on either side of a rather large bed. But the part of this scene that really enraged the trio was the sight of a restrained Narcissa lying upon the bed, while her husband, son, and two additional Death Eaters observed her struggles with sadistic glee. From what they could observe, Lucius was taunting her about something.
"Okay," Harry said through gritted teeth, "let's take out the trash." Noticing Bellatrix's barely restrained rage, Harry added, "Try not to kill them; we could use the information." At the two women's sharp nods, Harry finished with, "on three, then."
"One." Both Bellatrix and Tonks stepped to either side of Harry, facing the door with their wands outstretched.
"Two." Readying himself for what might be required to subdue this latest threat, Harry drew his own wand and held it in a tight grip while pointing it directly at the door ahead of them.
"Three." With that, Harry intoned "Pello" and launched the heavy door into the two death eaters that Harry did not recognize, leaving only the two male Malfoys to face the three invaders. Harry took a second to ensure that neither of his projectile's recipients would be joining the fight. While Harry was doing this, Tonks caught the younger Malfoy completely unawares with a Conjunctivitis Curse, which had him falling to the ground in a fetal position while grinding his hands into his eyes and moaning. Before he could even begin to recover from the curse, Tonks had stunned him. Meanwhile, Bellatrix had already launched an assortment of painful hexes and curses in the moment it took Lucius to withdraw his wand from the top of his cane. Luckily for him, he had far better reflexes then his son and managed to spin away from this barrage. He managed to dodge most of the spellwork - until a judicially placed severing charm caught him in his lower leg, splitting his robe and leaving a heavily bleeding gash in the exposed flesh. Grimacing, Lucius narrowed his eyes as he spit out the incantation for the Entrails-Expelling Curse as his leg gave and he collapsed. Quickly casting a shield, Bellatrix blocked the highly damaging spell before it could strike her.
Harry, after securing his Death Eaters, looked up to see that Tonks had the younger Malfoy well in hand. Glancing over to the only duel in progress, he noticed that Lucius was definitely losing to Bellatrix, seeing as how his leg was heavily damaged and Bellatrix was still unharmed. The wound apparently didn't hit anything too vital, as Lucius pulled himself together and retaliated with a spell so malevolent that Harry could sense it from several feet away. Afraid that Bellatrix wouldn't be able to block the dark curse, Harry started to run towards her. His concerns were unfounded, however, as she managed to conjure a sufficiently strong shield that allowed the curse to dispel on its surface. While Harry did not recognize the exact spell used, it was obvious that Bellatrix did, at least if her twisted parody of a smile was any indication. As he reached her side, Harry heard her begin to cast, "Avada Ke-".
Reacting quickly, Harry reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling until her wand was now facing the ground. Turning to face him with a murderous look on her face, Harry answered sharply, "We're not Death Eaters. We're better than that. YOU are better that that!" Clenching her teeth, she repeatedly made and relaxed her fists in an attempt to calm down.
Seeing the opening, Lucius took aim at Bellatrix and shouted "Crucio!" Seeing the blue bolt of energy approaching from the corner of his eye, Harry jumped at Bellatrix and knocked her out of the spell's path. Unfortunately, the unforgivable curse connected with his shoulder and sent Harry to his knees in immeasurable pain. His torment however quickly ended, when twin curses from both Bellatrix and Tonks rendered Lucius unarmed and unconscious.
As one, the two witches grabbed hold of Harry and gently brought him to his feet and steadying him. "Are you okay?" Tonks asked worriedly, while Bellatrix gazed at him with an unreadable expression on her face.
"Just... peachy, Nymph. Give me a second to catch my breath." Swallowing, he continued. "It would probably be a good idea to disarm and bind our friends here. I'd hate for them to wander off," Harry recommended with a weak grin.
As Tonks went around the room summoning their enemies' wands and binding them with a disapparition jinx, Harry turned so that he faced the still-bound form of Narcissa Malfoy and said, "C'mon, Bella, let's go check on your sister." Reaching her bedside, both Harry and Bellatrix could see the terror and confusion in her blue eyes. Realizing that she was still disguised, Bellatrix cancelled Tonk's transfiguration, return her to her own appearance. Moving slowly so as not to frighten her, Harry touched his wand to her bindings and muttered, "Evanesco."
As soon as the ropes vanished, Narcissa jerked her hands up to her face and pulled the gag off. "Bella?" Narcissa questioned. "What's going on? How did you get here?"
"I got free and found out that Lucius was out of Azkaban and coming here," Bellatrix answered hurriedly. "We suspected that he had something planned for you, so we came to get you. Are you okay? Can you stand?"
"I'm okay, Bella. Really!" Narcissa reassured. "He was still gloating about what he was going to do to me when you burst the door down." Shifting her attention to Harry and Tonks, Narcissa asked in a wary tone, "and who is this?" In answer, Tonks cycled her hair through several colors before stopping again on her customary shade of pink. "Nymphadora? Is that you?" Groaning slightly, Tonks nodded. Harry's resulting chuckle brought Narcissa's attention onto himself. Frowning slightly, she cocked her head to the side and asked, "Do I know you?"
Smiling slightly, Harry replied, "We met a couple of years ago at the World Cup." Reaching up and brushing aside his bangs to reveal his world renowned scar, "Harry James Potter, at your service," Harry said finishing with a bow. At this, Narcissa's eyes widened even further as her gaze shifted between her sister, niece, and the boy-who-lived. Extending his hand to help her rise, Harry asked, "Now, are you able to walk? As soon as we pick up something, we do need to be going."
Accepting his hand, Narcissa allowed Harry to pull her to her feet. Quickly steadying herself, she replied, "Walking isn't the problem. I can walk just fine, but I can't leave this house. Believe me, I've tried. Several times."
"And why is that?" Bellatrix asked sharply.
"Because my /master/-" here, Narcissa spat out the obviously forced appellation "-forbade me from leaving the manor without his consent."
"And how could he enforce such a thing?" Tonks asked.
Narcissa opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. Her frustration began to mount as she repeatedly tried - and failed - to communicate some piece of information.
Putting the pieces together, Harry was the first person to voice what Narcissa was unable to say. "Lucius has you under some sort of compelment curse, doesn't he? And then made sure that you could not even speak of it, right?" Narcissa, eyes blazing, gave a choppy affirmative nod.
"But the symptoms of the Imperius Curse are nothing like this!" Tonks protested.
"True, Nymph, but there are several insidious methods of controlling others. The Imperius Curse just happens to be the most popular," Harry mentioned.
"How do we break this... whatever it is?" Bellatrix demanded.
"We have to find out what it is first. I wonder..." Harry trailed off.
"Wonder what?" Tonks questioned.
Ignoring her, he addressed himself to Narcissa. "Do you trust me?"
'Well, this is certainly not how I was expecting this afternoon to go,' Narcissa thought to herself. Not five minutes earlier, her poor excuse for a husband and her even poorer excuse for a son, along with a few unintelligent death eaters, had come bursting into her bed chambers - and she counted her blessings that she even had her own chambers - and had immobilized and restrained her before she could even draw her wand. Her husband then muttered something to a couple of the idiots about standing guard, who stepped out into the hallway and closed the door, leaving Narcissa to face her titular family and two other lackeys that Narcissa recognized from previous occasions.
Her husband stepped forward so that he was looming above her incumbent form. "Well, my dearest Narcissa, as you can see, I am no longer residing in Azkaban; no thanks to you. Before I completed a task for my master, I thought it only appropriate that I stop by to share a revelation that I had during my time there. When I thought about it, I found it a little odd that it was your elf that told us that the boy would run straight to the Ministry without informing anyone if his precious godfather were endangered. And yet, once we apprehend the brat, we find that he brought the old fool and a squad of Aurors! Now, I don't know how you managed to thwart my and my master's wishes plus warn Dumbledore, but such betrayal to the Dark Lord will not be tolerated."
"That thing's not MY lord, you little-" was all Narcissa blurted before Lucius gagged her.
Dropping his thin veneer of civility, Lucius spoke, "Very well, Narcissa. If you will not serve the Dark Lord willingly, we shall force you. Draco!"
"Yes, father?" the Death Eater-in-training asked.
"I think that it is time for you to prove your loyalty to the cause, my son. How about you begin the traitor's chastisement?" Lucius suggested.
"Of course, father," Draco replied. Looking down at the woman who gave him life, he smirked at the resignation and disappointment in her face. Pointing his wand at her chest, he uttered, "Cruc-". However before the unforgivable curse could be cast, the entire room was flung into chaos.
First, the heavily warded door exploded off its hinges and impacted the two lurking Death Eaters that had remained inside the room. Then through the open portal, Narcissa could see three figures rush into the room and then subdue both Lucius and Draco. Before Narcissa could completely come to grips with the situation, her restraints were destroyed and she realized that one of the attackers was her sister, Bellatrix. A quick round of introductions revealed the identities of Bellatrix's companions as none other than their niece, Nymphadora Tonks, and even more surprising was Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived. Potter, who was apparently leading this group, then pulled her to her feet and told her that they had come to rescue her and retrieve something. She tried to explain why she could not leave the manor, how that Lucius had somehow overrode her will with his own, but speaking of it proved to be as impossible as escape itself. However, somehow Potter managed to figure out what she was leaving unsaid. And then he further managed to completely confuse her by asking one simple question. "Do you trust me?"
'Do I TRUST you? I've hardly even met you!' Narcissa thought indignantly. Intending to convey this to him, she raised her gaze to his face to find his eyes staring right back at her.
His intense, emerald eyes.
Even as her mouth had started to form a negative response, Narcissa was struck dumb by what she saw in those jade pools. 'If eyes are the windows to the soul...' she thought to herself. Intellectually, she knew that the wizard she was gazing at was the same age as her failure of a son, and as such, should be just another immature teenager. But as she inspected Potter, she could not help but contradict this assessment. Narcissa could not help but feel how he practically radiated power and authority. Within this rather unassuming shell, Narcissa could sense a great reserve of strength, both in magic and character. The wizard before her seemed a perfect combination of the wise Dumbledore and the younger charismatic Riddle. With that realization, she concluded that this man - as she could not in good conscience refer to him as a boy - would prove either a most loyal ally or a very deadly adversary. As these thoughts swirled through her head, Narcissa knew - in her heart of hearts - that this man really could match the powers of the dark lord and prevail. And with that foremost in her mind, she made her decision.
"Yes, I trust you."
A small smile appear on Potter's face and he said, "Okay. Just relax, and look into my eyes."
Not removing her stare from his, Narcissa could feel another presence within her mind. Unlike the cold intrusion that always accompanied Voldemort's or Lucius's mental attacks, this occurrence was warm and reassuring. Surrendering to it, she felt the warmth spread out and encompass her entire form. In her mind's eye, she saw a glowing nebula of colored light with tendrils snaking to every part of her body. Suppressing a spike of shock, Narcissa realized that she was actually seeing her magical core. Before she could become lost on the tangent of how this was possible, the view altered, showing a dark net encircling her core. This encasement had a single, pitch-black offshoot that radiated malevolence. Trying not to become sick from the sheer wrongness of this alien presence, she observed that the tendril left her body and ended in that of her husband's. Feeling an irritation - no, rage - that was not her own, the view dissolved and she found herself looking at Potter's side profile, who was currently glaring murderously at the unconscious form of Lucius.
After obtaining her permission, Harry dipped into Narcissa's conscious mind, focusing his probe on her inner magical core. Quickly finding his target, he began to search for abnormalities. He quickly detected a dark presence on her otherwise light-oriented core. Seeing the evidence that it originated from Lucius for himself, he began studying this anomaly in an attempt to identify it. A few seconds later, his memory recalled encountering this particular curse once, long ago. Unable to contain a sharp burst of rage at his discovering the exact nature of the spell, Harry quickly severed the link to Narcissa's mind before he harmed her. Turning his full attention to the unprincipled monster lying before him, Harry fought to restrain the raw impulse to completely destroy all traces that the being known as Lucius Malfoy even existed. Engaging his occlumency skills, he siphoned off his rage in order to find a solution to this new problem.
Distantly, Harry heard Bellatrix ask Narcissa if she was alright. A hand laid gently on his shoulder jerked him out of his speculations and he followed it to a worried Tonks. "What is it? How can we dispel it?"
"It's an extremely old spell known as the 'Servus Corpus' or 'Body Slave' curse," Harry answered distractedly. "It differs from the Imperius in three main ways. First, this curse bypasses the mind entirely, binding itself directly to its victim's magical core. Secondly, it was deemed obsolete, since it only affects witches and can only be cast or held by a wizard."
"And third...?" a shaken Narcissa asked.
Swallowing, Harry continued, "Third, unlike the Imperius Curse, which can be broken without harm, severing this curse is fatal to its victim."
Stifling a sob, Narcissa asked, "So that's it? I'm either stuck to him for the rest of my life or die?"
Thinking quickly, he stumbled across a potential solution. Facing her, he attempted to console the distraught witch. "I may have a way out of this for you, but I will not do anything without your complete consent. Okay?" At Narcissa's nod, Harry continued, "I said it could not be broken. But with the caster's willing consent, the bond could be transferred to another. I think that I could offer him something tempting enough for him to turn you loose."
"But what could be tempting enough for Lucius to just let me go? He can buy just about anything that he wants," Narcissa protested.
"Then we offer him something that his money cannot buy him," Harry returned.
"And that is...?" Bellatrix asked.
At Harry's self-depreciating smirk, Tonks suddenly realized what he was suggesting and burst out, "I don't bloody think so! Not on your life, Harry James Potter!"
"C'mon, Nymph. He likes to consider himself honorable. And he's vengeful. If he stood to gain Voldemort's favor for bringing in 'The Harry Potter', not to mention his and his friends' freedom from here, he will be more than willing to gamble that one little request."
"What are you talking about?" Bellatrix asked bewilderedly.
"This self-sacrificing idiot is planning to duel that waste of space over there with his freedom versus Narcissa's as the stakes!" Tonks nearly shouted.
"You would risk your life to save mine?" Narcissa asked softly. "Why would you go to such extremes for a woman you hardly even know?"
"Because I'm a pretty good judge of character, and I don't believe that you deserve this affliction. And, unless one of these two-" Harry nodded towards Bellatrix and Tonks "-have something to share, I'm the only eligible male here. I'll swear on whatever oath you require that I will never violate your free will. If you agree to this at all, that is."
Taking a few moments to consider the alternative - being bound to a malicious monster that would happily torture and kill her - Narcissa readily consented to Harry's plan. "I agree. If you can help, I'll pay whatever you want," she pledged.
Waving the offer away, Harry looked back at a still-irritated Metamorphamagus and said, "It'll be okay, Nymph. I promise. Can I have his wand, please?" Accepting the cane from Tonks, he twisted the top portion and withdrew the polished length of wood hidden in the larger staff. Handing the cane back, Harry strode over towards Lucius and, after verifying that his restraints still held, enervated him.
As soon as the prone man regained consciousness, he quickly took in his condition. The fact that a visibly angry wizard was holding two wands to his unprotected head may have had something to do with his quick perception. "Hello, Lucy. How are you feeling?" Harry asked insincerely.
Uncertain grey eyes looked at him for a moment before comprehension dawned. "Potter," he spat, "how kind of you to visit my home. The Dark Lord will reward me greatly when I present him with you."
Smiling blandly, Harry countered, "Odd. That was the exact reason why I woke you up from your little nap. I have an offer to relieve you of your current predicament," nodding towards his fellow incapacitated Death Eaters and his own restrained condition.
Grinning even wider, Harry answered, "It is quite simple. We duel until one of us is incapacitated. Should you win, you and your friends will be allowed to leave, with me in your custody. I'll even swear a magically binding oath to go along peacefully. As you have mentioned, Voldemort would pay handsomely to finally get one over on me."
Thinking over his options, Lucius continued, "Okay, I'll humor you. Should I choose to do such a thing and you win our little contest, what would you want?"
"Your release of any and all holds over your wife, INCLUDING the 'Servus Corpus'," Harry responded immediately. At Lucius's widened eyes, Harry confirmed smugly, "Yes, I know about your little... project. And, of course, I would require your magically-binding oath to those ends. Do we have an accord?"
Giving the proposal serious thought, Lucius asked, "Let me see if I have this correct. We duel; when I win, you will surrender without a fight?"
"IF you win; IF. And should I win, you will release Narcissa from any and all bonds that may be in force."
Seeing no other way out of his predicament, Lucius agreed. "Very well, Potter, you have a deal. If you would be so kind...?" he motioned towards his injured leg.
"Oh course," Harry continued the faux polite conversation. A murmured spell later and the leg was as good as new. Continuing, Harry said, "As challenger, I have set the terms. What do you choose for weapons?"
Seeing his opponent still holding his wand and suspecting foul play, Lucius saw an opportunity to win his freedom, gain favor from his master, and get in a little revenge all at the same time, Lucius made his decision. "Well, since we've already had that delightful magical duel a few weeks ago with your little friends-" Lucius was inwardly shocked and a little disconcerted that there was no visible reaction on his opponent's face at his comment "-how about we try something a little more interesting?" Smirking, Lucius continued, "I choose sabers. Winner is the first to draw blood from the torso." Nodding his head towards the adjacent wall, Harry followed his lead and saw the Malfoy family crest on the wall, framed by two of the mentioned sabers.
Harry just nodded his head. "Agreed," he said. Keeping his eyes on his opponent, Harry tossed the two wands he held towards the three witches. "Your oath?" Harry prompted.
"I, Lucius Octavius Malfoy, do so swear on my life and magic to abide by the terms and conditions of the duel as mutually agreed." Lifting an inquiring eyebrow, Lucius awaited his opponent's acceptance.
"I, Harry James Potter, do so swear on my life and magic to abide by the terms and conditions of the duel as mutually agreed," Harry answered.
"So mote it be," Lucius finalized.
"So mote it be," Harry repeated. With that said, a bright light flashed into existence around both Lucius and Harry for a split second as the air in the room grew heavy. Just as quickly as it appeared, the light faded and the room cleared, leaving no trace that a magically-binding agreement had been reached. "So," Harry asked, "do you have a place to spar?"
"Why not here?" Lucius countered.
"Fair enough," Harry agreed.
Crossing the room, Lucius retrieved the two mounted sabers from the crest and tossed one of the light swords to Harry, who deftly plucked the sword from the air as it passed him. Attempting to shake up his opponent, Lucius gradually moved closer towards the younger wizard and taunted, "I always enjoyed studying the art of Fence. Did you know that I practiced over four hours a day to master it?"
Smirking, Harry replied, "Truly? I have heard that it takes two lifetimes to master fencing - at the least." His grin became rather predatory. "At least I won't have to spar with an amateur."
Smiling coldly, Lucius responded, "Indeed," and, without warning, bounded towards his adversary. Seeing that the time for flowery courtesies had passed, Harry advanced to meet his opponent's charge, his face void of all expression. As soon as he was within range, Lucius launched a series of vicious blows at Harry's torso more suited for a maiming than the rather innocuous contest he had proposed earlier. Without any visible effort, Harry parried each stroke, completely immobile save his sword arm. Growing furious at the skill of the younger wizard, Lucius began using jabs as well in an attempt to defeat his rival. These, Harry either dodged or deflected, still staying solely defensive. Noticing this, Lucius stepped back and sneered, "What's wrong, Potter afraid to fight back?"
Grinning, Harry replied, "Hardly. I was just giving you a fair chance. But if it's my response you want..." Moving almost too fast for the human eye to track, Harry closed the distance between the two fighters and, using a corkscrew motion with his sword, sent Lucius's sword flying from his hand. A second blur of motion from the blade in Harry's hand and the room's occupants found the tip of a saber gently resting against Lucius's exposed throat.
It took the elder wizard a few moments to realize what just happened before he drew up in defiance. "Well," he bit out, "What are you waiting for?" Raising an eyebrow, Harry glanced down at his opponent's torso. Following his gaze, Lucius saw three lightly bleeding scratches centered on his chest resembling the world-famous scar upon the younger man's forehead.
"By the agreed-upon terms of engagement, I pronounce you defeated and claim what is mine." As soon as the last words left Harry's mouth, a dark tendril, evidence of the malicious control curse, appeared between Lucius's chest and Narcissa's. The strand of darkness began writhing between the two until Lucius's end broke. The broken end of the wisp, as if draw by a magnet, jumped immediately from the defeated man's torso and impacted against the younger wizard. As it came in contact with Harry, two other strands of pure white appeared alongside the relocated tendril and could be traced to the other two witches in the room. As the dark link began to settle down, it too began to change, until it resembled either of the adjacent bonds. Once the new connection stabilized, the three wisps flashed as one and disappeared, leaving one winded witch being supported by her sister and niece, one unconscious Death Eater lying on the floor, and one young wizard with an exceptional migraine in their wake.
Rubbing his forehead to ease the pressure, Harry looked over at the three women. "Are you okay, Narcissa?"
Nodding in reply, she said, "Very much so, Master. For the first time in a long time, I feel free of /him/. Thank you."
Snorting, he said, "Or that! Look, just call me 'Harry'. I'm more or less accustomed to answering to it."
"Very well... Harry. What do we do now?" Narcissa asked.
"Well, first we are going to find whatever packages this idiot picked up from Knockturn Alley. Trust me; you really don't want them to end up in Voldemort's hands. Then we were planning to head towards Hogwarts. There are events in motion of which Dumbledore must be made aware."
With that said, Harry made his back over to the prone form of Lucius Malfoy and, absently summoning both his wand and his fallen enemy's and pocketing them both, began rifling through his robe pockets in search of the artifacts that Borgin had sold him.
"Erm... Harry...?" a subdued Tonks interrupted.
"Yes, Nymph?" he replied while investigating an inner pocket.
"What was that?" she continued.
"What was what?" Harry asked distractedly.
"The whole 'Mask of Zorro' thing," the metamorphamagus answered.
"Oh," Harry replied, "I discovered that I had something of a natural affinity for sword fighting when I was younger and I ended up learning a good bit about fencing in the process." Grinning, he continued, "I guess I should have mentioned that to Lucius earlier... here we go!"
In one of the secret inner pockets of Lucius' robe, Harry found a shrunken crate with the 'Borgin & Burkes' logo emblazoned on its side. Placing it on the ground, he cast 'finite incantatem' on the box, returning it to its normal size. Just in case there was any foul play, Harry magicked the lid off. Looking inside, he could see three separate objects, each in their own compartment. Two of the pieces looked like a broken half of an equilateral triangle, with an irregular cutout along the break line. Along the intact borders is some script that Harry was unable to identify. The third piece, a large sapphire gem, apparently fit into the cutout when the triangle was assembled. All three pieces positively radiated malice, and Harry could feel slightly sick just looking at them. Making a note to discover why someone went to such lengths to keep the pieces separate, Harry replaced the lid, re-shrunk the trunk, and placed it in his pocket. Turning around, he saw that his female acquaintances were also feeling a little queasy, going by the pale expressions on their faces and disquiet that he could feel floating along their bonds.
"What were those things?" Narcissa asked in a sick voice.
"Those 'things' are some artifacts that Bella warned us about. I think it's safe to say that they have some connection to Voldemort's plans for new recruits. Though I'm not an expert on demonology. Let's finish up here and get out. The sooner we get to Hogwarts, the sooner we can plan our next move."
"Okay," Tonks said bravely, "What now?"
Thinking for a second, Harry decided on a course of action. "Well, we need to gather up any other potential hazardous dark arts memorabilia that Lucius might have stashed around here. We can't afford for Voldemort to get any more help. Then we really should take these escaped prisoners back into custody," Harry mused.
"But they'll just escape from Azkaban again, either on their own or with their master's help. You know very well that the Ministry can't stop him," Bellatrix put in.
"True, Bella, but I didn't say we were going to turn them over to the Ministry, now did I?" Harry questioned while smiling innocently.
"Then what are you going to do to them?" Narcissa questioned.
"Well..." Harry drawled out, "I was thinking that Hogwarts had several unused dungeons, so..." He trailed off, but his intent was clear to all who heard him.
"Harry," Tonks said gently, as if talking to a small child, "you can't keep them imprisoned against their will, even if they do deserve it. It's illegal."
"It's okay; Nymph," Harry replied flippantly, "what they don't know won't hurt me. Besides," here, he smirked devilishly, "history is written by the victors. If we win, it will just be one more unpleasant but necessary course of action to win the war. If we lose... well," Harry shrugged, "I doubt any of us will really care at that point then, will we?"
Apparently deciding not to press the issue, Tonks acquiesced. "Okay, then. How do you propose to transport them all out of here?"
Harry looked deep in thought about the issue before he suddenly burst out laughing. Startled, the three witches looked at him with worried countenances. "I'm okay," he finally choked out, "it's just that Hermione gave me a solution for just this problem over a year ago. Just wait; you'll love this..." Absently flicking his hand, the other five stunned bodies flew through the air and dropped into a heap alongside Lucius. Pointing at the heap of Death Eaters, Harry spoke, "vicissitude maggot". Once the spell made contact, the six stunned humans quickly transformed into six stunned maggots. Another gesture sent the newly-formed insects into a conjured glass jar. This Harry pocketed while chuckling under his breath. Turning around, he met a variety of reactions ranging from amused (Bellatrix) to disgusted (Tonks) to somewhere in between (Narcissa).
"Harry..." Tonks moaned, "did you have to choose maggots? Could you not come up with any other creature to transfigure?"
"Well," Harry admitted, "I suppose that I could have, but you have to admit that the whole larval insect thing is at least a little funny."
Tonks just stared at him for a few moments before shaking her head and muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "boys will be boys."
Quickly scanning the room for anything they left behind and not finding anything, Harry turned his attention back to the three waiting ladies and said, "Well, that's just about everything here. Let's go pick up dear Lucius's other toys and we can be gone." Smiling widely, he continued, "Narcissa, I've heard such lovely things about your drawing room. Shall we go inspect it?"
Matching his grin with one of hers, she said, "Of course, Harry. Right this way." Unfortunately, neither the wizard nor the three witches happened to glance behind them as they vacated the room and headed down the hallway. Had they done so, they might have noticed a shape dart out from underneath the wardrobe against the far wall.
It was a shape that looked suspiciously like a large rat with a silvery paw.
A/N: Sorry, people. As I've mentioned in my profile, real life caught up with me a few months ago, and I was unable to stay with the fan fic writing scene. This story will NOT be discontinued. To aid in communication regarding this and other works of mine, I have created a Yahoo group. The URL is in my profile. Thank you for reading.
I would also like to thank Yenom for his work on proofing this chapter, as well as the VERY helpful comments from cj-cold, Dragon Sword Master, FlameofShadows, and Alen. Those were fragments from previous versions that I missed prior to posting. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
ROBERT TODD HADDOX
v.
STACY STEELE HADDOX
No. 2008 CU 2425
Court of Appeals of Louisiana, First Circuit.
August 24, 2009
Not Designated for Publication
NANCY SUE GREGORIE, Attorney for Plaintiff-Appellee, Robert Todd Haddox.
CHRISTOPHER T. CASCIO, Attorney for Defendant-Appellant, Stacy Steele Haddox.
Before: PARRO, KUHN, GUIDRY, McCLENDON, and WELCH, JJ.
WELCH, J.
In this dispute concerning child custody and child support, the defendant, Stacy Haddox, challenges a judgment of the trial court that failed to designate a domiciliary parent and that found she was voluntarily underemployed for purposes of calculating child support. The plaintiff, Robert Todd Haddox, has answered the appeal with regard to the trial court's refusal to designate a domiciliary parent and its order that the parties mediate all disputed issues between them. For reasons that follow, we reverse in part and affirm in part the judgment of the trial court and remand for further proceedings. We also grant in part the answer to the appeal.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Robert Todd Haddox and Stacy Haddox were married on November 22, 1997, and during their marriage, three children were born. On October 5, 2006, Robert filed a petition for divorce, seeking, among other things, that he be awarded joint custody of the minor children, that he be designated as the children's domiciliary parent, and that he be awarded child support. On November 6, 2006, Stacy filed an answer and reconventional demand, also requesting that the parties be awarded joint custody of the children, that she be designated as the children's domiciliary parent, and that she be awarded child support.
On December 5, 2006, the parties entered into a consent judgment that provided, among other things, that the parties would be awarded joint custody of the minor children and would share physical custody equally. Additionally, although Robert was ordered to pay child support in the amount of $933.00 per month, retroactive to November 6, 2006, the judgment provided that if Stacy received any disability payments, child support would be recalculated, retroactive to November 6, 2006, to include the disability sums awarded to her. A domiciliary parent was not designated in the consent judgment. Subsequently, in April 2007, Stacy was awarded social security disability payments.
On January 30, 2008, and March 10, 2008, a trial on the issues of the designation of domiciliary parent and the recalculation of child support was held. After evidence was introduced and the matter submitted, the trial court rendered judgment maintaining the award of joint custody of the children, with the parents sharing equal physical custody of the children, and declining to designate a domiciliary parent. Additionally, the trial court ordered that for each and every decision with respect to the minor children on which they could not agree, the parties were to mediate the issue to conclusion. With respect to child support, the trial court ordered that additional information with respect to Stacy's income be provided to it within fourteen days, and thereafter, it would determine her income for purposes of calculating child support.
On March 13, 2008, the trial court rendered judgment finding that child support would be based on Stacy's 2003 monthly gross income rather than her social security disability payments.[1] A written judgment in accordance with the trial court's rulings on all issues was signed on June 16, 2008. From this judgment, Stacy has appealed, and Robert has answered the appeal.
II. ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
On appeal, Stacy Haddox contends that the trial court erred in: (1) failing to name her as the domiciliary parent and (2) finding that she was voluntarily underemployed and imputing income to her for the purpose of calculating child support because (a) her underemployment was through no fault or neglect on her part and (b) she was caring for a child of the parties under the age of five years.
In Robert's answer to the appeal, he contends that: (1) the trial court erred in refusing to designate a domiciliary parent, (2) it is in the best interest of the minor children that he be designated as the domiciliary parent, and (3) the trial court abused its discretion by ordering the parties to mediate every issue to conclusion, effectively prohibiting them from returning to court.
III. LAW AND DISCUSSION
A. Domiciliary Parent
1. Standard of Review
A trial court's determination of child custody is entitled to great weight and will not be reversed on appeal unless an abuse of discretion is clearly shown. R.J. v. M.J., 2003-2676, p. 4 (La. App. 1st Cir. 5/14/04), 880 So.2d 20, 23. However, in this case, as in most custody cases, the trial court's determination not to designate a domiciliary parent was based heavily on factual findings. As an appellate court, we cannot set aside a trial court's factual findings unless we determine that there is no reasonable factual basis for the findings and that the findings are clearly wrong or manifestly erroneous. See R.J., 2003-2676 at p. 5, 880 So.2d at 23. If a court of appeal determines that the trial court committed a reversible error of law or manifest error of fact, the court of appeal must ascertain the facts de novo from the record and render judgment on the merits. LeBlanc v. Stevenson, XXXX-XXXX, p. 3 (La. 10/17/00), 770 So.2d 766, 770. However, where a view of the witnesses is essential to a fair resolution of conflicting evidence, the case should be remanded for a new trial. Jones v. Black, 95-2530 (La. 6/28/96), 676 So.2d 1067 (per curiam).
2. Louisiana Revised Statutes 9:335
Louisiana Revised Statutes 9:335 governs joint custody arrangements and it provides as follows:
A. (1) In a proceeding in which joint custody is decreed, the court shall render a joint custody implementation order except for good cause shown.
(2)(a) The implementation order shall allocate the time periods during which each parent shall have physical custody of the child so that the child is assured of frequent and continuing contact with both parents.
(b) To the extent it is feasible and in the best interest of the child, physical custody of the children should be shared equally.
(3) The implementation order shall allocate the legal authority and responsibility of the parents.
B. (1) In a decree of joint custody the court shall designate a domiciliary parent except when there is an implementation order to the contrary or for other good cause shown.
(2) The domiciliary parent is the parent with whom the child shall primarily reside, but the other parent shall have physical custody during time periods that assure that the child has frequent and continuing contact with both parents.
(3) The domiciliary parent shall have authority to make all decisions affecting the child unless an implementation order provides otherwise. All major decisions made by the domiciliary parent concerning the child shall be subject to review by the court upon motion of the other parent. It shall be presumed that all major decisions made by the domiciliary parent are in the best interest of the child.
C. If a domiciliary parent is not designated in the joint custody decree and an implementation order does not provide otherwise, joint custody confers upon the parents the same rights and responsibilities as are conferred on them by the provisions of Title VII of Book I of the Civil Code.
Subsection B of this statute expresses a legislative preference and intent that courts deciding joint custody matters select a parent with whom the child is to primarily reside: "In a decree of joint custody the court shall designate a domiciliary parent." Wolfe v. Hanson, XXXX-XXXX, p. 5 (La. App. 1st Cir. 5/2/08), 991 So.2d 13, 17, writ denied, XXXX-XXXX (La. 6/27/08), 983 So.2d 1292. The domiciliary parent has legal authority "to make all decisions affecting the child," subject to judicial review "upon motion of the other parent." Id. Louisiana Revised Statutes 9:335 provides for only two circumstances in which a court may decline to name a domiciliary parent in a joint custody context when: (1) "there is an implementation order to the contrary" or (2) "for other good cause shown." Wolfe, XXXX-XXXX at pp. 5-6, 991 So.2d at 17.
In this case, the trial court did not name a domiciliary parent. On appeal, both Stacy and Robert contend that the trial court erred in failing to designate a domiciliary parent. Thus, on review, we must inquire whether the facts of this case support either of the above statutory exceptions.
An "implementation order to the contrary" must meet the requirements set forth in La. R.S. 9:335(A) by specifically allocating (1) physical custody times for each parent and (2) "the legal authority and responsibility of the parents." Wolfe, XXXX-XXXX at p. 6, 991 So.2d at 17. If, however, the joint custody decree neither designates a domiciliary parent nor provides otherwise in an implementation order that allocates the legal authority and responsibility of the parents, the second potential exception of subsection (B)(1) must be met: "good cause" must be shown for the court's decision not to assign a domiciliary parent. Id. This is echoed by subsection (A)(1), which requires the court to render a joint custody implementation order "except for good cause shown." Id.
Although La. R.S. 9:335 does not define "good cause," good cause should be supported by facts in the record. See Wolfe, XXXX-XXXX at p. 6, 991 So.2d at 17 and Walker v. Walker, 38,982, pp. 7-8 (La. App. 2nd Cir. 8/18/04), 880 So.2d 956, 961-962 (a trial court's given reasons for not naming a domiciliary parent amounted to an "open-ended conclusion" based on the trial court's "comfort level" and did not reach the standard of "good cause shown").
After a thorough review of the record in this matter, we conclude that the joint custody arrangement in this matter does not conform to the requirements of La. R.S. 9:335. As the trial court specifically opted not to designate a domiciliary parent, either a valid implementation order to the contrary must have been provided by the trial court or "good cause" not to name a domiciliary parent must have been shown. Neither the trial court's judgment nor its reasons for judgment allocates the legal authority and responsibility of the parents. Therefore, there is no valid implementation order in this matter and the requirements of this exception are not met.
With regard to the second exception, the trial court found that good cause existed not to name a domiciliary parent. Specifically, in its reasons for judgmentboth oral and writtenthe trial court stated that both parents had shown an unwillingness to cooperate with each other, to facilitate a relationship between the children and the other parent, and would "use domiciliary status as a weapon" against the other parent. In support of its decision, the trial court relied on Miller v. Miller, XXXX-XXXX (La. App. 3rd Cir. 10/31/01), 799 So.2d 753 and Brewer v. Brewer, 39,647 (La. App. 2nd Cir. 3/2/05), 895 So.2d 745.
After reviewing the Miller decision, we find the trial court's reliance on it is misplaced. In the trial court's oral reasons for judgment, it stated that under the Miller decision, "it is not necessary that a domiciliary parent be named in a joint custody implementation plan even where it is clear that the parents will likely disagree on important decisions about the children, such as recreational activity, school issues, and discipline." However, we do not find that Miller stands for this proposition. In fact, a careful review of the entire Miller decision reveals that the third circuit specifically found that it was necessary to designate a domiciliary parent where the parents involved had extreme animosity and failed to effectively communicate with each other. In ruling that a domiciliary parent should have been named, the court stated:
It appears that [the mother and father's] relationship has been marked with charges and countercharges of drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, neglect, physical abuse, emotional abuse and violence.... It is foreseeable, due to [the mother and father's] inability to communicate, that the children will be subject to differing rules every six weeks. ... Such circumstances will not foster the children's best interests. Although it is not necessary that a domiciliary parent be named in a joint custody implementation plan where it is clear that the parents will likely disagree on important decisions about the children, such as recreational activity, school issues and discipline, as in this case, a domiciliary parent should have been named.
Miller, XXXX-XXXX at pp. 8-9, 799 So.2d at 758-759. (Emphasis added.)
Thus, while the court in Miller acknowledged that a domiciliary parent need not always be named, it did not find that "good cause" existed for failing to name a domiciliary parent where the parents involved have demonstrated significant animosity towards one another.
With regard to the trial court's use of the Brewer decision, we note that this court, in Wolfe, examined both the Miller and the Brewer decisions and specifically rejected the reasoning of the second circuit in Brewer. In Wolfe, this court noted that in Brewer, the second circuit found that a court's determination that the parties are unable to communicate effectively with each other regarding issues concerning the child may constitute good cause for refusing to designate a domiciliary parent. However, this court also noted, citing the Miller case, that the contrary may also be truedissention between the parents dictates adherence to the statutory normi.e., the designation of a domiciliary parent. See Wolfe, XXXX-XXXX at p. 8, 991 So.2d at 18.
In Wolfe, the mother was initially named the domiciliary parent of the child. Following their divorce, the father sought a modification of the custody arrangement, which the trial court granted by removing the designation of the mother as the domiciliary parent and choosing not to designate a domiciliary parent. The trial court, in its reasons for judgment, stated that the failure of the parents to effectively communicate was a significant factor in its decision not to appoint a domiciliary parent. The trial court also stated that it was concerned that if one of the parties were designated as the domiciliary parent, the "winner/loser" dynamic would continue to exist and be played out between the parties to the detriment of the child.
In reversing the trial court's decision not to name a domiciliary parent, this court in Wolfe, following the reasoning of the third circuit in Miller (rather than the reasoning of the second circuit in Brewer), stated:
Without a domiciliary parent, an agreement must be reached between [the father] and [the mother] on each and every important decision regarding [the child]. The trial court acknowledged that [the father] and [the mother] had failed to effectively communicate in the past. In fact, their "heated arguments" have led to police involvement. We do not believe it to be in the best interest of the child to invite confrontation each and every time an important decision is necessitated. Disagreement and conflict between [the child's] parents will lead more likely to deadlock and further strife than to a stable environment for [the child] as he prepares to begin school. It is a reality that immediate decisions will need to be made regarding a child. School and medical emergencies will arise that will require immediate action and the history of these two parents' inability to cooperate evidences the necessity of a domiciliary parent or order allowing one to make the decision.
Wolfe, XXXX-XXXX at p. 9, 991 So.2d at 18-19.
Like the parties in the Wolfe case, in this case, the trial court found, and we agree, that Stacy and Robert have severe animosities toward one another and have a history of demonstrating inappropriate conduct towards one another in front of their children. The trial court's finding in this regard is supported by testimony establishing that Robert refused to allow Stacy to visit with the children on Mother's Day and Robert's admission that he occasionally cursed Stacy in front of their children. It is also supported by Stacy's admission that she "keyed" Robert's car, that she dumped a beer on him in a public restaurant, and that she told their children that she was going to have their father killed. The trial court viewed this animosity between the parents as a justifiable basis for not naming a domiciliary parent.
Without a domiciliary parent, an agreement must be reached between Stacy and Robert on each and every important decision regarding their children. However, the animosity between Stacy and Robert, along with their history of being unable to cooperate, evidences the necessity of designating a domiciliary parent or rendering an implementation order allowing one to make the decision. Thus in this case, we do not find a reasonable basis in the record to support the conclusion that "good cause" exists not to name a domiciliary parent. Accordingly, we find that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to name a domiciliary parent in this matter, and we hereby reverse that portion of the June 16, 2008 judgment. We remand this matter for the trial court to determine which parent should be designated as the domiciliary parent and/or for the entry of an implementation order allocating the legal authority and responsibilities of the parents. See La. R.S. 9:335(A) and (B).
B. Child Support
The Louisiana child support guidelines set forth the method for implementation of the parental obligation to pay child support. See La. R.S. 9:315.1(A). To apply the guidelines, the court must initially determine the gross income of the parties. See La. R.S. 9:315.2(A). Income means the actual gross income of a party, if the party is employed to full capacity. La. R.S. 9:315(C)(5)(a). Income also means the potential income of a party, if the party is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed; in such a case, his gross income shall be determined as set forth in La. R.S. 9:315.11. See La. R.S. 9:315(C)(5)(b) and 9:315.2(B). If a party is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, child support shall be calculated based on a determination of his or her income earning potential (rather than actual gross income), unless the party is caring for a child of the parties under the age of five years. La. R.S. 9:315.11. A party shall not be deemed voluntarily unemployed or underemployed if he or she is absolutely unemployable or incapable of being employed, or if the unemployment or underemployment results through no fault or neglect of the party. La. R.S. 9:315(C)(5)(b).
Voluntary unemployment or underemployment for purposes of calculating child support is a question of good faith on the obligor-spouse. Romanowski v. Romanowski, XXXX-XXXX, p. 6 (La. App. 1st Cir. 2/23/04), 873 So.2d 656, 660. In virtually every case where a parent's voluntary unemployment or underemployment was found to be in good faith, courts have recognized extenuating circumstances beyond that parent's control which influenced or necessitated the voluntary change in employment. Id. Whether a spouse is in good faith in ending or reducing his or her income is a factual determination that will not be disturbed absent manifest error. Romanowski, XXXX-XXXX at p. 8, 873 So.2d at 662. With regard to the factual findings made by the trial court in determining an award of child support, appellate review of such factual findings is subject to the manifest error/clearly wrong standard of review. Id.
On appeal, Stacy contends that the trial court erred in finding that she was voluntarily underemployed and in imputing income to her in the amount of $2,540.00 per month for the purpose of calculating child support. Specifically, Stacy contends that her underemployment or unemployment was not due to her own fault or neglect, and therefore, she should not be deemed underemployed. Alternatively, she contends that even if she is found to be voluntarily underemployed, the trial court erred in finding that she was voluntarily underemployed for the purpose of calculating child support during those periods of time that she has physical custody of their youngest child, who is under the age of five.[2]
According to the evidence in the record, Stacy's gross income from 2003 was $30,483.49 or $2,540.29 per month. However, Stacy testified that she is not currently earning any income and that she is unable to work due to severe back pain and numbness in her legs. She explained that in March 2004, following the birth of her third child, she had surgery on her back to correct a tethered spinal cord. Following her surgery, Stacy went back to work for a short period of time at Link Staffing performing sales work. Stacy claimed that she was fired from that job because she was no longer able to get in and out of her car because of her back pain. However, Stacy admitted that she did not look for any further employment following her termination with Link Staffing, and that Robert and she decided she would not return to work because it would not have been monetarily feasible for her to work, considering the costs of daycare, gas, and work clothes.
In 2007, Stacy became eligible for social security disability payments in the amount of $796 per month, and in April 2007, she also received a lump sum payment from social security for back payments in the amount of $20,000. Thus, Stacy contends that she is in good faith with regard to her alleged voluntary unemployment because it did not result through her fault or neglect.
However, the record also reveals that Stacy has been able to travel to various establishments and participate in many costly activities since her surgery. She admitted that she gambles and is a card holder at four gaming establishments located from 20 minutes to 1 hour and 45 minutes from her home. While she claims that she does not personally drive to these casinos, she does gamble upon arrival. Regarding the feasibility of Stacy working after the birth of their third child and maintaining the cost of daycare, Robert testified that they would have been able to afford the cost of daycare for all of the children. Furthermore, after Stacy was terminated from her employment, Stacy enrolled the child in BREC daycare.
When evaluating claims of unemployment due to medical reasons, courts often look to specific medical evidence or testimony indicating that the person is unable to work before finding that a party is unemployed through no fault or neglect of their own. In Wyatt v. Wyatt, 39,518 (La. App. 2nd Cir. 4/6/05), 899 So.2d 788, the court found that the father's retirement from work was voluntary and not due to medical reasons. Although evidence was submitted to the court from a treating physician stating that the father had lower back pain which limited some of his daily activities and work, the physician did not state that the father was unable to work, nor did he state that the father had to retire due to medical reasons. Wyatt, 39,518 at pp. 6-7, 899 So.2d at 792. Furthermore, the evidence submitted showed that the father did retain work as a substitute teacher after his retirement. Thus, the court found that the father was not unemployable or unable to work.
After considering all of the evidence, the trial court determined that it would use Stacy's gross income from her 2003 W-2, instead of the amount of her current monthly social security disability benefit. Inherent in the trial court's ruling in this regard was a finding that Stacy was voluntarily underemployed and that child support would be calculated based on her income earning potentialspecifically, that which she was previously able to earn prior to her voluntary unemployment (her 2003 gross income). Based on our review of the record, we do not find that the trial court manifestly erred in determining that Stacy was voluntarily unemployed or in imputing income to her in the amount of $2,540.00 per month for the purpose of calculating child support. Although Stacy testified that she is not able to work because of her back pain and leg numbness, she did not offer any medical evidence or testimony establishing that her condition rendered her unemployable or unable to work. While she has not retained employment since her termination from Link Staffing, she admitted that she has not attempted to look for any employment. Furthermore, the testimony established that despite her back pain and numbness, she has been able to travel and sufficiently move around since the surgery. Thus, we find no merit to her contention that her unemployment was through no fault or neglect of her own.
However, we do find merit in Stacy's contention that the trial court erred in finding that she was voluntarily unemployed for the purpose of calculating child support during those periods of time that she has physical custody of their youngest child, who is under the age of five. The clear meaning of La. R.S. 9:315.11 is that the income earning potential of a party who is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed will not be considered in the calculation of child support if that party is caring for a child of the parties under the age of five years. Romanowski, XXXX-XXXX at p., 873 So.2d at 662. Where the parties share equal physical custody of the children, a reasonable interpretation of La. R.S. 9:315.11 would limit its application, such that a custodial parent would only be deemed unemployable for fifty percent of the month; in other words, "caring" would not be undertaken on a fulltime basis. Romanowski, XXXX-XXXX at p. 9, 873 So.2d at 663.
In this case, the parties initially agreedand the trial court subsequently orderedthe parties to share equal physical custody of their minor children. One of their children was under the age of five at the time Stacy initially requested child support and at the time of the trial of this matter. However, when the trial court ordered that Stacy's 2003 income be used to calculate child support due to her voluntary underemployment, it did not exclude the period of time in which she was caring for and had actual physical custody of the child of the parties that was under the age of five.
Robert contends that La. R.S. 9:315.11 is not applicable to this case because Stacy does not actually "care" for her minor child, since the child is in daycare and since Stacy takes numerous medications throughout the day. However, we have not found, nor have we been directed to, any authority suggesting that the phrase "caring for a child" as written in La. R.S. 9:315.11 would not include time in which the child is under the physical custody of a parent, yet is in daycare or school. While the child may be in daycare during the day, Stacy is still primarily responsible for the care of that child while in her physical custody. Furthermore, the testimony at trial indicated that the minor child under five had only been enrolled in the BREC daycare since August 2007. With regard to Stacy's use of prescription medication, we can find no evidence in the record establishing that her medication prevents her from caring for the children. Accordingly, we find that the trial court erred in imputing income to Stacy for that period of time that she has physical custody of and is caring for a child of the parties under the age of five years. We hereby remand this matter to the trial court for a recalculation of child support using Stacy's income earning potential, adjusted to exclude the period of time for which she has physical custody of and is caring for a child of the parties under the age of five. However, in its recalculation of child support, the trial court should also consider the actual income received from social security by Stacy during the period of time in which she has physical custody of and is caring for a child of the parties under the age of five. See La. R.S. 9:315(C)(3)(a).
C. Mediation
Lastly, in this case, the judgment of the trial court provided:
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED for each and every decision with respect to the minor children that the parties can not agree on, the parties are to mediate the issue to conclusion. Lorraine McCormick is appointed...as mediator in this case and she is to mediate all major decisions between the parties on which they can not agree.
Robert contends that the trial court abused its discretion in ordering the parties to mediate every issue to conclusion. We agree.
Generally, the power and duty to adjudicate disputes concerning child custody and visitation is vested with the district court. See Edwards v. Edwards, 99-994, p. 3 (La. App. 3rd Cir. 12/22/99), 755 So.2d 331, 334.
However, we are not aware of, nor have the parties or the trial court directed us to any authority that allows or provides for the trial court to effectively prohibit the parties from returning to court on issues of child custody. Rather, we find such an order is contrary to the best interests of the children, as it could prohibit the parties from obtaining a quick and meaningful solution to a dispute concerning important or even emergency decisions with respect to the children.
Furthermore, while we understand the trial court's concern that the parties might "use the court as a forum to make decisions for the children," we note that the trial court's concern in this regard would have been eliminated if it had simply designated a domiciliary parent or otherwise set forth, in a joint custody implementation plan, the legal authority and responsibility of the parents. Therefore, absent any statutory or jurisprudential authority for ordering mediation of all disputes to conclusion, we must conclude that the trial court erred in doing so.
Accordingly, the portion of the June 16, 2008 judgment of the trial court that ordered the parties to mediate every issue upon which they disagree to conclusion is hereby reversed.
IV. CONCLUSION
For all of the above and foregoing reasons, the June 16, 2008 judgment of the trial court is hereby reversed, insofar as it failed to designate a domiciliary parent and ordered the parties to mediate disputes between them to conclusion. The judgment is also reversed insofar as it found that Stacy Haddox was voluntarily underemployed during the periods of time that she has physical custody of and is caring for a child of the parties under the age of five. This matter is hereby remanded to the trial court for the designation of a domiciliary parent or the rendering of an implementation order allocating the legal authority and responsibilities of the parents and for a recalculation of child support in accordance with the views expressed in this opinion. In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.
All costs of this appeal are assessed equally between the parties.
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS; AND ANSWER TO APPEAL GRANTED IN PART.
GUIDRY, J., dissenting in part.
I believe the majority errs in holding that the trial court only erred in part in finding Stacy voluntarily unemployed "for that period of time that she has physical custody of and is caring for a child of the parties under the age of five years." By its plain wording, La. R.S. 9:315.11 provides that "[i]f a party is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, child support shall be calculated based on a determination of his or her income earning potential ... unless the parry is caring for a child of the parties under the age of five years." There is no stated limitation in the statute or in any of the other child support articles to the exception provided in La. R.S. 9:315.11 for finding a party voluntarily unemployed or underemployed. Yet, through the guise of statutory interpretation, the majority has decreed a limitation to the application of the exception by holding that a party can still be found voluntarily unemployed or underemployed for that period of time that the parent does not have physical custody of the child. If such an application was intended by the Legislature, it could easily have so provided, and more importantly, it is the province of the Legislature to do so. So, in the absence of any legislative authority for the holding reached by the majority on the issue of Stacy's voluntary unemployment, I must respectfully dissent in part on that issue.
McCLENDON, J., dissents in part and assigns reasons.
Although I agree with the majority that this matter should be remanded for the determination of a domiciliary parent or for the entry of an implementation order, I disagree with the affirmance of the trial court's finding that Stacy was voluntarily unemployed for purposes of calculating child support.
Louisiana Revised Statutes 9:315.11A provides, in pertinent part: "If a party is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, child support shall be calculated based on a determination of his or her income earning potential, unless the party is physically or mentally incapacitated, or is caring for a child of the parties under the age of five years." (Emphasis added.) I disagree with the majority's statement that a reasonable interpretation of LSA-R.S. 9:315.11 makes it applicable oniy 50% of the time in this case, because the parties share equal custody of the children. According to the majority, LSA-R.S. 9:315.11 does not apply when the other parent has physical custody of a child less than five years of age. This automatic prorata reduction, when there is a child under the age of five, for the period of time that the other parent has physical custody is an illogical and erroneous application of the clear language of the statute and creates a tortured child support formula. Further, to the extent that Romanowski v. Romanowski, 03-0124 (La.App. 1 Cir. 2/23/04), 873 So.2d 656, supports the majority's position, I believe it is incorrect.
KUHN, J., concurring.
While I agree with the majority's order of a remand, I write separately to clarify that the record overwhelmingly supports the trial court's conclusion that there is a great deal of animosity between the parties in this case. Because of this finding, equal sharing of custody and shared decision making by the parents simply is not in the best interest of the children. To facilitate resolution of the issues between the parties, the trial court should not only decide on an implementation plan but also should determine in whose physical custody the children should be placed. A visitation plan should be fashioned that fosters and insures a viable child-parent relationship for each parent with each child. Once the implementation plan is created, a change of circumstances necessarily has occurred, thus, allowing Stacy the opportunity to present evidence of her disability and requiring the trial court to revisit the issue of the voluntariness of her unemployment. Indeed, the entire issue of child support should be revisited by the trial court. Lastly, based on this court's interpretation of La. R.S. 9:315.11 in Romanowski v. Romanowski, XXXX-XXXX, p. 9 (La. App. 1st Cir. 2/23/04), 873 So.2d 656, 663,1 must concur in the adjustment of child support to exclude the period of time Stacy had physical custody and was caring for the child that was under the age of five.
NOTES
[1] Based on the trial court's ruling in this regard, the parties entered into a stipulation providing that Robert would pay child support in the amount of $452.00 per month, retroactive to November 6, 2006.
[2] The youngest child was born on February 3, 2004.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | FreeLaw |
Q:
How to add Multiple column value?
Picture is of table in the database
I have to query drivers who have covered more than 430,000 miles between January 2010 to December 2012.
For which i am trying
SELECT t.DRIVERID
FROM BBI_BC.TRUCKS t
WHERE t.JAN_2010_MILES + t. FEB_2010_MILES + .....+ t.DEC_2012_MILES > 43000;
A:
So the question is, how to avoid typing all those columns in the WHERE clause. The answer is you can't. The designer of that table opted to ignore the well-established industry standard rules of database normalization. Find out more. Why they did that is irrelevant: the upshot is that everybody who queries the table has to write tedious and hard-to-maintain queries.
There is the option of dynamic query generation: run this query, then cut'n'paste the output into your WHERE clause:
select ' + t.' || column_name
from all_tab_columns
where owner = 'BBI_BC'
and table_name = 'TRUCKS'
and (column_name like '%2010_MILES'
or column_name like '%2011_MILES'
or column_name like '%2012_MILES')
order by column_id;
I suspect this is a homework question. It is important that you realise that the true lesson is: data modelling is very important and denormalisation is Teh Suck!
Even the way the table's columns have been named is poor: it would be better if they were named MILES_2010_01, MILES_2010_02 etc, because at least then you could have written the dynamic query as
where column_name between 'MILES_2010_01' and 'MILES_2012_12'
With a properly modelled table - that is, with records for each month and just two columns for MONTHLY_MILES and MONTHLY_GAS - the query would look like this:
SELECT t.DRIVERID
FROM BBI_BC.TRUCKS t
WHERE t.year between 2010 and 2012
group by t.driverid having sum(t.monthly_miles) >43000
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
A Manhattan lawmaker is claiming that a pair of swastikas carved in his Greenwich Village apartment building is linked to Donald Trump’s controversial choice of chief strategist. Democratic state Sen.... | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Pioneers men make big strides from last year
Doug Murphy can see the improvement of his cross country teammates at Anne Arundel Community College.
Directly over his right shoulder.
"I like the fact that if I look back, I can see at least one of our guys right behind me," said Murphy, a 1990 Broadneck High graduate who will lead the Pioneers men's team in the district championships Saturday at Hagerstown.
"It makes me run harder."
He rarely spotted a familiar face last season, when the program at Anne Arundel hit the comeback trail after disbanding for five years. While the Pioneers women's team placed second in the Region XX meet and took four runners to the nationals, Murphy was the ray of light on the men's side.
But one year has brought a sunnier outlook. The Pioneers are expected to battle Essex -- a team they went 1-1 against this season -- for the District II title. They are ranked third in the state behind Hagerstown -- "which is head and shoulders above everyone else," said Anne Arundel coach Jim Fontaine -- and Montgomery-Rockville.
"It's great to go to meets and you see other coaches looking out for our team," Murphy said.
They have a wide variety of runners to account for, each having made remarkable strides since the beginning of the year.
Murphy is one of five Pioneers men to have completed an 8-kilometer race in under 30 minutes at Salisbury State Park last month. Seven Anne Arundel males recorded personal-best times, led by Murphy's 27 minutes, 20 seconds.
"That's pretty good for little old Anne Arundel," Fontaine said. "It's nice when they peak at this time of year."
Only 70 seconds separate the top four Anne Arundel men -- a sign of depth that was evident only on the women's team last fall.
"Last year was Doug, and that was about it," said Rob
Parkhurst, 26, who attended high school in Iowa.
"I'm just really glad that we're beating teams. If we're going to do this, I want to be competitive. I don't want to go out there and just show up -- kind of like what happened last year."
What happened last year continues to serve as motivation for Janine Macmillan. Her senior season at Chesapeake was ruined by illness, and she's making up for lost time as an Anne Arundel freshman.
Macmillan, who will join Severna Park graduate Ann Heiser as the only Pioneers female runners this weekend, set a school record in a 5-kilometer race with a time of 19:28 at Salisbury. She has placed first among junior college female runners in all seven meets.
"The middle of the season could have gone a little better," said Macmillan, still her harshest critic. "I was not happy with my times. I knew I could do better. Each time I finished, I was disappointed in myself. But I got over that."
Like the rest of her teammates, Macmillan wants to qualify for the nationals by finishing among the top 25 to 30 percent of the runners at Hagerstown. And the odds are in her favor.
"Doug will definitely qualify. And Janine, unless she breaks a leg, will qualify," Fontaine said. "We're hoping we can get all four guys to qualify."
"We finally have arrived as a team," he added. "Last year, it was like, 'Anne Arundel's got a team again and they've got one good runner.' But now, schools are looking at us. We're getting much more respect.
"We have arrived."
Cross country championships
AACC cross country runners at District Championships:
Runner .. .. .. .. School .. .. .. .. .. Best
Doug Murphy.. .. .. Broadneck .. .. .. .. 27:20
Marc Mallonee .. .. Broadneck .. .. .. .. 27:54
Neil Gilligan .. .. Northeast .. .. .. .. 28:01
Rob Parkhurst .. .. West High (Iowa) .. ..28:34
Joe Dugan .. .. .. .. Broadneck .. .. .. 29:45
Dave Taylor .. .. .. Broadneck .. .. .. ..30:51
Matt Stevens .. .. .. Spalding .. .. .. ..38:12
Janine Macmillan .. ..Chesapeake .. .. .. 19:28
Ann Heiser .. .. .. ..Severna Park .. .. ..23:09
Note: Mandy Shiplette of Annapolis will miss the meet with stress fractures in both feet. Her best time this season was 24:01. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Who Are Rock’s Best Paid (and Most Played) Artists?
The debate over whether rock is dead will continue to rage on for the foreseeable future. But halfway through 2017, one thing is certain: It's still extremely lucrative for the genre's biggest artists.
Billboard has released last year's list of highest-paid musicians, and although pop star Beyonce took the top spot, a couple of rock vets weren't far behind. Guns N' Roses came in second place with $42.3 million — $40 million of which comes courtesy of the band's Not in This Lifetime tour, which brought guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan back into the fold.
Bruce Springsteen came in just behind GNR, pulling in $42.2 million — and again, much of that income was derived from touring, with his dates celebrating the 35th anniversary of his The River LP accounting for nearly $41 million of the total. Much of the rest of the year's top musical earners came from the pop and country genres, but other veteran rockers rounding out the list included Billy Joel (No. 11, $23.6 million), Metallica (No. 15, $18.5 million), and Paul McCartney (No. 16, $17.7 million).
McCartney also figured into the upper reaches of another recently published tally: the top 20 rock acts streamed globally via Spotify. The Beatles placed third, with streams of their catalog — which only arrived on digital music services in late 2015 — outpacing those amassed by big names like Metallica (No. 7), Queen (No. 9), AC/DC (No. 12), and Pink Floyd (No. 13).
These streaming figures, which represent the first half of 2017, were released to commemorate the International Day of Rock 'n' Roll — timed to celebrate the anniversary of Live Aid. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Los Angeles
August 20, 2012August 20, 2012
New Music From Old Favorites – Frightened Rabbit & Pinback
====
Monday, how dare you greet me with such a forcefully rude nature. Every week you Kramer your way into my serenity. Reader, rerhaps this is your experience with Monday’s as well and perhaps I have something that can help.
I remember back in 2004, not when they premiered of course, but back in 2004 with Pinback released Summer in Abaddon I had a hard time listening to much else. “Non-Photo Blue,” “Syracuse,” “Bloods on Fire,” were my soundtrack. I didn’t understand why this wasn’t everywhere, how TV, Movies and commercials hadn’t crowned this band like they later did with Alexi Murdoch, Sleigh Bells and most recently The Lumineers. Then The OC came along.
Pinback, hasn’t released a full length since 2007’s Autumn of the Seraphs. However, last week the buzz picked back up. In promotion of their October 16th full length release Information Retrieved, Pinback, dropped “Proceed to Memory” on us. It’s an upbeat track, and as Rob Crow’s voice reaches an emotional apex at 1:55 “Proceed To Memory” took me back to those chilly wet sidewalks of Boston, Massachusetts trying my damnedest to avoid getting hit by the speeding Harvard Medical bound BWM as it circled The Fens on my way to work.
At 3:09 and 3:16, like Jimmy Fallon breaking character, which is really just saying “like Jimmy Fallon being Jimmy Fallon,” Crow’s voice breaks, or quivers, maybe it’s even a slight laugh – I’m not sure what it is, but it’s imperfect, and I really, really like it even if it’s an illusion. It’s as if he lost himself for the slightest of moments in his own music and something natural, something imperfect came out. I’m looking forward to listening to more of this over and over again once October 16th comes.
Here’s “Proceed to Memory”
Admittedly I joined on the Frightened Rabbit wagon very, very late. Not because I didn’t enjoy 2007’s Sing The Grey’s or2008’s The Midnight Organ Fight and Liver! Lung! FR! It’s that I didn’t even hear the Scotsman until 2010’s The Winter of Mixed Drinks. That’s not easy to admit by the way, but it’s honest.
So here we are, it’s 2012, the Wisconsin Badgers are favored to win the Big 10, an imprisoned Pussy Riot is making international headlines, and Frightened Rabbit is set to release State Hospital, a 5 track EP on September 24th. The title track, “State Hospital” is from their next full length and the other four strictly belong to the approaching EP. However, Frightened Rabbit assure us that the other four were in the running for the full length release. In their own words, “Some songs just don’t fit in to an album, but we thought these four still deserved to be given more than simply ‘B-side’ status.”
“State Hospital” starts with Scott Hutchison sounding, arguably, and I will argue this, his most Scottish. The accent is out in full force as is the heavy story he’s telling.
A young girl is born into poverty to a neglectful mother and never had a fair chance at a good life.
“Brought home to breathe smoke in arms of her mother with a blunt kitchen knifeWho just lays in a submissive position.“
She leaves and runs to the arms of a young boy her own age who treats her terribly. Physically assaulting her.
“And in the limp three years of board schooling she’s accustomed to hearing that she could never run far.”
A little older, and now away from her adolescent assaulter, she finds herself once again in an abusive relationship, this time with an older man in an effort to stay afloat.
“Brought home to keep warm in the arms of a plumber, bloody and balding. Who just needs a spine today again too, a chest for the head and hand for the holding.”
Intermittent all the while, the chorus haunts,
“Her heart beats like a breeze block thrown down the stairs. Her blood is thicker than concrete forced to be brave she was, born into a grave.”
But, Scott won’t allow her take the leap from the roof she climbs at the end of the video. Instead he talks her down, | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
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Huge fart in the shower Didn't smell terrible | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
IN THE
TENTH COURT OF APPEALS
No. 10-08-00178-CR
In re
Fred Woods, II
Original Proceeding
MEMORANDUM Opinion
Fred Woods, II seeks a writ of
mandamus compelling Respondent, the Honorable Matt Johnson, Judge of the 54th District Court of McLennan County, to rule on his motion for appointment of counsel under
Chapter 64 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Respondent has since granted
Woods’s motion and appointed counsel to represent him. Therefore, we dismiss
Woods’s “Motion for Mandamus” as moot. See In re Jaramillo, 164 S.W.3d 774,
775 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2005, orig. proceeding).
PER CURIAM
Before Chief Justice
Gray,
Justice
Vance, and
Justice
Reyna
Petition dismissed
Opinion delivered and
filed July 23, 2008
[OT06]
O P I N I O N
Appellant Howell appeals from his conviction for attempted capital murder for which he was
sentenced to life in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Institutional Division and a $10,000
fine.
Late in the afternoon of June 16, 1995, Donna Emery returned from shopping at the Outlet
Mall in Hillsboro to her home in Covington. It was hot and she was tired. She turned on an air
conditioner in her bedroom and lay down on the bed. She heard someone on her porch. She went
to the door. Appellant was on her porch. He discussed with her the purchase of her home. He
asked if he could come in and she allowed him to come into her house. After coming into her
house he produced a gun; he sexually assaulted her; he assaulted her with his hand and with the
gun; he took items from her purse; and upon leaving the house he shot her in the top of the head.
Her mother found her lying on the floor the next morning. She survived and furnished enough
information to the sheriff's department that Appellant was arrested on June 17. Appellant was
convicted by a jury for attempted capital murder and the jury assessed his punishment at life in
prison and a $10,000 fine.
Appellant appeals on one point of error: "The trial court erred in failing to suppress certain
oral statements of Appellant in violation of art. 38.22 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure."
On June 17, 1995, Donna Emery, a 50-year-old female, was found beaten and shot in her
home by her mother. When law enforcement and emergency personnel arrived she said she had
been raped, beaten, shot and left for dead the day before.
An investigation by the sheriff's department led investigators to believe that Appellant was
responsible. Appellant was arrested at his apartment in Whitney that same day. Among the
arresting officers were Sheriff Button and Captain West of the Hill County Sheriff's Department.
After Appellant's arrest, which was under a warrant issued by Justice of the Peace Ward,
Appellant was read his Miranda warnings.
Appellant waived his right to remain silent and his right to counsel and advised Button and
West of having an altercation with Ms. Emery the day before at her home but did not admit to
raping, robbing or intentionally shooting Emery.
Appellant led Button and West on a search on June 17 and 18 that resulted in a recovery of the
.25-caliber handgun which caused the gunshot wound to Emery, as well as her checkbook and
wallet which Appellant took when he left her house. Appellant had thrown the items out on several
farm-to-market roads in rural Hill County.
At the time of Appellant's arrest, and during several occasions on the date of his arrest and the
day following his arrest, Appellant made several oral statements to West regarding his involvement
in the offense. These oral statements were not recorded electronically and Appellant never gave
a written statement.
Prior to trial Appellant filed a motion to suppress the oral statements. At the suppression
hearing Appellant claimed the oral statements should be suppressed as inadmissible under art.
38.22. The State contended the statements were admissible under art. 38.22, § 3(c) because the
statements led to the discovery of property that was involved in the offense.
The trial court denied the motion to suppress and entered its findings pursuant to art. 38.22,
§ 6. The court found that "the statements of defendant led to the discovery of the disposition of
stolen property which conduced to establish the guilt of the defendant."
At trial Officer West testified in rebuttal about the complained-of statements without objection.
Article 38.22, § 3
(a) No oral statement . . . of an accused made as a result of custodial
interrogation shall be admissible against the accused in a criminal
proceeding unless:
(1)an electronic recording which may include motion pictures,
videotape, or other visual recording, is made of the statement;
(2)prior to the statement . . . the accused is given the warning
(Miranda warning) . . . and the accused knowingly,
intelligently and voluntarily waives any rights set out in the
warning;
. . . .
(c) Subsection (a) of this section shall not apply to any statement which
contains assertions of facts or circumstances that are found to be true
and which conduce to establish the guilt of the accused, such as the
finding of secreted or stolen property or the instrument with which he
states the offense was committed.
Specifically, Appellant asserts that since the statements were made over the course of the
investigation, i.e. two days, each should be analyzed independently.
The trial judge, in denying Appellant's motion to suppress, found the statements of Appellant
led to the discovery of property involved in the offense; that Appellant had been given all of his
Miranda warnings; that the statements were freely and voluntarily made; and that the statements
were admissible.
The trial judge is the sole and exclusive trier of fact and judge of the credibility of the witness
as well as the weight to be given the testimony at the hearing on a motion to suppress. Romero v.
State, 800 S.W.2d 539, 543 (Tex. Crim. App. 1990).
Marini v. State, 593 S.W.2d 709, 713 (Tex. Crim. App 1980), is directly on point and holds
that "the term 'confession' in addition to Appellant's initial offer at the police station to lead
officers to the money and narcotics, is broadly construed to include his incriminating outburst and
detailed account of the crime, all of which occurred after the money was found. The later
declarations constitute part of one continuous confession which began at the police station."
The information testified to by Officer West in rebuttal was admissible under Romero and
Marini, supra, as statements made as a part of one continuing confession and as such were
admissible.
Point one is overruled.
The judgment is affirmed.
FRANK G. McDONALD
Chief Justice (Retired)
Before Chief Justice Davis,
Justice Vance and
Chief Justice McDonald (Retired)
Affirmed
Opinion delivered and filed September 3, 1997
Do not publish
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | FreeLaw |
---
address: |
Dipartimento di Matematica “G. Castelnuovo”\
Sapienza – Università di Roma\
P.le Aldo Moro, 2 - 00185 Roma (ITALY)
author:
- Corrado Mascia
title: |
Small, medium and large shock\
waves for radiative Euler equations
---
.2cm [for non-equilibrium radiation hydrodynamics]{}.25cm .2cm Corrado MASCIA[^1]
.5cm
> We examine the existence of shock profiles for a hyperbolic-elliptic system arising in radiation hydrodynamics. The algebraic-differential system for the wave profile is reduced to a standard two-dimensional form that is analyzed in details showing the existence of heteroclinic connection between the two singular points of the system for any distance between the corresponding asymptotic states of the original model. Depending on the location of these asymptotic states, the profile can be either continuous or possesses at most one point of discontinuity. Moreover, a sharp threshold relative to presence of an internal absolute maximum in the temperature profile –also called [Zel’dovich spike]{}– is rigourously derived. .15cm
>
> [Keywords.]{} shock profiles, radiating gases, hyperbolic-elliptic systems. .15cm
>
> [2010 AMS subject classifications.]{} 76L05 (35L67, 35M30, 35Q31)
Introduction
============
Fluid dynamics equations support a class of special and significant solutions known as [shock waves]{}. These describe physical phenomena consisting in an abrupt transition from one state to another, that, in the simplest setting, are described by a single jump connecting two different states and propagating, in first approximation, with constant speed. In formulas, these corresponds to special solutions of the system under consideration having the form $$w(x,t)=W(x-ct)\qquad W(\pm\infty)=W_\pm,$$ where $w$ denotes the state variable, $W$ the shock profile, $c$ the velocity and $W_\pm$ the asymptotic states. The difference $[W]:=W_+-W_-$ and its length are generally used to distinguish between small, $|W_+-W_-|\to 0$, and large shocks, $|W_+-W_-|\to \infty$.
In the relevant case of the Euler equations for gasdynamics in one space dimension, obtained considering the conservation of mass, momentum and energy and neglecting higher order effect as viscosity, capillarity, and thermal conductivity, traveling wave solutions propagate with a velocity dictated by the Rankine–Hugoniot condition. Moreover, they have piecewise constant profiles with a single jump point, where physical entropy increases along the discontinuity. The persistence of the presence of waves when considering also higher order effects has been considered by several authors and in different context. Among others, let us quote the classical reference [@Gilb51] where the existence of shock layers for a model taking into account both viscosity and heat conductivity.
The present article fits into the strand of radiation hydrodynamics (see [@MihaMiha84; @ZeldRaiz02]). Specifically, we consider the classic Euler equations coupled with an elliptic equation for an additional variable describing the intensity of radiation; precisely, we deal with the hyperbolic-elliptic system $$\label{radeuler}
\left\{\begin{aligned}
&\partial_t \rho+\partial_x(\rho\,u)=0,\\
&\partial_t (\rho\,u)+\partial_x(\rho\,u^2+p)=0,\\
&\partial_t (\rho\,E)+\partial_x(\rho\,E\,u+p\,u-\sigma_s^{-1}\,\partial_x n)=0,\\
&\partial_x^2 n = \tau^2(n - g(\theta))
\end{aligned}\right.$$ where the variables $\rho, u, p, E$ and $\theta$ represent density, velocity, pressure, specific total energy and temperature of the fluid under consideration. The additional variable $n$ describes the specific intensity of radiation and the coupling is governed by the constants $\tau, \sigma_s$ and by the function $g=g(\theta)$. The model derives from a hyperbolic–kinetic system where the radiation is described by an additional variable for the photons density satisfying a transport equation with interaction kernel given by the Stefan–Boltzmann law. System is obtained in the non-relativistic limit (speed of light tending to $+\infty$) and the variable $n$ is an average of the photon density. The elliptic equation for the variable $n$ emerges from the assumption that the variable $n$ is linked with the temperature by the integral relation $$n(x,t)=\int_{\mathbb{R}} g(\theta(y,t))\,K(|x-y|)\,dy$$ with an exponential kernel $K(s)=\frac12\,\tau\,e^{-\tau\,s}$. Details on the derivation of asymptotic regimes as the one described by can be found in [@BuetDesp04; @GodiGoud05; @LowrMoreHitt99].
As usual, the pressure is considered a function of density and temperature, $p=p(\rho,\theta)$ and the specific total energy $E$ is given by $$E=\frac12\,u^2+e$$ where the internal energy $e$, in general, may depend on $\rho$ and $\theta$, $e=e(\rho,\theta)$. Precisely, we concentrate on the case of polytropic perfect gases; this amounts in considering the functions $p, e, g$ given by the formulas $$\label{specialpeg}
p=R\,\rho\,\theta,\qquad
e=\frac{R}{\gamma-1}\,\theta,\qquad
g(\theta)=\sigma\,\theta^\alpha$$ where $\gamma>1$ is the adiabatic constant ($\gamma=5/3$ for monoatomic gases, and $\gamma=7/5$ for diatomic gases), $R>0$ the perfect gas constant, $\sigma$ the Stefan–Boltzmann constant and $\alpha=4$.
Existence of shock profiles in the context of radiation hydrodynamics have been considered for many years. In [@HeasBald63; @ZeldRaiz02; @MihaMiha84], a formal analysis is performed concentrating on specific ranges for the asymptotic states relative to the size of the shock and the strength of the radiation effect. More recently, rigorous proof has been presented:\
– for a simplified model, known as the [Hamer model]{}, consisting of a single scalar conservation law coupled with an elliptic equation, mimicking the form of the system (small and smooth shocks [@SchoTadm92], general and possibly discontinuous shocks [@KawaNish99; @LMS1; @LMS2]);\
– for systems, both for the special form (small and smooth shocks [@LinCoulGoud06], large and discontinuous shocks [@CGLL]) and for general hyperbolic–elliptic systems (small shocks and linear coupling [@LMS1], small shocks and nonlinear coupling [@LMS2]). .25cm
Here, we contribute to the exploration of system showing existence of shock profiles for all of the possible regimes: small, medium and large size. Apart for the requests on the form of constutive functions $p$, $e$ and $g$, the unique assumption is that the asymptotic states connected by the shock profile determine an admissible shock wave for the corresponding reduced hyperbolic system.
\[thm:existeuler\] Assume with $R>0, \gamma>1, \alpha>0$. Let the triples $(\rho_\pm, u_\pm, \theta_\pm)$ and the constant $c\in\mathbb{R}$ be such that the Rankine–Hugoniot conditions $$c[\rho]=[\rho\,u],\qquad c[\rho\,u]=[\rho\,U^2+p],\qquad c[\rho\,E]=[\rho\,E\,U+p\,U]$$ are satisfied, together with the entropy condition for 1-shocks $$c+\sqrt{\gamma\,\theta_-}<u_-, \qquad
c<u_+<c+\sqrt{\gamma\,\theta_+}$$ Then system supports a shock wave, that is solution of the form $$(\rho, u, \theta, n)=(\rho, u, \theta, n)(x-ct)$$ such that $(\rho,u,\theta,n,\partial_x n)(\pm\infty)=(\rho_\pm,u_\pm,\theta_\pm,g(\theta_\pm),0)$.
The profile is unique up to translations and possesses at most one discontinuity point; if this is the case, all of the variables $\rho, u$ and $\theta$ have a jump at such point.
Once the existence of the shock waves is estabilished, it is meaningful to determine qualitative properties of the profile and, precisely, its smoothness and its monotonicity. To this aim, we introduce the velocities $U_\pm:=u_\pm-c$, giving the speed of propagation of the asymptotic states relatively to a reference frame joint with the shock. The following statement concerns with the regularity of the profile, giving sufficient conditions for the presence of a jump point, and with the monotonicity of the component of the profile. Both they are stated in term of the key parameter given by the ratio between the velocity jump of the shock, i.e. $|u_+-u_-|=|U_+-U_-|$, and the average velocity given by the arithmetic mean $(U_++U_-)/2$. Precisely, we consider the parameter $$\delta:=\frac{|U_+-U_-|}{U_c}\qquad\textrm{where}\quad U_c:=\frac{U_++U_-}{2},$$ so that the measure of the shock size is always normalized with respect to the average speed of propagation of the asymptotic states relatively to the shock velocity.
\[thm:qualitative\] Assume with $R>0, \gamma>1, \alpha>0$.\
[**i.**]{} If $\gamma<2$, the profile of the shock wave determined in Theorem \[thm:existeuler\] is discontinuous in the components $\rho, u$ and $\theta$ if $$\delta\geq \delta_{\textrm{jump}}:=\frac{2(\gamma-1)}{\gamma}\,.$$ [**ii.**]{} The component $\rho$ and $u$ of the profile of the shock determined in Theorem \[thm:existeuler\] are always monotone, while the temperature profile is monotone if and only if $\gamma<3$ and $$\delta\leq \delta_{\textrm{spike}}:=\frac{\gamma-1}{\gamma}\,.$$ If this condition is not satisfied, the temperature profile has a single internal absolute maximum point that can be either attained at the jump point or at some point of regularity.
As a consequence of the entropy conditions, the value of $\delta$ belong always to the interval $(0,2/\gamma)$. For $\gamma\in(1,3)$, there holds $0<\delta_{\textrm{spike}}<\delta_{\textrm{jump}}<2/\gamma$, hence, depending on the range of values of the parameter $\delta$, we can distinguish three different type of temperature profiles: monotone and continuous, non-monotone and continuous, non-monotone and discontinuous.
The smallness of the parameter $\delta$ is not equivalent to the one of the shock stength $|(\rho_+, U_+, \theta_+)-(\rho_-, U_-, \theta_-)|$. Indeed, from the Rankine–Hugoniot relations, we infer $$[\rho]=\frac{4\,\rho_\pm U_\pm}{4-\delta^2}\,\frac{\delta^2}{[u]},
\qquad
[\theta]=\frac{\gamma-1}{\gamma\,R}\,\frac{[u]^2}{\delta}$$ and thus the small shock assumption corresponds to the requests $$[u]^2\ll \delta\ll |[u]|^{1/2}\ll 1.$$ As showed in [@LinCoulGoud06; @LMS2], in this limiting regime, the profile is smooth. Theorem \[thm:qualitative\] gives the necessary condition $\delta<\delta_{\textrm{jump}}$ for such regularity. An additional condition is also obtained during the proof, see , and not reported here because of its scarce readability. .25cm
With respect to previous rigorous results on radiative shocks Theorems \[thm:existeuler\] and \[thm:qualitative\] can be considered as conspicous improvements. By restricting the attention to a specific system, we can implement a strategy closely resembling the one considered in [@LMS1; @LMS2] passing from a local study for small shocks to a global analysis for any possible shock size. With respect to [@CGLL], where the case of large shocks is considered, in addition to the removal of the size assumption, we reduce drastically the assumption on the data of the problem.
As usual, the proof is based on the analysis of the system of ordinary differential equations obtained by looking for traveling wave solutions to . Taking advantage of the conserved quantity, such fifth-order system can be reduced to a second-order one. The main original ingredient in the proof resides in the choice of the variable selected for the reduction. The analysis in [@CGLL; @HeasBald63; @KawaNish99; @LinCoulGoud06] is based on the study of the second-order differential equation solved by the velocity variable $u$; differently, in [@LMS1; @LMS2], it is preferred to consider the second-order equation for the radiation variable $n$. Here, we decide for the somewhat intermediate approach given by considering the first-order system for velocity $u$ and radiation $n$. Such system is transformed in the standard form, that is common to the one valid for the Hamer model, and the subsequent analysis consists in a detailed study of such a prototypical system, for which the existence of a heteroclinic orbit, possibly discontinuous is proved (see Proposition \[prop:existence\]). Theorems \[thm:existeuler\] and \[thm:qualitative\] descend from Proposition \[prop:existence\] and the construction of the heteroclinic orbit for the reduced system.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we show how to reduce the original problem for the radiation hydrodynamics model to a standard form. For completeness, we also present how the same strategy operates in the case of the Hamer model. Section 3 is devoted to the analysis of the system in standard form and to the construction of heteroclinic orbits connecting the two singular points. In Section 4, we resume to the original model, interpreting the construction of the previous Section in term of the hydrodynamics variables. Finally, we draw conclusions in Section 5, pointing at some possible appealing directions for future research in the subject.
Scaling down to the reduced system {#sec:scaling}
==================================
Due to the conservation structure, the system of ordinary differential equations for the profile of the radiative shock under investigation can be reduced to a first order system for a two-dimensional variable. The aim of this Section is to show that such a reduced system has the form $$\label{std}
\frac{dx}{d\xi} =\frac{1}{\nu}\,\frac{G(x)-y}{x},\qquad
\frac{dy}{d\xi}=\frac{1}{2}\,\nu\,(1-x^2).$$ for an appropriate function $G$ and positive parameter $\nu$. The same procedure can be applied to a simpler system given by the coupling of a scalar conservation law with an elliptic equation. For pedagogical reasons, we first present this simpler situation and postpone the discussion of the Euler system with radiation . Since the two derivations of are independent, the reader may skip the first part and move directly to the case of radiation hydrodynamics.
Hamer model {#hamer-model .unnumbered}
-----------
Given smooth functions $f$ and $g$, let us consider the hyperbolic-elliptic system, known as [Hamer model]{} (see [@Hame71] and descendants) $$\label{hamer}
\left\{\begin{array}{l}
\partial_t u+\partial_x\bigl(f(u)-\partial_x n\bigr)=0,\\
\partial_x^2 n - n + g(u) = 0.
\end{array}\right.$$ For convex fluxes $f$, the hyperbolic scalar conservation law obtained by disregarding the coupling term $\partial_x n$ possesses shock waves connecting states $u_\pm$ if and only if $u_+<u_-$. Such waves have a piecewise constant profile with a single jump point and propagates with a speed $c$ that is given by the Rankine–Hugoniot condition, [*viz.*]{} $$\label{rh}
c=\frac{[f(u)]}{[u]}=\frac{f(u_+)-f(u_-)}{u_+-u_-}$$ In analogy, we look for traveling fronts $(u,n)=(u,n)(x-ct)$ that solves and satisfy the asymptotic conditions $$u(\pm\infty)=u_\pm\qquad n(\pm\infty)=g(u_\pm),\qquad \partial_x n(\pm\infty)=0.$$ Apart for the requests $u_+<u_-$ and $c$ given by , we also assume $$\label{hypg}
[g]:=g(u_+)-g(u_-)<0.$$ Setting $\xi=x-ct$, the couple $(u,n)$ satisfies an algebraic-differential system $$\label{burgers3d}
m=f(u)-f(u_\pm)-c(u-u_\pm),\qquad
\frac{dn}{d\xi}=m,\qquad
\frac{dm}{d\xi} = n - g(u),$$ to be interpreted as a two-dimensional dynamical system along a surface in the three-dimensional space $(u,n,m)$.
There are different possible ways to deal with , corresponding to different choices of unknown. The approach in [@SchoTadm92; @KawaNish99] consists essentially in deriving a second order differential equation for the variable $u$, while the strategy used in [@LMS1; @LMS2], dictated by the better regularity properties of the variable $n$, corresponds to consider the couple $(n,m)$. Differently, we deal with in a way that is somewhat in between the two and we look for a reduced system for the couple $(u,n)$. This method avoids the necessity to invert the relation $m=f(u)-f(u_\pm)-c(u-u_\pm)$, but it has the drawback of the possible presence of jumps of the trajectory.
Differentiating the first equation, we get $$\frac{dm}{d\xi}=\left(f'(u)-c\right)\frac{du}{d\xi},$$ so that system is completely described by the reduced system $$\frac{du}{d\xi} = \frac{n - g(u)}{f'(u)-c},\qquad
\frac{dn}{d\xi}=f(u)-f(u_\pm)-c(u-u_\pm).$$ In the case of Burgers equation, i.e. $f(u)=\frac12\,u^2$, $c=(u_++u_-)/2$, $$\label{burgers2d}
\frac{du}{d\xi} = \frac{n - g(u)}{u-c},\qquad
\frac{dn}{d\xi}=\frac{1}{2}(u-u_-)(u-u_+).$$ Introducing the variable $(x,y)$ related with $(u,n)$ by $$u=\frac{1}{2}\Bigl\{[u]\,x+u_-+u_+\Bigr\}
\qquad\textrm{and}\qquad
n=\frac{1}{2}\Bigl\{[g]\,y+g(u_-)+g(u_+)\Bigr\},$$ where $[u]=u_+-u_-<0$, system takes the form where $$\nu:=-\frac12\,\frac{[u]^2}{[g]}\qquad\textrm{and}\qquad
G(x):=\frac{2(g\circ u)(x)-g(u_-)-g(u_+)}{[g]}.$$ The function $G$ and the parameter $\nu$ have to be regarded as functions of the asymptotic states $u_\pm$ or, equivalently, of the values $[u]$ and $c$. By definition, for any choice of $u_\pm$ there hold $G(\pm 1)=\pm 1$.
\[ex:gburgers\]For a linear term $g$, [*viz.*]{} $g(u)=\sigma u$ for some $\sigma>0$, the expressions for $\nu$ and $G$ are $$\nu=-\frac1{2\sigma}\,[u]
\qquad\textrm{and}\qquad
G(x)=x.$$ In the quadratic case, $g(u)=\sigma\,u^{2}$, $\sigma>0$, we obtain $$\nu=-\frac{1}{4\sigma}\,\frac{[u]}{c}\qquad\textrm{and}\qquad
G(x)=x-\frac{1}{4}\,\frac{[u]}{c}(1-x^2).$$ where $c=\frac12(u_++u_-)$. In this case, both $\nu$ and $G$ are homogeneous with respect to the couple $([u],c)$ and thus system does not vary if the ratio $[u]/c$ is kept fixed.
In general, for $g(u)=\sigma\,u^{\alpha}$ for some exponent $\alpha>0$, the value $[g]$ is homogeneous of degree $\alpha$ with respect to $[u]$ and $c$, and, as a consequence, the parameter $\nu$ is a homogeneous function of degree $2-\alpha$ with respect to the couple $([u],c)$ and $G$ is homogeneous of degree 0. Explicit expressions for the corresponding $\nu$ and $G$ does not seem particularly significant.
Solutions to system may possess eventual discontinuity. At such point, $y$ is continuous (as a consequence of the continuity of $n$) and, denoting by $x_\ell$ and $x_r$ the values of $x$ at the left and at the right of the jump point, respectively, there hold $$x_\ell<x_r
\qquad\textrm{and}\qquad
x_\ell+x_r=0.$$ Solutions to with the above jump conditions will be analyzed in the Section \[sec:reduced\]. .25cm
In the remaining part of the present Section, we show how system emerges also when looking for traveling wave solutions fot the radiating Euler system .
Radiation hydrodynamics {#radiation-hydrodynamics .unnumbered}
-----------------------
Next, we consider the hyperbolic-elliptic system describing the evolution of a compressible fluid under the effect of radiation. Setting $\sigma_s^{-1}=0$, the first three equations in system reduce to a standard hyperbolic model for compressible fluids. Such system possesses shock solutions, i.e. traveling wave solutions $W=W(x-ct)$ with piecewise constant profile $W$ of the form $$W(\xi)=W_-\chi_{{}_{(-\infty,0)}}(\xi)+W_+\chi_{{}_{(0,+\infty)}}(\xi).$$ for appropriate states $W_\pm$ and parameter $c$. The shock speed $c$ is related with the states $W_\pm$ by means of the Rankine–Hugoniot condition. Precisely, setting $U=u-c$, there hold $$\left\{\begin{aligned}
&\rho_-\,U_-=\rho_+\,U_+,\\
&\rho_-\,U_-^2+p_-=\rho_+\,U_+^2+p_+,\\
&\rho_-\,U_-\left(\frac12\,U_-^2+e_-\right)+p_-\,U_-
=\rho_+\,U_+\left(\frac12\,U_+^2+e_+\right)+p_+\,U_+
\end{aligned}\right.$$ In the case , if $\rho_\pm U_\pm\neq 0$, the values $\theta_\pm$ satisfy the linear system $$U_+\theta_--U_-\theta_+=\frac{1}{R}\,U_-U_+[u],\qquad
\theta_--\theta_+=\frac{\gamma-1}{2\,\gamma\,R}\,(U_++U_-)[u],$$ hence, they can be written as explicit functions of $U_\pm$ $$\theta_-=\frac{1}{\gamma\,R}\Bigl(U_c-\frac12[u]\Bigr)\Bigl(U_c+\frac{\gamma}2[u]\Bigr),
\qquad
\theta_+=\frac{1}{\gamma\,R}\Bigl(U_c+\frac12[u]\Bigr)\Bigl(U_c-\frac{\gamma}2[u]\Bigr)$$ where $U_c:=\frac{1}{2}(U_-+U_+)$. Note also that, if the jump $[u]$ is strictly negative, then the jumps $[\rho]$ and $[\theta]$ are both strictly positive.
Still taking advantage of , entropy conditions in the case of 1-shocks require $U_\pm, \theta_\pm$ to be such that $$\label{entropy1}
\sqrt{\gamma\,\theta_-}<U_-,
\qquad
0<U_+<\sqrt{\gamma\,\theta_+},$$ which implies $U_+<U_-$, since $[\theta]$ and $[u]$ have opposite sign.
For later use, let us set $$\label{ABC}
A:=\rho_\pm U_\pm, \qquad
B:=\rho_\pm\,U_\pm^2+p_\pm\qquad
C:= \rho_\pm\,U_\pm\left(\frac12\,U_\pm^2+e_\pm\right)+p_\pm\,U_\pm.$$ or, equivalently, $$A:=\rho_\pm U_\pm, \qquad
B:=\frac{\gamma+1}{2\gamma}\,A\,(U_-+U_+)\qquad
C:=\frac{\gamma+1}{2(\gamma-1)}\,A\,U_-\,U_+.$$ having used . .25cm
We are interested in determining the existence and the internal structure of traveling wave solutions $$(\rho, u, \theta, n)=(\rho, u, \theta, n)(x-ct)$$ solutions to such that $(\rho,u,\theta,n,\partial_x n)(\pm\infty)=(\rho_\pm,u_\pm,\theta_\pm,g(\theta_\pm),0)$. Plugging the traveling wave ansatz into the system, we get the system of differential equation $$\label{twode}
\begin{aligned}
&\frac{d}{d\xi}\left(\rho\,U\right)=0,
&\qquad &\frac{d}{d\xi}\left(\rho\,U^2+p\right)=0,\\
&\frac{d}{d\xi}\left(\rho\,U\left(\frac12\,U^2+e\right)+p\,U
-\frac{1}{\sigma_s}\,\frac{dn}{d\xi}\right)=0,
&\qquad &\frac{d^2 n}{d\xi^2}=\tau^2\bigl(n - g(\theta)\bigr)
\end{aligned}$$ to be satisfied in the regions where the wave profile is smooth.
The conservative form of the first two equations implies that $$\rho\,U=A\qquad\textrm{and}\qquad \rho\,U^2+p=B$$ all along the trajectory for any weak solution to where $A$ and $B$ are given in . Thus, there hold $$\label{rhoepidiu}
\rho=\rho(U)=\frac{A}{U},\qquad p=p(U)=B-A\,U$$ and system reduces to the algebraic-differential system $$\label{twode2}
m=\sigma_s f(U),\qquad
\frac{dn}{d\xi}=m,\qquad
\frac{dm}{d\xi}=\tau^2\bigl(n - (g\circ\theta)(U)\bigr)$$ where, for $A, B, C$ as in , $$\label{generalf}
f(U):=-\frac12\,A\,U^2+A\,e(U)+B\,U-C,$$ and $e(U)=e(\rho(U),\theta(U))$ with $\rho(U)$ and $\theta(U)$ are obtained from and . System describes a two-dimensional dynamical system in the three-dimensional space $(U,n,m)$ along the manifold $\Sigma$ determined by the algebraic relation $m=\sigma_s f(U)$. Using the special form for pressure $p$ and internal energy $e$ given in , the function $f$ can be rewritten as $$\label{specialf}
f(U)=-\kappa\,(U-U_+)(U-U_-)
\qquad\textrm{where}\quad
\kappa:=\frac{\gamma+1}{2(\gamma-1)}\,A.$$ If the profile has a jump point at some point, the function $n$ and its first derivative are forced to be continuous at such point, since the last equation in forces the second derivative of $n$ to be bounded and measurable. As a consequence, denoting by $\rho_\ell, U_\ell, \theta_\ell$ and $\rho_r, U_r, \theta_r$ the values at the left-/right-hand side of the discontinuity, the relation $f(U_\ell)=f(U_r)$ holds together with the admissibility conditions that read as, in the case of 1-shocks, $$\sqrt{R\,\gamma\,\theta_\ell}<U_\ell,
\qquad
0<U_r<\sqrt{R\,\gamma\,\theta_r}$$ Because of , jumps are admissible if and only if $$\label{entropyU}
U_c<U_\ell<2U_c \qquad\textrm{where}\quad
U_c:=\frac{U_++U_-}{2}$$ the corresponding value $U_r$ being given by $2U_c-U_\ell$. .25cm
There are different possible ways to deal with , corresponding to different choices of unknown. As for the Hamer model, two main approaches have been used: in [@HeasBald63; @LinCoulGoud06; @CGLL] a second order differential equation for the variable $U$ is derived, in [@LMS1; @LMS2] it has been considered the dynamics for the couple $(n,m)$, because of the greater regularity of the variable $n$. Here, we proceed by deriving a system for the couple $(U,n)$, hence, with the possibility of trajectories that are discontinuous at some point in the first component of the unknowns.
Differentiating with respect to $\xi$ the equation defining the surface $\Sigma$ and eliminating the variable $m$, we get the reduced two-dimensional system $$\label{redUn}
\frac{dU}{d\xi} =\frac{\tau^2}{\sigma_s}\,\frac{n-(g\circ\theta)(U)}{f'(U)},\qquad
\frac{dn}{d\xi} =\sigma_s\,f(U).$$ Thanks to , function $f$ is the second-order polynomial given in and $f'(U)=-2\kappa(U-U_c)$. The final step consists in introducing new coordinates to transform the system in the standard form . .25cm
Introducing the variable $(x,y)$ related with $(U,n)$ by $$U=U(x):=\frac{1}{2}\Bigl\{[u]\,x+U_-+U_+\Bigr\}
\quad\textrm{and}\quad
n=n(y):=\frac{1}{2}\Bigl\{[g]\,y+g(\theta_-)+g(\theta_+)\Bigr\},$$ system becomes $$\frac{dx}{d\xi} =\frac{\tau^2\,[g]}{\sigma_s\,\kappa\,[u]^2}\,\frac{G(x)-y}{x},\qquad
\frac{dy}{d\xi} =\frac{\sigma_s\,\kappa\,[u]^2}{2[g]}\,\nu(1-x^2)$$ where $$\label{defG}
G(x):=\frac{1}{[g]}\bigl(2\,(g\circ\theta\circ U)(x)-g(\theta_-)-g(\theta_+)\bigr)$$ By rescaling the variable $\xi$ by setting $\xi=\tau\,\zeta$, we end up with the system where $$\label{defnu}
\nu:=\frac{\kappa\,\sigma_s\,[u]^2}{\tau\,[g]}.$$ Both function $G$ and parameter $\nu$ depends on the values of the asymptotic states of the profile and thus can be regarded as functions of the parameters $[u]$ and $U_c$.
Let us also observe that the function $\theta\circ U=(\theta\circ U)(x)$ is given by $$(\theta\circ U)(x)
=\frac{1}{R}\left(\frac{\gamma+1}{\gamma}\,U_c-U\right)U
=\frac{1}{\gamma\,R}\left(U_c+\frac12[u]\,x\right)\left(U_c-\frac12\,\gamma\,[u]\,x\right);$$ thus, there holds $$\frac{d}{dx}(\theta\circ U)(x)
=-\frac{[u]^2}{2R}\left(x-x_c\right)
\qquad\textrm{where }
x_c:=-\frac{\gamma-1}{\gamma}\frac{U_c}{[u]}>0.$$ As a consequence, if $g$ is strictly increasing, the function $G$ has the same monotonicity of $\theta\circ U$ and it is strictly increasing in $[-1,1]$ if and only if $x>1$, that is if and only if $$\bigl|u_+-u_-\bigr|\leq \frac{\gamma-1}{\gamma}\,U_c \, .$$ Otherwise, $G$ is strictly increasing in $[-1,x_c]$ and strictly decreasing in $[x_c,1]$.
\[ex:geuler\]In the case $g(\theta)=\sigma\,\theta$ with $\sigma>0$, the parameter $\nu$ and the function $G$ can be computed explicitly $$\begin{aligned}
\nu&=\frac{\kappa\,\sigma_s}{\tau\,\sigma}\,\frac{[u]^2}{[\theta]}
=\frac{\gamma(\gamma+1)\,R}{2(\gamma-1)^2}\,
\frac{\sigma_s\,A}{\tau\,\sigma}\,\delta,\\
G(x)&=\frac{2(\theta\circ U)(x)-\theta_+-\theta_-}{\theta_+-\theta_-}
=x+\frac{\gamma}{2(\gamma-1)}\,\delta(1-x^2)
\end{aligned}$$ Thus, the structure is essentially the same of the Hamer model with a quadratic function $g$ (see Example \[ex:gburgers\]).
Higher powers in the temperature dependence of function $g$, i.e. $g(\theta)=\sigma\,\theta^\alpha$ with $\sigma>0$ and $\alpha$ a positive integer, give raise to complicate formulas, whose explicit expression is not particularly significant. It is relevant to observe that, being $\theta\circ U$ a homogeneous function of degree 2 with respect to $[u]$ and $U_c$, the value $[g]$ is homogeneous of degree $2\alpha$ and thus $\nu$ is homogeneous of degree $2(1-\alpha)$ and $G$ is homogeneous of degree $0$ with respect to the same variables. In particular, when the ratio $$\delta:=-\frac{[u]}{U_c}=\frac12\,\frac{U_--U_+}{U_-+U_+}$$ is kept fixed the function $G$ does not change and the parameter $\nu$ decreases as $-[u]$ increases if $\alpha>1$.
An eventual discontinuity in the trajectory keeps $y$ fixed; moreover, if $x_\ell$ and $x_r$ denote the values at the left and at the right of the jump, then $x_r=-x_\ell$ and condition translates into $$\label{entropyx}
\frac{U_++U_-}{U_+-U_-}<x_\ell<0.$$ Note that the value $(U_++U_-)/(U_+-U_-)$ is always strictly smaller than $-1$, so that jumps are always alloweded if $x\in[-1,0)$.
The analysis is based on the choice , that playes a key-rôle in determining the specific expression for the function $f$. For more general expression of pressure $p$ and internal energye $e$, all of the subsequent analysis can still be performed if the function $f$, given by formula , is strictly concave.
Analysis of the reduced system {#sec:reduced}
==============================
In this Section, we consider piecewise smooth solutions to the system $$\label{std2}
\frac{dx}{d\zeta} =\frac{1}{\nu}\,\frac{G(x)-y}{x},\qquad
\frac{dy}{d\zeta}=\frac{1}{2}\,\nu\,(1-x^2).$$ with $\nu>0$ and $G$ smooth and such that $G(\pm 1)=\pm 1$. At any eventual jump point $\xi$, we assume that the couple $(x,y)$ possesses left/right limits, denoted by $(x_\ell, y_\ell)$ and $(x_r,y_r)$, and that $$x_\ell<x_r,\qquad
x_\ell+x_r=0,\qquad
y_\ell-y_r=0$$ System has two singular points, $P_-:=(-1,-1)$ and $P_+:=(+1,+1)$, and we are interested in the existence of a heteroclinic orbit connecting such that $(x,y)(\pm\infty)=P_\pm$. Since both critical points $P_\pm$ are saddles, such orbit is obtained by matching the unstable one-dimensional manifold of $P_-$ with the stable one-dimensional manifold of $P_+$ (see Lemma \[lem:stabunstab\]).
\[fig:pianofasi\] {width="8cm"}
The matching may happen either in a continuous or in a discontinuous way, the former case being related with the nature of the system at the singular line $x=0$ (see Lemma \[lem:critical\]).
\[lem:stabunstab\] For any $\nu>0$, the critical points $P_\pm$ are saddles and, denoted by $\mathcal{U}_-$ the part of unstable manifold of $P_-$ in $\{x>-1\}$ and by $\mathcal{S}_+$ the part of the stable manifold of $P_+$ in $\{x<1\}$, there exist functions $\phi_-=\phi_-(x)$ defined in $[-1,0]$ and $\phi_+=\phi_+(x)$ defined in $[0,1]$ both differentiable and strictly monotone increasing, such that $$\begin{aligned}
&\{(x,y)\in\mathcal{U}_-\,:\,x\in [-1,0)\}=\{(x,y)\,:\,x\in [-1,0),\, y=\phi_-(x)\}\\
&\{(x,y)\in\mathcal{S}_+\,:\,x\in (0,+1]\}=\{(x,y)\,:\,x\in (0,+1],\, y=\phi_+(x)\}\end{aligned}$$ Moreover, $\phi_+(x)<G(x)$ for any $x\in(-1,0)$ and $\phi_-(x)>G(x)$ for any $x\in(0,1)$.
The jacobian matrices of at $P_\pm$ $$\frac{1}{\nu}\begin{pmatrix}
\pm G'(\pm 1) & \mp 1 \\
\mp \nu^2 & 0
\end{pmatrix},$$ have both determinant equal to $-1$; hence, both points are saddles.
The manifolds $\mathcal U_-$ and $\mathcal S_+$ have tangent directions given by the vectors $(\mu_-^u,\nu)$ and $(-\mu_+^s,\nu)$, respectively, where $$\mu_-^u:=\frac{2\nu}{G'(-1)+\sqrt{G'(-1)^2+4\nu^2}},
\qquad
\mu_+^s:=-\frac{2\nu}{G'(+1)+\sqrt{G'(+1)^2+4\nu^2}},$$ Thus, if $G'(-1)\leq 0$, $\mathcal U_-$ lies in the region $\{(x,y)\,:\,y>G(x)\}$ in a neighborhood of $P_-$; similarly, if $G'(1)\leq 0$, $\mathcal S_+$ lies in the region $\{(x,y)\,:\,y<G(x)\}$ in a neighborhood of $P_+$.
If $G'(\pm 1)>0$, since $\mu_-^u<\nu/G'(-1)$ and $-\mu_+^s<\nu/G'(+1)$, for $x\in(-1,1)$, the manifold $\mathcal U_-$ lies in the region $\{(x,y)\,:\,y>G(x)\}$ and the manifold $\mathcal S_+$ in the region $\{(x,y)\,:\,y<G(x)\}$ in a neighborhood of $P_-$ and $P_+$, respectively. Since $\Omega_-:=\{(x,y)\,:\,x\in(-1,0), y>G(x)\}$ is positevely invariant and $\Omega_+:=\{(x,y)\,:\,x\in(0,1), y<G(x)\}$ is negatively invariant, the $\mathcal U_-$ is described in $\Omega_-$ by a curve $y=\phi_-(x)$ and the manifold $\mathcal S_+$ is described in $\Omega_+$ by a curve $y=\phi_+(x)$. Moreover, both functions are monotone increasing with respect to $x$ since the corresponding derivatives, given by $$\label{derphi}
\frac{d}{dx}\phi_\pm(x)=\frac{\nu^2\,x(1-x^2)}{2(G(\phi)-x)},$$ do not vanish in the interior of $\Omega_-$ and $\Omega_+$ respectively. Moreover, because of , the functions $\phi_\pm$ cannot have vertical asymptotes in the regions $(-1,0)$ and $(0,1)$, respectively; therefore, they are well defined in $(-1,0)$ and $(0,1)$, respectively.
For a better understanding of the behavior of the curves $\phi_\pm$ at $x=0$, we consider the half plane $x>0$ and rescale the independent variable by setting $$x(\zeta)\frac{d}{d\zeta}=\frac{d}{d\eta}$$ so that takes the form $$\label{stdResc}
\frac{dx}{d\eta} =\frac{1}{\nu}\,\bigl(G(x)-y\bigr),\qquad
\frac{dy}{d\eta}=\frac{1}{2}\,\nu\,x(1-x^2).$$
\[lem:critical\] Assume $G'(0)\neq 0, 2\nu^2$. The critical point $P_0=(0,G(0))$ of system is an attractive spiral if $G'(0)<0$, a repulsive spiral if $0<G'(0)<2\nu^2$ and a source if $2\nu^2<G'(0)$. In the latter case, there exists $x_+\in(0,1]$ and a monotone increasing function $\psi_+=\psi_+(x)$ defined in $[0,x_+]$ such that the fast unstable trajectory of $P_0$ in the region $\Omega_+=\{x\in(0,1),\,y<G(x)\}$ is given by $(x,\psi_+(x))$.
The jacobian matrix at the singular point $P_0:=(0,G(0))$ $$\frac{1}{\nu}\begin{pmatrix} G'(0) & -1 \\ \nu^2/2 & 0 \end{pmatrix},$$ has real eigenvalues if and only if $G'(0)^2-2\nu^2>0$. In the opposite case, both eigenvalues have real parts of the same sign of $G'(0)$. If $2\nu^2<G'(0)^2$, the eigendirections are given by $(2\mu_0^\pm,\nu)$ where $$\mu_0^\pm=\frac{G'(0)\pm\sqrt{G'(0)^2-2\nu^2}}{2\nu}$$ Since $$0<\frac{\nu}{2\mu_0^+}<\frac{\nu}{2\mu_0^-}<G'(0)$$ the principal directions of the critical point $(0,G(0))$ both lies into the region $y<G(x)$ for $x>0$. The fast unstable direction, corresponding to the eigenvalue $\mu_0^+$, is uniquely determined and, while lying in $\Omega_+$, is the graph of a monotone increasing function $\psi_+=\psi_+(x)$.
\[rem:rotated\] If the function $G$ does not depend on the parameter $\nu$ the vector field in is a [rotated vector field]{} in the sense of Duff [@Duff53] in the regions $\Omega_\pm$, as a consequence of the equality $$\det \begin{pmatrix} F & G \\ \partial_\nu F & \partial_\nu G \end{pmatrix}
=\frac{1}{\nu}\,(G(x)-y)\,x(1-x^2)$$ (for the analysis of rotated vector field, see also [@Perk93]). Thus, the graphs of the function $\psi_+$ rotates anticlockwise as $\nu$ increase and the map $\nu\mapsto x^\nu_+$ is monotone decreasing with respect to $\nu$. Moreover, there exists a critical value $\bar \nu_+$ such that $x^\nu_+=1$ for $\nu<\bar \nu_+$ and $x^\nu_+<1$ for $\nu>\bar \nu_+$.
From Examples \[ex:gburgers\] and \[ex:geuler\], it is readily seen that the eventuality of a function $G$ independent on $\nu$ is rarely verified in concrete cases. Nevertheless, in the case of radiation hydrodynamics, the function $G$ does not vary if the ratio $\delta=-[u]/U_c$ is kept fixed. Thus the properties of the rotated vector fields return to be useful in the analysis of variations of the heteroclinic orbit connecting $P_-$ and $P_+$ when varying the asymptotic states $U_\pm$ keeping $\delta$ fixed.
A result analogous to Lemma \[lem:critical\] holds on the side $x<0$, the main difference being related to the fact that the rescaling of the independent variable changes the orientation of the trajectories. In particular, we can state that, for $2\nu^2<G'(0)$, there exists $x_-\in[-1,0)$ and a monotone increasing function $\psi_-=\psi_-(x)$ defined in $[x_-,0]$ such that the fast stable trajectory of $P_0$ in the region $\Omega_-=\{x\in(0,1),\,y<G(x)\}$ is given by $(x,\psi_-(x))$.
\[prop:existence\] Let $\nu>0$ and $G\in C^1([-1,1])$ be such that $G(\pm 1)=0$. Then there exists a heteroclinic orbit connecting $P_-$ with $P_+$. Such orbit possesses at most a single jump, and such discontinuity is actually present if one of the following conditions is satisfied $$\label{jump}
G(0)\leq -1,\quad\textrm{or}\quad
1\leq G(0),\quad\textrm{or}\quad
G'(0)<2\nu^2.$$ Finally, if $G'(0)>0$ the trajectory of the heteroclinic orbit is unique.
1\. The trajectories $(x,\phi_\pm(x))$, defined in Lemma , converge to the $y-$axis at a finite value of $\zeta$. Indeed, there holds $$\zeta-\zeta_0=\int_{x(\zeta_0)}^{0} \frac{dx}{dx/d\zeta}
=\nu\int_{x(\zeta_0)}^{0} \frac{x}{G(x)-\phi_\pm(x)}\,dx.$$ The latter integral is finite if $\phi_\pm(0)\neq G(0)$. If $\phi_\pm(0)=G(0)$, then $\phi_\pm'(0)\neq G'(0)$ as can be seen from the explicit expression of the principal directions of the singular point $P_0$ of the rescaled system (see Lemma \[lem:critical\]). Thus, the function $x/(G(x)-\phi_\pm(x))$ is integrable in small neighborhoods of $0$.
2\. If $\phi_-(0)=\phi_+(0)=G(0)$, the conjunction of the two orbits $\phi_-$ and $\phi_+$ furnishes the heteroclinic orbit connecting $P_-$ and $P_+$. In this case, the profile of the corresponding traveling wave is continuous.
3\. To complete the proof of the first part of the statement, we assume that either $\phi_-(0)\neq G(0)$ or $\phi_+(0)\neq G(0)$. Denoted by $\psi_\pm(y)$ the inverse functions of $\phi_\pm$ defined in $[-1,\phi_-(0)]$ and $[\phi_+(0),1]$, respectively, let us consider the function $$h(y):=\psi_+(y)+\psi_-(y)\qquad y\in[\phi_+(0),\phi_-(0)].$$ Then, by the properties of $\phi_\pm$, the function $h$ is strictly increasing and $$h(\phi_+(0)):=\psi_-(\phi_+(0))<0<\psi_+(\phi_-(0))=h(\phi_-(0)).$$ Hence, by continuity of $h$, there exists a single value $y_c$ such that $h(y_c)=0$. The connection of the trajectory $\phi_-$, truncated at $x=\psi_-(y_c)$, and $\phi_+$, truncated at $x=\psi_+(y_c)$ gives the desired heteroclinic orbit.
4\. Any of the conditions in implies that one of the trajectories $\phi_\pm$ does not pass through the point $(0,G(0))$. Indeed, if $G(0)\leq -1$, since the function $\phi_-$ is monotone increasing, then $\phi_-(0)>-1\geq G(0)$. Similarly, if $1\leq G(0)$, then $\phi_+(0)$ is strictly greater than $G(0)$. Finally, if $G'(0)<2\nu^2$, the point $P_0$ is a spiral for the rescaled system and no monotone trajectory is alloweded to get onto it.
5\. To complete the proof, it is sufficient to observe that more can one jump may appear only if there are smooth solutions of passing from the positive side $\{x>0\}$ to the negative side $\{x<0\}$. Because of the structure of the vector field defining the system, the corresponding eventual trajectories should pass through the point $P_0=(0,G(0))$, but, in the case $G'(0)>0$, the singular point $P_0$ is repulsive on $\{x>0\}$ and attractive on $\{x<0\}$ so that no transition from positive to negative values of $x$ is possible.
In the case $G'(0)\leq 0$, the system possesses trajectories passing through the point $(0,G(0))$ and going from the region $x>0$ to the region $x<0$. Thus, in principle, solutions may have more than a single jump point and we cannot exclude that there exists also other possible orbits with the same asymptotic states. In the concrete case of application of Proposition \[prop:existence\] to and the condition $G'(0)>0$ is satisfied.
Back to radiation hydrodynamics {#sect:zeld}
===============================
Next, let us analyze the system and the properties of the corresponding heteroclinic orbits in the case of radiation hydrodynamics as derived in Section \[sec:scaling\]. For the reader convenience, let us recall the formulas $$G(x):=\frac{1}{[g]}\bigl(2\,(g\circ\theta\circ U)(x)-g(\theta_-)-g(\theta_+)\bigr)
\qquad\textrm{and}\qquad
\nu:=\frac{\kappa\,\sigma_s\,[u]^2}{\tau\,[g]}.$$ (see formulas –). As stated in the Introduction, we introduce the key-parameter $\delta:=-[u]/U_c$, so that the expression of the compound function $(\theta\circ U)=(\theta\circ U)(x)$ becomes $$\label{thetadix}
(\theta\circ U)(x)=\frac{U_c^2}{\gamma\,R}\left(1-\frac12\,\delta\,x\right)
\left(1+\frac12\,\gamma\,\delta\,x\right),$$ that describes the values of temperature as a function of the auxiliary variable $x$.
We concentrate on a series of significant issues:\
– to determine threshold for the presence/absence of disconinuities;\
– to analyze the monotonicity of the temperature profiles;\
– to study the regimes $\delta\to 0$ and $\delta\to 2/\gamma$;\
– to show a short collection of numerical experiments.
At the end of the Section, for completeness, we also mention how the properties of the reduced system translate in the case of the Hamer model.
Discontinuous profiles {#discontinuous-profiles .unnumbered}
----------------------
As stated in Proposition \[prop:existence\], profiles of the traveling waves are discontinuous if condition is satisfied. If $g$ is monotone increasing and $[g]>0$, there hold $G(0)\leq -1$ if and only if $(\theta\circ U)(0) \leq \theta_-$ and $G(0)\geq 1$ if and only if $\theta_+ \leq (\theta\circ U)(0)$. Taking advantage of the expression , the previous relations can be rewritten as $$\begin{aligned}
G(0)\leq -1\;\iff\; 1\leq \left(1+\frac12\,\delta\right)\left(1-\frac12\,\gamma\,\delta\right)
\;\iff\; \delta\leq \frac{2(1-\gamma)}{\gamma},\\
G(0)\geq 1\;\iff\; \left(1-\frac12\,\delta\right)\left(1+\frac12\,\gamma\,\delta\right)\leq 1
\;\iff\; \delta\geq \frac{2(\gamma-1)}{\gamma}.\end{aligned}$$ For $\gamma>1$ and $\delta>0$, the first condition is never satisfied.
Additionally, there holds $$G'(0)=-\frac{\gamma-1}{R\gamma}\,\frac{[u]}{[g]}\,U_c
\frac{dg}{d\theta}\left(\frac{U_c^2}{\gamma\,R}\right)$$ so that condition $G'(0)<2\nu^2$ is equivalent to $$\label{condspiral}
\frac{M_0}{A^2}\,U_c\,\frac{dg}{d\theta}\left(\frac{U_c^2}{\gamma\,R}\right)<-\frac{[u]^3}{[g]}
\qquad\textrm{where}\quad
M_0:=\frac{2(\gamma-1)^3}{R\gamma(\gamma+1)^2}\,\frac{\tau^2}{\sigma_s^2}$$ For $g(\theta)=\sigma\,\theta$, condition becomes $$\delta>\frac{m_1}{A}
\qquad\textrm{where}\quad
m_1:=\frac{\sqrt{2}(\gamma-1)^2}{R\gamma(\gamma+1)}
\,\frac{\sigma\,\tau}{\sigma_s}$$ For $g$ as in with $\alpha$ integer greater than 1, the explicit formulas corresponding to the condition become very intricated and they do not seem to be significant. In any case, let us stress that differently with respect to the condition $G(0)\geq 1$, that depends only on the relation between the parameter $\delta$ and the value of the constant $\gamma$, constraint $G'(0)<2\nu^2$ depends also on the other characteristic parameters of the system.
Summarizing, we can state that the heteroclinic orbit is discontinuous if $$\label{jumpcond}
\delta\geq \delta_{\textrm{jump}}:=\frac{2(\gamma-1)}{\gamma}$$ Note that, if $\gamma>2$, the region in the plane $(U_c,|[u]|)$ for which this inequality is satisfied does not intersect the attainable region $\delta<2/\gamma$.
Temperature spikes {#temperature-spikes .unnumbered}
------------------
The temperature profile is given by calculated at $x=x(\zeta)$, the first component of the heteroclinic orbit of the reduced system . Since $x=x(\zeta)$ is strictly increasing, the monotonicity of the temperature is controlled by the sign of its first derivative $$\frac{d}{dx}(\theta\circ U)(x)=-\frac{[u]^2}{2\,R}(x-x_c)
\qquad\textrm{where}\quad
x_c:=\frac{\gamma-1}{\gamma}\,\frac{1}{\delta}$$ Hence, the profile has a change in monotonicity if and only if $$\label{changemon}
\delta>\delta_{\textrm{spike}}:=\frac{\gamma-1}{\gamma}$$ Such absolute maximum for the temperature is sometime referred to as the [Zel’dovich spike]{}. Note that the condition is optimal and depends only on the value of the constant $\gamma$ (in particular, it does not depend on the specific form of the function $g$!). For $\gamma>3$, the condition is not satisfied if $\delta<2/\gamma$, meaning that for such values of $\gamma$ the temperature profile is always monotone increasing.
The location of the absolute maximum point for $\theta$ can be either at the jump point, if present, or in a region of regularity of the profile. In the latter case, the maximum of the temperature is attained at $x=x_c$ and its value is $$\label{estimate}
\theta_{\textrm{\tiny max}}:=(\theta\circ U)(x_c)
=\frac{(\gamma+1)^2}{4\,\gamma^2}\,\frac{U_c^2}{R}$$ If the point of change of monotonicity coincides with the jump point, the values $\theta_{\textrm{\tiny max}}$ gives only an estimate from above of the maximum values for the temperature. It is particularly relevant to note that the expression of $\theta_{\textrm{\tiny max}}$ does depend only on $\gamma$, $R$ and $U_c$.
Estimate can be compared with the corresponding one determined in [@MihaMiha84] (formula (104.67), p.573) for $\gamma<3$ $$\theta_{\textrm{\tiny M}}:=(3-\gamma)\,\theta_+.$$ By using the expression for $\theta_+$ in terms of $U_c$ and $[u]$, we obtain $$\frac{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny max}}}{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny M}}}
=\frac{(\gamma+1)^2}{4\gamma(3-\gamma)}\,\frac{1}{(1-\delta/2)(1+\gamma\,\delta/2)}.$$ Since $\delta\in(0,2/\gamma)$, we infer $$\label{compare}
\frac{1}{3-\gamma}\leq \frac{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny max}}}{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny M}}}
\leq \frac{(\gamma+1)^2}{8(3-\gamma)(\gamma-1)}.$$ In the significant cases $\gamma=5/3$ and $\gamma=7/5$, the above estimates becomes $$\gamma=\frac{5}{3}\;:\quad
\frac{3}{4}\leq \frac{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny max}}}{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny M}}}\leq 1
\qquad\qquad
\gamma=\frac{7}{5}\;:\quad
\frac{5}{8}\leq \frac{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny max}}}{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny M}}}
\leq \frac{9}{8}.$$ The expression can be rewritten as $$1-\frac{2-\gamma}{3-\gamma}\leq \frac{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny max}}}{\theta_{\textrm{\tiny M}}}
\leq 1+\frac{(3\gamma-5)^2}{8(3-\gamma)(\gamma-1)},$$ thus, in the regime $\gamma<2$, the first term in this equality chains is strictly smaller than 1 and the last term, apart for the (physical!) case $\gamma=5/3$, the estimate from above is strictly greater than $1$.
Limiting regimes {#limiting-regimes .unnumbered}
----------------
The expression shows that $\theta\circ U$ has the form $C\,p(x;\gamma,\delta)$ with $C=U_c^2/\gamma\,R$ and $p$ a polynomial of degree 2 in $x$ with coefficients depending only on $\delta$ and $\gamma$. Therefore, in the case of functions $g$ with the power-law form described in , the function $G$ in the reduced system does not changes if the parameters $\gamma$ and $\delta$ are kept fixed. Here, we want to analyze the behavior of the heteroclinic orbits built in Section \[sec:reduced\] for $\delta$ prescribed in the regimes $\delta\to 0$ and $\delta\to 2/\gamma$. To this aim, we need to investigate the function $G$ for such values of $\delta$ and analyze the variations for the parameter $\nu$.
As $\delta\to 0$, formula can be rewritten as $$(\theta\circ U)(x)=\frac{U_c^2}{\gamma\,R}\left(1+\frac12(\gamma-1)\,\delta\,x\right)+o(\delta).$$ and substituting in the definition of $G$, we infer $$G(x)=x+o(1)\qquad\delta\to 0.$$ Thus, the function $G$ is strictly increasing and the temperature profile is monotone increasing. As $\delta\to 2/\gamma$, the relation becomes $$(\theta\circ U)(x)=\frac{U_c^2}{\gamma^2\,R}\left(\gamma-x\right)\left(1+x\right)
+o(\delta-2/\gamma)$$ Thus, we have $$G(x)=G_{\gamma,\alpha}(x)+o(\delta-2/\gamma)\qquad\delta\to \frac{2}{\gamma},$$ where $$G_{\gamma,\alpha}(x):=-1+2\,\left(\frac{\gamma-x}{\gamma-1}\,\cdot\,\frac{1+x}{2}\right)^{\alpha}$$ In this case, the function $G$ changes its monotonicity if and only if $1<\gamma<3$ and, if this is the case, has an absolute maximum point at $(\gamma-1)/2$; moreover, $G(0)>1$ if and only if $\gamma<2$. In particular, the temperature profile exhibits the Zel’dovich spike.
Next, we examine the parameter $\nu$ and its behavior for $\delta$ fixed and either $[u]\to 0$ or $[u]\to-\infty$ (equivalently, either $U_c\to 0$ or $U_c\to+\infty$). The assumption $g(\theta)=\sigma\,\theta^\alpha$ carries also the identity $$[g]=\sigma(\theta_+-\theta_-)(\theta_+^{\alpha-1}+\dots+\theta_-^{\alpha-1})
=-C\,\sigma\,[u]\,U_c^{2\alpha-1}$$ for some positive constant $C$ only on $\gamma, \delta, R$ and $\alpha$. Inserting in the definition of $\nu$ given in , we end up with $$\nu=\frac{C\,\delta}{U_c^{2(\alpha-1)}}
=\frac{C\,\delta^{2\alpha-1}}{[u]^{2(\alpha-1)}}$$ for some positive constant $C$ dependent only on $\gamma, A=\rho_\pm\,U_\pm, \sigma, \sigma_a, \sigma_s$. Hence, for $\alpha>1$, $\nu\to+\infty$ as $[u]\to 0$ (or $U_c\to 0$) and $\nu\to 0$ as $[u]\to -\infty$ (or $U_c\to +\infty$). The case $\alpha=1$ is different, since $\nu$ turns to be constant for $\delta$ fixed (see Example \[ex:geuler\]). For this reason, we only consider the case $\alpha>1$.
As $[u]\to+\infty$, in an appropriate scale, system formally reduces to $$\frac{dx}{d\zeta} = \frac{G(x)-y}{x},\qquad
\frac{dy}{d\zeta}=0$$ For $\delta\to 0$, such structure forces the unstable manifold $\mathcal{U}_-$ of $P_-=(-1,-1)$ and the stable manifold $\mathcal{S}_+$ of $P_-=(+1,+1)$ coincide with the graph of the function $G(x)=x+o(\delta)$. The corresponding temperature profile is continuous and strictly monotone increasing.
For $\delta\to 2/\gamma$, and $\gamma<2$, then the unstable manifold $\mathcal{U}_-$ of $P_-=(-1,-1)$ coincides with the graph of the function $G_{\gamma,\alpha}$; the stable manifold $\mathcal{S}_+$ of $P_-=(+1,+1)$ is given by a horizontal segment at height $y=1$. The heteroclinic orbit is obtained by the connection of such manifold at the (unique) point where the stable manifold $\mathcal{U}_-$ is at height $1$ (see Figure \[fig:casilimite\], left). Since $G_{\gamma,\alpha}$ is symmetric with respect to $x_c=\frac{1}{2}(\gamma-1)$, the value $x_-$ of the jump is equal to $2x_c-1=-(2-\gamma)$ and the corresponding value $x_+$ is $2-\gamma$. The maximum of the temperature profile is attained at the jump point if and only if $x_+$ is greater than or equal to $x_c$, that is if and only if $\gamma\leq 5/3$.
![Regime $\delta\to 2/\gamma$ and $[u]\to-\infty$. Upper line: the phase plane $(x,y)$ with the graph of the function $G$ (continuous line) and the heteroclinic orbit connecting the points $P_-=(-1,-1)$ and $P_+=(+1,+1)$ (dashed lines for the continuous part and dashed-dotted line for the jump). Case $\gamma<2$ (left) and case $\gamma>2$ (right). Lower line: corresponding temperature profiles for the case $\gamma<2$ (left) and case $\gamma>2$ (right), both with an inside box showing a zoomed version of the spike.[]{data-label="fig:casilimite"}](casolimite1 "fig:"){width="7cm" height="5cm"}![Regime $\delta\to 2/\gamma$ and $[u]\to-\infty$. Upper line: the phase plane $(x,y)$ with the graph of the function $G$ (continuous line) and the heteroclinic orbit connecting the points $P_-=(-1,-1)$ and $P_+=(+1,+1)$ (dashed lines for the continuous part and dashed-dotted line for the jump). Case $\gamma<2$ (left) and case $\gamma>2$ (right). Lower line: corresponding temperature profiles for the case $\gamma<2$ (left) and case $\gamma>2$ (right), both with an inside box showing a zoomed version of the spike.[]{data-label="fig:casilimite"}](casolimite2 "fig:"){width="7cm" height="5cm"}\
![Regime $\delta\to 2/\gamma$ and $[u]\to-\infty$. Upper line: the phase plane $(x,y)$ with the graph of the function $G$ (continuous line) and the heteroclinic orbit connecting the points $P_-=(-1,-1)$ and $P_+=(+1,+1)$ (dashed lines for the continuous part and dashed-dotted line for the jump). Case $\gamma<2$ (left) and case $\gamma>2$ (right). Lower line: corresponding temperature profiles for the case $\gamma<2$ (left) and case $\gamma>2$ (right), both with an inside box showing a zoomed version of the spike.[]{data-label="fig:casilimite"}](casolimite1temp2 "fig:"){width="7cm" height="5cm"}![Regime $\delta\to 2/\gamma$ and $[u]\to-\infty$. Upper line: the phase plane $(x,y)$ with the graph of the function $G$ (continuous line) and the heteroclinic orbit connecting the points $P_-=(-1,-1)$ and $P_+=(+1,+1)$ (dashed lines for the continuous part and dashed-dotted line for the jump). Case $\gamma<2$ (left) and case $\gamma>2$ (right). Lower line: corresponding temperature profiles for the case $\gamma<2$ (left) and case $\gamma>2$ (right), both with an inside box showing a zoomed version of the spike.[]{data-label="fig:casilimite"}](casolimite2temp2 "fig:"){width="7cm" height="5cm"}
For $\delta\to 2/\gamma$, and $\gamma\geq 2$, then the unstable manifold $\mathcal{U}_-$ of $P_-=(-1,-1)$ coincides with the graph of the function $G_{\gamma,\alpha}$ on the interval $[-1,0]$. The stable manifold $\mathcal{S}_+$ of $P_-=(+1,+1)$ is given by the union of the horizontal segment connecting the point $(\gamma-2,1)$ and $(1,1)$ and the graph of the function $G_{\gamma,\alpha}$ for $x\in[0,\gamma-2]$ (see Figure \[fig:casilimite\], right).
For $[u]\to0$, again in an appropriate scale, system becomes $$\frac{dx}{d\zeta} = 0,\qquad
\frac{dy}{d\zeta}= \frac{1}{2}(1-x^2)$$ In this regime, the limiting dynamics is very simple: the unstable manifold $\mathcal{U}_-$ of $P_-=(-1,-1)$ coincides with the vertical half-line $\{x=-1, y\geq -1\}$ and the stable manifold $\mathcal{S}_+$ of $P_-=(+1,+1)$ with the vertical half-line $\{x=1, y\leq 1\}$. The heteroclinic orbit is described by a direct jump from $\mathcal{U}_-$ to $\mathcal{S}_+$. The corresponding temperature profile is monotone for $\delta\to 0^+$ and non-monotone for $\delta\to 2/\gamma$.
The intermediate cases for $\nu$ can be deduced qualitatively by noting that, for $\delta$ fixed and $\nu$ varying, the system is a rotated vector field, as already observed in Remark \[rem:rotated\]. In particular, as $\nu$ increases, that is as $|u_+-u_-|$ decreases, the trajectory determining the manifolds $\mathcal{U}_-$ and $\mathcal{S}_+$ rotate counter clockwise passing from one limiting configuration to the other.
Numerical experiments {#numerical-experiments .unnumbered}
---------------------
One of the advantage of the reduced system resides in its semplicity and in the possibility of a numerical approximation of the structure of the radiative profiles by means of a standard solver for ordinary differential equations, complemented with the conditions relative to the eventual jump point. We present here a series of experiments where parameters have been chosen only in part realistic. The value for the adiabatic constant $\gamma$ is taken equal to $5/3$ and the constant $R$ is set equal to $8.31$. All of the constants relative to the radiative coupling, $\sigma, \sigma_s$ and $\tau$, are chosen equal to 1. The function $g$ has the form expressed in . As quoted, the realistic exponent $\alpha$ is $4$; nevertheless, for computational advantage, we choose to set $\alpha=2$ (the case $\alpha=1$ has different behavior in the limiting regimes). Also, to reduce the number of free parameters, we fix $\rho_-$ at the value $0.1$.
Finally, the different cases depend on the choices of the ratio $\delta$ and values of $U_c$ (the average of the velocities $U_\pm$ at the left and at the right of the profile). Since $\gamma=5/3$, the thresholds for $\delta$ are $$\delta_{\textrm{spike}}=0.4\qquad
\delta_{\textrm{jump}}=0.8\qquad
\frac{2}{\gamma}=1.2$$ Being interested in the behavior for weak/strong radiation and weak/strong shocks we choose $\delta=0.6$ (Figure \[fig:temprofile\], left column) and $\delta=1.0$ (Figure \[fig:temprofile\], right column) and $U_c$ equal to $10, 50$ and $100$.
\[fig:temprofile\] {width="7cm" height="4cm"}{width="7cm" height="4cm"}\
{width="7cm" height="4cm"}{width="7cm" height="4cm"}\
{width="7cm" height="4cm"}{width="7cm" height="4cm"}\
Coeherently with the result previously deduced, all of the profiles are non-monotone since both the values of $\delta$ are taken above the threshold $\delta_{\textrm{spike}}=0.4$. The choice $\delta=1.0$ is also above the threshold $\delta_{\textrm{jump}}=0.8$ and thus the profile are discontinuous. For all of them, the spike coincide with the jump point. The choice $\delta=0.6$ is consistent with both continuous and discontinuous profiles and this is revelad by the fact that for $U_c=10$, the temperature has a jump, and for both $U_c=50$ and $U_c=100$ the profile is continuous.
Higher values for $\delta$, closer to the limiting value $2/\gamma$, give raise to pictures resembling the one already presented in Figure \[fig:casilimite\] (left column). In particular, the width of the spike region shrinks to a single point.
Hamer model {#hamer-model-1 .unnumbered}
-----------
In the case of the system with $f(s)=\frac12\,s^2$, if $g$ is monotone increasing, $G(0)\leq -1$ if and only if $c\geq u_-$ and $G(0)\geq 1$ if and only if $u_+\leq c$. Since $u_+<c<u_-$ for any admissible shock wave, discontinuous orbits may appear only as a consequence of the condition $G'(0)<2\nu^2$, that, in the present case, translates into $$\frac{dg}{du}\left(c\right)<\frac12\,\frac{[u]^3}{[g]}.$$ Considering $g(u)=\sigma\,u$, $\sigma>0$, (see Example ), the above condition becomes $$|u_+-u_-|>\sqrt{2}\,\sigma,$$ that describes the (sharp) threshold for discontinuous profiles (see [@KawaNish99]).
The case $g(u)=\sigma\,u^2$ gives the condition $$|u_+-u_-|>2\sqrt{2}\,\sigma\,|c|$$ showing that discontinuous profiles are possible also in the regime of small $|u_+-u_-|$, if the sonic value $c$ is sufficiently small. Note that in this case, the function $G$ is non-monotone in $[-1,1]$ if and only if $$|u_+-u_-|>2\,|c|,$$ hence, if $\sigma>1/\sqrt{2}$, both non-monotonicity of $G$ and continuity of the profile are compatible for some appropriate choice of the asymptotic states $u_\pm$.
Conclusions
===========
The analysis performed shows that shock waves are robust patterns for the system under the assumption . Indeed, the existence of such structures is not limited to specific ranges for the asymptotic states; oppositely, they do exist for any regime consistent with the reduced hyperbolic system, obtained by disregarding the radiation effects. Additionally, the system of algebraic-differential system can be dealth with in a rigorous manner with a restricted number of technicalities and, at the same time, with a good number of quantitative informations relative to the internal structure of the shock transition, specifically with respect to the presence of change of monotonicity. This allows to extend the analysis carried out in the region $\delta\to 2/\gamma$ in [@MihaMiha84] to any regime and gives a sound basis to the result formally derived in [@HeasBald63]. Also, the observation that, for fixed $\delta$, the reduced system depends on the value $|U_+-U_-|$ (or, equivalently, on $U_c$) as a [rotated vector field]{} permits, in principle, to follow the changes in the qualitative properties of the profiles in a “monotone” way with respect to the variation of such value.
The relative simplicity and solidity of the structure of the problem is also revealed from the fact that there is a great freedom in the possible form for the coupling term $g$ –though the power-like form is the most accredited version– and that there is a reduced number of parameters required to classify different forms for the profiles. More general forms for pressure and internal energy should also preserve the existence of the radiative profiles so that it is reasonable that the results presented in this article extend to more general fluids.
A natural subsequent step is the stability analysis for such radiation profiles, in particular in the presence of spikes. Such problem could be approached taking inspiration from other classes of systems of partial differential equations in the context of conservation laws that support non-monotone traveling wave as in the case of combustion waves. Also, it would be very interesting to analyze the case of radiation hydrodynamics in more general forms and specifically without taking advantage of the assumptions that reduce the model to a hyperbolic-elliptic system of partial differential equations. In particular, considering the native form of a continuous-kinetic coupled model would be a very challenging and stimulating research project.
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Gilbarg D.; [*The existence and limit behavior of the one-dimensional shock layer*]{}, Amer. J. Math. 73 (1951) no.2, 256–274.
Godillon-Lafitte P.; Goudon T.; [*A coupled model for radiative transfer: Doppler effects, equilibrium and non equilibrium diffusion asymptotics*]{}, SIAM Multiscale Modeling and Simulation 4 (2005) no.4, 1245–1279.
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[^1]: Dipartimento di Matematica “G. Castelnuovo”, Sapienza – Università di Roma, P.le Aldo Moro, 2 - 00185 Roma (ITALY), `[email protected]` [and]{} [Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (associated in the framework of the program “Intracellular Signalling”)]{}
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | ArXiv |
---
abstract: |
Prolate spheroidal wave functions (PSWFs) play an important role in various areas, from physics (e.g. wave phenomena, fluid dynamics) to engineering (e.g. signal processing, filter design). Even though the significance of PSWFs was realized at least half a century ago, and they frequently occur in applications, their analytical properties have not been investigated as much as those of many other special functions. In particular, despite some recent progress, the gap between asymptotic expansions and numerical experience, on the one hand, and rigorously proven explicit bounds and estimates, on the other hand, is still rather wide.
This paper attempts to improve the current situation. We analyze the differential operator associated with PSWFs, to derive fairly tight estimates on its eigenvalues. By combining these inequalities with a number of standard techniques, we also obtain several other properties of the PSFWs. The results are illustrated via numerical experiments.
author:
- 'Andrei Osipov[^1] [^2]'
title: Certain inequalities involving prolate spheroidal wave functions and associated quantities
---
[**Keywords:**]{} [bandlimited functions, prolate spheroidal wave functions, Prüfer transformation]{}
[**Math subject classification:**]{} [ 33E10, 34L15, 35S30, 42C10]{}
Introduction {#sec_intro}
============
The principal purpose of this paper is to provide proofs for several inequalities involving bandlimited functions (see Section \[sec\_summary\] below). While some of these inequalities are known from “numerical experience” (see, for example, [@ProlateSlepian1], [@ProlateLandau1], [@ProlateLandau2], [@SlepianAsymptotic]), their proofs appear to be absent in the literature.
A function $f: \Rc \to \Rc$ is bandlimited of band limit $c>0$, if there exists a function $\sigma \in L^2\left[-1,1\right]$ such that $$\begin{aligned}
f(x) = \int_{-1}^1 \sigma(t) e^{icxt} \; dt.
\label{eq_intro_f}\end{aligned}$$ In other words, the Fourier transform of a bandlimited function is compactly supported. While defines $f$ for all real $x$, one is often interested in bandlimited functions, whose argument is confined to an interval, e.g. $-1 \leq x \leq 1$. Such functions are encountered in physics (wave phenomena, fluid dynamics), engineering (signal processing), etc. (see e.g. [@SlepianComments], [@Flammer], [@Papoulis]).
About 50 years ago it was observed that the eigenfunctions of the integral operator $F_c: L^2\left[-1,1\right] \to L^2\left[-1,1\right]$, defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
F_c{\left[ \varphi \right]} {\left( x \right)} = \int_{-1}^1 \varphi(t) e^{icxt} \; dt,
\label{eq_intro_fc}\end{aligned}$$ provide a natural tool for dealing with bandlimited functions, defined on the interval $\left[-1,1\right]$. Moreover, it was observed (see, for example, [@ProlateSlepian1], [@ProlateLandau1], [@ProlateSlepian2]) that the eigenfunctions of $F_c$ are precisely the prolate spheroidal wave functions (PSWFs), well known from the mathematical physics (see, for example, [@PhysicsMorse], [@Flammer]). The PSWFs are the eigenfunctions of the differential operator $L_c$, defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
L_c\left[ \varphi \right] \left(x\right)=
-\frac{d}{dx} \left( (1-x^2) \cdot \frac{d\varphi}{dx}(x) \right) +
c^2 x^2.
\label{eq_intro_lc}\end{aligned}$$ In other words, the integral operator $F_c$ commutes with the differential operator $L_c$ (see [@ProlateSlepian1], [@Grunbaum]). This property, being remarkable by itself, also plays an important role in both the analysis of PSWFs and the associated numerical algorithms (see, for example, [@Glaser], [@RokhlinXiaoProlate]).
It is perhaps surprising, however, that the analytical properties of PSWFs have not been investigated as thoroughly as those of several other classes of special functions. In particular, when one reads through the classical works about the PSWFs (see, for example, [@ProlateSlepian1], [@ProlateLandau1], [@ProlateLandau2], [@ProlateSlepian2], [@ProlateSlepian3]), one is amazed by the number of properties stated without rigorous proofs. Some other properties are only supported by analysis of an asymptotic nature; see, for example, [@RokhlinXiaoAsymptotic], [@LandauWidom], [@SlepianAsymptotic], [@Fuchs]. To some extent, this problem has been addressed in a number of recently published papers, for example, [@Yoel], [@RokhlinXiaoProlate], [@RokhlinXiaoApprox]. Still, the gap between numerical experience and asymptotic expansions, on the one hand, and rigorously proven explicit bounds and estimates, on the other hand, is rather wide; this paper offers a partial remedy for this deficiency.
This paper is mostly devoted to the analysis of the differential operator $L_c$, defined via . In particular, several explicit bounds for the eigenvalues of $L_c$ are derived. These bounds turn out to be fairly tight, and the resulting inequalities lead to rigorous proofs of several other properties of PSWFs. The analysis is illustrated through several numerical experiments.
The analysis of the eigenvalues of the integral operator $F_c$, defined via , requires tools different from those used in this paper; it will be published at a later date. The implications of the analysis of both $L_c$ and $F_c$ to numerical algorithms involving PSWFs are being currently investigated.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section \[sec\_prel\], we summarize a number of well known mathematical facts to be used in the rest of this paper. In Section \[sec\_summary\], we provide a summary of the principal results of this paper. In Section \[sec\_analytical\], we introduce the necessary analytical apparatus and carry out the analysis. In Section \[sec\_numerical\], we illustrate the analysis via several numerical examples.
Mathematical and Numerical Preliminaries {#sec_prel}
========================================
In this section, we introduce notation and summarize several facts to be used in the rest of the paper.
Prolate Spheroidal Wave Functions {#sec_pswf}
---------------------------------
In this subsection, we summarize several facts about the PSWFs. Unless stated otherwise, all these facts can be found in [@RokhlinXiaoProlate], [@RokhlinXiaoApprox], [@LandauWidom], [@ProlateSlepian1], [@ProlateLandau1].
Given a real number $c > 0$, we define the operator $F_c: L^2{\left[ -1, 1 \right]} \to L^2{\left[ -1, 1 \right]}$ via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
F_c{\left[ \varphi \right]} {\left( x \right)} = \int_{-1}^1 \varphi(t) e^{icxt} \; dt.
\label{eq_pswf_fc}\end{aligned}$$ Obviously, $F_c$ is compact. We denote its eigenvalues by $\lambda_0, \lambda_1, \dots, \lambda_n, \dots$ and assume that they are ordered such that ${\left| \lambda_n \right|} \geq {\left| \lambda_{n+1} \right|}$ for all natural $n \geq 0$. We denote by $\psi_n$ the eigenfunction corresponding to $\lambda_n$. In other words, the following identity holds for all integer $n \geq 0$ and all real $-1 \leq x \leq 1$: $$\begin{aligned}
\label{eq_prolate_integral}
\lambda_n \psi_n{\left( x \right)} = \int_{-1}^1 \psi_n(t) e^{icxt} \; dt.\end{aligned}$$ We adopt the convention[^3] that $\| \psi_n \|_{L^2{\left[ -1,1 \right]}} = 1$. The following theorem describes the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of $F_c$ (see [@RokhlinXiaoProlate], [@RokhlinXiaoApprox], [@ProlateSlepian1]).
Suppose that $c>0$ is a real number, and that the operator $F_c$ is defined via above. Then, the eigenfunctions $\psi_0, \psi_1, \dots$ of $F_c$ are purely real, are orthonormal and are complete in $L^2{\left[ -1, 1 \right]}$. The even-numbered functions are even, the odd-numbered ones are odd. Each function $\psi_n$ has exactly $n$ simple roots in ${\left( -1, 1 \right)}$. All eigenvalues $\lambda_n$ of $F_c$ are non-zero and simple; the even-numbered ones are purely real and the odd-numbered ones are purely imaginary; in particular, $\lambda_n = i^n {\left| \lambda_n \right|}$. \[thm\_pswf\_main\]
We define the self-adjoint operator $Q_c: L^2{\left[ -1, 1 \right]} \to L^2{\left[ -1, 1 \right]}$ via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
Q_c{\left[ \varphi \right]} {\left( x \right)} =
\frac{1}{\pi} \int_{-1}^1
\frac{ \sin {\left( c{\left( x-t \right)} \right)} }{x-t} \; \varphi(t) \; dt.
\label{eq_pswf_qc}\end{aligned}$$ Clearly, if we denote by ${\mathcal{F}}:L^2(\Rc) \to L^2(\Rc)$ the unitary Fourier transform, then $$\begin{aligned}
Q_c{\left[ \varphi \right]} {\left( x \right)} =
\chi_{{\left[ -1,1 \right]}}(x) \cdot
{\mathcal{F}}^{-1} {\left[
\chi_{{\left[ -c,c \right]}}(\xi) \cdot {\mathcal{F}}{\left[ \varphi \right]}(\xi)
\right]}(x),\end{aligned}$$ where $\chi_{\left[-a,a\right]} : \Rc \to \Rc$ is the characteristic function of the interval $\left[-a,a\right]$, defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
\chi_{\left[-a,a\right]}(x) =
\begin{cases}
1 & -a \leq x \leq a, \\
0 & \text{otherwise},
\end{cases}
\label{eq_char_function}\end{aligned}$$ for all real $x$. In other words, $Q_c$ represents low-passing followed by time-limiting. $Q_c$ relates to $F_c$, defined via , by $$\begin{aligned}
Q_c = \frac{ c }{ 2 \pi } \cdot F_c^{\ast} \cdot F_c,
\label{eq_pswf_qc_fc}\end{aligned}$$ and the eigenvalues $\mu_n$ of $Q_n$ satisfy the identity $$\begin{aligned}
\mu_n = \frac{c}{2\pi} \cdot {\left| \lambda_n \right|}^2,
\label{eq_prolate_mu}\end{aligned}$$ for all integer $n \geq 0$. Moreover, $Q_c$ has the same eigenfunctions $\psi_n$ as $F_c$. In other words, $$\begin{aligned}
\mu_n \psi_n(x) = \frac{1}{\pi}
\int_{-1}^1 \frac{ \sin{\left( c(x-t) \right)} }{ x - t } \; \psi_n(t) \; dt,
\label{eq_prolate_integral2}\end{aligned}$$ for all integer $n \geq 0$ and all $-1 \leq x \leq 1$. Also, $Q_c$ is closely related to the operator $P_c: L^2(\Rc) \to L^2(\Rc)$, defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
P_c{\left[ \varphi \right]} {\left( x \right)} =
\frac{1}{\pi} \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}
\frac{ \sin {\left( c{\left( x-t \right)} \right)} }{x-t} \; \varphi(t) \; dt,
\label{eq_pswf_pc}\end{aligned}$$ which is a widely known orthogonal projection onto the space of functions of band limit $c > 0$ on the real line $\Rc$.
The following theorem about the eigenvalues $\mu_n$ of the operator $Q_c$, defined via , can be traced back to [@LandauWidom]:
Suppose that $c>0$ and $0<\alpha<1$ are positive real numbers, and that the operator $Q_c: L^2\left[-1,1\right] \to L^2\left[-1,1\right]$ is defined via above. Suppose also that the integer $N(c,\alpha)$ is the number of the eigenvalues $\mu_n$ of $Q_c$ that are greater than $\alpha$. In other words, $$\begin{aligned}
N(c,\alpha) = \max\left\{ k = 1,2,\dots \; : \; \mu_{k-1} > 0\right\}.\end{aligned}$$ Then, $$\begin{aligned}
N(c,\alpha) =
\frac{2}{\pi} c + {\left( \frac{1}{\pi^2} \log \frac{1-\alpha}{\alpha} \right)}
\log c + O{\left( \log c \right)}.
\label{eq_mu_spectrum}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_mu\_spectrum\]
According to , there are about $2c/\pi$ eigenvalues whose absolute value is close to one, order of $\log c$ eigenvalues that decay exponentially, and the rest of them are very close to zero.
The eigenfunctions $\psi_n$ of $Q_c$ turn out to be the PSWFs, well known from classical mathematical physics (see, for example, [@PhysicsMorse], [@Flammer]). The following theorem, proved in a more general form in [@ProlateSlepian2], formalizes this statement.
For any $c > 0$, there exists a strictly increasing unbounded sequence of positive numbers $\chi_0 < \chi_1 < \dots$ such that, for each integer $n \geq 0$, the differential equation $$\begin{aligned}
{\left( 1 - x^2 \right)} \psi''(x) - 2 x \cdot \psi'(x)
+ {\left( \chi_n - c^2 x^2 \right)} \psi(x) = 0
\label{eq_prolate_ode}\end{aligned}$$ has a solution that is continuous on ${\left[ -1, 1 \right]}$. Moreover, all such solutions are constant multiples of the eigenfunction $\psi_n$ of $F_c$, defined via above. \[thm\_prolate\_ode\]
The following theorem provides lower and upper bounds on $\chi_n$ of Theorem \[thm\_prolate\_ode\] (see, for example, [@RokhlinXiaoProlate], [@ProlateSlepian1], [@ProlateLandau1]).
For all real $c>0$ and all natural $n \geq 0$, $$\begin{aligned}
\label{eq_khi_crude}
n {\left( n + 1 \right)} < \chi_n < n {\left( n + 1 \right)} + c^2.\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_khi\_crude\]
The following result provides an upper bound on $\psi_n^2(1)$ (see [@RokhlinXiaoApprox]).
For all $c > 0$ and all natural $n \geq 0$, $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n^2(1) < n + \frac{1}{2}.\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_psi1\_upper\_bound\]
Elliptic Integrals {#sec_elliptic}
------------------
In this subsection, we summarize several facts about elliptic integrals. These facts can be found, for example, in section 8.1 in [@Ryzhik], and in [@Abramovitz].
The incomplete elliptic integrals of the first and second kind are defined, respectively, by the formulae $$\begin{aligned}
\label{eq_F_y}
& F(y, k) = \int_0^y \frac{dt}{\sqrt{1 - k^2 \sin^2 t}}, \\
& E(y, k) = \int_0^y \sqrt{1 - k^2 \sin^2 t} \; dt,
\label{eq_E_y}\end{aligned}$$ where $0 \leq y \leq \pi/2$ and $0 \leq k \leq 1$. By performing the substitution $x = \sin t$, we can write and as $$\begin{aligned}
& F(y, k) = \int_0^{\sin(y)}
\frac{ dx }{ \sqrt{{\left( 1 - x^2 \right)} {\left( 1 - k^2 x^2 \right)} } },
\label{eq_F_y_2} \\
\nonumber \\
& E(y, k) = \int_0^{\sin(y)}
\sqrt{ \frac{1 - k^2 x^2}{1 - x^2} } \; dx.
\label{eq_E_y_2}\end{aligned}$$ The complete elliptic integrals of the first and second kind are defined, respectively, by the formulae $$\begin{aligned}
\label{eq_F}
& F(k) = F{\left( \frac{\pi}{2}, k \right)} =
\int_0^{\pi/2} \frac{dt}{\sqrt{1 - k^2 \sin^2 t}}, \\
& E(k) = E{\left( \frac{\pi}{2}, k \right)} =
\int_0^{\pi/2} \sqrt{1 - k^2 \sin^2 t} \; dt,
\label{eq_E}\end{aligned}$$ for all $0 \leq k \leq 1$. Moreover, $$\begin{aligned}
E\left( \sqrt{1-k^2} \right) =
1 + \left(-\frac{1}{4}+\log(2)-\frac{\log(k)}{2}\right) \cdot k^2 +
O\left( k^4 \cdot \log(k) \right).
\label{eq_E_exp}\end{aligned}$$
Oscillation Properties of Second Order ODEs {#sec_oscillation_ode}
-------------------------------------------
In this subsection, we state several well known facts from the general theory of second order ordinary differential equations (see e.g. [@Miller]).
The following two theorems appear in Section 3.6 of [@Miller] in a slightly different form.
Suppose that $h(t)$ is a solution of the ODE $$\begin{aligned}
y''(t) + Q(t) y(t) = 0.
\label{eq_25_09_ode}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose also that $x < y$ are two consecutive roots of $h(t)$, and that $$\begin{aligned}
A^2 \leq Q(t) \leq B^2,
\label{eq_25_09_cond}\end{aligned}$$ for all $x \leq t \leq y$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{\pi}{B} < y - x < \frac{\pi}{A}.
\label{eq_25_09_thm}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_25\_09\]
Suppose that $a<b$ are real numbers, and that $g:(a,b) \to \Rc$ is a continuous monotone function. Suppose also that $y(t)$ is a solution of the ODE $$\begin{aligned}
y''(t) + g(t) \cdot y(t) = 0,
\label{eq_25_09_ode2}\end{aligned}$$ in the interval $(a,b)$. Suppose furthermore that $$\begin{aligned}
t_1 < t_2 < t_3 < \dots\end{aligned}$$ are consecutive roots of $y(t)$. If $g$ is non-decreasing, then $$\begin{aligned}
t_2 - t_1 \geq t_3 - t_2 \geq t_4 - t_3 \geq \dots.
\label{eq_shrink}\end{aligned}$$ If $g$ is non-increasing, then $$\begin{aligned}
t_2-t_1 \leq t_3-t_2 \leq t_4-t_3 \leq \dots.
\label{eq_stretch}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_25\_09\_2\]
The following theorem is a special case of Theorem 6.2 from Section 3.6 in [@Miller]:
Suppose that $g_1, g_2$ are continuous functions, and that, for all real $t$ in the interval ${\left( a, b \right)}$, the inequality $g_1(t) < g_2(t)$ holds. Suppose also that $\phi_1, \phi_2:(a,b) \to \Rc$ are real-valued functions, and that $$\begin{aligned}
& \phi_1''(t) + g_1(t) \cdot \phi_1(t) = 0, \nonumber \\
& \phi_2''(t) + g_2(t) \cdot \phi_2(t) = 0,
\label{eq_08_12_g12}\end{aligned}$$ for all $a < t < b$. Then, $\phi_2$ has a root between every two consecutive roots of $\phi_1$. \[thm\_08\_12\_zeros\]
Suppose that the functions $\phi_1, \phi_2$ are those of Theorem \[thm\_08\_12\_zeros\] above. Suppose also that $$\begin{aligned}
\phi_1(t_0) = \phi_2(t_0), \quad \phi_1'(t_0) = \phi_2'(t_0),\end{aligned}$$ for some $a < t_0 < b$. Then, $\phi_2$ has at least as many roots in ${\left( t_0, b \right)}$ as $\phi_1$. \[cor\_08\_12\_zeros\]
Due to Theorem \[thm\_08\_12\_zeros\], we only need to show that if $t_1$ is the minimal root of $\phi_1$ in ${\left( t_0, b \right)}$, then there exists a root of $\phi_2$ in ${\left( t_0, t_1 \right)}$. By contradiction, suppose that this is not the case. In addition, without loss of generality, suppose that $\phi_1(t), \phi_2(t)$ are positive in ${\left( t_0, t_1 \right)}$. Then, due to , $$\begin{aligned}
\phi_1'' \phi_2 - \phi_2'' \phi_1 = {\left( g_2 - g_1 \right)} \phi_1 \phi_2,\end{aligned}$$ and hence $$\begin{aligned}
0 & \; <
\int_{t_0}^{t_1} {\left( g_2(s) - g_1(s) \right)} \phi_1(s) \phi_2(s) ds
\nonumber \\
& \; =
{\left[ \phi_1'(s) \phi_2(s) - \phi_1(s) \phi_2'(s) \right]}_{t_0}^{t_1} \nonumber \\
& \; =
\phi_1'(t_1) \phi_2(t_1) \leq 0,\end{aligned}$$ which is a contradiction.
Prüfer Transformations {#sec_prufer}
----------------------
In this subsection, we describe the classical Prüfer transformation of a second order ODE (see e.g. [@Miller],[@Fedoryuk]). Also, we describe a modification of Prüfer transformation, introduced in [@Glaser] and used in the rest of the paper.
Suppose that in the second order ODE $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{ d }{ dt } {\left( p(t) u'(t) \right)} + q(t) u(t) = 0
\label{eq_prufer_0}\end{aligned}$$ the variable $t$ varies over some interval $I$ in which $p$ and $q$ are continuously differentiable and have no roots. We define the function $\theta: I \to \Rc$ via $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{ p(t) u'(t) }{ u(t) } =
\gamma(t) \tan \theta(t),
\label{eq_general_prufer}\end{aligned}$$ where $\gamma: I \to \Rc$ is an arbitrary positive continuously differentiable function. The function $\theta(t)$ satisfies, for all $t$ in $I$, $$\begin{aligned}
\theta'(t) = -\frac{\gamma(t)}{p(t)} \sin^2 \theta(t)
-\frac{q(t)}{\gamma(t)} \cos^2 \theta(t)
-{\left( \frac{\gamma'(t)}{\gamma(t)} \right)}
\frac{\sin{\left( 2\theta(t) \right)}}{2}.
\label{eq_general_dtheta}\end{aligned}$$ One can observe that if $u'(\tilde{t}) = 0$ for $\tilde{t} \in I$, then by $$\begin{aligned}
\theta(\tilde{t}) = k \pi, \quad
k \text{ is integer}.
\label{eq_prufer_du_zero}\end{aligned}$$ Similarly, if $u(\tilde{t}) = 0$ for $\tilde{t} \in I$, then $$\begin{aligned}
\theta(\tilde{t}) = {\left( k + 1/2 \right)} \pi, \quad
k \text{ is integer}.
\label{eq_prufer_u_zero}\end{aligned}$$ The choice $\gamma(t) = 1$ in gives rise to the classical Prüfer transformation (see e.g. section 4.2 in [@Miller]).
In [@Glaser], the choice $\gamma(t) = \sqrt{q(t) p(t)}$ is suggested and shown to be more convenient numerically in several applications. In this paper, this choice also leads to a more convenient analytical tool than the classical Prüfer transformation.
Writing in the form of yields $$\begin{aligned}
p(t) = 1 - t^2, \quad q(t) = \chi_n - c^2 t^2,
\label{eq_prufer_1}\end{aligned}$$ for ${\left| t \right|} < \min{\left\{ \sqrt{\chi_n}/c, 1 \right\}}$. The equation admits the form $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{ p(t) \psi_n'(t) }{ \psi_n(t) } =
\sqrt{ p(t) q(t) } \tan \theta(t),
\label{eq_modified_prufer}\end{aligned}$$ which implies that $$\begin{aligned}
\theta(t) = \text{atan} {\left( \sqrt{\frac{p(t)}{q(t)}}
\frac{\psi_n'(t)}{\psi_n(t)} \right)} + \pi m(t),
\label{eq_modified_prufer_theta}\end{aligned}$$ where $m(t)$ is an integer determined for all $t$ by an arbitrary choice at some $t = t_0$ (the role of $\pi m(t)$ in is to enforce the continuity of $\theta$ at the roots of $\psi_n$). The first order ODE admits the form (see [@Glaser], [@Fedoryuk]) $$\begin{aligned}
\theta'(t) = -f(t) + \sin {\left( 2 \theta(t) \right)} v(t),
\label{eq_jan_prufer_fv}\end{aligned}$$ where the functions $f, v$ are defined, respectively, via the formulae $$\begin{aligned}
f(t) = \sqrt{ \frac{ q(t) }{ p(t) } }
= \sqrt{ \frac{ \chi_n - c^2 t^2 }{ 1 - t^2 } }
\label{eq_jan_f}\end{aligned}$$ and $$\begin{aligned}
v(t) = -
\frac{1}{4} \cdot \frac{ p(t)q'(t) + q(t)p'(t) }{ p(t) q(t) }
=
\frac{1}{2} {\left( \frac{t}{1-t^2} + \frac{c^2 t}{\chi_n - c^2 t^2} \right)}.
\label{eq_jan_v}\end{aligned}$$
Summary {#sec_summary}
=======
In this section, we summarize some of the properties of prolate spheroidal wave functions (PSWFs), proved in Section \[sec\_analytical\]. The PSWFs and the related notation were introduced in Section \[sec\_pswf\]. Throughout this section, the band limit $c > 0$ is assumed to be a positive real number.
Many properties of the PSWF $\psi_n$ depend on whether the eigenvalue $\chi_n$ of the ODE is greater than or less than $c^2$. The following simple relation between $c, n$ and $\chi_n$ is proven in Theorem \[thm\_n\_and\_khi\] in Section \[sec\_sharp\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a non-negative integer.
- If $n \leq (2c/\pi)-1$, then $\chi_n < c^2$.
- If $n \geq (2c/\pi)$, then $\chi_n > c^2$.
- If $(2c/\pi)-1 < n < (2c/\pi)$, then either inequality is possible.
\[prop\_n\_and\_khi\]
In the following proposition, we describe the location of “special points” (roots of $\psi_n$, roots of $\psi_n'$, turning points of the ODE ) that depends on whether $\chi_n > c^2$ or $\chi_n < c^2$. It is proven in Lemma \[lem\_five\] in Section \[sec\_special\_points\] and is illustrated in Figures \[fig:test75a\], \[fig:test75b\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. Suppose also that $t_1<\dots<t_n$ are the roots of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$, and $x_1<\dots<x_{n-1}$ are the roots of $\psi_n'$ in $(t_1, t_n)$. Suppose furthermore that the real number $x_n$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
x_n =
\begin{cases}
\text{maximal root of } \psi_n' \text{ in } (-1,1),
& \text{ if } \chi_n < c^2, \\
1, & \text{ if } \chi_n > c^2.
\end{cases}
\label{eq_xn_prop}\end{aligned}$$ Then, $$\begin{aligned}
-\frac{\sqrt{\chi_n}}{c} < -x_n <
t_1 < x_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_{n-1} < t_n < x_n < \frac{\sqrt{\chi_n}}{c}.
\label{eq_all_tx_prop}\end{aligned}$$ In particular, if $\chi_n < c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
t_n < x_n < \frac{\sqrt{\chi_n}}{c} < 1,
\label{eq_khi_small_prop}\end{aligned}$$ and $\psi_n'$ has $n+1$ roots in the interval $(-1,1)$; and, if $\chi_n > c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
t_n < x_n = 1 < \frac{\sqrt{\chi_n}}{c},
\label{eq_khi_large_prop}\end{aligned}$$ and $\psi_n'$ has $n-1$ roots in the interval $(-1,1)$. \[prop\_five\]
The following two inequalities improve the inequality in Section \[sec\_pswf\]. Their proof can be found in Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\],\[thm\_n\_lower\] in Section \[sec\_sharp\]. This is one of the principal analytical results of this paper. The inequalities , below are illustrated in Tables \[t:test77a\], \[t:test77b\], \[t:test77c\], \[t:test99\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. Suppose also that $t_n$ and $T$ are the maximal roots of $\psi_n$ and $\psi_n'$ in the interval ${\left( -1, 1 \right)}$, respectively. If $\chi_n > c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
1 + \frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^{t_n} \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt
< n <
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^1 \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt.
\label{eq_jan_n_both_large_prop}\end{aligned}$$ If $\chi_n < c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
1 + \frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^{t_n} \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt
< n <
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^{T}
\sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt.
\label{eq_jan_n_both_small_prop}\end{aligned}$$ Note that and differ only in the range of integration on their right-hand sides. \[prop\_jan\_n\_both\]
In the following proposition, we simplify the inequality in Proposition \[prop\_jan\_n\_both\]. It is proven in Theorem \[thm\_n\_khi\_simple\] and Corollary \[cor\_khi\_simple\] in Section \[sec\_first\_order\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
n < & \;
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^1 \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt
= \nonumber \\
& \; \frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} \cdot E {\left( \frac{c}{\sqrt{\chi_n}} \right)}
< n+3,
\label{eq_both_large_simple_prop}\end{aligned}$$ where the function $E:\left[0,1\right] \to \Rc$ is defined via in Section \[sec\_elliptic\]. \[prop\_n\_khi\_simple\]
The following proposition is an immediate consequence of Proposition \[prop\_n\_khi\_simple\]. It is proven in Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\] in Section \[sec\_first\_order\], and is illustrated in Figures \[fig:test171a\], \[fig:test171b\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer such that $n > 2c/\pi$, and that the function $f:[0,\infty) \to \Rc$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
f(x) = -1 + \int_0^{\pi/2} \sqrt{ x + \cos^2(\theta)} \; d\theta.
\label{eq_f_def_prop}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose also that the function $H: [0,\infty) \to \Rc$ is the inverse of $f$, in other words, $$\begin{aligned}
y = f(H(y)) =
-1 + \int_0^{\pi/2} \sqrt{ H(y) + \cos^2(\theta)} \; d\theta,
\label{eq_big_h_def_prop}\end{aligned}$$ for all real $y \geq 0$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
H\left( \frac{n\pi}{2c} - 1 \right) <
\frac{\chi_n - c^2}{c^2} <
H\left( \frac{n\pi}{2c} - 1 + \frac{3\pi}{2c} \right).
\label{eq_khi_via_h_prop}\end{aligned}$$ \[prop\_exp\_term\]
In the following proposition, we describe a relation between $\chi_n$ and the maximal root $t_n$ of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$, by providing lower and upper bounds on $1-t_n$ in terms of $\chi_n$ and $c$. It is proven in Theorem \[thm\_tn\_upper\], \[thm\_tn\_lower\] in Section \[sec\_first\_order\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Suppose also that $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{ \pi^2/8 }{\chi_n-c^2 + \sqrt{(\chi_n-c^2)^2+(\pi c/2)^2} }
& \; <
1-t_n \nonumber \\
& \; < \frac{ 4\pi^2 }{\chi_n-c^2 + \sqrt{(\chi_n-c^2)^2+(4\pi c)^2} }.
\label{eq_tn_both}\end{aligned}$$ \[prop\_tn\_both\]
The following proposition is a special case of Proposition \[prop\_tn\_both\]. It is proven in Theorem \[thm\_tn\_simple\] in Section \[sec\_first\_order\], and is illustrated in Figure \[fig:test170\].
Suppose that $c > 10/\pi$. Suppose also that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $$\begin{aligned}
n > \frac{2c}{\pi} + 1 + \frac{1}{4} \cdot \log(c).
\label{eq_tn_simple_2_prop}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose furthermore that $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{\pi^2}{8 \cdot (1+\sqrt{2})} \cdot \frac{1}{\chi_n-c^2} <
1-t_n <
\frac{2\pi^2}{\chi_n - c^2}.
\label{eq_tn_simple_prop}\end{aligned}$$ \[prop\_tn\_simple\]
In the following proposition, we provide yet another upper bound on $\chi_n$ in terms of $n$. Its proof can be found in Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\] in Section \[sec\_first\_order\], and it is illustrated in Tables \[t:test80a\], \[t:test80b\] and Figure \[fig:test171a\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\chi_n < {\left( \frac{\pi}{2} {\left( n+1 \right)} \right)}^2.
\label{eq_khi_n_square_prop}\end{aligned}$$ \[prop\_khi\_n\_square\]
We observe that, for sufficiently large $n$, the inequality is even weaker than . On the other hand, can be useful for $n$ near $2c/\pi$, as illustrated in Tables \[t:test80a\], \[t:test80b\].
The following proposition summarizes Theorem \[thm\_zeros\_inside\_bounds\] in Section \[sec\_sharp\] and Theorems \[thm\_spacing\_khi\], \[thm\_spacing\_inside\] in Section \[sec\_first\_order\]. It is illustrated in Tables \[t:test80a\], \[t:test80b\], \[t:test98a\], \[t:test98b\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Suppose also that $-1 < t_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_n < 1$ are the roots of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Suppose furthermore that the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. Then:
- For each integer $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$, i.e. for each integer $i$ such that $0 \leq t_i < t_n$, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{\pi}{ f(t_{i+1}) + v(t_{i+1})/2 } <
t_{i+1} - t_{i} <
\frac{\pi}{ f(t_i) }.
\label{eq_zeros_inside_bounds_prop}\end{aligned}$$
- For each integer $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$, i.e. for each integer $i$ such that $0 \leq t_i < t_n$, $$\begin{aligned}
t_{i+1} - t_i > t_{i+2} - t_{i+1} > \dots > t_n - t_{n-1}.
\label{eq_spacing_shrink_prop}\end{aligned}$$
- For all integer $j = 1, \dots, n-1$, $$\begin{aligned}
t_{j+1} - t_j < \frac{ \pi }{ \sqrt{\chi_n + 1} }.\end{aligned}$$
\[prop\_spacing\_big\]
The following proposition summarizes Theorem \[thm\_spacing\_inside\] in Section \[sec\_first\_order\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is an integer, and that $\chi_n < c^2 - c\sqrt{2}$. Suppose also that $-1 < t_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_n < 1$ are the roots of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
t_{i+1} - t_i < t_{i+2} - t_{i+1} < \dots < t_n - t_{n-1},
\label{eq_spacing_stretch_prop}\end{aligned}$$ for all integer $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$, i.e. for all integer $i$ such that $0 \leq t_i < t_n$. \[prop\_spacing\_small\]
The following proposition summarizes Theorem \[thm\_psi1\_upper\_bound\] in Section \[sec\_pswf\] and Theorem \[thm\_psi1\] in Section \[sec\_growth\].
Suppose that $n \geq 0$ is a non-negative integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{1}{2} < \psi_n^2(1) < n + \frac{1}{2}.\end{aligned}$$ \[prop\_psi1\]
The following proposition is illustrated in Figures \[fig:test75a\], \[fig:test75b\]. It is proven in Theorem \[thm\_extrema\] in Section \[sec\_first\_order\].
Suppose that $n \geq 0$ is a non-negative integer, and that $x, y$ are two arbitrary extremum points of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$. If ${\left| x \right|} < {\left| y \right|}$, then $$\begin{aligned}
{\left| \psi_n(x) \right|} < {\left| \psi_n(y) \right|}.
\label{eq_extremum_general_prop}\end{aligned}$$ If, in addition, $\chi_n > c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
{\left| \psi_n(x) \right|} < {\left| \psi_n(y) \right|} < {\left| \psi_n(1) \right|}.
\label{eq_extremum_special_prop}\end{aligned}$$ \[prop\_extrema\]
Analytical Apparatus {#sec_analytical}
====================
The purpose of this section is to provide the analytical apparatus to be used in the rest of the paper, as well as to prove the results summarized in Section \[sec\_summary\].
Oscillation Properties of PSWFs {#sec_oscillation}
-------------------------------
In this subsection, we prove several facts about the distance between consecutive roots of PSWFs and find a more subtle relationship between $n$ and $\chi_n$ than the one given by . Throughout this subsection $c > 0$ is a positive real number and $n$ is a non-negative integer. The principal results of this subsection are Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\], \[thm\_n\_lower\], \[thm\_good\_n\_good\_khi\], and \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\].
### Special Points of $\psi_n$ {#sec_special_points}
We refer to the roots of $\psi_n$, the roots of $\psi_n'$ and the turning points of the ODE as ”special points”. Some of them play an important role in the subsequent analysis. These points are introduced in the following definition.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. We define
- $t_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_n$ to be the roots of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$,
- $x_1 < \dots <x_{n-1}$ to be the roots of $\psi_n'$ in $(t_1,t_n)$,
- $x_n$ via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
x_n =
\begin{cases}
\text{maximal root of } \psi_n' \text{ in } (-1,1),
& \text{ if } \chi_n < c^2, \\
1, & \text{ if } \chi_n > c^2.
\end{cases}
\label{eq_xn}\end{aligned}$$
\[def\_special\]
This definition will be used throughout all of Section \[sec\_analytical\]. The relative location of some of the special points depends on whether $\chi_n > c^2$ or $\chi_n < c^2$. This is illustrated in Figures \[fig:test75a\], \[fig:test75b\] and is described by the following lemma.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. Suppose also that $t_1<\dots<t_n$ and $x_1<\dots<x_n$ are those of Definition \[def\_special\]. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
-\frac{\sqrt{\chi_n}}{c} < -x_n <
t_1 < x_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_{n-1} < t_n < x_n < \frac{\sqrt{\chi_n}}{c}.
\label{eq_all_tx}\end{aligned}$$ In particular, if $\chi_n < c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
t_n < x_n < \frac{\sqrt{\chi_n}}{c} < 1,
\label{eq_khi_small}\end{aligned}$$ and $\psi_n'$ has $n+1$ roots in the interval $(-1,1)$; and, if $\chi_n > c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
t_n < x_n = 1 < \frac{\sqrt{\chi_n}}{c},
\label{eq_khi_large}\end{aligned}$$ and $\psi_n'$ has $n-1$ roots in the interval $(-1,1)$. \[lem\_five\]
Without loss of generality, we assume that $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n(1) > 0.
\label{eq_psi_at_1}\end{aligned}$$ Obviously, implies that $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n'(t_n) > 0.
\label{eq_dpsi_at_tn}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose first that $\chi_n < c^2$. Then, due to the ODE in Section \[sec\_pswf\], $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n'(1) = \frac{\chi_n-c^2}{2} \cdot \psi_n(1) < 0.
\label{eq_dpsi_at_1}\end{aligned}$$ We combine and to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n''(t_n) = \frac{2t_n}{1-t_n^2} \cdot \psi_n'(t_n) > 0.
\label{eq_ddpsi_at_tn}\end{aligned}$$ In addition, we combine , , to conclude that the maximal root $x_n$ of $\psi_n'$ in $(-1,1)$ satisfies $$\begin{aligned}
t_n < x_n < 1.
\label{eq_tn_xn_1}\end{aligned}$$ Moreover, implies that, for any root $x$ of $\psi_n'$ in $(t_n,1)$, $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n''(x) = -\frac{\chi_n-c^2 x^2}{1-x^2} \cdot \psi_n(x) < 0.
\label{eq_ddpsi_at_xn}\end{aligned}$$ We combine , , with to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{c^2 x_n^2 - \chi_n}{1 - x_n^2} = \frac{\psi_n''(x_n)}{\psi_n(x_n)} < 0,\end{aligned}$$ which implies both and . In addition, we combine , and to conclude that $x_n$ is the only root of $\psi_n'$ between $t_n$ and 1. Thus, $\psi_n'$ indeed has $n+1$ roots in $(-1,1)$.
Suppose now that $\chi_n > c^2$. We combine and to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n'(1) = \frac{\chi_n-c^2}{2} \cdot \psi_n(1) > 0.
\label{eq_dpsi_at_1a}\end{aligned}$$ If $t_n < x < 1$ is a root of $\psi_n'$, then $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n''(x) = -\frac{\chi_n-c^2x^2}{1-x^2} \cdot \psi_n(x) < 0,
\label{eq_ddpsi_at_x}\end{aligned}$$ therefore $\psi_n'$ can have at most one root in $(t_n,1)$. We combine this observation with , , and to conclude that, in fact, $\psi_n'$ has no roots in $(t_n,1)$, and hence both and hold. In particular, $\psi_n'$ has $n-1$ roots in $(-1,1)$.
### A Sharper Inequality for $\chi_n$ {#sec_sharp}
In this subsection, we use the modified Prüfer transformation (see Section \[sec\_prufer\]) to analyze the relationship between $n, c$ and $\chi_n$. In particular, this analysis yields fairly tight lower and upper bounds on $\chi_n$ in terms of $c$ and $n$. These bounds are described in Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\],\[thm\_n\_lower\] below. These theorems are not only one of the principal results of this paper, but are also subsequently used in the proofs of Theorems \[thm\_zeros\_inside\_bounds\], \[thm\_good\_n\_good\_khi\], \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\], \[thm\_n\_khi\_simple\], \[thm\_tn\_lower\].
We start with developing the required analytical machinery. In the following lemma, we describe several properties of the modified Prüfer transformation (see Section \[sec\_prufer\]), applied to the prolate differential equation .
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. Suppose also that the numbers $t_1,\dots,t_n$ and $x_1,\dots,x_n$ are those of Definition \[def\_special\] in Section \[sec\_special\_points\], and that the function $\theta: \left[-x_n,x_n\right] \to \Rc$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
\theta(t) =
\begin{cases}
\left(i-\frac{1}{2}\right) \cdot \pi, & \text{ if } t = t_i
\text{ for some } 1 \leq i \leq n, \\
\\
\text{atan}\left( -\sqrt{\frac{1-t^2}{\chi_n-c^2t^2}} \cdot
\frac{\psi_n'(t)}{\psi_n(t)} \right)
+ m(t) \cdot \pi, & \text{ if } \psi_n(t) \neq 0, \\
\end{cases}
\label{eq_prufer_theta}\end{aligned}$$ where $m(t)$ is the number of the roots of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,t)$. Then, $\theta$ has the following properties:
- $\theta$ is continuously differentiable in the interval $\left[-x_n,x_n\right]$.
- $\theta$ satisfies, for all $-x_n < t < x_n$, the differential equation $$\begin{aligned}
\theta'(t) = f(t) + v(t) \cdot \sin( 2 \theta(t) ),
\label{eq_prufer_theta_ode}\end{aligned}$$ where the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\].
- for each integer $0 \leq j \leq 2n$, there is a unique solution to the equation $$\begin{aligned}
\theta(t) = j \cdot \frac{\pi}{2},
\label{eq_prufer_sm2_equation}\end{aligned}$$ for the unknown $t$ in $\left[-x_n,x_n\right]$. More specifically, $$\begin{aligned}
\label{eq_theta_at_xn}
& \theta(-x_n) = 0, \\
\label{eq_theta_at_t}
& \theta(t_i) = \left(i-\frac{1}{2}\right) \cdot \pi, \\
\label{eq_theta_at_x}
& \theta(x_i) = i \cdot \pi,\end{aligned}$$ for each $i = 1, \dots, n$. In particular, $\theta(x_n) = n \cdot \pi$.
\[lem\_prufer\]
We combine in Lemma \[lem\_five\] with to conclude that $\theta$ is well defined for all $-x_n \leq t \leq x_n$, where $x_n$ is given via in Definition \[def\_special\]. Obviously, $\theta$ is continuous, and the identities , , follow immediately from the combination of Lemma \[lem\_five\] and . In addition, $\theta$ satisfies the ODE in $(-x_n,x_n)$ due to , , in Section \[sec\_prufer\].
Finally, to establish the uniqueness of the solution to the equation , we make the following observation. Due to , for any point $t$ in $(-x_n,x_n)$, the value $\theta(t)$ is an integer multiple of $\pi/2$ if and only if $t$ is either a root of $\psi_n$ or a root of $\psi_n'$. We conclude the proof by combining this observation with , and .
We observe that, due to , , , for all $i = 1, \dots, n$, $$\begin{aligned}
\sin(2\theta(t_i)) = \sin(2\theta(x_i)) = 0,\end{aligned}$$ where $t_1,\dots,t_n$, $x_1,\dots,x_n$ are those of Definition \[def\_special\] in Section \[sec\_special\_points\], and $\theta$ is that of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\]. This observation will play an important role in the analysis of the ODE throughout the rest of this section.
In the following lemma, we prove that $\theta$ of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] is monotonically increasing.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. Suppose also that the real number $x_n$ and the function $\theta: \left[-x_n,x_n\right] \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] above. Then, $\theta$ is strictly increasing in $\left[-x_n,x_n\right]$, in other words, $$\begin{aligned}
\theta'(t) > 0,
\label{eq_theta_increasing}\end{aligned}$$ for all $-x_n < t < x_n$. \[lem\_theta\_increasing\]
We first prove that $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{d}{dt} \left( \frac{v}{f} \right)(t) > 0,
\label{eq_dvf_positive}\end{aligned}$$ for $-x_n < t < x_n$, where the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. We differentiate $v/f$ with respect to $t$ to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
{\left( \frac{ v }{ f } \right)}'
& \; = - {\left( \frac{ p'q + q'p }{ 4pq } \cdot \sqrt{ \frac{p}{q} } \right)}'
= - {\left( \frac{ p'q + q'p }{ 4q^{3/2} p^{1/2} } \right)}' \nonumber \\
& \; = \frac{q^{-3} p^{-1}}{4} \cdot \left[
{\left( \frac{3}{2} q^{1/2} p^{1/2} q' + \frac{1}{2} q^{3/2} p^{-1/2} p' \right)}
{\left( p'q + q'p \right)} - \right. \nonumber \\
& \quad \quad \quad \quad \quad \; \left.
{\left( p''q + 2p'q' + q''p \right)} q^{3/2} p^{1/2} \right] \nonumber \\
& \; = \frac{q^{-5/2} p^{-3/2}}{4} \cdot {\left[
{\left( \frac{3}{2} q'p + \frac{1}{2} p'q \right)} {\left( p'q + q'p \right)} -
pq {\left( p''q + 2p'q' + q''p \right)} \right]} \nonumber \\
& \; = \frac{q^{-5/2} p^{-3/2}}{4} \cdot {\left[
\frac{3}{2} p^2 {\left( q' \right)}^2 + \frac{1}{2} q^2 {\left( p' \right)}^2 -
q^2 p p'' - p^2 q q'' \right]} > 0,
\label{eq_d4vf}\end{aligned}$$ since, due to , $$\begin{aligned}
p(t) > 0, \quad p''(t) = -2 < 0, \quad
q(t) > 0, \quad q''(t) = -2 c^2 < 0.\end{aligned}$$ We now proceed to prove for $0 < t < x_n$. Suppose that, by contradiction, there exists $0 < x < x_n$ such that $$\begin{aligned}
\theta'(x) < 0.
\label{eq_theta_x_contra}\end{aligned}$$ Combined with in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] above, implies that $$\begin{aligned}
1 + \frac{v(x)}{f(x)} \cdot \sin(2\theta(x)) =
\frac{f(x) + v(x) \cdot \sin(2\theta(x))}{f(x)} < 0,
\label{eq_dtheta_contra}\end{aligned}$$ and, in particular, that $$\begin{aligned}
\sin(2\theta(x)) < 0.
\label{eq_sin_contra}\end{aligned}$$ Due to Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] above, there exists an integer $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n$ such that $$\begin{aligned}
\left(i-\frac{1}{2}\right) \cdot \pi < \theta(x) < i \cdot \pi.
\label{eq_thetax_squeezed}\end{aligned}$$ Moreover, due to , , , , , , there exists a point $y$ such that $$\begin{aligned}
0 \leq t_i < x < y < x_i \leq x_n,\end{aligned}$$ and also $$\begin{aligned}
\theta(x) = \theta(y), \quad \theta'(y) > 0.
\label{eq_theta_xy}\end{aligned}$$ for otherwise would be impossible. We combine and to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
1 + \frac{v(y)}{f(y)} \cdot \sin(2\theta(x)) =
\frac{f(y) + v(y) \cdot \sin(2\theta(y)) }{f(y)} =
\frac{\theta'(y)}{f(y)} > 0,\end{aligned}$$ in contradiction to , and . This concludes the proof of for $0 < t < x_n$. For $-x_n < t < 0$, the identity follows now from the symmetry considerations.
The right-hand side of the ODE of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] contains a monotone term and an oscillatory term. In the following lemma, we study the integrals of the oscillatory term between various special points, introduced in Definition \[def\_special\] in Section \[sec\_special\_points\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is an integer. Suppose also that the real numbers $t_1<\dots<t_n$ and $x_1<\dots <x_n$ are those of Definition \[def\_special\] in Section \[sec\_special\_points\], and the function $\theta: \left[-x_n, x_n\right] \to \Rc$ is that of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] above. Suppose furthermore that the function $v$ is defined via in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\label{eq_int_x_tp}
& \int_{x_i}^{t_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt > 0, \\
\label{eq_int_tp_xp}
& \int_{t_{i+1}}^{x_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt < 0, \\
\label{eq_int_x_xp}
& \int_{x_i}^{x_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt < 0,\end{aligned}$$ for all integer $(n-1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$, i.e. for all integer $i$ such that $0 \leq x_i < x_n$. Note that the integral in is the sum of the integrals in and . \[lem\_vsin\_1\]
Suppose that $i$ is a positive integer such that $(n-1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$. Suppose also that the function $s: \left[0, n\cdot\pi\right] \to \left[-x_n,x_n\right]$ is the inverse of $\theta$. In other words, for all $0 \leq \eta \leq n \cdot \pi$, $$\begin{aligned}
\theta(s(\eta)) = \eta.
\label{eq_s_eta}\end{aligned}$$ Using , , in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\], we expand the left-hand side of to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
& \int_{x_i}^{t_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt = \nonumber \\
& \int_{\theta(x_i)}^{\theta(t_{i+1})}
v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) \cdot s'(\eta) \; d\eta = \nonumber \\
& \int_{i \cdot \pi}^{(i+1/2) \cdot \pi}
\frac{v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta)) + v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta)} = \nonumber \\
& \int_0^{\pi/2}
\frac{v(s(\eta+i\cdot\pi)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta+i\cdot\pi)) + v(s(\eta+i\cdot\pi)) \cdot \sin(2\eta)},
\label{eq_vsin_a}\end{aligned}$$ from which readily follows due to in Section \[sec\_prufer\] and in Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\]. By the same token, we expand the left-hand side of to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
& \int_{t_{i+1}}^{x_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt = \nonumber \\
& \int_{(i +1/2) \cdot \pi}^{(i+1) \cdot \pi}
\frac{v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta)) + v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta)} = \nonumber \\
& -\int_0^{\pi/2}
\frac{v(s(\eta+(i+1/2)\cdot\pi)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta+(i+1/2)\cdot\pi)) - v(s(\eta+(i+1/2)\cdot\pi)) \cdot \sin(2\eta)},
\label{eq_vsin_b}\end{aligned}$$ which, combined with in Section \[sec\_prufer\] and in Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], implies . Finally, for all $0 < \eta < \pi/2$, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{\sin(2\eta)}{(f/v)( s(\eta+(i+1/2)\cdot\pi) ) - \sin(2\eta)} >
\frac{\sin(2\eta)}{(f/v)( s(\eta + i\cdot\pi) ) + \sin(2\eta)},
\label{eq_vsin_c}\end{aligned}$$ since the function $f/v$ is decreasing due to in the proof of Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\]. The inequality now follows from the combination of , and .
We are now ready to prove one of the principal results of this paper. It is illustrated in Tables \[t:test77a\], \[t:test77b\], \[t:test77c\], \[t:test99\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. If $\chi_n > c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
n <
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^1 \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt.
\label{eq_n_upper_large}\end{aligned}$$ If $\chi_n < c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
n <
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^{T}
\sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt,
\label{eq_n_upper_small}\end{aligned}$$ where $T$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n'$ in $(-1,1)$. Note that and differ only in the range of integration on their right-hand sides. \[thm\_n\_upper\]
Suppose that the real numbers $$\begin{aligned}
-1 \leq -x_n < t_1 < x_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_{n-1} < x_{n-1} < t_n < x_n \leq 1
\label{eq_all_xt}\end{aligned}$$ are those of Definition \[def\_special\] in Section \[sec\_special\_points\], and the function $\theta: \left[-x_n,x_n\right] \to \Rc$ is that of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] above. Suppose also that the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. If $n$ is even, then we combine , , in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] with in Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_1\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{n}{2} \cdot \pi & \; =
\int_{x_{n/2}}^{x_n} \theta'(t) \; dt =
\int_0^{x_n} f(t) \; dt +
\sum_{i=n/2}^{n-1} \int_{x_i}^{x_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt
\nonumber \\
& \; < \int_0^{x_n} f(t) \; dt.
\label{eq_n_upper_even}\end{aligned}$$ If $n$ is odd, then we combine , , in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] with , in Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_1\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{n}{2} \cdot \pi & \; =
\int_{t_{(n+1)/2}}^{x_n} \theta'(t) \; dt
=
\int_0^{x_n} f(t) \; dt \; + \nonumber \\
& \; \; \; \; \;
\int_{t_{(n+1)/2}}^{x_{(n+1)/2}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt +
\sum_{i=(n+1)/2}^{n-1} \int_{x_i}^{x_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt
\nonumber \\
& \; < \int_0^{x_n} f(t) \; dt.
\label{eq_n_upper_odd}\end{aligned}$$ We combine and with in Lemma \[lem\_five\] to conclude both and .
To prove Theorem \[thm\_n\_lower\], we need to develop a number of technical tools. In the following two lemmas, we describe several properties of the equation $f(t)=v(t)$ in the unknown $t$, where $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\].
Suppose that $n \geq 0$ is a non-negative integer. Suppose also that the functions $f, v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. Suppose furthermore that the real number $x_n$ is that of Definition \[def\_special\] in Section \[sec\_special\_points\]. Then, there exists a unique point $\hat{t}$ in the interval $(0,x_n)$ such that $$\begin{aligned}
f(\hat{t}) = v(\hat{t}).
\label{eq_t_hat}\end{aligned}$$ \[lem\_jan\_fv\]
We observe that, due to , in Section \[sec\_prufer\], $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{v(t)}{f(t)} > 0
\label{eq_vf_positive}\end{aligned}$$ for all $0 < t < x_n$. Moreover, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{v(0)}{f(0)} = 0, \quad
\lim_{t \to x_n. \; t < x_n} \frac{v(t)}{f(t)} = \infty.
\label{eq_vf_limit}\end{aligned}$$ We combine in the proof of Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\] with and to conclude both existence and uniqueness of the solution to the equation $f(t)=v(t)$ in the unknown $0 < t < x_n$.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. Suppose also that the real number $x_n$ and the function $\theta: \left[-x_n,x_n\right] \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] above. Suppose furthermore that the point $0 < \hat{t} < x_n$ is that of Lemma \[lem\_jan\_fv\] above. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\left(n-\frac{1}{4}\right) \cdot \pi < \theta(\hat{t}) < n \cdot \pi.
\label{eq_pi4_ineq}\end{aligned}$$ \[lem\_pi4\]
Suppose that the point $0<x<x_n$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
x = \theta^{-1}\left( \left(n-\frac{1}{4}\right) \cdot \pi \right),
\label{eq_x_pi4}\end{aligned}$$ where $\theta^{-1}$ denotes the inverse of $\theta$. By contradiction, suppose that does not hold. In other words, $$\begin{aligned}
0 < \hat{t} < x.
\label{eq_pi4_contra}\end{aligned}$$ It follows from the combination of Lemma \[lem\_jan\_fv\], in the proof of Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], and , that $f(x) < v(x)$. On the other hand, due to in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] and , $$\begin{aligned}
\theta'(x)
& \; = f(x) + v(x) \cdot \sin(2\theta(x)) \nonumber \\
& \; = f(x) + v(x) \cdot \sin\left(2 n \pi - \frac{\pi}{2}\right)
= f(x) - v(x) < 0,\end{aligned}$$ in contradiction to in Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\].
In the following three lemmas, we study some of the properties of the ratio $f/v$, where $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\].
Suppose that $n\geq 0$ is a non-negative integer, and that the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. Then, for all real $0 < t < 1$, $$\begin{aligned}
-\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{f}{v}\right)(t) = h_t(a) \cdot f(t),
\label{eq_dfv}\end{aligned}$$ where the real number $a>0$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
a = \frac{\chi_n}{c^2},
\label{eq_dfv_a}\end{aligned}$$ and, for all $0<t<1$, the function $h_t : (0,\infty) \to \Rc$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
h_t(a) = \frac{ 4t^6 + (2a-6)\cdot t^4 + (4-8a)\cdot t^2 +
2a\cdot(a+1) }
{t^2\cdot\left(1+a-2t^2\right)^2}.
\label{eq_hta}\end{aligned}$$ Moreover, for all real $0 < t < \min\left\{ \sqrt{a}, 1 \right\}$, $$\begin{aligned}
-\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{f}{v}\right)(t) \geq \frac{3}{2} \cdot f(t).
\label{eq_dfv_ineq}\end{aligned}$$ \[lem\_dfv\]
The identity is obtained from , via straightforward algebraic manipulations. To establish , it suffices to show that, for a fixed $0<t<1$, $$\begin{aligned}
\inf_a \left\{ h_t(a) \; : t^2 < a < \infty \right\} \geq \frac{3}{2}.
\label{eq_hta_1}\end{aligned}$$ We start with observing that, for all $0 < t < 1$, $$\begin{aligned}
\lim_{a \to t^2,\; a > t^2} h_t(a) = 6, \quad
\lim_{a \to \infty} h_t(a) = \frac{2}{t^2}.
\label{eq_hta_2}\end{aligned}$$ Then, we differentiate $h_t(a)$, given via , with respect to $a$ to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{d h_t}{d a}(a) =
\frac{2 \cdot(1-t^2)}{t^2 \cdot(1+a-2t^2)^3} \cdot
\left(
6t^4 + (a-9)\cdot t^2 + a + 1
\right).
\label{eq_dha}\end{aligned}$$ It follows from , , that if $t^2 < \hat{a}_t < \infty$ is a local extremum of $h_t(a)$, then $$\begin{aligned}
\hat{a}_t = \frac{-6t^4+9t^2-1}{t^2+1} > t^2,
\label{eq_ahat}\end{aligned}$$ which is possible if and only if $1 > t^2 > 1/7$. Then we substitute $\hat{a}_t$, given via , into to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
h(t,\hat{a}_t) = \frac{-t^4 + 14t^2-1}{8t^4}.
\label{eq_h_ahat}\end{aligned}$$ It is trivial to verify that $$\begin{aligned}
\inf_t\left\{ h(t,\hat{a}_t) \; : \; \frac{1}{7} < t < 1\right\} =
\lim_{t\to 1, \; t>1} h(t,\hat{a}_t) = \frac{3}{2}.
\label{eq_32}\end{aligned}$$ Now follows from the combination of , , and .
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $t_n$ is the maximal zero of $\psi_n$ is the interval $(-1,1)$. Suppose also that the real number $Z_0$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
Z_0 = \frac{1}{1 + \frac{3\pi}{8}} \approx 0.4591.
\label{eq_z0}\end{aligned}$$ Then, for all $0 < t \leq t_n$, $$\begin{aligned}
v(t) < f(t) \cdot Z_0,
\label{eq_fv_z0}\end{aligned}$$ where the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. \[lem\_z0\]
Due to in the proof of Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], the function $f/v$ decreases monotonically in the interval $(0,t_n)$, and therefore, to prove , it suffices to show that $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{f(t_n)}{v(t_n)} > \frac{1}{Z_0} = 1 + \frac{3\pi}{8}.
\label{eq_fv_tn}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose that the point $\hat{t}$ is that of Lemma \[lem\_jan\_fv\]. Suppose also that the real number $x_n$ and the function $\theta: \left[-x_n,x_n\right] \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\]. Suppose furthermore that the function $s: \left[0, n\cdot\pi\right] \to \left[-x_n,x_n\right]$ is the inverse of $\theta$. In other words, for all $0 \leq \eta \leq n \cdot \pi$, $$\begin{aligned}
\theta(s(\eta)) = \eta.
\label{eq_s_eta_2}\end{aligned}$$ We combine Lemma \[lem\_prufer\], Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], Lemma \[lem\_jan\_fv\], Lemma \[lem\_pi4\] and Lemma \[lem\_dfv\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
& \frac{f(t_n)}{v(t_n)}-1 =
\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(\hat{t}) - \left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(t_n) =
\nonumber \\
& \int_{t_n}^{\hat{t}} \frac{d}{dt} \left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(t) \; dt =
\int_{\theta(t_n)}^{\theta(\hat{t})}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta)) + v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) } >
\nonumber \\
& \int_{(n-1/2)\pi}^{(n-1/4)\pi}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta)) + v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) } >
\nonumber \\
& \int_{(n-1/2)\pi}^{(n-1/4)\pi}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta))} > \frac{\pi}{4} \cdot \frac{3}{2} = \frac{3\pi}{8},\end{aligned}$$ which implies .
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ and $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$ are positive integers. Suppose also that the real number $x_n$ and the function $\theta:\left[-x_n,x_n\right] \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\]. Suppose furthermore that $0 < \delta < \pi/4$ is a real number, and that the real number $Z_\delta$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
Z_\delta = \left[
1 + \frac{3}{2} \cdot \left(\frac{\pi}{4} +
\frac{\delta}{1+Z_0\cdot\sin(2\delta)}\right)
\right]^{-1},
\label{eq_z_delta}\end{aligned}$$ where $Z_0$ is defined via in Lemma \[lem\_z0\] above. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
v(t) < f(t) \cdot Z_\delta,
\label{eq_z_delta_ineq}\end{aligned}$$ for all $0 < t \leq s\left((i+1/2)\cdot\pi-\delta\right)$, where the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\], and the function $s:\left[0,n\cdot\pi\right] \to \left[-x_n,x_n\right]$ is the inverse of $\theta$. \[lem\_z\_delta\]
Suppose that the point $t_\delta$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
t_\delta = s\left((i+1/2)\cdot\pi-\delta\right).
\label{eq_t_delta}\end{aligned}$$ Due to in the proof of Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], the function $f/v$ decreases monotonically in the interval $(0,t_\delta)$, and therefore to prove it suffices to show that $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{f(t_\delta)}{v(t_\delta)} > \frac{1}{Z_\delta} =
1 + \frac{3}{2} \cdot \left(\frac{\pi}{4} +
\frac{\delta}{1+Z_0\cdot\sin(2\delta)}\right).
\label{eq_fv_delta}\end{aligned}$$ We observe that, due to Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], $$\begin{aligned}
0 \leq \sin(2\theta(t)) \leq \sin(2\delta),
\label{eq_theta_delta}\end{aligned}$$ for all $t_\delta \leq t \leq s((i+1/2)\pi)$. We combine , with Lemma \[lem\_prufer\], Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], Lemma \[lem\_pi4\], Lemma \[lem\_dfv\] and Lemma \[lem\_z0\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
& \frac{f(t_\delta)}{v(t_\delta)}-
\frac{f(s((i+1/2)\pi))}{v(s((i+1/2)\pi))} =
\nonumber \\
& \int_{t_\delta}^{s((i+1/2)\pi)}
\frac{d}{dt} \left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(t) \; dt =
\int_{(i-1/2)\pi-\delta}^{(i-1/2)\pi}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta)) + v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) } >
\nonumber \\
& \int_{(i-1/2)\pi-\delta}^{(i-1/2)\pi}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) }{f(s(\eta))} \cdot
\frac{d\eta}
{1 + (v/f)(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\delta) } >
\nonumber \\
& \frac{3}{2} \cdot \delta \cdot \frac{1}{1 + Z_0 \cdot \sin(2\delta)}.
\label{eq_fv_delta_3}\end{aligned}$$ We combine with in Lemma \[lem\_z0\] to obtain , which, in turn, implies .
In the following two lemmas, we estimate the rate of decay of the ratio $f/v$ and its relationship with $\theta$ of the ODE in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ and $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$ are positive integers. Suppose also that the real number $x_n$ and the function $\theta:\left[-x_n,x_n\right] \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\]. Suppose furthermore that $0 < \delta < \pi/4$ is a real number. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\left(\frac{f}{v}\right)\left(s(i\pi-\delta)\right) -
\left(\frac{f}{v}\right)\left(s(i\pi-\delta+\pi/2)\right) >
2\cdot \sin(2\delta),
\label{eq_sin_delta_1}\end{aligned}$$ where the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\], and the function $s:\left[0,n\cdot\pi\right] \to \left[-x_n,x_n\right]$ is the inverse of $\theta$. \[lem\_delta\_small\]
We observe that, due to Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] and Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], $$\begin{aligned}
\sin(2\theta(t)) > 0,
\label{eq_sin_positive}\end{aligned}$$ for all $s(i\pi) < t < s(i\pi-\delta+\pi/2)$. We combine with Lemma \[lem\_prufer\], Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], Lemma \[lem\_pi4\], Lemma \[lem\_dfv\] and Lemma \[lem\_z\_delta\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
& \frac{f(s(i\pi))}{v(s(i\pi))}-
\frac{f(s(i\pi-\delta+\pi/2))}{v(s(i\pi-\delta+\pi/2))} =
\nonumber \\
& \int_{s(i\pi)}^{s(i\pi-\delta+\pi/2)}
\frac{d}{dt} \left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(t) \; dt =
\int_{i\pi}^{i\pi-\delta+\pi/2}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta)) + v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) } >
\nonumber \\
& \int_{i\pi}^{i\pi-\delta+\pi/2}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) }{f(s(\eta))} \cdot
\frac{d\eta}
{1 + (v/f)(s(\eta)) } >
\frac{3}{2} \cdot \left(\frac{\pi}{2}-\delta \right) \cdot
\frac{1}{1 + Z_\delta},
\label{eq_fv_delta_4}\end{aligned}$$ where $Z_\delta$ is defined via in Lemma \[lem\_z\_delta\]. We also observe that, due to Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] and Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], $$\begin{aligned}
\sin(2\theta(t)) < 0,
\label{eq_sin_negative}\end{aligned}$$ for all $s(i\pi-\delta) < t < s(i\pi)$. We combine with Lemma \[lem\_prufer\], Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], Lemma \[lem\_pi4\] and Lemma \[lem\_dfv\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
& \frac{f(s(i\pi-\delta))}{v(s(i\pi-\delta))}-
\frac{f(s(i\pi))}{v(s(i\pi))} =
\nonumber \\
& \int_{s(i\pi-\delta)}^{s(i\pi)}
\frac{d}{dt} \left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(t) \; dt =
\int_{i\pi-\delta}^{i\pi}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta)) + v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) } >
\nonumber \\
& \int_{i\pi-\delta}^{i\pi}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}{f(s(\eta))} >
\frac{3}{2} \cdot \delta.
\label{eq_fv_delta_5}\end{aligned}$$ Next, suppose that the function $h:\left[0,\pi/4\right] \to \Rc$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
h(\delta) =
\frac{3}{2} \cdot \left(\frac{\pi}{2}-\delta \right) \cdot
\frac{1}{1 + Z_\delta} +
\frac{3}{2} \cdot \delta - 2 \cdot \sin(2\delta),
\label{eq_h_delta}\end{aligned}$$ where $Z_\delta$ is defined via in Lemma \[lem\_z\_delta\]. One can easily verify that $$\begin{aligned}
\min_\delta \left\{ h(\delta) \; : \; 0 \leq \delta \leq \pi/4 \right\}
> \frac{1}{25},
\label{eq_h_delta_min}\end{aligned}$$ and, in particular, that $h(\delta) > 0$ for all $0 \leq \delta \leq \pi/4$. We combine , , and to obtain .
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ and $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$ are positive integers. Suppose also that the real number $x_n$ and the function $\theta:\left[-x_n,x_n\right] \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\]. Suppose furthermore that $0 < \delta < \pi/4$ is a real number. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\left(\frac{f}{v}\right)\left(s(i\pi+\delta-\pi/2)\right) -
\left(\frac{f}{v}\right)\left(s(i\pi+\delta)\right) >
2\cdot \sin(2\delta),
\label{eq_sin_delta_2}\end{aligned}$$ where the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\], and the function $s:\left[0,n\cdot\pi\right] \to \left[-x_n,x_n\right]$ is the inverse of $\theta$. \[lem\_delta\_large\]
We observe that, due to Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] and Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], $$\begin{aligned}
\sin(2\theta(t)) > 0,
\label{eq_sin_positive2}\end{aligned}$$ for all $s(i\pi) < t < s(i\pi+\delta)$. We combine with Lemma \[lem\_prufer\], Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], Lemma \[lem\_pi4\], Lemma \[lem\_dfv\] and Lemma \[lem\_z\_delta\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
& \frac{f(s(i\pi))}{v(s(i\pi))}-
\frac{f(s(i\pi+\delta))}{v(s(i\pi+\delta))} =
\nonumber \\
& \int_{s(i\pi)}^{s(i\pi+\delta)}
\frac{d}{dt} \left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(t) \; dt =
\int_{i\pi}^{i\pi+\delta}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta)) + v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) } >
\nonumber \\
& \int_{i\pi}^{i\pi+\delta}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) }{f(s(\eta))} \cdot
\frac{d\eta}
{1 + (v/f)(s(\eta)) } >
\frac{3}{2} \cdot
\frac{\delta}{1 + Z_\delta},
\label{eq_fv_delta_6}\end{aligned}$$ where $Z_\delta$ is defined via in Lemma \[lem\_z\_delta\]. We also observe that, due to Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] and Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], $$\begin{aligned}
\sin(2\theta(t)) < 0,
\label{eq_sin_negative2}\end{aligned}$$ for all $s(i\pi+\delta-\pi/2) < t < s(i\pi)$. We combine with Lemma \[lem\_prufer\], Lemma \[lem\_theta\_increasing\], Lemma \[lem\_pi4\] and Lemma \[lem\_dfv\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
& \frac{f(s(i\pi+\delta-\pi/2))}{v(s(i\pi+\delta-\pi/2))}-
\frac{f(s(i\pi))}{v(s(i\pi))} =
\nonumber \\
& \int_{s(i\pi+\delta-\pi/2)}^{s(i\pi)}
\frac{d}{dt} \left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(t) \; dt =
\int_{i\pi+\delta-\pi/2}^{i\pi}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}
{f(s(\eta)) + v(s(\eta)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) } >
\nonumber \\
& \int_{i\pi+\delta-\pi/2}^{i\pi}
\frac{ \frac{d}{dt}\left(-\frac{f}{v}\right)(s(\eta)) \; d\eta}{f(s(\eta))} >
\frac{3}{2} \cdot \left(\frac{\pi}{2} - \delta\right).
\label{eq_fv_delta_7}\end{aligned}$$ Obviously, for all $0 < \delta < \pi/4$, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{3}{2} \cdot \frac{\delta}{1 + Z_\delta} +
\frac{3}{2} \cdot \left(\frac{\pi}{2} - \delta\right) >
\frac{3}{2} \cdot \left(\frac{\pi}{2}-\delta \right) \cdot
\frac{1}{1 + Z_\delta} +
\frac{3}{2} \cdot \delta.
\label{eq_flip}\end{aligned}$$ We combine ,, with , in the proof of Lemma \[lem\_delta\_small\] to obtain .
In the following lemma, we analyze the integral of the oscillatory part of the right-hand side of the ODE between consecutive roots of $\psi_n$. This lemma can be viewed as an extention of Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_1\], and is used in the proof of Theorem \[thm\_n\_lower\] below.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is an integer, $-1 < t_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_n < 1$ are the roots of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$, and $x_1 < \dots < x_{n-1}$ are the roots of $\psi_n'$ in the interval $(t_1,t_n)$. Suppose also, that the real number $x_n$ and the function $\theta: \left[-x_n, x_n\right] \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] above. Suppose furthermore that the function $v$ is defined via in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt > 0,
\label{eq_int_t_tp}\end{aligned}$$ for all integer $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$, i.e. for all integer $i$ such that $0 \leq t_i < t_n$. \[lem\_vsin\_2\]
Suppose that $i$ is a positive integer such that $(n-1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$. Suppose also that the function $s: \left[0, n\cdot\pi\right] \to \left[-x_n,x_n\right]$ is the inverse of $\theta$. In other words, for all $0 \leq \eta \leq n \cdot \pi$, $$\begin{aligned}
\theta(s(\eta)) = \eta.
\label{eq_s_eta_3}\end{aligned}$$ Due to in the proof of Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_1\] above, $$\begin{aligned}
& \int_{t_i}^{x_i} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt = \nonumber \\
& -\int_0^{\pi/2}
\frac{v(s(i\pi+\eta-\pi/2)) \cdot \sin(2\eta) \; d\eta}
{f(s(i\pi+\eta-\pi/2)) - v(s(i\pi+\eta-\pi/2)) \cdot \sin(2\eta)}.
\label{eq_vsin_d}\end{aligned}$$ We proceed to compare the integrand in to the integrand in in the proof of Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_1\]. First, for all $0 < \eta < \pi/4$, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{1}{(f/v)(s(i\pi+\eta-\pi/2)) - \sin(2\eta)} <
\frac{1}{(f/v)(s(i\pi+\eta)) + \sin(2\eta)},
\label{eq_up_to_pi4}\end{aligned}$$ due to in Lemma \[lem\_delta\_large\]. Moreover, for all $\pi/4 < \eta < \pi/2$, we substitute $\delta = \pi/2-\eta$ to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
& \frac{1}{(f/v)(s(i\pi+\eta-\pi/2)) - \sin(2\eta)} =
\frac{1}{(f/v)(s(i\pi-\delta))-\sin(2\delta)} < \nonumber \\
& \frac{1}{(f/v)(s(i\pi-\delta+\pi/2)) + \sin(2\delta)} =
\frac{1}{(f/v)(s(i\pi+\eta)) + \sin(2\eta)},
\label{eq_beyond_pi4}\end{aligned}$$ due to in Lemma \[lem\_delta\_small\]. We combine in the proof of Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_1\] with , , to obtain .
The following theorem is a counterpart of Theorem \[thm\_n\_upper\] above. It is illustrated in Tables \[t:test77a\], \[t:test77b\], \[t:test77c\], \[t:test99\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. Suppose also that $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
1 +
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^{t_n} \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt <
n.
\label{eq_n_lower}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_n\_lower\]
Suppose that the real numbers $$\begin{aligned}
-1 \leq -x_n < t_1 < x_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_{n-1} < x_{n-1} < t_n < x_n \leq 1
\label{eq_all_xt_2}\end{aligned}$$ and the function $\theta: \left[-x_n,x_n\right] \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] above. Suppose also that the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. If $n$ is odd, then we combine , , in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] with in Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_2\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{n-1}{2} \cdot \pi & \; =
\int_{t_{(n+1)/2}}^{t_n} \theta'(t) \; dt =
\int_0^{t_n} f(t) \; dt +
\sum_{i=(n+1)/2}^{n-1} \int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt
\nonumber \\
& \; > \int_0^{t_n} f(t) \; dt.
\label{eq_n_lower_odd}\end{aligned}$$ If $n$ is even, then we combine , , in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] with in Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_1\] and in Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_2\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{n-1}{2} \cdot \pi & \; =
\int_{x_{n/2}}^{t_n} \theta'(t) \; dt
=
\int_0^{t_n} f(t) \; dt \; + \nonumber \\
& \; \; \; \; \;
\int_{x_{n/2}}^{t_{(n/2)+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt +
\sum_{i=(n/2)+1}^{n-1} \int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt
\nonumber \\
& \; > \int_0^{t_n} f(t) \; dt.
\label{eq_n_lower_even}\end{aligned}$$ We combine and to conclude .
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Suppose also that $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1, 1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
1 + \frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} \cdot
E {\left( \text{asin}{\left( t_n \right)}, \frac{c}{\sqrt{\chi_n}} \right)}
< n <
\frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} \cdot E {\left( \frac{c}{\sqrt{\chi_n}} \right)},
\label{eq_jan_n_both_with_e}\end{aligned}$$ where $E(y, k)$ and $E(k)$ are defined, respectively, via and in Section \[sec\_elliptic\].
It follows immediately from , in Theorem \[thm\_n\_upper\] and in Theorem \[thm\_n\_lower\].
The following theorem, illustrated in Tables \[t:test98a\], \[t:test98b\], provides upper and lower bounds on the distance between consecutive roots of $\psi_n$ inside ${\left( -1, 1 \right)}$.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Suppose also that $-1 < t_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_n < 1$ are the roots of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Suppose furthermore that the functions $f,v$ are defined, respectively, via , in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{\pi}{ f(t_{i+1}) + v(t_{i+1})/2 } <
t_{i+1} - t_{i} <
\frac{\pi}{ f(t_i) },
\label{eq_zeros_inside_bounds}\end{aligned}$$ for all integer $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$, i.e. for all integer $i$ such that $0 \leq t_i < t_n$. \[thm\_zeros\_inside\_bounds\]
Suppose that the function $\theta: \left[-1,1\right] \to \Rc$ is that of Lemma \[lem\_prufer\]. We observe that $f$ is increasing in $(0,1)$ due to in Section \[sec\_prufer\], and combine this observation with , , in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] and in Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_2\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\pi & \; =
\int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}} \theta'(t) \; dt =
\int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}} f(t) \; dt +
\int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt \nonumber \\
& \; >
\int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}} f(t) \; dt >
\left(t_{i+1} - t_i\right) \cdot f(t_i),\end{aligned}$$ which implies the right-hand side of . As in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\], suppose that $x_i$ is the zero of $\psi_n'$ in the interval $(t_i, t_{i+1})$. We combine , , in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] and , in Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_1\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\int_{t_i}^{x_i} f(t) \; dt >
\int_{t_i}^{x_i} \theta'(t) \; dt = \pi =
\int_{x_i}^{t_{i+1}} \theta'(t) \; dt >
\int_{x_i}^{t_{i+1}} f(t) \; dt.
\label{eq_t_x_tp}\end{aligned}$$ Since $f$ is increasing in $(t_i,t_{i+1})$ due to in Section \[sec\_prufer\], the inequality implies that $$\begin{aligned}
x_i - t_i > t_{i+1} - x_i.
\label{eq_x_t_tp_x}\end{aligned}$$ Moreover, we observe that $v$ is also increasing in $(0,1)$. We combine this observation with , , , in Lemma \[lem\_prufer\] and , in Lemma \[lem\_vsin\_1\] to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\pi & \; =
\int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}} \theta'(t) \; dt <
\int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}} f(t) \; dt +
\int_{x_i}^{t_{i+1}} v(t) \cdot \sin(2\theta(t)) \; dt \nonumber \\
& \; <
\left(t_{i+1}-t_i\right) \cdot f(t_{i+1}) +
\left(t_{i+1}-x_i\right) \cdot v(t_{i+1}) \nonumber \\
& \; < \left(t_{i+1}-t_i\right) \cdot f(t_{i+1}) +
\frac{t_{i+1}-t_i}{2} \cdot v(t_{i+1}),\end{aligned}$$ which implies the left-hand side of .
The following theorem is a direct consequence of Theorem \[thm\_n\_upper\] above.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. If $n \geq 2c/\pi$, then $\chi_n > c^2$. \[thm\_good\_n\_good\_khi\]
Suppose that $\chi_n < c^2$, and $T$ is the maximal root of $\psi'_n$ in $(0,1)$, as in Theorem \[thm\_n\_upper\] above. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
n & \; < \frac{2}{\pi}
\int_0^{T} \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt
= \frac{2c}{\pi} \int_0^{T} \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n/c^2 - t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt
< \frac{ 2 c }{ \pi }\cdot T < \frac{ 2c }{ \pi },\end{aligned}$$ due to in Theorem \[thm\_n\_upper\].
### A Certain Transformation of the Prolate ODE {#sec_first_order}
In this subsection, we analyze the oscillation properties of $\psi_n$ via transforming the ODE into a second-order linear ODE without the first-order term. The following lemma is the principal technical tool of this subsection.
Suppose that $n \geq 0$ is a non-negative integer. Suppose also that that the functions $\Psi_n, Q_n: (-1,1) \to \Rc$ are defined, respectively, via the formulae $$\begin{aligned}
\Psi_n(t) = \psi_n(t) \cdot \sqrt{1-t^2}
\label{eq_big_psi_n}\end{aligned}$$ and $$\begin{aligned}
Q_n(t) =
\frac{ \chi_n - c^2\cdot t^2 }{ 1 - t^2 } +
\frac{ 1 }{ {\left( 1 - t^2 \right)}^2 },
\label{eq_big_q_n}\end{aligned}$$ for $-1 < t < 1$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\Psi_n''(t) + Q_n(t) \cdot \Psi_n(t) = 0,
\label{eq_big_psi_ode}\end{aligned}$$ for all $-1 < t < 1$. \[lem\_trans\]
We differentiate $\Psi_n$ with respect to $t$ to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\Psi_n'(t) = \psi_n'(t) \sqrt{1-t^2} -
\psi_n(t) \cdot \frac{t}{\sqrt{1-t^2}}.
\label{eq_d_big_psi}\end{aligned}$$ Then, using , we differentiate $\Psi_n'$ with respect to $t$ to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\Psi_n''(t)
& \; =
\psi_n''(t) \sqrt{1-t^2} -
\psi_n'(t) \cdot \frac{ 2t }{ \sqrt{t^2 - 1} } -
\psi_n(t) \cdot
\frac{ \sqrt{1-t^2} + t^2 / \sqrt{1-t^2} }{ 1-t^2 }
\nonumber \\
& \; =
\psi_n''(t) \sqrt{1-t^2} -
\psi_n'(t) \cdot \frac{ 2t }{ \sqrt{1-t^2} } -
\psi_n(t) {\left( 1-t^2 \right)}^{-\frac{3}{2}}
\nonumber \\
& \; =
\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-t^2}}
{\left[
{\left( 1-t^2 \right)} \cdot \psi_n''(t) - 2t \cdot \psi_n'(t) -
\frac{ \psi_n(t) }{ 1-t^2 }
\right]}
\nonumber \\
& \; =
\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-t^2}}
{\left[ -\psi_n(t) \cdot \left(\chi_n - c^2 \cdot t^2 \right) -
\frac{ \psi_n(t) }{ 1-t^2 } \right]}
\nonumber \\
& \; =
-\Psi_n(t) \cdot
{\left( \frac{ \chi_n - c^2 \cdot t^2 }{1-t^2} + \frac{1}{{\left( t^2-1 \right)}^2} \right)}.
\label{eq_dd_big_psi}\end{aligned}$$ We observe that follows from .
In the next theorem, we provide an upper bound on $\chi_n$ in terms of $n$. The results of the corresponding numerical experiments are reported in Tables \[t:test80a\], \[t:test80b\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\chi_n < {\left( \frac{\pi}{2} {\left( n+1 \right)} \right)}^2.
\label{eq_khi_n_square}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\]
Suppose that the functions $\Psi_n, Q_n: (-1,1) \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_trans\] above. We observe that, since $\chi_n > c^2$, $$\begin{aligned}
Q_n(t) > \chi_n + 1,
\label{eq_qn_gt_khi}\end{aligned}$$ for $-1 < t < 1$. Suppose now that $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$. We combine with in Lemma \[lem\_trans\] above and Theorem \[thm\_08\_12\_zeros\], Corollary \[cor\_08\_12\_zeros\] in Section \[sec\_oscillation\_ode\] to obtain the inequality $$\begin{aligned}
t_n \geq 1 - \frac{ \pi }{ \sqrt{\chi_n + 1} }.
\label{eq_tn_khi}\end{aligned}$$ Then, we combine with Theorem \[thm\_n\_lower\] above to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
n
& \; > 1 + \frac{2}{\pi}
\int_0^{t_n} \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt
\nonumber \\
& \; > 1 + \frac{2 \cdot t_n}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} \geq
1 + \frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} {\left( 1 - \frac{\pi}{\sqrt{\chi_n+1}} \right)}
> \frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} - 1,\end{aligned}$$ which implies .
The following theorem is a consequence of the proof of Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Suppose also that $t_1 < \dots <t_n$ are the roots of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
t_{j+1} - t_j < \frac{\pi}{\sqrt{\chi_n+1}},
\label{eq_tspacing}\end{aligned}$$ for all $j=1,2,\dots,n-1$. \[thm\_spacing\_khi\]
The inequality follows from the combination of in the proof of Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\], in Lemma \[lem\_trans\] and Theorem \[thm\_08\_12\_zeros\], Corollary \[cor\_08\_12\_zeros\] in Section \[sec\_oscillation\_ode\].
The following theorem extends Theorem \[thm\_good\_n\_good\_khi\] in Section \[sec\_sharp\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer.
- If $n \leq (2c/\pi)-1$, then $\chi_n < c^2$.
- If $n \geq (2c/\pi)$, then $\chi_n > c^2$.
- If $(2c/\pi)-1 < n < (2c/\pi)$, then either inequality is possible.
\[thm\_n\_and\_khi\]
Suppose that $\chi_n > c^2$, and that the functions $\Psi_n, Q_n: (-1,1) \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_trans\] above. Suppose also that $t_1 < \dots < t_n$ are the roots of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$. We observe that, due to in Lemma \[lem\_trans\], $$\begin{aligned}
Q_n(t) =
c^2 + \frac{ \chi_n - c^2 }{ 1 - t^2 } + \frac{ 1 }{ {\left( 1-t^2 \right)}^2 }
> c^2.
\label{eq_qn_gt_c}\end{aligned}$$ We combine with in Lemma \[lem\_trans\] above and Theorem \[thm\_25\_09\] in Section \[sec\_oscillation\_ode\] to conclude that $$\begin{aligned}
t_{j+1} - t_j < \frac{ \pi }{ c },
\label{eq_spacing_c}\end{aligned}$$ for all $j = 1, \dots, n-1$, and, moreover, $$\begin{aligned}
\quad 1 - t_n < \frac{ \pi }{ c }.
\label{eq_1_tn_c}\end{aligned}$$ We combine with to obtain the inequality $$\begin{aligned}
2 {\left( 1 - \frac{ \pi }{ c } \right)} < 2t_n = t_n - t_1 < {\left( n-1 \right)} \frac{ \pi }{ c },\end{aligned}$$ which implies that $$\begin{aligned}
n > \frac{2}{\pi} c - 1.
\label{eq_misc_n_small}\end{aligned}$$ We conclude the proof by combining Theorem \[thm\_good\_n\_good\_khi\] in Section \[sec\_sharp\] with .
The following theorem is yet another application of Lemma \[lem\_trans\] above.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer. Suppose also that $-1 < t_1 < t_2 < \dots < t_n < 1$ are the roots of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Suppose furthermore that $i$ is an integer such that $0 \leq t_i < t_n$, i.e. $(n+1)/2 \leq i \leq n-1$. If $\chi_n > c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
t_{i+1} - t_i > t_{i+2} - t_{i+1} > \dots > t_n - t_{n-1}.
\label{eq_spacing_shrink}\end{aligned}$$ If $\chi_n < c^2 - c\sqrt{2}$, then $$\begin{aligned}
t_{i+1} - t_i < t_{i+2} - t_{i+1} < \dots < t_n - t_{n-1}.
\label{eq_spacing_stretch}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_spacing\_inside\]
Suppose that the functions $\Psi_n, Q_n: (-1,1) \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_trans\] above. If $\chi_n > c^2$, then, due to in Lemma \[lem\_trans\], $$\begin{aligned}
Q_n(t) = c^2 + \frac{\chi_n - c^2}{1 - t^2} + \frac{1}{{\left( 1-t^2 \right)}^2}
\label{eq_30_11_q_again}\end{aligned}$$ is obviously a monotonically increasing function. We combine this observation with of Lemma \[lem\_trans\] and of Theorem \[thm\_25\_09\_2\] in Section \[sec\_oscillation\_ode\] to conclude .
Suppose now that $$\begin{aligned}
\chi_n < c^2 - c \sqrt{2}.
\label{eq_khi_very_small}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose also that the function $P_n : (1,\infty) \to \Rc$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
P_n(y) = Q_n\left( \sqrt{1-\frac{1}{\sqrt{y}}} \right) =
y^2 + (\chi_n-c^2) \cdot y + c^2,
\label{eq_big_p_n}\end{aligned}$$ for $1 < y < \infty$. Obviously, $$\begin{aligned}
Q_n(t) = P_n\left(\frac{1}{1-t^2}\right).
\label{eq_qn_pn}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose also that $y_0$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
y_0 = \frac{1}{1-(\sqrt{\chi_n}/c)^2} = \frac{c^2}{c^2 - \chi_n}.
\label{eq_y0}\end{aligned}$$ We combine , and to conclude that, for $1 < y < y_0$, $$\begin{aligned}
P_n'(y) = 2y-(c^2-\chi_n) < 2y_0 - (c^2-\chi_n)
= \frac{2c^2-(c^2-\chi_n)^2}{c^2-\chi_n} < 0.
\label{eq_dp_neg}\end{aligned}$$ Moreover, due to , , , $$\begin{aligned}
P_n(y) > P_n(y_0) = \left( \frac{c^2}{\chi_n-c^2} \right)^2 > 0,
\label{eq_pn_pos}\end{aligned}$$ for all $1 < y < y_0$. We combine , , , and to conclude that $Q_n$ is monotonically decreasing and strictly positive in the interval $(0, \sqrt{\chi_n}/c)$. We combine this observation with of Theorem \[thm\_25\_09\_2\] in Section \[sec\_oscillation\_ode\], of Lemma \[lem\_five\], and of Lemma \[lem\_trans\] to conclude .
Numerical experiments confirm that there exist real $c>0$ and integer $n>0$ such that $c^2 - c\sqrt{2} < \chi_n < c^2$ and neither of , is true. \[rem\_spacing\_inside\]
In the following theorem, we provide an upper bound on $1-t_n$, where $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Suppose also that $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
c^2 \cdot (1-t_n)^2 + \frac{\chi_n-c^2}{1+t_n} \cdot (1-t_n) < \pi^2.
\label{eq_tn_pi}\end{aligned}$$ Moreover, $$\begin{aligned}
1-t_n < \frac{ 4\pi^2 }{\chi_n-c^2 + \sqrt{(\chi_n-c^2)^2+(4\pi c)^2} }.
\label{eq_tn_upper}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_tn\_upper\]
Suppose that the functions $\Psi_n, Q_n: (-1,1) \to \Rc$ are those of Lemma \[lem\_trans\] above. Since $\chi_n > c^2$, the function $Q_n$ is monotonically increasing, i.e. $$\begin{aligned}
Q_n(t_n) \leq Q(t),
\label{eq_qn_ineq_1}\end{aligned}$$ for all $t_n \leq t < 1$. We consider the solution $\varphi_n$ of the ODE $$\begin{aligned}
\varphi_n''(t) + Q_n(t_n) \cdot \varphi_n(t) = 0,
\label{eq_phi_ode_1}\end{aligned}$$ with the initial conditions $$\begin{aligned}
\varphi(t_n) = \Psi_n(t_n) = 0, \quad \varphi'(t_n) = \Psi_n'(t_n).
\label{eq_phi_ic}\end{aligned}$$ The function $\varphi_n$ has a root $y_n$ given via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
y_n = t_n + \frac{ \pi }{ \sqrt{Q_n(t_n)} }.\end{aligned}$$ Suppose, by contradiction, that $y_n \leq 1$. Then, due to the combination of of Lemma \[lem\_trans\], Theorem \[thm\_08\_12\_zeros\], Corollary \[cor\_08\_12\_zeros\] in Section \[sec\_oscillation\_ode\], and above, $\Psi_n$ has a root in the interval $(t_n,y_n)$, in contradiction to . Therefore, $$\begin{aligned}
t_n + \frac{\pi}{\sqrt{Q_n(t_n)}} > 1.
\label{eq_tn_qn_1}\end{aligned}$$ We rewrite as $$\begin{aligned}
(1-t_n)^2 \cdot Q_n(t_n) < \pi^2,
\label{eq_tn_qn_2}\end{aligned}$$ and plug into to obtain the inequality $$\begin{aligned}
c^2 \cdot (1-t_n)^2 + \frac{\chi_n-c^2}{1+t_n} \cdot (1-t_n) +
\frac{1}{(1+t_n)^2} < \pi^2,
\label{eq_tn_qn_3}\end{aligned}$$ which immediately yields . Since $1-t_n$ is positive, implies that $1-t_n$ is bounded from above by the maximal root $x_{\max}$ of the quadratic equation $$\begin{aligned}
c^2 \cdot x^2 + \frac{\chi_n-c^2}{2} \cdot x - \pi^2 = 0,
\label{eq_tn_quad_1}\end{aligned}$$ given via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
x_{\max} & \; =
\frac{1}{4c^2} \cdot \left(
\sqrt{ (\chi_n-c^2)^2 + 16 \pi^2 c^2 } - (\chi_n-c^2) \right) \nonumber \\
& \; = \frac{16 \pi^2 c^2}{4c^2} \cdot
\frac{1}{ \chi_n-c^2 + \sqrt{ (\chi_n-c^2)^2 + 16 \pi^2 c^2 } },\end{aligned}$$ which implies .
The following theorem uses Theorem \[thm\_tn\_upper\] to simplify the inequalities in Theorem \[thm\_n\_upper\] and in Theorem \[thm\_n\_lower\] in Section \[sec\_sharp\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Suppose also that $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_{t_n}^1
\sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1-t^2} } \; dt < 4.
\label{eq_bound_4}\end{aligned}$$ Moreover, $$\begin{aligned}
n <
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^1 \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt
< n+3.
\label{eq_both_large_simple}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_n\_khi\_simple\]
We observe that, for $t_n \leq t < 1$, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{\chi_n-c^2 t^2}{1+t} <
\frac{\chi_n-c^2 t_n^2}{1+t_n} =
\frac{\chi_n-c^2}{1+t_n} + \frac{c^2-c^t t_n^2}{1+t_n} =
c^2 (1-t_n) + \frac{\chi_n-c^2}{1+t_n}.
\label{eq_simple_1}\end{aligned}$$ We combine with in Theorem \[thm\_tn\_upper\] to obtain the inequality $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{\chi_n-c^2 t^2}{1+t} <
\frac{\pi^2}{1-t_n},
\label{eq_simple_2}\end{aligned}$$ valid for $t_n \leq t < 1$. We conclude from that $$\begin{aligned}
\int_{t_n}^1 \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt <
\frac{\pi}{\sqrt{1-t_n}} \cdot \int_{t_n}^1 \frac{dt}{\sqrt{1-t}} =
\frac{\pi}{\sqrt{1-t_n}} \cdot 2\sqrt{1-t_n} = 2\pi,\end{aligned}$$ which implies . The inequality follows from the combination of , in Theorem \[thm\_n\_upper\] and in Theorem \[thm\_n\_lower\] in Section \[sec\_sharp\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
n <
\frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} \cdot E {\left( \frac{c}{\sqrt{\chi_n}} \right)} < n+3,
\label{eq_khi_simple_elliptic}\end{aligned}$$ where $E(k)$ is defined via in Section \[sec\_elliptic\]. \[cor\_khi\_simple\]
The inequality follows immediately from the combination of in Section \[sec\_elliptic\] and in Theorem \[thm\_n\_khi\_simple\] above.
The following theorem extends Theorem \[thm\_tn\_upper\] above by providing a lower bound on $1-t_n$, where $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$.
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $\chi_n > c^2$. Suppose also that $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{ \pi^2/8 }{\chi_n-c^2 + \sqrt{(\chi_n-c^2)^2+(\pi c/2)^2} } < 1-t_n.
\label{eq_tn_lower}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_tn\_lower\]
We combine the inequalities in Theorem \[thm\_n\_upper\] and in Theorem \[thm\_n\_lower\] in Section \[sec\_sharp\] to conclude that $$\begin{aligned}
1 < \frac{2}{\pi} \int_{t_n}^1 \sqrt{\frac{\chi_n-c^2t^2}{1-t^2}} \; dt.
\label{eq_lower_1}\end{aligned}$$ We combine with in the proof of Theorem \[thm\_n\_khi\_simple\] above to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
1 & \; < \frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{
\frac{\chi_n-c^2}{1+t_n} + c^2(1-t_n)
} \cdot \int_{t_n}^1 \frac{dt}{\sqrt{1-t}} \nonumber \\
& \; <
\frac{4}{\pi} \sqrt{ c^2 (1-t_n)^2 + (\chi_n-c^2) \cdot (1-t_n) }.
\label{eq_lower_2}\end{aligned}$$ We rewrite as $$\begin{aligned}
c^2 (1-t_n)^2 + (\chi_n-c^2) \cdot (1-t_n) - \frac{\pi^2}{16} > 0.
\label{eq_lower_3}\end{aligned}$$ Since $1-t_n$ is positive, implies that $1-t_n$ it is bounded from below by the maximal root $x_{\max}$ of the quadratic equation $$\begin{aligned}
c^2 \cdot x^2 + \frac{\chi_n-c^2}{2} \cdot x - \frac{\pi^2}{16} = 0,
\label{eq_lower_4}\end{aligned}$$ given via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
x_{\max} & \; =
\frac{1}{2c^2} \cdot \left(
\sqrt{ (\chi_n-c^2)^2 + \pi^2 c^2/4 } - (\chi_n-c^2) \right) \nonumber \\
& \; = \frac{\pi^2 c^2}{8c^2} \cdot
\frac{1}{ \chi_n-c^2 + \sqrt{ (\chi_n-c^2)^2 + \pi^2 c^2/4 } },\end{aligned}$$ which implies .
The following theorem is a direct consequence of Theorem \[thm\_n\_khi\_simple\]. It is illustrated in Figures \[fig:test171a\], \[fig:test171b\].
Suppose that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer such that $n > 2c/\pi$, and that the function $f:[0,\infty) \to \Rc$ is defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
f(x) = -1 + \int_0^{\pi/2} \sqrt{ x + \cos^2(\theta)} \; d\theta.
\label{eq_f_def}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose also that the function $H: [0,\infty) \to \Rc$ is the inverse of $f$, in other words, $$\begin{aligned}
y = f(H(y)) =
-1 + \int_0^{\pi/2} \sqrt{ H(y) + \cos^2(\theta)} \; d\theta,
\label{eq_big_h_def}\end{aligned}$$ for all real $y \geq 0$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
H\left( \frac{n\pi}{2c} - 1 \right) <
\frac{\chi_n - c^2}{c^2} <
H\left( \frac{n\pi}{2c} - 1 + \frac{3\pi}{2c} \right).
\label{eq_khi_via_h}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_exp\_term\]
Obviously, the function $f$, defined via , is monotonically increasing. Moreover, $f(0) = 0$, and $$\begin{aligned}
\lim_{x \to \infty} f(x) = \infty.\end{aligned}$$ Therefore, $H(y)$ is well defined for all $y \geq 0$, and, moreover, the function $H$ is monotonically increasing. This observation, combined with Theorems \[thm\_n\_and\_khi\], \[thm\_n\_khi\_simple\] above, implies the inequality .
In the following theorem, we provide a simple lower bound on $H$, defined via in Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\].
Suppose that the function $H:[0,\infty) \to \Rc$ is defined via in Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\]. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
s \leq H\left( \frac{s}{4} \cdot \log \frac{16e}{s} \right),
\label{eq_h_bounds}\end{aligned}$$ for all real $0 \leq s \leq 5$. \[thm\_big\_h\]
The proof of is straightforward, elementary, and is based on in Section \[sec\_elliptic\]; it will be omitted. The correctness of Theorem \[thm\_big\_h\] has also been validated numerically.
Numerical experiments by the author indicate that the relative error of the lower bound in is below 0.07 for all $0 \leq s \leq 5$; moreover, this error grows roughly linearly with $s$ to $\approx 0.0085$ for all $0 \leq s \leq 0.1$. \[rem\_h\_bounds\]
In the following theorem, we provide a lower bound on $\chi_n$ for certain values of $n$.
Suppose that $\alpha$ is a real number, and that $$\begin{aligned}
0 < \alpha < 5c.
\label{eq_khi_lower_1}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose also that $n\geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $$\begin{aligned}
n > \frac{2c}{\pi} + \frac{\alpha}{2\pi} \cdot
\log\left( \frac{16ec}{\alpha} \right).
\label{eq_khi_lower_2}\end{aligned}$$ Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\chi_n > c^2 + \alpha c.
\label{eq_khi_lower}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_khi\_lower\]
Suppose that the function $H:[0,\infty) \to \Rc$ is defined via in Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\]. It was observed in the proof of Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\] that $H$ is monotonically increasing. We combine this observation with , and Theorem \[thm\_big\_h\] to conclude that $$\begin{aligned}
H\left( \frac{\pi n}{2c} - 1 \right) >
\frac{\alpha}{4c} \cdot \log\left( \frac{16ec}{\alpha} \right) \geq
\frac{\alpha}{c}.
\label{eq_khi_lower_a}\end{aligned}$$ Thus follows from the combination of and Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\].
In the following theorem, we provide upper and lower bounds on $1-t_n$, where $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$, in terms of $\chi_n-c^2$. This theorem is illustrated in Figure \[fig:test170\].
Suppose that $$\begin{aligned}
c > \frac{10}{\pi}.
\label{eq_tn_simple_1}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose also that $n \geq 2$ is a positive integer, and that $$\begin{aligned}
n > \frac{2c}{\pi} + 1 + \frac{1}{4} \cdot \log(c).
\label{eq_tn_simple_2}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose furthermore that $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in the interval $(-1,1)$. Then, $$\begin{aligned}
\chi_n > c^2 + \frac{\pi}{2} \cdot c,
\label{eq_tn_simple_khi}\end{aligned}$$ and also, $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{\pi^2}{8 \cdot (1+\sqrt{2})} \cdot \frac{1}{\chi_n-c^2} <
1-t_n <
\frac{2\pi^2}{\chi_n - c^2}.
\label{eq_tn_simple}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_tn\_simple\]
We combine , and Theorem \[thm\_khi\_lower\] to obtain . Then, we combine with Theorems \[thm\_tn\_upper\], \[thm\_tn\_lower\] to obtain .
Growth Properties of PSWFs {#sec_growth}
--------------------------
In this subsection, we establish several bounds on ${\left| \psi_n \right|}$ and ${\left| \psi_n' \right|}$. Throughout this subsection $c > 0$ is a fixed positive real number. The principal results of this subsection are Theorems \[thm\_psi1\], \[thm\_extrema\], \[thm\_q0\]. The following lemma is a technical tool to be used in the rest of this subsection.
Suppose that $n \geq 0$ is a non-negative integer, and that the functions $p, q: \Rc \to \Rc$ are defined via in Section \[sec\_prufer\]. Suppose also that the functions $Q, \tilde{Q} : (0,\min\left\{\sqrt{\chi_n}/c,1\right\}) \to \Rc$ are defined, respectively, via the formulae $$\begin{aligned}
Q(t)
& \; = \psi_n^2(t) + \frac{ p(t) }{ q(t) } \cdot {\left( \psi'_n(t) \right)}^2
= \psi_n^2(t) +
\frac{ {\left( 1-t^2 \right)} \cdot {\left( \psi'_n(t) \right)}^2 }{ \chi_n-c^2 t^2}
\label{eq_psi1_q}\end{aligned}$$ and $$\begin{aligned}
\tilde{Q}(t)
& \; = p(t) \cdot q(t) \cdot Q(t) \nonumber \\
& \; = {\left( 1 - t^2 \right)} \cdot {\left( {\left( \chi_n - c^2 t^2 \right)} \cdot \psi_n^2(t) +
{\left( 1 - t^2 \right)} \cdot {\left( \psi'_n(t) \right)}^2 \right)}.
\label{eq_psi1_qtilde}\end{aligned}$$ Then, $Q$ is increasing in the interval ${\left( 0, \min{\left\{ \sqrt{\chi_n}/c, 1 \right\}} \right)}$, and $\tilde{Q}$ is decreasing in the interval ${\left( 0, \min{\left\{ \sqrt{\chi_n}/c, 1 \right\}} \right)}$. \[lem\_Q\_Q\_tilde\]
We differentiate $Q$, defined via , with respect to $t$ to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
Q'(t) = & \; 2 \cdot \psi_n(t) \cdot \psi_n'(t) + \left(
\frac{2c^2 t \cdot (1-t^2)}{(\chi_n-c^2t^2)^2}-\frac{2t}{\chi_n-c^2t^2}
\right) \cdot \left(\psi_n'(t)\right)^2 + \nonumber \\
& \; \frac{2\cdot(1-t^2)}{\chi_n-c^2t^2} \cdot \psi_n'(t) \cdot \psi_n''(t).
\label{eq_dq_long}\end{aligned}$$ Due to in Section \[sec\_pswf\], $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n''(t) = \frac{2t}{1-t^2} \cdot \psi_n'(t) -
\frac{\chi_n-c^2 t^2}{1-t^2} \cdot \psi_n(t),
\label{eq_ddpsi}\end{aligned}$$ for all $-1 < t < 1$. We substitute into and carry out straightforward algebraic manipulations to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
Q'(t) = \frac{2t}{(\chi_n-c^2 t^2)^2} \cdot \left(\chi_n+c^2-2c^2 t^2\right)
\cdot \left( \psi_n'(t) \right)^2.
\label{eq_dq_short}\end{aligned}$$ Obviously, for all $0 < t < \min{\left\{ \sqrt{\chi_n}/c, 1 \right\}}$, $$\begin{aligned}
\chi_n+c^2-2c^2 t^2 > 0.
\label{eq_term_pos}\end{aligned}$$ We combine with to conclude that $$\begin{aligned}
Q'(t) > 0,
\label{eq_dq_positive}\end{aligned}$$ for all $0 < t < \min{\left\{ \sqrt{\chi_n}/c, 1 \right\}}$. Then, we differentiate $\tilde{Q}$, defined via , with respect to $t$ to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\tilde{Q}'(t) =
& \; -2t \cdot \left( (\chi_n-c^2 t^2) \cdot \psi_n^2(t) +
(1-t^2) \cdot \left(\psi'_n(t)\right)^2 \right)
\nonumber \\
& \; + (1-t^2) \cdot \left( -2c^2 t \cdot \psi_n^2(t) +
2 \cdot (\chi_n-c^2 t^2) \cdot \psi_n(t) \cdot \psi_n'(t)
\right. \nonumber \\
& \; \left. \quad -2t \cdot \left(\psi_n'(t)\right)^2
+2 \cdot (1-t^2) \cdot \psi_n'(t) \cdot \psi_n''(t)
\right).
\label{eq_dqtilde_long}\end{aligned}$$ We substitute into and carry out straightforward algebraic manipulations to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\tilde{Q}'(t) = -2t \cdot (\chi_n + c^2 - 2 c^2 t^2) \cdot \psi_n^2(t).
\label{eq_dqtilde_short}\end{aligned}$$ We combine with to conclude that $$\begin{aligned}
\tilde{Q}'(t) < 0,
\label{eq_dqtilde_negative}\end{aligned}$$ for all $0 < t < \min{\left\{ \sqrt{\chi_n}/c, 1 \right\}}$. We combine and to finish the proof.
In the following theorem, we establish a lower bound on ${\left| \psi_n(1) \right|}$.
Suppose that $\chi_n > c^2$. Then, \[thm\_psi1\] $$\begin{aligned}
\label{eq_psi1_bound}
{\left| \psi_n(1) \right|} > \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}.\end{aligned}$$
Suppose that the function $Q: [-1,1] \to \Rc$ is defined via in Lemma \[lem\_Q\_Q\_tilde\]. Then, $Q$ is increasing in $\left(0, 1\right)$, and is continuous in $[-1,1]$ (see Lemma \[lem\_Q\_Q\_tilde\] and Theorem \[thm\_prolate\_ode\] in Section \[sec\_pswf\]). Therefore, $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n^2(t) < Q(t) \leq Q(1) = \psi_n^2(1), \end{aligned}$$ for all real $0 \leq t < 1$. Due to Theorem \[thm\_pswf\_main\] in Section \[sec\_pswf\], $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{1}{2} = \int_0^1 \psi_n^2(t) \; dt < \int_0^1 \psi_n^2(1) \; dt =
\psi_n^2(1),\end{aligned}$$ which implies .
The following theorem describes some of the properties of the extrema of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$.
Suppose that $n \geq 0$ is a non-negative integer, and that $x, y$ are two arbitrary extremum points of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$. If ${\left| x \right|} < {\left| y \right|}$, then $$\begin{aligned}
{\left| \psi_n(x) \right|} < {\left| \psi_n(y) \right|}.
\label{eq_extremum_general}\end{aligned}$$ If, in addition, $\chi_n > c^2$, then $$\begin{aligned}
{\left| \psi_n(x) \right|} < {\left| \psi_n(y) \right|} < {\left| \psi_n(1) \right|}.
\label{eq_extremum_special}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_extrema\]
We observe that ${\left| \psi_n \right|}$ is even in $(-1,1)$, and combine this observation with the fact that the function $Q:[-1,1] \to \Rc$, defined via , is increasing in $(0,1)$ due to Lemma \[lem\_Q\_Q\_tilde\].
In the following theorem, we provide an upper bound on the reciprocal of $|\psi_n|$ (if $n$ is even) or $|\psi'_n|$ (if $n$ is odd) at zero.
Suppose that $\chi_n > c^2$. If $n$ is even, then $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{1}{|\psi_n(0)|} \leq 4 \cdot \sqrt{n \cdot \frac{\chi_n}{c^2}}.
\label{eq_q0_even}\end{aligned}$$ If $n$ is odd, then $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{1}{|\psi_n'(0)|} \leq 4 \cdot \sqrt{\frac{n}{c^2}}.
\label{eq_q0_odd}\end{aligned}$$ \[thm\_q0\]
Since $\chi_n > c^2$, the inequality $$\begin{aligned}
\psi_n^2(t) \leq \psi_n^2(1) \leq n + \frac{1}{2},\end{aligned}$$ holds due to Theorem \[thm\_psi1\_upper\_bound\] in Section \[sec\_pswf\] and Theorem \[thm\_extrema\] above. Therefore, $$\begin{aligned}
\int_{1 - 1/8n}^1 \psi_n^2(t) \; dt \leq \frac{1}{8} + \frac{1}{16n} <
\frac{3}{16}.\end{aligned}$$ Combined with the orthonormality of $\psi_n$, this yields the inequality $$\begin{aligned}
\int_0^{1 - 1/8n} \psi_n^2(t) \; dt
= \int_0^1 \psi_n^2(t) \; dt - \int_{1 - 1/8n}^1 \psi_n^2(t) \; dt
\geq
\frac{1}{2} - \frac{3}{16} = \frac{5}{16}.
\label{eq_quad_fourth}\end{aligned}$$ Since $$\begin{aligned}
\int \frac{ dx }{ {\left( 1 - x^2 \right)}^2 } =
\frac{1}{2} \cdot \frac{ x }{ 1 - x^2 } +
\frac{1}{4} \log \frac{x+1}{1-x},\end{aligned}$$ it follows that $$\begin{aligned}
& \int_0^{1-1/8n} \frac{ dx }{ {\left( 1 - x^2 \right)}^2 } = \nonumber \\
& \frac{1}{2} \cdot \frac{1 - 1/8n}{1 - {\left( 1-1/8n \right)}^2} +
\frac{1}{4} \log \frac{2 - 1/8n}{1/8n} = \nonumber \\
& \frac{1}{2} \cdot \frac{ 8n {\left( 8n-1 \right)} }{ 16n - 1} +
\frac{1}{4} \log {\left( 16n - 1 \right)} \leq \nonumber \\
& 4n + n \leq 5n.
\label{eq_quad_8n}\end{aligned}$$ Suppose that the functions $Q(t), \tilde{Q}(t)$ are defined for $-1 \leq t \leq 1$, respectively, via the formulae , in Lemma \[lem\_Q\_Q\_tilde\] in Section \[sec\_growth\]. We apply Lemma \[lem\_Q\_Q\_tilde\] with $t_0 = 0$ and $0 < t \leq 1$ to obtain $$\begin{aligned}
Q(0) \cdot \chi_n
& \; = Q(0) \cdot p(0) \cdot q(0) = \tilde{Q}(0) \nonumber \\
& \; \geq \tilde{Q}(t) = c^2
{\left[ \psi_n^2(t) + \frac{ {\left( t^2-1 \right)} {\left( \psi_n'(t) \right)}^2 }
{ {\left( c^2 \cdot t^2 - \chi_n \right)} } \right]}
\cdot {\left( 1 - t^2 \right)} {\left( \chi_n/c^2 - t^2 \right)} \nonumber \\
& \; \geq c^2 \psi_n^2(t) {\left( 1-t^2 \right)} {\left( \chi_n/c^2-t^2 \right)}
\geq c^2 \psi_n^2(t) {\left( 1-t^2 \right)}^2.
\label{eq_quad_q0_est}\end{aligned}$$ It follows from , and that $$\begin{aligned}
& 5n \cdot Q(0) \cdot \frac{\chi_n}{c^2} \geq
Q(0) \cdot \frac{\chi_n}{c^2}
\int_0^{1 - 1/8n} \frac{ dx }{ {\left( 1-x^2 \right)}^2 } \geq
\int_0^{1 - 1/8n} \psi_n^2(t) \; dt \geq \frac{5}{16},\end{aligned}$$ which, in turn, implies that $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{1}{Q(0)} \leq 16 n \cdot \frac{\chi_n}{c^2}.
\label{eq_quad_32n}\end{aligned}$$ If $n$ is even, then $\psi_n'(0)=0$, also, if $n$ is odd, then $\psi_n(0)=0$. Combined with , this observation yields both and .
Numerical Results {#sec_numerical}
=================
In this section, we illustrate the analysis of Section \[sec\_analytical\] via several numerical experiments. All the calculations were implemented in FORTRAN (the Lahey 95 LINUX version) and were carried out in double precision. The algorithms for the evaluation of PSWFs and their eigenvalues were based on [@RokhlinXiaoProlate].
We illustrate Lemma \[lem\_five\] in Figures \[fig:test75a\], \[fig:test75b\], via plotting $\psi_n$ with $\chi_n < c^2$ and $\chi_n > c^2$, respectively. The relations and hold for the functions in Figures \[fig:test75a\], \[fig:test75b\], respectively. Theorem \[thm\_extrema\] holds in both cases, that is, the absolute value of local extrema of $\psi_n(t)$ increases as $t$ grows from $0$ to $1$. On the other hand, holds only for the function plotted in Figure \[fig:test75b\], as expected.
\[htbp\]
![*The function $\psi_n(t)$ for $c = 20$ and $n = 9$. Since $\chi_n \approx 325.42 < c^2$, the location of the special points is according to of Lemma \[lem\_five\]. The points $\sqrt{\chi_n}/c \approx 0.90197$ and $1$ are marked with asterisks. Compare to Figure \[fig:test75b\].* []{data-label="fig:test75a"}](test75aa.eps){width="12cm"}
\[htbp\]
![*The function $\psi_n(t)$ for $c = 20$ and $n = 14$. Since $\chi_n \approx 437.36 > c^2$, the location of the special points is according to of Lemma \[lem\_five\]. The points $1$ and $\sqrt{\chi_n}/c \approx 1.0457$ are marked with asterisks. Compare to Figure \[fig:test75a\].* []{data-label="fig:test75b"}](test75bb.eps){width="12cm"}
----------- ---------------- ------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------
$n$ $\chi_n / c^2$ Above($n$) Below($n$) $\frac{\text{Above}(n)-n}{n}$ $\frac{n-\text{Below}(n)}{n}$
\[1ex\] 6 0.10104E+01 0.65036E+01 0.59568E+01 0.83927E-01 0.71987E-02
10 0.16310E+01 0.10498E+02 0.99600E+01 0.49826E-01 0.39974E-02
15 0.29137E+01 0.15494E+02 0.14963E+02 0.32940E-01 0.24599E-02
20 0.47078E+01 0.20495E+02 0.19964E+02 0.24737E-01 0.17952E-02
25 0.70050E+01 0.25496E+02 0.24965E+02 0.19820E-01 0.14066E-02
30 0.98035E+01 0.30496E+02 0.29965E+02 0.16538E-01 0.11533E-02
35 0.13103E+02 0.35497E+02 0.34966E+02 0.14189E-01 0.97596E-03
40 0.16902E+02 0.40497E+02 0.39966E+02 0.12425E-01 0.84521E-03
45 0.21202E+02 0.45497E+02 0.44966E+02 0.11052E-01 0.74500E-03
----------- ---------------- ------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------
: *Illustration of Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\], \[thm\_n\_lower\] with $c = 10$. The quantities Above($n$) and Below($n$) are defined by .* []{data-label="t:test77a"}
------------ ---------------- ------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------
$n$ $\chi_n / c^2$ Above($n$) Below($n$) $\frac{\text{Above}(n)-n}{n}$ $\frac{n-\text{Below}(n)}{n}$
\[1ex\] 64 0.10066E+01 0.64590E+02 0.63964E+02 0.92169E-02 0.56216E-03
70 0.10668E+01 0.70513E+02 0.69971E+02 0.73216E-02 0.40732E-03
75 0.11290E+01 0.75505E+02 0.74971E+02 0.67341E-02 0.38256E-03
80 0.11989E+01 0.80502E+02 0.79970E+02 0.62812E-02 0.37011E-03
85 0.12756E+01 0.85501E+02 0.84970E+02 0.58974E-02 0.35594E-03
90 0.13584E+01 0.90501E+02 0.89969E+02 0.55623E-02 0.34087E-03
95 0.14472E+01 0.95500E+02 0.94969E+02 0.52652E-02 0.32589E-03
100 0.15416E+01 0.10050E+03 0.99969E+02 0.49994E-02 0.31150E-03
------------ ---------------- ------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------
: *Illustration of Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\], \[thm\_n\_lower\] with $c = 100$. The quantities Above($n$) and Below($n$) are defined by .* []{data-label="t:test77b"}
------------- ---------------- ------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------
$n$ $\chi_n / c^2$ Above($n$) Below($n$) $\frac{\text{Above}(n)-n}{n}$ $\frac{n-\text{Below}(n)}{n}$
\[1ex\] 637 0.10005E+01 0.63759E+03 0.63697E+03 0.93059E-03 0.51797E-04
640 0.10025E+01 0.64055E+03 0.63997E+03 0.85557E-03 0.49251E-04
645 0.10063E+01 0.64552E+03 0.64497E+03 0.80101E-03 0.39996E-04
650 0.10105E+01 0.65051E+03 0.64997E+03 0.78412E-03 0.39578E-04
655 0.10149E+01 0.65551E+03 0.65497E+03 0.77352E-03 0.40527E-04
660 0.10195E+01 0.66050E+03 0.65997E+03 0.76512E-03 0.41359E-04
665 0.10243E+01 0.66550E+03 0.66497E+03 0.75777E-03 0.41942E-04
670 0.10292E+01 0.67050E+03 0.66997E+03 0.75103E-03 0.42321E-04
675 0.10343E+01 0.67550E+03 0.67497E+03 0.74469E-03 0.42547E-04
------------- ---------------- ------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------
: *Illustration of Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\], \[thm\_n\_lower\] with $c = 1000$. The quantities Above($n$) and Below($n$) are defined by .* []{data-label="t:test77c"}
In Tables \[t:test77a\], \[t:test77b\], \[t:test77c\], we illustrate Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\], \[thm\_n\_lower\] in the case of $\chi_n > c^2$. The band limit $c > 0$ is fixed per table and chosen to be equal to 10, 100 and 1000, respectively. The first two columns contain $n$ and the ratio $\chi_n/c^2$. The third and fourth column contain the upper and lower bound on $n$ defined, respectively, via in Theorem \[thm\_n\_upper\] and in Theorem \[thm\_n\_lower\], i.e. $$\begin{aligned}
& \text{Below}(n) =
1 +
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^{t_n} \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt =
1 + \frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} \cdot
E {\left( \text{asin}{\left( t_n \right)}, \frac{c}{\sqrt{\chi_n}} \right)},
\nonumber \\
& \text{Above}(n) =
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^1 \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt =
\frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} \cdot E {\left( \frac{c}{\sqrt{\chi_n}} \right)},
\label{eq_above_below}\end{aligned}$$ where $E$ denote the elliptical integrals of Section \[sec\_elliptic\], and $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in ${\left( -1, 1 \right)}$ (see also ). The fifth and sixth columns contain the relative errors of these bounds. The first row corresponds to the minimal $n$ for which $\chi_n > c^2$. We observe that, for a fixed $c$, the bounds become more accurate as $n$ grows. Also, for $n = \lceil 2c/\pi \rceil + 1$ the accuracy improves as $c$ grows. Moreover, the lower bound is always more accurate than the upper bound.
----------- ---------------- ------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------
$n$ $\chi_n / c^2$ Above($n$) Below($n$) $\frac{\text{Above}(n)-n}{n}$ $\frac{n-\text{Below}(n)}{n}$
\[1ex\] 1 0.29824E-01 0.10395E+01 0.10000E+01 0.39511E-01 0.00000E+00
9 0.18531E+00 0.90625E+01 0.89818E+01 0.69444E-02 0.20214E-02
19 0.36985E+00 0.19069E+02 0.18981E+02 0.36421E-02 0.10180E-02
29 0.54240E+00 0.29075E+02 0.28980E+02 0.25825E-02 0.69027E-03
39 0.70125E+00 0.39082E+02 0.38979E+02 0.21102E-02 0.53327E-03
49 0.84356E+00 0.49096E+02 0.48978E+02 0.19543E-02 0.45122E-03
54 0.90685E+00 0.54110E+02 0.53977E+02 0.20330E-02 0.43263E-03
59 0.96278E+00 0.59146E+02 0.58974E+02 0.24725E-02 0.44189E-03
63 0.99867E+00 0.63420E+02 0.62966E+02 0.66661E-02 0.53355E-03
----------- ---------------- ------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------------------------
: *Illustration of Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\], \[thm\_n\_lower\] with $c = 100$. The quantities Above($n$) and Below($n$) are defined by .* []{data-label="t:test99"}
In Table \[t:test99\], we illustrate Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\], \[thm\_n\_lower\] in the case $\chi_n < c^2$ with $c = 100$. The structure of Table \[t:test99\] is the same as that of Tables \[t:test77a\], \[t:test77b\], \[t:test77c\] with the only difference: the third and fourth column contain the upper and lower bound on $n$ given, respectively, via in Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\] and in Theorem \[thm\_n\_lower\], i.e. $$\begin{aligned}
& \text{Below}(n) =
1 +
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^{t_n} \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt =
1 + \frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} \cdot
E {\left( \text{asin}{\left( t_n \right)}, \frac{c}{\sqrt{\chi_n}} \right)}
\nonumber \\
& \text{Above}(n) =
\frac{2}{\pi} \int_0^T \sqrt{ \frac{\chi_n - c^2 t^2}{1 - t^2} } \; dt =
\frac{2}{\pi} \sqrt{\chi_n} \cdot
E {\left( \text{asin}{\left( T \right)}, \frac{c}{\sqrt{\chi_n}} \right)},
\label{eq_above_below_small}\end{aligned}$$ where $t_n$ and $T$ are the maximal roots of $\psi_n$ and $\psi_n'$ in the interval ${\left( -1, 1 \right)}$, respectively. The values in the first row grow up to $\lfloor 2c/\pi \rfloor$, in correspondence with Theorem \[thm\_n\_and\_khi\] in Section \[sec\_sharp\]. We observe that both bounds in the third and fourth columns are correct and the lower bound is always more accurate. This behavior is similar to that observed in Tables \[t:test77a\], \[t:test77b\], \[t:test77c\].
------------- --------------------------------------- ------------- -------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
$n$ ${\left( n - 2c/\pi - 1 \right)}/{c}$ $\chi_n$ ${\left( \frac{\pi}{2}{\left( n+1 \right)} \right)}^2$ ${\left( \frac{\pi}{2}{\left( n+1 \right)} \right)}^2 / \chi_n$ - 1
\[1ex\] 640 0.23802E-02 0.10025E+07 0.10138E+07 0.11248E-01
660 0.22380E-01 0.10195E+07 0.10781E+07 0.57443E-01
680 0.42380E-01 0.10395E+07 0.11443E+07 0.10082E+00
700 0.62380E-01 0.10615E+07 0.12125E+07 0.14229E+00
720 0.82380E-01 0.10850E+07 0.12827E+07 0.18215E+00
740 0.10238E+00 0.11100E+07 0.13548E+07 0.22054E+00
760 0.12238E+00 0.11363E+07 0.14289E+07 0.25757E+00
780 0.14238E+00 0.11637E+07 0.15050E+07 0.29330E+00
800 0.16238E+00 0.11923E+07 0.15831E+07 0.32777E+00
820 0.18238E+00 0.12219E+07 0.16631E+07 0.36105E+00
------------- --------------------------------------- ------------- -------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
: *Illustration of Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\] with $c = 1000$.* []{data-label="t:test80a"}
-------------- --------------------------------------- ------------- -------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
$n$ ${\left( n - 2c/\pi - 1 \right)}/{c}$ $\chi_n$ ${\left( \frac{\pi}{2}{\left( n+1 \right)} \right)}^2$ ${\left( \frac{\pi}{2}{\left( n+1 \right)} \right)}^2 / \chi_n$ - 1
\[1ex\] 6400 0.32802E-02 0.10022E+09 0.10110E+09 0.87670E-02
6600 0.23280E-01 0.10191E+09 0.10751E+09 0.55007E-01
6800 0.43280E-01 0.10390E+09 0.11413E+09 0.98410E-01
7000 0.63280E-01 0.10609E+09 0.12094E+09 0.13991E+00
7200 0.83280E-01 0.10845E+09 0.12795E+09 0.17979E+00
7400 0.10328E+00 0.11094E+09 0.13515E+09 0.21821E+00
7600 0.12328E+00 0.11357E+09 0.14255E+09 0.25526E+00
7800 0.14328E+00 0.11631E+09 0.15016E+09 0.29102E+00
8000 0.16328E+00 0.11916E+09 0.15795E+09 0.32552E+00
8200 0.18328E+00 0.12213E+09 0.16595E+09 0.35883E+00
-------------- --------------------------------------- ------------- -------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
: *Illustration of Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\] with $c = 10000$.* []{data-label="t:test80b"}
In Tables \[t:test80a\], \[t:test80b\], we illustrate Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\] with $c = 1000$ and $c = 10000$, respectively. The first column contains the PSWF index $n$, which starts from roughly $2c/\pi$ and increases by steps of $c/50$. The second column displays the normalized distance $d_n$ between $n$ and $(2c/\pi+1)$, defined via the formula $$\begin{aligned}
d_n = \frac{n-2c/\pi-1}{c}.
\label{eq_dn}\end{aligned}$$ The third column contains $\chi_n$. The fourth and fifth column contain the upper bound on $\chi_n$, defined in Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\], and the relative error of this bound, respectively. We observe that the bound is slightly better for $c = 10000$, if we keep $d_n$ fixed. On the other hand, for a fixed $c$, this bound deteriorates as $n$ grows. In fact, starting from $n \approx (2/\pi + 1/6) \cdot c$, this bound becomes even worse than (this value is $n = 825$ for $c = 1000$ and $n = 8254$ for $c = 10000$). Since Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\] is a simplification of more accurate Theorems \[thm\_n\_upper\], \[thm\_n\_lower\], the latter observation is not surprising. Nevertheless, the high accuracy for $n \approx 2c/\pi$ and the simplicity of the estimate make Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\] useful (see also Figure \[fig:test171a\]).
\[htbp\]
![*Relative error of upper bounds on $\chi_n$ with $c=1000$, on the logarithmic scale. The bounds are defined, respectively, via , , .* []{data-label="fig:test171a"}](test171a.eps){width="12cm"}
In Figure \[fig:test171a\], we illustrate Theorems \[thm\_khi\_crude\], \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\], \[thm\_exp\_term\] via comparing the relative accuracy of the corresponding upper bounds on $\chi_n$. More specifically, we choose $c=1000$, and, for each integer $630 \leq n \leq 710$, we evaluate numerically the following quantities. First, we compute $\chi_n$ (see in Section \[sec\_pswf\]). Second, we compute the upper bound on $\chi_n$, defined via the right-hand side of of Theorem \[thm\_khi\_crude\] in Section \[sec\_pswf\], namely, $$\begin{aligned}
U_1(n) = c^2 + n \cdot (n+1).
\label{eq_u1}\end{aligned}$$ Third, we compute the upper bound on $\chi_n$, defined via of Theorem \[thm\_khi\_n\_square\], namely, $$\begin{aligned}
U_2(n) = \left( \frac{\pi}{2} \cdot (n+1) \right)^2.
\label{eq_u2}\end{aligned}$$ Finally, we compute the upper bound on $\chi_n$, defined via of Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\], namely, $$\begin{aligned}
U_3(n) = c^2 \cdot
\left(1 + H\left( \frac{\pi n}{2c} - 1 + \frac{3\pi}{2c}\right) \right),
\label{eq_u3}\end{aligned}$$ where $H$ is defined via in Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\]. In Figure \[fig:test171a\], we plot the relative errors of $U_1(n),U_2(n),U_3(n)$ as functions of $n$, on the logarithmic scale.
We observe that $U_1(n)$ significantly overestimates $\chi_n$, and the relative accuracy of $U_1(n)$ remains roughly the same for all $630 \leq n \leq 710$. On the other hand, the relative accuracy of $U_2(n)$ is higher than that of $U_1(n)$; however, it deteriorates as $n$ grows: from below $0.01$ for $n \leq 640$ to above $0.1$ for $n \geq 680$ (see also Table \[t:test80a\] above). Finally, $U_3(n)$ displays much higher relative accuracy than both $U_1(n)$ and $U_2(n)$: the relative accuracy of $U_3(n)$ remains below $0.004$ for all $630 \leq n \leq 710$.
\[htbp\]
![*Relative error of lower bounds on $\chi_n$ with $c=1000$, on the logarithmic scale. The bounds are defined, respectively, via , , .* []{data-label="fig:test171b"}](test171b.eps){width="12cm"}
In Figure \[fig:test171b\], we illustrate Theorems \[thm\_khi\_crude\], \[thm\_n\_and\_khi\], \[thm\_exp\_term\] via comparing the relative accuracy of the corresponding lower bounds on $\chi_n$. More specifically, we choose $c=1000$, and, for each integer $630 \leq n \leq 710$, we evaluate numerically the following quantities. First, we compute $\chi_n$ (see in Section \[sec\_pswf\]). Second, we compute the lower bound on $\chi_n$, defined via the left-hand side of of Theorem \[thm\_khi\_crude\] in Section \[sec\_pswf\], namely, $$\begin{aligned}
L_1(n) = n \cdot (n+1).
\label{eq_l1}\end{aligned}$$ Third, we compute the trivial lower bound on $\chi_n$, established in Theorem \[thm\_n\_and\_khi\], namely, $$\begin{aligned}
L_2(n) = c^2.
\label{eq_l2}\end{aligned}$$ Finally, we compute the lower bound on $\chi_n$, defined via of Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\], namely, $$\begin{aligned}
L_3(n) = c^2 \cdot
\left(1 + H\left( \frac{\pi n}{2c} - 1\right) \right),
\label{eq_l3}\end{aligned}$$ where $H$ is defined via in Theorem \[thm\_exp\_term\]. In Figure \[fig:test171b\], we plot the relative errors of $L_1(n),L_2(n),L_3(n)$ as functions of $n$, on the logarithmic scale.
We observe that $L_1(n)$ significantly underestimates $\chi_n$, and the relative accuracy of $L_1(n)$ remains roughly the same for all $630 \leq n \leq 710$. Even the trivial lower bound $L_2(n) = c^2$ displays a higher relative accuracy, which, obviously, deteriorates as $n$ grows. Finally, $L_3(n)$ is much more accurate than both $L_1(n)$ and $L_2(n)$: the relative accuracy of $L_3(n)$ remains below $0.0006$ for all $630 \leq n \leq 710$. We also observe, that the relative accuracy of $L_3(n)$ is about an order of magnitude higher than that of $U_3(n)$, defined via above (see Figure \[fig:test171a\]).
------------ ----------------- ----------------------------------------- ---------------------- ------------- -------------
$i$ $t_{i+1} - t_i$ $\frac{\pi}{f(t_{i+1}) + v(t_{i+1})/2}$ $\frac{\pi}{f(t_i)}$ lower error upper error
\[1ex\] 44 0.27468E-01 0.27464E-01 0.27470E-01 0.13152E-03 0.63357E-04
46 0.27453E-01 0.27439E-01 0.27460E-01 0.52432E-03 0.24265E-03
60 0.26685E-01 0.26573E-01 0.26741E-01 0.42160E-02 0.21008E-02
62 0.26437E-01 0.26303E-01 0.26506E-01 0.50867E-02 0.25968E-02
70 0.24700E-01 0.24418E-01 0.24863E-01 0.11404E-01 0.66360E-02
72 0.23948E-01 0.23602E-01 0.24158E-01 0.14473E-01 0.87772E-02
84 0.96757E-02 0.81279E-02 0.10948E-01 0.15996E+00 0.13147E+00
86 0.39568E-02 0.22125E-02 0.55074E-02 0.44083E+00 0.39188E+00
------------ ----------------- ----------------------------------------- ---------------------- ------------- -------------
: *Illustration of Theorem \[thm\_zeros\_inside\_bounds\] with $c = 100$ and $n = 87$.* []{data-label="t:test98a"}
------------- ----------------- ----------------------------------------- ---------------------- ------------- -------------
$i$ $t_{i+1} - t_i$ $\frac{\pi}{f(t_{i+1}) + v(t_{i+1})/2}$ $\frac{\pi}{f(t_i)}$ lower error upper error
\[1ex\] 336 0.30967E-02 0.30967E-02 0.30967E-02 0.19367E-05 0.59233E-06
338 0.30967E-02 0.30967E-02 0.30967E-02 0.52185E-05 0.86461E-06
400 0.30948E-02 0.30945E-02 0.30949E-02 0.11172E-03 0.10078E-04
402 0.30947E-02 0.30944E-02 0.30947E-02 0.11547E-03 0.10427E-04
500 0.30813E-02 0.30802E-02 0.30815E-02 0.37302E-03 0.41125E-04
502 0.30808E-02 0.30797E-02 0.30810E-02 0.38101E-03 0.42311E-04
601 0.30109E-02 0.30065E-02 0.30118E-02 0.14549E-02 0.30734E-03
603 0.30071E-02 0.30025E-02 0.30080E-02 0.15168E-02 0.32775E-03
667 0.10176E-02 0.85504E-03 0.11505E-02 0.15973E+00 0.13065E+00
669 0.41703E-03 0.23323E-03 0.58020E-03 0.44073E+00 0.39128E+00
------------- ----------------- ----------------------------------------- ---------------------- ------------- -------------
: *Illustration of Theorem \[thm\_zeros\_inside\_bounds\] with $c = 1000$ and $n = 670$.* []{data-label="t:test98b"}
\[htbp\]
![*Illustration of Theorem \[thm\_tn\_simple\] with $c=200$. Here $t_n$ is the maximal root of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$, while the lower and upper bounds are defined via , , respectively.* []{data-label="fig:test170"}](test170.eps){width="12cm"}
In Tables \[t:test98a\], \[t:test98b\], we illustrate Theorems \[thm\_zeros\_inside\_bounds\], \[thm\_spacing\_inside\], with $c = 100, n = 87$ and $c = 1000, n = 670$, respectively. The first column contains the index $i$ of the $i$th root $t_i$ of $\psi_n$ inside ${\left( -1, 1 \right)}$. The second column contains the difference between two consecutive roots $t_{i+1}$ and $t_i$. The third and fourth columns contain, respectively, the lower and upper bounds on this difference, given via in Theorem \[thm\_zeros\_inside\_bounds\]. The last two columns contain the relative errors of these bounds. We observe that both estimates are fairly accurate when $t_i$ is far from 1, and the accuracy increases with $c$. The best relative accuracy is about 0.01% for $c = 100$ and 0.0001% for $c = 1000$. Both bounds deteriorate as $i$ grows to $n$. For both values of $c$ the relative accuracy of the lower bound for $i = n-1$ is as low as 44%, and that of the upper bound is about 39%. In general, the upper bound is always more accurate. We also note that $t_{i+1}-t_i$ decreases monotonically as $i$ grows, which confirms Theorem \[thm\_spacing\_inside\], since $\chi_n > c^2$ in both cases. We illustrate Theorem \[thm\_tn\_simple\] in Figure \[fig:test170\]. We choose $c = 200$, and, for each integer $130 \leq n \leq 230$, we evaluate numerically the following quantities. First, we compute the maximal root $t_n$ of $\psi_n$ in $(-1,1)$. Second, we evaluate the eigenvalue $\chi_n$ (see in Section \[sec\_pswf\]). Then, we compute the lower and upper bounds on $1-t_n$, established in Theorem \[thm\_tn\_simple\], namely, $$\begin{aligned}
\label{eq_tn_simple_lower}
& lower(n) = \frac{\pi^2}{8 \cdot (1+\sqrt{2})} \cdot \frac{1}{\chi_n-c^2},
\\
& upper(n) = \frac{2\pi^2}{\chi_n-c^2}.
\label{eq_tn_simple_upper}\end{aligned}$$ In Figure \[fig:test170\], we plot $\log(lower(n))$, $\log(upper(n))$ and $\log(1-t_n)$, as functions of $n$.
We observe that neither of , is a very accurate estimate of $1-t_n$. Nevertheless, they correctly capture the behavior of $1-t_n$, up to a multiplicative constant. In particular, for all integer $130 \leq n \leq 230$, $$\begin{aligned}
1-t_n = \frac{\xi(n)}{\chi_n-c^2},\end{aligned}$$ where $\xi(n)$ is a real number in the range $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{\pi^2}{8 \cdot (1+\sqrt{2})} < \xi(n) < 2 \pi^2,\end{aligned}$$ as expected from Theorem \[thm\_tn\_simple\]. In other words, $1-t_n$ is proportional to $(\chi_n-c^2)^{-1}$.
[99]{}
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[^1]: This author’s research was supported in part by the AFOSR grant \#FA9550-09-1-0241
[^2]: Yale University, 51 Prospect st, New Haven, CT 06511. Email: [email protected].
[^3]: This convention agrees with that of [@RokhlinXiaoProlate], [@RokhlinXiaoApprox] and differs from that of [@ProlateSlepian1].
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | ArXiv |
Electrical storms brewed on opposite sides of the equator. Lightning blazed and thunder cracked as the twins cackled simultaneously in antipodean symmetry about two thousand kilometres from each other. Each had white and grey streaky hair, thick black glasses and stereotypical lab coats on. The lightning and shadows flickered across their faces as they laughed maniacally, the whole mad scientist routine. Imagine a talented Ed Wood directing the scene, if you can.
The rock in question was nothing special, but had been blessed, or cursed, with its cool sci-fi name because it was the twenty-fourth of twenty-six small lumps of iron orbiting around the medium-sized star. Some genius in a crazed fit of inventiveness had decided they could, should and would all be named after letters of the alphabet. His wife eventually forgave him for not naming the prettiest and skinniest of the planets after her after he argued they were mostly uninspiring round lumps, and redeemed himself by naming a star for her which, like the marriage, ended five years later in a fiery explosion.
Planet X became, briefly, a tourist destination for science fiction freaks, and was the location of numerous tacky movies and comic book conventions before everyone realised it was just about the most boring planet in the galaxy. Cold and boring, even the microbes who called it home led tedious lives.
Thaddeus, centre right in the photo if not politically, surrounded by his family and close friends last Christmas.
As an example of just how jaw-droppingly, stupefyingly banal the planet was, here are the edited highlights of one of the more exciting happenings on Planet X: Thaddeus was a microbe who had risen to the rank of premier of his bacterial colony. In the morning he showered, shaved, and dressed for a day of political intrigue, drama and controversy. Yes, it was the day of the big vote about whether cells under the age of eighteen hours should be allowed to undergo mitosis. Of course, none of them were able to vote on the issue, so Thaddeus expected the idea to be rejected by the masses. Being bacteria, their idea of a mass rally was to gather together in a little clump and wiggle ever so slightly. Being the premier of the colony meant rather more paperwork than political point scoring, so by 5.40pm he was home, undoing his tie and asking his other half how his day was. (The two had been part of the one cell before their mitosis some three weeks ago, Thaddeus having made the decision essentially to keep up with the ironing. This was the cause of much friction in the family, with one of the Thaddeuses complaining of being relegated to a second-class citizen, the other constantly tired from the stress of work and bickering at home. Even single-celled organisms can find it hard to live with themselves.)
But more about the microbes later. Suffice to say, Planet X was boring. Until the twins turned up.
As mad scientists go, Zooka and Kazoo were up there with the maddest. Mirror images of each other, they parted their on opposite sides and each wrote with a different hand. They also shared an appetite for destruction. On this day they were hell-bent on destroying Planet X and were standing in purpose-built evil genius laboratories on opposite sides of the planet to fulfil their mission, hoping to harness gravity and storms and electromagnetic energies in ways neither I nor they could fully understand. But you get the picture, I’m sure. If all went well, all would go boom. The chance they may blow themselves up in the process was of secondary importance.
Zooka, the lefthander who was on the part of the planet about to go into dawn, twisted some giant dials on a panel and looked up at the flickering black and white screen. Kazoo, looking distracted, smiled a wicked smile at his brother just as his side of the planet was entering nightfall.
“Five minutes to go, my brother, and if my calculations are correct we will be known and feared throughout the universe from this day forward,” Zooka grinned.
“Indeed, and if my calculations are correct, we will survive this explosion and take our invention across the galaxy, spreading fear and reaping rewards,” Kazoo chortled.
“Indeed. The gyroscope is aligned with the flux inverter to sustain a consistent flow of electrons between our locations. If my calculations are correct.”
“Indeed they are brother. And if my calculations are correct, this will begin a chain reaction inside the core of this dead rock.”
“And then,” Zooka’s smile widened. “If our calculations are correct…”
“Yes, our calculations are correct.”
“Then we will rule the galaxy!”
They laughed maniacally as the lightning bolted outside, splashing flashes across their faces as if they were clones of Bela Lugosi’s zombie, revelling in their evil plot. While they boasted to each other about their calculations, in truth the idea was a one borrowed from a dozen movies and a thousand pulpy paperbacks. A rare syzygy would soon occur, and with all twenty-six of the bite-sized planets in alignment the gravity would drag an unusually intense amount of radiation their way. Because a solar flare was also predicted, you see, as the system’s star resembled a teenager with a giant pus-filled pimple on the tip of his nose. This of course was set to burst at the same time, the universe being designed this way. The radiation, combined with the planetary electrical storms the twins had created, would be channelled to the core of the planet. Explosions ensue, yadda yadda. Quite how Kazoo and Zooka would use this technique to extort other planets the geniuses in question had not yet shared with the world, even after a revealing and provocative Annie Leibovitz photo shoot that accompanied their Reddit AMA.
For this particular morning and evening, the twins needed to be at opposite sides of the planet, with equal exposure to the sun. So, while Zooka was about to experience dawn, Kazoo was watching the sunset.
They grinned at each other insanely on their respective view screens. It was all ready, their meticulous plan. And sure enough, twenty-nine point eight seconds later the planets fell into alignment. But something strange happened, something unforeseen. Instead of the gravities combining to pop the pimple of the solar flare, there was a gravitational reverberation, like feedback through an amplifier, and all twenty-six of the planets faltered in their orbits. And like derailed trains, there was no getting them back on track.
Oops.
With only point two of a second to realise, there was no time for the twins to stop their project. The lightning surged down both devices on time, but without the impact of the radiation it did little but charge the iron ore, making it a magnet for the nearby planets W and Y. Knocked from their orbits, they were soon attracted to Planet X, like two divorced middle-aged men chasing a young single mother. Thanks to the syzygy they were as close as possible, and both slammed into the side of Planet X at the same time.
“Yes, if my calculations are correct we have achieved minus 100 per cent of our goal in that the planet will be destroyed but replaced by one double in size. Initiating escape pod procedure alpha one.”
The two shot to safety as Planet X became the pickle in the hamburger, the third wheel on a date, the loner at an orgy, squeezed out by and crushed in a faulty Newton’s cradle that left behind the hybrid Planet WY. All of this took a lot longer than the Hollywood adaptation made it seem, and for a planetary destruction it was fairly tame crunching of rocks with no one in any real mortal danger. The population of the planet was just two, after all, plus the microbes. For Thaddeus it was a very bad day, after a four-hour meeting he was thrown out of office and shunned by his entire colony. Apparently he was supposed to have seen it coming. His other half, who had divided again so someone could help with the cleaning, wasn’t thrilled about him being out of a job with an extra mouth to feed. Life, it seemed, was getting too complex.
A version of this first appeared in Apocalypse: the trilogy in a million pieces, available now on Amazon for those who dare. There is also a Kindle version, which is shorter, cheaper and called Apocalypse Revisited.
Looking for the next Song of Ice and Fire? Well, fret not, you’ve found it. Here are the forthcoming dozen violent, sexy and confusing time-travel thrillers starring the Tempus Fugitive himself, Justin Thyme. They’ll be written as soon as a publisher gets in touch and waves a massive advance my way.
Still following the adventures of Dark Chocolate and Anyway around the galaxy, Apocalypse Revisited also follows the alien Withnoname and the evil twins Kazoo and Zooka, but dispenses with a heap of unnecessary plot lines and boring bits. A few spelling mistakes are also fixed.
It is better, and at US$3.99 much cheaper, than the paperback, and yours for only US$3.99 plus the cost of whatever device you can read it on. (I’m going to download it to my iPad so I can get some royalties. Er, maybe not.)
This book has an army of robot lesbian vampire prostitutes from space. Do you need to know more? A pair of pop stars from Mars lead a revolution while a trained time-travelling killer runs amok. Will this ruin the comeback of an ageing and controversial pop star better known lately for his court cases than his career? Featuring 100% more Iranian sex toy jokes than the next leading competitor.
Dorian Gray was blond with blue eyes, not that you would know from this book cover.
The Picture of Dorian Gray has always been, for me, a disappointing novel. Oscar Wilde is one of my favourites, and his importance should not be under-estimated, but there is a distinct dearth of great works from the man. (There are reasons or excuses for this, and he did die young, I know, I know. Still, what has he left behind for us to enjoy? The equivalent of a few tweets compared to PG Wodehouse, Henry James, Tara Moss.) Dorian Gray was the one novel, and there were gems of brilliance set in a flawed, malleable ring of barbed wire. For every glorious page or passage there was an equal and opposite piece of shit elsewhere. Exaggeration? Maybe, but for years I haven’t been able to look at the book on the shelf without that mixed, bitter and slightly heartbroken feeling usually reserved for love letters from old girlfriends. Yes we had some good times, but it ended badly and you took too much time out of my life reading you twice when I could have been reading other, younger, books or just hooking up for yet another one night stand with the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy.
But that feeling of disappointment is no more. Thanks to Nicholas Frankel, who has brought us an “uncensored” version of Wilde’s original manuscript, it’s an enjoyable and cohesive read. It’s a lot shorter, at 13 chapters instead of 20. The crap’s been left out, frankly.
Me just lying around the apartment in Bangkok, dressed for the weather, thinking about writing and shit.
Much has been made of the inclusions and the restoration of the romance between Dorian, Basil and Lord Henry. But for me what makes it work is the absence of extraneous chapters involving James Vane, opium dens and whatnot, not to mention a few tedious social set pieces. I’m the first to bitch about Wilde not having written enough great works to deserve his overblown reputation, but in the case of Dorian Gray, less is more. It’s a better read for the exclusions. And, yes, having the romance more explicit and excised passages restored does add to the enjoyment.
So I can stop bitching. At least a little bit. Thanks to Frankel, finally, 120 years later, Oscar Wilde has published a decent novel.
I also recently (three days ago) finished P.G. Wodehouse’s Money For Nothing. It is a lot like the Dire Straits song except set before the MTV era. Okay, it’s really nothing at all like the Dire Straits song. Set in the English countryside during the war (The Great War, I’m guessing) it’s all about how the landed gentry have problems when one conspires to defraud his insurance company and double-cross some American (of course) swindlers. The plot is all rather boring, but it is full of lovely, light and fluffy prose, and lush descriptions right from the first paragraph with flies “doing deep-breathing exercises on the hot window-sills”. Compared to this, Fight Club is a punch in the face. Mind you, compared to The Soul Of A Butterfly: Reflections on Life’s Journey by Muhammad Ali and daughter, Fight Club is a punch in the face.
There I go again, not talking about Fight Club.
Also recently finished was Victor Cha’s The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future, which was, er, heavy going. It was a kind of reaction to this policy, politically and physically heavy tome that I opted for Wodehousian light and sunshine. Cha’s account/history/argument suffers a bit from being rushed, and a bit of repetition, and possibly being rushed to get out quickly after the death of Kim Jong-il, and also a bit of repetition. There is a good, broad account of North Korean political history, an interesting insider’s perspective of the Six-Party Talks and what went on from an American perspective, but it does suffer from occasionally being too partisan. Thoroughly researched and with an academic’s eye for detail and sources, Cha adds personal encounters and interesting observations. But it’s a bit of a slog and one can’t finish it without thinking it could have done with a better edit. Not for beginners, for that try The Aquariums of Pyongyang, Nothing to Envy (okay, I haven’t finished that one myself) or Michael Breen’s most-definitely-unauthorised biography of Kim Jong-il. Or this.
Also fun lately was The Hunger Games. But you don’t need me to tell you that it’s a mishmash of everything from Lord of the Flies to Romeo and Juliet.
Hello my name is Michael and it has been 237 days since my last post …
The view from my balcony.
Okay, I’m not sure what the real number is, but it was last August. Some things have happened since then. I’m now living and working in Bangkok (fun) and have a lovely apartment with a dying rose, five stuffed animals, and some wheat facial mask (smoothing) and olive body lotion (firming) some of which are clear signs that a girl has been here. There is nothing in the fridge and little in the pantry, but the wi-fi works so what more does a human being need? (Do some shopping, Ruffles!)
Work so far is great. I clock off at the time I used to clock on, so I can be social and have life in the evenings. The challenge is being alert in the mornings, when for the past year I’ve been allowing myself to be dozy until about 3pm. There are other adjustments at work, but hey, it’s work. No complaints, though.
Next station … Terminal 21. Please mind the gap between train and platform.
I’m living a 10-minute walk or a 20-baht motorcycle ride from the nearest BTS (sky train) station, and from there it’s easy to get to massive malls, markets, and other centres of commerce and capitalist extravagance. I will admit to having spent a bit of time and money already at Terminal 21, but in my defence the money changer there had a better rate than the airport so I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to get an extra 1400 baht. (That’s a bullshit excuse, Ruffles, you just want to look at pretty things in shops and blow your money on coffee.) I have also visited Central World, Central Lad Phrao, Siam Discovery, Siam Paragon (three times), Major Ekkamai, and the Jatujak markets. Remarkably, I still have money and haven’t filled my place with crap. (I swear, the wheat facial mask is not mine. But I have tried it on.)
I have been through a phase of reading books with pictures lately. Not that they’ve been The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Mao’s Great Famine – Frank Dikotter
By its very nature this examination of The Great Leap Forward and the unnecessary deaths of some 45 million people (conservative estimate) is not an easy read either in style or substance. The professor has delved into thousands of archive documents and laid out, almost blow by blow, the utter devastation Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party unleashed on the citizens of the world’s most populous nation between 1958 and 1962. There are boring but important chapters on trade, economics, and politics before Dikotter tells us just how people resorted to theft, abandoning children, prostitution and cannibalism. If one day Mao is mentioned in the same breath as Hitler and Stalin (and it’s quite probable that once archives from the Cultural Revolution become available we’ll find out his death toll will overshadow theirs) then this book will be partly responsible. While it is as engagingly and deftly written as it probably can be while still giving a mass of statistics and detailing complex political backgrounds, be warned that this is not a particularly easy to get through. It has won awards and wide-spread praise, but its true value lies in its scholarship and historical investigation. But it is worth persevering with. Parts of it are truly compelling and dispiriting, particularly where personal examples are used to illustrate the disaster. Parts of it are almost lists of how many million tonnes of grain or pork were taken by the state, and in those passages the numbers verge on the bamboozling. Overall the effect is a powerful deconstruction of the tragedy and Mao’s central role in it.
Hitch-22 – Christopher Hitchens
There may not be much to say about Hitch-22 or Hitchens that hasn’t already been said, but let’s say it anyway. The new edition has a fresh preface since his cancer diagnosis and the start of treatment, and is the one to get. Reading the early chapters (again, because I’d glanced at them in bookstores while hanging out for an updated/cheaper version before purchasing) is coloured by the news the controversial author/columnist/hack has advanced cancer and nearly died in January. That fresh piece of writing seems as lucid as ever, and he insists the experience has only confirmed his view rather than called them into question. Hitch-22 does seem to mirror its author authentically, it is by turns charming, cantankerous, witty, self-deprecating and a show-off to the point that it becomes a turn-off. But then, I wouldn’t have it be any other way. I think I still prefer god is not great, but only by a fraction.
Now, I’ve never particularly been a fan of the most famous Australian woman, Dame Edna Everage, but ever since I borrowed My Life As Me from the Reservoir Library I have been a fan of Barry Humphries. So, during Borders’ going-out-of-business sale I picked up a copy of his unauthorised biography of Dame Edna. The conceit of this glorious satire is that Edna is a real person that Barry didn’t make up and hasn’t been pretending to be since the 1960s. The brilliance is that it’s mostly believable and, having read one of his autobiographies, it’s pretty difficult to know exactly where the truths and lies intersect. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Q:
oxwall .htaccess
This is my .htaccess file
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
AddEncoding gzip .gz
AddEncoding gzip .gzip
<FilesMatch "\.(js.gz|js.gzip)$">
ForceType text/javascript
</FilesMatch>
<FilesMatch "\.(css.gz|css.gzip)$">
ForceType text/css
</FilesMatch>
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .*/http-bind
RewriteRule (.*) /http-bind [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/ow_updates/index\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/ow_updates/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/ow_cron/run\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (/|\.php|\.html|\.htm|\.xml|\.feed|robots\.txt|\.raw|/[^.]*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) index.php
Oxwall version 1.4.1. When I browse to localhost it's redirect me to localhost/install/requirements/ with message - The requested URL /install/requirements was not found on this server.
When I browse to localhost/index.php installation start but after installation the oxwall doesn't work properly.
A:
"The requested URL /install/requirements was not found on this server."
I guess you need to activate mod_rewrite first in your server.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
May 1, 2007
A peek into web services
Software developers can use a major site’s Application Programmer’s Interface (API) to provide additional services to users. For example, Auctiva provides listing and photo hosting services to sellers based on eBay’s API. The API is defined by a set of commands a developer can use to perform actions such as AddItem or GetSellerPreferences.
eBay used to charge 3rd party solutions providers for each API use or API call but fees were dissolved in 2005. Auctiva went free at that time. Affiliate programs became more lucrative which is great incentive for solutions providers to drive traffic to eBay by making their services free.
Flash forward to today. Developers have to maintain a positive relationship with their mothership site. It’s a deathwish to do otherwise because you will get cut off from the API. The eSeller Street traffic stats page has changed due to a dispute on Amazon’s API usage. Alexaholic is a 3rd party solution based on Alexa’s API. Amazon owns Alexa – See the very interesting story here.
The major sites with APIs are Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Google (maps) and YouTube. Take a look at Trulia.com or zillow.com I’m taking a little vacation from eBay to work on a little app for Flickr (owned by Yahoo). It’s called Wurled.com.
More reading: Traffic is shifting from eBay to social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube – See top 500 sites. eBay is a fairly old site at 12 years old. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
The success of Weird Al Yankovic is revenge of the nerds.
The parody pop star was your typically awkward talented teen when he decided to assume the name which had been thrown at him by bullies.
Now he finds himself in the position of supporting, sometimes comforting, people who are teased for their quirks. Or happen to love polka and accordion.
“I know when I first took on the name Weird Al in my teen years, it was empowering,” he says.
“People were calling me Weird Al as an insult and I took it on as a badge of honour, a licence to fly my freak flag high.
“For a lot of kids who think they are weird and don’t fit in, well, here’s the guy who is weird and different.”
Those kids, and plenty of their parents, flock to his concerts to see such timeless parodies as Eat It, Fat, White and Nerdy, Amish Paradise, Yoda and Smells Like Nirvana.
Watching the fans is almost as much fun as watching the world’s only accordion-playing pop star.
“A lot of people come dressed to the show as Amish people or Jedis with glow-in-the-dark light sabres, they really get into it. Sometimes it’s a little cultish and they will check out the concert schedule and stalk me from city to city and that’s very flattering,” he says.
If you are lucky, you will also be treated to a special guest appearance of stormtroopers from the globally-famous 501st Legion, along with Wookies, Yodas and Vaders.
Local chapters of these mega Star Wars fans turn up to his shows to join him on stage for the performances of Yoda and The Saga Begins.
“They are the greatest people in the world. They will show up at the venue in the afternoon, rehearse with my stage manager and then we will often hang out after the show to take photos and sign autographs. I love having them,” he says.
Check out his fan pages and it is clear there is a lot of love out there for Yankovich. And sometimes just a little too much love.
The Eat It star has been groped — in the fat suit, of course, which also came in handy when he fell off stage.
“Yeah it cushioned the fall,” he says.
“But early on, when my agent was booking me into comedy clubs and I was on stages built for a guy with a mic, not a rock band, I went for a high jump and fell through the stage. I finished the show but I was skinned up very badly.”
As the biggest selling comedy artist in the world with four Grammy wins and millions of album sales, Yankovic is keen to distance himself from the rise and rise of the YouTube parody.
Almost every hit can lend itself to a dose of satire but he sees his songs as paying comedic tribute to the original work rather than sledging it.
His latest album Mandatory Fun featured songs “inspired” by Lorde (Foil), Robin Thicke (Word Crimes), Pharrell Williams (Tacky) and Iggy Azalea (Handy).
“Most of the musical parodies on YouTube are mean-spirited and make fun of the song and the artist and that’s not my personal style of humour. I like to poke fun; it’s more of a poke in the ribs than a kick in the butt and it’s a challenge to be funny, not vulgar,” he says.
“I don’t even use profanity in my everyday life, it never enters the conversation, and it’s funny that because of that, what I do falls into family-friendly entertainment but my show is hardly G-rated.
“Some of my music is very dark and twisted with a little bit of innuendo.”
The show also involves as many, if not more, costume changes than your regular female pop artist concert.
He jokes that he hasn’t incorporated the ubiquitous “flying” moment which has become a signature of the modern music show because, well, how are you going to harness a fat suit?
“But I can match them in costume changes. the fat suit and my Amish gear take a couple of minutes to put on so that’s when you use the video screens to amuse the audience,” he says.
“I guess everyone from Cher to Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Taylor Swift are famous for it but it all started with Alice Cooper. He brought the theatrics back to rock.”
Weird Al Yankovic performs at the Falls Festival, Lorne (December 28), Marion Bay (December 29) and Byron Bay (December 31) and Enmore Theatre, Sydney, January 2, Palais Theatre, Melbourne, January 3 and Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide, January 8. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Nicki Minaj Says She & Rihanna Would Make A “Crazy Power Couple”
Nicki Minaj settled a rumor that she and Rihanna are living together when she called into Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS FM show yesterday morning, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have an affinity for the singer.
“I don’t know where people got this really insane, hilarious, random rumor that [Rihanna] and I were living together,” she said.
“We just shot a video for a song I have on the album called ‘Fly.’ So when I saw her, the first thing I said was, ‘So did you hear we’re living together?’ And we just started cracking up laughing. She was like, ‘Yo, I can’t believe people are this ridiculous.’”
“So we TwitPiced ourselves and she put it on Twitter and said, ‘Me and Nicki at our new pad or something.’ And the funny thing is, people still didn’t realize we were joking. People were hitting me like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so lucky. You and Rihanna…’ It was like, ‘What?’ But you can’t even be sarcastic anymore. It was hilarious though.”
“We’re not getting cozy—yet. There is a possibility ’cause she’s just a bad bitch. You never know. That’d be like a freakin’ crazy power couple right now in the world of females.”
Categories:
\n\n\nNicki Minaj settled a rumor that she and Rihanna are living together when she called into Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS FM show yesterday morning, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have an affinity for the singer.\n“I don’t know where people got this really insane, hilarious, random rumor that [Rihanna] and I were living together,” she said.\n“We just shot a video for a song I have on the album called ‘Fly.’ So when I saw her, the first thing I said was, ‘So did you hear we’re living together?’ And we just started cracking up laughing. She was like, ‘Yo, I can’t believe people are this ridiculous.’”\n“So we TwitPiced ourselves and she put it on Twitter and said, ‘Me and Nicki at our new pad or something.’ And the funny thing is, people still didn’t realize we were joking. People were hitting me like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so lucky. You and Rihanna…’ It was like, ‘What?’ But you can’t even be sarcastic anymore. It was hilarious though.”\n“We’re not getting cozy—yet. There is a possibility ’cause she’s just a bad bitch. You never know. That’d be like a freakin’ crazy power couple right now in the world of females.”\n | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Thursday, May 19, 2011
In response to some comments made by a Toronto police officer, women all over the world are taking to the streets in "Slut Walks." Apparently in a safety seminar the officer stated that if women wanted to avoid sexual assault they should refrain from dressing like "sluts." I know the officer thought he was enlightening us all with a simple no-brainer. The key to not getting raped? Dress like a Tabernacle Choir singer and no one will want to have sex with you. As though rape doesn't happen any other time. As though ugly or unattractive women have never been raped. As though the entire arch of the female sexuality isn't determined by a male agenda. As though the very power dynamic of sexuality doesn't codify and permit the subjugation of women sexually and in every other way.
It's a complex issue. One that I am unraveling here in my late thirties. Female sexuality is complex. It doesn't begin and end with just sex. For me, my sexual identity began when I was very young (the same as it does for most women) and first became aware of myself as a sexual being. The process certainly included having sex, but the entire trajectory included pregnancy, childbirth, child rearing and menopause. And I feel at every step, the terms and process by which I have understood myself as a sexual being have been determined by systems of oppression (thank you Christianity.) I try to conjure a moment on the arch that wasn't mediated by oppression and can only come up with the home-birth of my youngest daughter, which took place in my own home, on my own terms, and was attended by women. The very language we use to discuss and legislate sexual behavior, the spiritual mechanisms that determine sexually acceptable versus unacceptable, the medical practices particular to sexuality are all most efficient at oppression and the least likely to lend itself to a healthy sexual identity. If you find yourself thinking I am a femi-nazi bitch, read more here:
Most likely, I am a bitch. Most likely, I am somewhat extreme. Most likely, I feel a certain calling to change the terms about how women experience their sexual selves. But, I am least likely to identify myself with "slut." Which is why I started this post with talking about the "Slut Walk." I don't think I'll be there, and not because I don't identify with the issue. Not because I want women to get raped, and not because I believe that the burden of proof should be placed on the victim in sexual assault cases. I won't be there because I don't feel like a "slut" and I don't feel like calling myself one, or that "taking back ownership" of the term will do a lick of good concerning the deeper issue of female sexuality.
Oh, it's time to organize. The reality is, there needs to be an organized women's movement. I believe women need to create organized support systems to enable each other to seek and attain real representation. Women's presence in the political, legislative and governance sphere need to be directly proportionate to their numbers. Women need to organize medical treatments and facilities geared toward honoring women's sexuality. Women need to institute their own labor unions, HMO's and election campaigns. Or perhaps women just need to raze the entire system that hasn't served them since the birth of Christianity and begin anew. Whatever the method, I would like the need to be determined with the full participation of women, innovated by the inventions of women, and implemented with leadership that fully includes women.
I don't feel that this goal can be reached with a bunch of slut schtick. I don't want to have to be called a slut in order to draw attention to women's needs. I don't want the male perception of what female sexuality is to determine its validity.
Invite me to a meeting about how to organize women. Invite me to strategy sessions about how to organize a women's health clinic where a treatment plan can be created by a women who was trained by other women. Invite me to a protest about how to create inclusion for women in the Legislature. Invite me to participate in a real way in the discussion.
Or better yet, I'll extend the invitation. Male or female, slut or not, let's have a potluck and discuss a real strategy. I'll host it at my house once a week. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Longtime Corner readers know this is one of my great peeves: the idea that liberals are “socially libertarian.” It’s an idea that liberals — and even quite a few libertarians — love to perpetuate. It’s also not true. Take, for instance, the recent decision out of New Mexico holding that a wedding photographer had no right to refuse to work at a gay wedding. The libertarian view of the case, broadly speaking, is that the photographer may have been in error morally or economically but he was within his rights. The socially liberal view, broadly speaking, is “Hooray! Victory for gay people, defeat for bad people!”
Sure, liberals tend to sound libertarian about certain specific behaviors and practices they would like to see more of. That’s because sounding libertarian about cultural issues helps them win arguments with cultural conservatives. But, at the end of the day, they aren’t procedurally libertarian about much of anything at all. If they can use the state to put points on the scoreboard for their vision of what society should look like, there’s nothing inherent to today’s liberalism — no limiting principle — that amounts to a truly dogmatic objection to doing so. When they say “it’s not the government’s business to do X,” it’s not because they have much of a coherent argument about why government shouldn’t regulate X, it’s just that they don’t want X regulated (or they want regulations that yield more of X). At the heart of the idea of “social justice” is that you take your victories where and when you can.
Meanwhile, conservatives obviously aren’t libertarians either, but there’s a reason why libertarians are still more at home on the right than the left politically speaking. For starters, most conservatives believe in federalism to one degree or another. In other words, we’re more tolerant of the right of communities to make their own mistakes. And, more important, because we are economically libertarian, we don’t see economic regulation as a legitimate mechanism for cultural regulation — save in a few obvious areas (we don’t believe you have the right to buy or sell child pornography, for example). Of course, it doesn’t end there. We also champion the sovereignty of the individual, the negative rights of the Constitution, and such antiquated notions as the private “ownership” of children.
This is very different from the social engineering implicit in, say, Michael Bloomberg’s approach to governing. He may defend rich people, but he has no problem using economic regulations to boss around poor people to live the way he thinks they should. The press may call him socially liberal, but there is absolutely zero about him that is libertarian. And the same goes for much of the Democratic party. It’s just that the Democratic party generally understands that for marketing purposes you have to talk in terms of expanding freedom even as you take it away. Bloomberg the petty autocrat never really understood this. As Jonathan Chait writes, ”Bloombergism at a national level is merely Democratic Party liberalism stripped of any concern for public opinion.”
Anyway, if I haven’t exhausted the topic here, my column today is something of a rant on the topic. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
11:20 pm - Joan of Arcadia? More Like Jaye of Niagara!As everyone knows, Joan of Arcadia was a CBS show about Joan Girardi, a teenage girl living the Maryland town of Arcadia who begins seeing God everywhere and receiving little "missions" from Him/Her. Although God is never revealed to be an alien from outer space, the show was inexplicably rerun on SciFi this summer, which let me finally give it a try after hearing so much about it. That was the end of July. Come fall, SciFi stopped the reruns, so I had to employ my usual methods. It's now over four months since I started watching, and I am finally done with both seasons of the show.
Since Wonderfalls premiered near the end of JoA's first season, the comparisons were inevitable. To my surprise, however, Joan was much more like Jaye than I expected. She's snarky and confrontational to God, and she constantly questions her "missions" and does them only begrudgingly. She's definitely not as deliberately abrasive and off-putting to humanity in general, though. It's just the Dude ordering her around she has issues with; otherwise, she's a regular girl. What I loved, though, was how God was constantly pushing Joan to learn more about who she was and challenge herself and her views of the world; it's really a show about growing up. The old coming-of-age story. Coming of age involves a lot of crying, apparently, and, thankfully, Amber Tamblyn is an excellent crier. Also excellent in general; like Caroline Dhavernas, she gives good facial expression.
Luke, Joan's younger brother, is a brainy nerdboy whose every line seems like it came from a physics textbook. Are there really incredibly intelligent people who talk like that on a regular basis? Who must discuss every little thing in terms of mathematical equations or scientific principles? Even if there aren't, Michael Welch sure made it sound natural. Luke is very socially awkward, as you might expect.
Kevin, Joan's older brother, was an athlete until he was crippled in a car accident. Now he's in a wheelchair. I couldn't help but think of Jason Street, even though Kevin pre-dates him; it's not a story you often see on television. Once Kevin gets past his "Because I'm crippled, and I want to listen to Nirvana!" phase, he's a pretty likable character, very amusing and caring. The show gets a lot of mileage out of him and his accident; both seasons delve into the trauma of that night and explore the family's grief. How do you adjust to something like that?
Will, Joan's father, is a cop. For some reason. I say this because try as it might, the show never really figures out what to do with Will-as-a-cop. His cop stories are rarely well integrated into the main story (if at all), and they're shot in a blue filter, which makes it seem all the more like you've stepped into a different show. And after coming off The Wire, I found JoA's attempts at doing stories about police corruption to be eye-rollingly simple. It's frequently useful that Will is a cop, sure, but I never really needed to pay attention to his cases. Will-the-cop as a father and husband, however, was a more interesting story and character, the way his job affected his family roles.
Helen, Joan's mother, works in the principal's office at Arcadia High. And she's my second-favorite character after Joan. I found her to be a really well rounded and complex character over the course of the series, and I loved the individual relationships she had with each member of her family, especially Joan. But also Will: I really appreciated that the show treated the parents as people and let us see their perspectives on raising their children and even their own marriage.
To me, Joan of Arcadia is a family show. Oh, Girardis! You're so...functional. But there are two important non-Girardis as well, of course. Adam Rove, Joan's love interest, is a sad little puppy dog of an artist. Do you want to know how adorable he is? He calls Joan "Jane." We're not sure why. Grace Polk, Joan's best friend, is a counterculture anarchist fuck-the-Man kind of girl, and, like Luke, her dialogue is often very one-note since she turns every little thing into some symbol of oppression. She's a little prickly, but she's a good friend.
And then there's God, who appears in many forms throughout the series, like Goth God, Little Girl God, Old Lady God, and the ever-popular Hot God (a guy; sadly, there is no recurring Hot Girl God, although we get Amelia DeLongpre God and Ren Stevens God as one-shots). God is all over the damn place (omnipresent!); I would guess a full five percent of Arcadia's inhabitants are actually GOD. It's a little ridiculous. But I always enjoyed Joan's conversations with God. The show is pretty good about being respectful of all religions and not falling into blasphemy, and I think God has some really good life lessons to impart. I liked that the show gave you credit for just being a decent human being, showing how even the smallest of kindnesses can have good ripples.
Like many shows these days, the first season was much loved and the second season was less loved. I didn't think the second season was that bad, although it seemed to be a little more depressing. What I loved about the first season was that it so often brought me close to tears of joy. Sometimes I was still sniffling afterward. I was a little less emotional and capslock-y about the second season. Except for the last two episodes, when the show introduced a new character that signaled a promising and interesting new direction right before it was canceled.
All in all, I really liked the show. I think it had a lot of interesting things to say about God, faith, religion, belief, art, grief, death, family, and other nouns. There's a certain pervasive CBSness about it that kept it from being a great show, but I was really impressed with how it managed not to be completely sappy and cliché when by all rights it really should have been.Current Mood:anxiousCurrent Music: Stabbing Westward - Nothing | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Q:
Sed copy pattern between range only once
I am using sed to edit some sql script. I want to copy all the lines from the first "CREATE" pattern until the first "ALTER" pattern. The issue I am having is that sed copies all lines between each set of CREATE and ALTER instead of only the first occurrence (more than once).
sed -n -e '/CREATE/,/ALTER/w createTables.sql' $filename
A:
Perl to the rescue:
perl -ne 'print if /CREATE/ .. /ALTER/ && close ARGV' -- "$filename" > createTables.sql
It closes the input when the ALTER is matched, i.e. it doesn't read any further.
A:
Using sed
sed -n '/CREATE/,/ALTER/{p;/ALTER/q}' file > createTables.sql
or alternatively(note the newline)
sed -n '/CREATE/,/ALTER/{w createTables.sql
/ALTER/q}' file
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | StackExchange |
You Can Expect ‘Rick and Morty’ Season 4 To Air In 2019
You Can Expect ‘Rick and Morty’ Season 4 To Air In 2019
So seems like Rick and Morty fans will have to wait until 2019 to watch Season 4 of the hit show. During a recent podcast interview, one of the show’s writer, Ryan Ridley, said that as far as he was aware no one had even started working on the new season yet and he also pointed out that the script for Rick and Morty’s third season was finished in November 2016 which was about eight months before the show returned to Adult Swim. Ridley also said that based on previous production schedules it would be surprising if the show’s fourth season managed to air before 2019 so that means that the wait could be longer than the gap between the second and third season, which was about 18 months.
“They really take their time. I never understood why everybody — all parties, Dan, Justin, and Adult Swim — didn’t get their shit together, and make the show fast. I just don’t get it. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m sure they all have their reasons. I know how long this show takes to write, let alone animate. I’d be surprised if there was a fourth season on the air anytime sooner than 2019… late 2019. Get your shit together, you guys. Get it all together, and put it in a backpack.” – Ryan Ridley | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
The Gentlemens Tourhttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com
A Premier Men's Lifestyle Blog and ResourceSat, 06 Apr 2019 06:13:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.10How to Plan an Unforgettable Romantic Getaway in the UKhttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/how-to-plan-an-unforgettable-romantic-getaway-in-the-uk/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/how-to-plan-an-unforgettable-romantic-getaway-in-the-uk/#respondTue, 19 Feb 2019 19:52:11 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1331It’s beautiful to be in love especially during this month that is all about that. It is very common for couples to plan getaway trips during this month as a…
]]>It’s beautiful to be in love especially during this month that is all about that. It is very common for couples to plan getaway trips during this month as a way of rekindling their love. Getaways are a way of rediscovering more about the other person in a different, more serene location. It can get overwhelming sometimes to pick somewhere both partners can enjoy because of differences in personalities. Some couples end up never taking such vacations at all because of the planning. The main aim of the trip is usually to relax and enjoy shared activities as a couple. Therefore, it’s better to think of the goal rather than the process of planning.
Pick a destination
It is common for couples to talk about places they would like to visit in passing during random conversations. That should be the first choice when it comes to picking a destination. Even if the couple has their mind set on a place, they should also consider their finances, as it can be the determining factor. If one partner is choosing to surprise the other, he or she should consider the other person’s interests. There is no point of going for a romantic getaway to a place the other doesn’t approve. Consider the time both parties are free to plan a trip and choose destinations that are less likely to be crowded during that time. The point is to get quality time as a couple. Local destinations could also be considered, not just famous romantic cities like Paris or Venice. There could be a local, romantic hotels nearby.
Choose where to stay
Depending on the budget, the couple may want to select places that are considered romantic, peaceful, comfortable, and private. Choose accommodations that cater to couples and book such packages. The accommodation is important because it is where couples could be alone and unwind. That is why couples should make plans in advance to get the place to stay during the getaway.
Do something romantic for the other person
There is nothing more romantic than planning for surprises for the significant other during the romantic getaway. Maybe the whole trip may be a surprise. Your partner could enjoy the place more if you put a little bit of effort in the planning. Be intentional by keeping your partner’s preferences in mind.
Have an itinerary
Couples may plan a whole week for the romantic getaway, and it would be boring if all that time were spent indoors. There are many activities couples could do together. In addition to couple activities, they could also choose some fun adventures where they could make beautiful memories together. Even seemingly boring activities like walking along the beach or watching the sunset from the balcony can be enough.
Romantic getaways differ from couple to couple, and there is no set way to plan the perfect one. Considering what the other person likes and making arrangements to suit them can be all one needs to have a wonderful time. For those that are having a little trouble selecting the perfect place, browse through our website and book a romantic getaway that suits your needs.
]]>http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/how-to-plan-an-unforgettable-romantic-getaway-in-the-uk/feed/0An alternative stag weekend in Irelandhttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/an-alternative-stag-weekend-in-ireland/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/an-alternative-stag-weekend-in-ireland/#respondWed, 13 Feb 2019 22:58:41 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1325Ireland is a popular holiday destination for tourists from across Europe and further afield. With its famous culture, beautiful scenery and lively nightlife; it’s easy to understand why Ireland is…
]]>Ireland is a popular holiday destination for tourists from across Europe and further afield. With its famous culture, beautiful scenery and lively nightlife; it’s easy to understand why Ireland is visited by thousands of people each year. There are a host of towns, cities and villages on offer in Ireland, which cater for all types of holidays. Whether it’s for a romantic weekend break in Dublin or visiting family in Cork; there are places to see and things to do for all ages.
Dublin and Belfast are two of the most popular tourist hotspots in Ireland and often the chosen destinations for stag parties; whether it is for a few days or a longer stay. Dublin in particular has a great drinking scene and lively atmosphere, making it the ideal city for a stag party; but the country as a whole, can offer an alternative stag weekend for you and your friends. Although the capital is the most popular destination in Ireland, due to its nightlife and culture; there are so many more places on offer across the country, which are best explored by road.
An Irish stag weekend with a twist…
Flights to Ireland are fairly cheap and most visitors will use public transport to get to their destination and around the local area during their stay. An alternative way to enjoy your time in Ireland is to travel by car and create your own road trip. As long as you have a vehicle and the correct cover, such as Chill car insurance; you can plan your stag weekend and explore some of the country’s most hidden gems.
Take a step into some of your favourite film/TV sets
With endless natural scenery and picturesque views, it’s no wonder that Ireland has been used to film some of the most well-known films and TV series. If you’re a fan of the hugely popular series Game of Thrones, then heading to the north of the country is a must. You’ll be surprised at how many scenes were filmed in Ireland, including Downhill Strand, County Londonderry (The beach visited by Stannis Baratheon), Castle Warn in County Down (Home of the Stark Family in series 1), the village of Ballintoy in County Antrim (The capital of The Iron Islands), as well as many more locations.
Apart from Game of Thrones, Ireland has also appeared in films such as Saving Private Ryan, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Braveheart.
Explore some of Ireland’s natural scenery
One of the main reasons why so many people visit Ireland is because of its picturesque scenery and coastal views. During your trip, you may want to stop off at places like The Aran Islands, Doolin Cave, Giant’s Causeway and some of the many other places to visit across the country.
Although the majority of people heading to Ireland for a stag party will be going to enjoy the local pubs, bars and nightlife; it’s worth considering exploring all that Ireland has to offer by road. Planning a road trip means you can travel at your own leisure and plan the trip around you and your friends.
]]>http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/an-alternative-stag-weekend-in-ireland/feed/0Want to Stay Productive Without Risking Burnout? Here are the 4 Top Secretshttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/want-to-stay-productive-without-risking-burnout-here-are-the-4-top-secrets/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/want-to-stay-productive-without-risking-burnout-here-are-the-4-top-secrets/#respondWed, 13 Feb 2019 03:43:01 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1321Meeting work targets and deadlines require that you often have to stay alert and focused, but this should be done with care so you don’t suffer a burnout and an…
Meeting work targets and deadlines require that you often have to stay alert and focused, but this should be done with care so you don’t suffer a burnout and an unhealthy work-life balance.
Trying to increase your work volume isn’t always a healthy thing to do. In fact, in today’s hyper-active work culture, people are getting busy simply being busy. However, it’s important to emphasize that while it’s advisable to occasionally take a break to refresh and recharge, sometimes it’s necessary to power through certain projects.
1. Get the right amount of sleep
If you’re starting out on a major project, sometimes getting yourself prepped up is often half the battle. But getting well rested before heading into an intensive work session is very vital. Make sure you get at least 7 to 8 hours of good sleep every day, especially at night.
If for some urgent reasons, you couldn’t get enough sleep in the night and you start to feel drowsy, fatigued and other consequences of sleeplessness at work, find out how you can get a quick power nap during the day to help you recover lost sleep hours and get re-energized.
2. Exercise and eat healthy
Truth is sometimes emergencies and higher work load happens and you would need to put in extra hours and push harder to meet targets and timelines. It’s just part of the realities of work life and should not be as something negative.
But situations like these happens, your health and diet often take the hardest hits. So, to avoid burnout make sure to eat healthy (particularly protein, fruits, and vegetable), never skip breakfast, and do occasionally light exercises. This is will help you keep fit, in shape and sound in mind and body.
3. Focus on your happiness rather than work volume
There’s a mystery about productivity and success that most people can’t simply understand: Focus on your happiness first and everything else will fall in place. It still may not make much sense to you, but the science behind it is to boost your happiness if you want to boost your productivity.
How can you possibly achieve this?
Every morning, note and write down 5 things you’re thankful for in your professional and family life.
Meditate at least 20 times a day.
Occasionally, go out with friends and colleagues to social events like comedy shows and enjoy a good laugh.
Spend more time with the most important people in your life and enjoy the moment.
Spend time watching and admiring nature.
4. Play a song you like in the background
Typically, you need absolute silence to concentrate and work well on major tasks. But sometimes, you need a cool, background music to block out distractions around you that you cannot really control. Studies say practices like this can actually make you more productive, especially if you’re favorite songs.
Following these tips will help not only avoid a burnout, but also keep you productive, happy, motivated, and sharp – both physically and mentally.
]]>http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/want-to-stay-productive-without-risking-burnout-here-are-the-4-top-secrets/feed/0How to Stay Focused and Productive on a Business Triphttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/how-to-stay-focused-and-productive-on-a-business-trip/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/how-to-stay-focused-and-productive-on-a-business-trip/#respondThu, 07 Feb 2019 06:23:16 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1318If you are an entrepreneur or have a dynamic career, you will have many opportunities to travel abroad. In theory, travelling on a business trip seems like fun, you get…
If you are an entrepreneur or have a dynamic career, you will have many opportunities to travel abroad. In theory, travelling on a business trip seems like fun, you get to meet new people and see the world but in reality, it is not.
During a business trip, you may miss out on having your leisure time and quality sleep. You may become overwhelmed, making it impossible to focus or be productive. To help you stay focused on your next business trip, here are 9 tips to stay focused while travelling.
1. Have a Schedule
The first thing you need when you are going on a business trip is to have a plan. There is nothing worse than leaving an important item behind.
Have a do-to-list for every activity you would be involved in. Before you leave, write down everything you will need in your calendar–your flight schedule, meeting agendas, addresses, and logistic details. It is not enough to have a plan for your business trip, adhere to the schedule, as it will help you accomplish your tasks easily, save time and money, and keep you in check.
2. Understand the Time Zone
Knowing the time zone will help you in organising your schedule. If you are travelling to a different time zone, it is important to understand the time and prepare for it. Time zone changes cause jetlag which disrupts your sleep.
Understanding the direction you are travelling will help you prepare your body for the change by adjusting your sleep time before the trip.
3. Use Your Downtime
Plans often change during a trip. Gaps between meetings, devices with dead batteries, flights without Wi-Fi, and waiting to board a flight can disrupt one’s plans.
Use the time well. Read your notes and go through your schedule to make sure you have missed nothing. You can also seize this opportunity to share documents with your colleagues.
4. Use Technology
Let your devices empower you. Before you go on a business trip, invest in good gadgets that will help ease stress when working. Use the calendar apps to plan your work trip, use communication apps like your email to stay connected with your co-workers. Also, invest in quality headphones, they can block out distractions.
5. Find the Perfect Hotel
Take your time in finding the perfect hotel you will stay in. Make sure the hotel has all the requirements to make your trip comfortable. Also, call the hotel ahead to make sure all your plans are intact.
6. Use Cloud-based Files
With a cloud-based filing system, there is no fear of forgetting your files at home. There’s nothing as convenient and safe as having all your files in one place anytime you need them. Having a cloud-based filing system means you can access your file from anywhere in the world. You can also recall an old version of your document with ease.
]]>http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/how-to-stay-focused-and-productive-on-a-business-trip/feed/0Worry-free Vacation Tips for Small Business Ownershttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/worry-free-vacation-tips-for-small-business-owners/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/worry-free-vacation-tips-for-small-business-owners/#respondThu, 07 Feb 2019 06:20:40 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1315It is not an easy task to maintain a small business amidst all the numerous challenges that business owners have to grapple with. Most small business owners are workaholics. While…
It is not an easy task to maintain a small business amidst all the numerous challenges that business owners have to grapple with. Most small business owners are workaholics. While this might be healthy for the business, it isn’t for the owner.
It is important to take a break occasionally, to regain your strength. The reason most business owners can’t do this is that they worry that their business would suffer, and there may be nothing to come back to if they are not there. The good news is you can take a worry-free vacation and still meet your business in good shape. Here’s what you should do to achieve this.
Get the best hands to take over while you are away
You don’t have to close your business because of a vacation when you have capable hands that can step in while you are gone. All you have to do is prepare somebody for the job before leaving. You can do this by giving your employees tasks and measuring performances, checking how well they follow instructions, and so on. All these will help you streamline potential replacements. When the time comes, you should be confident enough to leave control to that person.
Leave your business behind
If you plan to go on vacation, you must leave your business behind. All the thoughts of customer service and delivery should take the back seat. Believe that the people you left behind will do a good job. To leave your business behind means leaving your business laptop, re-routing all business calls to your replacement, and enjoying your vacation the way you should. You can leave a line open to calls from your business only in cases of emergency.
Get business insurance cover
What causes you serious worry is the loss you may incur in your absence. But that doesn’t have to be a problem if you have the right business insurance cover that ensures you stay in business. This is especially important if you run a retail business. Leaving any kind of property unoccupied, or in the hands of employees can lead to all kinds of problems. Therefore, having the appropriate protection in place from the get go will give you the peace of mind required to have a holiday.
Trust with responsibility
We mentioned before that getting staff in that you trust is a key part of running any business. As it grows, there is no way that you’ll be able to take control of every aspect of your enterprise. And while letting go of the reigns of your business to an extent is an important, it also gives your employees a chance to develop and improve your business further. Having a different perspective on business matters can give you opportunities to grow and innovate in areas you might not have considered to begin with.
Having trust in those who support you is key to letting your business grow. No one has ever been able to bring a business to market completely by themselves. Getting others involved will allow you to relax and enjoy your holiday.
]]>http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/worry-free-vacation-tips-for-small-business-owners/feed/0People You Need to Thank for Helping with Your Weddinghttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/people-you-need-to-thank-for-helping-with-your-wedding/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/people-you-need-to-thank-for-helping-with-your-wedding/#respondSat, 26 Jan 2019 16:25:49 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1308When you are the bride and groom and you get through the events of your wedding and they go well, it is because you have had lots of help from…
When you are the bride and groom and you get through the events of your wedding and they go well, it is because you have had lots of help from these dedicated people.They often work with limited resources and have to constantly modify plans based on unforeseen changes. But with the challenges they persevere and get it done. It is for this reason that you should find ways to thank them and let them know how much you appreciate their efforts. Here is a list of people who likely contributed greatly to your wedding and some ideas for thanking them.
The Mother of the Bride
In most weddings, the mother of the bride is a central figure. She’s so dedicated to making sure that things go well because her daughter is getting married. A mother of the bride is in charge of locating a good selection of cheap wedding dresses for the bride, she is also often at the center of wedding reception in every part of the affair surrounding them even if there is a wedding planner involved. She understands the level of quality and consistency that her daughter wants and she wants to do all she can to make sure that she gets it.
For her undying devotion to making sure that your wedding is perfect, you should consider doing something nice for the mother of the bride. One great idea is to buy her a dress for the wedding. This would be a very nice surprise and one that she would likely not expect. Mother of the bride dresses a great way to show her your appreciation and a way to make sure that she looks beautiful for the wedding. You can give her the opportunity to select from one of dozens of beautiful dresses and she can do it all from a home whenever she has time because one of the top places to shop for these dresses is online. Tell her that it is because she is a special mom and she deserves the best.
The Best Man and Maid of Honor
The best man and maid of honor are two people that have agreed to take on lots of responsibilities for your wedding. The best man will throw the bachelor party and assist with rounding up the rest of the man that will participate in the wedding. He will also be available whenever the groom needs to have anything handled quickly and well. He’s also the person that will hand the groom the wedding ring so he can consummate the marriage. For his undying loyalty and help he deserves to be rewarded.
The maid of honor throws the bachelorette party and the bridal shower. She’s also the confidante of the bride and is there and available for her throughout this emotional period. Oftentimes, the maid of honor has to put her own life aside for those weeks leading up to the wedding to make sure that she is available for her good friend the bride. For her undying devotion and hard work she also deserves a nice gift.
Consider offering the best man and the maid of honor a weekend stay at a local resort. The odds are that they are both exhausted from all the work that they’ve done during your wedding and would love to just have a weekend relaxing. They can take their respective significant others with them and do nothing that entire weekend but just sleep.
if you are lucky enough to have a great mother of the bride, best, man and maid of honor for your wedding, do something nice for them that will make you as memorable to them as your wedding.
]]>http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/people-you-need-to-thank-for-helping-with-your-wedding/feed/04 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Websitehttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/4-ways-to-increase-traffic-to-your-website/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/4-ways-to-increase-traffic-to-your-website/#respondThu, 24 Jan 2019 23:14:16 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1304Most websites need traffic to survive. This is because the majority of websites make their income either from advertising revenue or from the sales of the goods and services that…
Most websites need traffic to survive. This is because the majority of websites make their income either from advertising revenue or from the sales of the goods and services that are being sold on the site. In either scenario, traffic is needed to ensure revenue.
This is where many site owners struggle. It is one thing to have a well-done website and it is another thing to get people to visit it. When the topic of site advertising comes up, it is often believed that a large amount of money is needed. However, there are many inexpensive ways to drive traffic to your site, some of which are as follows:
PPC: Pay Per Click is one of the most cost-effective ways to drive traffic to your website.
How it works is that an ad is put up on a search engine with your URL. As the ad is being set up, some keywords are imputed and your site is only advertised to people who search based on those keywords.
For example, if your business is based in New York and sells women’s shoes, search results with the phrase ‘women’s shoes New York’ would have your URL. This is a great idea as only people who have an Interest in your niche will be advertised to.
Consult a firm such as Click Consult to handle your PPC needs and to get you the best deal. Also, with PPC, you only pay based on the number of clicks your ad receives which will save you money.
Contests: Contests are one of the more creative ways to get traffic to our site and can be very effective if planned out well.
First, choose a prize that will likely motivate customers to participate. Then, set up a contest in which the rules require visiting the site. For example, you might give a discount for the first 10 site visitors or you might leave a clue to the contest on your website. Either way, visiting your website should be a requirement for contest eligibility.
Leveraging your real-life customers: If you Business has been existing for a while then you definitely have some real-life customers who engage with you and patronize you.
These people can help give your website traffic a boost. However, this can only happen if they are made aware of your site. Print out your URL on your business materials such as delivery bags, boxes, and stationery. Offer a discount for ordering online or some other incentive to encourage your customers to visit.
Banner ads: Banner ads can be paid for on websites that are in your niche and that have the attention of your target audience.
These adverts can be very targeted if the site you advertise on is chosen well. Before paying for a banner ad, make sure to see an analytics report for the site in question to make sure their audience is relevant to you.
Conclusion
Directing traffic to your website doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. Follow the above tips to keep your site traffic high and your budget low.
]]>http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/4-ways-to-increase-traffic-to-your-website/feed/0A Road Trip Can Make You Feel More Alivehttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/a-road-trip-can-make-you-feel-more-alive/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/a-road-trip-can-make-you-feel-more-alive/#respondTue, 15 Jan 2019 18:37:28 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1298Sometimes in life, we get stuck in a rut and cannot get ourselves motivated and back to loving life. This can happen for a variety of reasons but often occurs…
Sometimes in life, we get stuck in a rut and cannot get ourselves motivated and back to loving life. This can happen for a variety of reasons but often occurs when you our lives become a routine that does not include much excitement. When this occurs, we can tend to feel that life is boring and there is nothing to offer us any exhilaration. When we are in a rut, we need to push the envelope and try some new things. If this describes you, here are a few ideas to get you out of a rut. One great thing that we can do to help us out of this feeling is to take a road trip. It is the perfect idea for helping us to feel more alive.
Plan to Take a Road Trip
A road trip is the perfect endeavor to get your spirits up and get you back to feeling supercharged about life. Getting into your vehicle and taking a scenic trip down long and sometimes winding roadways gets you out into the elements and reminds you of how beautiful our planet is.
If you live in Europe there are many fantastic roads in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Germany and other places that allow you to view the most beautiful scenery while you motor along. You can make your road trip a day- long excursion and get the chance to stay at small villages and towns and mingle with the locals. You can also build your road trip around entertainment culture visiting places that give you a chance to partake in each. By the end of your road trip, you will be energized about life again.
Preparation for Your Road Trip
Preparing for your road trip is really important. Make sure that you pack everything you might need in your vehicle and that you bring both paper maps and have access to the internet as well. Also you need to make sure that your vehicle is fully serviced.
Take your vehicle for servicing at Kwikfit and give an entire service including topping up fluids, checking belts, replacing any lights that are not working and most importantly that your tyres and in good condition. Tyres are very important so if they are in need of replacing, do it before you hit the road.
Hitting the open road can do wonders for your mood. Plan on taking several trips throughout the year whenever you feel your enjoyment for life slipping.
]]>http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/a-road-trip-can-make-you-feel-more-alive/feed/0Finding a New Year’s resolution that’s right for youhttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/finding-a-new-years-resolution-thats-right-for-you/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/finding-a-new-years-resolution-thats-right-for-you/#respondSat, 12 Jan 2019 12:54:34 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1293We’re half-way through January now, so it might surprise you how many people are still trying to decide on a resolution for 2019. If you’re one of them, we’ve got…
]]>We’re half-way through January now, so it might surprise you how many people are still trying to decide on a resolution for 2019. If you’re one of them, we’ve got some advice.
Forget the clichéd resolutions you’ve tried (and failed) to keep in years gone by. Set a goal that’s personal to you and your life right now by asking yourself the following 3 questions:
What’s possible?
You know you the best. You know what’s realistic and achievable in your life. Only make a New Year’s resolution you believe you can stick to, otherwise you’re just setting yourself up for failure. Let’s say, for instance, you want to ditch cigarettes but know you can’t handle going cold turkey. Devise monthly goals instead to gradually cut down on your smoking habit throughout the year.
What do I want?
Don’t make a resolution because you think you should. Make a resolution because you can see how it’s going to benefit you and, ultimately, make you a happier individual. You shouldn’t resolve to eat healthier because everyone around you is on some ‘New Year’s detox’ and you feel pressured to follow suit. You should eat healthier because you want more energy to do the things you enjoy, or because you want to be a role model to your kids or improve your relationship.
What’s it going to take?
Plan, plan, plan. Make sure you have the right resources and enough spare time to achieve a resolution before you think about committing to it. If you’re thinking of setting a goal to learn a new language, for example, work out where you can hire a tutor or get study materials online beforehand. That way you’ll be setting yourself up for success.
And if you’re still struggling to decide on a New Year’s resolution after asking yourself these questions, don’t worry. Find inspiration from the 5 Best New Year’s Resolutions according to Power Spins. Tailor them to make a goal that’s personal to you.
]]>http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/finding-a-new-years-resolution-thats-right-for-you/feed/0How to Plan a Bachelor Party Weekendhttp://www.thegentlemenstour.com/how-to-plan-a-bachelor-party-weekend/
http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/how-to-plan-a-bachelor-party-weekend/#respondThu, 03 Jan 2019 08:30:56 +0000http://www.thegentlemenstour.com/?p=1286As the final send-off for the groom before his life changes and he no longer can have the type of fun that only a single man can have, there’s usually…
As the final send-off for the groom before his life changes and he no longer can have the type of fun that only a single man can have, there’s usually a bachelor party planned. This event is usually put together by the best man and often includes the groom’s best friends, going to a different city, and the type of fun that is not shared with anyone not present.
For the best man, planning a bachelor party is a major event. It is his job to remind the groom of all the things he will be missing as a married man. The planning typically takes a lot of effort, and even the smallest details must be considered. Often though, the best man misses some of the larger details. Some of the large details that the best man should always consider when planning a bachelor party weekend.
Put your group in a bus
When you plan your bachelor party weekend you should keep the group in one form of transportation and traveling together. They’ll be no doubt that your bachelor party weekend will include lots of drinking and as a result you don’t want any participants driving on the road. There are different bus rental options that you can pursue, in order to get everyone on a means of transportation that is safe and will guarantee that they get to and from the locations throughout the bachelor party weekend. Having a professional driver who is always sober and who knows his way around the city you are in, will make things go more smoothly and give you peace of mind.
Make a plan for what you intend to do
You should take the time to plan out even in small detail everything that you intend to accomplish on your bachelor party weekend. Make a list of all the places you intend to go, the things you intend to do there, and also how long you intend to stay. Map out where each of these places are in the city, the length of time it will take to get from one place to the next, and the physical distance from one place to the next. By doing this, you can avoid crisscrossing the city too many times which could be a problem particularly if there’s a lot of traffic. Since there will be a lot of drinking, the chances are you won’t stick strictly to this plan, but by having one oh, it will certainly come in handy. Also you should map everything out using an online software app like Waze to help you. You can also expect that your driver will know in many of the places that you want to go and in the event that you get lost or confused you can always lean on him or her.
Make stops along the way
Don’t forget that your group will require stops along the way do your different locations, particularly if they are far apart, or there is lots of traffic. You should plan to make a few pit stops so that people can use the bathroom, smoke a cigarette, grab some snacks, was simply to just get out of the bus for a second and stretch their legs. This one be very important in light of the fact that they will be a lot of drinking, which typically means lots of bathroom breaks. So plan them in advance and you can avoid having unhappy guests.
Don’t forget to book your hotels
When you travel with the group you have to think about hotel accommodations well in advance. Finding one or two or even three rooms at a hotel is fairly easy, but if you have a larger group, finding the rooms you need in one hotel might be a challenge. Remember different cities have all types of events and conventions coming into town that take lots of hotel rooms. You need to book early so that you can beat these groups to those rooms. The idea of booking a room when you arrive is really a poor decision. Instead go online, use one of the discount hotel sites like Agoda.com or Hotels.com and booked rooms early. Not only will you guarantee that you get the rooms you need, you will also get them at a good discount.
Your fun-loving group will likely get bored easily on your bus, so you need to make sure that you bring some entertainment for them while they were driving around to your destinations. How about bringing some games and a few decks of cards so that your group has some on the bus entertainment. They can play games, and quickly pass the time on the road. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Enduring Service by Regina Morris
Blurb: The Colony is an elite group of vampires sworn to protect the President of the United States from these rogue vampires. Colony Agent Sulie Metcalf, the President’s private physician, has been in love with the same human man for nearly thirty years. She refuses to allow herself the joy of true love because her feelings are unrequited by her human boss, Jonathan Dixon. As Dixon’s retirement looms near, and his memories of Sulie and the last thirty years of his life are about to be erased, does she confront her fear of intimacy and take a leap of faith before it’s too late? Dixon has decided to retire and enjoy what time he has left. When his best friend Sulie, a vampire team member, is kidnapped during a medical emergency, Dixon realizes that retirement means giving up everything, and everyone, he’s known for the last three decades. Will he risk his life, and his heart, to save her?
Reviewed by LTMy Rating: 4First of all I read this Book as a stand alone, And it holds it own. It has sexy Vampires protecting the President, lots of action, suspense and steamy love scenes. But for you I would recommend reading this in series order because the couple is mention in the others books.Sulie is a vampire that has the ability to be able to tell why someone is sick by either touching or tasting their blood, she also is in love with her human boss. She works as the doctor for the President of the United states and for 30 years she has watched and loved Jonathan Dixon. Being best friends, she doesn't want to ruin things until she learns that he is retiring. Once the human side of the Colony retires they get a complete mind wipe, meaning he won't remember her at all. Dixon has been denied becoming a vampire and with retirement in sight that means he will start a new life. He's not ready to lose everything, especially his best friend. When Sulie is kidnapped Dixion is forced to put his retirement on hold to save her and face the feelings the both have been keeping a secret from each other.
Original Cyn
Disclaimer
The opinions of our users are strictly their own opinions and not necessarily the opinion of the site hosts. There has been no Copyright infringement of the discussed works, photos or artwork pursuant to Section 107 of the Copyright Act (Title 17 US Code) | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
Introduction {#S1}
============
Neurons transmit information with sequences of action potentials. These responses are variable -- repeated measurements under identical experimental conditions give different spike trains -- but the origins of this variability are unknown. If spike generation were variable, it might account for response variability, but in vitro measurements indicate that it is highly reliable^[@R1]^. Variability in synaptic transmission is another possible source^[@R2]^, but its magnitude is also believed to be insufficient to account for the observed variability in spiking responses^[@R3]--[@R4]^. A more likely explanation is that the variability arises from the accumulation and amplification of small amounts of noise as signals flow through neural circuits^[@R5]^. And recent theories propose that the substantial variability in neural responses may arise from the dynamics of recurrent but largely deterministic networks^[@R6]--[@R7]^.
Regardless of its source, characterizing variability with simple stochastic models has proven useful in understanding the nature of neural coding. The simplest stochastic model is a Poisson process, in which spikes occur independent of one another. A hallmark of the Poisson model is that the variance of the spike count in any time interval is equal to the mean. In visual cortex, the spike count variance typically equals or exceeds the mean, but rarely falls below it^[@R8],[@R9]^. This suggests that Poisson-like behavior is a "floor" state of cortical variability, and raises the question of the origin of the excess variance. Arousal, attention, adaptation and other contextual factors are known to modulate sensory responses^[@R10]--[@R12]^. In typical electrophysiological experiments, some of these may be well-controlled, but many are not. The idea that fluctuations in excitability can inflate estimates of neuronal variance has a long history^[@R8],[@R9]^, and we wondered whether a more directed analysis of single-neuron responses might reveal the effect of these factors.
We formalize this hypothesis in a doubly stochastic response model in which spikes arise from a Poisson process whose rate is the product of "drive" and "gain" (the "modulated Poisson model", [Fig. 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). The drive is a reproducible firing rate response to a sensory stimulus; the gain represents modulatory influences on excitability, and can vary across repeated measurements. Under this model, trial-to-trial variability in spike counts can be partitioned into a sum of Poisson point process variance and variance arising from fluctuations in gain. Likewise, spike count covariation can be partitioned into point process covariance, and covariance arising from correlated gain fluctuations.
We found that this model provides an excellent account of single-neuron response distributions in macaque visual thalamus and cortex. Inferred gain fluctuations are correlated over long timescales (minutes), are larger in anesthetized than in awake animals, and (in anesthetized animals) increase in strength along the visual hierarchy. They are also shared across wide areas of primary visual cortex, while point process variance is more localized. Together, these results suggest that much of the response variability of sensory neurons arises from fluctuations in excitability which are correlated over time and between neurons and which increase in strength along the visual pathway.
Portions of these results have been presented in conferences (R.L.T. Goris, J.A. Movshon and E.P. Simoncelli, *Soc. Neurosci. Abstr.* 311.01, 2013; *Cosyne Abstr.*, I-37, 2012), and two other groups have recently presented models similar to the one shown in [Fig. 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"} ([@R13], and I.-C. Lin, M. Okun, M. Carandini and K. Harris, *Cosyne Abstr.*, III-11, 2014), though their application and conclusions are somewhat different from our own.
Results {#S2}
=======
Modulated Poisson framework {#S3}
---------------------------
Consider the most commonly-used rate model, in which the spike count, *N*, follows a Poisson distribution:
p
(
N
\|
μ
,
Δ
t
)
=
(
μ
Δ
t
)
N
N
!
exp
(
−
μ
Δ
t
)
where *μ* is the mean spike rate, and Δ*t* is the duration of the counting window. Assume that the rate arises from the product of two positive-valued signals:
μ
=
f
(
S
)
G
where *f*(*S*) is some function of the stimulus, and *G* is a stimulus-independent gain. In this case, the variance and mean of the spike count in a time interval Δ*t* are both equal to *f*(*S*)GΔ*t*.
If the gain signal is unobserved, and varies over repeated trials, the observed spike counts over those trials will have a variance larger than predicted by the simple Poisson model. Assume the gain has a mean of one, but fluctuates randomly on a timescale that is slow relative to the interval over which spikes are counted. In this case, the net distribution of spike counts is a mixture of Poisson distributions (Online Methods) whose variance can be decomposed into two components:
var
\[
N
\|
S
,
Δ
t
\]
=
(
f
(
S
)
Δ
t
)
\+
σ
G
2
(
f
(
S
)
Δ
t
)
2
The first term is simply the variance of a Poisson distribution with mean count *f*(*S*)Δ*t*. The second term is the variance of the expected spike count conditioned on the stimulus drive^[@R14]^, and is proportional to the square of the first term, with a proportionality factor equal to the variance of the gain signal. Thus, in the presence of gain fluctuations, the spike count variance exceeds the mean by an amount that is proportional to the square of the mean. Note that the spike count variance does not depend on the firing rate or duration of the counting window *per se*, but on their product, *f*(*S*)Δ*t*.
The variance-to-mean relationship expressed in [Eq. (3)](#FD3){ref-type="disp-formula"} is inherent to systems with modulatory effects, and depends on gain only through its variance: all gain distributions with the same variance will produce the same variance-to-mean relationship. To fit the model to data, the form of the gain distribution must be specified. If we assume that the gain follows a Gamma distribution, the overall spike count distribution will follow a negative binomial (Online Methods):
p
(
N
\|
S
,
Δ
t
)
=
Γ
(
N
\+
1
/
σ
G
2
)
Γ
(
N
\+
1
)
Γ
(
1
/
σ
G
2
)
⋅
(
σ
G
2
f
(
S
)
Δ
t
)
N
(
σ
G
2
f
(
S
)
Δ
t
\+
1
)
(
N
\+
1
/
σ
G
2
)
Where Γ(.) represents the standard gamma function. This distribution is parameterized by the variance of the gain $\sigma_{G}^{2}$, and the mean spike count, *f*(*S*)Δ*t*, and is readily fit to neural data.
Gain fluctuations increase along the visual hierarchy {#S4}
-----------------------------------------------------
We measured responses of neurons in areas LGN, V1, V2 and MT to drifting sinusoidal gratings of the preferred size and speed, varying either in spatial frequency (12 spatial frequencies, ranging from 0 to 10 c/deg) or in drift direction (16 equally spaced directions). Each grating was presented for 1,000 ms and repeated at least five times. Responses were computed by counting spikes in a 1,000-ms window following response onset. We fit both the Poisson and modulated Poisson models to the responses of each individual neuron.
Consider the actual and model-predicted response distributions for an example V1 cell ([Fig. 2a](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). The mean spike count depends on the direction of motion of the stimulus (center [Fig. 2a](#F2){ref-type="fig"}), and the variance grows with the mean. The variance-to-mean relation is well described by the modulated Poisson model ([Fig. 2b](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). As predicted ([eq. 3](#FD3){ref-type="disp-formula"}), this relation does not depend on firing rate or measurement interval (inset [Fig. 2b](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). Comparing histograms of the measured spike counts with the predictions of the models reveals that the modulated Poisson model captures the data much better than the standard Poisson model ([Fig. 2a](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). When the mean spike count is low, both models produce similar response distributions with mode at zero and variance approximately equal to the mean ([Fig. 2b](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). But as the mean spike count grows, model predictions diverge, and the Poisson model fails to account for the shape of the count distributions ([Fig. 2a](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). In contrast, the data are well-described by the modulated Poisson model, suggesting that a substantial part of the response variance arises from fluctuations of modulatory inputs, whose distribution is well-described by a Gamma distribution.
This visual impression is confirmed by statistical analysis of the model fits. To quantify relative goodness of fit of the two models, we performed a cross-validation analysis (CVA), comparing the log-probability of observing the hold-out data under each fitted model (Online Methods). For the example neuron, the value for the modulated Poisson model is much higher than that of the Poisson model. To assess the model fits in absolute terms, we developed a parametric bootstrap test that compares the log-probability of the data with its expectation under the model in question (Online Methods). For the example neuron, the fit of the Poisson model is very poor (*P* \< 0.001, absolute goodness of fit test; [Fig. 2c](#F2){ref-type="fig"}), but the modulated Poisson model cannot be rejected (*P* = 0.91; [Fig. 2c](#F2){ref-type="fig"}).
In sum, the variable discharge of this V1 cell is well described as originating from three different sources: the stimulus attributes (i.e., direction of motion), a Poisson point process, and Gamma-distributed fluctuations in excitability. To estimate the relative contribution of each source, we used the modulated Poisson model to partition the spike count variance (Online Methods). Surprisingly, Poisson noise accounts for only a small fraction of the total variance (5.5%). The gain fluctuations account for nearly half of the variance (47.5%), a share comparable to the fraction due to variations in the stimulus drive (47%). The latter is dependent on the set of stimuli and the tuning properties of the neuron. To focus our analysis on the variability across repeated measurements, we consider the portion of within-condition variance that is explained by the excitability fluctuations. For the example neuron in [Fig. 2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}, this fraction is 89.6%.
In our model, stronger gain fluctuations lead to a more rapidly accelerating variance-to-mean relationship, which deviates more and more from the Poisson expectation as spike count grows ([Fig. 2d](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). Note that this accelerating relationship implies that the ratio of variance to mean (Fano factor) can vary within a single spike train, and over short time scales. As such, a single Fano factor provides an incomplete and potentially biased, measure of neuronal variability.
In the modulated Poisson model, the rate arises from the product of two positive-valued signals, one a function of the stimulus and the other arising elsewhere. An alternative model adds these signals rather than multiplying them. Under this additive model, if the two signals are statistically independent the expected spike count variance is given by the sum of the point process variance and a constant equal to the variance of the drive fluctuations, yielding a variance-to-mean relationship ([Fig. 2d](#F2){ref-type="fig"}) which is unlike that in our data.
Fluctuations in excitability modulate neuronal activity throughout visual thalamus and cortex. Neurons in LGN, V1, V2, and MT all exhibit super-Poisson variability ([Fig. 3a](#F3){ref-type="fig"}). Within each area, the variance-to-mean relationship is consistent with the predictions of the modulated Poisson model (compare [Fig. 3a](#F3){ref-type="fig"} to [Fig. 2d](#F2){ref-type="fig"}), but note that the fitted gain variance increases in strength along the visual processing stream. Specifically, the modulated Poisson model systematically outperforms the standard Poisson model for all areas ([Fig. 3b](#F3){ref-type="fig"}), and the proportion of neurons for which this model is selected increases from LGN to V1 (*P* \< 0.001, *t* test), from V1 to V2 (*P* = 0.004) and from V1 to MT (*P* = 0.004). The strength of fluctuations in excitability, as measured by the coefficient of variation of the gain, grows from LGN to V1 (*P* \< 0.001, Wilcoxon rank sum test), from V1 to V2 (*P* \< 0.001), and from V1 to MT (*P* \< 0.001) ([Fig. 3c](#F3){ref-type="fig"}). As information propagates through the visual hierarchy, fluctuations in excitability not only increase in strength, but also account for a larger share of variance. When stimulated with drifting gratings, within-condition variance primarily reflects Poisson-like noise in LGN (*P* = 0.02, Wilcoxon signed rank test), but becomes progressively more dominated by excitability fluctuations in cortex (LGN to V1, *P* \< 0.001, Wilcoxon rank sum test; V1 to V2, *P* \< 0.001, V1 to MT, *P* \< 0.001; [Fig. 3d](#F3){ref-type="fig"}).
Response correlations in the modulated Poisson framework {#S5}
--------------------------------------------------------
Trial-to-trial response fluctuations are often correlated among simultaneously recorded neurons^[@R15]^. Pairwise response correlations can arise when neurons receive shared sensory input^[@R5]^, but also when they are subject to correlated modulatory influences that are not sensory in origin^[@R16],[@R17]^. Our model provides a vehicle for separating the effects of these two contributions. Specifically, for doubly stochastic processes, the spike count covariance can be decomposed in a manner that is analogous to the variance decomposition introduced in [Eq. (3)](#FD3){ref-type="disp-formula"} (Online Methods):
cov
\[
N
i
,
N
j
\|
S
,
Δ
t
\]
=
r
P
ij
f
i
(
S
)
f
j
(
S
)
Δ
t
2
\+
r
G
ij
σ
G
i
σ
G
j
f
i
(
S
)
f
j
(
S
)
Δ
t
2
where *r~Pij~* indicates the point process correlation (assumed to be independent of stimulus *S*), and *r~Gij~* the gain correlation. The first term is the covariance expected for the spike counts of neuron *i* and *j* with a constant gain of one. The second component is the covariance of the conditional expectations that arises from correlated gain fluctuations, and can generate spike count correlations even when the two point processes are independent. Note that [Eq. (5)](#FD5){ref-type="disp-formula"} reduces to the expression for spike count variance ([Eq. (3)](#FD3){ref-type="disp-formula"}) when *i*=*j*. The spike count correlation is obtained by dividing this equation by the square root of the product of the spike count variances of neurons *i* and *j*, as expressed in [Eq. (3)](#FD3){ref-type="disp-formula"}, yielding a complicated dependence of spike count correlation on stimulus drive, and on the variance of the gain signals in the two neurons.
Studies of response correlation typically combine normalized responses across conditions to estimate a single spike count correlation for a pair of neurons^[@R18],[@R19]^. But [equation (5)](#FD5){ref-type="disp-formula"} implies that even if the point process and gain correlations are both stable properties of a given cell pair, measured spike count correlations can vary dramatically with stimulus drive. Specifically, when the geometric mean of the stimulus-driven response of the two neurons is low, the spike count correlation will approximate the point process correlation *r~Pij~* In contrast, when this geometric mean is high, the spike count correlation will be dominated by the gain correlation *r~Gij~* If *r~Pij~* and *r~Gij~* differ, the spike count correlation will depend on the stimulus conditions, and any single estimate will provide an incomplete and potentially biased measure of neuronal covariability.
We analyzed the responses of four populations of simultaneously recorded neurons in the superficial layers of macaque primary visual cortex^[@R20]^. The recordings were made over 2.5 h, during which gratings drifting in 72 equally spaced directions were presented for 1,280 ms each, interleaved with a 1,280 ms blank screen and repeated 50 times in random order. We analyzed 379 well-isolated units (62, 94, 87, and 136 from the four data sets). We fit the modulated Poisson model to the responses of each neuron, and then fit the model to the spike count correlations of pairwise combinations of neurons in each data set (Online Methods).
Consider the actual and predicted response correlations for three example pairs of V1 cells ([Fig. 4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). For each neuron, the mean spike count depended on the direction of motion of the stimulus ([Fig. 4a--c](#F4){ref-type="fig"}), and for each pair of neurons, the spike count correlation estimated from the combined normalized responses (*r~SC~*) was small and positive. But estimates of spike count correlation computed separately for different response levels reveal a variety of different behaviors, including a decrease with mean response strength ([Fig. 4d](#F4){ref-type="fig"}), independence of response strength ([Fig. 4e](#F4){ref-type="fig"}), or an increase with response strength ([Fig. 4f](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). The modulated Poisson model can mimic each of these behaviors using particular choices of the underlying point process and excitability correlations, *r~Pij~* and *r~Gij~*. We estimated both statistics for each cell pair, and [Fig. 4g--i](#F4){ref-type="fig"} illustrate the full spike count correlation surface predicted by the fitted models.
The structure of correlations in primary visual cortex {#S6}
------------------------------------------------------
V1 spike count correlations have been shown to depend on cortical distance and tuning similarity^[@R19]^, but as revealed by the examples in [Fig. 4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}, this measure mixes two underlying sources of correlation. We wondered whether these two sources might be differently structured across the neuronal population. In particular, common point process variance might be local in space and time, while joint excitability fluctuations could reflect network changes that affect larger populations of neurons on a slower time scale.
We examined how point process correlation and excitability correlation depend on electrode separation and on the similarity of tuning ([Fig. 5](#F5){ref-type="fig"}, Online Methods). Point process correlations were on average smaller than excitability correlations (*P* \< 0.001, *F*~1,34~ = 24.16, *ANCOVA*) and fell more rapidly with electrode distance (*P* \< 0.001, *F*~1,34~ = 18.05). Note that neurons recorded on the same electrode (the leftmost datum in [Fig. 5a--b](#F5){ref-type="fig"}) might have inflated the significance of the latter difference since they are vulnerable to spike sorting errors that can alter the measured correlation^[@R15],[@R17],[@R21]^. Nevertheless, we find that excluding this datum does not alter the conclusion (*P* \< 0.001, *F*~1,32~ = 41.17). Analysis of tuning similarity effects ([Fig. 5c](#F5){ref-type="fig"}) revealed that the average point process and excitability correlation had a largely similar (linear) dependency on tuning correlation (*P* = 0.6, *F*~1,14~ = 0.28), differing only in their means ([Fig. 5d](#F5){ref-type="fig"}).
In summary, we find that the relationship between response correlations and mean responses in V1 depends on both inter-neural distance and tuning similarity: Spike count correlations are most likely to decrease with response strength for nearby neurons with similar tuning ([Fig. 4d](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). As inter-neural distance or tuning dissimilarity grows, response correlations will initially tend to be independent of the mean responses ([Fig. 4e](#F4){ref-type="fig"}), and eventually exhibit an increasing relation ([Fig. 4f](#F4){ref-type="fig"}).
The temporal structure of gain fluctuations {#S7}
-------------------------------------------
We assume that the Poisson point process variance is independent across trials, so all temporal structure in neural responses that is not explained by the stimulus must arise from structure in the gain signal. Consider how normalized spiking activity evolves over 2.5 h for three simultaneously recorded neurons ([Fig. 6a](#F6){ref-type="fig"}). Response strength rises and falls over minutes, suggesting that excitability varies slowly. This is consistent with the slow decay of the autocorrelation of the gain ([Fig. 6b](#F6){ref-type="fig"}), computed from temporal correlations in the trial-by-trial responses (Online Methods). At a time lag of 5 sec, 307/379 neurons had positive autocorrelation (*t*-test, *P* \< *0.05*). For longer time lags, this fraction gradually decreased (at a time lag of 2 minutes, *r* \> 0 for 185/379 neurons; at a time lag of 10 minutes, this fraction drops to 81/379). Although the average profiles for the four data sets differ in detail, they share a slow falloff, indicating that changes in excitability persist for many minutes ([Fig. 6c](#F6){ref-type="fig"}).
Trial-to-trial changes in excitability are often correlated across neurons ([Fig. 5](#F5){ref-type="fig"}). It might therefore be expected that the slow component of excitability fluctuations is also shared across neurons. However, across neurons, excitability correlations decrease dramatically at all time lags exceeding 0 sec ([Fig. 6d](#F6){ref-type="fig"}). The slow component of excitability fluctuations thus appears to be local.
Effects of anesthesia {#S8}
---------------------
We have shown that neural response variability in visual cortex of anesthetized macaques originates largely from excitability fluctuations that are correlated over time. To what degree does this arise from fluctuations in the state of anesthesia? To address this, we analyzed data recorded in area MT of awake monkeys performing a psychophysical task involving random dot kinematogram stimuli^[@R18],[@R22]^. We fit both the Poisson and modulated Poisson model to the responses of 307 individual neurons. As in anesthetized animals, MT neurons in awake monkey typically exhibit super-Poisson variability ([Fig. 7a](#F7){ref-type="fig"}), and the modulated Poisson framework successfully accounts for this variability. The inclusion of gain fluctuations improves goodness of fit for 224/307 neurons (CVA analysis). At a significance level of 5%, the Poisson model is accepted for only 28/307 of neurons, while the modulated Poisson model is accepted for 294/307 of cells (absolute goodness of fit test). Fluctuations in excitability were the main source of within-condition variance (*P* \< 0.001, Wilcoxon signed rank test; [Fig. 7b](#F7){ref-type="fig"}). Finally, the average autocorrelation function reveals that gain fluctuations in awake animals exhibit a slow temporal structure similar in timescale to that seen under anesthesia ([Fig. 7c](#F7){ref-type="fig"}).
Qualitatively, there is thus an excellent agreement between these data sets. However, comparing the coefficient of variation of the excitability signal reveals that its fluctuations are significantly stronger in the anesthetized cortex (compare [Fig. 3c](#F3){ref-type="fig"} with [Fig. 7b](#F7){ref-type="fig"}). It is also notable that the time course of this correlation is substantially shorter in the awake data set, suggesting that the fluctuations in gain seen under the two conditions may have different origins.
Discussion {#S9}
==========
The distinction between inputs that drive the responses of a neuron and those that modulate its response is well known^[@R23]^. But while both factors influence the mean response, response variance is usually treated as if it arises solely from noise in driving inputs. Our analysis suggests instead that variability of modulatory signals may underlie much of the response variability in visual cortex. We have shown that a Poisson spiking model whose rate is multiplied by a fluctuating gain signal can explain why the variance of spike count generally grows faster than the mean ([Figs. 2](#F2){ref-type="fig"} and [3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}), and that an additive noise model cannot account for this basic behavior ([Fig. 2d](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). The modulated Poisson model also explains why the covariance of spike counts in pairs of neurons can exhibit a diversity of behaviors depending on their means ([Fig. 4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). Fitting the model to individual neurons from a variety of visual areas reveals that gain fluctuations account for a substantial fraction of spike count variability, and that in anesthetized animals this fraction increases as one ascends the visual hierarchy ([Fig. 3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}).
Poisson spiking models have been common in neuroscience since the 1950\'s^[@R24]--[@R26]^, and are implicit in all analyses in which responses are summarized solely with mean spike counts. They provide the simplest statistical description of the data, are readily fit to data, and capture the basic fact that spike count variances grow with the mean. Poisson processes can mimic the spiking behaviors of integrate-and-fire models^[@R4]^, as well as the responses of model neurons embedded in cortical networks with balanced configurations of excitatory and inhibitory inputs^[@R5]--[@R7]^. But neuronal responses generally exhibit super-Poisson variability^[@R5],[@R7]--[@R9],[@R27]--[@R28]^, and the model presented here provides a simple but effective means of explaining this behavior. Some authors have reported sub-Poisson variability, especially in brief time bins immediately after a sudden stimulus onset^[@R29]--[@R32]^. This is likely a consequence of neuronal refractoriness^[@R33]--[@R34]^, which could be naturally incorporated into our modeling framework through modulatory spike-feedback terms in a generalized linear model^[@R35]--[@R36]^.
Our work complements recent work on the temporal dynamics of firing rate variability^[@R14],[@R28]^. One study used the mean-matched Fano factor as a proxy for firing rate variability, but did not explore the dependence of this value on the mean^[@R28]^. Another estimated firing rate variability by subtracting an estimate of the point process variance from the measured spike count variance^[@R14]^. The estimate of point process variance is taken from the minimum of an ensemble of experimental measurements, and is therefore vulnerable to the well-known problems associated with estimating extreme values of sample distributions. In contrast, we found it useful to make explicit distributional assumptions: specifically, that gain is drawn from a Gamma distribution, and that the spikes arise from a Poisson process. The resulting negative binomial spike count distribution (a particular continuous mixture of Poisson distributions) is easily fit to data and validated ([Fig. 2d](#F2){ref-type="fig"}, see also [@R37]), and its parameterization as a modulated Poisson distribution provides a natural interpretation in terms of excitability fluctuations. The spike count distribution bears some resemblance to the discrete mixture-of-Poissons model that has been successfully used to account for super-Poisson variability^[@R38]^, but has the added advantage that it has far fewer parameters, and provides an interpretation in terms of modulatory input. It is important to note, on the other hand, that our analyses of joint behaviors are based solely on correlations. A full model for joint neural responses would allow better fitting and validation, but requires an explicit description of both the joint point process distribution, as well as the joint distribution of gain signals.
Our analyses indicate that fluctuations in gain account for a substantial portion of spike count correlation. This has been long-suspected, but it has been difficult to segregate the effects of shared sensory inputs from correlated modulatory influences^[@R16]^. Our model provides an explicit method for achieving this ([Eq. 5](#FD5){ref-type="disp-formula"}). In V1, this analysis reveals that point process correlation and excitability correlation have different structure. Point process correlations decrease rapidly with cortical distance, while excitability correlations change less. Both point process and excitability correlations increase with tuning similarity ([Fig. 5](#F5){ref-type="fig"}). Together, these patterns suggests that point process correlations are caused by inputs that are shared within local functional circuits, while excitability correlations likely arise from fluctuations in modulatory signals that affect larger populations of neurons (e.g., sensory adaptation, metabolic resource availability, attentional signals, reward signals).
The analysis in [Fig. 3](#F3){ref-type="fig"} indicates that the portion of spike count variability attributable to modulatory fluctuations increases as one ascends the visual hierarchy. This presumably depends on the context in which responses are measured, including the choice of stimuli, the presence or absence of anesthesia, and the cognitive state of the animal. For example, attentional mechanisms are widely believed to act by increasing the gain of neurons involved in a task. Relative to conditions of uncontrolled attention, we might expect that this would lead to a net increase in the mean, but a decrease in the variance, of the modulatory input. Under the modulated Poisson model, this would result in an increase in spike count, accompanied by a decrease in Fano Factor, as has been reported in area V4 ([@R39]). The corresponding predictions for spike count correlation are more complicated, since the relative contributions of the point process and gain correlations depends on the stimulus drive to each cell, as well as the variance of the gain of each cell ([Eq. 5](#FD5){ref-type="disp-formula"}). But if the gain correlation is larger than the point process correlation and the two cells are receiving similar stimulus drive, our model predicts that a reduced modulatory variance would decrease spike count correlation, as has also been observed^[@R39]^.
The modulated Poisson model has broad implications for the characterization of neuronal response variability. It is common practice to summarize variability with the Fano factor (the ratio of the spike count variance to its mean). As clearly revealed in [Figs. 2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}--[3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}, this measure is highly dependent on the conditions under which it is estimated. For example, the Fano factor for the neuron in [Fig. 2b](#F2){ref-type="fig"} would be near 1 if estimated from trials in which the response was low (less than 1 spike per time bin), but would be significantly higher if estimated from trials with larger responses. Thus, the Fano factor, by itself, does not provide a reliable summary of neural variability. In contrast, spike count variability of the modulated Poisson model may be decomposed into a sum of two distinct values, one corresponding to the Poisson component (which is always equal to the mean) and the second arising from unobserved modulatory influences, which grows as the square of the mean ([Eq. 2](#FD2){ref-type="disp-formula"}). The amplitude of this second term, which corresponds to the variance of the modulated gain, provides a compact summary of variability beyond that expected from the basic Poisson model.
An analogous issue arises with the common practice of summarizing the covariation of pairs of neurons with spike count correlation. This measure can depend critically on the conditions under which it is measured ([Fig. 4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}), and thus provides a potentially biased summary of covariability. Indeed, previous studies have noted that neural correlations can increase with firing rate^[@R15]^, and that this behavior can be explained by models in which spikes arise when a Gaussian-distributed membrane voltage crosses a threshold^[@R15],[@R40]--[@R41]^. Our model is quite different but accounts for this phenomenon, as well as the more diverse range of behaviors seen across different cell pairs ([Fig. 4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}), by summarizing covariation with two distinct values. One value represents the point process correlation (which could arise from noise in common sensory inputs^[@R42]^), and the other the correlation of the modulatory influences. At low firing rates, response correlations primarily reflect the former, whereas at high firing rates they reflect the latter. This insight suggests a resolution for a recent controversy in the literature regarding the nature and magnitude of cortical correlations. Despite decades of experimental evidence that cortical cells exhibit modest but significant spike count correlations on the order of 0.1--0.3 ([@R15]), a recent study in macaque V1 found correlations statistically indistinguishable from zero, and concluded that previously reported values arose from experimental confounds^[@R17]^. However, average firing rates were unusually low in this study, and measured correlations were significantly positive for the small subset of neuronal pairs with high responses. The interpretation arising from our model and data ([Fig. 4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}) is that the correlation values reported in [@R17] primarily reflect point process correlations, which are dominant at low firing rates and fall rapidly with cortical distance, whereas most previously reported values reflect correlated modulation, which is only evident at high firing rates, but is generally more substantial and falls more slowly with cortical distance.
Our analysis suggests that fluctuations in gain are correlated over long time scales within but not across neurons ([Fig. 6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}). This implies that the mechanisms underlying slow drifts in response gain differ from the mechanisms that give rise to instantaneous gain correlations. The local nature of these drifts rules out that they result simply from global state changes induced by factors like anesthesia or arousal. That said, comparison of responses in area MT of behaving and anesthetized macaque revealed that cortex is less stable under anesthesia: Fluctuations in gain are significantly stronger ([Fig. 3c](#F3){ref-type="fig"} and [7b](#F7){ref-type="fig"}) and slower ([Fig. 6c](#F6){ref-type="fig"} and [7c](#F7){ref-type="fig"}) in the anesthetized cortex.
What are the implications of our findings for understanding the representation of sensory information in the brain? We believe that the gradual increase in the strength of modulatory fluctuations along the visual pathway ([Fig. 3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}) reflects the gradual transformation and combination of visual signals with information from other sources, such as other sensory inputs, top-down signals representing attention, arousal, metabolic state, reward expectations, emotional state, and so forth. Regardless of the source of modulatory variability, its increasing weight as information ascends cortical pathways raises the question of why it does not overwhelm the sensory information encoded in higher-level visual areas^[@R5]^, with deleterious effects on the accuracy of behaviors that arise from decoding those neural responses^[@R43]--[@R44]^. It is perhaps worth noting that information encoded in the relative responses of groups of neurons will not be affected by common modulatory changes, such as those resulting from attentional focus^[@R11]^. Resolving this mystery is a critical step in understanding how stable perception of the visual world can arise from apparently volatile neural activity, a step made easier by the principled and proven analysis that we have presented here.
Methods {#S10}
=======
Surgical preparation {#S11}
--------------------
We recorded from 18 anesthetized, paralyzed, adult macaque monkeys of either sex (3 *Macaca nemestrina*, 1 *Macaca mulatta*, and 14 *Macaca cynomolgus*). Our standard procedures for the surgical preparation of animals and single-unit recordings have been reported in detail previously^[@R45]^. Briefly, experiments typically lasted 5-6 d, during which we maintained anesthesia with infusion of sufentanil citrate (6-30 μg kg^-1^ h^-1^) and paralysis with infusion of vecuronium bromide (Norcuron; 0.1 mg kg^-1^ h^-1^) in isotonic dextrose-Normosol solution. We monitored vital signs (heart rate, lung pressure, end-tidal pCO~2~, EEG, body temperature, urine flow, and osmolarity) and maintained them within appropriate physiological ranges. Pupils were dilated with topical atropine. The eyes were protected with gas-permeable contact lenses, and refracted with supplementary lenses chosen through direct ophthalmoscopy. At the conclusion of data collection, the animal was killed with an overdose of sodium pentobarbital. All procedures were conducted in compliance with the National Institute of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and with the approval of the New York University Animal Welfare Committee.
Unit recording {#S12}
--------------
Extracellular recordings were made with quartz-platinum-tungsten microelectrodes (Thomas Recording), advanced mechanically into the brain through a craniotomy and small durotomy. Electrode insertion angle and location varied across experiments, depending on the targeted area. We distinguished V1 from V2 on the basis of depth from the cortical surface and changes in the receptive field location of the recorded units. Area MT was identified from the brisk direction-selective responses of isolated neurons. We made recordings from every single unit with a spike waveform that rose sufficiently above noise to be isolated. Stimuli were presented in random order. Data are reported from every unit for which we completed at least 5 repetitions.
Visual stimulation {#S13}
------------------
We presented visual stimuli on a gamma-corrected CRT monitor (Eizo T966; mean luminance, 33 cd/m^2^) at a resolution of 1,280 × 960 with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. Stimuli were presented using Expo software (<http://corevision.cns.nyu.edu>) on an Apple Macintosh computer. For each isolated unit, we first determined its ocular dominance and occluded the non-preferred eye. We presented circularly windowed sinusoidal grating stimuli to map each cell\'s receptive field, determined its preferred size and speed, and then measured selectivity for orientation or spatial frequency.
Analysis of single electrode recordings {#S14}
---------------------------------------
Responses were computed by counting spikes in a 1,000-ms window following response onset. We estimated latency for each cell by choosing the latency that maximized the variance of the tuning curve^[@R46]^. The modulated Poisson model describes a doubly-stochastic process (also known as a "Cox process"^[@R47]^), in which spiking responses are generated by a Poisson process whose rate is the product of drive and gain ([Eqs. 1](#FD1){ref-type="disp-formula"} and [2](#FD2){ref-type="disp-formula"}). To make the model identifiable, we assume that the gain, *G*, is constant within trials, and is distributed across trials according to a Gamma distribution with a mean of one and variance of $\sigma_{G}^{2}$:
p
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−
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(
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with shape parameter $r = 1/\sigma_{G}^{2}$, and scale parameter $s = \sigma_{G}^{2}$. The mean spike count of the modulated Poisson model is the product of the gain, *G*, the stimulus driven rate, *f*(*S*), and the bin duration, Δ*t*, and is thus also distributed according to a Gamma distribution, with parameters $r = 1/\sigma_{G}^{2}$ and $s = \sigma_{G}^{2}f(S)\Delta t$. The spike count distribution is a Gamma mixture of Poisson distributions, and marginalizing over the gain variable yields a negative binomial distribution ([Eq. 4](#FD4){ref-type="disp-formula"}) for the spike count^[@R48]^:
p
(
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With parameters *r* and *s* described above, this distribution has a mean of *rs* = *f*(*S*)Δ*t* and a variance of $\textit{rs} + \textit{rs}^{2} = f(S)\Delta t + \sigma_{G}^{2}f{(S)}^{2}\Delta t^{2}$ as expressed in [Eq. (3)](#FD3){ref-type="disp-formula"}. The negative binomial can also be derived as a Poly-gamma mixture of Gaussian distributions^[@R49]^, a form that allows efficient inference^[@R37]^, but lacks the modulatory interpretation provided here.
We fit both the ordinary and modulated Poisson models to the responses of each individual neuron. The maximum likelihood estimator of the parameter *μ* that characterizes a Poisson distribution is the sample mean, which we estimate separately for each stimulus condition. The modulated Poisson model has two parameters (*r* and *s*) that are related to the stimulus drive and the variance of the gain. We used a simplex algorithm (the Matlab function 'fminsearch') to search for the value of {*r, s*} that minimized the negative log likelihood (NLL) of the full set of observed responses.
To assess the models\' goodness-of-fit, we performed a 100-fold cross-validation. We fitted both models to a data-set consisting of all trials except for one randomly chosen trial per stimulus condition and compared the average log-probability of the hold-out data under each model ([Fig. 3b](#F3){ref-type="fig"}). To evaluate the models\' absolute goodness-of-fit, we compared the log-probability of the data with that of a large number of simulated data sets drawn from the fitted model. Each simulated data set has the same number of repeats as the observed data. We consider a model fit acceptable if the log-probability of the real data lies within the central 95% of the distribution of log-probability of the simulated data. This test can detect both under-dispersion and over-dispersion.
We used the modulated Poisson model to estimate the fraction of spike count variance that arises from the gain signal. As is standard in ANOVA, one can partition the sum of squares into components arising from variations in the stimulus (*S~stim~*), the gain signal (*S~gain~*), and the point process (*S~pp~*):
∑
k
(
N
k
−
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¯
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2
=
∑
k
(
N
k
−
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¯
k
)
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k
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k
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∑
k
(
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¯
k
−
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=
S
pp
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S
gain
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stim
where *N~k~* is the spike count on the *k*th trial, *N̄~k~* is the spike count averaged over those trials in which the presented stimulus was the same as that of the *k*th trial, and *N̄* is the spike count averaged over all trials. The second line follows from the first given the spike count variance of the modulated Poisson model, as expressed in [Eq. (3)](#FD3){ref-type="disp-formula"}. The fraction of within condition variance that arises from excitability fluctuations is given by $S_{\textit{gain}}/\left( {S_{\textit{gain}} + S_{\textit{pp}}} \right)$.
Analysis of multielectrode array recordings {#S15}
-------------------------------------------
Full details regarding these data sets may be found in [@R20]. Briefly, an array containing 96 fixed electrodes was used to record from single units in the superficial layers of macaque primary visual cortex. The animal was anesthetized and stimulated with sinusoidal gratings. We included all units that could be tracked throughout the entire experiment and whose mean response exceeded 2 spikes/sec for at least one stimulus condition. We opted to leave out one set of array recordings (data set 3 in [@R20]) because the responses exhibited uncharacteristically strong correlations across time and neurons; we suspect the cortical surface was still recovering from array insertion. In our modeling framework, pairwise response correlations can result from both correlated point processes, as well as correlated gain fluctuations. To separate these two sources, we used the covariance decomposition formula in [Eq. (5)](#FD5){ref-type="disp-formula"} and searched for the point process correlation and gain correlation that maximized the likelihood of the observed response relations. Rather than fitting response correlations directly, we performed the optimization on Z-transformed spike count correlations:
z
=
1
2
ln
(
1
\+
r
1
−
r
)
where *r* is the spike count correlation, and ln the natural logarithm. The advantages of this Fisher transformation include a quicker convergence to normality and variance stabilization. We used a simplex algorithm to find the \[*r~Pij~*, *r~Gij~*\] values that maximized the likelihood of the observed response correlations under a normal residual distribution. This approach works well for most neuronal pairs ([Fig. 4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}), but the model parameters are not always well constrained. For instance, when the modulation of the direction tuning curve is weak for both neurons, many parameter combinations will yield a similar likelihood. For the population analysis ([Fig. 5](#F5){ref-type="fig"}), we therefore took the uncertainty associated with the parameter estimates into account. We modeled the population distribution of the mean parameter values with a bivariate normal distribution, and searched for the parameter values that maximized the likelihood across all neuronal pairs. Poorly constrained pairs of neurons have a flatter likelihood function and are therefore down-weighted in this analysis. Although we consider this approach preferable, simple averaging of the parameter estimates yielded similar results.
To study the temporal structure of the gain signal, we estimated its autocorrelation function. We first removed the stimulus-induced temporal structure by subtracting the appropriate stimulus-elicited mean response from the observed responses. We then estimated the remaining covariance between pairs of responses separated by different time lags. To obtain the autocorrelation of the excitability signal at a given time lag, this covariance is normalized by the variance of the excitability signal, *S~gain~*/(*N* − 1).
This work was supported by NIH grants EY04440, EY022428, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and postdoctoral fellowships from the Fund for Scientific Research of Flanders and the Belgian American Educational Foundation awarded to RLTG. We are grateful to Romesh Kumbhani and Neil Rabinowitz for helpful discussions, and to members of the Movshon Laboratory for sharing their data.
**Author contributions**: R.L.T.G., J.A.M., and E.P.S. designed research, R.L.T.G. analyzed data, and R.L.T.G., J.A.M., and E.P.S. wrote the paper.
{#F1}
{#F2}
{#F3}
{#F4}
{#F5}
{#F6}
![Analysis of spike count variance for a population of MT neurons recorded in awake, behaving macaques^[@R18],[@R22]^. (**a**) Variance-to-mean relationship for 307 MT cells. Each data point illustrates the mean and variance of the spike count in a 2,000-ms window of one cell for one stimulus condition. (**b**) Distribution of stimulus-independent fluctuations in gain, summarized by the coefficient of variation of the gain (top) and fraction of within-condition variance explained by gain fluctuations (bottom). (**c**) The autocorrelation function of the gain, averaged across units (trials are assumed to be separated by 5 sec).](nihms582311f7){#F7}
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Central |
Excision of mid-rectal lesions by the Kraske sacral approach.
Thirteen patients had a benign and 4 patients a malignant growth of the mid-rectum excised by the Kraske sacral procedure. Two patients developed a faecal fistula, one of which closed spontaneously. Recurrence of a villous adenoma occurred in 2 patients. There was no operative mortality and no thromboembolic or cardiovascular complications. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Abstracts |
Uses
Rosuvastatin is used as an adjunct to nondrug therapies (i.e., lifestyle modifications) for prevention of cardiovascular events and for the management of dyslipidemias.
Prevention of Cardiovascular Events
The American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) cholesterol management guideline recommends statins as first-line therapy for prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) in adults. There is extensive evidence demonstrating that statins can substantially reduce ASCVD risk when used for secondary prevention or primary prevention (in high-risk patients). Because the relative reduction in ASCVD risk is correlated with the degree of low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol lowering, the maximum tolerated statin intensity should be used to achieve optimum ASCVD benefits. According to the ACC/AHA guidelines, rosuvastatin may be used for primary or secondary prevention in adults when moderate- or high-intensity statin therapy is indicated.(See Prevention of Cardiovascular Events under Dosage and Administration: Dosage.) Nonstatin therapies do not provide acceptable ASCVD risk reduction benefits compared to their potential for adverse effects in the routine prevention of ASCVD. and also consult the most recent ACC/AHA Guideline on the Treatment of Blood Cholesterol to Reduce Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Risk in Adults (available at http://www.cardiosource.org or http://my.americanheart.org).
Primary Prevention
Rosuvastatin is used as an adjunct to nondrug therapies (i.e., lifestyle modifications) in patients without clinical evidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) who have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease based on age (men 50 years of age or older, women 60 years of age or older), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) concentrations of 2 mg/L or greater, and at least one additional cardiovascular disease risk factor (e.g., hypertension, low high-density lipoprotein [HDL]-cholesterol concentrations, smoking, family history of premature CHD) to reduce the risk of stroke or myocardial infarction (MI) and to reduce the risk of undergoing arterial revascularization procedures.
The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline recommends statins as first-line therapy for primary prevention in patients 21 years of age and older without clinical ASCVD who have primary, severe elevations in LDL-cholesterol concentration (190 mg/dL or greater); patients 40-75 years of age with type 1 or 2 diabetes mellitus; and patients 40-75 years of age with LDL-cholesterol concentrations of 70-189 mg/dL and an estimated 10-year ASCVD risk of 7.5% or higher. Before initiating statin therapy for primary prevention in patients without clinical ASCVD or diabetes mellitus, it is reasonable for clinicians and patients to discuss the potential for ASCVD risk reduction benefits, adverse effects, and drug interactions, as well as patient preferences for treatment.
In the Justification for the Use of Statins in Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin (JUPITER) study in 17,802 patients (men 50 years of age or older and women 60 years of age or older) without clinical evidence of cardiovascular disease who had LDL-cholesterol concentrations of less than 130 mg/dL and hsCRP concentrations of 2 mg/L or greater, therapy with rosuvastatin (20 mg daily) for a mean of 2 years reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events (i.e., composite of cardiovascular death, nonfatal MI, nonfatal stroke, and hospitalization for unstable angina or an arterial revascularization procedure) by 44% compared with placebo. Aside from reducing the risk of the primary composite end point, rosuvastatin also substantially reduced the risk of certain individual components of the primary end point (i.e., nonfatal MI, nonfatal stroke, arterial revascularization procedure), as well as the risk of any (fatal and nonfatal) MI and stroke. However, there were no treatment differences among the rosuvastatin and placebo groups for death secondary to cardiovascular causes or hospitalization for unstable angina. At one year, rosuvastatin increased HDL-cholesterol concentrations and reduced LDL-cholesterol, hsCRP, total cholesterol, and serum triglyceride concentrations compared with placebo. In a post hoc subgroup analysis of 1405 patients with hsCRP concentrations of 2 mg/L or greater and no other traditional risk factors (smoking, blood pressure of at least 140/90 mmHg or taking antihypertensives, low HDL-cholesterol concentrations) other than age, there was no substantial treatment benefit associated with rosuvastatin after adjustment for high HDL-cholesterol concentrations.
Reducing Progression of Coronary Atherosclerosis
Rosuvastatin is used as an adjunct to dietary therapy to slow the progression of atherosclerosis as part of a treatment strategy to lower total and LDL-cholesterol concentrations to target levels.
In the Measuring Effects on Intima Media Thickness: an Evaluation of Rosuvastatin (METEOR) study in 984 patients with elevated LDL-cholesterol concentrations and subclinical atherosclerosis (as determined by carotid intimal-medial thickness [cIMT]) who were at low risk (Framingham risk less than 10% over 10 years) for symptomatic coronary artery disease, therapy with rosuvastatin (40 mg daily) for 2 years slowed progression of atherosclerosis (as determined by B-mode ultrasound of the rate of change in mean maximum cIMT) compared with placebo. However, rosuvastatin did not induce disease regression.
Intensity of Statin Therapy
The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that the appropriate intensity of a statin should be used to reduce the risk of ASCVD in patients most likely to benefit. Based on the average LDL-cholesterol response observed with specific statins and dosages used in the randomized controlled studies evaluated by the guideline expert panel, ACC/AHA considers rosuvastatin 5-10 mg daily to be a moderate-intensity statin (producing approximate LDL-cholesterol reductions of 30% to less than 50%) and rosuvastatin 20-40 mg daily to be a high-intensity statin (producing average LDL-cholesterol reductions of at least 50%). However, individual response may vary in clinical practice.
Combination Antilipemic Therapy
The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that nonstatin drugs may be useful adjuncts to statin therapy in certain high-risk patients (e.g., patients with ASCVD, LDL-cholesterol concentrations of at least 190 mg/dL, or diabetes mellitus) who have a less-than-anticipated response to statins, are unable to tolerate a less-than-recommended intensity of a statin, or are completely intolerant to statin therapy, particularly if there is evidence from randomized controlled studies suggesting that the addition of the nonstatin drug further reduces ASCVD events. If combination therapy is necessary, selection of the nonstatin drug should be based on the risk and benefit profile (i.e., reduction in ASCVD risk outweighs the drug's potential for adverse effects and drug interactions) and patient preferences.
Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease
The potential benefits of rosuvastatin in patients with chronic kidney disease, a population at high risk of cardiovascular disease, were evaluated in the Study to Evaluate the Use of Rosuvastatin in Subjects on Regular Hemodialysis (AURORA), a randomized, double-blind study in 2776 patients undergoing hemodialysis. In this study, therapy with rosuvastatin 10 mg daily for a median duration of 3.8 years did not substantially reduce the primary composite end point of cardiovascular death, nonfatal MI, or nonfatal stroke compared with placebo.
Dyslipidemias
Rosuvastatin is used as an adjunct to dietary therapy for the management of primary hyperlipidemia or mixed dyslipidemia, hypertriglyceridemia, primary dysbetalipoproteinemia, and/or homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. Efficacy of rosuvastatin in patients with Fredrickson type I or V dyslipidemia has not been established.
Primary Hyperlipidemia or Mixed Dyslipidemia
Adults
Rosuvastatin is used as an adjunct to nondrug therapies (e.g., dietary management) in adults to reduce elevated total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, apolipoprotein B (apo B), non-HDL-cholesterol, and triglyceride concentrations, and to increase HDL-cholesterol concentrations in the management of primary hyperlipidemia or mixed dyslipidemia. Efficacy of rosuvastatin in patients with hyperlipidemia or mixed dyslipidemia has been established in placebo-controlled studies and in comparative studies with other statins (e.g., atorvastatin, pravastatin, simvastatin). Statins such as rosuvastatin also are used in combination with fenofibrate to decrease triglyceride concentrations and increase HDL-cholesterol concentrations in patients with mixed dyslipidemia and CHD (or CHD risk equivalents) who are receiving optimal statin therapy; however, no additional benefit on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality has been demonstrated with such combination therapy beyond that already established with statin monotherapy.
Reductions in total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol concentrations achieved with usual dosages of rosuvastatin substantially exceed those with placebo or compared with baseline values. In a dose-ranging study in patients with primary hyperlipidemia, mean reductions in total cholesterol averaged 33, 36, 40, or 46% with rosuvastatin dosages of 5, 10, 20, or 40 mg, respectively, compared with 5% with placebo; corresponding reductions in LDL-cholesterol concentrations were 45, 52, 55, or 63%, respectively, versus 7% with placebo, while increases in HDL-cholesterol averaged 13, 14, 8, or 10%, respectively, versus 3% with placebo.
In a 6-week comparative study in more than 2200 patients (approximately 50% were women and about 30% were 65 years of age or older) with primary hyperlipidemia, reductions in LDL-cholesterol concentrations in patients receiving rosuvastatin (10 mg daily) exceeded those with atorvastatin (10 mg daily), pravastatin (10, 20, or 40 mg daily), or simvastatin (10, 20, or 40 mg daily). LDL-cholesterol reductions from baseline averaged 46, 52, or 55% with rosuvastatin 10, 20, or 40 mg, respectively, daily in these patients.
Pediatric Patients
Rosuvastatin is used as an adjunct to nondrug therapies (e.g., dietary management) to decrease elevated serum total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and apo B concentrations in the management of heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in children and adolescents 8-17 years of age who, despite an adequate trial of dietary management, have a serum LDL-cholesterol concentration exceeding 190 mg/dL or a serum LDL-cholesterol concentration exceeding 160 mg/dL and either a family history of premature cardiovascular disease or 2 or more other cardiovascular risk factors. The long-term effect of rosuvastatin therapy in childhood on reducing cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in adulthood has not been established. and also consult the most recent Integrated Guidelines for Cardiovascular Health and Risk Reduction in Children and Adolescents (available at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov).
Efficacy and safety of rosuvastatin in pediatric patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia were evaluated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study and an open-label uncontrolled study. In the controlled study (which was followed by a 40-week, open-label, dose-titration phase), 176 children and adolescents 10-17 years of age with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (mean baseline LDL-cholesterol concentration of 233 mg/dL) were randomized to receive either rosuvastatin (5, 10, or 20 mg daily) or placebo for 12 weeks; after 12 weeks of the double-blind phase, all patients entered an open-label phase and received rosuvastatin for an additional 40 weeks. Treatment with rosuvastatin resulted in substantial reductions in concentrations of total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol (primary end point), and apo B compared with placebo during the 12-week double-blind phase. Mean reductions in total cholesterol averaged 30, 34, or 39% with rosuvastatin dosages of 5, 10, or 20 mg, respectively, compared with 0% with placebo; corresponding reductions in LDL-cholesterol concentrations were 38, 45, or 50%, respectively, versus 1% with placebo, and in apo B concentrations were 32, 38, or 41%, respectively, versus 2% with placebo. Changes in concentrations of triglycerides and HDL-cholesterol were similar in patients receiving rosuvastatin and in those receiving placebo. At the end of the 12-week double-blind phase, 12, 41, or 41% of patients receiving rosuvastatin dosages of 5, 10, or 20 mg achieved the LDL-cholesterol goal of less than 110 mg/dL compared with 0% of those receiving placebo. During the 40-week open-label phase, 71% of patients were titrated to the maximum rosuvastatin dosage of 20 mg daily and 41% of the patients achieved the LDL-cholesterol goal of less than 110 mg/dL.
In the open-label study (Hypercholesterolaemia in Children and Adolescents taking Rosuvastatin Open Label [CHARON]), 175 children and adolescents 8-17 years of age with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (defined as a documented genetic defect in the LDL receptor or in apo B) and a mean baseline LDL-cholesterol concentration of 236 mg/dL received rosuvastatin at an initial dosage of 5 mg once daily, titrated to a maximum tolerated dosage of 10 mg daily (in patients 8-9 years of age) or 20 mg daily (in patients 10-17 years of age). The observed reductions in LDL-cholesterol concentrations from baseline were consistent across age groups and consistent with previous experience in controlled trials of adults and pediatric patients. At 24 months, LDL-cholesterol concentrations were reduced from baseline by approximately 35-43%; 48, 46, or 32% of patients receiving rosuvastatin dosages of 5, 10, or 20 mg daily, respectively, achieved the LDL-cholesterol goal of less than 110 mg/dL.
Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia
Adults
Rosuvastatin is used as an adjunct to other lipid-lowering therapies (e.g., plasma LDL-apheresis) or alone, if such therapies are not available, to reduce elevated total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and apo B concentrations in adults with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. In an open-label, forced-titration study in 40 patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, therapy with rosuvastatin (20-40 mg daily [titrated at a 6-week interval]) decreased LDL-cholesterol concentrations by a mean of 22%. Approximately 33% of patients achieved additional (at least 6%) LDL-cholesterol lowering with an increase in the rosuvastatin dosage from 20 to 40 mg daily. Among the 27 patients with LDL-cholesterol reductions of 15% or greater, the mean LDL-cholesterol reduction achieved was 30%; among the 13 patients with LDL-cholesterol reductions of less than 15%, 3 had no change or an increase in LDL-cholesterol concentrations. LDL-cholesterol reductions of 15% or greater were observed in 3 of 5 patients with known receptor-negative status.
Pediatric Patients
Rosuvastatin is used alone or in combination with other lipid-lowering therapies (e.g., LDL apheresis) to decrease elevated serum LDL-cholesterol, total cholesterol, non-HDL-cholesterol, and apo B concentrations in children and adolescents 7-17 years of age with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia as an adjunct to nondrug therapies (e.g., dietary management). In a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study in 14 children and adolescents 6 years of age or older with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (mean baseline LDL-cholesterol concentration of 416 mg/dL, 50% receiving apheresis, 57% receiving ezetimibe), treatment with rosuvastatin 20 mg daily for 6 weeks resulted in substantial reductions in concentrations of LDL-cholesterol (22.3%), total cholesterol (20.1%), non-HDL-cholesterol (22.9%), and apo B (17.1%) compared with placebo.
Hypertriglyceridemia
Rosuvastatin is used as an adjunct to nondrug therapies (e.g., dietary management) in the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia. In a 6-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in patients with primary hypertriglyceridemia (baseline triglyceride concentrations of 273-817 mg/dL), triglyceride concentrations were reduced by a median of 21, 37, 37, or 43% with rosuvastatin dosages of 5, 10, 20, or 40 mg daily, respectively, and increased by a median of 1% with placebo. AHA states that although statins have consistently shown benefit in subgroups with or without high triglyceride concentrations, fibric acid derivatives have more commonly been shown to provide greater benefit in subgroups with increased triglyceride concentrations.
Primary Dysbetalipoproteinemia
Rosuvastatin is used as an adjunct to nondrug therapies (e.g., dietary management) for the treatment of primary dysbetalipoproteinemia (Fredrickson type III).
For additional information on the role of rosuvastatin or other statins in the treatment of lipoprotein disorders, prevention of cardiovascular events, or other uses, see General Principles of Antilipemic Therapy and also Uses in the HMG-CoA Reductase Inhibitors General Statement 24:06.08.
Dosage and Administration
General
Patients should be placed on a standard cholesterol-lowering diet before receiving rosuvastatin and should continue on this diet during treatment. For recommendations on dietary and other nondrug therapies (i.e., lifestyle modifications), consult the most recent American Heart Association (AHA)/American College of Cardiology (ACC) Guideline on Lifestyle Management to Reduce Cardiovascular Risk (available at http://www.cardiosource.org or http://my.americanheart.org).
The manufacturer states that serum lipoprotein concentrations should be determined within 2-4 weeks following initiation and/or titration of rosuvastatin, and that dosage should be adjusted accordingly. The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that lipoprotein concentrations should be determined within 4-12 weeks following initiation of statin therapy (to determine the patient's response to therapy and adherence) and monitored every 3-12 months thereafter as clinically indicated.
Adherence to lifestyle modifications and to statin therapy are required for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk reduction and, thus, should be reinforced periodically.
Administration
Rosuvastatin is administered orally as a single dose at any time of day, with or without food; the tablets should be swallowed whole. Two doses of rosuvastatin should not be taken within 12 hours of each other.
Dosage
Dosage of rosuvastatin calcium is expressed in terms of rosuvastatin.
When initiating rosuvastatin therapy or switching from another statin, the appropriate initial dosage of rosuvastatin should be used; dosage may then be carefully adjusted according to individual requirements (i.e., percent reduction in low-density lipoprotein [LDL]-cholesterol concentration) and response.
Prevention of Cardiovascular Events
The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that the appropriate intensity of statin therapy should be used to reduce ASCVD risk in patients most likely to benefit. Giving a maximally tolerated statin intensity should be emphasized over giving lower statin dosages and adding nonstatin drugs to address low HDL-cholesterol or high triglyceride concentrations, a strategy that has not yet been shown to reduce ASCVD risk. It should be noted that although dosages of 5 and 40 mg once daily are FDA-labeled dosages of rosuvastatin, these dosages were not evaluated in randomized controlled studies reviewed by the ACC/AHA expert panel.
Primary Prevention
For primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in patients 21 years of age and older without clinical ASCVD who have primary, severe elevations in LDL-cholesterol concentration (190 mg/dL or greater), the ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline recommends that high-intensity statin therapy (e.g., rosuvastatin 20-40 mg once daily) be initiated. In patients who are unable to tolerate high-intensity statin therapy, the maximum tolerated statin intensity should be used. The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that it is reasonable to intensify statin therapy to achieve at least a 50% reduction in LDL-cholesterol concentrations. In patients currently receiving the maximum intensity of statin therapy, addition of a nonstatin drug may be considered to achieve further reductions in LDL-cholesterol concentrations; however, the potential benefits and risks (e.g., adverse effects, drug interactions) of such combined therapy, along with patient preferences, should be considered.
For primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in patients 40-75 years of age with type 1 or 2 diabetes mellitus and LDL-cholesterol concentrations of 70-189 mg/dL, the ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline recommends that moderate-intensity statin therapy (e.g., rosuvastatin 5-10 mg once daily) be initiated or continued. In those with an estimated 10-year ASCVD risk of 7.5% or higher, it is reasonable to consider high-intensity statin therapy (e.g., rosuvastatin 20-40 mg once daily) unless contraindicated. In patients with diabetes mellitus who are younger than 40 or older than 75 years of age, it is reasonable to evaluate the potential benefits, adverse effects, drug interactions, and patient preferences when deciding to initiate, continue, or intensify statin therapy.
For primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in patients 40-75 years of age without clinical ASCVD or diabetes mellitus who have LDL-cholesterol concentrations of 70-189 mg/dL and an estimated 10-year ASCVD risk of 7.5% or higher, the ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline recommends that moderate- (e.g., rosuvastatin 5-10 mg once daily) to high-intensity statin therapy (e.g., rosuvastatin 20-40 mg once daily) be initiated or continued. In those with an estimated 10-year ASCVD risk of 5 to less than 7.5%, it is reasonable to offer treatment with moderate-intensity statin therapy. Before initiating statin therapy for primary prevention of ASCVD in patients 40-75 years of age without clinical ASCVD or diabetes mellitus who have LDL-cholesterol concentrations of 70-189 mg/dL, it is reasonable for clinicians and patients to discuss the potential benefits, adverse effects, drug interactions, and patient preferences for such therapy.
Secondary Prevention
For secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease in patients 21-75 years of age with clinical ASCVD, the ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline recommends that high-intensity statin therapy (e.g., rosuvastatin 20-40 mg once daily) be initiated or continued unless contraindicated. In patients 21-75 years of age with clinical ASCVD who are at increased risk for developing statin-associated adverse effects or in whom high-intensity statin therapy is inappropriate or contraindicated, moderate-intensity statin therapy (e.g., rosuvastatin 5-10 mg once daily) should be given if tolerated. In patients older than 75 years of age with clinical ASCVD, use of statin therapy should be individualized based on the potential benefits, adverse effects, drug interactions, and patient preferences; it is reasonable to consider initiating or continuing moderate-intensity statin therapy in such patients if tolerated.
Dyslipidemias
General Dosage
The usual initial dosage of rosuvastatin in adults is 10-20 mg once daily. The dosage range of rosuvastatin in adults is 5-40 mg once daily. The maximum 40-mg daily dosage of rosuvastatin should be used only for those patients who have not achieved their LDL-cholesterol goal with the 20-mg daily dosage.
Following initiation and/or titration of rosuvastatin dosage, lipoprotein concentrations should be determined within 2-4 weeks and dosage adjusted accordingly.
Heterozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia in Pediatric Patients
The recommended dosage range of rosuvastatin for the management of heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in children 8 to less than 10 years of age is 5-10 mg once daily.
The recommended dosage range of rosuvastatin for the management of heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in children and adolescents 10-17 years of age is 5-20 mg once daily.
The maximum dosage of rosuvastatin in pediatric patients is 20 mg daily.
Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia
The usual initial dosage of rosuvastatin in adults with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia is 20 mg once daily.
The recommended dosage of rosuvastatin in children and adolescents 7-17 years of age with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia is 20 mg once daily.
Concomitant Drug Therapy
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and gemfibrozil should be avoided; if concomitant use cannot be avoided, dosage of rosuvastatin should be limited.(See Gemfibrozil under Drug Interactions: Fibric Acid Derivatives.)
Caution is advised if rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with ritonavir-boosted atazanavir or with the fixed combination of lopinavir and ritonavir (lopinavir/ritonavir). Dosage of rosuvastatin should be limited.(Drug Interactions: HIV Protease Inhibitors.)
Caution is advised if rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with simeprevir. Dosage of rosuvastatin should be limited.(See Simeprevir under Drug Interactions: HCV Protease Inhibitors.)
Dosage Modification
The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that decreasing the statin dosage in adults may be considered when LDL-cholesterol concentrations are less than 40 mg/dL on 2 consecutive measurements; however, there are no data to suggest that LDL-cholesterol concentrations below 40 mg/dL would increase the risk of adverse effects.
Special Populations
Asian Patients
The manufacturer recommends that an initial rosuvastatin dosage of 5 mg once daily be considered in Asian patients.(See Asian Patients under Warnings/Precautions: Specific Populations, in Cautions.)
Renal Impairment
In patients with severe renal impairment (creatinine clearance less than 30 mL/minute per 1.73 m) who are not undergoing hemodialysis, rosuvastatin should be initiated at a dosage of 5 mg once daily, and dosage should not exceed 10 mg once daily.(See Renal Impairment under Warnings/Precautions: Specific Populations, in Cautions.)
Hepatic Impairment
The manufacturer makes no specific dosage recommendations at this time for patients with hepatic impairment. (See Cautions: Contraindications and also Hepatic Impairment under Warnings/Precautions: Specific Populations, in Cautions.)
Geriatric Patients
Although there are no specific dosage recommendations for geriatric patients, caution is recommended when rosuvastatin is used in these patients.(See Geriatric Use under Warnings/Precautions: Specific Populations, in Cautions.)
Known hypersensitivity to rosuvastatin or any ingredient in the formulation.(See Sensitivity Reactions under Cautions: Warnings/Precautions.)
Warnings/Precautions
Fetal/Neonatal Morbidity and Mortality
Serum cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations increase during normal pregnancy, and cholesterol products are essential for fetal development; therefore, suppression of cholesterol biosynthesis by rosuvastatin during pregnancy may cause fetal harm. Atherosclerosis is a chronic process, and discontinuance of antilipemic drugs during pregnancy should have little impact on long-term outcomes of primary hyperlipidemia therapy. There is no known clinical benefit for continued use of antilipemic drugs during pregnancy.
Limited human data available to date have not identified an increased risk of major congenital malformations or miscarriage with the use of rosuvastatin during pregnancy; however, congenital anomalies following intrauterine exposure to other statins have been reported rarely. In animal studies, there were no adverse developmental effects when rosuvastatin was administered to rats and rabbits during the period of organogenesis at systemic exposures equivalent to the maximum recommended human dosage of 40 mg daily; decreased pup survival occurred at doses equivalent to or higher than the maximum recommended human dose.(See Pregnancy under Warnings/Precautions: Specific Populations, in Cautions.)
Musculoskeletal Effects
Myopathy and rhabdomyolysis with acute renal failure secondary to myoglobinuria have been reported in patients receiving statins, including rosuvastatin. These adverse effects can occur at any dosage, but the risk is increased with the highest dosage of rosuvastatin (40 mg daily).
Rosuvastatin should be used with caution in patients with predisposing factors for myopathy (e.g., advanced age [65 years or older], renal impairment, inadequately treated hypothyroidism). The risk of myopathy may be increased when rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with some other antilipemic agents (niacin or certain fibric-acid derivatives [i.e., gemfibrozil]), cyclosporine, ritonavir-boosted atazanavir, the fixed combination of lopinavir and ritonavir (lopinavir/ritonavir), or simeprevir.(See Drug Interactions.)
The American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) cholesterol management guideline does not recommend routine monitoring of CK concentrations in patients receiving statin therapy. However, the guideline states that it is reasonable to obtain baseline CK concentrations in adults at increased risk of developing adverse musculoskeletal effects (e.g., patients with personal or family history of statin intolerance or muscle disease, patients receiving concomitant therapy with myotoxic drugs) before initiating statin therapy. During statin therapy, it is reasonable to measure CK concentrations in adults experiencing muscle symptoms (e.g., pain, tenderness, stiffness, cramping, weakness, generalized fatigue).
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)-appointed expert panel on integrated guidelines for cardiovascular health and risk reduction in children and adolescents states that baseline CK concentrations should be obtained before initiating statin therapy in pediatric patients. In addition, routine monitoring for muscle toxicity is strongly recommended in children and adolescents receiving statin therapy.
Rosuvastatin should be discontinued if CK concentrations become markedly elevated or if myopathy is diagnosed or suspected. Rosuvastatin therapy should be temporarily withheld in any patient experiencing an acute, serious condition suggestive of myopathy or predisposing to the development of renal failure secondary to rhabdomyolysis (e.g., sepsis; hypotension; dehydration; major surgery; trauma; severe metabolic, endocrine, or electrolyte disorders; uncontrolled seizures).(See Advice to Patients.)
and also consult the most recent ACC/AHA Guideline on the Treatment of Blood Cholesterol to Reduce Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Risk in Adults (available at http://www.cardiosource.org or http://my.americanheart.org) and the Integrated Guidelines for Cardiovascular Health and Risk Reduction in Children and Adolescents (available at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov).
Hepatic Effects
Increases in serum aminotransferase (i.e., AST [SGOT], ALT [SGPT]) concentrations have been reported in patients receiving statins, including rosuvastatin. These increases usually were transient and resolved or improved with continued therapy or after temporary interruption of therapy. In a pooled analysis of placebo-controlled studies, increases in serum aminotransferase concentrations exceeding 3 times the upper limit of normal (ULN) occurred in 1.1% of patients receiving rosuvastatin compared with 0.5% of those receiving placebo. Jaundice has been reported in at least 2 patients but resolved following discontinuance of rosuvastatin therapy; a causal relationship to rosuvastatin has not been established. Although liver failure and irreversible liver disease have not been reported in clinical studies evaluating rosuvastatin, cases of fatal and nonfatal hepatic failure have been reported rarely in patients receiving statins, including rosuvastatin, during postmarketing surveillance.
Liver function tests should be performed prior to initiation of rosuvastatin therapy and repeated as clinically indicated (e.g., presence of manifestations suggestive of liver damage). Although the manufacturer previously recommended more frequent monitoring of liver function (i.e., at 12 weeks following initiation of therapy or any increase in dosage, then periodically [e.g., semiannually] thereafter), FDA concluded that serious statin-related liver injury is rare and unpredictable in individual patients, and that routine periodic monitoring of liver enzymes does not appear to be effective in detecting or preventing serious statin-related liver injury. The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that, during statin therapy, it is reasonable to obtain liver function tests in adults experiencing symptoms of hepatotoxicity (e.g., unusual fatigue or weakness, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, dark colored urine, yellowing of the skin or sclera). However, the NHLBI expert panel on integrated guidelines for cardiovascular health and risk reduction in children and adolescents states that routine monitoring of hepatic function is strongly recommended in children and adolescents receiving statin therapy.
If serious liver injury with clinical manifestations and/or hyperbilirubinemia or jaundice occurs, rosuvastatin therapy should be promptly interrupted. If an alternate etiology is not found, rosuvastatin therapy should not be restarted.
Rosuvastatin should be used with caution in patients who consume substantial amounts of alcohol and/or have a history of chronic liver disease. The drug is contraindicated in patients with active liver disease, including unexplained, persistent elevations in serum aminotransferase concentrations.
Interactions with Coumarin-derivative Anticoagulants
Because rosuvastatin may potentiate the anticoagulant effects of coumarin-derivative anticoagulants, caution should be exercised when these agents are used concomitantly. If rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with coumarin-derivative anticoagulants, international normalized ratio (INR) should be stable before initiating rosuvastatin and should be monitored frequently enough during early therapy (or following adjustment of rosuvastatin dosage) to ensure that no substantial alteration in INR occurs.
Proteinuria and Hematuria
Transient dipstick-positive proteinuria and microscopic hematuria (not associated with worsening renal function) have been reported in patients receiving rosuvastatin. These findings occurred more frequently in patients receiving rosuvastatin 40 mg compared with lower doses of rosuvastatin or comparator statins in clinical trials. Although the clinical importance of this finding is not known, dosage reduction should be considered in patients receiving rosuvastatin who have unexplained persistent proteinuria and/or hematuria during routine urinalysis testing.
Endocrine Effects
Increases in glycosylated hemoglobin (hemoglobin A1c [HbA1c]) and fasting serum glucose concentrations have been reported in patients receiving statins, including rosuvastatin. Data from clinical trials and meta-analyses indicate that statin therapy may increase the risk of developing diabetes mellitus. In the JUPITER study, a higher incidence of diabetes mellitus was reported in patients receiving rosuvastatin (2.8%) compared with those receiving placebo (2.3%). In addition, mean HbA1c was increased by 0.1% in patients receiving rosuvastatin compared with those receiving placebo, and the number of patients with an HbA1c greater than 6.5% also was substantially higher among those receiving rosuvastatin. Despite these findings, FDA continues to believe that the cardiovascular benefits of statins outweigh these small increased risks. The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that patients receiving statin therapy should be evaluated for new-onset diabetes mellitus according to current diabetes screening guidelines. If diabetes mellitus develops during statin therapy, patients should be encouraged to adhere to a heart-healthy diet, engage in physical activity, achieve and maintain a healthy body weight, cease tobacco use, and continue statin therapy to reduce the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).
Although clinical studies have shown that rosuvastatin alone does not reduce basal plasma cortisol concentration or impair adrenal reserve, statins interfere with cholesterol synthesis and theoretically may blunt adrenal or gonadal steroid hormone production. Caution should be exercised if rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with drugs that may decrease the levels or activity of endogenous steroid hormones (e.g., ketoconazole, spironolactone, cimetidine).
Sensitivity Reactions
Hypersensitivity reactions, including rash, pruritus, urticaria, and angioedema, have been reported in patients receiving rosuvastatin.
Cognitive Impairment
Cognitive impairment (e.g., memory loss, forgetfulness, amnesia, memory impairment, confusion) has been reported rarely with all statins during postmarketing surveillance. This adverse CNS effect generally was nonserious and reversible, with variable times to symptom onset (1 day to years) and symptom resolution (median of 3 weeks following discontinuance of statin therapy). Following review of available data (i.e., from the Adverse Event Reporting System [AERS] database, randomized clinical trials, observational studies, case reports), FDA concluded that cases of cognitive impairment did not appear to be associated with fixed or progressive dementia (e.g., Alzheimer's disease) or result in clinically important cognitive decline. Development of cognitive impairment did not appear to be associated with any specific statin, age of the patient, statin dosage, or concomitant drug therapy. Therefore, FDA continues to believe that the cardiovascular benefits of statins outweigh this small increased risk of cognitive impairment. The National Lipid Association (NLA) statin safety assessment task force recommends that patients experiencing manifestations consistent with cognitive impairment be evaluated and managed appropriately. The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that, in patients presenting with confusion or memory impairment, it is reasonable to evaluate the patient for statin as well as nonstatin causes (e.g., exposure to other drugs, systemic or neuropsychiatric causes).
Specific Populations
Pregnancy
Safety of rosuvastatin has not been established in pregnant women; there are no known benefits of therapy with the drug during pregnancy. (See Cautions: Contraindications and also see Fetal/Neonatal Morbidity and Mortality under Cautions: Warnings/Precautions.)
Rosuvastatin should be discontinued immediately if pregnancy is known or suspected. Women of childbearing potential should use effective contraception while receiving the drug.(See Advice to Patients.)
Lactation
Limited data indicate that rosuvastatin is distributed into human milk; however, the effects of the drug on breast-fed infants or milk production are not known. Because of the potential for serious adverse reactions from rosuvastatin in nursing infants, the drug is contraindicated in nursing women. Women who require rosuvastatin therapy should not breast-feed their infants.
Pediatric Use
Safety and efficacy of rosuvastatin have not been established in pediatric patients younger than 8 years of age.
In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in children and adolescents 10-17 years of age (females were at least 1 year postmenarche) with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, the adverse effect profile of rosuvastatin (5-20 mg daily for 12 weeks) generally was similar to that of placebo. However, elevations in serum CK concentrations exceeding 10 times the ULN were observed more frequently in children receiving rosuvastatin compared with those receiving placebo; 3% of children receiving rosuvastatin (2 receiving 10 mg daily and 2 receiving 20 mg daily) had increased CK concentrations exceeding 10 times the ULN compared with 0% of those receiving placebo. Although controlled clinical studies of rosuvastatin in children younger than 10 years of age with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia have not been conducted, the drug was evaluated in a 2-year, open-label study that included patients 8-17 years of age with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia; results of this study showed that safety and efficacy of rosuvastatin in this age group generally were similar to those observed in the adult population. In a population pharmacokinetic analysis of the 2 pediatric studies in patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, rosuvastatin exposure appeared similar to or less than that observed in adults. In a 6-week double-blind, crossover study that was followed by 12 weeks of open-label treatment in children and adolescents 7-15 years of age with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, the safety profile of rosuvastatin (20 mg daily) was consistent with that in adults.
In studies evaluating rosuvastatin in the pediatric population, there were no detectable adverse effects on growth, weight, body mass index (BMI), or sexual maturation in children and adolescents.
If rosuvastatin therapy is considered, the manufacturer states that adolescent girls should be advised to use effective and appropriate contraceptive methods during therapy to reduce the likelihood of unintended pregnancy.(See Fetal/Neonatal Morbidity and Mortality under Cautions: Warnings/Precautions.)
Geriatric Use
Of the 10,275 patients receiving rosuvastatin in clinical studies, 31% were 65 years of age or older, and 6.8% were 75 years of age or older. Although no overall differences in efficacy or safety were observed between geriatric and younger patients, and other clinical experience has not revealed age-related differences in response, the possibility that some geriatric patients may exhibit increased sensitivity to the drug cannot be ruled out. Plasma concentrations of rosuvastatin were similar between geriatric (65 years of age or older) and younger patients.
Since geriatric patients (65 years of age and older) are at increased risk of myopathy, rosuvastatin should be used with caution in such patients.(See Musculoskeletal Effects under Cautions: Warnings/Precautions.) The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that initiation of statin therapy for primary prevention of ASCVD in patients older than 75 years of age requires consideration of additional factors, including increasing comorbidities, safety considerations, and priorities of care. Therefore, the potential for an ASCVD risk reduction benefit, adverse effects, and drug interactions, along with patient preferences, must be considered before initiating statin therapy in patients older than 75 years of age.
Hepatic Impairment
Plasma concentrations of rosuvastatin are modestly increased in patients with chronic alcoholic liver disease. Peak plasma concentrations and AUC of rosuvastatin are increased by 60 and 5%, respectively, in patients with Child-Pugh class A disease and by 100 and 21%, respectively, in patients with Child-Pugh class B disease compared with individuals with normal liver function.
Rosuvastatin should be used with caution in patients with a history of liver disease (e.g., chronic alcoholic liver disease) and/or in patients who consume substantial amounts of alcohol. Rosuvastatin is contraindicated in patients with active liver disease, including unexplained, persistent elevations in hepatic aminotransferase concentrations.
Renal Impairment
Exposure to rosuvastatin (i.e., plasma concentrations) does not appear to be influenced by mild or moderate renal impairment (creatinine clearance of 30 mL/minute per 1.73 m or greater). However, plasma concentrations of rosuvastatin were increased to a clinically important extent (about threefold) in patients with severe renal impairment (creatinine clearance less than 30 mL/minute per 1.73 m) not undergoing hemodialysis compared with healthy individuals (creatinine clearance greater than 80 mL/minute per 1.73 m). Steady-state plasma concentrations of rosuvastatin in patients undergoing chronic hemodialysis are approximately 50% higher than those in healthy individuals with normal renal function.
Dosage adjustments are required in patients with severe renal impairment who are not undergoing hemodialysis.(See Renal Impairment under Dosage and Administration: Special Populations.)
Asian Patients
Pharmacokinetic studies, including a large study conducted in the US, show an approximate twofold elevation in median exposure to rosuvastatin (peak plasma concentration and AUC) in Asian patients compared with Caucasian patients. Dosage of rosuvastatin should be adjusted in Asian patients. Increased systemic exposure should be taken into consideration in such patients not adequately controlled at rosuvastatin dosages up to 20 mg daily.(See Asian Patients under Dosage and Administration: Special Populations.)
Common Adverse Effects
Drug Interactions
Rosuvastatin is minimally (approximately 10%) metabolized by cytochrome P-450 (CYP) isoenzyme 2C9. Clearance of rosuvastatin is not dependent on metabolism by CYP3A4 to a clinically important extent.
Drugs Affecting Transport Systems
Rosuvastatin is a substrate for the organic anion transport protein (OATP) 1B1 and the breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP). Concomitant use of rosuvastatin with drugs that are inhibitors of these transport proteins (e.g., cyclosporine, certain HIV protease inhibitors) may potentially result in increased plasma concentrations of rosuvastatin and an increased risk of myopathy. Clinicians should consult the relevant prescribing information of such drugs when concomitant use with rosuvastatin is being considered.
Antacids
In a pharmacokinetic study, simultaneous administration of rosuvastatin (40 mg as a single dose) and an antacid containing aluminum hydroxide and magnesium hydroxide decreased rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) by 50%; such effects were considered clinically important. In contrast, when the antacid and rosuvastatin were administered 2 hours apart, rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC were decreased by 20%. Therefore, if rosuvastatin and an aluminum-magnesium hydroxide antacid are used concomitantly, the antacid should be administered at least 2 hours after rosuvastatin.
Azole Antifungals
Fluconazole
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (80 mg as a single dose) and fluconazole (200 mg once daily for 11 days) increased rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC by 1.1-fold.
Itraconazole
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg as a single dose) and itraconazole (200 mg once daily for 5 days) increased rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC by 1.4-fold. Concomitant use of a higher dose of rosuvastatin (80 mg) and itraconazole (200 mg once daily for 5 days) increased rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC by 1.2- and 1.3-fold, respectively.
Ketoconazole
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (80 mg as a single dose) and ketoconazole (200 mg twice daily for 7 days) had no effect on rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC.
Colchicine
Myopathy, including rhabdomyolysis, has been reported in patients receiving various statins, including rosuvastatin, concomitantly with colchicine. Caution is advised if rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with colchicine.
Cyclosporine
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and cyclosporine increases plasma rosuvastatin concentrations, which may increase the risk of myopathy. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg once daily for 10 days) and cyclosporine (at a stable dosage of 75-200 mg twice daily), rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC were increased by 11- and 7.1-fold, respectively; such effects were considered clinically important. If used concomitantly with cyclosporine, dosage of rosuvastatin should not exceed 5 mg once daily.
Digoxin
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (40 mg once daily for 12 days) and digoxin (0.5 mg as a single dose) increased both peak plasma concentration and AUC of digoxin by 4%.
Dronedarone
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg as a single dose) and dronedarone (400 mg twice daily) increased rosuvastatin AUC by 1.4-fold.
Eltrombopag
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg as a single dose) and eltrombopag (75 mg once daily for 5 days) increased rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC by 2- and 1.6-fold, respectively.
Erythromycin
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (80 mg as a single dose) and erythromycin (500 mg 4 times daily for 7 days) decreased rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC by 30 and 20%, respectively.
Ezetimibe
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg once daily for 14 days) and ezetimibe (10 mg once daily for 14 days) increased rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC by 1.2-fold.
Fibric Acid Derivatives
Fenofibrate
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and fenofibrate may increase the risk of myopathy. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg as a single dose) and fenofibrate (67 mg three times daily for 7 days), rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration was increased by 1.2-fold and AUC was unchanged; such effects were not considered clinically important. However, the manufacturer states that caution is advised if rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with fenofibrate. The ACC/AHA cholesterol management guideline states that the combination of fenofibrate and low- or moderate-intensity statin therapy may be considered only if the benefits from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk reduction or triglyceride lowering (when triglyceride concentrations exceed 500 mg/dL) outweigh the potential risk of adverse effects.
Gemfibrozil
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and gemfibrozil increases the risk of myopathy and/or rhabdomyolysis. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (80 mg as a single dose) and gemfibrozil (600 mg twice daily for 7 days), rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC were increased by 2.2- and 1.9-fold, respectively; such effects were considered clinically important. Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and gemfibrozil should be avoided; if concomitant use cannot be avoided, rosuvastatin should be initiated at a dosage of 5 mg once daily and dosage of the statin should not exceed 10 mg once daily.
HCV Protease Inhibitors
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin with certain protease inhibitors has differing effects on exposure to rosuvastatin; in some cases, rosuvastatin exposure may be increased by up to threefold. Caution is advised if these drugs are used concomitantly.
Simeprevir
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and simeprevir may increase the risk of myopathy. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg as a single dose) and simeprevir (150 mg once daily for 7 days), rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC were increased by 3.2- and 2.8-fold, respectively; such effects were considered clinically important. If used concomitantly with simeprevir, rosuvastatin should be initiated at a dosage of 5 mg once daily and dosage of the statin should not exceed 10 mg once daily.
HIV Protease Inhibitors
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin with certain ritonavir-boosted HIV protease inhibitors has differing effects on exposure to rosuvastatin; in some cases, rosuvastatin exposure may be increased by up to threefold. Caution is advised if these drugs are used concomitantly.
Atazanavir
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and ritonavir-boosted atazanavir may increase the risk of myopathy. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg as a single dose) and ritonavir-boosted atazanavir (atazanavir 300 mg with ritonavir 100 mg once daily for 8 days), rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC were increased by 7- and 3.1-fold, respectively; such effects were considered clinically important. If used concomitantly with ritonavir-boosted atazanavir, rosuvastatin should be initiated at a dosage of 5 mg once daily and dosage of the statin should not exceed 10 mg once daily.
Darunavir
Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg once daily for 7 days) and ritonavir-boosted darunavir (darunavir 600 mg with ritonavir 100 mg twice daily for 7 days), rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC were increased by 2.4- and 1.5-fold, respectively.
Fosamprenavir
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and ritonavir-boosted fosamprenavir produces minimal to no change in exposure to rosuvastatin. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg as a single dose) and ritonavir-boosted fosamprenavir (fosamprenavir 700 mg with ritonavir 100 mg twice daily for 7 days), rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC were increased by 1.5- and 1.1-fold, respectively.
Lopinavir
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and the fixed combination of lopinavir and ritonavir (lopinavir/ritonavir) may increase the risk of myopathy. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (20 mg once daily for 7 days) and lopinavir/ritonavir (lopinavir 400 mg/ritonavir 100 mg twice daily for 17 days), rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC were increased by 5- and 2.1-fold, respectively; such effects were considered clinically important. If used concomitantly with lopinavir/ritonavir, rosuvastatin should be initiated at a dosage of 5 mg once daily and dosage of the statin should not exceed 10 mg once daily.
Tipranavir
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and ritonavir-boosted tipranavir produces minimal to no change in exposure to rosuvastatin. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (10 mg as a single dose) and ritonavir-boosted tipranavir (tipranavir 500 mg with ritonavir 200 mg twice daily for 11 days), rosuvastatin peak plasma concentration and AUC were increased by 2.2- and 1.4-fold, respectively.
Lomitapide
Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (20 mg as a single dose) and lomitapide (10 mg once daily for 7 days), peak plasma concentration and AUC of rosuvastatin were increased by 6 and 2%, respectively. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (20 mg as a single dose) and lomitapide (60 mg once daily for 7 days), peak plasma concentration and AUC of rosuvastatin were increased by 4 and 32%, respectively. Dosage adjustment of rosuvastatin is not required during concomitant use with lomitapide.
Niacin
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin and antilipemic dosages (1 g daily or higher) of niacin may increase the risk of myopathy. Data from several large randomized studies indicate that concomitant use of niacin (1.5-2 g daily) with another statin (i.e., simvastatin 40-80 mg once daily, with or without ezetimibe) resulted in an increased risk of severe adverse effects, including disturbances in glycemic control requiring hospitalization, development of diabetes mellitus, adverse GI effects, myopathy, gout, rash, skin ulceration, infection, and bleeding.
Caution is advised if rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with antilipemic dosages of niacin.
Omega-3-acid Ethyl Esters
Concomitant administration of rosuvastatin (40 mg daily) with omega-3-acid ethyl esters (4 g daily) for 14 days did not affect the rate or extent of exposure to rosuvastatin at steady state.
Oral Contraceptives
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (40 mg once daily for 28 days) and an oral contraceptive (ethinyl estradiol 0.035 mg with norgestrel 0.18, 0.215, and 0.25 mg once daily for 21 days) resulted in a 25 or 26% increase in ethinyl estradiol peak plasma concentration or AUC, respectively, and a 23 or 34% increase in norgestrel peak plasma concentration or AUC, respectively.
Rifampin
Concomitant use of rosuvastatin (20 mg as a single dose) and rifampin (450 mg once daily for 7 days) did not affect rosuvastatin AUC.
Warfarin
Rosuvastatin potentiates the effects of coumarin-derivative anticoagulants in prolonging prothrombin time (PT)/international normalized ratio (INR); the drug has been shown to substantially increase INR in patients receiving coumarin anticoagulants. Following concomitant use of rosuvastatin (40 mg once daily for 10 days) and warfarin sodium (25 mg as a single dose), AUC of R- or S-warfarin was increased by 4 or 6%, respectively, while peak plasma concentration of R- or S-warfarin was decreased by 1% or unchanged, respectively; such effects resulted in clinically important pharmacodynamic effects. Caution should be exercised when rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with anticoagulants. If rosuvastatin is used concomitantly with coumarin-derivative anticoagulants, INR should be stable prior to initiating rosuvastatin and should be monitored frequently enough during early therapy (or following adjustment of rosuvastatin dosage) to ensure that no substantial alteration in INR occurs. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
325 F.3d 520
Edward Arthur JONES, Plaintiff-Appellant,v.Richard BUCHANAN, individually and in his official capacity as Sheriff of Avery County; Lee Keller, individually and in his official capacity as a Deputy of the Avery County Sheriff's Department, Defendants-Appellees, andEddie Hughes, individually and in his official capacity as a Deputy of the Avery County Sheriff's Department; Avery County, North Carolina, a Body Corporate and Politic, Defendants.
No. 01-2280.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued: October 29, 2002.
Decided: April 15, 2003.
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED ARGUED: Eric Robert Bellas, Simpson, Kuehnert, Vinay & Bellas, P.A., Morganton, North Carolina, for Appellant. Rachel Ellen Daly, Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Daniel A. Kuehnert, Simpson, Kuehnert, Vinay & Bellas, P.A., Morganton, North Carolina; Robert M. Elliot, Elliot, Pishko, Gelbin & Morgan, P.A., Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellant. Tyrus V. Dahl, Jr., James R. Morgan, Jr., Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Kimberly C. Stevens, Stevens & Withrow, P.L.L.C., Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellees.
Before LUTTIG and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation.
Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge DAVIS joined. Judge LUTTIG wrote a dissenting opinion.
OPINION
DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:
1
This appeal arises out of an incident in which a North Carolina deputy sheriff knocked Edward Arthur Jones to the floor in the sheriff's office and then jumped on him, crushing Jones's nose, lacerating his lips and nose, and bruising his ribs. Prior to the deputy's use of force, Jones, although drunk and yelling obscenities, was unarmed and in a secured room; moreover, Jones maintains that his wrists were handcuffed behind him. It is undisputed that, at the time the deputy initiated force, Jones was not under arrest or suspected of any crime; rather, he had voluntarily come to the sheriff's office seeking assistance.
2
After Jones filed this action, alleging that the deputy's conduct constituted excessive force, in violation of Jones's constitutional rights and state law, a magistrate judge granted summary judgment to the deputy. The judge held, as a matter of law, that the deputy did not subject Jones to excessive force. For the reasons stated within, we reverse.
I.
3
We set forth the facts "in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury," in this case, Jones. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001); Brown v. Gilmore, 278 F.3d 362, 369 (4th Cir.2002) ("[W]e are required to consider whether the facts, taken in the light most favorable [to the injured party], show that [the officer's] conduct violated a constitutional right.").
4
On the morning of November 3, 1999, Jones began drinking Canadian Mist whiskey, and he continued doing so throughout the day. At around 4:30 in the afternoon, Jones remembered that he "had to go to court the next day," and he concluded that his "best bet" was "to call somebody to come get [him] so [he] could sober up." He determined that he would "just to go to jail and sleep it off." Afraid that he would be held in contempt or lose his job if not sober, he wanted law enforcement authorities "to verify that [he] hadn't had anything else to drink."
5
Jones called 911 and told the operator that he was "drunk" and would like "for an officer to come get [him] and take [him] to jail so [he could] get sober." Jones waited at his home for about 30 to 45 minutes. When the police failed to arrive, he walked to the home of a neighbor, Lake Ollis, to "get [Ollis] to take [him] to jail." While Jones waited for Ollis's son to get dressed, Avery County Sheriff Richard Buchanan and Detective Pamela James arrived. Sheriff Buchanan testified that, after Jones threatened to kill himself unless the officers took him to jail, the Sheriff decided "that there was a possibility of suicide" and so that it was appropriate to transport Jones to the sheriff's department. Before leaving, Detective James asked Jones if he had any weapons. Jones responded that he had a pocket knife. Detective James removed the knife from Jones's pocket along with a can of beer from another pocket.
6
Sheriff Buchanan and Jones both testified that Jones then agreed to be handcuffed. The Sheriff testified that this was in keeping with "standing" department policy for transporting persons to the sheriff's department. Notwithstanding the handcuffs, Jones related that the Sheriff and Detective James were "nice" to him and that he, in turn, was polite, answering "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am" to their questions. Ollis's son also remembered that, even though handcuffed, Jones responded to the officers' questions with "[y]es, sir" and "no, sir."
7
Jones related that while handcuffed in the police car on the way to the department, "the only thing [he] want [ed] to do [was] lay down and go to sleep." About a mile into the ride, Jones believes that he passed out. Sheriff Buchanan recalls that Jones was not a "problem" during the ride. Upon arriving at the sheriff's department, one officer told Jones to "[g]et out of the car." Another "grabbed" Jones, who was still handcuffed behind his back, by the "center part of the handcuffs" and "got [him] out of the car ... because [he] was leaned over in the back seat ... with [his] head laying down on the seat." An officer then "jerked" Jones out of the car and "grabbed [him] by the shoulders and took [him] in the jail."
8
Inside the sheriff's department, while in the processing room, the officers "slammed [Jones] down in the chair with [his] hands behind [his] back." He "was drunk and got to cussing" because the officers hurt him when they got him out of the car "by [his] handcuffs." As soon as Jones was settled in the processing room, Officer Eddie Hughes testified that he locked the "exit doors" of the room, locking Jones inside.
9
Meanwhile, Deputy Lee Keller was meeting in an adjacent area with three local college students who needed fingerprinting for childcare work. Deputy Keller testified that he had to take the students by Jones in the processing room to reach the fingerprinting machine, and he did not want to take the students by Jones until Jones "was going to be quiet and settle down or we got him put in a holding cell or whatever."
10
When Jones asked the officers to "unhandcuff [him]" because he "was smothering," Deputy Keller called to him to quiet down. According to Jones, an officer "told [him] to shut the f___k up." Jones admits that he, too, used "pretty foul language [,]" but he maintains that he did not push, kick, or even threaten any of the officers. When the handcuffs were not removed, Jones "started to get mad" and then began to stand up "just a little bit," in an effort to alleviate his breathing difficulties by attempting to move his handcuffed hands to the front of his body by taking his hands around his back and under his feet.
11
As Jones started to stand up, "the next thing" he knew, an officer "knocked [him] down on the floor and jumped on [him]." Jones "felt a big knee ... in the back of [his] neck and one in [his] ribs." When he hit the floor, he felt the knee in his back and across his neck. Jones immediately knew that he had been hurt; he felt his nose go "whaa" and saw a "puddle of blood." Although Jones could not identify the officer who hurt him, Deputy Keller admits that he injured Jones.1 Deputy Keller himself suffered no injuries from the incident, except a scratch on his hand.
12
Other than hazy memories of seeing "all that blood," of someone "hollering, `Get the blood off of him,'" of not being able to breathe, and of some officers trying to help him, Jones recalls nothing more until the ambulance ride to the hospital. Deputy Keller and his fellow officers testified that after Keller knocked Jones to the floor, breaking his nose, Jones was angry and resisted, and that, as Officer Hughes "pushed" Jones into a holding cell, Jones hit the wall of the cell with the side of his head. Shortly thereafter, Jailer Alicia Blackburn saw Jones, "lying on the floor in a fetal position." She observed "blood on the floor next to his head and big clots of blood coming out of [his] nose." Officer Hughes testified that he too saw a puddle of blood about the size of a "basketball" on the floor next to Jones and noted that Jones was crying.
13
After Jailer Blackburn called for emergency medical services, an ambulance took Jones to the hospital. Dr. Michael Tomlinson diagnosed Jones with a "depressed comminuted fracture of the nasal bones," which is a fracture in which "the bone is splintered or crushed into numerous pieces,"2 a 1.5 "centimeter laceration over the bridge of his nose," a 1.5 "centimeter laceration of the upper lip mucosal surface, which was gaping somewhat," and bruised ribs. Jones also had a blood alcohol level of .42. Ten sutures were needed to repair Jones's lip and nasal lacerations, and Jones then had surgery to repair his "severe," "significant[ly] displac[ed]" nasal fracture.
14
Sheriff Buchanan testified that immediately after the incident, Deputy Keller "made it clear" that he "had hit" Jones "with his fist." Deputy Keller "came through shaking his hand" and told Sheriff Buchanan that Jones has "`got a tough mouth.'" According to the Sheriff, Deputy Keller "was acting like he was proud of" hitting Jones with his fist. (At oral argument, Deputy Keller's counsel conceded that it would constitute excessive force, under the circumstances of this case, for Deputy Keller to have hit Jones with his fist.) Deputy Keller also "bragged" about the incident to the Sheriff's son. Officer Hughes testified that Keller commented "that'[his] knee accidentally hit [Jones's] nose.'" What happened to Jones so bothered Officer Hughes that he left work early on the day of the incident and apologized to Jones's neighbor.
15
When Jones's common-law wife, Rebecca Weedman, arrived at the department shortly after the incident, police officers gave her conflicting stories as to how Jones was injured. Deputy Chris Buchanan told her that Jones "fell." Officer Hughes told Weedman that Jones and a few of the officers "scuffled in the floor." An unidentified female officer explained to her that Jones had "passed out in the chair and fell out of the chair." Sheriff Buchanan told her that "`we went to put Eddie in the holding cell, and he hit his nose on the bars.'" Sheriff Buchanan testified at his deposition, however, that it was his "understanding" that Deputy Keller had "hit" Jones "in the face."
16
The sheriff's department did not immediately charge Jones with any crime arising from his conduct during this incident. After Sheriff Buchanan was informed of this lawsuit, however, he asked Deputy Keller to charge Jones. Deputy Keller testified that he refused to do so because he had "never had any intent to charge" Jones with anything and to do so "would look like we were being revengeful or something." Sheriff Buchanan then asked Officer Hughes and another officer to charge Jones. They did, but the charges "were later either dismissed or [Jones] was found not guilty."
17
On February 11, 2000, Jones filed this suit, alleging that Deputy Keller and Officer Hughes had subjected him to excessive force in violation of his constitutional rights and state law. Jones also asserted that Avery County and Sheriff Buchanan established and maintained a policy of encouraging the use of excessive force and failed to provide law enforcement officers with adequate training and supervision as to the proper use of force. In support of the latter assertions, Jones offered evidence that less than six months after the incident, the State of North Carolina removed Sheriff Buchanan from office and ultimately a federal court convicted him of felony offenses, including a civil rights violation. See Harmon v. Buchanan, 164 F.Supp.2d 649, 657 (W.D.N.C.2001) (finding in companion case, that Sheriff Buchanan made "statements to his deputies authorizing the use of what can best be described as excessive force"); see also Tammy Jones, Buchanan Gets Prison Sentence, Asheville Citizen-Times, Nov. 1, 2002, available at 2002 WL 23491632 (reporting on Sheriff Buchanan's sentence in connection with a March 2001 conviction for "slamm[ing] a handcuffed suspect's head against a patrol car," causing the man to lose three front teeth).
18
Sheriff Buchanan and Deputy Keller moved for summary judgment, contending, inter alia, that Jones had failed to produce evidence to support an excessive force claim. After the parties stipulated to the dismissal of Avery County and Officer Hughes, a magistrate judge, proceeding at the consent of the parties, granted summary judgment to Deputy Keller and Sheriff Buchanan. Jones v. Buchanan, 164 F.Supp.2d 734 (W.D.N.C.2001); see City of Los Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796, 106 S.Ct. 1571, 89 L.Ed.2d 806 (1986).
19
Although the defendants asserted qualified immunity as an affirmative defense, the magistrate judge did not explicitly discuss their entitlement to qualified immunity; rather the judge simply ruled, as a matter of law, that Deputy Keller's actions were reasonable, and thus did not constitute excessive force. The magistrate judge recognized that governing legal principles required him to view, in the best light for Jones, the facts and all reasonable inferences that could be drawn from them, "however improbable they may seem." Jones, 164 F.Supp.2d at 736 (internal quotation marks omitted). Nevertheless, the judge failed to credit Jones's evidence that he posed no threat to anyone at the time Deputy Keller broke his nose and inflicted the other injuries; indeed, the judge appears to have totally disregarded Jones's evidence that he was handcuffed at that time.3
II.
20
In excessive force cases, entitlement to qualified immunity must be analyzed in two steps, which are to be "considered in proper sequence." Saucier, 533 U.S. at 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151. The "threshold question" requires a court to resolve the issue that forms the basis of the magistrate judge's decision here — whether, "[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, ... the facts alleged show [that] the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right." Id. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. "If no constitutional right would have been violated," even when the facts are viewed in the best light for the injured plaintiff, the analysis ends; the plaintiff cannot prevail. Id.
21
However, if, taking the allegations or evidence (depending on the procedural posture of the case) in the best light for the plaintiff, the plaintiff has stated a violation of a constitutional right, we proceed to the second step. "[T]he next, sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly established" at the time of the events at issue. Id. If not, the qualified immunity doctrine still provides a defendant officer with immunity from suit. If so, summary judgment must be denied.
22
Therefore, in order for Jones to defeat the defendants' motion for summary judgment, (1) he must have stated the violation of a constitutional right, and (2) that right must have been clearly established at the time he suffered his injuries, November 3, 1999.
A.
23
We turn first to the "threshold" question: whether, "[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury," the facts show that Deputy Keller's "conduct violated a constitutional right." Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. Jones argues that the facts, considered in the light most favorable to him, demonstrate that Deputy Keller violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Deputy Keller recognizes that the Fourth Amendment constitutes the specific basis for the right allegedly infringed here — that is, the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 394, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). The deputy maintains, however, that his conduct constituted no violation of Jones's Fourth Amendment rights.
24
The Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable seizures bars police officers from using excessive force to seize a free citizen. See Graham, 490 U.S. at 395, 109 S.Ct. 1865; see also id. at 395 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. 1865 ("A `seizure' triggering the Fourth Amendment's protections occurs only when government actors have, by means of physical force or show of authority, ... in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen." (internal quotation marks omitted)). A court determines whether an officer has used excessive force to effect a seizure based on a standard of "objective reasonableness." Id. at 399, 109 S.Ct. 1865. We consider the facts "from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene," and avoid judging the officer's conduct with the "20/20 vision of hindsight," recognizing that "police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments — in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving." Graham, 490 U.S. at 396-97, 109 S.Ct. 1865. We do not consider the officer's "intent or motivation." Elliott v. Leavitt, 99 F.3d 640, 642 (4th Cir.1996) (citing Graham, 490 U.S. at 396-97, 109 S.Ct. 1865). Rather, "the question is whether a reasonable officer in the same circumstances would have concluded that a threat existed justifying the particular use of force." Id. (citing Graham, 490 U.S. at 396-97, 109 S.Ct. 1865).
25
We weigh "the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the countervailing governmental interests at stake." Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865 (internal quotation marks omitted). This test requires us to determine the reasonableness of an officer's actions and is "not capable of precise definition or mechanical application." Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). Instead it "requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case." Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865.
26
Those facts and circumstances include "the severity of the crime at issue," whether the "suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others," and whether the suspect "is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight." Id. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. The extent of the plaintiff's injury is also a relevant consideration. See Rowland v. Perry, 41 F.3d 167, 174 (4th Cir. 1994); Pressly v. Gregory, 831 F.2d 514, 517 (4th Cir.1987). The "question [is] whether the totality of the circumstances justified a particular sort of ... seizure." Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8-9, 105 S.Ct. 1694, 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985); see also Rowland, 41 F.3d at 173 (stating that courts must avoid making "[a]rtificial divisions in the sequence of events" and should instead view the evidence "in full context, with an eye toward the proportionality of the force in light of all the circumstances").
27
Deputy Keller contends that, given Jones's conduct, "a reasonable officer on the scene," could have perceived that Jones posed an "immediate threat to the safety" of the deputy or others, justifying the force applied, i.e., knocking Jones to the floor, jumping on him, and breaking his nose. See Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. Jones maintains that, viewing the facts and all fair inferences from them in the light most favorable to him, this conclusion is simply not possible and, therefore, Deputy Keller violated his Fourth Amendment right to be secure against the use of excessive force.
28
To resolve this question of whether the necessity for force outweighed Jones's constitutional rights, we examine each of the Graham factors in turn. First, we consider the "severity of the crime at issue." Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. Here, there was no crime at issue; Jones voluntarily went to the station for assistance in recovering from excessive alcohol consumption. In recent years, we have twice confronted situations in which a plaintiff, subjected to police force, had committed no crime; in each we held that the plaintiff had stated a claim for violation of his constitutional right to be free from excessive police force. See Clem v. Corbeau, 284 F.3d 543, 545-47 (4th Cir.2002); Park v. Shiflett, 250 F.3d 843, 848, 853 (4th Cir.2001). Even in a case in which the plaintiff had committed a crime, when the "offense was a minor one," we have found that the first Graham factor weighed in plaintiff's favor and upheld the denial of summary judgment to the defendant police officer. See Rowland, 41 F.3d at 174; see also Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1198 (11th Cir.2002) (holding that this factor "strongly weigh[ed] in favor" of plaintiff because officer used force even though plaintiff had committed "insignificant crime"). Accordingly, in this case, in which Jones committed no crime, this first factor clearly weighs in his favor.4
29
We next consider whether "a reasonable officer" could have perceived that Jones "pose[d] an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others." Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. Deputy Keller, of course, now maintains that he did perceive such a threat. But Jones can point to evidence which suggests either that Deputy Keller is not credible on this point or that the deputy's perception of a threat was not objectively reasonable.
30
First, when Deputy Keller knocked Jones to the floor and jumped on him, breaking his nose, lacerating his face, and bruising his ribs, it is undisputed that Jones was neither armed nor suspected of being armed. See Rowland, 41 F.3d at 174 (upholding refusal to grant summary judgment to police officer in excessive force case when plaintiff was not armed or "suspected" by the officer of being armed). Thus, the facts here differ markedly from those in many of the cases in which we have held that an officer could reasonably perceive the plaintiff posed an immediate threat to his safety or that of others. See Anderson v. Russell, 247 F.3d 125, 130 (4th Cir.2001) ("evidence conclusively establish[ed]" that officer "reasonably perceived" plaintiff "to be armed with a gun"); Elliott, 99 F.3d at 642 (suspect "pointed" handgun at officers "with his finger on the trigger" and did not comply with officer's order to drop the gun); McLenagan v. Karnes, 27 F.3d 1002, 1007 (4th Cir.1994) (although officer knew plaintiff was "handcuffed in front," he "reasonably believed" that another officer saw gun in plaintiff's hands, and "could not confirm" that plaintiff was unarmed); Greenidge v. Ruffin, 927 F.2d 789, 790 (4th Cir.1991) (officer reasonably believed that plaintiff suspected of a crime was reaching for a shotgun).5
31
Moreover, Deputy Keller himself acknowledges that before he initiated force against Jones "nobody else was in the process[ing] room" with Jones, and Deputy Keller does not dispute that Officer Hughes had separated and secured Jones in that room by locking the processing room's "exit doors." A fact finder could conclude that this evidence demonstrates that Jones posed no immediate threat to anyone before Deputy Keller entered the processing room and used force against Jones. See Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1348-49 (11th Cir.2002) (finding plaintiff posed no threat to reasonable officer on the scene when a "glass or plastic partition" separated officer from drunken, screaming plaintiff in patrol car).
32
Furthermore, at the time Deputy Keller initiated the force, Jones has testified that his wrists were handcuffed behind his back. Of course, Deputy Keller disputes this and Jones may not be able to prove he was handcuffed. But, in determining whether Deputy Keller is entitled to summary judgment, we must accept the facts in the light most favorable to Jones, and if Jones was handcuffed behind his back in a locked room, we find it hard to see how he would pose an immediate threat to anyone. Cf. Clash v. Beatty, 77 F.3d 1045, 1047 (7th Cir.1996) (noting, in dismissing appeal for lack of jurisdiction after district court denied immunity to officer who pushed handcuffed, unarmed suspect into police car, causing knee injury, that "it is important to remember, [plaintiff] was already handcuffed, and the officers had ascertained that he was unarmed" prior to use of force). As in Lee, 284 F.3d at 1198, another recent case in which a police officer assertedly assaulted a handcuffed plaintiff, "when the facts are construed in the light most favorable" to Jones, it is difficult to discern "any legitimate law enforcement need" for the force applied in this case.
33
To be sure, when Deputy Keller knocked Jones to the floor and injured him, Jones concedes that he was drunk, angry, and using foul language. However, mere use of foul language, even a drunk's loud use of such language in a police station, does not justify an objectively reasonable police officer knocking the drunk down, jumping on him, and breaking his nose. As the Eleventh Circuit has noted, a drunken plaintiff's "screaming" and use of "foul language" in a confined area (there a patrol car) constitutes a mere "nuisance" and not an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others under Graham. See Vinyard, 311 F.3d at 1347-48.
34
Deputy Keller also cannot justify his actions based on Jones's slight physical movement — simply beginning to stand up "just a little bit" while in handcuffs in an effort (according to Jones) to bring the handcuffs to the front of his body in order to alleviate breathing problems (not, as erroneously suggested by the dissent, post at 537 n. 1, in an attempt "to free his hands"). Jones maintains that he never pushed, kicked, or threatened anyone. Although Deputy Keller asserted in deposition that Jones "kind of took a swing at [him]," the deputy's counsel correctly conceded at oral argument that we must accept Jones's contention that he did not attempt to strike Deputy Keller. Cf. Lee, 284 F.3d at 1198-1200 (holding that slamming arrestee's head against trunk after securing him in handcuffs was "objectively unreasonable and clearly unlawful"); Fontana v. Haskin, 262 F.3d 871, 880 (9th Cir.2001) ("Gratuitous and completely unnecessary acts of violence by the police during a seizure violate the Fourth Amendment."). For all of these reasons and taking the facts in the best light for Jones, as we must, the second Graham factor also weighs in his favor.
35
The third Graham factor — whether the object of the force "is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight" — also favors Jones. Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. In fact, in stark contrast to most excessive force cases, Deputy Keller does not even suggest that at the time he began to apply force, he had arrested, or attempted to arrest, Jones, or that Jones was attempting to evade arrest. Indeed, no officer contends that Jones was under arrest or resisting arrest at the time Deputy Keller initiated force against Jones. We recognize that, after Deputy Keller broke Jones's nose, the deputy and other officers maintain that Jones resisted them. But Jones makes no claim with respect to that time period. And, even after Jones allegedly resisted in response to his broken nose, no officer arrested or attempted to arrest him until weeks after the incident and only then perhaps in revenge for Jones's filing of the instant action.
36
Finally, the level of force used by Deputy Keller caused severe injuries — a nose crushed into numerous pieces, lacerations of the nose and lips, each requiring multiple sutures, and bruised ribs. This is another consideration in determining whether force was excessive. See Rowland, 41 F.3d at 174 (upholding denial of summary judgment to officer in excessive force case in which the officer inflicted "serious leg injury" on a misdemeanant); Kane v. Hargis, 987 F.2d 1005, 1008 (4th Cir.1993) (per curiam) (same when officer cracked three teeth, cut plaintiff's nose, and inflicted facial bruises).6 Again this factor weighs in Jones's favor; indeed, the severity of Jones's injuries provides still another ground for distinguishing this case from those in which we and other courts have held that a plaintiff has not established an excessive force claim. See Saucier, 533 U.S. at 209, 121 S.Ct. 2151 ("Our conclusion is confirmed by the uncontested fact that the force was not so excessive that respondent suffered hurt or injury."); Brown, 278 F.3d at 369 (plaintiff "alleg[ed] no injury of any magnitude"); Mensh v. Dyer, 956 F.2d 36, 40 (4th Cir.1991) ("It is undisputed that [plaintiff] suffered no physical injury as a result of the incident.").
37
In sum, Jones has presented evidence that he voluntarily came to the sheriff's department and was never under arrest or suspected of any crime. While there, although admittedly drunk, using foul language, and starting to stand up, he was unarmed, locked in a room by himself, and handcuffed with his wrists behind his back. Nevertheless, in order to quiet him down so that three college students could pass through the room for routine, non-emergency purposes, Deputy Keller knocked Jones to the floor and then jumped on him, crushing his nose, lacerating his nose and lips, and bruising his ribs. The "totality of [these] circumstances," Garner, 471 U.S. at 8-9, 105 S.Ct. 1694, does not justify "a reasonable officer on the scene" using the force applied by Deputy Keller. Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. Of course, jurors may choose not to credit Jones's evidence, but if they do, it would constitute no improper "second-guessing" to conclude that Deputy Keller violated Jones's Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive police force.
B.
38
Having determined that Jones has proffered evidence of violation of a constitutional right, we now consider whether Deputy Keller is nonetheless entitled to qualified immunity.
39
The Supreme Court has recently clarified the appropriate inquiry on this issue. See Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 2515-16, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002). Qualified immunity "operates' to ensure that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice their conduct is unlawful.'" Id. at 2515 (quoting Saucier, 533 U.S. at 206, 121 S.Ct. 2151). For a constitutional right to be clearly established, "its contours `must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful ...; but it is to say that in light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.'" Id. (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (citations omitted)).
40
The standard is again one of objective reasonableness: the "salient question" is whether "the state of the law" at the time of the events at issue gave the officer "fair warning" that his alleged treatment of the plaintiff was unconstitutional. Hope, 122 S.Ct. at 2516. "[O]fficials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual circumstances." Id. (referencing United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 117 S.Ct. 1219, 137 L.Ed.2d 432 (1997)). Although earlier cases involving "fundamentally similar" or "materially similar" facts "can provide especially strong support for a conclusion that the law is clearly established, they are not necessary to such a finding." Id. Even though the facts of a prior case may not be "identical," the reasoning of that case may establish a "premise" regarding an unreasonable use of force that can give an officer fair notice that his conduct is objectively unreasonable. Hope, 122 S.Ct. at 2517.
41
Ten years before Deputy Keller's November 1999 use of force against Jones, the Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor had clearly established that all claims of excessive force in the course of any seizure of a free person must be analyzed under an "objective reasonableness" standard, taking into account the factors discussed above. Graham, 490 U.S. at 395-96, 109 S.Ct. 1865. Both before and after November 1999, courts have consistently applied the Graham holding and have consistently held that officers using unnecessary, gratuitous, and disproportionate force to seize a secured, unarmed citizen, do not act in an objectively reasonable manner and, thus, are not entitled to qualified immunity.
42
So it is here. Jones has proffered evidence that Deputy Keller severely injured him by knocking him to the floor and jumping on him, even though Jones, although drunk and using foul language, was unarmed, handcuffed, and alone in a secured room in the sheriff's headquarters, having come there voluntarily and not under arrest or suspected of any crime. In reported cases prior to November 1999 and involving conduct that took place well before then, we and other courts have repeatedly denied qualified immunity to law enforcement officers in similar circumstances. See, e.g., Rowland v. Perry, 41 F.3d 167 (4th Cir.1994); Rambo v. Daley, 68 F.3d 203 (7th Cir.1995).
43
Indeed, courts have denied qualified immunity to police officers when the officer's use of force might seem to be more justified than Deputy Keller's, for instance because the officer employed force against a person, who, unlike Jones, was suspected of criminal activity or resisting arrest. See, e.g., Kane v. Hargis, 987 F.2d 1005 (4th Cir.1993); Mayard v. Hopwood, 105 F.3d 1226 (8th Cir.1997). Courts have also denied qualified immunity when an officer's force might have seemed objectively reasonable because that force resulted in less severe injuries to the secured person than those suffered by Jones. See, e.g., Alexis v. McDonald's Restaurants of Mass., Inc., 67 F.3d 341 (1st Cir.1995); McDowell v. Rogers, 863 F.2d 1302 (6th Cir.1988). Thus, the law at the time of this incident — November 1999 — certainly provided "fair warning" to a police officer that he was not free to use force in the manner Jones contends Deputy Keller did.
44
For example, in 1994, we considered an excessive force claim arising out of an incident occurring in November 1991. See Rowland v. Perry, 41 F.3d 167 (4th Cir. 1994) (cited with approval in Saucier, 533 U.S. at 210, 121 S.Ct. 2151 (Ginsburg, J., concurring in the judgment)). In that case, Officer Perry saw a woman at a bus station ticket window drop a five dollar bill, which the plaintiff, Otha Rowland, picked up and pocketed without attempting to return it to the woman. Id. at 171. Although Officer Perry then immediately asked Rowland to return the bill, Rowland "simply waved the money in the face of [the] openly distressed and tearful" woman and a ticket window attendant interpreted Rowland's acts "as a crude proposition to [the woman] rather than an attempt to return the money." Id. When Rowland left the bus station, Officer Perry followed him, having confirmed that he had not returned the money. Id. According to Officer Perry, not until Rowland began to run away did he administer force, "throwing his weight against Rowland's right leg and wrenching [Rowland's] knee," "seriously" injuring it. Id. at 172, 174. Thus, Officer Perry suspected Rowland of a crime (albeit a minor one) and maintained that Rowland attempted to flee and resisted arrest. Nevertheless, given that Rowland contended that he had never run away and the record provided "no suggestion that Rowland was armed or that Perry suspected he might be," we held that a jury could find that "no reasonable officer could have believed [Officer Perry's] conduct to be lawful." Id. at 174. Accordingly, we held in 1994 both that Rowland had stated an excessive force claim and that Officer Perry was not entitled to qualified immunity.
45
Similarly, a year earlier, in Kane v. Hargis, 987 F.2d 1005 (4th Cir.1993), we considered an excessive force claim arising out of conduct taking place in August 1990. In Kane, Officer Hargis stopped the plaintiff after observing her "erratic driving" and, when she admitted she had been drinking, he arrested her. Id. at 1006. According to Officer Hargis, Ms. Kane then went "berserk," resisted arrest, and attempted to flee. Id. at 1007. Ms. Kane acknowledged that "she attempted to resist arrest and to flee," but she maintained that the officer, who substantially outweighed her, "reacted to her actions by pinning her ... to the ground" and, after he had secured her, "repeatedly pushed [her] face into the pavement, cracking three of her teeth, cutting her nose, and bruising her face." Id. at 1006-08. Thus, once again even though the plaintiff admitted criminal culpability and resisted arrest, construing the remaining facts "in the light most favorable to the plaintiff," we held both that the plaintiff had set forth an excessive force claim and that the officer was not entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 1008. We reasoned that, if a jury accepted the plaintiff's testimony, it "would have been `apparent' [in 1990] to a reasonable officer" that his use of force was excessive because, after the officer had secured the plaintiff, she did not pose a threat to him and any additional use of force was unreasonable. Id.
46
A number of our sister circuits similarly so held well prior to November 1999. For example, in Alexis v. McDonald's Restaurants of Mass., Inc., 67 F.3d 341, 345, 352-53 (1st Cir.1995), the First Circuit, citing Rowland, reversed summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds to an officer who removed the plaintiff, charged with trespass, from a restaurant, handcuffed her, and dragged her to a police car, bruising her legs, when plaintiff offered testimony that she posed no threat to the officers or the public and did not resist arrest. Similarly, in Mayard v. Hopwood, 105 F.3d 1226, 1227-28 (8th Cir.1997), the Eighth Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to an officer who slapped and punched a suspect, in handcuffs and leg restraints, even though the suspect had, prior to being completely restrained, kicked and hit an officer, physically resisted arrest, and shouted and screamed at officers. See also Goff v. Bise, 173 F.3d 1068, 1074 (8th Cir.1999) (in April 1999 opinion, upholding jury verdict of excessive force based on (disputed) evidence that, after officer and mayor handcuffed plaintiff, they then threw him to ground and choked him when he had "committed no crime" and "posed a threat to no one"); Smith v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416, 1418-19 (11th Cir.1997) (denying qualified immunity because the unconstitutionality of use of force was "readily apparent to the offic[er], notwithstanding the lack of caselaw" precisely on point, when officer, with "a grunt and a blow," broke arm of the unresisting suspect in course of handcuffing him, even though suspect had, minutes before use of force, threatened officer with baseball bat, run from police, and actively resisted arrest); Rambo v. Daley, 68 F.3d 203, 205 (7th Cir.1995) (affirming denial of qualified immunity and stating that "[t]he Constitution clearly does not allow police officers to force a handcuffed, passive suspect into a squad car by breaking his ribs," in case in which drunk driving suspect verbally resisted arrest); Butler v. Norman, 992 F.2d 1053, 1055 (10th Cir.1993) (affirming denial of qualified immunity to officers who assaulted handcuffed suspect); Dixon v. Richer, 922 F.2d 1456, 1458 (10th Cir.1991) (affirming denial of qualified immunity to officers who assertedly assaulted citizen, who was not suspected of any crime or of being armed and did not make any "aggressive moves or threats," after police had secured him by placing his hands against vehicle); McDowell v. Rogers, 863 F.2d 1302, 1303-04, 1307 (6th Cir.1988) (holding, even prior to Graham, officers not entitled to summary judgment when they hit handcuffed suspect, who had tried to cash stolen check and ran from police, even though suspect suffered no "serious or permanent injury"). Indeed, Deputy Keller has not cited a single case in which a court, after finding that an assertedly secured plaintiff has alleged a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim similar to the one at issue here, has nevertheless granted the defendant officer qualified immunity.7
47
Thus, years before 1999, it was clearly established that a police officer was not entitled to use unnecessary, gratuitous, and disproportionate force against a handcuffed, secured citizen, who posed no threat to the officer or others and had neither committed, nor was suspected of committing, any crime. The facts proffered by Jones — that Deputy Keller knocked him to the ground and jumped on him, causing severe injuries, when he, although drunk and disruptive, was handcuffed, in a secured room, neither suspected of any crime nor fleeing a crime scene — constitute just such an unreasonable use of force.
48
We note that the Eleventh Circuit recently considered very similar facts, arising out of an incident in 1998, and concluded that even a plaintiff who had committed a crime and been arrested nonetheless stated an excessive force claim, and that it "was clearly established" that the officer's conduct, as described by the plaintiff, violated her constitutional rights. See Vinyard, 311 F.3d at 1355. As the court explained,
49
no objectively reasonable police officer could believe that, after [the plaintiff-arrestee] was under arrest, handcuffed behind her back, secured in the back seat of a patrol car with a protective screen between the officer and the arrestee, an officer could stop the car, grab such arrestee by her hair and arm, bruise her and apply pepper spray to try to stop the intoxicated arrestee from screaming and returning the officer's exchange of obscenities[.]
50
Id. These words have equal applicability here; we need only change the Vinyard court's language slightly:
51
no objectively reasonable police officer could believe that, after a citizen, not under arrest, was settled in the sheriff's headquarters, handcuffed behind his back, secured in the processing room with locked doors between the officer and the citizen, the officer could knock the citizen to the floor, jump on him, break his nose, lacerate his face, and bruise his ribs to try to stop the intoxicated citizen from screaming and returning an officer's use of obscenities.
52
Therefore, taking the facts in the present record in the light most favorable to Jones, we cannot conclude that Deputy Keller is entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law.8
III.
53
For all of these reasons, the trial court's grant of summary judgment is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.9
REVERSED AND REMANDED
Notes:
1
Deputy Keller offers a very different version of events. Deputy Keller asserts that Jones was not handcuffed while in the processing room, that Jones "kind of took a swing at" Keller by bringing his "arm up" toward Keller, and that Keller, in turn, accidentally hit Jones's nose while attempting to put him in a "chin lock" as a means of gaining control of him. However, as Deputy Keller's counsel correctly conceded at oral argument, in determining if the grant of summary judgment to Deputy Keller was proper, we must accept Jones's version of the facts, including that Jones was handcuffed behind his back during the incident and did not "swing" at Deputy KellerSee Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. Indeed, the dissent's characterization of Jones's injuries as an "unforseen" consequence of Deputy Keller's use of force, post at 537, is inconsistent with the facts as presented by Jones, who describes being knocked down and jumped on.
2
Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 457 (3d ed.1993) (unabridged)
3
The magistrate judge offered no explanation for failing to credit Jones's testimony that he was handcuffed throughout the incident. Yet, in a companion excessive force case involving Sheriff Buchanan and the Avery County Sheriff's Department, the same magistrate judge refused to grant summary judgment to the defendants, relying heavily on the fact that the plaintiff contended that he was handcuffed when a deputy subjected him to forceSee Harmon, 164 F.Supp.2d at 654.
4
Although agreeing that Jones was not under arrest for any crime, the dissent suggests,post at 541 n. 4, that we err in concluding that Jones "had neither committed, nor was suspected of committing any crime," because Deputy Keller believed that Jones was under arrest and his is the relevant perspective. Deputy Keller, however, contradicted himself on this point. Although Keller testified that he heard a radio code that indicated (to him) that Sheriff Buchanan was transporting an arrestee, he also testified that he was not permitted to place Jones in a holding cell, without a magistrate's permission, because Jones had not been charged with any crime. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Jones, we do not give substantial weight to Deputy Keller's inconsistent testimony.
5
In addition toGreenidge, Deputy Keller cites only four out-of-circuit cases in support of his contention that Jones failed to proffer evidence sufficient to support an excessive force claim. These cases differ so markedly from the case at hand that Deputy Keller's reliance on them itself demonstrates the weakness of his argument. See Edwards v. Giles, 51 F.3d 155, 156 (8th Cir.1995)(holding no excessive force claim when plaintiff, driving stolen van, refused to stop for police, crashed his van, and then ran from police); Dyer v. Sheldon, 829 F.Supp. 1134, 1135, 1139-40 (D.Neb. 1993) (same when plaintiff assaulted his wife and then resisted arrest and officers' attempts to handcuff him by striking one officer on the temple and twice attempting to strike the other officer), aff'd, 21 F.3d 432 (8th Cir.1994) (affirmed without opinion); Prymer v. Ogden, 29 F.3d 1208, 1210, 1214 (7th Cir.1994) (same when plaintiff actively resisted arrest near known drug house with "number of suspicious onlookers" nearby); Pride v. Does, 997 F.2d 712, 714-15, 717 (10th Cir.1993) (same when officer subjected plaintiff, arrested for disorderly conduct and possible assault, only to pressure on his neck for 30 seconds, which caused "minimal immediate injury" and "no permanent injury").
6
In addition to the severity of the injuries Deputy Keller inflicted on Jones, Sheriff Buchanan's testimony that Deputy Keller "made it clear" that he had hit Jones "with his fist," provides some evidentiary support for Jones's contention that the level of force was excessive
7
The dissent seeks to distinguish some (but, by no means all) of the cases on which we rely, contending that they deal with persons "who, in contrast to Jones, werenot acting dangerously or aggressively" at the time the police used force. Post at 540 n.3. The asserted distinction utterly fails because if we take the facts in the best light for Jones, as we must at this juncture, Jones too was "not acting dangerously or aggressively." Indeed, prior to Deputy Keller knocking Jones to the floor and breaking his nose, Jones, although drunk and using foul language, was unarmed, handcuffed, alone in a secured room in a police station, and neither under arrest nor suspected of any crime; thus, he was "acting" a great deal less "dangerously and aggressively" than the plaintiffs in other cases in which courts have upheld excessive force claims. See, e.g., Smith, 127 F.3d at 1418-19 (prior to challenged police force, plaintiff had threatened officer with baseball bat and resisted arrest); Mayard, 105 F.3d at 1227-28 (prior to challenged police force, plaintiff kicked and hit officer and resisted arrest); Kane, 987 F.2d at 1007 (prior to challenged police force, plaintiff resisted arrest and attempted to flee).
8
The dissent contends thatRobles v. Prince George's County, Maryland, 302 F.3d 262 (4th Cir.2002), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 1634, 155 L.Ed.2d 486 (2003), compels the conclusion that "Deputy Keller is entitled to qualified immunity." Post at 535-536. Given that Robles involved not only very different facts but also a wholly different Constitutional provision, the dissent's heavy reliance on, and extended discussion of, Robles is as puzzling as it is unpersuasive. In Robles, Prince George's County police officers validly arrested Nelson Robles for an offense committed in a neighboring county and asked officers in that county to pick him up; when they refused to do so, the Prince George's County officers tied Robles to a metal pole at night and then anonymously reported his location to officers in the neighboring county, who picked him up 10 minutes later. Under circuit precedent, in order to establish a constitutional violation, Robles, as a validly arrested pretrial detainee, had to meet a far more rigorous standard than that at issue here. Rather than simply proving that the police acted unreasonably in violation of the Fourth Amendment, Robles had to prove that the police had violated the Due Process Clause, i.e., their misconduct amounted to punishment and resulted in more than de minimis injury to him. Id. at 269. This is a difficult burden for any plaintiff, but particularly so for Robles since he conceded that no one bothered him during the 10-minute ordeal, admitted that he suffered no physical injury, and offered no objective evidence (e.g. lost wages or medical testimony) to support his claim of psychological injury. Robles v. Prince George's County, Maryland, 308 F.3d 437 (4th Cir.2002) (Wilkinson, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc). Nevertheless, this court held that Robles had established a constitutional violation but, given the lack of any prior cases factually close to Robles' and the closeness of the question of whether he suffered more than de minimis injury, it also held that it could not conclude that "clearly established law" gave the officers "fair warning" that their conduct violated not just state law but also the Constitution. See Robles, 302 F.3d at 270-71. Even if one does not agree with this unanimous decision upholding the grant of qualified immunity to the officers or the full court's decision (10-1) denying rehearing en banc, Robles does not control the case at hand. Unlike the thankfully unusual conduct in Robles, the present case concerns a garden variety excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment. While no prior case law involved conduct like that in Robles, countless courts, as noted above, have previously held that the conduct alleged here is unconstitutional. If Jones can prove these allegations, this prior case law certainly provided Deputy Keller (unlike the officers in Robles) with "fair warning" that such conduct violated the Constitution; in such circumstances, an officer is not entitled to qualified immunity. See Hope, 122 S.Ct. at 2515-16.
9
On appeal, Jones acknowledges that his "claim is primarily one for excessive force under § 1983" and that his state claims are coextensive with his federal claim. Brief of Appellant at 19 n.2; Reply Brief at 16. Therefore, as inRowland, 41 F.3d at 174, we reinstate any "parallel" state law claims. Furthermore, given our holding that summary judgment in favor of Deputy Keller was inappropriate, we reinstate the derivative claim against Sheriff Buchanan in order to allow the magistrate judge to address it in the first instance at the appropriate time.
LUTTIG, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
54
It follows a fortiori from our holding in Robles v. Prince George's County, Maryland, 302 F.3d 262 (4th Cir.2002), that Deputy Keller is entitled to qualified immunity in this case. Because the majority fails to follow our precedent in Robles, and because that decision dictates that Deputy Keller is protected by the doctrine of qualified immunity, I dissent.
55
The police conduct at issue in Robles was, under law, entirely indefensible. Prince George's County police officers arrested Nelson Robles on an outstanding traffic warrant issued by neighboring Montgomery County. They drove Robles to a deserted shopping center, and, at three in the morning, tied him to a metal pole with flex-cuffs and left him. The court in Robles held that the officers had committed a Fourteenth Amendment violation under Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), as the officers' actions "served no conceivable law enforcement purpose" and caused more than de minimis injury. Robles, 302 F.3d at 270. Indeed, the officers did not even argue that their actions had a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Id. at 269. Nevertheless, the panel awarded the officers qualified immunity on the ground that a reasonable police officer would not have known that handcuffing a person to a pole in a deserted parking lot at three in the morning and abandoning him there, all admittedly for no law enforcement purpose, was unconstitutional.
56
The court in Robles analyzed the plaintiff's claim under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause and Jones' claim is pressed under the Fourth Amendment (as incorporated by the Fourteenth), but, at their core, both cases present the same essential claim that a police officer unnecessarily injured a detainee. There is at least one critical difference between this case and Robles, however. In Robles, the police officers offered no law enforcement justification for their actions, whereas here, Deputy Keller offers, and in fact had, a manifestly legitimate law enforcement need to restrain Jones.
57
The majority dismisses the necessity of Keller's actions, but that necessity is obvious, even to one who reads the majority's opinion. The majority states that Jones "never pushed, kicked, or threatened anyone," ante at 530, and that "if Jones was handcuffed behind his back in a locked room, we find it hard to see how he would pose an immediate threat to anyone." Ante at 529. These statements are premised upon at least two erroneous assumptions. First, the majority assumes that Jones' presence in a locked room somehow obviated the need to gain control of him. But the room in which Jones was locked was the booking room, a central artery of the police department. The police could hardly be expected to remain outside the booking room until Jones quieted down on his own. Indeed, as Deputy Keller testified, he was fingerprinting college students for volunteer work and he needed to walk the students past Jones in order to get to the fingerprinting machine. Thus, Deputy Keller needed to enter the booking room with the students.
58
Second, and frankly quite troubling, the majority appears to believe that a handcuffed person, evidently even one who is in the process of moving his cuffed hands to the front of his body, poses "no threat to the officer or others." Ante at 534. If the majority does so believe, then such a belief is naive. One does not need experience to know differently, but there is an abundance of painful experience confirming that a handcuffed person, especially one who has his hands in front of him, can still be very dangerous. See, e.g., United States Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 49, 50 (2001) (describing instances in which law enforcement officers were killed by persons wearing handcuffs); United States v. Sanders, 994 F.2d 200, 209 (5th Cir. 1993) ("Sander's argument is entirely dependent on the assumption that, by handcuffing a suspect, the police instantly and completely eliminate all risks that the suspect will flee or do them harm. As is sadly borne out in the statistics for police officers killed and assaulted in the line of duty each year, however, this assumption has no basis in fact.").
59
To be sure, whether Jones had a weapon is relevant to his dangerousness, but the fact that Jones did not have a weapon certainly does not, as the majority supposes, render him harmless. Indeed, it took four officers to finally subdue the handcuffed Jones. Despite the majority's contrary conclusion, there cannot be a serious dispute over whether the belligerent, uncooperative Jones presented a threat both to the personnel and civilians in the police department. Deputy Keller's take-down, while it had the unfortunate, and unforseen, consequence of injuring Jones, was undeniably an attempt to remove that threat. For that very reason, Deputy Keller presents a stronger case for qualified immunity than did the officers in Robles.1
60
Because the majority cannot distinguish Robles, it engages in a revisionist reading of that opinion. The majority characterizes Robles as a close, and accordingly uncertain, case with respect to the de minimis injury prong of Bell v. Wolfish. Ante at 535 n. 8. Citing not to the opinion in Robles, but, rather, to Judge Wilkinson's opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc, id. (citing Robles v. Prince George's County, Maryland, 308 F.3d 437 (4th Cir.2002) (Wilkinson, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc)), the majority attempts to minimize Robles' injuries, reciting that "he conceded that no one bothered him during the 10-minute ordeal, admitted that he suffered no physical injury, and offered no objective evidence (e.g. lost wages or medical testimony) to support his claim of psychological injury." The majority then states that it was the closeness of the case with respect to the de minimis injury prong of Bell v. Wolfish, coupled with the lack of factually similar cases that combined to require the grant of qualified immunity in Robles. Id. In other words, according to the majority, the qualified immunity analysis in Robles turned in large part upon the "closeness of the question" as to the seriousness of the injury sustained by the plaintiff.
61
However, the panel in Robles, of which Judge Motz was a member, said nothing at all to the effect that its decision to grant qualified immunity was dependent upon the closeness of the question as to injury. Nothing in the brief portion of the opinion devoted to the qualified immunity analysis suggests that the extent of injury was even considered in resolution of the qualified immunity issue; indeed the level of harm, which today is so central to the majority's interpretation of Robles, is not even mentioned in the qualified immunity analysis undertaken by the Robles panel. See Robles, 302 F.3d at 270-71.
62
The Robles opinion does discuss the extent of injury when it addresses whether Robles satisfied the de minimis injury prong of the Bell v. Wolfish test. That discussion, however, belies the majority's interpretation today, for it states only, without so much as a hint that the issue was close, that the "injury was more than de minimis." Id. at 270.2
63
Thus, the only support for the majority's reading of Robles is Judge Wilkinson's opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc of Robles.
64
In recent years, it has become more common on our circuit to attempt to add to, subtract from, or recharacterize the facts recited and relied upon in a challenged panel opinion, or even to fine-tune, if not fundamentally reshape, the legal analysis undertaken by the original panel, in the course of opinions respecting the denial of rehearing en banc. Compare Robles v. Prince George's County, Maryland, 302 F.3d 262 (4th Cir.2002), with Robles v. Prince George's County, Maryland, 308 F.3d 437 (4th Cir.2002) (opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc); compare Harvey v. Horan, 278 F.3d 370 (4th Cir.2002), with Harvey v. Horan, 285 F.3d 298 (4th Cir.2002) (opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc); compare Johnson v. Collins Entertainment Co., Inc., 199 F.3d 710 (4th Cir.1999), with Johnson v. Collins Entertainment Co., Inc., 204 F.3d 573 (4th Cir. 2000) (opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc); see also Belk v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., 211 F.3d 853 (4th Cir.2000) (opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc). These opinions respecting the denial of rehearing en banc are cloaked as mere recitations of the facts and reasoning of the panel opinions, not as revisions of those opinions. But it is evident from a comparison of these opinions with the original panel opinions that the former actually are attempted revisions of the latter. In fact, not infrequently, the fullness, depth, and length of the subsequent writing confirms that it is nothing short of a rewriting of the panel opinion from scratch in response to arguments and authorities that were not considered or addressed by the panel.
65
These attempts at revision of binding panel opinions typically follow upon the identification of errors in the panel's factual recitation or flaws in the panel's legal analysis by other members of the court who, by their own written opinions, have drawn the panel opinion into question. That such attempts at revision prove irresistible on occasion is understandable; upon revelation of errors or oversights in either fact or law, there is a quite natural instinct to correct the error or oversight in anticipation of further review of the original decision by the en banc court or Supreme Court or in an effort to forestall altogether any further review. But because these kinds of revisionist writings cannot be and are not the binding authority of the circuit, they ultimately disserve the court and the public, in addition to justifiably confusing the bar and the bench as to the law of the circuit.
66
It is our solemn obligation in opinions not only to come to the correct conclusions under law, but to support those conclusions with full reasoning that incorporates and honestly addresses the relevant facts and precedents. I have long believed that the federal courts too often fall short in the discharge of this most important of our obligations. But be that as it may, the formal release of an opinion of law on behalf of the court is the final step in the court's deliberative process, not the first or merely another along the way toward the final decision. Identically as issued by the responsible panel, the panel decision is the binding law of the circuit.
67
Of course, we in the judiciary can make mistakes just like anyone else. We can fail to include relevant facts or even misstate facts. We can overlook authorities or misread them. From time to time, we can even misanalyze a case completely. But our obligation when we do err in these regards is to admit our errors forthrightly and correct them in opinions that are, themselves, binding. We owe nothing less to the parties and the public whom we serve. Indeed, the public respect that the judiciary enjoys is attributable in no small part to our institutional insistence upon the open and formal admission and correction of our misstatements and omissions. We can scarcely criticize others for misstatements, omissions and analytical errors if we turn a blind eye toward, rather than admit, our own.
68
The developed process for addressing the judicial error is the grant of rehearing (or of rehearing en banc) and the official correction of the error. Thus, if a convincing argument is made by a colleague in opposition to the denial of rehearing en banc (or by a party in a petition for rehearing en banc) that the panel has erred in the material facts predicate for its disposition or in its analysis of the law, rehearing by the panel — on the submissions if more is unnecessary — is available to address the argument squarely in a revised, but binding, opinion for the court. Or if the argument is of determinative importance and seemingly unanswerable within the four corners of the analysis upon which the panel members can agree, the argument may be addressed by the full court sitting en banc. But it is not the established process, and ought never become such, that the authoring or another judge attempt the correction of factual or analytical errors or omissions in the panel opinion through a separate writing respecting a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc. The reasons that this practice of post-hoc rationalization must be discouraged are many, and need not be canvassed fully in the context of today's opinion. But two of these reasons are of especial importance, and deserve notation even in a passing discussion. First, the practice undermines respect for the courts, by leaving the parties and public bound by an opinion that at least one member of the panel has effectively acknowledged was factually or analytically inadequate, at the same time that it consigns the losing party to the appeal of a binding decision that is factually incorrect or legally unsound, but that is made to appear to the reviewing court as less deserving of further consideration by the gloss superimposed by the nonbinding opinion subsequently issued. Second, it sows the seed for confusion among the members of the bar and bench as to what the law actually is, i.e., (where the facts are subsequently added to or subtracted from) whether the principle of law stated in the panel opinion is that confined by the facts as recited in that opinion or those as recited in the subsequent nonbinding opinion, or (where the principle of law itself is modified) whether the governing principle of law is that in the original panel opinion or that in the later opinion. And, in fact, it is not uncommon for the district courts of our circuit, as well as counsel, to cite to and to analyze our separate writings respecting the denial of rehearing en banc as if these writings, rather than the panel opinions that these writings seek to rehabilitate, might be the binding law of the circuit. See, e.g., Martin v. Mendoza, 230 F.Supp.2d 665, 672 (D.Md.2002) (quoting from the opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc in Robles); Cogburn v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 2002 WL 31165151, at *3 (M.D.N.C.2002) (citing to the order, with accompanying opinions, denying rehearing en banc in Rosmer v. Pfizer Inc., 272 F.3d 243 (4th Cir.2001)); Club Ass'n of West Virginia, Inc. v. Wise, 156 F.Supp.2d 599, 617 (S.D.W.Va.2001) (quoting from the opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc in Johnson v. Collins Entertainment); 1 Criminal Procedure § 2.7(c) n.197 (2d ed.1999) (citing opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc in Harvey v. Horan).
69
Having expressed this concern over separate writings that attempt amendments to our panel opinions, I must acknowledge that Judge Wilkinson's opinion concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc in Robles does characterize the Robles opinion as involving a "close" case with respect to the de minimis injury prong of the Bell v. Wolfish inquiry, just as Judge Motz says it does. But, as noted, our precedent in Robles does not rest on any such assessment of relative injury. Without belaboring the point, Judge Wilkinson's solitary opinion on the petition for rehearing en banc is just that, and for the reasons discussed it does not — in contrast to the panel opinion in Robles, which he earlier authored — represent the law of our circuit.
70
At the end of the day, it is apparent that different qualified immunity principles have been applied by the majority in this case than were applied by the panel in Robles. Although it would be of no relevance for the disposition of today's case, I would like to think that Judge Motz has reconsidered her concurrence in Judge Wilkinson's opinion in Robles based upon the principles of law that I laid out in dissent in that case, see generally Robles v. Prince George's County, Maryland, 308 F.3d 437, 441 (4th Cir.2002) (Luttig, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). But whether she has or not, that opinion is the binding precedent in our circuit on the availability of official immunity for unconstitutional conduct by law enforcement. It unquestionably requires that Deputy Keller be afforded qualified immunity for his actions. And I would so hold.3
71
It is one thing to hold, as the court did in Robles, that officers who tied a passive man to a pole in a deserted parking lot at three in the morning and then abandoned him, with no legitimate law enforcement purpose whatever, are entitled to immunity. It is another altogether to hold, as the majority does, that a police officer who tried to get control of a drunk, verbally belligerent, and angry arrestee4 who was disrupting the police department's operations, disobeying direct orders to be quiet, and attempting to free his hands, is not entitled to qualified immunity.
72
The only discernible justification for such seemingly irreconcilable holdings is a different view of the "justice" of this case from the panel's view of the "justice" of the case in Robles.
Notes:
1
The majority suggests that Jones was really trying to bring his hands forward "to alleviate breathing problems,"ante at 530, and not to free his hands. Jones' subjective intent, however, is entirely irrelevant. The proper perspective is that of a reasonable officer on the scene. A reasonable officer would have observed Jones moving his cuffed hands from behind him to his front. The fact that Jones would have had more mobility after executing this maneuver is an unavoidable effect of his action, which would be apparent to any officer observing him. That the greater freedom of movement was only an unintended consequence of a motivating desire to breathe more easily would not have been apparent to an observing officer. A reasonable officer need not be telepathic.
2
In its discussion of the trial judge's remittitur of compensatory and punitive damages,see id. at 271-72, Robles does suggest that the injuries suffered by the plaintiff were not great. It would be nothing less than interpretive legerdemain, however, to maintain that this discussion, which was entirely independent of the qualified immunity analysis, actually demonstrates that the extent of injury (beyond de minimis) determined in any part, much less large part, the panel's disposition on the qualified immunity question.
3
Although it comes as no surprise, the majority is unable to cite even a single apposite case in support of its holding. All of the cases relied upon by the majority dealt with detainees who, in contrast to Jones, werenot acting dangerously or aggressively. See Mayard v. Hopwood, 105 F.3d 1226 (8th Cir.1997) (noting that the officer slapped and punched the restrained arrestee without any apparent reason); Alexis v. McDonald's Restaurants of Massachusetts, Inc., 67 F.3d 341, 353 (1st Cir.1995) (noting that "there is no suggestion that Alexis posed a threat to the peace or safety of anyone"); Rambo v. Daley, 68 F.3d 203, 207 (7th Cir.1995) (emphasizing that the police officers gratuitously punched a handcuffed and "passive" suspect); Rowland v. Perry, 41 F.3d 167, 174 (4th Cir.1994) ("Rowland posed no threat to the officer or anyone else.... Nor is there any real evidence that this relatively passive, retarded man was a danger to the larger, trained police officer."); Kane v. Hargis, 987 F.2d 1005, 1008 (4th Cir.1993) ("It would have been `apparent' to a reasonable officer in Hargis' position that, after he had pinned to the ground a woman half his size and the woman did not pose a threat to him, it was unreasonable to push her face into the pavement with such force that her teeth cracked." (emphasis added)). Plainly, none of these cases could have placed Deputy Keller on notice that his actions were unlawful. Of course, for this reason alone, our decision in Robles dictates that Deputy Keller be afforded qualified immunity.
4
The majority correctly points out that Jones was not under arrest. However, the relevant perspective is that of a reasonable officer. Deputy Keller testified that he thought Jones was under arrest, J.A. 112, and that perception is reasonable given that Jones was drunk and disorderly and was handcuffed in the booking room. That fact renders the majority's conclusion that Jones "had neither committed, nor was suspected of committing, any crime,"ante at 534, erroneous.
Nor is the majority's conclusion saved by any purported inconsistency in Deputy Keller's testimony. Even had Deputy Keller subjectively believed that Jones was not under arrest, that would still not change the fact that a reasonable officer viewing Jones at the time of the challenged action could have concluded that Jones was under arrest.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | FreeLaw |
According to FoxSports.com's John Czarnecki, there is "no way that Pete Carroll is parting with the sixth overall pick for a disgruntled receiver who really can't stretch the field."
Czar was obviously referring to Brandon Marshall, though the latter part of his statement is debatable. If the Seahawks are truly willing to commit to the headcase long term, they're smart to wait out the Broncos. Josh McDaniels is loath to hold onto a bad-tempered player expected to pout until he hits the jackpot on an extension.
Source: FoxSports.com
According to FoxSports.com's John Czarnecki, there is "no way that Pete Carroll is parting with the sixth overall pick for a disgruntled receiver who really can't stretch the field."
Czar was obviously referring to Brandon Marshall, though the latter part of his statement is debatable. If the Seahawks are truly willing to commit to the headcase long term, they're smart to wait out the Broncos. Josh McDaniels is loath to hold onto a bad-tempered player expected to pout until he hits the jackpot on an extension.
Source: FoxSports.com
We don't need that pick,we're going to the SB in 2010 anyway./Knowshit
The Jets won’t talk about the possibility of pursuing Brandon Marshall. That doesn’t mean they are or they aren’t interested. They just aren’t talking. ESPN’s John Clayton suggested receiver Braylon Edwards would be part of a potential Jets package if they pursue Marshall.
I would rather keep Marshall honestly. If we had to trade him to the Seahawks I would much rather have the No. 14 pick and their 2nd rounder for Marshall and a third.
Denver doesn't have a lot of needs and there is nobody we need at 6 that won't be there at 11 or 14.
???Denver has massive needs.To fail down the stretch and then claim you have few needs is seriously bullshit and you know it.Maybe I go over board with most of my Bronco hating but posts like this is the reason I give you guys so much shit.
McDaniels with QB's is like Mike Shanahan with RB's. Denver will never have to worry about finding a QB.
Seriously? Wow.....Ok...So just for the sake of conversation,how many game do the Broncos win this year? I say another 8-8 maybe even a 7-9 season for you guys mainly because of all the fukk ups McFistpump pulls this year.If we win 5-6 games I'll be impressed just for the record.
Seriously? Wow.....Ok...So just for the sake of conversation,how many game to the Broncos win this year? I say another 8-8 maybe even a 7-9 season for you guys mainly because of all the fukk ups McFistpump pulls this year.If we win 5-6 games I'll be impressed just for the record.
Shanahan's last three years in Denver we averaged an 8-8 season. Have you seen Denver's schedule this season? If we had this schedule last year Denver would have been at least 11-5.
Denver will be in the playoffs last year. The system isn't new anymore and we actually have a legit DL for the first time in years.
Among the NFL coaches and executives walking through the immaculate hallways of the Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes hotel, the Broncos received numerous compliments for the way they rebuilt their defensive linewith Justin Bannan, Jamal Williams and Jarvis Green.
"They got a stud," Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said of Bannan, who played the previous four years with the Ravens. "He's a great practice player. A great leader. He'll show their guys how to practice. He's a lot like (Brian) Dawkins. He has a different personality than Dawkins, but he's the same type of leader."
The Ravens wanted Bannan back, just as the San Diego Chargers tried to re-sign Williams. In both cases, the Broncos made stronger financial commitments. | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | Pile-CC |
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Well, from tomorrow we'll be in the sixth month of the year already!
Let's hope that the start of June also means the start of some lovely summery weather.
One thing is for sure - it's going to be a busy month in Leicestershire, with lots of brilliant events happening.
Whether you fancy a night out with friends or a day of fun with the family, there's plenty of things that you can get involved in.
Here are a few suggestions of things to do in June...
Far Out club night featuring Tom Meighan DJ set - Sat, June 1 - The Cookie, Leicester
Here's an amazing opportunity to enjoy a DJ set from Kasabian's Tom Meighan as well as a DJ set from Arcades.
Far Out is described as "an evening for music lovers, new bands and young creatives that want to hang out together and get behind Leicester’s fast growing music scene.”
The event runs from 10pm until 4am. Tickets £11 inc booking fee. Click here to buy.
(Image: Hitesh Chavda/Monkey Media Productions)
Sean Paul - Sat, June 1 - Club Republic, Leicester
Grammy award-winning artist Sean Paul is set to hold an 'official after party' at Club Republic following his Nottingham gig.
The star - whose dancehall rap style has appeared in countless hit singles including Baby Boy by Beyonce and Rockabye by Clean Bandit - will be supported by Kid J, Glamour, Dre, Juvie, Alex Miles, Lady Envy, DJ Jeevan and DJ Nikz.
It's the second time Sean Paul will have appeared at Club Republic, having performed there - to a sell-out crowd - in 2015.
The event will run from 10pm until 4am. Tickets are priced from £10, with VIP packages available. Click here to purchase tickets via the Fatsoma website.
Leicester Riverside Festival - Sat, June 1 and Sun, June 2 - Leicester
Promising a weekend of free family fun, the Leicester Riverside Festival is returning for the 22nd year.
The annual two-day festival will take place at Bede Park, Western Boulevard, the River Soar and Mile Straight and Castle Gardens.
There will be fun on and off the water, with activities including boat trips down the Soar, the chance to splash about in canoe with Paddleplus, and the opportunity to enjoy a cuppa on the floating tea shop.
Under the tipi on Bede Park, there will be a full programme of arts, dance and music, and the children's arts and crafts area is back.
Running between Bede Park and Castle Gardens, Western Boulevard will host a world food and arts street market.
The event will run from 12pm until 7pm on Saturday, and from 12pm until 5pm on Sunday.
For a full run-down of activities, click here to read our article all about the festival.
(Image: Charlotte Graham)
A Knight's Quest - Sat, June 1 and Sun, June 2 - Belvoir Castle
Here's your chance to step back in time as the Knights of Nottingham return to Belvoir for the first time in 10 years.
Guests will be taken back in time to the Middle Ages with jousting shows, japing jesters, birds of prey and a hog roast.
The weekend is inspired by historic events.
The Earl of Rutland in 1612 was known to take part in regular fancy dress events featuring jousting and even hired a designer - William Shakespeare!
Look out for Queen Elizabeth and King James popping back to Belvoir this June to enjoy the jousting, as they did many years ago.
Tickets are £20 per adult, £10 per child, £50 per family (2 adult and 3 children). Click here to buy.
Art House Leicester - Fri, June 7 - Sun, June 9 - Clarendon Park and Stoneygate, Leicester
This annual event gives you a wonderful opportunity to see extraordinary art in ordinary houses, and meet the artists themselves.
A total of 10 different houses will be showing work by up to 40 local artists, with jewellery, textiles, fine art, sculpture and ceramics among the items on show.
The event will run on Friday from 6pm until 8.30pm, and on Saturday and Sunday from 11am until 6pm.
To find out more about the houses and artists taking part, click here to visit the website.
MELT Street Food Kitchen - Fri, June 7 - Melton Mowbray Market Place
After a successful debut event in May, MELT returns to Melton's Market Place with more delicious street food.
Food traders will include Ruby's Street Kitcen, Phata Phat, Tacoboz, Sticky Beaks and Toastie the Difference.
Locally-produced drinks will be available from Brentingby Gin, Round Corner Brewing, Witham Wines and Melton Mowbray Sloe Gin.
The event runs from 12pm until late, with music all day and entertainment from 5pm.
Burleighs World Gin Day Festival 2019 - Sat, June 8 - Loughborough Town Hall
Celebrate World Gin Day at Burleighs' third annual gin festival.
The event will take place at Loughborough Town Hall, just a stone's throw from where the product is distilled.
The Leicestershire festival will feature an eclectic mix of live music, DJ’s, street food and craft beer, and of course, a brilliant selection of Burleighs Gin.
The World Gin Day Festival will see bars dedicated to each member of the House of Burleighs, with each bar providing the perfect serve and cocktails for each expression.
The event will take place from 7pm until midnight, and is suitable for over 18s only.
Tickets are £25 each and include a Burleighs gin and tonic of your choice and a Burleighs copa glass and entry into a World Gin Day giveaway. Click here to buy.
Music in the Park - Sat, June 8 - Wistow Hall
Take a picnic and enjoy a wonderful evening listening to two bands - the high-energy 'Ska-aManga' band and the award-winning 'Kibworth Brass Band'. The evening finishes with a fireworks display in front of Wistow Hall.
The concert is raising money for LOROS hospice and the charity Raising Health.
The event is organised by the Wigston Rotary Club, and the compere is Martin Ballard from Radio Leicester.
Gates open 5.30pm, concert starts 7.30pm, fireworks 10pm.
Tickets £15 in advance (£20 on the night), 10-16 years old £5, under 10's free. Car park is free.
Advance tickets can be bought from Ken Baileys Garden Centre at Wistow Rural Centre (cash and cheques only) and at all 28 LOROS Shops throughout Leicestershire and Rutland.
Comic Con Leicester 2019 - Sat, June 8 and Sun, June 9 - Athena Leicester
Comic Con Leicester is back for its fifth year, with lots to see and do for all ages.
There will be comics and creators, Big Geek Markets selling a variety of things that you won't find on the high street, Cosplayers and Cosplay competitions for both children and adults, and photo opportunities with movie props and professional Cosplay teams.
The event will run from 9.30am until 4pm each day, and tickets are priced from £8 adult, £6 children. Click here to buy.
Rock of Ages - Tue, June 11 - Sat, June 15 - Haymarket Theatre, Leicester
Global smash hit musical Rock of Ages is coming to Leicester, and promises the biggest party in town!
You'll be singing and laughing along with songs including Don’t Stop Believin’, We Built This City, The Final Countdown, Wanted Dead or Alive, Here I Go Again, Can’t Fight This Feelin’ and I Want to Know What Love Is, played by a live band.
The cast includes Strictly Come Dancing star Kevin Clifton as Stacee Jaxx, and Kevin Kennedy (Coronation Street, We Will Rock You) as Dennis. Standard tickets from £28.00. Click here to buy.
Outdoor screening of Easy Rider (18) - Friday, June 14 - The Green Place, Sileby
Adults can enjoy an outdoor screening of 1969 film Easy Rider, starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as two bikers travelling across America, carrying the proceeds of a drug deal.
Doors open at 6pm. Film at dusk (8.45pm approx). Tickets are £6 and can be booked via The Green Place website here.
REVIVE Festival - Fri, June 14 - Sun, June 30 - Leicester city centre
Prepare to be transported back to the sixties over three weekends in June.
You'll be able to experience vintage fairs, live sixties music and events, vinyl records, street food, family fun and more scooters than the set of Quadrophenia!
The REVIVE project is a celebration of sub-cultures – bringing the sights and sounds of bygone eras to the streets of Leicester.
Some of Leicester’s most prominent venues including De Montfort Hall, New Walk Museum, LCB Depot, Phoenix, Highcross and a host of shops, bars, pubs, clubs and cafes are coming together to celebrate the sights and sounds of the swinging sixties.
The festival will begin on June 14 with the official REVIVE Festival launch and opening of Mods 19:64 Photography exhibition at the LCB Depot, as well as a Mod, Ska and Northern Soul Vinyl DJ Night at The Exchange, and family workshops and a film screening at New Walk Museum and Soft Touch Arts. Click here to visit the website for a full list of events.
Gin, Prosecco, Cider and Ale Evening - Sat, June 15 - Leicester Racecourse, Oadby
Leicester Racecourse is holding its first ever Gin, Prosecco, Cider and Ale Evening, featuring horse racing, lots of food and bar outlets and live music from The Bavarian Strollers.
Tickets are £15 per person when booking online. Click here to purchase.
Bottomless Bubbles and Bao Brunch - Sat, June 15 - 2Funky Kitchen, Leicester
Brought to you by Canteen, Bulldog Gin and Wallace and Sons, this brunch event will take place at new Leicester street food venue 2Funky Kitchen.
Wallace & Sons will be providing filled bao buns with a side dish which is included in your ticket price (you will need to pick the choice of bao for each ticket at checkout) and gin cocktails and fizzes will be available at the Bulldog Gin bar throughout the event. A full bar with a vast selection of beers, spirits and soft drinks will also be available.
Bottomless Bulldog Gin cocktails and gin fizzes will be available for two hours between 2pm and 4pm to bottomless wristband holders (bottomless tickets are limited).
DJs will be playing a selection of funk and soulful house throughout the event.
The event will run from 12pm until 8pm. Tickets are priced from £15 and need to be bought in advance. Click here to buy.
Foxton Locks Festival - Sat, June 15 and Sun, June 16 - Foxton
Offering heaps of fun for all the family, Foxton Locks Festival returns this month.
There will be live music, crafts, boats, arena entertainment, a kids funfair, food and a real ale bar.
There's even a fun dog show, so your pet can join in the fun too.
The event will run from 10am until 11.30pm on Saturday, and 10am until 6pm on Sunday. Entry is £10 per adult, £8 per senior, with accompanied children up to 16 years old free.
Follow the signs for the free festival car park.
The FAB Worlds of Anderson - Sat, June 15 and Sun, June 16 - National Space Centre, Leicester
The Space Centre will be celebrating the fantastic and futuristic legacy of the husband and wife team of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who were responsible for creating some of the best loved children’s science fiction shows.
Generations of children around the world have enjoyed and been captivated by shows like Fireball XL5, Captain Scarlet, Space 1999 and, of course, the iconic Thunderbirds.
During this weekend, you'll be able to listen to guest speakers, enjoy children's activities, see an exhibition of puppets, props, craft and costumes, and a prosthetics exhibition.
Tickets: Adults £15, children 5-16 and concessions £12, under 5s free. Click here to buy.
Clarendon Park Summer Fair - Sun, June 16 - Clarendon Park, Leicester
You're invited to soak up the summer atmosphere whilst supporting independent businesses and local entrepreneurs.
The event will feature around 50 stalls selling unique gifts, arts, crafts and food. There will be live entertainment throughout that day, and fairground rides for the children.
The shops, restaurants and bars on Queens Road and Clarendon Park Road will also be open.
The event will run from 11am until 5pm.
Tap Days - Fri, June 21 and Sat, June 22 - Framework Brewery, Friday Street, Leicester
Here's your chance to enjoy a beer right where it's been made, at one of Framework Brewery's monthly tap days.
It'll be open from 4pm until 8pm on Friday, and 12pm until 8pm on Saturday.
The Two-Tailed Lion first birthday celebration - Sat, June 22 - Two-Tailed Lion, Millstone Lane, Leicester
It's hard to believe, but it's already a year since this brilliant little pub opened its doors.
To celebrate, The Two-Tailed Lion is holding a bit of a do, featuring keg and cask specials, one-off birthday cocktails and party food.
Why not head down and enjoy the celebrations? The pub will be open from 12pm until 11pm.
New Walk Museum birthday celebration - Sat, June 22 - New Walk Museum, Leicester
New Walk Museum's 170th birthday will be celebrated with a special event, featuring free craft, sketching and music activities, exhibitor stands and more.
Guests and organisations attending the event will include Egyptology experts Prof. Joann Fletcher and Dr Stephen Buckley (University of York), University of Leicester Archaeological Services, East Midlands Geological Society, Leicestershire Ancient Egypt Society and the Richard III Society.
There will be a chance to make great music with Drum and Brass Leicester, and in the Victorian Gallery, you can join in sketching fun and competitions with Leicester Society of Artists.
The event will run from 11am until 4pm.
Leicester Horror Con 2019 - Sat June 22 - The Guildhall, Leicester
The first ever Leicester Horror Con is set to take place on Saturday, June 22, in the Grade I Listed Guildhall - thought to be one of the most haunted places in the county.
This is your chance to meet fellow horror fans, buy merchandise in the 'Dark Market' from the UK's best Horror traders and learn more about the genre.
Artwork, posters, toys, comics, books, DVD's/Blu Rays and more will be available.
The event will run from 11am until 5pm, and tickets are £6.66. Click here to buy.
Read more | tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | OpenWebText2 |
Introduction
============
Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy, with favorable outcome after early detection and treatment.[@b1-ott-9-2495],[@b2-ott-9-2495] Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) guided by ultrasound is a routine and reliable approach for preoperative evaluation of thyroid nodules. Approximately 10%--40% of FNA specimens yield indeterminate results, and the majority of them turn out to be benign after diagnostic surgery, and thus a sizable portion of indeterminate specimens lead to unnecessary thyroidectomy.[@b3-ott-9-2495]--[@b7-ott-9-2495] The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology divides indeterminate nodules into three subgroups: atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance (AUS/FLUS), follicular neoplasm/suspicious for follicular neoplasm (FN/SFN), and suspicious for malignant cells (SMC).[@b8-ott-9-2495] The indeterminate thyroid nodule is the most intractable problem in clinical management, which highlights the urgency to develop effective ancillary testing to identify cancerous nodules for timely and appropriate management.
Great progress has been achieved in the understanding of molecular mechanisms of thyroid cancer, and various mutations have been identified in the early stage of thyroid cancer, such as *BRAF*, *RAS*, *PI3K*, *and PTEN*.[@b9-ott-9-2495] These genetic alterations are excellent candidates for disease hallmarks, since 60%--70% of thyroid cancers harbor at least one genetic mutation.[@b9-ott-9-2495] The *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation appears to be the most promising biomarker specific for papillary thyroid cancer (PTC),[@b9-ott-9-2495] which aberrantly activates the tumor-initiating MAPK pathway and drives the carcinogenesis and progression of thyroid cancer.[@b9-ott-9-2495],[@b10-ott-9-2495]
Whether *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis could be routinely used in clinical practice is still controversial. Numerous researchers have proved that *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation testing is an effective diagnostic approach for thyroid FNA,[@b11-ott-9-2495] while others believe that its utility is limited by low prevalence of *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation in indeterminate nodules.[@b12-ott-9-2495] Therefore, we conducted a structured meta-analysis to estimate the additional diagnostic yield of *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation analysis in thyroid FNA, and further evaluated the malignancy rate, *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation frequency, and diagnostic value of *BRAF*^V600E^ testing in different categories of indeterminate nodule.
Materials and methods
=====================
Search strategy and selection criteria
--------------------------------------
Systematic searches were performed in the PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Ovid, Elsevier, and Cochrane Library databases for relevant articles prior to June 2015. The search terms were: (\[thyroid cancer\] or \[thyroid neoplasm\] or \[thyroid tumor\]), (*BRAF*), and (\[FNA\] or \[fine needle aspiration\]). The references of available articles were also reviewed. Study selection consisted of initial screening of titles or abstracts and second screening of full texts. Studies were included if they met the following criteria: 1) research article rather than review, system review, case report, editorial, or comments; 2) the material for *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation analysis was obtained by FNA; 3) the final diagnosis was based on a definite gold standard, such as surgical histology, unequivocal histocytopathology, or reliable clinical follow-up; 4) the data were available to construct 2×2 tables or analyze malignancy rate or *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation prevalence.
Data extraction and quality assessment
--------------------------------------
The following items were extracted: study by author name(s), country, number of centers, enrollment period, study design, mean age of patients, mean diameter of nodules, reference standard of final diagnosis, and genotyping method. Most research classified cytological results according to the Bethesda system[@b8-ott-9-2495] or the British Thyroid Association,[@b13-ott-9-2495],[@b14-ott-9-2495] as shown in [Table 1](#t1-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}. In this meta-analysis, FNA cases classified as AUS/FLUS (Thy3a) and FN/SFN (Thy3f) were regarded as cytologically negative and lesions diagnosed as SMC (Thy4) were cytologically positive. Final diagnosis was based on histopathologic examination after surgery or a combination of cytological examination and clinical follow-up. Then, patient numbers for true-positive, false-positive, false-negative, and true-negative results were extracted to construct the 2×2 tables.
The methodological quality of studies eligible for diagnostic analysis of FNA cytology and/or *BRAF*^V600E^ testing was assessed according to the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Studies 2, which comprises four domains: patient selection, index test, reference standard, and flow and timing.[@b15-ott-9-2495] A series of questions was used to judge the risk of bias and applicability concerns as low, high, or unclear risk.
Statistical analysis
--------------------
The threshold effect was calculated by the Spearman correlation coefficient, and *P*\<0.05 indicated the existence of a threshold effect. Nonthreshold heterogeneity was assessed by the Cochran *Q* test and inconsistency index (*I*^2^). *I*^2^\>50% suggested significant heterogeneity, and a random-effect model (DerSimonian--Laird method) was chosen.[@b16-ott-9-2495],[@b17-ott-9-2495] Metaregression analysis was used to identify the possible sources of nonthreshold heterogeneity. The following covariates were considered in the metaregression analysis: country, number of centers (single or multiple), sample size (\<100, 100--500, 500--1,000, or \>1,000), study design (prospective or retrospective), reference standard (histology or cytology plus clinical follow-up), and genotyping method. If *P*\<0.05, the covariate was to be regarded as the source of nonthreshold heterogeneity.
The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were computed to estimate diagnostic accuracy. DOR combined the data of sensitivity and specificity into a single indicator ranging from 0 to infinity, reflecting the discriminatory performance of testing. The summary receiver-operating characteristic (SROC) curve was a mathematical model for the plot of sensitivity (1 -- specificity). The *Q* index indicated the point at which sensitivity was equal to specificity. The areas under the SROC curve (AUCs) calculated the inherent capacity of the diagnostic test. If the AUC closed to 1, the diagnostic method was thought to be perfect.
The threshold effect, pooled diagnostic features, and metaregression were calculated by Meta-Disc (version 1.4; Ramony Cajal Hospital, Madrid, Spain). Pooled rates of malignancy and *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation were calculated by R statistical software (version 3.2.1; R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria). Quality assessment was conducted using Review Manager (version 5.2; Cochrane Collaboration). *P*\<0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results
=======
Search results and quality assessment
-------------------------------------
The search process is shown in [Figure 1](#f1-ott-9-2495){ref-type="fig"}. A total of 1,261 articles were initially identified, and 1,130 of these were excluded after reviewing titles and abstracts. The remaining 131 articles were investigated in detail. In accordance with the selection criteria mentioned in the Materials and methods section, 43 articles were excluded after reading the full texts. Finally, 88 studies published from 2004 to 2015 were included in this meta-analysis. Among these, 51 studies were included in the analysis of diagnostic accuracy, and at the same time 37 studies and 62 studies were available for analysis of malignancy rate and *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation rate, respectively.
The characteristics of studies eligible for diagnostic analysis of FNA cytology and *BRAF*^V600E^ testing are summarized in [Table 2](#t2-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}. As shown in [Figure 2](#f2-ott-9-2495){ref-type="fig"}, about a third of studies had a high risk of bias in patient selection, because 14 of them did not enroll the samples consecutively or at random and eleven excluded a number of patients inappropriately. Twelve studies did not receive the same reference standard, since some patients were diagnosed by histopathology and others by FNA cytology plus clinical follow-up. Also, 17 studies did not include all patients, due to the unsatisfactory FNA or failure of *BRAF*^V600E^ testing. As a result, nearly half of the studies harbored a high risk of bias in flow and timing. Fortunately, the risk of bias in the index test and reference standard was relatively low.
Synthesis of analysis results
-----------------------------
### Diagnostic value of FNA cytology, *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation analysis, and combined strategy in all the thyroid FNA specimens
Spearman correlation coefficients for FNA cytology, *BRAF*^V600E^ testing and combined strategy were 0.032 (*P*=0.826), 0.254 (*P*=0.078), and 0.064 (*P*=0.661), respectively; therefore, no threshold effect existed in the analysis. However, there was substantial nonthreshold heterogeneity (*I*^2^\>50%, *P*\<0.05), so the random-effect model was chosen to pool the diagnostic features. A total of 51 studies were included in this part of the analysis,[@b18-ott-9-2495]--[@b68-ott-9-2495] but one was excluded because it had no false-positive or true-negative case to calculate the diagnostic index ([Table 3](#t3-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}).[@b68-ott-9-2495]
Based on the feasible FNA cytology results from 50 studies, pooled sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR, and DOR were 0.814 (95% CI 0.803--0.824), 0.981 (95% CI 0.978--0.985), 23.868 (95% CI 14.139--40.293), 0.216 (95% CI 0.172--0.273), and 127.73 (95% CI 75.082--217.28) ([Table 4](#t4-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}). The AUC of the SROC curve was 0.9551 (standard error \[SE\] 0.0127), with a *Q*-value of 0.8975 (SE 0.0178) ([Figure 3A](#f3-ott-9-2495){ref-type="fig"}). Data for the *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation test were unavailable in one study,[@b45-ott-9-2495] and 49 studies with 9,361 patients were finally analyzed. Pooled sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR, and DOR were 0.619 (95% CI 0.605--0.633), 0.997 (95% CI 0.995--0.998), 34.982 (95% CI 23.801--51.415), 0.433 (95% CI 0.384--0.489), and 96.570 (95% CI 63.932--145.87) ([Table 4](#t4-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}). The AUC of the SROC was 0.9207 (SE 0.0233), with a *Q*-value of 0.8542 (SE 0.0268) ([Figure 3B](#f3-ott-9-2495){ref-type="fig"}). Also, the positive predictive value of *BRAF*^V600E^ testing was 99.5% (2,886 of 2,900). After *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis was combined with FNA cytology, sensitivity increased to 0.874 (95% CI 0.865--0.884), the DOR and AUC improved to 187.92 (95% CI 110.24--320.35) and 0.9744 (SE 0.0062), respectively, with a *Q*-value of 0.9271 (SE 0.0107) ([Table 4](#t4-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}, [Figure 3C](#f3-ott-9-2495){ref-type="fig"}). The synergism between FNA cytology and *BRAF*^V600E^ testing also decreased the false-negative rate from 8% in FNA cytology to 5.2%, but increased the false-positive rate from 3% to 5% at the same time.
### Diagnostic value of *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation analysis in indeterminate cases (Bethesda categories III--V)
There were 43 studies included in the diagnostic analysis of *BRAF*^V600E^ testing in the indeterminate thyroid nodules ([Table 5](#t5-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}).[@b18-ott-9-2495],[@b19-ott-9-2495],[@b21-ott-9-2495],[@b22-ott-9-2495],[@b24-ott-9-2495],[@b26-ott-9-2495]--[@b37-ott-9-2495],[@b40-ott-9-2495],[@b42-ott-9-2495]--[@b44-ott-9-2495],[@b46-ott-9-2495]--[@b48-ott-9-2495],[@b50-ott-9-2495]--[@b54-ott-9-2495],[@b57-ott-9-2495]--[@b62-ott-9-2495],[@b64-ott-9-2495]--[@b67-ott-9-2495],[@b69-ott-9-2495]--[@b72-ott-9-2495] Our data showed that 23% of indeterminate nodules harbored the *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation. No threshold effect was detected, so the random-effect model was chosen to pool the diagnostic features: sensitivity 0.442 (95% CI 0.416--0.468), specificity 0.997 (95% CI 0.994--0.999), PLR 12.267 (95% CI 8.175--18.406), NLR 0.613 (95% CI 0.551--0.683), and DOR 23.939 (95% CI 15.388--37.242) ([Table 6](#t6-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}; [Figure 4A and B](#f4-ott-9-2495){ref-type="fig"}). The AUC of the SROC was 0.8711 (SE 0.0414), with a *Q*-value of 0.8015 (SE 0.0410) ([Figure 4C](#f4-ott-9-2495){ref-type="fig"}).
To evaluate the diagnostic value of *BRAF*^V600E^ testing in different categories of indeterminate nodules, we separated the indeterminate cases into three different and more specific categories according to the Bethesda system. Studies with sample sizes fewer than ten were excluded to avoid potential bias. The malignancy rates of FN/SFN and AUS/FLUS were 30.55% and 34.99%, while 90.35% of SMC cases turned out to be malignant ([Table 7](#t7-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}). Besides that, the *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation rate varied among these groups: it existed in 43.2% of SMC cases, but only 13.77% in AUS/FLUS and 4.43% in FN/SFN patients ([Table 7](#t7-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}). Furthermore, the sensitivity of *BRAF*^V600E^ testing was higher in SMC (0.594, 95% CI 0.556--0.631) than AUS/FLUS (0.401, 95% CI 0.328--0.477) and FN/SFN (0.195, 95% CI 0.128--0.278), while specificity was higher in the AUS/FLUS (0.995, 95% CI 0.982--0.999) and FN/SFN (0.997, 95% CI 0.983--1.000) groups than the SMC group (0.861, 95% CI 0.784--0.918) ([Table 6](#t6-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table"}). The AUC of the SROC was 0.7674 (SE 0.0564) with a *Q*-value of 0.7079 (SE 0.0474) in the SMC group, and 0.7999 (SE 0.0897) with a *Q*-value of 0.7358 (SE 0.0783) in the AUS/FLUS group, but was not significant in FN/SFN cases, since the lower limit of the AUC was less than 0.5 ([Figure 5](#f5-ott-9-2495){ref-type="fig"}).
Heterogeneity test
------------------
Heterogeneity was present in our meta-analysis, and Spearman correlation coefficients suggested no significant threshold effect. To explore sources of heterogeneity, we assessed multiple variables by metaregression, including country, number of centers, sample size, study design, reference standard, and genotyping method. The results indicated that country and sample size were possible sources of heterogeneity (data not shown). Other covariates that may have caused heterogeneity, such as enrollment period, age, sex, nodule diameter, size of needle, use of blinding method, and differences in operating protocol, were not analyzed here, due to the loss of partial data.
Discussion
==========
Thyroid cancer is on a rapid increase these days, partially due to advancing diagnostic methods. The majority of cases have an excellent prognosis, with 30-year survival rate exceeding 90% after thyroidectomy and/or radioiodine ablation.[@b2-ott-9-2495] Preoperative diagnosis is of indisputable value in distinguishing thyroid cancer from benign nodules. FNA biopsy is a conventional technique to identify malignant thyroid nodules preoperatively and effectively, which has also been demonstrated in our meta-analysis. However, the extensive use of this approach is influenced by its inherent limitations, such as size or location of nodule, quantity and quality of obtained material, technical skill of the cytopathologist, and the overlap of cytomorphological features between malignant and benign nodules. Therefore, a fraction of cases are classified as nondiagnostic or indeterminate, and about 15%--30% of them get malignant pathology after diagnostic surgery.[@b8-ott-9-2495],[@b73-ott-9-2495] Since the occurrence of malignancy is too high for just watchful waiting, numerous patients with indeterminate diagnosis accept unnecessary surgical intervention. *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation is the most promising marker for thyroid nodules. A similar meta-analysis conducted by Jia et al of 16 studies suggested that *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis had diagnostic value in indeterminate thyroid nodules,[@b11-ott-9-2495] but another analysis of eight eligible studies found a low *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation rate within indeterminate cases, and thus the value of *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation testing remains controversial.[@b12-ott-9-2495] However, the number of studies these two analyses included was limited, and did not systematically stratify the indeterminate categories. Therefore, we designed a more comprehensive meta-analysis to evaluate the diagnostic yield of *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis in thyroid FNA, especially those specific categories of indeterminate cases.
Consistent with previous research, our meta-analysis showed that *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis had high specificity and positive predictive value. As a rule-in test, a positive result of *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis indicates a high probability of malignancy so that therapeutic surgery is recommended, but the negative result cannot exclude malignancy, and further evaluations, such as follow-up ultrasound or repeat FNA, are needed. When we combined *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation testing with FNA cytological examination, sensitivity increased by 6% and the false-negative rate decreased from 8% to 5.2%, while the false-positive rate increased from 3% to 5% at the same time. However, *BRAF*^V600E^ testing had relatively low sensitivity of 44.2% in the indeterminate group. Also, the yield and usefulness of *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis can be greatly varied with the prevalence of *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation in different subcategories of indeterminate nodules. *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation was present in 43.2% of SMC cases regarded as cytologically positive in our meta-analysis, but only 13.77% in AUS/FLUS and 4.43% in FN/SFN cases. Therefore, it was reasonable that *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis did best in SMC lesions (sensitivity 59.4%, specificity 86.1%) and also had certain diagnostic value in AUS/FLUS nodules (sensitivity 40.1%, specificity 99.5%), but no significant benefit in the FN/SFN group, which needs other diagnostic approaches with high sensitivity.
*BRAF*^V600E^ mutation is specific to PTC or anaplastic thyroid cancer arising from PTC, and more common in conventional and tall-cell PTC than follicular-variant PTC (FVPTC), which results in the discrepancy of *BRAF*^V600E^ test in different indeterminate subgroups. The FN/SFN category is mainly constituted of FVPTC, follicular thyroid cancer (FTC), adenomatoid hyperplasia, and follicular adenoma,[@b74-ott-9-2495] which harbors low prevalence of *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation and is hard for *BRAF*^V600E^ testing to determine malignancy, so FVPTC and FTC may be the main source of false-negative results. The molecular profiles of FVPTC and FTC are similar, with frequent *RAS* and rare *BRAF* mutation.[@b75-ott-9-2495],[@b76-ott-9-2495] *RAS* mutation, mutually exclusive with *BRAF* mutation, is the most frequent genetic mutation in indeterminate nodules, and provides important diagnostic information for *BRAF*^V600E^-negative nodules.[@b69-ott-9-2495],[@b77-ott-9-2495] An et al reported that single *RAS*-mutation analysis had a sensitivity of 93.3% and specificity of 75.0% in indeterminate nodules, and the combination of *RAS* and *BRAF* mutation provided additional diagnosis value for 60%--70% indeterminate thyroid nodules.[@b78-ott-9-2495] Other genetic alterations, such as *RET*/*PTC* and *PAX8*/*PPARG*, also contribute to the definite diagnosis of indeterminate nodules.[@b69-ott-9-2495],[@b79-ott-9-2495],[@b80-ott-9-2495] Therefore, an expanded panel can be more effective, which is also recommended by the revised American Thyroid Association management guidelines.[@b73-ott-9-2495] As some mutations also present in benign nodules, the accompanying increase in false-positive rate should not be neglected. For instance, *RAS* mutation and *PAX8*/*PPARG* translocation are also found in follicular adenoma.[@b79-ott-9-2495],[@b81-ott-9-2495] Additionally, some thyroid cancer does not have definitive molecular mutation, and other efficient rule-out testing with high negative predictive value should be explored.
The clinical management decision is directly based on the malignant risk, ranging from repeat FNA to diagnostic lobectomy to total thyroidectomy. Uncertain diagnosis may lead to delayed treatment or unnecessary intervention. Based on the Bethesda classification, malignancy rates for FN/SFN and SMC nodules are 15%--30% and 60%--75%, respectively, and are much more variable in AUS/FLUS cases (7%--48%).[@b8-ott-9-2495] In our analysis, the malignancy rate of the SMC group was higher than that recorded in the Bethesda classification, and this discrepancy might have resulted from continuous improvement in FNA technique, since the data for the Bethesda system were collected several years ago. *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation is a strong indicator for malignancy, and total thyroidectomy should be proposed as the first-line treatment for *BRAF*^V600E^-positive nodules to decrease the recurrence and avoid complications caused by standard two-stage surgery. Nevertheless, *BRAF*^V600E^ testing is relatively insufficient for AUS/FLUS and even has no effect in FN/SFN patients, due to the low prevalence of *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation, but their malignant occurrence (30.55% and 34.99%) was too high to perform clinical observation. Other approaches, such as core-needle biopsy and immunohistochemistry, are also required to confidently guide the management. Several multicenter studies have reported that *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation is associated with aggressive clinicopathological characteristics and predicts recurrence and mortality for PTC patients.[@b82-ott-9-2495]--[@b89-ott-9-2495] Therefore, more aggressive surgery, such as prophylactic central lymph-node dissection and closer follow-up, should be considered in the management of *BRAF*^V600E^-positive thyroid cancer.
Despite its achievements, our meta-analysis had several limitations. Firstly, there was significant nonthreshold heterogeneity, partly caused by country and sample size of different studies, but other possible covariates were unable to be analyzed due to the paucity of data. The heterogeneity from country may be due to the different *BRAF*^V600E^ prevalence in worldwide populations, eg, it is up to 80% in South Korea, which is much higher than other regions.[@b24-ott-9-2495] Secondly, about a third of the studies had a high risk of bias in patient selection, and nearly half had a high risk of bias in flow and timing, which may affect the reliability of our results.
Conclusion
==========
This meta-analysis demonstrated that *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis using residual material obtained from routine FNA could improve diagnostic accuracy and reduce false-negative rates. Besides, *BRAF*^V600E^ analysis had certain diagnostic value in SMC and AUS/FLUS cases, especially the SMC group, selecting cases with high malignancy possibility and guiding intraoperative or postoperative management, though its value in FN/SFN cases was doubtful, and expanded panels containing other diagnostic markers are recommended. Therefore, more studies of high quality are needed to balance the advantages and disadvantages of *BRAF*^V600E^ testing for patients and to select the most suitable population for this diagnostic method.
This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81202141 and 81272676), Key Project of Scientific and Technological Innovation of Hangzhou (20131813A08), National Science and Technology Major Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2013ZX09506015), and Medical Science and Technology Project of Zhejiang Province (2011ZDA009).
**Disclosure**
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.
{#f1-ott-9-2495}
{#f2-ott-9-2495}
{#f3-ott-9-2495}
{#f4-ott-9-2495}
{#f5-ott-9-2495}
######
Comparison between the British and Bethesda systems for classification of thyroid cytopathology
Bethesda British
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------
Nondiagnostic or unsatisfactory Thy1 (nondiagnostic)
Benign Thy2 (nonneoplastic)
AUS/FLUS (atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance) Thy3a (neoplasm possible, atypia/nondiagnostic)
FN/SFN (follicular neoplasm/suspicious for follicular neoplasm) Thy3f (neoplasm possible, suggesting follicular neoplasm)
SMC (suspicious for malignancy) Thy4 (suspicious of malignancy)
Malignant Thy5 (malignant)
######
Characteristics of studies eligible for the diagnostic analysis of FNA cytology and *BRAF*^V600E^ testing
Study Country Centers, n Enrollment period Design Mean age, years Mean diameter, cm Final diagnosis Genotyping method
--------------------------------------------- ------------- ------------ --------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ----------------- ------------------- ----------------- ---------------------------------------------------
Cohen et al[@b18-ott-9-2495] USA 1 Jan 2001--Jan 2003 Retro[a](#tfn1-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table-fn"} -- -- A Direct sequencing + mutector assay
Xing et al[@b19-ott-9-2495] USA 1 -- Pro[b](#tfn2-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table-fn"} -- -- B Direct sequencing + colorimetric method
Domingues et al[@b20-ott-9-2495] Portugal 1 -- Retro -- -- A PCR-RFLP
Pizzolanti et al[@b21-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 Sep 2005--Jun 2006 Pro -- -- A Real-time AS-PCR
Sapio et al[@b22-ott-9-2495] Italy 2 -- Retro -- -- B Direct sequencing
Sapio et al[@b23-ott-9-2495] Italy 2 -- Retro -- -- B MASA
Kim et al[@b24-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Aug 2005--Jul 2006 Retro -- -- A Pyrosequencing
Bentz et al[@b25-ott-9-2495] USA 1 1994--2004 Retro 40.9 -- A LCPCR + FMCA
Jo et al[@b26-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 June 2006--Dec 2006 Pro -- 1 A Pyrosequencing
Marchetti et al[@b27-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 1996--2008 Retro -- -- A Direct sequencing
Nikiforov et al[@b28-ott-9-2495] USA 2 -- Pro -- -- B LCPCR + FMCA
Zatelli et al[@b29-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 Oct 2008--Dec 2009 Pro 50.7 1.1 A Direct sequencing
Cantara et al[@b30-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 -- Pro 51.2 -- A DHPLC + direct sequencing
Girlando et al[@b31-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 -- Pro -- -- A Direct sequencing
Kim et al[@b32-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 -- Pro 50.6 1.29 A DPO-based multiplex PCR + direct sequencing
Kwak et al[@b33-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Mar 2008--Jun 2008 Retro 45.6 1.17 A DPO-based multiplex PCR
Moses et al[@b34-ott-9-2495] USA 1 Jun 2006--Jul 2008 Pro 51 -- B Direct sequencing
Musholt et al[@b35-ott-9-2495] Germany 6 Jan 2008--Jul 2009 Pro -- -- A Direct sequencing
Adeniran et al[@b36-ott-9-2495] USA 1 Sep 2009--Nov 2010 Pro 52.6 -- A SSCP analysis
Kim et al[@b37-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Mar 2007--Feb 2009 Pro -- -- A Pyrosequencing
Lee et al[@b38-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 July 2007--Dec 2009 Pro 50.3 1.46 A Pyrosequencing
Moon et al[@b39-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Sep 2008--May 2009 Retro 49.4 0.95 B Direct sequencing
Pelizzo et al[@b40-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 Oct 2008--Sep 2009 Pro 47.8 -- A Direct sequencing + MASA
Smith et al[@b41-ott-9-2495] USA 1 -- Retro -- -- A MCA
Yeo et al[@b42-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Jul 2009--Jan 2010 Pro 51.27 1.3 B Pyrosequencing
Cañadas-Garre et al[@b43-ott-9-2495] Spain 1 Jun 2006--Dec 2009 Pro 49.8 -- A PCR-RFLP
Kang et al[@b44-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Apr 2008--Jul 2009 Pro -- -- A AS-PCR + direct sequencing
Kwak et al[@b45-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Jun 2009--Oct 2010 Retro 48 0.92 A DPO-PCR + real-time PCR
Lee et al[@b46-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Aug 2008--Mar 2011 Pro 49.5 -- A MEMO-PCR + direct sequencing
Mancini et al[@b47-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 -- Pro 55.1 2.38 A High-resolution melting analysis
Rossi et al[@b48-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 -- Pro 52 -- B Direct sequencing
Tomei et al[@b49-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 -- Retro -- -- A Pyrosequencing
Brahma et al[@b50-ott-9-2495] Indonesia 3 Aug 2010--Jun 2011 Pro 46 .1 A PCR-RFLP
Di Benedetto et al[@b51-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 -- Pro -- -- A Direct sequencing
Koh et al[@b52-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Jan 2009--Oct 2010 Pro 48.6 1.05 B DPO-PCR
Park et al[@b53-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Jan 2011--May 2011 Retro -- -- B Real-time PCR + pyrosequencing
Beaudenon-Huibregtse et al[@b54-ott-9-2495] USA 5 Jul 2010--Oct 2012 Pro -- -- A Multiplex PCR
Crescenzi et al[@b55-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 -- Pro -- -- A Real-time sequencing
Eszlinger et al[@b56-ott-9-2495] Germany 1 1995--2009 Retro -- -- A High-resolution melting PCR + pyrosequencing
Guo et al[@b57-ott-9-2495] PRC 1 Nov 2010--Jul 2011 Pro -- -- A Direct sequencing
Johnson et al[@b58-ott-9-2495] UK 1 Sep 2011--Oct 2012 Retro -- -- A High-resolution MCA
Liu et al[@b59-ott-9-2495] PRC 1 Sep 2012--Dec 2013 Pro -- -- B Pyrosequencing
Seo et al[@b60-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Dec 2010--Jan 2011 Pro 48.4 1.11 A Real-time PCR
Seo et al[@b61-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Dec 2010--Feb 2012 Pro 50.3 1.9 B Real-time PCR
Wan et al[@b62-ott-9-2495] PRC 1 Mar 2013--Sep 2013 Pro 49 A --
Zeck et al[@b63-ott-9-2495] USA 1 Apr 2011--Jan 2013 Pro -- -- A miRInform test
Eszlinger et al[@b64-ott-9-2495] Italy 1 1995--2009 Retro -- -- A High-resolution melting analysis + pyrosequencing
Krane et al[@b65-ott-9-2495] Germany 1 May 2011--Mar 2012 Pro -- -- A High-resolution melting PCR + pyrosequencing
Park et al[@b66-ott-9-2495] South Korea 1 Jul 2011--Mar 2012 Pro -- -- A Real-time PCR/AS-PCR + MEMO sequencing
Shi et al[@b67-ott-9-2495] USA 1 Jan 2011--Feb 2013 Retro -- -- A Real-time PCR
**Notes:**
Retrospective;
prospective; A, histopathologic examination after surgery; B, combination of cytological examination and clinical follow-up.
**Abbreviations:** PCR-RFLP, polymerase chain reaction--restriction fragment-length polymorphism; AS, allele-specific; MASA, mutant allele-specific amplification; LCPCR, LightCycler PCR; FMCA, fluorescent melting-curve analysis; SSCP, single-strand conformational polymorphism; DHPLC, denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography; DPO, dual-priming oligonucleotide; MEMO, 3′-modified oligonucleotide; PRC, People's Republic of China; FNA, fine-needle aspiration; --, data not available.
######
Diagnostic analysis of FNA cytological examination and *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation analysis in all the FNA specimens
Study Year FNA *BRAF* FNA + *BRAF*
--------------------------------------------- ------ ----- -------- -------------- ------- ----- ---- ----- ----- ----- ---- ---- -------
Cohen et al[@b18-ott-9-2495] 2004 25 0 34 32 23 0 36 32 30 0 29 32
Xing et al[@b19-ott-9-2495] 2004 10 0 19 12 8 0 22 14 12 0 17 12
Domingues et al[@b20-ott-9-2495] 2005 10 0 3 11 3 0 10 11 10 0 3 11
Pizzolanti et al[@b21-ott-9-2495] 2007 13 0 4 32 11 0 6 32 15 0 2 32
Sapio et al[@b22-ott-9-2495] 2007 24 23 2 95 10 0 16 118 25 23 1 95
Sapio et al[@b23-ott-9-2495] 2007 6 0 2 67 4 0 4 123 6 0 2 67
Kim et al[@b24-ott-9-2495] 2008 60 0 21 22 63 0 18 22 73 0 8 22
Bentz et al[@b25-ott-9-2495] 2009 22 0 18 5 17 0 20 5 24 0 16 5
Jo et al[@b26-ott-9-2495] 2009 30 0 9 58 30 0 10 58 38 0 2 58
Marchetti et al[@b27-ott-9-2495] 2009 88 2 4 17 59 0 32 19 88 2 4 17
Nikiforov et al[@b28-ott-9-2495] 2009 27 2 21 36 18 0 30 38 33 2 15 36
Zatelli et al[@b29-ott-9-2495] 2009 66 5 24 373 48 0 42 378 73 5 17 373
Cantara et al[@b30-ott-9-2495] 2010 46 8 16 112 33 0 45 157 50 8 12 112
Girlando et al[@b31-ott-9-2495] 2010 38 0 22 2 41 0 19 2 51 0 9 2
Kim et al[@b32-ott-9-2495] 2010 251 2 6 690 221 5 47 688 253 6 4 686
Kwak et al[@b33-ott-9-2495] 2010 108 10 1 10 87 0 22 20 109 10 0 10
Moses et al[@b34-ott-9-2495] 2010 71 13 30 337 23 0 78 95 75 13 27 336
Musholt et al[@b35-ott-9-2495] 2010 19 13 11 50 9 0 21 63 23 13 7 50
Adeniran et al[@b36-ott-9-2495] 2011 47 0 13 12 40 0 20 12 55 0 5 12
Kim et al[@b37-ott-9-2495] 2011 146 0 27 21 154 1 19 20 167 0 6 21
Lee et al[@b38-ott-9-2495] 2011 127 0 70 29 174 1 24 28 183 0 15 29
Moon et al[@b39-ott-9-2495] 2011 98 0 10 191 57 0 51 191 105 0 3 191
Pelizzo et al[@b40-ott-9-2495] 2011 133 5 6 117 98 0 59 113 138 5 3 124
Smith et al[@b41-ott-9-2495] 2011 10 0 5 5 10 0 5 5 11 0 4 5
Yeo et al[@b42-ott-9-2495] 2011 183 1 9 709 99 0 93 710 185 1 7 709
Cañadas-Garre et al[@b43-ott-9-2495] 2012 12 0 31 132 17 0 31 160 23 0 25 162
Kang et al[@b44-ott-9-2495] 2012 289 1 15 8 226 2 78 7 291 3 13 6
Kwak et al[@b45-ott-9-2495] 2012 318 0 33 86 -- -- -- -- 192 85 1 169
Lee et al[@b46-ott-9-2495] 2012 382 1 47 33 342 0 87 34 398 1 31 33
Mancini et al[@b47-ott-9-2495] 2012 13 1 10 32 12 0 11 33 16 1 7 32
Marchetti et al[@b68-ott-9-2495] 2012 85 0 5 0 63 0 22 0 32 0 15 0
Rossi et al[@b48-ott-9-2495] 2012 159 3 73 1,621 114 0 172 93 193 4 42 1,672
Tomei et al[@b49-ott-9-2495] 2012 44 0 5 38 28 0 21 38 44 0 5 38
Brahma et al[@b50-ott-9-2495] 2013 23 0 26 21 17 0 32 21 25 0 24 21
Di Benedetto et al[@b51-ott-9-2495] 2013 15 1 3 239 13 0 5 240 17 1 1 239
Koh et al[@b52-ott-9-2495] 2013 277 0 27 194 176 3 141 198 287 3 30 198
Park et al[@b53-ott-9-2495] 2013 71 5 8 31 44 1 37 35 76 5 3 31
Beaudenon-Huibregtse et al[@b54-ott-9-2495] 2014 36 4 18 49 21 0 35 53 37 4 19 49
Crescenzi et al[@b55-ott-9-2495] 2014 20 0 1 9 8 0 13 9 20 0 1 9
Eszlinger et al[@b56-ott-9-2495] 2014 57 0 28 225 22 0 43 188 57 0 28 225
Guo et al[@b57-ott-9-2495] 2014 55 1 8 19 41 0 22 20 57 1 6 19
Johnson et al[@b58-ott-9-2495] 2014 31 3 19 44 16 0 28 42 29 3 17 44
Liu et al[@b59-ott-9-2495] 2014 109 8 11 171 88 0 32 179 113 8 7 171
Seo et al[@b60-ott-9-2495] 2014 115 0 17 7 98 0 34 7 121 0 11 7
Seo et al[@b61-ott-9-2495] 2014 42 4 18 36 32 0 28 36 45 4 15 36
Wan et al[@b62-ott-9-2495] 2014 18 0 23 7 25 0 16 7 30 0 11 7
Zeck et al[@b63-ott-9-2495] 2014 7 2 6 6 5 0 8 8 7 2 6 6
Eszlinger et al[@b64-ott-9-2495] 2015 69 1 68 201 57 0 80 201 80 1 57 201
Krane et al[@b65-ott-9-2495] 2015 54 2 19 77 32 0 41 79 60 2 13 77
Park et al[@b66-ott-9-2495] 2015 111 0 13 34 101 1 23 33 116 1 8 32
Shi et al[@b67-ott-9-2495] 2015 20 0 3 7 11 0 12 7 20 0 3 7
**Abbreviations:** FNA, fine-needle aspiration; TP, true positive; FP, false positive; FN, false negative; TN, true negative; --, data not available.
######
Results of meta-analysis for diagnostic value of FNA cytology, *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation analysis, and the combined strategy in all FNA specimens
Parameter FNA *BRAF* FNA + *BRAF*
------------------------------------------------ -------- ---------------- -------------- -------- ---------------- ------- -------- ---------------- -------
Pooled sensitivity 0.814 0.803--0.824 93.5% 0.619 0.605--0.633 93% 0.874 0.865--0.884 92.5%
Pooled specificity 0.981 0.978--0.985 86.4% 0.997 0.995--0.998 14.1% 0.968 0.963--0.972 92.5%
Pooled LR, + 23.868 14.139--40.293 87.7% 34.982 23.801--51.415 19.5% 22.353 13.027--38.355 93.1%
Pooled LR, − 0.216 0.172--0.273 94.2% 0.433 0.384--0.489 91.8% 0.146 0.111--0.192 93%
Pooled DOR SROC 127.73 75.082--217.28 76.1% 96.570 63.932--145.87 21.4% 187.92 110.24--320.35 76.4%
AUC 0.9551 0.9207 0.9744
*Q*[\*](#tfn5-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.8975 0.8542 0.9271
**Note:**
The *Q* index indicates the point at which sensitivity is equal to specificity.
**Abbreviations:** FNA, fine-needle aspiration; CI, confidence interval; LR, likelihood ratio; DOR, diagnostic odds ratio; SROC, summary receiver-operating characteristic; AUC, area under the curve.
######
Diagnostic analysis of *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation analysis for indeterminate cases
Study Year *BRAF*
--------------------------------------------- ------ -------- --- ----- -----
Cohen et al[@b18-ott-9-2495] 2004 5 0 27 23
Xing et al[@b19-ott-9-2495] 2004 2 0 15 9
Pizzolanti et al[@b21-ott-9-2495] 2007 2 0 2 15
Sapio et al[@b22-ott-9-2495] 2007 1 0 1 45
Kim et al[@b24-ott-9-2495] 2008 13 0 8 6
Jo et al[@b26-ott-9-2495] 2009 7 0 2 15
Marchetti et al[@b27-ott-9-2495] 2009 18 0 15 19
Nikiforov et al[@b28-ott-9-2495] 2009 7 0 14 31
Zatelli et al[@b29-ott-9-2495] 2009 1 0 17 71
Cantara et al[@b30-ott-9-2495] 2010 2 0 5 34
Girlando et al[@b31-ott-9-2495] 2010 10 0 8 2
Kim et al[@b32-ott-9-2495] 2010 50 1 24 5
Kwak et al[@b33-ott-9-2495] 2010 16 0 4 10
Moses et al[@b34-ott-9-2495] 2010 13 0 30 94
Musholt et al[@b35-ott-9-2495] 2010 1 0 5 13
Adeniran et al[@b36-ott-9-2495] 2011 10 0 12 12
Kim et al[@b37-ott-9-2495] 2011 52 1 9 12
Nikiforov et al[@b69-ott-9-2495] 2011 17 0 104 392
Patel et al[@b70-ott-9-2495] 2011 2 0 18 10
Pelizzo et al[@b40-ott-9-2495] 2011 30 0 30 104
Yeo et al[@b42-ott-9-2495] 2011 14 0 39 10
Cañadas-Garre et al[@b43-ott-9-2495] 2012 5 0 10 32
Kang et al[@b44-ott-9-2495] 2012 57 0 38 7
Lee et al[@b46-ott-9-2495] 2012 79 0 27 33
Mancini et al[@b47-ott-9-2495] 2012 6 0 11 30
Rossi et al[@b48-ott-9-2495] 2012 14 0 29 157
Brahma et al[@b50-ott-9-2495] 2013 5 0 6 12
Di Benedetto et al[@b51-ott-9-2495] 2013 4 0 2 13
Koh et al[@b52-ott-9-2495] 2013 32 1 49 9
Park et al[@b53-ott-9-2495] 2013 21 1 23 15
Beaudenon-Huibregtse et al[@b54-ott-9-2495] 2014 1 0 24 28
Guo et al[@b57-ott-9-2495] 2014 16 0 7 4
Johnson et al[@b58-ott-9-2495] 2014 5 0 22 42
Liu et al[@b59-ott-9-2495] 2014 6 0 8 49
Poller et al[@b71-ott-9-2495] 2014 6 0 6 14
Seo et al[@b60-ott-9-2495] 2014 22 0 14 4
Seo et al[@b61-ott-9-2495] 2014 10 0 21 17
Wan et al[@b62-ott-9-2495] 2014 12 0 11 5
Eszlinger et al[@b64-ott-9-2495] 2015 37 0 51 119
Krane et al[@b65-ott-9-2495] 2015 6 0 27 35
Le Mercier et al[@b72-ott-9-2495] 2015 1 0 6 27
Park et al[@b66-ott-9-2495] 2015 17 0 13 4
Shi et al[@b67-ott-9-2495] 2015 1 0 8 4
**Abbreviations:** TP, true positive; FP, false positive; FN, false negative; TN, true negative.
######
Results of meta-analysis for diagnostic value of *BRAF*^V600E^ mutation in indeterminate cases
Parameter Indeterminate SMC AUS/FLUS FN/SFN
------------------------------------------------ --------------- ---------------- ---------- -------- --------------- ------- -------- --------------- ------- -------- --------------- -------
Pooled sensitivity 0.442 0.416--0.468 86.4% 0.594 0.556--0.631 76% 0.401 0.328--0.477 77.4% 0.195 0.128--0.278 73.1%
Pooled specificity 0.997 0.994--0.999 0 0.861 0.784--0.918 70.8% 0.995 0.982--0.999 17.9% 0.997 0.983--1.000 11.8%
Pooled LR, + 12.267 8.175--18.406 0 3.434 1.625--7.259 64.1% 7.001 3.336--14.691 0 9.573 3.611--25.379 0
Pooled LR, − 0.613 0.551--0.683 84.8% 0.542 0.462--0.637 29.8% 0.694 0.576--0.835 56.1% 0.733 0.522--1.030 85%
Pooled DOR SROC 23.939 15.388--37.242 0 7.588 3.944--14.598 0 14.469 6.100--34.320 0 14.808 4.966--44.156 2.2%
AUC 0.8711 0.7674 0.7999 --
*Q*[\*](#tfn8-ott-9-2495){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.8015 0.7079 0.7358 --
**Note:**
The *Q* index indicates the point at which sensitivity is equal to specificity. "--'' indicates the AUC of the SROC was not significant in FN/SFN cases, since the lower limit of the AUC was less than 0.5.
**Abbreviations:** FNA, fine-needle aspiration; CI, confidence interval; LR, likelihood ratio; DOR, diagnostic odds ratio; SROC, summary receiver-operating characteristic; AUC, area under the curve.
######
Malignancy rate and *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation prevalence in three categories of indeterminate cases
Category Malignancy rate *BRAF*^V600E^-mutation rate
---------- ----------------- ----------------------------- -------- ---------------- -------- ------- ------- -------- ---------------- --------
SMC 1,214 1,067 0.9035 0.8769--0.9301 83.62% 2,382 1,074 0.4320 0.3340--0.5299 98.22%
FN/SFN 509 158 0.3055 0.2394--0.3715 54.6% 1,758 101 0.0443 0.0292--0.0594 64.02%
AUS/FLUS 594 198 0.3499 0.2956--0.4042 83.01% 2,304 310 0.1377 0.0989--0.1765 95.93%
**Abbreviations:** CI, confidence interval; SMC, suspicious for malignant cells; FN/SFN, follicular neoplasm/suspicious for FN; AUS/FLUS, atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | PubMed Central |
VIRGINIA:
PUBLISHED
In the Court of Appeals of Virginia on Friday the 20th day of December, 2013.
Johnathan Christopher Montgomery, Petitioner,
against Record No. 2300-12-1
Commonwealth of Virginia, Respondent.
Upon a Petition for a Writ of Actual Innocence
Before Judges Humphreys, Alston, and Chafin
Jon M. Talotta (Erica Knievel Songer; Marques P. Richeson; Adam D. Aft;
Shawn Armbrust; Parisa Dehghani-Tafti; Hogan Lovells US LLP; Mid-Atlantic
Innocence Project, on briefs), for petitioner.
Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, Attorney General (Alice T. Armstrong, Assistant
Attorney General II, on briefs), for respondent.
Johnathan Christopher Montgomery (“Montgomery”) petitions this Court to grant a writ of actual
innocence based on non-biological evidence pursuant to Code §§ 19.2-327.10 through 19.2-327.14.
Montgomery seeks to vacate his 2009 convictions for forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery, and
animate object sexual penetration. In support of his petition, Montgomery proffers newly-discovered
evidence—the recantation and subsequent perjury conviction of the complaining witness Elizabeth P. Coast
(“Coast”). The Commonwealth agrees that Montgomery has satisfied the statutory requirements and joins
Montgomery in asking this Court to grant his petition.
I. BACKGROUND
A. Montgomery’s Conviction
In October of 2007, Coast, then seventeen, reported that when she was ten years old a neighborhood
boy named “Jon” sexually assaulted her while the two were alone in her grandmother’s backyard. The City
of Hampton Police Department quickly identified “Jon” as Montgomery. In 2000, fourteen-year-old
Montgomery was living in Hampton, Virginia, in the house Coast identified as her assailant’s. Montgomery
attended Hampton High School from September 5, 2000 to December 15, 2000, but by January 2001, he had
moved to Iowa. Coast identified Montgomery in a photo lineup using his Hampton High School yearbook
photo. On October 15, 2007, the police arrested Montgomery for assaulting Coast on or around January 12,
2001. After the police discovered that Montgomery was not in Virginia at that time, it issued a new warrant
alleging the incident happened between September 5, 2000 and December 15, 2000.
On June 23, 2008, the Circuit Court of the City of Hampton (the “trial court”) tried and convicted
Montgomery in a one-day bench trial for the assault of Coast. Coast testified under oath that Montgomery
had sexually assaulted her in 2000. She described the alleged assault in graphic detail. She said that she did
not tell anyone what happened at the time of the assault because she thought her parents “would get mad” and
she was “really embarrassed.” She explained that she decided to come forward seven years later because she
thought she saw Montgomery at Wal-Mart.
Coast’s cousin and “best friend,” Emily, who played in the neighborhood with Coast and
Montgomery, also testified. Emily said that she was “very uncomfortable” when Montgomery “tickled
[Coast] and grabbed her stomach.” However, Coast never told Emily that Montgomery ever hurt her.
Montgomery testified on his own behalf. He admitted that he tickled Coast, but never touched her
inappropriately. Several character witnesses testified that in the many years they have known Montgomery,
he is known for peacefulness and is “as honest as anybody can be now a days.”
Besides Coast, no other witnesses to the incident testified at Montgomery’s trial. Neither was any
corroborating physical evidence that an assault occurred ever presented. The trial judge categorized this case
as a “word against word situation.” In reaching his verdict, the trial judge concluded that Coast was more
credible then Montgomery because she had “no motive whatsoever” to lie. The trial court then found
Montgomery guilty of forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery, and object sexual penetration. On
April 10, 2009, the trial judge sentenced Montgomery to 45 years in prison, with 37 years and 6 months
suspended.
-2-
B. Coast’s Recantation
Almost four years later, on October 30, 2012, Coast called her friend and colleague, Hampton Police
Officer Jim Auer (“Auer”). She and Auer became friends when Coast began working for the City of
Hampton Police Department three years earlier. Coast told Auer that “she had ruined a man’s life.” On
November 1, 2012, Coast voluntarily made a videotaped statement at the Hampton Police Department. After
consulting with counsel and receiving Miranda warnings, Coast recounted how she had falsely testified that
Montgomery had assaulted her.
Coast explained that immediately before she accused Montgomery, her mother caught her looking at
“sex stories” on the Internet. Out of fear of her mother, Coast said that she was looking at inappropriate
material because she had been molested when she was ten years old. After she reluctantly named
Montgomery as her attacker, the lie snowballed. Coast felt like she could not admit that the assault never
happened. After recounting the story she testified to at Montgomery’s trial, Coast told the police “[n]othing
happened” between her and Montgomery. She admitted that she never had any sexual encounters with
Montgomery.
Coast confessed to lying under oath at Montgomery’s trial knowing that she faced criminal charges.
She also knew that she would lose her job with the Hampton Police Department. On November 9, 2012,
Coast was arrested for perjury and immediately fired from her job.
C. Montgomery’s Conditional Pardon and Petition for Writ of Actual Innocence
On November 19, 2012, Montgomery, through counsel, requested that Governor Robert McDonnell
grant “a conditional pardon, releasing him during the period in which he files a Writ of Actual Innocence for
Nonbiological Evidence with the Virginia Court of Appeals, and obtains an order granting his Writ.” The
Governor granted the conditional pardon with the terms requested by Montgomery on November 20, 2012,
and Montgomery was immediately released from prison.
Montgomery’s pardon was subject to several specific conditions: (1) Montgomery must file a petition
for a writ of actual innocence with this Court within 30 days of his release, and (2) the Virginia Department
-3-
of Corrections must continue to supervise Montgomery during the period of conditional clemency. If
Montgomery violates any of the conditions of the pardon, engages in “any criminal activity of any nature
whatsoever” during the period of conditional clemency, or this Court denies his petition, then he “shall forfeit
all privileges provided under this grant of clemency and, in [the Governor’s] discretion, shall be subject to
immediate arrest and incarceration to complete the term of his original sentence.” Alternatively, if this Court
grants his petition, then “[u]pon issuance of a writ of actual innocence, all of the foregoing conditions” “are
immediately released” and a full pardon granted.
On December 20, 2012, Montgomery filed a petition with this Court for a writ of actual innocence
based on non-biological evidence. The basis for his petition was Coast’s voluntary recantation and the fact
that her testimony was the only evidence supporting his conviction. On March 15, 2013, this Court granted
the parties’ joint motion of March 11, 2013 to stay further proceedings on Montgomery’s petition pending the
resolution of Coast’s pending perjury charge.
D. Coast’s Perjury Conviction
On May 21, 2013, Coast pled guilty to perjury pursuant to Code § 18.2-434 for knowingly and
intentionally giving false testimony at Montgomery’s June 23, 2008 trial. Coast offered no defense against
the perjury charge. At her sentencing hearing, Coast testified under oath that she randomly named
Montgomery because she thought that because he had moved away, the police would never find him.
Confirming her November 1, 2012 taped confession, Coast reiterated that Montgomery never assaulted her.
At the time of the incident and the trial that followed, Coast did not feel she could admit she lied because
everyone in her life believed her story. She continued the lie for years, not only because of the looming
possibility of incarceration, but more so out of fear of what her family would think. Coast explained that she
finally decided to confess and face criminal charges because “[she] couldn’t handle the effects of the lie [she]
had in [her] life, and it was—[she] decided to become very serious about [her] faith, and [she] thought that if
[she] had the lie in [her] life, [she] couldn’t pursue God . . . [a]nd also to get Jonathan out because he didn’t
deserve to be there at all.” In a statement addressed to Montgomery at her sentencing hearing, Coast said:
-4-
“All I can say to you is how very sorry I am for the lie that I told which caused you to be sent to prison, four
years of silence, and the years of silence that kept you there. . . . I’m ashamed of my [cowardice].”
On August 19, 2013, the circuit court sentenced Coast to five years in prison, with four years and ten
months suspended, and ordered her to pay $90,000 restitution.
II. ANALYSIS
A. Constitutional Considerations
It is intuitively obvious that it would be impermissible for this Court to condition the outcome of a
petition for a writ of actual innocence on the grant of a full pardon from the Governor. Nevertheless, we
cannot proceed with the disposition of this petition without definitively answering the question of whether the
opposite is true.
Therefore, and despite the fact that the parties are in agreement regarding their desired outcome,
before turning to the merits of Montgomery’s petition, we must first address the unusual and, as it develops,
rather complex issue surrounding the fact that this petition arises as a condition prerequisite to the grant of a
gubernatorial pardon.1 According to the conditions of the pardon, if this Court denies Montgomery’s petition
for a writ of actual innocence then the conditional pardon is void and Montgomery must immediately return
to prison. Alternatively, if this Court grants Montgomery’s petition, then all of the conditions “release” upon
the issuance of a writ of actual innocence and a full pardon becomes effective. We must analyze both the
effect on a pardon of a condition that requires the issuance of a writ of actual innocence as well as the
constitutionality of the participation of the judiciary in the executive clemency process.
The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia declares certain fundamental powers in each of
the three branches of the Commonwealth’s government. Moreau v. Fuller, 276 Va. 127, 136, 661 S.E.2d 841,
1
Neither party raised this point on brief. The Court raised it sua sponte at oral argument and invited
the parties to address it in supplemental pleadings. Neither has done so. This Court may determine
sua sponte whether the Constitution prohibits it from rendering a decision in a particular case. See, e.g.,
Charlottesville Area Fitness Club Operators Ass’n v. Albemarle Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, 285 Va. 87,
99-100, 737 S.E.2d 1, 7 (2013) (“This Court will consider, sua sponte, whether a decision would be an
advisory opinion because we do not have the power to render a judgment that is only advisory.” (citing
Martin v. Ziherl, 269 Va. 35, 40, 607 S.E.2d 367, 369 (2005))).
-5-
846 (2008). Article III, § 1 guarantees the separation of these powers—the “legislative, executive, and
judicial departments shall be separate and distinct, so that none exercise the powers properly belonging to the
others, nor any person exercise the power of more than one of them at the same time.” Va. Const. art. III § 1.
“At the heart of this declaration and separation of powers are roles that are uniquely allocated to the identified
departments of government.” Moreau, 276 Va. at 136, 661 S.E.2d at 846. As the chief executive, the
Governor has the exclusive constitutional authority to pardon or commute sentences after conviction.
Va. Const. art. V § 12; Code § 53.1-299; Taylor v. Commonwealth, 58 Va. App. 435, 443, 710 S.E.2d 518,
522 (2011). “The Virginia judiciary ‘may not assume a power of clemency or pardon which is a unique
function of executive power.’” Taylor, 58 Va. App. at 443, 710 S.E.2d at 522 (quoting Moreau, 276 Va. at
136, 661 S.E.2d at 846).
In interpreting the application of Article III, § 1, “the Supreme Court of Virginia has adopted the
‘whole power’ doctrine in reviewing an alleged violation of the separation of powers.” Tross v.
Commonwealth, 21 Va. App. 362, 378, 464 S.E.2d 523, 530 (1995); see also In re Phillips, 265 Va. 81, 86,
574 S.E.2d 270, 273 (2003). While this Court recognizes that the three branches should be “as separate and
distinct from each other as practicable,” logistically, no government could operate if an absolute and
unqualified adherence was enforced. Id. at 86-87, 574 S.E.2d at 273. Therefore, “‘the whole power of one of
these departments should not be exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of either of the
other departments, but [] either department may exercise the powers of another to a limited extent.’” Id.
(quoting Winchester & Strasburg R.R. Co. v. Commonwealth, 106 Va. 264, 270, 55 S.E. 692, 694 (1906));
accord Baliles v. Mazur, 224 Va. 462, 472, 297 S.E.2d 695, 700 (1982) (stating that the “true meaning” of
separation of powers is that the whole power of one department should not be exercised by the same hands
possessing the whole power of another department (citing Winchester & Strasburg R.R. Co., 106 Va. at 270,
55 S.E. at 694)). Simply put, Article III, § 1 forbids the judiciary from exercising a “whole power”
exclusively reserved for either the executive or legislative branch of government.
-6-
Our Supreme Court has previously addressed the issue of when delegating a “whole power” of the
Governor to the judiciary might offend Article III, § 1. In Phillips, Code § 53.1-231.2 was challenged as
being unconstitutional because it allegedly assigned the circuit court a function exclusively vested in the
executive branch. 265 Va. at 84-85, 574 S.E.2d at 272. Code § 53.1-231.2 allows persons convicted of a
non-violent felony to petition the circuit court for approval of a request to seek the restoration of their voting
rights, while Article V, § 12 grants the Governor exclusive authority to remove political disabilities resulting
from a felony conviction. Code § 53.1-231.2; Va. Const. art. V § 12.
The Supreme Court concluded that the statute does not authorize a circuit court to exercise the “whole
power” vested in the Governor. Phillips, 265 Va. at 87, 574 S.E.2d at 273. Rather, the circuit court’s
function under the statute is limited to determining whether a petitioner presented sufficient evidence
supporting the specified statutory criteria that identifies felons who may qualify for the restoration of their
eligibility to vote. Id. Moreover and significantly, the statute does not require that a court render what would
amount to an advisory opinion as to whether the Governor should remove the convicted felon’s political
disabilities. Id. Importantly, the circuit court “does not exercise any function that would restrict the power of
the Governor.” Id. Felons are not required to file a petition with the circuit court before seeking relief from
the Governor, nor does the denial of the petition by the circuit court affect a felon’s right to apply directly to
the Governor. Id. Thus, regardless of whether a felon petitioned the circuit court or applied directly to the
Governor, “the power to remove the felon’s political disabilities remains vested solely in the Governor, who
may grant or deny any request without explanation, and there is no right of appeal from [his] decision.” Id. at
87-88, 574 S.E.2d at 273. The Supreme Court held that Code § 53.1-231.2 did not unlawfully assign the
judicial branch a function reserved to the Governor by the Constitution. Id. at 88, 574 S.E.2d at 273.
We therefore must determine whether the conditional pardon issued to Montgomery requires this
Court to exercise the “whole power” granted to the Governor to pardon Montgomery. Resolving this issue
requires this Court first to determine under what circumstances one branch of government exercises a “whole
power” of another branch rather than only exercising it “to a limited extent.” Id. The common determinative
-7-
factor is whether the governmental branch constitutionally vested with authority retains the final
decision-making power. See, e.g., id. (finding Code § 53.1-231.2 is constitutional because the power to
remove a felon’s political disabilities “remains vested solely in the Governor” irrespective of the circuit
court’s ruling); Roach v. Commonwealth, 251 Va. 324, 338, 468 S.E.2d 98, 106 (1996) (overruled on other
grounds) (concluding that “[b]ecause [intake] officers exercise only a limited judicial function, and the
juvenile and domestic relations district court retains actual control over the juveniles . . . the intake officer’s
authority to issue criminal petitions does not violate the separation of powers guaranteed by the Virginia
Constitution”) (emphasis added); Tross, 21 Va. App. at 378-79, 464 S.E.2d at 531 (“[W]hile there is some
overlap of executive and judicial functions, juvenile intake officers do not exercise the “whole power” of the
judiciary[,] . . . the juvenile and domestic relations district court judges control the actual disposition of
juveniles before the court.” (emphasis added)); Akbar v. Commonwealth, No. 0915-09-3 (Va. Ct. App.
Apr. 27, 2010) (because the trial court “retain[ed] the ability to assess punishment against the defendant,” the
statute did not authorize the executive branch to exercise the “whole power” of the judiciary to impose a term
of punishment) (emphasis added). Clearly, the judiciary has the constitutional authority to adjudicate
criminal matters, and equally clearly, this Court has the statutory authority to vacate the conviction of
someone who demonstrates their actual innocence. Unquestionably, the Governor has the constitutional
authority to grant full or conditional pardons—subject only to constitutional constraints. The constitutional
question is whether these otherwise separate but similar roles have been improperly consolidated.2
2
Contrary to the suggestion at oral argument by counsel for Montgomery, the Governor does not
suffer an inferior status to that of the courts or the legislature in granting governmental grace to achieve the
ends of justice. In fact, flowing as it does from constitutional and common law principles, the executive
department of government historically has primacy in this area. See e.g., 4 William Blackstone,
Commentaries *397 (“[The king’s] power of pardoning was said by our Saxon ancestors” and “no other
person has the power to pardon or remit any treason or felonies whatsoever; but that the king has the whole
and sole power thereof”). Similar to the legal effect of securing a writ of actual innocence from this Court, it
is an ancient common law principle that a full and unconditional pardon—as opposed to other lesser forms of
clemency—blots out both the legal existence of a conviction or crime and any resulting guilt or infamy. See
Carlisle v. United States, 83 U.S. 147, 151 (1872) (“All have agreed that the pardon not merely releases the
offender from the punishment prescribed for the offen[s]e but that it obliterates in legal contemplation the
offen[s]e itself.”). Moreover, whether expressly stated in a pardon warrant or not, the Governor traditionally
-8-
Therefore, our ability to act upon the merits of Montgomery’s petition turns on whether it was
constitutionally proper for the Governor to honor Montgomery’s request to condition a pardon on the
issuance of a writ of actual innocence by this Court. The plain terms of the pardon allow for three possible
outcomes. Montgomery could violate one of the other conditions of the pardon before this Court resolves his
petition, or this Court could deny his petition. Both circumstances effectively vacate the conditional pardon.
Alternatively, this Court could issue a writ of actual innocence, which would immediately “release” the other
conditions of the pardon. If this Court grants Montgomery’s petition, his convictions are vacated and
expunged. See Code § 19.2-327.13. Thus, if this Court grants Montgomery’s petition and issues a writ of
actual innocence, the pardon is ineffective and moot from that moment because the conviction would no
longer exist and there would be nothing for the Governor to pardon.3 Consequently, by conditioning his
pardon on the issuance of a writ of actual innocence, the Governor has not retained the final power to pardon
Montgomery.4
While our Supreme Court has long held that the Governor possesses the constitutional power to attach
conditions to pardons, “the condition annexed to the pardon must not be . . . illegal.” Lee v. Murphy, 63 Va.
determines an individual’s innocence or rehabilitation when deciding whether to grant a full pardon by using
a pardon-deliberation process that is quasi-judicial in nature, much like an appellate court’s review of a trial
court’s record for error.
3
During oral argument, the Attorney General agreed that in the abstract the grant of a full pardon
would make unnecessary a writ of actual innocence, and conversely, granting a writ of actual innocence
would obviate the need for the Governor to grant a pardon.
4
Alternatively, if one could conjure some metaphysical construction of the law that permits a fully
complete pardon to coexist simultaneously with a writ of actual innocence, the vitality of the pardon would
render a writ in this case ephemeral because a full pardon coming into existence simultaneously with the
issuance of the writ would render the writ moot before the ink on it was dry. This would effectively
transform our judgment into little more than an advisory opinion to the Governor that Montgomery is worthy
of executive clemency. See Charlottesville Area Fitness Club Operators Ass’n, 285 Va. at 99-100, 102, 737
S.E.2d at 7, 9 (stating that “when courts lack the power to bind all parties to the controversy, opinions are
merely advisory” and the Court does “not have the power to render a judgment that is only advisory”);
see, e.g., Phillips, 265 Va. at 87, 574 S.E.2d at 273 (concluding that “[t]he court’s order did not constitute the
rendering of an advisory opinion because the order adjudicates only the issue of the sufficiency of the
evidence in support of the statutory criteria and does not state an opinion whether the Governor should
remove the convicted felon’s political disabilities”).
-9-
789, 802-03 (1872); accord Wilborn v. Saunders, 170 Va. 153, 159, 195 S.E. 723, 725 (1938). The Governor
may not transfer or delegate his constitutional authority to pardon to another department of government nor
does the judiciary have any proper constitutional role in a decision to grant executive clemency. Because it
effectively transfers the final decision regarding clemency for Montgomery from the Governor to this Court,
we therefore conclude that in this case, the condition of Montgomery’s pardon requiring that he receive a writ
of actual innocence from this Court is a condition that delegates the chief executive’s “whole [clemency]
power” to the judiciary thereby transgressing the constitutional constraints of Article III, § 1. See Phillips,
265 Va. at 86, 574 S.E.2d at 273 (“[I]f any statute purporting to confer jurisdiction on the courts
impermissibly invades the powers of the Governor granted by the Constitution, that legislation is subject to a
constitutional challenge. . . .”).
We now turn to the task of ascertaining the effect invalidating this condition has on our ability to
consider the merits of Montgomery’s petition. Our Supreme Court has held that if a condition annexed to a
pardon is contrary to law, in such case the condition is void and the pardon is absolute. See Rives v. Farish’s
Adm’r, 65 Va. 125, 133 (1873). In that event and as already noted, Montgomery’s petition would be
unnecessary because he would already stand exonerated by the gubernatorial pardon and there would no
longer be convictions in existence to vacate. We then would be required to dismiss Montgomery’s petition as
moot. See Hallmark v. Pers. Agency, Inc. v. Jones, 207 Va. 968, 971, 154 S.E.2d 5, 7 (1967) (stating that
“appellate courts do not sit to give opinions on moot questions”).
However, in this case the pardon contains additional conditions requiring Montgomery to refrain from
criminal activity and remain under parole supervision pending the outcome of Montgomery’s petition to this
Court. These additional conditions are not constitutionally infirm. Nevertheless, in the absence of the now
invalid condition, and contrary to the clear intent of the Governor, the pardon contains no other mechanism to
terminate the remaining conditions—meaning that the pardon will continue to be conditional indefinitely and
will never finally resolve the issue of Montgomery’s exoneration of these offenses. Therefore, as
distinguished from other cases previously considered by our Supreme Court, the invalidation of the condition
-10-
that Montgomery obtain a writ of actual innocence does not convert his conditional pardon to an absolute
pardon that would render any further action by this Court on Montgomery’s petition unnecessary.
This holding relieves any further constitutional concerns that might prevent this Court from resolving
the merits of Montgomery’s petition. Our judgment that this Court may not properly participate in the
clemency process does not neuter this Court’s authority to act upon Montgomery’s petition because we
independently have original jurisdiction under Code § 19.2-327.10 to consider a petition for a writ of actual
innocence based on non-biological evidence. See Carpitcher v. Commonwealth, 273 Va. 335, 342, 641
S.E.2d 486, 490 (2007) (citing Code § 19.2-327.10). We therefore conclude that we can properly address the
merits of Montgomery’s petition pursuant to this Court’s separate statutory grant of authority.
B. Merits of Montgomery’s Petition for a Writ of Actual Innocence
Under Code § 19.2-327.11(A) a petition for a writ of actual innocence based on non-biological
evidence must allege “categorically and with specificity”:
(i) the crime for which the petitioner was convicted or the offense for which the
petitioner was adjudicated delinquent, and that such conviction or adjudication
of delinquency was upon a plea of not guilty;
(ii) that the petitioner is actually innocent of the crime for which he was
convicted or the offense for which he was adjudicated delinquent;
(iii) an exact description of the previously unknown or unavailable evidence
supporting the allegation of innocence;
(iv) that such evidence was previously unknown or unavailable to the petitioner
or his trial attorney of record at the time the conviction or adjudication of
delinquency became final in the circuit court;
(v) the date the previously unknown or unavailable evidence became known or
available to the petitioner, and the circumstances under which it was
discovered;
(vi) that the previously unknown or unavailable evidence is such as could not,
by the exercise of diligence, have been discovered or obtained before the
expiration of 21 days following entry of the final order of conviction or
adjudication of delinquency by the circuit court;
(vii) the previously unknown or unavailable evidence is material and, when
considered with all of the other evidence in the current record, will prove that
-11-
no rational trier of fact would have found proof of guilt or delinquency beyond
a reasonable doubt; and
(viii) the previously unknown or unavailable evidence is not merely cumulative,
corroborative or collateral.
Code § 19.2-327.11(A)(i)-(viii). This Court may grant the petition “upon a finding that the petitioner has
proven by clear and convincing evidence all of the allegations contained in clauses (iv) through (viii) of
subsection A of Code § 19.2-327.11, and upon a finding that no rational trier of fact could have found proof
of guilt or delinquency beyond a reasonable doubt.”5 Code § 19.2-327.13. In other words, to obtain a writ of
actual innocence Montgomery must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the newly-discovered
evidence: (1) was previously unknown or unavailable to him or his attorney at the time the conviction
became final in the circuit court; (2) could not have been discovered through due diligence before the
expiration of the 21 days following the entry of the final order of conviction; (3) (a) is material, and (b) when
considered with all of the other evidence in the record, proves that no rational trier of fact could have found
proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; and (4) is not merely cumulative, corroborative, or collateral. See
Moore v. Commonwealth, 53 Va. App. 334, 343-44, 671 S.E.2d 429, 434 (2009) (quoting Carpitcher, 273
Va. at 343-44, 641 S.E.2d at 491).
The newly-discovered evidence that Montgomery proffers in support of his petition for a writ of
actual innocence is the recantation of Coast and her resulting perjury conviction. It is apparent from the
record—and the Commonwealth concedes—that Montgomery can prove by clear and convincing evidence
elements (1), (2), and (4). Evidence of Coast’s recantation was both unknown and unavailable to
Montgomery at the time his conviction was final, and he could not have discovered it through due diligence
5
Effective July 1, 2013, the General Assembly amended Code § 19.2-327.13 to read, “no rational tier
of fact would have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” instead of “no rational tier of fact could
have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Because Montgomery filed his petition before the
amended statute was effective, and there is no indication of a legislative intent to apply the amendment
retroactively, the language of the statute in effect at the time Montgomery filed his petition applies. See
Taylor v. Commonwealth, 44 Va. App. 179, 184, 604 S.E.2d 103, 105 (2004).
-12-
within 21 days of the entry of the final order. Evidence of Coast’s recantation is not cumulative,
corroborative, or collateral to evidence presented at Montgomery’s trial.
The third element, the materiality of Coast’s recantation, was the only element initially contested in
this case. In its answer the Commonwealth requested that this Court either (1) certify the question of the
credibility of Coast’s recantation to the circuit court before resolving the merits of Montgomery’s petition for
a writ of actual innocence; or alternatively, (2) stay Montgomery’s petition proceedings pending the
resolution of Coast’s perjury charge. The Commonwealth asserted that if Coast is convicted of perjury, the
conviction would be clear and convincing evidence that Coast’s trial testimony was false. After this Court
granted the parties’ joint motion to stay the proceedings and Coast pled guilty, the parties filed supplemental
briefing addressing the impact of Coast’s perjury conviction on the petitioner’s burden of proof under Code
§ 19.2-327.11(A)(ii). In light of Coast’s perjury conviction, the Commonwealth now concedes that the
materiality requirement is satisfied, and considering the entire record, no rational trier of fact could have
found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
To satisfy Code § 19.2-327.11(A)(vii) the petitioner must prove by clear and convincing evidence that
the newly-discovered evidence is (a) is material, and (b) when considered with all of the other evidence in the
record, proves that no rational trier of fact could have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Carpitcher, 273 Va. at 347, 641 S.E.2d at 493. The petitioner’s burden of proof under Code
§ 19.2-327.11(A)(vii) in cases involving a victim’s recantation is well settled. For recantation evidence to be
“material,” the recantation “must be true.” Carpitcher, 273 Va. at 345, 641 S.E.2d at 492 (emphasis added);
Haas v. Commonwealth, 283 Va. 284, 295, 721 S.E.2d 479, 484 (2012) (“[The Petitioner] ha[s] the burden of
proving to the Court of Appeals, by clear and convincing evidence, that the [victim]’s recantations are
true.”).6 In Carpitcher, the Supreme Court held that the petitioner had not met his burden because the trial
6
Requiring “material” evidence to be “true” is consistent with the statute’s legislative purpose.
Carpitcher, 273 Va. at 345, 641 S.E.2d at 492. By enacting the statute the General Assembly “intended to
provide relief only to those individuals who can establish that they did not, as a matter of fact, commit the
crimes for which they were convicted,” and did “not intend to provide relief to individuals who merely
produced evidence contrary to the evidence presented at their criminal trial.” Id.
-13-
court was unable to tell whether the victim’s trial testimony or recantation was true. 273 Va. at 346, 641
S.E.2d at 493. Consequently, newly-discovered evidence that the victim recanted her original testimony
could not be “material” if all it proved was that the victim had testified falsely on one of the two
occasions—but not which one. Id.
Carpitcher highlights the major problem with considering a victim’s recantation as the sole basis for
granting a writ of actual innocence. Because “recantation evidence is generally questionable in character and
is widely viewed by the courts with suspicion because of the obvious opportunities and temptations for
fraud,” “[u]nless proven true, recantation evidence merely amounts to an attack on witness credibility by the
witness herself.” Id. at 346, 641 S.E.2d at 492. There is widespread judicial skepticism of victim
recantations, particularly in cases involving child abuse ‘“where recantation is a reoccurring phenomenon.”’
Haas, 283 Va. at 292, 721 S.E.2d at 482 (quoting United States v. Provost, 969 F.2d 617, 621 (8th Cir.
1992)). “Such skepticism increases with the passage of time. . . . [m]emories may have faded, witnesses may
have disappeared or become incapable of testifying, physical evidence may be unrecoverable and the
recanting witness may have had ample time to acquire an extraneous motive to falsify his original testimony.”
Id.
Because victims’ recantations are often unreliable, it is rare that a petitioner can offer clear and
convincing evidence that the recantation is true and it is the trial testimony that is false. See, e.g., Haas, 283
Va. at 295, 721 S.E.2d at 483-84 (affirming the dismissal of petition for a writ of actual innocence based on
non-biological evidence because the petitioner failed to carry his burden of proof that the victims’
recantations were true because their trial testimony was corroborated by other evidence); Moore, 53 Va. App.
at 346-47, 671 S.E.2d at 435-36 (finding that the petitioner failed to carry his burden of proof that the
victim’s recantation was true because the victim’s trial testimony was corroborated by other evidence of
guilt). However, in this case, Coast’s perjury conviction presents an uncommon situation. It is obvious that
Coast’s recantation is “material” in the sense that it relates directly to the matter at issue, Montgomery’s guilt
or innocence. See Turner v. Commonwealth, 282 Va. 227, 250-51, 717 S.E.2d 111, 123 (2011) (finding that
-14-
a recantation must relate to the matter at issue in the case—the defendant’s guilt or innocence—to be
“material”). The only question is whether Montgomery has proved that Coast’s recantation is “true.” Unlike
in Carpitcher, where the trial court could not determine which of the victim’s statements were false, in this
case, the entry of Coast’s guilty plea serves as a judicial admission that her original testimony at
Montgomery’s trial was false and the verdict of the circuit court based upon that plea establishes that falsity
beyond a reasonable doubt. Although a perjury conviction is not required to meet petitioner’s burden of
proving the recantation is true, it establishes with legal certainty that her trial testimony is false. Moreover,
unlike in Moore and Hass, there is no evidence in the record that rebuts Coast’s recantation by corroborating
her trial testimony. Further, there are no facts suggesting that her unprompted recantation was in any way
pressured, coerced, or is otherwise unreliable. Consequently, Coast’s perjury conviction establishes clear and
convincing evidence that her recantation is true and her trial testimony was perjured, and is therefore
“material” to the issue of his actual innocence.
However, our analysis is still incomplete. Code § 19.2-327.11(A)(vii) requires that Montgomery meet
a two-part statutory burden. Having proved that Coast’s recantation is “material,” he must also demonstrate
that this newly-discovered evidence, considered with all the other evidence in the record, proves that no
rational trier of fact could have found him guilty. See Carpitcher, 273 Va. at 347, 641 S.E.2d at 493 (“[T]o
meet this statutory burden, Carpitcher was required to prove both that the recantation evidence was true and
that, when considered with all the other evidence in the current record, no rational trier of fact could have
found him guilty of the crimes.”).
Before the trial judge announced his verdict, he acknowledged on the record that this case rested
entirely on Coast’s word against Montgomery’s word.7 Absent Coast’s original testimony, the record
contains no evidence of Montgomery’s guilt. There are no witnesses who testified that the incident ever
occurred. There is no physical evidence that a crime ever happened. The record is entirely devoid of any
7
Although not dispositive, we also find it significant that following Coast’s recantation of her trial
testimony the trial judge who originally convicted Montgomery and provided the factual record currently
before us expressed his personal regret and concern regarding the original verdict he rendered in this case.
-15-
evidence that incriminates Montgomery. In summary, the only evidence of Montgomery’s guilt flows from
testimony that has subsequently been adjudicated as perjured and no other evidence in the record supports a
finding of guilt. We therefore conclude that Montgomery has met his statutory burden to establish by clear
and convincing evidence all of the requirements contained in subsection A of Code § 19.2-327.11. Further,
we find that had this information been known at the time of his trial, no rational trier of fact could have found
Montgomery guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
III. CONCLUSION
We hold that Montgomery has met his burden under Code § 19.2-327.11(A) of establishing that he is
actually innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted. Accordingly, pursuant to Code § 19.2-327.13
this Court grants Montgomery’s petition and issues a writ of actual innocence based on non-biological
evidence, thereby vacating his convictions for forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery, and animate object
sexual penetration. If there is no appeal from this judgment to the Supreme Court, the clerk shall forward a
copy of this writ to the trial court, where an order of expungement shall be immediately entered regarding
these offenses.
This order shall be published.
A Copy,
Teste:
original order signed by the Clerk of the
Court of Appeals of Virginia at the direction
of the Court
Clerk
-16-
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | FreeLaw |
583 F.Supp.2d 1245 (2008)
Christina NOGA, Plaintiff,
v.
COSTCO WHOLESALE CORPORATION, a private Washington corporation licensed to do business in Oregon, Defendant.
Civ. No. 07-847-AC.
United States District Court, D. Oregon.
October 9, 2008.
*1248 Haley E. Percell, Larry L. Linder, Kevin T. Lafky, Lafky & Lafky, Salem, OR, for Plaintiff.
Victor Joseph Kisch, Dennis E. Westlind, Stoel, Rives, LLP, Portland, OR, for Defendant.
OPINION AND ORDER
ACOSTA, United States Magistrate Judge.
Plaintiff Christine Noga ("Noga") asserts the following claims against Defendant Costco Wholesale Corporation ("Costco"): gender discrimination under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2 and -3, and ORS 659A.030; age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. § 623, and ORS 659A.030; retaliation in violation of Title VII, the ADEA, and ORS 659A.030, and intentional infliction of emotional distress ("IIED"). Costco moves for summary judgment on all claims. For the reasons that follow, Costco's motion is granted.[1]
Factual Background
Noga's employment relationship with Costco began in May 2000, when she began work as a cake decorator in the bakery department at Costco's Bend Warehouse. (Noga Deposition ("Depo.") 86-87.) The Bend Warehouse Manager was Richard Graber ("Graber"). (Graber Declaration ("Decl.") ¶ 1.) Noga's immediate supervisor was Bend Bakery Manager, Lance Cabe ("Cabe"). (Cabe Depo. 11.) Noga received copies of Costco's Employee Agreement, (Defendant's Exhibit ("Def.'s Ex.") 1 at 42-50), Anti-Harassment Policy, (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 52), and acknowledged receipt and understanding of each document. (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 39-41, 51.) Noga read and signed a copy of Costco's Employee Agreement, prior to and during her employment with Costco. (Plaintiff's ("Pl.'s") Exs. 2-5.) "Noga understood she had an obligation to report any harassment, discrimination, or other inappropriate behavior as soon as possible, and that Costco's `open door policy' allowed her to make a report to" a member of Costco management or human resources. (Def.'s Concise Statement of Material Facts ("CSMF") ¶ 2.)
Noga's employment at Costco was subject to a ninety-day probationary period, "during which [she could] be terminated at any time, for any reason." (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 51.) In her first Probationary Review, dated August 23, 2000, Cabe noted that Noga needed to improve "working with others." (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 53.) Noga received two more probationary reviews and a pay raise, based on her prior work experience. (Pl.'s Exs. 8, 10.) One of these reviews, prepared by Cabe on June 22, 2000, said that Noga showed "excellent *1249 skill and ability." (Pl.'s Ex. 8.; Cabe Depo. 49:6-24.)
Noga's first non-probationary performance review was prepared by Cabe on September 21, 2001. (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 54-55.) In relevant part, the review stated that Noga's "communications with other employees could improve." (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 55.) Her second performance review, prepared by Tammy Cornett on May 30, 2002, stated that Noga "would benefit by establishing more positive relationships with coworkers by remaining professional. Tone can be disrupt[ive] at times and taken out of context." (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 57.) In her third performance review, prepared by Cabe on May 22, 2003, Noga received praise for her "speed in decorating," and her helpfulness in training new decorators. Cabe wrote, "Simply put: Christina is a great decorator." (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 61.) However, the review also stated: "Christina could improve on her delivery sometimes. Realize that by not putting others on the defensive [she] will improve communication," and "the only improvement that Christine could make with our members is to `take 5' a little more often." (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 61.)
On February 20, 2003, Noga requested transfer to Costco's Wilsonville facility. (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 59.) The transfer took place in July 2003. (Noga Depo. 57:2-4.) At that time, Wilsonville's Warehouse Manager was Robert Curtis ("Curtis"). (Curtis Decl. ¶ 1-2.) Noga's immediate supervisor was Wilsonville's Bakery Manager, Robert Harvey ("Harvey"). (Harvey Decl. ¶ 2.) Noga's only performance review at Wilsonville was prepared and signed by Harvey on May 20, 2004. (Pl.'s Ex. 16.) The evaluation included positive comments about Noga's performance, such as: "Christina commits to her job and demonstrates Costco's values well," "Expressing ideas comes naturally to Christina. She listens well and follows directions given," and "Christina's ability to work independently and to follow through with projects goes without question." (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 64.) At the bottom of the evaluation is a handwritten note that appears to be written by Curtis. It says, "Christina, Great job! Thanks, Bob." (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 65.)
However, Harvey, as had Cabe, noted Noga's interpersonal short-comings, as he wrote, "Christina's customer service is good. She just needs to be a little bit more courteous and respectful of the members' time." (Def.'s Ex. 1 at 64.) Harvey also suggested that Noga "keep smiling for our members and have patience in helping out coworkers," "take time to teach the coworkers correctly and give them encouragement," and, Noga herself suggested that she should "be a better teacher for coworkers." (Pl.'s Ex. 16 at 3.) In her deposition, Noga admitted "she had trouble with her coworkers and that her coworkers expressed that she was too direct and bossy." (Def.'s CSMF ¶ 7; Noga Depo. ¶¶ 91, 93.) There is no evidence in the record that Cabe and Harvey ever discussed Noga's interpersonal skills, or any other aspect of her performance at any time.[2]
While at Wilsonville, Noga had problems with a coworker, Roberta Vermilyer ("Vermilyer"), who Noga felt was not doing her job. (Noga Depo. 91:14-25.) Noga complained to Harvey that Vermilyer was allowed to leave early even though she had not finished her work. (Noga Depo. 92:18-24.) Harvey urged Noga to put it behind her; "[Harvey] would say, `What happened *1250 in yesterday needs to stay in yesterday.'" (Noga Depo. 92:25-93:2.) Harvey also criticized Noga's decorating technique and "frequently counseled Noga for not following Costco's cake decorating manual." (Def.'s CSMF ¶ 8.) Noga never complained to management or human resources, either formally or informally, about Harvey's criticism of her or about any unfair treatment regarding her problems with Vermilyer. (Noga Depo. 97:14-22, 102:16-25.)
Harvey referred to himself as "Boss Man" at work. (Noga Decl. ¶ 5.) Noga claims that Harvey's use of this nickname was "offensive and demeaning" and that other employees complained to her about it. Id. Harvey testified that when he used the nickname he was merely "having fun at work." (Harvey Depo. 31:4-6.) He also stated that no one complained to him about its use and that Costco management never discussed it with him. (Harvey Depo. 31:7-12.) Noga presented no evidence from co-workers to support her assertion or refute Harvey's testimony.
In early 2005, Noga requested transfer to the Bend warehouse, but the request was denied, (Noga Depo. 65:22-25, 66:18-23), and Graber was the one who denied it, (Graber Decl. ¶ 5). A few months later, Noga voluntarily resigned her position at the Wilsonville warehouse; her last day was April 12, 2005. (Noga Depo. 65: 8-9; 76: 22-25.) (Harvey Decl. ¶ 7.) At the time of her resignation, Noga had already secured a position at Williams Bakery in Eugene, Oregon. (Noga Depo. 74:13-15.) One month later, in May 2005, Noga applied for rehire at Costco's Bend warehouse. (Noga Depo. 76.) After submitting her application, Noga spoke with Cabe in Bend about being rehired by Costco. At the time of her application, there were no cake decorator positions open in the bakery department. (Cabe Decl. ¶ 3.) However, Cabe "thought Ms. Noga might be able to work in a cleanup position in the bakery, and that eventually a position as a cake decorator might open up for her." (Cabe Decl. ¶ 3.) Noga expressed interest in that position and Cabe sent her out to get a urinalysis, a standard test for new and rehired employees and usually one ordered for an employee who has been hired or rehired. (Noga Depo. at 80:18-25.) (Cabe Decl. ¶ 4.)
In response to Noga's reapplication, the Bend Costco requested Noga's personnel file from Wilsonville. Curtis received this request and decided to call Graber, who was on vacation at the time, to let him know. (Curtis Depo. 36:23-37:3.) According to Curtis, he told Graber that Noga had difficulties getting along with coworkers and "following directions in regards to company guidelines on the decorating of cakes." (Curtis Depo. 38:2-10.) Graber, who "in the hiring process has final decision-making authority," recalled that Curtis "wanted to let [him] know that Noga had become rather disruptive in the bakery at Wilsonville." (Graber Depo 19:21-24; 24:3-5.) Graber testified that he did not ask Curtis for additional details and the two did not discuss anything further about Noga. (Graber Depo. 23:5-10.) In particular, Graber's declaration stated: "I am sure that Mr. Curtis did not mention that Ms. Noga had ever made any complaints of age or sex discrimination at the Wilsonville warehouse." (Graber Decl. ¶ 7.) Curtis stated in his declaration that he was not aware of any complaints by Noga based on age or sex discrimination and that "[w]hen [he] spoke with Mr. Graber in May 2005, [they] did not discuss any complaints of sex or age discrimination by Mr. Noga." (Curtis Decl. ¶ 5.)
Graber stated that, at the time he received the phone call from Curtis, and before Curtis told him anything about Noga, he already knew he was not interested in rehiring Noga. (Graber Depo. *1251 24:23-25:4.) Graber testified that he based this knowledge on three things: an incident involving Noga and a member of the Les Schwab family who came in to pick up a cake (the "Les Schwab incident"); Curtis's comments during the phone call about Noga; and his general impression that Noga had difficulty in interpersonal relationships. (Graber Depo. 30:12-22; 43:12-20.) In fact, Graber stated that he had considered Noga a "marginal performer" based on his experience with her at Bend, in particular the Les Schwab incident. (Graber Decl. ¶ 8.) Noga subsequently received a letter from Costco informing her that she was not being rehired. (Noga Depo. 81:15-17.)
Legal Standard
Summary judgment is appropriate "if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." FED.R.CIV.P. 56(c) (2008). Summary judgment is not proper if material factual issues exist for trial. Warren v. City of Carlsbad, 58 F.3d 439, 441 (9th Cir.1995).
The moving party has the burden of establishing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). If the moving party shows the absence of a genuine issue of material fact, the nonmoving party must go beyond the pleadings and identify facts which show a genuine issue for trial. Id. at 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548. A nonmoving party cannot defeat summary judgment by relying on the allegations in the complaint, or with unsupported conjecture or conclusory statements. Hernandez v. Spacelabs Medical, Inc., 343 F.3d 1107, 1112 (9th Cir.2003). Thus, summary judgment should be entered against "a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party's case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial." Celotex, 477 U.S. at 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548.
The court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Bell v. Cameron Meadows Land Co., 669 F.2d 1278, 1284 (9th Cir.1982). All reasonable doubt as to the existence of a genuine issue of fact should be resolved against the moving party. Hector v. Wiens, 533 F.2d 429, 432 (9th Cir.1976). Where different ultimate inferences may be drawn, summary judgment is inappropriate. Sankovich v. Life Ins. Co. of North America, 638 F.2d 136, 140 (9th Cir.1981).
However, deference to the nonmoving party has limits. The nonmoving party must set forth "specific facts showing a genuine issue for trial." FED.R.CIV.P. 56(e) (2008) (emphasis added). The "mere existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of the plaintiff's position [is] insufficient." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). Therefore, where "the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party, there is no genuine issue for trial." Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Discussion
1. Discrepancies between Noga's deposition and declaration.
Costco argues that discrepancies between Noga's declaration and her earlier deposition testimony are an attempt to create genuine issues of material fact and to survive summary judgment. The court must determine, as a threshold matter, whether Noga's declaration contradicts her deposition and, if so, which portions are *1252 appropriately considered for purposes of this motion.
The Supreme Court has recognized the "virtual unanimity" of circuit courts that "a party cannot create a genuine issue of fact sufficient to survive summary judgment simply by contradicting his or her own previous sworn statement (by, say, filing a later affidavit that flatly contradicts that party's earlier sworn deposition) without explaining the contradiction or attempting to resolve the disparity." Cleveland v. Policy Mgmt. Sys. Corp., 526 U.S. 795, 806, 119 S.Ct. 1597, 143 L.Ed.2d 966 (1999). In the Ninth Circuit, the general rule is that
a party cannot create an issue of fact by an affidavit contradicting his prior deposition testimony. `If a party who has been examined at length on deposition could raise an issue of fact simply by submitting an affidavit contradicting his own prior testimony, this would greatly diminish the utility of summary judgment as a procedure for screening out sham issues of fact.'
Kennedy v. Allied Mut. Ins. Co., 952 F.2d 262, 266 (9th Cir.1991) (internal citations omitted) (quoting Foster v. Arcata Associates, 772 F.2d 1453, 1462 (9th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1048, 106 S.Ct. 1267, 89 L.Ed.2d 576 (1986)). This rule does not extend to cases "in which a contradictory affidavit is introduced to explain portions of earlier deposition testimony. Rather, [the rule is] concerned with `sham' testimony that flatly contradicts earlier testimony in an attempt to `create' an issue of fact and avoid summary judgment." Kennedy, 952 F.2d at 267. Therefore, the district court must determine whether the contradictory testimony was given in an honest effort to clarify, or was an intentional alteration, designed to create a genuine issue of material fact.
The manner in which courts have treated corrections to depositions, a related issue, sheds light on the proper treatment of the sham affidavit. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(e) permits corrections to deposition testimony within thirty days of "being notified by the officer that the transcripts or recording is available," and where changes are justified by a signed statement "reciting such changes and the reasons given by the deponent for making them." FED.R.CIV.P. 30(e) (2008). In Hambleton Bros. Lumber Co. v. Balkin Enters., 397 F.3d 1217 (9th Cir.2005), the plaintiff submitted deposition corrections pursuant to this rule, but did not submit the required statement of reasons. The court noted examples where the "deposition corrections are clearly altered to allege facts sufficient to connect [a defendant] where none before existed." Id. at 1226 n. 6. The court gave the following examples of the plaintiff's answers and "corrected" answers. Where the plaintiff's original answer read "Personally, I guess he, he didn't breach it," the plaintiff's corrected answer read "I don't know the law but if Mr. Ballinger is responsible for Balkin's actions, then if Balkin breached the agreement, Mr. Ballinger breached the agreement." Where the original answer read "I don't know," the corrected answer read "Mr. Ballinger represented to me in 1996 or 1997 that Balkin still owned the Fruitland property. He acted as if he was still involved with Balkin." Finally, where the original answer again read "I don't know," the corrected answer read, "Ballinger in the dissolution of Balkin distributed assets of Balkin, the Fruitland property, that should not have been distributed, and he made me believe, in the 1996/1997 telephone conversation, that Balkin was still in existence and still owned the Fruitland property, which was untrue." Id. The corrected answers were clearly in conflict with the answers originally given at the deposition, especially as *1253 to those questions to which the plaintiff had answered "I don't know."
In response to these proffered "corrections" and in the absence of an explanation for these corrections, the court wrote:
A statement of reasons explaining corrections is an important component of errata submitted pursuant to FRCP 30(e), because the statement permits an assessment concerning whether the alterations have a legitimate purpose. The magistrate judge was troubled by the deposition corrections' seemingly tactical timing. . . . The absence of any stated reasons for the changes supports the magistrate judge's concern that the `corrections' were not corrections at all, but rather purposeful rewrites tailored to manufacture an issue of material fact regarding Ballinger and to avoid a summary judgment ruling in his favor.
Id. 397 F.3d at 1224-1225. The court likened this treatment of "sham" corrections to its treatment of "sham" affidavits in Kennedy. In other words, in order to accept an alteration or correction of deposition testimony via a supplemental affidavit, the court must be persuaded that the changes had a legitimate basis, i.e., the testimony required clarification, the deponent genuinely misunderstood the question, or the deponent gained access to new evidence containing material facts. See Kennedy, 952 F.2d at 266 (quoting Miller v. A.H. Robins Co., 766 F.2d 1102, 1104 (7th Cir.1985)).
Judges in this district have applied this standard to assess the legitimacy of corrected testimony. In B.J.G. v. Society of the Holy Child Jesus, 2008 WL 896061 (D.Or. Mar.28, 2008), plaintiff alleged sexual abuse by nuns more than forty years prior to filing her claim in federal court. Whether the plaintiff's claims were time-barred was dependent on the time at which she became aware that she had suffered legally cognizable harm. The plaintiff submitted a corrected deposition and the defendants moved to strike "plaintiff's amended and `corrected' answers to her deposition, which alter[ed] plaintiff's testimony regarding when she knew of the impact upon her from the nuns' alleged abuse. . . ." Id. at *2. In her deposition, the plaintiff testified that "she actually knew that what she [said] the sisters did to her had contributed to her bouts of depression long before she finally filed her complaint." Id. at *6. The plaintiff, by way of a corrected deposition, attempted to alter this testimony and assert that she "[did] not know when she became cognizant that the alleged abuse at issue contributed to her depression. . . ." Id. Plaintiff's counsel argued that the corrections were necessary because "plaintiff was pressured for answers that she was unsure of at her deposition and that when pushed, plaintiff was compelled to guess." Id. Judge Haggerty concluded that this allegation was not supported by the record and, therefore, the changes made to the transcript were unjustified. Accordingly, the motion to strike was granted.
By contrast, in a recent decision also in this district, Judge Papak denied the plaintiffs' motion to strike deposition testimony based on alleged inconsistencies. The testimony in question dealt with whether the parties were in compliance with an organizational rule. The court determined that, although the deponent "was less well prepared for his deposition than he would have been under ideal circumstances, and therefore could give no definitive response as to the two plaintiff organizations' current compliance with the Program Integrity Rule, such ill-preparedness [was] not a basis for granting the motion to strike." Legal Aid Servs. of Oregon v. Legal Servs. Corp., 561 F.Supp.2d 1187, 1203 (D.Or. 2008). Further, "[b]eyond [the deponent's] inability to answer questions regarding *1254 current compliance, comparison of the relevant portions of his deposition testimony and the complained of paragraphs of his declaration reveal[ed] no contradiction." Id. at 1203-04. Where a court can reasonably reconcile the alleged inconsistencies, a motion to strike should be denied.
In this case, Noga gave a lengthy deposition on January 30, 2008. After Costco filed its motion for summary judgment, Noga submitted a declaration in which she made assertions both contradictory to and not included in her original deposition. The declaration differed from the deposition testimony on the following relevant issues: (1) Harvey referring to himself as "boss man"; (2) persons to whom Noga complained about disparate treatment; (3) the Les Schwab incident; and (4) evidence in support of Noga's retaliation claim.
In her deposition, Noga was asked about the basis of her gender discrimination claim. Much like the plaintiff in Hambleton, Noga's initial answer was very brief and to the point:
Q: My question to you is, what facts, what evidence, what circumstances, are you relying on to contend that Costco discriminated against you because of your gender?
A: I think that males are still promoted a little bit more or faster than women.
Q: Anything else?
A: No.
(Noga Depo. 117:7-14.) In her declaration, however, Noga offered completely different and unrelated information on this point. She stated that Harvey referred to himself as "boss man" and that she found it "offensive and demeaning" to herself and women in general. (Noga Decl. ¶ 5.) According to Noga's declaration, "[o]ther employees complained to [her] that they did not like Harvey referring to himself as `boss man.' Harvey would generally say that he was `boss man' when a female employee would question a decision that Harvey had made." (Noga Decl. ¶ 5.) Noga provided no explanation as to why she did not mention this reason or this analysis in her deposition. Furthermore, it had nothing to do with her original deposition answer, so it is not a clarification of earlier testimony and Noga did not testify in her deposition that Harvey behaved in a sexist manner. In light of these facts, it is not reasonable that Noga would fail to mention the "boss man" comment in her deposition, a comment that would seem central to her claim of gender discrimination and, as she claimed in her declaration, one she deemed both offensive and demeaning. Accordingly, the court will not consider the "boss man" testimony for purposes of this motion.
In her deposition, Noga also stated that she complained to Harvey only about Vermilyer's special treatment and that she did not complain to anyone about Harvey:
Q: My question is, did you express some sort of concern about Mr. Harvey or his management style to anyone in the management structure or human resources at Costco?
A: No. I don't think I did.
(Noga Depo. 102:16-25.) In her declaration, however, Noga directly contradicted her deposition testimony: "I also complained to Joe Burns and Glen, the two Assistant Managers at that time, about Harvey's preferential treatment of Vermilyer. I also complained to Curtis, the Wilsonville Warehouse Manager." (Noga Decl. ¶ 6.) Again, Noga gives no explanation as to why she now remembers making her complaints to persons in addition to Harvey. This is an important discrepancy because it bears directly on Noga's retaliation claim, which Noga's deposition testimony fails to support. Therefore, the *1255 court declines to accept, for purposes of this motion, that Noga complained to Curtis or others about Harvey's preferential treatment of a younger coworker.
Noga's testimony about the Les Schwab incident also varies markedly between her deposition and declaration. Essentially, Noga did not recall the incident during her deposition, but described it at length in her declaration. (Noga Depo. 98:10-14; Noga Decl. ¶ 3.) Although this discrepancy ultimately is unimportantthe parties do not dispute that the incident occurred and that Graber was upset about the incidentit reinforces the court's conclusion that Noga's declaration deviates substantially from her deposition testimony and seems generally intended to help her avoid summary judgment.
Noga testified in her deposition, in support of her age discrimination claim, that Vermilyer said that she, Noga, was old enough to be her mother. (Noga Depo. 117:15-21.) Noga also mentioned that Vermilyer did not always complete her job duties and that she, Noga, complained about it to Harvey, although Noga did not link Vermilyer's alleged acts to her age discrimination claim. (Noga Depo. 91:23-93:2.) In fact, in her deposition, Noga testified that she asked Harvey only why Vermilyer was "going home early if there is nothing left [on the shelves for the next day]." (Noga Depo. 92:18-93:5.) However, Noga never testified that she complained to Harvey that Vermilyer was receiving special treatment, including because of her age, or that Noga was not being permitted the same leeway because of her age. (Noga Depo. 91:5-93:8.) Rather, Noga's sole complaint about Vermilyer was that Vermilyer "wasn't doing her job." (Noga Depo. 91:23-25.)
In her declaration, however, Noga provides more detail about Vermilyer's special treatment and her attitude toward Noga. Specifically, Noga stated that she told Harvey she "did not think it was fair that Vermilyer was being given special treatment." (Noga Decl. ¶ 6.) This statement, and Noga's descriptions of Vermilyer's "attitude" toward her, are offered without explanation and, fairly viewed, are not clarifications of her prior answers in her deposition. Instead, they shift Noga's testimony from complaining about a co-worker not pulling her weight and creating more work for Noga as a result, to the much different subject of Harvey allegedly giving Vermilyer, a younger worker, preferential treatment, but not giving Noga, an older worker, the same privilege, all because of age. Therefore, the court will not consider this part of Noga's declaration.
2. Discrimination Claims: Disparate Treatment and Retaliation
Plaintiff has alleged unlawful workplace discrimination under two theories: disparate treatment and retaliation. The court will address each in turn.
a. Disparate Treatment
As the Supreme Court stated in Raytheon Co. v. Hernandez, 540 U.S. 44, 52, 124 S.Ct. 513, 157 L.Ed.2d 357 (2003), "disparate treatment . . . is the most easily understood type of discrimination. The employer simply treats some people less favorably than others because of their race, color, religion, sex or other protected characteristic." (quoting Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 335 n. 15, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Noga alleges that Costco treated her differently than other employees because of her age and gender. This alleges a claim of disparate treatment, under Title VII, the ADEA, and Oregon law.
"In order to withstand summary judgment on [a] disparate treatment claim, *1256 [a] plaintiff may either demonstrate a triable issue based on direct or circumstantial evidence that he was the target of intentional . . . discrimination, or he may make his case under the McDonnell Douglas framework." Courtney v. Oregon Dept. of State Police, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53282, at *30-31, 2008 WL 2726931, **10-11 (D.Or. July 11, 2008) (citing McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973)). "Direct evidence is `evidence which, if believed, proves the fact of discriminatory animus without inference or presumption.'" Vasquez v. County of Los Angeles, 349 F.3d 634, 640 (9th Cir.2003) (quoting Godwin v. Hunt Wesson, Inc., 150 F.3d 1217, 1221 (9th Cir.1998)).
The plaintiff may also rely on the burden-shifting framework set forth in McDonnell Douglas. See Knox v. Portland, 543 F.Supp.2d 1238, 1246-1247 (D.Or. Mar.5, 2008) ("For claims of disparate treatment based on race or gender a plaintiff must first present a prima facie case of discrimination which creates a presumption of discrimination." (citing Nidds v. Schindler Elevator Corp., 113 F.3d 912, 916 (9th Cir.1996))). "Under McDonnell Douglas, a plaintiff alleging disparate treatment under Title VII must first establish a prima facie case of discrimination. Specifically, the plaintiff must show that (1) he belongs to a protected class; (2) he was qualified for the position; (3) he was subject to an adverse employment action; and (4) similarly situated individuals outside his protected class were treated more favorably." Chuang v. Univ. of California Davis, 225 F.3d 1115, 1123 (9th Cir.2000) (internal citation omitted).
Once a plaintiff has made his prima facie showing of discrimination, "[t]he burden then must shift to the employer to articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employee's rejection." McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817. See also Knox, 543 F.Supp.2d at 1247 ("If plaintiff makes a prima facie case, the burden of production then shifts to the employer to articulate some legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the adverse employment action." (citing Chuang v. Univ. of Cal., 225 F.3d 1115, 1123-1124 (9th Cir.2000))). If the defendant successfully gives such a reason for the employment action, the plaintiff must then demonstrate that the proffered reason is pretextual. Chuang, 225 F.3d at 1124. Pretext may be established in one of two ways: "(1) indirectly by showing that defendant's proffered explanation is unworthy of credence because it is internally inconsistent or otherwise not believable; or (2) directly, by showing that unlawful discrimination more likely motivated the defendant." White v. TA Operating Corp., 2008 WL 2557983, **3-4, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 48103, *8-9 (D. Or. June 19, 2008) (citing Godwin v. Hunt Wesson, Inc., 150 F.3d 1217, 1220 (9th Cir.1998)).
The court notes that this Title VII analysis applies equally to claims of age discrimination under the ADEA. See Clemons v. Nike, Inc., 2007 WL 2890972, *5 (D.Or. Sept.28, 2007) ("The order and allocation of proof in cases under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act applies to age discrimination claims under the ADEA, which may be proven with direct or circumstantial evidence."). In the Ninth Circuit, this analysis also applies to discrimination claims arising under Oregon law.
Although Oregon Courts analyzing claims under the Oregon Act have rejected the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting approach, that approach is nevertheless maintained for assessing Oregon employment discrimination claims brought in federal court. `The standard for establishing a prima facie case of discrimination under Oregon law is identical to that used in federal law.'
*1257 Tyson v. Or. Anesthesiology Group, P.C., 2008 WL 2371420, *6, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44992, at *16-17 (citing and quoting Snead v. Metropolitan Property Casualty Insurance Co., 237 F.3d 1080, 1090-93, 1087 (9th Cir.2001), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 888, 122 S.Ct. 201, 151 L.Ed.2d 142 (2001)). Therefore, each of Noga's disparate treatment claims is analyzed under the framework set forth above.
i. Direct Evidence
For the proposition that she was a victim of disparate treatment discrimination based on her age and gender, Noga alleges the following direct evidence. First, Noga cites Vermilyer's comment that Noga was old enough to be her mother as evidence of age discrimination. This is not direct evidence of discrimination by an employer. In general, "[s]tray remarks are insufficient to establish discrimination. Stray remarks are remarks unrelated to the decisional process, and are insufficient to demonstrate that the employer relied on illegitimate criteria." Markey v. Kudelski S.A., 2008 WL 65401, at *10 (S.D.Cal. Jan.3, 2008) (citing Merrick v. Farmers Ins. Group, 892 F.2d 1434, 1438 (9th Cir. 1990) and Smith v. Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., 875 F.2d 1325, 1330 (7th Cir. 1989)). Where the statement is not made by a decision-maker, the plaintiff must "establish a nexus between the alleged discriminatory statement and the decision to terminate." Selby v. Pepsico, Inc., 784 F.Supp. 750, 757 (N.D.Cal.1991) (quoting DeHorney v. Bank of America Nat. Trust and Sav., 879 F.2d 459, 468 (9th Cir.1989)). Here, the comment was made by a coworker, not Noga's supervisor. There is no evidence that Vermilyer's comment, made to Noga when she worked at Costco's Wilsonville warehouse, had any bearing on the decision of Graber, the Bend Warehouse Manager, not to rehire Noga. Therefore, the comment is a "stray remark" unrelated to the decision-making process and not attributable to the employer for purposes of liability under the ADEA.[3]
Second, Noga argues that Harvey treated her differently than another employee, Vermilyer, by unfairly scrutinizing her work and disciplining her for being four minutes late returning from lunch. Again, this is not direct evidence of discrimination. "Favoritism and unfair treatment, unless based on a prohibited classification, do not violate Title VII." Candelore v. Clark County Sanitation District, 752 F.Supp. 956, 961 (D.Nev.1990) (quoting Miller v. Aluminum Co. of America, 679 F.Supp. 495, 501 (W.D.Pa.), aff'd without opinion, 856 F.2d 184 (3d. Cir.1988)). In Coleman v. Quaker Oats Co., 232 F.3d 1271 (9th Cir.2000), two current employees competed for an open position. Although the plaintiff had scored one point higher on an evaluation, the other candidate was chosen. The defendants gave, as a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for this decision, that the decision arose from a struggle between the current managers of the two candidates. The manager of the candidate ultimately chosen was able to convince the other manager that his employee should receive the position. The court wrote: "The `favoritism' of managers is `not age discrimination.'" Id. at 1290 (citing Shutt v. Sandoz Crop Protection Corp., 944 F.2d 1431, 1433 (9th Cir.1991)).
In this district, Judge Stewart addressed the issue of favoritism in Moore v. *1258 Portland Development Commission, 1999 WL 373789, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8180 (D.Or. May 17, 2008). The plaintiff argued that a supervisor's favoritism of a white employee was evidence of discrimination against her. Judge Stewart stated that, "at most [the plaintiff] has shown that [her supervisor] may have favored [the other employee], but has not linked this favoritism to race," and that the plaintiff had failed to establish the necessary inference that the favoritism was racially motivated. Id. at 1999 WL 373789, *7, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8180, *19. Here, Noga similarly fails to link Harvey's alleged favoritism of Vermilyer with discriminatory conduct based on age. Noga attempts to associate Vermilyer's comment with Harvey's actions, but there is absolutely no evidence to connect the two. Again, this does not constitute direct evidence of discrimination.
Finally, Noga claims that she was temporarily transferred to a different department as part of a reduction in force, when an employee with less seniority, Cesar Lopez ("Lopez"), should have been transferred instead. As this employee was both younger and male, Noga apparently attributes her transfer to discrimination based on her gender, her age, or both. In her brief, Noga refers to this transfer as a "reduction in force." (Pl.'s Response Memorandum ("Resp.Mem.") 6.) In Costco's Employee Agreement, the "Reduction in Workforce" policy is described as follows: "Should it become necessary to reduce the number of employees in any classification or department, we will attempt to avoid layoffs by giving you the opportunity to perform other work where possible, providing you have the skill, knowledge and ability to perform the job." (Pl.'s Ex. 26 at 2.) There is no mention of seniority in this portion of the Employee Agreement, though it is explicitly defined in another section, labeled "Seniority," as "the length of time you have been continuously employed by Costco." (Pl.'s Ex. 26 at 3.) The concept is also referred to in the section titled "Non-Seasonal Layoffs" for the proposition that "[l]ayoffs are conducted according to length of continuous employment." (Pl.'s Ex. 26 at 3.)
Taken together, these policies demonstrate that Costco acted in a manner consistent with its policies and refute Noga's claim that her temporary transfer to the front end department was improper and the result of age or gender discrimination. Although Costco's Employee Agreement makes explicit mention and application of seniority, it does not do so with regard to "Reductions in Workforce." Noga offers no other evidence to support this allegation.
In sum, Noga presents no direct evidence of disparate treatment. Accordingly, the court turns to Noga's circumstantial evidence under the McDonnell Douglas framework.
ii. Circumstantial Evidence and McDonnell Douglas Analysis
Noga also fails to demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact with respect to her disparate treatment claim under the McDonnell Douglas framework. Noga satisfies the test's first two prongs: first, she belonged to a protected class, by virtue of both her age and gender and, second, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to her, she was qualified to work for Costco not only as a cake decorator, but also in the front end or janitorial departments. This is apparent from her employment history and performance reviews.
To satisfy the third prong, Noga must show that she was treated differently than employees not members of her protected class. First, Noga contends that a younger female employee, Vermilyer, was given special privileges that Noga herself did not enjoy. In particular, Noga alleges that *1259 Vermilyer was allowed to leave work early without completing all of her job duties and that Noga would have to complete them instead. However, Noga presented nothing more than a bare allegation that Vermilyer was given special treatment. Noga presented no evidence that this was a result of or related to age discrimination; Noga's only evidence is that Vermilyer was younger than she, from which she concludes she suffered age discrimination. Noga also alleges that Vermilyer made a comment motivated by age discrimination and that Vermilyer may have had some supervisory influence over Noga. The evidence shows that, Vermilyer had no supervisory role or authority over Noga, and Vermilyer's isolated comment referencing Noga's age does not create a reasonable inference that Costco discriminated against her because of her age.
Second, Noga claims that she was a victim of discrimination when Costco failed to rehire her in May 2005. Failure to rehire is considered an adverse employment action when motivated by retaliation, the Supreme Court held, in Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 346, 117 S.Ct. 843, 136 L.Ed.2d 808 (1997). On her application, Noga indicated that she was interested in applying for any available position. (Pl.'s Ex. 20.) Noga asserts that she was qualified to perform various jobs at Costco.
The evidence is unclear as to whether there was an open position at the time Noga applied for rehire. In his declaration, Cabe stated: "At the time she applied, we did not have any positions open for cake decorators in the bakery department, and I told Ms. Noga that. I thought Ms. Noga might be able to work in a cleanup position in the bakery, and that eventually a position as a cake decorator might open up for her." (Cabe Decl. ¶ 3.) Noga testified in her deposition that when she spoke with Cabe about being rehired there was a cake decorator position open, but that it was filled by a current employee, a female in her forties with seniority over Noga. (Cabe Decl. ¶ 7.) Noga also testified that there was also a cleanup position and Cabe told Noga she could have it and that she would probably move up quickly. (Noga Depo. 80:4-15.)
Cabe testified in his deposition that, at the time Noga applied for rehire, there were no positions available in the bakery, but that he expected there to be openings in the future. According to Cabe, he and Noga discussed a current decorator that might retire and another one that might transfer. (Cabe Depo. 33:20-34:16.) He stated that when he spoke with Noga, there was no opening for a cleanup person. (Cabe Depo. 34:23-25.) He later explained that he "anticipated eventually needing a cleanup [person]" but does not remember if he ever actually hired a cleanup person around the time Noga applied for rehire. (Cabe Depo. 58:4-8.) In his deposition, Graber testified that he did not know why someone would be sent for a urinalysis if there were no positions open. (Graber Depo. 37:10-19.)
Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to Noga, the court concludes that there were open positions for which she was qualified at the time of her reapplication. Therefore, the burden shifts to Costco to proffer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason to not rehire Noga.
According to Costco, Graber decided not to rehire Noga for three reasons. First, Graber had a negative opinion of Noga based on the Les Schwab incident. The incident took place when Noga was employed at the Bend Warehouse, prior to her transfer to Wilsonville. According to Graber, "a member, Les Schwab's daughter," came in to pick up a cake previously ordered and it was not ready. Graber testified: "So I went up to the break room to ask her if she could help decorate this *1260 cake that we had messed up for the member. And she informed me, no, she could not; she was at lunch. And I got to tell you, that stood out in my mind till this day." (Graber Depo. 21:24-22:3.) Second, Graber based his decision on Curtis's general comments about Noga being disruptive at Wilsonville. When Curtis learned that the Bend location had requested Noga's file, he called Graber. (Graber Depo. 23:22-24:1.) Graber testified that Curtis "wanted to let [him] know that [Noga] had become rather disruptive in the bakery at Wilsonville." (Graber Depo. 24:3-5.) Curtis said nothing more about Noga and, at this point Graber cut him off because he "wasn't interested in bringing her back as transfer, let alone rehiring her." (Graber Depo. 24:7-13.) Third, Graber did not wish to rehire Noga based on his own general impression that she did not get along with coworkers, that she was bossy, and that she sometimes offended others. At his deposition, Graber stated: "I kind of felt like she, she didn'tI don't knowshe kind of didn't get along with everybody in the department or she may be a little bossy at times and offended people." (Graber Depo. 43:17-20.) Each of the reasons stated above related to Noga's interpersonal skills and her performance evaluations at both Bend and Wilsonville corroborate Graber's impressions: Noga's evaluations consistently note that Noga lacked or needed to improve her skills in this area.
Noga now must demonstrate that this was not the reason Costco did not rehire her, but is merely a pretext. Noga can satisfy this burden by "produc[ing] enough evidence to allow a reasonable factfinder to conclude either: (a) that the alleged reason for [the adverse employment action] was false, or (b) that the true reason for [the adverse employment action] was a discriminatory one." Nidds v. Schindler Elevator Corp., 113 F.3d 912, 918 (9th Cir.1996) (emphasis in original).
Noga argues that Costco's proffered reason is pretextual, based on the following. First, other than the Les Schwab incident, Graber "had no other direct knowledge of Noga's work performance or ability to interact with coworkers. Graber's information most likely came from Cabe or Curtis." (Pl.'s Resp. Mem. 28.) Graber, however, testified that he had independently formed a negative opinion of Noga, based on the Les Schwab incident and her interpersonal difficulties. Noga has made no evidentiary showing that refutes Graber's independent impression of her. Further, Graber's impression is corroborated by substantial evidence in the record, including the pattern established in her performance evaluations.
Second, Noga argues that she was not a marginal performer, as demonstrated by her performance evaluations that she claims are uniformly positive. Again, while Noga's evaluations do identify Noga's positive attributes, they also highlight a consistent difficulty with interpersonal relationships. Also, Graber's proffered reason for rejecting Noga's application was not that she was a poor cake decorator, nor does Graber suggest that she could not adequately perform her cake decorating duties. The fact that Noga was successful in certain aspects of her job performance at Costco is not enough to undermine Costco's reason for rejecting her application.
Third, Noga claims that Graber himself was not the sole decision maker; rather, he was influenced by input from Cabe, Curtis, and Harvey. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Cabe, who reported to Graber, had negative information to communicate to Graber about Noga. For one thing, after Noga applied for rehire at the Bend Costco, Cabe sent her out for a drug test, which indicates that Cabe thought Noga would be rehired. This is inconsistent with an intention to dissuade *1261 Graber from rehiring Noga. Cabe also wrote a letter of reference for Noga, dated October 22, 2006, which stated, in part, "Christina has a good work ethic and is a very talented person, especially in the decorating station," and "I believe Christina is a motivated employee and somebody that has something to offer any bakery she was to work in." (Pl.'s Ex. 23.) Further, Noga does not claim that Cabe discriminated against her at any time.
As for Harvey, there is no evidence that he communicated directly with Graber regarding Noga's application for rehire. It is possible that Harvey communicated with Curtis, who subsequently communicated with Graber. As Noga points out, a neutral decision-maker can be influenced by others with discriminatory intent, thus causing the final decision to reflect that discriminatory motive. Adams v. Home Depot USA, Inc., 2007 WL 4565163, at * 19 (D.Or. Dec.19, 2007). However, there is no evidence that Harvey conveyed to Curtis or that Curtis conveyed to Graber any information that could reasonably be viewed as discriminatory. Because Noga has failed to establish that Harvey or Curtis harbored discriminatory animus toward her, or conveyed it to Graber, she also fails to establish that Graber was, or even could have been, tainted by the discriminatory intent of others.
Accordingly, Noga fails to meet her burden to establish that Costco's nondiscriminatory reason not to rehire her was pretextual. Costco's motion for summary judgment on Noga's disparate treatment claim is granted.
b. Retaliation
Noga also alleges that she was retaliated against after voicing complaints that she had been discriminated against based on her age and gender, in violation of Title VII and the ADEA. Chapter 42 of the United States Code, section 2000e-3 states, in relevant part: "It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate against any of his employees or applicants for employment. . . because he has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice by [Title VII], or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under [Title VII]." 42 USCS § 2000e-3. This provision of Title VII "protects the right to be free from certain types of forbidden discrimination, as well as the right to speak out against such discrimination. It also protects against retaliation for the exercise of the right to speak out against discrimination." Hernandez v. Spacelabs Medical Inc., 343 F.3d 1107, 1113 (9th Cir.2003).
"A plaintiff may establish a prima facie case of discriminatory retaliation by showing that: (1) she engaged in a protected activity; (2) she was subjected to an adverse employment action; and (3) there was a causal link between the protected activity and the adverse employment action." Jamal v. Wilshire Management Leasing Corp., 320 F.Supp.2d 1060, 1078 (D.Or. June 10, 2004) (citing Bergene v. Salt River Project Agric. Improvement & Power Dist., 272 F.3d 1136, 1141 (9th Cir. 2001)). "If the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, `the McDonnell Douglas' order and allocation of proof that governs disparate treatment claims also governs retaliation claims.'" Kitchen v. WSCO Petroleum Corp., 481 F.Supp.2d 1136, 1144 (D.Or. Jan.29, 2007) (citing Yartzoff v. Thomas, 809 F.2d 1371, 1375 (9th Cir. 1987), cert. denied 498 U.S. 939, 111 S.Ct. 345, 112 L.Ed.2d 309 (1990)).[4] As above, if *1262 Noga can meet her prima facie burden, Costco must proffer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action. If Costco can produce such a reason, Noga has the opportunity to rebut that reason on the grounds that it was a mere pretext for the adverse action.
"Informal complaints to a supervisor constitute protected activity in a retaliation claim." Knox, 543 F.Supp.2d at 1248 (citing Passantino v. Johnson & Johnson Consumer Prods. Inc., 212 F.3d 493, 506 (9th Cir.2000)). But, a general complaint about a coworker does not amount to a complaint about discrimination. See Jamal, 320 F.Supp.2d at 1079 ("There can be no inference that [the plaintiff] meant illegal age discrimination when all she ever complained of was that she and anonymous other employees thought Magee was a bad manager."). Noga alleges that she engaged in protected activity when she complained to Harvey and others about the preferential treatment Vermilyer was receiving. In her deposition, Noga testified that she complained to Harvey that Vermilyer was going home early without completing her job duties. (Noga Depo. 92:8-20.) However, when asked if she expressed any "concern about Mr. Harvey or his management style to anyone in the management structure or human resources at Costco" Noga answered that she did not think so. (Noga Depo. 102:16-21.) She also testified that she did not file a formal complaint with Costco. (Noga Depo. 102:22-25.)
There is, at best, scant evidence that Noga ever complained of discrimination based on age or gender. Noga testified in her deposition that she complained to Harvey about Vermilyer doing a poor job. (Noga Depo. 92:11-13.) Even if the court considered Noga's declaration statement that she "told Harvey that [she] did not think it was fair that Vermilyer was being given special treatment," (Noga Decl. ¶ 6), it is unclear whether Noga complained to Harvey that Vermilyer's special treatment was because of her age.
In her response brief, Noga argues that she was retaliated against because she "engaged in protected activity by complaining to Harvey . . . about how Vermilyer was being given preferential treatment in the Bakery." (Pl.'s Resp. Br. 31.) Even if the court infers that her complaint to Harvey included an allegation of discrimination based on age and, thus, that Noga engaged in protected behavior, Noga cannot meet her burden on this point. Noga must also establish a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse employment action and she cannot make this connection.
Causation may be "inferred from circumstantial evidence, such as the employer's knowledge that the plaintiff engaged in protected activities and the proximity in time between the protected action and the allegedly retaliatory activity." Knox, 543 F.Supp.2d at 1248 (citing Yartzoff v. Thomas, 809 F.2d 1371, 1376 (9th Cir.1987)). "Temporal proximity between protected activity and an adverse employment action can by itself constitute sufficient circumstantial evidence of retaliation in some cases. However, the timing must be very close." Adams, 2007 WL 4565163, at *26 (internal citations omitted). It bears noting that "[e]ssential to a causal link is evidence that the employer was aware that the plaintiff had engaged in the protected activity." Dameworth v. Linn-Benton Community College, 2007 WL 2816216, at *6 (D.Or. Sept.27, 2007) (quoting Cohen v. Fred Meyer, Inc., 686 F.2d 793, 796 (9th Cir.1982)).
Assuming that, while employed at the Wilsonville Costco, Noga engaged in protected activity when she complained to Harvey about Vermilyer, she still fails to meet her burden to show discrimination. *1263 Some time after she complained about Vermilyer, Noga voluntarily resigned her employment at the Wilsonville Costco in order to take a different job at Williams Bakery, in Eugene. About a month later, she applied for a job at the Bend Costco and was not rehired, a decision made by Graber. To establish a causal connection, Noga must show that her complaint to Harvey was ultimately communicated to Graber, the person authorized to make all hiring decisions at the Bend Costco, and that this resulted in his refusal to hire her. Noga contends that Graber learned of her age discrimination complaint when Curtis called Graber regarding her 2005 application for rehire at the Bend Costco.
Harvey stated, in his declaration, that he "expressed [his] concerns with Ms. Noga's poor attitude, her problems working with others and her failure to follow directions to the Warehouse Manager, Roberts Curtis." (Harvey Decl. ¶ 6.) In his declaration, Curtis stated that when he found out that someone at the Bend Costco had requested Noga's personnel file, he called Graber. Graber, the Bend Warehouse Manager, was responsible for all final hiring decisions and the only person at the Bend Costco with that authority. (Graber Decl. ¶ 6.) "[Curtis] told Mr. Graber that plaintiff had problems with her coworkers and problems following directions on cake decorating." (Curtis Decl. ¶ 4.) Curtis also claimed that he was "not aware that Ms. Noga ever made any complaints of sex or age discrimination" while at the Wilsonville Costco. When he and Graber spoke, "[they] did not discuss any complaints of sex or age discrimination by Ms. Noga." (Curtis Decl. ¶ 5.)
Graber stated, in his declaration, that Curtis did indeed call him about Noga's application at the Bend Warehouse. According to Graber, "Mr. Curtis told [him] that Ms. Noga was `disruptive' in that she had problems with coworkers." (Graber Decl. ¶ 7.) Graber "was sure that Mr. Curtis did not mention that Ms. Noga had ever made any complaints of age or sex discrimination at the Wilsonville warehouse." He also stated that "[e]ven before [he] heard Mr. Curtis's comments, [he] was not interested in rehiring Ms. Noga." (Graber Decl. ¶¶ 7-8.) Graber pointed out that he had already denied Noga's transfer request earlier that year, for these reasons. (Graber Decl. ¶ 8.) Graber stated in his deposition: "In early 2005, I received a transfer request from Ms. Noga, who was inquiring into the possibility of returning to Bend. I remembered her as a marginal employee at best, and I was not interested in having her come back, so I denied the transfer request." (Graber Decl. ¶ 5.) Noga has produced no evidence to refute or call into question Graber's or Curtis's testimony on this point.
Graber's prior denial of Noga's transfer request strongly undermines Noga's retaliation theory. Earlier in 2005, Noga requested a transfer to the Bend Costco and was denied. This took place prior to Graber's conversation with Curtis several months later regarding Noga's rehire request, lending credence to Graber's claim that he refused to hire Noga based on his personal knowledge that she was a marginal performer, not because of an alleged complaint of gender or sex discrimination.
Accordingly, Noga has failed to meet her prima facie burden to establish a retaliation claim under Title VII, the ADEA, and ORS 659A.030. Therefore, Cosctco's motion for summary judgment on these claims should be granted.
3. IIED
Costco writes, in its Motion for Summary Judgment, that it "moves for summary judgment dismissing plaintiff's claims against Costco alleged in her complaint." (Def.'s Motion for Summary *1264 Judgment 2.) The court notes that Costco did not brief the IIED claim in its initial summary judgment memorandum and Noga did not address it in her response memorandum. However, Costco directly addressed the IIED claim in its reply brief. Noga had opportunity to raise the issue at oral argument, or to request an opportunity to respond in writing, in the form of a sur-reply, but she did neither. For this reason, the court recognizes the IIED claim as part of Costco's motion and addresses it here.
Under Oregon law, Noga must establish the following, to prove a claim for IIED: "(1) the defendant intended to inflict severe emotional distress on the plaintiff, (2) the defendant's acts were the cause of the plaintiff's severe emotional distress, and (3) the defendant's acts constituted an extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct." Sheets v. Knight, 308 Or. 220, 236, 779 P.2d 1000 (1989). Noga fails to establish any of these factors sufficient to survive summary judgment. There is no evidence to suggest that Costco intended to inflict severe emotional distress on Noga, that Noga suffers from severe emotional distress resulting from her interactions with Costco, or that the bounds of socially tolerable conduct have been transgressed. Costco's most significant transgression was choosing not to rehire Noga. Even if this decision had been based on discriminatory animus, which this court holds it was not, "[w]rongfully motivated discharge alone is insufficient to establish the intolerable conduct element of the IIED tort." Laird v. Marion County, 2005 WL 1669828, *3, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36686, at *9, 2005 WL 1669828 (July 14, 2005) (citing Madani v. Kendall Ford, Inc., 312 Or. 198, 818 P.2d 930 (1991)). Costco's other alleged misdeeds similarly fail to demonstrate the requisite intent. For these reasons, Costco's motion for summary judgment on Noga's claim for IIED should be granted.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, Costco's Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED in its entirety.
NOTES
[1] All parties have consented to jurisdiction by magistrate judge in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1).
[2] Bend, located in Central Oregon, is approximately 160 miles southeast of Wilsonville, which is located in the Willamette Valley immediately south of Portland. Cabe reported to Graber in Bend, and Harvey reported to Curtis in Wilsonville. There is no evidence that Cabe and Harvey shared duties or coordinated their supervisory responsibilities.
[3] Noga also argues that Vermilyer's signature on a personnel document "is evidence that [Vermilyer] was involved in making decisions regarding Noga's employment." (Pl.'s Resp. Br. 20.) Costco maintains, however, that "the purpose of a signature is only to show that someone reviewed the form and verified that the raise was correctly calculated." (Def.'s Reply 10-11.) Noga presented no contrary evidence.
[4] Again, this analytical framework governs retaliation claims under Title VII, the ADEA, and ORS 659A.030.
| tomekkorbak/pile-curse-small | FreeLaw |
Butting Heads with Phaedra
Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I enjoyed spending some well needed quality time my family, and catching up with friends. We all have much to be thankful for and should never take our blessings for granted.
"Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving." - W.T. Purkiser
BUTT DIAL 411?
Phaedra and I have only known each other a couple of years, and we came into this beautiful bevy of women around the same time. We have continuously maintained a cordial relationship, and have always treated each other with kindness. We support each other’s events, socialize in some of the same circles, exchange pleasantries on the phone occasionally, and even share our friend Pastor Pollard in common. Bosom buddies? No. Cool with each other? Absolutely!
With that said, I was a little surprised to hear Phaedra's commentary when NeNe played the BUTT dial for me that day at lunch. I felt that Phaedra's tone was caviler, and her choice of words stung me like a bug bite from out of nowhere. Again, I don't claim to be Phaedra's best friend or anything, BUTT what I do claim is that I always make every effort to support "All Things Phaedra." When I am invited to her extravagant affairs (regardless if the invite is heartfelt), out of respect my BUTT is always the first one there. Sometimes, my BUTT is the only one there (from this group of ladies) to support her. Phaedra knows that she can always depend on me to show up, show up on time, and not show out! Do I deserve a medal? No, BUTT I do deserve for Phaedra to at least give a fu-- (excuse my spelling) that I do come and support!
The Lord works in mysterious ways! Now I realize that Phaedra obviously had no intention for any of this information to somehow miraculously fall into my lap and end up biting her on her donkey BUTT! (Or titty in this particular case.) Everybody knows that everything happens for a reason, and there is no such thing as a coincidence. My hand delivered BUTT-o-gram had travelled a lot of curious roads and had taken lots of interesting turns before it would eventually end up in my hands.
As my friend, of course I would expect NeNe to pass this information on to me, regardless of how I decided to deal with it. I would have done the same for her. NeNe knows that I am a regular at Phaedra's events, so it was good for me to know that she felt this way. I was never angry at Phaedra about the BUTT dial, BUTT I did want to talk to her about it, because I felt like she didn't value my support. Also I wanted her to know that I knew she felt this way, because I was already starting to feel funny about attending her upcoming events. Since this was the first time we BUTTed heads, I thought she deserved to know why my BUTT was all of a sudden on ice. No drama, big girl style. The two of us would sit our BUTTS down with a cocktail and talk. This was the perfect opportunity for Phaedra to fess up, apologize, and walk her donkey booty off into the sunset. Was I bugging? Or did this chick really bug out on me!?
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Subsets and Splits