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The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality – the ability to experience a full range of emotions, including happiness, excitement, sadness, and grief. Depression is not an emotion itself; it’s the loss of feelings, a big heavy blanket that insulates you from the world yet hurts at the same time. It’s not sadness or grief, it’s an illness. –Richard O’Connor, Ph.D.
I can spot sadness on lawyer’s face. Like a craggy poker player reads dog-eared cards in a smoke-laden backroom bar, world-weary drooped eyelids, even on young lawyers, which suggests a great weight borne, a solemnity. To others, their expressions may seem like a seasoned lawyer’s humorless, steely resolve. But, I know better. Their faces a subtler shade of grey, the somber hue of a 1L’s textbook on Contracts.
Their humorous repartee among each other, if any, can be deeply cynical and sarcastic. It is a tough life for many in this boat; many dream, sadly, of a different life. “Every man has his secret,” wrote the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
It’s normal to “feel the blues”, a sadness that colors our lives from time to time like the reds of anger, the greens of envy. Sadness is the price we pay to experience its opposite: happiness. Carl Jung, a protégé of Sigmund Freud, wrote, “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness”.
Sadness is not clinical depression – – not by a long shot – – because while sadness is an emotional response to a loss, depression is a loss of feeling; the absence of a wide array of emotions replaced by psychic pain.
There are two major differences between the blues and depression: the length of time the sadness endures and whether or not there are other symptoms associated with depression which are tagging along with the perpetual sadness. “I think the difference between just having the blues and depression lies in the symptoms,” said Raymond Crowe, M.D., UI professor of psychiatry. “If ‘the blues’ persist for more than a couple of weeks and are accompanied by trouble eating, difficulty sleeping, or suicidal thoughts, you should see someone.”
J.K. Rowling, the creator of that mischievous and bespectacled wizard Harry Potter, makes this distinction:
Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. . . . It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it’s a healthy feeling. It is a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different.
Psychiatrist Peter Kramer, author of Against Depression, underscores the point that depression is a serious illness and not ordinary sadness:
For the psychiatrist, then, depression becomes an intimate. It is poor company. Depression destroys families. It ruins careers. It ages patients prematurely. It attacks their memories and their general health. For us – for me – the truth that depression is a disease is unqualified. Depression is debilitating, progressive and relentless in its downhill course, as tough and worthy opponent as any doctor might choose to combat.
It’s important to recognize the difference between sadness and depression because a suffering lawyer will not be able to resolve the depression by himself; talking it out with a group of work pals over some Old Milwaukee’s after work just won’t get to the bottom of the problem. This person will need a mental health professional to help evaluate him to see if he has depression, and, if so, to get him the serious help he needs.
Others simply do not have a reference point for depression unless they have been through it before. Have they known loss and sadness? Yes. The deep psychic pain of depression? No. So they misidentify a person with depressive symptoms as having the blues which can have severe consequences because the more people do so, the greater the isolation, the greater pit of desolation the depressive falls into because no one understands and because they do not understand, it becomes hard for them to seek out help.
This commingling of sadness and depression is confusing – – and dangerous. This is so because a sufferer and those around him may underestimate the gravity of the situation: “Bob is just sad, going through a tough patch at the law office. He’ll get over it.”
But, Bob might not. He may get worse. The depression may deepen. He may need medication that he’ll never get. He may need to talk to a therapist to address the distorted thinking that goes on during a depression. He may need medication to lift himself out of the darkness. Absent such help and hope, he may commit suicide. As much as 80% of suicides are committed by those struggling with depression and lawyers have much higher suicide rates than the general population.
Not only do others misunderstand and mislabel a depressed lawyer’s symptoms as regular sadness, the depressive himself often does not know what is going on inside him or herself. He himself may be confused because while he knows what sadness is, he senses something bigger than sadness – – and much worse – – may be happening to him. He senses something is deeply wrong, but might ignore the red flags, or symptoms of depression, because he doesn’t know what they mean. If he’s never experienced major depression before, he doesn’t know that they’re harbingers of something awful, a turbid wave about to hit his bow.
Grief, a close cousin of sadness, has several symptoms in common with major depression because its symptoms are more layered than everyday sadness: the sadness is accompanied by sleep problems and poor appetite, for example.
Another significant difference between the two is that grief tends to be trigger-related: People that are grieving tend to feel better in situations where they have heart-felt support, but have their grief triggered by things that remind them of their deep loss such as their wedding anniversary which they no longer enjoy because their spouse has died. Andrew Solomon sums it up best, “Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.”
The reason for the differences between sadness and depression is because with the former we are dealing with a normal human emotion which is transitory – – it will change, subside and be replaced with other emotional experiences. Depression is not transitory because it is an illness going on in the brain, a system unable to ward off serious psychic pain.
These losses are stressful, but not, in themselves, necessarily depressing in a clinical sense. Peter Kramer, M.D., writes:
Depression can be set off by a variety of stressors: sexual abuse, housing problems, illness in one’s child, and the other common problems you might imagine. To suggest that depression arises from loss is to skew the argument in the direction of the metaphor . . . , the one that likens apparent depression to ordinary bereavement. Likewise, “sadness” does not capture the essence of depression, which is a marked disruption of brain and mind characterized by painful apathy. Not only in degree but also in quality, sadness and depression are different.
So, look at the nature of your pain and others. Is it something you can relate to some loss? If so, it’s probably sadness. If not and there are a few symptoms of depression, bereavement that will pass at some point after a major loss. If not, the culprit is probably depression.
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Just How Strong Was That Windstorm?
There are many ways to measure the strength of a windstorm, none of which offer what might be considered a definitive answer. Below is an examination of the pros and cons of various methods for determining storm strength.
Peak Gust: Peak instantaneous gusts can be compared for various locations, which is what I tend to do in the examination of windstorms on this website. I've picked this method mainly out of convienience, for peak gusts are often the simplest figure to find. Peak gust has the limitation of comparing a blast of wind that lasts for just a brief moment in the duration of a storm that may last for hours. It seems logical that lasting winds might do greater damage by slowly weakening trees and structures, even if the long-duration winds aren't as strong as a higher instantaneous gust from a different storm. Gradual weakening of structures is concievable due to, say, nails being worked loose in a flexing structure, or rootlets breaking little-by-little as winds constantly pull at a tree. And if there is rain, the softening of ground over time can contribute to further tree loss. Note, however, that it takes three to six seconds for stable aerodynamic forces to set up around a structure such as a house; thus an instantaneous gust is likely not to have exerted its full force . But a peak gust could be reflective winds in the 3-6 second category that are nearly as high, as this is a fairly short period of time when compared to the standard measures of sustained winds (see below). There is another problem with peak instantaneous gust: readings can vary considerably between the many varieties of anemometers due to differences in their inertial response. In other words, some anemometers are more sensitive than others. This variance can be 30% or more . Thus, it seems, truly meaningful peak gust comparisons should come from the same kind of anemometer sensors. Comparing NWS ASOS stations, for example, is failry valid, for the system is standardized. Comparing unofficial readings is a different matter, for they could be from any number of wind measuring systems.
Sustained winds: Sustained gusts, or systems like fastest one- or two-minute windspeed, and fastest mile (which is the highest velocity maintained by one mile of air passing the anemometer: if the wind blows a steady 60 mph, it'd take a minute for a mile of air to pass), provide a measure of longer-duration winds, but then there is the question of just how much duration is needed to provide significant meaning? Minutes, or hours? It has alredy been pointed out in the discussion about peak gust that it only takes 3 to 6 seconds for a wind to exert its maximum force on an object. Secondly, peak gusts are fairly well correlated with average or sustained winds: in a typical cold-core storm, the peak gusts are typically 1.3 times the average wind speed, with warmer storms, such as hurricanes, approaching 1.5 times . Thus the average wind speed may be no better than the peak gust--one could infer it from the peak gust figure, and a little knowledge about the anemometer's capabilities and the structure of the storm. Another problem with peak sustained wind occurrs in the record for storms that occurred pre-ASOS (About 1993-1996 depending on location). Sustained one-minute winds were typically calculated at intervals of once an hour, or a little more frequently when special observations were being taken. Also, these readings sometimes involved estimation, with rounding to the nearest five knots, and technique probably varied to some degree between observers. Thus, for this time period, peak gust--not peak wind--was often the most accurate "peak" figure obtained.
Duration of gale-force winds: This gets at the problem of the length of time the storm is afflicting a region and the potential for longer periods of high winds to cause more damage from gradual weakening of trees and structures. The cutoffs, like "gale-force" would be arbitrary. Number of hours with 40 mph gusts or greater might be one category, or number of hours with sustained winds of 30 mph or greater. It probably doesn't matter too much--what does matter is trying to capture the length of the damaging winds. How necessary it is to do this, I'll note, is debateable: most big storms produce their highest winds within a similar time frame, say 2 to 4 hours, with unusual ones lasting 8 to 12. It seems that the strongest wind producers, which are often moving at a quick pace (which aids surface wind speeds), don't often last as long as moderate windstorms.
Size of region being examined: As is pointed out on some of these pages, like the one for the November 1983 storm train, windstorm strength is often a local thing. One city may get record wind gusts while another a few tens of miles away might just experience a typical winter's gale. This is due to a number of variables, including terrain factors, size and type of storm, angle of the pressure gradients across various terrain sections, and what path the low center follows. Sometimes a storm merely strikes part of the coast, while other times a Pacific cyclone will sweep an area measured in tens of thousands of square miles. In terms of determining strength, one might argue that the bigger the area affected, the bigger the storm. A storm that consistently produces peak gusts of 60-70 mph across portions of several states might be considered a more significant event than a squall line that affects just a few counties with wind speeds in excess of 90 mph. Clearly, this kind of thing gets difficult to assess.
Time of year the storm strikes: Dead and weakened trees accumulate over the summer months as disease, insect attack, and old age take their toll, such that the first significant windstorm can cause more blowdowns than might be expected. Thus, subsequent storms in the same winter season may produce far fewer fallen trees and branches, even if they have higher windspeeds--for the first storm cleaned out all the material waiting to go! Also, many deciduous trees do not drop their leaves until November in the Pacific Northwest, and some leaves hang on into December. Leafless trees have less surface area for the wind to act on. Early autumn storms are likely to have a stronger impact on such trees than winter gales for this reason. Thus, in terms of a storm's potential threat to human life and property, it is concievable that timing can play a big role--maybe even more so than actual wind strengths. Which, ultimately, means that counting wind-thrown trees (and houses damaged as a result) may not be a good measure for determining just how strong a storm actually was. See my discussion of the January 1986 storm train for more details.
Dollar Damage: How many dollars damage a storm causes could be used as a measure of storm strength, for in a sense, it combines a number of the ideas above: a storm with very high winds affecting a broad region for a longish period of time is likely to produce more dollars in damage than a short gale on part of a coastline. And this might be a more meaningful measure to many people, for it gets at something that most folks can relate to: money. However, it must be noted that some storms can and do cause huge damages to relatively small locations. There have been several tornados in the midwest that have done more dollars in damage than the infamous Columbus Day Storm of 1962, which did $210 million to parts of OR and WA. The February 1979 windstorm, with mostly affected the Olympic Peninsula of WA, did nearly as much damage as the 1962 storm because of the catasrophic failure of just one structure: the Hood Canal Floating Bridge. As intense as the 1979 storm was, most would agree than the 1962 event was still the far larger one. Also, many dollar damage figures are estimates. Not all damage gets reported. Often reassessments in later years change the figure (usually upwards). So, we see that even measures of property losst has its limiations.
Simpson, Robert H., Riehl, Herbert. The Hurricane and its Impact. 1981. p. 205-207.
Simpson, Robert H., Riehl, Herbert. The Hurricane and its Impact. 1981. p. 204.
Simpson, Robert H., Riehl, Herbert. The Hurricane and its Impact. 1981. p. 205.
Last Modified: March 5, 2003
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Paintings from the Morse Collection
The paintings in this gallery include late nineteenth-century portraits, genre scenes, landscapes, mothers with children, allegory, and even a portrayal of a family outing. The paintings represent a variety of styles but never stray from recognizable images and the simple themes of daily life.
Approached as a cast of characters and activities, the group presents American life and society between the catastrophic horrors of the Civil War and World War I—a period when the profound implications of the industrial revolution and seismic demographic change defined the ordinary lives of most Americans.
The very rich and very poor, the educated and ignorant, the old rich and nouveau riche, the native born and the hopeful immigrant—all these sorts of citizens played their roles in American life of this era and many are depicted in this gallery. So too, there is the social conflict allegorized in James Henry Beard’s dogs cowering in the face of rats; the inevitable despoliation of landscape and shrinking of space and time symbolized by the powerful smoke-spewing locomotive in Edward Lamson Henry’s 9:45 A.M. Accommodation; the determination of John Singer Sargent’s Richard Aldrich C. McCurdy; the tenderness of George De Forest Brush’s Mother and Child; the grace of John George Brown’s lovely lass; and the precious life in a bell jar depicted by Walter Gay in the Lady at the Writing Desk.
Also represented are such humble enjoyments as Carducius Plantagenet Ream’s lifelike grapes and cherries and Child Hassam’s dreamy harmony of home and landscape.
Together the works in this gallery of mostly American paintings tell us something of the time our country came of age and of the life and art of this dynamic period.
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proverb When the need for something becomes imperative, you are forced to find ways of getting or achieving it.
- As is the case around the world, necessity is the mother of invention and innovative cooking techniques developed to make the most of what the land could provide.
- If necessity is the mother of invention, Hurricane Katrina has forced some in this city to reinvent the way they do business.
- If necessity is the mother of invention, these nations are in a good position to innovate in discovering and deploying applications that are of value to rural populations.
source, origin, genesis, fountainhead, inspiration, stimulus
Definition of necessity is the mother of invention in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
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Just what does it mean to eat an environmentally sound diet? Is it possible to eat only green products all the time? When did all this get so confusing? Why does it seem harder and harder to keep eating habits earth friendly? What is the best approach to eating green? What are some tips for environmentally friendly eating?
Eat close to nature.
What does it mean to eat close to nature? If you're trying to be environmentally friendly, it's important to know. Eating close to nature means eating food that has not been manipulated by humans. Humans tend to screw things up a bit when it comes to food production. They use practices and ingredients which are not considered green by any stretch of the imagination. Think of a fresh apple off the tree as compared to canned applesauce. What has been added to the apple? How was it processed? How much fuel was used to get it to the factory?
Shirk transportation costs.
Eating locally grown and produced food is a safe bet when it comes to eating green. This means you have to know where your food comes from. Be careful about farmers markets. Not all the produce there is produced locally. Not all the food there is organic, either Always ask where your food comes from. It's the only way to know you're eating green.
Grow your own.
Gardening is a great way to control what goes into your food. Farms that mass produce fruits and vegetables rely on chemical pesticides and fertilizers for high yield crops. Needless to say those chemical additives are less than environmentally friendly. Not only that, they seep into your food through the root system. You can't wash that off. So, producing your own organic fruits and vegetables is both greener and healthier than buying them.
Fast food is never green.
No matter how you slice it, fast food is never green. There are fast food venues who try to be green most of the time. Unfortunately, the law of supply and demand hinders them from going all the way green. There are fast food restaurants that serve salad as well. Unfortunately, in order to cut costs, that salad isn't always organic. If you really want to go green with your diet, it's best to stay away from fast food altogether.
Eating green becomes more difficult every day.
Distributors, manufacturers and even farmers must do what they can to compete in an ever growing market. Most of the time, this involves cutting costs. Green food, as a general rule is not cheap food. It's hard to produce mass quantities of food without the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. It's a challenge to stay solvent by marketing to an exclusively local clientele. As consumers we can help by supporting small, local, organic farms and growing our own produce when possible.
Portions of this article were previously published by this author on a now closed Yahoo property.
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Scientists in Australia and New Zealand are working on a new approach in the battle against insect and animal pests, inspired by a fighting tactic from Greek mythology; the Trojan horse.
Pests can eat through crops, wipe out native flora and fauna, and sicken or kill animals and humans.
The New Zealand government estimates that pests cost its primary industries $2 billion per year in money spent on control measures and loss of earnings due to lost production.
But Professor Neil Gemmell from the Anatomy Department of Dunedin's Otago University believes a new approach to pest eradication using "Trojan females" may ease the pain.
"The Trojan female idea is that, like the Trojan horse in the Troy war, it looks good but it contains something intrinsically bad for that population," he said.
"Our Trojan females look fine, they're normal fertile females, but they produce sons who are infertile which is bad news for the population."
Trojan females are not created through genetic modification, he says, but through a naturally occurring mutation in mitochondrial DNA.
"We could be looking for mutations which occur with the frequency of somewhere around one in 200, one in 300, may be one in 1,000," he said.
"And if we can find them in large populations, which pest populations often are, identify those individuals, bring them into captive situations, breed the females up, then we have a tool potentially we could use for eradication."
Irradiated sterile male fruit flies have been used to control that pest in Australia for years. But the benefit of the Trojan female approach, according to Professor Gemmell, is that it should be self-perpetuating.
"We are introducing females into the population who are going to persistently create males who are infertile so them and their female descendants will continually produce males whose fertility is compromised," he said.
"Other fertility control strategies have generally released males whose fertility is compromised... when they die, further males need to be added.
Arguably this approach is more humane than poisoning or trapping.
"The idea that individuals breed themselves to death is generally considered to be a relatively humane approach to population control," he said.
"As I'd like to say we control them with smiles on their faces."
Field trials likely to start in a few years
Professor Gemmell is the lead author of a paper by New Zealand and Australian scientists on the Trojan female technique. It was published last year in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
The New Zealand government has put $1 million into developing the technique with work being carried out by scientists on both sides of the Tasman.
Dr Dan Tompkins from Landcare Research is leading the project which he hopes will have many applications.
"We're hoping the technology we develop here could be used to control pests in many other countries," he said.
"In Southeast Asia for example where rodents damage about 30 per cent of the rice crop... if we can develop a tool that can help tackle that we're talking about increased food security.
"Other issues would be for public health for example, so countries where mosquito–borne diseases like malaria are an issue it could be another approach to control those diseases.
"And of course rats and other vertebrates are biodiversity pests worldwide... we're hopeful it can be used in a lot of places.
Dr Tompkins says field trials are likely to start in a few years.
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Frequently Asked Questions
QUESTION: What is XLH?
ANSWER: X-chromosome Linked Hypophosphatemia is a genetic metabolic disorder that usually results in bowed or bent legs in growing children. In XLH, the body's mechanisms to make and maintain bones and teeth do not work correctly. One of the things needed for good bone growth is the mineral phosphorus.
The key characteristic of XLH -- low phosphorus in the blood, also known as hypophosphatemia -- is the result of a mutation that essentially inactivates one of the genes on the X chromosome. When this gene, called the PHEX gene, has the XLH mutation, a protein circulating in the bloodstream called FGF23 increases, causing the kidneys to waste phosphorus and suppresses complete activation of vitamin D to a form the body can use. The loss of phosphate from the kidneys prevents the body from maintaining the proper level of phosphorus in the blood.
Q: Is there a single mutation responsible for XLH?
A: So far, approximately 260 different mutations in a particular section of the X chromosome have been identified for XLH. An XLH patient might have one of these mutations, or a new one that has not yet been described. Everyone in the world has about 10 genetic mutations. Often these mutations have no apparent effect, but sometimes, as in the case of XLH, their effects can be significant. Here is a database of XLH mutations.
Q: Does XLH affect everyone the same?
A: Everyone with XLH has low phosphorus in the blood; but the severity of bone symptoms can vary widely. Some show phosphorus levels that are not below normal, but at the lower end of normal so it's important in those cases to test in the morning before eating or drinking anything, in order to find that patient's lowest phosphorus level. Phosphorus rises normally throughout the day, and foods eaten can affect phosphorus levels in the blood as well. At least 5 percent of people with XLH do not show any bone symptoms, and have only low levels of phosphorus in their blood. A 1994 study by Dr. Michael Econs showed people with mild to moderate symptoms may go undiagnosed.
Q. How do people get XLH?
A: XLH is a genetic disorder. About one-third of our mailing list subscribers have XLH without any apparent family history, and are considered to be spontaneous cases. The rest inherited XLH from a parent. The condition is X-Linked and dominant. This means that the gene responsible for XLH is on the X chromosome and people with the mutated gene will have XLH.
Men have one X and one Y chromosome, whereas women have two X chromosomes. Daughters receive the father’s X chromosome and one of their mother's X chromosomes. Sons get their father’s Y chromosome and one of their mother’s X chromosomes.
Therefore, if a man has XLH, all his daughters will have it, but none of his sons. Every child of an affected mother has a 50-50 chance of inheriting XLH, depending on which X chromosome is passed on.
If the syndrome is present, regardless of whether it is a spontaneous case or inherited from an individual's parents, that individual will have the same likelihood of passing on the condition to their children.
Q. Is XLH curable?
A: No. But it is treatable, and research is ongoing. The gene that carries the XLH mutation was identified in 1995 but it’s still not clear what that gene does. Current research is focusing on processes and proteins involved in the control of phosphorus levels in the blood. The XLH Network Inc. keeps in contact with the world’s leading researchers and stays up to date on the latest developments, but a cure remains years away.
Q. Is XLH treatable?
A: Available treatments can help in many, but isn’t equally helpful in all cases. Often, a combination of a particularly active Vitamin D, together with phosphorus supplements, can help achieve a better balance of phosphate, calcium and crucial hormones.
This treatment may have limited effect and may have side effects requiring periodic monitoring throughout the patient's life. Because of the variability of symptoms, each case is unique and must be treated individually.
In general, however, the earlier the diagnosis can be confirmed and therapy started, the better the results may be. The crucial time for treatment is during a child's growth years to help the legs grow straight. Many children who begin treatment with very bowed or bent legs, mature into adults with straight lower limbs.
Sometimes orthopedic surgery is required to correct badly deformed legs, but often specialists expect to see good progress with medication, minimizing the need for surgery.
Whether treatment should continue after adulthood is a matter of debate, balancing whether drug therapy is needed once an adult’s bones are straight against the potential of premature wear in the knees and joints, osteoarthritis and calcification in the membranes around the joints and between bones.
Q. How is XLH rickets different from other forms of rickets?
A: At the end of the 19th century, many children had rickets because they didn't get enough Vitamin D in their diet or have sufficient exposure to sunshine, which helps the body make Vitamin D. Today this kind of rickets is much less common, but is still found when sunlight exposure or dietary sources of Vitamin D are in short supply.
For people affected by XLH, rickets does not improve no matter how much Vitamin D they get. This is the reason for one of the early names for XLH: Vitamin D-Resistant Rickets.
Different kinds of genetic rickets have been discovered, but XLH is still the most common form of rickets that can be inherited. Each of the different forms of rickets provides a unique insight into the linkages between genes and bones, and each condition has been invaluable in improving our basic understanding of bone formation and maintenance.
Q: How common is XLH?
A: About one person in 20,000 has XLH. It is a rare disorder, but that’s unimportant if you or someone you love is that one person. That's why The XLH Network, Inc. is here. We try to link people so they can share experiences, information and support.
Q: How is XLH diagnosed?
A: XLH patients have low phosphorus in the blood, or hypophosphatemia, which can be detected with a simple blood test typically performed in a clinical chemistry laboratory, or in a doctor's office. However, clinical chemistry laboratories do not always report age-matched phosphorus normals, leading to a misdiagnosis.
Especially if there is no family history, more exhaustive tests wil be needed to rule out other causes of hypophosphatemia and of rickets symptoms. Generally serum (blood) phosphorus is low, serum calcium is normal, and serum alkaline phosphatase is quite elevated. Vitamin D levels are also normal, although the activated form is lower than would be expected with a low phosphorus level.
Rickets can often be identified using X-rays, but that alone doesn't tell the physician what caused the rickets. Lower leg bowing can be obvious. Additionally, to a trained eye, X-rays can provide clear evidence of what are called rickets lesions, even before the leg begins to bow. Parents may notice early bowing problems when their child begins to walk. Increasingly, dental problems, especially numerous spontaneous tooth abscesses and enlarged pulp chambers, are recognized as a common ailment of XLH. Other possible symptoms are bone pain, as well as muscle pain and weakness although this isn't as common in XLH as in some other causes of rickets.
Q: Is there a genetic test for XLH?
A: Yes. A genetic test for XLH and two other forms of genetic rickets became available in March 2001. A detailed analysis of the issues involved with genetic testing with specific reference to this genetic test, is available in the Members section.
Q: How do I find a specialist who has experience with XLH?
A: Most often an endocrinologist or nephrologist with a special interest in metabolic bone diseases will be the specialist to see. These specialists are found in major medical centers and teaching hospitals because they will generally be the ones keeping most up-to-date on rare conditions such as XLH. The XLH Network maintains a limited database of XLH-experienced medical specialists and is always looking for references to others with that specific experience.
Q: Can XLH patients participate in athletic activities?
A: Healthy bones and exercise go together. However, it is important for XLH patients, especially children, to be under the care of a medical professional who can monitor bone growth, maintain medication, and advise on the appropriateness of any particular exercise.
Q: Are there dental problems associated with XLH?
A: Problems with the formation of teeth can result in dental abscesses, not because of poor dental hygiene, but because of improper formation of dentin and other tooth structures. Like bone problems, dental problems also vary from patient to patient. Information on dental issues associated with XLH is available in the Members section.
Q: Has research been done using Human Growth Hormone for XLH patients?
A: Medical researchers have studied Human Growth Hormone as a way to increase stature of XLH patients during their growth years, and some of the reports are linked in our listing of XLH Research Citations. While there have been encouraging results with some patients, there does not yet exist a medical consensus for this treatment option for XLH. Details are available in the Members section.
Q: Has hearing loss been associated with XLH?
A: Some XLH patients have hearing loss that progressively increases over time. The severity and frequency of hearing problems vary from patient to patient. Because so many variables can play a part, it is often difficult to attribute specific hearing loss to XLH.
© 2011, The XLH Network Inc.
The authors of this web site are not medical professionals, and this information does not substitute for medical care. Information on these pages is based on biomedical research, published in peer-reviewed journals, and international research conferences. Additionally, in some cases anecdotal information is provided by subscribers to a mailing list and/or members of a forum for The XLH Network Inc. A listing of XLH research is available. Please read our full disclaimer.
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Students at the Center: Deeper Learning Research Series
Most high school students are accustomed to learning in two ways: by listening to the teacher and by reading books and other texts. These familiar ways of learning work for them so long as their teachers demand only that they grasp and remember the given content. However, if the goal is to help students learn in more intellectually sophisticated ways, then teaching and learning will have to look quite different. In this paper, Magdalene Lampert provides a close, detailed description of “deeper teaching,” referring to the kinds of instructional strategies and moment-by-moment teaching decisions that enable students to learn deeply. She concludes by describing the kinds of early-career guidance and supports that teachers will need in order to understand what deeper teaching entails and put it into practice.
See the other reports in this series:
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Guardian of Yosemite
A Native American Myth
S. E. Schlosser
For many nights and many days, the guardian spirit of Tisayac watched over the beautiful valley of Yosemite. Often, the gentle spirit would drift invisibly among the good folk of the valley, and it was during one of these visits that she noticed a tall, proud man named Tutokanula. He was a strong leader who greatly enhanced the lot of his people, and Tisayac came more often to the valley so that she could watch him.
One day, Tutokanula was hunting near the place where Tisayac had laid down to rest. When she realized the proud leader was close by, the shy spirit peered out at him from among the trees. Seeing the beautiful woman with her golden hair and ethereal appearance, Tutokanula fell in love. Realizing it was the guardian of the valley, he reached out his hands to her, calling her by name. Confused by the rush of feelings inside her, Tisayac flew away, leaving a brokenhearted warrior behind. Tutokanula spent many days searching for Tisayac. Finally he left the valley and his people in despair. Without his wise guidance, the valley fell into ruin and most of the good folk left to find a new home.
When Tisayac returned again to her valley, she was horrified to find it barren and her people gone. When she learned that Tutokanula had forgotten his people, had left them to fend for themselves without the benefit of his great wisdom, and had spent many days and nights searching and longing for her, she cried out in despair. Kneeling upon a mighty dome of rock, Tisayac prayed with all her heart that the Great Spirit would undo this wrong and would restore to this land the virtue which had been lost.
Hearing her prayer, the Great Spirit took pity on the plight of her people. Stooping down from on high, he spread his hands over the valley. The green of new life poured forth over the land; trees blossomed, flowers bloomed, birds sang. Then he struck a mighty blow against the mountains and they broke apart, leaving a pathway for the melting snow to flow through. The water swirled and washed down upon the land, spilling over rocks, pooling into a lake and then wandering afar to spread life to other places. In the valley, the corn grew tall again, and the people came back to their home.
Then Tutokanula himself came to the valley when he heard that Tisayac had come home. Upon his return, he spent many hours carving his likeness into the stone so his people would remember him when he departed from this earth. When the carving was finished, Tutokanula sat down wearily at the foot of the beautiful Bridal Veil Falls the Great Spirit had created. Tisayac drifted into the spray of the falls, watching him. He was ready to depart from his people, from his valley. Would he go with her? She moved forward through the falling water and made herself visible. When Tutokanula saw Tisayac, he sprang to his feet with a cry of joy and she held out her arms to him. The brave warrior leapt into the falls and took his love into his arms at last. For a moment, there were two rainbows arching over the water. Then Tisayac drew him up and up into the clouds and away as the sun sank over Yosemite.
Excerpt from The Guardian, retold in Spooky California by S.E. Schlosser.
I watch over this land from high above. I take delight in the song of the birds, the smell of green things growing, the sound of the wind in the trees. It is a good land. Its beauty fills my heart with joy. The people who live in the valley have given me a name -- Tisayac. This pleases me, for it means they sense my presence and feel at home in this valley. I have guarded the people of this land from afar for many a year. They are a good people, strong and kind.
Thus it was with great interest that I saw a great chief arise from among the valley folk. Tutokanula was his name. Handsome was he, brave and kind, and well-loved. His intelligence greatly enhanced the lot of his people.
Many days, I would come down from my musings among the clouds to watch this man, who went farther than any other leader of men to save crops and preserve game so that his people might have an easier winter. His wisdom and his kindness touched my heart. Often I would dream of him when the night wind sang through the trees and night-flowers perfumed the air.
Listen to The Guardian.
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Campylobacter rivals Salmonella as the most common cause of food-borne gastrointestinal disease worldwide. Both microbes are especially prevalent in poultry flocks. Cross-contamination of cooked food with raw poultry, and eating undercooked poultry are two of the most common ways that people become infected with Campylobacter.
Now, some Danish researchers have come up with a low-tech, inexpensive way to reduce the incidence of Campylobacter in poultry houses. They simply installed fly screens on all the ventilation openings. As a result, the percentage of Campylobacter-infected flocks of poultry dropped from 51% to 15%. While screening the ventilation openings in poultry houses isn't the complete answer to controlling Campylobacter, it's certainly a big help.
It's common knowledge that flies carry diseases. Isn't it nice that someone has applied that knowledge effectively?
One Hundred Years Ago Today...
2 months ago
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Random Number Generator
Mr. Tip, I presume?
Okay, hey! New script this week! This script is great in that it produces a random number between 1 and any number. You can set the upper limit within the script. The output of the script looks like this:
But they work with each other. The first script actually creates the random number. The second is mainly there to set the upper limit and display the results. It's a pretty clever script. Look at the line that creates the random number to start it off.
return Math.round(upper_limit * Math.random());
"round" (note lack of capitalization) is a method that rounds off the number that "Math" will soon represent.
So, let's read the line. Return to the script a rounded-off version (Math.round) of the upper_limit (not yet set), times (*) a random number between 0 and 1 (Math.random()). If the upper limit is set to 50, you would get one of 50 different answers, and since the round method rounds up, you'll never get a zero.
Make a note of where all the parentheses are. The upper limit number and the random number between 0 and 1 are figured first. Then the number is rounded. Remember that from high school algebra? What's inside the ( ) gets figured first.
That's the mathematics of it all. But where does the upper limit come from? Why, it's the function itself! See you next week.
Next Time: The Upper Limit
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Report: Wind and rain belts to shift north as planet warms
As humans continue to heat the planet, a northward shift of Earth's wind and rain belts could make a broad swath of regions drier, including the Middle East, American West and Amazonia, while making Monsoon Asia and equatorial Africa wetter, says a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study authors base their prediction on the warming that brought Earth out of the last ice age, some 15,000 years ago. As the North Atlantic Ocean began to churn more vigorously, it melted Arctic sea ice, setting up a temperature contrast with the southern hemisphere where sea ice was expanding around Antarctica. The temperature gradient between the poles appears to have pushed the tropical rain belt and mid-latitude jet stream north, redistributing water in two bands around the planet.
Today, with Arctic sea ice again in retreat, and the northern hemisphere heating up faster than the south, history could repeat itself. "If the kinds of changes we saw during the deglaciation were to occur today that would have a very big impact," said the study's lead author, Wallace Broecker, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Marshaling climate data collected from around the world, from tree-rings, polar ice cores, cave formations, and lake and ocean sediments, Broecker and study coauthor, Aaron Putnam, a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty, hypothesize that the wind and rain belts shifted north from about 14,600 years ago to 12,700 years ago as the northern hemisphere was heating up.
At the southern edge of the tropical rain belt, the great ancient Lake Tauca in the Bolivian Andes nearly dried up at this time while rivers in eastern Brazil slowed to a trickle and rain-fed stalagmites in the same region stopped growing. In the middle latitudes, the northward advance of the jet stream may have caused Lake Lisan, a precursor to the Dead Sea in Jordan's Rift Valley, to shrink, along with several prehistoric lakes in the western U.S., including Lake Bonneville in present day Utah.
Meanwhile, a northward shift of the tropical rains recharged the rivers that drain Venezuela's Cariaco Basin and East Africa's Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. Stalagmites in China's Hulu Cave grew bigger. Evidence for a stronger Asian monsoon during this time also shows up in the Greenland ice cores.
The process worked in reverse from about 1300 to 1850, the study authors hypothesize, as northern Europe transitioned from the relatively warm medieval era to a colder period known as the Little Ice Age. Ocean circulation slowed, and sea ice in the North Atlantic Ocean expanded, the climate record shows. At the same time, rainfall declined in Monsoon Asia, leading to a series of droughts that have been linked to the decline of Cambodia's ancient Khmer civilization, China's Ming dynasty and the collapse of kingdoms in present day Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand.
In the southern hemisphere, the reconstruction of glacier extents in New Zealand's Southern Alps suggests that the mid-latitudes may have been colder during medieval times, supporting the idea of a temperature contrast between the hemispheres that altered rain and wind patterns.
A similar migration of Earth's wind and rain belts happens each year. During boreal summer, the tropical rain belt and mid-latitude jet stream migrate north as the northern hemisphere heats up disproportionately to the south, with more continents to absorb the sun's energy. As the northern hemisphere cools off in winter, the winds and rains revert south.
Sometimes the winds and rains have rearranged themselves for longer periods of time. In the 1970s and 1980s, a southward shift of the tropical rain belt, attributed to air pollution cooling the northern hemisphere, is thought to have brought devastating drought to Africa's Sahel region. The tropical rain belt has since reverted back, and may be moving north, the study authors say, as suggested by a number of recent droughts, including in Syria, northern China, western U.S., and northeastern Brazil.
Consistent with the study, at least one climate model shows the tropical rain belt moving north as carbon dioxide levels climb and temperatures warm. "It's really important to look at the paleo record," said Dargan Frierson, an atmospheric scientist at University of Washington whose modeling work supports the authors' hypothesis. "Those changes were huge, just like we're expecting with global warming."
The study authors acknowledge that their hypothesis has some holes. In the past, changes in sea ice cover drove the temperature gradient between the two hemispheres while today rapidly rising industrial carbon emissions are responsible. So far, there is also no clear evidence that ocean circulation is increasing in the North Atlantic or that the monsoon rains over Asia are strengthening (though there is speculation that sulfate aerosols produced by burning fossil fuels may be masking this effect).
As air pollution in the northern hemisphere declines, temperatures may warm, creating the kind of temperature contrast that could move the winds and rains north again, said Jeff Severinghaus, a climate scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography who was not involved in the study.
"Sulfate aerosols will probably get cleaned up in the next few decades because of their effects on acid rain and health," he said. "So Broecker and Putnam are probably on solid ground in predicting that northern warming will eventually greatly exceed southern warming."
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"Doctor, I think my baby has an ear infection!" I hear this every day in my practice, and because ear infections are such a common cause of sleepless nights and missed work (not to mention just downright painful!), I spend a lot of time explaining what can be done to prevent them. Now, if you came to see me in my office (and you're always welcome to), here's how I would answer your questions.
Why are ear infections so common in babies?
Let's venture inside the middle ear to see how germs and tiny ears make such frequent contact. A canal called the eustachian tube connects the middle ear to the back of the throat and helps to equalize pressure. But the throat, along with the nose, serves as a moist breeding ground for bacteria. Because a baby's eustachian tube is short, wide and horizontal, throat and nose secretions—and any germs they may be harboring—travel more easily through it. Any fluid trapped in a cavity (such as the middle ear) acts as a medium for germs to grow, hence the frequent ear infections we see in many young children.
Why is it important to treat ear infections properly?
Your child's hearing depends on the proper vibrating of the eardrum and the structures of the middle. Repeated infections can damage the eardrum, while repeated fluid accumulation dampens the vibrations, both of which interfere with hearing. That's why it's imperative to take ear infections seriously, especially when your baby is learning to talk. Periodic hearing loss can lead to speech delays or even language problems that can affect her school performance later.
How can I spot an ear infection?
The following signs are babies' way of saying, "There's some painful stuff going on in my ear. Please take me to the doctor!" Early treatment makes for a better outcome, so if your baby has had several ear infections, learn to read his unique "sore-ear language." One sign you likely won't see is a fever. High temps don't often accompany an ear infection unless there's a more severe respiratory infection.
The nose knows In babies, middle-ear infections usually follow a cold, so what's coming out of the nose often reflects what's going on in the ear. A common scenario is that baby is mildly stuffy and has clear, watery nasal drainage, but isn't that sick—until a few days later when crankiness kicks in and the discharge becomes more yellow or green and snotty.
It's been a hard day's night
If baby is waking more frequently at night and seems to be in pain, especially with a worsening cold, that's also a red flag. As the infected fluid places pressure on the eardrum, he may not want to lie flat when napping or sleeping. To alleviate the pressure, position him so that the sore ear faces up.
The eyes have it
The rule in our practice is that when a parent tells us their baby has a cold and eye drainage, we see them that day. In the early months, eye drainage may simply signal a clogged tear duct, but when accompanied by a cold, especially in an older infant, it usually means an underlying sinus and/or ear infection.
If I suspect an ear infection, should I always take my baby to the doctor?
Usually. Ear infections are hard to treat blind—sort of like drawing a map when you're not sure where you're going. Your doctor needs to examine both the eardrum and the whole respiratory tract to make what is called the right "drug and bug" match.
Most mild to moderate ear infections will completely heal without the use of antibiotics, which is why the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the "watch and wait" approach. "Watch" means to observe your child for signs that she is becoming sicker. "Wait" means the doctor may not immediately prescribe antibiotics for her, even if there is fluid behind the middle ear, unless she fails to improve on her own within two or three days.
He's tugging at his ears a lot, so why does the doctor say he's fine?
Ear-tugging doesn't necessarily signal an ear infection. It can be referred pain from teething or that baby is simply discovering his ears and likes pulling on them. However, if a baby has a cold, especially with nasal or eye drainage, and is pulling at his ears, the problem is likely not teething. Tugging, rubbing or banging on the ears can also be a sign that your child has some ear pain from persistent or chronic middle-ear fluid, a condition known as otitis media with effusion. In my practice I find that a mother's intuition is useful in alerting me that her baby is feeling worse. If you feel there's something more to your baby's symptoms, talk to your pediatrician.
How can I prevent ear infections altogether?
Now that you know how germs make their way into those little ears, here are some guidelines to keep that germy fluid from collecting behind your baby's eardrums:
- Breastfeed: Mother's milk provides increased natural immunity.
- Bottle-feed upright: Feed baby in an upright position (at least 30 degrees) and keep her upright at least 30 minutes afterward.
- Keep allergens at bay: Irritants can cause fluid to build in the nasal passages and middle ear. Keep stuffed and real animals and other fuzzy things away while baby sleeps. And absolutely no smoking around baby!
- Pass on pacifiers: Studies show a correlation between the frequency of pacifier use and ear infections. Limit pacifier use to when baby is falling asleep at night, especially once she is 6 months or older.
- Boost immunity: Fruits, veggies and seafood have been shown to improve babies' developing immune systems.
- She'll outgrow it: The good news is that as your child grows, the eustachian tube becomes longer and narrower, and slants more acutely, making it more difficult for germs and fluid to collect in the middle ear. At the same time, her immune system matures, minimizing those pesky ear infections.
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Accelerated Courses in 8th Grade Math Boost AP Scores Later, Study Finds
Encouraging students to take accelerated math classes in 8th grade, based on prior strong performance, increases their chances of scoring a 3 or higher on Advanced Placement math exams in high school, according to a study released Thursday.
The study, by the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy, found that states that "track" a larger percentage of their students—in other words, place them in more-challenging courses based on their prior performance—also boast a larger proportion of students who score a 3 or better on AP exams, the level that many colleges consider the minimum to indicate mastery of college-level coursework. The study did not find that middle school tracking correlates with higher rates of AP coursetaking; only with test performance.
The findings are part of a paper that explores several facets of American education. (My colleague Liana Heitin writes about one of the other sections of the report, the one that looks at common-core reading and math, in an article posted today.)
For the study's author, Tom Loveless, a nagging question about 8th grade courses and AP performance revolved around the practice of tracking. He argues that American schools offer inadequate pipeline preparation for high achievement in high school, often because they're reluctant to engage in tracking, which has historically marginalized low-income students, and Hispanic and black students.
Tracking, and related forms of ability grouping, have been widely criticized as modern forms of segregation. At the high school level, they have often taken the form of placing students into vocational or college-preparatory programs based on wealth, race, perceived academic ability, and family educational background. Such practices sparked a "de-tracking" movement.
Despite concerns about tracking, however, Loveless argues that his data offer reason to consider the advantage it can confer on middle school students in attaining higher achievement in high school (and, presumably, better preparation for college).
"Just as star high school athletes do not walk onto a basketball court or football field for the first time as seniors in high school, successful AP calculus students do not encounter advanced mathematics for the first time in 12th grade," Loveless writes.
The Overlap of Higher Level Coursework and AP Performance
Loveless combines data about states' tracking practices that are drawn from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and data about states' AP participation and performance drawn from the College Board. He examines data about the cohort of students who were 8th graders in 2009 and graduated from high school in 2013.
Utah demonstrates the correlations that Loveless writes about. Based on NAEP information, Utah is one of the states with the biggest share of students tracked into coursework in middle school: 89 percent. (The average among states is 76 percent.) Utah also produces a larger-than-average proportion of students scoring a 3 or better on an AP test in high school: 70 percent, far above the national average of 58 percent. Utah's share of students who take an AP class, however, while still above average, is only 36 percent.
While the paper cautions that the data don't support the conclusion that tracking in middle school causes higher scores on AP tests in high school, it shows a correlation. And because the correlation holds true for black and Hispanic students, Loveless urges policymakers to reconsider their opposition to tracking.
"If we are serious about expanding opportunity, and serious about increasing the numbers of students of color who not only take AP courses but also score extraordinarily well on AP tests, policymakers need to take another look at strategies for nurturing academic talent in middle schools," the paper says. "Long condemned by political opponents, tracking has been overlooked as a potential tool for promoting equity."
Get High School & Beyond posts delivered to your inbox as soon as they're published. Sign up here. Also, follow @cgewertz for news and analysis of issues that shape adolescents' preparation for work and higher education.
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If you suspect you have stones, visit your primary care provider or urologist.
If you've been diagnosed with stones and would like to be seen in the Metabolic Stone Clinic, please call (608) 263-4757.
A lack of fluids contributes to an increased risk for any type of kidney stone. Two liters (quarts) of urine output in a 24-hour period is considered a minimum for stone prevention for most individuals. A better goal is two and one-half to three liters or more of urine per day, every day.
Because some body water is lost through our skin, especially in hot weather or during physically strenuous activities, we need to ingest more fluids than we can expect to excrete as urine. In order to put out at least two liters of urine per day, for example, two and one-half liters or more must be consumed. In order to put out three liters of urine per day, at least three and one-half liters of fluids should be consumed. It is important to distribute fluid intake throughout the day, including at bedtime, for maximum stone prevention.
Urine is formed in the kidneys throughout the day and night. Keeping the urine that is produced as dilute as possible is the key to avoiding urine supersaturation and stone formation. Any type of beverage will count toward your fluid intake. This includes water, juice, milk, tea (provided you are not advised to reduce your oxalate intake), coffee, soda and any other beverage. It is best to avoid high-sugar, high-caloric beverages and to steer toward water and reduced-calorie fruit juices and sodas. Tomato and vegetable juices should be reduced-sodium in order to avoid excessive sodium intake.
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Flu Season Returns: Tips to Avoid the Flu
February 10, 2011 — With reports showing widespread influenza cases around the state and at the UW Student Health Service, the University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Department of Health encourage residents to take common-sense precautions to avoid getting ill or spreading the flu to others.
Since the first case was reported Jan. 21, UW Student Health Service reports treating one or two patients per day showing influenza-like systems. Influenza (flu) is a contagious respiratory illness caused by a virus. Symptoms include fever, headache, extreme tiredness, dry cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose and muscle aches. Influenza can cause severe illness and complications, particularly among older people.
UW's Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Department suggests basic measures that can help slow or prevent the spread of influenza: Covering your mouth and nose with your sleeve or a tissue when you sneeze and cough; frequently washing your hands 20 seconds with soap and water or alcohol hand cleaners; avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth; avoiding people who are ill; and staying home from work, school, day care and errands when you are ill.
Located in Room 303 of Merica Hall, EHS is providing hand sanitizer at no cost, while supplies last. Two-liter bottles of hand sanitizer are available for university work areas.
EHS recommends placing the containers in conference rooms, meeting rooms, reception locations and other gathering areas. Pocket-sized hand sanitizers are available at the Wyoming Union information desk, the Student Health Service and the EHS department. Call the department at 766-3277 or visit http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/campus-safety/influenza-information/index.html.
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CALCIUM BALANCE: DIETARY INTAKE
There is strong evidence showing that consumption of various foods and drugs and excessive consumption of others change the PH of the blood. Some make the blood more acidic and others more basic. When the blood is made more acidic, the body responds by releasing calcium, which is basic on the PH scale, from its stores in the bones in order to buffer the acid-load.
Some acid can be buffered by ingesting more calcium, especially before or with the acidifying food or drug. The problem with this practice is that the additional calcium has to eventually be processed out of the blood by the kidneys. And excessive calcium moving through the kidneys can lead to kidney stones, which tend to cause tremendous pain and require surgery to remove. So the best advice may be to avoid supplements (unless prescribed by one’s doctor) and instead rely on whole foods to provide what your body needs. Remember that the category of whole foods that are shown to be the healthiest to ingest are green vegetables, legumes, fruits, other vegetables, and so on, with these first 4 being considered the best for your body in both an immediate and long-term sense. Note also that the more of these foods you eat, the less room there is for less-healthy, more-acidifying foods.
So what are the foods and drugs that acidify the blood? Excessive intake of sodium, caffeine, supplemental Vitamin A, isolated protein powders, excessive animal protein, alcohol, sugar, and heavily-processed foods. (In addition, nicotine such as from cigarettes can inhibit calcium re-absorption in the body.) For all of these, the less one intakes, the less likely one is to require calcium supplementation and/or lose calcium from the bones. Insofar as your bones and kidneys are concerned, when faced with a choice between one of the above “acidifying” items and an “alkalizing” food from the previous list, pick the alkalizing one.
For more on the Author, Sebastian Grubb, visit his ‘Movers’ page!
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Gilden, Donald H. MD
Dr. Gilden is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver.
WEST NILE STORY BY DICKSON DESPOMMIER 134 Pages (PAPERBACK) • APPLE TREES PRODUCTIONS 2001
WEST NILE STORY, a timely book by Dickson Despommier, PhD, Professor of Public Health and Microbiology at Columbia University, describes the two West Nile virus (WNV) epidemics in New York City in the summer of 1999.
The first few pages of the book are reminiscent of past articles by Berton Roueche published in The New Yorker. Each story always began with the description of a mysterious illness and often deaths of multiple people. This led to a detective-like approach of clinicians and scientists who ferreted out the cause of disease, usually an infectious agent or toxin. Many of those articles were published in an extraordinarily enjoyable book entitled Eleven Blue Men and Other Narratives of Medical Detection, published by Little, Brown in 1953.
Figure. At press tim...Image Tools
Like Roueche, Dr. Despommier opens West Nile Story with the clinical features of the illness and then chronicles the detective work that followed. This required epidemiological statistics of human deaths as well as information on birds that were dying from WNV infection.
OUTBREAK IN 1999
West Nile Story details the 1999 outbreak of encephalitis in New York City that affected 65 people, most over age 50 years, six of whom died. There were also four deaths in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in 2000, and five more deaths in states along the East coast of the United States in 2001. The epidemic also affected birds, particularly crows.
Experts in infectious disease analysis initially attributed the disease to St. Louis encephalitis virus. But rapid and more accurate work by Dr. Ian Lipkin, a neurologist and virologist formerly at the University of California-Irvine School of Medicine, and now at the Columbia University School of Public Health in New York City, identified the virus as WNV, a member of the genetically-related family of flaviviruses. “Flavi” means “yellow” – the most well-known member of this family is the virus that causes yellow fever.
Shortly after the human deaths caused by WNV, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta recognized that the same WNV was killing hundreds of birds in the New York City area. Dr. Despommier explains how the hot dry climate in New York City in 1999 drove birds to the Bronx River section of the city, where the displaced birds encountered WNV-infected mosquitoes.
Figure. West Nile St...Image Tools
Birds are intermediate hosts for the virus, between mosquitoes and humans. After birds began to die from WNV, the mosquitoes switched to humans for their blood meal. Most cases of WNV encephalitis were based in Queens, a borough of about two million people, including 400,000 over age 60. Most WNV deaths were in elderly individuals, who are most susceptible to WNV infection.
GENESIS OF VIRUS
Dr. Despommier provides a clear, easy-to-read description of WNV and its genesis. WNV is a single-stranded RNA virus that was first identified in the West Nile district of Uganda in 1937. Since its discovery in Africa, WNV has been found in many other regions, including the Middle East, Europe, Russia, India, Indonesia, and most recently North America.
In the book, Dr. Despommier points out that virus replication has been shown to be slower in colder temperatures and accelerated at higher temperatures. As WNV infection increases in a population, its host and geographic range are likely to change. Thus, the author writes, it will be important to identify the species of mosquito that carries WNV and to work toward eradicating that species in particular.
Ultimately, 1,900 people in New York City were infected with WNV, although only a few became ill. A particularly interesting observation is that WNV can be transmitted among crows without a mosquito as the intermediary.
The crows are thought to be the predominant bird infected because they are highly social and are likely to live around residential areas. Although the geographical origin of the WNV that caused disease in New York City in 1999 is uncertain, sequence analysis showed that the strain in North America is closely related to other human epidemic strains isolated from Israel, Romania, Russia, and France.
FOCUS ON MOLECULAR PATHOGENESIS
The worldwide AIDS epidemic led to rapid intense research on HIV that resulted in more knowledge about the molecular pathogenesis of HIV than is known for any other virus. If West Nile virus infection continues to spread as it has, we can expect that research on its molecular pathogenesis will also be concentrated and speedy. Fortunately, most West Nile virus infections in humans are subclinical and do not cause encephalitis.
Because West Nile virus infection spread to the central and western part of the United States in the summer of 2002, and most recently was incriminated as a cause of encephalitis in blood transplant recipients, laypeople, as well as physicians, have become increasingly attentive to new outbreaks of disease in animals and humans.
While this book will interest clinicians, virologists, and epidemiologists primarily, the informed layperson will also enjoy it, and all readers will learn a great deal. The neurologist who curls up with this book for a few evenings (it can be read in about two hours) is likely to find other family members doing the same soon enough.
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|Student Learning Outcomes -|
- A successful student will write original songs and compositions using manuscript software at a MIDI/audio workstation.
- A successful student will create original arrangements of contemporary classical and popular music.
|Description - |
|Beginning composing and arranging with Avid Sibelius notation software. Integrate Sibelius with Pro Tools, MIDI virtual instruments and Reason. Traditional and contemporary orchestration techniques with MIDI score editing. Analyze scores from a variety of styles including classical, pop, jazz, R&B and hip hop. Learn to write basic lead sheets with lyrics using either notation or guitar tab. Compose arrangements for small ensembles all the way to large orchestral scores. Recommended for anyone considering a career in music, or songwriters who want to publish their music. Prior musical training is not required and there are no stylistic restrictions.|
|Course Objectives - |
|The student will be able to: |
- Compare and contrast the basic principles of music notation.
- Write original songs and compositions using manuscript software at a MIDI/audio workstation.
- Define and discuss the aesthetic qualities of music using contemporary media.
- Create original arrangements of contemporary classical and popular music.
|Special Facilities and/or Equipment - |
- When taught on campus:
- 30 Macintosh computers with MIDI keyboards.
- Video projector and screen.
- 30 Pro Tools software installs.
- 30 Reason software installs.
- 30 Sibelius software installs
- When taught via Foothill Global Access:
- on-going access to computer with Email software and capabilities.
- Email address.
- Java-script enabled internet browsing software.
|Course Content (Body of knowledge) - |
- Study and analysis of notational techniques and instrumentation
- Input of notes, rests, rhythms; use of multi-voices; lyrics; chord symbols, etc. (Lec)
- Introduction to basic principles of acoustic instruments and families of the traditional orchestra, transpositions. (Lec)
- The use of multitimbral synthesizers and samples to reference orchestral instruments and ideas. (Lec)
- The basics of musical composition and arranging and their application in various styles and genres.
- Contemporary classical music (post - Stravinsky). (Lec)
- Traditional classical music (pre - Stravinsky). (Lec)
- Contemporary and traditional jazz. (Lec)
- Salsa and latin jazz styles and concepts. (Lec)
- Arranging and composing for different size ensembles with varying orchestrations. (Lec)
|Methods of Evaluation - |
- Written musical assignments that compare/contrast compositional techniques using digital notation.
- Preparing original compositions and/or arrangements using digital notation.
- Graded lab assignments that demonstrate defined skills in the operation of digital notation software.
|Representative Text(s) - |
|Amaya, Jenny. Sibelius 101, MA: Avid, 2014. |
|Disciplines - |
|Commercial Music |
|Method of Instruction - |
- Lecture presentations and classroom discussion of the techniques for composing and arranging music with Sibelius.
- In-class viewing of historically significant scores followed by instructor-guided interpretation and analysis.
- Presentations of major orchestral recordings followed by in-class discussion and evaluation.
- Demonstration of techniques for printing scores that meet industry standards.
|Lab Content - |
|Lab content includes font selection, dynamic placement, print formatting as well as data and sample rate encoding for audio and video, web design for promotion, logo design, copyright registration, service mark searches, sample clearance searches, .mp3 tag editing, creating sample podcasts, etc. |
|Types and/or Examples of Required Reading, Writing and Outside of Class Assignments - |
- Written critiques and analyses of musical compositions.
- Compare and contrast musical notation from different styles and eras.
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DIRCA PALUSTRIS.--Leather Wood. North America, 1750. A much-branched
bush, of quite a tree-like character, but rarely more than 3 feet high.
To the Daphnes it is nearly allied, and is close in resemblance; but
there is a curious yellowish hue pervading the whole plant. The flowers
are produced on the naked shoots in April, and are rendered conspicuous
by reason of the pendent yellow stamens. They are borne in terminal
clusters of three or four together. It delights to grow in a cool,
moist soil, indeed it is only when so situated that the Leather Wood
can be seen in a really thriving condition.
Other D Tree Species
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Richard II was thrust onto the throne at the very early age of ten, when his grandfather, the much-revered King Edward III, died in 1377. Richard's father was also named Edward, and was known as the "Black Prince"; a promising, warlike and beloved heir to the throne, he unfortunately died the year before the "old king" Edward III, leaving his son Richard to inherit the kingdom the following year. Richard was thus left with very large shoes to fill. His ascension at an early age meant that he grew up as a ruler, and, spoiled by power (at least according to Shakespeare), allowed himself to become reliant upon influential advisors. At several points in Richard II, he is compared unfavorably to both his illustrious grandfather and his tragically short-lived father.
Richard's father was the oldest son of King Edward III, and the rigid English laws of succession meant that the oldest son of the king's oldest son must inherit the crown; thus, young Richard became ruler at ten. However, the Black Prince had six younger brothers, several of whom figure importantly in Richard II. One is John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. He is, obviously, the uncle of Richard II; his son, Henry Bolingbroke, who eventually becomes the usurper of the throne, is therefore Richard's cousin and also a grandson of Edward III. A younger brother of the Black Prince is Edmund of Langley, Duke of York. York is hence Gaunt's brother and Richard's uncle, and his son, the Duke of Aumerle, is a cousin to both Richard and Henry Bolingbroke.
A third brother to the Black Prince was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. He died under mysterious circumstances shortly before the time at which Richard II takes place. This is the crime for which Gloucester's widow asks John of Gaunt to take revenge in Richard II, when she protests that "One vial full of Edward's sacred blood / ...Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt" (I.ii.17-19). King Richard himself, as well as a number of other noblemen both inside and outside of the royal family, were either active or passive participants in Gloucester's death; it seems that it was Richard himself who gave the order for his execution. Although no one dares to openly acknowledge the king's complicity, this death haunts the play and symbolically seems to both justify and foreshadow Richard's downfall.
The intra-familial conflicts in this play lay the groundwork for what will, in later years, escalate into a monumental struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster. This conflict will, famously, come to be called "the War of the Roses" (after the symbols of each house -- one a white rose, one a red). John of Gaunt, the uncle of Richard II, is the Duke of Lancaster; therefore, his son Henry Bolingbroke (King Henry IV) and all his descendents will in later years be known as the Lancastrians, or the House of Lancaster. There will be strife between this line of descent and the descendants of Gaunt's brother Edmund, Duke of York--whose house will be known as the house of York. Shakespeare has already chronicled these struggles in his first history tetralogy, Henry VI, Parts 1-3 and Richard III. The conflict will not be laid to rest until (as Shakespeare documents at the end of Richard III) a son of the house of Lancaster marries a daughter of the house of York, and, as Henry VII, founds the Tudor dynasty--the one which was still reigning in Shakespeare's time, and to which Queen Elizabeth, the ruler at the time this play was written, belonged.
I've recently read Richard II for my University course, here are my thoughts!
4 out of 4 people found this helpful
I just finished King Richard II as part of goal to read all of Shakespeare by his 450th birthday.
2 out of 7 people found this helpful
I've recently seen an RSC production of Richard II and noticed that instead of being killed by Lord Exton Richard was instead killed by Rutland. Can anyone think of explanation for this? I was thinking that the actor playing Exton may have been incapable of playing the part on that night so the actor playing Rutland took over, but there was a clear recognition between the two after the murder so surely another actor would have played the part if this was the case?
5 out of 5 people found this helpful
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An article in Science in which the authors conclude a review of the irredeemably damaging impacts of mountaintop removal mining with a call for policymakers to stop permitting this practice is a good example of prominent scientists using their expertise to play a much-needed role as citizens. There are many potential avenues for influential science citizenship, but the community needs to be creative and skillful about it.
Post by Rick Piltz
In his January 13 post at Science Progress (“When Scientists Speak Out: The Power of a Communications Plan”) Chris Mooney writes (excerpt here; read the full post):
It is one of the most dramatic human assaults on the natural landscape imaginable. In so-called “mountaintop removal mining,” or “MTR”, companies clear away forests near the tops of mountain peaks, and then use explosives and heavy machinery to literally remove the mountain’s cap and expose and harvest the coal beneath it. As opposed to underground coal mining, where the chief toll is to human health, you might think of MTR as coal mining at high altitude—where the chief toll is to the environment. What was once mountain, now blasted off, becomes “valley fill”: tumbling down into forests below, and frequently choking streams with dust and rock.
Not surprisingly, environmentalists detest MTR, and have been outraged to watch it gain momentum thanks to regulatory policy changes made by the Bush administration. In fact, greens aren’t very happy with the Obama administration’s environmental regulators on this topic, either. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently granted a permit for another mountaintop mine in West Virginia, arguing that the environmental impacts of the project would be adequately mitigated.
But now, a group of prominent environmental scientists are lending their expertise to the case against MTR and, further, are questioning the very idea that mitigation of its damaging impacts is possible—or in other words, whether there is any such thing as a “mild” or “safe” mountaintop removal. In a recent “Policy Forum” article in the journal Science, a team of twelve environmental researchers survey MTR’s many nasty effects, which range from the destruction of ecosystems and the attendant reduction in biodiversity and species endangerment, to stream pollution, fish deformation, the befouling and dangerous pollution of human drinking systems, the increased risk of flooding, and so forth. Then, at the end of the paper, the scientists step beyond the mere “facts” of the case to denounce MTR in uncompromising terms, calling for policy changes to prevent its further use. What started out as pure science became, for these researchers, a clarion call to action:
Clearly, current attempts to regulate MTM/VF [“mountaintop removal mining with valley fills”] practices are inadequate. Mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for losses. Considering environmental impacts of MTM/VF, in combination with evidence that the health of people living in surface-mining regions of the central Appalachians is compromised by mining activities, we conclude that MTM/VF permits should not be granted unless new methods can be subjected to rigorous peer review and shown to remedy these problems. Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science. The United States should take leadership on these issues, particularly since surface mining in many developing countries is expected to grow extensively.
The authors of the Science article on mountaintopp removal also took their case to the National Press Club. Mooney writes:
… [T]here can be little doubt that, in part because it is so outspoken and so direct, the Science paper has had a major media impact. Indeed, the paper has put the Obama EPA in the hot seat: On the one hand, the agency seemed to embrace the latest findings (for how could it argue with the best available science?); on the other, it had just let another MTR permit go through. It suddenly seemed caught in an embarrassing contradiction.
(Chris Mooney is the author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”)
Jim Hansen has spoken out and joined protestors in opposition to mountaintop removal, and to allowing any more coal-fired power plants to be built. From our June 25, 2009, post (“Jim Hansen’s statements at Coal River Mountain protest against mountaintop removal”):
“We must have a moratorium on new coal plants and phase out existing ones within the next 20 years.” said NASA climate scientist James Hansen at a June 23 rally in West Virginia protesting mountaintop removal for coal mining. “Coal from mountaintop removal provides only 7% of United States coal, less than the amount of coal that we export.” At the time he was arrested, Dr. Hansen was reading a Declaration of the protestors that begins: “When, in the course of their lives, people find that they are being abused by those in position of power, and their children and their children’s future are being damaged by those in power, it is the right of the people, and their sacred duty, to resist.” …
“Local pollution effects and regional environmental destruction should be enough to stop the practice of mountaintop removal,” Dr. Hansen says in comments on his Columbia University web site accompanying the West Virginia statements. “The bigger picture, including climate change, makes it clear that mountaintop removal, providing only 7 percent of United States coal, makes no strategic sense whatever….There has to be some leadership from the top. We cannot continue to give President Obama a pass on this much longer. On the other hand, he needs broad support in order to do what is right….”
Whether or not one chooses to be part of a protest demonstration, I believe the climate and environmental science community has an essential role to play in setting the record straight and influencing public discourse that goes beyond providing good science education, beyond contributing to the peer-reviewed literature, and beyond developing the IPCC and other scientific assessment reports – all of which are bedrock intellectual contributions, of course. It also includes intervening directly, in a citizen-scientist capacity – by which I mean, when you have a contribution to make, speaking as an advocate to policymakers and fellow citizens explicitly on the basis of bringing scientific expertise to the discussion—to address policy and societal implications of scientific understanding. It includes helping to keep the discussion honest by calling down high-level public officials and operatives of the global warming disinformation campaign when they misrepresent scientific evidence – to peform an integrity watchdog function. There are some outstanding exceptions, but I believe that, overall, the science community has underperformed in its citizen-scientist role, and the results are all too apparent.
I discussed this in an earlier post (“An eminent climate scientist working to hold government officials accountable”), excerpted here:
In a column in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists online (“Reflections on the U.N. climate change negotiations in Bali”), Richard C. J. Somerville recalls U.S. atmospheric scientist F. Sherwood Rowland, who would later share the Nobel Prize in chemistry, saying to a journalist in frustration at the slow pace of government action to deal with stratospheric ozone depletion, “What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true!” …
There is a divergence of views in the climate science community on this issue of the appropriate role of scientific expertise vis-a-vis the practice of citizenship—where citizenship involves taking a position on issues requiring policy decisionmaking, i.e., advising policymakers and the public on the scientist’s expertise-based view of the implications of current scientific understanding—and not speaking simply in the language of natural science.
Andy Revkin of the New York Times, in his DotEarth blog, touched on this divergence in a post focused on Somerville (“The Road from Climate Science to Climate Advocacy”). Revkin wrote:
Richard C. J. Somerville, a climatologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography near San Diego, is one of a growing array of scientists who have chosen to move beyond studying heat transfer and cloud physics and take on the role of activist: prodding society to move aggressively to cut greenhouse gases….
“For me, and maybe for many, I think that ‘going public’ and making a statement as an individual, who is also a climate expert, is simply a next logical step,” Dr. Somerville said.
“After all, many politicians have said that scientists should be heard from more. As long as we are always at pains to make clear that we are speaking only as individuals, not on behalf of our employers or other organizations, then I think we are just behaving as good citizens.”
But Revkin notes:
Other scientists disagree with this kind of activism, most notably Susan Solomon, who was the co-leader of the 2007 I.P.C.C. assessment of climate trends. In an email exchange on the general issue of scientists and policy debate last weekend (just before she flew to Antarctica), she said: “If we as scientists go beyond what we know into our personal opinions and values, we begin to engage in the same sort of personal speculation masquerading as authoritative that we dislike when it is done by the skeptics.”
…[I]t seems inadequate to speak in terms of a dichotomy between “what we know,” on the one hand, and “personal opinions” and “personal speculation,” on the other, as though there were no intellectual terrain between “knowing” something with, say, 95 percent confidence, and being reduced to something like speculative, amateurish punditry. It’s as though scientists, including those who write the IPCC assesssments, have nothing to offer to an actual dialogue with policymakers in terms of policymakers’ decisionmaking jurisdiction.
On the contrary, what policymakers need from the climate science community does not end with technical reports on the current state of scientific understanding. They also need scientists’ synthesis of and expert judgments about the state of knowledge in terms of its implications for policymaking and societal decisionmaking. Policymakers need scientists to advise them in the context of assessing and managing the risks of climate change, and on the implications of their decisions about adaptation and mitigation response strategies. …
The problem of global climatic disruption is far too serious to think that society is well-served by a separation between scientists and decisionmaking—with scientists speaking only the language of “what we know” and failing to speak of “here are what we see as the implications for your decisionmaking of what we know, and the implications for society of your actions.” …
Whenever I am asked the “What can I do?” question, I never give some stock answer like “write a letter to the editor” or “write a letter to Congress.” (Nothing against letters, letters are good.) My response is, essentially, develop yourself as a citizen. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to how to make your contribution. There are many potential ways to take action, depending on the circumstances. Think creatively about what you bring to the table and how to put it to use.
That’s a subject for future posting.
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On this Columbus Day I have been thinking about what Christopher Columbus did, and sometimes I have wondered what would have happened if he didn’t do it. Obviously, at some point someone would have strayed too far, and a European would have found the Americas. Perhaps it would have been a hundred or more years later, and that would have changed history in many ways.
Some people have blamed Columbus for things that came after his discovery. We talk about pre-Columbian Art, how the Americas were a paradise before the white man corrupted and ruined it, and so on. These perspectives are necessary in the conversation about Columbus, and there is no argument here because many of the changes that followed his arrival on San Salvador in the Bahamas were not favorable to the Native Americans who lived here, but there is no changing the past.
No matter how you may feel about him, there is also no disputing that what Columbus did changed the world forever. As I think about him, I believe that we need a new Columbus – now more than ever. We need someone to light a fire, to inspire us to make exploration of space by humans not just a far away possibility, not something seen in movies or on TV; we need a new Columbus and we need him now.
Can you imagine some daring explorer with a dream appearing before President Obama and Mrs. Obama at a White House dinner? Just as Columbus once wooed King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain with his vision, this explorer would hold up some handheld device and shoot a projection of his planned voyage on the wall. He or she would explain how the trip to Mars would go, that there would be indeed be a wealth of reasons to fund the expedition, and that it should happen within Mr. Obama’s presidency, not some future time when his children’s children might witness it.
Maybe I am wrong, but I think the technology is out there. I think we need the torch to be lit by someone with a passion, just as Columbus had, to search and explore and take a risk. Yes, a mission to Mars would be risky for humans, but that has never stopped us before. Humans have climbed the highest mountains, gone down deep under the blue sea, and have walked on the moon. Risk has not stopped us before and should not stop us now.
What would a trip to Mars do for us, you might ask? Well, there is a need for a game plan for humans down the road. We need a place to which we can take ourselves when earth becomes more inhospitable. Humans also require space to roam and wander, and think of Mars as not only a place to live someday but also as the ultimate tourist destination. Also, now that we know how to live responsibly and not ruin an environment, we can view Mars as the pristine place where we can put into action all we have learned from our mistakes.
Right now we need someone to step up and be willing to boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before. We need a president who will listen and take the chance, and we need private funding to get the spaceship built as soon as possible. Most of all, we need a new Columbus to come forward and lead us into a new tomorrow.
Photo Credit: cathdal.orgPowered by Sidelines
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When it comes to male fertility, length matters—the length between the scrotum and anus, that is. New research suggests that measuring a man’s “anogenital distance,” or AGD, is a fast, low-tech, relatively accurate method of getting an idea of the quality of a man’s sperm.
In a new study, University of Rochester professor Shanna Swan and her colleagues broke out the measuring tape and assessed the anus-to-scrotum distance of 126 men born in 1988 or later. The men whose AGD’s were shorter than the average of two inches were 7.3 times more likely to have low sperm counts than their more well-endowed…er, well-distanced, brethren. These men with shorter AGD’s also had low sperm motility and poor sperm morphology.
So why on Earth, you’re wondering, would this be the case?
As DISCOVER said in the 2008 article The Dirty Truth About Plastics, “Biologists recognize a reduction in the length between the anus and the sex organ as an external marker of feminization, easily measured because it is typically twice as long in males as in females.” This reduction in AGD “may be caused by exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals” in the womb; Swan’s previous research specifically implicated prenatal exposure to phthalates, a commonly-used chemical in plastics, shampoos, paints, and pesticides.
Noting that nearly a fourth of the men in the study had low sperm counts, Swan urges young men to whip out the rulers and measure themselves. “It’s non-invasive and anybody can do it,” she says. We’re willing to bet she’s at least half right.
DISCOVER: The Dirty Truth About Plastics
Discoblog: Vatican Science: Pope Blames Male Infertility on…the Pill
Discoblog: Warning All Competitive Male Cyclists: Less than 5% of Your Sperm May Be Normal
80beats: Older Fathers’ Sperm May Produce Children With Slightly Lower IQs
80beats: Men Have a Biological Clock, Too
Image: flickr / The Welsh Poppy
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The first day of class is a chance to set the tone for a successful learning experience. We are often concerned with our students motivation and study habits, and the first day of class is an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a successful academic term.
There are many things that can and probably should take place on the first day:
- Get to know each other. Of course you want to know your students and have them know each other. Depending on the size of your class, you might have each student introduce themselves by sharing something relevant to your content, or use small groups to discuss a problem or concept you will be exploring. You might use a questionnaire to get a better sense of their interests and prior knowledge.
- Set the tone. If you want student participation in a course, it’s easier when you get them talking from the beginning. If you are going to regularly incorporate groups, you can start with an introductory group activity. Asking students to share what they already know about your content area, and what questions they hope to answer, is an easy way to find out about their preconceptions and get them participating.
- Set expectations. The first day is also an ideal time to start talking to students about what it takes for them to be successful in your course. Don’t presume that they know how to study and learn in your course. You might spend some time asking them and explaining what good study habits look like for your course.
- Review the course structure. Many students do not read the syllabus because they think the instructor will review the important parts for them on the first day of class. Why not give a syllabus quiz instead of using class time to review the syllabus? Or, only address specific questions from students. This also sets the precedent that they are responsible for their share of the work.
- Motivate students. You are likely teaching your course because you are passionate and excited about your content area. Your students may not walk in the door with the same level of excitement. It’s a good idea to let students know what they will get out of the course, and to start right off the bat with an exciting experiment or an exciting topic.
- Start learning. In a 10-week quarter system especially, you don’t want to waste the first day of class. Students are always hesitant to get started but you don’t want them leaving your class without having felt that they learned something.
Easing Students into Your Class
It is often difficult to remember what it was like to be a newcomer to your discipline. Yet students walk in the door to our classrooms each quarter as newcomers, with very little prior knowledge about our subject matter. Research about information processing and learning indicates that new information is retained better if it is tied to existing knowledge. When we learn new information, we fit it into a structure of knowledge that already exists in our heads. If there is little or no structure, it is difficult to correctly retain that information.
Consider beginning your class in a way that allows students to begin to develop a structure, however simple, upon which to ‘fit’ the information they will learn during the quarter. You might ask questions about what students already know, discuss a common misconception, demonstrate an everyday example, or refresh their memory about concepts and knowledge from prior coursework. Whatever you do, help ease students into your course the first few weeks by providing a conceptual structure they can build upon.
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Help support New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more all for only $19.99...
Archbishop of Armagh, head of the Confederates of Kilkenny, b. 1580; d. on Trinity Island in Lough Erne. He first conceived the idea of forming this national movement into a regular organization. He convened a provincial synod at Kells early in March, 1642, in which the bishops declared the war undertaken by the Irish people for their king, religion, and country to be just and lawful. The following May (1642) he convened a national synod, consisting of prelates and civil lords, at Kilkenny. After having ratified their former declaration, they framed an oath of association to be taken by all their adherents, binding them to maintain the fundamental laws of Ireland, the free exercise of religion, and true allegiance to Charles I. Orders were issued to levy men and raise money; to establish a mint and an official printing press; to take the duty off such foreign imports as wheat and corn, lead, iron, arms and ammunition; the bishops and clergy should pay a certain sum for national purposes out of the ecclesiastical revenues that had come back into their possession; and agents should be sent to Catholic courts to solicit aid. They gave letters of credit and chartered some light vessels that were to fly the Confederate colors and protect the coast, and they drafted a remonstrance to the king declaring their loyalty and protesting against the acts of tyranny, injustice, and intolerance of the Puritan lord justices and Parliament of Dublin in confiscating Catholic lands and putting a ban on Catholic school-teachers. The assembly lasted until 9 January, agreeing to meet 20 May following. The seal of the Confederation bore in its centre a large cross rising out of a flaming heart, above were the wings of a dove, on the left a harp, and on the right a crown; the legend read: Pro Deo, Rege, et Patria, Hiberni Unanimes.
Wherever the primate's partisans commanded, the Protestant bishops, ministers, and people were safe, and were even protected in the exercise of their own religious worship. Archbishop O'Reilly was, throughout the war and the terrible years that followed it, the soul and guide of the national party; he did his utmost to restrain the violence of the people, who would have wreaked vengeance on their persecutors had they been left to their own instincts at that crisis. He urged Sir Phelim O'Neile and Lord Iveagh to keep the armed multitudes in check and prevent a massacre and pillage of Protestants. Such salutary restraint produced the most happy results, for even the rudest of the northern chieftains respected him too much to violate his lessons of forbearance and charity. When the great chieftain, Owen Roe, was dying, he had himself taken to Ballinacorgy Castle, the residence of his brother-in-law Philip O'Reilly, where he was attended by Archbishop O'Reilly. Local tradition gives the ruined Abbey of the Holy Trinity, on an island a few miles from Ballinagorgy Castle, as his last resting place. In the same locality Archbishop O'Reilly was buried. The primate's signature is still to be seen in most of the manifestoes of the Confederation of Kilkenny as "Hugo Armacanus".
D'Alton, History of Ireland, III (Dublin, 1910); Gilbert, Hist. of the Irish Confederation and the War in Ireland, 1640-41 (7 vols., Dublin, 1882-91).
APA citation. (1911). Hugh O'Reilly. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11294b.htm
MLA citation. "Hugh O'Reilly." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11294b.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by William D. Neville.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster at newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.
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Renewable Energy Research Projects
Combined Heat and Power
This combined heat and power (CHP) project will adapt a modern automotive engine to run on natural gas and then improve its fuel efficiency by about 10 percent. The engine will be combined with components to enable cogeneration, chiller,and heat pump. The engine improvements will make the system more economical and will enable growth of the emission-compliant CHP market.
This combined heat and power (CHP) project will develop and demonstrate an innovative, industrial boiler burner energy system technology (BBEST). The goal is to reduce firetube boiler emissions to levels below 9 parts per million (ppm) at 3 percent oxygen (O2) to meet California's emissions regulations. The project will also demonstrate an 82 percent overall efficiency by minimizing heat losses.
Renewable Energy Technologies
This solar technology project will develop and demonstrate a concentrating PV system with integrated active micro-inverters and an optional daylighting system for commercial applications. The goal is to achieve a levelized cost of electricity of about 15 cents per kilowatt-hour for concentrating PV systems manufactured in volume production.
Renewable Energy Secure Communities
This renewable energy secure community (RESCO) project will demonstrate a state-of-the art Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS) smart grid. The demonstration will address the integration issues for new wind power, large-scale energy storage, demand response, and solar thermal systems with the jail's existing solar photovoltaics, fuel cell cogeneration system, and energy efficiency initiatives.
This renewable energy secure community (RESCO) project will develop and demonstrate a model for the integration of mature renewable resources, efficiency measures, and demand response to prepare Sonoma County to advance the implementation of a locally-owned, cost-effective renewable portfolio.
Please also see our publications search page.
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Mastitis While Breast-Feeding - Treatment Overview
Mastitis will not go away without treatment. If you have mastitis symptoms, you may need to call your doctor today. Prompt treatment helps keep infection from rapidly getting worse and usually improves symptoms after about 2 days.
Treatment for mastitis usually includes:
- Oral antibiotics to destroy the bacteria causing the infection.
- Regularly emptying the breast well by breast-feeding or pumping breast milk. Adequate emptying of the affected breast helps prevent more bacteria from collecting in the breast and may shorten the duration of the infection.
You can safely continue breast-feeding your baby or pumping breast milk to feed your baby during illness and treatment. Your baby is the most efficient pump you have for emptying your breasts. Your breast milk is safe for your baby to drink, because any bacteria in your milk will be destroyed by the baby's digestive juices.
- Before breast-feeding your baby, place a warm, wet washcloth over the affected breast for about 15 minutes. Try this at least 3 times a day. This increases milk flow in the breast. Massaging the affected breast may also increase milk flow.
- If possible, continue breast-feeding on both sides. Ideally, start on the affected side-it's critical that you empty this breast thoroughly. If starting with the affected breast is too painful, try feeding your baby with your healthy breast first. Then, after your milk is flowing, breast-feed from the affected breast until it feels soft. Switch back to the healthy breast and breast-feed until your baby has finished.
- Pump or express milk from the affected breast if pain prevents you from breast-feeding. Nipple pain can be caused by the baby latching on to sore nipples. For more information on pumping or expressing breast milk, see the topic Breast-Feeding.
- Your baby may seem reluctant to nurse on your painful breast. This is not because your milk tastes strange, but more likely because your breast feels different and it is harder for your baby to nurse. Try expressing a little milk first. This will soften the breast and make it easier for your baby to latch on.
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The Importance Of Toys In A Child’s Development
What do you think the answer would be if you asked any child if his or her toys were important to them? Without a shadow of a doubt the resounding answer would be…YES.
We certainly thought so too when we were young enough to play with toys, right. When it’s our turn to buy them for our children, some of us might begin to question the relevance of toys in our child’s life.
We all have a favorite toy whose memories can still elicit a chuckle or a warm feeling inside from nice memories associated with the toy. Mine was a toy dog I had. I used to take it everywhere with me, pretending it was my own pet dog…I think I even tried feeding it!
Experts say that playing with toys is essential to a child’s development starting from as early as infancy. Toys like rattles, toy teethers, hanging mobiles and plastic chew key rings help babies connect all of their senses to objects.
Color and shape recognition, awareness of space, hand-eye coordination, and other vital motor sensory skills are exercised through playing with educational toys that were developed specifically to enhance those skills. There are also kids’ toys that enhance a child’s imagination and creativity. Some toys even teach them patience (puzzles) and reinforce the concept of hygiene (bath and tub toys).
Toy stamps and colorful beads may not seem like great toys, but they really enhance a young girl’s creativity and introduces her to the arts and crafts. For young boys, getting their own set of wheels can become such a bone of contention…getting their own bikes or toy cars is part of their pretend play to be like their just like their father.
Stuffed animals look cute and cuddly and can quite easily be dismissed as frivolous objects. These toys in fact are so much more than that though. Not only do they introduce young children to animals, these toys also give them a tactile exercise to explore textures. Some stuffed toys do make animal sounds when something is pressed or held by the child. This is a good start for a child to learn about sounds.
Toys are also vitally important in different stages of a child’s development. It is up to us parents to figure out which toys are appropriate for their child’s age as well as to decide that the toys are safe for our child’s use.
There are still many skills that a child can learn through playing with his educational toys, but one thing is for certain – the key player in his growth is still human interaction; with parents, siblings and other children.
The toy is important for very young children but they equally need social interaction. When they get bigger, they need toys to stimulate their imagination, but parents will always be most important playmates their kids can have.
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Coleman Randolph Hawkins (November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was the first important jazz musician to use the instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn". While Hawkins is most strongly associated with the swing music and big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s,
Lester Young, who was called "Pres", in a 1959 interview with The Jazz Review, said "As far as I'm concerned, I think Coleman Hawkins was the President first, right? As far as myself, I think I'm the second one." Miles Davis once said: "When I heard Hawk I learned to play ballads." Hawkins was nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean".
Hawkins was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri in 1904. Some out-of-date sources say 1901, but there is no evidence to prove an earlier date. He was named Coleman after his mother Cordelia's maiden name.
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Rare cave inscriptions
A cave with rare ancient inscriptions dating back to more than 10000 years has reportedly been discovered at Badungala in the PS division of Yakkalamulla in Galle. Archaeology officials say that the inscriptions date back to the Endera yugaya or the era when animals were domesticated .
They say similar cave inscriptions had been so far discovered in Alauwa, Ambilikanda and Mawanella. This is the first time that such a find has been reported from the South.
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Getting A List Of File Names Using VBA
If your macro needs to present a list of files for the user to choose from, the easiest approach is to use the GetOpenFileName method of the Application object. For example, the code below displays the standard File Open dialog box. If the user selects a file, the filename is stored in SelectedFile; if the user clicks Cancel, SelectedFile is equal to False.
Filter = "Excel files (*.xls), *.xls" Caption = "Select a File" SelectedFile = Application.GetOpenFilename(Filter, , Caption)
In some cases, however, you may want to get a list of all files in a particular directory. The VBA function below (GetFileList) accepts a DOS path and filespec as its argument, and returns a variant array that contains all of the filenames in that directory. If no matching files are found, the function returns False.
Function GetFileList(FileSpec As String) As Variant ' Returns an array of filenames that match FileSpec ' If no matching files are found, it returns False Dim FileArray() As Variant Dim FileCount As Integer Dim FileName As String On Error GoTo NoFilesFound FileCount = 0 FileName = Dir(FileSpec) If FileName = "" Then GoTo NoFilesFound ' Loop until no more matching files are found Do While FileName <> "" FileCount = FileCount + 1 ReDim Preserve FileArray(1 To FileCount) FileArray(FileCount) = FileName FileName = Dir() Loop GetFileList = FileArray Exit Function ' Error handler NoFilesFound: GetFileList = False End Function
The subroutine listed below demonstrates how to use this function. In this example, the filespec is passed to the GetFileList function and the result is stored in x. If x is an array, it means that matching files were found. A message box displays the number of files and the filenames are copied to column A in Sheet1. If x is not an array, it means that no matching files were found.
Sub test() Dim p As String, x As Variant p = "c:/msoffice/excel/library/*.xls" x = GetFileList(p) Select Case IsArray(x) Case True 'files found MsgBox UBound(x) Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A:A").Clear For i = LBound(x) To UBound(x) Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(i, 1).Value = x(i) Next i Case False 'no files found MsgBox "No matching files" End Select End Sub
Search for Tips
Browse Tips by Category
Needs tips? Here are two books, with nothing but tips:
Contains more than 200 useful tips and tricks for Excel 2007 | Other Excel 2007 books | Amazon link: John Walkenbach's Favorite Excel 2007 Tips & Tricks
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On May 5 Gorge area residents are invited to join with thousands of communities around the world to "connect the dots" between climate change and extreme weather conditions
People of all ages will gather at sites in fire ravaged Australia, drought stricken Texas, tornado wracked areas in the Midwest, Himalayan communities threatened by glacier melt and thousands of other locations to put a human face on climate change and demonstrate the urgent need for a shift away from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
"Our best and brightest scientists tell us that the burning of these fuels is emitting carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, which is trapping heat and causing extreme weather conditions throughout the planet," said Vicky Stifter, an event organizer. "Wildfires are fiercer, violent storms are more frequent and nations across the globe are setting all time high temperature records. We need to wake up to this reality and change course now…there is no time to waste."
Local actions will take place near the train tracks in Bingen and Hood River to demonstrate the link between proposed shipments of coal through the Gorge and climate change.
"Our kids will breathe coal dust here as it passes through on trains, and children worldwide will be harmed as it is burned in China and adds to the warming of our planet. We need to stop the trains, leave the coal in the ground and turn to clean, renewable energy now," said Katrinka Hibler, an organizer of the Bingen event.
Participants will meet at the "Park n' Ride" lots in Hood River (across from China Gorge) at 10:00 a.m. and in Bingen (just west of Hood River bridge) at 9 a.m. on May 5.
Those of all ages are welcome.
For more information visit climatedots.org
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(Last Updated on : 27/01/2012)
Knowledge of Mughal architecture during Akbar, as well as his thoughts and policies comes from the writings of Abul-Fazl
. Emperor Akbar
is universally acknowledged and distinguished as the greatest and most accomplished of the Mughal rulers in India. From Akbar's reign to the culmination of the Mughal Era, artistic yield on both, imperial and sub-imperial level, was closely associated with notions of state polity, religion and royalty. Akbar made umpteen contributions in the field of literature, art and architecture. The architectural expertise of Akbar can be witnessed from the several remarkable palaces and monuments built by him, during his entire regime. Mughal architecture during Akbar represents that unique blending of Persian architecture with the Indian style, yet not distinctly likeable to his Timurid ancestors.
The famous architectural achievements during his reign are the fortified-palace of Agra
, Fatehpur Sikri
in Agra, Jahangiri Mahal, Palace in Allahabad
, Fort in Ajmer, Jodha Bai Palace, House of Birbal
and his own magnificent tomb. The main feature of Mughal architecture during Akbar's era was the exquisite usage of carved patterns, together with the inlaid patterns with painted designs on the interior walls and ceilings.
Delhi, the traditional capital of north Indian Islamic rulers, had served as Akbar's capital as well until 1565, when he commenced his considerable plan of Agra Fort. This was followed by the construction of other forts in strategically important locations. In 1583, Akbar erected a fort at Allahabad, situated east of Agra in the fertile Gangetic plain, a response to widespread insurrections throughout eastern India two years earlier. Beside these, there exists his most admired palace at Fatehpur Sikri, the most renowned of his capitals, although not a fortified one.
, two palaces remain, reminiscent of Akbar, each constructed in stone. One is a trabeated structure, acknowledged as the Badshahi Mahal. In the Lahore Fort, Akbar's structures were replaced by subsequent rulers and in the Allahabad fort, only one of the Akbari structures remains well-preserved. This is also a Bavarian (pillared pavilion), situated in the centre of a courtyard. The first floor of this three-storied pillared structure bears a large central chamber, encircled by eight auxiliary ones and an encompassing veranda. Mughal architectures during Akbar, bearing such design had been used earlier at the Fatehpur Sikri palace too and appear to have been specifically intended for imperial use.
It was commenced in 1565 and completed in eight years, under the direction of Qasim Khan. Agra Fort
was intended to replace an older brick fort, hence Akbar directed Qasim Khan to construct a stone fortification that would possess unparalleled strength. Thousands of workers, many of them stone masons, were employed on the project. The red sandstone veneer, inlaid with white marble details, lends an aura of majesty to the massive Delhi Gate, Agra Fort's main entrance. The Fort's entire exterior, constructed with finer materials and crafted more scrupulously than any other Indian fort, imparts an overwhelming sense of the patron's power and the authentic sway of Akbar and his Mughal architecture.
Within the Agra Fort, the so-referred Jahangiri Mahal, is the most notable remaining Mughal architecture of Akbar's time. Overlooking the river, this palace was probably one of a series that originally lined the waterfront. Palaces closest to the water in later periods were reserved for the king and his chief queens. The use of particular rooms and courtyards still remains elusive to historians and indeed spaces that could serve multiple functions appear to have been archetypal in a Mughal Akbar's palace architecture.
In plan and elevation the exterior of this Jahangiri Mahal closely resembles the small bastioned appearing enclosure at Akbar's Ajmer palace. The principal fabric of the exterior is intricately carved red sandstone, trimmed with white marble. The primary entrance of the edifice opens onto a large central courtyard, flanked on its north and south sides by columned halls, whose red sandstone-bracketed supports are elaborately detailed. The interior walls, too, are ornately carved. Furthermore, the brackets of the Jahangiri Mahal possess wooden paradigms.
This fortified-palace was the most admirable achievements of Akbar's period. It displays a creativity and spontaneity denoting the beginning of a new era in the Mughal architecture. Typical of several Islamic palaces in Central Asia, the Jahangiri Mahal's interior is symmetrically arranged around a central courtyard; a second courtyard on the east overlooks the river. A number of ancillary chambers and passages lead off from the central courtyard. Among these on the north is a large chamber with a flat roof supported by serpentine brackets.
On the roof of this multi-stoned Jahangiri Mahal building is a small rectangular pavilion with a veranda on three of its sides, which are exquisitely carved brackets in the shape of peacocks. The attention to all details, not just the ground floor, underlines the extraordinary excellence of this palace. The design of a conventional representation of a bird is repeated in the borders of the palace. This pattern is introduced in the Mughal architecture of Akbar's period for the first time, contrary to the Quranic objection to living forms appearing in Islamic art. All the architectures of the Akbari period are remarkable for their animation which reflects the spirit of their glorious time, as in the case of the monumental gateway at Agra Fort.
Fort of Ajmer
Fort of Ajmer was another major example of Mughal architecture constructed by Emperor Akbar. Although a small structure, it is immensely strong in form and intention recalling in some respects, a Donjon (fortified central tower), having the perimeter of thick double walls being planned in such a manner as to make it apparently impenetrable. Yet in the centre of this solidly built fortification there is an open courtyard containing a large pillared hall, a construction in two stories. The whole structure is surrounded by a double colonnade with wide bracket capitals. It has a chamber in the interior and there is a room in each of the angles, the entire structure having been obviously so designed for the accommodation of the emperor when on tour. This graceful little palace with its enclosing walls is noteworthy of the spirit of the Mughal dynasty.
The Allahabad Fort is acknowledged as the largest construction built by Akbar during his entire regime, construction of which started in 1853. In its widest dimension, it measures almost 3000 feet across, which unfortunately, has been dismantled and shorn much of its architectural interest in modern times. Among the remains of Allahabad Fort, Akbar's Mughal architecture's former glory, one structure of significance identified as Zenana Palace, has been preserved and restored. Zenana Palace is actually a pavilion, constructed evidently for the royal quarters inside the fortress. The beauty of the design of this fortress lies in the arrangement of its pillars in the inner hall of the centre. These pillars have been designed in pairs, except at the corners of the building, when they are in groups of fours, so that from every point of view a wealthy and elegant perception is presented. Above this arcade rises a terraced roof contained within perforated ramparts surmounted by kiosks with lattice screens. This exceedingly well crafted architecture represents the magnificence and the growing wealth and power of Akbar's period.
Mughal architecture during Akbar, like Humayun
, was little involved with religious architecture, with the exception of the great Khanqah in Fatehpur Sikri. Akbar had built primarily forts and palaces, which reflects his concept of the Mughal state. Akbar also continued to build Char Baghs, initially introduced to India by Babur. The tomb he built for his father, Humayun, was the first to be established in such a garden. Such funereal settings, triggering visions of paradise, commences what will become a longstanding Mughal architectural concern.
Emperor Akbar had primarily constructed edifices in his capitals and also defensively at the major cities on the frontier of his domain, such as Allahabad. In this expanding Mughal Empire, architecture increasingly served as a symbol of Mughal presence, which was very much noticed in all the four corners of the country, unto which the Mughal emperor was momentous and influential enough to charm both Hindus and Muslims. As such the likes of - architecture of Nagaur
, architecture of Narnaul
, architecture of Jaunpur
, and architecture of eastern India, all during Akbar's reign, had gained sublime importance and spirit.
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Anales del Sistema Sanitario de Navarra
versión impresa ISSN 1137-6627
AVELLANEDA, A.; IZQUIERDO, M.; TORRENT-FARNELL, J. y RAMON, J.R.. Rare Diseases: chronic diseases that need a new approach. Anales Sis San Navarra [online]. 2007, vol.30, n.2, pp.177-190. ISSN 1137-6627.
The concept of Rare Diseases is relatively new. They are those processes " that can be mortal or to cause a chronic weakening of the patient and who, due to its little prevalence, require combined efforts to treat them. For indicative purposes, a little prevalence is considered when is lesser than 5 cases per 10,000 people in the Community". The existence of these diseases is closely tied with orphan drugs, meaning all drugs, prosthesis, biological agents or dietetic preparations destined to the treatment of a Rare Disease. Besides, it is necessary to add two factors more: 1. The Primary Attention physicians do not feel very motivated in their knowledge and 2. These diseases need a complex sociosanitary attention, habitually more expensive than chronic diseases. By all exposed the Rare Diseases appear like a universe that requires a new sociosanitary approach from the health system.
Palabras clave : Rare diseases; Orphan Drugs; Chronic Diseases; Sociosanitary Model; Quality of life.
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Rebuilding your working prototype
by: Jefferey Alan Wilson Sr.
"I Made it at TechShop-San Jose Ca."
Reconstructing a green solar smart home prototype.
An Introduction to Basic Model Making 101
I have been a 'Model Maker' my entire life. I am considered a 'Master Model Maker".
I have been to college for model making.
I had a business making forensic models for courtroom litigation support for attorneys.
So, here are some fundamentals about model making.
1). In industrial modeling making class they teach you there are 3 types of models.
(a). White color cardboard study models.
(b). Three color cardboard study models.
(c). Presentation scale models.
2). There are also, very sophisticated testing models, such as wind tunnel testing and of course hobbies level models.
3). I respectfully submit a new category: "working prototype models with Arduino boards or Smart Models'.
What makes a Master Model Maker?
A lot of common sense things, experience, and quality.
But there is one issue that you see very little on: What happens when you make a big mistake and mess-up your model?
This is the area where the master model maker really shines.
The model you see below is a three color cardboard study solar model with brass framing.
After I was done with real time solar studies I decided to upgrade the model to a investor presentation model.
The decision to use the original parts for the NEW model is part of what makes it sustainable. It saves material but also design time and labor. Several friends told me to start a new prototype. But I said no, the whole point of green is to infuse sustainability in everything we do.
The pictures below are:
-The solar model lighting up LEDs at night from batteries it charged during the day.
-The model during the day with real miniature solar panels charging batteries.
-A white color cardboard study model to be used as an addition into the final presentation model.
The next step was to pour a new foundation-OMG! I made a big mistake.
Step 1: Break down the model
1). I have already started to break down the model. The adhesives to hold the brass together have broken down and became brittle due to extreme heat and UV exposure to the sun. This model was originally a solar panel study model exposed to the sun all day during the summer.
2) You can see the small solar panels I used generate the radiation collection to the batteries.
3). On the top of the model you can see the mini circuit of the LED lights.
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Innovations in Near-Urban Agriculture: Can farming persist in the urban shadow?
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of
The Degree of Master of Science (planning)
By Nicolas Brunet
On this web page, we have placed the absract from the paper. The complete proposal can be downloaded here. (156K Word Document) (4,500 Words) Innovations in near-urban agriculture: Can farming persist in the urban shadow?
Over the last thirty to forty years, few Canadian provinces have attempted to resolve the issue of farmland loss on the urban fringe. In the 1970`s, the provinces of Quebec and British Columbia became the pioneers in creating provincial legislation to allow for agriculture to survive near cities. However, the effectiveness of these measures was not as predicted, and the destruction of prime farmland continues throughout Canada. More recently, the province of Ontario has taken aggressive measures to ensure the protection of agricultural land in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area surrounding Toronto. The proposed Greenbelt (Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, 2004) promises to save thousands of acres of land, but does not address the viability of farming in an increasingly urban area. Without the farmers there is not need to save the farmland. The purpose of this study is to create an inventory of innovative ideas for farmers faced with the pressure of the urban environment and make recommendation specific for this area. Through interviews with farmers and key informants, this study will attempt to gather valuable information on farming adaptations that have already occurred and assess what factors promote their viability. Comparisons will also be made with adaptive farming operations in the areas surrounding Montreal and Vancouver. These comparisons will help farmers understand the importance of local efforts and allow for an exchange of innovative programs across the country. These micro scale " grass roots" efforts are expected to make farming viable in the shadow of the city by increasing the contact between the consumer and the farmer, regaining the sense of community on the urban fringe, producing more per acre, and increased land stewardship through environmentally sound farming practices.
Search Our Site
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I am looking for a Python script that does the following:
- Uses a point (from a point shapefile) as the origin.
- Creates about 3 km line from point
- Based on an azimuth provided in the original point shapefile.
- Creates new entry in another shapefile with the new line
I imagine this involves trig, but I can't decide the best way to go about it.
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You will find Yemen in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, bordering on Saudi Arabia in the north and on Oman in the northeast. Towards the west and south it faces the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Apart from a narrow and hot coastal strip, Yemen is largely mountainous. Starting from the western coastal plain of Tihamah, soon mountains rise up steeply to form a rugged range of 3000 m and up. Yemens's highest mountain is found here: Jabal an Nabi Shu'ayb (3660 m), not far from the capital Sana'a, which itself is on a high plateau at 2300 m. Further east you will encounter more and increasingly arid highlands, with plateaus and peaks varying in height between 2000 and 3000 m, and gradually sloping down towards the north into the sand desert of the Rub'al Khali (Empty Quarter) in Saudi Arabia. Yemen has no permanent rivers, but you will come across wadi's (river beds) which are dry in summer.
Most hiking is done in the northwest of the country, among the fortified villages and agricultural terraces in the Haraz mountains, about 90 km west of Sana'a, from the village of Manakha. Another option is to head a bit further north for the relatively green province of Al Mahwit in the region around Jabal Maswar (3240 m), to Jabal Kawkaban (2800 m) and down into Wadi Badouqa. Not far from here you can explore the area around Jabal Shahara (2600 m) with its famous historical stone bridge, and more terraced slopes and villages perched high up.
The territory of Yemen includes more than 200 small islands in the surrounding seas, of which Socotra is the largest and the most interesting for hikers. Located 340 km south of the mainland, out into the Indian Ocean, it really is an isolated place.
Whichever part of Yemen you want to go hiking, hiring a local guide appears to be common practice. In recent years, safety has been an issue, so check before you go.
- Simple Gestures
- The Greater Middle East poses major challenges for the United States. Yet despite decades of intense involvement in Middle Eastern affairs, most Americans still know little about the cultures of the region. ”Simple Gestures” describes one American`s efforts over forty years to better understand the society in the countries where she lived and... Read more
- Arbeitsemigration, Binnenwanderung Und Wirtschaftsentwicklung in Der Arabischen Republik Jemen
- Eine Wirtschafts- Und Bevolkerungsgeographische Studie Unter Besonderer Berucksichtigung Des Stadtischen Bausektors Read more
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From February 12, 1911
HOW THE BRAINS OF ANIMALS WORK (PDF)
The 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica marked the beginning of its transition from a British to American publication. It came out in several volumes between 1910 and 1911. The New York Times asked noted zoologist Ray Lankester to select some excerpts from the encyclopedia.
Here, he has selected excerpts from the entry for The Intelligence of Animals. Since the 1911 edition of the encyclopedia is now public domain, you can read the full entry as it originally appeared in print. And for comparison, here is the Wikipedia entry on Animal Intelligence.
Possibly related articles:
- Where Sick Animals Are Cared For Like Humans
- Mark Twain’s Secret Book Gives Startling Views
- Pot Shooting In Central Park
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The New Year often gets people to think of making resolutions. While resolutions are being considered, so should choices we make on a daily basis. While people estimate that they make about 15 food and beverage decisions each day, they actually make more than 200 such choices, according to researchers at Cornell University in the US. Their study, published in the January 2014 issue of Environment and Behavior, surveyed 139 Cornell staff and students to estimate how many decisions they make about food each day.
The author offers the following tips to prevent overeating, from his recent book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think” (Bantam Books):
- Use smaller bowls.
- Avoid eating directly from the package.
- Bank your calories (skip the starter if you want to indulge in dessert).
- Dine next to the slowest eater at the table.
- Eat the foods you love but in smaller portions.
- Pick two of the following: starter, drink or dessert.
- Keep tempting treats out of sight.
- Sit at least an arm’s length away from the buffet table or snack bowl.
Choices that we make relating to food are ongoing, constant and consistent. Not a day goes by when we are not confronted with food choices. The grocery stores don’t make it easier for us by providing us with hundreds of choices to make, at every isle in the grocery store. Although the task may appear to be difficult and daunting, by following a few basic nutrition guidelines, it provides us with more energy, stabilizes our mood and keeps us as healthy as possible.
- Choose whole grain, high fiber breads and cereals instead of baked goods that may contain high fat and low fiber. Choose lean cuts of meats like loin or rounds.
- Choose healthier methods of cooking like baking, broiling, steaming or roasting.
- Choose to fill half of your lunch and dinner plate with non-starchy vegetables in all colors adding a variety of vitamins, minerals and other phytonutrients and the other half with protein and starches.
By choosing fresh fruits, you will be adding a boost of essential nutrients, antioxidants and fiber and by adding a few fresh ingredients you can add color, freshness and variety to your meals. Making one small change at a time will eventually lead to a healthier diet and lifestyle. Go ahead and make healthy food choices today! You will be on a successful start for the New Year!
Vasanthi Prabhaker, registered dietitian
Centegra Diabetes Center
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The No Dong 2 is a medium-range, road-mobile, liquid propellant, single warhead, ballistic missile. It is believed to be an improved version of the No Dong 1 missile which traces its lineage to the ‘Scud C’ missile. The No dong 2 is believed to have a smaller warhead, a longer range, and better accuracy, although precise differences are speculative. It is likely that Chinese scientists worked directly with North Korea to build the No dong 2, though it is possible that it was designed domestically using PRC assistance and technology provided on earlier missile projects.
The capabilities of the No Dong 2 missile are such that it can effectively be used against both military and civilian targets. Its range is sufficient to put parts of Japan well within range. Unlike the No-dong 1, it has sufficient accuracy to be used against some military targets, though the accuracy is still low enough that the missile would most likely be deployed against civilian population centers or other large, soft targets. The No Dong 2 is mobile and easily concealable, thus making it difficult to destroy prior to launch.
This missile is a longer range variant of the No Dong 1. The physical characteristics are presumed to be similar to the No Dong 1, though there are likely structural changes which account for the increased range and accuracy. It is believed to be 1.36 m in diameter. The payload is probably lighter than the payload of the No Dong 1 (1200 kg), but it may vary depending upon the missile’s intended range. The maximum range is believed to be 1500 km. The accuracy is reported to be 250-500 m CEP, an accuracy not sufficient for attacking hardened targets. If equipped similarly to its predecessor, the No Dong 2 would likely be able to deploy HE-unitary, chemical, submunitions, or medium-yield nuclear warheads. It is believed to be launched from a converted Russian Transporter-Erecter-Launcher (TEL) vehicle design or converted North Korean tanks and trucks. The missile’s accuracy probably relies on an inertial guidance system and RV-based motors and fins, but it may be improved by the addition of a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system.
It is believed that development of the No Dong 1 began in the mid-1980s, with the first flight test occurring in May 1990. The No Dong 1 missiles had entered active service by 1995 and are built in underground production facilities. The exact status of the No Dong 2 is unknown, but it is likely operational. One report suggests that it may be the same system as the Musudan (BM-25). Like many North Korean missile projects, the No Dong project was accomplished in conjunction with both Pakistan and Iran. The Pakistani Ghauri 1/2 and the Iranian Shahab-3 are all strikingly similar to the No Dong 1/2, and it is believed that these foreign missiles rely on North Korean technology and possibly employ North Korean components. 1
- Lennox, Duncan. “No Dong 1/2.” Jane’s Strategic Weapon Systems (Offensive Weapons). September 11, 2012. (accessed September 12, 2012). ↩
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by Walter Dean Myers
Young adult historical fiction
Summary in a Sentence:
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.
"...For all the angel warriors who fall."Richie Perry is the face of so many young men who fought in the Vietnam War. Raised in Harlem, Richie joins the army in 1967, hoping for a better future. With no money saved for college, Richie finds foreign jungles more palatable than the streets of Harlem.
Richie and his fellow soldier friends are extremely unprepared for the harsh realities of war. They find that the definition of 'enemy' is not as cut and dried as they once pictured and chaos ensues during much of Richie's stay in Vietnam.
"We spent another day lying around. It seemed to be what the war was about. Hours of boredom, seconds of terror."In one of the more terrifying scenes of ambush, so many American soldiers are killed that the remaining boys are forced to burn the bodies rather than body bag and carry them back to the pick-up point. Richie sees the dead boys being burned: "They were me. We wore the same uniform, were the same height, had the same face. They were me, and they were dead." Although this book obviously doesn't glorify war, it doesn't make the judgment call of condemning it, either. Myers presents facts and raw emotion in this narrative, and the language isn't for the faint of heart. Although this book was marketed for young adults, I think I appreciated it even more as an adult.
~ Read for the Vietnam Challenge ~
Bonus: I met Walter Dean Myers at the ALA annual conference last year! Here's a pic:
- Sunrise over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers (a sequel of sorts)
- Full Service by Will Weaver
- Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye
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Molecular Orbital Study Questions
The following questions are based on the molecular orbital results tabulated on the Molecular Structure Page. You will need to refer to these results to answer the questions.
Best Lewis Structure and Donor Acceptor Interactions Tutorial
is available to help you interpret those output sections.
These Lewis structure calculations are done using NBO Analysis.
1. Bent's Rule
Bent's Rule states that an atom directs hybrids of greater p character toward more electronegative atoms (1,2). For example, look at the results for methanol. In the Best Lewis Structure section you will find the following:
Hybridization in the Best Lewis Structure
1. A bonding orbital for C1-O2 with 1.9982 electrons
__has 33.65% C 1 character in a s0.95 p3 hybrid
__has 66.35% O 2 character in a sp2.53 hybrid
The carbon atom uses an s0.95p3 hybrid orbital to bond to oxygen. On the other hand, the oxygen atom uses an sp2.53 hybrid to bond to the carbon. Therefore, the carbon uses more p character in its hybrid than the oxygen does.
Question: Find three more examples of molecules that follow Bent's rule. If you find any exceptions as you look around, note those also.
2. Expanded Octets
The influence of d orbitals is usually vastly overstated by simple hybridization arguments (look at
for example). However, one would expect that third row elements with
expanded octets would need to use the full expected contributions
from d orbitals. Look at SF4 as an example. Remember that
the Lewis Dot structure for SF4 would have one lone pair
in addition to the four bonding pairs, which are shared with fluorines.
One would then expect sp3d hybridization for sulfur, giving
five equivalent hybrid atomic orbitals.
Question: Look at the results for SF4 and comment on the importance of d orbitals in this compound. Does the hybridization for each sulfur bond match
the expected pattern?
3. Pi Bonding and d Orbitals in 3rd Row compounds
The influence of d orbitals is usually vastly overstated by simple hybridization arguments . The phosphorus oxyacids are often shown with a pi-bond between the phosphorus and the oxygen that is not bonded to a hydrogen. This pi-bond is usually described as using a d orbital on phosphorus. Or, alternatively, the
sigma bonds are described as using sp2d hybrids on the central atom,
which leaves a p-orbital left over for forming pi-bonds.
Question: Look at H3PO2 as an example. Look at the Bond Order section to determine if there is double bonding and then look at the Best Lewis Structure section to determine the contribution of d orbitals to the bonding. Also look at the phosphorus oxyanions to see if there is double bonding between phosphorus and oxygen and if there are large contributions from d orbitals.
4. Hybridization in 3rd Row compounds
Second period elements are very small compared to higher periods. Hybridization
then plays an important role for second period elements, see
for example. Is hybridization
as important for 3rd period (and higher) elements? Since 3rd period
elements are larger, there is more room around the central atom and
the absence of crowding decreases the effects of electron pair
repulsion. For example, the bond angles for
are close to 90 degrees, not the expected value of 109.5 degrees from
VSEPR and hybridization theory.
To explore hybridization for the 3rd period, look at a series of
sulfur compounds to see the importance of hybridization. In the absence
of hybridization, we would expect "p3" hybridization, that is
90 degree bond angles with little or no s character. (The hybridization
of several S containing compounds is the subject of ZumdahlChemistry
Chapt. 9 problem 24.)
Question: Look at
as examples. Look first at the bond angles. Then look at the Bond Order
section to determine if there is double bonding and then look
at the Best Lewis Structure section to
determine the contribution of hybridization to the bonding.
(a.) Is there a relationship between the bond angle and hybridization? Is
this relationship what you would expect from VSEPR and hybridization
theory? Now consider
(b.) Is there a
correlation with the extent of double bonding and hybridization? Now
The charge of the ion increases the total electron density in the substance.
(c.) Speculate on the effects of the charge and the fact that there are four
1. H. A. Bent, Chem. Revs.,1961, 61, 275-311.
2. J. P. Foster, F. Weinhold, J. Am.Chem. Soc.,1980,102, 7211-7218.
3. The tutorial from the NBO manual that discusses the
Natural Bond Orbital
Analysis will help in understanding the output data.
-> Return to Molecular Structure Page.
-> Return to Chemistry Home Page
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- A strait-laced British Government official arrives to offer cash aid to dig 38 wells for the president's drought-stricken people.
- For two decades, the BBC's voice of youth enforced a moral code that your average Victorian aunt would have thought strait-laced.
- In the sequel, a clash of cultures ensues when the straight-laced, conservative Byrnes family meets the liberal, relaxed Fockers.
As an adjective strait means ‘narrow or cramped’ and ‘strict or rigorous’: the idea behind strait-laced and straitjacket is of being tightly laced or confined. As strait is now old-fashioned and unfamiliar, however, people often interpret it as the more usual word straight. Straight-laced and straightjacket are now generally accepted in standard English, and the spelling straight-laced is more common than strait-laced in the Oxford English Corpus.
Words that rhyme with strait-lacedbarefaced, baste, boldfaced, chaste, haste, lambaste, paste, po-faced, red-faced, self-faced, shamefaced, smooth-faced, taste, unplaced, untraced, waist, waste
For editors and proofreaders
Line breaks: strait-laced
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
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O-bon: Festival of The Dead or “Please Feed The Hungry Ghosts Day”
Late July marks the official start of O-bon, the Festival of the Dead, where Japanese people visit the graves of their ancestors and/or pay their respects to the recently departed.
It’s also a semi-official vacation for many, and the trains out of Tokyo fill-up with families going back home to visit the living and the dead.
Some Japanese families who can’t afford to travel put offerings on the family Buddhist altar and welcome their departed in-laws into the home for a few days before wishing them farewell. (In some cases, when the visiting ghosts won’t leave, they have to call in a Buddhist exorcist to kick them out. Maybe.)At JSRC, we thought you’d like to know a little bit more about this festive occasion and why it’s celebrated. *Editor’s note: The 90% well-researched version was revised to be 99% accurate and less snarky. All snarky and historically inaccurate parts are followed by a ★ for clarity. While ☆ represents a gross simplification.
The history of the holiday which came to be known an O-bon/お盆–pronounced like Oh! Bone!–is very long and the stories as to how it came to be celebrated in Japan are as ethereal and mysterious as your average ghost.
The old lunar calendar that was used up until the Edo period actually had the holiday on July 15th but the modern calendar places it on August 15th. This means that now it also coincidentally comes on the same day that Japan surrendered to the United States and World War II ended.
O-bon was originally a Buddhist holiday that dates back as least as far as the year 606 in Japan, where it was written up in Nihon Shoki (日本書紀) one of Japan’s earliest historical records. At that time it was called 盂蘭盆会 (urabonkai). It was believed that on this day if you made offerings to the local Buddhist monks, that the spirits of your parents and other ancestors would be saved from spending time in the lower realms of existence and be sent on to a better incarnation.
In time, over centuries, with the free-market liberalization of the metaphysical world, the Buddhist monks got cut out of the distribution system and now the offerings are made directly to the spirits. ☆
The “bon” in O-bon (盆) itself refers to the vessels (plates, bowls, tupperware etc) in which offerings are placed upon for the spirits of the deceased. The physical bowl has come to refer to the holiday or the period where the holiday is celebrated in modern lingo. Of course, O-bon as a holiday could be translated as “honorable container day” but then it wouldn’t sound as cool as “Japanese Festival Of The Dead.” The practice of offering food and drinks (such as Pepsi-Watermelon Cola and Wasabi Potato Chips etc) to the visiting spirits is believed to have spread from the original ceremony in Japan’s hip 600s.
The O-Bon Sutra: If it’s in an ancient book it must be true.
There is even a Buddhist holy book about O-bon, called the 盂蘭盆経 (Urabonkyo) which establishes the basic ideas of the holiday. In this tale, a disciple of Buddha, named 目連 (Mokuren) finds out that his deceased mother is trapped in the realm of hungry ghosts (餓鬼) and tries to find a way to relieve her suffering. *Buddhism postulates six realms of existence. Hungry ghosts aka gaki (餓鬼) are spirits with huge stomachs and small throats that can never get enough to eat and are perpetually famished. Look for my book on the United States of America and its obesity problem, Hungry Ghost Nation, in 2015.★
Mokuren, the Buddhist monk, is bummed that his Mom is a sort of demon. He makes votive offerings of food and water to his Mom, but right before she can wolf them down, they all burst into flames, making that a no-go. He decides to save Mom.
Our hero, Mokuren, who we’ll call Mork, just to make it easier to remember, has a talk with the Buddha about this problem. The Buddha, who being all-wise and everything, says to him, “Well, Mork, your Mom was really a total thug and it’s not going to be easy to spring her from her realm of suffering. However, if you wait until the last day of our post-rainy season vacation, which is July 15th, and make offerings to all of your Buddhist monk pals and supporters—making sure everyone gets fed, maybe your Mom can eat some of the leftovers or get lucky?”
And so he does just that, the monks and lay-supporters have a huge party: drinking, dancing (the original o-bon odori), eating, and having lots of fun. The Buddha says to them, while the party goes on, “Guys, let’s take a moment and pray for the well-being of our beneficiary who put on such an awesome party, and for his ancestors as well—up to seven or so generations. Let’s calm our hearts and meditate and do a thanksgiving sort of thing.”
”仏陀は、十方の比丘に対し、このように言った。「比丘達よ、七月十五日に供養を受ける時、 施主の家の為に祈り、七世の祖先の為に祈り、 坐禅をして心を静めて、然る後に、頂きなさい。」「比丘達よ、初めて御飯の供養を受ける時、 施主の家の為に祈り、七世の祖先の為に祈り、 霊前で祈願をしてから、然る後に、頂きなさい。」それを聞いた、比丘達は、法悦に包まれて、 モッガラーナの涙も、完全に止ったのである。 そして、母親も、一劫続く餓鬼道から救われた”
And lo and behold, the monks are wrapped in holy bliss and Mork’s Mom (Mokuren’s Mom), was freed from the realm of hungry ghosts. The Buddha then promises the same service to any monk or lay disciple who will take the Buddhist monks out for a party on July 15th.☆
The authenticity of this Sutra is widely debated but it doesn’t seem any less plausible than the Book of the Mormon.
50 Ways To Appease Your Loved Ones
O-bon is celebrated in different times, manners and places in Japan. The most common belief is that the spirits of the dead return around August 11th and leave again around August 15th or 16th, depending on the traffic in the spirit world. (O-bon traffic in our world peaks on the 14th and 15th, as most Japanese families in Tokyo go on vacation during this period as well and it collides with summer vacation for the kiddies.)☆
During this period families come together, greet the spirits of the departed, and then send them off again to the netherworlds. Some areas greet the spirits with a large bonfire (迎え火) and then send them off again with another fire (送り火). The energy crisis in Japan has dimmed plans to replace the bonfires with large LED lamps spelling out “Welcome” or “Good-bye” but in the future, who knows?
Depending upon the household and the area, some families will clean up the Buddhist altar and make their offerings there, placing faux horses made out of egg-plant or cucumbers to provide transportation for the wandering spirits. The smoke from the incense is believed to provide a highway for the ghosts and their cucumber horses to travel on.Tokyo dwelling families originally from Narita City in Chiba Prefecture families make a giant “limousine bus”* out of pumpkins and grapes to make the travel to Tokyo easier for the mass gatherings of ghosts arriving at the airport from the underworld. ★Actually that’s not really true. Apparitions can easily take the Narita Express now.☆
In many areas, O-bon odori(お盆踊り）, the O-bon dance is performed. The dance dates back to Heian era Japan and was believed to be a ceremony both to welcome the spirits of the dead, memorialize them, entertain them, and appease them. It’s not known if the modern-day hostess club has its origins in the O-bon odori.★ The movements of the dance are said by some to mimic the writhing of souls burning in hell—which makes sense if you’ve survived enough Japanese summers. But it’s hard to see how the writhing of tortured souls could be amusing. Mmmm….laughing at the suffering of tortured souls—amazingly O-bon pre-dates Japanese game shows.
Since the 1600s, many versions of the O-bon Odori incorporate Buddhist chanting which is believed to help the restless spirits go to a better place….Hawaii or heaven or a better incarnation. But not Saitama☆.
Deep O-Bon Thoughts (As Deep As A Plate)
Jokes aside, O-bon is one of the most interesting of Japanese festivals and while August 15th marks the current official date for the holiday, it still begins in July in many places in Japan. If you can use it as an excuse to get out of work, try celebrating it twice in the same year. You can claim to have relatives in Kansai. The actual dates and practices don’t mean that much but it’s an idea that I like in principle. There is something good about remembering those who have departed from our lives and will not return. It reminds us how lucky we are to still be alive, to eat, to drink and to dance. Even for those of us who can barely dance at all, there is something joyous about this holiday. Dance while you can.
“All of us who are still alive this O-bon, we’re simply the survivors of our fiscal year.”—Eiji Yoshikawa, Japanese novelist.
originally posted on August 15th, 2012
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by Staff Writers
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Dec 09, 2011
For the first time, NASA researchers have demonstrated the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to collect very low altitude airborne measurements of greenhouse gases at several sites in California and Nevada.
As Earth scientists strive to better understand sources and sinks of atmospheric greenhouse gases, a new aircraft capability developed at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. has the potential to provide critical measurements of carbon fluxes.
The Sensor Integrated Environmental Remote Research Aircraft (SIERRA) team recently tested several instruments including a carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor instrument as well as a wind probe for providing instantaneous measurements of greenhouse gas fluxes. SIERRA operates as part of a network of tools to observe carbon moving on our planet.
The airborne system will assist scientists in their understanding of carbon dioxide cycling between the land, ocean and atmosphere. SIERRA complements other UAVs in the NASA science fleet by specializing in dangerous, low altitude missions that require significant payload capacity.
"Understanding the magnitude and location of carbon fluxes is important for improving our understanding of how ecosystems influence the composition of the atmosphere and the balance of climatically important gases," said Laura Iraci, the principal investigator of the NASA Ames team.
"Tower networks currently provide important information but their distribution is pre-defined. Aircraft can play an important role by enabling measurements where towers don't or cant exist, and in studying systems with features that move in time."
For example, in this desert environment, the areas of moist soil vary with season, and thus the sampling locations of interest will be different from season to season and year to year. The requirements for collecting measurements at very low altitudes (less than 100 ft) make it a dangerous proposition for pilots, so unmanned aircraft provide a great solution, Iraci added.
Matt Fladeland, research scientist from Ames, will discuss the SIERRA mission at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
The SIERRA team participated in a joint science mission between Japan and the United States in June of 2011 to calibrate and validate the JAXA GOSAT satellite, as well as to explore local sources and sinks of carbon dioxide and methane.
Understanding the distribution and cycling of carbon on Earth is critical to understanding how humans affect our ecosystem and how Earth changes due to climate variations.
High frequency measurements enabled the use of the eddy covariance technique, which enables derivation of fluxes based on gas concentrations and vertical wind time series data. This technique is used in meteorology and widely used to estimate surface to atmosphere exchanges of heat, water and carbon dioxide.
The measurements demonstrated by the SIERRA team will directly support planned data products from several future NASA satellite missions including the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 and 3 and the Active Sensing of Carbon Dioxide Emissions over Nights, Days and Seasons (ASCENDS) mission.
NASA Airborne Science Program
Carbon cycling and Ecosystems Science
The Air We Breathe at TerraDaily.com
Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.
Lightning Sprites Are Out-of-This-World
Tel Aviv, Israel (SPX) Nov 25, 2011
Only a few decades ago, scientists discovered the existence of "sprites" 30 to 55 miles above the surface of the Earth. They're offshoots of electric discharges caused by lightning storms, and a valuable window into the composition of our atmosphere. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University say that sprites are not a phenomenon specific to our planet. Jupiter and Saturn experience lightning ... read more
|The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2012 - Space Media Network. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement|
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From ENENEWS, thanks to Admin for doing the basic calcs.
Title: Radioactive water found in work pits at Fukushima plant
Source: AJW by The Asahi Shimbun
Date: January 20, 2012
[...] About 500 tons of water was found in the pit of the No. 2 reactor, while about 600 tons was discovered at the No. 3 reactor pit.Read the report here
Radioactive concentrations for cesium were 16,200 becquerels per cubic centimeter near the No. 2 reactor and 860 becquerels near the No. 3 reactor.
Water with cesium at 16,200 Bq/cm³ * 1,000 cm³/liter = 16,200,000 Bq/liter * 1,000 liters/metric ton = 16,200,000,000 Bq/metric ton * 500 tons = 8,100,000,000,000 Bq (8.1 trillion Bq or 8.1 terabecquerels) of cesium in 500 ton pit
So in that one pond, if that radiation were distributed euqally among the 6B world population each person could have 1350 Bq of Cesium, or 27 Bq per kilogram of body weight.
As we know, limits of 500 Bq per kG are quite high, and above that limit most countries wouldn't allow meat to be sold.
So this one pond that they just found, is enough to give the entire human race a 5% kick (500 Bq/kg / 27 Bq/Kg) towards being "radioactive meat"
Nice, just this one pond that they just found. Real nice.
How is that clean, safe, nuke power working out for all of you?
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posted on Dec, 31 2002 @ 08:10 PM
Yes the Olmecs...
There are many indications that cultures, which existed in the Western Hemisphere and those, which existed in the Eastern Hemisphere interacted long
The Olmec Empire is one example; furthermore there are indications. That those who were accepted as dead were very often placed in elaborate boats in
those days from, the Eastern Hemisphere. These boats were so well constructed they often made it across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Not all
the persons placed in these vessels and thought dead were actually so.
The Nazca can be seen from an altitude in which Balloons fly, also both Mayans and Aztec empires placed their cities within mountain ranges. This
implying they had an efficient means of supplying these cities. No large beast of burden exists in these areas, so what was the efficient way to
provide supplies to cities in mountain ranges?
If one finds a way to access the Jet stream (you would need a pressurized cabin) with a balloon. Travel from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern
Hemisphere would bring one near Egypt and Greece. Perhaps there were so impressed they decided to call them Atlantis. The return trip would be result
in returning to the location Of the Nazca lines. Itís my impression that the Nazca lines are markers not for alien races, but rather for the means
the Two Hemispheres interacted.
What is interesting to note is in relation to Mayan Sound Technology techniques in Pressurization seems the best way to design a means of making the
phenomenon possible. This because they could then build models in pressurized tanks and then makes the necessary adjustments.
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Starting with the number 180, take away 9 again and again, joining up the dots as you go. Watch out - don't join all the dots!
Choose 13 spots on the grid. Can you work out the scoring system? What is the maximum possible score?
In this activity, the computer chooses a times table and shifts it. Can you work out the table and the shift each time?
What do the numbers shaded in blue on this hundred square have in common? What do you notice about the pink numbers? How about the shaded numbers in the other squares?
An environment which simulates working with Cuisenaire rods.
If you have only four weights, where could you place them in order
to balance this equaliser?
This article gives you a few ideas for understanding the Got It! game and how you might find a winning strategy.
Can you complete this jigsaw of the multiplication square?
Work out how to light up the single light. What's the rule?
Here is a chance to play a version of the classic Countdown Game.
Imagine a wheel with different markings painted on it at regular
intervals. Can you predict the colour of the 18th mark? The 100th
Mr McGregor has a magic potting shed. Overnight, the number of
plants in it doubles. He'd like to put the same number of plants in
each of three gardens, planting one garden each day. Can he do it?
Arrange the four number cards on the grid, according to the rules,
to make a diagonal, vertical or horizontal line.
Place the numbers from 1 to 9 in the squares below so that the difference between joined squares is odd. How many different ways can you do this?
Using angular.js to bind inputs to outputs
Hover your mouse over the counters to see which ones will be
removed. Click to remover them. The winner is the last one to
remove a counter. How you can make sure you win?
Can you put the numbers 1 to 8 into the circles so that the four
calculations are correct?
A card pairing game involving knowledge of simple ratio.
Place six toy ladybirds into the box so that there are two ladybirds in every column and every row.
Train game for an adult and child. Who will be the first to make the train?
First Connect Three game for an adult and child. Use the dice numbers and either addition or subtraction to get three numbers in a straight line.
Use the interactivity to find all the different right-angled triangles you can make by just moving one corner of the starting triangle.
A train building game for 2 players.
You have 4 red and 5 blue counters. How many ways can they be
placed on a 3 by 3 grid so that all the rows columns and diagonals
have an even number of red counters?
An interactive activity for one to experiment with a tricky tessellation
Try out the lottery that is played in a far-away land. What is the
chance of winning?
Have a go at this well-known challenge. Can you swap the frogs and toads in as few slides and jumps as possible?
What are the coordinates of the coloured dots that mark out the
tangram? Try changing the position of the origin. What happens to
the coordinates now?
Investigate the smallest number of moves it takes to turn these
mats upside-down if you can only turn exactly three at a time.
Our 2008 Advent Calendar has a 'Making Maths' activity for every
day in the run-up to Christmas.
Ahmed has some wooden planks to use for three sides of a rabbit run
against the shed. What quadrilaterals would he be able to make with
the planks of different lengths?
Cut four triangles from a square as shown in the picture. How many
different shapes can you make by fitting the four triangles back
Can you see why 2 by 2 could be 5? Can you predict what 2 by 10
A generic circular pegboard resource.
A game for 2 people that can be played on line or with pens and paper. Combine your knowledege of coordinates with your skills of strategic thinking.
Each light in this interactivity turns on according to a rule. What happens when you enter different numbers? Can you find the smallest number that lights up all four lights?
NRICH December 2006 advent calendar - a new tangram for each day in
the run-up to Christmas.
A tetromino is made up of four squares joined edge to edge. Can
this tetromino, together with 15 copies of itself, be used to cover
an eight by eight chessboard?
Start by putting one million (1 000 000) into the display of your
calculator. Can you reduce this to 7 using just the 7 key and add,
subtract, multiply, divide and equals as many times as you like?
How have the numbers been placed in this Carroll diagram? Which
labels would you put on each row and column?
What can you say about the values of n that make $7^n + 3^n$ a multiple of 10? Are there other pairs of integers between 1 and 10 which have similar properties?
Can you make a cycle of pairs that add to make a square number
using all the numbers in the box below, once and once only?
Choose a symbol to put into the number sentence.
This problem is based on a code using two different prime numbers
less than 10. You'll need to multiply them together and shift the
alphabet forwards by the result. Can you decipher the code?
A game for two people, or play online. Given a target number, say 23, and a range of numbers to choose from, say 1-4, players take it in turns to add to the running total to hit their target.
Place the numbers 1 to 10 in the circles so that each number is the
difference between the two numbers just below it.
An interactive game for 1 person. You are given a rectangle with 50 squares on it. Roll the dice to get a percentage between 2 and 100. How many squares is this? Keep going until you get 100. . . .
Is it possible to place 2 counters on the 3 by 3 grid so that there
is an even number of counters in every row and every column? How
about if you have 3 counters or 4 counters or....?
Try to stop your opponent from being able to split the piles of counters into unequal numbers. Can you find a strategy?
Use the interactivity to create some steady rhythms. How could you
create a rhythm which sounds the same forwards as it does
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Last name origins & meanings:
- English: from either of two Old Norse personal names:
Ingjaldr, in which the prefix in- probably reinforces
the element -gjaldr, related to Old Norse gjalda ‘to pay
or recompense’, or Ingólfr ‘Ing’s wolf’ (Ing was an ancient
Germanic fertility god).
- English: habitational name from
Ingol in Lancashire, which is named from the Old English personal name
Inga + holh ‘hollow’, ‘depression’.
a variant of German Ingel, from a short form of any of several
Germanic personal names formed with Ing- (see 1 above).
- An early bearer, Richard Ingle (1609–c. 1653), was a rebel
and a pirate who first came to the colonies in 1631 or 1632 as a
tobacco merchant. He is known to have practiced piracy in MD.
Comments for Ingle
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Our goal from the very beginning was to research and document the effects of Israeli policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) affecting land and property, and to be able to produce maps showing these effects. Since its inception, the Department has accumulated a vast wealth of expertise and information; we have produced maps of historic Palestine as it was in 1945, a map of Israeli illegal settlements from 1967 to 1994, and a series of books and articles detailing various aspects of Israeli policies and practices in the OPT.
This expertise enabled us to play an advisory role in the negotiations process in the early 1990s when we moved to the Orient House (later shut down by Israel). We have focused especially on 1967-occupied Jerusalem (East Jerusalem), and in 1998 undertook a pioneering project to survey all Palestinian property in the city through which we became the major information reference point for people engaged in land transactions, zoning proposals, and actually played an important role in limiting fraudulent sales of property by people forging title deeds to properties they do not own.
al-Majdal: How was the city of Jerusalem affected during the 1948 Nakba?
KT: Before 1948, Jerusalem was a major hub of Palestinian social, spiritual, economic and cultural life, second only to Jaffa. It was also the headquarters for many of the Palestinian political forces which, to varying degrees had mobilized to defend Palestine from the violent Zionist takeover. The military wings of these organizations set up their military front in the villages to the west of the city in an effort to halt the Zionist forces before they reached the city, and in the early months were somewhat successful despite their very poor training and lack of arms. On 6 April 1948, the Haganah (the main Zionist military force) launched Operation Nachson to push towards Jerusalem. Three days later, the Irgun and Stern committed the infamous Deir Yassin massacre as their part of the operation, and the following day, the main Palestinian resistance force led by Abdel Kader al-Husseini was defeated at al-Qastal.
By early May, the British forces essentially handed over the western part of the city to the Haganah, and the Jordanian military held on to the walled (old) city and the eastern part. The 23,000 Palestinian residents of the western part of the city became refugees, many of them in Shufat and Qalandiya refugee camps on the outskirts of the city, and others went to Jordan and elsewhere. In terms of land and property, practically the whole western part of Jerusalem was confiscated by the Absentee Property Law. As for the tens of Palestinian villages to the west of Jerusalem, all were depopulated and destroyed, with the exception of Abu Ghosh, 'Ayn Naqquba and 'Ain Rafa.
al-Majdal: Between 1948 and 1967, Palestinians who managed to remain within the armistice boundaries (the 'green line') lived under Israel's discriminatory military rule; in cities like Jaffa, Ramleh and al-Lydd they were segregated into ghettos in these cities. What was the Palestinian experience in Israeli-controlled Jerusalem in these years?
KT: To the best of my knowledge, there was no significant Palestinian population left in western Jerusalem (Israel confined the remaining families to the Baq'a neighborhood, known at the time as the Bak'a Zone). I know that today there are only five Palestinian families still living in that part of the city. For all intents and purposes, that area had been depopulated, so we cannot really compare it to Ramleh or Jaffa, let alone Nazareth where most Palestinians of that city were able to remain in the city. I should also point out that this thorough and systematic forced displacement of Palestinian residents of the city was not by chance, but because the Zionists very clearly and consciously saw, and continue to see, Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state, and having any Palestinians in the city did not fit with that idea of the city. Also, this is why for us Palestinians, the issue of refugee rights, particularly the right of return is as much a part of the Jerusalem issue as the wall and zoning and all the rest of it.
al-Majdal: The eastern part of Jerusalem came under Jordanian control in 1948 until Israel occupied it in June 1967. What was the effect of Israeli control in the aftermath of the occupation?
KT: The days in which the Israeli forces entered the city and established control were themselves quite significant. I was seventeen at the time and remember the buses that the Israelis brought to Bab el-Zahreh (Herod's Gate), right in front of al-Rushaydiyyeh School, on which they loaded Palestinians and bussed them to the Jordanian border. This was in addition to many who fled the intense bombing and fighting that took place during the war; around 30,000 of the 100,000 Palestinians in the eastern part of Jerusalem became refugees during and just after the Israeli occupation.
Another very important event was the destruction of Haret al-Magharbeh (the Moroccan Quarter) just south west of the Aqsa mosque inside, and its extension outside, of the old city walls. The part of the city wall separating the two parts of the neighborhood is the wailing wall, a very important religious site for adherents of Judaism. Historically, this neighborhood is where Moroccan immigrants to Jerusalem and their descendants lived for most of the past seven or eight centuries, and the Ayyubid, Mameluke, and Ottoman architecture of the neighborhood was quite distinct from the rest of the old city. The destruction order was issued by the military commander Shlomo Lahat, who was previously the mayor of Tel Aviv, and on 11 June 1967 the bulldozers began to demolish the homes within the old city near the wall, and over several days most of the neighborhood on both sides of the wall was flattened. Many of the neighborhood residents refused to leave, and their homes were destroyed while they were inside which meant that many of them were killed. Today, when people go to pray at the Wailing Wall, they are standing on the site where these people's homes once stood, and where many of them were killed. One-hundred and thirty two Palestinian families were forcibly displaced from this neighborhood in 1967.
al-Majdal: Did the fact that the city was no longer physically divided have any significance?
KT: A different aspect of the occupation was that we could access the western part of the city for the first time since 1948. Many of the refugees from the western part went to reclaim their homes and properties, and some of them mounted legal challenges to get their property back. The Israeli courts applied the 1950 Absentee Property Law quite strictly, so the vast majority lost their cases. The very tiny minority, specifically those who had western passports in 1948, won their cases because of a loophole in the text of the law.
al-Majdal: In the years that followed the 1967 occupation, how did Israeli policies affect Palestinians in Jerusalem?
KT: Until the Likud election victory in 1977, Israeli interests in the West Bank can be summarized in four main points. The first two apply to Israeli policies generally since 1948: making sure that no refugees return to their original homes, and making sure that any form of Palestinian political organization to resist the occupation was severely repressed. The other two are specific to the West Bank and are quite clear in the Allon Plan, which was the Israeli plan on how to deal with the West Bank: to make sure that Palestinians in the West Bank are cut off from any direct access to Jordan, which has meant that the occupied Jordan Valley has been annexed de facto by Israel, and finally that Jerusalem become the 'indivisible and eternal capital of the Jewish state.'
This idea of Jerusalem has an ideological Zionist dimension, but also a practical geo-political aspect which in the Allon Plan serves to separate the occupied West Bank into two parts - north and south - by expanding Jerusalem eastward to the Jordan Valley through the establishment and expansion of the Ma'ale Adumim settlement block. For both ideological and geo-political purposes, policies implemented within the city of Jerusalem have aimed to transform the demographic character of the city into one with a guaranteed and overwhelming Jewish majority. This translated into major waves of land confiscation, specifically in 1968 when the Israeli authorities confiscated land in the northern part of the city to build the illegal settlements known as the French Hill, and Ramot Eshkol; and again in 1970 when Israeli authorities confiscated 12km² from Jabal al-Mukabbir, Shufat, Beit Hanina, the old Jerusalem airport and Beit Safafa to build the illegal settlements Talpiyot, Neve Ya'cov, and Gilo. Also that year, land was confiscated to create 'green areas' or nature reserves that are now Ramat Shlomo and Rehet Shufat. Since 1967, one of the many tactics the Israeli authorities have used is to confiscate land for proposed ecological reasons, and to later transform these green areas into Jewish-only settlements.
al-Majdal: What changed when Likud took power in 1977?
KT: It was largely an ideological shift with brutal implications for the rest of the West Bank. Instead of being an area to keep under control, the West Bank became Judea and Samaria (even administratively the name of the area was changed), the historic Jewish kingdom which Likud wanted to reclaim, and so the policies and practices aimed at taking as much Palestinian land as possible that had been practiced within the green line during and since the 1948 Nakba began to be implemented in the West Bank as well as Gaza. This is what sets the Ariel Sharon plans of the late 1970s apart from the Allon Plan; Sharon envisioned massive illegal settlement in all parts of the West Bank leading to annexation. It was this criminal vision which has been transforming into a reality for the past fifteen years.
For Jerusalem, this change meant actively expanding the borders of Jerusalem as part of this project of taking as much West Bank Palestinian land as possible. In 1980, the Israeli authorities confiscated another 4.4km² for the Pisgat Ze'ev settlement while expanding others. Since 1995 and the Oslo climate in which Israel legitimized its accelerated settlement expansion program by pointing to the negotiation process, more settlements were created and others expanded, most notably Har Gilo (on Wallajeh and Beit Jala land), Har Homa (on Abu Ghuneim), and the Gush Etzion bloc all of which became part of the the expanded Jerusalem metropolitan area in their municipal zoning.
If you look at it on a map, the land confiscated and settlements created in the 1967-1977 period created a kind of ring around the old city within Jerusalem, after 1977 the Israeli authorities began to work on acquiring land within eastern Jerusalem's Palestinian neighborhoods themselves such as the old city, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and Ras al-'Amud; today, around 35 percent of Occupied East Jerusalem is under exclusive Jewish-Israeli control. The additional aspect post-1977 was the creation of a new fact on the ground labeled 'greater Jerusalem' illegally annexed to Israel, and with arms reaching north, east and south which are built on West Bank Palestinian land but off limits to West Bank ID-carrying Palestinians.
al-Majdal: The Israeli Separation/Apartheid Wall is often used as the prime example of the Israeli creation of facts-on-the-ground. How does the Wall fit into this map of 'greater Jerusalem'?
KT: The most basic part of the answer to this question is that the Wall separates between what is now considered the West Bank, which is the Palestinian Authority administered areas, and Jerusalem, which as I said has been de facto and illegally annexed by Israel, even though this is theoretically still under negotiation. To understand it better we need to realize that since 1973, a central part of the stated policy of the Jerusalem municipality has been to limit the relative size of the Palestinian presence in Jerusalem, to ensure that Palestinians continue to be a small minority within their historic city. So while the wall itself is a brutal monstrosity, the effects and goals of the wall are the real crime, and this is what the International Court of Justice realized and stated in their advisory opinion of 9 July 2004.
What the Israeli planners who planned the route of the Wall did was to use it to physically exclude densely populated Palestinian areas, like the Shu'fat refugee camp and Anata, from Jerusalem - instantly removing a large portion of the city's Palestinian population from the city. Add to this that many of the people who depend on Jerusalem for their jobs, schools, hospitals, etc.. live just on the other side of the wall, and that historically Jerusalem is the main hub of West Bank economic, cultural, and social activity. The wall thus severs all of these relationships.
There is also a housing crisis that the Wall has created; Israel systematically strips Palestinians of their Jerusalem residency if they cannot show that they are habitually resident within Jerusalem. As such, there was a frenzy of people moving into increasingly overcrowded and overpriced housing within the already overcrowded Palestinian neighborhoods in order to keep their Jerusalem residency status. Without this status, Palestinians are forced to acquire West Bank residency which means they can no longer enter the city without military permits, and can no longer receive health, family and retirement benefits for which they've been paying taxes for as long as they have been Jerusalem residents. The result is that those unwilling or unable to move into the city have lost their residency status, and that there has been a serious deterioration of Palestinian quality of life for those within the city.
al-Majdal: You said that the Israeli controlled Jerusalem municipality has an official policy of maintaining a ceiling on how many Palestinians live in Jerusalem. Can you tell us more about the ways in which this policy works?
KT: We can look at the workings of the municipality's Local Outline Plan Jerusalem 2000, a published document that does very little to conceal the objectives of the Israeli authorities which can be described as the Judaization of Jerusalem, that is to change the demographic composition of the city to favor the Jewish-Israeli population. The plan is quite clear that the planning objectives of municipal policy and practice are to maintain a Palestinian population that is no more than 30 percent of the city's total population. Towards this goal, there are two kinds of policies and practices, those that aim to increase the city's Jewish population, and those that aim to decrease the city's Palestinian population.
In terms of increasing the Jewish population, the main tactic used is that of settlement construction and expansion. For instance, the plan calls for the construction of at least 17,000 new illegal settlement housing units in the coming years. Another aspect is support at all levels - from the Jerusalem municipality, to the Israeli government, to Zionist para-state organizations like the Jewish National Fund - for settler groups like Elad and Ateret Kohanim which actively work to take over Palestinian homes and real estate within the city to establish settler communities in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods. This is clearest in the old city, but takes place across the eastern part of the city. For instance, the municipality allocated a $13 million budget for an eight-year project to establish a 'national park' in the al-Bustan Valley of Silwan, a Palestinian area, with a large proportion of the funds for the project going to the Elad settler organization. Another side of increasing the number of Jewish settlers in Jerusalem is the major development of settler infrastructure in the city. The most significant example of such infrastructure is the Jerusalem Light Rail project, a massive transportation system which will almost exclusively service the settlements in and around Jerusalem connecting them with the western and central parts of the city, and greatly enhancing the settlement expansion project's chances of success.
We can take the same 'national park' project in Silwan to show the other side of the equation, displacing Palestinians from Jerusalem. In order to create this national park/settlement complex, with its 'for-Jews-only' apartments, kindergarten, library, car-park and synagogue, 88 Palestinian homes in al-Bustan were served with demolition orders. Usually in the past, the municipality has used section 205 of the 1965 Israeli Planning and Building Law which allows for demolition on the basis of unlicensed construction. This has usually been enough because the authorities discriminate quite clearly against Palestinians and it is very difficult for Palestinians to renew, let alone acquire, licenses for their homes. For al-Bustan, many of the demolition orders were based on section 212/5 of the 1965 Planning and Building Law which allows for demolition on the basis of "public interest". This is extremely dangerous since it means that the master-plan goal of Judaization is a public interest, and will essentially allow unhindered demographic and social engineering by the municipal authorities.
Demolition of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem has been rapidly accelerating over the past few years. In the last six months of 2007, 20 Palestinian homes were demolished by the Israeli authorities. In first six months of 2008, 44 Palestinian homes in the city were demolished displacing 269 people, 159 of them children; and this was before the Local Outline Plan was officially adopted by the municipality which means that these numbers can only grow if there is no action to stop the Israeli authorities from displacing and taking our city away from us, and if the world continues to allow Israel to grossly violate international law without scrutiny or accountability.
al-Majdal: What kinds of actions have Palestinians in Jerusalem taken to defend their rights in the city?
KT: The options are quite limited in light of the massive imbalance of force in Israel's favor combined with the blind international support for the Israeli regime. There are increasing efforts at international advocacy both at the grassroots level with the campaign for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as well as on the more formal level by working with international agencies operating here, as well as making detailed submissions at appropriate international venues. As a result, the plight of Jerusalem's Palestinians figures prominently in UN reports and resolutions dealing with Israeli human rights abuses.
On the ground, and especially in cases of house demolition orders, there continues to be social solidarity among Palestinians, with some support from international solidarity activists and some Jewish-Israelis who work to fundraise for advocacy campaigns, legal challenges, house rebuilding, and in some cases try to physically stop demolitions from being carried out. A case where such solidarity was clearly manifested was that of Um Kamel al-Kurd whose home was destroyed along with 27 others in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood; the community set up a solidarity tent, which itself was subsequently destroyed and rebuilt three times, and was accompanied by an important action in which Um Kamel, a refugee from the Talbiyeh neighborhood in the western part of the city, marched to her old home in Talbiyeh.
Part of what we work on in the Mapping and GIS Department is to fundraise for and develop detailed zoning plans for certain parts of the city where we can get all of the residents' consent which are subsequently submitted to the municipality for approval. There are huge complicating factors, that are confounded by the various kinds of property title held by Palestinians, as well as the time, great financial and skilled human labor costs required. The other difficulty is that even if we overcome all of these obstacles, there is no guarantee that such zoning plans will be accepted by the municipality, especially given the stated goals of this Israeli institution. In cases where we have been successful, however, we have managed to ensure that Palestinians will be able to remain in their city for the foreseeable future.
*Khalil Tafakji works at the Mapping and GIS Department of the Arab Studies Society in Jerusalem. He can be reached at toufakji [at] hotmail [dot] com.
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Translation of concept in Spanish:
- the two designs are similar in conceptlos dos diseños se basan en conceptos similaresExample sentences
- The effect of this is to deny pupils the ability to deal with difficult abstract concepts.
- If this nation has any regard for the abstract concept of ‘justice’ then this practice must end.
- In that profession you start with a blank sheet of paper and a concept or abstract idea.
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The Federal Budget and Appropriations Process
The budget and appropriations process are the steps through which the U.S. decides annual spending. Learn about these inter-related process.
Federal Budget Process
Step 1: President’s Budget Request
The budget process begins with the president’s submission to Congress of the administration’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins on October 1. The budget must be submitted by the first Monday in February. The president’s proposal does not have the force of law, but includes detailed spending levels for all programs. Though only input to the budget process, it generally sets the tone for the process in three ways:
The president’s proposal is formally written up by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and it usually includes thousands of pages of supporting information, such as historical tables of past budget statistics.
Step 2: Congressional Action
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 directs that, following the submission of the president’s budget proposal, the House and Senate Budget Committees (with assistance from the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan body) create the budget resolution. A budget resolution serves as the general framework within which Congress will make its decisions about specific spending and taxing levels. Budget resolutions are concurrent congressional resolutions — they do not have the force of law and they do not require the president’s signature. They do not directly provide funding to any organization or program, but establish the structure of the budget.
To create a budget resolution, the Budget Committees gather reports and hold public hearings to question administration officials about the budget as a means of gaining input. They also receive “views and estimates” from congressional committees regarding details on budget issues that relate to each committee’s particular area of focus. This information usually takes the form of letters submitted to the chairman and ranking member of the Budget Committee within 6 weeks of the president’s budget proposal; these letters provide the Budget Committees with general direction and advice.
Each Budget Committee then compiles all of this information to formulate the budget resolution, which it does in a series of meetings called “markup” sessions; these sessions allow for discussion and consideration of the information, while committee members may offer their own input into the budget framework being created. Upon completion of the markups, the Budget Committee will present its budget resolution to its respective house, “on the floor.” A rule under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires the full Senate to consider the budget resolution by April 1 each year.
The House and Senate independently proceed to debate, offer amendments, and vote upon their respective budget resolutions; amendments may be enacted by a majority vote. The House and Senate pass budget resolutions that differ from each other, so the two versions of the resolution go to a conference committee that meets to resolve differences and formulate a single budget resolution. The committee sends this version back to the House and Senate as a conference report. Both chambers consider the report, and once they have agreed to it through a majority vote (which they generally do, without making changes), the final version of the budget resolution takes effect. This is supposed to happen by April 15, but the process often takes longer to complete.
Step 3: The Budget Resolution — A Closer Look
The budget resolution is a crucial component of the budget process because it lays out the plan for spending and taxes for the following fiscal year. While the president’s budget proposal is very detailed, the budget resolution simply consists of a set of numbers dictating the specific amounts of money that Congress is permitted to spend in each of the 20 “budget functions” or “functional allocations,” categories of spending including transportation, agriculture, and health. Thus, the budget resolution does not set the annual spending levels for specific programs (this is done by the Committees on Appropriations — see the Appropriations Process), but rather sets targets. The budget resolution also distributes among the congressional committees the total spending figures that it has laid out for each budget function. The budget resolution lists these figures in a table called the 302(a) allocation.
Within the budget resolution, Congress also includes directions as to how it wishes to appropriate (spend) the money, either through discretionary or mandatory spending:
Discretionary spending refers to the funds allocated each year in the annual appropriations bills that are set by Congress for the purpose that it chooses. RESULTS Global focuses most of its efforts upon influencing discretionary spending through the appropriations process. See the next step in the Federal Budget Process, Discretionary Spending and the Appropriations Process, for more information.
The discretionary budget accounts for about one-third of the federal government’s total spending. Money in this category of spending is generally used for such programs as housing, education, and foreign aid. The president and Congress must act each year to ensure that spending on these programs continues.
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees determine the discretionary spending levels for the programs funded by the federal government on an annual basis.
Mandatory spending is enacted by law and does not depend on any annual appropriations bill. This type of spending makes up two-thirds of the total federal budget per year. It mostly includes entitlement programs that are consistently funded each year based upon the rules set forth by them. When Congress creates a program, such as Medicaid, it determines who will be eligible to receive financial benefits under the program, often determined by such criteria as age or income. Congress then estimates the number of people each year that will be eligible for the program, using this number to formulate its spending for the program. The president and Congress can change the level of mandatory spending for a program by altering the criteria for eligibility or the formula for payment. However, the government does not need to take action annually to ensure that the program continues to be funded.
The committees that set policy and the maximum funding levels allowed for these types of entitlement programs are called Authorizing Committees.
Measuring Federal Spending: The government measures the amount of money it spends each year in two ways: budget authority and outlays. Budget authority (BA) refers to the amount of money that Congress will authorize the government to spend on certain activities or programs. Outlays, also known as expenditures, are what the government actually spends in any given year. For instance, a bill could be passed that appropriates $75 million to build a hospital — this $75 million is provided in budget authority. However, the hospital may take several years to build and therefore, the money would not all be spent in the year during which it was originally appropriated. Thus, $75 million in outlays would not be used until the following year or more, when the hospital is built.
Note: In addition to setting spending levels, the budget resolution determines how much money the government will collect in revenue (the income of the government from taxation and other sources) for the following five years. The difference between the spending and revenue levels resolves whether there will be a surplus or a deficit, for which the budget resolution sets target levels as well; these targets are detailed in the “budget aggregates” section of the resolution.
Step 4: Discretionary Spending and the Appropriations Process
After the plan for the budget has been laid out in the president’s budget request and the budget resolution, the appropriations process — whereby money is finally distributed through appropriations bills — must take effect. Appropriations bills provide the funding that governmental programs such as national defense, education, homeland security, and foreign aid need to continue their activities. Thus, while the budget resolution has set goals for spending levels, appropriations bills actually provide this money to agencies. Spending through the appropriations process is considered discretionary spending.
Appropriations bills are created by the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee under the general direction of the budget resolution. There are 12 appropriations bills considered annually in the Committees on Appropriations for FY 2008 (this number can change from year to year). Both the House and the Senate Committees on Appropriations include 12 subcommittees, each of which has the responsibility of developing one appropriations bill.
The Appropriations Committee determines its spending levels for its appropriations bills based upon the 302(a) allocation it receives from the budget resolution (the budget resolution divides the money it is appropriating to each of the 20 budget functions among the congressional committees). In other words, the allocation sets the limit of the funding level allotted to the appropriations bills. The 302(a) allocation is mandated in Section 302(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 also includes a Section 302(b), termed the 302(b) sub-allocation. Under this section, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees must divide among its 12 subcommittees the total funding allotted to its programs; i.e., it must sub-allocate the money it has received in the 302(a) allocation. View the sub-allocations for the appropriations process of FY 2010.
Subcommittees on Appropriations Set Funding Levels for the 12 Appropriations Bills
When the subcommittees have received directions about the total amount of money that has been sub-allocated to them, they may proceed with work upon their respective appropriations bill. The subcommittees base their determinations of funding levels upon information gathered through public hearings, while also considering the previous year’s funding levels and the president’s budget request. The appropriations subcommittee members weigh in on their priorities and provide essential input to their subcommittee’s key decision makers —the chairman and ranking minority member — through “wish list” letters. The chairman and ranking minority member use these letters to determine funding levels for the agencies under their subcommittee’s jurisdiction. The subcommittee proceeds to vote upon these levels. When its members have come to an agreement, the subcommittee sends these bills to its Appropriations Committee (either for the House or the Senate). This committee begins a markup session to discuss, consider, and offer amendments (alterations) to the bill.
Appropriations Committees Send Bills to Full Chambers (the House or the Senate)
Once the Appropriations Committee has completed its work upon a bill, this legislation must be sent to its full chamber, either the Senate or the House. Traditionally, the consideration of the appropriations bills begins in the House of Representatives. Therefore, the Appropriations Committee will present the appropriations bill along with its report to the House of Representatives for floor consideration. The Budget Act of 1974 sets June 10 of each year as a target date to have completed the House Appropriations Committee’s work on its appropriations bills; however, the committee usually begins to report its bills in May or June, finishing all or most of the bills by July or by the annual recess in August (the Senate’s Committee on Appropriations works to follow the same timetable). When the appropriations bill is “on the floor,” representatives debate the bill and offer amendments after hearing opening statements from the chair and the ranking minority member of the subcommittee for which the bill applies.
After the bill is passed in the House, it is sent to the Senate, which also considers the bill and amendments it wishes to make. Once the Senate has made its changes, a conference committee must be formed to reconcile the differences between the House and the Senate versions of the bill. These negotiations usually take place between the chair and ranking minority members of the full Appropriations Committees, as well as the members of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the bill. Upon reaching an agreement, the bill is once again sent to the chambers, both of which generally accept the conference report.
Congress Sends Reconciled Appropriations Bills to the President
Just as for any bill, the president may:
Should the president veto the bill, Congress can attempt to override the veto (which would enable the bill to become a law) with at least a two-thirds majority vote by a quorum, i.e., a minimum number of members that need to be present in order for Congress to do business.
Congress must pass and the president must sign every appropriations bill before October 1, which is the start of the federal fiscal year. Often, Congress and the president are unable to complete action on every bill before this date. Thus, a continuing resolution (CR) must take effect. A continuing resolution will continue to fund the appropriations bills from the previous year as a temporary solution, so that funding is not completely cut off to a program or agency.
[Emergency] Supplemental Appropriations Bills
At times, the government must respond to an unanticipated circumstance that arises during the middle of a fiscal year and requires funding. In this case, a supplemental appropriations bill (or an emergency supplemental appropriations bill) is employed. For example, a supplemental spending bill might be needed in order to respond to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. These emergency supplemental spending bills were once a rarity but have now become much more common, especially since the U.S. military invasion of Iraq. Many criticize these spending bills, as they have grown dramatically in size and often include money for unrelated programs that do not appear urgent; because they have been used for predictable, as opposed to emergency, spending; and because they reduce transparency of the overall budget process.
Omnibus Appropriations Bills
At the end of the legislative cycle, the Appropriations Committee may decide to consolidate several appropriations bills into one, which is known as an omnibus appropriations bill. The committee will generally create this type of bill when they are struggling to pass all the appropriations bills by October 1, perhaps due to disagreements among Congressmen or to a large amount of work being done on another spending bill.
The appropriations process is critical to the creation of a budget in Congress each year — it provides the money! Specifically, there are 12 annual appropriations (spending) bills that must be passed annually to keep programs and agencies of the government running; each is considered by a different appropriations subcommittee. By working to influence these bills, RESULTS can influence the funding of the programs related to our issues of focus.
The steps that RESULTS takes to influence the appropriations process are illustrated by this example of the Basic Education funding requests in the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year (FY) 2005.
January through May: Appropriations Bills are Considered by the Appropriations Subcommittees
RESULTS’ work began immediately in January 2004, when the House and Senate Appropriations Committees began consideration of the following year’s budget (FY 2005). The president submitted his budget request in the beginning of February, which the House and Senate Budget Committees used to create a budget resolution (a blueprint for government spending levels). From January through May, the appropriations committees compiled their own requests for the funding levels of the twelve appropriations bills, using input from civil society. The appropriations committees then finalized these funding levels after receiving directions from the budget resolution. Specifically, the budget resolution determines the amount of money to be allocated to each committee (called “302(a) allocations”). Once the Committees on Appropriations receive their overall spending level, the “302(b) sub-allocations” then direct the chairmen of the Appropriations Committees to decide how much each of their twelve subcommittees should receive. These twelve subcommittees in turn must determine how to distribute their money among the programs funded within their appropriations bills.
Funding for basic education is included in the appropriations bill of the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Affairs (“Foreign Ops”). First, the House Foreign Ops Subcommittee would consider funding requests for basic education. Therefore, RESULTS urged members of this subcommittee to include our funding requests in their “wish lists” letters to their chairman and ranking minority member (the key decision-makers). Wish list letters allow members to weigh-in on their key funding priorities. We asked our grassroots volunteers to meet with or write letters to their members of Congress on the subcommittee, passing along a draft wish list letter provided by RESULTS staff that included our requests.
When determining funding levels, the chairman and ranking minority member will consider input not only from their subcommittee members but also from those congressmen not on their subcommittee. Therefore, RESULTS also asked all of its grassroots volunteers to meet with or write to their members of Congress, urging their member to send a letter to the chairman or ranking minority member to bring attention to our issues (these letters are not called “wish lists,” since the congressmen are not part of the subcommittee itself). Depending on the representative that writes, these letters can be of great importance to the chairman and ranking member, and they can reinforce the requests made by subcommittee members.
Another way for members of Congress to express their support for an issue is by adding their name to a congressional sign-on letter. RESULTS generates sign-on letters to be sent to key decision-makers, for instance, of the Committee on Appropriations or one of its subcommittees.
In general, our best chance to influence legislation is at this stage, when it is being considered by a subcommittee of appropriations.
Mid-May through June: Appropriations Committees Complete Work and Send Bills to Full House and Senate
The State, Foreign Operations, and Related Affairs Subcommittee completed its work and set the funding level request for Basic Education at $400 million. The subcommittee then sent the bill to the full Committee on Appropriations. During this stage, RESULTS re-emphasized our requests to the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations, who determine final appropriations levels among the different foreign affairs accounts and programs (though the Committee on Appropriations and the full House usually do not change the subcommittee’s recommended funding level). The Committee on Appropriations passed the Basic Education funding request, and the bill was sent to the full House of Representatives for consideration on the floor. Following the recommendations of the Committee on Appropriations, the House approved the subcommittee’s $400 million funding level request for Basic Education.
The bill was then considered in the Senate by its Committee on Appropriations, specifically its Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Affairs (“Foreign Ops”). RESULTS next worked with Senate members of this committee to request an even higher level of funding for Basic Education funding than the amount requested by the House.
After June 30, But Before October 1: Conference Committee Reconciles Both Versions of the Bill, and It Is Sent To the President for Final Approval
After consideration by the Senate Appropriations Committees and subsequently the full Senate, the Senate set its level of funding for Basic Education at $335 million. A conference committee was then formed to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. At this point, RESULTS again went to members of both chambers, asking the House to continue to support the $400 million it had originally requested while also asking the Senate to support $400 million (since the House had proposed a larger level of funding than the Senate). Ultimately, the conference committee settled on the House’s request of $400 million for Basic Education funding; this was a great success, since the funding level was set at the higher House level. The conference committee sent the final version back to both the House and the Senate for one last approval before it was presented to and signed by the president.
What is the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill?
The Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill is perhaps the most relevant appropriations bill for our global work to end hunger and poverty. This bill is considered in the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Affairs and provides funding to Basic Education, HIV/AIDS, child survival programs, tuberculosis, UNICEF, microfinance programs, and other foreign assistance activities. Within the Foreign Ops Appropriations Bill, Basic Education and microenterprise are funded under the Development Assistance Account (DA), while most of our health programs are funded within the Child Survival and Health Programs Fund.* RESULTS also works to influence the appropriations bill considered by the Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (“Labor HHS”) because domestic TB programs are funded through this subcommittee’s appropriations bill; for FY 2008, President Bush requested money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria in this bill as well (the Global Fund is usually funded through the Foreign Ops subcommittee).
*The Development Assistance Account (DA) and Child Survival and Health Programs Fund (CSH) are two of the many accounts within a bill to which money is allotted to support specific programs. Another such example is the Economic Support Fund (ESF).
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Introduction to the Federal Budget Process.
Committee on the Budget, United States Senate, The Congressional Budget Process: An Explanation (pdf).
The U.S. Government Printing Office, Citizen’s Guide to the Federal Budget: Fiscal Year 2001 (pdf).
CRS Report for Congress, The Congressional Appropriations Process: An Introduction (pdf).
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MAUREEN MURPHY, who works for Transnationals Information Exchange, outlines the struggle of Thai workers to organise for decent wages and conditions, job security and human dignity. It is vital that Australian workers mobilise to support their Thai sisters and brothers because of the burning need for justice. However, international cooperation is a two-way street as it can make moving plants offshore an unprofitable option for the bosses.
The past decade has brought unprecedented change to the textile and garment industry worldwide. There has been the shift in production from the developed world to the developing world; concurrently with a shift in production from the factory to the 'outworker', both in developed and developing countries. These trends can be seen clearly in the newly-industrialising economy of Thailand.
During the 1980s, Thailand embarked on a program of industrialisation, hoping to emulate the double-digit growth rates of the Asian 'tiger economies' of the previous decade. Central to the program was the rapid development of small manufacturing industries, notably, textiles and garments. Factories from Europe, North America and the Asian tigers relocated, attracted to the low wages, government tax incentives, and the tight control on trade union organising. A ready workforce was found among young rural women moving to the cities to find work.
Textiles and ready-made garments are the country's most lucrative export. For the past decade, Thailand has been the 10th largest supplier of garments to world markets. The garment industry employs roughly 850,000 workers, in 2,000 factories.
In recent years however, with the rise of local wages in line with increases in the minimum wage rate, the 'comparative advantage' enjoyed by Thai garment manufacturers has been eroded. In 1995-96, the Bangkok Bank estimated that the wage rate for garment manufacture in Thailand averaged US$0.63 an hour, compared to US$0.16 in Indonesia, US$0.24 in Sri Lanka, $US0.26 in China, US$0.33 in India, US$0.46 in the Philippines and US$0.56 in Malaysia.
As a consequence, the Thai textile and garment industry has developed high tech manufacturing in the past few years, aiming production at the high-end of the market. Nevertheless, many small to medium scale manufacturers have relocated production to China, Laos or Vietnam where labour costs are lower, Other factories are shifting production out of the factory to the home-based worker, or small-scale 'sweatshop'.
The history of the Eden Group is a revealing case study of the impact of globalisation on Thai workers. However, concurrently with the globalisation of industry, recent decades have also seen the globalisation of the labour movement and trade union organising.
The Eden Group is an Austrian-owned transnational company, part of the export-oriented garment industry of Thailand. It has subcontractors based in at least three other countries in Asia. In 1991, according to the company's business report, the Eden Group generated as much as US$70 million for that year alone. At its beginning, the company's profit reached US$2.4 million per year and from there, continued to increase every year. Since then, the Eden Group has rapidly expanded its business, in which a system of subcontracting has been used both within Thailand and abroad.
The company received numerous investment benefits from the Thailand Board of Investment. It was exempted from import taxes for imported raw materials and machinery. The Eden Group also received export quotas from the Thai Ministry of Trade and Commerce. In addition, the Eden Group adopted a sophisticated system of financial management by setting up a billing office in Hong Kong, instead of Thailand, so that it was able to avoid types of business tax as its actual gains were not declared to the Taxes Authority of Thailand. Since 1985, the company has also been transferring its capital and profits gained in Thailand to overseas, for re-investing in other businesses such as real estate.
The Eden Group produced for the European and North American market, under well-known licences such as Walt Disney, Looney Tunes and Power Rangers. At its peak, in 1987, Eden Group was one of the major garment industry exporters in Thailand, employing more than 4,500 workers, with 12-hour working days common to the workers.
A compliant company union existed at the factory until 1994, when TIE-Asia began working with a small group of Eden workers to establish a credit cooperative among Eden employees. Initial contact was made in informal settings, over shared meals after work, at venues near the factory. From this entry-point, discussions continued with the Eden workers, gradually turning toward their employment; wage rates, working conditions and company union.
A successful campaign against sexual harassment in the workplace was launched, and then late in 1994 union elections were held. Fourteen of the women who were participating in the TIE-Asia discussions, ran for leadership positions in the union, and won. The new Eden workers' union participated in union training and education programs organised in the following years by TIE-Asia and the Thai labour organisation, CLIST.
Subsequently, the union became more active, pressing for improved working conditions and wages. The union submitted a list of demands concerning the improvement of working conditions in the workplace and an agreement on dismissal. Workers received 145-150 Baht (US$6) per day. They also worked between 3-6 hours overtime each day. In the workplace, workers faced hazards such as dust, toxic chemicals in the printing department, and floods in every department.
The union had also become aware of a subcontracting system practiced by the company since 1991, which was to lead to the dismissal of a large number of workers at the plant in later years. The union also investigated working conditions at the Eden Group's subcontractors, where exploitation of child labour and migrant workers was found. The practice of subcontracting enormously reduced the company's production costs, namely labour costs and machinery. More importantly, such a practice had the potential to destroy the collective bargaining system and the right to organise. At this stage, there were 1,950 workers employed at the plant, 200 of whom were casual and temporary workers.
In 1995, the union alerted authorities the company was passing its waste water into the canal surrounding the factory. Eden Group was then given a notice from the Industrial Factory Department warning the company to improve its water treatment system, which the company failed to do. In February 1996, the factory's printing department was closed by the authority, which was followed by the management ordering 52 women workers from this department to work in a sweatshop located two kilometres from the main factory.
The union found it was a private residence where 50 sewing machines had been transferred from the factory. The workers refused to move to this cramped sweatshop. Since it was not a legal operation, the union lodged a complaint with the management and informed the Government. It was revealed the company was planning to lay off many more workers, and force others to work in a network of private residences as subcontractors. The company later said it was facing bankruptcy, and would offer workers three months redundancy, only half the legal amount required by law.
A union-organised protest of 1,000 workers outside the factory gates on February 24, was followed by threats of dismissal, then attempts by management to break union solidarity, when they offered a redundancy package of six months to the 50 workers from the sewing section, who were chosen to be moved to the home-based factory. The workers in question refused.
Fifty workers took a petition to the Ministry of Labour on February 28 requesting official intervention. The Ministry replied that nothing could be done but the matter would be looked into. Then, on March 1, 1996, 800 workers including union officials were given letters terminating their employment. The union and workers organised protests demanding government intervention to the management-union conflict. The Eden garment workers took their protests to the streets during the inaugural Asian - European economic summit on March 2, blocking the main highway from the airport into central Bangkok. After long negotiations involving the union, management and government officials, the company agreed to pay ten months compensation to the dismissed workers. The management also agreed not to dismiss any more workers. But by April 1996, only 650 workers remained at the Eden Group because the company had subcontracted most of its operations out to independent subcontractors and home-workers. During July-August 1996, the union approached the Eden Group management about an improvement of health and safety conditions in the workplace. The company refused to negotiate or consider the union's proposal. The union then lodged a complaint to the Safety Commission which on August 30 inspected the factory and issued a notice warning the company to improve safety conditions with such measures as providing fire extinguishers.
The company responded angrily, and after 15 days given to improve conditions, no progress had been made. The company also failed to pay the August wage to some 300 workers. The workers complained to the Labour Department and the local police office.
On September 13, 1996, the company dismissed 345 workers without paying wages or compensation. After the dismissal, there were only 300 workers remaining at the plant, who were doing quality control and packing work, two sections necessary for export. Most of the company's operations, including sewing work, had been subcontracted to independent subcontractors and home-based workers both within Thailand and China.
The Eden Group was subcontracting part of its operations out to small business owners. These subcontractors employed 10-20 workers to work in a sweatshop. The sweatshops are illegal, avoiding business taxes, labour laws, and social security laws. It was discovered that these sweatshops exploit child workers who are under 15 years of age, including illegal migrant workers from Burma and Cambodia.
From large-scale production in a factory with a strong workers union, to sweatshops: the company's products were now being made by child and illegal migrant workers who were not unionised nor protected by labour laws. The company declared great business losses and huge debt, as the reason to sell its machinery and lay off workers, without paying compensation to them. This excuse of bankruptcy was a lie.
Meanwhile, the labour laws fail to reflect the actual needs of workers. According to the law, an employer only has to pay an equivalent of six months wages as compensation to a dismissed worker. In reality, 6 months compensation is a very small sum that workers can hardly rely on. Aging women workers face an even more difficult situation than most, as they are often refused new employment.
The Eden Group is a transnational corporation seeking to employ cheap labour and make a quick profit through short-term investment. The company began subcontracting its operations out after the workers union became active and demanded better working conditions. A large number of workers, particularly women, lost their jobs and became unemployed. The company however, maintained a small operation in Thailand, in order to take advantage of export quotas and business tax privileges.
What followed the September 1996 dismissals, then finally the dismissal of the remaining workers in December 1996, was a long, well-organised, international campaign to fight for compensation for dismissed workers. The campaign also sought to illustrate the impact of globalisation on these super-exploited Thai workers.
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Published on February 9th, 2013 | by Andrea Bertoli0
A Healthy Diet is a Greener Diet
Rather than focusing on short-term diets and crash course exercising, our health focus should be on making long-term changes to our diet and lifestyle. Choosing healthful foods, quality physical activity, and cleaner, greener supplements can help us feel our best physiologically and mentally.
Good health habits also happen to be GREENER habits– which we love here at Green Living Ideas! Making lifestyle changes of this sort take some time, but there are many things you can do RIGHT NOW to make a big difference in your health and for the health of the planet.
A Green Diet
Choosing organic or sustainably grown foods whenever possible is a great start towards a healthy lifestyle. This also supports organic farmers, keeps healthy foods growing in the soil, and decreases the amount of chemicals used in farming. Not only will the organic produce be delicious and nutritious, it can reduce your carbon footprint tremendously by decreasing processing and packaging that goes into most convenience foods. Yes, buying organic can get expensive, so integrate small changes when you can. Check out the Dirty Dozen list to choose produce based on how likely it is to contain pesticide residue.
To complement all this fresh produce, choose whole grains and plant-based proteins. Not only are these the healthiest foods for our body, they mitigate the environmental damage incurred by animal food production. Spending time in the kitchen enjoying homemade, wholesome foods is a great way to share healthy values with your family and keep everyone well. You might be paying a bit more for food but you will likely pay less at the doctor!
You don’t need a gym membership to start being active. Go outside! Try to spend a bit of time each day outside engaging in activities like hiking, walking, jogging, and or/biking. These activities will allow you to appreciate the world around you instead of being stuck in the listening to the bad music at the gym. Exercise can help reduce stress, combat fatigue, and make us feel a bit more alert. Many studies show that spending time outside is linked to higher energy levels and lowered depression.
Sure, the weather outside isn’t always our favorite, but make inclimate weather part of the fun by wrapping up and enjoying a brisk walk or a skiing trip. Be sure to heat up a warm pot of herbal tea when you get home to warm up your body and rehydrate after activity.
Be Proactive About Your Health
Generally, eating healthy-plant based foods is sufficient to meet your dietary needs, but if you are starting from a less-than-healthy baseline or recovering from illness or injury, dietary supplements may be able to bring to back to your most vibrant self. The following are some supplements that may be helpful:
- Multivitamins- If you can’t afford any other vitamins, multivitamins are a great way to get a lot of the vitamins you need. There are multi-vitamins geared towards every age and gender, and there are many varieties. Choose vitamins that are whole-foods based that source calcium, iron, and others from plant-based sources (instead of rocks!). Plant-based supplements are more bioavailable and won’t upset your stomach like some multivitamins can.
- Omega 3- If you take an Omega supplement, there are many options, including those based on algae and seeds, like flax, chia and hemp. Other options include fish oil and krill oil. Many studies recommend Krill Oil over fish oil because it is harvested in a more sustainable manner and less is needed for similar benefit. Krill oil can help with your heart health while boosting energy (especially important this time of year). Krill Oil also can also positively affect inflammation, memory, and PMS symptoms.
- Vitamin D- Vitamin D keep your brain functioning at its best, boosts your mood and increases energy levels. It helps our bodies absorb calcium to ensure bone health. It reduces your chances of heart attack, arthritis, developing cancer and more.
Whatever health plan you decide, give your body and mind time to adjust to changes. And stay tuned to Green Living Ideas and Vibrant Wellness Journal for delicious ways to stay healthy!
This post was sponsored by our friends at Everest Nutrition, providers of high quality krill oil supplements.
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Grande Valley Farmland History
The Arroyo Grande Valley was first opened for settlement in 1868 and the business district consisted of a black smith shop, stage station and schoolhouse. " The valley was a tangled mass of brush, vines and trees, of so dense a growth that the creek had no channel but spread over the entire valley during a fresher.
Hence the valley has been built up in successive layers, 20 feet or more deep, of decaying vegetation and sediment from one of the richest hill countries to be found in the states. This land today is some of the richest in the world," wrote land developer, John F. Beckett, in 1898 and quoted by local historian, Jean Hubbard, in the Five Cities Press Recorder on September 21, l994."Farming in the Arroyo Grande area at the turn of the century had a common thread, which weaves through the life of the earliest settlers of all nationalities. Life was severe requiring arduous labor in their struggle to survive," wrote Kay T. Fukuhara in the Pacific Citizen Holiday Issue, December 1976. The loneliness especially plagued the women who were so far removed from their homeland and families and were faced with language differences.
"The early arrivals were farmers - truly pioneers, who cut down trees, filled in gullies, cleared the wild growths, leveled the ground and dug wells. The work was done by hand and self sufficiency was a necessity. A new arrival was a reason to celebrate because there were few people living in the area. The farmers assisted the new neighbor in getting settled in and their experiences bound them together as neighbor and friend, during good times and bad times. The pioneer women matched the determination of their men. They were not afraid of work, and they toiled in the fields by day as well as feeding and caring for their families. These women also cared for and fed boarding workers who were alone in this new land," wrote Kay T. Fukuhara.
The pioneers were a religious people whose faith and courage helped them through trying times. The rewards and blessings were many because the soil was fertile, and the crops they harvested were spectacular.
Prize Winning Crops
In 1976 the Burpee Seed Company issued a catalogue commemorating their 100th Anniversary by featuring a reproduction of their 1888 seed catalogue. ArroyoGrande farmers were featured in the catalogue because they won many cash prizes for their outstanding vegetables and flowers.
"At the turn of the century the prolific soil in the Arroyo Grande Valley produced prize winning bumper crops of cabbages, carrots, beans, peas, pumpkins, onions, and other crops," local Historian Doris Olsen wrote in the January 17, 1976, Santa Maria Times. "The local farmers won so many cash awards that they boasted they were the only valley in the world by reason of its prolific soil to be barred from national seed contests."
Dr. Edwin Paulding, Arroyo Grandes pioneer physician arrived in 1883 and was so impressed by the crops that he wrote: "Many a farmer has paid for his land in the valley out of the proceeds of his first crop. There is a pumpkin field across the creek that has so many pumpkins in it that you could run across the field on them and not touch your foot to the ground. Many of the pumpkins weighted nearly 200 pounds."
"Pioneer Arroyo Grande farmer J.V.N. Young is listed in the 1888 catalog as the winner of the 1887 national seed contest for his four pound twelve-ounce onion, grown from Burpee seed. In 1889 Young again won the national Burpee seed contest. Young's farm was located in the Newsom Springs area and the soil is still fertile," wrote Doris Olson. Agriculture Fairs were held in the 1890's and J.V.N. Young won many competitions." A special excursion train ran between Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo for the local vegetable displays and for later flower shows. The Reverend Lewis C. Routzahn, a Lutheran minister in ill health, came to Arroyo Grande in the late 1800s and began experimenting with flowers growing in the fields of his father-in-law, T.H. McClure. The seeds from the sweet peas and other strains and varieties he produced are still offered today by Burpee Seed Company, according to the Burpee article.
The industry Routzahn pioneered spread to Santa Maria and Lompoc where flowers are still grown for their seed. "Burpee and other seed companies praised the productivity of the local soil, proclaiming it UNSURPASSED WORLDWIDE for growing certain vegetables and flowers, year around. "The early farmers were good stewards of the land and their expertise in farming developed a viable and sustainable agricultural industry.
The history of the Arroyo Grande Valley vegetable farmers and their descendants is a compelling story. Families from foreign lands and local areas working together developed an intense vegetable industry at the turn of the century. Their dedication to good land stewardship can be seen in the fields that produce bumper crops of vegetables three times a year and are sold worldwide
Getting the Bumper Vegetable Crops to the Market
The horse and wagon was used to transport produce until 1881 when the Pacific Coast Railroad tracks were laid and the Pismo wharf was built. "Even with the wharves at Port San Luis and Pismo and the little gauge Pacific Railway that ran from the harbor to as far south as Los Olivos, transportation, was unreliable," wrote Jean Hubbard.
Many farmers grew dry beans for their cash crop because they could warehouse sacks of beans. A stalled railroad car or a storm often spelled disaster to a farmer who relied on the train or ships to get his produce to vegetable markets in distant cities through out the country.
"Trucks started replacing the horse and wagon for transporting the crops to market in the 1920s and this allowed the farmers to diversify. This was also the birth of co-operatives. Groups of farmers banded together to sell their produce, thus able to get higher prices, and be more innovative in capturing markets. Clayton Conrow had been appointed local agent for Los Angeles - Santa Barbara Motor Express in 1925. When Motor Express left the area a group of local farmers talked Clayton into handling their produce. He and his younger brother, Albert, then started the Arroyo Grande Trucking Company. They were granted a state franchise in 1934 as a certified common carrier of farm produce in the areas between San Luis Obispo and Carpinteria to the primary markets of the State, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose," said a newspaper article of the day.
"The first location of the Arroyo Grande Truck Company was on east Branch Street, by the old pumpkin dehydrator across from the Loomis Feed store. In 1938 the Norwegian lumber freighter "Elg" ran aground off Oceano. To lighten his ship the captain had part of the cargo thrown overboard. The Conrows got enough lumber to start building the dock on West Branch where Bank of America stands today," wrote Jean Hubbard in 1994.
The Arroyo Grande trucking company was founded in 1929. The company changed hands several times before Ed Nelson and his brother-in -law, Edwin Taylor, purchased it in 1952. The company continued to expand and in an article in the Herald Recorder on July 13, 1962 Ed Nelson stated, "One reason for the expansion of the company is the tremendous amount of agricultural products that are grown locally."
"In 1963 the Arroyo Grande Trucking company merged with Fitzgerald Brothers Trucking Company to form the Certified Freight Lines. In early 1970 they had a restructuring of the company and with 25 employees they rebuilt, with the produce growers as the base, a business that has become a successful and viable transportation company," wrote Jean Hubbard. The loading dock of Certified Freight Lines was built in the heart of Arroyo Grande in 1938 and up until 1984 the vegetable industry was part of the Citys daily life. Truck after truck of freshly picked vegetables were quickly unloaded at the freight terminal and a steady stream of Certified Freight trucks would arrive and leave with fresh vegetables for the big city markets. The intense vegetable industry was a vital part of downtown and easily recognized an economic base.
The spirit of the community changed when the Bank of America purchased the corner on Branch Street in down town Arroyo Grande in 1984 and Certified Freight moved their operation to Oceano. They renovated the 50-year-old Oceano Packing shed for their headquarters. "Certified Freight Lines is dedicated to the produce industry and has over 75 employees and the leasing services of 95 owner-operators, who own their own trucks and help deliver CFL freight," Jean Hubbard wrote in 1994. Certified Freight has enjoyed continued growth in serving California and the West Coast with a complete refrigeration service and is truly a home grown industry.
For over a century the Arroyo Grande Valley and the La Cienega Valley have been famous for growing high-quality vegetables because of the mild climate and rich soil. The area receives about twenty inches of rainfall in a five-month period from November to March.
The summers are cool because of morning and evening fog. A variety of leafy vegetables are grown because of the ideal weather.
"The natural features that make the Arroyo Grande Valley such an abundant agricultural area also make it desirable for urban and suburban centers," wrote John Ashbaugh in the Coordinated Agricultural Support Program report.
Agriculture in the Arroyo Grande Valley is an intense industry generating millions of dollars to the local economy. " The Pismo Oceano Vegetable Exchange ships more than 3.75 million boxes of produce, by truck each year," according to the report.
The Strawberry Industry
"Kinzo Saruwatari family moved to Los Berros where they became the first to grow berries prior to 1922. They packed the berries in wooden boxes before sending them to L.A from the old Oceano depot. The empty boxes were returned to the farm to be refilled and shipped to Los Angles again," wrote Kay Fukuhara. In 1929, the Berry Growers Association was formed and existed until 1941-42. Los Berros became known as " strawberry country" before World War II. Problems developed when the berry plants became diseased and the growers did not know how to protect their plants. They tried rotating their fields to different crops but this did not stop the infestation and many farmers quit growing berries.
"The Strawberry Growers Association was formed again in 1956 with about 15 members and the commercial industry mushroomed. The membership in 1976 included M. Kagawa, K. Kawaoka, T. Kobara, Y. Matsumoto, J. Nagashima, E. Nakamura, Obayashi brothers, C. Sakamoto, and T. Sato," wrote Kay Fukuhara in 1976. New farmers such as the Obayashis in 1942, and the Matsumotos in 1952, brought with them new experience in fighting disease in strawberry plants," wrote Kay Fukuhara. By 1983 an average of 15,000 trays of strawberries moved across the dock facility at Certified Freight Lines in Oceano. In 1981 the Arroyo Grande City Council and Planning Commission changed their long- standing policy against annexations. The Local Agency Formation Commissions approval of the prezoning and annexation of the "Stem Area" by Arroyo Grande and Grover City on January 22, 1982, changed the land use of 22% of the total farmland used for strawberry production in San Luis Obispo County. Coastal San Luis Resource Conservation District submitted a paper on the importance of addressing the benefits the county and cities derived from the strawberry industry, to LAFCo and the San Luis Board of Supervisors. The $2 million gross income in 1982, the dollar turn over, jobs, and the business created by the strawberry industry was not adequately addressed because LAFCO did not require an E.I.R. on the "Stem" annexation.
The Strawberry industry in San Luis Obispo County ranked ninth in the nation in the 1997 survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "There were 16 million pounds harvested, even though only 500 acres are dedicated to growing strawberries," stated Robert Lilly, assistant county agricultural commissioner.
SLO County Agricultural commissioner's 1998 Official Report
In 1998 the vegetable industry grossed $132.9 million in San Luis Obispo County and vegetables continue to be the highest value commodity, continuing to surpass vineyard production ($74 million) values.
Prime Farmland within the City of Arroyo Grande
In the 1970s Valley Gardens and Greenwood Acres housing tracts were developed on the prime farmland. The remaining Greenwood property was eventually rezoned to 5-acre parcels as a permanent buffer zone. The encroachment into the farmland in the 1970s and the problems that were created for the farmers and the continued attempts to cover more prime farmland with housing had to be prevented. In the latter part of 1970 the Arroyo Grande City Council held workshops on the General Plan and the consensus of the community was to annex the Oak Park area and develop the hills, in order to keep the prime farmlands for the production of vegetables.
Arroyo Grande is one of thirteen cities in California with highly productive farmland within their city limits. In 1988 the Arroyo Grande City Council recognized the social and political effects of urbanization and the farming conflict that occurs. The City Council adopted the "Right to Farm Ordinance", which is still in effect.
In 1998 a new council was elected to govern when citizens of Arroyo Grande again used the ballot box to demonstrate that the prime farmland within the city limits was not to become an industrial park. The past council failed to recognize the importance of the viable agriculture industry, which is very productive, due to the climate, water, soil and a long growing season which allows multiple crops to be harvested each year.
In 1998, in responding to a General Plan Update Survey, 87% of Arroyo Grande citizens overwhelming supported agriculture as a viable industry within the city limits of Arroyo Grande.
Two workshops were held on the General Plan update and there was solid community support for the highly productive agricultural industry within the city.
A message was sent to the elected officials, to keep things in balance, so farmers could continue farming.
In 1999 the City Council joined the County of San Luis Obispo in signing a resolution supporting the Dixson family and other farmers in their quest to find funding to keep the prime vegetable farmland in production
Japanese Vegetable Farmers
History of Japanese farming on the Central Coast has two periods; namely the prewar, with World War II in between. Prewar is dated from 1903 to 1941 and post war from 1945 to the present time. This is an account of the early years before World War II and the hardships endured by the Japanese farmers and friendships that continued after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
"There was about sixty Japanese living in the area around 1912. The Alien Land Law was enacted in 1913 prohibiting all aliens of oriental origin to own or lease land in the United States. (Law was declared unconstitutional in 1952) Bob Fukunaga was born in Hawaii and was a citizen of the United States and could legally lease land on the Central Coast to the farmers from Japan," wrote Kay Fukuhara.
In the early part of the century Japanese farmers grew bush peas on the hills in and around Arroyo Grande. In 1922 the Pea growers of Pismo Beach formed the Pismo Pea Growers association, with George Fukunaga as the manager. In 1925 growers in the Arroyo Grande area followed suit, forming the Arroyo Grande Pea Growers Association. It was the merger of the two organizations in the 1930s that became the Pismo Oceano Vegetable Exchange (POVE), as it is known today, a non-profit cooperative.
"The Japanese farmers began moving to the low land of the Arroyo Grande Valley because water was available and crops could be grown throughout the year. The fine quality poled beans became famous throughout the country because of their sweet taste. By the late 1920s the lower Arroyo Grande Valley was the most important vegetable farming region in San Luis Obispo County and farmers were able to weather the depression with little hardship," wrote Kay Fukuhara.
"Relocation of Japanese from the West Coast in 1941 created a catastrophe, which cannot be ignored, or left untold because it is a fact of History. Farming operations by the Japanese people came to an abrupt halt and mass evacuation of farmers and others took place. Crops were left in the fields as the farmers were rounded up with their families and shipped to internment camps," wrote Kay Fukuhara.
During the absence of the Japanese farmers from the West Coast some families had their property burglarized and destroyed. " The families that farmed in the Arroyo Grande Valley were very fortunate and their losses were minimal because they had good friends in the valley that looked after their farmland and their possessions. Peter Bachino, John Enos, Vard Loomis, Cyril Phelan, Joe Silveira, Ed Taylor, and Ernest Vollmer were among those who stepped forward, in face of pressure from their own community, to help their Japanese friends," these facts were written in the San Luis Obispo County Magazine. When the Japanese farmers were allowed to return to the Central Coast after World War II, only a few members of the Oceano Vegetable Exchange returned to farm.
The S. Kobara family was the first family to return home in 1945. They opened their home to help friends resettle in the Arroyo Grande Valley. The families that returned had farms to come back to but they had very little capital with which to farm and businesses willing to extend credit, were almost nonexistent. Once again, it was the same families along with Jack Snyder, the village blacksmith and the Wilkinsons Meat Market owner, who helped their Japanese friends by extending them credit when no one else would. The trouble families had returning to the valley was compounded by the hate some people openly displayed. Families could not sleep in their beds and had to sleep on the floor because a few people vented their anger by shooting at the homes at night.
Getting reestablished under these circumstances was no easy task and the lack of capital forced farmers to do with out needed supplies and equipment to farm. Again, the same people helped out by loaning farm equipment to the Japanese farmers who would work all night using the loaned equipment, in order to return it to the farmers to use in the daytime. Gas for the farm machinery was sold to them on credit by one of the Baxter brothers of Pismo Beach, causing problems with the other brother.
Pismo Oceano Vegetable Exchange
The Pismo Vegetable Exchange was reestablished after the war and celery was the most important crop because the pole peas had developed a disease and could not be grown profitably. Ken Kitasako took over as general manager in 1955, and second generation farmers tilled the land. Stone Saruwatari, Kingo Kawaoka,Hilo Fuchiwaki, Kazuo, Seirin, and Saburo Ikeda, Nori Kawaoka had taken over from their parents and they continued the post war rebuilding program.
As capital became more available the packing house was replaced by modern cold-storage facilities and the hydrovacumn-cooling tube was installed to meet the ever-increasing production. In 1976, Dennis Donovan was hired when Ken Kitasko retired. Dennis brought three generations of produce sales experience with him and new ideas.
Many changes have taken place over the years at POVE and buyers and consumers are the ones who dictate the crops that are grown and shipped. POVE has become one of the most important vegetable-shipping companies on the Central Coast.
"During the course of one year as many as 24 vegetables are grown and shipped throughout the United States and overseas," stated Donovan.
The contribution of Japanese families to the rich history of the Arroyo Grande Valley can be appreciated by viewing the farmland and the produce that is grown. POVE can rightfully claim to be the worlds largest grower and shipper of Nappa (Chinese Cabbage) which is their specialty crop.
The frontier spirit that carved out an agricultural industry that has prospered for over 100 years continues today. Grand children and great grandchildren of the Japanese, Portuguese, Philippine, Caucasian and Mexican families are still farming in the Arroyo Grande Valley and La Cienaga Valley. They plan to follow in their father and grandfathers footsteps and farm into the next century and beyond, but they are facing an unknown future, because of intense development pressures on the Central Coast.
"The landowners and lessees who produce and ship the crops are a highly proficient and experienced group of farmers who know the valley well, understand the larger environment in which they compete. They have consistently prospered - - or at least held steady against the trend toward urbanization that has engulfed so many other coastal agricultural areas in California," wrote Dr. Steve McCray, an agricultural economist, in the Coordinated Agricultural Support Study. The study was made possible by a grant from the State Coastal Conservancy for the City of Arroyo Grande.
Without a successful farmland protection program in place, even with increasing public support, the chances of keeping the Arroyo Grande Valley a National Treasure is minimized.
Arroyo Grande Valley 1957 ------------- still in production 2005
The following bibliography provided background
information for the Arroyo Grande Valley Prime Farmland, A National Treasure to Protect.
|Kay T. Fukuhara
Pacific Citizens Holiday Issue, Dec 1976
|Doris Olsen, Arroyo Grande Historian
Santa Maria Times, Jan. 17, 1976
|Jean Hubbard, Arroyo Grande Historian
Times Press Recorder, Sept. 26, 1944
|Clark Moore, Area Conservationist
U.S.D.A, Soil Conservation Service, retired
|Edwin F Nelson, Published in the Congressional
Reported by Jean Hubbard, June 26, 1994
|Doreen Liberto-Blanck, Arroyo Grande City Planner
Coordinated Agricultural Support Program Report for the City of Arroyo Grande August 1994 (CASP), updated June 1996
|David Hayes Project Manager, California Coastal
CASP Report, August 1994, update June 1996
|Dr. Steve McCray, Agricultural Economist
CASP Report, August 1994
|John Ashbaugh, AIC,
CASP Report, August 1994
|Robert Lilly, Assistant County Agricultural
1998 Annual Report, San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture
|San Luis Obispo Tribune Article, September 8,
SLO County-Among Nations Top Agricultural Regions, by David Snee
|Pictures from the Five Cities Press Recorder
Harvest Editions, 1984 and 1994
|Coastal San Luis Resource Conservation
Official Records, Jan. 1982
|Dennis Donovan, General Manager of Pismo Oceano
Vegetable Exchange (POVE)
Informational and articles on POVE
|Pismo Oceano Vegetable Exchange farmers||SLO County Magazine
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The Primary program covers a three-year cycle for children 3, 4, 5-6 years of age. Each class is a multi-age grouping, balanced for gender and developmental stage.
Every student has a chance to be both leader and follower. Cooperative interactive learning promotes authentic socialization of the child.
Dr. Montessori demonstrated that learning results from the interaction of a child’s internal thought and external experience in the world around them. To encourage children to explore this world and organize their knowledge of it, we prepare the classroom environment with activities and materials that are appealing and enjoyable, but serious in purpose and effect.
An observer in one of our Primary (3 to 6) classes is struck by the wide range of independent activities going on. This takes careful monitoring, encouragement and tutoring by our experienced teachers and assistants, but the result is well worth it, Each child is allowed to develop academically and socially to their fullest potential. Children learn to read, write and count at their own pace. They learn how to make choices, finish and put work away, and how to correct their mistakes. They learn and practice independence, patience and responsibility for themselves and others as well as becoming masters of creative problem solving.
|Half-Day Mornings (8:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.)||Kindergarten (Age 5 before 9/30)(8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.)|
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Study of special topics in interdisciplinary arts and sciences. Prerequisite: BIS 300.
This course will center on the question, how is culture used to articulate resistance? We will look at some of the rich history of political cultural production in Latin America, the Caribbean, and diaspora used by social movement actors as voices of resistance and opposition. Specifically, we will focus on music, murals, graffiti art, popular theater, testimonies, magazines, memory activism, and fictional writing as means of conveying revolutionary activism and committing marginalized voices to the historical archives. We will look at examples from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the diaspora.
Student learning goals
You should be a strong and capable writer
You should be a confident and competent researcher
You should be able to make connections between historical and contemporary events
You should understand the place of culture in articulating political messages
You should understand the place of politics in reshaping cultures
You should produce a thoughtful and reflective senior portfolio
General method of instruction
This class is set up as a seminar. We will discuss the readings as a group with little formal lecturing. The class will be reading and writing intensive.This class is set up as a seminar. We will have no more than fifteen students and we will discuss the readings as a group with little formal lecturing. The class will be reading and writing intensive. We will use a variety of different types of text including: films, fiction, social science, history, and testimonies. Required reading: Partnoy, Alicia. 1998. The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival. SF, Calif.: Midnight Editions. Shayne, Julie. 2009. They Used to Call Us Witches: Chilean Exiles, Culture, and Feminism. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books. And a collection of articles available through online e-reserves and canvas
IAS students must have taken BIS300; non-IAS students must contact me for permission to add the class. Anyone may contact me in advance for a syllabus and there will be a canvas page for you to browse. You are not expected to do any reading before the first day of class.
Class assignments and grading
This a writing intensive course. Assignments include: 1) Section write ups 2) Research papers and related sub-assignments
Grades will be based on sound analysis, clear writing, informed class participation, and attention to detail.
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Diamond is a precious stone of miraculous abilities and exceptional power. It is the king among gems and that is why the Greeks named the stone "adamas", which means indestructible and invincible. This beautiful stone is generally colorless and exhibits pale hues of pink, blue, yellow, brown and grey colors. Diamonds with brighter colors are unique and they invariably attract a large amount of admiration and invariably attract huge appreciation and acquire detailed and individual descriptions.
Discovering the Power of Diamonds
When a diamond is properly faceted, it sparkles with multi-colored rays of light. The famous Persian poet Hafiz mentioned that "the rainbow is confined in it forever". Diamonds have many healing powers as they strengthen and re-energize all the energy centers of the wearer. In the East, diamonds are used as heart tonifiers; to be used as one you have to place a diamond in the water for a night and it should be consumed the next day.
Since time immemorial people have had a belief that diamonds are miracle stones. It was a popular belief that people who carry diamonds wouldn't suffer from chronic stomach problems or any memory loss. Hindus in the ancient times strongly believed that the vibrations of a diamond render a very positive aura to many organs of the body and brain and heart in particular.
Other healing powers of diamonds also include protecting the owner from driving away bad dreams, fight depressions and preventing apoplexy. Green diamonds are particularly useful to mothers during their time of delivery; this type of diamond is also considered to be a symbol of motherhood.
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Bulb and Stem Nematode in Onions and Carrots
Table of Contents
The bulb and stem nematode (Ditylenchus dipsaci) occurs in many regions around the world and is a particularly destructive pest on vegetables grown in temperate climates.
Although many different crops are susceptible to invasion by this nematode, more than 20 biological races have been identified. Only a few of these races are know to occur in Canada and the federal government regulates the importation of potential hosts of exotic races to prevent their entry. Some biological races are host or crop specific while others are capable of invading more than one host. Crops infected by bulb and stem nematode include onions, garlic, leeks, chives, shallots, peas, beets, carrots, celery, tomato, cucumber, narcissus, hyacinth, tulip, oats, rye, alfalfa, red clover, phlox and strawberry. Onions are susceptible to several of these races of bulb and stem nematode.
Due to the potentially high economic importance and fast reproductive rate of these nematodes, it is imperative that control measures are put into place to:
Since the first reported outbreak in Ontario during 1957, the bulb and stem nematode has not caused severe problems for most Ontario vegetable growers. This is due to good crop rotations with non-host crops for 3 or more years, which virtually eliminates the nematode from infested soils. Recent surveys have detected the presence of the bulb and stem nematode at very low population levels in muck soil at a few sites on the Holland Marsh.
Although the incidence and soil populations were low, the nematodes were detected in both carrot and onion fields. No bulb and stem nematode symptoms on either carrot or onion were observed in the fields sampled, but damage from this plant parasitic nematode can devastate yield and quality.
Symptoms of bulb and stem nematode infestations on different crops vary depending on crop and population of nematodes.
In onions, the base of infected seedlings appears swollen and leaves appear twisted, malformed and may bear slightly raised pimple like spots (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Young onion plants infected with bulb and stem nematode. Initial symptoms include irregular swelling and twisted leaves (A). As the disease progresses, the outer leaves begin to die back from the tips, the outer bulb scales split and the neck may become spongy in texture (B).
Severely infected plants eventually turn yellow and die. Scales on older infected bulbs often split and appear swollen or bloated (Figure 2).
Symptoms frequently look similar to damage caused by onion maggot. Infected bulbs are also very susceptible to secondary infections by bacteria and fungi.
Figure 2. Symptoms of severely infected onions with bulb and stem nematodes (left) and uninfected healthy onions (right). The outer layers of scales of the infected bulbs are split allowing the inner layers to bulge through. When the splits extend into the root region, leaf-like shoots often grow out where roots normally grow.
Although strains of the bulb and stem nematode that infect carrots have not been confirmed in Ontario, growers should become familiar with the damage symptoms.
Young carrot seedlings develop distorted leaves and by harvest time, infected crowns become spongy and crumbly making mechanical harvesting difficult. The symptoms often resemble those caused by Aster Yellows. Infected carrots are also more prone to infection from crown rot fungi and soft rot bacteria.
Bulb and stem nematode activity begins early in the spring when they leave the soil under conditions of high humidity caused by a recent rain or heavy dew. The nematodes travel in the film of water covering the surface of stem and leaves. In onions the nematodes will move down inside the leaf sheath until they reach the bulb and feed between onion scales. During feeding, the nematode injects saliva-containing a toxin (enzyme) into the cells, which creates the lesions and stimulates distorted growth.
They prefer moist muck soil and are less likely to cause damage during hot, dry seasons. However, irrigation can encourage the invasion of susceptible crops during drought periods. The nematodes can spread through irrigation water, infected bulbs or seed, and on contaminated equipment. They can survive freezing or extreme dry conditions in a dormant state in dried infested plant residues.
Vegetable growers should consider having a nematode test done on fields in the fall after harvest or in the spring before cultivation to determine if the bulb and stem nematode is present.
Make every effort to insure that seed, sets from onions, garlic, shallots and flower bulbs are clean to prevent contaminating your farm. Sets and bulbs should be examined carefully and only plant if they appear perfectly healthy. Infected sets tend to be soft, shrunken and discolored (dark brown) near the neck of the plant and are lighter in weight.
Dispose of cull onions and carrots away from the field, where they will not contaminate irrigation canals. Clean off soil adhering to equipment before moving between fields. Remove infested plants and debris from both field and storage, then destroy them.
Rotate all fields, including those with low populations, with a non-host crop for 3 years.
Field fumigation with a registered fumigant in the fall prior to planting a susceptible crop the following spring has also been shown to effectively control these nematodes.
For more information:
Toll Free: 1-877-424-1300
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Fading Syndrome (Neonatal Mortality) in Kittens
Neonatal mortality, or fading syndrome, involves the death of a kitten at an early age of life (generally, less than two weeks). Because of their immature body organs and systems, kittens are prone to various insults, including infections and environmental, nutritional, and metabolic factors. The immune system (vital for fighting infections) is still in the building stage, so if it is not yet strong enough to ward off an infection the young cat may not survive the condition. Also, young animals do not yet have strong body temperature regulation, and their body temperature can fluctuate profoundly in response to changing environmental temperatures and humidity. Glucose control may also be poor, and blood glucose levels may fall below normal ranges in cases of nutritional disturbances, leading to a state of hypoglycemia. This syndrome is more commonly seen in pedigree kittens, as they have a tendency to be more delicate.
Symptoms and Types
- Low birth weight
- Loss of weight
- Failure to gain weight
- Decreased activity
- Poor appetite
- Constant vocalizations and restless in early phase, but kitten may become inactive and quiet in later stages
- Straying away from its litter-mates
- Low body temperature
- Difficult birth or prolonged labor
- Problems with milk letdown
- Inadequate nutrition
- Temperature and humidity extremes
- Poor sanitation
- Congenital defects
You will need to give your veterinarian a thorough history of your kitten’s health, including a background history of symptoms and any background information you have regarding your kitten's parentage. After taking a complete history, your veterinarian will conduct a complete physical examination. Laboratory tests will include a complete blood count (CBC), biochemistry profile, and urinalysis.
Blood testing may reveal anemia, changes in leukocyte (white blood cells, WBC) counts, including an abnormally low number of platelets (the cells responsible for blood clotting) and an increase in the number of white blood cells, which is what is usually seen in infections. A biochemistry profile may indicate abnormally low levels of glucose (hypoglycemia) along with other changes, depending on which organs are being the most affected. The urinalysis may indicate the presence of hemoglobin, the oxygen carrying component of red blood cells, in the urine. It may also show bacteria present in the urine, indicating an infection of the urinary tract. More specific testing would include isolating the virus or bacteria from various body fluids. Your veterinarian will also conduct a fecal examination to test for the presence of parasites.
In cases where a neonate is presenting with a low body temperature, the veterinarian will slowly warm the kitten to a normal body temperature over several hours to avoid shocking its system. Oxygen supplementation will be given if required, and intravenous fluid therapy will be initiated to correct fluid deficits.
In cases with low glucose levels in the blood (hypoglycemia), fluids with glucose will be selected for fluid therapy. The kitten will not be allowed to feed if its body temperature is significantly lower than normal and it has no suckling reflex; however, once it has been warmed, nursing will be encouraged. Antibiotic therapy will be started in the event that there is a bacterial infections present.
Living and Management
Do not attempt to feed your kitten at home if the kitten is not sucking properly at its mother's teat. Check your kitten daily for its hydration status by checking its urine color and looking into its mouth for evidence of dryness. Dry mouth and dark yellow urine will indicate that your kitten is dehydrated. If this is the case you will need to call your veterinarian for advice. Also monitor your kitten's weight daily, and ensure that the queen (mother) is properly nursing the kittens. Good home care will give your kitten the best chance of healing quickly and effectively.
It is essential that you follow all guidelines to ensure proper medication and feeding at home. Do not stop or alter the treatment on your own or change the dosage times. It is especially important to give medications at the exact prescribed dosage and time because at this immature stage, animals have great variations in drug metabolism and excretion. Even minor changes in drug dosage can be detrimental to your kitten's recovery. Your kitten will also need extra care regarding its nutrition due to its delicate requirements and inability to feed properly on its own.
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Still school works, keeping things up…though…
The 2009 film ‘The Boy in the striped Pajamas’ is based on the book of the same name though quite a different content shown to the audiences. The ways they show themes to the audiences are different besides just shifting from texts to visual representations, also the characterisation of Bruno is much more reflective to real-time and more aware to the world in which makes a rare case in which the film has a stronger impression than the book.
As one of the readers of the novel, we might find that Bruno did not really feel or realised about what the situation and seriousness was going on around him. For some reasons, this can be interpreted as he constantly ignoring the truth . “‘You don’t have any sisters, do you?’…pretending he hadn’t heard…because he wouldn’t have to answer”, P140. This is a representative of ignorance from Bruno when Shmuel reminded about the true identity of the other side of the fence. “In fact he would do well to keep his mouth shut and cause no chaos at all. Some people might not like it”, P149. Another evidence from the book showing the refusing attitude towards the reality he had faced. These are all through the innocence of a child, but the over innocence had made the character into over ignorance.
Whether as Bruno in the film version seems more subtle to a child’s perspective. A child is at learning stage, as the film went on, his innocence constantly fades away, in the support that we saw Bruno regretted after betraying his friend, but it was less described in the novel in which made him insensitive, emotionless and annoyed to the readers.
Although, the theme is pretty much similar things, the different choice of presenting gives different impression from the audiences. The narrative style and metaphor uses to describe a character is thought overall success, but however the overall innocence that he is comparing the characterisation of Bruno to the people during the Holocaust, is mis-described and misunderstood into a painful disaster.
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Almost every large application includes its own logging or tracing API. In conformance with this rule, the E.U. SEMPER project decided to write its own tracing API. This was in early 1996. After countless enhancements, several incarnations and much work that API has evolved to become log4j, a popular logging package for Java. The package is distributed under the Apache Software License, a fully-fledged open source license certified by the open source initiative. The latest log4j version, including full-source code, class files and documentation can be found at http://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/index.html.
Inserting log statements into code is a low-tech method for debugging it. It may also be the only way because debuggers are not always available or applicable. This is usually the case for multithreaded applications and distributed applications at large.
Experience indicates that logging was an important component of the development cycle. It offers several advantages. It provides precise context about a run of the application. Once inserted into the code, the generation of logging output requires no human intervention. Moreover, log output can be saved in persistent medium to be studied at a later time. In addition to its use in the development cycle, a sufficiently rich logging package can also be viewed as an auditing tool.
As Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike put it in their truly excellent book "The Practice of Programming":
As personal choice, we tend not to use debuggers beyond getting a stack trace or the value of a variable or two. One reason is that it is easy to get lost in details of complicated data structures and control flow; we find stepping through a program less productive than thinking harder and adding output statements and self-checking code at critical places. Clicking over statements takes longer than scanning the output of judiciously-placed displays. It takes less time to decide where to put print statements than to single-step to the critical section of code, even assuming we know where that is. More important, debugging statements stay with the program; debugging sessions are transient.
Logging does have its drawbacks. It can slow down an application. If too verbose, it can cause scrolling blindness. To alleviate these concerns, log4j is designed to be reliable, fast and extensible. Since logging is rarely the main focus of an application, the log4j API strives to be simple to understand and to use.
Log4j 1.x has been widely adopted and used in many applications. However, through the years development on it has slowed down. It has become more difficult to maintain due to its need to be compliant with very old versions of Java. Its alternative, SLF4J/Logback made many needed improvements to the framework. So why bother with Log4j 2? Here are a few of the reasons.
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This is the last in a series of three articles about word pairs that create confusion for a lot of speakers and writers. To read the first article in this series, click here. To read the second, click here. To read the third, click here.
1. BATED vs. BAITED
He who waits with baited breath needs to stop eating worms! (I won't make the tempting allusion to the Diet of Worms.) The word you want in that sentence is bated, which has the same root as abate.
~He watched with batedbreath as the young thug foolishly baitedthe pit bull.
~Ibaited the hook, and then waited with bated breath to see if I would get a bite. (Is that a tongue-twister or what?)
2. DISCRETE vs. DISCREET
The word discrete means separate and distinct, whereas the word discreet means tactful, prudent, circumspect.
~You can tell her your secrets, but you're a fool if you expect her to be discreet.
~These are discreteprojects, and their funding records should be kept separate.
3. DISSOCIATE vs. DISASSOCIATE
These words mean the same thing, but dissociate is the older word, whereas disassociate is a newcomer that has a less distinguished pedigree. Basically, disassociate came into common usage because people misunderstood dissociate, thinking it needed the extra syllable, which it does not. Disassociate is not actually "wrong," but dissociate is preferred, simply because it is older and because that added syllable adds nothing of value.
4. INCREDIBLE vs. INCREDULOUS
Incredible means unbelievable. Incredulous means disbelieving. Anything unbelievable could be called incredible, but only a disbelieving person can be described as incredulous.
~Told that he owed the government over a million dollars in back taxes, the gas station attendant was naturally incredulous.
~Such a sum was simply incredible.
5. EMINENT vs. IMMINENT
Eminent means outstanding, distinguished, or noteworthy. Imminent means impending, about to happen.
~Theeminent professor's retirement was imminent.
6. i.e. vs. e.g.
The abbreviation i.e. stands for id est, which means that is. The abbreviation e.g. stands for exempli gratia, which means for example.
~The surface manifestations--i.e., symptoms--of different neurological wiring can be seen as learning disabilities, or simply as differences in the way an individual perceives and processes information.
~Unfortunately, certain types of adults--e.g., those who dislike children, those who are unstable or incompetent, and those who seek only to impose their will on people who are weaker than themselves--may actually be drawn to the profession of teaching.
7. STALACTITE vs. STALAGMITE
This one is easy. Here is your mnemonic device: g stands for ground--stalagmites are the ones that come up out of the ground; c stands for ceiling--stalactites are the ones that come down from the ceiling.
8. FLAUNT vs. FLOUT
Flaunt means to display proudly, to show something off. Flout means to disobey contemptuously.
~He flaunted his willingness to flout the rules.
9. SITE vs. CITE
Site means place or location. Cite means to mention as an example, to quote something in support of a point.
~Be sure to get the reference data right when you cite your sources for this paper.
~We chose this site for the new factory because we can draw on the nearby town for employees.
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What does CAR mean in Community?
This page is about the meanings of the acronym/abbreviation/shorthand CAR in the field in general and in the Community terminology in particular.
Caring Acceptance Respect
Find a translation for CAR in other languages:
Select another language:
What does CAR mean?
- car, auto, automobile, machine, motorcar(noun)
- a motor vehicle with four wheels; usually propelled by an internal combustion engine
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Cerebrorenodigital syndrome: Introduction
Cerebrorenodigital syndrome: A rare group of syndromes characterized mainly by brain, kidney, finger and toe abnormalities.
More detailed information about the symptoms,
causes, and treatments of Cerebrorenodigital syndrome is available below.
Symptoms of Cerebrorenodigital syndrome
See full list of 40
symptoms of Cerebrorenodigital syndrome
Home Diagnostic Testing
Home medical testing related to Cerebrorenodigital syndrome:
- Child Behavior: Home Testing
- Child General Health: Home Testing
Wrongly Diagnosed with Cerebrorenodigital syndrome?
Causes of Cerebrorenodigital syndrome
Read more about causes of Cerebrorenodigital syndrome.
Cerebrorenodigital syndrome: Undiagnosed Conditions
Commonly undiagnosed diseases in related medical categories:
Misdiagnosis and Cerebrorenodigital syndrome
Mild worm infections undiagnosed in children: Human worm infestations, esp. threadworm, can be overlooked in some cases,
because it may cause only...read more »
Undiagnosed stroke leads to misdiagnosed aphasia: BBC News UK reported on a man who
had been institutionalized and treated for mental illness
because he suffered from sudden...read more »
Dementia may be a drug interaction: A common scenario in aged care is for
a patient to show mental decline to dementia.
Whereas this can, of course, occur due to various medical conditions,
such...read more »
Mesenteric adenitis misdiagnosed as appendicitis in children: Because appendicitis is one of the
more feared conditions for a child with abdominal pain, it can be over-diagnosed
(it can, of course, also fail to be...read more »
Blood pressure cuffs misdiagnose hypertension in children: One known misdiagnosis issue
with hyperension, arises in relation to the simple equipment used to test blood pressure.
The "cuff" around the arm to measure blood...read more »
Mild traumatic brain injury often remains undiagnosed: Although the symptoms
of severe brain injury are hard to miss,
it is less clear for milder injuries, or even those causing a mild...read more »
MTBI misdiagnosed as balance problem: When a person has symptoms
such as vertigo or dizziness, a diagnosis of brain injury may go overlooked.
This is...read more »
Interstitial cystitis an under-diagnosed bladder condition: The medical
condition of interstitial cystitic is a bladder condition that can be
misdiagnosed as...read more »
Brain pressure condition often misdiagnosed as dementia: A condition
that results from an excessive pressure of CSF within the brain is often misdiagnosed.
It may...read more »
Post-concussive brain injury often misdiagnosed: A study found that soldiers who had
suffered a concussive injury in battle often were misdiagnosed on their return.
A variety of symptoms can occur in post-concussion syndrome and these were...read more »
Children with migraine often misdiagnosed: A migraine often fails to be
correctly diagnosed in pediatric patients.
These patients are not the typical migraine sufferers, but migraines can also occur in children.
See ...read more »
Vitamin B12 deficiency under-diagnosed: The condition of Vitamin B12 deficiency
is a possible misdiagnosis of various conditions, such as multiple sclerosis (see symptoms of multiple sclerosis).
See ...read more »
Read more about Misdiagnosis and Cerebrorenodigital syndrome
Cerebrorenodigital syndrome: Research Doctors & Specialists
Research related physicians and medical specialists:
- Nerve Specialists:
- Neurology (Brain/CNS Specialists):
- Child Health Specialists (Pediatrics):
- more specialists...»
Other doctor, physician and specialist research services:
Hospitals & Clinics: Cerebrorenodigital syndrome
Research quality ratings and patient safety measures
for medical facilities in specialties related to Cerebrorenodigital syndrome:
Hospital & Clinic quality ratings »
Choosing the Best Hospital:
More general information, not necessarily in relation to Cerebrorenodigital syndrome,
on hospital performance and surgical care quality:
Cerebrorenodigital syndrome: Rare Types
Rare types of diseases and disorders in related medical categories:
Cerebrorenodigital syndrome: Animations
More Cerebrorenodigital syndrome animations & videos
Statistics for Cerebrorenodigital syndrome
Cerebrorenodigital syndrome: Broader Related Topics
Types of Cerebrorenodigital syndrome
User Interactive Forums
Read about other experiences, ask a question about Cerebrorenodigital syndrome, or answer someone else's question, on our message boards:
Definitions of Cerebrorenodigital syndrome:
Ophanet, a consortium of European partners,
currently defines a condition rare when it affects 1 person per 2,000.
They list Cerebrorenodigital syndrome as a "rare disease".
Source - Orphanet
Contents for Cerebrorenodigital syndrome:
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Pirelli Tire Building
In 1966, VP Joseph Stewart approached New Haven mayor, Richard Lee, about purchasing what was viewed as a “pivotal” piece of land in the Long Wharf Redevelopment Area. The site, as it occupied an important tract of land at the intersection of Interstates 91 and 95, would mark the gateway to New Haven. Thus, Mayor Lee was much concerned over the choice of architect. He insisted that anything built on the site should have an architectural presence and be built by a master.
The Armstrong Rubber Company’s program requirements were as follows: two or three floors of administrative office space, assumed by Armstrong Rubber Co. to be placed near the turnpike, and a one or two story high-ceiling space for the research and development laboratories to be relocated to New Haven from West Haven.
Armstrong Rubber Co. initially anticipated two or three floors of administrative space at the front of the site and a research and development structure of one to two story to be located at the rear, as the testing of tires to the point of destruction made a noticeable amount of noise. That the site selected lay below the roadbed grade posed a design dilemma, as this would render the originally low building plan unimposing to passing vehicular traffic. Mayor Lee suggested that the building be constructed as a 10-18 story tower – Armstrong Rubber Co. disagreed. Marcel Breuer, architect, proposed a two-story research and development structure at grade with administrative offices “hanging” above, leaving a 2-story gap. The client viewed the commission of the building as their way back into the public eye. The only point in the design process during which Armstrong Rubber Co. requested a design change from Breuer was in regards to the tower’s height. Breuer willingly conceded. Though some supporters of Breuer may have urged for more reluctance on his part to compromise his vision, others attribute his ease to his recognition of Mr. Stewart’s responsibility to shareholders, in maintaining minimal costs. Considering this within the framework of Modern architecture, Breuer’s response seems actually appropriate, as the Modernist architect was driven by careful functional analysis and demanded efficiency in structure as well as affordability in creation. The completing feature of the building, the sign, reveals a moment of teamwork between City Planning officials and the Breuer design team. Breuer’s design initially called for a three story stand-alone sign – a rooftop sign was never planned, as this would damage the buildings distinctive silhouette. However, a sign of this scale was against signage ordinance. By including a small storage space at the sign’s base, the “sign” could be deemed a “gardening shed” and thus a structure, able to be built to any height desired.
The Armstrong Rubber Co. /Pirelli Tire building is a fantastic embodiment of the design ideals held by a master Modernist architect, Marcel Breuer. The entire building is a composite of steel structure for the 4-story tower and long-span concrete T-beams for the two-story high-ceiling test area. Between these two parts of the building is a 2-story gap, giving the tower portion the illusion of suspension. Enveloping the entire building are pre-cast concrete panels of varying scale and design, depending on the function they enclose. Breuer preferred concrete as a building material, as he viewed it as universal – it serves both architectural and structural functions of the building. The pre-cast concrete panels are modeled in a form which Breuer termed crystalline. This form provided protection from the sun (a Breuer preoccupation) and gave the façade a tremendous physicality and depth. The end result is a continually changing impression of the building, depending on the day, the season and the weather.
building/construction: Breuer exploited concrete’s ability to be cast into an endless variation of forms. Because of this, one material could fulfill the needs of structure and aesthetics. The concrete panels, which were pre-cast, were made of white cement with a dark aggregate that was exposed via light sandblasting.
The original setting for the Armstrong Rubber Co. /Pirelli Tire building was an expansive greensward. In being provided this space, the building was set apart as a sculptural work in addition to a functioning building.
The Armstrong Rubber Co. /Pirelli Tire building exemplifies Breuer’s employment of concrete as both a structural and an architecturally aesthetic material. Whereas steel is structural and must be then covered for beautification, Breuer recognizes the sculptural ability of concrete and utilized this capacity to move his buildings beyond the role of mere containers for human activity to seemingly living creatures themselves. The façade has a tremendous physicality and strength, thanks to the deeply molded panels. Most technically astonishing is Breuer’s decision to suspend the office tower above the research and development wing. One can read through the concrete the massive trusses used to carry this load at the attic story of the tower.
The Armstrong Rubber Co. /Pirelli Tire building was intended to act as a beacon for the town of New Haven. To achieve this, the city was cognizant of the need for an architect on the forefront of architectural practice – Modernism was the style du jour. Breuer designed the Armstrong Rubber Co. /Pirelli Tire building to mark the entrance into the city and announce New Haven’s rebirth as a city of culture.
Developed in the 1950s, the Armstrong Rubber Co./Pirelli Tire building exemplifies what Breuer deemed an emerging new depth of façade. By simply molding the pre-cast panels, common to the Modern movement, an architect could exploit the play of light and allow sun and shadow to define a building’s architectural expression. Breuer termed the resulting form a crystalline structure. This concept of an organic but strictly scientific reproducing of similar forms was possible because of Breuer’s abiding faith in standardization.
In the tradition of masterful artistic works, the Armstrong Rubber Co./Pirelli Tire building has become more increasingly appreciated as a result of its well publicized impending demise. Many recognize now how typical of the Modern movement Breuer’s building is – its affinity for standardization, its construction in concrete, its minimalist ornamentation, its compositional massing. While typical, however, it is also, individually, exquisitely successful.
Unfortunately, the building was allowed to become the poster child for last-minute advocacy. Modern architecture is, seemingly by the day, losing major contributions to the movement; the Armstrong Rubber Co./Pirelli Tire building escaped in an amputated state. Its story has thus become a lesson in advocating for Modern architecture.
Breuer’s design fits neatly into the cadre of Modern architecture. Furthermore, it is referential of his own work worldwide, and in doing this significant of the adaptability of the style to various landscapes and client needs. Breuer’s works for IBM, both at La Gaude, France (1961), and in Boca Raton, Florida (1977), exhibit the same crystalline structure. One of his most heralded projects, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development building in Washington, D.C., (1963-68) showed the applicability of the form in not only the world of science, a discipline Breuer saw directly aligned with art and architecture, but also those social and political realms of culture. The State University of New York at Buffalo’s Furnas Hall (1977) employs the aesthetic and construction type in the world of education. Together, these buildings (a select few in his larger portfolio of works) illustrate his belief in and contributions to the Modern movement. Not only did he begin his studies at the famed Bauhaus school, but he continued on as a teacher, embracing and promoting the idea of unity between art and technology. These structures also show his tendency towards Brutalist aesthetics. Other Bauhaus legends, such as Mies van der Rohe, may have favored the rectilinear glass and steel box, such as the Seagram Building (1954-1958), but Breuer returned time and again to his crystalline aesthetic, more often than not realized in concrete. His buildings project and are at moments distorted in order to achieve the architect’s intended play of light and shadow.
“Around the State: New Haven.” Preservation News. May/June 2003: 6, 15.
Breuer . 2001. St. John’s Abbey and University. Feb. 2007. (http://www.marcelbreuer.org/)
Brown, Bay. “IKEA vs. Breuer.” Architecture, 91.12 (2002): 14.
Marcel Breuer: A Memoir. (New York : Monacelli Press, 2000).
Hawthorne, Christopher. “Disposable Architecture: Ignoring its Modernist lineage, IKEA seeks to dismantle a classic Marcel
Breuer building.” Metropolis. 22.6 (2003): 44.<
Hughes, C.J. “As a Business Sets Up, A Group Takes Steps to Preserve a Landmark.” The New York Times 26 Jan. 2003, late ed: 14C.
Hyman, Isabelle. Marcel Breuer, Architect: The Career and the Buildings. (New York : H.N. Abrams, 2001).
Lerner, Kevin. “IKEA Plans to Tear Down a Significant Portion of New Haven Breuer Building for Parking.” Architectural Record 191.1 (2003): 38.
“Modern Buildings in the News: New Haven.” Connecticut. Preservation News. Jan/Feb 1999: 5.
Narracci, Robert. “Advocacy Updates: Connecticut: Pirelli Building (Armstrong Rubber) Demo of Horizontal Section Underway.” DOCOMOMO-US Newsletter. Summer 2003: 4.
“The Emergence of Modernism, 1940-1973: Social Agenda or the Latest Aesthetic?” American Architecture: A History, (Boulder: Icon Editions, Westview Press, 2001).
“Things Finally Gelling for Pirelli.” Tire Business 20.26 (2003): 8.
Von Vegesack, Alexander and Mathias Remmele. Marcel Breuer: Design and Architecture. (Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Museum, c2003).
- Marcel Breuer drawing for tower façade details. (Source: Gatje, 2000)
- View of building system employed at the Armstrong Rubber Co./Pirelli Tire building.
- Photograph of site during period of construction. (Source: Hyman, 2001)
- On the ground level, research and development, as well as storage. In “hanging tower” – administrative functions. (Source: Smithsonian Archives Online, 2002)
- Close-up view of gap between tower and research and development wing. (Source: Hyman, 2001)
- View of the Armstrong Rubber Co./Pirelli Tire building sign which became a “garden shed.” (Source: Preservation Online, 2003)
- Aerial view showing relation of Armstrong Rubber Co./Pirelli Tire building to the IKEA chain store and parking lot. (Source: Architecture Week Online, 2002)
- Cartoon appearing at time of IKEA’s threat to demolish the Armstrong RubberCo./Pirelli Tire building. (Source: Architecture Week Online, 2002)
- Sign designed by Breuer for the Laboratories Sargent. (Source: Hyman, 2001)
- Furnas Hall at SUNY, Buffalo. (Source: SUNY, Buffalo, 2006)
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development building in Washington, D.C. (Source: Marcel Breuer Online, 2007)
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New Content Updates
Educational Webcast Alerts
Building Products/Technology Notices
Access Exclusive Member Content
Facility Manager Cost Saving/Best Practice Quick Reads RSS Feed
Today’s tip is to consider a warmer temperature in your data center. Engineers are working on more sophisticated technologies for both computers and cooling equipment.
In the early days of data centers, computer equipment was kept at very cool temperatures — from 68 F to 70 F. These temperatures were mandated by computer manufacturers, who would not guarantee their equipment at higher temperatures. However, in 2008 the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) revised the guidelines to temperature band of 64.4 F to 80.6 F. "What is so powerful about these new recommended ranges is that they apply to legacy IT equipment," says Don Beaty, president of DLB Associates.
Using the higher end of the new temperature ranges can significantly reduce cooling energy use in chilled water systems. "Normally the water in the chiller would be cooled to 44 degrees, but if they take it to 50 degrees, it requires half of the energy," says Jim McEnteggart, vice president of Primary Integration Solutions.
Some data centers are running at only slightly higher temperatures, says Paul Mihm, executive vice president, technical services group, of Rubicon, "because the time to reach critical temperature is significantly shorter in the event of a failure." One solution, says Mihm, is to have a backup system to exhaust hot air out of the space. Most environments could withstand a short period of heat until the backup system kicked in, he says.
Another option is thermal energy storage using tanks of cold water. In water-cooled systems, the tank could be used to pump cold water through the system very quickly when a facility switches to emergency power.
While the type of data center will, in large part, determine tolerance of the new ASHRAE standards, geography also plays a role, since a hot climate will likely have a lower threshold for higher temperatures. If the data center needs to be rapidly cooled off, the outside air will not be much help, so there is less margin of error.
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Results from studies by BirdLife and othersaround the world show that, on average,species are projected to face 10-30% declinesin their geographic range sizes, with 30-70% of their current distributions projected to become unsuitable by the end ofthe 21st century. Species that are likely to experience a substantial proportional range loss and shift (with low overlap between present and projected future range) as a consequence of climate change are of particular concern.
Climate change is already shifting the distribution of bird species across the globe (Zuckerberg et al. 2009, Auer and King 2014, Environmental Protection Agency 2014, Virkkala & Lehikoinen 2014, Gillings et al. 2015), and these changes are expected to continue throughout the century (Huntley et al. 2008, Barbet-Massin et al. 2009, Hole et al. 2009, Araujo et al. 2011, Bagchi et al. 2013, Langham et al. 2015).
We have collated the results of seven studies from across the planet to show that on average, species are expected to experience 10-30% declines in their geographic range sizes, with 30-70% of their current distributions projected to become unsuitable by the end of the 21st century (Huntley et al. 2008, Hole et al. 2009, Barbet-Massin et al. 2009, Doswald et al. 2009, Huntley et al. 2012, Bagchi et al. 2013, Langham et al. 2015).
There is however much variation across and within regions, with bird species in North America, on average, experiencing increases in range sizes (Langham et al. 2015). The McCown’s Longspur Rhynchophanes mccownii for example, is predicted to lose 100% of its summer range by 2080, but a 167% increase in winter range, whilst the American Avocet Recurvirostra americana, will lose as much as 96% of their summer range and experience a 33% increase in winter range (Langham et al. 2015, National Audubon 2015).
Species in Europe are generally expected on average to lose most range extent and overlap with current ranges, compared to other regions. European warblers are however expected to have little change in range size on average (Doswald et al. 2009). An exception to this includes the Tristram's Warbler Sylvia deserticola whose relative range extent is expected to be as low as 22% by 2100. Of the Afro-palearctic songbirds studied by Barbet-Massin and colleagues (2009), the Collared Flycatcher Ficedula albicollis and Semi-collared Flycatcher Ficedula semitorquata are expected to have the largest decline in future range, and the Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola the largest increase in future range and overlap between current and future distributions.
Earlier research modelled recent geographic distribution of ten landbirds endemic to Europe against three climatic variables to map the area in which climate is likely to be suitable for the species in the late twenty-first century (Gordon et al. 2000). Graph 1 shows how well the projected and current modelled ranges match up in overlap (y axis) and extent (x axis). For six species, the area where climate is suitable will decrease (x axis values less than 100). Even where this does not occur, the climate space associated with the species may shift so much that there is little overlap between future and current modelled ranges. For eight species, less than 20% overlap is predicted and for three species there is no predicted overlap at all. Species with low values on either axis might be at risk, but those with low values on both axes—those marked in red on the graph—may be of particular conservation concern (Huntley et al. 2007, 2008).
Declines in overlap between current and future distributions are of concern, since the ability to disperse will rely on the birds ability to ‘track’ changes in climate. Steep declines in future range extent demonstrate the considerable impact climate change is expected to have across the globe by the end of the century.
This case study is taken from ‘The Messengers: What birds tell us about threats from climate change and solutions for nature and people’. To download the report in full click here.
Compiled 2004, updated 2008, updated 2015
BirdLife International (2015) Most species will experience range contraction and shifts. Presented as part of the BirdLife State of the world's birds website. Available from: http://birdlife.org/datazone/sowb/casestudy/188. Checked: 26/06/2016
|Key message: Many species will suffer from range shifts and losses, and some will become extinct|
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As President Obama said in this year’s State of the Union address, “climate change is a fact.” And he was right. Recent extreme weather events such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, record setting heat waves, wildfires, and droughts remind us of our vulnerability to a changing climate and its effects on our daily lives. Addressing the issue of climate change has been a top priority for President Obama, as he believes we have a moral obligation to leave our children a cleaner and safer planet.
At HUD, we share the President’s vision because creating safe, sustainable and resilient communities is part of our mandate. Extreme weather events and climate change jeopardize our mission. They also hurt the individuals we are responsible for protecting—children, seniors, and low-income groups—those most sensitive to abrupt change. When we think back to Hurricane Sandy, when more than 650,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, we recognize the need to help communities become more resilient to these increasingly frequent and severe challenges.
Yesterday, the Obama Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demonstrated a commitment to creating healthy and safe communities by announcing the Clean Power Plan, which will help cut carbon pollution nationwide from power plants by approximately 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Currently, about 40 percent of America’s carbon pollution comes from power plants. But right now, there are no national limits on the amount of carbon pollution that existing plants can pump into the air we breathe.Yesterday’s announcement is significant because EPA is proposing a national framework that builds on the work states, cities and companies already are doing to reduce carbon pollution while ensuring states have flexibility to determine how best to meet reduction targets. As an added benefit, the Plan will stimulate increased energy efficiency and innovation in renewable energy that will create U.S. jobs and help clean up our air through the modernization of our power plants. Not only will this be a boost to air quality and our safety and health, it will help create new jobs in clean energy production and promote energy efficiency in our nation’s homes and businesses.
At HUD, we work every day to “create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all,”—and the new EPA guidelines will help us achieve those goals. HUD is committed to reducing carbon emissions and helping to implement President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, released one year ago, through programs like the Better Building Challenge, which complement the EPA guidelines. In this example, U.S multifamily housing owners, universities, and state and local governments have committed to reducing the energy used across their building portfolios by 20 percent or more by 2020. Better Building Challenge partners are on track to meet the President’s goal by cutting energy use by 2.5 percent annually, equivalent to about $58 million in energy savings per year. That is real progress.
We believe our collective actions can make a real difference in stabilizing climate change and in ensuring we leave our children the best possible chance for a healthy and prosperous life.
Harriet Tregoning is the Director of the Office of Economic Resilience.
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Nanodermatology: A Bright Glimpse Just Beyond the Horizon - Part I
Adnan Nasir, MD
Department of Dermatology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Nanotechnology is a relatively new branch of engineering that is making rapid inroads in medicine and dermatology. Nanotechnology applies the unique properties of matter on the nanoscale (1000 nm and smaller) for the purposeful design of new materials. Dermatology is already one of the leading beneficiaries of nanotechnology. Among US patent holders in nanotechnology, the sixth largest is a cosmetics company. Nanotechnology applications have been realized in sunscreens and are being developed for the maintenance of skin health, as well as for the diagnosis and management of skin disease. This article summarizes some of the recent and anticipated advances in nanotechnology for dermatology. In part II, the author addresses the chief concerns of nanotechnology.
nanotechnology, dermatology, drug delivery, sunscreens, safety
The origins of nanotechnology may date back to the 1950ís when physicist Richard Feynman proposed developing machines that made smaller copies of themselves.1-3 Feynman surmised that multiple iterations of this process could create machines in the subcellular size range from bench-sized starting materials. If the bench-sized machine could perform useful work, then its replica could as well. The tiny products could then be integrated into assembly lines that could generate microminiature replicas manufactured with atomic precision. These miniature factories could then be fed molecular substrates and turn out molecular products at a prodigious rate, a sort of Detroit scaled to the size of a mitochondrion. In the 1970ís, K. Eric Drexler made computer models for some of these processes and designed simple molecular nanomachines consisting of pulleys, gears, and screws; these could self-assemble, based on their charge or polarity into useful devices.
Drexler further realized that matter has unique properties on the nanoscale. For example, as matter becomes smaller, it becomes subject to scaling laws. Scaling laws govern the basic laws of motion and Newtonian physics. When lever arms are smaller, they spin faster, and when incorporated into motors, they can generate more power.
Most nanotechnology bypasses quantum mechanical considerations in atomic behavior and treats atoms and molecules like smooth spheres. On the nanoscale, liquids behave like buckets of billiard balls, gas behaves like a hailstorm, and photons pelt like ping pong balls. Matter on the nanoscale also displays properties that are different from the parent compound on the macroscale. For example, table salt, sodium chloride, is brittle and an insulator in bulk form. On the nanoscale, salt stretches like taffy and conducts electricity. Sunscreens made from titanium microparticles, while effectively blocking UVA and UVB light, require a greasy vehicle for dissolution and leave a chalky residue when applied on the skin (Figure 1). Nanosized titanium particles dissolve more easily in water-based vehicles and leave no residue on the skin.4-6 They enhance their physical blocking capabilities by coating the skin more evenly.
Figure 1. As nanoparticles shrink in size, they interact with light differently. If they are smaller than the wavelength of visible light, they may become transparent. Smaller nanoparticles also coat the skin more tightly and evenly than their counterparts. Microparticle (left); nanoparticle (right) 1/1000 size of microparticle (not to scale).
Size is not the only critical factor in nanotechnology. Purposeful engineering is also important. It is not enough to make a small nanoparticle. For example, nanoparticles penetrate the skin more readily than their bulk counterparts. Smaller nanoparticles penetrate more readily than larger ones. Discrete particles penetrate more readily than aggregates. These attributes can be useful considerations in drug delivery. Furthermore, therapeutic agents can be made more useful if the synthesis of nanoparticles is controlled to encapsulate or stabilize a drug or target it to the epidermis or dermis.
Since Feynman's and Drexler's time, nanotechnology has made great strides.7 Consumer products such as sunscreens, shampoos, and cosmeceuticals have been developed. Diagnostic devices and tools are in the early stages of development and treatments for a variety of skin diseases are being explored in the laboratory. It is anticipated that nanotechnology will be the fastest growing area for the maintenance of skin health, as well as for the diagnosis and management of cutaneous disease.
There is a great deal of excitement about the potential for novel materials and devices using nanotechnology.8-10 In dermatology, these fall into three broad realms: consumer products, diagnostic products, and therapeutic products (summarized in Table 1). These will be discussed briefly here with examples of potential dermatologic applications for each field.
Figure 2. Some biologically active materials may be too large (botulinum toxin, hyaluronic acid) or polar (γ-aminobutyric acid) to penetrate the epidermis and may require injections for administration (left). Nanoencapsulated versions of these molecules may be stable and penetrate to the dermis (right).
Sunscreen has already been briefly discussed. A number of manufacturers have developed sunscreens using nanosized titanium, zinc, and iron to allow formulation in vanishing and cosmetically elegant vehicles. Fillers typically require injection to penetrate the skin (Figure 2). Hyaluronic acid in its bulk form is 50,000 nm or larger in size and is unable to penetrate skin.11,12 Nanosized particles of hyaluronic acid can penetrate the skin and are the basis of a topical delivery system in development. Retinoids suffer from instability and irritability. Nano-encapsulated retinoids are more stable and their release can be controlled and slowed, resulting in less irritation. Solid lipid nanoparticles and nanostructured lipid carriers can be synthesized with an active ingredient in the center of the particle to delay release. Slow release kinetics are important for perfumes, which can yield all-day fragrance.10 They are also useful for insect repellants, such as N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET), to prolong efficacy.
Fabrics incorporating superhydrophobic 'nanowhiskers' (nanosized hair-like projections on individual textile fibers) can repel stains, dirt, and microorganisms. Bulk silver is inert. Silver on the nanoscale is highly toxic to microorganisms, including resistant microorganisms such as Staphylococcus aureus.9,13 Fabrics impregnated with nanosilver are antimicrobial and may be beneficial to health care workers. Nanosilver is also being incorporated into dressings or bandages to minimize the potential for wound infection. Nanosilver in washing machines allows disinfection at lower temperatures and saves energy.
One of the great joys of dermatology is the primacy of examination in diagnosis. Most skin conditions reveal themselves to astute and informed observation. Nevertheless, dermatologists still use specialized tools and tests to assist in or confirm the diagnosis of skin disease. The tools of the nanotechnology era will bear little resemblance to our potassium hydroxide slide preparation and will be far less invasive than our punch biopsy.
Quantum dots are small semiconductors.8,14 They can be made to absorb desired wavelengths of light. Upon absorption, they emit brightly fluorescent color. Quantum dots can be coupled to tags such as antibodies. In animal models, tagged fluorescent quantum dots have proven useful for the visualization of tumors in the skin and for the harvesting of sentinel lymph nodes without the use of radioactivity.14
A nanopunch is a small, simple biopsy tool consisting of copper, nickel, silicon, and chromium layered in the shape of an origami claw. Differing coefficients of expansion of the layers allow temperature change to cause the claw to close and open, like a Venus flytrap. The nanopunch is paramagnetic and its migration can be controlled by a magnetic field. The nanopunch could be injected into the bloodstream and guided to challenging biopsy sites, such as the nail matrix, the fascia, and the liver. The claw could be activated by temperature and collected from a urine sample by a magnetic trap. Tissue could then be released for analysis.
|Field of Development
||Potential Areas of Application
||Sunscreens, fillers, antimicrobials, wound care, slow release volatile compounds (e.g., perfumes and insect repellants)
||Real time visualization of tumors and sentinel lymph nodes, real time diagnosis of infections and malignancies, minimally invasive biopsies
||Antimicrobials, epicutaneous fillers, epicutaneous paralytics, epidermally localized corticosteroids, gene silencers, epicutaneous vaccines, inducible therapies (e.g., optical, magnetic, temperature, and radiofrequency)
Table 1. Promising areas of nanotechnology research in dermatology
Figure 3. Carbon nanotubes stretched across a gap conduct electricity. If they are coupled to receptors(antibodies shown here),the conductivity changes if the receptor is free or bound to ligand. This can be detected as a change in current in real time. (Not to scale, the entire ladder of nanotubes could easily fit into a mitochondrion).
Carbon nanotubes conduct electricity, unlike their bulk precursors. Carbon nanotubes can be coupled to macromolecules such as nucleic acids and antibodies. Coupled molecules alter the conductivity of the carbon nanotube as compared with its native state. Conductivity is further altered if the coupled molecules bind their cognate receptors (Figure 3). Carbon nanotube conductivity can therefore be used to make a highly sensitive biomarker sensor on an extremely tiny scale (sub-organellar). Single biomarkers or tandem arrays may be useful for the real time diagnosis of skin infections and possibly malignancies. Carbon nanotube sensors may be able to detect infinitesimally minute quantities of substrate.
One of the great areas for advance in dermatologic disease will be epicutaneous drug delivery. Some agents developed by nanotechnology will be recognizable, but some will defy and completely upend our current paradigms of dermatologic therapy. Drugs encapsulated in polymers or nanoparticles will be stabilized, and their release and activity will be targeted.
Volatile antimicrobial gases, such as nitric oxide, have been trapped in nanoparticulate chitosan,15 a carbohydrate polymer found in arthropod exoskeletons. When the polymer dissolves, nitric oxide is released. Biologically active forms of trapped nanoparticulate nitric oxide have shown utility in the treatment of skin infections and have proven highly effective at penetrating abscesses.
Botulinum toxin has been stabilized and encapsulated in a form that allows penetration of the skin and apparent effacement of rhytides in early clinical trials.16-18 Topical paralytic agents, such as „-aminobutyric acid, are being used to transcutaneously relax muscles of facial expression to similar effect.
Encapsulated topical steroids are being developed, which accumulate in the epidermis, but do not penetrate the dermis, where collagenolysis associated with atrophy and telagiectases occurs. These types of agents will be useful for the management of spongiotic dermatoses and will carry a reduced risk of corticosteroid-mediated side-effects.
Bulk soybean oil is not toxic. Nanoemulsions of soybean oil are antimicrobial and are being incorporated into disinfectants. Nanoemulsions of other compounds that can penetrate the nail and the pilosebaceous unit are being used to treat onychomycosis and acne, respectively.
Polymeric nanoparticles encapsulating small inhibitor ribonucleic acids (siRNAs) can selectively inactivate gene expression. Nanoencapsulated siRNAs have been used for the management of a genodermatosis (pachyonychia congenital)19 and for the successful targeted delivery and inhibition of a test gene expressed in melanoma in human trials.20
Thermosensitive polymers encapsulate drug below a critical temperature and dissolve to release the drug above the critical temperature. These are being used for drug delivery at sites of inflammation (calor is one of the hallmarks of inflammation) and are also being developed to target release wherever external heat is applied. For example, methotrexate could be encapsulated in a thermosensitive polymer for psoriasis. It could be inactive in the polymer and released by endogenous (calor) or externally applied heat to treat individual or generalized psoriatic lesions. This type of delivery would be very useful and convenient for difficult to treat areas, such as the nails and scalp.
Topical nanoparticles can be engineered to elicit humoral and cell-mediated immunity.21,22 Microneedle patches have been shown to painlessly target delivery of vaccines to the epidermis and reticular dermis, where the bulk of Langerhans cells and dermal dendritic cells reside, inducing a potent immune response.22-24
Nanoparticulate drug delivery agents have been developed, their release can be controlled by magnetism, laser light of any frequency, and radio waves (Figure 4).
Figure 4. a. Materials encapsulated within nanoparticles can be designed to have prolonged release kinetics. This is useful for fragrances, insect repellents, and for once daily dosing. b. Nanoparticles can be coupled to receptors for targeting. For example, in animal models, the melanocyte stimulating hormone has been used to target gold nanoshells to melanoma. c. Nanoparticles can be coated with polymers that degrade in the presence of free radicals (O2-), radiofrequency (RF), temperature change (T), or magnetic fields (H), which allows for release to be both controlled and localized.
Nanotechnology capitalizes on the unique behavior of atoms and molecules on the nanometer scale. Nanomaterials depart from their parent compounds in their stability, reactivity, and ability to assemble into useful products. Nanomaterials are already being used in consumer products such as sunscreens, antimicrobial surfaces, and clothing. Nanotechnology is being utilized in cutaneous drug delivery to stabilize compounds, allow controlled release, and to enable targeted drug localization to maximize activity and minimize toxicity. The next generation of diagnostic tools using nanotechnology will be unlike any dermatology has ever seen.
For example, such advances may allow real time visualization of molecular markers of skin disease in vivo and in situ, rapid diagnosis of infections and malignancies using minute quantities of tissue, and minimally invasive skin biopsy in challenging locations. The theoretical concerns of the toxicity of nanomaterials will be discussed in part II of this series.25
- Drexler KE. Machine-phase nanotechnology. Sci Am 285(3):74-5 (2001 Sep).
- Drexler KE. Nanosystems: molecular machinery, manufacturing, and computation. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (1992).
- Hall JS. Nanofuture: what's next for nanotechnology. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books (2005).
- Sadrieh N, Wokovich AM, Gopee NV, et al. Lack of significant dermal penetration of titanium dioxide from sunscreen formulations containing nano- and submicron-size TiO2 particles. Toxicol Sci 115(1):156-66 (2010 May).
- Sayes CM, Wahi R, Kurian PA, et al. Correlating nanoscale titania structure with toxicity: a cytotoxicity and inflammatory response study with human dermal fibroblasts and human lung epithelial cells. Toxicol Sci 92(1):174-85 (2006 Jul).
- Schilling K, Bradford B, Castelli D, et al. Human safety review of "nano" titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. Photochem Photobiol Sci 9(4):495-509 (2010 Apr).
- Bhushan B, editor. Springer handbook of nanotechnology, 2nd ed. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag, (2007).
- Nasir A. The future of nanotechnology in dermatology. US Dermatology 3(1):9-13 (2008).
- Nasir A. Nanotechnology and dermatology: part I--potential of nanotechnology. Clin Dermatol 28(4):458-66 (2010 Jul-Aug).
- Nasir A. Nanovehicles: topical transportation of the future. Skin & Aging 18(5):36-40 (2010 May 6).
- Jenning V, Gohla SH. Encapsulation of retinoids in solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN). J Microencapsul 18(2):149-58 (2001 Mar-Apr).
- Katz LM. Nanotechnology and applications in cosmetics: general overview. ACS Symp Ser 961:193-200 (2007).
- Lee HJ, Yeo SY, Jeong SH. Antibacterial effect of nanosized silver colloidal solution on textile fabrics. J Mater Sci 38(10):2199-204 (2003 May).
- Kim S, Lim YT, Soltesz EG, et al. Near-infrared fluorescent type II quantum dots for sentinel lymph node mapping. Nat Biotechnol 22(1):93-7 (2004 Jan).
- Martinez LR, Han G, Chacko M, et al. Antimicrobial and healing efficacy of sustained release nitric oxide nanoparticles against Staphylococcus aureus skin infection. J Invest Dermatol 129(10):2463-9 (2009 Oct).
- Chajchir I, Modi P, Chajchir A. Novel topical BoNTA (CosmeTox, toxin type A) cream used to treat hyperfunctional wrinkles of the face, mouth, and neck. Aesthetic Plast Surg 32(5):715-22; discussion 23 (2008 Sep).
- Collins A, Nasir A. Topical botulinum toxin. J Clin Aesthetic Dermatol 3(3):35-9 (2010 Mar).
- Flynn TC. Update on botulinum toxin. Semin Cutan Med Surg 25(3):115-21 (2006 Sep).
- Leachman SA, Hickerson RP, Schwartz ME, et al. First-in-human mutation-targeted siRNA phase Ib trial of an inherited skin disorder. Mol Ther 18(2):442-6 (2010 Feb).
- Davis ME, Zuckerman JE, Choi CH, et al. Evidence of RNAi in humans from systemically administered siRNA via targeted nanoparticles. Nature 464(7291):1067-70 (2010 Apr 15).
- Mahe B, Vogt A, Liard C, et al. Nanoparticle-based targeting of vaccine compounds to skin antigen-presenting cells by hair follicles and their transport in mice. J Invest Dermatol 129(5):1156-64 (2009 May).
- Nasir A. Nanotechnology in vaccine development: a step forward. J Invest Dermatol 129(5):1055-9 (2009 May).
- Gill HS, Soderholm J, Prausnitz MR, et al. Cutaneous vaccination using microneedles coated with hepatitis C DNA vaccine. Gene Ther 17(6):811-4 (2010 Jun).
- Peterson TA. Microstructured transdermal systems for intradermal vaccine and drug delivery. Pharm Tech Eur 18(12):21-36 (2006 Dec).
- Nasir A. Nanodermatology: a glimpse of caution just beyond the horizon - part II. Skin Therapy Lett. In press 2010.
In this issue:
- Nanodermatology: A Bright Glimpse Just Beyond the Horizon - Part I
- The Management of Chronic Pruritus in the Elderly
- Update on Drugs and Drug News: September 2010
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For years, the Social Security Administration has warned lawmakers that unless they do something soon, the entitlement program for disabled workers will run out of cash by 2016.
Still, as the program’s funds dry up and its insolvency hovers less than two years away, Congress remains quiet on the issue.
More than 11 million Americans currently rely on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which was created in 1956 to provide financial assistance to people unable to work because of severe health issues.
Americans using the program, which is funded through the federal payroll tax, currently collect an average $1,129.51 per month. Most of the beneficiaries rely on disability for a significant portion of their income. Officials estimate that the majority of them never return to the workforce and remain dependent on the government.
The program has swelled in recent years—with rapid growth driving it full speed ahead to insolvency.
Since 2000, SSDI beneficiaries have increased by 73 percent. Experts from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco attribute that partially to population growth, but they also note “disability insurance caseloads as a share of the population age 20 to 64—known as the disability recipiency rate—also have risen rapidly over the past several decades.”
Social Security officials say the increase is related to a number of factors including the aging population as well as a larger number of working women eligible for the program.
Others say the spike in beneficiaries is largely due to a 1984 policy change that expanded the qualifications for disability.
Economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Mark Duggan and Scott Imberman released an analysis that found that relaxed medical eligibility criteria was the biggest factor driving the increase in disability beneficiaries.
Regardless of the reason, the number of beneficiaries has increased and naturally, so has spending. According to the Social Security Administration, spending on the program has more than tripled since 1983 from $43 billion to $139 billion, adjusted for inflation. It now accounts for about 20 percent of the Social Security Administration’s total budget.
Spending has ticked up so fast in recent years that revenue can’t keep up. The government has paid out more than it has taken in every year since 2009, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees.
If the pattern continues and the program runs out of money by 2016, the millions of Americans collecting disability will see their benefits cut by at least 20 percent.
Yet, agency officials say the entitlement doesn’t have to become insolvent. Congress could go in and replenish the fund. In its most recent report, the Social Security Board of Trustees suggests that one way of doing this would be to raise the federal payroll tax.
However, that would be a tough sell on Capitol Hill where any mention of tax increases is taboo—especially ahead of the midterm and presidential elections.
The more likely option is to reallocate funds from other Social Security programs, like Old Age and Survivors Insurance- the much larger-known Social Security insurance plan for the elderly. Congress has used this option at least 11 times since Social Security was enacted. The agency says both programs taken together will be solvent for at least two more decades.
The last time Congress used this quick-fix plan was in 1994 when the disability program was in a similarly dire financial situation. At the time, they predicted that the same thing would need to happen again in 2016…and look where we are now.
Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
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http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/05/21/Government-Entitlement-Program-s-About-Dry
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- http://emshort.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/so-do-we-need-this-parser-thing-anyway/ also discusses interfaces for IF
- http://www.alfiekohn.org/parenting/gj.htm (via Mitch)
- "tell them what they did instead of just saying that they are smart"
- "The reason praise can work in the short run is that young children are hungry for our approval. But we have a responsibility not to exploit that dependence for our own convenience." which suggests that this might still be a good strategy for the intro lessons, but not for the system as a whole.
- provide a gauge showing how 'good' a child's tracing of a letter is, rather than just saying 'good job'. (item 3)
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http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Nell/UserInterface
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An example of to deter is for a policeman to stop you to ask questions.
Origin of deterClassical Latin deterrere ; from de-, from + terrere, to frighten: see terror
transitive verbde·terred, de·ter·ring, de·ters
- To prevent or discourage from acting, as by means of fear or doubt: threats that did not deter her from speaking out; skin chemicals that deter predators.
- To prevent or discourage (an action or behavior): installed surveillance cameras to deter vandalism.
- To make less likely or prevent from happening: protocols to deter infection.
Origin of deterLatin d&emacron;terr&emacron;re : d&emacron;-, de- + terr&emacron;re, to frighten.
(third-person singular simple present deters, present participle deterring, simple past and past participle deterred)
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http://www.yourdictionary.com/deter
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St. Cyril led an ascetic life by the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century AD. As Archbishop of Crete, he administered the Church for 25 years. During the Diocletian and Maximian persecutions he suffered torture and was finally executed by sword. Our Church celebrates his memory on July 27 each year.
More Lives of Saints
Recommend this page to your friend!
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http://www.truechristianity.info/en/saints_en_07/saint_cyril_of_crete_en.php
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April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and more than 200 law enforcement agencies across the state are launching high-visibility enforcement operations in an effort to save lives and eliminate dangerous behind-the-wheel distractions.
CHP Officer David Martinez says in recent years, hundreds have been killed and thousands seriously injured in California as a result of collisions that involved at least one driver who was distracted. Talking, texting or browsing on a cell phone are the most often talked about driving distractions, but Officer Martinez says any activity that diverts the driver’s attention away from the primary task of driving is distracting.*
According to research, sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds. Even a three second glance at freeway speeds means a driver has traveled the distance of a football field.
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http://knco.com/agencies-crack-down-on-distracted-driving/
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By Julianna Kettlewell
BBC News science reporter
A swift ascent from deep water may be just as dangerous for whales as it is for humans, Science magazine reports.
Scientists say much more research is needed
Damage consistent with the bends - every diver's nightmare - has been found in the bones of sperm whales.
An acute form of the illness was also suspected in beaked whales, which were beached after a naval sonar exercise.
This has led researchers to speculate that sonar may distress whales into rising too quickly, resulting in potentially lethal cases of the bends.
These findings will come as a surprise to many people, because it has long been assumed that marine mammals are immune to the illness.
Pits and lesions
Since whales have evolved in the sea for millions of years, it is reasonable to suspect that natural selection would have "found" a physiological solution to decompression sickness.
But there is accumulating evidence to suggest this is not the case.
Michael Moore and his team, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, US, have been inspecting bones from a collection of sperm whales.
They noticed that many of the bones contained lesions and pits, indicating the whales may have suffered mild, but chronic, decompression sickness over the course of their lives.
"I see it as the cost of living in a pressure gradient environment," said Michael Moore.
Professor Moore examined bones from whales of a range of ages and found that older individuals exhibited greater damage.
"It is a bit like the ageing process," said Professor Moore. "Old whales show the stresses that they face in their daily lives."
It seems that chronic decompression sickness is not a recent phenomenon in whales - the oldest bones Professor Moore examined were over 100 years old.
He believes the whales avoid a more acute form of the illness by making sure they ascend gradually, pausing frequently.
"Natural selection has in the large part solved the problem by developing dive behaviours that allow the animals to manage the problem," he said.
"Previous research does show that the animals display mid-water stops. At the time it wasn't apparent to anybody why they were stopping - but it fits with this hypothesis."
Apparently acute forms of the bends have been observed in beaked whales, which beached themselves in the Canary Islands in 2002, following a military sonar exercise.
Paul Jepson, of the Zoological Society of London, studied the dead whales. He found they had bubbles in their tissues, which were consistent with severe decompression sickness.
Researchers noticed that many of the bones contained lesions and pits
It is not certain how they got into this state, but it seems likely sonar was to blame.
"There is a very good correlation between naval sonar and the mass strandings of beaked whales, going back to the 1960s," said Dr Jepson. "The question is how is it making the animals strand?"
One theory suggests that the noxious boom of sonar causes the terrified animals to flee to the surface, triggering an acute form of the bends.
Michael Moore said: "One of the quietest zones in the ocean is right up at the surface - they might be trying to get away from the noise."
Before scientists can be sure, more research needs to be done.
"We don't fully understand how they behave in response to sound," said Dr Jepson. "If we know the mechanism we can try to mitigate it and prevent it being potentially damaging to the animals."
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4122119.stm
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Bodily functions are regulated through hormones. Hormones help cells communicate with one another and regulate such things as temperature, blood pressure, growth, cell repair, metabolism, fertility and reproduction. Though perhaps produced in varying degrees, both men and women are affected. Three key hormones affect skin: Estrogens, testosterone and thyroid.
When estrogen is out of balance, skin may thin, become dry or become more sensitive. Acne may surface. Hair may grow in places it did not grow before or fall out. When testosterone is out of balance, hair growth is affected and/or lost. Skin becomes coarser and oil production changes. Thyroid hormones also affect skin when out of balance. Too many thyroid hormones will increase pore size and increase sweat production. Too little and skin becomes dry, rough and thick.
Conditions such as pregnancy and young adulthood change hormone production. With pregnancy, hyperpigmentation often occurs because too much melanin is produced. This is called melasma or pregnancy mask. In young adulthood, androgen hormones stimulate oil glands. Over stimulation in the oil glands encourages acne.
Skin treatments for hormonal changes include assertive ingredients that make the skin more sun sensitive because they put the skin in a fragile state. Anti-aging products will include peptides, alpha-hydroxy acids, and antioxidants. Acne skin-care products include modified Vitamin A, salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxides. Lasers and peels, effective for melasma, should be performed by highly trained technicians after delivery.
Hormone flux is more common now because people are living longer and entering puberty sooner. Surgeries, such as hysterectomies, are performed that change hormone production with the removal of ovaries. Medications often imbalance aspects of the body while balancing the illness. For significant concerns, the consumer should consider a proper evaluation by a dermatologist or highly trained esthetician. Proper home care will include cleansing, exfoliation and hydration. Proper acne care will include antibacterial, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory ingredients.
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http://www.examiner.com/article/dealing-with-hormonal-skin-care?cid=rss
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Answer these 12 questions and learn more about your classroom management profile. The steps are simple or answer this same quiz at:
* Read each statement carefully.
* Write your response, from the scale below, on a sheet of paper.
* Respond to each statement based upon either actual or imagined classroom experience.
* Then, follow the scoring instructions below. It couldn't be easier!
1. = Strongly Disagree
2. = Disagree
3. = Neutral
4. = Agree
5. = Strongly Agree
(1) If a student is disruptive during class, I assign him/her to detention, without further discussion.
(2) I don't want to impose any rules on my students.
(3) The classroom must be quiet in order for students to learn.
(4) I am concerned about both what my students learn and how they learn.
(5) If a student turns in a late homework assignment, it is not my problem.
(6) I don't want to reprimand a student because it might hurt his/her feelings.
(7) Class preparation isn't worth the effort.
(8) I always try to explain the reasons behind my rules and decisions.
(9) I will not accept excuses from a student who is tardy.
(10) The emotional well-being of my students is more important than classroom control.
(11) My students understand that they can interrupt my lecture if they have a relevant question.
(12) If a student requests a hall pass, I always honor the request.
Each shape represents one classroom management style. To score your quiz, add your responses to statements 1, 3, and 9. This is your score for the authoritarian style.
Statements 4, 8 and 11 refer to the authoritative style.
Statements 6, 10, and 12 refer to the laissez-faire style.
Statements 2, 5, and 7 refer to the indifferent style.
The result is your classroom management profile. Your score for each management style can
range from 3 to 15. A high score indicates a strong preference for that particular style. After you have scored your quiz, and determined your profile, read the descriptions of each management style. You may see a little bit of yourself in each one.
As you gain teaching experience, you may find that your preferred style(s) will change. Over time, your profile may become more diverse or more focused. Also, it may be suitable to rely upon a specific style when addressing a particular situation or subject. Perhaps the successful teacher is one who can evaluate a situation and then apply the appropriate style
Finally, remember that the intent of this exercise is to inform you and arouse your curiosity regarding classroom management styles.
The classroom management styles are adaptations of the parenting styles discussed in Adolescence, by John T. Santrock.
The authoritarian teacher places firm limits and controls on the students. Students will often have assigned seats for the entire term. The desks are usually in straight rows and there are no deviations. Students must be in their seats at the beginning of class and they frequently remain there throughout the period. This teacher rarely gives gives hall passes or recognizes excused absences. These type of teaches aren’t found in online schools very often. You’ll
probably see more of them in boarding schools. Often, it is quiet. Students know they should not interrupt the teacher. Since verbal exchange and discussion are discouraged, the authoritarian's students do not have the opportunity to learn and/or practice communication skills.
This teacher prefers vigorous discipline and expects swift obedience. Failure to obey the teacher usually results in detention or a trip to the principal's office. In this classroom, students need to follow directions and not ask why.
At the extreme, the authoritarian teacher gives no indication that he\she cares for the students. Mr. Doe is a good example of an authoritarian teacher. His students receive praise and encouragement infrequently, if at all. Also, he makes no effort to organize activities such as field trips. He feels that these special events only distract the students from learning. After all, Mr. Doe believes that students need only listen to his lecture to gain the necessary knowledge.
Students in this class are likely to be reluctant to initiate activity, since they may feel powerless. Mr. Doe tells the students what to do and when to do it. He makes all classroom decisions. Therefore, his style does little to increase achievement motivation.
One Middle-school pupil reacts to this teaching style:
I don't really care for this teacher. He is really strict and doesn't seem to want to give his students a fair chance. He seems unfair, although that's just his way of getting his point across.
The authoritative teacher places limits and controls on the students but simultaneously encourages independence. This teacher often explains the reasons behind the rules and decisions. If a student is disruptive, the teacher offers a polite, but firm, reprimand. This teacher sometimes metes out discipline, but only after careful consideration of the circumstances.
The authoritative teacher is also open to considerable verbal interaction, including critical debates. The students know that they can interrupt the teacher if they have a relevant
question or comment. This environment offers the students the opportunity to learn and practice communication skills.
Ms. Smith exemplifies the authoritative teaching style. She exhibits a warm and nurturing attitude toward the students and expresses genuine interest and affection. Her classroom abounds with praise and encouragement. She often writes comments on homework and offers positive remarks to students.
This authoritative teacher encourages self-reliant and socially competent behavior and fosters higher achievement motivation. Often, she will guide the students through a project, rather
than lead them.
A student reacts to this style:
I like this teacher. She is fair and understands that students can't be perfect. She is the kind of teacher you can talk to without being put down or feeling embarrassed.
The laissez-faire teacher places few demand or controls on the students. "Do your own thing" describes this classroom. This teacher accepts the student's impulses and actions and is less likely to monitor their behavior.
Mr. Jones uses a laissez-faire style. He strives to not hurt the student's feelings and has difficulty saying no to a student or enforcing rules. If a student disrupts the class, Mr. Jones may assume that he is not giving that student enough attention. When a student interrupts a lecture, Mr. Jones accepts the interruption with the belief that the student must surely have something valuable to add. When he does offer discipline, it is likely to be inconsistent.
Mr. Jones is very involved with his students and cares for them very much. He is more
concerned with the students' emotional well-being than he is with classroom control. He sometimes bases classroom decisions on his students feelings rather than on their academic concerns.
Mr. Jones wants to be the students' friend. He may even encourage contact outside the classroom. He has a difficult time establishing boundaries between his professional life and his personal life.
However, this overindulgent style is associated with students lack of social competence and
self-control. It is difficult for students to learn socially acceptable behavior when the teacher is so permissive. With few demands placed upon them, these students frequently have lower motivation to achieve.
Regardless, students often like this teacher.
A Middle School student says:
This is a pretty popular teacher. You don't have to be serious throughout the class. But sometimes things get out of control and we learn nothing at all.
The indifferent teacher is not very involved in the classroom. This teacher places few demands, if any, on the students and appears generally uninterested. The indifferent teacher just doesn't want to impose on the students. As such, he/she often feels that class preparation is not worth the effort. Things like field trips and special projects are out of the question. This teacher simply won't take the necessary preparation time. Sometimes, he/she will use the same materials, year after year.
Also, classroom discipline is lacking. This teacher may lack the skills, confidence, or courage to discipline students.
The students sense and reflect the teacher's indifferent attitude. Accordingly, very little learning occurs. Everyone is just "going through the motions" and killing time. In this aloof environment, the students have very few opportunities to observe or practice communication skills. With few demands placed on them and very little discipline, students have low achievement motivation and lack self-control
According to one student:
This teacher can't control the class and we never learn anything in there. There is hardly ever homework and people rarely bring their books.
Mrs. Johnson is a good example of an indifferent teacher. She uses the same lesson plans every year, never bothering to update them. For her, each day is the same. She lectures for the first twenty minutes of class. Sometimes she will show a film or a slide show. When she does, it becomes a substitute for her lecture, not a supplement. If there is any time left (and there always is) she allows students to study quietly and to talk softly. As long as they don't bother her, she doesn't mind what they do. As far as she is concerned, the students are
responsible for their own education.
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"Yudhishthira said, 'I ask, O chief of Bharata's race, what is the origin of the saying, about discharging all duties jointly at the time of a person's taking the hand of his spouse in marriage? Is that saying in respect of discharging all duties together, due only to what is laid down by the great Rishis in days of yore, or does it refer to the duty of begetting offspring from religious motives, or has it reference to only the carnal pleasure that is expected from such union? I he doubt that fills my mind in this respect is very great. What is spoken of as joint duties by the sages is in my
consideration incorrect. That which is called in this world the union for practising all duties together ceases with death and is not to be seen to subsist hereafter. This union for practising all duties together leads to heaven. But heaven, O grandsire, is attained to by persons that are dead. Of a married couple it is seen that only one dies at a time. Where does the other then remain? Do tell me this. Men attain to diverse kinds of fruits by practising diverse kinds of duties. The occupations again, to which men betake themselves are of diverse kinds. Diverse, again, are the hells to which they go in consequence of such diversity of duties and acts. Women, in particular, the Rishis have said, are false in behaviour. When human beings are such, and when women in particular have been declared in the ordinances to be false, how, O sire, can there be a union between the sexes for purposes of practising all duties together? In the very Vedas one may read that women are false. The word 'Duty', as used in the Vedas, seems to have been coined in the first instance for general application (so that it is applied to practices that have no merit in them). Hence the application of that word to the rites of marriage is, instead of being correct, only a form of speech forcibly applied where application it has none. 1 The subject seems to me to be inexplicable although I reflect upon it incessantly. O grandsire, O thou of great wisdom, it behoveth thee to expound this to me in detail, clearly and according to what has been laid down in the Sruti. In fact, do thou explain to me what its characteristics are, and the way in which it has come to pass!' 2
"Bhishma said, 'In this connection is cited the old narrative of the discourse between Ashtavakra and the lady known by the name of Disa. In days of yore Ashtavakra of severe penances, desirous of marriage, begged the high-souled Rishi Vadanya of his daughter. The name by which the damsel was known was Suprabha. In beauty she was unrivalled on Earth. In virtues, dignity, conduct, and manners, she was superior to all the girls. By a glance alone that girl of beautiful eyes had robbed him of his heart even as a delightful grove in spring, adorned with flowers, robs the spectator of his heart. The Rishi addressed Ashtavakra and said,--Yes, I shall bestow my daughter on thee. Listen, however, to me. Make a journey to the sacred North. Thou
wilt see many things there!' 1
"Ashtavakra said, 'It behoveth thee to tell me what I shall see in that region. Indeed, I am ready to execute whatever command may be laid upon me by thee.'"
"Vadanya said, 'Passing over the dominions of the lord of Treasures thou will cross the Himavat mountains. Thou wilt then behold the plateau on which Rudra resides. It is inhabited by Siddhas and Charanas. It abounds with the associates of Mahadeva, frolicsome and fond of dance and possessed of diverse forms. It is peopled with also many Pisachas, O master, of diverse forms and all daubed with fragrant powders of diverse hues, and dancing with joyous hearts in accompaniment with instruments of different kinds made of brass. Surrounded by these who move with electric rapidity in the mazes of the dance or refrain at times altogether from forward or backward or transverse motion of every kind, Mahadeva dwells there. That delightful spot on the mountains, we have heard, is the favourite abode of the great Deity. It is said that that great god as also his associates are always present there. It was there that the goddess Uma practised the severest austerities for the sake of (obtaining for her lord) the three-eyed Deity. Hence, it is said, that spot is much liked by both Mahadeva and Uma. In days of yore there, on the heights of the Mahaparswa, which are situate to the north of the mountains sacred to Mahadeva, the sessions, and the last Night, and many deities, and many human beings also (of the foremost order), in their embodied forms, had adored Mahadeva. 2 Thou shalt cross that region also in thy northward journey. Thou will then see a beautiful and charming forest blue of hue and resembling a mass of clouds. There, in that forest, thou wilt behold a beautiful female ascetic looking like Sree herself. Venerable in age and highly blessed, she is in the observance of the Diksha. Beholding her there thou shouldst duly worship her with reverence. Returning to this place after having beheld her, thou wilt take the hand of my daughter in marriage. If thou wanteth to make this agreement, proceed then on thy journey and do what I command thee.'"
"Ashtavakra said, 'So be it. I shall do thy bidding. Verily, I shall proceed to that region which thou speakest of, O thou of righteous soul. On thy side, let thy words, accord with truth.'"
"Bhishma continued, "The illustrious Ashtavakra set out on his journey. He proceeded more and more towards the north and at last reached the Himavat mountains peopled by Siddhas and Charanas. 3 Arrived at the Himavat mountains, that foremost of Brahamanas then came upon the sacred river Vahuda whose waters produce great merit. He bathed in one of the delightful Tirthas of that river, which was free from mud, and
gratified the deities with oblations of water. His ablutions being over, he spread a quantity of Kusa grass and laid himself down upon it for resting awhile at his ease. 1 Passing the night in this way, the Brahmana rose with the day. He once more performed his ablutions in the sacred waters of the Vahuda and then ignited his homa fire and worshipped it with the aid of many foremost of Vedic mantras. 2 He then worshipped with due rites both Rudra and his spouse Uma, and rested for some more time by the side of that lake in the course of the Vahuda whose shores he had reached. Refreshed by such rest, he set out from that region and then proceeded towards Kailasa. He then beheld a gate of gold that seemed to blaze with beauty. He saw also the Mandakini and the Nalini of the high-souled Kuvera, the Lord of Treasures. 3 Beholding the Rishi arrived there, all the Rakshasas having Manibhadra for their head, who were engaged in protecting that lake abounding with beautiful lotuses, came out in a body for welcoming and honouring the illustrious traveller. The Rishi worshipped in return those Rakshasas of terrible prowess and asked them to report, without delay, his arrival unto the Lord of Treasures. Requested by him to do this, those Rakshasas, O king, said unto him,--King Vaisravana, without waiting for the news from us, is coming of his own accord to thy presence. The illustrious Lord of Treasures is well acquainted with the object of this thy journey. Behold him,--that blessed Master,--who blazes with his own energy. Then king Vaisravana, approaching the faultless Ashtavakra, duly enquired about his welfare. The usual enquiries of politeness being over, the Lord of Treasures then addressed the regenerate Rishi, saying,--Welcome art thou here. Do tell me what it is thou seekest at my hands. Inform me of it. I shall, O regenerate one, accomplish whatever thou mayst bid me to accomplish. Do thou enter my abode as pleases thee, O foremost of Brahamanas. Duly entertained by me, and after thy business is accomplished, thou mayst go without any obstacles being placed in thy way.--Having said these words, Kuvera took the hand of that foremost of Brahmanas and led him into his palace. He offered him his own seat as also water to wash his feet and the Arghya made of the usual ingredients. After the two had taken their seats, the Yakshas of Kuvera headed by Manibhadra, and many Gandharvas and Kinnaras, also sat down before them. After all of them had taken their seats, the Lord of Treasures said these words,--Understanding what thy pleasure is, the diverse tribes of Apsaras will commence their dance. It is meet that I should entertain thee with hospitality and that thou shouldst be served with proper ministrations.
[paragraph continues] Thus addressed, the ascetic Ashtavakra said, in a sweet voice, Let the dance proceed. Then Urvara and Misrakesi, and Rambha and Urvasi, and Alumvusha and Ghritachi, and Chitra and Chitrangada and Ruchi, and Manohara and Sukesi and Sumukhi and Hasini and Prabha, and Vidyuta, and Prasami and Danta and Vidyota and Rati,--these and many other beautiful Apsaras began to dance. The Gandharvas played on diverse kinds of musical instruments. After such excellent music and dance had commenced, the Rishi Ashtavakra of severe penances unconsciously passed a full celestial year there in the abode of king Vaisravana. 1 Then king Vaisravana said unto the Rishi,--O learned Brahmana, behold, a little more than a year has passed away since thy arrival here. This music and dance, especially known by the name of Gandharva, is a stealer of the heart (and of time). Do thou act as thou wishes or let this go on if that be thy pleasure. Thou art my guest and, therefore, worthy of adoration. This is my house. Givest thou thy commands. We are all bound to thee. The illustrious Ashtavakra, thus addressed by king Vaisravana, replied unto him, with a pleased heart, saying,--I have been duly honoured by thee. I desire now, O Lord of Treasures, to go hence. Indeed, I am highly pleased. All this befits thee, O Lord of Treasures. Through thy grace, O illustrious one, and agreeably to the command of the high-souled Rishi Vadanya, I shall now proceed to my journey's end. Let growth and prosperity be thine.--Having said these words, the illustrious Rishi set out of Kuvera's abode and proceeded northwards. He crossed the Kailasa and the Mandara as also the golden mountains. Beyond those high and great mountains is situated that excellent region where Mahadeva, dressed as an humble ascetic, has taken up his residence. He circumambulated the spot, with concentrated mind, bending his head in reverence the while. Descending then on the Earth, he considered himself sanctified for having obtained a sight of that holy spot which is the abode of Mahadeva. Having circumambulated that mountain thrice, the Rishi, with face turned towards the north, proceeded with a joyous heart. He then beheld another forest that was very delightful in aspect. It was adorned with the fruits and roots of every season, and it resounded with the music of winged warblers numbering by thousands. There were many delightful groves throughout the forest. The illustrious Rishi then beheld a charming hermitage. The Rishi saw also many golden hills decked with gems and possessed of diverse forms. In the begemmed soil he saw many lakes and tanks also. And he saw diverse other objects that were exceedingly delightful. Beholding these things, the mind of that Rishi of cleansed soul became filled with joy. He then saw a beautiful mansion made of gold and adorned with gems of many kinds. Of wonderful structure, that mansion surpassed the place of Kuvera himself in every respect. Around it there were many hills and mounts of jewels and gems. Many beautiful cars and many heaps of diverse kinds of jewels also were visible in that
place. The Rishi beheld there the river Mandakini whose waters were strewn with many Mandara flowers. Many gems also were seen there that were self-luminous, and the soil all around was decked with diamonds of diverse species. The palatial mansion which the Rishi saw contained many chambers whose arches were embellished with various kinds of stones. Those chambers were adorned also with nets of pearls interspersed with jewels and gems of different species. Diverse kinds of beautiful objects capable of stealing the heart and the eye, surrounded that palace. That delightful retreat was inhabited by numerous Rishis. Beholding these beautiful sights all around, the Rishi began to think where he would take shelter. Proceeding then to the gate of the mansion, he uttered these words:--Let those that live here know that a guest has come (desirous of shelter). Hearing the voice of the Rishi, a number of maidens came out together from that palace. They were seven in number, O King, of different styles of beauty, all of them were exceedingly charming. Every one of those maidens upon whom the Rishi cast his eyes, stole his heart. The sage could not, with even his best efforts, control his mind. Indeed, at the sight of those maidens of very superior beauty, his heart lost all its tranquillity. Seeing himself yielding to such influences, the Rishi made a vigorous effort and possessed as he was of great wisdom he at last succeeded in controlling himself. Those damsels then addressed the Rishi, saying,--Let the illustrious one enter. Filled with curiosity in respect of those exceedingly beautiful damsels as also of that palatial mansion, the regenerate Rishi entered as he was bidden. Entering the mansion he beheld an old lady, with indications of decrepitude, attired in white robes and adorned with every kind of ornament. The Rishi blessed her, saying,--Good be to you.--The old lady returned his good wishes in proper form. Rising up, she offered a seat to the Rishi. Having taken his seat, Ashtavakra said,--Let all the damsels go to their respective quarters. Only let one stay here. Let that one remain here who is possessed of wisdom and who has tranquillity of heart. Indeed, let all the others go away at their will.--Thus addressed, all those damsels circumambulated the Rishi and then left the chamber. Only that aged lady remained there. The day quickly passed and night came. The Rishi seated on a splendid bed, addressed the old lady, saying,--O blessed lady, the night is deepening. Do thou address thyself to sleep. Their conversation being thus put a stop to by the Rishi, the old lady laid herself down on an excellent bed of great splendour. Soon after, she rose from her bed and pretending to tremble with cold, she left it for going to the bed of the Rishi. The illustrious Ashtavakra welcomed her with courtesy. The lady however, stretching her arms, tenderly embraced the Rishi, O foremost of men. Beholding the Rishi quite unmoved and as inanimate as a piece of wood, she became very sorry and began to converse with him. There is no pleasure, save that which waits upon Kama (desire), which women can derive from a person of the other sex. I am now under the influence of desire. I seek thee for that reason.
[paragraph continues] Do thou seek me in return. Be cheerful, O learned Rishi, and unite thyself with me. Do thou embrace me, O learned one, for I desire thee greatly. O thou of righteous soul, even this union with me is the excellent and desirable reward of those severe penances which thou hast undergone. At the first sight I have become disposed to seek thee. Do thou also seek me. All this wealth, and everything else of value that thou seest here are mine. Do thou verily become the lord of all this along with my person and heart. I shall gratify every wish of thine. Do thou sport with me, therefore, in these delightful forest, O Brahmana, that are capable of granting every wish. I shall yield thee complete obedience in everything, and thou shall sport with me according to thy pleasure. All objects of desire that are human or that appertain to heaven shall be enjoyed by us. There is no pleasure more agreeable to women (than that which is derivable from the companionship of a person of the other sex). Verily, congress with a person of the opposite sex is the most delicious fruit of joy that we can reap. When urged by the god of desire, women become very capricious. At such times they do not feel any pain, even if they walk over a desert of burning sand.'"
"Ashtavakra said, 'O blessed lady, I never approach one that is another's spouse. One's congress with another man's wife is condemned by persons conversant with the scriptures on morality. I am an utter stranger to enjoyments of every kind. O blessed lady, know that I have become desirous of wedlock for obtaining offspring. I swear by truth itself. Through the aid of offspring righteously obtained, I shall proceed to those regions of felicity which cannot be attained without such aid. O good lady, know what is consistent with morality, and knowing it, desist from thy efforts.'"
"The lady said, 'The very deities of wind and fire and water, or the other celestials, O regenerate one, are not so agreeable to women as the deity of desire. Verily, women are exceedingly fond of sexual congress. Among a thousand women, or, perhaps, among hundreds of thousands, sometimes only one may be found that is devoted to her husband. When under the influence of desire, they care not for family or father or mother or brother or husband or sons or husband's brother (but pursue the way that desire points out). Verily, in pursuit of what they consider happiness, they destroy the family (to which they belong by birth or marriage) even as many queenly rivers eat away the banks that contain them. The Creator himself had said this, quickly marking the faults of women.'" 1
"Bhishma continued, 'The Rishi, bent upon finding out the faults of women, then addressed that lady, saying,--Cease to speak to me in this
strain. Yearning springs from liking. Tell me what (else) I am to do. 1--That lady then said in return,--O illustrious one, thou shalt see according to time and place (as do whether I have anything agreeable in me). Do thou only live here (for some time). O highly blessed one, and I shall regard myself amply rewarded.--Thus addressed by her, the regenerate Rishi, O Yudhishthira, expressed his resolution to comply with her request, saying,--Verily, I shall dwell with thee in this place as long as I can venture to do so.--The Rishi then, beholding that lady afflicted with decrepitude, began to reflect earnestly on the matter. He seemed to be even tortured by his thoughts. The eyes of that foremost of Brahmanas failed to derive any delight from those parts of that lady's person whereupon they were cast. On the other hand, his glances seemed to be dispelled by the ugliness of those particular limbs.--This lady is certainly the goddess of this palace. Has she been made ugly through some curse. It is not proper that I should hastily ascertain the cause of this.--Reflecting upon this in the secrecy of his heart, and curious to know the reason, the Rishi passed the rest of that day in an anxious state. The lady then addressed him, saying,--O illustrious one, behold the aspect of the Sun reddened by the evening clouds. What service shall I do unto thee.--The Rishi addressed her, saying,--.'Fetch water for my ablutions. Having bathed, I shall say my evening prayers, restraining my tongue and the senses.'"
106:1 I expand this verse a little for bringing out the sense clearly.
106:2 The subject propounded by Yudhishthira is this: marriage is always spoken of as a union of the sexes for practising all religious duties together. The king asks, how can this be. Marriage, as seems to him, is a union sought for pleasure. If it be said that the two individuals married together are married for practising religious duties jointly, such practice is suspended by death. Persons act differently and attain to different ends. There is, therefore, no prospect of a reunion after death. When, again, one of them dies, the joint practice of duties can no longer take place. The other objections, urged by Yudhishthira, to the theory of marriage being a union of the sexes for only practising religious duties jointly, are plain.
107:1 The sense is that if after returning from thy journey to that region thou claimest thy bride, thou mayst obtain her from me. Thy journey will be a sort of trial or test to which I mean to put thee.
107:2 Kala-ratri is the Night that precedes the universal dissolution.
107:3 The commentator thinks that uttaram means the sacred north.
108:1 Tirtha means here a Ghat, i.e., an easy descent from the bank for access to the water.
108:2 Pradhanatah is explained by the commentator to mean with foremost of Vedic mantras.
108:3 Mandakini is that part of the river Ganga which flows through Kailasa, while Nalini is a celebrated lake owned by the king of the Yakshas, so called because of the lotuses which occur there in plenty.
109:1 Divya is excellent Gandharva, meaning music and dance.
111:1 A woman is said to destroy a family by staining it with her unchastity.
112:1 Both the vernacular translators have totally misunderstood the second line. Asyatam is explained by the commentator as tushnim sthiyatam. Ruchitahchcchandah means chcchandah or yearning arises from ruchi or like. What the Rishi says is Asyet I do not yearn after thy company, for I do not like thee. Of course, if, after staying with thee for some time, I begin to like thee, I may then feel a yearning for thee!
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Warming trend could raise temperatures 5 to 15 degree F above normal
Published on Dec 13, 2013 - 7:30:12 AM
December 13, 2013 - After the very cold air dropped out of Canada last week, the region had very cold overnight temperatures. The coldest, densest air was at higher elevations and gradually sank into the Central Valley. As the air sank into the Valley, compressional warming occurred in the foothills above the inversion. As time went on and the cold air mass modified, overall nocturnal (overnight) temperatures gradually warmed, especially in the foothills and west slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
Ridging dominates the West Coast at least into early next week, as temperatures will continue to warm. The potential exists for more cold frontal impacts over northern California Wed/Thu with fairly stout northerly winds behind the system next Fri/Sat.
Short Term Discussion (Today through Monday)
A weak system is now exiting northern California early this morning. The system really only brought some quick moving cloud cover across the area, and a few spits of precipitation to Shasta County.
A ridge will build over the region behind this system today and Saturday to keep the region dry with cool nights and mild afternoon temperatures. The warming trend this weekend into early next week could could raise temperatures 5 to 15 degree F above normal. The warming will be aided by some adiabatic warming from the mild northerly to northeasterly winds. Therefore, fog is not a big concern, but some patchy shallow ground fog may start to develop over the weekend near the waterways and flooded rice fields from around the Sutter Buttes/Butte Sink southward. The fields around Sacramento International Airport, including adjacent I-5, are usually a magnet for this type of patchy ground fog.
Extended Discussion (Tuesday through Friday)
First part of extended period Tuesday looks dry under upper level ridging. Surface high pressure over the Great Basin combined with an upper low off the central California coast will bring breezy east winds down some Sierra canyons during the morning hours. The upper ridge is expected to flatten just a bit on Tuesday but daytime highs are still forecast to come in as much as 10 degrees above normal for the time of year. A Gulf of Alaska frontal system is forecast to kick the weak offshore low inland on Wednesday. Although no precipitation is expected from this low, most areas will see increased cloudiness and slightly cooler temperatures.
The frontal system is forecast to drop into the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday but models vary on timing. ECMWF and GEM would bring precip threat into far NORCAL by Wednesday afternoon. Much slower GFS holds off until late Wednesday night and latest 06z GFS run holds off until Thursday morning before bringing precip threat to NORCAL. No matter what the timing, this inside slider type system looks to be quite dry with precipitable water values forecast at well under 1/2 inch. Therefore, any precip amount would be small. Trough axis passage is currently forecast for Thursday, either early or late, depending on the model and this will be the time any light precip will be most likely. Although again, any precip amounts would be very limited. Dry northerly flow develops behind this system on Friday ending any precip threat. Current model projections would indicate a fairly breezy Friday going into the weekend with daytime highs by the end of next week closer to normal for mid December.
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Emmaus in 20th -21st centuries
The Dominican fathers L. H. Vincent and F. M. Abel from the French Ecole Biblique of Jerusalem excavate the northern and the southern Basilicas of Emmaus. A ceramic fragment found during this excavation testifies to the fact that the site was inhabited already during the Hasmonean period. Frs. Vincent and Abel advance the theory of a Roman villa existing prior to the Basilicas.
The current house with battlements is built on the hill by the Fathers of Betarram, the chaplains of the Carmel of Bethlehem.
During World War II German citizens living in Palestine are interned in the house by British government.
After the Israeli War of Independence, Emmaus finds itself in the demilitarized zone between Jordan and Israel. A UN representation stays in the house.
The village of Amwas is destroyed during the Six-Days War
The Tel-Aviv University archaeologists excavate the Roman baths at Emmaus.
The house is rented by the French Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
The Catholic Community of the Beatitudes rents the house.
The Association “Friends of Emmaus-Nicopolis” is founded through the initiative of Karl-Heinz and Louisa Fleckenstein, the coordinators of Emmaus excavation project.
Archaeological excavations are led at Emmaus under direction of the Finnish archaeologist Mikko Louhivuori (Rockfeller Museum, Jerusalem) and the Franciscan Father Michele Picirillo. The buildings belonging to the church complex, numerous mosaics, the sepulchral zone, and the stone quarry are discovered.
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According to evolutionist Andrew Cashmore, we have no free will and therefore individuals should not be held responsible for their actions. What we do is simply a consequence of our genes (the key to our hardware design according to evolutionists), our environment, and the underlying random motion that has been held to be important ever since Lucretius.
And since we have no choice about all three of these factors, we therefore have no responsibility for our actions. You thought you chose to read this article, but that was just an illusion.
And how is Cashmore so sure we have no free will in spite of the steady stream of apparently free decisions we all continually make? I certainly thought I was choosing between chocolate or vanilla. So why is free will so obvious to people, if it is non existent? Because, of course, the illusion evolved via selection. As the peer reviewed paper reports, it is all an evolutionary illusion:
In discussing free will, Susan Blackmore has noted that “many scientists believe that the real causal factors are all those interacting neurons that do many things including creating a sense of self, and a sense of free will—both of which are illusions.” She goes on to say, “I think nature has played this enormous joke on us.” In addressing the same issue, Rita Carter has asked, “If free will is an illusion and each of our actions is determined by unconscious cognitive processes in response to external stimuli, why should our brains delude us into thinking otherwise?” A variation on this question is: what is the evolutionary selective advantage of consciousness? One answer to this question is that consciousness provides us with an apparent sense of responsibility: “Along with the illusion of control, our sense of agency brings the burdens of individual responsibility. Though this may sometimes weigh heavily on us personally, for society as a whole it is hugely beneficial. Our entire morality and judicial system is dependent on everyone accepting that they are agents of their own misdeeds, and those who don’t acknowledge this are—by legal definition—insane. We may not consciously control our own actions, but the cognitive mechanisms that create the illusion that we do keep society functioning.” A similar argument has been made by Wegner: “The ability to know what one will do … would seem to be an important human asset … This preview function could be fundamentally important for the facilitation of social interaction.” I find that the above are attractive explanations for the existence (the selective advantage) of consciousness. […]
In summary, then, I believe that free will is clearly an illusion. However, this is not to say that consciousness does not have a function. I believe it does, and from this I assume that it must give rise to an evolutionary selective advantage. Consciousness confers the illusion of responsibility. No wonder the belief in free will is so prevalent in society—the very survival of those “selfish free-will genes” is predicated on their capacity to con one into believing in free will!
The beauty of evolutionary theory is its tremendous elasticity in data interpretation. Evidence that can be interpreted as supporting evolution is viewed as legitimate whereas contradictory evidence is anomalous or even, as in this case, illusory. This most striking of evidences is, with a wave of the hand, dismissed as illusory—a evolutionary trick. Perhaps evolution also planted all those fossils and deviously constructed those adaptation mechanisms.
But dispensing with evidence is by no means Cashmore’s only proof. Amazingly, he weaves an even more banal argument into the narrative. Free will, according to Cashmore, is obviously a stretch for the simple reason that it could not be created by natural laws. Conjectures about free will lack “any hint of molecular details concerning mechanisms” and “Neither religious beliefs, nor a belief in free will, comply with the laws of the physical world.” Similarly, the evolutionist explains:
relatively few biologists seriously question the concept of free will. This holds in spite of the fact that we live in an era when few biologists would question the idea that biological systems are totally based on the laws of physics and chemistry.
So let’s see, biological systems are totally based on the laws of physics and chemistry, so therefore there is no free will. Got it.
As the fallacies mount up it is not surprising that Cashmore gives experimental evidence an evolutionary spin. He finds it significant, for example, that measured brain activity precedes conscious awareness of a decision.
By the time he finishes Cashmore is utterly convinced:
A belief in free will is akin to religious beliefs […]
The reality is, not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar. The laws of nature are uniform throughout, and these laws do not accommodate the concept of free will. […]
as living systems we are nothing more than a bag of chemicals.
With this conclusive dismissal of free will, the evolutionist moves on to critique our criminal justice system. Does he suggest all go free? After all, no one is to blame for his actions, so how can we justify incarceration? Unfortunately Cashmore suggests nothing so pleasant. Would that evolutionary thinking was so benign. No, the evolutionist suggests something far more scary:
The proposal is a pragmatic one, based on the belief that the welfare of society at large is more important than the welfare of the individual offender.
if a defendant were found guilty, then a court-appointed panel of experts would play a role in advising on matters of punishment and treatment.
But in the evolutionist’s two-dimensional world, what is an expert, and how would the court ever know it? After all, any such “expert” is merely acting according to those uncontrollable mechanical factors, as is the judge who anoints them.
I can see it now. The “offender” is brought into a chamber where he is examined by the panel. The group might consist of some social workers, administrators, one or two clerics, perhaps a philosopher, and so forth. These court-appointed “experts,” who of course are evolutionists, would have an air of all-knowing, thinly veiled condescension. They would pose questions creating various Catch-22’s, having little to do with the case.
“Did you ever cheat in school?” An affirmative indicates a hooligan while a negative indicates a pathological liar. After brow-beaten into submission the offender is escorted away while the experts decide on his punishment and treatment. Annual reviews evaluate the convicts “progress,” determine how much longer to extend the sentence and the appropriate punishments and treatments for the coming year.
Should we laugh or should we cry. The evolutionist believes evolution created the illusion of free will and in him the ability to see through the illusion. He now, as a consequence of his genes, environment, and those Lucretian swerves, argues against free will. He is right and those who don’t agree are wrong (even though we’re all just a bag of chemicals). And consequently we should now trade our criminal justice system for an evolutionary kangaroo court. It is, at once, both idiotic and disturbing. Religion drives science and it matters.
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Neurons are the cells responsible for transmitting information to and from the brain. It is the core component of the nervous system. Each of these neurons are interconnected through synapses. Synapses are structures similar in function to telephone cables, that allow the passing of electrical or chemical signals between the neurons.
The image on the left (courtesy of Don Arnold), shows a living neuron in culture. The green dots indicate the excitatory synapses and the red dots indicate inhibitory synapses. An excitatory synapse is a synapse that increases the chance of an action potential occurring in a postsynaptic cell. An inhibitory synapse is the opposite, it decreases the chance of an action potential.
Neurons need a lot of the body's resources to perform efficiently. The metabolic requirements for these require about 15% of the output of the heart (cardiac output), 20% of the body's oxygen consumption, and 25% of the body's glucose utilization. The brain only takes energy from glucose.
There are about 80 to 100 billion neurons in the human brain. And there are about 100 trillion synapses connecting the neurons together. Looking at a portion of the brain, the size of a pinhead, one would find around 30,000 neurons in it.
The most number of neurons a person could ever have is during the first trimester as a fetus. Neurons are not made or replaced during one's life. Current developments in medicine have shown that neurons can be made and repaired using stem cell technology.
Visualizing Memory Formation
Oscar Wilde called memory "the diary that we all carry about with us." Now a team of scientists has developed a way to see where and how that diary is written.
The team, led by Don Arnold and Richard Roberts of USC, engineered microscopic probes that light up synapses in a living neuron in real time by attaching fluorescent markers onto synaptic proteins – all without affecting the neuron's ability to function.
The fluorescent markers allow scientists to see live excitatory and inhibitory synapses for the first time – and, importantly, how they change as new memories are formed.
The synapses appear as bright spots along dendrites (the branches of a neuron that transmit electrochemical signals). As the brain processes new information, those bright spots change, visually indicating how synaptic structures in the brain have been altered by the new data.
"When you make a memory or learn something, there's a physical change in the brain. It turns out that the thing that gets changed is the distribution of synaptic connections," said Arnold, associate professor of molecular and computational biology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and co-corresponding author of an article about the research that will appear in Neuron on June 19.
The probes behave like antibodies, but bind more tightly, and are optimized to work inside the cell – something that ordinary antibodies can't do. To make these probes, the team used a technique known as "mRNA display," which was developed by Roberts and Nobel laureate Jack Szostak.
Video: Anatomy of a Neuron
"Using mRNA display, we can search through more than a trillion different potential proteins simultaneously to find the one protein that binds the target the best," said Roberts, co-corresponding author of the article and a professor of chemistry and chemical engineering with joint appointments at USC Dornsife and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
Arnold and Roberts' probes (called "FingRs") are attached to GFP (green fluorescent protein), a protein isolated from jellyfish that fluoresces bright green when exposed to blue light. Because FingRs are proteins, the genes encoding them can be put into brain cells in living animals, causing the cells themselves to manufacture the probes.
The design of FingRs also includes a regulation system that cuts off the amount of FingR-GFP that is generated after 100 percent of the target protein is labeled, effectively eliminating background fluorescence – generating a sharper, clearer picture.
These probes can be put in the brains of living mice and then imaged through cranial windows using two-photon microscopy.
The new research could offer crucial insight for scientists responding to President Obama's Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, which was announced in April.
Modeled after the Human Genome Project, the objective of the $100 million initiative is to fast-track research that maps out exactly how the brain works and "better understand how we think, learn, and remember," according to the BRAIN Initiative website.
University of Southern California
Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN)
Neurobiologists Transform Projection Neuron To Motor Neuron Inside Brain Through Direct Lineage Reprogramming
Brain Stem Cells Identified For Smarter and Bigger Brains
How Nerve Cell Activity Between Neurons is Regulated Within the Brain's Hippocampus
Stem Cells Transformed Into Brain Neurons For the First Time
Scientists Study How Brain Stores Long Term Memory in the Brain
MIT News: Astrocyte Brain Cells Plays Key Role In Processing Sensory Information
Robotic Arm To Automate Whole Cell Patch Clamping For Studying Brain Cell
Stem Cell May Repair Damage or Loss of Neurons in The Enteric Nervous System
Brain Neurons In The Lateral Intraparietal Area Discovered To Keep Track Of Time
Neuroprosthetic Algorithm Leads To Better Thought Controlled Objects Such As Bionic Arms and Legs
Scientists Directly Transform Skin Cells into Induced Neural Stem Cells (Brain Cells) Without Going Through Pluripotent Stage
Studying Cell Senescence And Its Relation To The Aging Of the Brain
Repairing Spinal Cord Injuries Through Schwann Cell Transplantation and Inhibition of Scarring
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Back to Home Page or Contents Page or Rituals and Texts or Index
The work's authors were two inquisitors of the Dominican order, Heinrich Krammer and James Sprenger. These two men were empowered by Pope Innocent VIII in his Bull of December 9, 1484 to prosecute witches throughout northern Germany. The purpose of the papal edict was to squash the Protestant opposition to the inquisition and to solidify the case made in 1258 by Pope Alexander IV for the prosecution of witches as heretics.
It was the opinion of the Church that the secular arm, the civil courts was not punishing witches enough on the basis of their Maleficia. The effects of the Bull 'Summis desiderantes affectibus' (Desiring with Supreme Ardor) and the Malleus Maleficarum soon spread beyond Germany, going throughout Europe and into England. Both Protestant and Catholic civil and ecclesiastical judges quickly adopted it.
The complete biographies of Krammer and Sprenger are unknown except they distinguished themselves in the ecclesiastical field. Both became priors of Dominican houses of studies. However when arriving in Germany, armed with the papal bull, they were coolly accepted. It seemed both had unsavory characters. Several bishops showed them the door. Previously an ecclesiastical warrant had been issued against Inquisitors for embezzling fees for indulgences. Both men were later implicated for forging notarized documents.
Krammer was first appointed inquisitor in 1474 for the provinces of Tyrol, Bohemia, Salzburg and Moravia. While there he used fraudulent tactics to frame people as witches, and tortured them. The Bishop of Brixen ousted him.
Both men wrote prolifically, and by 1485 Krammer had drafted a comprehensive manuscript on witchcraft that would be absorbed into the Malleus Maleficarum. The basis of the book is centered on the biblical pronouncement "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18). It also draws on the works of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas as well as other scriptures.
A basic tenet is that not to believe in the existence of witchcraft is a heresy since God acknowledged witches. The sexism of the Malleus Maleficarum is unmistakable: Although the work states both men and women can become witches, women are more susceptible. Several reasons for this are given: "Because the female sex is more concerned with things of the flesh than men"; being formed from a man's rib they are "only imperfect animals" and "crooked" whereas man belongs to a privileged sex from whose midst Christ emerged. The authors' main reason for the increase in witchcraft among women laid in the "vile contention between married and unmarried women." And, "They warned against the 'spitefulness of womankind.'"
The authors protested they were not misogynists but their entire work contained a pathological hatred of women. And the reader having a psychoanalytical viewpoint would readily agree when coming on their lengthy commentaries on witches' ability to hamper the generative powers of men, and to disturb sexual relationships in general.
Malleus Maleficarum is presented in three parts, each proposes questions and allegedly answers them by opposing arguments. Part I attempts to describe how the Devil and his witches cooperate, with "the permission of Almighty God," to perpetrate many evils on men and animals including tempting them with incubi and succibi, instilling hatred; obstructing or destroying fertility; and the metamorphosis of men into beasts. The work is based on the authors' premise that Gods permits these acts; otherwise, the Devil would have unlimited power and destroy the world.
Part II describes witches casting spell, bewitching, and doing their maleficia, and how such actions might be prevented or remedied. A great deal of attention is given to the Devil's pact, an agreement signed between the witch and the Devil. The authors reasoned men did not have the power to work magic on their own accord; such power was given to them by Satan. Briefly, a pact was signed between the witch and the Devil which obligated both parties to do certain things for each other. The witch renounces Christ, to whom she has belonged to since her baptism, and signs her immortal soul over to Satan, who in return supposedly makes all forbidden things available to her. This act, in and of itself, was blasphemous and a betrayal of God.
The evidence of witches and their maleficia presented within the work is derived from confessions obtained during inquisitions conducted by Sprenger and Krammer themselves and from other material on witchcraft written by other ecclesiastical writers. Much of this evidence consisted of stories of spell casting, pacts, sacrificing of children and copulating with the Devil.
It should be noted here that even the people were astonished, and reasonably so, at Pope Innocent VIII's admission in his Bull that men and women could have sexual relationships with demons.
Part III deals with the legal procedures for prosecuting a witch. This includes rules for taking testimony, admitting evidence, procedures for interrogation and torture and guidelines for sentencing. Hostile witnesses were permitted to testify because everyone hated witches.
Torture is dealt with matter-of-factly, if the accused did not confess after a year or so in prison, then torture could be applied as an incentive. So, confessions attained by torture were valid.
Judges were permitted to lie to the accused, promising leniency if they confessed, reasoning that is was done in the best interest of the society and state.
For some crimes light sentencing was prescribed, but, according to the authors' acknowledged purpose of executing as many witches as possible, most of the instructions on sentencing pertained to death.
The Malleus Maleficarum clearly contains contradictions such as when its states the Devil through witches afflict mostly good and just people, but later they state, only the wicked are vulnerable. At one point the judges are said to be immune from the witches curses or spells; while in another portion of the work, the authors, admonish the judges to protect themselves with salt and the sacraments.
It was instructed that a witch be shaven of all her hair, hair was thought to be magical; and the witch should walk naked, backward toward the judges to prevent her or him from giving them the evil eye.
The Malleus Maleficarum was immediately successful throughout Europe. Fourteen editions were published by 1520; and another sixteen appeared by 1669. It became the primary guidebook for the inquisitors and judges and later writers used it as the basis for their own works. One of the most important things, it was considered, that the book did was to link witchcraft to heresy.
In England the book was not as enthusiastically accepted, perhaps because of the English Protestant Church. The foreign-language editions were only prevalently found in libraries and among scholars. The first English edition did not appear until 1584. But, the English writers absorbed the material into their own. The English based their witchcraft trials more on maleficia than heresy, probably because they felt themselves considered heretics too.
Up to the present the Malleus Maleficarum has been denounced not only by pagans but churchmen alike. Even the atheists must have laughed at it, and even felt a twinge of anger toward it. The book has been denounced as a "'monstrosity full of intellectual debauchery' proceeding out of 'stupidity bordering on idiocy.'" But such a description does not accurately describe the malignancy of the work. What the work represents is a "...diabolical state of mind into which not a ray of Christian charity falls, not a trace of New Testament spirit. Its pages are haunted by primitive fanaticism, by the triumph of Satanism."
Much has been written about the Inquisition, the witch hunts and the witch mania that spread throughout Europe, England, and later America. Perhaps the 'Malleus Maleficarum' played part in causing this terrible phenomena. But those having thoroughly studied this historical period know that the 'Malleus Maleficarum' did not cause it all. There were other factors and most important among them was the power and control of the Church.
Eliminating heretics was one way to strengthen Church control and it also provided another to strengthen the Church by the confiscation of the victim's property. Usually the confiscated property was divided three ways: by the Inquisition members, the church officials, and the state treasury. The confiscation of the condemned person's property was based on medieval and feudal laws which were present in England, France and Germany.
Even the dead were not safe. If a suspicion aroused that a dead person may have been a heretic the body could be dug up and burned. His property was then confiscated. Records show many women and children were left penniless from such confiscation. Added to this the Church and state kept strict accounts of the prisoner's incarceration, trial and execution costs. If the value of his confiscated property was not enough to cover these costs, then his heirs had to pay the difference. The families of the victims suffered too.
The confiscation of property became a lucrative business which Popes and bishops protested against, but did not stop for centuries. This was one of the reasons that the Spanish Inquisition was not looked upon favorably by Roman, the Spanish rulers did not divide the spoils of confiscated property three ways; just two, between the Inquisitors and the state. Even then the state did not even know if it received its fair share because the Inquisition being an arm of the government paid no taxes nor gave any accounting of the property confiscated during the peak of its power. When the confiscation of property was stopped, the witch mania soon ended.
One can ask did the Inquisition with the help of the 'Malleus Maleficarum' accomplish its mission of eliminating heretics on the pretense of saving souls. Many millions were killed, and many innocent victims suffered, most agree. But, in the final analysis one must ask, how can the killing or burning of a body bring salvation to a soul? The body, most will agree, is physical while the soul is spiritual. It departs the body upon death. No mortal is sure where it goes. No, other reasons must stand for the Inquisition and the writing of the Malleus Maleficarum. A.G.H.
For more on this book, try: Malleus Maleficarum
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Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW Medical School recently added important new information to the growing body of knowledge. For the first time, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)--technology that provides a view of the brain as it is working--to see what changes occur over time during antidepressant treatment while patients experience negative and positive emotions.
The study appears in the January issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. UW psychology professor Richard Davidson, Ph.D., psychiatry department chair Ned Kalin, MD, research associate William Irwin and research assistant Michael Anderle were the authors.
The researchers found that when they gave the antidepressant venlafaxine (Effexor(r)) to a small group of clinically depressed patients, the drug produced robust alterations in the anterior cingulate. This area of the brain has to do with focused attention and also becomes activated when people face conflicts. Unexpectedly, the changes were observed in just two weeks.
"Conducting repeated brain scans in these patients allowed us to see for the first time how quickly antidepressants work on brain mechanisms," said Davidson, who also is director of the W. M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, where imaging for the study took place. He noted that the findings were surprising because patients don't usually begin noticing mood improvements until after they have been taking antidepressants for three to five weeks.
The researchers also found that while the depressed patients displayed lower overall activity in the anterior cingulate than non-depressed controls, those depressed patients who showed relatively more activity before treatment responded better to the medication than those with lower pre-treatment activity. This kind of information may be extremely useful to clinicians someday, Kalin said.
"We expect that physicians in the future will be able to predict which patients will be the best candidates for antidepressants simply by looking at brain scans that reveal this type of pertinent information," said Kalin, who also is director of the HealthEmotions Research Institute, where scientists concentrate on uncovering the scientific basis of linkages between emotions and health. One third of all patients treated with antidepressants do not respond to them, and of those that do, only about 50 percent get completely better, he added.
Virtually all previous studies analyzing brain activity in depressed people used PET (positron emission tomography) and SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) technology. With these imaging systems scientists were not able to obtain pictures with the same resolution as that which is now obtainable with fMRI, which provides a "working snapshot" of the brain.
The Wisconsin team used fMRI's capability to capture brain activity as it occurred to record subjects' reactions as they viewed pictures designed to stimulate negative and positive emotions.
"We believe that we can uncover the best indicators of treatment changes when we present research subjects these emotion challenges," said Davidson. "The pictures activate the individual circuits that underlie different kinds of emotional responses."
UW emotions researchers have been using fMRIs with emotion-challenging pictures for several years in an effort to understand normal and abnormal brain responses to a range of emotions. They theorize that in depressed people, reactions to negative emotions are similar to, but more exaggerated than, reactions that non-depressed people have, and that the reactions may be more difficult to turn off.
"We all experience some sadness from time to time, but in depression, the responses may be sustained and out of context," said psychiatrist Kalin.
With the HealthEmotions Research Institute, the Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior and the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, UW is home to a critical mass of some of the foremost emotions researchers in the world.
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The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society: for since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making; whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.
- John Locke
Life, liberty, and property were the central, inalienable rights that formed the foundation of the great experiment in self government called the United States of America. The founders of our country never broke apart this sacred triumvirate, because each one of these rights is inextricably bound to the other. No one of these three can exist without the other. Moreover, when all three are secured, it is almost impossible for injustice to exist. Wherever one does find injustice, one invariably finds a violation of one of these three basic rights at its root.
While it is certainly true that today the rights to life and liberty are grossly violated in innumerable ways, they are nevertheless at least spoken of by our politicians. However hypocritically, they at least say that they value life and liberty, even as they pervert those sacred rights as justification for their wars and plunder.
Yet, they never even hypocritically evoke the right to property. No journalist ever challenges them based upon it, and honestly, most average Americans don’t talk about it either. As a principle, property has vanished from our consciousness. However, as all of the great philosophers throughout history have understood, there is no right to life or liberty without property. In fact, property is part and parcel of life itself.
What is property? It is that which an individual rightfully owns. Included among every human being’s property are his mind, his body, his conscience, and his actions. Every act of mind and body undeniably belongs to the actor, including that act which he engages in more than any other: his labor. To deny someone’s right to ownership of his mind, body, or labor is to make him a slave.
It is labor that allows each individual to sustain his existence and pursue his happiness. All consumption must be preceded by production. Production can only be achieved through human labor. In fact, there is no way for an individual to pursue any goal, whether material, intellectual, or spiritual, without exertion. Even the search for God requires an intellectual and spiritual effort – it cannot commence without labor.
For most of us, the bulk of our labor is devoted to providing the basic necessities of life for ourselves and our children. Some portion of it also provides the extras – the toys, the vacations, or the dining out that enriches our lives and adds to our happiness. A further portion is devoted to study, prayer, or just simple reflection – the quest for meaning and purpose in our lives. None of these things are possible without labor; our labor provides them all. Every item in every store is the product of someone’s labor. Every phone call you make is made possible by someone’s labor. Healthcare is someone’s labor, as is education.
However, the actual effort of mind and body is not the most precious aspect of labor. If human beings were immortal, we could afford to spend our labor and its fruits indiscriminately, consuming as much as we wished and providing anything to anyone who asked it of us. If a shoemaker were able to make shoes for the rest of eternity, then certainly there would not be a bare foot on the face of the earth. If the land developer were immortal, we would all live in a mansion.
However, we are not immortal, and it is this fact that places such a premium on our labor. Our labor is not just composed of the exertion of mind and body that is necessary to produce some good or service. That exertion happens over time, the hours or days of the laborer’s life. Every hour of our labor is an hour of our life from a limited supply which cannot be replenished. Whatever we have produced with our labor now contains that portion of our life which we have sacrificed to produce it.
So, when human beings trade their goods or services with one another, they are really trading pieces of their lives. If they have exchanged their labor for money with an employer or customer, that money now contains some part of their lives – a part that can never be reclaimed. That is why the same verb is used for both money and time – both are “spent” in exchange for some benefit. Both also represent each individual’s means of self determination.
Therefore, it is impossible to call a person free if he does not own his labor and all the product of his labor. It is only through his labor that he can provide better food, clothing and shelter for himself and his family, send his children to better schools, or realize the leisure time necessary to grow intellectually and spiritually. His labor is his means to determine the course of his life. Without self determination, there is no liberty.
Furthermore, to deny a human being ownership of his labor is also to deny his right to life itself. Since his labor is his means of sustaining his existence, once his right to ownership of his labor is denied he lives only at the arbitrary whim of whoever has claimed ownership of it. For such a person, life is now a privilege granted by someone else, rather than a right.
To the founders of the United States of America, all of this was self evident. When one reads the writings of Samuel and John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, or Locke, one finds one word that is used many times more often even than liberty: property. Recognizing property as nothing more than the individual’s labor and/or the product of his labor, the founders placed the protection of property as the very highest priority of government. In fact, they often stated that it was the only priority of government. While no high school history book or Hollywood biopic even hints at this fact, merely reading the words of the founders for oneself puts any debate on this point to rest.
Let us apply this concept to a contemporary issue. The unambiguous statements in the Declaration of Independence that all human beings have unalienable rights and that government’s sole purpose is to secure them should absolutely beg at least one timely question from most Americans today. Why did the founders not provide for the right to health care? Why did they not establish Medicare or Medicaid? Given a whole system of government whose purpose was to secure individual rights, why was this right so glaringly overlooked?
Of course, the answer to that question is that the founders recognized that health care was not a right. Health care, like every other good or service, is someone’s labor. No one but the laborer can have a right to it. To say that people have a right to health care is really to deny the health care provider a right to his own life, for it is impossible for both he and his patient to have a right to ownership of his labor. It is no less a crime to forcefully rob the health care provider’s fee from a third party (the taxpayer), for that simply denies the taxpayer’s right to his own life. In either case – whether the health care provider is forced to treat the patient for free or a third party is forced to pay the bill – someone’s labor, some part of someone’s life, is being stolen from him. This is the specific crime that government exists to defend its citizens against. By instead committing this crime, government becomes the most grotesque absurdity imaginable.
This is not to imply that we are at some sort of crossroads because President Obama and his pet Congress are closing in on expanding government healthcare. We came to that crossroads decades ago and quite undeniably took the wrong road. Until our philosophy changes and we recognize that retirement benefits, health care, research grants, corporate subsidies, investment in alternative energy – all money, goods, and services – are really pieces of someone’s life that cannot be seized from them without their consent (not even by majority vote), we will never restore the liberty that we have lost. Instead, we will continue to be the most pitiable form of slave, not bound to one master, but to everyone.
When a fellow human being offers to buy your product or hire you for your services, he has paid you the highest compliment imaginable. That person has offered a piece of his life to you in exchange for something that you have to offer, which is itself a piece of your own life. He is saying that you have value and that what you offer is worth hours or days of his life that he can never reclaim. This consensual interaction between free people is the most beautiful aspect of civil society and has been responsible for every improvement in the quality of human life that has ever occurred throughout history.
Conversely, when a fellow human being points a gun at you and demands that you provide him with some good or service, he commits the most egregious crime imaginable, short of pulling the trigger and ending your life at that moment. For in reality, he is really stealing a piece of your life that you can likewise never reclaim. He may be committing this crime because he wishes to increase his wealth without earning it, or he may desperately need whatever he takes from you, but it is the same crime nonetheless. This interaction is the most evil aspect of civil society and has been responsible for every war and human misery that has ever occurred throughout history.
Government can only be organized to fulfill one of two purposes: to protect your property or to take it from you - for whatever purpose government or its constituents deem fit. There is no third choice. To organize society around competing groups stealing from one another is to create a society whose citizens exist in a perpetual state of war with one another – for the use of force to obtain another’s property without his consent is the definition of the state of war.
Such a society cannot endure indefinitely. Ours has come to the beginning of its inevitable end. Countless empires throughout history – some much more preeminent in their worlds than we are in ours – have disintegrated for exactly the same reason. We can still choose justice over injustice but our philosophy must change. We must again institute a government that secures our rights, rather than annihilates them in the attempt to provide us with the property of others.
This will not happen by any act of government itself. Whether we elect a liberal or a conservative, we will never achieve different results by continually electing different people or parties but asking them to do the same thing – provide us with the property of others. It must be the people who change their philosophy and then demand that government assume its appropriate role according to that philosophy. Our government ultimately gives us what we ask for. For the past century, we have increasingly asked it to make us slaves, seduced by the siren’s song of comfort and security without responsibility. This can only be provided to each of us at another’s expense and can only be provided to others at ours. Once we reject the idea that we can claim a right to another human being’s life, the chains that bind us will be broken. Then, it will matter not who makes our laws.
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The Teaberry Plant | A Native to New England
Teaberry plants are almost everywhere in New England and are usually at their peak in mid-October! If you have ever spent time walking in the woods in New England, chances are you have stumbled across or even walked upon teaberry plants. If you are native to New England, you may even have fond memories of searching for and gathering the mild tasting berries that grow from the small groundcover plants. Teaberries were used commercially in the making of Teaberry chewing gum — one of the first chewing gums marketed in the United States at around 1900 —which is still available today. For centuries Teaberries have also been used medicinally and as a flavoring for candies, herbal remedies, tea and even wine.
The Teaberry plant is an evergreen species native to New England as well as other areas of the North Eastern parts of the United States and Canada. It grows in shady and wet woodland areas where ferns, mushrooms and moss thrive. It has small, rounded semi-shiny leaves and bears tiny bell shaped white flowers that mature into red berries that sometimes have a pinkish hue. The berries are typically the size and shape of a pea, though they are firmer than most berries and have a mealy texture with a light, yet fragrant scent and an understated berry flavor with a hint of a warm mint and spice undertone.
This versatile and easy growing plant is being used more and more in landscapes, particularly in New England and other areas to which it is native. Perfect for gardeners who want to mimic their natural surroundings and grow plants in their gardens that incorporate and work with their environment seamlessly.
Because the Teaberry plant stores moisture and grows best in shaded areas, it requires very little if any watering once established. The trailing leaves can also be easily trained to climb around stakes or garden statues. Teaberry plants are also a great choice for a terrarium plant.
Teaberry Planting and Growing Instructions
- Planting time for the Tea Berry is in the late spring.
- Choose a partially shaded area with well drained, yet rich soil.
- Transfer healthy, newly dug up plants with a generous root system to the shaded area and plant as deep as the roots allow without being stretched. If you are planting from seeds instead -plant the seeds 2-3 inches deep and be sure to leave at least 4 inches of space for growth in between the seeds.
- Keep the soil consistently moist. Expect germination to begin in approximately 6-8 weeks.
Once established, the Teabrry will spread on it’s own and require little if any care.
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Senate of France
since 1 october 2008
|Members||321 (343 in 2010)|
|Political groups||Union for a Popular
Centrist union (29)
Communist, republican, citizen and of the senators of the Left party (24)
European Democratic and Social Rally (17)
Non-Attached Members (7)
|Voting system||Additional Member System|
|Last election||21 September 2008|
|Palais du Luxembourg, Paris|
This article is part of the series:
Other countries · Atlas
The Senate enjoys less prominence than the lower house, the directly elected National Assembly; debates in the Senate tend to be less tense and generally enjoy less media coverage.
France's first experience with an upper house was under the Directory from 1795 to 1799, when the Council of Ancients was the upper chamber. There were Senates in both the First and Second Empires (the former being known as the sénat conservateur, the latter as the French Senate), but these were only nominally legislative bodies - technically they were not legislative, but rather advisory bodies on the model of the Roman Senate.
With the Restoration in 1814, a new Chamber of Peers was created, on the model of the British House of Lords. At first it contained hereditary peers, but following the July Revolution of 1830, it became a body to which one was appointed for life. The Second Republic returned to a unicameral system after 1848, but soon after the establishment of the Second French Empire in 1852, a Senate was established as the upper chamber. In the Fourth Republic, the Senate was renamed the Council of the Republic, but its function was largely the same. With the new constitution of the Fifth Republic enforced on October 4, 1958, the older name of Senate was restored.
Until September 2004, the Senate had 321 senators, each elected to a nine-year term. On that date, the term was reduced to six years, while the number of senators will progressively increase to 346 in 2010 to reflect changes in the country's demographics. Senators were elected in thirds every three years; this will also change to one-half of their number every three years.
Senators are elected indirectly by approximately 150,000 local elected officials ("grands électeurs"), including regional councilors, department councilors, mayors, city councilors and their delegates in large towns, and deputies of the National Assembly. This system introduces a bias in the composition of the Senate, which favors rural areas. As a consequence, while the political majority changes frequently in the National Assembly, the Senate has remained politically conservative since the foundation of the Fifth Republic, much to the displeasure of the Socialists,and some analysts are expecting that it will remain so in the forthcoming years. This has spurred controversy, especially after the September 2008 senatorial elections in which the (left-wing) Socialist party, despite controlling all but two of France's regions, a majority of départements, and communes representing more than 50% of the population, still failed to achieve a majority in the Senate.
Twelve senators are elected to represent French citizens living outside the Republic.
Following from a tradition started by the first National Assembly during the French Revolution, the "left-wing" parties sit to the left as seen from the president's seat, and the "right-wing" parties sit to the right, and the seating thus indicates the political spectrum as represented in the Senate.
|Parties and coalitions||Abbr.||2004||a||2008||±|
|Union for a Popular Movement (Union pour un mouvement populaire)||UMP||159||56||151||–8|
|Centrist Union-UDF (Union centriste–Union pour la démocratie française)||UC-UDF||30||4||29||–1|
|Total "Presidential Majority" (Right)||189||60||180||–9|
|Socialist Party (Parti socialiste)||PS||95||29||116||+21|
|Communist, Republican and Citizen (Communiste, républicain, et citoyen)||CRC||23||3||23||+0|
|European Democratic and Social Rally (Rassemblement démocratique et social européen)||RDSE||17||8||17||+0|
|a - Seats up for election
Source: Public Senat
Senators elect among themselves a President. The current incumbent is Gérard Larcher. The President of the Senate is also, according to the constitution of the Fifth Republic, first in line of succession in case of death, resignation or impeachment (only for health reasons) of the President of the Republic, thus becoming Acting President of the Republic until a new election can be held. This happened twice for Alain Poher, once at the resignation of Charles de Gaulle and once at the death of Georges Pompidou.
According to the Constitution, the Senate has nearly the same powers as the National Assembly. Bills may be submitted by the government (projets de loi) or by either house of Parliament (propositions de loi). However, if the National Assembly and the Senate cannot agree upon the language of a bill, the Government can ask the National Assembly to make a final vote on the bill, either using the original version that the National Assembly voted on, or the edited version adopted by the Commission mixte paritaire and including any amendments put forth by the Senate that the National Assembly may desire to adopt. During a period of social dominance, or conflictual bicameralism, the Assembly can override a Senate veto.
Because both houses may amend the bill, it may take several readings to reach an agreement between the National Assembly and the Senate. When the Senate and the National Assembly cannot agree on a bill, the government can decide, after a procedure called commission mixte paritaire, to give the final decision to the National Assembly, whose majority is normally on the government's side. This does not happen frequently: most of the time both houses eventually agree on the bill, or the government decides to withdraw it. However, this power gives the National Assembly a prominent role in the law-making process, especially since the government is necessarily of the same side as the Assembly, for the Assembly can dismiss the government through a motion of censure. The power to pass a vote of censure, or vote of no confidence, is limited. As was the case in the Fourth Republic's Constitution, new cabinets do not have to receive a vote of confidence. Also, a vote of censure can only occur after 10 percent of the members sign a petition; if rejected, those members who signed cannot sign another petition until that session of parliament had ended. If the petition gets the required support, a vote of censure must gain an absolute majority of all members, not just those voting. If the Assembly and the Senate have politically distinct majorities, it is expected in most cases that the Assembly will prevail, so that open conflict between the two houses is uncommon.
The Senate also serves to monitor the government's actions by publishing many reports every year on various topics.
The Senate is housed inside the Palais du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement of Paris and is guarded by Republican Guards. In front of the building lies the Senate's garden, the Jardin du Luxembourg, open to the public.
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A metabase (sometimes called a metadatabase or metadata repository) is a database for storing metadata (data that describes data) for a specific purpose. For example, a metabase might include metadata about all configuration information in a system gathered from a number of sources. A physical metabase is one in which the metadata is actually collected into a single place before it is accessed. A virtual metabase is one in which metadata is gathered on the fly when it is needed, possibly when a program is executing.
By submitting your email address, you agree to receive emails regarding relevant topic offers from TechTarget and its partners. You can withdraw your consent at any time. Contact TechTarget at 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA.
An example is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) metabase for computer vulnerability data, ICAT, which can be accessed from a search index to connect users to multiple vulnerability databases and patch Web sites. ICAT is available for public access.
Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) includes a metabase designed to store IIS configuration settings. MetaMatrix's product, MetaBase, is designed to enable data management across a large enterprise with diverse types and sources of data.
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Robert Burns was a famous Scottish poet in the 18th century.
And each year on 25 January Scottish people all around the world celebrate his birthday - called Burns Night.
Here's how Press Packer Kris celebrates this special day.
"In my school we
have a Scottish poetry
Each class learns
a poem and then says it in
front of the whole school.
This has been a tradition
since I was little.
I have won
it twice and I have taken part
in every competition.
One sheep's stomach
Sheep lungs and heart
Salt and pepper
But it is so
This year my
class gets to do a Burns
There are speeches and we have a meal.
On Burns Night I have a meal with my family of haggis,
neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes).
I like the taste of haggis but my little sister doesn't like eating it!
I think it's a good idea celebrating Burns Night as I think it's important to remember one of our famous poets."
Kris, 11, North Lanarkshire
Why don't you write us a Press Pack report - and get it published on the site!
It can be about anything that's happened in your local area - or your views on the news.
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- Harry S. Murphy attended the University of Mississippi in 1945-46
- Murphy "passed" -- he was black, but people thought he was white
- More than 15 years years later, racial integration drew huge protest at Ole Miss
- The history of passing remains shadowy, but offers lessons, Allyson Hobbs writes
When Harry S. Murphy arrived at the University of Mississippi in the fall of 1945, he was nervous. He landed at Ole Miss by way of the Navy's V-12 program, a wartime measure that allowed young men to take college classes, receive naval training and preparation to become officers.
Murphy was black, but university officials did not know that. He had a white complexion and wavy brown hair. A military official checked the "W" box for white when Murphy enlisted in the Navy.
This official unwittingly set Murphy on an entirely new path. Murphy explained that he had no intention to "pass," and once at Ole Miss in Oxford, no one inquired about his race.
"I guess they just assumed I was white," Murphy said.
If no one asked, why tell?
Passing -- the choice to leave behind a black racial identity and present oneself as white -- allowed many African-Americans to navigate a racist society. In today's multiracial America, the decision to pass may seem unnecessary and unwarranted.
But historically, erasing one's black identity was one of a limited number of avenues available to light-skinned African-Americans to secure a better life in the era of legalized segregation.
Those who passed often reaped financial rewards, gained social privileges and enjoyed the fun of "getting over" by playing a practical joke on unsuspecting whites and winning a clandestine war against Jim Crow America.
Murphy settled into campus life with ease. He was accepted as "just another student." He wore the college's colors as a member of the track team, made close friends with white students, danced with and dated white women and ate at local restaurants without incident.
He was active on campus. Described by one classmate as "arrogant" and "a loud talker," he even participated in a protest against Sen. Theodore Bilbo, the fanatical segregationist, when he spoke at Ole Miss while Murphy was on campus.
When the military ended the V-12 program, Murphy transferred to Morehouse College in his hometown of Atlanta. University officials at Ole Miss never questioned why one of their ostensibly white students had made plans to attend a historically black college.
Murphy's white skin functioned as a cloak and allowed him to pass as white at the University of Mississippi. But when James Meredith, another black student, attempted to integrate Ole Miss in 1962, it ignited widespread riots across the campus.
Ole Miss prided itself on 114 years as a lily-white institution. Murphy observed the violent resistance to integration and declared, "they're fighting a battle they don't know they lost years ago."
Once at Morehouse, Murphy returned to life as a black man. He later entered the printing business and moved to New York.
Harry S. Murphy told his story to the press and gave readers a rare and intimate look at the lived experience of passing. But he was not the only African-American enlisted man whose military records identified him as "white" or "Caucasian."
This type of temporary passing flourished during the Jim Crow era.
Murphy's story appears to be one of levity and laughter, of exposing the absurdity of racial categories, and poking fun at erroneous beliefs in racial purity and white supremacy.
But his story ends in tragedy. Murphy committed suicide at 63 in New York in 1991.
We will never know why he took his own life. There is no evidence to link Murphy's death to any conflict that he may have had about his racial identity. But still, his suicide leads us to wonder about the personal and psychological losses, in addition to the gains, associated with passing.
The history of passing offers a richer understanding of lives lived along the color line. But this history is never complete.
It remains shadowy and blurred.
Was there ever a time people assumed you were something that you were not? Share your experiences in the comments, on Twitter @CNNLiving or on CNN Living's Facebook page.
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Susie Miles, a researcher in inclusive education who gave evidence to the inquiry, says that such a strategy would be a great step forward, but believes developing it will be highly complex and will require long-term commitment. Miles, who is based at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, tells me there is a huge diversity of views about best practice in disability and development work, and this will make it difficult for DFID to develop an overarching strategy.
When I ask if research could help by providing evidence about best practice, she seems hesitant. But reflecting on her own specialism, the education of disabled children, she says there is an “urgent need” for research on how best to provide services to disabled people.
“The issue of disability has been at the bottom of priority lists for too long.”
Susie Miles, University of Manchester
But she sounds two notes of caution. First, she says, it can be hard to do effective research into disability because of the extent to which disabled people are marginalised in low and middle-income countries. “In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, it is difficult to get a pair of glasses, and hearing aids are almost impossible to find,” Miles says. Without such items, along with appropriate and flexible teaching methods, children may not be benefit fully from being in school — if they attend at all — and so it’s hard to see how their learning can be equitably measured, she says.
Second, Miles points out that there has been a shift in the development community’s thinking on disability in the run up to the post-2015 global development goals. There is now a focus on measuring ‘learning outcomes’, recognising that it’s not enough to simply count how many children enrol into school or an aid programme, and that the quality of education is key to success, she says.
But this concept comes with its own complications. “There was a lot of concern at the inquiry about having funding linked to measurable learning outcomes,” says Miles. She warns that simply measuring disabled persons’ academic performance fails to appreciate that inclusion is a complex social process that extends beyond the classroom.
In the meantime, one area where research could help is in providing an evidence base for how best to train teachers to support the disabled pupils who do attend school, she says. Until recently in Rwanda, for example, 19 NGOs each operated their own such training programme, Miles says. It would be interesting to embed mixed methods research — that uses both quantitative data and case studies — within these programmes in order to identify what teachers need to know about disability before they start teaching and how best to provide ongoing teacher education, she says.
“There are a lot of assumptions made about the need to get all students into schools, but my sense is that the challenges continue once they’re in,” Miles says. “So any disability strategy has to take account of that ongoing challenge and the fact that support needs to be sensitive to context.”
She adds: “The issue of disability has been at the bottom of priority lists for too long.” It would be a great advance if DFID developed a strategy, she says, but any such plan must be able to accommodate the nuances of local situations.
Joshua Howgego is SciDev.Net’s deputy news and opinions editor. @jdhowgego
Ellie Violet Bramley Disability must be a priority within development programmes, say MPs (The Guardian, 10 April 2014) Evariste Karawanga International agencies: What is their contribution to the future of inclusive education in Rwanda? (UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development, September 2013)
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Remembering a Catholic Heroine
Dr. Richard C. Lukas
Most people had never heard of the tiny, blue-eyed lady until she passed away at ninety-eight years of age in Warsaw on May 12, 2008. Those who were aware of her inspiring story knew that she was a moral giant.
Irena Sendler had been raised a Roman Catholic by a father who taught her to respond to the needs of the poor and oppressed. “When someone is drowning,” he said, “extend a helping hand.” He practiced what he preached. At the risk of his own life, he treated poor Jews and Poles in the town of Otwock for Typhus when other physicians refused to do so. He died of the disease in 1917.
When the Germans defeated and occupied Poland in 1939, they forbade Polish welfare assistance to Jews who were locked up in ghettos and separated from gentiles. In the Warsaw Ghetto, malnutrition, disease, lack of medical assistance and overcrowding took the grim toll of 5,000 lives every day. There weren’t enough gravediggers to keep up with the corpses.
Despite the fact that Poland was the only German-occupied country where aiding a Jew carried the death penalty, Sendler risked her life to help Jews.
She headed the Children’s Bureau of Zegota, the code name for the Rada Pomocy Zydom (Council for Aid to Jews), an underground organization that the Poles established exclusively to aid Jews. This group was provided with funds mostly from the Polish government, forced into exile in Great Britain by the German invasion.
Sendler witnessed the special hell the Nazis created for the Jews. “The worst [hell] was the fate of the children, the most vulnerable human beings,” she said. Disguised as sanitation workers from the city of Warsaw, she and her close associate, Irena Schultz, entered the Warsaw Ghetto to rescue Jewish children from certain death.
There were four ways to exit the ghetto, all of them dangerous for the children and their rescuers. Two of them included escorting the children through a labyrinth of cellars of buildings on both sides of the ghetto and through the corridors of the Polish Court that straddled the ghetto and Warsaw itself. Another way was to get older children to a tram station near the ghetto, where a member of Zegota drove them to safety. The fourth method was by an ambulance, also driven by a Zegota operative, who took the children out of the ghetto in gunnysacks, body bags and even in coffins. Sometimes, children had to be drugged to stifle their sad cries.
Once outside the ghetto, countless numbers of altruistic Poles helped to make Sendler’s operation a success. “I couldn’t have done it alone,” Irena admitted, observing that it took ten Poles to save one Jewish child. Some people provided temporary safehouses, others more permanent homes for the children. When German suspicions were aroused about a family, Zegota had to move the Jewish child to another home. One Jewish boy had to be moved so often that he tearfully asked Irena, “How many mothers is it possible to have because I’m going to my thirty-second one.”
Sendler’s incredible operation resulted in saving approximately 2,500 Jewish children, few of whom even knew Irena’s name because she, like other Zegota members, used a nom de guerre. Sendler’s was “Jolanta.”
Sendler had written the names of her rescued children on narrow pieces of tissue paper. She kept them in a bundle near her bed at night, intending to throw it out the window to a garden below if the Gestapo paid an unexpected visit. But on the night of October 20, 1943, the Gestapo suddenly burst into her apartment before she had the chance to throw the list of names out the window. She managed to throw the list to her friend, who was visiting her that evening. She had the wit to hide the incriminating information in her undergarments.
Imprisoned and beaten at the infamous Pawiak Prison, where hundreds of Poles had died, she refused to reveal anything to the Gestapo. Thanks to a well-placed bribe by Zegota, a Gestapo officer freed Irena on the way to her execution. She went underground, retrieved the list of names, and buried it in a bottle under an apple tree in a friend’s garden. She dug up the list after the war and gave it to the Jewish Committee, which took charge of the children.
Because of the hostility of the postwar Communist regime toward any person or group which had been involved in the pro-western and anti-Communist Polish Underground, Sendler’s story remained largely unknown until the 1980’s and 1990’s, when Poland became a democracy. Many belated honors came to her, including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2007.
Irena Sendler deserves an historian and a filmmaker such as Spielberg to tell us her compelling story of sacrifice and courage. We desperately need her and other exemplars of good to teach all of us about goodness. Irena Sendler not only saved Jewish children but also humanity’s soul.
Dr. Richard C. Lukas is a retired professor of history. He has taught at universities in Florida, Ohio and Tennessee and is the author of eight books. Two of his most acclaimed books are: The Forgotten Holocaustand Did the Children Cry?
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- Sight & Sound
February 3rd, 2016
Moog Music was born when a young Bob Moog started tinkering with electronic circuitry. As a boy, Moog built small radios, amps, and Theremins in his basement workshop with his father. The rest, as you know, is history.
Circuit-bending is a chance art form pioneered by Reed Ghazala in 1966. It combines art, sonic artistry and creativity. By altering the internal circuitry of electronic devices such as keyboards, drum machines, and children's toys, circuit benders are able to produce new sounds not intended in the original design. Moogfest is proud to continue Reed's tradition of chance electronic design via our yearly circuit-bending contest.
This Year's Contest
In celebration of this creative curiosity that fueled a young Bob Moog and all of those that follow in his footsteps, Moog is sponsoring its 5th Annual Circuit Bending Contest.
This year, Moog’s circuit bending contest is challenging entrants to take a battery powered device and circuit bend it into an instrument capable of creating new and unique sounds for a total budget of $70 or less.
Entrants will create and post videos on YouTube featuring their completed instruments and documenting the process of their creation. Moog will select three finalists and invite them to showcase their creations at Moogfest in May of 2016 where judges will decide a winner of the contest.
Last year's Circuit Bending Challenge produced some of the most innovative instruments to date. We received so many amazing builds that we had to expand our finalist lineup to include the top 5 entries.
The 2014 Finalist’s Videos are viewable here:
Contestants will circuit bend an existing device to create a unique musical instrument that can be easily recreated by others while following these guidelines:
● The device you bend must be battery operated with a power no greater than 9 volts.
● Project must be completed for a total cost of $70 or less. This includes the device you bend, and all parts you use to bend it.
● You’ll need to create a Bill of Materials, Build Instructions, and Photos sequencing the build step by step.
Once you’ve created your instrument, create and upload a video to YouTube and title it "Moog Circuit Bending Challenge 2016." Send an email with the subject Moog Circuit Bending Challenge 2016 to email@example.com with your Build Of Materials, Photos, and the YouTube link to your entry. Your video will be evaluated by Moog and its staff, and three finalists will be chosen. Audio quality and concise editing will be taken into consideration. The better you document, the better we can judge. All entries must be uploaded by MIDNIGHT EST on March 27th, 2016.
The three finalists chosen by Moog on March 28th, 2016 will receive (2) passes to Moogfest 2016, as well as a Moog merch package.
A winner will be chosen on the basis of reliable functionality, creativity, craftsmanship, artistic appearance, overall sound, and the popularity of the device with the public. The winner will be chosen on the final day of Moogfest 2016. Official rules can be found here.
Grand Prize: Moog Sub 37
2nd Place: Moog Sub Phatty
3rd Place: Moog MInitaur
Ryan Germick, Google
John Paul Titlow, Fast Company
Amos Gaynes, Moog
Andy Hughes, Moog
Chris Wilson, Google
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NHELD, LLC examines and explains the history of the law pertaining to
homeschooling, and the authority of parents to instruct their children from
the inception of the Connecticut
colony to the present. It is important to note that the governmental
authority to regulate education, as well as all other issues not mentioned
specifically mentioned in the Federal Constitution, is left up to the
states. Therefore, each state's laws regarding homeschooling will differ
(see the Statutes page for more details).
Below are articles written
which speak about Connecticut
history regarding parental rights and homeschooling. In the future, we hope
to add the history of homeschooling of all states.
of Parental Authority
Other Frequently Asked
What is 'truancy' and can Connecticut homeschoolers be considered
Truancy, or being truant, does
not apply to homeschoolers: it is defined by state statute as "a child
age five to eighteen, inclusive, who is enrolled in a public or private
school and has four unexcused absences from school in any one month or ten
unexcused absences from school in any school year."
Truancy is, by its nature, applicable
to "compulsory attendance" (the requirement that a child enrolled
in public school must attend said school), not to "compulsory
education" (the requirement that children must receive an education).
The truancy statute, Conn. Gen. Stat. §10-198a, specifically provides that
"children who are enrolled in public and private schools" and who
receive a certain number of "unexcused absences" shall be
considered truant. Homeschooled children, by definition, are not
"enrolled in a public or a private school", and in a homeschool,
there is no such thing as an "unexcused absence" - therefore they
cannot be considered truant.
Just to make the meaning of
the truancy statute perfectly clear to superintendents, CT's C.U.R.E.
requested Senator Kevin Sullivan to propose an amendment to that
statute. He did so and the legislature passed the amendment into
law. That amendment is now known as Conn. Gen. Stat.
§10-198a(e). It states, in affirmation of the other existing laws,
that the provisions of the truancy statute "shall not apply" to
those children receiving equivalent instruction in accordance with Conn.
Gen. Stat. §10-184.
On two other occasions since
that time, on behalf of homeschoolers, State Representative Arthur
O'Neill proposed amendments that would strengthen parental authority
concerning home education. Representative O'Neill succeeded in
persuading the legislature to adopt those amendments. They are now
known as §10-184a and §10-184b. Their importance to this discussion
is only to show that the policy position of the Connecticut Board of
Education, the Connecticut Department of Education, and the Connecticut
General Assembly, for hundreds of years, as reinforced as recently as this
past decade, has been that parents have the obligation and the authority to
educate their own children. That policy should not be changed.
does the issue of regulation keep being raised?
asserting the "need" for regulation, the two issues that
primarily are emphasized are the issues of equivalent instruction and
potential parental neglect. These issues were thoroughly debated and
studied in 1989-1990 prior to issuance of the C-14 Guidelines. Some
of the conclusions that were drawn at that time included the following:
It is impossible to define
equivalent instruction. For example:
a. If superintendents are to determine if the instruction in a
homeschool is equivalent to that in the public schools, which public
schools should we use as the standard? Should the instruction be equivalent
to the public school in downtown Hartford
or to the public school in Westport?
Should we determine that it is equivalent at the beginning of the year or
at the end of the year? What happens if the curricula or materials in the
public school change? Do we assess the homeschool based on the
equivalency of the old curricula and materials or the new?
b. How do we assess the child's progress? Do we impose a
standardized test based on the curricula as taught in the public school, or
do we impose a standardized test based on the curricula in the homeschool?
If we base it on the curricula in the homeschool, whose homeschool
curricula do we use when each family uses a different curricula?
c. If the standard is 'equivalency', wouldn't that prevent a
homeschooler from having a better
As you can see, the Connecticut Board of Education concluded that it was
not reasonable or practical to determine "equivalent
instruction." This is why it was not addressed in the C-14
Guidelines other than to suggest that a portfolio review be conducted
simply to show that "the subjects listed in §10-184 were taught."
It is likewise
impossible to define 'educational neglect'. For example:
a. Is educational neglect when a child does not do his
schoolwork, or when a child does not learn the material? If so, then
possibly a third of the public school districts and their teachers could be
considered to be educationally neglectful because their students do not do
their schoolwork and do not learn the material.
b. Is educational neglect when a child does nothing all year? If
so, then, again, how many public school districts are educationally
neglectful when they utilize "social promotion" and pass students
who have done nothing all year to the next grade?
The question is also often
raised, "What if a child is in physical danger because a parent
leaves that child at home alone?"
The answer is, there already
exist a myriad of laws protecting children from truly abusive and
neglectful parents. These laws are more than sufficient to protect
children who homeschool as well.
Another oft-asked question is, "How can we tell if these children
are being abused if they are not in public school?" The answer to
this question is, you can tell if homeschooled children are being abused
the same way public school superintendents tell if children in private
schools are being abused: Wait for a reasonable, articulable suspicion,
seek a warrant based on probable cause, and utilize constitutional and
Homeschool children are not isolated in a cave. They participate in a
variety of activities in the community where a problem can be detected if
it truly exists.
The real problem that exists
today is not a problem involving the lack of instruction or abuse in
homeschools, it is a problem with public school superintendents or other
government officials abusing their authority, overstepping their bounds,
misunderstanding, or misapplying the law and suggested procedures.
The blame for this, in the State of Connecticut,
at least, can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the former State
Commissioner of Education, Theodore Sergi, and the Chief of the Office of
Legal Affairs, Mark Stapleton. These two people were in positions of
authority and understood fully the difference between enforceable statutory
and administrative regulations and unenforceable "suggested
procedures." Yet, they repeatedly condoned the misinterpretation
of the C-14 Guidelines and the actions of superintendents who intimidate
parents with threats of truancy or neglect charges when the parents do not
"comply" with a "suggested" procedure. These
allegations are the result of years of working on behalf of parents from
all across the state who have gone through weeks, sometimes months, of
intimidation by these superintendents. This matter was brought
to the attention of Commissioner Sergi and Mark Stapleton on numerous
occasions during which they could have clarified for the superintendents the
differences between statutory law and suggested procedure, but they chose
not to do so. There can be no excuse for such wanton leadership.
about federal legislation?
The right of the state's
elected government officials to determine the quantity and quality of
regulation of homeschooling in the state should not be undermined by
unnecessary federal legislation. There are few, if any,
"problems" with the existing system of homeschooling in Connecticut that
require "fixing" by means of federal legislation. The state
legislature is very familiar with all of the issues involved in
homeschooling and is more than capable of developing statutes, when and if
necessary, to resolve "problems" if those "problems"
are shown to exist in the future. For further information, this website has
an entire page devoted to the issue of federal
Top of Page
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| 0.946238
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Freedom: The Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., champion of human rights.
January 17, 2011, marks the 25th anniversary the first observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a U.S. federal holiday.
Dr. King was a driving force for nonviolent activism in the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. From 1957 to 1968, he traveled 6 million miles, gave 2,500 speeches and led peaceful pickets, protests and marches that opened the eyes of the world to injustices in America. Through leadership positions in the NAACP and Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dr. King's actions were instrumental in gaining passage of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, the same year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
On August 28, 1963, at the close of a peaceful march in Washington of more than 250,000, Dr. King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
"It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment," he said. "There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges."
Emphasizing the importance of a peaceful resolution to these urgent social issues, Dr. King continued: "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."
He is probably best remembered for his passionate call to America to be true to her most fundamental ideals: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'"
Dr. King inspired an entire nation to live up to its potential, closing with these words: "From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"
In keeping with the legacy of Dr. King, the holiday honoring his birth is a day of service, where Americans from every walk of life contribute their time in the name of a better future for all.
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The 2002 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (more commonly known as the Nobel prize in economics) was awarded to two American economists on Oct. 9, 2002. One of the winners, Vernon L. Smith, is an advocate of federal land privatization. Michigan's government, which owns 12 percent of the state's land, could learn from the newest Nobel laureate's findings.
In 1999 Smith co-authored a Cato Institute study, “How and Why to Privatize Federal Lands,” which describes in detail how government ownership results in economic and ecological mismanagement of public lands. The solution, say the authors “is to get the incentives right for both the treasury and the environment” by privatizing federal land holdings.
Former Mackinac Center for Public Policy researcher and author Peter T. Leeson wrote a related article also in 1999 for Michigan Privatization Report, the nation's largest quarterly privatization journal. The article, “Land Ho! Should Government Be Lanlord?” described the extent of state landholdings and concluded that the state should sell off some of its property.
Smith, 75, is Professor of Economics and Law at George Mason University in Virginia. He received his Nobel award for path-breaking work in experimental economics, demonstrating the importance of “alternative institutions,” in such matters as privatization.
Alternative institutions show how tests could be conducted on public policies in a laboratory setting before being applied in practice. The Swedish Academy specifically cited his research with respect to public utility privatization when announcing his award. Smith co-authored a paper on this subject in the Cato Journal, a publication of the Cato Institute.
It is refreshing to see the Royal Swedish Academy pick winners from among men and women who have studied privatization's effects, even controversial privatization such as the sale of public land. To its credit, the Academy has surveyed Smith's record of accomplishment with policy research institutes and universities, and found his work deserving. Hopefully, Michigan officials will apply sound economic principles to the question of how much land the state needs to own.
Michael LaFaive is director of fiscal policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and senior managing editor of Michigan Privatization Report.
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|You are here: Home >> Ancient Rare Bible Leaves >> Special Interest Bible Leaves >> 1782 Aitken Bible Leaf|
1568 Bishop's Bible | 1582 Rheims N.T. | 1663 Eliot Bible | [1782 Aitken Bible]
Hebrew Torah Scroll Panels | 1455 Gutenberg Bible
The 1782 Aitken Bible:
A leaf from the first Bible printed in the English language in America.
These leaves are over 230 years old. Called “The Bible of the Revolution”,
Robert Aitken’s little Bible was small enough to fit into the coat
pocket of the Revolutionary War soldiers. The leaves measure only 6 inches
tall by almost 4 inches wide. The only Bible printing ever called for
by an act of the United States Congress; this King James Version Bible
helped meet the need for scriptures while England refused to allow their
Bibles to be imported by the rebellious colonists, during the embargo
of the Revolutionary War.
As a curious side note: Robert Aitken’s daughter, Jane Aitken, went on to become the first woman in the history of the world to ever print a Bible. Jane published a translation into English done by the Secretary of the United States Congress, which was itself actually the first non-King James version English language Bible ever printed in America (or the Western Hemisphere for that matter).
Robert Aitken’s Bible was printed at his Philadelphia print shop,
using an early American movable-type press. The paper stock is a thick
grade of wood-pulp paper, as cotton was deemed to be too expensive for
this production. We also have beautiful frames
available for these leaves. Imagine …having a leaf from the first
English Bible printed in America: The 1782 Aitken Bible.
ITEM # ABL-1578: $395 and up… call for a quote
on specific passages
View our available FRAMES for Bible Leaves.
CONTACT US to place
|Another Example Leaf||Affidavit of Authenticity||Table of Contents||Journals of Congress|
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| 0.915164
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