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This is their website. No idea if it is any good or not.
Not much there to go on.
No it is pretty sparse for sure. Thought it might be cool to try it on the sail boat. See if I win more races. :D
I'm pretty sure a coating can't do this:
Won't do crap for anything travelling under 200mph. For our typical speeds any surface feature under about 1/4 of an inch isn't aerodynamically significant.
Oh, may well work on boats, reynolds numbers are a lot different due to density of water being higher than air. Might just start to work on long semi trailers for same reason, different reynolds numbers (due to being significantly longer than typical cars)
Ohhhhkay... read that NASA report...
NASA proved that physical boat-tails can improve economy 36% as might be expected by reducing base drag. There's nothing in there about making virtual or artificial boattails by painting stuff with snakeoil.
I think the only way it can reduce RPM/Mile would be if it was a boat, or an automatic transmission with a lot of slippage in the converter. I think they have a poor way of describing what they mean- perhaps they mean that less RPM/mile is the same as less load being pulled by the engine. Have you ever held your foot on the brake and revved the engine up while still in gear? Same principal, the more drag/weight being pulled means the harder you step on the gas and sometimes higher RPM's sustained while maintaining a certain speed.
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||The Enterprise arrives at the planet Ramatis III to pick up Riva, a famous negotiator. The war-ravaged planet of Solais V has requested Riva to mediate a peace treaty so that their thousand year war can finally be brought to an end. Beaming down to Ramatis III, the Away Team find Riva accompanied by three people who speak for him; the "chorus" recieve the negotiator's thoughts telepathically and express them to others verbally. Each of the three expresses a different aspect of Riva's personality; the warrior, the artist, and the harmony which balances the others.
Back on the ship Riva appears supremely confident in his abilities. He doesn't bother listening to any of the material the Enterprise-D crew has prepared for him on the origins of the war, reasoning that since it had been going for a millennium, whatever originally started it has long since become irrelevant. Instead he is focused on whatever might have changed recently to cause them to ask for his aid now. During the journey to Solais V Riva and Troi become close; at a dinner with her he dismisses his chorus and communicates with her via gestures.
Arriving at Solais V, Picard discovers laserfire going on on the surface - a battle is in progress. He hails the planet and urges them to halt the fighting so that the negotiations they requested can begin, and this request is honoured. An Away Mission beams down, and shortly representatives of the two sides arrive to talk. However, one of the soldiers pulls his weapon and fires, annhilating the entire chorus. Although the traitor is killed by his own comrade in retaliation, Riker beams the Away Team back up at once.
Riva is utterly distraught at the loss of his primary means of communication, practically in a panic. Picard realises that he is trying to use some for of gestural language, and asks Data to learn all the languages that include those gestures to facilitate communication. The android does so, and learns that Riva wants to go home - he regards the loss of his chorus as a crippling blow to the mission and refuses to continue.
Troi decides to attempt the negotiations in Riva's place, and asks him for help preparing. When Riva tells her it is vital to be able to turn a disadvantage into an advantage, he realises that he may be able to take his own advice and decides to resume the mission. beaming down once more he prepares the site with a conference table and beacons to attract attention. He reveals that he will remain there, alone - for as long as it takes to teach the peace representatives his sign language. In learning to communicate with him, Riva believes that they will learn to communicate with one another and so forge a bond that will lead to peace. The Enterprise-D leaves Riva on the surface, knowing that his mission may take months or even years.
||Not a bad episode, really, but it never really works that well for me. For the most part, the chorus just seems to be a little bit silly as a way to communicate. I can't really put my finger on why, it's just not really very credible.
Beyond that, the episode has no real glaring flaws... it just isn't all that good.
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Renting a Home - Top Ten Dos and Don'ts
1. Only rent from a letting agent who is a member of the government-accredited National Approved Lettings Scheme (NALS) or a landlord who is a member of an Association such as the Landlord Association.
2. From 1st October 2008, make sure you see a copy of the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) so you know how much your utility bills are likely to be.
3. Never hand over a deposit to a landlord or letting agent until you have written confirmation that is protected by the Tenancy Deposit Protection scheme.
4. Do not rent a property unless you have seen a current copy of a Gas Safety Certificate (legal requirement) and either an Electrical Safety Certificate or written confirmation from thelandlord that the electrics are in good order.
5. Never rent a property without an up-to-date agreement or sign a letting agreement until you have read it over a 24-48 hour period.
6. If you don't understand any clauses within the contract - don't sign it until you understand what it means.
7. Never move into a property unless there you have a copy of an inventory (ideally with photos).
8. If you find anything wrong with the property report it immediately - by phone - and follow up in writing what needs fixing.
9. Don't disturb your neighbours - they can report you - and you could lose your rented home.
10. Make sure that you go around with the inventory clerk before you leave/day you leave so you make sure everything is fairly recorded.
Free Property Articles
Membership is chargeable, please CONTACT US for more information.
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nrobison wrote:There will be some challenges, in my view:
1) Wood is quite a good insulator (air in dried cell walls); all of your cooling will have to be convective (air)
No problem there -- most PCs are air-cooled anyway. I don't see any reason why liquid cooling wouldn't work, if it doesn't leak and care is taken to prevent excessive condensation. IMHO wood's insulating property is a non-issue.
2) It will be harder to make significant venting while keeping rigidity; a hardwood would help.
There's no need to make the case "just like stamped metal, but wood". In other words, don't even try to emulate stamped grilles. A wooden case could have a nice big air inlet in the front, facing down if the large hole doesn't look right. In the back, who cares?
3) Is there any advantage to the mount being a ground for PCI/AGP cards & Mobo? (if nothing else, to minimize static buildup)... if so, you might consider using a slide-out motherboard tray from some standard case.
I've had nothing but trouble from conductive mounting points. Once I even had to go to the trouble of taping every exposed metal part of the case that came in contact with expansion cards, just to get the thing to boot. I'd say that this is one place where wood would be better!
OTOH there's the matter of electromagnetic compatibility. Computer parts radiate a lot of RF energy, and can wreak havoc with radios and TVs if not properly shielded. The easiest way to do this is by encasing the parts in metal. But there are sprays that can be applied to cut down the interference.
You are false data.
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The editorial theme for the January issue of the OSBR is "success factors". Which factors separate the open source projects that provide quality software and receive wide-spread adoption from other projects which are not well maintained? What traits should a business look for when considering which open source software to use? How does a company decide which open source project to contribute to, partner with, or use as a base to build its products or services?
The authors in this issue explore: the importance of well defined processes, the value of documentation to end users, the diverse tasks of a community manager, the value provided by participants who don't contribute code, and how a community can assist in creating training materials. Each concentrates on a particular success factor, and as a whole, provide a fuller picture of what to look for in a successful open source project or company.
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Brooklyn Residents Embrace Opportunity To Become U.s. Citizens
Brooklyn, NY – Close to 50 residents from across the borough of Brooklyn and beyond took advantage of the opportunity to apply for US citizenship during a recent campaign hosted by State Senator Kevin Parker. The Citizenship Drive campaign which assisted permanent residents with all of the procedures necessary to apply for citizenship was hosted in conjunction with NALEO Educational Fund.
Senator Parker who -- in addition to his numerous assignments in the Senate also heads the Democratic Task Force on New Americans -- has been an aggressive advocate of the rights of immigrants. "The American Dream is possible for every one of the 800,000 plus legal permanent residents who make New York their home," he said. "But traditionally, there have been barriers to this process such as adequate information, language and cost. On July 30, the USCIS will again raise the cost of filing fees thereby putting a further burden on the backs of these hardworking residents who desire to become citizens of our country. "I count it as a privilege to bring these kinds of services to our community and assist people in the process," he said.
Studies which have been conducted by NALEO Educational Fund show that of the 800,000 legal permanent residents in New York State who are eligible for citizenship, the vast majority live in the five boroughs of New York City. "Our city has always been the bedrock of immigrant life in this country," said Julissa Ferreres, Director of NALEO, NY "Therefore, we must continue to be vigilant in our efforts to assist documented residents who, as naturalized citizens, can actively participate in the civic life of the United States. This has been an integral part of the mission and aim of NALEO and we are happy to have had the opportunity to partner with State Senator Parker in this work."
Grasping the opportunity to apply for citizenship for herself, her mother, two aunts and five of their children, was Jeanelle S. who lives in one of the outer boroughs. According to Jeanelle, she has been procrastinating filing for her citizenship for more than seven years. But then she found a flyer advertising Senator Parker’s Citizenship drive. "I knew that this was a golden opportunity especially with the impending fee increase," she said. "This was such a convenient way to have everything done on the same day and at one place."
Cecil S. a national of Jamaica, was present at the event with his 35-year-old daughter who was applying for her citizenship. "I know that it is a part of the job of elected officials to do this kind of thing," he said. "But I am grateful to Senator Parker for bringing this service to the community. It is a great gesture that provides a level of convenience that is commendable."
Patricia L. was eager to take the opportunity not only to "beat the rising cost" but also to help her family in Grenada. "I admit that this is something that I have been putting off for far too long," she said. "I have family members who are still living in the Caribbean and I know that as a citizen of the United States I have an opportunity to help them. But I have always had a problem finding the right help."
Senator Parker has plans to continue supporting the efforts of NALEO in its nationwide drive to naturalize thousands of permanent residents. In addition to the personal benefits to themselves and their families, these newest Americans will be able to participate and have a voice in the future direction of this country.
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Chancellor Jim Petro
is releasing a plan
today that ties special state funding given to
Shawnee State University
Ohio to improved course completion, graduation rates and service to low-income Appalachian
The plan specifically call for Shawnee State to improve the rate of successfully completed
courses and the number of students earning associate and/or bachelor degrees by
1-3 percent for each class entering for the next 10 years, beginning with the
first-time students starting in fall 2013. It also calls of the school to further its
service to the Appalachian region by strengthening relationships with local employers and school
"The goals outlined for Shawnee State University are goals with which the University System of
Ohio is familiar," Petro wrote in the plan. "We are leading the nation in developing and
implementing innovative policies aimed at graduating the maximum number of students with the skills
employers are seeking as quickly and cost-effectively as possible."
Shawnee State President Rita Rice Morris said helping more students graduate in a timely
fashion "an issue for our time and for our institution." The plan, she said, will be
used as a tool to help the university "break through the glass ceiling" that has held so
many students back.
Petro was required to develop a plan as part of the state's budget bill passed in July.
Shawnee State has received a state supplement since its creation in 1986 to help the
university meet its mission of providing greater access to higher education for Appalachian
residents through open enrollment and low tuition. He is submitting the plan to Gov. John Kasich,
House Speaker John Boehner and Senate President Tom Niehaus.
Over the years, Shawnee State's supplement has decreased from more than $4
million to the current $2.4 million in funding. Shawnee State and Central State are the only
two universities in the state of Ohio who receive a supplement based on their unique
“More than 13,000 former students, most of whom are employed in Ohio, are now putting their
degrees from Shawnee State University to work," President Rita Rice Morris said. "Many of these
graduates would not have been able to pursue a college education had Shawnee State University not
Serving the needs of these students -- four out of five of whom are the first in their
families to go to college -- are more difficult than many might imagine, Morris
said. About 44 percent of Shawnee's entering students also have to take some
remedial courses so they are ready for college-level work.
“Many of these students overcome academic, social, and economic challenges to succeed in
college and reach graduation," she said.
Establishing a Student Success Center that offers tutoring and other support services has
helped, Morris said.
Petro's plan outlines several strategies including developing a First-Year Experience Program
for new students to help identify those who might be at risk, strengthening partnerships with
area businesses to expand internship opportunities, and expanding online courses so that more
working students and parents can complete their degrees in a timely fashion.
Shawnee State will also work with regional school districts to align the common-core
curriculum with college-readiness expectations and to boost the number of high school students
taking college courses.
Though the plan is geared toward first-time students who might be unprepared for the rigors of
college, Morris said every student stands to benefit from the proposed initiatives. She said the
school will work with the state and a consultant to further refine the plan over the next 12
“We are proud of the efforts and accomplishments thus far of the administration, faculty and
staff of Shawnee State University in addressing student retention, course completion, and
graduation rates,” Dan Mooney, Shawnee's board chairman said at Friday's trustees'
meeting. “Further focus through the chancellor’s plan will build upon these efforts. As a board, we
endorse these efforts.”
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The Latest IAEA Report
20 Feb 2009 19:36
Is the Latest IAEA Report Iran's Peace Overture to the U.S.?By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles
[Tehran Bureau] The International Atomic Energy Agency just released its latest report on Iran's nuclear program. The most important aspect of IAEA's latest report on the program, overlooked or ignored in the propaganda against Iran, is that Iran has slowed down increasing the number of centrifuges in Natanz that are operating to produce low-enriched uranium. According to the IAEA report, as of February 1, 2009, Iran had 3936 centrifuges that were being fed with uranium hexafluoride, 1476 centrifuges installed and under vacuum (in preparation for being fed), and 125 installed but not under vacuum, for a total 5537 centrifuges, a number somewhat smaller than around 6000 centrifuges that many experts had expected. But, most importantly, the number of operating and productive centrifuges has not increased dramatically over the past many months.
There are two plausible explanations for the slow down, which are in fact complimentary. One is that Iran is waiting to see how the Obama administration is going to approach the dispute over Iran's nuclear program in particular, and U.S.-Iran relations in general. This is totally consistent with the conciliatory messages and signals that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has been sending since the election of Barack Obama in November 2008. Surely, in addition to their desire for improving Iran's relations with the United States under the present devastating global recession, the prospects of negotiating with a U.S. president whose middle name is Hussein, the name of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson and one of the most revered figures in Shi'ite Islam, is intriguing and enticing to the Iranian leaders.
The second explanation is that there are behind-the-scene negotiations between the United States and Iran, of which the public is unaware. Even if there are no such negotiations, the fact is that both sides have been sending positive signals, that it may be responsible for what Iran has done regarding its uranium-enrichment program.
Take, for example, the recent announcement that the U.S. State Department has declared PEJAK, a Kurdish rebel group that launches raids into Iran from the Kurdish region of Iraq, a terrorist organization. PEJAK (which stands for Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) is, in fact, the Iranian branch of the Kurdish group PKK that has been fighting with Turkey for decades, and has been classified a terrorist organization by the United States. In addition, PEJAK forces have apparently been expelled from the region near the Iran-Iraq border. Given the close cooperation between the Kurdish forces in Iraq and the United States, it is difficult to imagine that this could have taken place without at least tacit U.S. consent and support. Thus, Iran may be returning the favor to the United States by not increasing the number of centrifuges that are actually producing low-enriched uranium.
In addition, the IAEA report states that all of Iran's nuclear materials, research, and development are being monitored and safeguarded by the Agency. There has been no divergence of nuclear material, in line with Iran's repeated contention that its nuclear program is peaceful. Thus, Iran has carried out its obligations under the provisions of its Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA.
The seemingly negative part of the report has to do with the IAEA's requests to visit certain sites in Iran. Most of the requests by the IAEA to visit the sites in Iran, which have been turned down by Iran, are covered by the Additional Protocol of the Safeguards Agreement, which Iran is not currently implementing, (not with Iran's Safeguards Agreement). There is a brief history behind Iran's refusal.
In October 2003, the government of President Mohammad Khatami signed the Sa'dabad Agreement (named so after Iran's presidential palace) with Britain, France, and Germany (EU3), that committed it to signing the Additional Protocol and carrying out its provision on a volunteer basis, until the Iranian parliament ratified the Agreement. In the Paris Agreement of November 2004, Iran reaffirmed its intentions. In return, the EU3 promised Iran that it would present a proposal that would address Iran's aspirations for having access to advanced nuclear technology, as well as the EU3 concerns regarding the nature of Iran's nuclear program.
However, the proposal that EU3 presented Iran in August 2005 was long in a list of demands and essentially nil on concessions to Iran. Among other things, the EU3 demanded that Iran abandon its uranium enrichment program, thus demanding elimination of major "facts on the ground," namely, the enrichment and related facilities and all the R&D work, in return for some vague promises in the distant future. No sane nation would agree to that.
Thus, after some negotiations, Iran suspended its voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol in February 2006. The United Nations Security Council does not have any legal rights to demand Iran to implement the provisions of the Additional Protocol, because the Iranian parliament has not ratified it, and it is Iran's sovereign right to refuse implementing an agreement that it has not accepted.
Most of the visits requests stated by the IAEA in its latest report are covered by the Additional Protocol, toward which Iran has no obligations. However, the latest report by the IAEA also states that since March 2007, the Agency has carried out 21 unannounced visits to Iran's nuclear sites.
Such intrusive and unannounced visits are an important part of the Additional Protocol. Therefore, Iran is still selectively and voluntarily carrying out some provisions of the Additional Protocol.
Regarding the Arak reactor and the IAEA request to visit the under-construction facility, such visits are covered by the modified text of the Subsidiary Arrangements (Code 3.1) of its Safeguards Agreement.
Iran had agreed to the modified text, part of which states that Iran must allow inspection of the under-construction sites. However, because the EU3 reneged on its promises, Iran suspended the implementation of the modified text in February 2006, and went back to its original Safeguards Agreement, signed in 1974. The original Subsidiary Arrangements states that only 180 days prior to the introduction of any nuclear material into a nuclear facility does Iran have the obligation to allow visits and inspection.
Thus, Iran has no legal obligations towards the Agency regarding the Arak reactor.
So overall, despite the propaganda and bogus alarms, the IAEA report actually indicates positive developments in the thorny issue of Iran's nuclear program.
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The papers of DeLoss McGraw, artist, children's book illustrator, fine arts lecturer, and educator, document McGraw's artistic
career from the mid-1980s to 2003, especially his use of literary texts in his compositions and his collaborations with poets,
most notably W. D. Snodgrass. The collection contains correspondence with literary figures, friends and members of the fine
arts community; brochures, catalogs and reviews for McGraw's solo and group exhibitions; and documentation of his public art
commissions, including the Carlsbad City Library Sculpture Project. Also included are numerous artworks by McGraw, particularly
monoprints for edition books and projects, such as his series entitled "In Response to Poems by Snodgrass," printed at Magnolia
Press. The collection includes materials related to the production of the trade books W.D.'S MIDNIGHT CARNIVAL (1988) and
THE DEATH OF COCK ROBIN (1989) and for the illustrated children's book ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (2001), which earned
him the Illustrator's Society Book of the Year Award for 2002. The papers are arranged in eight series: 1) MISCELLANEOUS/ABOUT
MCGRAW, 2) CORRESPONDENCE, 3) EDITION BOOKS AND MONOPRINTS, 4) TRADE BOOKS, 5) CHILDREN'S BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS, 6) WORKS ON
COMMISSION AND PUBLIC ART, 7) EXHIBITION MATERIALS, and 8) ORIGINALS OF PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPIES.
DeLoss McGraw was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, in 1945. He attended East Central State College, Oklahoma; the Otis Art Institute,
Los Angeles; and the Art Institute of San Miguel del Allende, Mexico. McGraw obtained his bachelor of art from California
State University, Long Beach, in 1969 and his master of fine art from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, in 1971.
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|
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| 439
| 1.53125
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|
The Small Faces
Small Faces were the best English band never to hit it big in America. On this side of the Atlantic, all anybody remembers them for is their sole stateside hit, "Itchycoo Park," which was hardly representative of their psychedelic sound, much less their full musical range -- but in England, Small Faces were one of the most extraordinary and successful bands of the mid-'60s, serious competitors to the Who and potential rivals to the Rolling Stones.
Lead singer/guitarist Steve Marriott's formal background… Show more was on the stage; as a young teenager, he'd auditioned for and won the part of the Artful Dodger in the Lionel Bart musical Oliver! Marriott was earning his living at a music shop when he made the acquaintance of Ronnie Lane (bass, backing vocals), who had formed a band called the Pioneers, which included drummer Kenney Jones. Lane invited Marriott to jam with his band at a show they were playing at a local club -- the gig was a disaster, but out of that show the group members decided to turn their talents toward American R&B. The band -- with Marriott now installed permanently and Jimmy Winston recruited on organ -- cast its lot with a faction of British youth known as the mods, stylish posers (and arch enemies of the leather-clad rockers, sometimes with incredibly violent results) who, among their other attributes, affected a dandified look and a fanatical embrace of American R&B. The quartet, now christened Small Faces ("face" being a piece of mod slang for a fashion leader), began making a name for themselves on-stage, sparked by their no holds barred performance style. Marriott had a uniquely powerful voice and was also a very aggressive lead guitarist, and the others were able to match him, especially Jones, who was a truly distinctive drummer.
The quartet was signed by manager Don Arden who, through his management company, got Small Faces a record deal with Decca/London. The band's debut single, "What'cha Gonna Do About It," a blatant ripoff of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love," co-credited in this version to longtime British songwriter/producer Ian Samwell, was released in August of 1965 and reached number 14 on the charts; a second single, "I've Got Mine," failed to chart when released in November. Soon after its recording, Winston exited the lineup; he was replaced by Ian McLagan (organ, guitar, vocals). The group returned to the charts in February of 1966 with "Sha-La-La-La-Lee," which rose to number three in England. Three months later, they were back at number ten with "Hey Girl," a Marriott/Lane composition that inaugurated the songwriting team, a development strongly encouraged by their manager, who appreciated the enhanced earnings that original hits enjoyed. This single heralded their first album, a rather hastily recorded long-player entitled Small Faces. Their real breakthrough came with the next single, another Marriott/Lane original, entitled "All or Nothing," which topped the U.K. charts in the course of a ten-week run. Its follow-up, "My Mind's Eye," was successful as well, but its release infuriated the bandmembers, because as far as they were concerned, it was unfinished -- they'd furnished a demo to Arden who, in turn, had turned it over to Decca as a finished piece, and the latter had released it.
That release brought to a head the group's growing alienation from their manager, over his handling of their business affairs and bookings, as well as their relations with Decca. Despite their string of five hits, Arden was treating the group as a nonrenewable resource, booking them too many shows -- as many as three a night -- as though they had no future and had to earn fees while the fees were being offered. This, in turn, prevented Marriott and Lane from exploring their full potential as songwriters, and in 1966, as the Beatles and Rolling Stones raised the bar, songwriting was becoming an essential activity for any band that could do it. Further, the group had evolved both musically and intellectually from their beginnings -- by the spring of 1966, in place of the occasional weed or amphetamine (the latter an essential part of the mod lifestyle), they'd begun experimenting with LSD and, like many other artists, found their work and sensibilities altered by it -- they could still do the soul numbers on-stage, and write passages in that vein for themselves to play and sing, but the subject matter of their songs, even when they did concern love, became decidedly more complex and experimental, along with their sound.
This is where Arden and Decca Records' treatment of them really began to grate on the bandmembers, because their manager didn't feel like budgeting for anything more than the standard, union-dictated, three-hour sessions with breaks, hopefully yielding at least a song per session, and they had songs in mind now, and sounds to go with them, that were too bold to be worked out in three hours. Despite four hit singles to their credit, they'd been given less time to complete their debut LP than the Rolling Stones -- who'd abandoned Decca's studios, with their iron-clad union rules and engineers who wouldn't let them play at full volume, in favor of RCA Studios in Hollywood -- usually got to complete one of their singles. And, finally, between the recording costs at Decca and Arden's way of handling their finances, Small Faces weren't seeing much money, considering their chart successes to date.
By the end of 1966, Small Faces had severed their ties with Arden which, in effect, ended their relationship with Decca (though the two sides would argue and debate that point for a while), and in early 1967 moved under the wing of Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham. At the time, Oldham was one of the top three or four producers in England, thanks to his work with the Stones (and a few other acts such as Marianne Faithfull), and his management of that group was considered one of the most successful business relationships in pop music. Oldham had started his own label, Immediate Records, which was so far devoted to a few licensed American masters, the work of promising neophytes, and a few unwitting contributions by star guitarists -- including Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck -- who thought they were cutting demos and jamming with producer/guitarist Jimmy Page. Getting Small Faces as clients was the first step to getting them onto his label, thereby providing the label with the anchor of a proven hitmaking outfit (the Rolling Stones were locked into their Decca Records contract and, in any case, usually seemed to keep themselves at arm's length from Immediate's activities, beyond any informal obligations they felt they owed Oldham). By mid-1967 he had succeeded in doing precisely that, signing the group to Immediate -- and with the shift in management and label, Small Faces suddenly found themselves with a drastically reduced touring schedule and vastly increased time available in the studio, and their sound immediately became looser.
They started things off of just right for the new era with one of the most quietly subversive drug anthems ever to tiptoe its way into the U.K. charts, "Here Comes the Nice." A cheerful, unassuming ode to a drug dealer, it somehow escaped the notice of censors and became one of the finest above-board expressions of appreciation for recreational drug use of its era. There were other drug songs to follow, including "Green Circles," that ended up on their albums -- they remained a top-flight R&B-driven band, but a much wider array of sounds and instruments began figuring in their music. Their first Immediate album, entitled Small Faces (known in the U.S., where it was released somewhat belatedly through Columbia Records' distribution, as There Are But Four Small Faces), was issued in mid-1967, and was an instant hit. In August of that year, two months after "Here Comes the Nice" wafted its way to the airwaves, they released "Itchycoo Park," a lilting, lyrical idyll to the Summer of Love, loosely based on a hymn known to Ronnie Lane and featuring Marriott in his gentlest vocal guise -- this ode to a psychedelic sunny afternoon captured the hearts of listeners on both sides of the Atlantic and became Small Faces' sole claim to fame in the United States.
Ironically, although they were always glad to have a hit, the bandmembers weren't entirely pleased with the single's success, because they felt the song didn't represent their true sound, and it was also extremely difficult to play on-stage, owing to its acoustic guitar sound and varied musical textures. What's more, the band had bigger aspirations than doing more hit singles -- the Beatles' success with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had set the album up as the new primary medium for musical expression, and they were eager to get to work on a canvas that size. Across five months during 1968, in at least four different studios, they recorded what proved to be their magnum opus, Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake. A mix of Cockney whimsy, spoken word recitations (courtesy of actor/recitalist Stanley Unwin), hard rock, blue-eyed soul, and druggy freakbeat sensibilities, it was probably the most English and the most ambitious of the concept albums that followed in the wake of Sgt. Pepper's, and further enticed potential purchasers (and confounded record distributors and retailers, not to mention American listeners totally unfamiliar with the actual Ogden's tobacco tins) with its round-sleeve-in-a-square-frame packaging.
The resulting album -- which the group only performed in its entirety once (although numbers like "Rollin' Over" became permanent parts of their stage set), in a live-in-the-studio television broadcast called Colour Me Pop -- was a critical and commercial success, and has received new cycles of rave reviews throughout the decades since. The group's fortunes didn't match the reception for the album, however -- in June of 1968, to announce the release of the album, Immediate took out an ad in the music trade papers that included a parody of the Lord's Prayer that managed to offend several million people before an apology from the band was issued. Their relationship with Immediate was further strained when, over the objections of Marriott, the label released the song "Lazy Sunday" -- which he'd recorded as a joke -- as a single. Its subsequent rise to number two on the British charts did nothing to ease his unhappiness, as the record really had nothing to do with the band's real sound. Their previous single, "Tin Soldier" -- which was a hit as well -- was much more what they were about, a love song mixing wrenchingly soulful vocals by Marriott and almost psychedelic sensibilities in the lyrics, with a dazzling, pounding, driving performance by McLagan at the keyboard.
The group members were also beginning to have their doubts about Oldham and Immediate. The producer/manager had parted company with the Rolling Stones in mid-1967, with the result that Small Faces became the creative core of the label (and the sole cash cow in Oldham's orbit). Whereas the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards songwriting team had contributed songs to some early Immediate acts, suddenly Marriott and Lane were being asked to come up with songs and serve as producers, which would have been OK except that, even with a fresh string of hit singles and a pair of LPs that sold well, they were getting no royalties -- Immediate was keeping much of what their recordings earned, all charged against their studio time at very high rates, though the group was at least getting more money from fewer but much better-paying gigs. The reality of the record business is that, to some extent, every label pads the books -- as in the film industry, where expenses from box office bombs, or for ordinary day-to-day operations, somehow manage to get written off against the revenue generated by the hits, the record labels all manage to shift some losses to money-making acts' fees. The problem for Small Faces was that they were the only money-making act on Immediate. Everything else was hit or miss (and most often miss), some records by the Nice at one point and some early singles by P.P. Arnold and some American-licensed sides by the McCoys, Van Morrison, et al., succeeding, but most losing money.
And the label itself literally hemorrhaged money, in ways that paralleled the debacle at Apple Records. In one of the more famous anecdotes, attributed to various artists under contract and also to former employees, the typical daily operation went like this: artists and would-be artists hanging out and major stars popping in and out, and then at 4 p.m. or so Oldham would arrive in a limo, dressed in a kaftan and sandals, accompanied by an entourage, and his business partner, Tony Calder, would show up separately, go into the office, look at the bills, and start muttering about breaking people's legs. Small Faces' royalties mostly vanished into that black hole up until the inevitable bankruptcy, and then simply vanished for 30 years.
"The Universal," a single released in the summer of 1968, was to have been Marriott's most serious effort in that vein in over a year, incorporating a more laid-back, quasi-acoustic, and jazz-like sound (complete with clarinet accompaniment) and his most subtle, serious lyrics, in contrast to the jocular "Lazy Sunday"; it subsequently failed to crack the Top 20, and much of his interest in continuing with the band seemed to falter as a result. The group worked on a planned third Immediate LP and continued to tour (Immediate even recorded one of their live sets from Newcastle Town Hall early in the year, which showed a band as good as any in England), and Marriott tried to institute some changes -- he even proposed that a new friend, singer/guitarist Peter Frampton, a teen idol who had lately quit a successful pop/rock band called the Herd in a quest to be taken more seriously as an artist, be brought into the Small Faces lineup, but the others were content to continue as a quartet. The end came soon after, in the final hours of 1968, when Marriott suddenly left the stage while the band was jamming to "Lazy Sunday" during a show at the Alexandria Palace; within hours, he and Frampton began mapping plans for a band of their own called Humble Pie, bringing aboard Greg Ridley on bass and Jerry Shirley -- a Marriott musical protégé, Kenney Jones admirer, and former member of a Small Faces-influenced band called the Apostolic Intervention -- on drums. Small Faces did carry on into 1969, and Immediate tried to salvage its situation by issuing a double-LP career retrospective called The Autumn Stone, which made it out a few months before the company closed its doors.
With Marriott gone, the group needed a replacement singer and lead guitarist and divided up the two jobs, finding artists to fill them in Rod Stewart and Ron Wood. Immediate having sunk below the waves in a sea of long-delayed bankruptcy proceedings, the new group moved to the much bigger and more stable auspices of Warner Bros. Records; the name "Small Faces" endured, attached to one Warner album before they officially morphed into Faces, an incarnation under which they went on to international glory for a time, before Rod Stewart finally eclipsed them as a solo act. During the mid-'70s, Small Faces reunited (with a somewhat limited participation by Lane) for two albums, Playmates and 78 in the Shade, that attracted a lot of press attention but nothing resembling the chart action of their earlier releases, and, like their '60s work, those records failed to find an audience in America, despite being released on Atlantic Records. Ironically, at the very same time, the charts and the press on both sides of the Atlantic were filled by punk and power pop acts whose respective sounds and images often owed a huge amount to Small Faces' groundbreaking work.
Lane recorded with Pete Townshend, among others, before contracting multiple sclerosis, which ended his career as a musician (he later organized the ARMS benefit concerts to raise money for research toward a cure for the disease). Jones subsequently joined the Who, having been recommended by Keith Moon as his replacement ahead of the legendary drummer's sudden death in 1978, and did a couple of tours and a pair of albums with the band. Humble Pie became bigger in America than Small Faces had ever been with their brand of high-energy rock & roll, which soon alienated co-founder Frampton but led to massive sales and an enviable string of tours, until their breakup in 1975. Marriott's career languished a bit in the years that followed, but he always seemed poised for a comeback -- with that voice and history, he was always a potential contender for stardom -- and in 1991 it looked as though he was going to finally pull it off. Tragically, he died in his sleep when fire swept his home in England, just a couple of days after beginning work on a new album in America with his former bandmate Frampton. Ronnie Lane died at his home in Trinidad, Colorado, on June 4, 1997, after battling multiple sclerosis for nearly 20 years. In 1998, Ian McLagan -- who'd gone on from Faces to record and perform with Bonnie Raitt, the Rolling Stones, et al. -- published All the Rage, a very frank and revealing autobiography covering his 35 years in professional music.
Small Faces' catalog languished for a time, largely as a result of the bankruptcy of Immediate Records in 1970. Some of their stuff was reissued on vinyl in Canada in the early to mid-'70s, and later on reissue labels such as Compleat, but their legacy was generally in a shambles. That wasn't helped in the early part of the CD era when the licensors of the Immediate catalog sent out a lot of substandard masters, made from sources a long way from first-generation studio tapes, to their clients. In 1990, Sony Music Special Products became the first label to reissue any part of Small Faces' catalog mastered from decent tapes, utilizing the duplicate masters that Immediate had furnished to Columbia Records -- the predecessor to Sony -- in the late '60s. The results were better, if not ideal, but eventually, a combination of consumer complaints and better vault research in England, coupled with better digital technology, led to major improvements in their CD library; anything dating from much after 1995 is acceptable by early 21st century standards, and some of the 2002/2003 issues from Sunspots sound amazing.
At the same time, that tape research led to a massive amount of confusion -- evidently, in order to drive up fees from Columbia in America and other '60s licensees, Immediate issued undubbed backing tracks and unfinished outtakes with newly attached titles; even the surviving bandmembers were confused by some of these titles and tracks, though as of 2003 they were helping to sort out their real legacy, including a set of live television appearances released by NMC. Additionally, thanks to deals negotiated with the successor labels to Decca and Immediate, with the release of Sanctuary Records' Ultimate Collection in 2003, the members and their estates were collecting full royalties for the very first time. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
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Azza el-Gharf, a 47-year-old mother of seven and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, is interviewed at the party's office in Cairo. / Maya Alleruzzo, AP
CAIRO (AP) - The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt has brought with it a new group of female politicians who say they are determined to bring more women into leadership roles - and at the same time want to consecrate a deeply conservative Islamic vision for women in Egypt.
Women's rights have sprung to the forefront of the debate in Egypt as members of an Islamist-dominated assembly wrestle over the writing of a new constitution for the country. The power of Islamists, who dominated parliament elections last winter and who seized the presidency with the election this year of the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, has worried secular and liberal Egyptians who fear they will restrict rights of women and minorities.
The women of the Brotherhood say the fundamentalist group is doing more than any other political movement in Egypt to promote women in a political scene where men have always held a near total monopoly. Confident and articulate, the women say they are pushing for a greater voice within the Brotherhood itself and its political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, where the leadership is entirely male.
The number of women in prominent positions in Egyptian politics remains tiny, as it was under the ousted secular president, Hosni Mubarak. But in the new Egypt, if a woman does hold a high post, she's most likely a member of an Islamist group. Morsi has appointed three women - two of them Islamists - to his 21-member team of advisers and aides. Of the six women on the 100-member assembly writing the constitution, three are Brotherhood members.
Their vision is a world apart from that of liberal women's rights activists, who fear that Islamist women in power will only carry out the Brotherhood agenda of implementing its conservative interpretation of Islamic law.
Azza el-Garf, one of the Brotherhood women on the constitution-writing panel, said the "first" role of women in Egypt is "inside the family, as a wife and mother," while politics or work comes second. "Women are responsible for raising the new generation ... this means the future of Egypt is in our hands," she told The Associated Press.
El-Garf, a 47-year-old mother of seven, said that a woman's role in her family need not contradict with her participation in politics, saying that she balances these two responsibilities. El-Garf joined the Brotherhood when she was 15 and has done social work and community organizing for the group.
Secular feminists, she argues, are out of step with Muslim-majority Egypt's conservative society.
"We speak on behalf of the street," said el-Garf, who like most Egyptian Muslim women wears a head scarf. "Egyptian people are very religious, devout people. If (the liberals) continue to separate religion from normal life, people will not listen to them."
El-Garf was one of three women from the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party elected to the first parliament formed after the revolution, which had fewer than a dozen female lawmakers among its nearly 500 members. The body has since been dissolved, but she plans to run in new parliamentary elections to take place once a new constitution is ratified.
Islamists who make up the majority on the constitution-writing assembly are racing to try to finish the document in the coming weeks to put it to a referendum. One of the biggest fights is over an Islamist-backed clause that would call for equality between men and women but only if it does not contradict Islamic law, or Shariah. Liberals say that condition will allow influential ultraconservatives to severely restrict women's rights. A seventh woman who was on the assembly - Manal el-Tibi, a non-Islamist activist - resigned in September in protest over that and other articles concerning women.
Omaima Kamel, perhaps the most powerful of the Brotherhood women, defended the clause. Kamel is a member of Morsi's advisory team and sits on the constitutional panel.
In a recent interview on state TV, she said that without the phrasing, certain rights that Shariah gives to men and not to women could be overturned - such as men's right to marry up to four women or inheritance laws that give a greater to share to men than women. Such polygamy and inheritance laws existed during the Mubarak era and in most Muslim countries.
Kamel, a 51-year-old doctor, dismissed fears that hardliners would use the clause to pass harsh restrictions on women, saying only rulings of Shariah that are "firmly established, with no controversy around them," like polygamy and inheritance, could be applied.
The clause was also needed to ensure Egypt is not beholden to international women's rights accords that she said would impose "complete equality" and "strip us of our character as a people who are religious and respect Islam."
"Just like people on the left fear that someone on the right will one day say women have to stay in the home, there are people on the right - the conservatives and Islamists - who fear that one day Egypt will be forced to carry out what's in international agreements, like complete equality."
Other issues have stirred up trouble for the Brotherhood's women, particularly the issue of female genital mutilation, which is known as "circumcision" in Egypt and is widespread despite a 2008 law banning it. Both el-Garf and Kamel have been quoted in the Egyptian media as speaking of allowing the practice to a degree, but each later denied making the comments. Now they both are circumspect in talking about it.
"We have problems in education, health care, and security," she said. "These issues (of FGM) do not bother anyone, we have bigger issues," el-Garf told The AP, adding, "I respect all laws," in reference to the ban. Kamel called FGM a "bad practice" that should be addressed through awareness campaigns.
Like other female Brotherhood politicians, Kamel says she is determined to see more women in positions of authority.
The Brotherhood is "trying to put the cornerstones for the right path toward democracy" within its political party, including bringing more women into the leadership, she told The AP. But she added that this will take "a few years" because there are currently few women with the political experience to compete for top positions in the party.
Liberals say the Brotherhood women are just a token cover for an agenda they consider deeply opposed to women's rights.
Having Brotherhood women in authority "is even more dangerous than not (having them), given their ideology," said Hoda Badran, a veteran women's rights activist and chair of the Egyptian Feminist Union.
Bahy Eddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights, said the Brotherhood's female members "don't believe in the concept of basic women's rights ... We don't have illusions about how much progress we can make with them."
Sally Zohney, a founding member of the local women's rights group Baheya Ya Masr, said the constitution is a "lost cause" given the Brotherhood's ability to rally public support. The liberal side, she said, has to work to advocate an alternative vision among Egyptians.
"We have to start reaching the public, and fast," she said.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read the original story: Egypt's Muslim 'Sisters' rise with conservative vision
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I was listening to a podcast where the hosts were chatting back and forth about the newly offered Hulu Plus, where for $10 dollars a month, you can get Hulu on a wide variety of devices including smart phones and over-the-top Internet TV boxes. Hulu is also offering a somewhat wider, but still incomplete back catalog archive of shows. One of the hosts was saying he wouldn’t pay for content, he wanted it “for free.”
Whether we realize it or not, we are all paying for content, either directly or indirectly. Even if we have only a TV antenna and watch only the local TV channels, we are still paying for content indirectly via advertising. When we buy consumer products of virtually any kind, part of what we pay goes for advertising, which pays for content creation.
If we are paying indirectly only, someone else is deciding for us as to the quality of the programming content. We can either consume that content or not, but we still pay as consumers buying products. We have very little indirect control over what gets put on the air. On the other hand, if we pay for content directly, then we have far greater control over the quality of the media we are consuming.
If Hulu can offer value for the money, then it will succeed What they have to do is figure out what people are willing to pay for. Perhaps that value revolves around putting highly-sought-after content on as many devices as possible. Perhaps it revolves around coming up with the absolute best back catalog of old TV shows. Imagine having instant streaming access to every TV show ever produced in every country in any language, and every movie ever produced anywhere in any language. Something like that would be well worth paying for. Imagine a site such as IMDB.Com that lists every movie and TV show ever made, except as a subscriber you could instantly stream it – now you’re talking. Hulu, anyone else out there – are you listening?
I personally would be willing to pay for a service such as Hulu, except for one small glitch. There are no back catalog shows on the site at the moment that really excite me. Network drama shows can sometimes be quite good, but my tastes are somewhat different.
When I had Dish Network, I was watching a few selected shows on only 3 channels – Discovery, TLC and History. I can get most of these shows if I really want them at some point via Netflix. To my way of thinking, Netflix is a much better value. Netflix has a far wider variety of content, plus they also offer the handy rental service of DVD’s and Blu-ray discs.
The verdict is currently out whether Hulu will be able to figure out what value it needs to best serve its customers. If people are paying Hulu money directly, then Hulu had better quickly figure out exactly what those customers want and do its best to deliver it to them.
Hey Hulu, here’s an idea to try. Offer first-run streaming movies, but do it the Hulu way. I would be willing to pay for a first run movie streaming for a nominal pay-per-view fee, say $5.99. Vudu is offering streaming first run movies, but you have to have a big fat Internet connection to be able to use Vudu. The Vudu service demands way more bandwidth than my Internet service can currently deliver.
Here’s yet another idea for Hulu – offer exclusive, Hulu-only content consisting of well-produced material revolving around the “Entertainment Tonight” type of concept. Do exclusive interviews of movie and TV stars. Do exclusive interviews of directors. Give people real value for their money. Make your customers want to not only see you succeed, but motivate them to help you succeed.
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:For the television show, see The Replacements (show)
The Replacements (also known as The 'Mats or The Mats, from the insult of a detractor who joked the band's name was 'The Placemats', which the band then adopted) were a seminal alternative rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They began as a punk rock outfit, along with other hometown heroes Hüsker Dü, but they gradually shifted to a more mainstream, blues-influenced rock style. Loud and exuberant, the band featured guitarist and vocalist Paul Westerberg, guitarist Bob Stinson, bassist Tommy Stinson, and drummer Chris Mars. Bassist Tommy Stinson was just 12 years old when the group first formed.
The band drew most of their limited popularity from teenagers and people in their early twenties, as a huge bulk of their songs pertained to teenaged angst and desired independence, especially in their earlier days. Songs such as "Kids Don't Follow" and "Bastards of Young" showed the bands desire to almost remain as freespirited children. The band showed up drunk to many of their live performances in which they just did drunken covers of songs...
|years active||1979 – 1991|
|country||Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States|
|music genre||Rock music|
|current members|| Paul Westerberg|
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N-Methylmorpholine N-oxide (NMO) is commercially available in bulk as a 50% aqueous solution. Anhydrous material is available but only in small quantities.
A NEW Book written by L A (Bert) Hulshof
Scientific Update LLP (SU) have published a new book which falls into the theme expressed on many SU courses and conferences, namely trying to bring chemists and chemical engineers closer together to help with transfer of processes from Lab to Plant.
The book, “Right First Time in Fine Chemical Process Scale Up” has been written by Dr Bert Hulshof, formerly of DSM and the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, who suggests that the key to success is to avoid scale-up problems.
Understanding mechanisms underpins much of what we do in organic chemistry, so I have always been interested in looking at mechanisms and enjoy looking at the possibilities when I come across something unusual or new to me.
This paper caught my as a nice piece of chemistry and set alongside the many papers with new chemistry I thought it interesting to see some more classical chemistry getting re-visited to generate chemistry of industrial utility.
Ever since 1997 when I was developing a process using aqueous sodium bicarbonate to mediate the mesylation of an amine and got impurities generated from the incorporation of carbon dioxide I have been intrigued by chemistry that uses carbon dioxide as a reactant.
We are all quite familiar with enzyme-mediated kinetic resolution of alcohols and of course have become accustomed to the extremely high enantiomeric excesses (ee’s) that can be achieved.
As a process chemist I like to look for unexpected chemistry and also chemistry which, under the wrong circumstances could result in reaction side-products and/or impurities. As a result I look out for reactions involving solvents, or at least ‘reactants’ typically regarded as ‘solvents’ as illustrated by these two cases.
Triggered by the work of Kriche and Williams I have found an interest in hydrogen-transfer reactions where the intermediate is trapped by a nucleophile. The paper I Ryu et al, (Org Lett, 2012, 14 (18), 4703) describes the formation of a C-C bond between a ketone and a primary alcohol catalysed by a ruthenium hydride.
Why not join us for free workshops at these events...
New Ligand for More Efficient Asymmetric Oxidation of Sulfides to Sulfoxides
Asymmetric oxidation of sulfoxides is an important industrial process, being used in the last step of manufacture of the blockbuster drug esomeprazole (Nexium) and other “prazoles” (see H-J. Federsel and M. Larsson (AstraZeneca) in Asymmetric Catalysis on Industrial Scale, ed H.U. Blaser and E. Schmidt, Wiley-VCH, 2004, pp 413-436). The AZ process derives from earlier work done by Kagan in 1984 in which the hydroperoxide oxidant achieves the desired enantioselectivity in the presence of titanium isopropoxide, diethyl tartrate (DET) and water ( the last three in a 1:2:1 ratio). In a similar system devised by Modena, which also dates from 1984, titanium isopropoxide, DET and isopropyl alcohol are used but in a 4:1:4 ratio.
Two recent papers from Molander’s group have described new reagents for the Pd catalysed borylation of aromatics as an alternative to the use of bispinacolatodiboron (B2Pin2). In the first paper the reagent used is bis-boronic acid which is an air-stable crystalline solid:
Here’s something from a Chemistry Olympiad challenge to play with over a mug of coffee or tea!
Two recent papers from the group of Percec at the University of Philadelphia have looked at the efficiency of nickel catalysed Szuki-Miyaura couplings1,2.
I attended this SCI conference on 24-25 September and was treated to a series of excellent lectures, with the majority being academic speakers discussing various aspects of catalysed reactions, since their brief was to present on their work which had involved collaboration with industry.
Last year I commented on a report by B Luy Angew Chem, Int ed 2011, 50, (2), 354 in which he discusses the prospects of portable proton NMR. In this 'highlights' paper the author comments on the current status, remarking that at least one group has designed and built a 30MHz machine wherein the magnet weighs about 3kg and the is about the size of a tea mug. Luy concluded that low-field high resolution NMR spectroscopy is advancing rapidly and a prototype 20MHz tabletop NMR spectrometer has been built.
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Congressional Approval Rating At 14%
PRINCETON, NJ — Americans give Congress a 14% job approval rating as the new year begins, the lowest since September of last year and down from 18% in November and December. The disapproval rating for Congress is 81%.
These results are based on a Jan. 7-10 Gallup poll, conducted about a week after Congress and the president agreed on legislation that avoided the end-of-year “fiscal cliff,” in part by pushing the deadline for mandated federal budget sequestrations to March 1.
A Gallup poll earlier this month showed that Americans had a split reaction to the fiscal cliff agreement. But the same poll also showed that Americans gave low ratings to the way congressional leaders handled the negotiations, providing some explanation for the low rating of Congress in the current poll.
Additionally, three-quarters of Americans believe the “way politics works in Washington” is harmful to the United States, suggesting that Americans in general are very down on “business as usual” in the nation’s capital.
The lowest individual congressional job approval rating in Gallup’s history is 10%, measured in August of last year. The highest is 84%, measured in October 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
And it turns out that the disdain for Congress is largely bipartisan:
Republicans’ approval of the job Congress is doing dropped to 6% in January, from 14% in December. This eight-percentage-point decline fits with the finding that rank-and-file Republicans had the most negative reactions to the fiscal cliff agreement reached at the end of the year. But Democrats’ approval of Congress dropped by a similar degree — six points, to 15% from 21%. Independents’ approval rating was more constant at 17%, compared to 19% in December.
You think it’s bad now, just wait a few weeks for the debt ceiling talk to start up again.
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In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen, after that 1953 foul ball, is extraordinary and terrifying.
A Prayer for Owen Meany was first published in 1989. This Modern Library edition includes a new Introduction by the author.
About the Author
John Irving published his first novel at the age of twenty-six. He has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation; he has won an O. Henry Award, a National Book Award, and an Oscar.
In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In January 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Praise for A Prayer for Owen Meany…
“John Irving, who writes novels in the unglamorous but effective way Babe Ruth used to hit home runs, deserves a medal not only for writing this book but for the way he has written it. . . . A Prayer for Owen Meany is a rare creation in the somehow exhausted world of late twentieth-century fiction—it is an amazingly brave piece of work . . . so extraordinary, so original, and so enriching. . . . Readers will come to the end feeling sorry to leave [this] richly textured and carefully wrought world.” —Stephen King
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By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Thursday assured U.S. lawmakers that it is on track to enroll millions of people in new state health insurance markets, but it quickly came under fire from Republicans and Democrats about how costly the coverage may be.
Gary Cohen, the Department of Health and Human Services official responsible for implementation of the markets known as health exchanges, told a Senate panel the online marketplaces would meet an October 1 enrollment deadline in all 50 states.
"We are making great progress. We are on track and we will be ready for people all across the country," Cohen said at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, one of several congressional panels that oversee healthcare.
The exchanges, being set up under President Barack Obama's healthcare law, are scheduled to start providing subsidized private coverage on January 1, and could attract up to 26 million customers during the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
CBO estimated that another 12 million people will obtain coverage through a planned expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor.
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have won conditional approval to operate their own exchanges, leaving the administration to operate federal exchanges in the remaining 33 states. States have until Friday to opt for a federal partnership exchange that would allow them a role in certifying health plans and determining the eligibility of applicants.
Some Republican-led states have rejected both the exchanges and the Medicaid expansion.
With eight months to go before open enrollment, lawmakers expressed concern about affordability of the coverage.
Senator Orrin Hatch, the panel's senior Republican, cited studies projecting a 30 percent to 40 percent premium increases. He said that while federal subsidies would mitigate higher rates in most cases, four in 10 consumers may not qualify for assistance. And premium increases could be far higher in some states.
"If the point of the healthcare law was to reduce costs and increase access, these estimates show that it appears to have already failed," said the Utah Republican, an outspoken critic of the healthcare law.
The administration contends that premium costs will be held in check by larger risk pools, greater competition and subsidies in the form of premium tax credits.
"There are a lot of provisions in the law that are going to keep premiums affordable," Cohen, deputy administrator of HHS' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters.
But Senator Ron Wyden warned that lower-income families may have a hard time finding affordable insurance because federal assistance would be pegged to the cost of individual coverage instead of family coverage, which is often far more expensive.
"These people are going to get pounded," said Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. "They're really in this kind of no-man's land where they are unable to afford the family coverage offered through their employers and ineligible for subsidies that could be used by dependents on the exchange."
The situation could be especially tough in states that fail to adopt Medicaid expansion, leaving millions of low-income people to obtain coverage through the exchanges.
Cohen said the administration is considering giving states flexibility to address the situation. He said HHS also would look at allowing workers to use employer contributions to meet the cost of family coverage on the exchanges.
Cohen told lawmakers the administration will accept insurance plan applications for federal exchanges from March 28 to April 30 and determine which plans to accept by July.
Meanwhile, some of the harshest criticism came from two Democrats who slammed the administration for not moving ahead on a reform provision that allows states to offer low-cost public insurance, or basic health programs, beginning in 2014.
Advocates see public plans as a measure that could drive insurance costs down 10 to 15 percent. But Cohen said basic health programs would not become available until 2015, a year later than the law mandates.
"You're trying to lure states out of pursuing these basic health plans and onto the exchanges," said Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat.
Democratic Senator Bill Nelson of Florida said HHS should be held accountable for the slow implementation that has provided funding for basic health plans in just 24 states.
"If this is the kind of implementation we're going to see, then we're not going to fulfill the goal that we all set when we so laboriously put together ... this healthcare bill," he said.
Cohen told lawmakers that fiscal cliff legislation approved by Congress at the start of the year denies HHS the authority to fund basic health plans in states beyond the 24 where they are now being established.
(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by David Gregorio)
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Station Art Reflects the Community
DART’s growing collection of public art adds three new displays with the opening of the Orange Line. The award-winning Station Art & Design Program creates site-specific works that both acknowledge the surroundings and assert themselves as a new contribution. As a result, DART stations become vibrant public spaces and not just transit stops.
A local advisory committee works with planners, architects and engineers at the earliest stages of station design, and later gives input to the station artist about themes and materials, to ensure the station reflects the history and culture of the community it serves. Art is then integrated into the design of column claddings, platform pavers, windscreens and landscaping. Information about the entire DART public art collection, along with photos of many of the pieces, is available online at www.DART.org/PublicArt.
Rail Stations Rebranded; Northwest Plano Park and Ride Opens
In addition to the Orange Line’s numerous bus and rail changes, three stations were renamed and a new park and ride lot opened in Plano, the second-largest city in DART’s service area.
Rail stations near the Dallas Arts District, Uptown Dallas and Irving’s historic downtown Heritage Crossing took the names of their adjacent destinations as part of the first station renaming since rail service began in 1996. Pearl Station became Pearl/Arts District Station; Cityplace Station changed to Cityplace/Uptown Station; and the TRE’s South Irving Station became the Downtown Irving/Heritage Crossing Station.
Location-specific station names make it easier for riders to navigate DART. And strengthening the relationship between the DART stop and the destination increases the appeal of the community to developers.
Also on July 30, DART opened the new Northwest Plano Park & Ride, located near the headquarters of several major corporations, including JCPenney, Frito-Lay, Pizza Hut, Dr Pepper Snapple and Ericsson. Seven routes serve the facility, including a new express, rush-hour service to downtown Dallas. Commuters from West Plano, as well as points north, now enjoy an efficient commute downtown, while reverse commuters, from the southern parts of the DART Service Area, gain a direct link north to this vibrant employment center.
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Red on Red
William Empson witnesses the inauguration of the People’s Republic of China
2 October 1949. Yesterday we were busy with Jacob’s birthday till about five (or rather Hetta and Walter were and I was hanging about): then Kidd and his wife turned up and we all set out to look at the celebration of the new Government and capital. There was supposed to be a difficulty about getting sanluerhs, but we did and Hetta and I at once got separated from the others because our drivers went left by Coal Hill instead of right. Columns of soldiers were marching east and we didn’t see how to turn south through them towards Tien An Men. So we walked westwards to the pailou beside Pai Hai, getting rid of sanluerhs. The north gate was finely got up. I did not expect to be more than bored, but found myself extremely moved almost at once. You may believe that what is being celebrated will turn out a delusion, but history is full of gloomy afterthoughts. Here you have celebrated a victory of revolt against tyrants, supported by the countryside alone, practically with their bare hands, against a government drawing on the full terrors of modern equipment with medieval or fascist police methods into the bargain. If anything in history is impressive you are bound to feel that is. The troops looked very brown and sturdy, and had probably done some fighting (conceivably on the other side no doubt); some looked dolts, perhaps the majority, but none had an air of successful brutality, and the young with an air of simple goodness could regularly be picked up – the face that first struck me as so unlike Peiping when I crossed the lines to go to Tsing-Hua. They were singing, off and on, those extremely impressive marching songs. They were fully and elaborately equipped, some platoons with fixed bayonets, some carrying e.g. machine guns spread-eagled between four, who would be relieved occasionally by neighbours. I could not see if it had American lettering on, but the reflection that the equipment must all have been captured did seem to me enormously impressive. Only a few idlers were looking at them.
The red flags, stars etc on the red of the palace walls (a poppy scarlet on a faintly mauve rust-red) makes a gorgeous basis always for the colour schemes of the capital, and perhaps a symbolical one; the present blank insistence that Thibet is part of China, merely because the emperors conquered it in the past, does not give the impression that one red is to be obliterated by the other. Indeed, the whole idea of a tremendous procession and display which practically no one looks at – at least with many streets closed to spectators and no arrangements for them – is very like imperial sentiment. Two lao-pai-hsing passed a remark to this effect, the sanluerh man on the way home passing the Forbidden City north gate, who said there are the King’s lanterns being used, and our cook who said it was all a waste of public money just like the emperors. However, I don’t think that is a bad thing in itself; anyway, it is a reasonable result of Communist doctrine that the people themselves are the procession – it is the ones who turn out for it that the Government is trying to impress; it does no harm to the Government (however much harm it may eventually do to the rest of the world) if the people think they are reviving the imperial glories.
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William Empson, with his wife and two young sons, lived from 1947 to 1952 in Peking, where his teaching post at the Peking National University was subsidised by the British Council. The Empsons remained there throughout the civil war between the Nationalists and Communists, enduring the six-week siege of the city from December 1948 to January 1949.
After years of occupation and neglect, the fabric of the city was a mixture of downtrodden imperial splendour and indigent modern bustle. More than two million people lived within the 25-mile oblong perimeter of its crenellated walls, which were 40 feet high and ‘broader than Fifth Avenue’ (as an American correspondent remarked). Large, regular thoroughfares drove from one to another of the two-storeyed gate-towers, east and west, north and south, boxing the compass of the three constituent sectors of the city: the Imperial City, the Tartar City and the Chinese City. The intersections were marked by glossy triumphal arches, called p’ailou, of painted wood surmounted by high banks of coloured tiles. Within the symmetrical pattern outlined by its walls and highways, alleys of trodden mud created an insoluble jigsaw puzzle between high and windowless walls that screened off courtyard homes, small businesses and workshops. At the heart of the whole stood the Forbidden City, the Imperial Palace of the Ming and Ching dynasties (since 1925, the Palace Museum), with its walls of faded purplish pink topped by glazed imperial yellow tiles. On Saturday, 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong and his Party leaders filled the nine bays of the terrace beneath the red and gold gate-tower in order to inaugurate the People’s Republic of China.
Empson did not keep a journal, but he felt this grand historical event needed to be marked by jotting down his impressions of the ceremonial. His account was discovered among the personal effects of Hetta Empson after her death in December 1996, and is published here for the first time. Walter Brown and David Kidd were two young American teachers. Sanluerhs were pedicabs; Pai Hai is a lake to the west of the Forbidden City; lao-pai-hsing – literally, ‘Old One Hundred Names’ – means ‘ordinary people’.
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Last week, word came out that it was testing some sort of mysterious entertainment device in employees' homes.
It's even building retail stores.
Whatever the reason, this won't end well.
Google has never shown that it has any of the characteristics necessary to build, market, and sell consumer goods.
Let's take a look at all the things that made Apple one of the biggest and most admired companies in the world. Does Google have any of those things?
- Design chops? Apple has revolutionized product design several times -- the iMac, iPod, iPhone, Mac Air, and iPad. Google's best design was its original home page, loved for its white space and simplicity. Google+ had some nice elements -- Circles was designed by Apple old-timer Andy Hertzfeld -- but the recent redesigns of products like Gmail, Reader, and Search have caused more anger than delight.
- Shipping finished products that customers love? Apple products are designed with the customer experience top of mind -- Steve Jobs famously said that Apple doesn't listen to customers first, it figures out what they should want and then goes and builds that. Google is infamous for releasing half-finished products like Music and Google TV, slapping a beta label on them, then gradually improving them over time. That works fine with free Internet services. It does not work with products that you're trying to sell for hundreds of dollars. (Need evidence? Spend an hour with an Android tablet that hasn't been updated to Ice Cream Sandwich.)
- Customer service? The Genius Bar gives Apple customers on-demand customer service for any problem with any Apple product. Google hardly provides personalized customer service to its most important customers, the advertisers who make up more than 95% of its business -- most Google ad products are self serve for all but their largest and most important customers.
- Manufacturing? Apple's Tim Cook is a genius at managing Apple's supply chain. Google has done some of this with suppliers for its data centers, but that's different from setting up the parts and manufacturing necessary to build and ship tens of millions of devices on quick turnaround.
- Advertising? Remember those iPod ads with the white figures dancing? Of course you do. Remember those Google+ ads with the muppets singing along to David Bowie? Probably, but not for the same reason.
Can companies change? Of course they can.
Microsoft spent 10 years and several billion dollars to get into the game business, and while it's still about $4 billion in the hole (lifetime), the Xbox is finally on a consistent profit streak and Microsoft has passed Sony.
But at least Microsoft had a long history of building and selling packaged consumer products like Windows, Office, and CD-ROMs, and even hardware like keyboards and mice.
Amazon is becoming a hardware company, but only after selling hardware through its online retail store for years. It understands logistics, advertising, marketing, and customer service, and has a huge store of data about customer buying habits which it can use to help.
Google has never successfully sold anything to consumers. Not a single thing.
Google is really good at building fast, useful, responsive software that runs at Internet scale, and at hooking up the users of that software with advertisers to make gobs of money.
That's a great business. Google utterly dominates it. There are untapped adjacent markets, too -- what about getting serious about Apps, taking its expertise in delivering online services and really applying them to the enterprise? (Is Google really going to cede that market to Box.net? Really?)
Or building YouTube into the cable TV system for the Internet?
Or even coming up with new forms of advertising for other kinds of media?
But adding a business in which it has demonstrated none of the characteristics necessary to succeed just seems utterly mad.
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It’s been more than a week since Hurricane Sandy touched our shores and left a trail of devastation behind. Now, folks in Fairfield are determined to pick up the pieces; hundreds have volunteered for a cleanup event Sunday.
“It’s been really tough. I’m still not back in my house,” said Liz Flavin.
To Liz Flavin, the wrath of Hurricane Sandy wears on. Flood waters from the storm ruined her basement, making the rest of her house temporarily unlivable.
“They had to replace a boiler and then they had to rip out the…sheetrock and the insulation…and dry-out the whole basement before we can even think about moving back,” said Flavin.
While the storm is long-gone, the damage it left behind is everywhere in town.
“You drive around and you feel like you’re in a different country,” said Lindsey Morton.
Luckily for Fairfield and its residents, help is on the way.
Starting tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., hundreds of volunteers are expected to meet at the Jennings Beach parking lot to begin cleanup efforts on the beach.
The event was organized by Lindsey Morton and some of her friends.
“We have teams designated for the beaches, we have teams designated for the school, and teams designated for the parks around the area,” said Morton.
As of Saturday tonight, 800 volunteers have signed up. However, Morton said the group could use more help.
“If anybody wants to help with donations, we would love to feed our volunteers tomorrow. So, come on down,” added Morton.
Flavin said the community has pulled together, and she can’t help but be grateful.
“People just showed up to help me in ways I could have never, ever imagined,” said Flavin.
For more information on the cleanup, visit: http://www.facebook.com/events/110820039079922/
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2003 Lexus RX 300 Repair Question
The front brake rotors are most likely warped. This is fairly common and a simple machining process will take care of that. That process is part of a normal brake job but that doesn't necessarily mean the brakes are worn out. Your mechanic will inspect the brake pads at the same time and make a recommendation.
17,663 answers provided
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Mrs Habyarimana was detained in the Paris region (1977 file photo)
The widow of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, whose assassination triggered the Rwandan genocide, has been arrested in France.
Agathe Habyarimana is accused by the current Rwandan government of helping to plan the 1994 genocide, and has long been sought by prosecutors there.
Mrs Habyarimana, who has been living in France for several years, denies the accusations.
More than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died in the massacres of 1994.
French officials said Mrs Habyarimana was detained in the Paris region by police executing a Rwandan-issued international arrest warrant.
Diplomatic relations broken off 2006, restored late 2009
French judge said current President Paul Kagame had been behind President Habyarimana's assassination
Rwanda accused France of arming Hutu militias
Mrs Habyarimana, who was flown out of Rwanda by the French military in the early days of the violence, has been seeking political asylum in France, without success.
Her arrest follows a visit to the Rwandan capital Kigali last week by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, when he admitted that France - and the wider international community - had make "mistakes" over the genocide.
His comments followed years of strained relations between the two countries.
Diplomatic relations were restored late last year having broken down after a French judge said President Paul Kagame had been behind President Habyarimana's assassination, and Rwanda accused France of arming the Hutu militias involved in the 1994 genocide.
Mrs Habyarimana's lawyer said her arrest was directly linked to Mr Sarkozy's visit.
"You can't not draw a link," said Philippe Meilhac. "The extradition request from Kigali dates back to November and was obviously re-activated."
Rwanda has welcomed her arrest.
"We are encouraged by these new developments and the fact that the long arm of the law has finally taken its course," said Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama.
Mrs Habyarimana has now been freed on bail.
The BBC's Catherine Zemmouri in Paris says it is not clear if France will extradite her to Rwanda.
She says that French magistrates have recently refused to send three suspects to Rwanda fearing they would not receive a fair trial - an argument repeated by Mrs Habyarimana's lawyer.
France has, however, extradited suspects to the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Arusha, Tanzania.
President Habyarimana died in April 1994 when his jet was hit by a missile over the Kigali airport.
Hardline ethnic Hutu supporters of the president then launched the apparently pre-planned massacres.
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The British supermarket chain Waitrose recently launched its Duchy Originals line of Oaten Biscuits and Lemon All Butter Shortbread in the U.S. Duchy Originals is an organic brand founded by Prince Charles, the biscuits partially made from oats grown on his manure-laden farm. The Ohio-based West Point Market reported this month that it immediately sold out of Charlie’s crackers and had to reorder.
Behind this unassuming biscuit launch lurks a surprising lesson in what it means to be a leader of philanthropic causes today. Good leadership in the private sector is usually fairly easy to spot. Lindsay Owen-Jones was the chief executive of the French cosmetics firm L’Oreal (LRLCY) when he saw a photograph of John F. Kennedy commanding a small torpedo boat during World War II. Owen-Jones instantly wondered whether the very young JFK’s experience of leading men into battle as a captain of PT 109 hadn’t been instrumental in why he ultimately became president.
So, back at L’Oreal, Owen-Jones gave as many young people as possible their own small unit, over which they had real responsibility. “What I am trying to do,” the then-CEO told me, “is invent a lot of torpedo boats,” so that L’Oreal had in its ranks “generations of future presidents.” Through such leadership, O-J turned L’Oreal’s major shareholder, Liliane Bettencourt, into the world’s wealthiest woman.
When trying to tackle the most intractable problems of man and planet, however, signs of true leadership are not always as self-evident. The philanthropic cause of David Fischer, chief executive of packaging-firm Greif, is a clean backpack that can easily carry potable water in impoverished nations. Fischer has been attacked in philanthropic circles for not focusing his energy and resources on the bigger issue of clean water. While others worked on solving the water crisis, he countered, he would fight to make sure poor folk weren’t in the meantime poisoned by carrying drinking water in abandoned gasoline cans and toxic-chemical containers.
As this anecdote suggests, it’s not always clear, when tackling the globe’s deepest issues, who are the true philanthropic leaders and who are the well-meaning nutcases. Which brings me back to Duchy Originals and Prince Charles. There are – don’t snicker – some valuable lessons in nonprofit leadership to be drawn from that British royal, whom a wag once dubbed the “Prince of Sighs.
Written with Barron’s wit and often contrarian perspective, Penta provides the affluent with advice on how to navigate the world of wealth management, how to make savvy acquisitions ranging from vintage watches to second homes, and how to smartly manage family dynamics.
Richard C. Morais, Penta’s editor, was Forbes magazine’s longest serving foreign correspondent, has won multiple Business Journalist Of The Year Awards, and is the author of two novels: The Hundred-Foot Journey and Buddhaland, Brooklyn. Christiana Cefalu has a B.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and writes Penta Daily.
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» Not much bang for the buck: Tons of money is needed to get a political campaign off the ground, but that doesn’t mean being rich out of the gate is a sure-fire win for wannabe politicians. In 2010, wrestling magnate Linda McMahon spent $50 million on her own Senate campaign only to be crushed by Richard Blumenthal, who’d raised a (relatively) modest $8.7 million. More recently, Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst lost the GOP primary after giving $24 million to his own war chest—the most so far of any candidate this cycle. But this doesn’t seem to be discouraging wealthy candidates: McMahon is running for the Senate again this year, and her $8.8 million contribution constitutes 90% of what she’s raised so far.
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For my job at the Nature Conservancy, I spend a lot of time planning fieldwork in remote places where I study how conservation benefits people in poor communities. So I approached my family’s year in the woods as if it were fieldwork in a new country. I read all I could before going and talked to people who were already living off the grid in the woods of Maine to understand the local risks.
Unexpected problems always arise in fieldwork, but it’s part of the adventure. How else could I know to never give Stalin a thumbs down in Azerbaijan or the importance of quick reflexes on Highway One in Vietnam?
For the north woods of Maine, I learned about the dangers of the mother moose, deer ticks and poison ivy. I gleaned tips on surviving the long, cold winter. Unsurprisingly, it’s what I didn’t know that made the last few weeks painful.
Our cabin by the lake came with a propane-powered refrigerator. I knew these from RV’s, and I performed the manual’s recommended maintenance before lighting it for the first time. For a month all was fine.
But one evening we smelled a lot of gas fumes in the house. It was our first evening without a hint of wind, and our three gas lights burned in addition to the always-burning propane fridge. I thought we had a ventilation problem and opened all the windows and doors. Yet an hour later the carbon monoxide detector I had installed when we arrived began to beep.
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Artist interview, Walid Raad: a mediator between worlds
The artist challenges historical narratives in his Islamic-inspired show at the Louvre this month
By Louisa Buck. Features, Issue 242, January 2013
Published online: 15 January 2013
The art of Walid Raad uses the language and procedures of museums and academia—the archive, the slide show, the PowerPoint presentation, the wall-mounted information panel, the documentary photograph—to exude an air of informative authority. In his illustrated lectures and his multimedia installations this month at the Louvre, and, among other places, at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, the 2003 Venice Biennale, Documentas 11 and 13 and London’s Whitechapel Gallery, the 45-year-old artist comes across as a scholarly researcher-historian, examining the recent history of his native Lebanon and, over the past five years, the forging of art history in the context of the new art institutions proliferating in the Arab world.
In his latest project, Raad, who divides his time between Beirut and New York, where he is associate professor of art at the Cooper Union, continues to assume the role of a documenter and assembler of information and artefacts. “Walid Raad: Preface to the First Edition”, his new show in the Louvre’s Salle de la Maquette (19 January-8 April), consists of a video, a sculptural installation and a publication. They each take as their starting point the museum’s new department of Islamic art and its collection of 18,000 objects, some of which are destined to be loaned to the new Louvre in Abu Dhabi.
“These works are part of a larger, ongoing project that proceeds from the acceleration in the building of this new infrastructure for the arts in the Gulf, particularly in Abu Dhabi and Qatar,” Raad says, speaking on the telephone from his studio in New York. “I don’t know that much about Islamic art. All this is very new to me, but some of these objects I see in the display in the Louvre and at the Met—their lines, their forms and their colours—have been very productive for me. I saw the opening for a new kind of concept, a new creative act.”
This new concept manifests itself in Raad’s video, which features 28 Islamic artefacts from the Louvre that have been earmarked for its Jean Nouvel-designed sister museum on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. The video revolves around Raad’s notion that, “when these objects travel overseas, they will change in ways that are more insidious than the curators, conservators or museum directors could have predicted”. It is the story of these altered objects—how they have changed and why—that comprises Raad’s documentary film and the accompanying book, Preface to the Third Edition. “One person will be convinced that the objects themselves have changed and that change will only appear in certain photographs that this person will make,” he says.
These shape-shifting artefacts make up just one among many peculiar narratives that, for more than a decade, have run through Raad’s seemingly sober archival displays. For while the overarching political events and circumstances that shape and inform Raad’s work are very real, the narratives and episodes he recounts in his photographs, videos and wall displays are predominantly his own.
“I use the conventions of display or the modes of address associated with an authoritative curatorial voice not so much to destabilise as to delay a challenge and to open a space to perform another kind of narrative,” he says. “I choose to lean on and play with these modes at the same time.”
Walid Raad was born in Chbanieh in Lebanon in 1967 and raised in predominantly Christian East Beirut. After the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, he fled the country in 1983 for the US, first to study medicine at Boston University before transferring to the Rochester Institute of Technology to study photography. He then went on to the University of Rochester, where he earned a doctorate in visual and cultural studies. Although Raad does not elaborate on his ethnic or religious origins, or take a political position, in his writings, lectures or interviews, his personal experiences of growing up in a war-torn city have fed directly into his work. “You have to become expert in things you never thought you needed,” he says, remembering how, when he arrived in America, “I found myself moving to the other side of the street every time I encountered a white Mercedes-Benz in the corner of my eye… and trying to avoid glass façades.”
Between 1999 and 2004, Raad exhibited his work under the aegis of the anonymous-sounding Atlas Group, which described itself as a team of researchers whose aim was “to research and document the contemporary history of Lebanon, with particular emphasis on the wars of 1975-90”. So convincing was this archive of assembled documents and testimonials—from such characters as Dr Faol Fakhouri, “foremost historian of the Lebanese civil wars”, whose 226 notebooks included cut-out photographs of cars corresponding to the make, model and colour of every vehicle used as a car bomb during the war years; or the hostage Souheil Bachar, whose video account of being held captive by a Lebanese militia was shown at Documenta 11—that despite Raad making no secret of the fact that the Atlas Group was a fictitious foundation, it was hard for many viewers to believe that its output was created by one man.
The fictions of history
In its meticulous archiving and presentation of such bafflingly bizarre material as the footage shot by Operator #17, a Lebanese army intelligence officer who, instead of monitoring Beirut’s seaside Corniche every day, “decided to videotape the sunset instead”, or the little-known “avid gambling” by major historians of the Lebanese wars, who bet not on the horses at Beirut’s race track but on their distance in newspaper photographs from the finishing line, the Atlas Group subversively—and often very wittily—questioned notions of truth, authority and documentation and the veracity of so-called historical accounts. “It is important for us to note that the truth of the documents we research/ collect does not depend for us on their factual accuracy,” declared Raad in an interview in 2002. “One of the questions we find ourselves asking is, ‘how do we approach facts not in their crude facticity but through the complicated mediations by which they acquire their immediacy?’ Traditional history is written as a chronology of events or a biography of participants. We are not saying history should not include this; we are certainly saying history cannot be reduced to this.”
Ten years on, Walid Raad is still preoccupied by “complicated mediations” and the “other kinds of narrative” that emanate from them. But now the main focus of his attention has extended beyond the specific situation in Lebanon to the formation of a history of art in today’s Arab world. Although he admits that he will still “attribute a document to the Atlas Group if it shares the logic of violence and trauma that the Atlas Group was operating under”, he has, since 2007, been involved in an ongoing project entitled Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: a History of Art in the Arab World. The Preface to the Third Edition at the Louvre is its latest strand.
This new line of enquiry both draws on and departs from the work of the Atlas Group. It still plays with, and off, fact and fiction but is underpinned more by absence and withdrawal. Physical infrastructures may be springing up to house today’s Arab culture, but, according to this incisive new body of work, the art itself is perhaps more elusive. Whereas Raad describes the Atlas Group’s artefacts as “hysterical documents… based on fantasies erected from the material of collective memories”, in the various manifestations of Scratching, which had its first extensive airing at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, in 2011, and at Documenta 13 last summer, he shifts his attention from issues of truth and falsehood to more profound and complex explorations around fellow Lebanese author and film-maker Jalal Toufic’s theory of “surpassing disasters”—calamities so great that their impact goes beyond destructive psychological and material outcomes to make the very stuff of culture withdraw and disappear and change form.
“I became sensitive to how a history of violence affects a work in more insidious ways than I ever thought,” Raad says, “and that one of the effects might be manifest in the fact that a work will shrink, or that it will act like the mirror in vampire films, revealing the withdrawal of what we think is still there.”
There is a provocative elusiveness to many of the works within Raad’s Scratching project. Take Index XXV1 ‘Artists’, 2010, a barely visible but official-looking list of Lebanese artists from the past century written in white vinyl letters on a white wall, which, according to Raad, were sent by “artists from the future… by way of telepathy and/or thought insertion and/or using a future technology”. Playful wit is spliced with serious concerns about a culture in long-term trauma and the works it produces, with Raad suggesting that “colours, lines, shapes and forms… deploy defensive measures, hide, take refuge, camouflage and dissimulate”, or, as he suggests in his video at the Louvre, historical artefacts can transform in transit.
Although he emphasises that it is “one consequential but small part of my interest”, another aspect of Raad’s engagement with the Arab world’s emerging new cultural infrastructure has taken a more direct form. As a member of GulfLabor, a group of international artists that also includes Hans Haacke, Sam Durant and Tania Bruguera, Raad has been instrumental in petitioning the director of the Guggenheim, Richard Armstrong, “to protect the rights of workers employed in the construction and maintenance of [the Guggenheim’s] new branch museum in Abu Dhabi”. In March last year, he was one of 130 art-world figures to sign up to a boycott of the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim “over the exploitation of foreign migrant workers building the museum on Saadiyat Island”.
At the time of writing, the Guggenheim boycott still stands, subject to GulfLabor’s scrutiny of a monitoring report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Raad is diplomatically upbeat, declaring the PwC report to be “frankly surprising” in its transparency. “If the Gulf is interested in building the most progressive, the most fantastic infrastructure for the arts, then it must not just include the most amazing building, the most amazing works, curators and engineers, but also the most amazing and progressive laws on the basis of which these buildings are being built,” he says. “This is an extraordinary opportunity to do something that is unlike anything else—and we want to help them. The Guggenheim had a collection to build and was inviting us to participate, and when that dialogue started I felt, OK, I’m being given a voice here, and is it simply a voice in the sense of ‘which works do I want to sell?’ or is it ‘how do we build a fantastic infrastructure for the arts that is sensitive to the historical, aesthetic, formal, critical and labour issues’? And it seems as if the Guggenheim is interested in this conversation.”
In the final reckoning, Raad is committed to expressing his political, historical and theoretical concerns in a medium that is emphatically visual. “I’m working with line, colour, shape and form,” he says. “Whether it’s a war or this massive infrastructure, you confront an event like this emotionally, aesthetically, historically, conceptually, and you see an opening for a new form, a gesture that must do justice to the complexity of this experience. Physical universes are being built all the time. How do you build one that doesn’t collapse in a few seconds? That’s a challenge.”
Walid Raad: Preface to the First Edition, Louvre, Paris, 19 January-8 April
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When I was a fresh faced 23 year old I got a nice dose of reality on how some charities are not what they appear to be. I had just gotten back from doing a period of service in Ecuador where I created content for an indigenous radio on issues of virtues, health and adolescents. I was powered up and ready to use the media to create significant change around me… or so I thought.
I was hired in El Salvador to work as a script writer for the local Teleton which supposedly helps handicapped children. The basic premise of the show is the following : Famous mexican and latin american stars come for an elaborate, weekend long telethon to help the handicapped children all over the country.
In theory, this all seemed like a worthy cause. It unites a nation to donate more than a million dollars a year. Young teens walk around the streets, malls and arenas to try to get cash for the children. However, when I started to help produce promos for the kids I began to see plot holes in this.
First off, there was a lack of a systematic approach of what they did even a couple of years back. There was discrepancy on what, exactly, was being funded and there was very little amount of handicapped children we could find for interviews or focus groups. They would make up numbers like “Well if you count the cousins and the uncles and parents then probably we have helped around 300,000 people.” Because we couldn’t find enough kids to be in the commercial who were actually severely handicapped we got some kids to be in wheelchairs and sit in the sun for hours. Without being paid. While they filmed a commercial for them.
I was, to say the least, horrified and quit almost immediately. But it was a harsh lesson to learn. Even if this is no longer the case, this kind of event-driven solution is what characterizes charities today. We cater to events that serve a generalized purpose. We go to a concert to “save hunger” and give money and just stop thinking what happens afterwards. There are a couple of things that seem weird with this reasoning :
1) That we believe a single event is enough to change a mindset, lifestyle, and idea
2) We spend a huge amount of time, energy and money as well as publicity on this event and very very little time thinking about What Happens Next.
3) We seem to think that MONEY is somehow the end of the problem, and only just the means to something else.
4) Those broad generalized solutions are ill-equipped for the small fragmented problems that arise.
5) We somehow allow the religion of celebrity dictate what people should or shouldn’t believe in. They become a spokesperson , an expert, and once they lose interest so does the general public because there is a lack of ownership in the whole process. It is always someone else’s responsibility.
There is a book I really enjoyed which breaches this subject called the white burden. I really enjoyed it, because it shows how we are taught to rid our guilt by showering money on a problem.
A lot of well-meaning efforts can cause more harm than good. There was an earthquake in El Salvador ten years ago. Hundreds of people died. Some charities came forth and came to people’s aid. But they lacked a real understanding of how things work and if this would significantly help those in need. For those most part, those relief efforts were a gargantuan failure. The homeless , for the most part, stayed homeless. The money did not flow towards a lot of coherent action. There are still buildings who are waiting to be repaired over this. Here are some examples of this :. One well meaning effort was from a famous shoe company. They donated hundreds of high heel shoes to women in rural areas. Now most of them were high heels, and to the richer women in the country, they reasoned would not be appreciated in this rural area nor would they be practical for them. So they decided to have a shoe sale for those rich women. Supposedly it went to medicine. But we can only assume it did because no one knew the outcome after that. Another well meaning effort came from a Japanese company or governmental agency donated a lot of money to make a park as a memorial to those who were buried alive in the earthquake…an effort which, to this day, has yet to be created. So where did the money go? What happened and how was this productive? Too many hands passed in between, and too little thought was given to what it would do.
In the earthquake in Haiti, it affected a lot of people who were already affected by poverty, among other factors. Money was showered unto them, but it created more harm than good. If anything it made a tangible mess of things, because there was a lack of responsibility and a lack of a plan to what and how this money can be fostered into something.
So when my junior youth do service projects I stop them and make them think when they tell me “I want to donate money to x charity” or ” I want to do x event” > Charity , or rather service , should not be thought in terms of an event, and we shouldnt think that money, without a responsibility will do much.
Furthermore, when we do things in terms of events, it can also fall prey to those who might do things for publicity or recognition. I also worked for a PR firm, who donated computers to a school for a photo-op in the paper. While it might be a nice gesture, this lack of sincerity ultimately affects how serious and responsible we are towards these causes. When that school got the computers stolen, the client the PR firm represented refused to donate more computers. They also hid this fact when they presented these things to the papers. Once the photographers and journalists were gone, so were the clients and the PR firm. They brushed those poor kids off like they were paper bags. They basically used those kids as objects for their own benefit. Ultimately, were these kids better off without the computers? Probably. What mattered more was the attitudes, the lack of training on how to use those computers, the lack of planning and the fragmented notion that ignored the violent circumstances surrounding the school.
I would much rather teach junior youth to work within their own communities which by all accounts are riddled with a lot of problems and explain that this process takes time, it’s painful, it is slow and at times we won’t see the results. But the results are grassroot oriented, and are palpable and real. They empower themselves to be true agents of change and not rely on outside forces to “Save”them. This spares them the feeling of helplessness that is derived from a thinking that an Other can somehow save a problem that usually they themselves have more palpable and realistic solutions to. It is only when all those involved become part of the solution, with a hands on philosophy can any significant change be achieved…
I am thinking again of my friend Tim Farrand who passed away a month ago. He dedicated his whole life to serve others, and gave in so many small and significant ways that so many Ngo’s are still dedicating efforts to him. He was a humble man, who did not talk of what grandiose things he did. He just acted with kindness and tried for things to change. And they did, in small and almost imperceptible ways.
Yes, charity is good. And maybe we can find temporary solutions. However, in no ways does this give a permanent solution to a very complicated problem . We need to see the bigger picture, we need to stop constructing barriers between the Haves and the Have Nots. We need to see that it is not out of guilt, out of compassion, or even empathy that we give to others but rather that if we don’t it will greatly affect all of us if we don’t.
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Where’s the Money (Congressional Buy-in)? All Talk, No Action.
President Obama and Congress are great on lambasting BP (perhaps deserved), but where is the “put your money where your mouth is?” When did Congress “improve oil spill response capabilities?”
Funding for the OSRR program and operation of Ohmsett – The National Oil Spill Response Test Facility are appropriated from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (OSLTF). The OSLTF received funds from a $0.05 tax on each barrel of oil produced or imported into or out of the United States. This tax was suspended when the fund reached $1 billion dollars. Currently funds for the OSLTF are derived from interest on the fund, cost recovery from responsible parties, and penalties. The tax can be re-implemented if the fund falls below the billion dollar level. As intended by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, potential polluters, companies that produce and transport oil are supporting research to improve oil spill response capabilities.
I’ve no defense for BP “cutting corners” (if they did), but between Congress and the President there’s only one outfit taking any responsibility “from Day 1!” BP.
Despite Congressional limitations of $75 Million on damages (TITLE 33 > CHAPTER 40 > SUBCHAPTER I > § 2704), BP has already spent $2 billion on remediation and cleanup. Obama’s Commission on the accident may have its first meeting TODAY (June 22, 2010)!
No Coast Guard ships rescued workers from the Deepwater Horizon, but they participated in a search afterwards, and called it off after three days. Fire boats may have participated in sinking the rig; capsizing the rig may have broken mile-long pipes to create the spill.
MONTHS ago, President Obama could have suspended The Jones Act, as President Bush did after Katrina, but he did not.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff temporarily waived the U.S. Shipping Act for foreign vessels carrying oil and natural gas from September 1 to September 19, 2005.
Oil skimmers from The Netherlands were offered and rejected by Obama … their ships cannot help, but the equipment finally got approval to be used. Offered within THREE DAYS … accepted MONTHS later!
Congress is slathering over $20 billion that BP has agreed to put up … years from now, somebody will discover how much Congressional “friends” received in undue “response funds.” For now, it is grand to blame everything on BP … they have earned money that Congress can only print.
Lots of mouths … all begging to be fed from some foreign corporation, because they can’t feed themselves. Not President nor Congress willing to put their own mouths to provide money. Or leadership.
The Coast Guard has been doing their best, but in this emergency, where has the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) been involved in the least?
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See ‘N’ Sell Arts & Crafts Show was founded by the YWCA of Salina and is now continued by the Girl Scouts of Kansas Heartland. See ‘N’ Sell began in 1966 with a small group of crafters and has grown to over 200 exhibitors from Kansas and surrounding states selling handcrafted items at The Bicentennial Center, 800 The Midway, Salina, Kansas. In 2010 we added an area dedicated to commercial vendors which was very successful.
See ‘N’ Sell is held the Saturday before Thanksgiving each year. This will be the 46th annual show, and will take place on Saturday, November 17, 2012. See ‘N’ Sell is a one-day show and is open to the public from 8:00 am until 4:00 pm. Approximately 4,000 shoppers attend See ‘N’ Sell each year, and the show consistently receives rave reviews from shoppers and exhibitors alike.
A popular item among shoppers is the See ‘N’ Sell Goody Bag. The first one hundred shoppers through the door receive a goody bag containing gifts and coupons for area businesses, along with See ‘N’ Sell Bucks they can use for shopping at the Event.
The Bicentennial Center is ADA compliant, provides ample parking, and convenient door-side drop-off and pick-up.
Proceeds from the gate, booth sales and concessions benefit over 15,000 Girl Scouts in 80 counties throughout Kansas.
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Why? Because you can! And pickle, and jam, or otherwise celebrate the resurgence of the domestic arts our forebears held so dear. Put on your best apron and step into our kitchen, won't you?
Can you make a jar of Italian marinated peppers that can mimic the flavor of the jars in the italian market. This recipe may be the closest "safe" recipe you will find!
Because green bells need some love, too.
A Sicilian family recipe for vinegar-pickled eggplant flavored with herbs and garlic and packed in olive oil. [Ed: Canning not recommended.]
An easy way to prepare yucca blossoms (often described as tasting like artichoke), preserved in a flavorful oil in the style of marinated artichoke hearts.
I don't think I can ever go back to eating artichokes any other way. These are incredibly bright and refreshing.
A traditional indian pickle preserved in oil, and updated to USDA safety standards.
This Calabrian oil pickle is a good use of those late-season, oversized zucchini. The preservation method makes the zukes almost squeak when you bite into them.
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“Fitness Supplement For Women: Which Of These Three Will You Try?”
Second, you have to pair your fitness program with a healthy diet.
And third, and this part is often ignored, you have to pay attention to changes in your body, as bodily functions get affected by sudden changes (such as your food intake, movement, and energy consumption) and might mess up hormone production, which could make you sick or even be affected by your new program at all.
This is exactly why supplements are created, in order to add the vitamins and minerals that your body hasn’t yet provided you while it’s still getting used to the change. Below are three of the most essential fitness supplement for women. You may choose to try one or all of them.
Whey protein is a mixture of globular proteins isolated from whey, which is the liquid material created as a by-product of cheese. Studies suggest that whey protein may possess anti-inflammatory or anti-cancer properties, though further research is needed to validate it. Whey protein is also being investigated as a way to reduce risk from diseases, as well as a possible supplementary treatment for several diseases.
For muscle building, whey protein has been recommended as a fitness supplement for women. One study showed that there is some increase in lean body mass and strength when supplementing whey protein, while another found greater increases in strength when taking whey protein.
Whether you’re trying to get fit or not, every woman needs to take multivitamins daily. As a fitness supplement for women, multivitamins are also known as your dietary backup, your edible wingmen, and your nutritional safety in case you find yourself munching on unhealthy food.
But the main reason why multivitamins are seen as an essential supplement is because the more ingredients it contains, the more nourishment you think you’ll get, especially the ones you need for stronger bones, leaner muscles, higher energy, and many more.
However, when picking your multivitamins, make sure that it contains key nutrients that you really need. Instead of just reading the label of each multivitamin brand, do further research on the Dietary Reference Intakes. This system made the Institute of Medicine under the National Academy of Sciences takes into account the age, gender, and concerns.
Creatine was produced solely as a fitness supplement for women and men, particularly to aid in increasing high-intensity athletic performance. Research shows that using creatine as an energy source is being done by the skeletal muscles.
It has been proven that using creatine can increase your maximum power and performance in high-intensity work by up to 15%, particularly when you do running/cycling sprints and multiple sets of weightlifting.
Creatine also appears to help damaged muscle fibers in repairing itself and growing bigger, thus increasing the body mass by about one kilo per week.
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In keeping with the sort of prurient vacuity that allowed the Monica Lewinsky affair to dominate the airwaves when America and Britain launched a massive series of air-strikes on Iraq in December 1998, a year earlier the death of Diana, Princess of Wales completely overshadowed the demise, a few days earlier, of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Ten years is long enough for some mature judgements to form about the life and impact of public figures. But just as the absurd conspiracy theories dredged up at the recent Diana inquest tell us nothing we want to know about her, so the DVD release of this poorly-scripted, badly acted, hagiographical film on Mother Teresa (played by Geraldine Chaplin) tells us nothing more than what the establishment want us to think about her.
The film follows the nun from the traumatic period of Partition in India to her receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. It is an incredibly one-dimensional account of her struggles to fulfil what she regarded as her religious calling, as she overcomes each challenge put in her way: clerical opposition to her leaving cloisters to minister to the poor, the resentment of the slum-dwellers she patronises, local authorities who are suspicious of her work, and the anger of Hindus when she bases her Missionaries of Charity order in a disused Hindu temple. The clear implication in each case is that Teresa triumphed because God was on her side. The broader political and social setting is completely ignored – it is her sheer piety and moral willpower that sees her through and rightly rewarded.
The elitism of this hyper-individualist mythologising is constantly expressed throughout the film. Having been saved from a hostile crowd of locals by a man whose wounds she treated during the Partition riots (who becomes her faithful sidekick, a sort of Indian Dick van Dyke), Teresa later wins over the slum-dwellers by standing up to the local police commissioner, sent by the city council to clean up the rubbish dump from which the people eke their miserable sustenance. The slum-dwellers are too feeble to defend their own interests, but the persuasive power of one Albanian nun is sufficient to override the will of Calcutta’s elected representatives. Later the same police commissioner reappears to clear Teresa’s hospital out of the Hindu temple, but again his intelligence and compassion win out over the baying mob when he sees the work she is doing.
There are all sorts of fascinating contradictions and issues that could be explored by a film on Mother Teresa: her work did, for instance, attract the opposition of the Hindu right – an opportunity to explore the social, moral and political issues around humanitarian work, as well as Teresa’s personal motives – but instead she is merely depicted as a selfless hero who conquers irrational opposition to her mission. The undertone is a constant affirmation that her Christian values are superior to those of Hindus. The evasion of any real sophistication is further accomplished by the film-makers’ decision to skip twenty-five years of history, thus brushing over the traumatic Emergency period under Indira Gandhi before ending with Teresa’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Teresa claimed in her actual Nobel Lecture that ‘the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself’ – this in a context of high tension between two Cold War superpowers armed with nuclear weapons, and imperialist wars and interventions in El Salvador, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Angola, to name but a few. Teresa’s poisonous Catholic ideology is surely the main reason why her life’s work is worth scrutinising, rather than the ‘dodgy’ associations she may have picked up while courting Thatcher, Reagan, the Duvaliers, and various corrupt businessmen, chronicled in books like Christopher Hitchens’ 1995 book, The Missionary Position. The film does not recount her vicious attack on women, glossing the acceptance speech with phrases she never used, claiming that accepting the Nobel Prize would ‘bring an understanding love between the rich and the poor’. But it grasps (and endorses) her basic Catholic outlook in an earlier exchange with an American reporter:
REPORTER: Don’t you see? These beloved poor, these people that you call the blessed ones, are the result of a criminal failure of society. Isn’t it better to correct the causes instead of treat the symptoms?
TERESA: Someone must comfort the poor.
REPORTER: But that’s the problem. With all due respect, Mother Teresa, Nobel Peace Prizes do little more than appease the conscience of the world – we can all shed a tear because someone like you is taking care of the needy. And then, when the speeches have been made, we go right on living our numb, ignorant lives.
TERESA: Maybe our work will inspire others who are better able to change conditions.
REPORTER: Not if you continue to turn the poor into some sort of holy icon, Christ’s body on earth – they’re not Christ! What good is it to pretend they’re saints?
TERESA: We owe them everything. You have a Western mentality. You expect too much from poor humanity.
It is precisely this humanitarian culture of low expectations, of ministering to a romanticised poor, coupled with her reactionary social perspective, which endeared her to right-wing politicians in the West. It perfectly expresses the mystic fatalism of the Catholic Church, counterposed to an irrational ‘Western mentality’ – that is, a genuine radicalism that seeks to eradicate the causes of poverty. It is this basic predisposition, deeply ingrained in today’s vapid, neoliberal political culture, that sanctifies pious figures like Teresa (now beatified and awaiting just one more ‘miracle’ to attain sainthood) while vilifying revolutionaries, that prefers sporadic and self-interested humanitarian interventions and pitiful aid contributions to actions that might genuinely undo the structures than condemn billions of people to grinding poverty.
Teresa may have been more challenging than presented in this movie – her Nobel Lecture, after attacking women who have abortions, also urged Western countries to help their own poor and to ‘give until it hurts’ – but it is this essentially conservative outlook that made her a poster-nun for the West. Frankly, we will get nowhere as a species until we shrug off precisely what this film encourages – the simplistic worship of figures like Teresa who merely trim the weeds instead of grasping at the roots.
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PITTSFIELD -- Instead of the classroom, fifth-grade students from Stearns Elementary School were studying physics at The Infield on Monday morning.
"There are three things to remember: balance, momentum and energy," Mike Massery told the 35 students before him.
The 2004 Taconic High School graduate is the coach and manager of The Infield, a 10,000-square-foot public baseball practice facility located at 10 Lyman St. in Pittsfield, formerly known as The Arena. It is also home to Berkshire Baseball Academy.
On Monday morning, Stearns teachers Andy Mickle and Susan Hollister took their students to meet Massery and pitchers Joe Bateman, who is still active as an independent player with the Atlantic League, and Rafael Lluberes, who most recently played for the Pittsfield Colonials.
The kids are currently participating in a yearlong program called "Sliding Baseball Across the Curriculum," written by athletic educator Larry Moore and coordinated at Stearns by Mickle. The program ties baseball into state curriculum standards, from history to mathematics and statistics to science.
"A lot of people don't think about it, but everyday life is physics and science," said Bateman.
"The stronger you get, you create more energy. You can make yourself as good as you want to be, whether it's your body and baseball or your brain for studying," he told the students.
With that in mind, Massery assigned students to work in small groups in three areas: batting
Wearing a No. 14 Curtis Granderson New York Yankees jersey, 10-year-old Ryan Robbins donned a helmet, choked up on a bat and took a wild swing at a machine pitch in the batting cages.
"Balance," a class chaperone reminded the boy.
Robbins adjusted his feet, squared his stance and took a more focused whack at the next pitch, earning him a "Nice swing, buddy!" from Massery.
Robbins said visiting The Infield was a more personal experience because his grandfather, Buddy Pellerin, used to own the previous incarnation of the building, The Arena.
"It's nice to have the batting cages here," he said.
The boy's mother, Renee Robbins, said she's happy to see the tie-in with The Infield and the school program.
"It's always exciting to have a place up and running around here and to have a place for kids to go. My son loves this year of school because of the curriculum. He loves baseball," she said.
Other Stearns students said they like the baseball curriculum, along with the guest speakers and field trips.
"It's fun because you get to see major and minor league baseball players who teach us stuff and tell us what they do when they're playing," said Haywood Eurquhart, 10, referring to the fact that pitcher Brian Sweeney of the Seattle Mariners came to visit their class during the school year.
Serenity Gagliardi, 10, said she liked working on a research project through which each student wrote a paper on a National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee. The classes will visit the hall in Cooperstown, N.Y., in June.
Massery said he's happy to combine a business with a lifelong passion.
"My father [Phil Massery] owns the building. I basically grew up in this building," he said. "Pittsfield is such a baseball town. I'm happy to share the game that I love by giving this place back to the community."
To learn more about The Infield, visit www.bba-infield.com or call (413) 281-2410.
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The city provides water and sewer service under “The Salida Utilities.” Operations are handled by a combination of dedicated plant operators and staff members who allocate time between other departments of the city. Financially, the Salida Utilities are operated as a self-supporting enterprise fund. It is separate from the general fund, which is primarily supported by tax revenue. This page is oriented toward information customers may have about service and billing. Additional information about the internal operations of our water and sewer departments may be found under the “Departments” section of this site.
Bills and Administrative Matters
Bills are prepared and mailed to customers at the end of each quarter and generally arrive just after the first day of the months of January, April, July, October. Payments may be hand delivered to a drop box in the parking lot of the Touber Building, brought inside to City Hall or mailed to Salida Utilities, 448 E. 1st St., Suite 112, Salida, CO 81201.
Customer billing, collections, and most administrative matters are handled by staff in the City’s finance department. The Finance Director is responsible for maintaining and updating the chapter in the Salida Municipal Code that governs utilities; however, the City Council must adopt any changes to the code with an ordinance. Water restrictions spelled out in the code are enforced by the police department.
Water and Wastewater Transmission
Salida’s Public Works department maintains the water and sewer infrastructure, including the main lines and water meters. Should you suspect a leak or a line break, contact the public works department.
The Water Plant Manager is responsible for the treatment and delivery of all water to the city water system. The city water system is required to meet stringent water quality control standards that are implemented and enforced by the Colorado Department of Health. These standards include daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual testing of certain parameters for each water source. Salida has three water sources, which constitute three separate treatment and pumping facilities.
The Water Plant Manager supervises all phases of treatment and maintenance and is also responsible for all daily, weekly and monthly accounting, and storage of Salida’s excess water credits. Plant personnel are responsible for ensuring that the water treatment facility, equipment, storage tanks and pump station are properly maintained and repaired. The grounds on all three sites are also maintained by plant personnel.
The Wastewater Treatment Plant operates under a permit from the State of Colorado to treat waste from Salida, and Poncha Springs, as well as all septic waste from the surrounding area. Plant personnel are responsible for all plant operations, maintenance, and monitoring of the facility. The plant also provides laboratory services for the surrounding area. The Wastewater Plant Manager supervises the facililty, including the laboratory, biosolids process, and maintenance of the facility.
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When I was an intern at the Portland Press Herald newspaper in Portland, Maine, I was always fascinated by the fact that the L.L. Bean outlet was open 24 hours.
Why would anyone want to shop that late at night? I wondered. But people did. A friend of mine even took a nap in one of the tents before continuing to shop.
Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that select stores are staying open 24 hours before Christmas to catch those late-night, last-minute shoppers.
According to the story:
In the final countdown of one of the worst holiday retail seasons in decades, more retailers have extended hours and are staying open for 24-hour periods or more in a last-ditch effort to capture sales. Macy’s Inc., L.L. Bean International, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Hennes & Mauritz AB’s H&M chain added extreme hours at select locations this year, they said, as a way to enhance customer service, reduce congestion and compete for last-minute sales.
“In this kind of environment, you do whatever it takes,” said Michael Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers.
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This astrology guide can be used to gain a general understanding of the global transits of 2010. If you need to know more in detail about your own personalized astrological transits, can contact me via email at email@example.com
Winter weather in the northern hemisphere this season has been very active. Blizzards with record amounts of snow and cold temperatures have been inclined by global transits to such an extent that most regions across the hemisphere will have experienced the best winter in four years when all is said and done.
Winter will give way to Spring 2010, I am forecasting an early spring season to erupt across North America with threats of flooding in the Midwest. The Mississippi River is highlighted.
Temperatures will be above average during the spring season, so much so, that my late April, much of the United States will experience near summer-like temperatures, and by mid-May, it will feel as if summer has already arrived.
This year of 2010 features many changes and transitions in the lives of people everywhere. The climate for the most part will see above average temperatures during the spring, summer and autumn months. Global transits are quite powerful during the months of July & August, which feature the Cardinal Cross transits.
For several years I had been forecasting that the current era were are now in was coming. It was difficult for some to believe what I forecasted back in 2006 & 2007 when I warned about the coming economic crisis, and the resulting social tensions.
After the Panic of 2008, which is really the Banking Crisis that came about after years of wild speculation in a rigged real estate market bubble that imploded; many people have found themselves drowning in debt.
Now, in February 2010, it has become obvious to most people that the world is now deep in economic crisis. As winter wanes in the northern hemisphere and gives way to spring, and then summer, the celestial transits show intense energies at work with the Cardinal Cross transits involving Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto.
We can see popular anger building in some countries already. For instance, in the bankrupted nation of Greece, tensions were already evident on the streets of Athens February 9 when citizens chanted "traitors" outside the Greek Parliament.
Outraged at austerity measures and cuts dictated by the European Parliament in Brussels, striking workers from Greece's public sector brought the country to a standstill, effectively down shutting airports, schools and hospitals. Another general strike is planned for February 24.
Greek Strikes - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5esi-wvnIY
This is a preview of the larger strikes and clashes to come during the summer months of 2010, and the inclinations of the Cardinal Crisis transits. I am forecasting such scenes as we are seeing in Greece to take hold in many other nations.
If we look at current global trends, we can easily assess that humanity has challenges, crisis, and choices to make in order to blunt most of the celestial inclinations -
- Challenges - To face the future with hope rather than angst
- Crisis - To overcome the outworn, the negative, that which does not work
- Choices - To form & act on positive visions for the future without angst and fear
Key Transits Of The Cardinal Cross -
- April 6-7 - Pluto stations retrograde at 5-Capricorn
- April 7, 2010 - Saturn re-enters tropical Virgo
- April 26, 2010 - Saturn opposes Uranus (4th opposition)
- May 23, 2010 - Jupiter opposes Saturn (first time since 1990-91)
- May 27-28, 2010 - Uranus enters tropical Aries
- May 30th, 2010 - Saturn stations direct motion
- June 5-6, 2010 - Jupiter enters tropical Aries
- June 6-7, 2010 - Mars enters tropical Virgo
- June 8, 2010 - Jupiter conjoins Uranus
- July 5, 2010 - Uranus stations retrograde at 0-Aries
- July 8, 2010 - Jupiter turns North in declination
- July 11, 2010 - New Moon total eclipse at 19-Cancer (not seen in N. America)
- July 21, 2010 - Saturn re-enters tropical Libra for good
- July 23, 2010 - Jupiter stations retrograde
- July 25, 2010 - Jupiter Squares Pluto
- July 26, 2010 - Fifth Saturn/Uranus opposition
- July 31, 2010 - Mars & Jupiter turn S in Declination
- August 3, 2010 - Jupiter, retrograde, Squares Pluto again
- August 6, 2010 - Venus turns South in Declination
- August 13-14, 2010 - Uranus re-enters tropical Pisces
- August 16, 2010 - Jupiter Opposes Saturn
- August 20, 2010 - Mercury retrogrades in Virgo
- August 21, 2010 - Saturn Squares Pluto
- September 8, 2010 - Saturn turns South in declination
- September 8, 2010 - New Moon at 15-Virgo
- September 8, 2010 - Venus enters Scorpio
- September 8-9, 2010 - Jupiter re-enters tropical Pisces
- September 12, 2010 - Mercury stations direct
- September 14, 2010 - Pluto stations direct
- September 14, 2010 - Mars enters Scorpio
- September 19, 2010 - Jupiter conjoins Uranus in Pisces
- October 8, 2010 - Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio
The transits above show that the energies from late spring through to early autumn will be tense for much of the world. I have forecasted a wide-range of events -
- Disasters on the high seas
- Problems with Sea-going vessels
- Global Weather Events, El Nino/La Nina
- Contraction of China’s bubble economy, Asian economic crisis
- General Transportation accidents, snafus & crashes
- Generational transition & resentments
- Economic stress leading to disruptions in Society-at-large
- Frequency of rebellions, riots & increasing acts of violence
- Criminal and underworld activity
- Hints of coming revolutionary forces
My mundane forecast briefly outlined above shows a world clearly in transition. That much is certain. What will define this new decade will be the ability of a new bold generation to take the mantle of leadership while accepting the mess that has been left behind.
How this is accomplished practically will depend in great part on the ability of people to accept the things that they cannot change, and to change the things that they can. A simple enough philosophy, yes, but how to do so in a world given daily to disruption, disorder and confusion?
How To Navigate 2010
Try to see 2010 as a special year of opportunities, transitions and changes. The year is very active, and reflects the ending of one era, and the opening of another - a truly historic year.
Of course, the economy and employment will be the top issues. However, many people at this time are also considering a total change in careers, and relationships in 2010. There is so much happening at the same time it seems that some people may be overwhelmed by it all.
The best ways to navigate is to use the favorable transits of Jupiter from February to late June 2010. Jupiter will emerge from the far side of the Sun on Feb. 28, 2010, and will begin to rise in the early dawn skies throughout March and April.
The inclinations of Jupiter's transit in Pisces from now to mid-July (when its retrograde occurs) and then from mid-November to late August 2011 allows for significant progress to be made in personal, professional and business affairs.
There is rapid change on all levels, and those who accept the changes in society will be able to make the most out of the transits up to the months of July & August 2010, when I advise people to then take it easy, relax, and not allow the fiercely cardinal energies of that time to dominate.
Remember, the summer months of the Cardinal Cross transits of July & August will be very active, tempers flare; nor do world transits favor travel, or activity in and around bodies of water. This simply will not be your average summer - the T-square involving Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto are powerful, heady, impulsive, reactionary, and very tense for the most part.
People will emerge from the cold and snowy winter months in the northern hemisphere into spring 2010. By March 20, 2010, when the vernal equinox occurs, we see the start of a new astrological year that truly kicks off what will also be an historic year worldwide.
Ten days earlier, transiting Mars will have stationed direct at 0-Leo, after a retrograde that began Dec. 20, 2009. Then, on April 7, 2010, Saturn re-enters Virgo, and by April 26, conducts its fourth opposition to Uranus in Pisces. All of this indicates that the unresolved issues from the Panic of 2008, and the economic crisis have not been really addressed.
So, by the time the weather clears, and warm temperatures arrive with spring, then summer, the high unemployment rate, hot temperatures add to the seething public anger at banker bonus types, Wall Street, realtors, insurance companies, politicians - any and all who are blamed for the economic crisis. The cardinal inclinations, by summer 2010, will have caused populations worldwide to become even more pissed off.
If policymakers would have heeded astrological advice, they would never have been able to get themselves (and everyone else) into the global economic mess.
Now, there is no way to put the genie back into the bottle.
So, by the time of the Cardinal Cross transits of July & August 2010 arrive - people have had it. And this is just the beginning of several more years of cardinal inclinations. The summer months of 2010 feature so much running around, reactionary sentiments, and impulsiveness, that it is better to take the summer off and stay away from crowds. The energies are simply too strong for many to handle.
Saying this, of course, does not mean people will take it easy. My forecast for the Cardinal Climax, Cross, or Cardinal Crisis transits (depending on what one's point of view about these transits are) remains the same as it has been for years - it is not a time to get all worked up - however, millions of people will do just that and we will all see it reflected in the world news of summer 2010.
Those reading this forecast should seriously consider exactly what they will be doing this summer. Plan ahead, and do not engage in impulsive trips, especially overseas.
Travel is not favored in the months of July, August, and September 2010. This is a summer to stay home, and to wait until mid-September, when things calm down a bit more.
Parents should pay special attention to their children this summer, and keep them close to home. Accidents are forecasted for July & August 2010 because of the highly compulsive cardinal inclinations towards impulsive behavior. Caution should be used around all bodies of water, and accidents that affect the feet and the head are forecasted.
The best way to get around the inclinations and stresses of 2010 is to understand that the cycle from March 2010 to March features a world in transition. These changes should be welcomed as long as one is able to take advantage of the most favorable periods.
These periods are -
February to mid-July 2010: Jupiter will be direct until July 23, when Jupiter stations retrograde at 3-Aries, and continues its retrograde to November 18, 2010, when Jupiter turns direct in motion at 23-Pisces.
The cycle from February to late June 2010 is best to work on transitions and changes before the coming of the Cardinal Cross transits from July through September 2010. Use February through late June 2010 to take action on new opportunities that will come swiftly with Jupiter's transit. Be aware of the need to be ready to identify opportunities and take action not later than late June, early July 2010.
November 18, 2010 through August 29, 2011: After stationing direct in mid-November 2010, Jupiter races through tropical Aries, and by early June 2011, will have entered Taurus, before stationing retrograde at 10-Taurus on August 29, 2011.
From the time Jupiter turns direct in November 2010 to late August 2011, Jupiter will again be moving rapidly across the skies. This is another excellent time to make good on opportunities and to complete projects, transitions and changes started in early 2010.
The astrological year of March 2010 to March 2011 truly is a time of great shifts, transitions and changes for billions of people worldwide.
Understanding how to navigate this special year will determine, in large part, how the following years to the middle of the decade will succeed or not on many levels. Therefore, use the time now through to mid-April 2010 to outline how one will use this year to make way into the new decade just ahead.
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Emanuel Steward shown at the Kronk Gym in Detroit in July. . / Elizabeth Conley, AP
Emanuel Steward, a Hall of Fame trainer and iconic figure in Detroit who put his hometown on the boxing map by turning out some of the greatest fighters the sport has seen, died Thursday in a Chicago area hospital.
He was 68.
Steward had been suffering from diverticulitis, but there were various reports that he had stage 4 colon cancer as well. He had been hospitalized since September and underwent surgery recently for diverticulitis, a stomach disorder, according to his sister, Diane Steward-Jones.
Steward-Jones, who handled business and public relations for Steward, told the Detroit Free Press she and several family members were by his side.
"He has passed â?? he's gone home," Steward-Jones told the Free Press by phone. "He was in no pain, and we sang to him, as well as did the doctors present. He had loved ones around him."
Steward-Jones said even toward the end her brother tried to recruit male nurses and other medical staff to box for him. "They loved him," Steward-Jones said. "He'd tell them to lose some weight and fight for him."
Steward was a fighter himself in his early years, compiled a 94-3 amateur record, and was the 1963 Golden Gloves bantamweight champion. But it was as a teacher of boxing where he made his mark, and what eventually got him elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1997.
Steward, who for the last 11 years had been a boxing analyst for HBO, was the cornerman for such great Detroit-area fighters as 1980s-era champions Thomas Hearns, Hilmer Kenty and Milton McCrory. He later trained heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis and was the trainer for current heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko up until his death.
Klitschko who is training for a Nov. 10 title defense against Mariusz Wach, released a statement that read:
"Boxing has suffered a tremendous loss with the passing of Emanuel Steward. Vitali and I, along with the entire Team Klitschko, send our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to Emanuel's family and friends. It is not often that a person in any line of work gets a chance to work with a legend. Well I was privileged enough to work with one for almost a decade. I will miss our time together. The long talks about boxing, the world, and life itself. Most of all I will miss our friendship. My team and I will carry on with the goals we had set while Emanuel was with us because that is exactly what Emanuel would have wanted. I know he will be with us in spirit along the way and we will accomplish these goals in his honor. "
Steward worked with his fighters in the cramped, but legendary Kronk Gym in downtown Detroit. The original Kronk closed in 2006, and moved to another part of Detroit.
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, who has been promoting boxing for more than 40 years, said Steward will be sorely missed by the boxing community.
"We are all grieving the passing of our friend Emanuel Steward. His founding and leadership of the Kronk Gym in Detroit was outstanding," Arum said. "His efforts produced many world class fighters and champions including Tommy Hearns, Milt McCrory, Michael Moorer and many more.
"Emanuel Steward always stood for the best that boxing could offer. He will be missed by all of us."
Steward had worked as a highly respected boxing analyst for HBO, with partners Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Max Kellerman since 2001, and was a fixture at ringside for most of HBO's biggest fights during that time.
"There are no adequate words to describe the enormous degree of sadness and loss we feel at HBO Sports with the tragic passing of Manny Steward," HBO President Ken Hershman said in a statement. "For more than a decade, Manny was a respected colleague who taught us so much not only about the sweet science but also about friendship and loyalty.
"His energy, enthusiasm and bright smile were a constant presence. Ten bells do not seem enough to mourn his passing. His contributions to the sport and to HBO will never be forgotten. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family."
Steward was also an analyst during the early years of Showtime's Championship Boxing series, and many of his fighters appeared on the Showtime cards.
"Steward and many of his Kronk protégé were fixtures in the infancy of Showtime Championship Boxing in the late 1980's. Over the years, we became close personal friends," said David Dinkins Jr. a boxing producer for the network. "He will be missed by all of us in the sport. Moreover, the sport will miss what he embodied in boxing -- everything that is good and right about this business.
"It's a terrible shame that his life was cut short. Men like Emanuel Steward are
Steward, who was born in West Virginia and moved with his mother to Detroit at age 12, was well known for his charity work in the Detroit area with the Kronk Gym Foundation, which helped kids in need get training and an education.
Frank Garza, a leading Michigan boxing referee and close friend of Steward's, told the Free Press: "Emanuel was Mr. Boxing in Detroit. He was like Gordie Howe is to Detroit hockey and Al Kaline to Detroit baseball.
"He loved to live and he loved to give. He was a down-to-earth guy when you were with him. As a trainer, he was a brilliant strategist. If you ever wanted to win a fight, you just listened to his advice."
Contributing: The Detroit Free Press
Copyright 2013 USATODAY.com
Read the original story: Hall of Fame boxing trainer Emanuel Steward dead at 68
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Professor Ron Purser publishes Zen and the Art of Organizational Maintenance in Organizational Aesthetics
News + Events : Professor Ron Purser publishes Zen and the Art of Organizational Maintenance in Organizational Aesthetics
Professor Purser published "Zen and the Art of Organizational Maintenance" in the journal Organizational Aesthetics, Vol 2(1), 2013.
The article draws from Zen Buddhism and its arts as a means for reimagining management as a mindfulness practice. Inspired by Zen and its unique aesthetic, this mindfulness practice is referred to as “organizational maintenance.”
As a contemplative art, organizational maintenance is theorized as a process which intensifies awareness of dualities and contradictions, amplifying the drive towards unity and expression of quality. The expression of this drive toward unity in Zen Buddhism has had a profound influence on Japanese arts—such as the tea ceremony, calligraphy, Haiku poetry, and landscape garden design. Decoding the aesthetic principles inherent in the Zen-inspired arts sheds light on how such principles can inform contemporary practices in organizations. The artistry of organizational maintenance and Zen-inspired aesthetics is explored in the example of the late Steve Jobs, whose encounter with Zen was influential in his design sensibilities, mental focus, and trust in intuition.
Finally, the philosophy of organizational maintenance is explored in terms of what it means to recover and appreciate a deeper sense of wholeness and quality in organizational life.
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Thu March 7, 2013
Venezuela's Acting President Says Chávez's Body Will Be Permanently Displayed
Originally published on Thu March 7, 2013 4:57 pm
The mourning over the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez took a Lenin-eque turn today: Acting President Nicolas Maduro announced that his remains will be on permanent display at the Museum of the Revolution, "close to the presidential palace where Chavez ruled for 14 years," the AP reports.
The AP adds:
"Maduro says the president will lie in state first for at least another seven days.
"A state funeral for Chávez attended by some 33 heads of government is scheduled to begin Friday morning. Tens of thousands have already filed past his glass-topped casket at a military academy following a seven-hour procession on Tuesday which took his body from the hospital where he died."
We wrote a post about that procession on Tuesday.
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Front Page Titles (by Subject) CHAPTER 3: Who's To Blame? - Can Capitalism Survive?
The Online Library of Liberty
A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
Search this Title:
CHAPTER 3: Who’s To Blame? - Benjamin A. Rogge, Can Capitalism Survive?
Can Capitalism Survive? (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1979).
About Liberty Fund:
Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.
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Who’s To Blame?
In some 63.7 percent of all interviews in my office, the person across the desk is there to tell me who’s to blame. And in 99.6 percent of the cases where that is the question, the answer is the same: He isn’t.
Now if these were just simple cases of prevarication, we could all shake our heads at the loss of the old Yes-father-I-chopped-down-the-cherry-tree spirit and turn to some other problem, such as the danger presented to the stability of the earth by the buildup of snow on the polar icecaps. But the denial of responsibility is rarely that simple, and herein lies the story.
Today’s George Washington, on the campus and elsewhere, says, “Yes, I chopped down the cherry tree, but—” and then comes ten to ninety minutes of explanation, which is apparently supposed to end in my breaking into tears and forgiving all, after which he goes home to sharpen his little hatchet.
The little Georges of today say, “Yes, I chopped down the cherry tree, but let me give you the whole story. All the guys over at the house were telling me that it’s a tradition around here to cut down cherry trees. What’s that? Did any of them ever actually cut down any cherry trees? Well, I don’t know, but anyway there’s this tradition, see, and with all this lack of school spirit, I figured I was really doing the school a favor when I cut down that crummy old tree.” [Lights up, center stage, where our hero is receiving a medal from the president of the Student Council as the band plays the school song.]
Or it may run like this: “Now this professor, see, told us to collect some forest specimens; he may have told us what trees to cut, but, frankly, I just can’t understand half of what he says, and I honestly thought he said cherry tree. Now actually I wasn’t in class the day he gave the assignment and this friend of mine took it down and I can’t help it if he made a mistake can I? Anyway, if the callboy had awakened me on time, I’d have made the class and would have known he said to get leaves from a whortleberry bush.”
Society on Trial
So far we have run through the simpler cases. Now let’s move to more complex ones. In this one, little George says to his father, “Yes, Dad, I cut down the cherry tree, but I just couldn’t help it. You and mother are always away from home and when you are home all you do is tell me to get out of the house, to go practice throwing a dollar across the Rappahannock. I guess I cut down the tree to get you to pay a little attention to me, and you can’t blame me for that, can you?” [Lights up, center stage, revealing the kindly old judge admonishing the parents to show more love and affection to little George, who is seated right, quietly hacking away at the jury box.]
These can get messy. Here’s another. In this one, young George has hired himself a slick city lawyer who has read all the recent books on the sociology of crime. The lawyer pleads G.W.’s case as follows: “It is true that this young man cut down the tree, marked exhibit A and lying there on the first ten rows of the courtroom seats. Also, there can be no question but that he did it willfully and maliciously, nor can it be denied that he has leveled over half the cherry trees in northern Virginia in exactly the same way. But is this boy to blame? Can he be held responsible for his actions? No. The real crime is his society’s, and not his. He is the product of his environment, the victim of a social system which breeds crime in every form. Born in poverty, raised in the slums, abused by his parents,” and on and on. The lawyer closes by pointing a finger at me and saying dramatically, “You, Dean Rogge, as a member of the society which has produced this young monster, are as much to blame as he, as much deserving of punishment as he.” The boy gets off with a six-month suspended sentence and I am ridden out of town on a rail.
I do want to refer to just one other possibility. In this one, the lawyer calls as a witness an eminent psychoanalyst who, as a result of his examination of the young man, absolves him of all conscious responsibility for the crime, in testimony that is filled with the jargon of that semi-science—hence obscure, hence somewhat pornographic. It turns out that the cherry tree is a phallic symbol and the boy’s action an unconscious and perverse response to the universal castration complex.
Farfetched? Not at all. As Richard LaPiere writes in his book, The Freudian Ethic:
The Freudian explanation of crime absolves the individual from all personal responsibility for the criminal act and places the blame squarely upon the shoulders of an abstraction—society. Modern society is especially hard upon the individual, since it imposes upon him so many and often contradictory restraints and at the same time demands of him so much that does not come naturally to him. His criminal acts are therefore but a symptom of the underlying pathology of society, and it is as futile to punish him for the sins of society as to attempt to cure acne by medicating the symptomatic pustules.16
Responsibility Is Personal
Where does all this leave us? Who’s to blame? Well, nobody, or rather everybody. The Freudian ethic has eliminated sin (and, of course, that means that it has eliminated virtue as well).
Personally, I can’t buy it. I cannot accept a view of man which makes him a helpless pawn of either his id or his society. I do not deny that the mind of each of us is a dark and complex chamber, nor that the individual is bent by his environment, nor even the potentially baneful influence of parents. As a matter of fact, after a few months in the dean’s office, I was ready to recommend to the college that henceforth it admit only orphans. But as a stubborn act of faith I insist that precisely what makes man man is his potential ability to conquer both himself and his environment. If this capacity is indeed given to or possessed by each of us, then it follows that we are inevitably and terribly and forever responsible for everything that we do. The answer to the question, “Who’s to blame?” is always, “Mea Culpa, I am.”
This is a tough philosophy. The Christian can take hope in the thought that though his sins can never be excused, he may still come under the grace of God, sinner though he be. The non-Christian has to find some other source of strength, and believe me, this is not easy to do.
What does all this have to do with our day-to-day living, whether on or beyond the campus? Actually, it has everything to do with it. It means that as students we stop blaming our teachers, our classmates, our parents, our high schools, our society, and even the callboy for our own mistakes and shortcomings. It means that as teachers and college administrators we stop blaming our students, the board of trustees, the oppressive spirit of society (and even our wives) for our own failures.
As individuals it means that we stop making excuses to ourselves, that we carry each cherry tree we cut down on our consciences forever. It means that we say with Cassius, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves.” This is a tough philosophy, but it is also the only hopeful one man has yet devised.
[16. ]Richard La Piere, The Freudian Ethic (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1959) p. 166.
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Posted: Oct 12, 2010 9:00 PM by Greg Boyce, Stefanie Boe, Ariel Mata, Bea Karnes
Updated: Oct 13, 2010 7:16 PM
By tomorrow morning, all of the 33 miners who've been trapped for nearly 10 weeks in a Chilean mine are expected to be on the surface. The first dozen to be rescued were reunited with family members overnight and this morning. The rescue capsule hasn't been rotating as much as officials had expected, so the rescues are taking place at a faster pace -- about one every 40 minutes.
The miners have been trapped since August 5th.
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This week many Americans and those living in the United States will celebrate Thanksgiving. Although this is a national holiday and not a Jewish holiday, Thanksgiving is probably one of the most Jewish-like holidays. According to our tradition, we are obligated to give thanks a hundred times each day. Our moral ethics guide us to be thankful for every aspect of our being: For the food we are blessed with, for the fact we woke up to another bright day, for our health, for our families and for our well-being.
Israel is under attack this week, but with all that is going on and through my teary eyes I see the good and for that I’m thankful and proud! This is one of our great moments of solidarity. Witnessing Israelis from the serene north inviting Israelis from the scarred south to stay with them and offer them an opportunity to enjoy the clear sky and calm air is a moment of pride. Seeing musicians from across the country voluntarily perform at bomb shelters in order to cheer up the sad faces of Israel’s residents of the south is a moment of pride. Hearing that communities all over Israel offer to cook, take care of grocery shopping, carpool, babysit and help in any way possible, when men are drafted and women are left at home with their children and their worries is a moment of pride. Knowing that the IDF does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties when striking back against Hamas, which places their rocket launchers in and nearby civilian areas, is a moment of pride. Admiring the thousands of Israelis that use vacation days and risk their lives by helping the security forces and other organizations in the south is a moment of pride. Following Salma Fayuni, an Arab Israeli contestant on the popular Israeli version of the TV show ” Master Chef” and seeing her hug Elinor, an Orthodox right-wing settler and Maya, a left-wing vegan, demonstrates co-existence at its best and is a moment of pride. This is one of many realities of co-existence that I’m thankful for, although in these trying times some have portrayed Israel differently. Reading the endless numbers of heartwarming messages from dear friends around the world writing to express their concerns and prayers for Israel’s safety is a great moment that I’m grateful for!
These are our great moments of solidarity. I wouldn’t want to be in any other place but here in Israel this week and for these bright moments to penetrate through the darkness and uncertainty, for all of this I’m thankful!
Praying for quieter days and wishing you Happy Thanksgiving.
Leah Garber | Vice President, JCC Association Israel Office
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1910 - Occupational Safety and Health Standards
December 2, 1991
Mr. Richard F. Andree
Safety and Health Management Consultants, Inc.
161 William Street
New York, New York 10038
Dear Mr. Andree:
This is in response to your inquiry of May 14, concerning the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response final rule (29 CFR 1910.120). We hope the delay in our reply has not been an inconvenience.
Your specific question concerns the training of a hospital maintenance worker who is expected to respond to ethylene oxide gas leaks. The maintenance worker received training on the proper use of Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) and was provided 1910.120 instruction.
OSHA interprets the scope of 1910.120 to cover hospitals in at least three scenarios; 1) when hospitals have an internal release of a hazardous substance which requires an emergency response; 2) when hospitals respond as an integral unit of a community-wide emergency response to a release of hazardous substance; and 3) if a hospital is a RCRA permitted Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility.
1910.120(q) covers emergency response operations for releases of, or substantial threats of releases of, hazardous substances regardless of location, including hospitals. It is not possible to know, based on your letter, if the leaks you described need to be treated as an emergency response. However, due to the hazards that ethylene oxide presents, most leaks would probably require an emergency response. In any case, if the hospital maintenance worker is expected to handle all releases of ethylene oxide, then the level of training should be based on how to safely handle worse case scenarios. This would most likely require compliance with 1910.120(q).
Your description of the hospital's current procedure to handle ethylene oxide leaks may be adapted to comply with 1910.120 paragraph (q). A few changes may be necessary, such as training a second maintenance worker as back-up to perform assistance or a rescue, if this is not already part of the hospital's procedure.
The Ethylene Oxide Standard (29 CFR 1910.1047) must also be complied with, if the hospital is not already in compliance. 1910.1047 sets forth medical surveillance, handling procedures, and emergency response training based on ethylene oxide's specific hazards. The hospital does not need to train the maintenance worker in emergency response twice, as the training required by 1910.120(q) will meet, and go beyond, the requirements for "emergency situations" in 1910.1047(h). Other standards that are relevant to the hospital's response to ethylene oxide are the Hazard Communication (29 CFR 1910.1200), Respiratory Protection (29 CFR 1910.134), and General Requirements for Personal Protective Equipment (29 CFR 1910.132).
The hospital's maintenance worker may be certified as equivalently trained under 1910.120(q), as per the regulation's training level requirements, which states that emergency responders must be trained "...or have had sufficient experience to objectively demonstrate competency in the following areas..." The hospital must ensure that the employee accomplishes all training objectives. Additionally, employees who fall under 1910.120(q) must receive annual refresher training or demonstrate competencies on a yearly basis, regardless of their previous experience or education.
OSHA does not certify individuals, it is the employer who must show by documentation or certification that an employee's work experience and/or training meets the requirements of 1910.120. There must be a written document which clearly identifies the employee, the person certifying the employee, and the training and/or past experience which meets the requirements. One possibility would be to include this information in the employee's personnel file. The preferred method is to include this information on a separate certificate for each employee.
[Corrected 1/20/2005. On August 15, 2002 the proposed 1910.121 "Accreditation of Training Programs for Hazardous Waste Operations" proposed rule was withdrawn from the Unified Regulatory Agenda (see Federal Register 67:74749-74785 dated December 9, 2002).]
Gerard F. Scannell
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I grew up in a small town about 45 minutes northeast of Atchison, so my riding buddies and I used to make several trips there to party at The Warf, The Hilltop, and other long forgotten bars. Although we had some scary late night rides home, I had no idea Atchison was such a haunted town.
I knew it was an old town, dating back to the 1800's, and I knew it was the birthplace of Amelia Earhart, but until I saw “Haunted Atchison” featured on the Travel Channel, I had no idea it was also famous for its “spirited” past.
If you want to experience Haunted Atchison for yourself, I recommend firing up your bike and heading up State Highway 7 north on the Kansas side. You’ll ride past the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, which is scary enough on its own, before pulling into Atchison on the south end of town.
Once you get there, hop on the “Creepy-Crawly Trolley” for a 50-minute tour to see for yourself why Atchison is known as “the most haunted town in Kansas.” The tour will take you past dozens of Victorian homes, while your guide tells you about the unexplained mysteries inside. After the tour, you can even venture inside one of the homes for an added thrill. Transportation to the home is not provided, but you can get in for only $2 when you show your “Haunted Atchison” trolley ticket. Paid reservations are required, so call 1 (800) 234-1854 today before it’s too late! For more information, check out their web site.
Now that I’ve told you how to get there and what to do, I’ll tell you a bit more about Haunted Atchison!
Sallie, the Heartland Ghost:
The most famous spirit in Atchison is Sallie, the Heartland Ghost. Not only was she featured on the Travel Channel, but also appeared on the television show, Sightings, back in the mid -1990's.
The house that Sallie haunts is a turn-of-the-century home located near the Missouri River bluffs on the northeast side of town. The home was originally owned by a doctor who lived on the upper floor of the home, while his office, surgery and examinations rooms were located downstairs. According to local folklore, Sallie was a young girl around 6 years old, who was brought into the office one day with a serious illness. There are two different versions of the story, and in one story, Sallie had been up all night with a stomach ache, which became severe. The doctor realized she was suffering from appendicitis and prepared to operate. Sallie panicked when she saw the surgical tools and the doctor held her down while giving her ether. She fought with him and was apparently not all of the way under when he made his first incision. She screamed, but fearing that her appendix would burst, was afraid to stop. Unfortunately, she died on the operating table and her last memory was that of a man whom she thought was torturing her.
The other version of the story dates back to around 1905 in which Sallie was brought to the doctor with severe respiratory problems. When she was first examined, the doctor overlooked the seriousness of her condition and she died a short time later from pneumonia. The doctor reportedly moved away from the house a few months after her death and never returned.
Sallie's haunting became famous in 1993 when the house was rented to a young newlywed couple. A short time after moving in, they realized that things were not quite right. The family dog barked and growled at what seemed to be nothing; especially around the nursery on the upper floor; lights would dim and brighten on their own; appliances would turn off and on; pictures would be found hanging upside-down on the walls; and one night, the family returned from a night out to find all of the toys in the nursery arranged in a circle in the middle of the floor.
After that evening, the harmless pranks took a violent turn as several fires broke out in the house and a series of unwarranted attacks began against the husband. The first attack occurred when he walked into the room that was once used as the doctor's surgery. He suddenly experienced a feeling of terrible cold and several long, bloody scratches appeared on his arm.
The attacks continued and left him with welts and scratches on his arms, back, chest and stomach. The scratches were often severe and would bleed profusely. Before the attack, he would report a severe drop in temperature, followed by the pain of Sallie's phantom nails or whatever was causing the injuries. Sallie never harmed the wife or the baby, and some have suggested she was punishing the young man for the wrong she felt had been done to her by the doctor.
It was later reported that the husband saw Sallie's ghost on two different occasions. Photographs taken by the couple would show streaks and other odd shapes that could not be explained. There were also photos of the marks on the young man's body, and even a video tape of them actually appearing on his skin! During a day of filming by the crew, the husband noticed a drop in temperature and suddenly the cameras filmed long, red claw marks streaking down his back.
The family lived in the house for about a year and could take it no more. They moved out, but the man still reported welts and scratches appearing on his body in their new home. Eventually, the attacks became less and less severe and then stopped altogether. Another family moved into the house and so far, Sallie has not made an appearance.
Next I’ll tell you about the Gargoyle Home. Gargoyles are traditionally constructed to stand guard over a home, keeping mischievous spirits at bay, but upon further investigation, I found out Gargoyles have been known to actually attract unwanted spirits.
When B. P. Waggener, a politician and lawyer, erected his gargoyles, rumor has it that he had something more ominous in mind. Being a wealthy man, many speculate his wealth was accumulated after a pact with Satan himself, and that the pair of grotesque figures holding court atop his lodging was arranged there in testament to the deal. An ill-fated homeowner once attempted to remove the granite Gargoyles and was pitched to his doom on the staircase. Evil forces or simply an accident? You be the judge.
Nellie Trueblood’s Home:
It's well known that apparitions are more active during remodeling of their prior homes and Nellie Trueblood, a school teacher who passed away, companionless and bereft, in her home on North 3rd street, is no exception. Nellie seems to have a knack for preventing her home from being remodeled by appearing to workers as a gleaming ball of light before hovering away. Needless to say, restoration attempts have gone on for some time, as work crews don’t seem to hang around very long.
The Munich House has its own resident spirit. The original owners of this beautiful home hosted many lavish parties over its historical past. These celebrations were so sumptuous they would often hire temporary staff from other homes to please their guests. One morning after a party, a maid fell to her death on the back stairs. Exhausted from her laborious work during the preceding night’s festivities, her presence can still be felt around the house on Sunday mornings. The lights are known to flicker on and off in her bed chamber and in the stairwell just before the aroma of bacon can be smelled from the kitchen.
Spirits have also been know to walk the streets of Atchison. On Atchison Street you might encounter the apparition of a young female who is said to frequent the gloomy waters below the banks of the Missouri River. It is said that she attempts to lure transient men to join her in her fate. Rumor has it the young woman was killed in a buggy accident when her horses were startled and detached from her surrey. She allegedly plunged into the freezing river and drowned.
Whether you ride to Atchison to visit Sallie, Nelli, or any of the other haunted places, I’m sure you’ll have a ghoulishly good time!
Story by Mike Schweder
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Ball Park tips for the Windows version via the 1972 World Series
I’ve been playing the 1972 World Series recently and to jog your memory it is regarded as one of the tightest World Series of All-Time with six of the seven games being decided by one run.
You can read more about 1972 World Series in the Sports Illustrated Mustaches All the Way story by William Leggett.
To get started with the Windows version though you may need to update your ball park file at the DYNASTY Download if you have not already. To check if you already have the updated ball park file go to pre-game setup and click on the ball park button shown below:
Next, you’ll be able to view all of the ball park effects by selecting the radio button on the left for All Seasons shown below:
Scroll down to Oakland and you should see a year range from 1970 to 1995. If you don’t see that year range for Oakland Alameda you will want to update your ball park chart.dyn file at the DYNASTY Download.
You should always select the correct year of the game you are playing in pre-game setup because the game uses that to determine which ball park effects and ball park image to use in the game you are playing.
If you encounter a ball park image for the wrong home team it may be that the year for that ball park is not available yet as part of the ball park effects. This may happen with some of the past season sets for certain parks. The remedy is to select the next closest year in pre-game setup that is available by looking at the year ranges of that park.
After you have completed pre-game setup and clicked Play Ball you should see the ball park image display. If not, you need to complete step 3 found in your v2.2 install insert.
And finally a BIG CAUTION about never using the Groundskeeper menu option to view Stadium pictures. It’s like kryptonite to the game so just stay away from that feature. It was only included as a way to test the ball park images and should have been taken out in the final version of the game. It will corrupt your game and you will get VACANT results in the lineup and all kinds of other funky errors. Stay away from that menu option and you’ll be fine. If you have used that menu option and the game is coming up with strange errors like the VACANT error and skipping players in the lineup chances are you will need to delete and reinstall the game.
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Greek companies need to make better use of the latest procurement and supply chain techniques as they seek to mitigate the impact of the country’s economic crisis, according to new research from procurement and supply chain consultancy company State of Flux.
According to the report, which surveyed over 130 firms in 20 industry sectors, practices aimed at cutting costs and reducing risk need to be stepped up during the next 12 months.
“Greek procurement professionals need to strengthen their voices and position procurement and supply chain at the heart of their organizations,” said Alexandros Tsagkas, Head of State of Flux, Greece. “Despite the current economic environment, we should not lose faith in the positive impact that efficient management practices have on the competitiveness of our companies.”
Approximately nine out of 10 respondents said cost savings were the number one priority for their procurement functions this year. But 44 percent had no central organization responsible for managing third-party spend on goods and services; and half had not used e-sourcing tools to help drive down costs.
Risk management is also less developed than in other European countries, with eight out of 10 firms having identified risks in their supply chains—with the risk of supplier failure topping the list. But just 28 percent of procurement and supply chain functions had mitigation objectives in place and fewer still (23 percent) had a documented policy for managing risks.
A third of companies said they struggle to measure the value contributed by procurement, while one-fifth do not measure it at all. Almost 40 percent admitted that low or declining resources were a challenge in improving the performance of their procurement and supply chain functions.
Despite these difficulties, many respondents reported that the profile of procurement and supply chain professionals had risen during the economic crisis, and that Greek companies were paying more attention to the various levers at their disposal.
The majority appear to have in place transactional processes for sourcing, procure-to-pay and spend analysis, but they are lagging in more strategic areas such as category management, contracts management and supplier management. It was clear, however, during a series of practitioner workshops held as part of the research project that Greek procurement professionals are committed to raising their contribution to help overcome the economic crisis.
In addition, two-thirds of respondents said that implementing robust buying and management practices was a priority for their organizations. The main areas targeted for improvement were boosting the capabilities of the procurement team (56 percent); designing and implementing a procurement strategy (42 percent); and adopting enabling technology (41 percent).
“We have seen in the past that procurement and supply chain gets more ‘air time’ during period of economic and credit pressures when organizations look to take out costs and reduce their risks,” said Alan Day, Chairman of State of Flux, London. “These research results and the subsequent workshops highlighted some great opportunities in areas such as contracts management, supplier management and risk management that Greek organizations ought to look into to help overcome their economic challenges.”
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Exelon Corporation (Exelon) is an energy provider and holding company for several energy businesses. Exelon is engaged in the energy generation business through its Exelon Generation Company, LLC (Generation) subsidiary; wholesale and retail energy sales through its Constellation business unit, and the energy delivery business through its Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) and PECO Energy Company (PECO) subsidiaries. It operates in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. Exelon Generation has approximately 35,000 megawatts of owned capacity. Constellation provides energy products and services to approximately 100,000 business and public sector customers and approximately 1 million residential customers. Exelon's utilities deliver electricity and natural gas to more than 6.6 million customers in central Maryland, northern Illinois and southeastern Pennsylvania. On March 12, 2012, Constellation Energy Group, Inc. merged into Exelon.
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As you go out into the healthcare world…listen to Berwick, Gawande and Topol
"You've boarded a boat, and you don't know where it's going," Dr. Donald Berwick told Harvard Medical School graduates in a speech published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, but, he added, you still made "a spectacularly good" career choice.
Berwick acknowledged the graduates' worries and noted that he's also worried. But he took a break from being inspirational to get in a dig at antagonists he encountered during his tenure as CMS administrator.
"I heard irresponsible, cruel, baseless rhetoric about death panels silence mature, compassionate, scientific inquiry into the care we all need and want in the last stages of our lives," Berwick said. "I heard meaningless, cynical accusations about rationing repeated over and over again by the same people who then unsheathed their knives to cut Medicaid."
After getting that off his chest, Berwick told how his career was affected by a 15-year-old called Isaiah, whom he met in 1984. Berwick confessed that he misdiagnosed Isaiah's discomfort as a back sprain, but later learned Isaiah had leukemia. They kept in touch through the years and, though he was cured of leukemia, Isaiah died about 24 years later from "uncontrolled diabetes and uncontrolled despair," Berwick said.
Other notable docs also gave commencement speeches.
Dr. Atul Gawande, in his address, published in the New Yorker, at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., told of an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor who still worked part-time and did volunteer activities when she wasn't working.
"Mrs. C." came in to clear a blockage in the carotid artery in her neck, Gawande recalled, and the surgery went "remarkably well," but was followed by a complication that had her stomach winding "on itself like a balloon twisted too tight." A resident detected the problem, ordered an expedited scan, and Mrs. C was in surgery within two hours.
The lesson, Gawande said, is not to be paralyzed when things go wrong, but to be prepared for those times and act.
Dr. Eric Topol, who led the Modern Healthcare/Modern list of the 50 Most Influential Physician Executives in 2012, spoke at the Baylor College of Medicine commencement ceremony in Houston.
Topol talked about three patients, including a 5-year-old boy and 62-year-old man who now lead healthy lives because of modern technology and genetics.
The third patient was himself, and Topol's ordeal included a post-Christmas kidney-stone removal followed by placement of a stent between his left kidney and bladder. The stent caused severe pain, but Topol said his doctor didn't respond to six days of calls to his office and cell phone, or to texts and e-mails.
"Even though we have this exciting time in medicine—radical innovation—we need doctors with compassion, with empathy, bedside manner who are great communicators, who have healing touch," Topol said. "And those qualities will be all the more important in the digital medical era when we need to avoid treating the scan, the DNA, the lab test, and the biosensor data—to treat the patient."
Follow Andis Robeznieks on Twitter: @MHARobeznieks.
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CANNON TOWNSHIP -- Preliminary tests show E. coli bacteria counts far above levels considered safe for swimming in Lake Bella Vista, two days after a 140,000-gallon sewage leak.
The tests showed levels of 2,000 parts per 100 milliliters, more than 15 times the acceptable level of 130, said health department spokeswoman Bridie Kent.
The Lake Bella Vista association Board of Directors had posted warnings against swimming or fishing in the lake after the leak Sunday from a broken sewer pipe. The pipe carries sewage from northern Kent County to the Grand Rapids Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Kent County officials said the pipe leaked for about two hours, emptying into the lake through a storm drain.
The Health Department urged owners against having contact with the water until the E. coli count drops to a safe level. More tests were planned today, Kent said.
"Sometimes nature takes its course and it becomes more dilute," Kent said.
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Filmmaker Charlie Minn didn’t originally plan to make a film about the surging violence in Ciudad Juárez, where the death toll related to drug violence has surpassed 10,000 since 2007. But after an initial 2009 stop on the border for another project, he says, he was “shocked” by what was going on across the border from El Paso.
More than two years after his initial stop there, he’s touring the country to promote 8 Murders a Day, an 85-minute documentary that debuted Friday in Austin at the Regal Metropolitan. He spoke with the Tribune before a screening of his movie last week about his motivation for doing the film, his thoughts on Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s drug war, why he thinks Mexican reporters are some of the bravest in the world and the criticism he has received for the project.
Watch the film's trailer below.
TT: What prompted you to do this movie? Was it just being in El Paso, seeing it in the news every day?
Minn: Yeah, I was in Las Cruces, N.M., doing A Nightmare in Las Cruces, which is about an unsolved bowling alley murder from 1990. But like a lot of people, you don’t how bad it is [in Juárez]. So when you’re there, you read the El Paso Times, Las Cruces Sun-News, it’s like “holy cow!” Even to this day, two years later, I am still shocked by the body count. We’re talking about a shocking wave of violence that’s happening in a city of 1.2 million people. We have about six to eight dead people a day. None of these murders are being looked at, just the highest level of corruption, you name it — it doesn’t matter, from the mayor possibly, to the police, the federal or municipal police. Someone is doing something dirty. So that’s what we have right now is that the situation in Juárez, and in a lot of parts of Mexico, you just run around and do whatever you want, it’s a free-for-all. You can murder someone, and you can get away with it.
TT: There is a lot of writer Charles Bowden, researcher Molly Molloy and professor Tony Payan in the film. They have been very critical of Calderón and of his initiatives. They call him a treasonist, they say this is genocide against his own people. Do you agree? Do you take that same attitude that they take?
Minn: It’s so hard to pinpoint because what of what we have right now. I would say 75 percent of the information coming out of Mexico is nebulous at best. You wonder how much of it is manipulated by organized crime. So many times you get numbers contradicting each other. The situation with Calderón is very interesting. I’ve heard everything possible about this man: He’s putting on this fake war, this whole fake presidency to stay alive possibly. I’d like to think he’s doing the right thing. The Mexican people are sick and tired of his policies. That’s obviously very understandable. To his defense, a lot of the people are applauding his courage to take on the cartels. It wasn’t the fact that he did what he did, it was how he went about it. The Juárez situation symbolizes that. You have the federal police and the municipal police and the army not on the same page. If anything they’re shooting at each other, or joining the cartels.
TT: Why not interview any government officials that say, “This is the only logical step. We are being criticized, but this is what we had to do?”
Minn: One regret I have is that there should have been more from the Juárez side. That is a very fair point that I will take the hit for as a director. The problem with that was I had a crew that was, literally, too scared to go in there, people dropping out at the last minute. This was a mini miracle that it came together, and it was a miracle that it was 85 minutes.
TT: Do you advocate for U.S. intervention in Mexico, military intervention in Mexico?
Minn: I would say that should be one of a few options because it’s become so bad. We are watching a country bleed before our eyes, and we’re doing nothing about it.
TT: The numbers may be shrinking, but still a majority of Mexicans don’t want that. They respect their sovereignty, and they are very proud of their sovereignty.
Minn: That’s true. But there’s a big debate on what should happen to Mexico. Should Mexico have a countrywide revolt like Egypt? Should the U.S. send troops over there? Should the U.S. legalize drugs? That’s one of the biggest [questions], and that debate has been going on since the 1960s and it’s not going to happen. If you legalize drugs, then it gets more complex: Are you talking about all drugs, certain drugs, where do you draw the line with this? There’s too much red tape, and there’s too much politics behind it.
TT: After doing the film, do you consider yourself a filmmaker, a journalist that tells both sides of the story, or an advocate that favors one side over the other?
Minn: Good question. A little bit of all of that. I consider myself a documentarian. I look for social injustices, crimes that are unsolved. In this situation, you have at least 95 percent of the murders, not just in Juárez but in the country, that are going uninvestigated.
TT: Did you ever feel like an outsider? You’ve been criticized for putting too much of yourself in the movie, or coming off like an expert even though you’re not originally from the border. How do you respond to that?
Minn: I don’t see what’s wrong with me putting myself in the movie. I really don’t. Michael Moore does it, Oliver Stone does it, and Spike Lee does it. I am not doing anything that hasn’t been done before. I don’t see those guys getting criticized for it. Granted, I am not in their league yet. It would be one thing if I were doing it gratuitously. If I thought it was adding to the story, then I’ll put it in there. But I am a little surprised at the backlash. I don’t know what the big deal is.
TT: Did you feel any guilt for Univision cameramen or other Mexican journalists that have to live there when you could leave whenever you wanted?
Minn: I don’t think people realize how heroic these journalists are. We are talking about men and women who don’t make a lot money, and they are putting their lives on the line everyday to inform the citizens about what the heck is going on. There’s a lot of confusion in this so-called drug war and because nothing is investigated. You’re left with three questions: Who is being killed? By who? And why?
TT: In your follow-up, Murder Capital of the World, why are you still focused on Juárez? Why not branch out to Monterrey, Tamaulipas, Guerrero or Veracruz?
Minn: I developed quite a comfort zone in the El Paso-Juárez area. I know them, they know me. Juárez is a symbol of the violence, still. I am obsessed with Juárez, and I am fascinated by it, and I still can’t believe what’s going on. It almost plays like a movie script — especially in El Paso, because El Paso is so safe.
Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
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When 4-year-old Annabelle MacMillan's grandmother invites her to peek inside the big box she has lugged out of her niece's green truck, the little girl lifts the top for a nanosecond, then drops it and hides her eyes. Annie's twin, Chloe, has a quick look, too, before taking cover behind her grandmother's thigh. Soon, the other children Chase and Jack Lindeman, 5, and Samantha and Mitchell Lyons, 6 approach, clutching their moms' fingers, and cautiously peep in. Finally, Matthew Lyons, 10, marches across the lawn, sticks a hand in the box, and shrieks, "Ow!"
Grammy Sharon, her deep Maine roots showing, reaches inside, grabs several lobsters, and lets them loose on the flagstone walk. Within two minutes, all trepidation evaporates as the seven kids try to turn the crustaceans into pets. The three dads laugh, the three moms cluck to "keep your fingers away from the claws," and the lobsters seem to look longingly at the big box.
Genetically, these seven kids with chocolate-brown or hazel eyes and light- to-dark-brown hair are as close as children can be full-blooded siblings. Legally, they are not related at all. The emotional connections lie somewhere in between.
This pan-family picnic, held last August in Thomaston, ME, really started six years before, in 2002, with a form letter from Glenda and Scott Lyons's fertility clinic. The Eau Claire, WI, couple had conceived their first child, Matthew, the old-fashioned way. But when a sibling didn't follow within two years, they consulted doctors, who gave the couple painful news: Because of a perfect storm of reproductive problems between them, Matthew was "a miracle." The only chance they had at ever conceiving again was in vitro fertilization (IVF).
They started immediately. In her very first IVF cycle, Glenda, then 32, produced nearly two dozen eggs. After doctors introduced Scott's sperm, 18 embryos formed. Three days later, two of the embryos were successfully transferred into Glenda's womb (two others were lost during the process).
The form letter arrived in January, three months before Glenda gave birth to Mitchell and Samantha on April 14: The fertility clinic wanted to know what the Lyonses wanted to do with their 14 remaining embryos. They offered three options: donate the embryos to research, donate them to an anonymous pool to be matched with infertile couples, or pay a few hundred dollars to leave them frozen.
Glenda, an accountant with corkscrew curls that evoke a grown-up Little Orphan Annie, read Scott the clinic's letter while they were driving to look at a Trans Am the couple was thinking of buying. (A heavy-equipment operator, Scott, 41, restores and races vintage cars.)
Keeping their embryos frozen indefinitely did not seem a viable option to Glenda. And they were not the kind of people who'd throw money away on things they weren't going to use. She didn't have a moral objection to donating to science. However, she and Scott had not made the embryos for research.
"We made them to be kids," Scott reminded Glenda.
While the couple agreed they could not personally raise a village, they were hesitant about donating their would-be children to complete strangers.
"I just can't do the anonymous option," Glenda told Scott. "Everywhere we'd look it'd be like, 'Oh, that could be one of ours. Maybe that's one.' I can't live with not knowing." Neither could big-shouldered, gentle-eyed Scott. He told Glenda, "Three children is plenty [for us]. They're going to have to be somebody else's kids. You just go find somebody."
While many couples in their position would find reaching such a decision a torture, that was not the case for her and Scott, says Glenda. "We'd been through the pain of infertility. So we know how hard it is to get an egg and sperm, and then to get them both in the same place doing what they're supposed to do." And looking around the waiting room at her fertility clinic, Glenda could see "so many empty arms out there."
Next: Glenda finds her match
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Hello! When you say the drabble must be in British English, do you mean spellings as well? Or just... not offensive to British ears? (i.e. trunk/boot, elevator/lift)
I'd really like to see you practice your British spelling! It is mainly the 'z's in words like "realised" and the 'u's in words like "Colour"
I realise that is is mean to concentrate on this every week, but seen as this is a pretty open prompt I'd really like to see you all making a conscious effort to stick to British
That tooOr just... not offensive to British ears? (i.e. trunk/boot, elevator/lift)
Thanks for the question, Lori. I'll go and make it a bit clearer in the thread
~Madam Russia xxxxx
I'm dreaming the hardest.
Thank you Nadia/majestic_ginny! <3
Being FEARLESS isn't about not having fears, it's about living in spite of them.
*sits in a bar in Portugal*
*considers the question whilst sipping Butterbeer (cough) Butterlager*
Yes, Lori. JK Rowling has stated in an interview that Hermione found her parents and restored their memories, so that's canon enough for me.
You can send it to me. Sorry, I didn't know Russia was away, but I'm back now.
That goes for anyone else. Send me drabbles now, and hurry hurry hurry, this comp closes in um two days time ...
I'm glad you girls are leaving the "roads" comp up until Sept 1. My question is: is that the normal 10pm gmt deadline on the 1st, or midnight tonight?
*may turn into a pumpkin*
Also, I just happened to notice that the instructions said "setting off on a journey" ... does this mean it has to take place at the beginning of the journey, or can it be at any point? If the answer is the beginning only, no need to address my first question, as mine will not qualify.
It can be any part of the journey as long as it's not after the journey has ended. Hope that makes sense.
Regarding the time, as the boards are snafu'd at the moment with the timing, we'll leave the comp open for the rest of today and I'll close at 10pm GMT.
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DALLAS (AP) -- In an area that gets a mere 3 inches of snow a year, Dallas snowplow drivers live in fear of major winter storms like the one that crippled their city almost two years ago, the week before it was to host the Super Bowl.
The drivers aren't the only worried ones. So highway officials in at least nine states are using a sophisticated simulator to give plow drivers a chance to practice snow removal in any weather. It works like a video game, recreating slick pavement, poor visibility and even children or animals bolting across the road. In a virtual collision, drivers hear crashing noises and see a cracked windshield.
Because Dallas road crews don't drive plows very often, "we have to practice a lot more," said Eric Hemphill, maintenance director for the North Texas Toll Authority, which manages 850 miles of roads in and around Dallas and Fort Worth. "We don't have that luxury -- or that pressure."
It's almost an annual tradition for a few inches of snow to shut down warm-weather cities as winter-hardened Northerners laugh. Dallas and other major population centers are trying to shed that reputation, but since snow comes so rarely, they can't justify elaborate, expensive preparations in an era of tight budgets.
The last massive snowstorm in North Texas remains a black eye for local government. When more than 5 inches of snow fell back in 2011, many highways went unplowed, and thousands of football fans got stranded before the big game. The toll authority was forced to use construction road graders to clear impassable roads.
"The Super Bowl that everybody talks about really opened our eyes," Hemphill said. "We had to put another tool in our toolbox."
The toll authority spent about $84,000 on nine snowplow blades that attach to the front of regular dump trucks. Then it hired a subsidiary of New York-based L-3 Communications to help with training by putting on its snowplow simulation.
The simulator has three video screens, a steering wheel and a switch for the plow blade. Earlier this month, a handful of toll road drivers tried it out, tracing the curves of a virtual road designed to make them slip. Imaginary deer ran out and almost without exception got hit by drivers who weren't able to avoid them. Each time, the word "COLLISION" popped up in red letters.
On a recent sunny morning with temperatures in the 50s, Santiago Peralta got into the driver's seat of one of the simulators. He turned the ignition and pressed down on the gas, following a truck down a snowy road. As he pushed the accelerator, the arrow of his on-screen speedometer moved farther to the right.
Then, without warning, a child dashed onto the roadway. Peralta wasn't able to swerve in time. Later, he laughed, saying he had driven in snow before and knew not to use the gas nearly that much.
"It's a little bit different than the real deal," he said.
The Texas Department of Public Safety also uses the simulator in its local district offices, as do some agencies in states with generally mild winters such as Virginia and Kentucky. It's also used in Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, Maine, Utah and Oregon, L-3 Senior Training Manager George Perez said.
"The districts swear by it and say it makes a lot of difference, especially since most of our workers face snow and ice conditions infrequently," Texas DPS spokeswoman Veronica Beyer said.
Across the South, cities also use a variety of other methods to train snow-removal crews. Some hold snowplow "rodeos" that include obstacle courses and a series of questions on maintenance and proper use. Others visit departments in the North to learn from snow veterans.
Dallas' street services department recently had workers drive routes in dry weather to learn them before the next storm. The city also doubled its stock of sand and snow after it ran out during the Super Bowl.
But with 11,000 miles of pavement to clear and just 70 dump trucks for sand, Dallas will typically focus on major streets and leave residential areas alone, he said.
"Historically, we've done OK with the resources we've got on hand," Street Services Director Gilbert Aguilar said.
Mark DeVries, maintenance superintendent in McHenry County in suburban Chicago, trains departments across the country. He met with officials from Texas after the Super Bowl storm.
While he doesn't see many cities in the Sun Belt or South buying snowplows, DeVries said he tries to push them to stock up on sand and salt and to prepare for a snowstorm before it hits.
"Quite honestly, they don't want to make news for those reasons," he said. "When it happens, a 2-inch snow in Atlanta is a big deal."
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'Constitution Day' Guest Lecturer Atty. Sandy Staub to Discuss Death Penalty
Sacred Heart University’s Department of Government and Politics, in conjunction with the University’s Common Core Curriculum and the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, will host the annual Constitution Day event on Friday, September 17 from 2-3pm in the University Commons on campus at 5151 Park Avenue in Fairfield, CT. This year’s theme is “Debating the Death Penalty.” With the Cheshire, CT, home invasion case gaining national public attention, the topic is especially timely. The lecture is free and open to the public.
|Atty. Sandra Staub|
Presenting this year’s lecture will be Attorney Sandy Staub, legal director of the Connecticut American Civil Liberties Union. A graduate of Yale Law School, Attorney Staub has over twenty years of trial experience. She is the former chief of the Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit for the Northwestern District Attorney’s office in Massachusetts. She has also committed much of her time and career towards the establishment of stable and safe homes for women and children who are victims of domestic violence. Her lecture on the death penalty is intended to facilitate debate and discussion concerning the continued use of capital punishment in the United States.
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- Nothing says "Wish you were here" quite as well as the good old postcard.
Is the electronic age throwing sand in the face of the traditional postcard? Tell CNN Business Traveller what you think in the Sound Off box below.
Once a quintessential element in the travel experience, crafting a 10-line missive for the folks back home (saucy for the colleagues at work, respectful to the relatives) was as much a part of your two-week break as sunburn and sandals.
However, thanks to the online revolution many of us are choosing to document our travels via the Internet.
The growth of travel blogs and social networking sites like Facebook has led to a profusion of blogs packed with photos, video clips and every conceivable detail of our travels.
The host Web site TravelBlog, for example, has over 80,000 members with 100 more joining each day. Meanwhile, the independent travel company STA Travel's travel blog has expanded to 60,000 blog entries in just three years.
Celia Pronto, STA Travel's marketing director, says the appeal of blogs among travelers is due not only to their convenience but also because they allow the readers to join in the conversation.
"You can create this social environment with a blog that wasn't possible before," Pronto says. "Friends and family can not only read diary entries but they can respond, and so become part of the story.
"It also allows travelers to reach a much wider audience than the simple postcard. It's a nice way to keep in touch."
So where does this online explosion leave the humble postcard? Well, the situation is not as dire as you might think. According to the Royal Mail, which runs Britain's postal service, many of us still retain a fond attachment to tradition, with postcards more popular today than they were five years ago.
The service says it is processing around 135 million postcards every year, an increase of 30 million over just three years.
This is good news for postcard aficionado Drene Brennan. The 80-year-old is the founder member of the Postcard Club of Great Britain, amassing a collection of 95,000 over 50 years before she sold most of it off a few years ago.
She says the wonders of e-technology are no replacement for the simple pleasure of waking up to find a postcard on your doormat.
"I started collecting in 1957 and I've been hooked ever since," she says. "Postcards are personal, they show you've been thinking about someone. You have to pick the right one, and then sit down and consider that person, what message you want to write to them."
Her views are shared by many CNN Business Traveller readers who wrote in in praise of the medium via our Sound Off box.
"The pictures are great, and it's a nice souvenir, plus you have something fun in the mail when you get home, besides all the bills that accumulated while you were away," commented Velvet in a post.
Silvia added: "E-mail is great but is effortless. When I get a postcard from a friend it makes me feel so special. They made the extra effort to pick out one just for me, physically write on it and send it off."
It's certainly true that postcards retain that personal touch missing from many blogs and group emails, which can sometimes feel like an exercise in self-indulgence with their reams of text and scores of pictures detailing the minutiae of Jeff's diving holiday in Ecuador.
With the passing of time postcards have also become a part of our history, windows on a bygone world. Patented in the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century, the first postcard was created for the world fair in Chicago in 1893.
In Britain, it enjoyed its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s with the growth of seaside holiday resorts. "Saucy" postcards containing cartoon-style images with bawdy messages on them were hugely popular until Donald McGill, who designed many of the most famous ones, was charged with obscenity leading to many retailers cancelling orders.
In spite of the Royal Mail figures Drene Brennan, whose own area of interest is Walt Disney postcards, fears the penned postcard may become consigned to the history books in the not too distant future.
A CNN straw pole of tourists in central London seemed to confirm these suspicions, with most of those questioned preferring electronic media to keep in touch with loved-ones.
And even for those who admitted to buying the occasional postcard, the effort of actually sending them was sometimes a bridge too far. Richard, a shopper on London's Oxford Street said: "I bought two postcards in Sweden last week but I didn't actually send them. It's just the effort. I have to sit down, find a pen and post them and everything.
"In the end I came back and gave them as gifts."
Send us your comments:
Do you still enjoy sending and receiving postcards or do you feel they are out of date and inconvenient in today's electronic age? When did you last send a postcard and who to? Leave a comment below to let us know what you think.
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You know you’re getting old and becoming a poor insurance risk when you get a nice letter from your insurance company thanking you for your business, and letting you know, “Your current premium is guaranteed to remain the same for the first 10 years of your policy—through 6/17/2011.” However, “…if you choose to renew your policy in year 11 the premium will increase to $56,655!”You would think one of the actuarial accountants had suddenly burst into the accounting office waving a sheaf of papers with my name at the top and yelling to everyone within earshot that we’ve got to get rid of this client ASAP. I can imagine him saying, “So far, we’ve dodged the bullet with this policy holder, but it’s only a matter of time, maybe just weeks, before he kicks the bucket or kills himself in that stupid plane. We should never have offered him a policy.”
I would love to look at the specific spreadsheet used to develop my actuarial table. Does it note that my father died at age 43 of a massive heart attack? Does it mention that my mother died young as well from lung cancer? What about me? What does it say? “Client is mentally unstable, and easily driven to temper tantrums. He continues to lie on his renewal applications by indicating ‘brown hair’ when every photo we have shows him with a solid head of gray.”
Exactly how did they come up with precisely $56,655, I keep wondering? Why not round it to $57,000? Does it go to $95,000 at age 68? What about age 70? What would the premium be at that age? Of course, the worst date to spot on the table would be when the premium for my $1 million dollar policy reaches $1 million. That would be the date and time when their computers forecast I will die. Come to think of it, maybe I don’t want to see that printout.
Spreadsheets and Pricing
Talking about printouts, I am in the very early stages of analyzing the data submitted for the 2011-2012 Quick Printing Industry Study. Unfortunately, I am writing this April column in late February in order to meet publication deadlines. The deadline for the study has long passed, but as I write this column we still have a bit more than three weeks to go before reaching the March 7 deadline.
I must admit that I love working on the biennial pricing study. The spreadsheet I am currently working on contains more than 300 columns, most of which represent the answers for specific questions, while the remaining columns have been inserted in order to perform some secondary calculation like sales per employee, sales per DTP employee, sales per press operator, plus other columns used to measure increases or decreases in pricing for various products.
Half the fun of working on these types of studies is the challenge they present in being able to take a myriad of data that includes many outliers and inadvertent errors and converting that information into an accurate and useful document on industry pricing. It ain’t easy, but it is fun.
I used a common sense formula this time to help me spot surveys in which participants completed only small portions of the survey in order to qualify for a free copy of the study. Using the “CountA” function, I totaled the number of cells in each row that contained either text or numbers and compared that against the number of cells left blank. If a company failed to provide answers for 40% or more of the questions we asked, they didn’t qualify for a free study.
Another function I use is “conditional formatting.” This function allows me to apply a specific background color to a cell or highlight the entry itself, based upon one or more conditions I establish. As an example, I used this formatting tool to highlight any price within a column that was less than or greater than a percent of the calculated median for that question. By highlighting those questionable cells, I can then examine the entries more closely and determine whether that entry needs to be deleted.
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What Can and Cannot be Included in Prenuptial Agreements
What CAN be included in prenuptial agreements
Distinguish between separate and marital property
Each state has its own separate laws that govern what types of property constitute separate property and what types constitute marital property (often called "community property"). Upon separation by death or divorce, the court will separate all of the marital property evenly. In order to avoid a court deciding what happens to your property attained during your marriage, you can use a prenuptial agreement.
Protect one spouse from the other's debts
Without a prenup, creditors can go after the marital property even though only one spouse is the debtor. To avoid this, limit your debt liability in a prenuptial agreement.
Provide for children from previous relationships
If you have children from a previous relationship and you want to ensure that they inherit some of your property, you can use a prenup.
Keep family property in the family
If you have a family heirloom, family business, even a future inheritance, or other piece of property that you want to keep in your birth family, you can specify this in your prenup.
Protect your estate plan
Prenuptial agreements are only a part of ensuring that your estate plan is carried out how you see fit. Remember, that you must also create and secure other documents such as wills and living trusts.
Define property distribution upon divorce
Remember that your state has laws that govern who gets what in a divorce. With a prenup you can bypass a lot of these laws by agreeing yourselves on who will get what. While some states prohibit it, other states even allow you to decide whether you will be entitled to alimony or not. Check your state's law or with a family law attorney to clarify this issue when drafting the prenuptial agreement.
Detail what responsibilities you have during the marriage
There are numerous reasons for a prenuptial agreement. Below is a list of items commonly included in prenuptial agreements:
- Separate business
- Retirement benefits
- Income, deductions, and claims for filing your tax returns
- Management of household bills and expenses
- Management of joint bank accounts, if any
- Arrangement regarding investing in certain purchases or projects, like a house or business
- Management of credit card spending and payments
- Savings contributions
- Property distribution to the survivor, including life insurance, in the event of death
- Arranging putting one or the other through school
- Settlement of potential disagreements, such as using mediation or arbitration
What can NOT be included in prenuptial agreements
State laws restrict what can and cannot be included in prenuptial agreements. Below is a list of things most states will not allow in prenuptial agreements:
Provisions detailing anything illegal
Every state prohibits you from including anything illegal in your prenuptial agreement. In fact, doing so can put the whole prenuptial document or parts of it at risk of being set aside.
Decisions regarding child support or child custody
A prenup cannot include child support or child custody issues. The court has the final say in calculating child support. The court determines child support based on a "best interest of the child" standard, with several factors at play. A court would never uphold a provision of a prenuptial agreement that dealt with child support, child custody, or visitation, because these are issues of public policy. The court retains the power to decide what is in the child's best interest and will not deny a child the right to financial support or the opportunity to have a relationship with a fit parent.
Waive your right to alimony
This is the most commonly struck down provision by courts. A few states strictly prohibit this. Other states look down on it and limit your ability to give up your alimony rights. Some states do allow alimony waivers. Be sure to check with your own state's laws.
Judges scrutinize prenuptial agreements in detail to look for anything that tends to offer a financial incentive for divorce. If a provision can be read to encourage divorce, the court will set it aside. Courts used to view any provision detailing how property would be divided as encouraging divorce, because society has an interest against divorce. This is why judges pay such close attention.
Make rules about personal, rather than financial mattersA prenup cannot include personal preferences, such as who has what chores, where to spend the holidays, whose name to use, details about child rearing, or what relationship to have with certain relatives. Prenuptial agreements are designed to address financially based issues. Any prevision discussing nonfinancial issues will not be upheld. Judges grow uncomfortable when they see private domestic matters included in a contract, and will often view the document as frivolous, striking it down. If you and your spouse do want to have an agreement about such things, do it in a separate document, with which the court will not have the power to intervene.
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Columbia’s Olympia Village
April 20, 2013 @ 9 a.m.
Number of participants may be limited, so register early!
The Quarry Crusher Run is the only race of its kind in South Carolina and one of only a handful in the entire country! The approximately 3.72-mile route starts and finishes at the green space in front of the impressive Olympia and Granby Mills Apartments in the Olympia Village. Once in the quarry, the route winds down a 10% grade through granite cliffs to the quarry floor. The approximately 375-foot ascent from the quarry floor to the finish marks the grueling event as Columbia’s most challenging foot race! Because it is a working quarry, the precise distance of the race won’t be known until closer to the race date as excavation continues to go deeper.
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the magnificent landscape of the environmentally-responsible, operational Olympia Quarry. In addition to the “other worldly” feeling of the scenery, runners can take in ancient rock deposits, waterfalls and may even encounter deer, fox and red-tailed hawks.
The Quarry Crusher Run is a unique opportunity for runners to challenge themselves physically and get an exclusive look at the Olympia Quarry and the massive equipment used in excavation. The quarry was started in 1880 and is now one of South Carolina’s largest aggregate operations processing an average of 10,000 tons of rock a day.
The run is slated to be an annual event, but, only as long as the quarry continues to be operational, so don’t put it off until next year and miss a chance to be a part of history! Quarry employees will be stationed along the spiral to ensure the safety of runners. There will also be water stations along the route.
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I first noticed my growing intolerance for violent imagery the day after the shooting, when walking past the TV when a kids’ cartoon was playing. Yes, I knew it was a cartoon. Yes, I realized the good guys were battling the bad guys. Yes, I realized the object being shot was not human but some grotesque alien creature. Nonetheless, it was hard to stomach the rapid-fire shooting taking place on the TV screen.
A few admissions: 1. My aversion to violent imagery on the big or small screen was only temporary. 2. I realize this is a purely personal decision. Other consumers of media can and do see it differently. 3. In an open society with a strong First Amendment, it’s unreasonable for anyone to expect to never confront content that he or she finds offensive.
Writer and director Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie is Django Unchained, a work that USA Today termed a “bloody slavery-revenge film.” Having seen it last week, I’d put the emphasis on bloody — lots of blood and gore that splatters everywhere, lots of brutality, lots of killing.
According to Tarantino, viewers might have a hard time watching the brutal depictions of the lives of slaves in 1858 Mississippi, but can enjoy it when the lead character, a freed slave, exacts revenge on his oppressors.
“There’s the violence that’s hard to watch and there’s the violence that’s fun to watch,” he told NPR Fresh Air host Terry Gross last week.
Gross then asked if these hyper-violent images were hard to either produce or consume in the light of the Newtown massacre, “Is it any less fun after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary? Do you ever go through a period where you lose your taste for movie violence?”
“Not for me,” was the director’s curt answer.
“I’m really annoyed,” he said. “I think it’s disrespectful. I think it’s disrespectful to their memory ... of the people who died, to talk about movies. I think it’s totally disrespectful to their memory. Obviously, the issue is gun control and mental health.”
As Tarantino sees it, violent movies and real-life acts of violence “have nothing to do with each other.”
The director is mighty certain. The rest of us could be forgiven for having our doubts. We might wonder if repeated onscreen images of violence are having a negative impact on how we treat our fellow human beings. We might fret that digital citizens walled off from the human touch and bombarded with negativity are doing themselves real harm. We might worry that it takes a national tragedy like Sandy Hook to roust us from our stupor.
Thinking about these issues — about how we can break down the barriers that divide us and foster a less-violent culture — just might be one way to honor the memories of the victims of the Newtown massacre.
Bob Davis is associate publisher/editor of The Anniston Star. Contact him at 256-235-3540 or firstname.lastname@example.org. Twitter: @EditorBobDavis.
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KNOX | Indiana University Health Starke Hospital, along with several area partners, are sponsoring a community program to end drug abuse in Starke County.
IU Health Starke Hospital President David Hyatt and Marketing and Media Representative Ted Hayes recently collaborated with Sarah Hoshaw of HealthLinc to create the Symposium on Drugs, which will focus on crystal meth usage.
Starke County is the ninth producer of the drug in the state, with heroin and prescription pill abuse increasing steadily. In addition, Starke County ranks second to last of all Indiana counties in health rankings.
The Symposium on Drugs will take place in April. The event will include support and education from law enforcement, previous offenders and the court system as well as environmental, labor and governmental organization.
First Don Hess Scholarship awarded
CROWN POINT | The Hess Scholarship, named for the late Don Hess, longtime manager of Franciscan St. Anthony Health Crown Point’s Emergency Medical Services program and its EMS Academy, was awarded for the first year, of what is to be an annual program.
It is funded through the Crown Point Community Foundation and awarded to emergency medical technician and paramedic students who maintain a high grade point average and participate in community service initiatives, despite financial hardship.
The scholarship, $2,250 for paramedic students and $350 for EMT students, was awarded to EMT student Stephanie Shouse and paramedic student Derek Reiter.
The Don Hess Scholarship is funded solely through donations. Those interested in making a donation should contact the Crown Point Community Foundation at (219) 662-7252, or donate online at www.crownpointcommunityfoundation.org. Select: Donate Now; Don Hess Memorial Fund.
New clinical dietitian named
KNOX | Teresa Sickmiller is the new clinical dietitian at Indiana University Health Starke Hospital.
During the 20 years she has been in the field, Sickmiller has seen the effects of obesity and diabetes increase at alarming rates.
She subscribes to the adage that losing weight is a lifestyle issue.
“There are 3,500 calories in one pound of body fat,” she observed. “Reduce your calorie intake by 250 a day and take off another 250 by exercising, and you’ll lose a pound a week.”
Sickmiller sees patients in her office at IU Health Starke Hospital on Mondays and Thursdays, and can be scheduled through a doctor’s order.
Pilates offered through S'ville
SCHERERVILLE | Schererville is offering a six-week Pilates session, suitable for all skill levels.
The mat-based class will help strengthen major muscles, improve flexibility and focus on core strengthening. Participants will begin with basic Pilates and advance to intermediate exercises. Attendees are asked to bring a mat.
The class will meet from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Jan. 8 through Feb. 12 at Schererville Town Hall, 10 E. Joliet St. The fee is $42 for residents and $46 for nonresidents. Registration is available online at www.activenwi.com.
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One of America’s most outspoken critics of the ban on out gay soldiers has been discharged under the law.
Lt Dan Choi, an Iraq veteran, was honourably discharged from the Army National Guard.
He has been expecting his discharge for over a year after coming out on national television. The law, currently under review, bars soldiers from revealing they are gay.
He said in a statement today: “This is both an infuriating and painful announcement. But my service continues. Remaining silent when our family and community members are fired or punished for who they truly are would be an unequivocal moral dereliction that tarnishes the honour of the uniform and insults the meaning of America.”
Lt Choi was recently arrested twice for chaining himself to the White House fence in protest at the policy, although the charges were dropped last week.
He told CNN he was informed of his discharge by his Army National Guard battalion commander, although a National Guard spokesman said it became effective on June 29th.
The soldier graduated from West Point Academy in 2003 and became an infantry platoon leader, completing two tours of Iraq.
He is one of 60 Arabic linguists thought to have been discharged under the 1993 policy, while an estimated 13,500 soldiers in total have been fired for being gay.
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In Our View: Real Estate Hopes Rise
A couple of encouraging statistics should bring smiles to homeowners
Monday, February 18, 2013
Almost as important as the content of the following statement is the speaker's credentials and the year in which he spoke: "The sentiment for homeownership is embedded in the American heart. … It makes for happier married life. It makes for better children. …"Those were the sentiments of President Herbert Hoover in 1931, during the Great Depression.
Well, we're not so convinced that owning a home will improve your marriage or make your kids behave, but Hoover was right about the way Americans value homeownership. And the literal meaning of "value" should not be taken for granted. Here in Clark County, folks want to make money off their homes, or at least not lose money.
Which brings us to good news about homeownership. According to Portland-based RMLS, the median sales price (half sold for more, half for less) for Clark County homes sold in January was $210,000. More meaningful, that's a 26 percent increase from $166,000 in January 2012.
We caution against jumping to conclusions. Suppress any delusions about a land-baron bonanza. Don't rush out and stick a "For Sale" sign in your yard just yet. Consult with experts before making big decisions. But the data provide another indication that Clark County is in economic recovery, albeit agonizingly slow, but it beats the heck out of bumping along the bottom.
Here's more good news for local homeowners: There were 329 closed sales last month, an 11 percent jump over closed sales in January 2012. That means the action is picking up. Also, the most recent report shows 2,052 active listings of homes for sale, the second-lowest number for any month in five years. That means demand is being driven up by a more competitive local housing market.
For readers who are interested in a more narrowly focused report, here are median sales prices for Clark County homes listed by 13 areas: Central Vancouver, $132,600; Heights, $302,500; Cascade Park, $199,500; Camas/Washougal, $267,000; Brush Prairie/Hockinson, $270,900; Five Corners/Orchards, $151,300; Hazel Dell/Minnehaha, $185,000; Felida, $206,000; Salmon Creek, $284,500; Ridgefield/La Center, $249,000; Battle Ground, $225,000; North/Northeast County, $227,000; Woodland, $160,200.
Comparisons are instructive, even comforting. Our struggle through this Great Recession pales in comparison with what our parents and grandparents confronted in the 1930s. Still, the past five years have caused countless heartaches among local homeowners. The statistics from January provide hope for those who might enter the market.
Make no mistake, however, there is much more to a home than just its literal value. President Hoover knew this all too well, by adding to the above statement: "There is a wide distinction between homes and mere housing. Those immortal ballads, 'Home, Sweet Home,' 'My Old Kentucky Home' and 'The Little Grey Home in the West' were not written about tenements or apartments. … They were written about an individual abode, alive with tender associations of childhood, the family life at the fireside, the free out-of-doors, the independence, the security and the pride in possession of the family's own home. … Many of our people must live under other conditions. But they never sing songs about a pile of rent receipts."
He's right. A home's most powerful potential, its greatest true value, is felt not in the wallets of those who might sell it, but in the hearts of those who share it. If we net a few grand, that's cool, too.
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At Villa Blanca, comfort and conservation co-exist in harmony, reflecting the commitment of Greentique Hotels to sustainable hospitality. Our profound respect for the natural surroundings and dedication to uncompromising standards of personal service makes a stay at Villa Blanca a truly exceptional Costa Rica experience. Sustainable hospitality involves the hotel in several levels of green operations, including recycling, biodegradable cleaning products energy usage management, and organic gardening. Additionally, its commitment to the community is evidenced in its staff, 95% being local residents who in a reflection of the region’s warm and engaging spirit provide the distinctive, friendly service that is a signature feature of the Villa Blanca guest experience.
In January 2007, Villa Blanca received Five Green Leaves by The Certification of Sustainable Tourism (C.S.T.), Costa Rica’s highest award for sustainable practices and operations. It was the first time in 10 years that Five Green Leaves had been awarded. For those wanting to express their support of sustainable practices in eco tourism and the hospitality business in general, Villa Blanca is a choice one can make to travel well and travel right while in Costa Rica.
The hotel staff is comprised of over 95% local residents of the Canton of San Ramon. The recycle way, reducing our carbon footprint: We have an strict sustainable program that re-cycles hotel waste, produces its own compost, organic pesticides, enhancing native orchid, bromeliad and native plant landscaping programs, and operates its own organic vegetable, medicinal, organic green house. Natural spring water: Villa Blanca receives its water from two wells fed by natural springs that are tested regularly by an accredited – certified laboratory in San Jose, for their quality levels. Biodegradable products: The hotel uses biodegradable cleaning products and avoids the use of chlorine and other harsh chemical cleaners whenever possible. Energy savings: The majority of hotel light fixtures (those that are non-dimming) are low-wattage fluorescents. Although solar energy is very limited in a cloud forest, the entire hotel was converted from electric water heaters to propane, a significant energy efficiency improvement. Share and invite guests to join us: We invite our customers to join our conservation program by cutting back on energy consumption and by sharing what we do with others whenever possible. Please follow posted suggestions on the property.
Our C.S.T. Guarantee Our C.S.T. guarantee of commitment!
The Certification in Sustainable Tourism Program – CST is a product of the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT). CST was designed to differentiate tourism sector businesses based on the degree to which they comply with a sustainable model of natural, cultural and social resource management. CST is regulated by the Costa Rican National Accreditation Commission and consists of a scale of 5 “levels” of sustainable tourism achievement. Villa Blanca Cloud Forest Hotel & Nature Reserve and Si Como No Resort Spa & Wildlife Refuge of the Greentique Hotel Group currently hold CST highest level of certification 5 Green leaves.
What is CST all about? It is a program that seeks to categorize and certify each tourism company according to the degree to which its operations comply to a model of sustainability. To this effect, five fundamental aspects are evaluated:
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Performance Measurement in Strategy Implementation
Since the early 1990s, organisations have invested increasing amounts of money and resources in measuring their performance. At the Centre for Business Performance, we have seen numerous examples of business performance management projects that fail: sometimes from the outset, due to a flawed or poorly designed strategy, but more often through poor implementation or execution. At Cranfield we have devoted a lot of time and effort to trying to understand the problems in ensuring that performance is effectively delivered within the organisation; our research spans developing strategy, to setting up measurements, to decision making and review.
A number of organisations have introduced performance management systems which have been very successful: well-designed systems can form a valuable framework to embed strategy, using objectives, targets, indicators and incentives, with an information system to support them. Strategic performance management (SPM) can help organisations define and achieve their strategic objectives, align behaviours and attitudes and, ultimately, have a positive impact on organisational performance.
What makes the difference?
Strategic formulation and implementation can easily become disconnected, with a common misconception that we can set out a plan and then somehow that plan will be put into practice. It is all too easy to fail to pay sufficient attention to the effort and resources needed to put change into practice and so companies often invest too few resources in its application. Failure to do this properly can lead to the wrong measures and targets that can hold back, not promote change. We now know the best ways to develop effective targets, set clear indicators and how best to phrase objectives and communicate them. For example, it is important that performance indicators are linked with strategy and that they are considered in strategic reviews.
The use of powerful tools, in isolation cannot guarantee business performance. Also - and especially - it is the type of behaviours that these generate. Attention must be given to the impact of performance management on the behaviours of people.
The important people dimension
The introduction of new performance targets and indicators can kick-start the implementation of new strategic objectives and promote different ways of working. Individuals throughout the organisation - not only top management, but everyone in the organisation - has to understand why they are there, what type of results will they bring, what type of use will be made of the data that we collect and also how the organisation is going to learn and improve from using the system. This means insight into not only how a performance management system can be used as a control system, but mostly how to generate the necessary improvements and the essential learning that organisations need to put plans into effect.
By involving people from the very beginning, successful performance change can take place, with involvement throughout the first stages of the execution of the change, but also in reviewing that change and the implementation of a measurement system. The result is that commitment and understanding is much more likely to develop and employee commitment and clarity really makes a difference. Given the right set-up, strategic performance management can aid motivation of employees at all levels, promotion of a performance improvement culture, and fostering of organisational learning.
The leadership factor
A lot of measurement systems-typically scorecards and dashboards- have also failed because organisations have mistakenly viewed leadership and performance management as self-contained opposites, whereas actually they are complementary and closely linked. For performance management success, we need organisations that are well led and well managed, but also that there is a performance management system which is well embedded to deliver results.
Ultimately, there can be no substitute for sound leadership and management to steer an organisation forward. It is essentially displaying the type of behaviour necessary throughout the organisation. It means leaders walking the talk, not just talking convincingly about it. It is at this stage that company statements come alive and when the priorities for the change of an organisation become real and familiar.
Making performance management and measurement stick
The design of an SPM system and the definition of its roles are fundamental factors determining its success. Significantly, companies don’t stop there: they implement strategic performance management by also focusing in on the essential behavioural component. Strategic implementation is driven by people and therefore people’s behaviours must be a focus of considerable attention. When organisations really get to grips with how technical systems and people come together, then they will have the capability to make strategic performance improvement stick. Some important conclusions can be made:
First, organisations should explicitly decide whether their measurement system is strategic or solely operational. This choice is likely to determine the link between strategy and performance measurement, and the relevance of the PMS within the organisation.
Second, the design of the SPMS should depend on the roles the organisation assigns to the SPM. These roles should therefore inform decisions over the types of performance indicators to introduce (financial and non-financial; leading and lagging) and the use of performance information as a means to generate learning and review.
Third, the balance between 'diagnostic' and 'interactive' uses of SPM has relevant consequences on the possibility of SPM playing an active role in the introduction of change initiatives and innovation strategies. SPM can also contribute to the creation of capabilities and the establishment of an organisational culture. Only by doing so will the organisation make the system flexible and use it as a lever for change.
Next steps-three Questions
Three core questions need to be asked if performance management and measurement is to be successful in delivering benefits strategically:
1. Why is the organisation introducing (or reviewing) an SPMS?
2. Which roles do we want it to play?
3. Will its characteristics be consistent with its aims?
PietroMicheli is a Senior Lecturer at Cranfield’s Centre for Business Performance and Programme Director of our Operational Performance Management and Leading Performance courses.
Created on: 18-Jun-12 12:19
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Mon August 27, 2012
What Does Mormon Food Culture Say About Mitt Romney?
Originally published on Mon October 15, 2012 10:38 am
As the Republican convention gets under way in Tampa tomorrow, we can expect to hear more about the personal life of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Romney aides, in fact, say that now is the time for him to "publicly embrace" his Mormon faith, a religion that plays a large role in the candidate's life but is misunderstood by many Americans.
If Romney does open up, we might get some insight into an area of particular interest to us here at The Salt — how that faith may shape his eating habits. Whether you like his politics or not, let's face it, the guy is fit. At the very least, it gives us a reason to explore the relationship between food and the Mormon religion.
So far, we don't know much about Romney's tastes in food, aside from the occasional ice cream scooped from Bailey's Bubble in Wolfeboro, N.H., and his affection for feeding Jimmy John's subs to the press on the bus. However, parsing the eating habits of presidential candidates (to say nothing of sitting presidents) is now firmly embedded in America's cultural milieu. Just think: Ronald Reagan and jelly beans. Bill Clinton and fast food. President Obama and, well, most things chili-related, plus a bit of home-brewed beer.
We don't know if Romney adheres to it, but there is such a thing as a Mormon food culture. In fact, Mormon culinary traditions, or foodways, closely resemble the tenets of the "good food movement" currently shaping many Americans' renewed interest in food — i.e., cooking from scratch, emphasizing whole grains, and locally sourced fruits and vegetables.
Mormon foodways stem in part from the pioneer roots of Mormonism and in part from the teachings of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church, formally known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
According to church teaching, in the early 1830s, Smith received as revelation and dictated into lectures one of the primary texts of the Mormon faith, The Doctrine and Covenants (D&C). Section 89 of the D&C, known as the Word of Wisdom, is considered by Mormons as their law of health. In it, Smith addressed certain behaviors he wished his followers to avoid, including bans on alcohol, tobacco and "hot drinks." Mormons, therefore, do not drink alcohol or smoke, and many will not take coffee or tea.
But the diet Smith prescribed is probably less well known to non-Mormons. This includes the consumption of wheat, herbs and fruits in season, and meat "sparingly." To be clear, such a manner of eating — oracle-like for today's flexitarians — would have been logical for any people settling in the Western territories of 19th-century America. Followers of the early LDS church weren't the only ones relying predominantly on themselves for sustenance.
But additionally, Smith's followers were actually instructed to be self-sufficient — to "prepare every needful thing" in anticipation of the tumultuous world into which their church was born. (Mormons call this "provident living.") Storing food is one form of physical preparedness. Hence, the vigorous practice of canning that has marked LDS communities in the past, especially those connected to the once abundant, widespread orchards of Utah, and the "putting up" of foods culled from family gardens.
Flush with homegrown produce and the spiritual call to consume wheat, Mormon women built an enviable reputation for the quality of their pies, cakes, breads and the like — a community-specific legacy of superb baking that endures.
A Mormon woman in my town of Arlington, Mass., Saralynn Jensen, is committed to storing food and regularly incorporates whole wheat into her young family's diet from the wheat she buys in bulk and grinds at home. Her commitment to storing food and a diet high in whole wheat, fruits, vegetables and legumes is grounded in her faith, she says, but reinforced by cultural trends and accepted nutritional guidelines. Getting married "made it real," she says.
To be sure, the trajectory from past to present foodways has not been straight. Inevitably, Mormons, as did the rest of America, incorporated into their diets the processed foods readily available in the post-World War II era. We're talking canned soups, store-bought canned fruits and vegetables, boxed cereal, cake mixes, white flour, etc. — the kinds of ingredients easily stored, on hand and rendered in no time into hearty, economical, crowd-pleasing (if not always healthy) fare. In my family, my great-aunt Gladys' infamous lime Jello mold with cottage cheese and pineapple chunks stands out. Green bean casserole with fried onions also comes to mind.
For modern Mormon families, favorites might include Funeral Potatoes and a small repertoire of sweets, made mostly from processed ingredients such as Jello, pretzels and Cool Whip, that fall within the so-called bad Mormon dessert category. (Don't be fooled; they're delicious.)
But now many Americans, regardless of their faith, are looking to improve their eating habits by consuming fruits and vegetables in season and emphasizing whole grains and plant-based proteins. This sounds pretty close to the dietary ideal Mormons are called to follow.
Hopefully we'll hear more about Romney's food habits.
Sue Spinale McCrory, a native of Boston, is the former editor and host of Public Radio Kitchen.
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Gaza rally called step toward unity
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians gathered in Gaza in a show of support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party on Friday, the 48th anniversary of the party's founding.
It was an unusual scene in Gaza because it was the first mass rally showing open support for Fatah since 2007. That is the year Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah, which now controls only the West Bank.
The number of people who showed up surprised many. Some participants slept in the Gaza City square after gathering there overnight and the crowds eventually grew so large by daytime that at least seven of the major streets around the rally were filled with people.
High-level Fatah Party officials also showed up for the event after entering Gaza for the first time since being ousted by Hamas. Leaders of both parties described it as another step toward unity. Abbas sent a message via video from his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah that was played on huge screens set up in Gaza.
"Gaza was the first Palestinian territory to get rid of the occupation and settlement, and we want the blockage to be lifted so that it can be free and be linked to the rest of the nation," Abbas said.
An SMS sent out from a Hamas representative referred to the rally as a "celebration of national unity and a success for both Hamas and Fatah."
According to the Gaza ambulance service, at least 30 people were injured after fighting broke out due to overcrowding as well as political rivalry among supporters of different political leaders.
In advance of the rally there also was bickering between Fatah and Hamas over whether Hamas would allow Fatah supporters to gather in a large space that was highly visible. In the end an agreement was worked out and the festivities progressed with some people holding Fatah flags and others waving pictures of Abbas and late Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat.
The two parties have been bitter rivals for years, but the relationship between the two parties thawed after the recent fighting between Israel and Gaza that lasted eight days and left dozens dead.
After the conflict, Hamas was given approval to hold its first rally in the West Bank, and a few weeks later Hamas allowed Fatah to hold a rally in Gaza.
Hamas considered it a victory when Israel decided not to send in ground troops. Days later, Abbas' ability to get non-member-state status for the Palestinian territories at the United Nations was also considered a victory.
Since then there has been talk of reconciliation from leaders of both parties, but no concrete steps have surfaced yet.
Fatah leadership has had a great deal of support from the West and has been warned over the years not to join hands with militant Hamas, which several countries have deemed a terrorist organization.
Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Thorby soon discovers that Baslim is no ordinary beggar. A master of languages and a superb teacher, Baslim leads a mysterious undercover life that brings Thorby eventually to his own adventure on the Free Trading starship Sisu and finally to the truth about Baslim's identity and his own.
Don't miss our other Robert Heinlein audiobooks.
©1957 Robert A. Heinlein, renewed 1985; (P)2004 Blackstone Audio Inc.
"Absorbing, convincing, and well written combination of science fiction and mystery." (School Library Journal)
"Science, mystery, and strong ethical concepts give the book sure appeal to devotees of science fiction." (Saturday Review)
"Sometimes satirical, probingly provocative, this is a characteristic Heinlein off-the-ground mirage, with the protagonist encountering the values of a free society, weighing the worth of the individual." (Kirkus Reviews)
I consider this "one" of Heinlein's Better works... written during his shift from adolescent Sci-fi to more adult Sci-fi. I admit I have a soft spot for Heinlein, having grown up reading his books (and owning ALL of his book, several of which are autographed Hardbacks).
"Citizen Of The Galaxy" is a "Rags to Riches" theme. Heinlein had the gift of being able to take themes and write a book around them, while also instilling "values" to the reader.
Most modern Sci-fi readers have "Outgrown" Heinlein, but we have to remember that he was writing (accurately) about the future of computers and space flight back when such things were considered impossible.
This book also touches on the VERY real subject of the modern day slave trade, and as the book says "Even now people don't believe there's really a slave trade in this day and age"... But yes, there is, and Heinlein explains why the fight against slavery may never totally be won.
Heinlein picked up many of the concerns he wrote about while traveling.. and it seems the things he felt were wrong with society then, are STILL things that are wrong with society today.
A "must have" for any Heinlein Fan's collection.
I listened to this with my 10 year old son driving to/from summer camps, and we both wished the drive were longer! He loved the story, a "rags to riches" plot as another reviewer notes where the main character gradually discovers and draws upon his unknown talents and core beliefs to become rich and important, but above all, someone who "does the right thing."
But please don't think that this book hits you over the head with the "do the right thing" message! When my son and I described the book to my husband and I commented how much I liked both the story AND the message, my son asked, "What message?" Still, it's a sign of a well-written book for children or young adults in my mind -- look at Harry Potter, even look at Disney's Beauty and the Beast -- when any message is submerged in a good yarn. I highly recommend this very well read book for ages 8 and up!
I've never been big into sci-fi and had never read this author before, but I'm glad I did and I intend to read more. The narator is amazing with his use of accents and voices to seperate characters. The author does an excellent job of integrating polititcs and entertainment. He explains technical details just enough without overloading a lay person.
I had a hard time putting this one down. Highly recommended.
Love having someone read me a story. Fires in the hearth, rain on the roof, sunny days and surf. Good friends, good food and J S Bach.
Like a good meal. I wanted the story to continue.
For me the reader is good, the story great. I give it 5 stars, as like some books I have read in one sitting, this audiobook I listened to almost in one sitting. While it is wise to stop eating before having 'had enough', the story finished before I had had enough. There was the odd glitch in voice or storyline (on first listen) and this did not detract from my enjoyment. It is Heinlein after all, and Lloyd James has given a fine reading. If you like Heinlein this is a good listen.
It's hard to believe this book was written in 1957. It still works today. The story is deep, entertaining, and even funny. Lloyd James is a great narrator, too. He really brought this well-written story to life.
I must admit, it's been a long time since I've read a true Sci Fi book, but after listening to this one, I've gotten back into the genre. You don't have to be a Sci Fi fan to enjoy this book, and this is one book that might turn you into one.
I have read through Sci-Fi books like a starving man through a feast, and never before have listened/read such an astounding book, good for die hard sci-fi fans, and those who arent fond of them.
A must read!
Citizen is my second favorite Heinlein novel after The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Lloyd James is an excellent narrator and the story engages me each time I read or listen to it. I expect I'll keep coming back to it once or twice a year. Just plain old good storytelling.
The story is told in the fine old Heinlein style with believable characters set in several well thought out cultures. Follow Thorby through his escape from slavery and his rise through several Interesting cultures. This author is at his best when telling great stories about people he makes so believable you truly care about them.
A published novelist and technical writer, who lives in Northern California with a cranky but loveable parrot and lots of books.
I first read this book when I was twelve, and listening to it now, I found myself just as enchanted. This is an excellent reading, and the narrator performs a variety of character voices and accents that add to the experience. Still a damned good SF story, despite its age, and highly recommended!
This is a great read, very light and pleasant, just keeps on going so it's hard to put down. Unlike most of his books this one isn't very preachy, he didn't even go into details about how light speed travel would affect time. If you like this one (I know this might sound wierd, but it really isn't) try "To The Stars" by Hubbard.
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About Leadership in the Public Sector
Leaders make a difference for the future. The Leadership in the Public Sector program gives you the chance to make a difference for yourself, your nation and the world.
Leadership in the Public Sector (LPS) is an undergraduate degree completion program that is delivered entirely by distance education. The LPS program allows students to change or advance their career without taking a leave of absence or adhering to a rigid class schedule and earn a B.A. degree that is identical to any other NC State University degree. LPS graduates find career opportunities in public and nonprofit organizations, as well as private firms, or seek advanced degrees in political science, public administration, nonprofit sector management, and law.
One of the main challenges of the 21st century is the creation and advancement of effective public and non profit organizations. To evaluate and to participate effectively in organizations of the future requires a broad based understanding of the political, philosophical, and practical dimensions of public leadership. The LPS on-line degree is specifically created to provide non-traditional students with a liberal arts foundation in the ethical, theoretical, and policy analytical skills necessary to be effective leaders in public sector organizations.
The LPS program is a distance education degree completion program designed to focus on leadership in non-market environments (such as local, state, and federal government organizations, and non-profit institutions.) The primary assumption is that whereas leadership technique may be universally applied, effective leadership in public and nonprofit organizations must negotiate unique organizational and political contexts.The LPS core curriculum focuses on leadership in local, state, federal, and nonprofit organizations, but the program itself includes a broad range of courses that allow students to complete their bachelor’s degree requirements within North Carolina State University’s College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
LPS students have used their degree as a first step for acquiring teaching accreditation; others have interest in government careers. Both of these fields are expected to be in heavy demand in the foreseeable future. Other students are already fully engaged in their careers and are completing their bachelors to further their career potential. Other students plan to complete their LPS degree and continue their education and future career opportunities by applying to graduate or professional school.
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Cherub Choir (3-4 years)
The Cherub Choir is our youngest vocal group at Wesley. The children are ages 3 (by September 1) through 4 years old. The Cherub Choir meets on Wednesday evenings from 5:45-6:15 pm in room 202.
The Cherub Choir is under the direction of Kelly Snyder and the choir sings once a month in one of the Sunday morning worship services throughout the school year.
If your child likes to sing praise to God and have fun at the same time, come and join us!
Sonshine Singers (K-1st Grade)
The Sonshine Singers is the vocal choir for Kindergarten and 1st graders. The Sonshine singers meet on Wednesday nights during the school year from 6:15-6:45 pm in room 202. The choir sings on a monthly basis in worship services during the school year.
Kelly Snyder is the director of the Sonshine Singers.
Sonshine Choir - October 3, 2010 being directed by Sara Quah.
Wesley Singers (Grade 2-5)
Wesley Singers is the 2nd -5th grade choir and they meet on Wednesday nights during the school year in the choir room from 6:30-7:10 pm.
Wesley Singers sing once a month at the worship services and they also do an annual musical. Choir members begin to explore the world of music, working with music theory, and the use of various techniques designed to improve the physical and mental approach to singing.
Mrs. Adria Schumann is the director of Wesley Singers.
Chimes of Glory (Grade 3-5)
Hand held choir chimes are rung similar to handbells. The Chimes of Glory is open to students in 3rd - 5th grades and offers beginning ringing techniques. The choir rings monthly in a worship service. Rehearsals are on Wednesday evenings from 5:30-6:30 pm in room #116.
The Chimes of Glory are under the direction of Gail Joslin.
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The Ireland Abandoners Facebook page has brewed up a bit of a storm
A Facebook page set-up earlier this week hitting out at Irish people who have emigrated abroad has understandably not gone down well in some quarters...
Given the stream of Irish people from this country having to leave in search of employment in recent years, emigration is a hot topic at present and something that has directly or indirectly affected almost every family in the country.
As a result, it is no surprise that a Facebook page set up seemingly with the sole purpose of criticising those who have had to leave these shores has raised the ire of many who have come across it on the social networking site in recent days.
Set up on January 7, the Ireland Abandoners page says that it is “for all those that left the Country when she needed you most you will not be welcomed back to reap the rewards of the crops we are sowing”.
The cover photo on the page (see above) is one of a pre All-Ireland Final gathering of Donegal people under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, with the line ‘Not Welcome Home’ splashed across it in big red print, while along with the numerous incendiary messages posted since the page was established on Monday are memes such as the one below comparing Ireland’s situation to the one in Greece at the moment.
All of the posts to date have attracted some pretty withering comments (one particular post has attracted just short of 1,400 comments at time of writing) from people at home and abroad, but rather than go into them in detail here, you can have a look at yourself on the page over here.
With only 544 likes so far, the page hasn’t yet built up a big following, but it has already attracted notoriety on Twitter, Facebook and on national radio, hardly a surprise when lines like ‘Take down your Tri Colours, you are not worthy of flying them and are not welcome back so stay where you are because the Irishness (sic) is better off without you!’ are included under the ‘About’ section.
The page could well be a deliberate attempt by a troll or trolls deliberately setting out to piss people off and if that was indeed their motive, they have certainly succeeded.
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Keeping It Simple
Helen Sword, Stylish Academic Writing
Harvard University Press, 240pp, £16.95, ISBN 9780674064485
reviewed by Gareth Carrol
As both a linguist and a fledgling PhD student myself, I approached this book with a real intrigue as to how my own writing could benefit from the tips, and more likely the pitfalls, that the author highlights throughout. She takes a rigorous approach to the subject, conducting an extensive analysis of articles from a wide variety of subjects and attempting to identify trends that characterise them. The results are surprising, in that they demonstrate probably more variety than might have been predicted. Still, they provide a valuable starting point from which to address a number of problems that can render any piece of writing unnecessarily effortful for the reader.
A lot of the advice that follows is reassuringly simple and easy to apply. For example, Sword outlines the merits of allowing authorial voice to come through in your writing. This can be achieved through the simple technique of not eschewing the personal pronoun as many academic writers seem to do, often contriving quite awkward ways to do so by utilising passivised or nominalised sentences and abstract subjects (such as ‘An experiment was conducted’ rather than the simpler and more striking ‘I conducted an experiment’). Personal engagement can also be achieved through more imaginative means, for example by using well-chosen anecdotes to exemplify complex ideas, or even directly addressing the reader using provocative questions and statements.
Sword offers simple advice on sentence composition: for any sentence you construct, just ask yourself, in the words of expert on style and rhetoric Richard Lanham, ‘Who’s kicking whom?’ If you can’t answer that question easily, you can’t expect your readers to unravel it either. She also offers advice on inventive and evocative titles (Chapter 6: Tempting Titles) and engaging, personality-laden openings (Chapter 7: Hooks and Sinkers) that help draw in a reader in the same way as a good novel would. Other advice is equally straightforward and easy to implement, such as using concrete examples wherever possible to help ground abstract concepts and avoiding the overuse of jargon where it is likely to act more as a barrier than a useful source of specialised descriptive vocabulary.
For all that is good about this book, however, it’s hard to fully agree with some of its underlying principles. While no-one could argue with some of the advice outlined above, the assumption that academics should strive to produce work that is accessible to everyone, no matter what their discipline or level of expert knowledge, is questionable. As Sword’s research shows, stodgy and over-complex academic writing is by no means the norm. Still, she does provide a good example early on of a very fruitful collaboration between an F1 pit team and a surgical unit, where the engineers were able to offer some valuable insights into more efficient procedures and methods of communication, so there is no doubt that an open mind to how others approach their work can potentially be of great benefit. In the main, however, the advice offered might be of most use to anyone wanting to traverse the gap between academia and more widespread non-fiction: witness, for example, the impressive growth of the popular science market in recent years.
One prevailing concern is addressed in the final chapter. As Sword points out, for many truly great writers, style is an intangible; it is not something that is taught or that can be learned easily, but is rather a level of creativity and imagination that few people are naturally blessed with. To talk of ‘stylish’ academic writing, therefore, is a different thing than to talk of clear, well-constructed, accessible writing. Tidying up bad habits is one thing, but how many academics would be able to (or necessarily want to!) imbue their work with the sort of vividness and imagination described here is a different question entirely. Still, there is much to admire in Helen Sword’s work; many of us will have experienced the type of dense, impersonal academic writing that she rightly condemns, but, as the author’s own analysis shows, there is significantly greater variation across all disciplines than might have been expected. For academic writers who feel obliged to employ overformal constructions and long, complicated sentences simply because they feel that this is how things are done in academia, Stylish Academic Writing provides a useful corrective, demonstrating that clarity of expression and just a hint of inventiveness and flexibility can go a long way.
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This video is an important anthropological document, because it encapsulates the Five Pillars of Portland Society, which are as follows:
--Making things pretty
--Being so profoundly self-satisfied it's disgusting
Yes, apparently in Portland people like to get together and paint intersections, though the Smugness Union requires that they stop every 15 minutes in order to snuggle:
You also have to hand it to Portland for being so resourceful, since they've managed to portray themselves as an inclusive culture despite the fact that it's one of the most ethnically and ideologically homogeneous societies on Earth. That's not to say there isn't some diversity though, and some people there actually spell their names slightly differently:
(In Portland, Annes and Annies somehow manage to live together in perfect harmony.)
Though it's tough to disagree over anything when you're constantly stultified by communal art projects and overly earnest folk music:
("After this I'm playing at a same-sex dog wedding.")
Nevertheless, even Portland is not immune to discordance, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before some bike dorks start complaining that the pretty pictures are distracting attention from their precious bike sharrows.
Speaking of Portland, awhile back I mentioned that some Portlanders were making a leather bike handle. As far as I'm concerned, a bike needs a handle like an aquarium needs a toilet. Nevertheless, Stevil Kinevil informs me that the handlesmiths have since managed to raise $20,000:
Now, I've spent some time in Portland, and I know from experience that they will look at you askance if you so much as ask for a shopping bag in the grocery store. Yet for some reason it's perfectly fine to for a cow to die so that you can have a handle for something that is already basically a giant handle. I mean, what vehicle is more intrinsically portable than a bicycle?
This is not to say I have a problem with using cow parts for stuff, it's just that I don't understand how they managed to raise $20,000 in a city where only like 46 people actually have jobs. (The Portland economy is sustained almost entirely by people who work for bike companies and then buy stuff from their employers with their employee discounts.) But I suppose that's the power of Kickstarter, and still more proof that entrepreneurship now works on the "What About Bob?" model. Indeed, every time I watch a Kickstarter video all I hear is "Gimme, gimme, gimme, I need, I need:"
In fact, I recently heard from another would-be bicycle accessory maker who will be launching his own Kickstarter on Thursday. It is for something called the "Barbasket," and here is the video:
Barbasket from Chris Luomanen on Vimeo.
Like most Kickstarter projects, this combines elements from other accessories that already exist while simultaneously solving no problems whatsoever and creating some new ones. See, if you want a removable bag for your handlebars, you can already get these things called "handlebar bags." Or, if you want a basket you can take inside with you (or just leave at home), you can opt for these things called "removable baskets." Meanwhile the Barbasket manages to require cumbersome proprietary handlebars while at the same time being really small:
Tellingly, the design concern behind the Barbasket is called "NRML:"
And it's clear that their though process was a bit clouded when they came up with it:
None of this would be a problem if people would just suck it up and ask for a bag at the store.
Sure, some people might think having an exquisitely-crafted leather handle for everything on a bicycle makes it beautiful, but I think it makes it look like it belongs to a metrosexual bike cowboy. Still, it's better than this "flaming turd bike," as forwarded by another reader:
(Feces in motion)
At this rate I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time before we start seeing leather bike locks, which will of course result in a dramatic uptick in bike theft, as well as a concomitant rise in polite vigilantism:
As I've mentioned, I belong to the "Your Bike Is Your Problem" school, and that extends to stopping bike thieves. Firstly, I don't care enough about someone else's bike to interrupt a criminal with heavy cutting tools. Secondly, even if I did care about it, chances are the owner doesn't care about it in the first place:
Res waited for the owner, but they never showed. She then went to the police, who told her that they couldn't help her. So she plastered these flyers up near the Starbucks. Res writes via email that she's reached out to Trek and is giving her the serial number on the bike, which may help them reunite the black bike with its owner.
As far as I'm concerned, Res should just keep that bike. She earned it. I probably wouldn't have even looked up from my Venti Soy Mocha Doucheaccino.
Lastly, in do-it-yourself research news, some Australians have proved that riding with headphones isn't actually that dangerous:
Based on these relatively simple tests, it is fair to conclude that:
1. A bike rider with ear-bud earphones playing music at a reasonable volume hears much more outside noise than a car driver, even when that driver has no music playing.
2. A bike rider with in-ear earphones playing music at a reasonable volume hears about the same outside noise as a car driver with no music playing, but more than a car driver playing music.
3. A bike rider with in-ear earphones playing music at a reasonable volume hears about the same outside noise as a car driver with no music playing, but more than a car driver playing music.
Ear-bud earphones set at a reasonable volume still allow riders to clearly here the warning sounds of other riders.
Put that in your ear and smoke it.
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Staying with mini-concerts, but this one constitutes something of a forgotten classic. The Teardrop Explodes (remember them?) live at Guildford Civic Hall in 1981 and recorded by the BBC.
Embracing a hybrid of Post-Punk and neo-Psychedelia, The Teardrop Explodes weren't around for very long. Having formed in 1978 and were broken up by 1982, they had a surprisingly short, but influential career. Of the notables who co-founded the band, Julian Cope went on to establish a successful solo career.
Tonight's Roundtable features the following tracks from that 1981 Guildford concert:
The Teardrop Explodes — Guildford Civic Hall 1981
1. Passionate Friend
2. Culture Bunker
3. The Great Dominions
A short but memorable set from a band that didn't make much stir on this side of the pond, but were very much part of the change in direction music took in the 1980's.
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Yesterday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the winners of a government stimulus grant called TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery). Communities around the country competed for federal money to revamp their public transit systems. A flood of entries — nearly 1,400 — were whittled down to 51 winners.
We speak with Rodney Knott, President of the Manheim Neighborhood Association in Kansas City, which was one of the winning cities. Rodney is hoping that Kansas City will use the funds to institute Bus Rapid Transit. Takeaway correspondent Andrea Bernstein tells us about these revolutionary bus lines that have changed transportation in cities as far-flung as Bogota and Istanbul. Kansas City's would be the first Bus Rapid Transit in the U.S.
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The National Transportation Safety Board released the preliminary report on the crash that killed "Spanish Fly" host Jose Wejebe, who was flying an "experimental amateur-built" plane from Everglades City to Merritt Island Airport.
Investigators learned that on April 6 Wejebe, 54, took off from the Everglades City runway and rose upwards of 150 feet when the plane took a sharp right turn and started nose-diving.
According to the report, Wejebe's plane crashed 275 yards from the runway, where winds were estimated at 14 mph.
Although Webeje reportedly had around 1,000 hours of total flight experience, the amateur-built aircraft he piloted are known for being accident-prone.
According to a Miami New Times cover story on the kit airplane trend in Florida, "home-built aircraft are 5 times as likely to crash as professionally made planes. And if an accident does happen, their pilots are 7 times as likely to die."
Wejebe was born in Havana and fled Cuba with his family when Fidel Castro took power. In 1970s, he was a diver and animal trainer at the Miami Seaquarium. In recent years, he was host of TV show "Spanish Fly" on the Outdoor Channel.
On April 15, family, friends and fans gathered at the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame & Museum for a memorial for the affable outdoorsman.
Click below for scenes from Wejebe on the water.
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Burleigh, Artemas Terrill
The following data is extracted from Merrimack and Sullivan Counties, New Hampshire Biographies.
Artemas Terrill Burleigh, who is now engaged in truck farming in Franklin, was born in this town, February 25, 1860, son of Gordon and Charlotte (Turner) Burleigh. The father, who was a native of Dorchester, N.H., accompanied his parents to Franklin when he was two years old. In early manhood he was engaged in the coal business in Boston. He subsequently returned to Franklin, and resided upon the farm now occupied by his son, Artemas T., until his death on August 10, 1891. His wife, Charlotte, who was a resident of Charlestown, Mass., became the mother of ten children, namely: Henry, who lives in Hyde Park, Mass., and is a boot and shoe dealer; Gordon, who is in the same business in Boston; Artemas T., the subject of this sketch; Robert, a medical practitioner in Rochester, N.H.; George, a jeweller in Tilton, N.H.; Lottie and Emma, who are residing in Newport, R.I.; Paul, a resident of Lawrence, Mass.; Sarah Elizabeth; Freddie, who died in infancy. Mrs. Gordon Burleigh now resides with her daughters in Newport.
Artemas Terrill Burleigh began his education in the common schools, and his advanced studies were pursued at the Agricultural and Dartmouth Colleges. After completing his 1889 he engaged in the drygoods business in Tilton, N.H., and continued in trade for about three years. At the end of that time he settled upon the farm in Franklin, where he has since resided. The property contains three hundred acres of land. He carries on general farming, dairying, and market gardening.
On July 14, 1882, Mr. Burleigh was united in marriage with Inez Rice. She was born in Lowell, Mass., daughter of Edwin and Iantha (Blanchard) Rice. The father, who was a merchant, is no longer living. The mother is residing in Franklin. In politics Mr. Burleigh is a Republican. The progress he has already attained in agricultural pursuits speaks well for his energy and ability. He is a member of Belknap Lodge, No. 18, Ancient Order of United Workmen.
Source: Merrimack and Sullivan Counties, New Hampshire Biographies
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More than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime erupted in March 2011, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said.
Navi Pillay said that an exhaustive analysis carried out by data specialists showed that 59,648 people had died through to the end of November.
"The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking," she said.
The majority of those killed were males, Pillay added.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Rupert Colville, spokesman for Pillay, said the death toll could be much higher.
"What we have done is take the statistical analysis of seven of the lists of casualties that exist, analyse them all and remove all the double counting," he said.
"But the criteria are quite strict. There has to be a set amount of information and there may well be people who have been killed who aren't included as a result of that."
Colville said the 60,000 figure "should be treated as an indicative number and not a real number". "It is probably the minimum," he said.
'Work in progress'
Pillay had said in January 2012 that the UN was unable to provide a precise figure on the number of deaths.
In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria
"We have not been able to verify the circumstances of each and every death, partly because of the nature of the conflict and partly because we have not been allowed inside Syria since the unrest began in March 2011," Pillay said.
She added that "once there is peace in Syria, further investigations will be necessary to discover precisely how many people have died, and in what circumstances, and who was responsible for all the crimes that have been committed".
The analysis - which Pillay stressed is "a work in progress, not a final product" - shows a steady increase in the average number of documented deaths per month since the beginning of the conflict, from around 1,000 per month in the summer of 2011 to an average of more than 5,000 per month since July 2012.
The greatest number of reported killings have occurred in Homs (12,560), rural Damascus (10,862) and Idlib (7,686), followed by Aleppo (6,188), Daraa (6,034) and Hama (5,080), the analysis found.
"This massive loss of life could have been avoided if the Syrian government had chosen to take a different path than one of ruthless suppression of what were initially peaceful and legitimate protests by unarmed civilians," Pillay said.
"As the situation has continued to degenerate, increasing numbers have also been killed by anti-government armed groups, and there has been a proliferation of serious crimes including war crimes, and - most probably - crimes against humanity, by both sides."
Pillay also criticised the international community for failing to do more to stop the crisis, saying: "Collectively, we have fiddled at the edges while Syria burns."
Her comments came as activists reported on Wednesday the deaths and injury of dozens of people in an airstrike on a petrol station in the suburbs of Damascus.
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Suspecting fraud, the volunteer kept asking Swinford, "Is that you, is that you?" and repeatedly called her "sir." Eventually, the local board of elections was called and she was able to vote.
"But it took a half hour and it was very embarrassing and stressful," said Swinford. "It speaks to the misunderstanding and training of workers at polling places, who are mostly volunteers."
One of the huge issues with voter ID laws is that many in the transgender community cannot afford the steps necessary to legally change name and gender markers, even in states that allow for such changes.
Though not required for voting, it would have cost Swinford $265 to legally change her name. It costs only $4 to change it on a license in Arizona, but a doctor or psychologist visit to get the required letter is costly.
Arizona eventually put her on the early voting list and Swinford could vote by mail, a solution she suggests to other transgender voters.
Swinford has now invested in getting a federal passport, which she can use as a second form of identification, a move she recommends to others.
"We wind up playing these games, but it's not the cheapest ID in the world," she said.
Still, many say it is the ignorance in the general public about being transgender that makes it difficult to show up to vote.
Charles Meins, a 22-year-old college graduate and aspiring writer from Massachusetts, also faced bias at the polls. His state does not require voter ID, merely an address.
Meins, who was born female, had changed his name, but it had not yet been updated from his birth name.
"They told me I had already voted," he said. "I told them, 'No, I hadn't -- I would have noticed if I did.'"
The poll worker pointed to Charles Meins Jr. on the registration list -- his father, who has a different middle name.
"People think they are being polite, but they kept on calling me 'Miss,' and it got louder and louder," Meins said.
As it turns out, when he had gone to change the gender on the voting rolls, town hall officials got it wrong. Instead of marking him as male, they changed Meins to an independent.
In November, he'll vote with an absentee ballot because of all the fuss -- and he says he is moving.
"It was very jarring," Meins said. "It was less of an issue of embarrassment. I need to be allowed to vote. If I had not been in Massachusetts, I might have been denied the vote."
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Developments this month...
- Her vocabulary seems to be expanding everyday! She says: mama, dada, Emily, Mimi, Kyle, Mallory, Landon, Tucker, ball, bubble, baby, cookie, cracker, cupcake, uh oh, what's that, wow, bye-bye, done, tickle-tickle, down, bad-bad, good girl, papa, Sam, purse, noodle, one, row-row, no-no, yes
- We continue to work on her animal sounds and she makes sounds for dog, monkey, elephant, bear, snake, cow, alligator (chomping motion), kitty cat, bee, roster
- She can point to many of her body parts....hair, head, ears, eyes, nose, tongue, armpit (which comes with a 'spi-spi' sound affect like she is putting deodorant on), belly button, knees, toes, chin, cheeks
- Favorite songs these days are 'Row, Row Your Boat', 'Wheels on the Bus' and 'If You're Happy and You Know It'. John has probably done 'Row, Row Your Boat' a million times with her and she starts asking for it again before you can even finish the song.
- She gives commands to Emily...raises one hand and says 'down' and then its usually followed by 'bad-bad'. Ha! We are working on saying 'good girl' once Emily lays down but she isn't picking that up as quickly as she did 'bad-bad'...funny?!
- She still loves her purse and Bitty Baby and is now attempting to change the baby's diaper along with feeding and walking it.
- She has started to show interest in coloring more but that might just be because she likes eating the crayons...gotta watch her closely when the crayons come out -- we've learned the hard way!
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August 5, 2006
Geneva-On-The-Lake, OH The owners of Erieview Park announced that they will close the amusement park at the end of this season. The small amusement park in northeast Ohio has been in operation for more than 60 years.
The family that owns the park plans to redevelop the property into a new business.
Don Woodward said his grandfather started Erieview Park in 1945 as an amusement park for children with two rides. In the 1980's adult rides and waterslides were added to the park.
"It has been a good business," said Woodward.
"Shutting down the amusement park is difficult," added Woodward, but his family believes it can do better.
The family owns 700-feet of lakefront property and hasn't taken advantage of the location. Several tourist related options are being discussed that will take advantage of the lakefront property and fit in with the resort's heritage.
The park's 18 rides are to be auctioned off on October 3 by Norton Auctioneers of Michigan.
Erieview Park's collection includes a Ferris wheel, Tilt-a-Whirl, junior roller coaster and a carousel. The park's train and Fright Zone dark ride will also be sold.
Fright Zone is unique since it is the last dark ride manufactured by Alan Herschell in operation. In 1960, Herschell built three scary dark rides and Erieview Park has the only one still operating.
Herschell played a significant role in the manufacturing of rides for the amusement industry.
"It will be a unique part of the auction," said Woodward.
To say goodbye, the Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts (DAFE) are planning a farewell event on the park's final day of operation September 9. Participants will be taken on a behind the scenes tour of the Fright Zone.
A few years ago, Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts helped in the restoration of the Fright Zone dark ride. It may be the last opportunity for fans to take a ride, since the ride's future is uncertain.
Erieview Park is located 50 miles east of Cleveland along the lake.
What did you think? Be the first to Add Your Comments
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Why is Facebook on its way to become a $100 billion dollar enterprise? Because, the corporate world is very comfortable with ‘predictability driven marketing’ surrounded by ‘search based social mediums’ expects ‘click based’ returns on investments and believes in 247/365 multidirectional expansion while rest of the world loves the freedom to engage online.
With 2 billion online users, business and social lifestyle altering tools like, Facebook with 800 million users or YouTube with localized operations in 25 countries across 43 languages creating 3 billion views per day are creating hyper accelerated global image shifts. People around the world are bonding at a rate faster than ever in history.
APRIL 30th 2012: A Historic Date
On April 30th 2012, ICANN, the Internet Authority, will announce the most expected list of 1000-2000 gTLD designer domain names that have been applied for a cost on average of a million dollars each.
The advertising agencies of the world, from the beginning of the announcement in June 2012 launched a vicious attack against the gTLDs. Were they right? Yes. This advancement of domain name expansion seriously hurts the existing major brands, as most of their names are not stretchable on the global canvass. Why don’t they see this as a great opportunity for new business development and adjust their client’s name portfolios? Partially due to the lack of understanding of global naming complexities amongst their cadre, and the realization of the shift of power from highly creative camps to domain name registries, registrars and trademark administration under the umbrella of domination via name identity.
This combined action moves the cheese from logo-slogan branding centricity to corporate nomenclature accuracy and digital finesse. However, smart creative houses are slowly embracing this global image shift in stride and becoming more digitized and have started respecting the new procedures. Beyond April 2012, they will have to prove to their clients their reformed understanding and move forward with solid workable strategies. To cope with such dramatic changes The Branding Ultimatum event is taking place in Toronto www.azna.com
However, two schools of thought are emerging; firstly, is too much overflow of online traffic will confuse the end users and alter the Internet experience? Secondly, are we about to enter a brand new age of the internet; creating new experiences, complex, yet free, secure, yet fully exposing our lives, simple and transactional, yet influencing our purchasing decisions and finally filled with brandable opportunities at every click along the way?
The Three Options:
1- Do nothing. The ICANN gTLD name application window is now closed and will remain shuttered for the next several years. This program was in the making for a decade and was announced with global fanfare four years ago, while a full speed go-ahead was given six months ago. For whatever reason, if you are mistakenly left out, you may have to face some serious internal discussions.
2-Just wait. The name application process is very intricate, yet very simple. If you use this waiting period that spans few years, and prepare for the next round, you may acquire some very deep insight not only about the advanced level ‘cyber name games’, but also discover some hidden brand naming problems in need of serious answers.
3- Simply watch. Observe the competition and see if they take off or crash. Either way, as spectators, you have some advantages. Enjoy the show and get ready to cheer or jeer. The fact that the world has changed and the global domain name expansion has brought us to a new age internet that demands a new sets of skills and understanding to drive global marketing and branding.
Those who wish to become thoroughly familiar with the new battlefield must study the subject in-depth. Half knowledge is the worst kind of knowledge. Most of the basic starting information is easily available on the Internet.
Naseem Javed is the founder of ABC Namebank www.abcnamebank.com and globally recognized authority on corporate nomenclature and related gTLD naming issues. He is a lecturer, his next lecture event: www.azna.com . He is also a syndicated columnist, and the author of his most recent work: ‘Domination, The GTLD Name Game’ www.metrostate.com
Last updated on: 10/04/2012 11:44:06
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We might be a small island, but when it comes to food, we’ve got big culinary ambitions
Irish food has been rustic and filling – the kind of stuff that would get you through a cold winter; the kind of stuff that warms the cockles. Irish stew, colcannon, beef and Guinness pie – they’re all great dishes, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find a new strand of creative Irish cuisine fuelled by artisan producers, innovative chefs, and world-class ingredients that are right on our doorstep.
“You’ve got all the right geography, grass, animals, breeding and farming,” superstar chef Jamie Oliver told newspapers on his last visit to Dublin, “no excuses for not having incredible, incredible stuff.”
We would tend to agree: from sea to shore, there’s never been a better range of produce to tuck into: super-fresh oysters, mussels and hand-dived scallops; estate venison; grass-fed free-range beef; extraordinary sea vegetables plucked from salty Atlantic waters; homemade fudge and handmade chocolate; award-winning black pudding; the prized Comber potato; rich, deep yellow country butter. All of these ingredients, and basket-loads more, are being used to their best advantage by dynamic chefs all over the island of Ireland.
“We're starting to cotton on to the fact that we have some of the best raw ingredients in the world,” says food writer Aoife Carrigy of Holymackerel.ie. “There are lots of pristine Irish fish available to us here, and in terms of meat and dairy, it's down to the green, green grass that visitors find so remarkable, but which we take for granted. It's no surprise that it was the farmhouse cheese-makers who were the pioneers of the new wave of artisan food producers: they were working with such fantastic raw material in the form of local milk. Twenty-five years later, there are now over 50 of them producing some world-class cheese of every style.”
In his book The Country Cooking of Ireland, US writer and editor Coleman Andrews notes that, “All over Ireland –from the artisanal ateliers of West Cork to the lush market gardens of County Wicklow, to bustling Galway and burgeoning County Antrim – a new culinary world is taking shape."
The bold mix of Irish produce and international influences has hit its zenith at critically acclaimed restaurants such as the one Michelin Star Cliff House Hotel in County Waterford, where Head Chef Matrijn Kajuiter invents creative dishes like “Bantry Bay organic salmon with bonbon, mi-cuit, iced marinated garden beetroot, pickled cucumber, herb cream, salmon eggs and whiskey oak smoke”. In Dublin, The Greenhouse won Best Newcomer at the Irish Restaurant Awards, while Michelin-starred Chapter One scored the title of Ireland’s Best Restaurant 2012 for the fourth year in a row.
Elsewhere, you’ll find local restaurants, country houses and small hotels becoming bastions of modern Irish, with a focus on local produce mixed with pure imagination. Among those causing a stir are The Long Room at Doonbeg in County Clare, Newforge House in County Armagh, the award-winning Lough Erne Resort in County Fermanagh, James Street South in Belfast, and Dunbrody House in County Wexford.
If it’s fresh innovative cooking you’re after, you've come to the right place.
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Arts Award Supporter
The NCEM is proud to be an Arts Award Supporter.
If you are aged 7 to 25 and working towards your Arts Award, then we can help. We offer a wide range of exciting music-based opportunities to:
- discover, explore and take part in performances, workshops, competitions and projects, including our annual Musical-Play-in-a-Week. Click here to find out what's on
- experience and enjoy a wide variety of concerts, from early music to folk, jazz and world music. See the Events Calendar for our current programme
- challenge and develop your musical and leadership skills by joining the Minster Minstrels , York's youth early music ensemble, or Young Minstrels , a recorder ensemble for players aged 8 to 11. To read about Minster Minstrels and the Arts Award, click here
- gain work experience by applying for an internship in the NCEM office.
For further information email email@example.com or telephone Janet Cromartie on 01904 632220.
Arts Award is a nationally recognised scheme that supports young people aged 7 to 25 to explore and engage with the arts and to develop their individual skills as artists and art leaders. It is offered at five levels: Discover, Explore, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Find out more about it at www.artsaward.org.uk .
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Trey Thoelcke and Michael B. Sauter, 24/7 Wall St.
Apple (AAPL) has the most successful retail stores by a wide margin.
According to RetailSails, a retail and consumer goods consulting firm, the tech giant's 372 worldwide locations sold goods at a rate of more than $6,000 per square foot of floor space in the past 12 months. The average store of the next most successful company in the United States, Tiffany & Co. (TIF), sold less than half that per square foot.
In low-end department stores and supermarkets, sales per square foot were in many cases less than $100. Hancock Fabrics, a fabric retailer, brought in just $72 per square foot. Meanwhile, retailers with the most profitable stores brought in more than $1,000 per square foot. These are mostly high-end brands, selling much more expensive products. Based on the RetailSails report, 24/7 Wall St. identified the nine most successful retail stores in America.
In the case of most department stores and discount stores like Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), Kmart and Family Dollar Stores (FDO), most items cost less than $100, and most stores are very large. The average retail space in some of the least successful stores by sales per square foot is at least 10,000 square feet. This prevents total profits per square foot from exceeding several hundred dollars, even among the most popular stores.
For the nine most profitable corporate stores, the opposite is true. They sell luxury goods, in apparel, accessories, electronics or jewelry. Their products are often quite expensive, while the stores are generally relatively small. Much of the merchandise companies such as Apple, Tiffany and Coach (COH) sell costs in the hundreds of dollars or more. At the same time, the average store floor space is less than 5,000 square feet. While total sales of the average Kmart store is roughly double what Lululemon Athletica (LULU) stores do, the average floor space of a Lululemon is only 1/34th that of a Kmart store.
Because most of the most profitable stores sell luxury items, they tend to be more selective in the markets they enter. Several of these companies have fewer than 100 stores nationwide. Birks & Mayors (BMJ) has only 57. Even stores that average small retail space, such as RadioShack (RSH), turn low profit per square foot because they have hundreds of low-profit stores in low-income communities. RadioShack has 4,423 stores.
In many ways, Apple, the most successful store in terms of profit per square feet, is different from each of the other eight companies on this list. Companies like Tiffany, Coach and Select Comfort (SCSS) rely primarily on their brick-and-mortar stores. Apple makes the vast majority of its sales and profits online, with its physical stores serving as hubs to improve branding and showcase new products.
Apple's business model of regularly releasing new buzz products, such as the latest iPhone, draws large crowds of customers looking to buy these items as soon as they hit the shelves.
Relying on RetailSails' 2012 Chain Store Productivity Guide, 24/7 Wall St. identified the nine companies with the highest sales per square foot, based on the past 12 months of sales. RetailSails also provided average store size, average annual sales per store, one-year sales growth and the number of stores.
These are America's most profitable stores:
9. Birks & Mayors
> Sales per sq. ft.: $1,082
> Sales per store: $4.61 million
> No. of stores: 57
> 1-yr. sales growth: 5.2%
> Revenue: $302.3 million
Birks & Mayors is a designer, manufacturer and retailer of jewelry, timepieces, silverware and gifts in the United States and Canada. It operates 32 stores under the Birks brand in Canada, 24 stores under the Mayors brand across Florida and Georgia, among a few others. Although it has fewer stores than any of the nine most successful stores, it still manages to have sales of $4.6 million per store. However, its revenue growth in the past year has been only about 5%, and shares are trading near a 52-week low.
8. Vera Bradley
> Sales per sq. ft.: $1,186
> Sales per store: $2.39 million
> No. of stores: 70
> 1-yr. sales growth: 79.2%
> Revenue: $460.8 million
In the first half of fiscal 2013, Vera Bradley Inc. (NASDAQ: VRA) opened 12 full-price stores and two outlet stores. This maker and retailer of "stylish and functional" accessories for women says it plans to open between 14 and 20 stores in each of the next five fiscal years, greatly adding to the 70 stores it had as of the end of July. Vera Bradley had the highest one-year sales growth, at 79.2%, in the RetailSails report. Net income last year was $57.9 million. The company's share price is down more than 15% since beginning of this calendar year.
7. True Religion
> Sales per sq. ft.: $1,227
> Sales per store: $2.35 million
> No. of stores: 116
> 1-yr. sales growth: 21.0%
> Revenue/net income: $419.8 million
Since its founding in 2002, True Religion Apparel (NASDAQ: TRLG) has grown into a $640 million global company with distribution in 50 countries. In addition to its 116 U.S. stores as of the end of July, the company also sells its denim jeans and other casual and sportswear and accessories through other major retailers and department stores such as Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN). Last year's revenue of $419 million was less than most other retailers on this list. For investors, it has been something of a roller coaster ride, with the share price up more than 58% in 2011, but down about 25% so far this year.
6. Select Comfort
> Sales per sq. ft.: $1,314
> Sales per store: $2.00 million
> No. of stores: 381
> 1-yr. sales growth: 32.6%
> Revenue: $743.2 million
Select Comfort had, as of June 30, 381 company-operated Sleep Number stores across the United States, selling adjustable-firmness beds and other sleep-related accessory products. That is after both opening 22 stores and closing 22 stores in the first half of 2012. But the company said it expects a net increase in store count to between 400 and 410 by the end of the fiscal year. The company's revenue jumped 32.6%, the 10th highest in the report. The share price more than doubled in 2011, and year-to-date, the stock price rose another 18%.
5. Michael Kors
> Sales per sq. ft.: $1,431
> Sales per store: $3.24 million
> No. of stores: 253
> 1-yr. sales growth: 77.9%
>Revenue: not available
Luxury lifestyle products retailer Michael Kors Holdings (NYSE: KORS) saw the second largest revenue growth, at 77.9%, among the more than 200 companies reviewed by RetailSails. The company's share price rose more than 110% since the initial public offering in mid-December last year. The company believes there is long-term potential to grow its store base to 400 in North America and 100 each in Europe and Japan. The company said in its just-released second-quarter fiscal 2013 report that, including licensed locations, there were 349 Michael Kors stores worldwide at the end of September.
> Sales per sq. ft.: $1,871
> Sales per store: $5.19 million
> No. of stores: 833
> 1-yr. sales growth: 15.9%
>Revenue: $4.8 billion
Best known for its high-end leather handbags, Coach had 833 stores worldwide as of the end of July, more than any of the nine most successful retailers on this list. Its $4.76 billion revenue last year was higher than all the other retailers on the list except for Tiffany and Apple. Coach's primary markets are the United States and Japan, which account for about 80% of all stores. It had a respectable 15.9% one-year sales growth last year, but so far in 2012, Coach's share price has declined more than 11%.
3. Lululemon Athletica
> Sales per sq. ft.: $1,936
> Sales per store: $5.49 million
> No. of stores: 189
> 1-yr. sales growth: 38.6%
>Revenue: $1.0 billion
Founded in 1998, Lululemon is a yoga and sporting apparel company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. Not only are its sales per square foot higher than all other retailers on this list except two, but its sales per store are higher than most apparel stores as well, even though it has substantially less store space than other companies. Still, Lululemon's one-year sales growth was the eighth highest on the RetailSails list, and its share price is up nearly 50% year-to-date. The company said it expects to open 30 stores in the United States by the end of the fiscal year.
2. Tiffany & Co.
> Sales per sq. ft.: $3,017
> Sales per store: $13.02 million
> No. of stores: 260
> 1-yr. sales growth: 9.6%
> Revenue: $3.6 billion
Diamonds are small and pricey, so it should come as no surprise that this luxury jeweler can be found near the top a list featuring sales per square feet. In fact, Tiffany's sales per square foot are about 35% higher than that of Lululemon, the next highest on the list. Tiffany opened its first store in 1837. As of the end of July it had 260 stores. In the second half of the year, the company said it expects to open nine stores in North and South America, five stores in the Asia-Pacific region and one store in Europe. The share price is down about 7% year-to-date.
> Sales per sq. ft.: $6,050
> Sales per store: $51.14 million
> No. of stores: 372
> 1-yr. sales growth: 28.9%
> Revenue: $156.5 billion
Apple is a relative newcomer on the retail scene, with its first store opening in 2001. Yet, Apple's $6,050 per square foot is more than double that of Tiffany's, the next highest on the list. Apple also has the ninth highest sales per store among companies measured by RetailSails, at more than $51 million, and the 13th highest one-year sales growth, at 28.9%. Apple benefits from constant new product introductions and upgrades of existing ones, as well the fact that so much of its revenue comes from non-store sales. This business model has made Apple the world's largest public company, with a market capitalization of more than $510 billion, which is more than Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) combined. In the first nine months of fiscal 2012, Apple opened 15 stores, including four in the United States, four in Spain and two in France.
24/7 Wall St. is a website offering financial news and opinion.
24/7 Wall St.
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- What is Counseling?
- Group Counseling
- Individual Counseling
- Couples Counseling
- Psychiatric Consultations
- Privacy Practices
- Psychology Internship
- Psychology Doctoral Practicum
- Master's Counseling Practicum
- Clinical GSA Practicum
The University of North Dakota Counseling Center (UCC)
Parents and Loved Ones
If you would like to talk to the Counseling Center for a loved one please contact (701) 777-2127. If you believe your loved one is already working with us, know that there are confidentiality regulations that don’t allow us to disclose information about our clients; However, our staff can help by listening to your concerns and by aiding you in how to help support your loved one. If you believe your loved one has not yet contacted our staff, we can help!
What the UCC has to offer
The University of North Dakota Counseling Center (UCC) offers a wide range of services and programs for university students and community. The UCC maintains seven program components: personal counseling, career counseling, substance abuse prevention, national/individual testing, consultation, and outreach programs.
How to Help
Most find it difficult to send a loved one off to college. Students gain a larger sense of self and independence, but also face challenges, some of which can be frightening. Finding support in addressing these challenges is important. Allow your student to utilize their own decision making skills, but aid them by guiding him or her to the campus resources provided.
If your loved one would like to see a counselor
Please feel free to contact the UCC with the number provided above, come to 200 McCannel Hall, or visit our website at http://und.edu/health-wellness/counseling-center/ to gather additional information.
In general, all communications between your student and counselor are confidential. No information about you will be released outside the Center without your student's permission.
The EXCEPTIONS to confidentiality include:
- it is determined you are a threat to yourself or another person,
- there is suspected or actual abuse or neglect of a child,
- there is a medical emergency
- a court order.
In the event of such a situation, we will make every effort to discuss it with you before taking any action.
In addition, the Center keeps a record of your visits. This record contains all the information you completed prior to your first appointment, notes summarizing your sessions, any psychological test data, and other information you may provide for us.
- Records are not part of your educational record. The records are kept and maintained for seven years following your last visit.
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Step One: Create a Trip
Once you login you can create a new trip or edit existing trips. Set your trip name, description, privacy and dates before you begin.
Step Two: Add Items
Add items from our Places to Stay, Things to Do, Dining and Events sections to your trip by clicking the Add to Trip icon throughout the site or from within the Trip Planner.
Step Three: Print and Share
Print details of your trip and share your trip with friends on your favorite social network or via email.
For Best Results, Get Hands-On
Posted on: 10/3/2011
Anyone can say they want to live a more “green” lifestyle, but here’s your chance to follow through on those good intentions by signing up for one of the myriad of hands-on workshops offered by Travel Green Wisconsin certified businesses around the state. The topics are as diverse as wind energy for your home to becoming a woman of the outdoors. Dig in!
Explore an Eco Fair
The Midwest Renewable Energy Fair has been around for 22 years and attracts about 20,000 attendees each year. Be among the crowd by marking your calendar for the third weekend in June when it is always held. Most times it’s staged at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association’s home base in Custer. The fair is a great place to get your feet wet with scaled-down education workshops, but the more detailed workshops, some 250 in all and running anywhere from one day to two weeks, go on all year round. The newest one, which debuts in the fall, is on solar charging for electric vehicles. There’s also an introductory course on wind power for people who have an interest in creating a wind system for their home or small business.
EcoFair 360 is staged annually in the Lake Geneva area and features hundreds of exhibitors and presenters. This three-day fair has offerings on organic gardening, building your own electric car, creating eco-art, developing a community-owned solar farm, even workshops for kids – the sheer volume of presentations will surprise you. New to the fair is their film festival, with documentaries screened in a structure built specifically for the fair – a 16-foot diameter geodesic dome equipped with a home theater system. The whole goal of the fair is to educate people on scalable solutions for renewable energy so they can develop sustainable lifestyles. Outside the fair, online webinars are being planned to keep the green vibe going on topics ranging from managing your energy bill to starting a community green challenge. The event and webinars are the work of Fritz Kreiss and Catherine McQueen, husband and wife who started the Eco-Vision Sustainable Learning Center which will be housed in their Green Leaf Inn, a sustainable luxury hotel they’re building in Delavan.
Sign Up for a Workshop
Marguerite and Bob Ramlow own the Artha Sustainable Living Center in Amherst, which is part eco-friendly B&B and part workshop center. The Center is located on 90 acres of woods, fields and organic gardens and the B&B is built with sustainable materials and powered by the sun. If you’re a plumber, architect or engineer interested in solar thermal systems, sign up for the Thermal Installer Boot Camp Training. It’s taught by Bob, who is one of two master trainers in North America and the author of what is considered the definitive book on solar water heating. Or if you’re into herbal beauty and bath products, take in one of the workshops on those topics. You’ll go home with your own products and recipes. Or, as Marguerite suggests, create your own workshop. “We have groups of friends who get together here annually for workshops that are of special interest to them.”
At the Treehaven Education Center, a 1,400-acre forest and wetland facility operated by the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, you can sign up for programs in no-trace backpacking, canoeing, snowshoe weaving, wolf study, nature photography and more. The Center has been offering workshops since the mid-1980s and their classes attract people from all over the U.S. One workshop that’s intriguing by name alone is BOW, short for Becoming an Outdoors Woman. This weekend workshop has been going strong for 20 years now, offering participants hands-on classes in fishing, kayaking, shooting sports and plant identification. Beginners are welcome.
The Woodland School
The Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo is sacred ground for anyone inspired to follow in the footsteps of the man considered by many to be the father of wildlife management, Aldo Leopold. His investigations into ecology and the philosophy of conservation are even more relevant today and form the foundation for the workshops offered as part of the Foundation’s Woodland School. According to Steve Swenson, field ecologist there, participants are literally out in the field for the hands-on portions of classes on prescribed prairie burns, hunting, and wildlife and plants. Most of the classes are held in the spring and fall. For college students pursuing studies in conservation and science, the Foundation offers nine-month land stewardship internships with the property serving as the outdoor classroom to become proficient in land management.
Adventures in Mushing
Head to northern Wisconsin and the south shore of Lake Superior to Bayfield where you’ll find Wolfsong Adventures in Mushing, a Travel Green Wisconsin certified business run by Mary and John Thiel offering day and overnight dog sled trips. You’ll learn how to drive your own team of dogs or you can ride along with one of the guides, the choice is yours. “Most of our guests have never done anything like this before but have dreamed about it all their lives,” said Mary. The Thiels have 49 Siberian huskies ranging in age from puppies to near retirement 14-year-olds. The half-day outings include a hot picnic lunch on the trail. “This is an adventure that’s easy on the environment and entertaining at the same time,” explained Mary. “People make the connection with the dogs and that’s the magic of it. They often say it’s the best day outside in the winter they’ve ever had.” Wolfsong Adventures in Mushing was named one of the “10 Great Places to Go Dog Sledding” by USA Today.This entry was posted in Things to Do
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Soy poderosa, and my voice matters. That’s the final push from now until Election Day. However, there is more to activism than just voting, and that’s evident in the work being done in Texas led by several poderosas from our Latina Advocacy Network (LAN).
From September 24 to 29 they held various events in Texas, starting with a health fair. It took place in an activist’s home, and over 35 people attended and 9 registered to vote. Can you imagine the energy in the room and the desire to make a difference? Participants learned how critical it is to ensure their voices are heard, whether it is through voting or through speaking with friends or family members about the importance of voting.
After discussing the importance of voting, everyone enjoyed one another’s company by playing lotería, or bingo, and eating a home-cooked meal. These are the moments that matter the most, being able to connect with activist on a personal level and share stories. It’s also fun (duh)! Voting is not a sole person’s decision, or one voice being heard. That person will be voting for thousands who are not being listened to. How can one vote without knowing the issues affecting the community they are representing?
One of the Texas LAN leaders, Lucy Felix (who was featured on our Poderosa profiles), participated in a White House briefing on Wednesday the 25th of September to talk about the work they are doing around the Rio Grande Valley. This was her experience:
The White House briefing was an unforgettable experience! As part of the panel I spoke about the importance of promotoras and all the work being done in the Valley. It was as if all the stories of the women I’ve worked with were united in one, and their challenges and success were expressed through me. For me, it is an honor to be able to speak about how PODEROSAS we are and how privileged I am to work with them! There are no words to express how much potential and desire for change there is every time we get together and successfully execute an event in which we educate others and grow more as leaders. Seeing all these women transform into even bigger fighters that want to create a better society and change many of the broken systems is the best gift God has ever given me! I also want to thank the Latina Institute for allowing us to participate in such amazing events that really highlight how extraordinary all these women are.
And finally, to finish off the week, the Texas LAN held two more community gatherings in which dozens of people participated and registered to vote as well. It’s not enough for politicians to simply say nice things on TV — there are people like Lucy on the ground, making sure that our communities have the information they need to make an informed choice in the voting booth. The Texas LAN will continue to hold more events until Election Day — contact us to get involved!
Regardless of our identities, our voices matter and we have the power to influence those around us. With our actions and stories we are able to change minds and hearts. Texas is pushing hard to not only educate the community, but to lift the voices of Latinas everywhere.
Are you interested in taking part of the Soy Poderosa and my voice matters campaign? There may be an event in your state! Contact us!
The Community Mobilization Team
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Should one be outraged by the revelation in today's Telegraph that the government has conceded the right of the new EU "foreign minister" to speak from Britain's seat on the United Nations Security Council?
Certainly, William Hague has attacked this "shocking" development, declaring that it is "a big step towards a United States of Europe". The trouble is that it is not true - the EU will not speak from Britain's seat.
The Telegraph report is based on the statement of an EU official who tells us that which we already know in respect of the proposed High Representative for foreign affairs, "We retain, except for the name of the minister, the Constitutional Treaty text of 2004 including the provisions on the UN."
According to this same official, "There is a provision which provides for the representative of the EU to state the position of the EU at the UN Security Council," on which basis do we see Hague protesting.
The basis for this is Article III-296. 2 of the failed constitution which states:
2. The Minister for Foreign Affairs shall represent the Union for matters relating to the common foreign and security policy. He or she shall conduct political dialogue with third parties on the Union's behalf and shall express the Union's position in international organisations and at international conferences.Now, from this, it is clear that the "High Representative" must represent the Union to the United Nations, and then we move to the last paragraph of Article III-305. 2 which states:
When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs be asked to present the Union's position.It is that which is the source of objection and, in pursuit of which, The Telegraph reminds us that the government has insisted that negotiations on the treaty had ensured that the British presence on the Security Council would never be replaced by an EU representative.
Says Hague: Brown has allowed, "one of the most damaging and important provisions in the rejected EU Constitution to be resurrected." "It would seriously compromise the independence of our foreign policy," he adds, then telling us: "It is shocking that the Government have yet again let this through and it totally destroys their claim that their so-called red line on foreign policy is effective."
However, this is where Hague goes off the rails. If one refers to the Security Council rules, there is provision to accredit additional members to the Council who are accorded "the same rights as other representatives".
The story, therefore, is not that the UK will be required to give up its seat, but that the EU will be given its own seat. Britain will be still have its own seat and be represented but, where an EU "common position" has to be conveyed, the British representative will be silent and EU "High Representative" will speak.
Even then, there is a certain amount of hyperbole here. Ever since the Maastricht Treaty, the UK has been obliged to toe the line on "common positions" agreed with the EU. That includes representing those positions in the security council, which are currently presented either by Britain or France.
That the position will be put directly by the High Representative is, therefore, largely symbolic. In an organisation where symbolism is everything, however, this is an important change, but not the one which Hague is declaiming.
In the propaganda game of attacking the treaty-to-be, Hague's declamation may sound good and provide a startling sound-bite. But, since it is not true, it can so easily be batted away by the government which can state, in all honesty, that there is indeed no question of the UK giving up its seat to the EU.
The fact is that the EU, if the treaty-to-be goes ahead, will get a seat on the Security Council in its own right. There is no need for the UK (or France for that matter) to move aside. And, from its own seat, the EU will have the sole right to speak for the UK and other member states on certain issues. That, the government could not deny, but that point is not being made.
Once again, it appears, Conservative tactics and intelligence are proving to be less than sound. Hague, and the others, really do need to up their game.
COMMENT THREAD Tweet
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At the dawn of his reign, a young king must prove his greatness . . . or forfeit a realm.
Arthur is King — but darkest evil has descended upon Britain's shores in many guises. Fragile alliances fray and tear, threatening all the noble liege has won with his wisdom and his blood.
In this black time of plague and pestilence, Arthur's most trusted counselor Myrddin — the warrior, bard, and kingmaker whom legend will name Merlin — is himself to be tested on a mystical journey through his own extraordinary past. So the noble king Arthur must stand alone against a great and terrible adversary. For only thus can he truly win immortality — and the name he will treasure above all others: Pendragon.
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We are a leading provider of optical subsystems and components that connect short-distance local area networks, or LANs, and storage area networks, or SANs, and longer distance metropolitan area networks, or MANs and wide area networks, or WANs. Our optical subsystems consist primarily of transmitters, receivers, transceivers and transponders which provide the fundamental optical-electrical interface for connecting the equipment used in building these networks. These products rely on the use of semiconductor lasers and photodetectors in conjunction with integrated circuit design and novel packaging technology to provide a cost-effective means for transmitting and receiving digital signals over fiber optic cable at speeds ranging from less than 1 gigabits per second, or Gbps, Gbps to 40 Gbps, using a wide range of network protocols and physical configurations over distances of 70 meters to 200 kilometers. We supply optical transceivers and transponders that allow point-to-point communications on a fiber using a single specified wavelength or, bundled with multiplexing technologies, can be used to supply multi-gigabit bandwidth over several wavelengths on the same fiber. We also provide products for dynamically switching network traffic from one optical wavelength to another across multiple wavelengths known as reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers, or ROADMs. Our line of optical components consists primarily of packaged lasers and photodetectors used in transceivers for LAN and SAN applications and passive optical components used in building MANs. Our manufacturing operations are vertically integrated, and we utilize internal sources for many of the key components used in making our products including lasers, photodetectors and integrated circuits, or ICs, designed by our internal IC engineering teams. We also have internal assembly and test capabilities that make use of internally designed equipment for the automated testing of our optical subsystems and components.
We sell our optical products to manufacturers of storage systems, networking equipment and telecommunication equipment or their contract manufacturers, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Brocade, Cisco Systems, EMC, Emulex, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard Company, Huawei, IBM, Juniper, Qlogic, Siemens and Tellabs. These customers, in turn, sell their systems to businesses and to wireline and wireless telecommunications service providers and cable TV operators, collectively referred to as carriers.
We also provide network performance test systems primarily to leading SAN equipment manufacturers such as Brocade, EMC, Emulex, Hewlett-Packard Company and Qlogic for testing and validating system designs.
We were incorporated in California in April 1987 and reincorporated in Delaware in November 1999. Our principal executive offices are located at 1389 Moffett Park Drive, Sunnyvale, California 94089, and our telephone number at that location is (408) 548-1000.
Combination with Optium Corporation
On August 29, 2008, we completed a business combination with Optium Corporation, a leading designer and manufacturer of high performance optical subsystems for use in telecommunications and cable cable television, or CATV, network systems, through the merger of Optium with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Finisar. We believe that the combination of the two companies created the world’s largest supplier of optical components, modules and subsystems for the communications industry and will leverage Finisar’s leadership position in the storage and data networking sectors of the industry and Optium’s leadership position in the telecommunications and CATV, sectors to create a more competitive industry participant. In addition, as a result of the combination, we expect to realize cost synergies related to operating expenses and manufacturing costs resulting from (1) the transfer of production to lower cost locations, (2) improved purchasing power associated with being a larger company and (3) cost synergies associated with the integration of components into product designs previously purchased in the open market by Optium. At the closing of the merger, we issued 160,808,659 shares of Finisar common stock, valued at approximately $242.8 million, in exchange for all of the outstanding common stock of Optium.
We have accounted for the combination using the purchase method of accounting and as a result have included the operating results of Optium in our consolidated financial results since the August 29, 2008 consummation date. The Optium results are included in our optical subsystems and components segment. Reference is made to “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” for additional information regarding the impact of the combination with Optium on our results of operations.
Pending Sale of Network Performance Test System Business
Historically, we have offered our line of network performance test systems through our Network Tools Division. On July 8, 2009, we entered into an agreement to sell substantially all of the assets of the Network Tools Division (excluding accounts receivable and payable) to JDS Uniphase Corporation (“JDSU”) for $40.6 million in cash. JDSU will assume certain liabilities associated with the network performance test equipment business, and we will provide manufacturing support services to JDSU during a transition period. The sale is expected to be completed on or about July 15, 2009.
On July 9, 2009, the Company announced that it had commenced separate concurrent “Modified Dutch Auction” tender offers (each an “Exchange Offer” and together, the “Exchange Offers”) to exchange shares of its common stock and cash for an aggregate of up to $95 million principal amount of the following series of its outstanding convertible notes (the “Notes”):
2.50% Convertible Subordinated Notes due 2010 (the “Subordinated Notes”); and
2.50% Convertible Senior Subordinated Notes due 2010 (the “Senior Subordinated Notes”)
The Company is conducting the Exchange Offers in order to reduce the aggregate principal amount of its outstanding indebtedness. As of July 9, 2009, approximately $50 million aggregate principal amount of the Subordinated Notes and approximately $92 million aggregate principal amount of the Senior Subordinated Notes were outstanding.
The Company is offering to exchange up to an aggregate of $37.5 million principal amount, or 75%, of the outstanding Subordinated Notes. The Company will also exchange up to an aggregate of $57.5 million principal amount, or 62.5%, of the outstanding Senior Subordinated Notes, with such Exchange Offer being conditioned on a minimum of $42 million principal amount of Senior Subordinated Notes being validly tendered and not withdrawn.
For each $1,000 principal amount of Notes, tendering holders will receive consideration with a value not greater than $750 nor less than $700 (the “Exchange Consideration”), with such value determined by a “Modified Dutch Auction” procedure, plus accrued and unpaid interest to, but excluding, the settlement date, payable in cash. A separate “Modified Dutch Auction” procedure will be conducted for each of the Exchange Offers. A “Modified Dutch Auction” tender offer allows holders of the Notes to indicate the principal amount of Notes that such holders desire to tender and the consideration within the specified range at which they wish to tender such Notes for each Exchange Offer. The mix of Exchange Consideration will consist of (i) $525 in cash, and (ii) a number of shares of common stock with a value equal to the Exchange Consideration minus $525 (the “Equity Consideration”). The number of shares of common stock representing the Equity Consideration to be received by holders as part of the Exchange Consideration will be determined on the basis of the trading price of the common stock during a 5-trading day VWAP period (the “5-day VWAP”) starting on July 13 and ending on July 17, 2009, as further described in a Schedule TO (including the Offer to Exchange and related Letter of Transmittal attached as exhibits thereto) filed by Finisar with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on July 9, 2009.
The portion of the Exchange Consideration consisting of cash will be paid using a portion of the approximately $40.6 million in aggregate proceeds to be received from the sale of the Company’s Network Tools Division, expected to be consummated on or about July 15, 2009, and with available cash and borrowings.
The Exchange Offers are scheduled to expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on Thursday, August 6, 2009, unless they are extended. Tendered Notes may be withdrawn at any time on or prior to the expiration of the Exchange Offers.
Further information regarding the terms and conditions of the Exchange Offers is set forth in the Offer to Exchange, the Letter of Transmittal and related materials filed with the SEC. Amended Credit Facilities
We are a party to credit agreements with Silicon Valley Bank (the “SVB Agreements”) which provide, subject to certain restrictions and limitations, credit facilities up to $65 million, including $45 million under a secured revolving line of credit, $16 million under an accounts receivable purchase line of credit and $4 million under a credit line for standby letters of credit. Currently, we have no borrowings outstanding under any of these facilities, although borrowings available under the secured revolving line of credit are currently limited to $25 million based on financial covenants contained in the SVB Agreements. On July 8, 2009, the Company received a written commitment from Silicon Valley Bank to modify the Company’s existing credit facilities under the SVB Agreements in order to facilitate the Exchange Offers. Principal modifications include:
A reduction in the total size of the Company’s secured revolving line of credit from $45 million to $25 million; and
Revised covenants that permit the use of borrowings under the secured revolving line of credit for a portion of the Exchange Consideration in connection with the Exchange Offers and the use of up to an aggregate of $50 million of cash from all sources for that purpose.
Industry Background and Markets
Optical Subsystems and Components
Computer networks are frequently described in terms of the distance they span and by the hardware and software protocols used to transport and store data. The physical medium through which signals are best transmitted over these networks depends on the amount of data or bandwidth to be transmitted, expressed as gigabits per second, or Gbps, and the distance involved. Voice-grade copper wire can only support connections of about 1.2 miles without the use of repeaters to amplify the signal, whereas optical systems can carry signals in excess of 60 miles without further processing. Early computer networks had relatively limited performance requirements, short connection distances and low transmission speeds and, therefore, relied almost exclusively on copper wire as the medium of choice. At speeds of more than 1 Gbps, the ability of copper wire to transmit more than 300 meters is limited due to the loss of signal over distance as well as interference from external signal generating equipment. The proliferation of electronic commerce, communications and broadband entertainment has resulted in the digitization and accumulation of enormous amounts of data. Thus, while copper continues to be the primary medium used for delivering signals to the desktop, even at 1 Gbps, the need to quickly transmit, store and retrieve large blocks of data across networks in a cost-effective manner has increasingly required enterprises and service providers to use fiber optic technology to transmit data at higher speeds over greater distances and to expand the capacity, or bandwidth, of their networks.
A LAN typically consists of a group of computers and other devices that share the resources of one or more processors or servers within a small geographic area and are connected through the use of hubs (used for broadcasting data within a LAN), switches (used for sending data to a specific destination in a LAN) and routers (used as gateways to route data packets between two or more LANs or other large networks). In order to switch or route optical signals to their ultimate destination, they must first be converted to electrical signals which can be processed by the switch, router or other networking equipment and then retransmitted as optical signals to the next switching point or ending destination. As a result, data networking equipment typically contains multiple connection points, or ports, in which various types of transceivers or transponders are used to transmit and receive signals to and from other networking equipment over various distances using a variety of networking protocols.
LANs typically use the Ethernet protocol to transport data packets across the network at distances of up to 500 meters at speeds of 1 to 10 Gbps. Because most residential and business subscriber traffic begins and ends over Ethernet, it has become the de facto standard user interface for connecting to the public network. And, while Ethernet was originally developed as a data-oriented protocol, it has evolved to support a wide range of services including digital voice and video as well as data. In response to continually increasing bandwidth and performance requirements, the Gigabit Ethernet standard, which allows LANs to operate at 1 Gbps, was introduced in 1998. A 10 Gbps version of Ethernet, or 10GigE, was introduced in 2002. We expect that pre-standard products capable of transmitting at 40 to 100 Gbps for Ethernet applications will reach the market in late 2009, including 40 Gbps products used for server connectivity and 100 Gbps products for core switching applications. Standards-compliant versions of these products are expected to become available following the expected June 2010 ratification of the 802.3ba standard.
A SAN is a high-speed subnetwork embedded within a LAN where critical data stored on devices such as disk arrays, optical disks and tape backup devices is made available to all servers on the LAN thereby freeing the network servers to deliver business applications, increasing network capacity and improving response time. SANs were originally developed using the Fibre Channel protocol designed for storing and retrieving large blocks of data. A SAN based on the Fibre Channel protocol typically incorporates the use of file servers containing host-bus adapters, or HBAs, for accessing multiple storage devices through one or more switches, thereby creating multiple paths to that storage. The Fibre Channel interconnect protocol, operating at 1 Gbps, was introduced in 1995 to address the speed, distance and connectivity limitations of copper-based storage solutions using the Small Computer Interface, or SCSI, interface protocol while maintaining backward compatibility with the installed base of SCSI-based storage systems. Products for the Fibre Channel protocol capable of transmitting at data rates of 2, 4 and 8 Gbps are now being delivered and products capable of 16 Gbps are currently in development.
A number of new storage technologies have been introduced to lower the cost and complexity of deploying Fibre Channel-based storage networks. Since its introduction in 2003, small and medium size storage networks have been developed based on the Internet Small Computer System Interface protocol, or iSCSI. Other solutions designed to reduce the cost of storage networks allow for the direct attachment of storage systems to the network without requiring a host, also known as Network Attached Storage, or NAS. In 2007, the Fibre Channel over Ethernet standard, or FCoE, was introduced which enables Fibre Channel data packets to be encapsulated within Enhanced Ethernet frames. This standard utilizes the additional bandwidth created at transmission speeds of 10 Gbps and higher to combine different types of data traffic for storage (Fibre Channel), LAN traffic (TCP/IP) and various server clustering protocols (Infiniband) that previously required their own separate infrastructure within a data center. As a result, FCoE will enable the creation of a single converged network within a data center, rather than two or three networks as previously required. Since a single server will be able to use a single network interface card to accommodate the various types of traffic in FCoE-based networks, the number of cables and connections in such a network can be reduced with fewer, but higher-speed connections. In addition, the FCoE protocol will be able to utilize Ethernet-based technology currently under development for transmitting signals at speeds of 40 and 100 Gbps.
Due to the cost effectiveness of the optical technologies involved, transceivers for both LANs and SANs have been developed using vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, or VCSELs, to transmit and receive signals at the 850 nanometer, or nm, wavelength over relatively short distances through multi-mode fiber. Most LANs and SANs operating today at 1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbps over distances of up to 70 meters, incorporate this VCSEL technology. The same technology is now being employed to build FCoE and iSCSI-based LANs and SANs operating at 10 Gbps.
A new market has emerged in recent years for the use of parallel optics technologies for high-capacity interconnects used in telecommunications applications to connect core IP routers and in the datacenter to interconnect SANs and servers and for high-performance computing clusters. This technology makes use of an array of lasers and photodetectors instead of using just one per transceiver to boost the amount of data that can be transmitted over a single fiber over very short distances. Optical interconnects provide for an attractive alternative to bulky copper cables as data rate and port densities increase allowing for fewer connections. Like the transceivers used for LANs and SANs, parallel optical solutions rely primarily on the use of VCSEL technology. A variation of parallel optics technology called active optical cable, or AOC, was introduced by several vendors in late 2007. These products eliminate the use of fiber connectors used in other parallel optical modules by bonding the fibers directly to the optical subassembly. According to industry analyst Lightcounting, demand for AOCs is expected to equal or exceed demand for other parallel optical solutions by 2012.
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[eds. note: the following article is from a pro business, military and defense journal]
An Anarchist terror group calling themselves “Individuals Tending Toward Savagery” (ITS) has recently claimed responsibility for a high profile attack on a scientist two years ago, and made several death threats, according to reports.
Dr. Ernesto Méndez Salinas, a biotechnology expert, was shot and killed in 2011, but until this admission his death was largely attributed to the general rise of violence in Mexico, and even later attributed to a rash of car jackings.
The ITS followed its shocking claim of responsibility by issuing threats against any prominent researchers in the field of nano and biotechnology, whom they plan to take out with Ted Kaczynski-like tactics. (A particular hero of theirs.)
The reasons for doing so: Uncontrollable proliferation of nano-particle “goo” that will consume the earth in a man-made, microscopic apocalypse.
The group has claimed bomb attacks in the past, but how many are theirs is unclear. The anarchists say they’ll either take responsibility for attacks months later or not all. For one such unclaimed “attack,” which killed 20 people, they say the government is suppressing information.
From a blog dedicated to the group:
The explosion in the Pemex tower (for example) in January 2013, which left 20 dead and hundreds wounded, shows what “evidence” the government and the media are going to make known. Lies upon lies.
The government reported that the explosion was the result of a broken gas line. ITS has claimed responsibility, though there’s no evidence available to prove their claim.
Nonetheless, until nanotechnology is stopped, they vow to continue.
“We have said it before, we act without any compassion in the feral defense of Wild Nature. Did those who modify and destroy the Earth think their actions wouldn’t have repercussions? That they wouldn’t pay a price? If they thought so, they are mistaken,” they said in a statement after the most recent attack.
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More people were unemployed in December than in November in Monroe County, pushing up the jobless rate to 7.6 percent.
About 5,200 people were idle during the month, compared to 4,400 people in November when the rate was 6.4 percent.
A year ago in December, unemployment was 8.5 percent and 5,700 were out of work.
The December rate was the highest for the county since 8.1 percent was recorded in August, and it ended a five-month slide in the rate.
It was part of a trend that saw rates rise in all of Michigan’s 17 major labor markets in December, according to the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget.
Total employment levels decreased in most regions over the month, while labor force levels increased in the majority of areas.
“December labor market activity throughout the state was fairly normal as unemployment rates typically increase going into the winter months,” said Rick Waclawek, director of the Bureau of Labor Market Information & Strategic Initiatives.
“Michigan’s local labor market situation improved in 2012, as annual jobless rates fell for the second consecutive year in every major labor market area in the state,” he said in a statement.
A monthly survey of employers showed seasonal job cuts were in professional and business services, down 12,000, construction, off 10,000, and government, down 8,000.
The state’s remaining industry sectors changed little in December.
Retailing jobs throughout the state changed little from November to December. However over the holiday hiring season from September to December, retail jobs rose by 15,000. This increase was about the same as 2011, but was slightly above the average of the prior five years.
Preliminary annual average data indicated that unemployment rates from 2011 to 2012 fell in all 17 major Michigan regions. Over-the-year rate drops ranged from 1.1 percent in Ann Arbor and Saginaw areas to a 1.8 percent drop in Monroe County, down to 7.9 percent from 9.7 percent.
Monroe County has the 17th lowest unemployment rate among Michigan’s 83 counties in December, an improvement from 20th in November.
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The government should set up incubation centres for start-up software entrepreneurs, said the Managing Director of Unique Soft Pro, D. Prabha here at a press meet on Tuesday.
Fresh from her recent trip to Israel with the Andhra Pradesh government's IT delegation, she said that she visited about 1,500 IT firms in that country, and got a good response in the areas such as software development, ITES business and web designing.
The delegation was led by the State's IT and Communication Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah and Principal Secretary for IT Ajay Mishra.
The MD of Unique Soft pointed out that the government should take a cue from the Israeli government, as it supports start-ups by establishing incubation centres within the city limits.
“The opportunity for B2B business is very high with Israel and small and developing software companies should explore this area,” said Ms. Prabha.
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It is not uncommon, yes?, for us to be approached by people who will begin their words with, "I need to tell you...". Experience confirms that this opening line is profound and significant because what we are about to hear will doubtless be gratuitous at best and irritating at worst. The opening words make it clear - the person before us has a personal agenda (sorry for the psycho-babble term) and it is for their satisfaction that we are about to be "blessed" with a generally thoughtless, selfish and often inane commentary.
So, I'm beginning to learn that best response to "I need to tell you..." is "Oh no you don't!" - end of that particular conversation. And if you find that a little unncessarily confrontational, why not try, "Are you really sure you need to tell me?".
Talking with couples before their wedding and marriage, I generally hear of people (sometimes well-meaning, sometimes not) who wish to proffer their advice, counsel and direction. My suggested response is to look the person in the eye, smile as sweetly as possible and say, "Thank you". Often the couple will respond and ask, "And then what do I say?". "Nothing, you say nothing more". This is not easy, requires a lot of practice and self-confidence but ultimately we get it and, perhaps more ultimately, eventually those offering the unsolicited counsel "get it" as well.
Try it! I know, you're saying "Thank you, Alan".
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Creating a Baby
Nursery for Multiples
When planning a baby nursery for multiples, you will have several extra decisions to make during the planning process. Do you want the babies to share the same room or will they have their own rooms?
There are advantages and disadvantages to having them in the same room. The advantages are that you will save some costs not having to decorate two or more separate rooms and the babies may develop an even deeper bond by spending even more time near each other.
The disadvantage of a shared nursery is that when one baby wakes crying, the noise may wake up the other baby or babies. A shared nursery may also become cramped quickly especially if you have a small space to work with. Obviously, if more than one nursery is not an option, you will have to make the best of it and find creative ways to make the most of the space.
Choosing a Theme for your Multiples Nursery
If you are planning a single nursery for your multiple babies, consider the babies’ genders when
choosing a baby nursery theme
. If you are expecting babies’ of both genders or you don’t know the genders, consider choosing a theme that is neutral. Great neutral nursery themes that work well for both genders include Winnie the Pooh, Suzy’s Zoo, Precious Moments, ocean , animals, sky, Hawaiian, and jungle themes. If you don’t want a specific theme, you could go with a green or yellow nursery which always works well as neutral ground for either gender. Combining soft pastels of pink, blue, purple, yellow, and green also work well to create a gender neutral nursery. Bright primary colors of red, blue, yellow, and green are another option.
Things You Will Need Two or More Of
Whether you are planning a nursery for twins, triplets, or even more, additional babies mean some additional items will be needed. A
for each baby will be necessary. Along with that you will need a crib mattress and a nursery bedding set for each crib. If you are strapped for cash, you may be able to get by with one crib for the first few months until the babies start to get too big and move around. Then having them in the same crib may begin to cause problems. If you plan to use a bassinet, cradle, or
, you will also want to consider purchasing one for each baby as well. Since these items are smaller than a crib, putting two babies to sleep in one of them is not possible. A dresser is another item that you will want to consider purchasing more than one of. If you can’t afford to or you don’t have the room to accommodate more than one dresser in your baby nursery, designate certain drawers for each baby’s items. You will also want to consider purchasing a crib mobile and crib toys for each baby’s crib.
Things That You Can Get By With Just One Of
On the flip side, there are many items that are not necessary to purchase twice unless you are creating two or more separate rooms for your multiples. One changing table and a single diaper pail or diaper genie
will be enough. Since you can only change one baby at a time, having more than one of these items is not necessary. If you are planning only one nursery, you will save money by not having to purchase wall décor and other items such as window treatments, rugs, and hampers. Although an additional hamper may be handy, if you are on a tight budget, save the money and get by with just one. One diaper stacker, air purifier
, and humidifier will be more than sufficient as well. A shared nursery also means you will only need to purchase one baby monitor
Ideas for Creating More Storage Space Out of Your Multiples Nursery
If you are only planning one nursery for your multiples, finding enough space to store items for two or more babies could become an issue. Look around the room and carefully consider any place where you may be able to create additional storage space. Wicker storage baskets tucked under the cribs are one way to pick up some extra storage. Also be sure to install a good closet organizer in the nursery closet to make the most of the space in there. A tall bookcase
will also give you some much needed additional storage space. You can line the shelves with baskets or containers to store all sorts of baby items as well as toys and books. Make sure to anchor it securely to the wall so the babies can’t pull it over once they begin to crawl and climb.
If you are decorating a nursery for twins, you may want to add some twin themed decor to the room. Here are some Twin themed nursery decor items great for decorating a nursery for twins:
This Twin Watercolor Print features two babies in a shared bassinet and can be personalized with two names and a date:
The Two Peas in a Pod Picture Frame can be personalized with two names and could be displayed on a dresser or shelf in the nursery:
This Twice the Love Canvas Art Work features two babies in a balloon and can be personalized with two names and the date:
Check out the Cool Baby Stuff blog for help finding the latest and greatest cool baby items including clothes, gear, furniture, decor, bedding, and more!
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Follow Harriet on Twitter
Marjorie Perloff’s Unoriginal Genius
Marjorie Perloff’s keynote for the Conceptual Poetry Conference in Tucson set forth a clear agenda: making a distinction between the poetics of thirty years ago and now: Language Poetry vs. Conceptual Poetry. She claimed that the poetics of, for example, Ron Silliman’s anthology In the American Tree – with its play on William Carlos Williams’s Modernist classic In the American Grain — is being superceded by the new transnational and global culture of the internet.
Perloff went on to ask how has the digital dissemination of new poetry and poetics — whether in journals, or on sites such as Ubuweb, Pennsound, Ron Silliman’s blog or here on Harriet — affected the writing of poetry itself?
She also questioned the values of a poetics based on identity in a time when neither phone numbers nor email addresses tell us where caller and recipient are actually located, nor does an email address provide vital statistics about its possessor; when an AOL or Yahoo address, for example, reveals neither nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, age — and often not even gender. We are moving away, she claimed, from a geographical, from identity politics to shifting identities and communities, all this being reflected in the new poetry.
She gave numerous examples of Language Poetry, which she termed the “period style of the 1980s”: a poetry of programmatic non-referentiality, words and phrases refusing to “add up” to any sort of coherent, much less transparent statement. The defeat of reader expectation — a kind of cognitive dissonance– is central to these poems.
Perloff then went on to say that conceptual or “uncreative” writing is by no means without precedent, looking back to a number of movements and paradigms that antedate Language poetics by decades. One such was the Concretism of the 1950s and 60s (itself a bridge to the great avant-garde projects of the early twentieth-century). A second precursor of twenty-first century poetics was the Oulipo. This history includes the use of appropriated text, including archival material, documentary, informational manual, and, most recently, the discourse of the internet from hypertext to blog to database, the citational text, reframed in one form or another for particular effect, is central to twenty-first century poetics.
Next was a deeper exploration into the identity: the fabled Death of the Author has finally become a fait accompli. She then asked, “But what would Barthes or the Foucault who declared that ‘the writing of our day has freed itself from the necessity of ‘expression’ . . . . the confines of interiority’ have made of the conceptual poems and fictions of our own time?” Perloff responded with the idea that in the age of the simulacrum, genius theory is simply passé and made a case for “unoriginal genius,” claiming that once we grant that current art practices have their own particular momentum we can dissociate the word original from its partner genius. A long discourse on genius and originality followed: whether in the arts or the sciences, is synonymous with novelty, invention, creativity, and independence of mind. And if masterpieces were produced in the mid-nineteenth-century, is it really plausible to believe that it is no longer possible to produce a “fascinating and mysterious work” today? Or is just that our own “masterpieces” no longer make the claim to be “original”?
A key point was made regarding appropriation, citation, copying, reproduction, which have been central to the visual arts for decades. In the poetry world, however, the demand for original expression dies hard: we expect our poets to produce words, phrases, images and ironic locutions that we have never heard before. Not words, but My Word.
Her denouement was putting forth Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project as the precursor to Conceptual Poetics; a book, made up in large part of the words of others with its juxtaposition of poetic citation, anecdote, aphorism, parable, documentary prose, personal essay, photograph, diagram—indeed every genre– makes Benjamin’s assemblage a paradigm for the poetry of “unoriginal genius” to come. Its formal structure — with it small black squares around certain words — functions as a sort of ur-hypertext. The book is full of instances of sampling — mimimg the flâneur’s own movement through the world of the Arcades themselves: one moves at will from toyshop to skating rink to pub to Oriental carpet merchant, from cited poem to photograph to travel-guide documentation without bounded map or master plan; in short, Perloff sees the Arcades as a precursor to the internet and to Conceptual Poetry.
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|Birthname||Thomas John Brokaw|
|born on||6 February 1940 at 03:40 (= 03:40 AM )|
|Place||Webster, South Dakota, 45n20, 97w31|
|Timezone||CST h6w (is standard time)|
|Astrology data||16°28' 25°03 Asc. 10°21'|
American broadcast journalist and writer, formerly the anchorman of NBC's Nightly News and one-time host of NBC's "Today" show. A self-described political junkie, he earned a degree in political science in 1962, the same year in which he began news casting. Brokaw worked up to multi-million-dollar contracts by the '80s. Boyishly handsome, he is the youngest of three network anchormen with Peter Jennings three years older and Dan Rather eight years older.
The oldest of three sons of an construction engineer and a homemaker, he found his dad a moral force in his life. There was consistency in his parent's example about family and values and "doing the right thing." Brokaw lettered in sports in school and developed legendary drive and ambition, bristling self-confidence, aggressiveness and candor. He credits the Huntley-Brinkley evening news on NBC for igniting his fascination with journalism.
After graduating from the University of South Dakota, he got a news job at the NBC station in Omaha, Nebraska, then moved on to bigger cities, bigger jobs and bigger stories, including the 1968 assassination of Bobby Kennedy in Los Angeles and a summit conference in Moscow. NBC, scouting for talent, plucked him out to host a network magazine show. Nonetheless, it was the White House beat that made Brokaw a nationally recognized figure and led to his stint on the "Today" show and his eventual promotion to the evening news and anchor chair.
For nearly four decades, he has worked on the news beat, overcoming his occasionally sloppy diction, years of shaky ratings and a threatened libel lawsuit from wrongly accused Atlanta Olympics bombing suspect Richard Jewell. In that time he has become one the most trusted faces in TV journalism, known for being morally centered and a decent man.
Brokaw married Meredith Auld, once Miss South Dakota, on 8/17/1962; they have three daughters and live in Manhattan, NY. He considers himself emotional when he's off-camera, particularly when it comes to his family and marriage, which are the center of his life. A hobbyist mountain climber, he is a close friend of Robert Redford.
His first book is a labor of love, "Generation," a collection of some 50 profiles of men and women from the prior generation. Published in December 1998, it rose quickly to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. He has a reported five-year, $35 million contract that will keep him in the NBC anchor chair until 2002.
The anchor stepped down from the anchor desk at NBC's Nightly News on December 1, 2004 after an illustrious career that included 21 years on the job.
Brokaw authored several books, The Greatest Generation" (September 2004) about those who fought in WWII and “Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today,” released in early November 2007.
After the death of respected journalist Tim Russert on June 13, 2008, Brokaw took over Russert’s position as temporary host of the weekly TV news show “Meet the Press.” He left the assignment when David Gregory was appointed to the slot.
On November 1, 2011 his book, "The Time of Our Lives," was released.
- Social : End a program of study 1962 (Earned degree in political science)
- Work : Gain social status 1968 (Covered the Bobby Kennedy assassination)
- Work : Published/ Exhibited/ Released September 2004 ("The Greatest Generation")
chart Placidus Equal_H.
- Work : Published/ Exhibited/ Released 1 November 2011 ("The Time of Our Lives")
chart Placidus Equal_H.
Gauquelin Contemporary American Horoscopes. In June 2007, Rakesh Sharma wrote by e-mail to PT, "I... Had met Tom Brokaw few year's back and he wrote on the business card the time of birth as 6.05 in the morning on Feb 6, 1940 in Webster, South Dakota."
- Traits : Body : Appearance gorgeous (Boyishly handsome)
- Traits : Personality : Aggressive/ brash (Drive and candor)
- Traits : Personality : Ambitious
- Traits : Personality : Gracious/ sociable (Self-confident)
- Family : Childhood : Family supportive
- Family : Childhood : Order of birth (Eldest of three, all boys)
- Family : Relationship : Marriage more than 15 Yrs (35 years in 1997)
- Family : Parenting : Kids 1-3 (Three daughters)
- Lifestyle : Work : Work in team/ Tandem (With Peter Jennings and Dan Rather)
- Lifestyle : Financial : Gain - Financial success in field
- Lifestyle : Social Life : Outdoors (Mountaineering)
- Vocation : Entertainment : News journalist/ Anchor (Journalist and anchorman)
- Vocation : Entertainment : TV series/ Soap star (Host of the "Today" show)
- Vocation : Travel : Adventurer (Mountain climbing)
- Vocation : Writers : Fiction
- Vocation : Writers : Textbook/ Non-fiction
- Notable : Famous : Top 5% of Profession
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Iran says terrorism includes any attack on nuclear facility
UNITED NATIONS |
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran told a U.N. summit on Friday it considers nuclear terrorism to include attacking or sabotaging a nuclear facility and that as a target of such actions it places "a special importance" on preventing them.
Along with attacks on nuclear facilities, Iran said the use or threat of nuclear weapons with the intent to cause death, injury or damage to property or the environment was also deemed nuclear terrorism.
"As a country (where) not only (its) nationals have been targeted by terrorist groups, but also its nuclear facilities have been subject to cyber attacks and foreign-backed sabotage, we attach special importance to the need to prevent nuclear terrorism," said Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.
"All states have legal obligation(s) to refrain from any attack or threat of attack against peaceful nuclear facilities, whether operational or under construction, or involvement, directly or indirectly, in acts of sabotage in such facilities," he said.
Israel and the United States have both refused to rule out the possibility of an armed strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, which the West says aim to produce atomic bombs but which Tehran insists are for solely peaceful purposes. Israel has suggested it could attack Iran's atomic sites by spring 2013.
Iran believes agents working with foreign intelligence services including the American CIA and Israel's Mossad are behind the assassinations of several of its nuclear scientists. Washington has denied any role, while Israel declined comment.
"Any such act committed by a state, as certain countries continue to commit such crimes in my country, is a manifestation of nuclear terrorism and consequently a grave violation of the principles of U.N. Charter and international law," Salehi said.
"Nuclear terrorism should (not) be used as a pretext to violate the inalienable right to peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology," he said. "Any use of a nuclear weapon, whether by states or terrorists, would be catastrophic."
For nearly 10 years, Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia and China have negotiated unsuccessfully with Iran to persuade it to halt its nuclear program in exchange for political and economic incentives.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that Iran needed to provide a serious response to international concerns and "stop playing for time."
"We want a political and diplomatic solution. Time is short," he said. "The situation is serious."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew a "red line" for Iran's nuclear program on Thursday, despite a U.S. refusal to set an ultimatum, saying Tehran will be on the brink of making nuclear weapon in less than a year.
That, Netanyahu suggested, could prompt an Israeli attack by spring or summer 2013.
Iran responded by declaring it was strong enough to defend itself and that it reserved the right to retaliate with full force against any attack.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Christopher Wilson)
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(Patrick D. Rosso/Boston.com/2012)
Adult students from the Action for Boston Community Development’s Parker Hill/Fenway ESOL classes now have a key tool to succeed after the group celebrated its graduation Friday afternoon.
The center marked the eight beginning ESOL and nine intermediate ESOL students as they received diplomas and thanked their teachers at the ceremony held in Mission Hill.
“Learning English is important to me because I was having a lot of problems with my job,” said Mercedes Urena, 53, a Dorchester resident and immigrant from the Dominican Republic. “I didn’t know English but now it is much better. I have to continue to learn so I can help my kids with their homework and so they can be proud of me.”
Of the 17 graduates Friday, the majority hailed from the Dominican Republic and said that being able to communicate with the world around them empowers them and makes them feel more connected to the community.
“I learned a lot in these classes,” said Virma Suarez, 43, a Dorchester resident and immigrant from the Dominican Republic. “I needed it for my children, for my job, for my doctor and now I have more opportunities and feel in control.”
The skills learned in the seven-month program are extremely important to becoming a citizen and active member of the community said Sharon Scott-Chandler, executive vice president of ABCD.
“It really helps decrease the isolation for many new comers,” said Scott-Chandler. “It opens up new doors to opportunities, education, and jobs and really allows them to be part of the American dream.”
Progress has been slow for some as they stumble to learn a new and complicated language while they balance a family and job but many said English isn’t just a convenience but a necessity.
“I had so much help and now I can understand and speak better,” said Niobe Sanquintin, 40, a Jamaica Plain resident and immigrant from the Dominican Republic. “My children couldn’t understand me before and now I can speak with them all the time. Now when I go to the doctor I can ask them questions. Now I am part of the community.”
The ABCD Parker Hill/Fenway center, along with the ESOL program, also offers students comprehensive immigration classes, teaching students everything they need to know and preparing them to become active and engaged citizens.
“They often don’t have the language skills to pass the test,” said Milly Arbaje- Thomas, director of ABCD. “We use a comprehensive approach to serving the immigrant population and try to provide them with an array of services so they can succeed and integrate.”
Now the students, with a new found confidence, can participate in the things that many native citizens take for granted like ordering food, speaking with their children’s teachers, and asking for directions.
“We are all about making sure your lives are the best they can be so you can grab a hold of this country and make the best of it,” John Drew, the president of ABCD told the graduates Friday afternoon.
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