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Mrs. Jacqueline T. Bielecki (Granger)
Mrs. Jacqueline T. Bielecki (Granger) age 78 of Grand Rapids passed away peacefully on Monday August 2, 2021. She will be deeply missed by her husband Thomas; her children Terri VanLeeuwen, Thomas G. Bielecki and Judy Bielecki; her grandchildren Julie (Jason) Koll, Dale and Mark VanLeeuwen; her great grandchildren Joshua and Jordan Koll; her sisters in law Valerie (Bob) Dutmers and Susan DeLong; several nieces and nephews. Jacqueline was preceded in death by her son in law Randy VanLeeuwen. Jacqueline was a graduate of Catholic Central High School class of 1960, a member of St. Isidore Church and of the Ladies Alter and Rosary Society. The Memorial Mass will be celebrated Monday August 9 at 11:00 am at St. Isidore Church where her family will receive visitors Monday from 10:00 to 11:00 am. Memorial contributions may be made to St. Isidore Church.
Mrs. Jacqueline T. Bielecki (Granger) age 78 of Grand Rapids passed away peacefully on Monday August 2, 2021. She will be deeply missed by her husband Thomas; her children Terri VanLeeuwen, Thomas G. Bielecki and Judy Bielecki; her grandchildren... View Obituary & Service Information
The family of Mrs. Jacqueline T. Bielecki (Granger) created this Life Tributes page to make it easy to share your memories.
Mrs. Jacqueline T. Bielecki (Granger) age 78 of Grand Rapids...
Send flowers to the Bielecki (Granger) family.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
@interface CCControlTextureFactory : NSObject
{
}

@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Q: Easily Switch Which Columns Ordered By R uses the three dot ellipses (...) in the function order(...) to pass the multiple vectors to order by. The function immediately converts the ... to a list with z <- list(...).
Let's say we have:
dat = data.frame(A = c(rep("b", 2), rep("a", 2)),
                 B = letters[1:4],
                 C = letters[4:1])

I would like to be able to easily change which columns I want to use (the variable cols) so I don't need to hard code them, incase I want different ones or their names change. Which would look something like this:
cols = c("A", "B")
dat[order(dat[,cols]), ]

But doing the above is equivalent to doing:
dat[order(c(dat$A, dat$B)), ]

Which obviously doesn't work, because it combines the columns into a single vector, so the list created by order() only has the one element, not two.
Is there a way to dynamically create the ... that is passed to functions? Or some other way to achieve what I'm trying to do?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky 19 July [O.S. 7 July] 1893 – 14 April 1930) was a Russian Soviet poet, playwright, artist, and actor.
During his early, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist movement; being among the signers of the Futurist manifesto, A Slap in the Face of Public Taste (1913), and authoring poems such as A Cloud in Trousers (1915) and Backbone Flute (1916).
Though Mayakovsky's work regularly demonstrated ideological and patriotic support for the ideology of the Communist Party and a strong admiration of Lenin, Mayakovsky's relationship with the Soviet state was always complex and often tumultuous.
In 1930 Mayakovsky committed suicide. Even after death his relationship with the Soviet state remained unsteady.
Source: Wikipedia 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Mayakovsky
Poems on this site :
Our March
ПОСЛЕДНЕЕ [ten laatste]
1918 Hungarian TYCW Eugene Birman 1916 Sigvards Klava Tenso Young Composers Award Tenso Days Mechelen trench russia Anna Achmatova Latvijas Radiokoris Arabic 1914 Lebanon Endre Ady
Pavel Golia Roland Leighton


text:
Australia is not a particularly religious country. Australians have a reputation for being largely ambivalent about the place of religion in their lives and in society.
But while increasing numbers of people claim "no religion" in the census, Australia is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world. Despite this, the legal protections for religious freedom are weak.
If we had a human rights charter, religious freedom would be protected alongside other rights we have committed to uphold. In the absence of a charter, the protection of people's rights becomes more complex than it should be.
However, a bill to protect people from discrimination on the basis of religion should be a law that most Australians would welcome, just as we welcomed, for example, the Sex Discrimination Act and the Disability Discrimination Act.
Our religious diversity is part of what makes Australia a robust and vibrant country. So this law should be a statement of how much we value this diversity and our commitment to creating a society where everyone feels safe and valued. What we have had, however, is a toxic debate that has unnecessarily divided the community.
Read more: Third time lucky? What has changed in the latest draft of the religious discrimination bill?
The Morrison government has released its long-awaited third and final draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill.
It has been stripped of some of the more controversial clauses, including those that allowed doctors to claim a conscientious objection in the provision of healthcare services, and the so-called "Folau clause" that restricted the capacity of large organisations to address issues related to employees expressing religious beliefs at odds with their values.
However, the bill has maintained the extreme privileging of "statements of belief" which, if they meet certain conditions (and the bar is set low), can override all relevant state laws and other Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws.
This is deeply concerning for anyone who might find themselves accused of "sinfulness" in the name of deeply held beliefs.
This bill began its life as a concession to both conservative Christian leaders and lobby groups, and right-wing culture warriors, in the heated debate about marriage equality.
Born out of a politically constructed dichotomy between religious freedom and equality rights, and drafted at least partly in response to a handful of high-profile cases (Israel Folau and Julian Porteous), the first two versions pitted religious believers against equality rights advocates.
The Religious Discrimination Bill was devised in response to groups opposed to the marriage equality legislation. Joe Castro/AAP
Lost in the middle were Indigenous peoples and people from minority religious groups, who have historically been the ones to actually suffer the effects of prejudice, harassment, discrimination, abuse and even religiously discriminatory legislation.
The Religious Freedom Review Panel, chaired by Philip Ruddock, was already aware of and concerned by this shift. It noted "the limited focus given to religious freedom in more general discussions about diversity, understanding and tolerance" and recommended the government conduct more research into "the community experience of religious freedom".
Also lost in this no-win battle has been a fulsome understanding of religion itself. Religion has been cast narrowly as that which divides people (the saved, the sinful and the rest). At the same time, religious "belief" is widely understood as little more than personal assent to a series of propositions about so-called morality issues, such as sexuality, euthanasia, abortion, gender identity, marriage and divorce.
The rancour caused by the debate has also meant a lost opportunity for a better understanding of religion. Shutterstock
Another disappearance in the debate over this bill has been the theological diversity within religious traditions, especially Christianity. The Australian Christian Lobby and its allies present as speaking for all Christians. But the ACL speaks only for a minority of Christians.
ACL media statements and appearances are usually met with an avalanche of responses in my social media feeds from committed church people, lay and ordained, eager to declare the ACL does not speak for them.
This bill effectively protects religiously framed speech and religiously defined practices that discriminate and potentially cause harm.
Read more: The debate about religious discrimination is back, so why do we keep hearing about religious 'freedom'?
It serves those who seek to maintain control over people's bodies.
The churches, just like governments and other public institutions, must be open to challenges to their power. The most recent iteration of the discourse of religious freedom (and my research has found three different religious freedom discourses over the past 35 years) has churches and Christians being framed as a threatened minority. In this narrative, they are besieged by an increasingly belligerent, even aggressive secularism.
However, the churches maintain significant political influence, as the history of this bill has demonstrated. They also exercise power and social influence as large employers and providers of government-funded community and education services.
As the Ruddock Report found, there is little evidence Christians are being persecuted in Australia. A small number of high-profile individuals being challenged to consider the potentially damaging influence of their speech, and a few high-profile cases in overseas jurisdictions very different to ours, did not justify the over-reach of the second draft of the bill.
The final version of the bill does offer protections for people from minority religious groups. It has withdrawn the more idiosyncratic and demeaning parts of the second exposure draft.
The new bill entrenches the idea that LGBTIQ+ people are not like everyone else. Shutterstock
But it still allows for discrimination by religious groups against LGBTIQ+ people, women and people on the basis of their religion. If passed, it will entrench in law the idea that LGBTIQ+ people are still not quite like everyone else – for this is the effect of state-sanctioned discrimination.
The bill will also legitimise the fallacy that the rights of LGBTIQ+ people are incompatible with religious freedom. It has already successfully wedged the ALP.
In setting free the expression of religious beliefs from the responsibility to take account of how even "well-meaning" statements of judgment and condemnation can harm people, the divisions this debate has created within Australia's social fabric will be difficult to heal.
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Q: SQL - Avoid an additional GROUP BY (and improving query performance) I am stuck on solving this issue and it should be nice hearing new fresh ideas :)
I have a table with billions of records like this
TAB_IX (int) (PK)
TAB_ID (int) (PK)
PR_ID (int) (PK)
SP_ID (int) (PK)(IX)
....

Previously I was retrieving data like this
SELECT TAB_ID, COUNT (SP_ID) as HITS FROM table t
INNER JOIN table_sp s on t.SP_ID = s.ID
WHERE TAB_IX = @tab_inx
AND PR_ID IN (SELECT PR_ID FROM @pr_id)
AND s.NAME IN (SELECT DISTINCT NAME FROM @sp_names)
GROUP BY TAB_ID

table_sp is a little table with 10k of records (ID (int) (PK), NAME (varchar) (IX))
@pr_id and @sp_names are table variables with one column
The query was very fast (about 2-3 sec); now I don't want to distinguish records with different PR_ID and same TAB_IX, TAB_ID, SP_ID
So for example records like
TAB_IX - TAB_ID - PR_ID - SP_ID
1      - 700    - 1     - 100
1      - 700    - 2     - 100

Should be considered as one.
The only way seems doing an additional GROUP BY
Like this
SELECT TAB_ID, COUNT(SP_ID) as HITS FROM (
SELECT TAB_ID, SP_ID, COUNT (PR_ID) FROM table
WHERE TAB_IX = @tab_inx
AND PR_ID in (select PR_ID from @pr_id)
AND s.NAME IN (SELECT DISTINCT NAME FROM @sp_names)
GROUP BY TAB_ID, SP_ID) AS DUMMY
GROUP BY TAB_ID

The problem is the performance, because adding this additional GROUP BY operation looks very painful.
Do you have any idea for improving the query?
Thanks in advance :)

A: I suppose that specifying in the original query that you want to count DISTINCT SP_ID will do the trick
SELECT TAB_ID, COUNT (DISTINCT SP_ID) as HITS FROM table t
INNER JOIN table_sp s on t.SP_ID = s.ID
WHERE TAB_IX = @tab_inx
AND PR_ID IN (SELECT PR_ID FROM @pr_id)
AND s.NAME IN (SELECT DISTINCT NAME FROM @sp_names)
GROUP BY TAB_ID


text:
It's my party...
Naheed Arshad-Mather is a Muslim who demonstrated against the war in Iraq. She is also a self-proclaimed socialist and an activist in a trade union that fought vociferously against top-up fees. So it seems hard to believe that Ms Arshad-Mather is a committed Labour Party member.
Yet her passion for Labour is so great that Ms Arshad-Mather has turned her back on 16 years teaching social policy as a senior lecturer at Bradford College to concentrate full time on pursuing her dream of becoming a Labour member of Parliament.
She was due to discover this week, after The Times Higher went to press, whether she has succeeded in her effort to win the nomination as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Leicester South.
So how does she reconcile such fundamental political contradictions?
"I disagreed with the war. I had grave misgivings and demonstrated against it," she said. "The Government might have been trying to do the right thing for the right reasons, but in hindsight it should have been a lot more cautious. But you cannot judge a government on a single issue - you have to look at its record."
For Ms Arshad-Mather, who came to Britain from Pakistan as a nine-year-old and got a degree in history and politics at the Preston Polytechnic, her own and her family's success is based on the foundations laid by the Labour movement.
"My father came over here to search for work, and he grabbed the opportunities. Had it not been for the welfare state, the free National Health Service and education, we would not have benefited as much as we have.
"Socialism is a lived experience for me, and my Labour roots are very deep.
It is up to me to put something back."
So for all the difficult policies, she has a long list of positives.
"Look at the record - the minimum wage (which Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, confirmed would be extended to 16 and 17-year-olds in his conference speech); SureStart, lifting families out of poverty; new build for schools; more investment in public services; funding for higher and further education - they are beginning to really help people. The opportunities are there."
But for a lecturer who has been at the heart of widening access to higher education for years "before it was fashionable", how does she feel about the Government's introduction of top-up fees, which attracted so much hostility from party members and MPs?
"We have to move with changing times," she said. "Our public services need huge investment. In education we have always delivered the best, and we need to ensure it remains at the cutting edge of knowledge generation."
But before getting too carried away, Ms Arshad-Mather makes a concession:
"I'm not saying it's the ideal solution."


Wonderful 2nd floor unit in the High Point North Building. Enjoy great ocean views from your private oceanfront perch. 1 bedroom, 1 bath with a private sitting area as you enter the unit. Plus an outdoor pool! Great beach getaway!!


Move over, Unicorn Frappuccino! There's a new interesting flavor in town and it's slowly making its way into everyone's Instas.
This is us giving you time to let the information sink in.
Don't worry, the newest addition to Oreo's lineup of crazy-cool creations doesn't taste anything like actual fireworks at all (not that we've tried munching on some sparklers on New Year's).
The chocolate cookies are just the same as the ones we know and love. It's the filling that makes it a little more extra. Think Oreo's classic cream, but with blue and red popping candies added into the mix!
It tastes like a typical Oreo cookie sandwich at first, but after a few seconds, the magic kicks in and the pop rocks go off!
What's the craziest Oreo flavor you've ever tried? Share them in the comments below!


I am a Lecturer in the Centre for Philanthropy, at the University of Kent's School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. I teach on undergraduate modules Platinum Volunteering and The Third Sector: charities and social enterprises in modern society, and postgraduate module Fundraising and Philanthropy.
In the Centre for Philanthropy, my current work includes a project on volunteer Fundraisers in East Kent and research on how a lifecourse approach can help us better understand philanthropy and volunteering. I have previously worked on projects for The Heritage Lottery Fund and researched Philanthropic Journeys (funded by and in collaboration with the charity Pilotlight).
I completed my PhD at Northumbria University in 2012, which looked at how volunteering undertaken by older adults relates to their volunteering and other work activities across the lifecourse. This research was undertaken in collaboration with Age UK and funded by an ESRC CASE Studentship. I have a degree in Geography (1st Class) and an MA in Human Geography from the University of Manchester.
Nichols, G. et al. (2019). Selling volunteering or developing volunteers? Approaches to promoting sports volunteering. Voluntary Sector Review.
This paper considers the balance between promoting volunteering in sport by emphasising the personal rewards to prospective volunteers themselves – the dominant management approach – and promoting it by the long term development of the values of volunteering. We review the motivations and rewards of sports volunteers and how these can be used to promote volunteering as being a transaction between volunteer and organisation. This is contrasted with a life-course approach to understanding volunteering, and evidence that an understanding of the value of volunteering can be inculcated that underpins continued volunteering. The two approaches regard potential volunteers respectively as 'consumers' and as 'citizens'. We suggest that a shift to treating volunteers as consumers can lead to volunteering being regarded as transactional. The discussion has implications for volunteering in general; in particular, how it can be promoted in a society where narratives of 'the consumer' increasingly dominate over those of 'the citizen'.
Hogg, E. (2018). What Regulation, Who Pays? Public Attitudes to Charity Regulation in England and Wales. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly [Online] 47:72-88. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764017728365.
Funding for England and Wales' Charity Commission has been cut by 48% between 2007 and 2016, impacting on its ability to deliver its core regulatory functions. Conversations around what charity regulation should look like and how it should be funded have therefore gained momentum. These debates, however, are not limited to England and Wales and in this paper we contribute to them by exploring public attitudes to these questions, presenting the findings of four focus groups. We find that while public knowledge of charity regulation is low, people are nonetheless clear that charities should be regulated. There is no clear preferred method of funding a charity regulator and a significant amount of complexity and nuance in public attitudes. People trust charities, but this can be eroded if they do not have confidence in how they operate. A visibly effective regulator supporting and supported by charities is central to maintaining trust.
Body, A. and Hogg, E. (2018). What mattered ten years on? Young people's reflections on their involvement with a charitable youth participation project. Journal of Youth Studies [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2018.1492101.
Youth work in England is experiencing ongoing rapid and significant change, fuelling debate about its very function. This paper contributes to this debate by presenting original research on what young people themselves prioritised as significant in-service provision and highlights the longer-term impact that engagement with a voluntary sector organisation can have on the lives of vulnerable young people. Drawing on qualitative interviews with ten former youth participants involved in youth participation projects, the findings presented in this paper suggest that participants felt the support they received was, in many cases, 'transformative'. However, they primarily defined their experiences and the impact through their relationships with individuals supporting them, through the sense of achievement and ability to effect change they developed and through finding a voice to affect community decisions.
Body, A., Holman, K. and Hogg, E. (2017). To Bridge the Gap? Voluntary Action in Primary Schools. Voluntary Sector Review [Online] 8:251-271. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1332/204080517X15090107362612.
Voluntary action has long played a role in state education, with Parent Teacher Associations being one of the most common forms of charitable organisation in England. However, education policy, driven by a growing free-market discourse and policy initiatives such as localism, is increasingly pushing for greater voluntary action. This article explores the distribution of voluntary action for primary schools in one local authority area in England. Drawing upon primary data from 114 questionnaires completed by head teachers and secondary data from the financial records (2013/14) of 380 primary schools, we find evidence of considerable uneven dispersal of voluntary action between schools. These disparities are related to factors including school size, location, leadership ideology and the socio-economic profile of the school. The consequence of this uneven distribution is that schools catering for more affluent communities are more likely to have additional resources than those with poorer profiles.
Hogg, E. (2016). Constant, serial and trigger volunteers: volunteering across the lifecourse and into older age. Voluntary Sector Review [Online] 7:169-190. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/204080516X14650415652302.
In recent years there has been an increased recognition that philanthropic engagement needs to be understood longitudinally, rather than as a snapshot in time. Much of this work is quantitative, utilising panel data to track groups of individuals over a number of years. In contrast, this article takes a qualitative approach to the study of volunteering over the course of individuals' and their families' lives. In doing so, it explores how engagement changes over the lifecourse, and how this impacts volunteer engagement in older age. Understanding this is crucial: volunteering is not an activity that takes place in isolation but rather one that must be situated over time and within a range of other activities. This article uses data from 26 life history interviews conducted in England to develop a heuristic put forward by Davis Smith and Gay (2005), which proposes three categories of older volunteer: constant, serial and trigger volunteers.
Hogg, E., Kendall, J. and Breeze, B. (2015). The Third Sector and the State in England. Sociologia e Politiche Sociali [Online] 18:27-50. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3280/SP2015-003003.
Hogg, E. (2015). Older Volunteers in the UK. International Labor Brief 13:4-12.
Hogg, E., Hardill, I. and Ramsey, J. (2014). Co-producing knowledge: reflections on the benefits and challenges of researching in partnership with voluntary sector organisations. Voluntary Sector Review [Online] 5:399-406. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/204080514X14117195972298.
This practice paper explores the co-production of knowledge in a collaborative PhD studentship funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Age UK, which examined the formal volunteering undertaken by older adults in England. Some third sector organisations, especially larger ones such as Age UK, are both producers and users of social science knowledge. In this paper we critically reflect on the co-production of knowledge, and the ways in which both student and supervisors experience the co-creation of knowledge.
Hogg, E. and Baines, S. (2011). Changing Responsibilities and Roles of the Voluntary and Community Sector in the Welfare Mix: A Review. Social Policy and Society [Online] 10:341-352. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474746411000078.
Many Western states have sought in recent years to harness the energies of voluntary agencies and charitable bodies in the provision of welfare (Brandsen and Pestoff, 2006; Milligan and Conradson, 2006; Haugh and Kitson, 2007). More than ever is expected of the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) in supporting people and communities, entering into partnerships with governments, and delivering public services (Lewis, 2005; Macmillan, 2010). The mainstreaming of the VCS has been associated with a push towards market reform and reducing state obligations for welfare provision (Amin, 2009). In some European states – for example, Germany and the Netherlands – a three-way mix of state, market and voluntary sector dates back to the nineteenth century (Brandsen and Pestoff, 2006). In the UK too, on which this review article focuses, the delivery of public services by voluntary organisations and charities is far from new, but over the past decade local government and health services, especially in England, have been required to step up their engagement with VCS organisations (VCSOs) (Alcock, 2009; Di Domencio et al., 2009; Macmillan, 2010). Commitment to this sector by the government under New Labour was signalled by the creation for England of the Office of the Third Sector within the Cabinet Office in 2006 and the associated appointment of the first dedicated Minister of the Third Sector, initially Ed Miliband MP. Working with charities, social enterprises and community and faith-based organisations appeals to politicians across the mainstream British political spectrum (Di Domencio et al., 2009; Alcock, 2010); the 'Big Society' agenda of the Coalition government elected in 2010 promises a continuation in this direction of travel, albeit in a new regime of reduced budgets, service cuts and demands of more for less.
Cattan, M., Hogg, E. and Hardill, I. (2011). Improving quality of life in ageing populations: What can volunteering do? Maturitas [Online] 70:328-332. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2011.08.010.
The year 2011 was declared the 'European Year of Volunteering' to recognise the contribution volunteers make to society. Such cross-national events reflect the high profile of volunteering and political imperatives to promote it. The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive review of current knowledge (articles published between 2005 and 2011) regarding the role of volunteering in improving older people's quality of life (QoL) and to identify areas requiring further research. Volunteering was defined as an activity that is freely chosen, does not involve remuneration and helps or benefits those beyond an individual's immediate family. Our search identified 22 studies and 5 review articles that addressed the benefits of volunteering on older people's quality of life. Most of the research had been conducted in the United States, Canada and Australia using data from longitudinal studies. The majority of the studies concluded that there is a positive association between older people's quality of life and engagement in volunteering. Due to the study designs and the heterogeneity of the research, causality is difficult to demonstrate and the knowledge the studies bring to the subject is variable. This review shows that volunteering may help to maintain and possibly improve some older adults' quality of life. However, there are still major gaps in our understanding of who actually benefits, the social and cultural context of volunteering and its role in reducing health and social inequalities.
Haski-Leventhal, D. et al. (2016). Volunteering in various life stages: Youth, elderly, and parental volunteering. in: Horton-Smith, D., Stebbins, R. and Gortz, J. eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Volunteering, Civic Participation, and Nonprofit Associations. Palgrave, pp. 682-701. Available at: http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137263162.
As a person goes through the various stages of life, many things change, including the ways one volunteers and for what reasons (Musick and Wilson 2008). This chapter reviews research on formal volunteering at three different life stages: youth, elderly, and parental volunteering. In each stage, we discuss the definitions, unique characteristics, and scope of volunteering. We further analyze the existing knowledge on motivations, benefits, challenges, and impact for each age group. Furthermore, we discuss the cultural differences of volunteering in each stage in various regions around the world. We conclude with a comparison between the three groups and discuss future trends. The three life stages examined are more distinct and meaningful in industrial and post-industrial societies than in less complex societies, owing to mass education and longer lifespans. Given wide cultural differences in how individuals progress through these stages, the intersection of life-cycle stage and cultural setting are major variables in understanding patterns of volunteering.
Hogg, E. (2015). Social Science and Civil Society. in: Wright, J. D. ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. Oxford, UK: Elsevier, pp. 576-582.
This article gives an overview of key social science approaches to civil society. It addresses in turn civil society organizations, volunteering, and philanthropy. For each, it looks at how they are defined, their scope, how social science approaches the study of them, and how social policy has sought to encourage or coordinate them.
Hogg, E. (2013). The Demographic Opportunity: volunteering in older age. in: von Schnurbein, G., Wiederkehr, D. and Amman, H. eds. Volunteering between Freedom and Professionalisation. Basel, Switzerland: Universität Basel Press.
Across advanced capitalist economies, demographic change has lead to older adults constituting a large and growing proportion of the population. This demographic shift is often observed in purely negative terms, focussing on the economic burden of a larger cohort of older people (in terms of pensions, health costs etc). This fails to take into account that this demographic change is the result of large numbers of individuals living longer, well beyond state pension age, potentially presenting the opportunity to continuing enjoying active lifestyles. Katz and Monk (1993) suggest that this has contributed to a paradigm shift in the way in which we understand ageing; no longer are individuals assumed to be at a stage in a chronologically-determined 'life cycle', rather it is suggested that an individual's 'life course' is open to unexpected turns and changes, and may be wholly unrelated to their chronological age. This paper is interested in how these changes can contribute to an understanding of how older adults come to be undertaking voluntary work, through adopting a life course perspective in order to examine pathways into volunteering. This is done by situating voluntary and community activity within other activities undertaken across the lifecourse, to look at how adults come to be volunteering in older age.
Body, A. and Hogg, E. (2018). A Bridge Too Far? The Increasing Role of Voluntary Action in Primary Education. University of Kent. Available at: http://www.abridgetoofar.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/a-bridge-too-far-report-2018.pdf.
Nichols, G. et al. (2016). Motivations of Sport Volunteers in England: A review for Sport England. Sport England.
Body, A., Holman, K. and Hogg, E. (2016). To Bridge The Gap? Voluntary Action in Primary education. Canterbury Christ Church University.
Voluntary action has had a long history in the education of our children, bringing a wide range of positive benefits to schools, children, staff, the local community and volunteers alike. Voluntary action enables schools to draw upon a wide range of additional skills and resources, can strengthen a school community and engage children in philanthropic activity from an early age. Schools continuously highlight how much they value the commitment, passion, skills and expertise brought into their community by volunteers, and recognise the advantages of fundraising in terms of community engagement, fostering philanthropic activity in children and providing additional income for the school. Unsurprisingly voluntary action in education tends to be viewed as a positive and good thing, and is increasingly encouraged within policy and practice. This research suggests that voluntary action in primary schools is indeed becoming progressively central to school activities, with many primary schools keenly seeking to strategically engage and grow this area of activity. Schools report purposefully fostering engagement of volunteers to help increase teacher capacity, support children through one-to-one activities and provide additional resources for both core and extra-curricular activities. Furthermore, schools highlight increasing focus on their fundraising activities to help support depleting budgets and growing demands. There is however very little research in the UK which explores voluntary action in education. The limited research that is available suggests significant disparities in how additional resources from voluntary action are dispersed within the UK context. This is supported by research from across Europe and the United States. Therefore this project sets out to be an exploratory study of this area to ascertain how actively schools engage with this voluntary action and what barriers they may face. The local authority of Kent was chosen as a focus for this study. Through analysis of financial data of over 600 primary schools, questionnaires completed by 114 of these and interviews with 4 case study schools this research presents initial findings and trends in activity under the separate headings of volunteering and philanthropic activity (fundraising).
Body, A. and Hogg, E. (2016). Side By Side: A case study report of the experiences of young people. West Kent Extra.
Hogg, E. (2016). What regulation, Who Pays? Public Opinion and Charity Regulation. Charity Finance Group.
Hogg, E. (2014). Fundraising for Small and Medium Sized Charities: The views of East Kent charities. University of Kent.
My research interests focus on philanthropy, charitable giving, volunteering and the charitable and community sector.
I work within the Centre for Philanthropy, which explores philanthropic activities, social patterns of giving and the redistributive impact of transfers from private wealth to the public good.
Currently my work looks at the role of volunteer fundraisers in East Kent and on how a lifecourse approach can help us better understand philanthropy and volunteering.
Previously I have undertaken research for The Heritage Lottery Fund, and researched Philanthropic Journeys (funded by and in collaboration with Pilotlight).
Constant volunteers have volunteered for the same organisation for most or all of their adult life. They generally have lived fairly stable lives. They are unlikely to have been widowed or divorced and they are likely to have had fairly consistent career patterns in paid employment. In short, the stability in their lives as a whole enables stability of volunteering.
Serial volunteers have volunteered intermittently and for different organisations over their adult life, and often have far more chaotic lives. Divorce and widowhood affect the ability of an individual to give up their time to volunteer. For women in particularly, having children and leaving paid employment temporarily impacts on the extent and nature of engagement in formal volunteering.
Trigger volunteers, who only begin volunteering in older age, are a far less homogenous group. Some have had very stable lives prior to volunteering, others highly chaotic. The one link is that they all experienced some event – retirement, widowhood, even simply seeing a particular news article – which results in them being encouraged to volunteer.
In the 2014-15 academic year I will be convening SO670 Kent Student Certificate in Volunteering, Platinum Award, which supports students in the 100 hours of volunteering required to pass this module, across three placements in voluntary organisations.
I will also in 2014-15 be convening SO645 The Third Sector: charities and social enterprises in modern society, co-taught alongside Dr Jeremy Kendall and Dr Beth Breeze. This module teaches undergraduate students about the theories and development of the charitable sector, with focus on organisations, policy, volunteering and philanthropy.
In the 2013-14 academic year I convened SO839 Fundraising and Philanthropy. This MA module provides an up to date overview of current academic knowledge about philanthropy, and industry knowledge regarding fundraising practice.
Students gain an understanding of historical and contemporary issues relating to philanthropy and fundraising, the various theories and ideologies regarding the existence of philanthropic behaviours and the role of government and policy-makers in shaping the legal, fiscal and cultural context for philanthropy and fundraising.
Students also have the opportunity to achieve a professional qualification in fundraising.
I am an active member of the Voluntary Sector Studies Network and the International Society for Third Sector Research.


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Turning the Lacandon Jungle Over to the Carbon Market
Cross-Posted from Z Magazine
By Jeff Conant
All Photos by Orin Langelle/ GJEP-GFC
In A Land to Plant Dreams, historian Yan de Vos describes the history of the Lacandon jungle of Chiapasas a series of dreams that have obsessed and overtaken those who come upon this remote mountain rainforest in the southeastern corner of Mexico. A jungle so dense and mysterious only a century ago that it was named "the Desert of Solitude," de Vos declares that "the Lacandon is not a single reality, but a mosaic of multiple Lacandonas conceived and made concrete by many and varied interests."
The Lacandon's dreamers include the commercial interests that, for centuries, have extracted mahogany, rubber, minerals, petroleum, and genetic material, leaving about 30 percent of the original forest, of which only 12 percent is said to retain its ecological integrity. Then there are the diverse communities who live there—Mestizo settlers along with Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tojolabal, Ch'ol, and Mam indigenous farmers, some who originated there and many others who arrived over the course of centuries, escaping forced labor on the fincas or war in neighboring Guatemala, seeking a plot of land to cultivate.
Then there is the group that has been given title to the largest swath of jungle—a small tribe called the Caribes whose ancestors migrated from nearby Campeche two centuries ago and who, through a complex history involving European anthropologists, American missionaries, and Mexican government officials, became known as the Lacandones. In direct conflict with the Lacandones, and with transnational capital, are the jungle's best-known dreamers, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, who, beginning in the 1990s, occupied vast portions of the jungle and declared it autonomous territory.
Now, after centuries defined by its potential for producing goods, the Lacandon has entered the 21st century where it is being dreamed anew as "the lungs of the earth." This jungle's new dreamers include the state of California, market-oriented "environmental" groups like Conservation International, and the United Nations. Their dream is to harness the power of the burgeoning carbon market to preserve the Lacandon—the container for one-fifth of the biodiversity of all of Mexico—by turning it into a virtual carbon sink.
Enter the Governor of California
In 2006, the state of California passed the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), which mandates that the state reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. The law was hailed as landmark environmental legislation for its aggressive action to reduce global warming emissions while "generating jobs, and promoting a growing, clean-energy economy and a healthy environment for California at the same time."
Under the implementation plan for AB32, which was approved by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in December 2010, but held up in court three months later, up to 20 percent of the state's total mandated emissions reductions would be achieved through carbon trading, rather than through actual cuts in industrial pollution at the source. This means that industries would be permitted to delay efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions—along with the associated toxic co-pollutants—by purchasing carbon allowances from outside California. As one of his last acts in office, just a week before the UN Framework Convention on Climate in Cancún, Mexico last November, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a carbon-trading agreement with the state of Chiapas as part of AB32. The agreement is predicated on an emerging global policy mechanism known as "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation" or REDD.
Mary Nichols, the chairperson of CARB, announced California's initiative at a high-level event in Cancún where pilot REDD projects were hailed by a gamut of global figures, including primatologist Jane Goodall, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, and Sam Walton, the CEO of Walmart. Nichols called the plan "a way for California to help the developing world by investing in forests. Saving our forests is good not only for the atmosphere," she said, "It's also good for indigenous peoples." But many in Chiapas disagree. Gustavo Castro, Coordinator of Otros Mundos, a small NGO based in Chiapas, sees this as the leading edge of a new onslaught of forest carbon offsets and part of a broader trend of privatization of territories and natural resources. "Enter the governor of California, saying, 'We're going to approve a law in which California, the fifth largest economy in the world, is obliged to reduce its CO2, so we need to buy the fresh air from the forests of the South.' When a natural function like forest respiration becomes a product with a price, it's easy to see who's going to end up with control of the forests."
The law has also stirred up controversy in California where environmental justice advocates charge that such carbon trading schemes—reducing emissions on paper only—leaves lower-income communities of color to continue bearing the brunt of industrial pollution. Alegria de la Cruz, one of the lead attorneys for San Francisco's Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment (CRPE), whose lawsuit has successfully challenged the cap and trade component of the bill, says that, "The overarching goal of a pollution trading system has serious implications for fence-line communities." Her co-counsel, Brent Newell, is more explicit: "Poor people are getting screwed on both sides of the transaction," he said. "Only the polluters are benefiting."
In late May, a ruling by the San Francisco superior court forced the California Air Resources Board to bring its cap and trade plan back to the drawing board in order to review alternatives. But as the spearhead of efforts to forge a pathway for carbon markets, the dream of converting the Lacandon into international carbon currency will not be disrupted so easily. "Our goal," says Chiapas Governor Juan Sabines "is that the entirety of the surface of Chiapas will enter into the market for carbon credits and methane credits, beginning through agreements with polluting sub-national states, like California."
Selling the Forest for the Trees
REDD projects are being piloted in many countries under the auspices of the United Nations REDD Program, the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other global bodies. The California project is one of a small handful of REDD agreements between sub-national entities. The armature of REDD is still very much in development, but in broad strokes it works like this: because trees capture and store CO2, maintaining intact forests is essential to mitigating the impacts of climate change. Under REDD, those who protect forests can earn carbon credits—financial rewards based on an assessment of the amount of CO2 a forest can store and a market-derived price per ton of carbon. They can then trade these credits to industrial polluters in order to generate revenue that, in theory, gives developing world countries and the forest-dwelling communities in those countries an incentive not to cut down trees.
Policymakers at the global level see REDD as offering a viable chance—"perhaps the last chance," says World Bank President Robert Zoellick—to save the world's forests, while simultaneously addressing the climate crisis, without jeopardizing economic growth. The major multilateral institutions support REDD and its growing list of spin-offs with dizzying acronyms, such as REDD+ and REDD++, which allow the policy to include aspects such as reforestation with exotic species, and offset credits for biodiversity. But many forest-dependent communities, environmental justice advocates, indigenous peoples' organizations, and global South social movements oppose it. "It comes to seem very amiable for the governments and corporations of the North to say, 'We're going to pay you not to deforest,' Gustavo Castro argues. "But in reality they're saying. 'We're going to pay you so we can continue polluting'." Tom Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network has called REDD "a violation of the sacred, and potentially the biggest landgrab of all time."
To read the rest of the article, please go to Z Magazine
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Filed under Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Carbon Trading, Chiapas, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Latin America-Caribbean, Photo Essays by Orin Langelle, Pollution, REDD
Tagged as biodiversity, biofuels, california, chiapas, forests, global justice ecology project, indigenous peoples, indigenous rights, REDD
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The Dakota Winters
Tom Barbash
The following is from Tom Barbash's novel, The Dakota Winters. Anton Winter, back from the Peace Corps, returns to his childhood home: New York City's famed Dakota apartment building where he tries to revive his father's career as a late-night host. Barbash is the author of The Last Good Chance, Stay Up With Me, On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11: A Story of Loss and Renewal.
To begin with, there was the malaria.
I had been in Gabon in the Peace Corps, where my job was to help people improve their nutrition and access potable water. I helped design and implement a water filtration system and was in the midst of building a community center with a large kitchen and a bare-bones medical clinic. I swam with hippos, danced myself, with thirty others, into a trance state, read a lot of Ian Fleming novels, and lost almost twenty pounds. I went ten months without so much as flirting with a girl and then had a consciousness-expanding weekend at a hotel in Libreville with the twenty-year-old daughter of a State Department official.
I had the sense I was figuring things out over there, far away from my friends and my parents, but if my trip was a movie, I'd been yanked out of it in the first act, while things were still building, and before I knew what all the plot threads added up to. I felt like I was on the verge of a significant breakthrough, or within sight of the verge. I was only gone for thirteen months, but the city looked different when I got back. It was beautiful under the snow and dreamy, though that might have been because I was dreamy. I took walks and pretended I'd come from a small village, thousands of miles away, and imagined what all this would look like.
A lot of my time, though, was occupied with being sick. I once had pneumonia in high school, and I'd had a few nasty colds, but nothing to prepare me for this. I think I can remember the precise moment when the infecting occurred. I remember lying under my mosquito netting and realizing there was a mosquito trapped in there, and then being unable to get her out (only the ladies bite, my doctor said), and fearing if I ripped the netting all of the mosquitoes in the room would attack me, and anyway I was so tired. I was in and out of sleep. It took a while for me to get sick and then I had all the classic symptoms: a shirt-drenching fever, deathly chills, hallucinations that would begin again each time I closed my eyes. The doctor who treated me in Bongolo Hospital in Lebamba said I could have died. If I'd waited another day I would have. And in truth I did think about death in my misty, hallucinatory state. I pictured people at my memorial service, and I imagined them saying incredibly kind things about me.
I was sent back in a Pan Am 707 that stopped for refueling in Paris. I don't remember much about the flight over the Atlantic. There might have been a movie. I drank half a beer. The woman next to me wore nice perfume and was reading Sophie's Choice. My parents met me at the airport, and my father kept hugging me and staring at my face. "Malaria," he said, as though getting used to a new name.
My illness became a story Buddy liked to tell people, that his older boy contracted malaria in Africa, and he'd list the luminaries who'd had malaria: Dante, Caravaggio, Lord Byron, who'd all died from it; and others who'd just had it, like Hemingway, Lincoln (in his Kentucky childhood), and John Kennedy in World War II while in the Solomon Islands. Not much was asked of me in my first days back. I remember watching some of the NFL play-offs—the Rams upsetting the Cowboys; Vince Ferragamo threw for three touchdowns—and I remember reading about, and seeing on television, details about the hostages in Iran, and then the Soviets invading Afghanistan. I was emotional about things I read in the paper. For instance, I was undone for around two days by the news of the death of Joy Adamson, the author of Born Free. The story said she'd been mauled by a lion in Kenya. She'd been out for a stroll and was due back to listen to a broadcast of the BBC. Her body was found a hundred yards from the camp. She was sixty-nine years old.
We saw that movie five or six times when we were growing up, and during each viewing I'd wept. I'd also developed a crush on Virginia McKenna, the actress who played Joy Adamson, and had thought about her in my own days in Africa. I had wanted to meet someone like her, blond hair and a starched thin khaki shirt, and fall in love and stay, or take her back to New York with me.
"Live by the sword, die by the sword," Buddy said, but the news had upset him as well.
I was also wrecked by the plight of the hostages in Iran. A photo ran on the front page of the New York Times with two hostages reading letters from the U.S., a large pile of mail strewn on the floor in front of them. Clergymen went in there with Christmas cookies, rosaries, and Bibles and said everyone was in good health, though there were also stories of them being blindfolded and tied to radiators.
The Shah of Iran, whom I'd met once at a party at Rowan Rose's house, was exiled to an island in Panama that we'd gone to on vacation. He was staying in a house my father had once rented. There were pictures of him wading in the ocean with armed guards watching him from the beach.
It felt like the world was in the midst of some kind of seismic upheaval, and in retrospect it was. There was a revolution in Rhodesia, an assassination in South Korea, another in Afghanistan, and then the Soviets were rushing toward Kabul and thumbing their noses at our stumbling Southern president, who kept appearing on television to make threats and to seem strong and presidential.
"Such aggression will not be tolerated," he said, and said again, with all the force of a parent telling a small child that if they pull the cat's tail again they'll go without dessert.
I'd read the paper cover to cover and watch the news, and at night I'd dream about revolutions and disease and marauding animals; one night one of them had a face that looked disturbingly like my father's.
"Don't want to get ahead of myself," Buddy was telling me "But we might be back in the thick of it soon."
We were at Café Un Deux Trois in Midtown on a Thursday night. My mother was home reading and helping my brother with his homework.
"One of our old producers has been floating the idea of a new show and getting some interest. It turns out people's memories are short, he says, so long as I'm up for it."
"And are you?"
"I don't know. Maybe." "You definitely are," I said.
Reginald "Buddy" Winter, my winsome father, had a national talk show that ran from 1968 to 1978, gained a vast and devoted viewership, and won two Emmys. The list of guests included Salvador Dalí, Muhammad Ali, Gore Vidal, Woody Allen, Luciano Pavarotti, Elizabeth Taylor, Paddy Chayefsky, and John Lennon, the mainstream and the avant-garde. And then Buddy walked off in the middle of a broadcast and had a nervous breakdown, the details of which were written about in a long and largely misleading article in Manhattan magazine. Since then he'd become an item of curiosity and fascination, though many of the stories about his intercontinental voyage of recovery were pure fiction and glossed over how truly lost he was.
My mother, Emily Winter (Em, Buddy called her), had spent a month with Buddy in the Greek islands, where they ate fish and stomped grapes and behind sunglasses read books together on the beach. It felt, she said, like they'd gone back a decade, which was both an affirmation and a relief, as she hadn't known who it was she would find when she landed in Athens.
"Anyway, nothing concrete, but it might be time to get back in game shape."
"And mend a few fences," I said. "Who was the producer?" "Elliot," he said.
Elliot was one of the few who had landed a good job, at ABC Sports. When The Buddy Winter Show ended, it wasn't just us out on the street. There were producers and cameramen, gaffers and production assistants, the green room staff, most of whom had planned to stay with Buddy for the run of the show. A lot of them resented the shit out of Buddy for walking out on them, and, by association, me. Our old cameraman, Jay Schwabacker, a gift-bearing uncle to us in the good days, spotted me on the subway once and walked to another car. The saddest was Buddy's agent and college roommate, Harry Abrams, with whom he had a nasty fight, and hadn't talked to since, and whose daughter I was friends with and sort of dated.
A man in his mid-forties, with silvering hair and a vacation tan, bent to Buddy's side to speak: "I don't want to interrupt your dinner, but I watched you every night until you went off the air. I conceived at least one of my children in front of your show."
"I'm sorry," Buddy said, "but I think that makes me the father."
The man broke out laughing and said, "Good to see you holding up so well."
Buddy asked him, "What does that mean?" "I mean you look great."
My father was a lanky, athletic man still a few months from fifty, six feet two, with strong cheekbones, and lines around his mouth when he smiled (a cross between Edward R. Murrow and George Peppard, someone wrote). This time his smile was strained.
"How should I look?" he asked. "Exactly like you look," I said.
The man looked at me as if to say "You take it from here, kid." "You're the best, Buddy," the man said, patting my father's shoulder lightly and holding his glance before retreating.
"Yeah, yeah. You too."
Buddy sat there for a while staring at his plate as though there was a message for him in his mashed potatoes.
"You've got to get a little better at things like that," I said. "You're right, you're absolutely right," he said, and when the waiter returned my father asked him to send a bottle of wine to his admirer's table.
We walked together up Broadway, then past the old theater that had served for more than a decade as home to The Buddy Winter Show. His spirits were bright, and he acted unfazed by the incident at dinner. A play had let out, and the audience was dispersing outside, buttoning coats, adjusting their winter hats then raising their arms toward passing taxis.
"You think they liked it, Anton?" my father asked. "They don't seem ecstatic."
"That's exactly what I was thinking," he said. "They're thinking, It beats TV, but I'm not sure it was worth the sixty bucks."
I was relieved none of the theatergoers recognized Buddy, and more likely they were in their own thoughts but I was happy to be just with him for a while. We passed the Stage Deli, where we used to escape to after the show, and O'Donnell's Tavern and other dark bars I'd been to countless times with Buddy or other crew members. Usually Buddy wanted to get back to my mother before it got late, but more than a few times someone would sneak me drinks, and we'd all get buzzed, and at some point it would dawn on Buddy that I was sixteen and had school the next day, and he should probably get me home.
At Columbus Circle I began to tire. I'd had a couple of glasses of wine and, mixed with the medication the hospital sent me home with, I felt dreamy again, like the colors around me were leaking.
"I should have visited you in Africa," Buddy said. "I would have, you know. We'd have had a few adventures, wouldn't we."
"We still can if I go back," I said. "You're not going back."
"I might go back," I said, because it was my right to say that. "You can't," he said. "I need your help."
The Dakota, where Buddy moved our family when I was four, is among the most famous apartment buildings in the world. It looks like a Hapsburg castle because, like the Eldorado and the Beresford and the San Remo, it was built to be one. The idea at the time was to build in the then remote Upper West Side of Manhattan—which resembled the vast plains of the Dakotas, said the developer Edward Clark—a lifestyle to match what you'd get in a luxury hotel. The sort of place in which Marlene Dietrich, if she'd been alive then, would have been comfortable. The list of people who've lived there or gone to parties there is a who's who of the last hundred years of American culture. The old New Yorker cover, which had the rest of the world as tiny dots around a small spot of Manhattan, should have had as its glorious center the Dakota, because during the time of my growing up it felt that way.
Which isn't to say it was a snobby place—it never felt that way. It feels more like a European village—in, say, Luxembourg— open, friendly, grand, with stories everywhere, and the right people to tell those stories and to go out and live them. Not that I noticed that as a kid—when you're a child you believe your experience is everyone's. Still even at five or six I recognized that I was lucky, and maybe unusually so, though I'm sure there are other kids across the world who feel that way, and probably not because of a building.
In the old days on the maze-like roof, there were tents and awnings and gazebos. And on any given weekend the parties would spread to the rooftops, and you could hear the sounds of people playing music all the way out to Central Park.
We lived in an apartment owned once by Boris Karloff that has five fireplaces and two kitchens. That's excessive certainly, but all the apartments in the Dakota are like that, with high ceilings, parquet floors, and amazing old fixtures, odd little touches you kept discovering over time, like the servants' bells in every room that let the servant—or maid in our case—know what room you were in, and the dumbwaiters, used in the old days to whisk your dirty dishes back down to the kitchen.
The building wasn't that expensive for a good long while. It was on the Upper West Side after all, and the Upper West Side was a rough place in the old days, with gangsters like Dutch Schultz and Joe "The Boss" Masseria, and scary empty lots, and supposedly the highest concentration of drug addicts and newly released patients of shuttered mental institutions in the country to go along with all the movie theaters and bookstores and left-wing politics.
At the front desk Hattie Beckwith waved us through. Hattie was from a small town in Ireland and had worked the front desk for fifty years, receiving and sorting the tenants' mail and working the switchboard, usually during the days, but every once in a while at night. She had curly gray hair, and as long as I can remember wore in winter one of three cable-knit sweaters, one red, one kelly green, and the navy one she now had on.
"Who's the stranger?" she asked my father and smiled my way. "One of your many admirers," Buddy said.
"Oh, listen to you. He has your eyes."
"You need a new prescription, Hattie. His are brown."
"Oh well, maybe they are," she said. "Nice to have you back.
Your dad needs taking care of."
She always held a soft spot for my father, as did most of the building. We had a party each year in the courtyard, all around that brilliant fountain, and my mother would cook for days, and Buddy made some sort of pastry, or brought out some good wine, and he'd sit at one of a dozen long tables with Rowan Rose and Betty Bacall and Jason Robards and Ruth Ford. In later years John and Yoko would be there with Sean. And Yoko would bring sushi, and John would grab a chair at my father's table, and I'd go run around somewhere else—with no need to be around the action, because it wasn't like the action would run off and leave us.
Until of course it did.
From The Dakota Winters. Used with permission of Ecco. Copyright © 2018 by Tom Barbash.
Lit Hub Daily: December 17, 2018
Scholastique Mukasonga on the Power and Privilege in a Loaf of Bread
Daily FictionEccoExcerptThe Dakota WintersTom Barbash
Lit Hub Daily: December 17, 2018 "They were a subculture unto themselves." On college roommates Edward Gorey and Frank O'Hara, princes of Harvard's gay...


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Home > urban > I Dare You To Run Away Again > CH 186
I Dare You To Run Away Again CH 186
Author:Han Mei Moxiang Category:urban Update time:2022-12-20 23:31:49
Chapter 186 What led him to laugh himself silly
Pan Lei had awoken and was smoking outside the classroom, resting against the wall.
He noticed his family's darling come over bouncing and hopping, as if he could fly.
He couldn't stop himself from laughing. What made this little thing so happy He was so overjoyed that he didn't care about his shattered image.
Pan Lei had already packed Tian Yuan's computer bag and textbooks when he spotted him approaching and reached out to pull him.
"What happened What are you so happy about"
Tian Yuan couldn't help but grin, then immediately assumed a grave expression, as if nothing had happened.
"Nothing, nothing."
Pan Lei cocked his head to look at him. Hmm, something's fishy.
There was obviously something his husband was keeping from him, Pan Lei thought as he glanced at Tian Yuan's barely suppressed smile.
They'd been sleeping in the same bed for a long time, and Pan Lei could tell if he'd put on even a kilo of flesh just by touching him, let alone being so obviously happy.
"What is it, baby Tell me and make me happy too."
Tian Yuan pursed his lips and remained silent.
It would no longer be romantic or a nice surprise if he said it.
He had to hold back now if he wanted to suddenly appear in front of Pan Lei and fly him a great surprise like he'd planned.
Tian Yuan shook his head, then dropped it to conceal his joy.
"Oh, you're really not telling me Please, baby, give me a hint.
What are you happy about Let me share in your joy.
A couple shouldn't hold back from each other."
Tian Yuan, however, refused to divulge the news.
He simply shook his head and bit his lip.
His eyes, however, were beaming with delight.
Pan Lei was scared he'd hurt his lip and hastily pinched his face.
"Don't bite, don't bite, it'll hurt you.
If you don't want to say it, don't say it.
No need to hurt yourself."
Tian Yuan couldn't help but smile and laugh.
He threw himself at Pan Lei, kissed him loudly, held his arm, and acted like a spoiled child.
"Ge, you're so good to me."
"What kind of nonsense is this You're my treasure.
Who else should I be nice to if not you"
Pan Lei laughed as he flicked Tian Yuan's forehead.
"You're acting like a spoiled brat, little thing.
Alright, let's go home.
You're so happy, but you won't say anything to make me happy."
As Pan Lei wrapped his arms around his waist, he rubbed his brow and laughed mischievously. Forget it.
I can't force him to talk if he doesn't want to.
Just let him be happy then.
It's good that he's happy. Anyway, seeing Tian Yuan happy made Pan Lei happy as well.
It was merely that Tian Yuan was far too happy.
"Pfft!" They were eating dinner when Tian Yuan spewed out a mouthful of rice, rocking from side to side with laughter.
He almost choked but continued to chuckle happily.
Pan Lei jumped in fright and hurried over to feed him water, pat his back, and wipe the rice grains off his face.
"What's wrong with you What are you messing about with instead of eating properly"
Tian Yuan was still laughing so hard that he was almost curled up.
He imagined Pan Lei's reaction when he jumped out, yelling "Surprise!" Pan Lei would either fall on his buttocks in shock or scream and flee in panic.
He couldn't help but laugh uproariously as he thought of his pale face and the way he jumped back with a loud shout.
So funny! I must give it a shot! Pan Lei had always been playing tricks on him.
He could finally play a good trick on him and turn the tables. Simply amazing.
As a result, he spewed rice and laughed like a fool.
"Eat properly; you're gonna choke."
Tian Yuan nodded, but continued to giggle like a little fool.
When Pan Lei was doing the dishes, he snickered and leaned against the door, staring at him.
When Pan Lei looked over inquisitively, he waved his hand away as if it were nothing.
Is it really nothing You're laughing like this while claiming it's nothing Impossible.
What are you up to acting so unlike yourself
Tian Yuan was the type of person who couldn't keep anything in his stomach.
When he slept blissfully, he could laugh out loud because he was joyful. What a bad shortcoming.
Pan Lei smiled as he saw him having a pleasant dream.
But he was unable to ask anything at the time.
It was late at night and the pair didn't play crazy.
Despite being all secretive, Tian Yuan still fell asleep with Pan Lei's arms around him.
Pan Lei clutched him tightly, and Tian Yuan made it a point to sleep on his left side to avoid pressing on his wound.
Pan Lei had a habit of approaching Tian Yuan's sleeping spot.
He would not turn over to sleep on his right arm as long as Tian Yuan was on his left.
It was late at night, and everything was calm.
It was time to go to bed.
It was first a lovely thing for him to sleep with his lover in his arms.
Tian Yuan's head was buried in his neck, and he could smell and feel his flesh under his palm.
Pan Lei fell into an unusually sweet sleep as a result of the satisfaction of holding his treasure in his arms.
Tian Yuan was dreaming that Pan Lei was so terrified of him that he screamed, leapt up, and ran away.
So embarrassing.
In his dreams, he rolled into a ball of laughter.
Pan Lei felt the beloved in his arms quake violently, and he awoke with a start.
He hurriedly turned on the light and touched his forehead, thinking he was unwell and in pain. He's not running a temperature.
"Baby, where are you feeling poorly, baby Don't put up with it.
Let's go to the hospital."
Pan Lei gently shook Tian Yuan's shoulder, feeling his body. Is he suffering from a stomach ache Acute illness He ate home-cooked dinner and seemed to be in a great mood the entire evening.
So, what's the problem
Pan Lei leapt out of bed and grabbed his clothing without delay.
He returned his gaze and saw Tian Yuan still huddled on the bed.
Pan Lei was worried that Tian Yuan might pass out from the pain.
He scooped him up and carried him downstairs without hesitation.
"Baby, don't scare me.
We'll head to the hospital right away."
Tian Yuan's beautiful dream was cut short when he was pulled up.
He rolled around in mirth when he saw Pan Lei running around in a panic.
Pan Lei then returned and pressed him against the bed, scolding him as a bad thing while smiling.
Tian Yuan opened his eyes as he felt himself being hauled up and saw Pan Lei looking at him anxiously.
Tian Yuan broke out laughing as he remembered his embarrassed appearance in the dream.
Pan Lei was terrified and then stunned.
The poor guy couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on.
"If you're feeling ill, don't be shy about telling me.
Let's go to the hospital and have it checked out."
Tian Yuan drew him up and rested against his arms, still smirking.
"It's nothing.
It's truly nothing.
I laughed because I had a wonderful dream."
Pan Lei touched this, felt that, and made sure he was fine.
He was relieved to see Tian Yuan's face was so good.
He then swatted him across the back.
"Ba$tard, you startled me.
I thought you were ill and trembling all over from the pain.
You're truly all right"
"I'm perfectly fine.
Go to sleep."
Pan Lei exhaled deeply in relief and cradled him in his arms.
"It must have been a fantastic dream to make you laugh so hard.
You are especially cheerful today.
I was startled when you glanced at me and laughed so hard.
Did you overindulge in nuts Are you possessed How come you're not saying anything"
"I just dreamt of good things; rather happy things."
"I don't know what to do with you.
Go to sleep, don't scare people."
Pan Lei patted his back gently, as if coaxing a kid to sleep.
Tian Yuan listened to his heartbeat and fell asleep easily thanks to the patting.
Pan Lei wrapped a quilt around him and kissed his forehead, as though he wanted to make sure his baby was still fine.
He could sleep soundly knowing Tian Yuan was still peacefully asleep in his arms.
He was ready to fall asleep in a daze when he heard a series of chuckles and awoke.
He didn't bother turning on the light this time.
He merely looked at his sweetheart, who was sleeping sweetly in his arms with his eyes closed and appeared to be utterly joyful.
He almost clapped and laughed in his sleep.
How strange.
What terrific news did he receive for him to be so ecstatic He had been laughing nonstop and acting odd since returning from college.
Pan Lei couldn't wait to find out what the good news was.
To laugh out loud in his dream like this… is he marrying a woman Bah! That's a nightmare, okay How could he do something as messy as marrying a wife in his dream
Damn! I need to ask him directly.
Some people talk in their sleep.
If Tian Yuan was a sleeptalker, he could simply talk to him and ask him what he was dreaming about.
Pan Lei approached Tian Yuan and spoke softly.
"Hey baby, are you having a sweet dream"
Tian Yuan mn-ed and smiled.
"What a wonderful dream to have, so happy."
That's it! I have to keep asking.
"Pan Lei is running away in the dream.
It's hilarious."
Running away So Tian Yuan's dreams were entirely focused on him This is great; awesome. Pan Lei was overjoyed.
Tian Yuan dreamed about him even in his sleep, showing how much he adored Pan Lei. But why am I fleeing Is it really that amusing
"Is there a dog after me"
Tian Yuan abruptly ceased speaking.
He rolled over, his arms around Pan Lei's waist.
"Baby, why on earth am I fleeing"
Tian Yuan began snoring loudly.
Pan Lei was speechless as he yanked his hair.
This, however, merely piqued his curiosity.
He moved closer to his ear and caressed his back.
"Why on earth am I fleeing"
Unfortunately, Tian Yuan had fallen into a deep sleep.
He stopped laughing and making trouble.
He slept soundly, like a child who had been playing all day and was finally getting a good night's sleep.
Pan Lei posed a series of questions one after the other.
Tian Yuan raised his hand and slapped him across the chest.
"So noisy, ge.
So noisy."
Sheesh, forget it.
It was pointless to argue with him while he was sleeping.
But he'd ask him why he was so thrilled tomorrow.
Pan Lei went to sleep with a stomach full of doubts.
He wouldn't allow Tian Yuan to get out of bed the next morning.
They wrestled, but Pan Lei wouldn't let him go.
Even if he had to torture Tian'er to get a confession, he had to inquire why he was so happy.
"You're in such a terrific mood, baby.
Will you not tell me and share"
Tian Yuan rolled over in his arms and played with his fingers.
"Not telling me If you don't tell me, don't blame me for being rude."
Pan Lei used half of his body to press down on Tian Yuan while reaching into his pants with one hand, grabbing Little Tian Yuan and pumping it a few times.
Tian Yuan shouted and struggled desperately.
"No, no, there isn't time.
I have a morning class, so I can't be late!"
Pan Lei started nipping and sucking his neck.
The more he kissed him, the lower he descended.
His fingers never stopped pumping.
"Not telling me Then let's make out.
Men are really horny when they wake up early."
Tian Yuan urgently shrunk his neck.
He had a report due today and couldn't afford to squander time.
"Ge, don't make trouble, ge.
Let's talk about it tonight."
"Then tell me.
If you struggle, the wound might reopen, hampering my recovery."
My teacher complimented my last report and suggested that it be published in a medical journal.
I'm overjoyed because the teacher kept praising me on my academics."
Pan Lei's hand stopped.
"Really"
The reason Tian Yuan didn't want to tell him was so simple
"Really, truly.
Believe me, ge.
Don't make trouble.
Let's talk about it later today.
I can't be late today.
Stop, stop."
Tian Yuan didn't say anything when Pan Lei bit him, but he had to lie in order to get out of his clutches.
He lied with his eyes wide open for the first time.
Pan Lei had the impression that Tian Yuan would not lie to him and affectionately pinched his nose.
"This minor accomplishment made you laugh and talk in your dream.
Promising."
Tian Yuan smiled and pretended to be stupid.
Pan Lei kissed him and then let him go.
Gosh! TY is such a goofball.
This was a fun chapter.
Dear Indian readers, Happy Independence Day! You're the proud citizens of the world's largest democracy.