Nies imorru f’Għassa tal-Pulizija imbenġlin u jgħidulhom: “Iva pprova rranġa għax taqlagħha aktar u tkun agħar.” Nies li jmorru jagħmlu rapport u dan ma jitteħidx għax il-pulizija taħseb li mhix biżżejjed gravi. Riċenti xi ħadd li sawwat lit-tfajla, mar id-dar ħadilha it-tarbija ta’ xahrejn u l-pulizija lanqas arrestatu. Illum persuna bil-ponti u wiċċha kollu mbenġel u l-Pulizija ma jarrestawhx.

Dan sostniehu iċ-Ċerment tal-Kumitat għall-Affarijiet Soċjali, Deborah Schembri waqt li ftit ilu kien qed jiltaqa’ dan il-kumitat.

Id-Deputata Laburista Deborah Schembri qalet li rigward l-APPOĠĠ qed isir ħafna ġid iżda fuq il-’care orders’ li qed jinħarġu qalet li s-sistema qed tonqos lin-nies.

“Social workers li jdumu wisq biex imorru għand persuna u nies b’care order li jitteħdulhom it-tfal b’mod mill-aktar inuman. Il-metodu ta’ kif jittieħdu t-tfal hu wieħed inġust mal-partijiet kollha. Għalkemm fuq l-karta kollox jidher sabiħ, ma nistgħux nibqgħu nisimgħu ċerti affarijiet fl-uffiċini tal-avukati biss u min jista’ jagħmel xi ħaġa biex jibdew jibqa’ ma jagħmel xejn,” kompliet Schembri.

Waqt il-Kumitat Parlamentari għall-Affarijiet Soċjali, il-membri Parlamentari elenkaw suġġetti li huma jixtiequ li jiġu diskussi. Issemmew l-aspett sportiv u l-kwistjoni tal-obesità, il-kwistjoni tal-problemi fil-housing, id-donazzjonijiet tal-organi u l-vjolenza domestika.

Il-kumitat qabel li l-ewwel jiddiskuti l-problemi tal-vittmi tal-vjolenza domestika meta jmorru jfittxu għajnuna għand l-awtoritajiet, l-obesità u l-isport, id-donazzjonijiet tal-organi u wara l-problemi marbutin mal-housing.

But the dry crusty earth and the dust in the air in the middle of May was telling us that we were in dire need of some moisture. The earth had some growing to do and the warm sunshine alone wasn’t cutting it.

So, after a Saturday drizzle that turned into a Sunday morning haze, the sky opened up and it poured.

It rained like the dickens, as the old folks around here would say.

And just like that the world turned from brown

to green.

I guess I don’t have to tell you how anxious I was about the types of pretty things that might be sprouting out there. I had been cooped up in the house for the weekend watching it green up from the other side of the windows and Monday found me between the walls of an office. By the time I was set loose from my work on Tuesday, it was still raining, but it didn’t matter.

I had to get out.

Because when the weather changes so drastically, I feel like I’m missing something if I’m not in it, like I’m not in on the secret.

So I closed the computer, left the to-do list on my desk and took my lunch break 15 miles south of Boomtown, to see how Theodore Roosevelt National Park looks in the rain.

I wish I could have taken you with me on that drive.

I wish you could have smelled the cedars waking up, heard the mud slosh under your feet as you climbed the trails and felt the warm rain on your bare skin.

I wish you could have seen this bison scratch his side on a trail marker and laughed with me at how a beast could be so majestic and ridiculous at the same time.

I wish you could have sat at the overlook and remembered the times you climbed up here as a kid as you looked out at the river collecting raindrops.

I wish you could have heard the birds calling.

Smelled the sweet peas.

I wish you could have taken the moment to love the rain. To be a part of it.

I wish I could have taken you to lunch.

I know I’m about 10 years late to the cool party…I’ve been reading, “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller.

Lots to chew on there, but right now I only want to get into one thing that he talks about, “community.”

I know its such a buzzword, and like most buzzwords it doesn’t take long before I get sick of them. Along with things in Latin, Hebrew tattoos, the word missional, and serving fair-wage-hand-milled-organic-shook-the-hand-of-the-farmer coffee at church coffee hour (well nevermind, that’s cool)…it gets over promoted, starts to lose its true meaning, and I’m a bit tired of the buzz.

Well anyways, after getting over the overuse of what has become an ambiguous word, “community”, I really started thinking about what Donald Miller was talking about.

One of the hallmarks of American culture is that we are self-reliant, self-sufficient, independent, and FREE. So, we each own a TV, a car, and pots and plates enough to throw a large party. But, in other cultures those things get shared. Someone buys a TV (and generator and enough gasoline to run it)…and everyone comes over to watch. When someone throws a party, all of the stuff needed is borrowed from neighbors, friends, family…

Recently, when I was talking with one of my Western friends about how our family doesn’t eat as many vegetables when we are in the mountains because “our garden isn’t totally producing, market is only once a week, and people don’t always bring stuff by, wah, wah, wah.”

My friend unintentionally reminded me how often I let self-sufficiency creep in, disguised as “not wanting to bother other people.” She simply said something to the affect of “need people a bit. Tell them if you are out of tomatoes or onions or would like some corn.”

The thing is, I don’t really like needing people, I like being independent, and on our own. It doesn’t FEEL good to receive, it feels good to give.

As Donald Miller says in “Blue Like Jazz”, community helps to show us the worst in ourselves, and forces us to choose a better way of living. My way of independence is not a better way, co-dependence (me needing you, you needing me) is a much better way. It keeps me from feeling that I’m “all-knowing, all-doing, best of all” with all the answers. Instead its, “you have answers too. Let’s work together to find them.”

Finally, we have to keep in mind that community, like solitude, is primarily a quality of the heart.  While it remains true that we will never know what community is if we never come together in one place, community does not necessarily mean being physically together. . . . The community of love stretches out not only beyond the boundaries of countries and continents but also beyond the boundaries of decades and centuries.  Not only the awareness of those who are far away but also those who lived long ago can lead us into a healing, sustaining, guiding community.  The space for God in community transcends all limits of time and place.

How encouraging to think that millions of people have prayed how we pray, and likely prayed for us, as well.  How lovely to think that when we read the words of those who have died hundreds, even thousands of years ago,we remain in the community of Christ’s love with them.  In other words, no big deal, but I’m sort of distant friends with Augustine and Martin Luther King Jr.

In all seriousness, though, praying old prayers brings this awareness to me in a fruitful way, and simultaneously, emphasizes how deep and wide and big is the love of Christ, which covers not only myself, my family, and my immediate community, but the immense communion of saints through history.  So, today, I’ll share a beautiful and intimate prayer from my favorite dead friends, the folks who lived in the fifteenth century.  This prayer was often used in prayer-books of the time, translated from much older prayers (I think this one’s from St. Anselm) into the vernacular of the times.

O good Jesu, o sweet Jesu, o Jesu, son of the Virgin Mary, full of mercy and truth . . . who for us sinners deigned to pour out your blood on the altar of the cross, I invoke your holy name.  This name of Jesu is a sweet name, for what is Jesu but Savior. . . O Jesu, call to mind what is yours in me, wipe away all that I have made alien.

Think on this prayer for a bit.  The fundamental action is calling and meditating upon Jesus’ name (this copy taken from Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars).  I especially love the last request–”call to mind what is yours in me, wipe away all that I have made alien.”  Christ in me is at the core of my being, and all the rest are alien things that I have wrapped around that truth.  I love that we pray for the same things today–Christ is still mercifully saving us, wiping away the self-constructed alien natures that hide and disfigure our true selves.  Thank you, Lord, for the vast community into which we have been adopted.  Under the mercy.

Donors to ONe TRUe LOVe will also receive ONe TRUe LOVe coffee depending upon donation level … more on that later.

Heartwing Rosters is proud to be a partner with ONe TRUe LOVe.

So I am going to pick a topic right now which is looming on my head. I am going to call it Betrayal. Yes, you can say that I am the culprit of betrayal. I turned my back on the scene, I turned my back on my obligations, I turned my back on anything. A few people actually had the decency to question why. Of course I couldn’t answer truthfully, but I think that is part of my problem. I turned my back on everything for a few reasons, but lets talk about overall betrayal.

I sacrificed my time, energy, effort, into an organization to try to promote the educational learning, discussion and openness of the BDSM lifestyle scene. These are admirable traits, yet it is an organization that is filled with cliques, back stabbers, liars, and most of all, rather then openness and acceptance, is actually quite intolerant and discriminatory against the very thing they preach as being welcoming.

They say they welcome all, but if anyone was outside the “normal” scope of BDSM play with an air for Male Dominant Female submissive, they were actually outcast and unwelcome. If the group really wants to be successful, they need to be more open to Lesbian and Gay, They need to be open to the Littles, The pets, The GOreans, The TNGers, The Fetishists, The Pro Dommes, The Leather Community, The Bikers, The Transgenders, The Unicorns, The hypnositis, The Poly, The Pagan, the list can go on and on and on. There is a reason that the membership list has a high turn over rate, and there is a lack of people within those groups. Its sad when a group so welcoming and inviting, is so unwelcoming to interest groups.

One can probably be angry and say that I am totally being unfair, but think of it this way. I spent 3 years on a board with people, biweekly meetings, bi weekly munches, even monthly meetings board meetings and god forbid the thousands of emails that were written back and forth because we had to be on call every day answering countless of emails that went back and forth, you would think, those people who stuck together, when one was in trouble, one was in need, or one was just hurting, that there would be some sort of communication, some sort of letter, phone call, anything.

Now granted I know I have no phone now. But I have Fetlife, facebook, twitter, email, any god damn way of reaching me. Do you think maybe a hello, a letter, a friendly we miss you, we thinking about you, something. No…Instead I get that from the one person who can kiss my fucking ass and get all the misery she imposed on others returned 100 fold. The one person who needed to reach out to me in order to make her feel better, to once again puff up her ego, that hey she is much better then me because she thinks she can be a better person. Is the one and only person who reached out to me. Well guess what. I want nothing to fucking do with her. And hopes she rots in her own misery.

I was betrayed by her, I was betrayed by the board, I was betrayed by a community.
A community I so much love, desired, wanted to help, to educate, to create that fantasy…The community turned it back on me.

How sad is it that the only people to come to my  grandma’s funeral were my coworkers. Aside from a few condolences here and there, did anyone really ask me What was going on with me? There are only a few friends, whom I love, trust, and were there for me.  But seriously on a whole, how many people even cared about my well being.

How many people cared when I was injured, and the injury effected my job, my health. It wasn’t just the foot injury which I say it like it is nothing. It was the fact that it was 3 broken bones in one foot, a sprain in the other foot, a concussion in my head. Maybe that is what fucked me up, maybe its actually the fucked up delusions from a brain injury that caused me to get the way I am, and all this is an undiagnosed problem that has been synaptic leakage slowly coursing through my head and it is causing fucked up thoughts and massive depression and psychosis.

How many people cared when my job was lost, my car was ruined, my license is suspended, my grandma is dead, my finances is a mess, my wallet was stolen, I can go on and on and on.

Next lets talk about a war. The Nassau vs Suffolk war. The war that should have never been, yet dragged on for over 6 years, and just when you think It is solved, it is futile. No one wanted to make an effort to make it work. They rather linger on of 6 years of foolishness, rather then make peace. And the peace was a fuckign joke. At this point who will even know and who will even care

Next lets talk about the old and the new. So many people turned their back on the organization. Funny you get rid of me and they start coming back. Maybe I was the culprit all along, or maybe it was the ingenious placement of putting someone back on the board. Whatever the reason it may be, the people who turned their back, are now back. Making the group once again a static aging group,

I am venting dirty laundry, I am fcking tired of this all, I feel completely betrayed, and I feel completely lost. I probably lost so many people as friends, but truthfully were they ever friends. Something I held so dear for the past 15 years, and then volunteered the past 3 years, has now become something of hatred.

I have no desire to go back, nor do I want to go back. It angers me to see developments, it angers me to see what is going on. And I shouldn’t let it bother me at all. I am wasting valuable time, energy and peace, by even talking or thinking about this. But I think I needed a night to just document this, write it down, get it out of my system and purge it.

I ask once again, because I don’t have the balls to ask master face to face. But does it hurt him or kill him to see me in pain as such. I probably have the key to subside this pain, just by asking him to talk. Just by asking him his help and guidance, or just by telling him what is on my mind. But instead I use this as a punishment to myself. I use this as a purging. It is a relinquishment of control that I cant give to him, and thus one of the many fucking reasons I am not a slave in totality. I can’t give him the control over me to talk to him, to speak my mind. The control I can give is for me to write to him. The one thing I at least think I do well but even that I am starting to doubt.

I am once again in my life feeling like I am in a crowded room yelling and screaming at the top  of my lungs yet no one is hearing me, no one is seeing me, I am nothing but  in this bubble, that no one will even go near me. When I see Master I feel as though I am screaming to him, yet, all I can do with my emotions, is be silent.

I made him dinner. I cried making him dinner. As I stirred the meat, I cried. I have been doing the one and only thng I can think of making him happy. And that is through his stomach. Right now it is the only thing that I can think of that is serving him. I feel like I am totally useless in everything that serving him through food is my only success.

I don’t see my victories, I don’t see my success, I don’t see my worth, I don’t see my value, I don’t see how happy I make him. Instead all I see is pain. All I am feeling is pain and hurt right now.

I didn’t know Master took Tylenol pm today. I wondered why he didn’t wake up at around 3 like he usually does. He seem to get mad at me because I tried to wake him up. I had a full meal ready for him. Instead I just left it there. I served it to him at around 7 when he woke up,, by then it was cold, but I just reheated it. He complained that he ate too much, that I stuffed him. I never win.

Speaking of tyleonl pm, I think that is what I need to take. Just take the little blue pill and go to sleep. Sleep away the pain, sleep away how upset I am, and wake up and start to clean tomorrow. I have to get this house in order, have to get the house clean. So much to do, so little time.

Let me tell you, I’ve been having the best summer of my life. 

Now, last summer was pretty darn good. Trust me, I have some LEGENDARY nights and crazy times. 

But here? This summer? I actually feel connected to a lot of people. I chose the right summer to be in Muncie. It turns out a LOT of my friends are actually in town for the summer. So much for an empty, desolate place!

Community is a big thing for me. I love my alone time, believe me, but I’m a sociable person. And no, that does not make me Socialist. I digress.

I’ve been here since May 12, and I’ve been loving just about every minute of being in this place. A few things have also changed since last summer. First, I’ve gained so much self-confidence and yet I recognize to give credit to others where it is due. Second, I’m 21 and if I’m game for just a few drinks with my friends, I can do that legally now as opposed to running the risk of underage shenanigans. Definitely an encouraging sign. Also, it’s much easier to control how much you drink at the bars because the drinks are freaking expensive and I’m a sucker for buying drinks for pretty women. 

At least I caught the last week of three of the local bars before they temporarily shut down. Two of them, owned by the same person, are consolidating into one bar just a couple blocks down if I heard correctly in two or three weeks. The other one is supposed to expand into the old CBX bookstore that ran dry (pun intended) a year or so ago. But that’s in August. So basically no use over the summer. So when I wasn’t studying for my main campus class or working out, I was out with my friends celebrating the last days of these quickly beloved bars. Trust me, don’t pull any sympathy cards for me. There are still plenty of places to go, and I can go to the liquor store now. Plus, there’s more to life than liquor. Definitely something I’ve learned personally in the past few months. 

Besides the social life I’m experiencing here, the main campus class has definitely been interesting. It’s an Honors colloquium (discussion class) on University Life. I’m thinking, “Woohoo! We’re gonna talk about the image schools give you versus what college life is really like.” Not quite what I expected. We have to read five novels in five weeks, all around 300-400 pages apiece. Do four 2 page reviews, an oral presentation on the fifth book, and a final 5 page paper contrasting the university life described in the novels to my personal experiences. Well, at least the final slightly relates. I guess I’m just not sure how to take it because the first book seemed to have little relevance to me, and the second book is only slightly better. You see, the first book focused on professors flying around on jets going to international conferences in the late ’70s. And this relates to me how? I conceded on a few great points made in the novel, titled Small World for those interested, but it just didn’t seem applicable to me and the experiences I’ve had in the past three years. The second book, Straight Man, is definitely a better read and harder for me to put down. However, it’s not about sexuality as one may think it is. It’s about a sarcastic professor in the English department (seeing as the professor of this class was an English Education major, I have an inkling of who he was thinking about when he chose this book) in the 1997 area who is the current chair of the department and how he tries to escape his scholarly father’s image yet he keeps falling into the snares of similar images. Now that book I would recommend. I’ve been told the next two books on his list are more student related, thank goodness. We also have to choose a fifth book, and I have a few choices I’m bouncing around. However, class discussions can be quite fun. I can just tell I don’t have a personal in with the teacher as the other students do, for various reasons I don’t need to mention. I almost feel like I’ve had the non-Honors Honors experience, if that makes sense. 

My online Theatre class started this week, and while it’s a lot more work than I was expecting and they have weekly deadlines, I’m excited. I have all of the reason in the world to go downtown to Muncie Civic and watch the two summer plays, including Legally Blonde. I’ve never actually seen the movie even, nevertheless the play, but it should be fun. Reese Witherspoon is one of those actresses that can instantaneously light up a smile on my face. Besides her DUI incident recently. Whoops!

I’m really enjoying the active angle I’ve had around here. With more time in the day and more sunlight (with the bits of rain here and there), I’ve been able to get back onto the tennis courts with my friend Nick. He just got a job, so he won’t have as much time to play, but it’s definitely exciting to get back on the courts and work on my game again and hopefully redevelop what I had in high school and even go further. I also picked up swimming in the two pools around campus, because I was curious as hell about Open Swim times and wanted to start swimming laps. I’ve gone three of the past five days, and I keep improving on the number of pool lengths I swim before I’m good for the day. However, it’s annoying when people asking ME first if I can share my lane. Um, there’s four to six other people that have their own lanes you can share. Sorry I’m just starting to swim lengths and may not be as fast of a swimmer. Oh well, it’s a triviality of life and I get to enjoy my swim time regardless. I’ve also been lifting for a week now on a regular basis, shooting for 3 times a week MWF. The nice thing is that I get to work on this here and naturally adapt my schedule once the fall semester starts and I get ever so busier. I’ve already noticed improvements, and that’s definitely a positive thing. I’ve been trying to do the bike and elliptical for awhile now, and with the other forms of fun workouts I’ve been able to do, I’ve laid off a bit. When it’s crunch time and that’s what I feel like doing, I’ll go right back. Why not use all of this stuff when it’s included in the obscene fortune known as college tuition?

Another fun and amazing part of my Muncie summer has been the community I’ve helped nurture and embrace at New Life Presbyterian. Now I’ve been going to Cru, a Christian organization, on a regular basis since Valentine’s Day, but the bulk of my friends there go to New Life. We’ve also spun off a Bible Study led by Pastor Brian who works there, and it’s a great group to be in. I’ve also been doing a second Bible Study with my best friend Brad, someone I’ve discussed before. Basically, he got me to change the prime focus of my life from alcohol to God. I really do try to avoid being preachy here, but it’s helped me out drastically. Even in the departments that aren’t religiously related. It’s improved my focus on the goals I’ve really been wanting to achieve, such as getting my degrees with a solid GPA that will qualify for Honors certification, getting fit, improving my focus on my schoolwork, making and keeping quality friends, and increasing my motivation to be the best person I can be, along with putting others before myself. I work on self-improvement so I can help other people in the best way possible. I’m not the center of the universe, as I once thought.

In summary, I haven’t even had two weeks of this Muncie summer and it’s been amazing. I work part-time at the Learning Center in addition to all this, which is what’s paying my rent in my cozy house and keeping me connected to math,  and it’s still my favorite job. I might pursue that angle. It just all depends on the opportunities available! I’ll keep you posted on how things turn out as I go. All I gotta say is that I’m excited to see what the rest of the summer holds!

I’d also won extra tickets from the CanadianScreenAwards to see a film I probably would have overlooked based on its description, Alpheé of Stars… but I’m so glad I was there to see what became my favourite film of Hot Docs 2013. And if not for the 31st Haul I would have missed what became my favourite short film of the festival. I entered the smaller but full theater and sat in the only seating left, front row for the start of a surprisingly, smart Wooden People. 

Up Next…

My favourite short film of Hot Docs!

She told me that it’s obvious to her who is from the city or lives in the city, and who is a tourist trying to pass as a local. I tried hard––quite hard I might say––to be a local. My fanny pack was left at home, I wasn’t looking up for the top of each building I walked past, and I pronounced the number nine like a good midwesterner rather than a good Tennesseean.

The giveaway, though, was that I didn’t have train legs.

She was in her seventies, groceries in tow, because that’s apparently what you do if you’re a local, and she was watching my knees buckle each time the L hit a bump, wiggle or stop in downtown Chicago. It was the ride back out from a weekend trip that was supposed to be with a friend who couldn’t come at the last minute, so I was a single dude spending a weekend in the city I thought of as home for two years in college.

My ride from Midway into town found me wearing my white earbuds plugged into my second generation iPod (you’re welcome) looking out the window of the Orange Line as we (me and all these strangers) made our way into the city. I don’t remember the song, and the fact that I remember the moment without the song makes it all the more important to me. Jostling into downtown, my legs apparently giving me away more than I realized, I found myself gazing out the window noticing that times like these are things of movies and soundtracks, people and lives and entire worlds passing by as the music plays to make sure that you know that every moment of what you are seeing is important for something that’s coming in the story, or for something that has just happened that you’re still chewing on.

It wasn’t until my trip out that I was informed that my legs gave me away as an outsider.

Now, in the small, rural West Tennessee town that holds my work and family and friends, I often forget that were I to add a soundtrack there is great importance to the transit, the one mile commute to work, the people standing on the side of the road, in front of me in line, in the waiting room at the office, on the other end of the phone. And my realizing that the soundtrack is––or at least should be playing––makes me more aware that I am using my non-city legs, perhaps my small, rural West Tennessee town legs, to navigate these waters in ways that hopefully do justice and love mercy and walk humbly in the town that is and has been home for quite some time.

It’s worth a soundtrack, I think. The people must be.
And we will spot your city legs. ha.

djordan
Pine Tree

I’ve always thought that I thrived on being alone often. And I do. I like to do things by myself, like go shopping, read books, and defuse alone. That’s all true.

But I also thrive on being busy. I adore full schedules, even if it bites me on the back end at some points when I over-commit. I love coffee dates, cleaning, to-do lists, parties, meetings, activities- things that involve people, all the time. College is the perfect place for that- there are thousands of people in my literal neighborhood.  This past year, I had a roommate whom I adored and multiple wonderful friends just down the hall or in a building just down the street. Church was full of people I know and I had an event pretty much every day of the week. Last summer, I loved coming home to an quiet house with my family, but it was because of Camp- working with fifteen adults and 100+ kids was great.

But now I’m at home again. I took a [wonderful!] nanny position for three kids, who are 3, 8, and 12.  My days are filled with quiet play, not a lot of structure, and coming home to the same quiet house. I don’t have things to fill each day. I don’t have activities and meetings and 707. There are sparse coffee dates and occasional, wonderful visits with the best of friends.

And so it’s a transition. A transition of quiet and exhaustion. Of lots of books, structuring days, and coming up with new plans and new ideas. Thinking. Trying to balance my time. Trying to focus my time.

This transition is hard, and I’m not sure why. I think it’s a multitude of things: lack of sleep, too much coffee (dare I say it…), quick change, life change, trying to find a place, lack of routine, lack of structure.

It comes in time, I know. But I know this also:

I am here because it is the best place for me on the earth. Jesus, who loved me so much that He died for me, would not have placed me here if it was not the very best for me. So I grow in that. I rest in that and know that I am here.

Transitions are hard.

15 minutes to establish a 1 rep max  clean and jerk

-or

Every minute on the minute for 5 minutes perform 2 clean and jerks @ 70%

Conditioning

12 minute AMRAP:

15 wall balls 20/14 (scale: 18/10)

10 chest-to-bar pull ups (scale: regular pull ups, band assisted pull ups)

5 clean grip deadlifts @ 65% of 1 rep max deadlift

Image Courtesy Of: https://www.facebook.com/ohthisagain

Today’s Challenge: Remember and honor.  Remember the tragedies that have made our hearts ache and honor the victims by appreciating the people in your life.    And, if you have the means, contribute to help victims of the Oklahoma tornadoes.

Though it wasn’t part of our 2012 Northwest coal coverage (we’ll submit the ongoing series again for 2013), our multimedia special Voice of Coal came directly out of the traditional news reporting the team had done. If you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, let me tell you – these coal proposals are very controversial, pitting environmentalists against labor unions, public health officials and politicians against job creators, and folks on all ends of the spectrum. ‘Voices’ was our effort to bring real people’s voices and first-hand experience to the forefront, but always with the backdrop of well-reported journalism on the topic.

Though I don’t often have time to create content for EarthFix myself (I mostly do community engagement, events and social media), I had the opportunity to pitch in for this. Here are two audio slideshows I produced as part of the ‘Voices of Coal’ project:

It’s a pretty exciting time to be doing digital media and storytelling. We were very inspired by the Climate Wisconsin project for Voices of Coal. I’ve since seen some great interactive multimedia/transmedia projects (using video, audio, photos, text) including Black Gold Boom, about the big oil boom in North Dakota, and Reinvention Stories, looking at the identity crisis and ultimate efforts to reinvent the city of Dayton Ohio. Both those projects were part of some public media experiments called Localore. And of course there’s the epic, sublime experience of consuming Snow Fall: The Avalanche At Tunnel Creek. There you go. Now you’ve got several sittings worth of excellent transmedia storytelling to geek out on.

There were other Islanders eating there – one eating oxtail and another eating goat curry. It looks like a lively place on the weekends, when expats come to eat food from home and listen to Island music.

I ordered the Jamaican Tea; it was delicious. I thought it was ginger, but the server said no, it was an herbal tea.

We ordered at the counter – so many options, and a set of choices unlike any other restaurant in Pensacola. Our orders were the special-of-the-day, AdventureMan ordered the Chicken With Brown Sauce and I ordered the Chicken Curry.

It was down-home chow. It was food like Grandmama would serve, if Grandmama were Caribbean. There are other options – Oxtail. Goat Curry. Beef Pasties. Everything looked well prepared, wholesome, and copious.

Still hoping for an Ethiopian restaurant in Pensacola . . .